Talk (23 page)

He was paraphrasing a passage from her autobiography.

"You've read Talk."

"It is very good," he said, his eyes shooting over to the other side of the room to fix on something in the exercise alcove. He paused, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

"I don't know if I should tell you this, it might make you feel sad because you're here" -- "Oh, tell me. I'm sure you wouldn't think of it unless it was right for me to know."

"Your book is going to be the number-one bestseller next week."

"You're kidding!" And for one split second Jessica forgot everything and flushed with pride and happiness. Number one! But then she remembered the reality of her situation, deflated, and said, "I guess I should thank you for that, too. It's because of the publicity surrounding my disappearance, isn't it?"

His eyes came back to her, and he appeared to be heartbroken.

"Oh, no, Jessica. No. It's because your book is very good. I'm your number-one fan. I know these things." And then he turned all the way around to face the door.

"I have to go," he said, his back to her.

"I will come back tomorrow night."

"Great," she said.

"Will you be eating with me? Do you want me to cook something? Or shall we order in?"

He slowly looked over his shoulder to fix his eyes on the ceiling above her.

"I'm serious," she said.

"I'd like the company and you must know how much I order in."

"Chinese, Indian, Thai, Mexican, yes, I know."

"So if you know, why don't you surprise me? Bring dinner tomorrow? Say around seven? And bring a candle, will you? For the table

He smiled a little and then turned to open the door.

"And," Jessica continued, "maybe we could get a little fresh air. You could blindfold me or something, or just take me to a window."

"I'll have to think about that," he said, moving out the door.

"Good night, Jessica."

"Good night, Leopold. See you tomorrow."

He closed the door and she heard a bolt slide across. And then. Nothing.

She sat at the puzzle for another fifteen minutes, waiting for a cry or a bang or some noise indicating that he had gone into the room next door and found Hurt Guy gone. But the sounds never came.

She turned off the music and sat for five minutes more and heard not a sound.

Then she hurried back into the bedroom.

Egad, it was like a cyclone had hit in here. She really had to clean up.

She knelt down next to Hurt Guy. He seemed to be dozing, and he did not feel quite as hot. She checked inside the towel around his waist.

Nothing. Leave him be.

Suddenly she felt very dizzy. She hadn't eaten anything in she didn't know how long. She went into the kitchen and ate some cereal and milk and drank a big glass of water. Then she warmed some applesauce and put it in a saucer, crushed some aspirin in water and went back into the bedroom. He was still out, so she put the food on the stand and continued pushing all the debris through the hall to the other room.

Then she swept. Then she hung the clothes back up in the closet which, to a large extent, hid the hole, and moved the lamp back to the bedside table. She was straightening the bedspread on her own bed when she heard a cough.

One eye was open just a slit in the swollen purple mess that was Hurt Guy's face.

"Uhhh," he said.

She knelt down and looked into the eye. She put a finger over her lips.

"We have to be very quiet," she whispered, kneeling next to him.

"I'm going to take care of you. You're going to be all right, okay?

You just need rest and nourishment, that's all. And then you'll be fine and I'll get you out of here. "

She tried to give him a little water. He gagged a little, but was able to swallow a little, too.

"I don't know who you are," she whispered, "but someone has beaten you up very badly. And he has me prisoner here. I'm hiding you in my room.

He doesn't know you're alive. So we must be quiet in case he comes back. "

She got a little applesauce in his mouth and he swallowed it. And then a little more. Some water.

God help her, she was going to be as crazy as Leopold was if she stayed here much longer.

Alexandra came into her office and found Will flat on his back on the couch, snoring. She looked at the clock on the windowsill, its brightness contrasting against the night sky outside: nine. She opened the small refrigerator in her cabinet to take out a bottle of Perrier and a carton of yogurt, and sat down at the desk, swinging her chair to face the computer terminal. Taped on the screen was a note from Will.

A-Check "calls" file. Rich is updating us on the hot line. Dr. K. "s working on-screen for buzzwords. Stuff pops up occasionally, so keep an eye out.

When you love someone, you want to kill anyone who has ever hurt that person. I am not upset for the reason you think. I love Jessica. I love Jessica. Her past comes with the package, as does mine.

I love you too, oh bitchy (and wise) friend W

Smiling, Alexandra picked up the phone and dialed Dr. Kessler.

Hurt Guy slept again for about two hours and Jessica told herself to relax, there was nothing more she could do but pray--which she had, about every fifteen minutes--and try to think about what she was going to do. She thought about stabbing Leopold in the head with the sharp end of the steel curtain rod when he arrived the next night, but then she also thought about getting electrocuted while trying to get out of this house. And what might happen to her if she didn't kill Leopold or disable him.

He'd said, "Two of them are dead."

He must have meant Hurt Guy and Bea. But what had Bea done? Surely he wouldn't have killed her for selling a couple of stories to the tabloids about her. Or would he? Would he perceive that as hurting her?

She better play it safe and try to get this bedroom looking as normal as possible, which meant trying to rehang those red velvet curtains.

The second time she fell off the chair with them, she gave up in disgust and went around the bed to check on Hurt Guy. She found that his one good eye was cracked open again.

"I'm trying to pick up this room so that nutcase doesn't know anything's happened," she explained.

"He's coming tomorrow night and I'm trying to-figure out a plan. Until I do, I'll keep you hidden. So don't you worry about anything. I used to be a nurse, you know," she lied, "and I know you're going to come out of this just fine."

"I don't think you should move yet," she cheerfully continued.

"I have you wrapped in a towel and I'll change you and clean you up. Don't worry about it, it's okay, seeing that I was a nurse and all." She checked his towel. Her instincts had been right. He needed changing. She had recently signed a new ten-million-dollar contract and here she was changing diapers. Ah, well, poetic justice, she imagined. You do what you gotta do.

She came back with a washcloth, bowl of water, toilet paper and fresh towel.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

-blurt Guy started moaning about three o'clock in the morning. Jessica turned on the light. Anthony Trol- lope's Small House at Allington was facedown on the bed; earlier she had been reading it aloud. She crawled to the edge of the bed and looked down. Hurt Guy moaned again and Jessica saw that his one good eye had tears in it.

The shock must have worn off and feeling must be coming back to him.

His wrists and ankles still had black-purple slashes on them from the wire that had bound them; she was certain he had several cracked, if not broken, ribs; his nose was mush and his mouth was but a swollen gash. His jaw might be broken. His arms and legs did not appear to be broken, but heaven only knew what internal injuries he had.

All she could think to do was keep feeding him aspirin and some kind of nourishment and keep him clean.

She felt his forehead. He was not quite as hot as before. That was good. She smiled.

"You're doing much better. I know you're in pain, but that's because your body has started the healing process. Your body is mending itself. What we need to do is try and help your body as much as we can." He whimpered a little, but stopped when she stroked the one square inch of un 3

marked flesh on the side of his face.

"I'm going to get you something to eat," she whispered.

She heated a can of chicken soup and strained out the noodles and meat. It took nearly a half hour, but she got a cup's worth of broth into him. Then she fed him warm milk with sugar. Then applesauce with aspirin. He didn't need changing yet. Jessica picked up the novel and read to him about the perils of Lucy's love life for a while. The lid on his good eye wavered and then closed and he drifted off. Jessica turned off the light and went back to sleep.

Alexandra walked into Cassy's office and found FBI Agent Kunsa sitting behind her desk and Dirk Lawson in the corner at the conference table.

"She crashed next door on Langley's couch to catch a few zzz's," Kunsa explained.

"Good. Will and I got some rest too." She looked at him expectantly.

"So, anything new?"

He glanced at his watch and scowled.

"What time is it? Damn knockoffs never work."

"Two after six," Dirk called.

"Another night gone," he mumbled, resetting his watch.

There was a brief knock on the door and then Detectives Hepplewhite and O'Neal entered the room. Hepplewhite looked particularly tired and rumpled in the same clothes he had been wearing the day before.

"Any word?"

"Fresh coffee's over there," Kunsa said, pointing to the coffeemaker in the corner. The detectives made a beeline for it.

"I was just about to tell Alexandra that we've logged more than three thousand calls over the hot line already."

"She knows," O'Neal said.

"We've been routing the call lists to her and Rafferty."

"They're not yours to route," Kunsa said irritably.

"Oh, yeah, they are," Detective Hepplewhite countered, turning around.

"That's NYPD manning those phones."

"And she's NYPD?" the agent asked.

"Might as well be for all the help we're getting from you," O'Neal muttered.

"I heard that," Kunsa said.

"Good," O'Neal said, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

"We're working together, guys," Dirk reminded them.

"So what exactly are you guys up to over there?" Hepplewhite asked, bringing his cup of coffee over to sit with Alexandra.

"I hear you're only looking at the hot-line calls from or about New York State."

Kunsa's head jerked in Alexandra's direction.

"No magic," she said, shrugging.

"We know that you guys are working every angle, so for the sake of expediency we decided to listen to what our instincts are telling us. We might get lucky--sooner--that way."

"But why just New York?" Agent Kunsa asked.

"Why not the tri state

"We know that whoever kidnapped Jessica had to have access to the plans of West End, and to Rockefeller Center, the latter of which--Rockefeller Center--had to have been obtained on a moment's notice, since we changed the venue of the party at the last minute. So we're going on the assumption that the person or persons had to be working with Con Edison, or the city, or the state, to have that kind of access at their fingertips. And if he or they are with Con Edison, or the city, or the state, they'd have to live in New York State in order to hold that job. And past that point, we're just going on the assumption that he or they are keeping Jessica somewhere close to where they live, somewhere they know well and can easily get to." She shrugged again.

"In New York State."

"That's good," Dirk said, nodding.

"Lucky you to have the luxury of working with so many ifs," Agent Kunsa said.

"If my people worked like that, all of our kidnapping victims would be dead."

"That's what they're on board for. Norm," Hepplewhite said.

"To do it differently. And all the power to them since I don't know where the hell we're getting at the moment."

Detective O'Neal sat in another chair and addressed Alexandra, "If your theory's right, and this guy works for one of the outfits here in New York, how do you explain how he bypassed the system at the farm?"

"If he knows the system we use here at West End," Alexandra said, "he'd know what to expect at my house."

"But to get into your house in broad daylight?" O'Neal persisted.

"With four of you there?"

"We think he got up there that night, while they were downstairs playing bridge," Kunsa offered.

"One bodyguard was with Jessica, the outside guard was watching the house from the front. Whenever Leopold was there, we know he bypassed the alarm system in the circuit box in the barn. A place where he also could have tapped the phone line--the phone line devoted to the alarm system--to place the call to West End that killed Bea Blakely."

Jessica stretched, luxuriating in the size and warmth of the bed, half dreaming she was home. And then she jerked herself awake and sat up. There was no sound from Hurt Guy.

Her heart sank. He must have died. She climbed out of bed and walked around the bed.

Hurt Guy's one eye was open a little wider and he said, "Ahh."

"Good morning!" she cried, relieved, kneeling to touch that one good area on the side of his face.

"You look much, much better this morning!"

He groaned and she laughed, because he knew she could understand him.

He was telling her that he didn't feel any better. And given that some of his wounds this morning were oozing yellow-green pus, she didn't wonder.

"You really can hear me now, can't you? Just say ah."

"Ah," he said.

"Great! Now listen, since I don't know your name, I'm afraid I've been calling you Hurt Guy. I know you're getting better and everything, but I've got to call you something. Is that okay. Hurt Guy?"