Always Love a Villain on San Juan Island (8 page)

“Who are you? What do you want?” Did she really want to know?

“All in good time. But believe me, you can't get out.”

A few seconds. She slowed her breathing.

“Did you hear me?” His voice was calmer.

She waited.

“Did you hear me?!”

Awfuckit. “Yes.”

“Good.” He left and relocked.

Susanna shuffled off the bed and stood, still rubbing her shoulder.
All in good time
struck her as an uncommon construction, erudite or old-fashioned. Awfuckit, she repeated. Then, what did
all in good time
mean, anyway? What would happen
all in good time
? Had he been standing out there all the time, watching her through the peephole? A voyeur?

The books and the television, her distractions. She turned the TV on quietly. Did she expect the door to burst open? Was she waiting for him to yell at her again? She'd studiously been following the local news. No one had reported her kidnapping. Had she missed it? Or was it too soon? Did no one care she was missing? Her father would surely have spoken to the Sheriff. Maybe the kidnappers had told her father not to tell anyone they'd grabbed her. That's what she'd believe. For now.

She saw only Balaclava, and that at mealtimes. The first meal after she'd slammed into the door, the tray held a frozen gel pack. She didn't say thank you, but put it on her shoulder the minute he left.

The next morning the breakfast tray had contained another gel pack, a wrapped sandwich, and the usual cereal, fruit and toast. Balaclava leaned against the wall and watched her. She ate. She placed the limp gel pack on the tray. She moved the sandwich to the table. All now in silence. She finished her breakfast. He left.

She continued to sit. She stared at the sandwich. Would he not be around at lunch? Might she be alone in the house? She listened to kitchen sounds, footsteps, water running, more footsteps, then a door closing and, shortly, faintly, a car engine and tires on gravel.

She grabbed her blanket, brown and white checked, and a book, and returned to her chair. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. The book, a mystery she'd been reading, couldn't distract her. Her attention was on sounds from the rest of the house. Eventually the fridge gurgled on. Then off. Nothing else. As cavernous as an empty house can sound.

She figured she was alone. How, how to escape. She needed a weapon. A strong weapon. The only possible weapon, the chair. Susanna picked it up and rammed the door with the front two legs. The tubular aluminum cracked off as the force reverberated up her arms, into her tender shoulder. She did it again. Another leg clattered down. The broken ends were sharp. She attacked the deadbolt. Produced only scratches on the bolt and across the door. Both were solid metal. The last chair leg, bent over.

There was no way out. No way out! She started to shake. The smashed chair dropped to the floor. She started to cry, sobbed, howled, her whole body shaking. She was so cold, the shakes had shivers in them—she made it to the toilet before vomiting.

No one heard her, no one came. The person who'd left might never return. I'm alone, completely alone, no one knows where I am, I could die here—The green walls wavered and slowly closed in, the corners first like a giant maw about to swallow her—

In an
oubliette
, solid green stone walls pressing in, the metal door, the sealing stone—

She flopped onto the bed, pulled the covers over her shivers and sobs, her images, thoughts jumbled and indecipherable. Eventually, drained by terror and exhaustion, she fell asleep. She lay still, no dreams—

A scritching sound woke her, a key fumbling at the lock. She sat up, turned around—

Balaclava, food on a tray on top of a cart. On the cart's lower level, a green plastic garbage bag. He rolled the cart in, closed the door, threw the bolt. He put the tray on the table, looked at her, looked at the chair balanced on its back edge and remaining leg, looked at two broken legs on the floor. He turned his head and noted the scratches on the door. He crossed to the bed, put the bag down and said, “Where's the fourth leg?”

Susanna fumbled it out of the bedclothes. She didn't remember hiding it. Had she intended to? To defend herself from him? She was so glad to see him, to see someone. She hadn't thought she would be; she felt her neck flush with anger at him, at anyone, at the situation. If she could grab the chair leg back would she use it on him—

“I told you, there's no way out except that door.” He'd glanced at it. “It's strong. As I guess you discovered.” He nodded at the big bag. “I brought you some clothes.”

She needed clean clothes. She hadn't changed in three days. He threw the bag onto the bed. She spilled out its contents. Two T-shirts, one green sweatshirt, two baggy pairs of pants, three pairs of socks. Yeah, great. Bought at a thrift shop probably. All warmer than her white dress, anyway. The underpants came in a package of three so were probably new. After he was gone, thinking of him buying
les intimes
had made her grin. She'd wondered if he'd considered getting her a bra.

Over the last two-plus weeks, he'd twice mentioned three weeks, the length of time they were going to hold her. Let her go afterward. After some kind of ransom was paid? Her father wasn't poor, but he'd be hard-pressed to come up with any six-figure sum. Three weeks if the guy was telling the truth. She glanced at her watch. At least they hadn't taken it away. That and her grandmother's ring.

Curiously, now there was no fear. Anger, yes. And her boredom bored her. Her jailer didn't seem to mean her any harm. Or so his body language said. She still wondered if she could overwhelm him; he wasn't that big a guy, and his ski mask would take away his peripheral vision. But she realized he was in ultra-good shape, and quick on his feet. Strong arms, visible when he wore T-shirts. Good-looking body, in fact. She wondered about his face. Not much to tell about his hair till yesterday—before, he'd always worn a baseball cap with the short mask, but last evening he'd left it off. Light brown hair, a bit curly. Maybe a pleasant guy? And she wouldn't really want to hurt anyone. Even a kidnapper. Most of the time.

Before Mr. Beck arrived, Noel left to find a washroom. Returning to Peter's office, he saw two men, their backs to him—Peter, and a fellow with a head of bushy red hair in a blue T-shirt, denim cutoffs held up doubly by green suspenders and a red belt, and sandals over bare feet. Noel said, “Hello.”

Both turned. Peter said, “Jordan Beck, Noel Franklin.” Greetings, a shake of hands. “Why don't you fellas go to the cafeteria? Nobody there at this hour, you can talk privately. Sorry I can't lend you my office but I've got some work to do.”

“Cafeteria okay with you?” Noel asked.

“Let's go. Thanks, Professor Langley.” They walked down the stairs in silence, and out the door. “So, Mr. Franklin, you an old friend of Langley's?”

“Not that old,” said Noel. “He a pretty good teacher?”

“Oh yeah, he's the best. He gets you to really open up when you write.”

Maybe Noel should take lessons from Peter. If he ever got back to his book. Writing wasn't on for Noel right now. “You've just finished your thesis, I understand.”

“Yeah, it's a novella. Don't know why I took that on. Nobody publishes novellas these days.”

“It's good practice. And publishing is changing so quickly these days, you might find a publisher online.” They were walking toward the Faculty Club-cum-cafeteria that Noel recognized from yesterday. “You happy with it?”

“Yeah, I am. It was damn hard work but I think it's pretty good.”

“That's important.”

“Not as important as what Professor Langley thinks. I just wish I could get him to read it and talk to me about it.”

Noel glanced sideways at Beck. A solidly built man, late twenties, strong shoulders under the T-shirt that said
MORSELY HOWLER MONKEYS
over an image of a monkey sitting on a large football helmet wearing a small football helmet. A joke, Noel figured. Morsely had no on-campus students so would've had to scramble to come up with even a tag football team for the day. Beck's red hair curled over his brow, around his ears and along his nape. His brown eyes were two sharp exclamation marks on his ruddy face. A good grin leading to clean-shaven cheeks. Himself as a possible model for Jimmy Piper in the novella? “He hasn't read it? Why not?”

“Says he's got a pile of stuff to get to. And because I didn't hand it in by the end of last term, I can't get my degree anyway till October. So, he says, ‘What's the rush?'”

“You sound a little pissed. A great teacher, just not a great grader?”

“Something like that.”

They reached the building and went in a different door from the one to the Faculty Club, entering a room way less luxurious than its companions. Three dozen or so tables, only one person seated, computer open before her. “Coffee okay? There won't be any food till 11:30.”

“Fine.” Noel still looked forward to a bacon-and-eggs breakfast. By himself.

Beck led him to a large commercial coffee machine, took mugs off a shelf, filled them. “Cream and sugar?”

“Black's fine.” Noel took his mug and led the way to a corner as far from the computer person as the room allowed. “This okay?”

“Sure.”

They sat. Noel sipped. A rich aroma, sadly not matched by the bitter taste. “So,” said Noel, “what can I tell you? I gather you're in a writing quandary.”

A quick, ironic smile and raised eyebrows from Beck. “A quandary mostly about writing as a profession. Write, or finish an engineering MSc that I'm about halfway through with. Like my dad wants me to.”

Noel shook his head. “Can't help you with that one.”

“But Professor Langley told me you used to be a journalist, and now you're a stockbroker.”

Damn, he should've checked with Peter about how he'd described Noel. At least he'd used the context Noel had set Brendan in. “Not really a broker. I just dabble.”

“Don't you miss writing?”

Noel's turn for an ironic smile. “Let's just say I'm glad there's something else I can do.” He remembered Brendan saying, after he'd finished a book he enjoyed,
I'm glad that guy wrote the book. Now you don't have to.
Noel's inability to get back to his writing career had first peeved Brendan, who could be a broker wherever he lived, then he became worried because Noel had followed him from Vancouver to Nanaimo. Toward the end, Noel's block was only a matter for gentle mockery. In which Noel also participated.

Beck breathed an explosive sigh. “I don't think I could live without writing. This year all I needed to do was write and it's been my best year ever.”

“I applaud you,” said Noel. “It's a fine thing when you discover what's best for you so early in life.”

“But don't think I'm not pragmatic too, Mr. Franklin. That's why I'm so torn between journalism and fiction. At least journalism might pay.”

“Can't you do both?”

“Yeah, maybe. But the articles I wrote for Langley were a lot less fun than the novella.”

“Yeah? How?”

“You'd see how if you read them.”

“Tell me how.”

“The essays have good ideas. I think so and so does Langley. But the writing, it's, well, a bit flat. Better than prosaic, but there's no real sparkle to my style. Now the novella, it's pretty good. In it my writing sort of sings along—” he caught himself, and grinned, lopsided. “If I do say so myself. And I wish Langley would say so too. Or anything about it. You know him. Why do you think he's not read it yet?”

Noel shrugged. “His reasons sound pretty good to me.”

“Yeah, yeah . . .”

“What do you mean by ‘sings along.' And how did you make that happen?”

“You mean, change my style? I didn't try to. It just happened.”

Noel leaned forward. “Look, Jordan—and since this conversation is serious, I'd like to call you Jordan; Mr. Beck is wrong. And I'm Noel.” He stretched out his hand. “How do you do?”

The grin again. Jordan shook. “Okay, thanks, uh, Noel.”

“So? The change. In your style. Changes just don't happen.”

“I guess I needed to. For the material.”

“Which material?”

“The story. And the characters.”

“What is the story?”

“I'd rather you read it. But okay. It's about . . .” He held Noel's eye as he described the story, though with a greater sense of what was going on in Jimmy Piper's mind than Noel remembered from the manuscript. More emphasis too on the geography and landscapes along the back roads. When he finished, he picked up his coffee mug and sipped. “Writing it, it was as though I was taking pictures of everything going on in my mind and then with the snapshots in front of me I could describe what was happening with this incredible clarity, each scene really sharp visually, and when they got tied together there was a kind of soft music. I don't know, but it's like the prose is singing what it says.” He looked over Noel's shoulder.