Born of Illusion (36 page)

Trembling, I send out another strand, trying to get a clearer sense of what Owen is feeling, but I can’t focus, can’t concentrate. His agitation is evident by the tightness of his jaw. Is he just angry about our conversation or is it something else?

He steps out the doorway and panic blooms in my chest. I have to find out what he knows, what he’s up to! “Are you sure you don’t want to wait with us?” I ask desperately.

“I’m sorry, Anna.” For a moment I think I see real regret flicker across his handsome features, but then he shakes his head. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

And then he’s gone, his feet tramping down the stairs. I step out after him, but it’s too late; the front door has already shut behind him.

Mr. Darby’s door opens and Cole steps out. He takes the steps two at a time as if sensing my distress.

Turning, I hurry into the apartment and pace the floor of the sitting room. Why did Owen call Jacques this morning of all mornings? Why was he so disheveled?
What was he hiding?
Cole and Jacques watch me. Jacques’s dark eyes are immeasurably sad. Cole’s are worried.

“What happened?” he finally asks, his voice tense.

I hesitate. How will Jacques feel about me accusing his nephew? Surely, there’s no time now for hurt feelings. But how would I explain my suspicion without revealing my own secret?

“I think we should explore other avenues, since the Lindsays are out.” I turn to Jacques. “How well do you know Owen?”

Oddly enough, Jacques doesn’t bat an eye. “I knew him as a child, of course, but not as an adult. My Boston visits were rare. Why?”

Cole glances at me, trying to figure out what I’m saying. “His behavior was odd today.” It isn’t much to go on, but neither man questions my assessment.

Jacques nods. “I called my sister several weeks ago. It seems my nephew has become, how do you say? The black sheep of the family. There was a scandal involving the boss’s daughter and a great deal of debt, but my sister wouldn’t speak of it. She only mentioned it because she was hoping I would be a good influence on him.”

“And you didn’t tell Anna this?” Cole asks.

“I told her mother. I thought she had told you.”

I burn at that. No, Mother hadn’t told me, but then there was a lot Mother hadn’t told me. I shake my head. It doesn’t matter. The important thing is to get her back.

I can tell her exactly what I think of her after she is safely home.

“What else do you know about him?” I ask, trying to keep my mind on the task at hand. “Has he mentioned any friends? Do you know where he lives?”

“After my sister called, I did a little checking. This grand bank job of his is a ruse. He’s no more than a mail boy.”

I continue pacing the room, trying to remember as much as I can of my conversations with Owen. I don’t even remember the names of the friends I met the night of the Cotton Club. My face burns remembering our dance. He couldn’t really be involved, could he? But his manner today was so suspicious.

I need to find out. Making up my mind, I walk to the phone and dial Cynthia’s number.

“I need to get in touch with your uncle,” I tell her. “I need a favor.”

There’s a pause. “You know that his favors might cost you,” she finally says.

“I know.”

“He’ll be in touch,” she says, hanging up the phone.

Jacques looks confused.

“Don’t ask,” Cole tells him. “You don’t want to know.”

The phone rings almost immediately. It isn’t Cynthia’s uncle but a man with a heavy accent. He asks me a few terse questions and I tell him all I know about Owen Winchester. After he hangs up, I turn to Cole and Jacques. “Now we wait.”

The next hour passes slowly. Cole keeps trying to get me to eat, but I just shake my head and continue shuffling the cards I have in my hands. Jacques pretends to read yesterday’s newspaper but never actually turns the pages. By the time the phone rings I’m ready to scream with nerves.

“Hello?”

“My men checked out that boyfriend of yours. He’s a real winner.”

I don’t try to explain that Owen isn’t my boyfriend. “I’m listening.”

“First off, he’s married. Did you know that?”

I close my eyes, remembering the times I smelled perfume. The woman at the Cotton Club. “No, but that makes sense.”

“He seems to owe a lot of people money and has a reputation for not paying his debts. A very dangerous habit, if you ask me.”

“Where does he live?”

Uncle Arnold gives me the address of Owen’s building and I write it down. “If I had more time, I could probably tell you what kind of pomade he uses, but this is what I can do on such short notice.”

“It’s more than enough,” I assure him before ringing off.

“I have the address,” I tell Cole and Jacques. “We’re going.”

“Wait,” Cole interjects, but I turn on him before he can say anything else.

“No, I’m tired of waiting! What if Owen really is behind this? We need to find out for sure.” Don’t they realize that my mother could be injured? The tiny wooden room plays just behind my eyes. She could be there right now, frightened and hurt.

Cole opens his mouth to argue with me, but the ringing of the phone cuts him off. We freeze for a moment before I rush to pick it up, thinking it’s Uncle Arnold with more information.

“Hello?”

“Do you have the money?” I grip the phone in my hand as the room shifts and tilts.

“Yes,” I say when I’m able to speak. “But how do I know you’ll give me my mother once you have it?” I don’t want to negotiate with my mother’s captor, just keep him talking long enough to see if I recognize the voice.

“I guess you’re just going to have to trust me.” The voice is muffled, but I’m sure it’s one of the men who abducted me.

Anger flares. “Trust a lowlife like you? If you want any money, you are going to have to send me proof that my mother is still”—I swallow as my stomach threatens to heave—“alive.”

“If you don’t leave the money at the assigned spot at the assigned time, she won’t be.”

“But I don’t even know where that is, or when!”

“You will. Look outside your door.”

“Wait!” A click tells me that it’s too late and I close my eyes. I point to the door and Jacques rushes to it as Cole comes to me. I set the telephone down and lean against him, glad I’m not alone.

Jacques bends and picks up an envelope. This time, Cole doesn’t bother running outside. It could have been left anytime during the phone call, and we know there won’t be any trace of the person who left it.

The note is terse and to the point—where, when, and alone.

I look up from Jacques, whose eyes are full of pain, to Cole, whose eyes are full of worry.

It’s time to go bring my mother home.

Twenty-eight

“W
hat time is it?” I ask Jacques for the umpteenth time. He takes his pocket watch out again.

“Nine forty-five.”

We’re sitting in the backseat of his car a couple blocks from the meeting place. The plan is for me to walk there alone so the kidnapper won’t know I’m being followed.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Jacques asks.

I nod. What else can I do? Our only advantage is that we’re pretty sure Owen is behind this, though it’s hard for me to get my mind around a fop like Owen masterminding any kind of kidnapping plot. Apparently, he’s a far better performer than anyone gave him credit for. But why would he do this? Money? Is showing his father some kind of success worth all this? I close my eyes, remembering being shoved into the van. He must have arranged the whole scenario, even to the point of taking a hit on the jaw. My stomach is twisted in a permanent knot and I wish again that Cole were with me. He’s watching outside Owen’s building and will follow him to wherever it is they are holding my mother. We know from my vision that she isn’t being held in a regular apartment building. And this way, if Jacques loses me, Cole will be able to follow Owen straight to the source.

I glance at Jacques’s profile and realize how little I know him. “Can I ask a question?”

He turns. “Of course.”

“I saw you run out of our building a couple weeks back, yet you didn’t go in to see my mother. Why?”

He looks ahead. “Your mother informed me that I was smothering her. So I always thought twice before coming to visit. That time, I decided not to press my luck.”

I stared at his profile. “I’m sorry,” I said softly.

He twitches a shoulder and I see the corner of his mustache rise as he smiles. “It is one of the many reasons I love her. She is always a challenge.”

That’s all right for him to say. It’s harder to live with a challenge when you’re her daughter. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.

“It’s time,” Jacques tells me.

I open my eyes and nod.

He reaches out and snatches up my hand. “Good luck, Anna. Bring her home to us.”

I give his hand a squeeze. I’m really glad to have him in my corner, but part of me can’t help but wonder as I slip from the car and start walking down the block: Does he really know what he’s getting himself into by loving my mother?

There’s no time to worry about that now. I hear car doors slam behind me and know Jacques is getting out of his car and into the taxicab he hired so Owen won’t recognize him.

I turn the corner, clutching the duffel with the money in it tightly. I’m wearing a dark coat, cap, and, much to Jacques’s unspoken disapproval, woolen trousers. Cole borrowed them from his uncle, agreeing that they made more sense than wearing a dress would. They’ll keep me warmer and give me far more freedom of movement. They also give me a place to stash my knife and a picklock. I have another one pinned behind my ear, carefully hidden by my hair. We planned this rescue operation as cautiously as possible. All that’s left is to pray we planned cautiously enough.

My steps are measured, but I can barely hear them over the thudding of my heart. The kidnapper knew what he or she was doing; the streets here are pretty much deserted. I’m almost to the drop site when a door creaks open in the alley next to me. My steps falter as I see a man shoving a woman out the door and hear her cries. She’s smaller than I am, and her blond hair shines in the streetlamps. I know I need to move on with my mission but can’t help asking “Are you all right?”

She turns toward me and her cries grow louder. “Help me.” She slumps to the ground and I reach toward her.

Hands clasp around my waist and mouth. I’m being dragged sideways into the alley. I jab my elbow upward and feel it strike something just before being smashed forward into a brick wall. The pain stuns me and the last conscious thought I have is a prayer that these are the kidnappers and not some random thieves.

I awaken sometime later and it’s my nightmare come to life. My cheek is pressed against a rough wooden plank and shadows play against the walls. One eye is swollen shut and my face and head throb with every beat of my heart. Ropes bite painfully into my wrists and ankles. The stench of garbage and decaying fish is so strong, it almost makes me wretch.

I hear a movement behind me and my breathing stops before I realize who it is.

Mother!

I try to move but sweat breaks out on my forehead and nausea overwhelms me. I close my eyes and swallow convulsively. “Mama?” The word takes me back to countless strange rooms as I whisper it in the dark, wondering, always wondering if she was there or not.

“Shhhhh. Keep your voice down. We don’t want the guard to know you’re awake.”

I grit my teeth, fighting the whirling in my head and stomach as I inch myself into a sitting position against the wall. Sucking little breaths between my teeth, I calm myself until the world around me stops spinning. My eyes adjust to the dim light coming in through the wooden slats of the walls and I finally spot her, huddled in the corner opposite me.

“Are you all right?”

“Are you hurt?”

The corners of my mouth curl up briefly as I answer first. “I fought with a brick wall and lost, but I think I’ll be all right.”

“I’m cold, hungry, and furious, but other than that I’m fine.” She pauses, then adds, “Owen won’t be if I ever get hold of him.”

So it is Owen. I suspected as much, but having it confirmed is still like a shock of icy water. Pain tightens around my heart and I realize how much I didn’t want Owen to be involved. “Have you seen him?”

“Once. It’s mostly his bitch of a wife who comes in here.”

So his wife is involved, as well. I wonder if his wife knows that he asked me to be his partner. I’ll play that card if I have to.

“Any guards besides the wife?”

“One. I conned him into giving me a blanket and some food and water.”

I smile in the darkness. Of course she did.

“I saved some for you.”

I frown, confused. “Some what?”

“Water.”

My breath catches. “Then you knew . . .”

“That you would come for me? Of course.”