Dazzle The Complete Unabridged Trilogy (160 page)

Finally, her nerves still strung as taut as steel springs, she
abruptly flung back the covers, swung her legs out over the
bed, and jumped to her feet. Her nerves were so shredded
that her hands were actually shaking. Then she sank down
onto the edge of the bed and rubbed her eyes with the palm of her hand. She had to get control of herself. Otherwise, if she wasn't careful, she was soon going to find herself going
off the deep end. Her mood swings had been fluctuating too
radically, from deepest despair all the way up to the peaks of
anger.

It was so unlike her. So disturbing.

What was happening to her?

The night crawled on and on.

Sleep, she thought yearningly. If only she could sleep, then
she would at least stop thinking about him for a few blessed
hours! How marvellous that would be.

She climbed back into bed, pulled the covers up over her,
and shut her eyes.

But she remained awake for hours longer.

She had never felt such torture, such anger, such extreme
helplessness.

He, her enemy, had taken up residence in her mind and
wouldn't let himself be evicted.

Damn!

As if she were not in enough trouble with the kidnapping,
now she had to deal with the voices of her heart as well—
voices of emotional turmoil and anguish-causing confusion. Hour in, hour out, there he was, springing up before her, his
predatory eyes staring hotly, probing, always probing deeper
within her, as though trying to penetrate to some secret spot.

She was in
—

Hastily she slammed a door in her mind.

That was one thing she couldn't face. Not the misguided desires she felt for him. It was too perverse to even consider.
Perhaps, she thought hopefully, once she got out of this
wretched place and far away from him, then he would be not
only out of sight but also out of her mind. Maybe then she
would be able to forget him. He couldn't, after all, have really
reached that far down inside her, all the way to the centre of
her soul.

Could he?

Finally, just before dawn, she drifted into a shallow, uneasy
doze.

And dreamed, of course, of him—who else? In the dream
he had captured her in his arms and was holding her in a steel-and-sinew embrace, such a real embrace of supercharged flesh
that she felt his heat and could hear the rapid beating of his
heart.

He felt hot and hard and deliciously moist—

With a start, she awoke in a cold sweat. Her forehead
pounded. Her pulse raced. She lay there confused and shak
ing, filled with shame and bitter self-loathing. The dream had
seemed all too real, and she felt soiled by it, as though she'd
been violated, somehow raped. How could she even dream
such a thing?

But why, the little voice in her mind whispered slyly, why,
if she really hated him so much, did her heart burn with the
treasonous flames of desire?

She raked a hand wildly through her hair.
Why him? Oh
damn damn damn, why him?

She struggled to sit up and it was then that she was truly
appalled with herself. The dream had seemed so real, so
passion-filled, that she had actually reacted physically.

Her thighs were sticky.

Dumbly she reached down and felt the seeping moistness
between her legs. For an instant she was frozen with horror.
Then she lunged wildly from the bed and looked around like
a madwoman. The first object to come to hand was a heavy
crystal cigarette box.

Her pulse tripped furiously. Her blood boiled so wildly she
could hear it crashing in her ears.

In a rage of overpowering frustration, and needing to hurt
someone—him . . .
anything
—she aimed it at a priceless
Venetian mirror which gleamed, one of a pair, frostily on a
pink suede wall.

She flung it with all her might.

The instant it hit, the mottled antique mirror exploded into
a cobweb of cracks, and a corner of the baroque frame broke
off as though in slow motion and fell soundlessly to the carpet.

Then, for the first time since her capture, she sank to her
knees, bowed her head to the carpet as though in supplication,
and wept.

Fifteen hours later and 375 miles to the north, Najib's Boeing
727-100 touched down in Riyadh.

Chapter 16

The prospect of holding a press conference was daunting for
all of them, but for Tamara in particular it had all the makings
of a nightmare. Because of Daliah's fame, she knew that even
without her own presence it would be a worldwide event; with
it, it would become a three-ring circus. Dani told her she didn't
really have to attend, but she disagreed. 'I'm Daliah's mother,'
she'd told him flatly. 'I have to be there, Dani. You know it,
and I know it.' And she had seen the relief deep in Dani's
eyes, and knew why it was there. In order to get the kind of
news coverage they sought, the long-retired platinum-blonde
box-office star of the 1930s was the carrot being dangled in
front of the press.

She knew this was every journalist's dream story. It had all
the ingredients necessary for selling papers and filling air
time—crime, mystery, and no less than
two
famous movie
stars, one of whom was a virtual recluse. From this day for
ward until long after the kidnapping was over, the media were
going to have a field day, and for as long as they could, the press lords would keep this story alive, fanning it furiously
until every last ember winked out. It didn't take much imagin
ation to visualize the sensational headlines that would roll off
the presses that evening:

FAMOUS MOVIE STAR KIDNAPPED. FILM-STAR RECLUSE FACES CAMERAS AFTER FORTY YEARS. ISRAELI HERO'S GRANDDAUGHTER MISSING. FAMOUS FAMILY IN SHOCK.

That in itself would have been bad enough to have to deal
with, but even more reprehensible to Tamara than the pub
licity was the idea of having to share the family's grief with
the public. After retiring from Hollywood, she had struggled
fiercely to surround herself and her family with a virtually
impenetrable wall of privacy, but now the defences would come tumbling down, with friends, neighbours, acquaint
ances, co-stars of both Daliah and herself, and forgotten
people from over the years crawling out of the woodwork to be interviewed. Not a single aspect of their private lives was
going to be left untouched.

The conference was to be held out front, in the sealed-off
carpark of the big apartment building, and was scheduled for
eleven o'clock in the morning. By seven-thirty, when Tamara
first went out on the balcony with a cup of coffee, she was
shocked to find that the media people were already gathering like a flock of hungry vultures, and from eight o'clock on, the
cluster of microphones being set up outside just grew and
grew. It took three policemen and one agent from the Shin
Bet to keep the reporters from entering the building, and even
so, three of them managed to sneak in by pretending to be
tenants. Finally, all four entrances to the building were
blocked off by uniformed police.

By nine o'clock the news media's vans and cars were double-
parked up and down Hayarkon Street, and more were arriving
by the minute. To make matters worse, street vendors,
attracted by the prospect of doing a brisk business, were push
ing their carts into position.

It had all the air of a festive carnival. The only thing missing
was the band. By then, Tamara had resigned herself. Before
long, she knew, crowds of passersby and people from the
neighbouring buildings would be drawn by curiosity and the
crowd would swell enormously.

Tamara paced the long living room, which they'd created four years earlier by buying the apartment next door and
knocking through the walls, tracing and retracing the same
steps over and over, from the country French pine table above
which hung her treasured jewel-like Matisse, to the far alcove,
with its book-lined shelves, her hands clasped in front of her
waist, her head bowed and furrowed.

She kept thinking about Daliah. Though she claimed to love
Ari equally, deep in her heart she knew better. Daliah had
always been her favourite. Much as she loved Ari, he took
after Dani. But Daliah had inherited that dangerous spark of
independence which had once been her own hallmark, and
had gone out into the world, prepared to take it by storm, just
as she herself had once done. Everything that had burned
within her now burned within Daliah. All Tamara had ever
wanted for her children was to protect them from the terrors
of the world. It was such a useless wish; what had happened
to Asa and Daliah proved that. Wishes were fairy tales, and
reality could always be counted upon to shatter them.

Dani went over to her and she slipped into his arms and
stood on tiptoe to embrace him. 'Don't look so frightened,'
he said gently.

She looked up at him wide-eyed, and then nodded toward
the window. 'It's a circus down there, Dani,' she whispered
shakily.

'They're only here to help.'

'Are they?' she asked sharply, hysteria creeping into her
voice.

The doorbell rang just then, shrill and shocking, and they jerked apart and turned toward the foyer. 'They're getting
impatient,' she said worriedly.

Schmarya came out of the kitchen, for once limping notice
ably. The ordeal was taking its toll on them all, Tamara
thought.

'I'll go downstairs,' the old man said gruffly, 'and tell them
to hold their horses.' He limped out and snap-locked the door
behind him.