Heart of the Night (23 page)

“Well, I do. She's made something of her life. What does she see when she looks at me? A big zero.”

“She sure didn't see that this week. You were there when she called. You stayed with Will when she couldn't be there.”

“I was a body. That's all. And don't tell me that I cooked, because you did as much of that as I did.”

“I like to cook.”

“Great. Good. Be my guest.”

“Are you drunk?” he came right out and asked.

Her look was venomous. “No, I am not drunk, and that's the real bitch of this whole thing. I can't even do that right!” She took a shallow breath. “I've tried, God, I've tried. I've had glass after glass of the stuff, and I keep waiting to feel numb.” The venom in her eyes had faded, giving way to a slow rise of fear. “But it's not coming. I don't know if I'm not drinking enough fast enough or what, but I'm not feeling better. I think of Megan and it hurts. God, it hurts.”

Her eyes had filled with tears. She raised both hands to her face, unaware of dropping the glass in her lap. Sam grabbed for it quickly and set it aside. Then he curled his fingers around her wrists.

“Come upstairs, Susan. You'll feel better after you've had some sleep.”

The heels of her hands were firmly anchored against her eyes. “I won't feel better again.”

“Sure, you will,” he coaxed. He rubbed his thumbs lightly over the insides of her wrists. “You need sleep and a little distance from all this. Drinking hasn't helped—”

“I need more.” She took her hands from her eyes, took Sam's hands right down with them. “One more,” she said, hopeful through her tears. “That's the one that will work.”

He held tight to her wrists. “It won't. Trust me. It'll only hurt more.”

She shook her head, vigorously this time. “No.”

“Yes.”

Her face crumbled. “It can't. Nothing can hurt more than what I feel right now.” She let her head loll against the wall. But she was breathing quickly, shallowly, and her throat was working in a convulsive kind of way.

Sam knew what was coming before she did. He drew her quickly to her feet, and by that time she had shaky fingers pressed to her mouth. She ran out to the hall, tore open the powder-room door, and reached the toilet in time to be violently sick.

He was right there to support her. He stood behind her, legs set wide, one arm around her middle as she bent over, the other holding her head.

The spasms continued until her stomach was empty, and even then the dry heaves went on for a bit. When he was sure that she had nothing more to throw up, he put the toilet seat down, propped her on it, and began to bathe her face.

She tried to pull away, but he wouldn't have that, so she closed her eyes and whispered, “I'm sorry. Oh, hell. This is disgusting.”

“Shhh.” He wiped around her mouth.

When he dropped the cloth in the sink and wet another, she cried softly, “How can you stand being in here?”

“I'll live.”

“I may not. I feel dizzy, Sammy. I want to lie down.”

“Soon.” He mopped her forehead and eyes, then he did what he could with her hair. All the while he bent over her, he kept her propped against his hip.

“Do you know,” she breathed weakly, “that the cloth you're using was hand-monogrammed in Milan?”

“You don't say,” he said, and couldn't have cared less. He eyed the front of her robe. It needed a washing, too. “I have to hand it to you,” he sighed gently, “when you do things, you do them big.” Slipping an arm around her back, he helped her stand. “We're going upstairs now. Stomach steady?”

Susan nodded. She felt as limp as her hand-monogrammed towel and had to lean heavily against his side. He wasn't much taller than she, perhaps three or four inches, but he was far stronger. Just then, she was grateful.

Once upstairs, he led her through the bedroom to the bathroom and immediately turned on the shower.

“I want to lie down,” she protested weakly.

“Once you're clean.”

“I can't stand up in there.”

“I'll hold you.”

“You'll get wet.”

“I could use a shower.” Steam was rising in the stall; he adjusted the heat of the water so that neither of them would get burned. “It's been a long night for me, too.”

“You can't come in my shower.”

“Are you gonna stop me?” he asked. Setting her against the glass shower door with a knee between her legs, he whipped his sweatshirt over his head. He stepped away from her only long enough to kick off first his sneakers, then his jeans.

She made a strangled sound. “Sammy?”

“I'll leave my briefs on, okay?”

“Just let me go to bed.”

“Is that an invitation?”

“No!” She closed her eyes and murmured, “No-o-o—”

But he was already untying her robe and letting it fall to the floor. She was wearing a pair of panties that were briefer than his. Swearing softly, he stripped them off. Then, without allowing himself the luxury of looking at her, he helped her into the shower.

Susan had never been so humiliated in her life. It wasn't that she was ashamed of her body, but having Sam Craig see it like this was not quite the way her fantasy went. If she had the strength, she would never be letting him do this to her, but she didn't have the strength. Her limbs felt like rubber, her eyes wouldn't focus, and her head hurt, all of which conspired to keep her leaning on him for support.

He concentrated on washing her face, her hands and her hair, and assumed that the run-off would take care of the rest. When he was satisfied, he turned off the water, ushered her out, and wrapped first her, then himself in towels that he grabbed from the floor. Sitting her on the commode, he scrubbed the moisture from her hair with a third towel. Then, rather proud of his self-discipline, he stood back and rubbed his hands together. “A fresh nightgown. Where would I find one?”

“I have to lie down, Sam.”

“Nightgown?”

“In the closet. The drawers on the far right.”

He was in the midst of looking when she stumbled her way from the bathroom and collapsed into bed. He figured the nightgown would wait. By the time he reached her, she'd curled into a ball on her side and buried her face in the pillow.

“Better now?” he asked, covering her up.

She grunted.

“Can I get you anything?”

She didn't answer.

He worked one damp auburn curl, then another, back from her cheek. “You'll feel better when you wake up.”

Her voice came from a distance. “I'll have a splitting headache.”

“So you'll take aspirin. You'll be able to hold it down by then. But don't take another drink, Susan. That'll only make things worse.” He glanced toward the armoire. “That's quite an arsenal you've got.”

“Don't tell Savannah. Please?”

“Why would I tell Savannah? She doesn't know I'm here, and even if she did, I'm not her spy.”

“What are you to her?”

“A friend, co-worker.”

“And to me?”

“I'm trying to figure that out.”

“Why are you here?”

“Because I like you.”

“I'm not your type.”

“How do you know what my type is? Christ, you're amazing. You're half-zonked and still you think you know it all.”

“I don't know it all. I don't know much of anything.”

He sighed. “Why don't you go to sleep now?”

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to get dressed and go home.”

She was quiet for a minute. Then she murmured, “Better do your hair first. There's a blow dryer in the bathroom.”

Had it not been for her weary tone, he'd have had a comeback. But she was exhausted. She needed sleep far more than she needed his barbs. So he said, “I'll give you a call later to see how you feel.”

“The way I feel now, I may be dead by then.”

“I doubt that.” He looked around the room and considered that if he were truly a Good Samaritan, he'd clean up. He guessed he wasn't that good. Leaving the bedside, he took the towel from his hips and worked it over his hair. He was nearly at the bathroom door when Susan called his name.

“Sam?”

He turned back. “Mmm?”

Her face was still buried, her voice muffled, but he heard every word. “Right now I'm not feeling real great—”

“I know.”

“But some other time, when I'm feeling better, will you show me what's in your briefs?”

Sam was no novice with women. He had had come-ons from respectable ladies and come-ons from hookers. But it was the first time that he had reacted to a come-on quite the way he did to Susan Gardner's. In seconds, he was rock hard.

“Name the day,” he growled. “Name the day, honey, and it's yours.” Not trusting himself further, he went into the bathroom to retrieve his clothes.

C
HAPTER
10

Savannah closed the door to Paul DeBarr's office. “Sorry I'm late. That was the
Journal
on the phone. Before that, it was the
Call,
and before that, the
Globe.
Word's out.”

Paul rocked back in his chair. “We've had calls up here, too. It was inevitable.”

Perched against the credenza, Anthony Alt tapped his foot and stared at Savannah. “The issue is how we handle it. We could deny the whole thing, but there are too many people involved. It'll come out, and then we'll look worse than we already do. We could try to palm the press off on someone else, but the police department has already palmed it back on us.” His eyes hardened. “I can understand why. This case is a mess. The wife of a prominent citizen was kidnapped, three million in ransom was paid, the woman was returned brutalized, and we haven't the foggiest notion about who did it or where the money is.” He shot a glance at Paul. “Not much to campaign on.”

Paul had the good grace to ignore the comment and, instead, ask Savannah, “How's Megan?”

“I just came from the hospital. She's resting.”

“Will she be all right?”

“Physically, yes.”

“And emotionally?”

She shrugged. “Time will tell. She's not saying much of anything to anyone.”

“Translated, that means she's not cooperating,” Anthony said.

“No,” Savannah corrected slowly and clearly, as though she were talking with a child. “It means she's focusing inward, trying to come to terms with what's happened before she can share it with us.”

“Doesn't she know time is important? The longer she waits to tell us what she knows, the farther away her kidnappers get and the dimmer their tracks.”

“It's possible that she doesn't have much to tell.”

Anthony wasn't buying that. “She heard, she smelled, she saw—unless she was blindfolded the whole time.” He tapped a forefinger on the credenza. “Was she?”

“They stuffed her in a large laundry bag coming and going. She wasn't blindfolded while she was in the room where they kept her, but she said it was dark.”

“The human eye adjusts to the dark. She had to see something.”

“If she did, she's either blocking it out because it's so reprehensible to her that she can't cope with it, or she's frightened. It's not uncommon for victims of rape to want to distance themselves from their rapists. They don't want to think about them or talk about them. They're terrified that if they breathe a word, they'll be sought out and attacked again as a punishment.”

“That's ridiculous,” Anthony scoffed. “Megan Vandermeer is safe now. Her husband will probably hire a bodyguard. She doesn't have anything to fear by telling the police what she knows. And what about anger? Rape victims are often so angry that they'd do most anything to have their assailants apprehended and punished.”

“The anger will come.”

Looking at Paul, Anthony tossed his head Savannah's way. “She's in the wrong field. Sounds more like a therapist than a lawyer.”

“I'm a woman,” Savannah said with surprising vehemence. Her gender wasn't an argument she usually used, but she refused to back down. “I can imagine what I'd be feeling if I were in Megan's place. Right about now, I'd probably want to climb into a cocoon, curl up in a ball, and stay there for a good, long time. She's been traumatized, Anthony. I know that's hard for you to understand, but, believe me, she's feeling pain.”

“She could try to help,” he argued, drumming his fingers. “It would make our jobs a hell of a lot easier.”

“I doubt she's thinking about our jobs right now.”

“Well, I am. We have to come up with a strategy for dealing with the press that's going to get us out of this one, if not smelling like a rose, then at least smelling sweeter than a rat.”

“Why would we smell like a rat?” Savannah shot back. “We haven't done anything wrong.”

“We haven't done anything right, either. That's the point. We haven't done much of anything at all.”

Savannah felt her temper rise. She worked to keep it in check. “In the first place,” she said with care, “we got Megan back alive, and if that doesn't count as something right in your book, you've got your priorities messed up. And in the second place,” she went on, staring at him hard, “there are those of us who have spent the past few days suffering along with this case. You wouldn't know about that. You weren't sitting with Will or worrying about Megan or trying to coordinate an underground investigation.”

“So, what did it turn up?” he goaded. His fingers beat out an annoying tattoo on the credenza.

Unwilling to stoop to his level, Savannah gripped the doorknob behind her, took a measured breath, and gave her answer to Paul. “We are dealing with two very shrewd men. They've covered their tracks from the start. Even with the manpower that's now on this case, nothing's turned up. Very honestly, I don't know what to tell the press.”