Innocent Hostage (9 page)
But somehow he couldn’t slow down. As Ingrid pressed closer and closer, crushing her breasts against his chest, he knew she must be able to feel his hard, hot erection against her stomach. And she wasn’t slowing down either. Boy, could she kiss. She was exploring every inch of his lips, over and over, sensitizing his skin with her soft hesitancy. His blood boiled with anticipation and—he had to let her go.
Now
.
He pressed one last kiss to the side of her neck and eased back, holding her loosely, careful not to give the impression of rejection. God knew the last thing he wanted to do was stop.
Her head drooped on to his shoulder and he freed one hand to stroke her hair.
Say something, Marchant.
“That was—that was uh…”
“Amazing?”
He tried to grin. “That’s the word I was looking for.”
She freed herself and stood back. “Thank you,” she said unexpectedly.
She sounded as though he’d given her a gift. Thank you? He couldn’t remember ever having been thanked for kissing a woman. When he was fourteen Marian Sinclair had kneed him in the groin because he’d kissed her ear. He’d been aiming for her lips but at fourteen his expertise hadn’t had time to develop. When he’d worked in the wool stores the boss’s daughter, three years older than he, had cornered him and planted a humungous wet one on him that had brought him to his knees. Then she’d flounced off, grinning over her shoulder at him.
Tania had seemed to take his kisses for granted.
One thing was for sure. He’d never before felt the zing that Ingrid’s kiss had fizzled through his blood at light speed. Ingrid Rowland was one interesting woman.
“Uh, this is awkward,” he blurted.
Blushing like a beacon she murmured, head down, “Enjoyed it. Much.”
Breck sagged in relief then backed away before he grabbed her again and took it further. Much further. Time to go.
“Oh, yeah. Me too.” He sighed. “But I think it’s time I went. I’ll uh…let you know what happens at the Kerrs’ place.”
“When do you plan on going?”
He opened his mouth to answer but his eye caught the title of a book tucked into her overflowing bookcase.
“What the hell?” He strode over and tugged the book out. Beside it were two more, written by the same authors. A & J Marchant. He dragged them all out and dumped them on the table, disappointment sitting heavy on his shoulders.
Ingrid stared at him. “What is it?”
“You using these books as manuals?”
“Well, sometimes I refer to them, but not often. Too esoteric for me. They’re standard textbooks for student teachers—” She broke off as realization struck. “Marchant,” she said slowly.
“Yep. My loving parents.”
“I don’t understand. You sound bitter. You should be proud to have such famous parents.”
“Oh, when I was little I was real proud. Everywhere we went, people knew them, spoke their language. I desperately tried to live up to their standards. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t read until I was eight, and it wasn’t my parents who taught me to read, but Natasha, our cleaning lady. I wasn’t musical and I sure as hell couldn’t recite, so I couldn’t do party tricks for my parents’ little ‘evenings.’ As I grew older I realized I was a sort of social experiment for them, a control platform on which to base their educational theories. And I failed them.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ingrid’s voice grew harsh. “Do you know how fortunate you were to have two parents who cared about you? Who wanted you to succeed? In their first book they mention their son and praise his achievements. They describe how they’ve used the same techniques they used on you for other people’s children. How can you denigrate them?”
“If you only knew, Ingrid. How do you
measure success? What about happiness?” His heart pounding, he knew he sounded neurotic but he couldn’t stop. All those years of trying to shake free of their bloody tentacles and they were still ruining his life.
“Success and happiness are two different things, Breck.”
He turned away from her. “On that we agree. Remember that when you’re following their tenets. Good night.”
He still had the presence of mind to snib the lock before he shut the door behind him. Before he shut out the image of Ingrid, hands on hips, staring at him. Before he shut out what might have been.
Sick to her stomach, she stood in the middle of the living room feeling like a fool. All she’d done was mention how fortunate he was to have such caring parents and wham! He’d gone up in smoke. A slow anger simmered inside her. Who the hell would want to pursue a relationship with such a touchy guy? Everyone had issues, but Breck Marchant was the king of issues. Huh!
She stalked over to the table and picked up one of the textbooks. Checking inside the front cover she could see no dedications, no photos. What did A & J Marchant look like?
The foreword in the first book referred to their son in a humorous way, saying that at first he was the only child they’d had available to test out their formative ideas on so that their conclusions had been largely subjective. In the second book they acknowledged various public and private schools that had submitted selected groups of children for them to study, to help advance their theories and methods to the next stage. Ingrid raised her eyebrows. Inadvertently they sounded as if they were studying specimens in a zoo. The conclusions at the end of that book were impartial and detached, but that might just be their writing style.
Lord, they’d taught Ingrid her craft. She believed in them. Stuff Breck Marchant. He had her doubting the people who’d been the basis of her training, the experts she referred to even now when she struck a sticky problem.
She flicked to the foreword on the third book. Here she discovered that Anna and Jeremy Marchant were conducting further control ‘experiments’ on larger groups of children, but by now they were fixated on the ‘products’ of private schooling only. Why? Had the public school children not come up to scratch? “Listen to yourself,” she scolded. “He’s got you imagining things that don’t exist.” Just because Breck seemed less than thrilled with his upbringing, didn’t mean there was anything wrong with his parents or their methods of research.
So why
did
Breck react so badly to the mention of his upbringing? What had happened? She sank down on the carpet and flicked through the third book. This was the one her lecturers at university had mainly used. It was full of techno jargon that the Marchants’ had devised.
She got up and sat in front of the computer to do a Google search. This time she found some photos. She leaned forward. Oh, yes. Breck Marchant was their son. He had his mother’s damn-you grey eyes and his father’s unruly hair. Those were the same intense grey eyes that had burned with anger such a short time ago. There the resemblance came to a screeching halt. Anna and Jeremy sat bolt upright, shoulder to shoulder, in a formal pose. Ingrid doubted that Breck had ever been formal in his life.
She clicked through their website. No mention of Breck. Just the studies they’d undertaken over the past twenty-five years interlarded with layers of techno-speak.
Maybe Breck had a point. Being brought up by these two rigid-looking academics could not have been easy. Especially when one took into account Breck’s loose-limbed gait, the dark hair that flopped over his forehead no matter how hard he tried to school it, and his diffident manner.
And maybe she was way off beam. She knew she had a bad habit of second-guessing people. It had become a defense mechanism in the difficult years after her father had left home. Or more correctly, after Marla had thrown her father out of their house. Way back as far as Ingrid could remember, her mother had been depressed. To try to keep her on an even keel, Ingrid had learned to second-guess Marla’s mood swings. But when Tom Rowland arrived on the scene, the depression had sloughed off Marla the way you’d peel off a wet coat. For that, Ingrid was immensely grateful. That was the main reason she’d been content to go along with whatever her stepfather suggested. Until a few years ago when she realized her parents took it for granted that she would live her life to their dictates. It had been a terrible struggle to break away from their benign dictatorship.
Had Breck Marchant suffered similar treatment from his parents? Or had there been something more sinister?
She went to bed early and lay there, wondering how she could find out more about the Marchants. She was just drifting off to sleep when she remembered his words about Tania: “I dealt with it.” What had Tania done that he’d had to deal with?
****
Before commencing his reconnoiter of the Kerr’s premises, Breck tried to coax some information about “Uncle Billy” out of Kit. Kit, however, was coping with his traumatic experiences with the Kerrs by blocking out all thoughts of them.
“Uncle Billy?” he asked blankly.
“Yes, you mentioned that he did martial arts, remember?”
Kit flicked his father a glance and pretended to be absorbed in pushing his dump truck around a corner of the sofa.
So far Breck had resisted attempts by the police psychologist to interview Kit. He’d wanted to give Kit breathing space, considering all that had happened recently. But perhaps he’d been wrong. Lord, this parenting thing was difficult. If only he knew why Natasha had disappeared. She would be invaluable at keeping Kit on an even keel. Dear Natasha. After all this time he still missed her.
He dropped Kit off at Jace and Abel’s and arrived at the Kerr’s house as the sun set. The living room was dim, the curtains pulled across the windows to keep sensation-seekers from peering in. Somewhere in the house a clock ticked loudly, its metronome-like rhythm getting on Breck’s nerves.
Where should he start?
He’d never broken into anyone’s house illegally before. During his second year on the force he’d had to break down a door when they’d suspected there was a dead body inside. But he’d had a couple of other cops with him and it was done on orders from his superiors. Sure, a couple of times with the AOS he’d had to move stealthily into position as the team settled themselves for a long wait, but that was not inside people’s houses. Mostly they hunkered down in garden sheds or garages; more often on high vantage points.
Leaving the back door ajar, he stood listening. If he got caught he would say he was looking for more of Kit’s belongings. Even so, it was a thin line he was treading. The normal course of action would be to go to the North Shore cops to pick up a key. But he wanted to keep a step ahead of that dick-brain, Moffat. If Moffat got to hear that he’d requested a key, the idiot would presume the worst.
Tip-toeing down the hallway, he felt like an elephant trying to walk on eggshells. Only the tick-tick of the clock and the faint squeak of his rubber-soled shoes on the floor tiles broke the silence. He worked on controlling his breathing, the way they did on a mission. This was a lot more nerve-wracking than any call-out.
He paused. Some of the cartons stacked at the end of the hallway had been opened and tossed aside. He didn’t think the cops would have left the place so untidy. His squad rarely left a mess when they instituted a search. The strange thing was that even though the house had been locked up for a couple of weeks, there was a pleasant perfumed smell in the air.
He pushed open the laundry door and discovered the source of the smell. Laundry powder was scattered over the floor and the hard-to-reach top cupboard doors stood open. Tania’s hiding place was bare.
Breck stepped over the sprinkle of soap powder so as not to leave prints and turned in a circle, looking around the small room. The lock was still snibbed on the inside, so nobody had entered from the garden. Whoever had been here must have had a front door key.
He blew out a breath. This was getting complicated. What was going on with the Kerrs? Had Tania’s past caught up with her? Or was it something more recent?
He’d follow Ingrid’s advice and search for anything pertaining to little Bobby. Then he’d scarper. Something was very wrong here.
Toeing the inside of each stair tread, he climbed the stairs that led to the bedrooms. As he got near the top, he hesitated. More perfume, different from the smell of soap powder hung in the air. Tania’s perfume, strong and poignant. It was called Chloe. He ought to know. He’d bought enough of the stuff.
He stopped. Was she here? Had she been here? That stuff lingered for a long time. Their apartment had stunk of it for weeks after she’d left.
“Tania?” he whispered.
A disturbance in the air was his only warning. He ducked as something whizzed over the top of his head. Then he was shoved aside as a dark figure pushed past him. Breck clutched at the banisters, his feet shooting out from under him on the slippery carpet. Shit! Scrambling to his feet, he bounced down the last couple of stairs and chased the stocky figure careening down the hallway.
His quarry wrenched open the front door. Dusk had settled and it was almost dark outside. He managed to grab his attacker’s coat and began reeling in the interloper like a fish. But the man wriggled out of his plastic raincoat and fled towards a blue pick-up truck waiting at the curb. His balding head gleamed under the streetlights. Someone inside the vehicle leaned over and flung open the passenger door, revving the engine just as Breck aimed a solid punch at the back of the attacker’s neck. Reeling against the car door, the man half-collapsed on to the front seat of the truck, his legs hanging out the door. The driver floored the accelerator and the blue truck jerked out from the curb as if the driver was unfamiliar with the gears. It hiccupped along the road. Breck raced behind it, clutching the tattered plastic raincoat in one hand. The driver finally found second gear and the truck picked up speed and was swallowed in the dusk.
Now
.
He pressed one last kiss to the side of her neck and eased back, holding her loosely, careful not to give the impression of rejection. God knew the last thing he wanted to do was stop.
Her head drooped on to his shoulder and he freed one hand to stroke her hair.
Say something, Marchant.
“That was—that was uh…”
“Amazing?”
He tried to grin. “That’s the word I was looking for.”
She freed herself and stood back. “Thank you,” she said unexpectedly.
She sounded as though he’d given her a gift. Thank you? He couldn’t remember ever having been thanked for kissing a woman. When he was fourteen Marian Sinclair had kneed him in the groin because he’d kissed her ear. He’d been aiming for her lips but at fourteen his expertise hadn’t had time to develop. When he’d worked in the wool stores the boss’s daughter, three years older than he, had cornered him and planted a humungous wet one on him that had brought him to his knees. Then she’d flounced off, grinning over her shoulder at him.
Tania had seemed to take his kisses for granted.
One thing was for sure. He’d never before felt the zing that Ingrid’s kiss had fizzled through his blood at light speed. Ingrid Rowland was one interesting woman.
“Uh, this is awkward,” he blurted.
Blushing like a beacon she murmured, head down, “Enjoyed it. Much.”
Breck sagged in relief then backed away before he grabbed her again and took it further. Much further. Time to go.
“Oh, yeah. Me too.” He sighed. “But I think it’s time I went. I’ll uh…let you know what happens at the Kerrs’ place.”
“When do you plan on going?”
He opened his mouth to answer but his eye caught the title of a book tucked into her overflowing bookcase.
“What the hell?” He strode over and tugged the book out. Beside it were two more, written by the same authors. A & J Marchant. He dragged them all out and dumped them on the table, disappointment sitting heavy on his shoulders.
Ingrid stared at him. “What is it?”
“You using these books as manuals?”
“Well, sometimes I refer to them, but not often. Too esoteric for me. They’re standard textbooks for student teachers—” She broke off as realization struck. “Marchant,” she said slowly.
“Yep. My loving parents.”
“I don’t understand. You sound bitter. You should be proud to have such famous parents.”
“Oh, when I was little I was real proud. Everywhere we went, people knew them, spoke their language. I desperately tried to live up to their standards. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t read until I was eight, and it wasn’t my parents who taught me to read, but Natasha, our cleaning lady. I wasn’t musical and I sure as hell couldn’t recite, so I couldn’t do party tricks for my parents’ little ‘evenings.’ As I grew older I realized I was a sort of social experiment for them, a control platform on which to base their educational theories. And I failed them.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Ingrid’s voice grew harsh. “Do you know how fortunate you were to have two parents who cared about you? Who wanted you to succeed? In their first book they mention their son and praise his achievements. They describe how they’ve used the same techniques they used on you for other people’s children. How can you denigrate them?”
“If you only knew, Ingrid. How do you
measure success? What about happiness?” His heart pounding, he knew he sounded neurotic but he couldn’t stop. All those years of trying to shake free of their bloody tentacles and they were still ruining his life.
“Success and happiness are two different things, Breck.”
He turned away from her. “On that we agree. Remember that when you’re following their tenets. Good night.”
He still had the presence of mind to snib the lock before he shut the door behind him. Before he shut out the image of Ingrid, hands on hips, staring at him. Before he shut out what might have been.
Chapter Nine
Sick to her stomach, she stood in the middle of the living room feeling like a fool. All she’d done was mention how fortunate he was to have such caring parents and wham! He’d gone up in smoke. A slow anger simmered inside her. Who the hell would want to pursue a relationship with such a touchy guy? Everyone had issues, but Breck Marchant was the king of issues. Huh!
She stalked over to the table and picked up one of the textbooks. Checking inside the front cover she could see no dedications, no photos. What did A & J Marchant look like?
The foreword in the first book referred to their son in a humorous way, saying that at first he was the only child they’d had available to test out their formative ideas on so that their conclusions had been largely subjective. In the second book they acknowledged various public and private schools that had submitted selected groups of children for them to study, to help advance their theories and methods to the next stage. Ingrid raised her eyebrows. Inadvertently they sounded as if they were studying specimens in a zoo. The conclusions at the end of that book were impartial and detached, but that might just be their writing style.
Lord, they’d taught Ingrid her craft. She believed in them. Stuff Breck Marchant. He had her doubting the people who’d been the basis of her training, the experts she referred to even now when she struck a sticky problem.
She flicked to the foreword on the third book. Here she discovered that Anna and Jeremy Marchant were conducting further control ‘experiments’ on larger groups of children, but by now they were fixated on the ‘products’ of private schooling only. Why? Had the public school children not come up to scratch? “Listen to yourself,” she scolded. “He’s got you imagining things that don’t exist.” Just because Breck seemed less than thrilled with his upbringing, didn’t mean there was anything wrong with his parents or their methods of research.
So why
did
Breck react so badly to the mention of his upbringing? What had happened? She sank down on the carpet and flicked through the third book. This was the one her lecturers at university had mainly used. It was full of techno jargon that the Marchants’ had devised.
She got up and sat in front of the computer to do a Google search. This time she found some photos. She leaned forward. Oh, yes. Breck Marchant was their son. He had his mother’s damn-you grey eyes and his father’s unruly hair. Those were the same intense grey eyes that had burned with anger such a short time ago. There the resemblance came to a screeching halt. Anna and Jeremy sat bolt upright, shoulder to shoulder, in a formal pose. Ingrid doubted that Breck had ever been formal in his life.
She clicked through their website. No mention of Breck. Just the studies they’d undertaken over the past twenty-five years interlarded with layers of techno-speak.
Maybe Breck had a point. Being brought up by these two rigid-looking academics could not have been easy. Especially when one took into account Breck’s loose-limbed gait, the dark hair that flopped over his forehead no matter how hard he tried to school it, and his diffident manner.
And maybe she was way off beam. She knew she had a bad habit of second-guessing people. It had become a defense mechanism in the difficult years after her father had left home. Or more correctly, after Marla had thrown her father out of their house. Way back as far as Ingrid could remember, her mother had been depressed. To try to keep her on an even keel, Ingrid had learned to second-guess Marla’s mood swings. But when Tom Rowland arrived on the scene, the depression had sloughed off Marla the way you’d peel off a wet coat. For that, Ingrid was immensely grateful. That was the main reason she’d been content to go along with whatever her stepfather suggested. Until a few years ago when she realized her parents took it for granted that she would live her life to their dictates. It had been a terrible struggle to break away from their benign dictatorship.
Had Breck Marchant suffered similar treatment from his parents? Or had there been something more sinister?
She went to bed early and lay there, wondering how she could find out more about the Marchants. She was just drifting off to sleep when she remembered his words about Tania: “I dealt with it.” What had Tania done that he’d had to deal with?
****
Before commencing his reconnoiter of the Kerr’s premises, Breck tried to coax some information about “Uncle Billy” out of Kit. Kit, however, was coping with his traumatic experiences with the Kerrs by blocking out all thoughts of them.
“Uncle Billy?” he asked blankly.
“Yes, you mentioned that he did martial arts, remember?”
Kit flicked his father a glance and pretended to be absorbed in pushing his dump truck around a corner of the sofa.
So far Breck had resisted attempts by the police psychologist to interview Kit. He’d wanted to give Kit breathing space, considering all that had happened recently. But perhaps he’d been wrong. Lord, this parenting thing was difficult. If only he knew why Natasha had disappeared. She would be invaluable at keeping Kit on an even keel. Dear Natasha. After all this time he still missed her.
He dropped Kit off at Jace and Abel’s and arrived at the Kerr’s house as the sun set. The living room was dim, the curtains pulled across the windows to keep sensation-seekers from peering in. Somewhere in the house a clock ticked loudly, its metronome-like rhythm getting on Breck’s nerves.
Where should he start?
He’d never broken into anyone’s house illegally before. During his second year on the force he’d had to break down a door when they’d suspected there was a dead body inside. But he’d had a couple of other cops with him and it was done on orders from his superiors. Sure, a couple of times with the AOS he’d had to move stealthily into position as the team settled themselves for a long wait, but that was not inside people’s houses. Mostly they hunkered down in garden sheds or garages; more often on high vantage points.
Leaving the back door ajar, he stood listening. If he got caught he would say he was looking for more of Kit’s belongings. Even so, it was a thin line he was treading. The normal course of action would be to go to the North Shore cops to pick up a key. But he wanted to keep a step ahead of that dick-brain, Moffat. If Moffat got to hear that he’d requested a key, the idiot would presume the worst.
Tip-toeing down the hallway, he felt like an elephant trying to walk on eggshells. Only the tick-tick of the clock and the faint squeak of his rubber-soled shoes on the floor tiles broke the silence. He worked on controlling his breathing, the way they did on a mission. This was a lot more nerve-wracking than any call-out.
He paused. Some of the cartons stacked at the end of the hallway had been opened and tossed aside. He didn’t think the cops would have left the place so untidy. His squad rarely left a mess when they instituted a search. The strange thing was that even though the house had been locked up for a couple of weeks, there was a pleasant perfumed smell in the air.
He pushed open the laundry door and discovered the source of the smell. Laundry powder was scattered over the floor and the hard-to-reach top cupboard doors stood open. Tania’s hiding place was bare.
Breck stepped over the sprinkle of soap powder so as not to leave prints and turned in a circle, looking around the small room. The lock was still snibbed on the inside, so nobody had entered from the garden. Whoever had been here must have had a front door key.
He blew out a breath. This was getting complicated. What was going on with the Kerrs? Had Tania’s past caught up with her? Or was it something more recent?
He’d follow Ingrid’s advice and search for anything pertaining to little Bobby. Then he’d scarper. Something was very wrong here.
Toeing the inside of each stair tread, he climbed the stairs that led to the bedrooms. As he got near the top, he hesitated. More perfume, different from the smell of soap powder hung in the air. Tania’s perfume, strong and poignant. It was called Chloe. He ought to know. He’d bought enough of the stuff.
He stopped. Was she here? Had she been here? That stuff lingered for a long time. Their apartment had stunk of it for weeks after she’d left.
“Tania?” he whispered.
A disturbance in the air was his only warning. He ducked as something whizzed over the top of his head. Then he was shoved aside as a dark figure pushed past him. Breck clutched at the banisters, his feet shooting out from under him on the slippery carpet. Shit! Scrambling to his feet, he bounced down the last couple of stairs and chased the stocky figure careening down the hallway.
His quarry wrenched open the front door. Dusk had settled and it was almost dark outside. He managed to grab his attacker’s coat and began reeling in the interloper like a fish. But the man wriggled out of his plastic raincoat and fled towards a blue pick-up truck waiting at the curb. His balding head gleamed under the streetlights. Someone inside the vehicle leaned over and flung open the passenger door, revving the engine just as Breck aimed a solid punch at the back of the attacker’s neck. Reeling against the car door, the man half-collapsed on to the front seat of the truck, his legs hanging out the door. The driver floored the accelerator and the blue truck jerked out from the curb as if the driver was unfamiliar with the gears. It hiccupped along the road. Breck raced behind it, clutching the tattered plastic raincoat in one hand. The driver finally found second gear and the truck picked up speed and was swallowed in the dusk.
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