The Great Escape: A Vintage Contemporary Romance

by Thea Harrison

  After the first wide-eyed, incredulous, uncomprehending stare, Dee’s face assumed a semblance of normality, though she did not come right into the room. It was all surface; inside, she felt the plunge of the knife sink to her life’s centre and the burning tip of the painful hot steel of despair started a slow turning.

  Trust, she thought, a last desperate chance to believe that he hadn’t meant it, hadn’t counted on this happening. It was all a huge, monstrous mistake, a colossal error in logic, an underestimation of the opposition. Judith and Howard had obviously had his apartment watched. That was it, surely that was it.

  But then Judith was dispelling that last illusion with a cruel accuracy, hitting her thoughts by an accident of chance. “He was very good, dear, wasn’t he?” she asked, a sly maliciousness in her smile, if not in her voice. Her voice was all cooing affection and falsity. “We never lost faith in him…” and Dee flinched violently at her ironic choice of words, “…all those months. We knew he would bring you back to us, dear girl. Of course, he had an excellent incentive, didn’t he? But he wouldn’t have told you about the staggering bonus we offered him for your return. And it was all well earned. Well earned, indeed! Well, girl, have you got your things packed in your suitcase? We’ve got quite a lot to do today, and we haven’t much time to wait for you. Your room, of course, is ready and waiting for you.” Her light, almost colourless eyes watched Dee avidly, storing up all her expressions and watching for any sign of betraying vulnerability.

  But Dee wasn’t even paying attention to her aunt, for she was watching that straight, stiff back. Walking slowly across the room, right by Judith without so much as a sidelong glance, she halted just behind Mike, right close to his shoulder. She could have moved slightly and touched him, she was so close. But she didn’t. Then, with a quick, stern glance behind her shoulder at the nearby, hovering woman, she said with dignity, “This is private, if you don’t mind.” And at that, Judith, out of a social courtesy, had to withdraw to the other side of the room. Then, facing that quiet figure that stared out of the window and feeling as if she were about to scream from the horrible pain of the knife, Dee whispered shakingly. “Mike—oh, Mike! I don’t believe them. You couldn’t do this. They had your apartment watched, didn’t they? You didn’t—tell them, did you?” Trust, she thought, tasting bitter ashes in her mouth. She was asking for his side of the story, but she didn’t believe that last plea of hers. It was the death throes of her trust speaking.

  “Yes, I did.” The words were a whisper, like hers, and the knife twisted in deeper. She put a hand to his shoulder, and it felt warm and vital, living rock. He didn’t even flinch or turn around. She could see the clean line of his jaw and the dark curl of his eyelashes as he stared unblinkingly out of the window. She got the strangest impression that he was not seeing what he was staring at.

  “God!” It was a wounded cry, no matter how low she whispered it. Though he didn’t move, she saw a muscle in his jaw jerk spasmodically. “You said have faith! You said to me, last night, to have faith! How can I have faith when everyone around me is so damnably faithless?”

  “I said have faith in humanity, Dee.” And he turned at that, glanced at her emotionlessly, the look in his eyes completely blank. “Not in me.”

  Something died, right there in front of her, on the carpet, bleeding. She stared at it, head down for a few minutes, and when she looked up that something dead was in her eyes and it was a terrible sight. Mike stared at her and then turned back to the window, an automaton. “Can you,” she whispered dully, wondering why she was twisting the knife in further and wondering why there was no more pain, “look me in the eyes and tell me that you don’t want me here?” Silence, and he tensed. She could feel it with every nerve of her body, every fibre of her soul.

  Chapter Eight

  But then she laughed, and that too was a terrible sound. “Never mind,” she said. “Because do you know what? I don’t believe in humanity any more.” She turned very slowly because if she didn’t she would fall down and not get up, ever. And then with measured paces, she walked carefully to the door. Don’t feel, don’t feel—ah, Mike, don’t! Her thoughts screamed and screamed, and she wondered when they would ever stop screaming. She didn’t even know why; everything else inside her felt so dead she might never feel again, and that was a blessing. The nightmare was real, but the reality was a nightmare and she should be waking soon. It was time to wake up. It was time to snap out of the dream, but she couldn’t, because she knew she was pretending, to make things easier. As she reached the hall she heard Mike speak, and the words he was saying were so incredible, so horribly, utterly terrible that she jerked to a stop and turned again, face dead white, hands clenched tightly, and her whole slim body so tense that she thought something would crack.

  “Mrs. Kimble,” he said deeply, turning away from the window and being silhouetted against the bright sun’s glare, “the little matter of the bonus is something we need to discuss. You see, I know about the plot to kill Dee. Two failings in as many days is a rather rotten efficiency, don’t you think? It was just a little too much to believe, just a bit too obvious. You should have told me from the beginning, Mrs. Kimble. I could have helped you with the details. But now—well, it’s a different matter. Everything’s totally different. I know now, and I’m feeling a bit left out, not being included in the plans. It may just cost you a little more because of that, Mrs. Kimble.”

  The world stopped, just stopped stock still. Then it tilted so sickeningly and Dee felt her balance go, starting to topple forward. The silhouette at the window moved so quickly he was a blur, and he caught her before she hit the floor. But she wasn’t unconscious, because life was too cruel to let her faint. When she felt those wonderfully familiar and yet horrifyingly unfamiliar arms close around her, she screamed and fought him so violently and with such a single-mindedness that he had to let go of her before she hurt herself.

  She fell to the ground like a wounded animal, thinking to herself hazily, and I thought there could be no more pain. They won’t have to kill me. I’m already dying.

  “Clever, clever man,” Judith was saying admiringly, and the admiration was cold. “So those bungling fools really did let the cat out of the bag, did they? When did you figure it all out?”

  “After the first time. It didn’t take me long,” he spoke, moving back to the window. Howard slumped further in his chair. A bird sang piercingly just outside the window. Dust motes danced in the sunlight. Dee managed somehow to drag herself to a chair and to pull herself into it. She might not have been there, as much attention as everyone was giving her. She might already be dead for all they noticed.

  Always being overlooked, ignored, always being lonely. God, what a memory, she thought calmly. She’d done a good job of escaping—she really had. Nine months before he found her. She might even try again, if they were careless with watching her. But it didn’t really matter now, because no matter how she would try, she would never escape again. The prison was inside her now. She would never be able to trust, to let herself love again. She didn’t really care if she lived or died, and really would prefer to be dead. That joy of living that she had gone off to seek, those months ago, had finally been destroyed by the enemy.

  “So you’re wanting a little extra…” Judith mused, turning and walking slowly across the room. “A little extra to keep your mouth shut, or a little extra to enlist your aid in our task? No, I think if we’re to be sure you keep quiet, we’ll have to expect you to help with the execution of the plan. Then you would be an accomplice and as guilty as the rest of us.” She glanced sharply at him. “Could you do that, Mr. Carridine? Could you help us?”

  “Whatever it takes,” he said steadily. Dee heard him and didn’t seem to react at all. The room was getting a little fuzzy around the edges. Wasn’t it rich to have her lover plotting to kill her? Wasn’t it just absolutely rich? The room snapped back into a sharper clarity than it had ever been before. She straightened in her chair and
her blue eyes sharpened into a hard brightness, her mind ticking swiftly over. Rich, but not as rich as she would have been in a month and a half. If Mike was as mercenary as all that, why hadn’t he taken the smart way out and stuck with her, the original heiress, the one in a position to ultimately give him the most?

  Foolish, foolish…her eyes swung to his silhouette and he seemed to be looking at her. If his reasons for giving her away to her guardians were not mercenary reasons—and the very fact that he had apparently betrayed her and thus lost her confidence and trust would prove that he was not mercenary—then that would mean that his reasons were something else entirely.

  Everyone was talking over her and around her, terms being discussed, plans being made, macabre, terrible plans, but she wasn’t even listening. She was sitting there quite calmly, her face no longer that terrible shade of white, thinking. She was totally unaware of the fact that she was being watched quite closely by that silhouette by the window. If he had a reason, then she could find it sooner or later. She was coming out of the shock and was no longer willing to take things at face value. And something was not quite right.

  She didn’t even feel any shock at the ease with which she was able to accept that her guardians wanted her dead. Retrospect guided her right along the path that Mike had taken and she saw his reasoning, realising it was sound. She was the only thing that stood between her aunt and millions of dollars. Dee, the daughter of a sister she had begun to hate and resent. Dee, the pretty girl she should have had but couldn’t, just as Dee’s father was the wealthy man she should have married but didn’t. It was all so glaringly obvious that she marvelled at her own stupidity at having never seen it before. Or hadn’t she? Hadn’t she run away when things became too much? Was that because she had sensed the antipathy in the house, and her own instinct for survival had prompted her to bolt from home? She’d exclaimed to Mike not so very long ago that this life had been killing her. Perhaps her subconscious had sensed that it had been more than just a figure of speech.

  And Mike was going to buy her all the time in the world. Her eyes narrowed on Judith, cat-like, looking extremely calculating, and everything fell into place. She knew what Mike was up to now. “You are such a fool, Judith,” she heard herself say, crystal clearly. “Such an utter fool.”

  The other woman swung around and stared at her with such a wealth of malevolence and antipathy gleaming in her small eyes that Dee had to swallow, taken aback at the sight of so much unreasoning, active hate.

  It appears to me, miss,” Judith hissed, coming forward and looking as if she’d dearly love to strike her, “that you’re not in any position to be saying much of anything at the moment, so I’d keep damn well quiet, if I were you!”

  “It does appear that way,” Dee replied calmly, and saw the figure at the window move at last. “But I don’t believe I shall remain silent, all the same. I—I just don’t understand you. I don’t understand you! Why do you hate me so? Why are you doing this? There’s enough money, more than enough for all of us! Don’t you realise that if you’d just once shown me a bit of true kindness, I would have been more than happy to share everything I have with you? My God, don’t you know that if—if you’d only given me a little love instead of this terrible, senseless animosity, I would have given you the world…” Unwanted and useless tears pricked her eyes and she brushed her face impatiently. She shouldn’t, not for them. They weren’t worth it. They weren’t worth—a drop of wetness splashed on her hands, then another.

  She was shocked at Judith’s harsh, mocking laughter, a sound that reverberated through her whole being and haunted her for quite some time afterwards. “Why do you suppose we’d think you worth the effort?” the older woman sneered, stalking close to eye her up and down with a loathing that was all too apparent. “And why do you think we’d be content with the crumbs that you’d see fit to throw our way when we could have it all! Oh, it’s so easy! It’s so incredibly easy! Don’t you know that I could crush you like an ant with one careless finger and never mourn the loss? Alice was a fool, but then she always was a fool! She actually expected me to be happy caring for her child, ready to accept the burden of someone who stood between me and everything I’ve always dreamed of! It was a stupid mockery, that pittance—” and the word was a poisonous spat of hate and envy and destroying greed, “—of an allowance. An insult to me! A damned slap in the face!”

  “It wasn’t!” Dee screamed, out of hurting for the memory of a mother so loved and needed and yearned for, and a mother so irrevocably gone. “It wasn’t! You could have had more than enough money put away, if you’d only saved your allowance while you lived at the house and had all your expenses paid! What does the money matter? I don’t understand!” Her total incomprehension made the statement a cry of bewilderment and remembered pain. “It brings me more grief and trouble than anything I know. I hate it, do you hear me—hate it!”

  “Well then, isn’t that convenient!” Judith retorted, pacing around Dee’s chair in a predatory manner that had her shrinking down into her seat. “Because you aren’t going to get it! All my life I’ve stood by and watched Alice get it all—all of it! Everything!” Her hand flew out in convulsive, blinded anger and out of the corner of her eye Dee saw Howard shrink away, as if Judith had hit him. “She had youth! She had beauty, and a damnable charm that I could never imitate, no matter how I tried! And in the end she had dear, handsome Charles, and so much money she could have shared more with me, a whole fortune more and—my God!—never would have even missed it! While Howard here,” she swept out a contemptuous hand and he cringed away even more, “hadn’t enough sense to hold down a decent job for more than a few months or a year at a time! And in the end, dear, lovely Alice got hers. Oh yes, in the end all of her youth and beauty and wealth got her nowhere, nowhere!”

  Dee couldn’t stop the deluge of grief that shook her at the callous dismissal of the bright and beloved personality that had once meant the entire world to her. “Her own sister! Oh God, her own sister—”

  She heard the other woman say abruptly, “Well then, that’s it. It’s a shame that those men we hired were fools, otherwise it’d be over now. But Carridine will help us, and that’s a surprise, Howard, isn’t it? We’d had him figured differently, but he’s just another Judas, like everyone else in the world.” She cocked her head in a grotesque caricature of a bright bird, and eyed Dee with a contemplative look that was utterly repulsive. “Suicide, perhaps. A slashing of the wrists would be messy, but effective. We could put her in the bathroom in her room, to avoid too much of a mess. Or there’s strangulation. You could hang yourself, but where would we put you?”

  Horrified disgust swamped Dee and she burst out uncontrollably, “My God, how can you stand there and tell me so calmly that you are—are actually able to contemplate—which one of you would cut my wrists? What kind of an animal are you?”

  “A crazed one,” a calm, deep voice intervened at last, like a breath of sanity in the terrible confrontation. Everyone turned as one to look at the man who had spoken. He was lounging against the wall near the window, hands in pockets, looking lazy, his green, green eyes surveying everything alertly. “An outcast of humanity. A maverick. A manifestation of evil, if you like. There are many, many descriptions for things like her.” The words literally dripped his utter distaste and contempt. He looked at Dee and slowly smiled into her eyes. “And so you figured it out, just like I’d known you would. I saw the very instant when it all occurred to you. It happened quicker than I’d thought it would, darling. You can come into the room now, Darrell.” And at these strange words, a youngish, blond man who was powerfully built walked into the room from the hall. He had come out of the spare bedroom.

  Howard and Judith were identical pictures of incredulity and shock. Their eyes fairly popped out of their heads at this unexpected development. Apparently they could handle blackmail and plotting a death more easily than discovery.

  Mike said to Dee, “I’d like for you to meet
a friend and colleague of mine, Darrell Krause. We went to school together some time back. I called him this morning before calling your guardians, and we set up a few bugs while you were so peacefully slumbering.” He turned to the astounded and dismayed Kimbles. “We’ve been recording everything that’s been said today. We have your admissions of guilt on tape. There’s absolutely no way to extricate yourselves from this.”

  Dee had nodded her head at his words, unsurprised, and she stood rather aimlessly and rubbed tiredly at her forehead. Then she looked around her with a blank expression and said quietly, “This isn’t happening. Life isn’t this bizarre, it really isn’t. People wanting to kill me, private investigators popping out of the woodwork—insanity, that’s what it is! I’ve gone mad.” The world seemed to be fuzzed over in an unfocussed way, as if there was a layer of cotton wool between her and everyone else. It was a rather nice insulation; shock, she thought irrelevantly, can be quite soothing. Your system shuts down until you have the strength to let everything sink in.

  She heard footsteps come her way and Mike was asking her, concerned, “Dee, are you all right?”

  She heard him, turned her head and would have answered, except that just at that moment there was a blur of movement from her left and she was looking on reflex to see what it was. Her eyes slewed that way just in time to see Judith reach swiftly into the pocket of her light suit jacket and pull out something remarkably wicked-looking, for as small as it was. Dee’s gaze went to it and finally her mind grasped what it was. It was a gun.

  That insulation of cotton wool was not entirely beneficial, she thought dazedly, as she stared into the face of that small, black death and found she couldn’t move. It was just like that mire of mud that she always dreamt about, holding her in place, trapping her for ever, and she was going to die any second now as Judith snarled out something that she didn’t quite catch. She could tell that it was full of her unreasoning hate and rage, though, and then the gun was lifted to aim right at her.