First Impressions

by Jude Deveraux

“Enough to have an idea of what I’m dealing with. I don’t think either you or your daughter are in much physical danger. I think he just wants the necklace.”

  “And after he gets it, will he release her?”

  “We’ll find her,” Brad said. “You can count on that.” He squeezed her hand again. “I’ve already alerted some people I know in New York. He won’t be able to escape.”

  “Who is it?” she asked.

  “Later,” Brad said, looking again at the clock. “You’d better go. Oh, and Eden, if something should happen, I put a few weapons in this car. Under the seats, and in the glove box.” He handed her a car key. “Just in case.” As he closed his hands around hers, he said, “But I want you to know that I’ll always be close by you.”

  “What if he hears you?” she said, panic in her voice. “He said I was to come alone. He said—”

  “Trust me,” Brad said. “Trust me to know what I’m doing as much as you’d trust McBride.” To Brad’s disgust, these words made Eden calm down immediately. He nodded toward the door, and she put her hand on the handle. He wanted to kiss her, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Later, he thought, they’d sort out what was between them personally.

  Eden took the big flashlight that Brad had given her and walked down the dirt road toward where she knew the old house awaited. She doubted that her daughter would be inside. Would her kidnapper get the necklace, then take it to an appraiser before he released Melissa? If he did that, he’d find out that the necklace was worth nothing. Then what would happen to her daughter?

  There was no gravel on the old road and weeds had grown up in the center of it, but she could see that they’d recently been bent by a car running over them. With each step she took, her heart pounded harder and faster.

  When the dark outline of the house came into view, she was sweating and shaking. What if—? she kept asking herself. What if he didn’t keep his end of the bargain? But then, she hadn’t kept her end of the deal, had she? She hadn’t come alone; Brad was with her. At that thought she wanted to run back to the car and tell Brad he had to leave, but she didn’t.

  When she got close enough to see the house more clearly in the moonlight, she gasped. It was completely enveloped in blooming wisteria. She knew that most people in eastern North Carolina considered wisteria a noxious weed, but she couldn’t see it that way. To her, it was one of the most beautiful plants on earth. She loved the way the trunks twisted about one another, loved the narrow, pointed leaves, and loved the drooping cluster of flowers that hung off it in the spring.

  To the locals, wisteria “escaped.” According to them, if you planted one stick of it, “soon” it would engulf everything in its path. The soon was about twenty years, and to Eden’s gardener’s mind, all it took was a bit of pruning each year to control it.

  Where wisteria was most likely to “escape” was in old, abandoned houses like this one. Many years ago, someone had planted a wisteria bush and had probably kept it pruned. When the house was abandoned, the other plants, the magnolias and the snowball bushes, had been devoured by wild vegetation that was stronger than the modern, hybridized plants. But not the wisteria. Given the right climate, wisteria could cover the earth. Not even forests could overcome wisteria. The vine would grow right up the tree, keeping all sunlight from it, and eventually kill the tree.

  In the moonlight, to Eden’s eyes, the wisteria-draped house was ethereally beautiful. The old house was still strong enough to hold the heavy vines upright, and the flowers cascaded down it. It was a Hansel and Gretel cottage for gardeners, she thought.

  The beauty of the old house made her calm down somewhat. She tentatively stepped onto the rotting porch, testing the boards before putting her whole weight on them. The boards creaked, and she paused, listening. She thought she heard something to her right, but it was probably only an animal. The door to the house was open and she walked inside, shining her light around the room. She saw nothing but a falling-down old house, a common sight in North Carolina. The wallpaper and the fireplace surround made her think the house was from the 1840s, maybe later.

  A scurrying in the back made her jump. She put her hand to her throat, then turned out the light. “Melissa?” she whispered, but there was no answer. She stood still for a moment, listening, but heard nothing. But her instinct told her that she was being watched. With the light turned off, the house was pitch-black. The wisteria outside kept any moonlight from coming in; she couldn’t see her hand.

  “I’m leaving the bag now,” she said too loudly. If anyone was there, he’d hear her. “I just want my daughter back. You can have the necklace. I won’t even report that it’s missing. Please,” she said. “I just want my daughter.”

  There was no response, and she heard nothing—which made her sure that there was another human nearby. If she’d been the first person to enter the house, animals would have been scurrying everywhere. But someone else had disturbed them first, and now they were hiding and waiting for all the humans to leave.

  “The necklace is here,” she said, then started backing toward the door. She didn’t want to turn the light back on. What if she saw who it was? That might make him refuse to release Melissa.

  She backed into the wall, then had to feel her way to the door. When her hands touched the door, she backed through it. Only when she was outside in the cool air did she turn back around and start walking again. In her panic, she hit the step too hard and her ankle twisted under her. She went down, hitting the ground in front of the steps hard. An old board hit her in the side, making her gasp.

  But the fall didn’t frighten her as much as what she saw. Under the porch were two pinpoints of light: eyes. An animal? A person?

  Fumbling, Eden tried to stand upright, but her hand caught on something, and she flailed about as she tried to get away. She didn’t want to see who it was under the porch. To see, to know, would endanger Melissa.

  When Eden finally managed to stand, she started running back toward the car. After the dark of the inside of the house, the moonlight was almost bright, so she didn’t turn on the flashlight. When she saw the car, she breathed a sigh of relief—until she saw that Brad wasn’t in it. Her first impulse was to call for him, but she couldn’t do that. Her second thought was of anger for his not staying put, and anger at herself for asking him to help her. But she couldn’t have done it by herself, she thought. She couldn’t have secretly driven a car out from under the noses of McBride and the whole FBI force, could she?

  She leaned against Brad’s car. Now what? she wondered. Did she wait here for Brad like a good little girl, or did she go back into the dark woods surrounding the house and try to find…find what?

  My daughter, she thought. Try to find my daughter.

  Slowly, she moved away from the car and slipped into the woods that were closing in on the house. There had to be outbuildings still standing. Maybe—She didn’t have any plans or concrete thoughts about what she was doing, but maybe she could see something or find out something.

  As a gardener, she knew something about the way plants grew. From the way the wisteria was draping over the house, it grew from the side. Most people planted wisteria by a door, where it could drape over a porch roof. If that was the case, then there was a door on the east side of the building—and there would be a thick trunk to the vine. Eden could hide there and, in secret, see who came out of the building. She could even follow him, or if he got in a car, she could get a license number.

  Hurrying, in case she missed him, Eden made her way around to the side of the building, then slipped through the darkness toward where she thought the trunk to the huge vine might be. It was easy to find, and she thought that if she clung to it and stayed very still, she would look like part of the gnarled, twisted trunk. If he aimed a light directly on her, she’d never fool him, but she doubted that he’d do that. If she had any luck at all, he’d walk right past her.

  In the distance she heard a car start, heard it crunch on the rocky surf
ace of the drive. Had Brad returned and driven away? Without her? No, she had an idea that he was the type of man who’d never leave a “lady” to fend for herself.

  So who was in the car? she wondered. Who was driving away? After a few moments, the sound of the car faded, and all was again silent, but, still, there were no sounds from inside the house. The animals didn’t start making their noises; they knew that a human was there.

  Eden stayed very still, willing her heart to slow down and stop making so much noise. After what seemed like an hour, she heard a sound from inside the house. Within seconds she heard footsteps. Someone was walking inside the house.

  She waited, staying utterly still. She heard the noise of the paper of the bag she’d put the necklace in. Was he opening it? Or did he trust her? She saw no light, so maybe he was just feeling it rather than looking at it. She held her breath when the footsteps came toward her. Yes, he was going to use the side door. He was coming toward her!

  When he got to the door, she saw the silhouette of a tall man. In his hand was the bag, but she couldn’t see his face. She watched in silence as he walked within two feet of her and headed toward the back of the house.

  When he was about fifty feet away, she moved from her hiding place and started to follow him. She stepped on a twig, and the man started to turn around. Eden drew in her breath. He was going to see her!

  Before the man could turn his head, a hand clasped over her mouth and she was pulled back into a thicket of pyracantha—the barbed wire of the plant world. At least twenty thorns sank into her flesh, but she couldn’t move to get away from them for fear of making noise.

  The hand was still over her mouth, the thorns were sticking into her, and she was jammed up to a body that she’d come to know well. Through the bushes she could see the silhouette of the man with the bag in his hand. He was looking back toward them and listening, but he saw nothing, heard nothing.

  There were tears in Eden’s eyes from the pain of the thorns. When the man with the bag turned away and started walking again, she shook her head to get McBride’s hand off her mouth. Frowning, she looked at him. She wanted to bawl him out for lying, sneaking, and tricking her, but he had on his FBI face, with no hint that there was anything personal between them. Besides, she was glad to see him. If he hadn’t shown up, she would have been seen by the man.

  Jared was dressed all in black, and his face had been darkened, so she could hardly see him in the shadow of the bush. Silently, he motioned for her to move back into the open, and she readily obeyed. Once she was free of the bushes, she started twisting about to remove the thorns from her skin.

  Stepping ahead of her, Jared looked toward where the man had gone. She could see nothing. Turning back to her, he motioned for her to go back toward Brad’s car. It was only when he turned that she saw that he had night-vision goggles on his head, and that there was a large pistol in his hand. Around his waist was a belt that held more weapons.

  Eden obeyed him. Silently, she turned toward the driveway and headed toward the car Brad had borrowed. But the second she was out of sight of Jared, she turned back. For one thing, she didn’t think it was safe for her to be near a car, and for another, Jared’s presence made her believe that Melissa was somewhere nearby.

  “Eden!” She heard an urgent whisper that she knew was Brad’s.

  Putting out her hands, she went forward. He caught her hand in his and pulled her down to the ground beside him.

  “Where have you been?” he asked, worry in his voice.

  “I went back to the car and you weren’t here, so I—”

  “I think I know where Melissa might be.”

  “Take me there,” she said. “Now.”

  “Remi is here, so don’t get frightened if you see someone.”

  “Remi? The son-in-law you don’t trust?” She looked at him. “Was he hiding under the porch of the house?”

  “Yeah,” Brad said, and she could see his smile in the darkness. “Clever, aren’t you?”

  She started to say that she’d discovered him by clumsiness, not clever deduction, but didn’t. Brad took her hand and turned to his left, away from the house, and away from the car.

  “Icehouse,” he said over his shoulder, but then said no more. They unclasped hands, but she could follow him easily. He walked slowly, always waiting for her to catch up. They used no light, and they were as silent as possible.

  An icehouse, Eden thought, and knew that it was a good choice for a hiding place. Icehouses were nearly always underground, so no lights would show on the outside. And no screams could be heard, Eden involuntarily thought, then shivered.

  As she watched Brad moving through the woods, she thought maybe she should tell him that McBride was there, and that the woods were probably full of FBI agents, but Eden said nothing. She was at the point where she wasn’t sure of anything or anyone.

  It took nearly twenty minutes to find the old icehouse, and Eden knew that Brad had to have done a lot of research to know where it was. Or had he played there as a child?

  There was an artificially created hill, and on the north side was a heavy oak door. Brad ran his hands down it, feeling for the lock. There was none.

  When Brad reached to pull the door open, Eden grabbed his arm, her expression telling him to be careful. Smiling at her, he patted her hand, then he pulled a pistol out of the holster at his side. He hadn’t been wearing a gun earlier. He motioned for Eden to go into the trees to safety, but she shook her head. She’d stand outside, but she wasn’t leaving.

  Brad pulled the door open, and when it made no sound on its hinges, Eden knew that they had been oiled recently. The inside was darker than the house had been. She heard insects scuttling across the floor, but no other sound.

  “Melissa?” Eden said into the darkness, and in the next second, she heard whimpering. Her daughter!

  Stumbling over her feet, Eden ran toward the sound. She could see nothing, but her hands felt warmth. Frantically, she reached out and touched her daughter’s big, hard belly. In seconds, she found Melissa’s face and pulled down the gag from her mouth.

  “Oh, Mommy!” Melissa cried. “I knew you’d come. It’s been horrible, Mommy. It’s been—”

  “I know, sweetheart,” Eden said as she felt down Melissa’s arms. Her daughter was in a chair, her hands taped together behind her. Brad turned on his flashlight, and the little room flooded with pale light. Eden went to her knees behind her daughter and tried to tear the duct tape off. When her fingers couldn’t do it, she used her teeth.

  “Here,” Brad asked from above her, and handed her a knife.

  “Mommy, Mommy,” was about all Melissa could say.

  “I’m sorry,” Eden said, sawing at the tape to free her daughter. “He wanted the necklace, so he took you. It was all my fault.” She got the tape off her daughter’s wrists, then moved to the front of her to release her ankles.

  Brad helped Eden stand up, as her knees were shaking.

  “Could you help me up?” Melissa said to Brad.

  He had to put his arms under hers to lift her, as her legs and arms had lost their circulation. “I think we should get out of here.”

  “Too late for that,” said a man from the doorway. He was a heavyset man, with thick eyebrows, and Eden had never in her life seen a man with so little life in his eyes. There was no emotion there, no feelings.

  “Who are you?” Eden whispered.

  “Somebody that don’t want no trouble,” the man said, looking Eden up and down, then looking at Melissa. When Brad moved his foot, the man turned quickly and shot him in the leg. The sound inside the earth-encased room was deafening.

  With a scream, Melissa collapsed back onto the chair. Eden ran to Brad as he fell to the floor.

  “He’s all right,” the man in the doorway said. “I just wounded him. You.” He pointed his gun at Eden. “I want you to come with me.”

  “You have the necklace,” she said.

  “Yeah, I got it,” he said, pull
ing it out of his jacket pocket. “I didn’t plan on that. That skinny guy held on to it so tight I had to pry it out of his hands.”

  Eden looked at the man, trying to understand what was going on. If he didn’t want the necklace, what did he want? And if he hadn’t taken the necklace, who was he?

  “You gonna get up or am I gonna have to shoot the kid?” He pointed his gun at Melissa.

  “You want the paintings, don’t you?” Eden said softly as she walked toward him.

  “Yeah, sure. What else would I want?”

  She glanced down at Brad on the floor. The bullet had grazed his thigh. He was bleeding and in pain, but she knew that he’d be all right. She walked slowly, so the man in the doorway could see that she wasn’t going to cause any problems.

  “My house is full of FBI agents,” she said calmly. “It will be difficult to get the paintings out of the house.”

  “Your house used to be full of agents,” the man said, “but I got rid of a lot of them, including the ones around here.”

  Eden tried to keep from gasping out loud. Was Jared one of the agents he’d rid himself of? She couldn’t keep the blood from draining from her face.

  “Yeah, missy,” the man said, an ugly half grin on his face. “I got rid of your boyfriend too.” He glanced at Brad on the floor, who was wrapping the sleeves of his windbreaker around the wound in his leg. “One of ’em, anyway. So which one are you plannin’ to stay with?” he asked Eden, smirking like a dirty little schoolboy. He waved his gun at Brad. “He know what you and McBride did in that shed?” He looked at Brad. “And she know what you did with your fancy dame? You three are why I never wanted to settle down and have a family. Ever’body in bed with ever’body else.”

  “If you’re insinuating that my mother—” Melissa began, trying to heave herself up out of the chair.

  “No!” Eden shouted when the man pointed his gun at Melissa. Eden leaped to put her own body between the path of the bullet and her daughter.

  “Ain’t that sweet?” the man said. “But I ain’t never killed no pregnant woman and I don’t plan to. Now you,” he said, motioning to Eden, “you come with me. I got a couple of men waitin’ to load up the paintin’s, then we’ll get out of your way.”