by Anne Stuart
He was breathing, slow and steady, his chest rising and falling, and she touched the bruise on his cheekbone with the lightest of touches. He moaned, a harsh, strangled sound from the back of his throat, and then was still again.
"So you're not mute," she said quietly. "And you can feel pain no matter how much stuff they pump in your veins. So what am I going to call you? Something ridiculous would probably be good for my piece of mind. Something like Elvis or Algernon."
She wouldn't have been surprised if he'd stirred in protest, but he lay still. "Adam wouldn't be bad. For the first man, you know. But you don't strike me as an Adam."
"Call 'im John," Mick suggested, appearing beside her with no warning. "It's a common-enough name. Here's your tape recorder." He handed her a minicassette recorder that looked as if it were made of titanium. It probably was.
"John," Libby echoed. "I like that. Simple, short, with no emotional baggage attached to it. Thank you, Mick. We'll call him John." She clicked the record button and began her inventory. "The subject, who shall be called John, is approximately six feet one inch tall—"
"Two." Alf's voice came over the intercom. She glanced up, but she could see nothing beyond the camouflaged screen. "He's six two and one-quarter. We've got all those records already."
"A scientist doesn't rely on someone else's data, Mr. Droggan," she said sternly. She clicked on the tape recorder again. "He appears to be in excellent physical shape apart from some bruising along his left rib cage and a cut under his right eye. He has scars on his legs…two-and-half centimeters on the front of his lower left calf, seven centimeters on his right thigh. His feet are callused and consistent with years of being shoeless. There doesn't appear to be any flaccidity in his musculature, any atrophy despite the fact that he's been kept essentially motionless for the last…" She clicked the pause button on the recorder. "How long has he been here, Mick?"
Mick was perched on a rock nearby, watching with interest. "Almost three months, miss."
"Three months," she continued into the recorder. "He's being kept on a gurney, with arm restraints and large amounts of an experimental drug to keep him under control. I see no sign of birth trauma to suggest he might have been born in the wilderness, but I can't rule that out…" A sudden thought struck her, and she clicked off the recorder, turning to Mick. "Is he circumcised?"
She heard Alf's roar of laughter over the speaker. "Why don't you check him yourself, Doc? I thought you said you didn't trust anyone else's observation when you were right at hand."
She willed herself not to blush. She was a scientist, someone who prided herself on cool, dispassionate observation. "Very well," she said, reaching for the waistband of his shorts.
"Don't tease her, Alf," Mick said sternly. "He hasn't been cut, miss."
Without betraying her relief she let her hands drop and began transcribing again. "He looks to be about in his mid-twenties, though that could be deceptive. He could look younger than his actual age due to lack of exposure to pollutants and modern food, or he could appear prematurely aged due to the harsh life he's lived. At this point I'll estimate him to be twenty-five, and will probably adjust that when I've had more time to observe and perhaps communicate."
"He's not going to communicate with you, Dr. Holden," Mick said earnestly. "Even when he's not doped up he just glares at people, not reacting to a thing they say. Dr. McDonough thought he might be deaf, but he ruled that out. He just can't understand a bloody thing anyone says."
"Can't? Or won't?" she said serenely.
"You can lead a horse to water but you can't make 'im drink," Alf said over the speaker.
She looked toward the screen, narrowing her gaze at the unseen bully behind it. "Mr. Droggan, if you don't have anything helpful to add, would you please be quiet? I'm trying to concentrate on my observations. Why don't you go to bed and leave Mick here if you don't think I'd be safe alone? Though with the way you've got him tied up and doped up it would take nothing short of a miracle to get him to move."
"Sorry, Doc," Alf said, sounding not the slightest bit regretful. "Our orders are not to leave you alone with Tarzan here."
"John," she said firmly. "His name is John. And whose orders are those?"
"Mr. Hunnicutt's. We don't want another accident, now, do we?"
"Another accident? What are you talking about?"
"We don't want to lose another scientist just because we weren't careful enough."
"Are you telling me that he killed Dr. McDonough? That's ridiculous! Dr. McDonough died in a car crash. I read his obituary."
"Of course, miss," Alf's voice replied. "Whatever you say. Just remember you're dealing with Edward J. Hunnicutt. He can cover up anything he wants to cover up."
She turned to look at Mick in shock, but Mick merely shrugged, his narrow face blank.
She picked up the recorder again, hoping no one would notice the faint tremor in her hand, in her voice. "The subject, John, appears to be scarred and bruised from his difficult life, but in no way appears dangerous. His hands and feet are long and narrow, well-formed, and there's a jagged scar on his forehead near his hairline that may account for some brain trauma. He also has…" She turned to Mick accusingly. "Oh, my God, what happened to his throat?"
"Neither of us did it, miss," Mick replied instantly. "It was like that when they brought him into us. I think they might have put a rope around his neck when they captured him."
She stared down at the marks on his strong neck in horror. "It looks like they tried to hang him."
"Oh, they wouldn't have done that, Doc," Mick said. "They knew his value the moment they found him. They might have strung him up for a bit to teach him a lesson, but they wouldn't have wanted to kill him. Those Russians are a rough lot but they like their money. They were probably just a bit overenthusiastic with him."
"And then he got into yours and Alf's clutches."
"I haven't hurt him, miss!" he said. "And Alf's only kicked him when he's been provoked."
"Alf strikes me as a man who's easily provoked," she said, knowing he was listening.
"You got that right, girlie." His voice came back over the intercom. "Are you finished giving your little pet the once-over, or do you want me to turn him and strip him for you?"
She was suddenly exhausted. The heat and humidity of the artificial area closed down around her like a wet blanket, and the hours of traveling caught up with her. "I'll finish my initial report tomorrow," she said. "In the meantime, I want you to unfasten his arm restraints."
"Not on your life, girlie. I'm not going in there with him roaming free."
"You can't keep him chained to the gurney all the time, Mr. Droggan," she said sharply.
"I don't. I let him loose on occasion. He gets his exercise, trust me. Tell you what, I'll compromise. I'll lower his dosage just a tiny bit so you can see what he's like when you come by tomorrow. Then maybe you'll think twice about letting him roam free all the time."
It was more than she'd hoped for. "It's possible. I'm sure I'll feel better after a few hours' rest, and I'm eager to get started on him."
"I wouldn't be too eager if I were you," Mick muttered. "He's a pain in the arse. Besides, we've got the life of Riley here. Anything you want, Hunnicutt will get. Newest movies, any food you could possibly want, books, telly. What more could you ask?"
"Civilization. I like cities."
"Well, that's where you differ from Tar…er, John. He's never seen a city in his life, I expect, and it would scare the crap out of him if he did."
"Then it's a good thing I'm not planning to take him to the city."
"Hunnicutt is."
She turned to stare at him. "What do you mean?"
"Well, he's hardly likely to release him to the wild again, now, is he? He's going to take him around the world and show him off. For all I know he might even breed him."
"Breed him? He's a man, not an animal!" she protested, shocked.
"He's both. And Mr. Hunnicutt could do a
nything he pleases. Everyone's got a price, and he could find a womb for rent easier than most. You haven't looked at the lab reports on his blood, have you? I don't understand half of it, but Dr. McDonough's findings were…what did he say, Alf?"
Alf's voice drifted back over the speaker. "Significant, Mick. He said the findings were significant."
"Then why the hell am I here?" Libby demanded. "I'm an anthropology and linguistics expert with a premed background. You need people trained in hematology and biology and neurology."
"Oh, they'll come, miss. You're only the second in a long line of experts who are going to get a piece of John, there," Alf's disembodied voice was sepulchral.
"Good," Libby said, telling herself she was relieved.
It wasn't until she was back in the silence of her duplicate room, stretched out on the double bed, that she remembered that the first expert to view John had died.
And she felt a sudden shiver dance across her skin in the perfect temperature of her room.
Chapter Four
« ^ »
Someone had been there. He'd heard her voice, soft, low, oddly soothing, though he didn't have any idea what she was saying to him. She touched his body, her fingers gentle on his side, against his skin. When she touched his face he jerked away from her, instinctively wary. But she simply murmured to him, those meaningless words, as her sensitive fingertips brushed his body.
He lay on the thing they'd strapped him to and breathed, breathed in the rich scent of her. He could pick out the smells quite easily, soap and shampoo and other artificial fragrances, covering up the clean, sweet scent of a female.
He heard the other voices, too, the ones that accompanied pain. She was part of them, and he couldn't trust her. She was keeping him tied up, just as they were, and she would hurt him, just as they had. It didn't matter that her voice was soft and soothing, that she smelled sweet and female. She was one more jailer, one more stranger to trap him. He couldn't forget that, couldn't lower his guard.
He made a low, growling noise in the back of his throat. It was the best he could do—it felt as if a huge fist had caught his throat in an iron grip. He could breathe better now—in the beginning he'd been afraid he'd suffocate. But he still couldn't do more than growl.
He flexed his hands surreptitiously. They were always watching him—he knew it with instincts honed from years in the jungle. They'd come with another shot before long, and he'd be out again.
But maybe this time he'd fight it a little longer. Long enough to open his eyes and see the woman they'd brought here. The woman who smelled so good.
Libby had nightmares. It shouldn't have surprised her—she was thousands of miles away from her home, yet surrounded by familiar things, and she had a wicked case of jet lag. It was little wonder she'd dreamed of a wild man chasing a small car down a twisting road, catching it with his strong hands and flinging it over his head into the chasm. She sat up, and the lights came on, illuminating the familiar-unfamiliar room. It was as ridiculous as most dreams were, she reminded herself. John might be very strong, but there was no way any human could pick up an automobile and fling it over his head.
The car had been her brand-new VW Beetle, safely garaged back in Chicago. But she wasn't the scientist trapped inside, screaming to get out as he was flung to his death. It was Dr. McDonough.
She shivered in the perfect temperature, sliding her feet out of the bed. It was a perfectly understandable dream, she told herself. McDonough had died in a car wreck, plummeting off a cliff somewhere in Australia. Alf had tried to tell her John was responsible, so it was an obvious connection her subconscious had made. Throw in the fact that her apartment had been duplicated without her knowledge, and it was no wonder she'd dreamed her car had been here as well.
Unless, of course, she was dreaming that John would kill her as well.
Ridiculous, she said under her breath. There was no reason to think John would want to hurt anybody. Except Alf, with his broken arm. But then, she wouldn't be surprised if Alf had been deliberately hurting him. Who could blame John for fighting back when he was kept tied up, in pain, trapped after what was presumably a lifetime of freedom?
But wasn't she part and parcel of that entrapment? Did he have the understanding to realize the difference? For that matter, was there any difference? Edward J. Hunnicutt probably didn't kick him in the ribs with his boots, but he was the one who paid the bills that kept him prisoner. And she was there to observe and record, more ways to keep him trapped. He had every right to hate her as well.
He was too drugged up to hate anyone, but maybe she'd better think twice about having him roam free without tranquilizers, not when she was going to be in the room with him. A little bit at a time was the best answer. A little bit fewer drugs, a little bit more freedom, a little bit more access to him until she was sure he was harmless.
As harmless as Alf's broken arm.
She glanced at her watch. She'd set it before she fell into bed, but she still had no idea whether she'd slept twelve hours or twenty-four. It was a little after four.
She took a shower, hoping it would blast the fog out of her brain. This time she dressed in cooler clothes—if she was going to spend time in that jungle habitat she'd need to be more comfortable.
There was a refrigerator in one corner, and she opened it up on the off chance there might be a Diet Coke in there. She preferred Tab, but it was almost impossible to find, except at a small grocery store where they ordered it especially for her, and she had to make do with DC when she traveled.
She'd underestimated Ed Hunnicutt. The refrigerator was full of those familiar fuchsia cans, and she breathed a sigh of pure pleasure. For the right can of pop she was willing to forgive almost any transgression, including this mock apartment.
She drank down half of the can, ignoring the way it clashed with her toothpaste, and felt the delicious jump of caffeine and saccharine in her veins. It came as no surprise that the refrigerator was also full of her favorite mango yogurt, and she took out a carton and ate it, washing it down with the Tab.
When she'd finished her impromptu breakfast, she took another can of Tab and started toward the door, half expecting Mick or Alf to appear out of nowhere. She pushed against the jamb and the door slid open noiselessly. There was no way she could tell whether it had been locked during the night or not, and it was a waste of time to worry about it. There were some things you had to take on trust, and John was doped, bound and locked up in his habitat.
Of course, Libby was far from certain that John was the most dangerous creature on this island.
Fortunately she had always had a good sense of direction, since the long white-painted hallways had no distinguishing features. She made it down to the observation room without a single wrong turn, hoping against hope the place would be deserted.
No such luck. Alf and Mick were playing cards and drinking beer, and Mick raised his head as she appeared, an oddly sweet smile wreathing his villainous face. "Wondered if you were going to sleep all day," he said cheerfully. "Want a beer?"
She controlled her instinctive shudder, holding up her can of pop. "I've got my own."
"Poison," Alf growled. "That stuff's no good for you—it's all chemicals."
"But they taste delicious," she said serenely.
"Looks like the doc's in a better mood after a good night's sleep," Alf observed slyly. "You ready to deal with the ape-man?"
"John," she corrected him. And whether she liked it or not, Alf was right. After a good night's sleep she was far better able to deal with a bullying brute like him.
She glanced over at the screen. It was daylight, the sun filtering down through the heavy overgrowth, which answered her question as to how long she'd slept. John was still strapped to the gurney, comatose. "I thought you were going to lower his dosage."
"I did," Alf said, dealing the cards.
"He doesn't look any different. Any more alert."
Alf shrugged. "I only said I'd lower the dose
slightly. As you rightly pointed out, it wouldn't do to get old Ed mad at me, and we can't afford to keep losing scientists. Someone might begin to wonder."
"Yeah, right," Libby muttered. Rest had put all her wild imaginings in perspective, showing Alf's dire warnings as the ridiculous melodrama that they were. Dr. McDonough had died in a car accident. It was tragic, but far from sinister, and if the half of what she'd heard about McDonough's nasty little peculiarities were true, it wasn't particularly tragic.
Nothing was going to happen to her. She'd do her job, make her observations and go back to Chicago to write the paper that would make her career.
Leaving John at the mercy of Alf and Ed Hunnicutt.
She wasn't going to think about that right now. "I'm going in to see him now," she said. "You can finish your game—I'll call you if I need you."
Alf shrugged. "Suit yourself, Doc. There's not much he can do, tied up like that. But you give a scream if it looks like he might break free."
"He can't break free, Alf," Mick said earnestly. "You've got him bound so tight you almost cut off the circulation in his hands…"
"Mick!" Alf said sharply. He gave Libby what he obviously hoped was a winning smile. "Mick exaggerates. He's got a soft heart for dumb creatures like himself."
Libby didn't smile back. "I want you to loosen his restraints. Enough so that he's comfortable."
"Oh, he's comfortable enough. He doesn't have any sense of what's going on, anyway. Those drugs keep him pretty well paralyzed."
"Then you don't need to restrain him so tightly."
Alf let out a long-suffering sigh. "Go and check the restraints, will you, Mick, before her ladyship has a hissy fit? I'll deal the next hand."
"Sure thing, Alf. How much am I down?"
"You're into me for your wages up until May, laddie," he cackled. "Maybe we'd be better off playing for matchsticks."
"You said it was no fun unless we played for money," Mick said.
Alf glared at him. "Go and check the restraints, Mick, and try not to think too hard."