So this is what it’s like, she thought, nestling closer to him. This is how it can be for people…
She wanted to turn and kiss him, to make love with him again, but a grim realization pierced her rush of affection for him. This was also how it would never be again between them.
Last night he’d said he loved her. He’d been innocent of knowing who she really was and why she’d come to the Valley.
Once, she’d hoped that he would understand. Now she wasn’t so sure. She’d hidden the truth from him so long and was still hiding it. He was a man in the public eye, and she was a woman who’d compromised herself repeatedly.
She fingered the charm around her neck. If the truth about her came out, rumors would sprout and grow like a tangle of malevolent vines. Her head and heart ached at the thought of what people would say about all of it.
She’d be seen as a gold digger twice over, after Louisa’s money and Andrew’s, too. She’d allowed herself one night with Andrew—a night still cloaked in half-truths and secret motives.
She shouldn’t have done this, and she prayed their one night together wouldn’t be discovered. Too nervous and guilty to go back to sleep, she wanted only to escape the scene of her crime—not theirs, but hers.
She woke Andrew and told him they needed to get back before it began to grow light. He tried to take her into his arms again, but she slipped out of bed. She felt unclean and she yearned for a shower. But there wasn’t time. She was starting to panic.
She wanted to be back at Fairchild Acres. There, she would pack her things and write a note to Louisa saying she was leaving—no two weeks’ notice, no noble excuses. She would just escape as quickly and cleanly as possible.
Andrew sensed her distress. “Marie? What’s wrong? Do you have regrets? Are you sorry this happened?”
“I just don’t want us to be caught—it might hurt you in the election,” she said. “Jacko will smear you all he can. As for me, I just want out of here. The situation between Louisa and me’s becoming too difficult.”
“I don’t want you to go,” he said. “I love you. But if you have to leave, I’ll come to you in Darwin, I swear.”
You won’t want to when you know the truth about me, she thought. And I won’t be in Darwin. I don’t know where I’ll end up.
But she said, “Any place would be better than here. And after the election would be better than now. It was crazy dangerous to do this. And it was my fault. All mine.”
He rose, still naked, and grasped her shoulders. “No. I’ve wanted you from the moment you gave me back the charm. And we touched. I never believed in charms and such things. But it happened. I wanted you, and I came after you. If what we did was wrong, I’m to blame, too. You never acted like a seductress, you know.”
I did last night, she thought, but said nothing. She started putting on her clothes. When she got to the bungalow, she’d throw the green outfit in the incinerator. She never wanted to see it again.
He frowned. “Marie? You want to go back right now? Don’t you want to even take a shower? I mean—”
“I want to go now,” she said unhappily. “I’m getting a bad feeling about being here. I don’t care about a shower. I just want out of here before it’s light.”
Looking perplexed and disbelieving, he followed her lead and began to dress. “If you regret this, I’m sorry, but—”
“I don’t,” she replied. “I wanted it to happen. But I should be back on the grounds without anyone seeing me. It’s best to go now. Please.” She was nearly in tears. He held her a long moment.
“Please,” she whispered again, her cheek against his chest where his charm used to rest. “Please.”
When they stepped outside, the sky was still dark. She had been a virgin when she’d entered this room, but was one no longer. But she better understood now what had happened to Colette. And to Louisa.
She and Andrew talked little on the drive back. She knew that she seemed distant and moody and more than a little sad. The silence became harder to bear, so that almost a mile from the Fairchild Acres gates, where a road forked, she suddenly asked Andrew to stop. She’d bike the rest of the way.
He got the bike from the truck bed while she changed back into her tennis shoes and shorts. She folded up her skirt and tucked it into her backpack. Without waiting for Andrew’s help, she got out of the truck and shouldered her pack into place.
She walked to the bike and took it by the handlebars. He looked down at her, his expression both puzzled and concerned. “I wish you wouldn’t go everyplace on that rickety old bike.”
“It gets me where I need to go,” she said airily. “And I need to go back and start packing.”
“I’ll call you tonight,” he said.
“Sure,” she replied as casually as she could. “You can try. I may still be traveling. But I’ll talk to you as soon as I can.”
“When can I see you?” Andrew asked. “I have to see you again.”
“If you want to, then you will,” she said cryptically. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed his cheek. “Good luck in the election. And goodbye for now.”
He seized her by the upper arms. “No goodbyes. I’ll see you soon. Count on it.”
He kissed her so thoroughly the world seemed to spin around her. In spite of his words, she knew that this really might be goodbye, final and complete.
But she pretended otherwise. He managed a weak smile. “Until later then,” she said, and mounted the bike. He stood and watched her go.
Both of them were too distraught to notice two men, barely visible on the hill behind them, watching. Their camera had clicked almost a dozen times. It clicked as Andrew got back into the truck and drove down a different fork than Marie had taken.
The men got back into their own truck. They drove to the same fork and went left, following Marie through the darkness.
Chapter Seventeen
Marie became aware of headlights approaching from behind. They lit the tree trunks and leaves in a dizzying kaleidoscope of shifting brightness and shadow.
In fact, the lights were approaching too fast—whoever was behind her was speeding, as well as weaving, because the light and darkness before her arced crazily. She glanced over her shoulder, and the headlights almost blinded her. They seemed to belong to a truck that veered back and forth on the road, gaining on her.
A drunk, she thought nervously and began to pull over to the side to get out of its erratic path. But a ditch ran beside the road, leaving her only a narrow margin to negotiate, and suddenly the truck was upon her, slowing now, keeping her in the beams of its headlights, and it seemed headed straight for her.
She struggled to keep the bike balanced in the long, dry, clutching grass. The brightening glare confused her, and the rumble of the engine filled her ears. The driver was bearing down on her, going more slowly, but she couldn’t dodge out of his way.
He’s doing this deliberately, she thought. Or he’s completely out of control—and then she had no time to think, because the truck braked, hitting her back wheel, sending the bike spinning out of control and into the ditch. Somehow she swung herself free, but landed on it, a handlebar hitting her stomach, and her head striking the dirt. Pain flashed through her, and she couldn’t get her breath.
Then she heard someone scrambling down the bank, but opening her eyes, could see only a man who seemed made of shadows. She struggled to get to her feet, but he was on her, pinioning her arms, and a rough hand clutched her throat.
An unshaven face scraped her cheek, and a hoarse voice whispered, “Don’t worry, love.” Stunned, flailing impotently, she felt herself hauled from the ditch and pushed into the back of a van.
Then a second man grasped her face and forced her head to tilt back. He pried open her jaws. She gathered her strength to try to fight back, but then she felt something warm and watery shoot down her throat. What? she thought in panic. Are they drugging me…?
The realization stumbled and swayed in her mind, and then
it vanished. The world went dim, she could no longer think, and she collapsed limply on the backseat. She barely felt her hands being tied behind her, or the impact of her body being pushed to the floor, or the scratchiness of an old blanket spread over her motionless form.
She woke groggily to the distant sound of ranting galah birds. She heard wind and smelled dust and mustiness. Opening her eyes, she saw that she seemed to be in some small, nearly empty building of stone and weathered planks. An old shelter for a shepherd or stockman. Slices of sunlight beat through the missing split shingles of the roof.
She ached all over, her brain was muddled, and her mouth dry. It was also taped shut. Her hands, wrists scraped, were bound fast behind her back, and her feet tied together at the ankles. She lay on her side on a rough blanket on the dirt floor. She stared at a stony wall with one old window frame, empty of glass.
And she knew she wasn’t alone. The scent of tea hovered in the hot air and, oddly, peanut butter. A mumble of voices came from behind her, men playing cards. Their voices were low, their words indistinct because of music coming from a tinny-sounding radio.
She could see her green shorts and shirt, now torn, dirty and spotted with dried blood. Her thighs were criss-crossed with scratches, darkened by bruises. She wriggled, trying to ease the pain and cramping of her body.
“Oh, ho!” said a man. “Look who’s awake. Wonder where you are, blondie?”
She tried to snap a sarcastic answer, but the tape muffled it. She heard the man rise and move heavily toward her. Then his hands were on her, harshly jerking her to lie nearly on her back. It hurt and she tried to grimace.
But when she saw his face up close, she forgot her pain and fought to wrest herself from his touch. He was large, fleshy, and his head was shaved. But she recognized him. It was the man called Winkler from Lochlain, Chalk Winkler, the one who’d seen Andrew snatch her out of reach of the snake, who’d been at the fire beside Reynard that night.
He must have seen the recognition in her eyes. His thick lips curved in a smile. “Ah, remember me, do you? I’ll be one of the last things you’ll remember. You’re going to be a maggot farm—it happens fast here, y’know. Maggots and ants and the crows.”
She tried not to flinch, but couldn’t help herself.
He leaned closer. “Shame, you bein’ so pretty. But I could have you first, blondie. Have you any way I want.”
He seized her by the jaw and brought his big face close to hers.
The other man, his back to her, rose from the rickety table. “Leave her alone, Chalk. She just came from being with Preston. She’s got traces of him all over her. Don’t muddy the water, you great fool.”
The words struck her like jolts from a stun gun. The voice was Reynard’s—Reynard had betrayed her? He had stalked her, hurt her, kidnapped her, and now she was his prisoner? And he and this man planned to kill her. Why? Why? Why?
Tears of fury and helplessness filled her eyes. Reynard walked over and stared down at her. Laconically he said, “Sorry, love. I told you to stay away from Andrew Preston. I told you he’s got enemies. You should have listened.” He winked at her slyly. “Shouldn’t you? Ahh, but it’s too late now.”
He hauled the other man to his feet. “Don’t get ideas, Chalk. Your brain’s not built for it. How long until we kill her? I’m ready for it to be over. And for us to be out of here.”
Chalk, towering over Reynard, spoke between his teeth. “Feeney said we wait till the drug’s out of her system. Another half hour at least. I told you twice already, you deaf old coot.”
“I just wish it was over, is all,” grumbled Reynard. “Sit down and deal, will you? I intend to take you for another fiver at least.”
But Chalk hesitated a moment, looking down at Marie. “Know what we shot down your throat? A sedative. Ollie got it for us in Singapore. Feeney’s got all kinds of people workin’ for Jacko.”
Ollie? Marie blinked, feeling even more sick and betrayed. Ollie, Andrew’s pilot? Him, too? And Reynard? And Sandy Sanford. And Chalk?
It was, in truth, a conspiracy. But how big, how all-powerful was it?
At Lochlain, at exactly ten in the morning, Andrew sat moodily in the kitchen, drinking a cup of coffee. His phone rang again. Mechanically he answered, expecting it to be Darci with more campaign news.
But a strange voice said, “Andrew Preston? Candidate for the ITRF Presidency?”
“Yes?”
“This is Peter Topaz of ABC-TV, News Department. By e-mail our news department’s received photos of you from a source we can’t trace. They show you and a woman who’s identified as Marie Lafayette, a cook at Fairchild Acres. They were taken with a camera with a date and time device. The two of you are shown entering a room at the Banksia Springs Inn at 8:37 last night and leaving at 4:27 a.m. Slightly later in the morning, you’re shown kissing by the side of a road.
“There are other undated pictures of you holding her. You’re shirtless and wearing an Aboriginal love charm around your neck. There’s also a message that Miss Lafayette sometimes worked as a prostitute in Darwin. A prostitute with a penchant for blackmail. Whoever sent these says he has a list of eight men who’ll testify to it. Mr. Preston, we’ve sent an attachment with these photos and the message to you and your campaign manager, Darci Parnell. We’d like your response to this material.”
Stunned, disbelieving, Andrew managed to choke out “No comment” and end the call.
He immediately dialed Darci. “Listen,” he said tersely. “I spent the night with Marie Lafayette in Banksia Springs. Somebody got photographs and sent them to ABC. They also got a message that Marie’s a hooker. That there’s a list of tricks, men she tried to blackmail.”
“Oh, Andrew,” Darci wailed. “What have you gotten yourself into? If ABC has them, all Jacko’s media’s going to have them, too. A hooker? Oh, my God.”
“She’s no hooker,” he retorted angrily. “She’s—she was a virgin.”
“Then what’s with the list?” Darci demanded.
“It’s a damned smear is what it is,” Andrew shot back. “You can pay flunkies to say anything. I’m calling my detective.”
“Andrew,” Darci warned, “this story will break. And it’s going to deal this campaign a huge blow. Let me check this out. I’ll call you back.”
He didn’t say goodbye. He could barely speak. He tasted a sourness rising in his throat and wondered if he was going to vomit up the coffee. He felt queasy and breathless. He knew she was a virgin. He knew that.
But had she set him up? He couldn’t and wouldn’t believe it. With an unsteady hand, he dialed her number. Nothing happened. Was her phone dead? Could she have turned it off?
What if she was already on her way back to Darwin? A throbbing hammered in his temples.
He looked up the Fairchild Acres number and dialed it. Mrs. Lipton answered, her voice shaking.
“Mrs. Lipton,” he said. “This is Andrew Preston. I’m trying to reach Marie, but I couldn’t get her. I wondered—”
“Oh, Mr. Preston,” Mrs. Lipton said. “She’s gone. The police were just here. They found her bicycle, wrecked, in a ditch beside the road. There was blood on the grass. There’s no s-sign of her.”
The woman started to sob.
Someone, Helena, perhaps, took the phone from her. “Mr. Preston? The local authorities notified the New South Wales police. They said they’re doing all they can. I wish I could tell you more, but I can’t. I’m very sorry. I—we’ll keep you posted. We’re all praying for her. Mr. Preston?”
“Thanks,” he rasped, then shut the phone. Like an automaton he walked to his room and turned on his computer. He brought up his e-mail, opened the attachment, and stared numbly at the pictures.
The photos, though not explicit, clearly showed him and Marie, their arms around each other, standing on the tiny porch leading to their room. They were kissing. Neither had any luggage.
The next picture showed them pausing by the door to kiss again. In the next,
they were leaving, Marie looking unhappy, but Andrew’s arm was around her, his expression concerned. And then there were four photos of them kissing goodbye last night, and three of him holding her against his chest that day at Lochlain.
He swore and buried his face in his hands. Where was she? Was she all right? Had they both been set up?
His phone rang again. He snatched it up, hoping for news of Marie. But it was Darci again.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” she said bitterly. “This is going to hit the news fast. We need a good response ready.” The bitterness in her tone turned to disgust. “How could you do this to all of us? How? The vote’s in three weeks. You had it in your grasp, and you’ve probably lost it for good.”
Her tone turned militant. “I bet that girl set you up. That she’s a plant.”
“She’s missing, dammit,” he said angrily. “They found her bike wrecked and blood at the scene. For all I know she could be dead so just—”
“I hope she isn’t. But if she is, tongues will wag. I know. I’ve been there, in the middle of a sex scandal. But I was a seventeen-year-old kid who knew nothing. You should know better. This raises all kinds of questions about you. People will ask if you had a lover’s quarrel. Did she threaten to blackmail you? Did you follow her and—”
“Shut up!” Andrew barked, rubbing his forehead. “Don’t waste your time on dirty scenarios. Find out what’s going on here.”
“What’s going on, Andrew,” Darci said, steel in her voice, “is that if this gets any uglier, your reputation’s ruined. Probably for good.”
Andrew hung up on her. He rammed the kitchen screen door open and marched to the Jeep. He was going to the police.
Chalk, Marie’s burly captor, talked on his cell, then shut it off. “Feeney says ABC’s got the message. He wagers the cops’ll be looking at the stuff right now.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s almost time to waste the little sheila.”
The Secret Heiress Page 22