by Linda Barlow
"I don't know, beyond turning the pictures over to the police. But if they'd caught you, I'd have cheered when they threw you in prison. There are strict laws in Turkey about antiquities smuggling."
"So you recognized what was in the crate?"
"Only that it looked ancient. I have no clue about the value or the date. What do you smuggle—only art objects, or drugs and illegal arms as well? Sounds like a demanding occupation, Nicholas—that's your name, right?"
There was a pause. The air of bored indifference had faded; he was regarding me as if he really saw me now. "You can call me Nick."
"And you're American, right?"
"I'm a mongrel. Part Yank, part Brit, and part Turk. I've kicked around in a lot of other countries."
"Nine of them, at least."
He raised his eyebrows.
"You said you were wanted in nine countries."
"Oh, that." He shrugged. "Perhaps a slight exaggeration. One loses count."
And what did that mean? He didn't look as if he intended to explain. "May I have more water?"
This time he tangled his fingers in my hair and held the back of my head as he tilted the glass to my lips. I choked. "Don't touch me." It was near the spot where his touch had rendered me unconscious.
He smiled nastily. His fingers came around and cupped my chin. He put the glass down and moved closer, far too close. I could feel his breath. My lips began to tingle.
I swallowed. I felt so vulnerable. I had never felt vulnerable with Mark. But Mark had never tied me up. Once or twice, I'd suggested we spice things up with a little bondage, but Mark hadn't been interested.
Jesus, why had I remembered that? That would have been different. Way different! Consensual. Unlike Mark, this man was dangerous. A criminal. He was sitting too close, touching me too much, and looking at me in a way that freaked me out.
His thumb stroked up and down my cheek. "Relax. If I were going to kill you, you would already be dead."
"What, then? Hold me for ransom?"
He seemed to consider. "Are you rich?"
"No."
"Not much point in that, then, is there?" One of his fingers brushed the lobe of my ear, making me suck in my breath. The tingles in my lips had spread to my belly. What the hell? Why didn't his touch revolt me?
Maybe I was in some sort of denial? The whole thing seemed a little unreal. I'd heard that denial was a common reaction to sudden disasters—people couldn't face that something awful was happening to them so they pushed reality away for as long as possible.
"Is Sybil Matheson-Heath really your mother?"
"Yes, but she's not rich, either. Archaeologists rarely are."
He emitted a short, cryptic laugh. I was puzzled by the storm of emotion that flashed in his eyes, but he offered no explanation.
He pushed his free hand through my hair; the other retained his grip on my chin. I wanted him to stop touching me, but I suspected that if I demanded it he would either laugh at me or up the ante somehow.
"Do you know much about your mother's work?"
"Some. She took me on digs with her when I was a child. I've read her books, and I took some archaeology courses at college."
Keep him talking, Ellie. I had read once that you should try to forge a connection if you were snatched by someone hostile, like a kidnapper or a terrorist. If you were seen as a real person, with thoughts and emotions, hopes, dreams and plans, you were harder to kill than if you remained a cipher or an object.
"I started out by majoring in archaeology, but I soon realized I'd never be in her league. The idea of crawling around in subterranean caverns, searching for potsherds, has never appealed to me." Indeed, it gave me the shudders. People who suffered from claustrophobia did not make good archaeologists. "I ended up majoring in history."
"And now you're a journalist." His voice was abstract, disinterested; his thumb had moved to my bottom lip. It rubbed gently, back and forth over the surface, sending little frissons of sensation along every nerve in my body.
"Photographer," I corrected.
His eyes turned speculative. "Are you any good?"
"Yes." I jerked my chin, trying to free myself. And failing. "Don't."
"Stop fighting me. You're my prisoner. Any rights you once had, you've lost."
Well, that pissed me off. I liked feeling angry. It felt a whole lot better than fear. "Is this the only way you can get a woman? Knock her unconscious, tie her up and toss her into your bed?"
"You're still alive. Yilmaz—that's the man I was doing business with when you interrupted—wanted to shoot you."
"Yes, but what will happen to me after you've—" I broke off, imagining all sorts of nasty things. Dammit. Don't let him get to you. Don't give the swine the satisfaction.
"After I've forced you to gratify all my wildest fantasies?" The dry, impatient note was back in his tone. "Don't be such a drama queen."
"I've never been tied up and raped before. Sorry if I'm over-reacting." Sarcasm. Unwise, probably, but I couldn't seem to keep my mouth shut.
His hand left my face, and then he rose and moved away from me. My relief was so strong I closed my eyes and leaned back against the wall. The boat was rocking on the waves, but the sea must be calm, because the movement was not too extreme. One thing to be thankful for, I supposed. At least I wasn't seasick.
I heard my captor cross the small room, open a drawer, then return. My eyes snapped open, and the blood drained into my toes. There was no gun this time. This time he was coming at me with a nasty, large-bladed knife.
Chapter 4
ELLIE
“Christ, you're easy to scare." His voice mocked me. "But blood-letting would mess up my cabin. Give me your hands and hold still." He slid the blade between my wrists and sawed through the rope. It took a while; the cords were thick. He then knelt, and I felt his fingers on my bare ankles for an instant before he started on the ropes there. At length they fell off and dropped to the floor.
"Thank you. I thought—"
"It was obvious what you thought."
I rubbed my wrists, which were itching from the rope. Don't act so cowed and grateful. That's exactly what he wants. It's all part of his psychological game. He intends you to be dependent upon him for water, for kindness, for life itself. Don't make it so easy for him.
Nicholas, now standing over me again, took one of my hands in his and examined it. It was scored a bit from the rope. His mouth twisted into a frown. He massaged the wrist with his thumb. It helped, but I hated him for it. Why did he keep touching me? How had I gone from being the sovereign master of my own body to having no voice while a stranger put his hands on me?
I shook back my long hair, which was falling into my face. "People will be looking for me. When I don't check in with my mother and my friends, they'll call the authorities. You won't get away with this."
He smiled thinly. "We'll see."
"The sensible thing would be to take the yacht into shore and drop me off. I'm a complication that you don't need."
"The sensible thing would be to weigh your body down with something heavy and drop you overboard. It's an option that will remain on the table while I assess what other uses I can put you to."
The uses I pictured were scary and degrading. It was nothing but bravado that kept me from curling up in a ball. "I won't be used by any man, so stop threatening me."
His eyes darkened and he grabbed me, fisting a handful of my hair. It hurt. "You're frightened and trying to cope. I get that. But you've landed in the middle of a fucked-up mess, and it's gonna get worse. Right now, I'm your best hope of staying alive, so don't piss me off. Do exactly what I order you to do, and maybe you'll survive. Defy me, and you're dead."
I noted for the first time that there were dark circles under those large eyes of his, that he was weary and not quite as much in control as he was pretending to be. An ordinary man, vulnerable, even as I was. Not a god or a hero, despite his lean, golden beauty. Not all-powerful either.
"I don't want you here," he went on. "You've no idea what a complication your presence poses. It would have been far more convenient to shoot you and toss your body into the sea. Maybe you haven't realized how close you came to endless night."
I felt the sweat break out again. He'd chanced upon a metaphor that called up my worst anxieties. So I continued to beat at him, knowing no other defense except attack.
"So I should thank you for saving my life? Am I expected to lie back, spread my legs, and express my gratitude? Is that what you mean by obeying your orders?"
He still had the knife in one hand. He saw me staring at it and his knuckles whitened around the handle. "As a matter of fact, yes," he said coldly. "If I tell you to strip, you will strip. If I tell you to spread your legs for me, you will do so. If I order you to drop to your knees and suck me off, you will do that, too, and gracefully. If you disobey me, you will be punished. If you repeat it a second time, you will be killed. Learn the rules, Ms. Heath, and follow them, or you'll soon begin to wish I'd permitted Yilmaz to put a bullet in your brain."
He grabbed the shirt he'd stripped off and pulled it over his head. Then he opened the door to the cabin and exited. I heard the key turn on the outside; I heard him stomp away. Then there was silence, except for the pounding of the sea, and my own heart.
I began to tremble all over. Then I cried.
Chapter 5
ELLIE
He did not return all day. I wallowed in a series of alternating moods—mostly scared, but sometimes angry, numb, and just plain confused because I couldn't stop remembering the way his muscles slid just underneath the surface of his smooth skin. I plagued myself with what-ifs: what if I'd stayed another day in Istanbul, what if I'd camped somewhere else on the coast? What if I'd slept a little later this morning? What if I hadn't started taking pictures? What if I'd run to my bike, started it up, and blown out of there before they could catch me?
My mind went round and round, trying to think myself out of this mess. This wasn't happening to me. This couldn't happen to me. This was all a freaking bad dream.
At some point, I pulled myself together enough to measure the boundaries of my prison.
I was securely locked in. The door would not budge and the portholes, though they opened, weren't large enough to crawl through. Anyway, the cabin was in the extreme bow of the sailboat and the windows opened onto the churning sea.
One door did open, though. It led to a toilet. The head, as I supposed they called it aboard ship. I was glad to find it. After neglecting to ask him for it earlier, I'd been anxious over the possibility that I might be locked up somewhere without one.
I used the sink in the cabin to clean up a bit. I pulled off my sweaty clothes and scrubbed myself. The water was plentiful and hot; it revived my spirits. Wishing I had clean clothes to change into, I donned my underwear and jeans and looked sadly at my top. Lying bound on that bed in a sweat of panic had resulted in two dark patches under the arms. I wondered what he'd done with my pack, my camera equipment, my cell phone and my rented motorcycle.
Despite what I'd claimed about the people who would be looking for me, I didn't think anyone would even realize I was missing. I'd told my mother I'd try to give her a call in a week or so when I reached the city of Izmir, but Mom was often in a location where both cell and internet coverage were bad, so she wouldn't be worried when she didn't hear from me.
Disgusted with myself for my folly, I flung my shirt into the sink and scrubbed it, then opened the cupboard doors in search of something else to wear. Ruthlessly I pushed aside hangers and rifled shelves. He was irritatingly neat. His shoes were lined up, and his shirts all looked as if they'd been freshly washed. Belts were hanging from hooks. His clothes were simple and casual—mostly T-shirts and jeans, bland and muted of color—but they were of good quality.
The shirts had no tags. In fact, none of his clothes, including the leather jacket and the bad-weather gear, had labels of any kind. Maybe they'd all been removed to make it difficult for anyone to identify him if he was captured.
The only frivolous item I found was a pair of black leather pants that obviously went with the jacket. I took them out and ran my fingers over the buttery-soft leather, imagining them molding to his lean, muscular legs. I flushed as the fantasy briefly veered in the direction of X-ratedness. I squelched it. What was the matter with me? In the year I'd been with him, Mark had never inspired such thoughts.
Disgustedly I thrust the trousers back on their shelf.
My captor's shirts were huge on me, but I pulled on a faded blue one, anyway. Then I abandoned the closet and went through his drawers.
I didn't know what I hoped to find—personal papers, passports, newspaper clippings about his crimes, something that would give me more of a handle on who he was and what he was up to—but I had little luck. The three drawers, which were lined up vertically right next to the bathroom door, only confirmed that he was neat, simple in his tastes, and likely to remain a mystery.
In the top drawer, I found various toiletries, all Turkish brands. A toothbrush, comb, bottle of aspirin and other medical supplies were also in the drawer.
The bottom drawer contained two clean towels and a long, slim, rectangular case. My pulse leapt as I pried open the case, wondering if he'd been careless enough to give me access to a weapon. If I found a gun, I would use it, dammit. I knew how.
But the case contained the segments of a delicate, silvery flute, each piece nestled in a blue-velvet lining.
A flute. I tried to picture him playing it. My imagination was usually vivid, but here it failed me. "Stolen, no doubt," I said aloud, and closed the drawer. Maybe it was a freaking antique.
Frustrated, I checked out the rest of the room. There was a desk built into one corner, with a laptop packed away underneath it. It worked, but was password protected. There were several books neatly lining the bookshelves. Paperbacks, mostly. The more literary volumes included the works of Homer—in Greek, no less—and some Latin poetry. Could he read Latin and Greek?
His popular fiction included novels by such writers as George R. R. Martin and Ken Follett. There were also five or six books by a writer I'd never heard of, Stephen Silkwood. They appeared to be historical mysteries. All the volumes were well-thumbed.
So he liked to read. So what? I took down a collection of poems by Coleridge, which fell open in my hands to one of my favorite poems, "Frost At Midnight." I read it silently, feeling the nameless sorrow that the poem invariably induced in me. Why did it disturb me that an international criminal engaged in the despicable business of stripping a country of its priceless historical relics should own a volume of poetry?
I flipped to the front of the book. It was inscribed in a feminine hand: "To Nicholas. Happy twenty-first birthday, my love. Forever... Elizabeth." At the bottom of the page the same hand had written, "Penshurst College, Rolling Meadows, Massachusetts."
Curious now, I closed the book. The short inscription had told me a lot. His birthday, his age, the name of his college, whom he'd been fucking back then. What had happened to Elizabeth? Did she know her college sweetheart had grown up to be a thief?
What else would I learn, I wondered, from possible inscriptions in the other books?
Half an hour later, I had my answer, although it didn't help much. He had several inscribed books. He must know the mystery author, Stephen Silkwood, since Silkwood had autographed each of his books with a different cheerful insult. Two other volumes also bore messages: a volume of Shakespeare's plays, which young Nicholas had won as a prize for special achievement in prep school, and an archaeology text, which said merely, "Dear Nick... good show! Granddad." Several of the books had his name written in them—Nick Gabriel—in a dark, angular hand. So Gabriel must be his last name.
The rest of the day passed uneventfully. The cabin refused to yield up any further information, unless I was interested in sea charts and shipboard navigation, which I knew nothing about. I started to read one of
the historical mysteries, which turned out to be set in 16th century England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth Tudor. It helped distract me from the near-constant worry about what was going to happen to me.
At sunset, I was considering pounding on the door and demanding something to eat—he had yet to feed me—when I heard footsteps approach the cabin. I tried to psych myself up as the lock was disengaged. This time I was determined to keep my emotions under control.
But it wasn't Nicholas Gabriel who unlocked the door and entered the cabin. It was the younger man, Metin.
"Greetings," he said in heavily accented English. "I bring food."
"Thank you. I thought maybe you guys were planning to starve me."
He came in, kicked the door closed with one booted foot and looked for a place to set the tray. He seemed reluctant to put it on the desk with the charts. He finally placed it on the end of the bed.
I, meanwhile, had stepped casually toward the bathroom. I'd noticed a latch on the inner door. Metin was cocky and far too handsome for my liking. Medium height and slender, he was fit and strong. His skin was dark and his teeth a blinding white in contrast. He wore a mustache that gave him a rakish air. He was dressed in the regulation jeans and T-shirt.
He had been the one to suggest fucking me, and I didn't like the look in his eyes now. He didn't frighten me quite as much as Nick did, but he was a male, possibly armed, definitely dangerous.
"You are well?" he asked.
"Fine. Your name is Metin, right?" It seemed politic to be friendly. He was young; maybe I could gain his sympathy.
"Evet. Yes. And your name is Ellie."
"That's right." I tried a smile, to which he responded with a grin that made him less sinister. "If you're down here, who's sailing the boat?"
"Nick is at the helm." Ellie noted that he referred to Nick with respect. "It only requires one when we are not under sail."
"So we're using the engine?" I had known that, actually, from the noise. "I thought so large a yacht must possess crew of at least three or four men." I smiled at him again. "I don't know much about boats."