A Question of Fire

by Karen McCullough

  "I did and I knew. It doesn't matter; I had to come anyway." She brushed back limp brown hair that had fallen across his forehead and into his eyes. He looked terrible. In the forty-eight hours he'd been gone, he appeared to have neither eaten nor slept; his face was gaunt and unshaven, eyes sunken and deeply shadowed. Fresh bruises marked both cheeks.

  "Why?" he asked.

  She didn't get a chance to answer. Hammond had wandered over to find out what they were whispering about. "So, Catherine Bennett," he said. "You didn't take the hint to stay out of this. Or were you lying all along about what Bobby told you?"

  "Does it matter?" she asked, knowing that it did. His ego was at stake in her answer, but she had no intention of giving him any satisfaction.

  "I suppose not," he admitted. He was clever, she had to give him that; he wouldn't play a game he couldn't win. Hammond studied her the way she imagined a snake would watch a mouse that had gotten too close. "You're just as pretty as I remembered. No wonder the kid tried so hard to protect you."

  She looked at Danny again. His head rested against the back of the chair and he watched the other man with a combination of venomous hatred and fearful respect.

  "What do you want from me?" she asked.

  "The kid says you know where the book is."

  "The book?"

  The eyes held a cold glitter, but there was a tinge of humor, too. He was enjoying this. "Sweetheart, we're not here to play games. You know damned well I'm talking about the book that was stolen from Joe."

  "Oh, that."

  "Yes, that. Where is it?"

  "Why should I tell you?" She was taking a dangerous line with a man she suspected would prefer to kill her. He smiled, and despite his beauty, it was an ugly expression. "All right, Cathy, let's spell it out, shall we? You're going to tell me because the alternative will be highly unpleasant. Shall I tell you what finally broke the kid?"

  "I don't really want—"

  He bore on, ignoring her objection. "He didn't want to tell us he didn't know where the book was hidden. We offered him money, lots of it and the chance to make more, but he stupidly didn't take it. So we had to use less pleasant ways to get it out of him, but he was pretty resistant to those, too. You know what finally got him?" He waited for her to say something, but she remained silent. He reached into a pocket and brought out a small derringer, no more than three inches long. Silver plates glittered on either side of the gun's butt. He held it out to offer her a close look.

  "Pretty, isn't it?" He moved it from one hand to the other and stroked his fingers across the side. Objectively considered, the gun was a beautiful piece of work. Just like its owner. Cathy wasn't feeling particularly objective.

  "Looks like a toy, doesn't it?" He waited a moment but wasn't upset by her silence. If anything, he seemed pleased by the fear that held her helplessly mute. "It isn't a toy, though, and if a bullet from this happened to hit you in the knee, for example, you'd never walk normally again." He stopped a moment to let it sink in.

  "If you got both knees blown away somehow, you'd never walk again at all. And you might want to think about what it would do to a hand or an elbow." Actually, she didn't want to consider it; she was already feeling rather nauseated. But it was like trying not to think about pink elephants. Once mentioned, the imaging part of the brain tended to grapple with the suggestion, whether you wanted it to or not.

  Hammond stopped when he saw his words had the desired effect. He studied her silently, turning to look at Danny also. Cathy struggled to keep from shaking; she didn't want the man to know just how terrified she really was. Her efforts weren't very successful.

  "Now, Cathy, you're too pretty to have accidents like that. And anyway, you might faint and that would make it hard for you to say what we want to hear. So I've got a better idea." He looked at her, then at Danny with an expression that made her shake even harder.

  "If I read you right, you're the kind of woman who'd be just as upset if someone else—someone you care about—were to get hurt like that. Maybe even more than if it were yourself." He paused dramatically. He was enjoying himself, reveling in his mastery of the situation. "I think you care that much about the boy here." He pointed the gun at Danny.

  It was hard to keep her thoughts in order. She wanted to scream or cry or throw something; anything to break the terrible tension and fear. Hammond watched her, and she returned his gaze, trying to be calm, to read him, to search for a weakness. He didn't make idle threats, she was sure of that; he'd do exactly what he promised and probably enjoy it.

  She glanced at Danny. He'd followed the conversation and understood what was going on. No mask of indifference guarded his features now; his eyes reflected the same panic-stricken terror she was sure was in her own. But, with it, she saw shades of the determination and courage that had brought him here in the first place.

  "Don't tell them, Miss Bennett, whatever..." He pulled his face into a tight frown to control the convulsive fear shaking him. Surprised at first by his words, Cathy realized he had no way of knowing the search had turned up nothing, that she was as helplessly ignorant as he.

  Hammond looked down at the two of them and seemed pleased. He moved closer to Danny, holding the little gun lightly, easily. He glanced at Cathy again, and spoke in an amused, conversational tone. "I can assure you, sweetheart, this is going to be unpleasant, and really, it's unnecessary. You're going to tell me sooner or later." His confidence was contagious; Cathy knew it was true, too, if it were possible. "Why don't you spare the boy a lot of pain and just tell me now?"

  A hideous lump blocked her throat and, for the moment, she couldn't have said anything if her own life had depended on it.

  Danny's eyes were closed, his lips pressed into a thin line. The beautiful man still had that look of gentle humor on his face as he stood in front of the boy and pointed the gun at his legs.

  "Well, which knee first?" he asked.

  -27-

  Monday - Tuesday

  She watched the tiny gun with hypnotized fascination, so saw when the muscles of the hand holding it began to tighten. Something snapped inside her, and Cathy was loosed from her paralysis. "No!" It came out as a shriek. "I'll tell you."

  Hammond glanced at her and lowered the arm to his side. "I was sure you'd be reasonable."

  Danny looked at her also and whispered, "No, please."

  She ignored him. "I want something from you first."

  The man showed surprise as well as amusement. "You're not in a position to bargain," he commented.

  "I still have the information you want," she returned, trying to sound more confident than she felt.

  "So you do. What do you want?"

  "Your promise that Danny and I will be left alive after you've got the book."

  He raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Once I've got the book, it doesn't make any difference whether you're alive or dead. You've got it, sweetheart." It was a lie, and she knew it, and suspected that he knew she knew it. Still, it wasn't the last or the least of the lies that would be told that night.

  "There's something else," she continued. "Untie the boy and let me get him something to eat."

  Hammond found that uproariously funny. "Is that all?" he asked, nearly choking on his laughter.

  "Yes." She watched him steadily, and he returned the look.

  "You're not much of a poker player, are you?" he asked.

  "Probably not," she admitted. "I wouldn't know, I've never played." She hadn't either, but she knew what a bluff was and hoped to heaven she knew how to pull one off.

  "All right." He controlled his mirth. "Joe, untie the kid."

  They finally had to get a knife to cut the ropes that bound Danny. Cathy could tell by his wince when his arms were freed. She made the mistake of trying to get him on his feet. He fainted instead.

  Panicked, she dropped to her knees next to him, searching frantically for a pulse. She found it in his throat, and was relieved to feel it beating strong and regular. Lack of f
ood, lack of sleep, mistreatment, constriction of circulation, any of those could have brought on the collapse. Mentally she kicked herself for not having better sense.

  Hammond was still laughing. He looked around the room, noticed that Rayburn slept, sprawled on the only couch. "Joe," he ordered, "roll your fat friend off the sofa. We need it."

  Townsend took him literally; he shook Rayburn, and when the other didn't respond, rolled him over until he fell off. Rayburn's eyes opened blearily. "Whazzamatta?" he asked the coffee table.

  Townsend grabbed Rayburn's shirt and dragged him to his feet, but when it became clear he couldn't stand without assistance, Townsend tossed him back into a chair.

  "Just can't get decent help these days," Hammond said with a sneer. He ordered Townsend to help him and, between the two of them, they lifted Danny and carried him to the couch. Townsend frowned darkly and gave the other man a look that would have been dangerous had it been directed at anyone else.

  Cathy got a towel from the cabinet under the kitchen sink and wet it. Danny roused slowly when she wiped his face with the damp cloth. She returned to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. The wrappings littering the floor and table indicated the men hadn't spent a lot of time fixing their own meals. A half-eaten hamburger and an untouched piece of pizza sat abandoned at one end of the table.

  The refrigerator held only three six-packs of beer and a quart of milk. Given his choice, Danny would opt for the beer, but Cathy took the milk anyway. She found a cup easily enough, but the cabinets seemed to contain only staples like flour, salt, and sugar. Behind a bag of coffee, she found a box of crackers and took that, along with the piece of pizza, which she sniffed and judged reasonably fresh.

  She sat on the edge of the coffee table in front of the couch and poured some of the milk. Danny glared at her and refused to take the cup she offered. She looked at his angry profile and sighed. How could she mollify him without telling him too much?

  "When did you last eat?" she asked.

  "I don't know. Sunday, sometime, I guess."

  "It's Monday night—correction, Tuesday morning. You've got to have something. You're going to need whatever strength you can gather."

  "I don't want it."

  "Dear God, Danny, I did what I had to do. Can't you understand that?"

  "I understand you're gonna give Bobby's proof back to his killer."

  "His killer?"

  "Hammond. The man with the gun."

  "Are you sure?"

  "He said so."

  She ventured a covert look at Hammond; he wore Nike running shoes, size ten and a half, no doubt. She put her head down in her arms, running fingers through her hair and flogging her brain. Hammond had been lying; he couldn't let Danny live after admitting to him that he was a murderer. For the moment, though, he was humoring the children, so she'd better take advantage of it. And pray like crazy Peter would get a chance to do something soon.

  Danny tried to pull himself to a sitting position; Cathy helped him and ignored it when he tried to push her away. She took advantage of their nearness to whisper, "It's all right. For God's sake, trust me, please."

  She saw the conflict in his face and rated the odds a toss-up. Danny liked and respected her as much as he did anybody, but she doubted he'd ever trusted anyone other than his brother.

  The resolution showed on his face just before he reached for the cup. He missed, but Cathy handed it to him. His hand shook and he frowned at the milk, but drank it in one pull. She broke off pieces of the pizza and gave him a few. He tried not to gulp it down, but he immediately reached for more. Cathy shook her head and saw his impatience. "You'll be sick if you eat too much too quickly," she explained.

  He nodded, leaned back, and closed his eyes. The light fell across his upper body, letting her see what she hadn't before: cuts on his arms that were too clean to have been made by anything but a knife, and round, angry cigarette burns. There were bloodstains on his shirt, too.

  She looked away, focusing on a neutral spot of wall while she struggled to control her reaction. Blood pounded in her head, threatening to turn to steam under the pressure of fury that blazed through her. She clenched and unclenched her fists. Right then, she could have killed someone herself.

  Hammond strolled over and regarded her with continued amusement. "Finished for the time being, Mom?"

  She nodded; she didn't trust herself to speak.

  "Good. It's time we had a talk."

  She calmed herself with an effort of will. "Find me a pencil and paper," she suggested. "I'll have to draw you a map."

  The pencil proved no problem, but there didn't seem to be a single blank piece of paper in the place. Hammond finally picked up a bag with a yellow letter "M" on it, dumped out the wrappings, and tore it so that it would lay reasonably flat. There was a grease smudge on one corner and a spot of mustard near the middle.

  "You're going to have to wait until morning to try to get to this place," she warned. "It's not easy to find even in broad daylight."

  It wasn't either; she vividly remembered tramping through the woods and vine-tangled flats to come upon the long-abandoned service station, nearly buried under a jungle of kudzu and honeysuckle. The road that ran by it was also abandoned, left to nature's care when a new highway was built a quarter mile to the east.

  She'd been working on the paper for only six months, and, being the most junior reporter, had been given choice assignments like this: following Sheriff's deputies through the underbrush in search of a reported stand of Marijuana plants. She'd been warned to dress rough and she had, but even her toughest clothes had barely been a match for the overgrown terrain; she'd spent most of her time following in the wake of a machete-wielding deputy. They'd never found any Marijuana either, so she hadn't even gotten a story out of it; but she had brought home a nasty case of poison ivy and knowledge of the service station, something she couldn't have anticipated would ever prove useful.

  She'd gone back later, out of curiosity, and discovered that the abandoned road was torn up and blockaded at either end of its mile and a half length, no longer accessible except on foot.

  Cathy drew the map showing how to get to the place and noted the spot where they would have to leave their cars.

  "From where I've marked, you go about a hundred and fifty yards due west and you'll come to the road. Walk along it for a quarter mile and the service station is on your left. You have to look closely though, it's nearly buried under the kudzu. There's an old air pump on the side; it's buried, too, and not easy to find. There's a box near the base of the pump; the book is in it."

  Hammond studied her; the amusement drained from his face. "How did you find out about this place?" he asked.

  "I talked to a friend of Bobby's; the one who was with him the day he'd found it. They'd taken a wrecker out to pick up a car on the highway nearby. I'm not sure what they were doing roaming around in the underbrush—though I can guess—but they found this place and were fascinated."

  Speaking of fascinated, Hammond wasn't the only one listening to her story with interest. She'd thought Danny was asleep, but his eyes were open again and he was looking at the map. She watched him and, after a moment, he met her eyes; she couldn't read the expression in his, but she silently begged him to keep his mouth shut. She continued, hoping the message had gotten through.

  "They went back a couple of times, just for fun—there's a lot of old stuff lying around. Once they took a metal detector and found a bunch of old coins. They thought they had a real treasure, and decided to hide them until they figured out what to do with them; that's when they found the box near the pump. When I asked this friend about places Bobby might hide something valuable, he thought of this place, and of course, it made sense of those last words Bobby said about 'in the air—'."

  Hammond seemed satisfied with her explanation. He regarded her with admiration. "A clever lady as well as pretty," he commented.

  If he only knew the half of it. Cathy mentally reviewed
the story and decided it wasn't bad for a spur-of-the-moment invention. Danny, bless him, stayed quiet.

  "I've got to make a phone call," Hammond told the others. Townsend had watched the proceedings with interest, the other two were dozing in chairs. Apparently there was no telephone in the cabin and either he didn't have a cell phone or the service didn't work in this remote region. Hammond went outside and, after a moment, they heard the roar of a car engine starting.

  She breathed a small sigh of relief. She felt easier with him gone, though she knew the other three could also be dangerous. But they were just thugs; Hammond was something more. He had intelligence and a casual acceptance of violence that was chilling in its lack of malice.

  She'd bought some time for Danny and herself, a few hours at least. Time enough for Peter to make a move, if indeed he'd seen her leave the motel and was able to follow. Forget that line of thought, she admonished herself, just try to be ready for whatever would happen.

  She turned back to Danny, who'd closed his eyes again. From the even rhythm of his breathing, she thought him asleep. He needed sleep, too, and she hesitated, then shook him awake again. He took the rest of the pizza and another cup of milk without comment.

  She'd done all she could do for the time being; the ball was in another court. But if Peter knew what was going on, this would be the time for him to make a move. With Hammond gone, the odds were the best they were likely to get that night.

  A snapping noise, like a twig breaking, cracked in the darkness outside. Townsend got up and looked around uneasily, moved to one of the windows, and pushed aside the curtain to look out. Whatever he saw didn't reassure him. He nudged the tall man who'd been with him at the motel. "Something out there."