Darkness Before Dawn

by Anne Stuart

  “Don’t believe everything Willis tells you,” Randall said.

  She was still staring out into the hot city night. She gave herself a tiny shake. “No, you’re right. I always was too gullible where Bud Willis was concerned. What do you think about what he said?”

  “Which scintillating remark?”

  Maggie sighed. “Caleb. Do you think he’s really involved?”

  “I don’t know. I think we can’t be sure of anything at this point.”

  “It would break Kate’s heart.”

  “You aren’t going to say anything to her.” Randall’s voice was implacable. It wasn’t a request, and it wasn’t a suggestion. It was an order.

  A dozen possible retorts rose in her mind, starting with “Says who?” and going downhill from there. She closed her mouth and promised nothing.

  “Do you hear me, Maggie? If he is involved, we can’t afford to have him warned. You’re to keep your damned mouth shut, or I sure as hell will find a way to shut it.”

  She smiled up at him. He was angry with her; his blue-gray eyes were stormy, and his sexy mouth was a pinched frown. She couldn’t believe that she’d once thought him passionless and inhuman. “You know, you’re beautiful when you’re angry,” she said with a mischievous smile, feeling suddenly, oddly playful. There was something to be said for catharsis, both emotional and sexual.

  “Maggie …” His voice held a very definite warning.

  “Are we going to Chicago?” she questioned in a dulcet voice.

  He stared at her in mute frustration, then thrust out his arm for her to take. “We’re going to Chicago,” he said. And after only a moment’s hesitation, she took it, following him out into the New York City night.

  They were back at Kate’s apartment well before midnight. Randall could see tension begin to build in Maggie as they deplaned at O’Hare, and he watched it grow during the ride back into the city in his Jaguar. He knew without false modesty that he was the cause of it. She was wondering where he was planning to sleep tonight.

  The apartment was deserted when Maggie opened the door with only slight but telltale fumbling. The matching VCRs were still in place, the curtains were open to the dark Chicago night, and a note was taped to one of the television sets. Before she could reach it, Randall had ripped it off the screen.

  “Maggie, where the hell are you?” he read. “Chrissie’s still with Sybil—I’ve gone with Caleb to check out a lead in Wisconsin. Stay put. Kate.”

  “Damn,” said Maggie.

  “Indeed,” said Randall. “If he’s as bad as Bud Willis thinks, your sister might be in deep trouble.”

  “He’s not. I’m sure we can trust him. I have excellent judgment when it comes to people.”

  “Do you?”

  She looked at him then, her face flushed and defiant. “I used to. I think I probably still do.”

  He kept his face impassive, watching her. He wanted to scoop her up into his arms and carry her off to the bedroom, like a scene in a movie. He didn’t move, just watched the tension tick through her body.

  “Well, I guess there’s nothing we can do now,” she said finally, when he said nothing. “What are we going to do about Alicia Stoneham?”

  “We’re going to find out who’s working with her. Whether it’s Caleb McAllister or someone else, we need to know before we make our move. And we need more proof than just the word of someone at Red Glove Films.”

  “How did you get him to tell you?” she asked, and he could see the curiosity burning beneath her nervousness.

  He smiled a faint, wintry smile. “You don’t want to know, Maggie.”

  “Maybe I don’t,” she said with a sigh.

  “It’s just as well your sister isn’t here. I don’t trust your ability to be discreet. It would be just like you to blurt out everything about Caleb and Alicia, and the fewer people who know at this point the better.”

  “You mean you expect me not to say anything about Alicia, either?” she demanded, outraged. “What am I supposed to tell her when she asks where I was?”

  “Tell her you were in bed with me,” he suggested coolly. “Tell her we had a long passionate weekend in your New York apartment, writhing around on the living room carpet.”

  The nervousness was leaving her, replaced by healthy anger. “You’re such a bastard, Randall,” she said.

  “I know.” He crossed the room, took her resisting hand in his, opened it with no trouble whatsoever, and placed Kate’s note inside. His hand reached up and gently traced the bruised side of her face; his thumb brushed her cut lip. “You look like you’ve been through a war.”

  She stood very still beneath his hands. And then, to his complete astonishment, a very small, very tentative smile lit her face. “You don’t look so hot yourself,” she said, raising her hand to touch the welt across his forehead.

  It was all he could do not to take her then, not to pull her into his arms and make love to her until they were both exhausted. But they were both exhausted already, and he had things to do.

  He couldn’t resist, though. He caught the hand that had gently touched his forehead and drew it to his mouth, kissing it with great tenderness. And then he moved away.

  “Get some sleep, Maggie,” he said, ignoring the startled expression in her aquamarine eyes. “I can’t afford to have jet lag impair your efficiency.”

  “No,” she said, “we wouldn’t want that.”

  “I’ll be back tomorrow morning. Sleep as late as you can—there’s nothing we can do for a while.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “To my hotel. Unless you were going to invite me to stay?” He knew she wouldn’t, when he put it that way. And much as he wanted to, he had too many things to do to spend the night curled up against her strong, warm body.

  She turned away from him. “Good night, Randall.”

  Her back was straight and strong; her shoulders weren’t the slightest bit bowed under all she’d been through. He paused in the open doorway and looked back at her, and his hand clenched the knob tightly. “Maggie.”

  She didn’t turn. “What?” Her voice was cool, not at all sulky.

  “Don’t put on another one of Pulaski’s shirts. I’ll just have to rip it off you again.” And he shut the door before she could respond.

  The shrill ring of the telephone shattered Maggie’s sleep. She moaned in her sleep, hating the nagging, insistent ringing, trying to hold on to the fast-disappearing waves of sleep. She reached out in the wide, empty bed, reached out and found no one beside her. The wave of desolation that washed over her wrenched her out of the last bits of sleep.

  Still the damned phone rang. With a curse, she threw back the covers and stumbled out into the living room, past the still-burning lamps that she’d left on to defeat the darkness. When she finally reached the phone, it had stopped ringing; the dial tone that met her ear was a taunt. It took all her willpower not to pick it up and heave it through the nearest window, but willpower was something she was slowly regaining. With only the slightest bit of a slam, she replaced the phone onto its cradle, and an only slightly obscene curse left her mouth when she looked at the clock and found it was a quarter past eight in the morning: too early for her to want to get up after her global trek, too late to have any hope for more sleep.

  She moved around the room and turned off the lights, shivering in the early-morning chill. The thin cotton nightgown she’d purloined from Kate’s closet provided little protection, and she headed back to her room for a sweater.

  She was looking at the empty, rumpled bed with unseeing eyes when she finally realized why she was feeling so unbalanced. It wasn’t lack of sleep or jet lag. With sudden, inescapable clarity it came to her, leaving her shaken: She hadn’t woken up feeling abandoned by Mack. It was Randall’s body she’d reached for through the mists of sleep; it was Randall she wanted.

  Mack’s chambray shirt met her eyes. Countless times she’d worn it for warmth, for comfort. But Mack was gone, beyo
nd her reach, beyond her sorrow. She picked up the shirt and held it in her hands, but it was only a shirt. It was no longer a talisman of the only real love she’d ever known. She dropped it back onto the bed and turned to find a cotton sweater; the increasing chill now came from inside as well as out.

  The phone rang again. Maggie forgot about the sweater and raced back out into the living room, stubbing her foot on the desk. The phone clattered off the desk as she lunged for it, and she ended up on her knees on the carpet, clutching the receiver.

  “Maggie.” Sybil’s perfect British tones were distraught, and irritation swept over Maggie. Sybil spent half her life in crisis, and she was in no mood to deal with her mother’s histrionics now.

  “Yes, Mother,” she said patiently, rising to her feet.

  “Thank God, you’re back. Maggie, they’ve taken the baby!”

  nineteen

  Maggie no longer felt the chill of the room—every part of her body had turned to ice. She held the telephone in a frozen hand, and it was all she could do to sink her body into the chair. “Explain,” she ordered, and her voice was raw. “No hysterics, no acting, no bullshit. Just tell me what happened.”

  For once Sybil’s ego seemed to have deserted her. “She overslept this morning. She usually wakes Queenie up around seven, so Queenie thought she’d better check. When she went into her room, the crib was empty, and there was a message scribbled on the mirror, saying, ‘We have the baby. Don’t call the police, we’ll be in touch.’ ”

  “What was it written in?”

  “For God’s sake, I don’t know!” Sybil snapped. “What the hell does it matter?”

  “It matters. Crayon, Magic Marker—what?”

  “Actually, it was the most ghastly shade of fuchsia lipstick, now that I think of it. I can’t imagine anyone who would wear that color.”

  “I know someone who would,” Maggie said grimly, thinking of Alicia Stoneham’s wide, fuchsia-colored mouth and braying laugh. And her cold, cold eyes. Would she hurt the baby? “How did they get in?”

  “Lord, I don’t know. Probably through the service entrance in this damned hotel suite. Maggie, what are we going to do? They said not to call the police, but I’m terrified for my little Chrissie.”

  “Where’s Kate?”

  “Off with Caleb McAllister, somewhere in the wilds of Wisconsin. Apparently, Francis Ackroyd had a brother living in some ridiculous place up there, and they wanted to see if he knew anything. Maggie—”

  “Calm down, Sybil. I know who has Chrissie. And I don’t think she’ll hurt her—not unless she’s forced to. We have to be very careful and not make any stupid moves. Just sit tight, and I’ll call you back.”

  “Let me speak to Randall,” she said suddenly. “I want him to tell me not to worry—I think you might lie to me just to calm me down.”

  “Mother, Randall isn’t here,” Maggie said with ill-disguised impatience.

  “He isn’t? Didn’t you go off with him for the weekend?”

  “Yes. But he’s not here. He spent the night at his hotel. As soon as you hang up, I’ll call him—”

  “You must be a changeling,” Sybil said flatly. “I can’t believe that a daughter of mine could let a man who looks like Randall Carter get away.”

  “Maybe I sent him away.”

  “Oh, That’s different. Maybe you’re my daughter after all. Did you say a woman has Chrissie?”

  Maggie hesitated. Beneath her silly banter, Sybil was clearly distraught, and she owed her that much. “Alicia Stoneham,” she said.

  “I knew I’d seen that hideous shade of lipstick before! I’m going to cut that woman’s heart out. How dare she touch my baby!”

  “You’re going to sit there and say absolutely nothing, Mother. I don’t think Alicia will hurt her, but I don’t know for sure. She’s desperate, and desperate people do desperate things.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll call you back.” Maggie slammed down the phone and rose on unsteady feet to go to the hallway. Someone was unlocking the door, and she hoped to God it was Randall.

  Kate walked in with a sleepy smile on her face. Her clothing was rumpled, and her short brown hair was a mess. She looked happier than Maggie had ever seen her, and she ached for her.

  “Maggie, you’re back!” she cried cheerfully when she looked up and saw her sister’s silent figure. “Come talk to me while I shower, and we’ll go see Chrissie. I’m not going in to work today, and I want to tell you about—what’s wrong?” The bright chatter faded as she saw Maggie’s eyes.

  There was no way to sugar-coat it. “Chrissie’s been kidnapped.”

  Kate stood very still, her face deadly white. “Brian?” she croaked, and for a moment Maggie couldn’t even remember who she was talking about.

  She shook her head. “Not her father. I wish it were him.”

  “Then who?”

  “Sit down, Kate, and I’ll explain everything I know, or think I know—”

  “Who kidnapped my baby?” she said, her raw voice skirting the edges of hysteria that Maggie badly wanted to forestall.

  “Alicia Stoneham.”

  That stopped the panic cold. “What?”

  “Sit down and I’ll tell you.”

  “I don’t want to sit down. I want you to tell me why a woman who’s been like a second mother to me would kidnap my baby.” Her voice was still dangerously close to the edge.

  “You want it in twenty words or less?” Maggie inquired grimly. All bets were off with this new development, and Randall would just have to accept it that discretion had gone out the window. “Francis Ackroyd was helping Alicia sell military secrets to Eastern Europe.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t interrupt. She was getting military secrets from her brother, a retired admiral, and she and Francis were incorporating them into their stupid science-fiction movies and sending them to Gemansk. To—”

  “Red Glove Films,” Kate said numbly. “I’ve seen the shipping orders. That explains a lot of discrepancies. Go on. Did Alicia kill Francis?”

  “I don’t know. There’s another man involved in all this, and we haven’t figured out who he is. He’s probably the one who murdered Francis, though why he dumped him here is beyond me.”

  “Why would Alicia take Chrissie?”

  “She knows we’re on to her. Her brother is being watched closely, and she must know it’s a matter of time before we get her. She must have taken Chrissie as a hostage, to buy her enough time to escape.”

  “She won’t hurt Chrissie,” Kate said. That simple assurance took some but not all of the panic from her brown eyes.

  “No, I don’t think she will. But we have to be careful and not panic her into doing something she’d regret. And of course, it all depends who’s working with her.”

  “I can’t imagine …” Her voice trailed off as she looked with sudden horror into Maggie’s eyes. “You can’t believe it’s Caleb!”

  “We don’t know,” Maggie said carefully. “An informant has mentioned his name, but informants aren’t infallible. He has had plenty of opportunity—”

  “No!”

  “Kate, anything is possible. For Christ’s sake, sit down and let me get us some coffee before I call Randall.”

  “What does he have to do with all this?” Kate demanded numbly, not moving from her spot by the door. “Where the hell were the two of you this weekend?”

  “Randall’s a consultant.”

  “For whom?”

  “The CIA,” she said reluctantly. “We were in Gemansk, checking out Red Glove Films.”

  “Were they the ones who said Caleb was part of it?”

  “No.”

  “He’s not, Maggie!” Kate said. “He can’t be.”

  “Maybe not,” Maggie said. “For what it’s worth, my instincts tell me he isn’t. But you can’t rely on instincts when lives are at stake.”

  “No, you can’t,” she said dully.

  Maggie stared at her, torn in
a thousand directions. She wanted to put her arms around her stricken sister and comfort her; she wanted to race over to Sybil’s hotel and see if she could find out anything there; she wanted to go out and confront Alicia Stoneham; she wanted to scour the city until she found Chrissie. And a small, weak part of her wanted to run crying to Randall.

  The only logical thing to do was to wait. “Coffee,” she said. “I’ll make the coffee—you sit down and tell me what you found out in Wisconsin.”

  “Stop trying to make me sit down,” Kate said in a dead voice. “We didn’t find out a damned thing. It was a wild-goose chase, and don’t tell me that’s more proof that Caleb is involved. He was just as taken in as I was.” She shivered, turning her despairing brown eyes toward the window. “Is there anything we can do?”

  “Not at this point. I’ll call Randall and tell him. I’m sure he’ll tell us to sit still and wait.”

  Kate shut her eyes, nodding. “I’m going to lie down.”

  “Do you want any coffee?”

  “Not now. All I want to do is hide for a few moments. …” She let it trail, and Maggie watched her out of aching eyes, watched as she stumbled wearily toward her bedroom. The door closed silently behind her, and Maggie let out her painfully pent-up breath.

  In the kitchen, there was coffee and a phone to call Randall. She stood watching the coffee perk as she listened to Randall’s phone ring and ring and ring.

  He wasn’t there. At eight thirty in the morning, when she most needed him, he wasn’t there. And she wondered suddenly if she’d been the world’s biggest fool ever to trust him.

  Randall was capable of anything. She’d always known that, and the unexpected violence that had surrounded him in Gemansk shouldn’t have surprised her. He would use anything and anybody to get what he wanted. She’d always assumed that they wanted the same things, but now she began to wonder if she’d been much too gullible.

  He’d been in town when Francis had been murdered, been at Francis’s apartment—the scene of the murder—without anyone knowing, when she’d brought the body back. Someone had let the secret police know they were coming; someone had been one step behind them, closing in on them, breathing down their necks. Someone had been involved in this, and she found it hard to believe that Caleb McAllister had such far-reaching power. Randall was the obvious second choice.