by Karen Leabo
If she walked away, Ryan would print what he knew, and she and her father would look very bad. Her father’s entire political career depended on the decisions she made in the next few minutes, and on whatever she told Ryan during the next few hours. She was angry with her dad, but she didn’t want to permanently alienate him. She needed a little space to figure out her life, a little distance from his overwhelming influence. But “a little space” didn’t mean a lifetime of estrangement.
Their hamburgers arrived, and Christine ate hers with gusto. She couldn’t remember having consumed anything so wonderful since her college days. Her father had a chef who prepared all their meals at home, with special attention to lowering fat, salt and sugar content. The meals were usually okay, but predictably heavy on steamed vegetables, broiled fish and dry brown rice.
Then there were the rubber-chicken fund-raising dinners, and the meals at four-star restaurants, spent schmoozing and pressing flesh. She nearly always ordered a salad from the menu. Every once in a while, Christine craved something really decadent, with nutritional values that would give her father’s chef coronary thrombosis just from thinking about them.
“Are you going to eat those pickles?” she asked Ryan.
He shook his head and nudged his plate toward her. “Be my guest. You can have some of my fries, too, if you want. I’m full.”
“Thanks.” As she popped the last fry into her mouth, she noticed that he was staring at her, his face brimming with amusement. “What?”
“Sorry,” he said, “but I never saw a beautiful woman eat so enthusiastically. You don’t have what I’d call a delicate appetite.”
Oh, was that all? And did he really think she was beautiful? some girlish part of her heart asked. She licked some ketchup off her thumb. “Nope, no one ever accused me of being a picky eater. I’m over five-eight, you know, and I’m pure muscle.” She plucked the pickle slices from his plate. “I burn a lot of calories just by breathing.”
“Can I put that in my story?”
She frowned. “Why would you want to? Who cares about what I eat?”
“Chrissy, honey, I don’t know how to break it to you, but you’re a bona fide media event right now. The TV and radio stations have just enough details about your sup—” he caught himself “—about your kidnapping to present a very intriguing picture. Everybody wants to know, were you really kidnapped? If so, are you okay? Have you been freed? If not, what really happened? Was it a publicity stunt? Why didn’t your father want to cooperate with the authorities? Who made that phone call from Costello’s this morning?”
Christine gasped. “You mean the media is already speculating? They know about the phone call?”
“Reporters are curious and tenacious. This is one bone they’re not going to let go of. The less you and your father cooperate, the more condemning the public will be.”
Dam, he was right. She downed the last of her mochaccino, wiped her mouth with her napkin and came to a decision. “Okay, Ryan, here’s the deal.”
He leaned forward expectantly. “Yes?”
“I’ll cooperate with you. I’ll give you an exclusive. I’ll answer all of your questions, within reason, to the best of my ability, and I’ll even tell you something I’ve been holding back. But I want you to do something for me.”
“Anything.”
“Let me stay with you tonight. I don’t have any other place to go. And tomorrow, I want you to take me to my friend’s house, like you originally promised. I don’t want to be around when the story hits the papers.”
He nodded. “I understand. I’ll be happy to take you anywhere you want to go, once the story’s done. But...why don’t you just go home? It doesn’t make sense for you to stay away.”
“It will, when I tell you the whole story.” She’d committed herself now. She was going to admit, publicly, that her father hadn’t tried to get her back, even when it was completely within his power.
She hadn’t decided whether she would tell Ryan about her father’s drug problem. Probably not. A candidate for office could cheat on his wife or be convicted of shady business dealings and survive politically, but for some reason, if there was any hint of drug dependency—even on prescription drugs—the public was not so forgiving.
“One other thing, though,” Ryan said. “The story won’t be hitting the papers, at least not at first. I’m not working for the Guardian on this thing.”
Christine tensed. “Then who...?” Please God, not some sleazy tabloid.
“Primus magazine. Still on spec, mind you, but they’ve said if I can deliver what I’ve promised, they’ll buy it.”
Primus! Everybody read the weekly newsmagazine, even her grandmother. “And what exactly did you promise?”
Ryan looked everywhere but at her. He didn’t want to lie to her, not anymore. “I’d rather not say.”
Chapter 7
Christine Greenlow on a plate. That was what Ryan had rashly promised the editors at Primus. Now, as he pushed a cold french fry around in a pool of ketchup, he was feeling somewhat differently. For one thing, he’d assured Chrissy that he would be fair. Not that he wasn’t always, but her definition of fair and his were probably quite different.
Ryan prided himself on his ethics. He might employ a little subterfuge now and then to get a story, but he wouldn’t out-and-out lie to a source once the cards were on the table. He could only hope that the unenhanced truth—when he found out what it was—was racy enough to please his hungry editors.
The check came, and Ryan paid it. “Ready?”
“Sure.”
“Anywhere you want to stop before we head back to my place?”
“I’d like to go home and get some of my things,” she said, with a certain longing in her voice. “But...I guess I can’t.”
“Why not?” Ryan was thinking how enlightening it would be to actually speak with Senator Greenlow, to see the big blowhard and Chrissy together.
“Because I’m afraid my father will talk me into staying.”
“Only if you let him.”
She pressed her lips together. “He can be very persuasive. He didn’t get where he is by caving in to other people. He usually gets his way.”
“Yeah, but, Chrissy, I don’t sense that you’re some kind of marshmallow. You’ve got a pretty strong will yourself. You kicked a kidnapper in the crotch and jumped out a second-story window, after all.” As he said it, he realized that, for a few seconds there, he’d been talking as though Chrissy’s crazy story were true. He’d actually believed her for a short time.
He kept thinking about that Save the Wetlands bumper sticker.
She seemed to be thinking, too, real hard. He couldn’t see her eyes behind the sunglasses, but her brow had delicate furrows in it. “I’m learning to fight for what I want,” she finally said. “Listen, would you mind if I made a couple of phone calls?”
“Not at all. Need some quarters?”
“Yes. I’ll pay you back for all this as soon as I get situated someplace.”
“Don’t worry about it.” He started to hand her fifty cents from his pocket, then held it back at the last moment. “Who ya calling?”
Her face stiffened. “For a minute there, I thought you were being a normal, nice person ... as opposed to a reporter. I’m calling my friend, to let her know I’m coming, and my father. I want to let him know that I won’t be home tonight, and not to worry. You don’t suppose the police are still tracing calls, do you?”
Ryan shrugged. “You never know, with the police.” He gave her the quarter. “Make it short, and we’ll get out of here before anyone has a chance to find us.” He scooted out of the booth.
Ryan eavesdropped unabashedly while Chrissy made her phone calls. The one to her sister was brief, but comfortable and cordial. The one to her father was less than successful—she spoke to a chain of servants, but never got the man himself on the line.
When she talked to someone named Connie—the maid who’d become worried when Chriss
y went missing and called the police, Ryan gathered from the conversation—Chrissy’s whole face lit up with warmth and obvious affection.
“I’m fine, I promise,” she told the woman. “I’m staying with a friend tonight. I just can’t face Dad right now.... Why not? Well, I’m a little angry with him over the way he handled things the last couple of days.” She cast a sideways look at Ryan.
He studied his fingernails, pretending to be uninterested, but he figured he wasn’t fooling her. Although she’d promised to cooperate, she would be very carefully choosing any words she spoke within earshot of him.
“It’s complicated, Connie. I’ll explain it all to you sometime, I promise.... No, don’t wake him. You wouldn’t be able to, anyway. Just tell him I’m fine, and ... that ... I love him.” She hung up. She was still wearing the sunglasses, even though it was dark outside, so Ryan couldn’t see her eyes, but he suspected she was crying.
Christine was mostly silent on the ride back to Ryan’s apartment, mulling over what she could safely tell him, what would work best to convince him she was telling the truth.
Maybe when she explained that her father hadn’t tried to ransom her, and how shocking and upsetting that was for her, he would understand why she had delayed calling the police.
And speaking of police... there was a squad car, lights flashing, sitting out in front of Ryan’s building.
“Now what?” he wondered aloud as he pulled into the alley. “I hope to hell this doesn’t concern us.”
She liked the way he said “us.” As if they were a team. She needed someone on her side right now, even if the camaraderie was only illusory.
Then she shook her head. She couldn’t afford illusions. He was using her for his own material gain. All his kindnesses had been calculated to gain her cooperation.
She had to remember that.
“Do you want to wait in the car while I check this out?” he asked her.
“No,” she answered quickly, feeling a swell of panic. “That guy could be waiting to get me alone again.”
“Mmm...good point. You know, my landlady will throw a fit if she sees you.”
“You don’t think she bought the ‘Cousin Chrissy from Jersey’ story?”
“Not for a minute. She was on the phone this morning the minute we left, calling my mother to find out if I really did have a cousin Chrissy. I doubt my mother covered for me.”
“Oh. Well, I’ll be very quiet.”
“No more choruses of ‘Everything’s Coming Up Roses’?”
“What?” What was he talking about now?
“That’s what you were singing last night, while you were slung over my shoulder. At the top of your lungs.”
No way. She shook her head vehemently, unable to even imagine herself engaged in such a behavior. “I don’t even know that song.”
He nodded. “Oh, yes, you do. It’s lodged in your subconscious somewhere. Come on.” He handed her the bag from Target, which contained her new underwear and toothbrush, and got out of the car.
As it turned out, there was no opportunity for anyone to sneak. A uniformed officer was poking around the back of Ryan’s building with a flashlight. He stopped them as they started up the back stairs.
“Excuse me. You live here?”
“Yes, sir,” Ryan said as Christine cowered behind him, hoping that for once she wouldn’t be recognized. “I’m on the third floor.”
Just seeing the uniform gave her a knee-jerk reaction of pure tension. She used to consider the police her friends, her allies, but after her experience with Lieutenant Brich, she despised all of them.
“Well, your landlady caught someone trying to break into your apartment a few minutes ago. He was going at your back door with a crowbar. Got it open, but she came after him with a baseball bat and scared him off before he could take anything.”
Bless Ryan’s nosy landlady! Christine had no doubts as to who the would-be burglar was. He was probably not far away, watching, waiting for the police to leave so that he could make another move. He’d probably armed himself again, too.
He wouldn’t kill her, as long as there was a chance she was more valuable alive than dead. But Ryan didn’t have the luxury of a millionaire father. She would never forgive herself if she caused him harm, even if he was a leech reporter.
Another officer came down the stairs. “I secured the door temporarily,” he said, looking at Ryan. “Are you the one who lives here?”
“Yes, sir,” Ryan said.
“You’ll have to use the front entrance. And you might think about getting a stronger door. Those French doors are a piece of cake for a burglar.”
“Thanks, I will.”
“Any sign of the guy?” he asked his partner.
“Nah, he’s long gone.”
Ryan answered a few more questions for the police report. Then he and Christine walked around to the front and let themselves into the foyer.
Mrs. Reiser’s door immediately opened. “Oh, Ryan, I’m so glad you’re back. Something terrible happened.” She was still clutching her baseball bat.
“I know all about it,” Ryan said soothingly. “I met the police out back. It’s okay now, the burglar’s gone, and thanks to your quick actions, he didn’t get anything. He’d be a fool to come back to this building with you on the alert.”
Mrs. Reiser preened herself over Ryan’s praise. It figured, Christine thought. What female of any age could be immune to Ryan’s charm when he turned it on? She herself had certainly fallen victim to it.
“I try to keep an eye on things,” Mrs. Reiser said. Then she peered around Ryan to where Christine was trying to be inconspicuous. “Your cousin is still here, I see,” she said, more “alert” than Christine cared for her to be at the moment.
“Yeah,” Ryan said with an easy smile. “She was supposed to meet up with my other cousin Merle earlier today, but things got mixed up and it turns out Merle is in Albuquerque till tomorrow. So I’m getting ready to drive Chrissy to my grandmother’s house.”
Christine hoped she wouldn’t have to say anything. Her fake Jersey accent could only stretch so far.
“That’s very nice of you, Ryan,” Mrs. Reiser said. “I tried to call your mother today, but she wasn’t at home.”
Thank goodness, Christine thought. Then, in a moment of insanity, she decided to speak. “I’ll be seein’ Auntie tomorra, prob’ly. I’ll be sure and give her your regards.”
Ryan looked at her with undisguised horror. Was her accent that bad?
“Thank you, that’s very kind,” Mrs. Reiser said. “Tell her I’m getting my hair done at Tony’s on Thursday, if she wants to meet me there. Eleven o’clock. We can have lunch afterwards.”
“Sure,” Christine said. The word came out sounding like “Shoo-ah.”
After that, Ryan quickly bade his landlady good-night and dragged Christine up the stairs. He didn’t speak again until they were safely inside his apartment. “You a frustrated wanna-be actress, or what?”
Christine giggled nervously. “I felt stupid, just standing there like a mute. I thought I’d support your story.”
He gave her an appraising look. “You lie without batting an eyelash, don’t you?”
“So do you,” she countered, feeling thoroughly insulted, “We all do what we have to do. Oh, please tell me you’re not going to include my Cousin Chrissy act in your story.”
“I don’t know what I’ll include, yet,” he said mildly, and then he laughed. “Not for shoo-ah.” He mimicked her perfectly.
Her stomach swooped. By the time Ryan got done with her and all of America had read his story, she was either going to be a heroine, an evil villainess, or a laughingstock.
Right now, she was voting for laughingstock.
Ryan turned serious. “We can’t stay here tonight. It’s not safe.”
“I was hoping you felt that way,” she said. “Where can we go?”
“We could get on the highway and drive to your friend’s house. But I d
on’t like to be on the road at night with some maniac after us.”
“Me neither.”
“A hotel, then. Don’t look at me that way. We’ll have separate rooms.”
Did she dare tell him that separate rooms was what she feared most? She didn’t think she could bear sleeping alone tonight, knowing that crazy Denny would break through any window or door to get to her. She’d gotten the feeling that this whole kidnapping thing had become very personal for him. He was working alone, perhaps believing that if he returned her to the terrorist group, he would be rewarded.
And avenged. She shuddered to think what he might do to her, if he did catch her, before he turned her over to the group at large. Yesterday—was it only yesterday?—he’d had rape and mutilation on his mind.
“I’m going to gather up a few things,” Ryan said. “And I want to make a quick phone call. Then we can go.”
The sooner the better, Christine thought. She couldn’t. even make herself sit down; she was too nervous. She paced the small living room and chewed off a broken cuticle. When she realized what she was doing, she shoved her hands in her pockets.
Ryan was ready a few minutes later. He had his cellular phone, a laptop computer, reference books, telephone books, his Rolodex, a miniature TV and a road map—everything the modern reporter on the move needed. He stuffed it all into a Gore-Tex duffel bag.
The tools of his trade left Christine feeling cold. She wished, as she’d never wished for anything, that Ryan wasn’t a reporter, that he really was an unemployed mechanic whose only motive was the desire to help out a fellow human being in need.
And sex. She wouldn’t mind if that was one of his motives. Not that she’d fall into bed with him. But the fact remained, she didn’t go more than a few minutes without reliving that kiss and wondering if it had meant anything, anything at all.
In minutes, they were back in Ryan’s car, on the road. Ryan weaved in and out of side streets, while Christine kept watch out the rear window, watching for a red Firebird or any other suspicious cars. But no one followed. Maybe her terrorist friend had retreated to regroup.