Gold Trap

by Lilly Maytree

  “What?” Meg’s new bag slipped from her shoulder and things spilled out onto the floor. “There most certainly is! I just spent the night with him!”

  At which point, Tom Anderson and the desk clerk both turned toward her with the same startled expression. Meg felt the heat of color rise to her face and forgot about French entirely. “Waiting for a doctor who”— the explanation tumbled out in English— “who never even showed up! What if he died in the middle of the night? What, then!”

  “Megan Jennings, I presume,” said Tom Anderson, casting a critical gaze (yes, critical!) at her safari hat. “I’d recognize that voice anywhere. Do you do that on purpose? Barge in and out of other people’s business with some shocking bit of news and then wait to see what happens?”

  “Well, I am quite finished with Andersons!” She bent down to pick up the items that had scattered (her new camera, too!). “You will find your father in room 307, just as I said before. Still asleep. I could care less what the two of you do at this point. Personally, I have a tour to catch up with.”

  “Hold it.” He leaned down and stopped her hand as she reached for the professor’s wallet. “What are you doing with that?”

  “Well, I…”

  “Looks like his cell phone over there, too. Now, just what”—his hand tightened around hers— “is going on here, miss.”

  It wasn’t even a question. It was a statement (no, a demand), and it irritated Meg right down to the very core of her being. After everything she had done for these people! She tried to pull her hand away, but she couldn’t as much as move it. Why was it that people who took regular workouts so seriously, seemed to have a sort of Mount Olympus air about them? It made her feel small, somehow. Although she was slender, she was not small, yet she felt irritatingly tiny next to Tom Anderson. What an absurd situation! Their eyes locked and held. He had the same distinctive blue eyes as his father, only much more intense at the moment. Almost the same as…

  No, that just couldn’t be.

  He simply wasn’t the type. Not the slightest hint of refined manners anywhere. Not only was he staring at her as if she was in pajamas, he wasn’t making the least effort to hide the fact. “Would you rather I had left them up in the hotel room?” Meg was beginning to feel rather impatient, herself. “I was going to register them at the desk here, to be placed in the hotel safe. Then the professor could pick them up after he…came to his senses.”

  “Why didn’t you do it, then?”

  “I only just got here, Mr. Anderson.”

  “It’s almost twelve o’clock.”

  “I overslept.” Meg could feel heat in her face, again. “Jetlag or something. Do you mind letting go of me, now? I am quite willing to turn everything over into your capable hands and get back to minding my own business.”

  He let go of her.

  Whether it was because he saw the logic, or if he had simply been caught off guard by her quiet submission in the face of an altercation, she couldn’t tell. She only knew that, quick as a wink, she heard her father’s frequent admonition of “A soft answer turneth away wrath” and it worked. She handed him the cell phone and wallet, remembered she had brought the professor’s passport along at the last moment, and handed that over, too. Then she scooped the rest of the items into the open bag and got to her feet. Hardly expecting an apology, much less feeling any desire for one, she turned to leave.

  “Wait,” said Tom Anderson.

  She stopped. He was demanding, again. Was it just her imagination, or did the Dark Continent seem to bring out the worst in everyone?

  “I’d like you to go up there with me, if you don’t mind,” he said in a tone that clearly echoed with suspicion. “So we can get things straightened out.”

  At which point Meg forgot about the benefit of soft answers. “I do mind. I’ve had quite enough, so you’ll just have to straighten things out without me. I’m going to catch up with my tour!”

  “I think not.” He had hold of her, again. Only this time by the arm and she couldn’t move away.

  “Well, of all the…” Of all the what, she had no idea. Nor could she think of any more logic to speak quietly. When he began to steer her through a cluster of newly arrived tourists gathering behind them, she said, “Look, you can’t just…”

  But Meg was interrupted at that moment by the imploring protests (French, again) of the clerk at the counter. “Wait, if you please. Mr. and Mrs. Anderson! You cannot go into room 307!”

  “This man is not my wife!” insisted Meg, stumbling over the French words and then realizing her mistake too late. “My husband, I mean!”

  “You cannot go!” the girl insisted. “Room 307 is reserved for the Abdu Sadir!”

  “I will speak to him on your behalf,” Tom replied in a perfect and fluent French that made Meg forget about protesting for a moment and stare more closely at him. “Meanwhile, would you be so kind as to see if there are any messages for, or from a Mr. Gilbert Minelli, and then send a doctor up to the room?”

  But the spell was just as quickly broken when he returned his attentions to Meg with an abrupt, “Let’s go,” (in English) as they started toward the elevator.

  She tried once more to disentangle herself from his grip, but it was no use. “Whatever made her think we were married!” she fussed. “What kind of a…”

  “Arguing in public, no doubt. Married people are usually the only ones who do that.”

  “Do you mind? I left my duffel…” This time she at least succeeded in diverting him toward the potted fern. “It’s under that chair, and I’d rather not leave it in the lobby!” He let go of her long enough to reach for it, during which she practically lost her shoulder bag, again. All the while, she was contemplating another refusal to go upstairs with him. As she hesitated, trying to decide if it would be worth a public scene, Tom slung the duffel alongside his own backpack, and then continued to steer her toward the elevator. All without a word passing between them.

  At the elevator, a large group of people and luggage crowded in, forcing everyone close together. She could feel the strong, hard lines of Tom Anderson’s body (he didn’t move back an inch!) as she involuntarily leaned against him while some heavy, overly enthusiastic tourist leaned unabashedly against her. Of all things!

  “I’m supposed to be with a tour group in Podor.” She tried once more to reason quietly with him (it had worked before), but the close quarters made it impossible to turn around or see his face for any sign of effect.

  “What made you think you had to stay?” he replied over the top of her hat.

  “Well…the professor, of course. Listen, if my own father was afraid of flying and landed himself on a strange continent in that condition, I would only hope some Good Samaritan”—she emphasized the phrase—”would have the decency”—extreme emphasis on that word—”to inform his family and help get him home, again.”

  The doors opened then and they poured out with the flow of other tourists, toward the long row of dark red doors along the hall. But even after things thinned out he was still holding onto her like some common criminal. As if she might escape at any moment. All appearances aside, Meg was ready to make a scene.

  She came to a dead stop in the hallway, yanked her arm from his grasp, and turned to face him. “If you don’t mind! I changed my plans, my own plans, to make sure your father didn’t wake up in some strange hotel not knowing where he was. And now, you have the…the audacity…to treat me like some petty thief!”

  “My father, miss,” he looked down on her with equal ardor, “is nothing like you describe him. He is a rascally old man who has dragged my brothers and me into some of the wildest shenanigans this side of Hollywood. He is not on medication, hates pills of any kind, in fact. What’s more, he would never get his tickets mixed up. Fear of flying? He happens to have his own pilot’s license.”

  “Which is entirely beside the point,” she argued, only a little less forcibly at such shocking news. “Whatever the circumstances, they certain
ly give you no right to boss people around like this. You’re as bad as him!”

  “Considering the amount of bossing you must have done to get things this mixed up, I’d say it was…”

  “Let’s not just stand here in the hallway trading insults, Mr. Anderson. The professor asked me to call you. If you have a problem with the way things have worked out, you’ll just have to take it up with him. So, let’s get this over with.” She pointed him down the hall and stepped aside so he could take the lead instead of shoving her along ahead of him. “Room 307. Last one on the right.” Then she lowered her voice in a pretense of warning as he passed. “The Abdu Sadir’s room.”

  His only reply was to take her outstretched hand and pull her firmly along behind.

  “Oh, honestly!” Meg complained.

  “Pop?” His insistent rap swung the unlatched door open on its hinge.

  “Professor Anderson?” Meg glanced around the broad shoulder that was blocking her view, and then gasped at the sight of the empty, ransacked room with tumbled out drawers and the contents of the professor’s bag strewn out all over the floor.

  The old gentleman was nowhere to be seen.

  Gold Trap

  7

  Kidnapped

  “I did not want to go across the continent, and I do not hanker after Zanzibar…”

  Mary Kingsley

  Tom’s grip on her tightened in what she felt was first out of reflex and then in frustration. “All right, what’s going on?”

  “Well, the last time I saw him, he…”

  “Where is he?”

  “In the restaurant…or lobby…or something.” She was unable to quell her feelings of disbelief. This couldn’t be happening. It absolutely couldn’t be! “Maybe he rifled through all this looking for his wallet. Before he saw my note.”

  “What note?”

  “It’s right over…” Meg glanced at the nightstand where she left it, but it was gone. “Well, he…probably took it with him, then. I’ll call the desk to have him paged, and you can…”

  “I’ll have him paged.” He pointed to the chair across the room and closed the door behind them as he spoke. “You wait over there.”

  “You don’t think…well…of all things!” She sank into its sturdy depths more out of bewilderment than compliance. “Do you think if I had anything to do with this I would wait around until you got here? The poor man, he’ll be absolutely beside himself!”

  “My father is never beside himself,” Tom dropped their bags on the end of the bed, picked up the phone from the nightstand, and dialed with the same hand while he ran the other through his hair and waited for an answer to the ringing she could hear even from across the room. “But it does look as if he’s got himself in over his head this time. Hello, young lady,” (it was French, again). Could you page Professor J.T. Anderson please? He’s not in the room. And about Gilbert Minelli…Yes? Will you read it to me?”

  There was a long moment of silence, during which Tom cast her another accusing glance. He hung up then without saying a word, and continued to stare at her with those piercing blue eyes as if a closer, more determined inspection could somehow explain everything. Which Meg did not appreciate, not for one minute.

  “Well?” She interrupted the ill-mannered scrutiny. “What was the message?”

  “Anderson is headed for Accra…and the girl…” A look of disappointment flickered over his face before he finished almost reluctantly, “Has the documents.”

  “He must mean the passport,” she offered. Because watching the unmistakable waves of disbelief, and then dread flood into those expressive eyes in such rapid succession suddenly wrenched something in her.

  The last piece of advice she’d been given before leaving the United States was, “Whatever you do, Meg, don’t get into any trouble with the law. Some people have disappeared down in those places and never been heard from, again.” She had lightly laughed it off back then, because she was not the kind of person who needed that sort of advice.

  But she had a feeling she may need it now.

  “Why did you take his passport?” he finally asked. “Now, he’ll be detained at the first…”

  “I took it because…well, because of everything you hear about them being so valuable on the black market. Identity theft and all that.” She sighed and looked away from him. She had to, because now she was beginning to feel as if she had definitely done something terribly wrong somewhere. But who would have thought?

  At that moment, her eye fell on a flamboyant pair of red and black print boxer shorts lying among the tumbled out clothes. Hardly the thing you’d guess a man with a Panama suit might wear. Tom (obviously following her gaze) answered as if she had spoken the question out loud.

  “These aren’t my father’s clothes.”

  “What?”

  “I take it they’re not yours, either.”

  “I should say not! Oh, of all things…now, I’ve gone and taken someone else’s luggage. On top of everything else!” All of a sudden, she was upset. As if that little irritation was the last straw, her emotions rose up and threatened to spill out at any moment. “I suppose I’ll have to… I’ll have to lug that thing back to the airport and turn it in to…”

  “First, we have to find Pop before he lands himself in jail.”

  “We? Whatever for? I’ve told you everything I know, what more could I…”

  “Because I’m not letting you out of my sight until I find him, that’s why.”

  “You still think I had something to do with this? For heaven’s sake, do I look dishonest? Do you think I could…”

  “You look like some character out of a low-budget movie. It could be a disguise. You could be in cahoots with the Abdu Sadir, for all I know.”

  “Oh, honestly! These clothes are really nothing more than…”

  He picked up the receiver and redialed the desk. “This is Tom Anderson, again. Would you get someone from the airport to collect the bag in 307? It was brought here by mistake. And do you happen to know when the next flight to Accra is?” He glanced at his watch. “That’s the only one so far? We’ll try to catch it. If you please. Two seats. Yes. Appreciate the tip.”

  “I’m not going,” Meg pronounced before he even hung up.

  “Yes, you are.” He picked up her duffel and his backpack and started toward her, as if he fully intended to scoop her up in the same fashion.

  “You can’t make me.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  Meg realized he was strong enough to drag the entire chair out the door if she refused to let go of it, but at this point, she was ready to scream for help or even call the police. Nothing in the world could make her agree to accompany a perfect stranger…

  “Unless you’d like to sit in jail on kidnapping charges until I get back. You made the first contact with me. You had all his…”

  Meg gasped. “I’m sure once I explain to them and they realize I have no reason…”

  “This isn’t America. You might not get a chance to explain.”

  A sense of absolute dread passed through her at such a thought. Which must have shown on her face because he immediately apologized. “It’s the best I can do. And look here, if things do turn out the way you say, I’ll pay for your tour to make up for the inconvenience. But we have barely an hour to catch that flight, and there are a lot of places around here he could be snagged in along the way.”

  “No doubt.” Meg didn’t mention the sort of establishment she was most certain he was liable to get snagged in, but she obviously didn’t have to.

  “He does have a ticket booked through to Accra,” he reasoned. “We may not be able to check every…possibility here in town…” (Meg knew exactly what he meant by that word) “…before the flight leaves, but it would not be impossible to meet every flight that comes in at the other end after that. Believe me, Miss Jennings, Accra is a much bigger place, and if you are telling the truth, it will save us both a lot of time and grief if we find him before he ge
ts out of that airport.”

  “Oh, all right. I’ll go.”

  What else could she do? But it wasn’t because of his arguments, his threats, or even any of his grandiose promises that she relented. Pay for her tour? What was he thinking? Dropping such large sums of money on the slightest whim must be another Anderson family trait. No, the reason she gave in was because at that moment (and right in the middle of all the confusion) she distinctly recognized another footprint. A very familiar one this time.

  It was a wonderful sense of well-being that suddenly washed over her (making an incredible impression following the tumult of emotions that had preceded it). All at once she knew she could trust Tom Anderson. That he was a man of his word. That, as awkward as the situation seemed, this was the right thing to do. She certainly had no such assurances about sitting in some foreign jail all by herself. Tom Anderson might be demanding and arrogant, but at least he was an American. Besides, he could speak perfect French. Which would save a lot of misunderstandings when it came to trying to catch up with her tour.

  Those were the reasons that Megan, an ordinary schoolteacher who had spent the last ten years working in a quiet university town, walked off into the Dark Continent with a perfect stranger, without telling so much as a soul. She might have called someone in her family at that point. Except that calling halfway around the world just to hear your father give a lecture you already knew perfectly well…was quite out of the question.

  And that’s how it was that Meg spent the next hour trailing behind the audacious Tom Anderson as he plowed through the closest restaurant, the nearest bar (they were open even at this hour!), and finally the two similar establishments nearest the airport. In ordinary circumstances, Meg would never have set foot in one of those. Except that he still fully expected her to run off at the first chance she got. He also insisted that two pairs of eyes were better than one.