Let's Make a Baby!

by Jacqueline Diamond

  Since her feet weren’t bound, Lisa moved them carefully, shifting until she hoisted herself into a sitting position. Scooting backward, she bumped into a hard, vertical surface that felt like a wooden crate. She brushed her cheek along it until something caught the edge of the blindfold. Several tugs loosened it, and it slipped down onto the bridge of her nose.

  Squinting in the unaccustomed glare, Lisa surveyed her surroundings. She was in the back of an airplane, among boxes and crates. It was too small to be a commercial airliner, but large enough to be a charter craft or private jet. In the front, a bulkhead cut off sight of the cockpit, and of whoever was smoking. Light filtered through windows on either side.

  Pushing against the crate, Lisa worked her way toward a standing position. Her thigh muscles strained and nearly gave way, and she scraped her arms repeatedly, but desperation finally propelled her upright. At first, she could see only sky through the nearest double pane. Craning her neck only brought into view a vast sweep of blue ocean, all the way to the horizon.

  They had left America. Even though she had been there only a short time, Lisa felt as if she were being dragged away from home.

  Toward the front of the plane, something rustled. Her heart jumped into her throat. She heard a low exhalation, and then the sounds of someone moving toward her. Instinct warned her not to let the man learn that she was awake, but with her hands tied, she could do nothing. Only stand there with her heart thundering and wait to see the face of her captor.

  *

  Ryder was changing planes at JFK airport when he finally got through to Maureen Buchanan. After recognizing his name, she listened intently while he summarized the situation.

  “Oh, Lord, this is my fault,” she said when he paused. “I’m the one who put her up to this crazy adventure. But I can’t imagine who would kidnap her, eh?”

  Ryder described his phone conversation with Mr. Smith. “Could he be this Boris Grissofsky?”

  “I suppose so, but—he told you someone had given Annalisa your name?” Maureen said.

  “That’s right.” He stifled a yawn. It was early morning, and he hadn’t slept much on his red-eye flight from L.A.

  “Only three people knew about you.” Her tone was grim. “Me, Lisa—and my boyfriend, Win. He knows Boris, and he always needs money, but I never dreamed he would stoop so low as to spy on me. Why, that rotten...”

  Ryder interrupted with questions, but Maureen had no idea where Boris might take Lisa. She did, however, provide him with a phone number and directions to the De La Penas’ château.

  As soon as he hung up, Ryder dialed the number. While it rang, he tried to imagine the place where Lisa lived. All he could picture, from Maureen’s description, was Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at Disneyland.

  A man answered in French, announcing the name of the chateau as if he were either a butler or a tour guide. Ryder dredged up his slim high-school knowledge of the language. “Je m’appelle Ryder Kelly. Il faut que je parle avec Monsieur ou Madame De La Pena.”

  He was feeling proud of himself, until the man launched into another question which Ryder couldn’t begin to understand. In English he fumed, “It’s about their daughter! This is an emergency!”

  “One moment, monsieur.” Ryder heard the man pace away, and voices echoed as if in an enormous chamber.

  Another man came on the line. He sounded less imperious but more impatient. “What about my daughter?”

  “My name is Ryder Kelly. I’m a friend of hers, a private detective from Los Angeles,” he said. “Lisa’s been kidnapped.”

  “Yes, we know that.”

  “You do?”

  “We’ve been in touch with her kidnappers for several days.”

  “That’s impossible,” Ryder said. “She was only abducted yesterday.”

  “What kind of game is this?”

  “You can contact the Beachside, California, police if you don’t believe me,” he persisted. “Look, Mr. De La Pena, Lisa has spent the last week with me. I believe she’s been abducted by someone named Boris Grissofsky.”

  The noise that emanated from the phone lay somewhere between a snort and a snarl. “How dare you insult a relative of the Hohnersteins? A man of impeccable character and breeding!”

  “Breeding?” No wonder Lisa had treated Ryder as a stud, since her father talked about people as if they were cattle. “Listen to me—”

  “No, you listen to me, Mr. Kelly. I don’t know who you are but you have no right even to be in the same room with my daughter, let alone insult my future son-in-law!” roared Schuyler De La Pena. “I can smell a fortune hunter a continent away. If you ever trouble us again, I’ll see you in prison.”

  The line went dead. Lisa’s father had hung up on him.

  Ryder’s stomach churned. Lisa didn’t just belong to a wealthy family, she came from a den of snobs who believed that being related to the Hohnersteins—whoever they were—proved that you mattered. Lisa didn’t share their blindness, or she wouldn’t have fled Boris Grissofsky. Still, in the long run, how could Ryder hope she would be satisfied with the kind of modest life he could provide?

  Then he remembered the baby. The one she might be carrying. His.

  With all his soul, Ryder had rejected the prospect of raising children in uncertainty and possible poverty, the way he’d grown up. Time to let go of outdated fears. He wasn’t poor anymore. He might never own a château, but there were worse things for a child than growing up in a modest house or apartment. Like living with parents who considered their daughter some kind of broodmare.

  Now to the puzzle that Schuyler had presented when he declared the kidnappers had contacted him several days ago. Was it possible Boris had taken advantage of Lisa’s disappearance to demand a ransom? If so, nearing a deadline to turn her over, he must have seen the necessity of snatching her for real.

  While that was only a scenario, Ryder felt certain that Lisa’s life was in danger from the very man her parents trusted. Any number of things might go wrong with the ransom attempt. What if Boris decided to up the stakes at the last minute? What if Lisa recognized her abductor and threatened to expose him?

  The loudspeaker blared an announcement of the departing flight to Paris. This was Ryder’s last chance to withdraw. Inside him, the ghost of a little boy shuddered at the prospect of facing a châteauful of aristocrats. Of weathering once again the type of cruel sneers that had haunted his adolescence. Of risking his life for a woman who had sought him out because she wanted a faceless stud to get her pregnant.

  The images faded before the memory of Lisa, her eyes aglow when he’d rescued her and Ginger. Fragile and determined, buoyant with relief, eager for his arms around her. Which was exactly where he wanted to put them.

  Briefcase in hand, Ryder strode to the departure gate and left his ghosts behind.

  *

  She didn’t know this man. Lisa had been so certain it was Boris who’d kidnapped her, that she thought for a moment this other man must be the pilot. Then she remembered his face from the surf shop, right before she passed out.

  He was in his twenties, smooth looking except for a few acne scars. The brown hair and short mustache were clipped with military precision, the dark suit smartly tailored, the tie perfectly flat. The cold perfection of the man frightened her. Lisa sensed immediately that she wouldn’t be able to enlist his sympathy. “Who are you?”

  His nostrils flared. “You weren’t supposed to see me.” Then he shrugged. “My name is Lothaire Warner. I work for Boris Grissofsky.”

  The fact that he’d admitted that was frightening. Was it like in the movies, where when the villain showed his face, it meant he intended to kill his victim? “Where are you taking me?”

  “To your parents.” Lothaire approached with measured steps. “If you promise you won’t fight, I’ll cut your hands loose.” When she hesitated, he added, “It’s not as if you can escape. Or get help. There’s no one on board but you, me and the pilot, and he does what I tell him.”


  “Boris isn’t here?”

  He let out a low, humorless chuckle. “That idiot? He’s waiting at a private airport outside Paris.”

  Boris an idiot? At least she and Lothaire agreed on that point. “Okay, cut me loose.”

  From the pocket of his impeccable suit, the man plucked a thin, deadly knife. Despite her moment of intense fear, he kept his word, and an instant later, the bonds dropped from her wrists.

  Blood stung her palms and fingers as it rushed back. She flexed her shoulders and tried not to wince as the muscles spasmed.

  “Why did you kidnap me if you’re just taking me to my parents?” Lisa asked.

  “Because they are about to pay a rather large ransom.” Leaning against a crate, Lothaire trimmed one of his nails with the knife.

  “Does Boris know about this?”

  “Absolutely.” While the fellow appeared to be absorbed in his manicure, Lisa suspected he was alert for any sudden movements on her part.

  She had no interest in fighting this man. Her goal was to stay safe and return to Ryder, to beg him to understand that she hadn’t left on purpose. “My parents want to marry me off to Boris,” she said. “So, why would he do a thing like this?”

  “He’ll be wearing a disguise,” said Lothaire. “He thinks he can have both the ransom and your dowry.”

  Although she feared the answer, Lisa asked, “What point is there in his wearing a disguise, since you already told me it’s him?”

  “You would have recognized his voice, anyway.” The man examined his cuticles.

  “How does he hope to get away with this?”

  “I told you, he’s an idiot.” Lothaire glanced up with a twist of a smile. “He’s not going to get away with it, but I am.”

  Now she was even more frightened. Although Boris had nothing to gain by her death, what about this man? “I don’t understand.”

  He must have noticed her reaction. “Don’t worry. Do as I say and you’re in no danger. Please, Miss De La Pena, have a seat.” He indicated a bolted-down couch. “I can get you a drink or a snack, if you like.”

  “Later.” Her throat felt dry, but Lisa wanted to hear the rest of this. She sank onto the couch obediently.

  “Your suitor owes a great deal of money to some very impatient people,” said her captor.

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Not if you’re wise,” Lothaire responded. “These very impatient people sent me to pretend to work for him. As his trusted assistant, I suggested that he marry a rich woman so he could pay them back. However, you had the good sense to reject him, and off you went to America.”

  “I think I’m following this so far,” she admitted.

  “Our next idea, once we learned your returning flight schedule, was to nab you in New York and drug you while a marriage was performed,” Lothaire said. “Instead, there was an unfortunate accident.”

  Lisa’s hand flew to the stitches on her head. “You did this?”

  “Not intentionally.” The man resheathed his knife. “It might still have worked until, to our astonishment you disappeared from the hospital. You are a very elusive woman, Miss De La Pena.”

  “Not elusive enough, it seems.”

  “Since you were suffering from amnesia and likely to remain out of sight for a while, we decided to pretend that you had been kidnapped and demand a ransom. Tomorrow we will produce you, and your parents will pay us $1.5 million.”

  “You plan to take it and dump Boris,” Lisa said.

  “So you see,” Lothaire continued as calmly as if discussing a luncheon menu, “I have no reason to harm you as long as you cooperate. Furthermore, when this business is over, you should have no trouble convincing your parents to break the engagement to such a despicable man.”

  She almost laughed at the irony. “You have this all worked out.”

  “So we hope.”

  Lisa thought about the $1.5 million her parents would be turning over to Lothaire. As far as she was concerned, that money could come from her dowry. The only man she would agree to marry was Ryder, and he wouldn’t take a penny for her—if he would take her at all.

  “The only thing you have to do,” Lothaire said as he removed two cans of soda from a small refrigerator, “is keep Boris in the dark about this entire conversation.”

  “I think I can manage that,” said Lisa.

  *

  With the little French he could muster, Ryder checked his luggage at the train station. If he’d come on a wild-goose chase, he reflected as he emerged into a light rain, he’d at least arrived in the right country to score some decent pâté. If he ate such things, which he did not.

  Before him, the town bustled with Monday-morning activity. Motor scooters and bicycles wove between produce trucks, and fresh-baked bread perfumed the air. Red and yellow umbrellas bloomed along the sidewalks.

  “Pardon,” he said to a scarf-wrapped woman with a basket over her arm. “Où se trouve le château?”

  “Là,” she said, and pointed.

  Atop a hill in the distance stood a white palace, turreted and tower-studded. Sleeping Beauty’s Castle hadn’t been far off the mark. “Est-ce qu’il y a un taxi?”

  “Un taxi, ici?” The woman whooped at the notion of finding a cab in such a small town. “Vous avez deux pieds, monsieur! Voilà votre taxi!”

  He didn’t need a translator for that one. You have two feet, monsieur. They are your taxi. “Merci.” Ryder wished he could get more information, but he doubted the De La Penas had made a public announcement of where they intended to pay off their daughter’s kidnapper.

  Stepping across a mud puddle, he traversed a narrow sidewalk between dark-timbered buildings. A half hour later, he left the town and headed along a road that led toward the château through a vineyard. The path ran upward, and a current of mud flowed past. The rain thickened, blurring his vision and, as he trudged, two days’ worth of exhaustion hit Ryder in the face like a gust of water-laced wind.

  Fierce resolve had powered him this far. Unfortunately, he had no particular plan, let alone any real information about what lay ahead. Perhaps the De La Penas had arranged some other site entirely, he thought morosely. Or had already made the payment.

  What good would it do Lisa if he arrived at her doorstep like a sodden stray dog? He’d passed an inn in the village where he could clean up and rest for a few hours until the rain eased. It was time to yield to common sense.

  As he wavered, a faint buzz caught Ryder’s attention. He could see nothing through the gray clouds, and then the noise sounded again, louder and closer. Through the clouds broke a low-flying helicopter, aiming toward a not-far-distant field.

  Ryder broke into a lope.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Lisa wished Boris would stop humming. For one thing he was off-key. Also, it was unseemly for him to be cheerful about betraying his fiancée and her family. And why on earth had he chosen a Richard Nixon mask with which to disguise himself? Its solemnity made the humming even more ridiculous.

  The helicopter bumped on an air current, sending her stomach into flip-flops. She’d never ridden in a chopper before, and she certainly wouldn’t have chosen to take her maiden voyage in a rainstorm.

  The rest of the flight from America had passed smoothly. She and Lothaire had played cards for a while, but he couldn’t resist cheating. Once she started cheating back, however, they got along fine.

  Things had changed as soon as they’d landed at a private airport outside Paris and met up with Boris. She’d felt anxious, exhausted and just plain cranky. Her head wound hurt, and she itched to wash her hair. Mostly she couldn’t stand being near Boris, who had practically breathed down her neck all night and who sat beside her now.

  Even through that ridiculous mask, she could feel his smugness. It produced a strong urge to punch him in the nose.

  She stared out at the clouds and the patches of gray countryside. She could imagine the musky scent of grapes and the spicy richness of leaves crushed
beneath the downpour. California sunshine belonged to another universe.

  Where was Ryder? Had he read her scribblings about getting pregnant? What was he thinking?

  Lisa pictured him as she’d first seen him, on the ski slope. Through the binoculars, she’d been impressed by his well-shaped body and powerful stance. She remembered him relaxed in bed, after his passion had been spent, and how they’d nestled together. The way he’d gazed at her at the chalet, a bit puzzled but mellow. Beginning to care, to let himself go.

  Later, at his California apartment, she’d witnessed something deeper. Love? She had begun to hope so. Would she ever see that look on his face again?

  Lisa clamped her lips together as drops pelted the skin of the helicopter. In the humid air, she felt clammy, and the sensation got worse every time Boris shifted in his seat and poked his legs against hers.

  “Would you cut that out?” she growled.

  “Do not forget, you are my preeezoner,” he whined over the engine noise, in a high, fake voice.

  In front of them, beside the pilot, Lothaire’s shapely ears pricked up. Lisa guessed he was almost as eager to conclude this business as she was.

  They arced over a windbreak of trees. Beyond it, she spotted a vehicle with four people visible inside. The chopper veered past them and circled the field.

  “Who are those other people?” screeched Boris in his falsetto. “There should be only your parents!”

  Thanks to their swooping, Lisa’s lunch sprang to unpleasant life, but she tried to ignore it. “They brought the butler, Sebastien, and my maid, Mireille. It looks like they’ve got blankets.”

  “A wise precaution,” observed Lothaire. “In case she gets chilled or goes into shock.”

  “They could be hiding weapons,” squeaked Boris.

  Lisa’s father had been trained to shoot a pistol, since his business took him to unsettled parts of the world. But she doubted he would use one here. “My father would never risk my life. Or that you might shoot back and hit my mother.”