Snatched

by Pamela Burford

  “That’s what I wanted you to think. Hey, be careful!” Frank said as the Trouts wrestled his beloved chair through the French doors. “That’s a custom-crafted piece.”

  Lucy and Will followed Frank outside, where he clucked over the men as they horsed the chair into the truck. “I mean, who else could’ve been behind it, right?” Frank asked his wife. “I called her after I left you guys.”

  It irked Lucy that Frank had deduced Ethel’s role in the kidnapping before she had. She lowered her voice. “You told me you wouldn’t do this.” She indicated the truck. “Raiding the house when I’m not here. What happened to keeping this divorce civilized?”

  Her husband made a face. “If civility means me rolling over and letting you walk away with the whole shebang, think again. The last couple of days must’ve taught you something.”

  Lucy frowned. “What does that have to do with . . . ? I know you sent those two idiots in the ski masks. Am I supposed to be impressed by that warped stunt?”

  Frank returned to the house. She stalked after him. Will trailed behind, a silent but comforting presence. “Am I supposed to swoon with delight because my husband hired a couple of goons to terrorize me? What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Frank stared at her, clearly taken aback. In twenty years she’d never spoken to him like that. It had always been so much easier to take the path of least resistance. What had she imagined would happen if she stood up for herself?

  They were both about to find out.

  Her husband drew himself up. “Guess what I found in the kitchen garbage.”

  “You went through my garbage?”

  “It was lying right on top. An empty Fritos bag. Fritos!”

  This was the final betrayal, Lucy knew, the ultimate act of defiance for a tediously loyal KrunchWorks wife. “If you’d dug a little farther, you’d have found a Pringles can.”

  He flushed a furious brick red. “Are you trying to kill me?”

  “Get out, Frank.”

  “Like hell.”

  Lucy turned to Will. “This is between me and Frank. Do me a favor and wait outs—”

  “No.” Will scooped a few stray kernels of popcorn off the mantelpiece and tossed them into his mouth.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She turned back to her husband. “You promised to respect my space, Frank, to wait for a fair, negotiated settle—”

  “Things have changed, in case you haven’t noticed,” he said. “You don’t call the shots anymore.”

  There was that admonition again, for the second time in less than twenty-four hours. The only time she’d ever “called the shots” was when she’d finally kicked Frank out of the house. And apparently she hadn’t even done that right.

  “Take your clothes, take your cappuccino maker.” She was nearly shouting. “Take your giraffes and your golf clubs and Babe.”

  “Who?”

  She flung her hand toward the vacant space recently occupied by his chair and a half. “That ugly pigskin . . . thing that cost us more than our first car. Take it and leave. You’re not making off with anything else. Not now. Not this way. We’re going to do this thing right.”

  “Meaning what? That I’m supposed to roll over and wait for your lawyer to rob me blind?”

  “I don’t have a lawyer.” A mistake, putting off that inevitable, painful step. “Yet.”

  “So you say,” he sneered.

  “When have I ever lied to you? What’s gotten into you, Frank?”

  “If you did hire a lawyer,” he said, “unhire him. There’s not going to be any divorce.”

  She groaned. “Oh, don’t start that—”

  “I’ll let you keep living here,” Frank continued, “provided you cooperate.”

  Lucy’s jaw dropped. “Excuse me? You’ll let me live in my own home?”

  “Who holds the title?” Frank’s cold smile said, Didn’t think of that, did you?

  “That’s irrelevant and you know it,” Lucy said. “The court will divide the marital assets equitably.”

  “You’re not listening.” Frank got in her face. “No lawyers. No divorce court. You and I remain married—on paper anyway. I’ll be moving permanently to Egerton.”

  “Where?”

  Frank smirked. “Like you have no clue what I’m talking about. Like you’ve never heard of Egerton, Illinois. This isn’t the way I’d have chosen for it to come out, but now that it has, I’ve gotta tell you, it’s a relief.”

  Lucy looked to Will, silently asking if he had a clue what Frank was babbling about. Will shrugged.

  “You’re a good man, Will. Loyal to the end.” Frank slapped him on the back. “But listen, you can drop the hush-hush stuff now, okay? Lucy knows about her, she knows that Lucy knows, everyone knows everything. We’re all on the same page here.”

  Same page? Lucy thought. She wasn’t even in the same book.

  The Trout brothers returned, and Frank fretted over the antique rolltop desk as they prepared to move it. It embarrassed Lucy to watch her husband fuss over their possessions like that. Auntie Frank. Had he always been so prissy and officious? Looking back, she had to admit that yes, this lovely trait had always been part of his personality. She’d been blind to his faults, willfully so, determined as she was to keep the family together for the sake of their son.

  Lucy turned to the movers. “Stop what you’re doing.” Her own strong, authoritative voice surprised her. The Trouts snapped to, awaiting further instructions. She straightened the sleeves of her jammies. “You are not to touch anything else in this house.”

  “Don’t listen to her.” Frank sounded bored. “This is my house. This is my stuff. Get that desk out to the truck.”

  “It is not his house. This is a divorce situation,” Lucy informed the Trouts, whose heads whipped around on the word “divorce.” “The contents of this house are not my husband’s to dispose of. If you remove anything else—”

  “Hey, no problemo,” The biggest Trout said. All three brothers showed their palms and took one giant step back. Big Trout turned to Frank. “We’ll settle up now.”

  “No,” Frank said. “Why are you listening to her? I hired you, and I’m telling you to—”

  “We don’t get in the middle of divorces.” Big Trout blew a gum bubble and popped it.

  “There is no divorce,” Frank said. “She’s mistaken.” The Trouts’ eyebrows rose in unison. “I mean, she’s lying. It’s a trick.”

  The littlest Trout scratched his cranium stubble. “You two aren’t splitting up?”

  “No! That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

  “So then why’re you moving stuff outta here?” asked the medium-sized Trout.

  Frank tossed his hands in frustration. “Why do you care? I pay you, you move stuff. You don’t need to know why.”

  Lucy folded her arms across her chest. She addressed the moving men. “We split up over a month ago. He’s just trying to steal everything in the place. If you let him use you to do it, my lawyer will—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Big Trout waved away the threat. He jerked his head toward the French doors and the moving truck beyond. “You got a problem with him swiping the stuff we already loaded?”

  “I’m not ‘swiping’ anything!” Frank shouted.

  “No problemo.” Lucy smiled at the Trouts. She nodded toward her husband. “I’d demand cash if I were you.”

  Big Trout popped another bubble and winked at her. He was actually kind of cute. He handed her a business card. “Gimme a call when you get it all sorted out.”

  Chapter 13

  JUDITH SLATHERED SPF 45 on her pallid arms and upper chest. She leaned forward on the poolside chaise to squirt the stuff on her legs, and hesitated. Would it kill her to get a little color? If she returned to New York as pale as she’d left, no one would even believe she’d been to Bermuda.

  She sighed. If she allowed even the trace of a tan, she’d have to hear about it from Roger, the dermatologist. She started to squeeze the bo
ttle, only to have it snatched away by a big, masculine hand.

  A Gaelic-inflected voice said, “You missed a spot.”

  Judith’s heart did a back flip. She squinted into the brilliant morning sun, blinking as the man’s lofty shadow fell over her and his features materialized. It was him! “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Fergus Dowd perched next to her on the padded teak chaise, hip-butting her to make room. “Helping you to maintain a corpselike pallor.” He evened out the lotion on her chest, his fingers straying dangerously close to the modest scoop neck of her forest green one-piece.

  She slapped his hand away. “Answer me. Why are you in Bermuda? And make it good.”

  A woman several chairs away looked up from her newspaper. The pool area was sparsely populated this morning, the temperature only in the seventies. April wasn’t August, even in Bermuda.

  “Dr. Milton is shirkin’ his duties.” Fergus upended the bottle of sunscreen and glopped some onto her bare thigh. She tried to jerk her leg away, but he moved like a cobra, seizing her calf with one hand and spreading lotion with the other. “He’s out there on the fairway knockin’ a little ball around when he should be here protecting his woman from the lethal rays of the sun.”

  And from wild Irishmen with intriguing pasts and magic hands. She restrained a groan of pleasure as his long, slick fingers kneaded the muscles of her thigh. “How do you know Roger’s on the golf course? No, don’t tell me.” She arched one eyebrow, taking in Fergus’s antiquated sporting costume, complete with knickers, argyle sweater, goofy hat, and golf shoes with spikes. “You just came from there.”

  “Your fella has a decent swing, but he doesn’t seem to know what that darlin’ wee hole is for.” A suggestive grin accompanied this comment, and Judith bit back another groan.

  One year, four months, and thirteen days. That was how long it had been. Even when Donald was among the living, their sex life barely had a pulse.

  Judith bought batteries by the case.

  She tried to dislodge Fergus’s hand, now loitering at the lower edge of her suit. She may as well try to dislodge the Blarney Stone. “How did you know we were staying here?” she asked. “Have you been spying on us?”

  His luxuriant brows twitched. “A scurrilous accusation like that from such a refined lady as yourself? I am shocked, Mrs. Drinkwater, and that’s the truth.”

  Judith imagined Fergus skulking around the resort—to the extent a long-haired Irish giant with outlandish taste in clothes can skulk—waiting patiently for Roger to make himself scarce so he could get her alone.

  That notion settled where all good notions do, making her squirm. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, Fergus, but you’re wasting your time. Go home.”

  “Has Dr. Milton been mistreatin’ you, Mrs. Drinkwater?” He squirted more sunscreen and tenderly smoothed it up her inner thigh. “Is that why you’re so prickly?”

  “Dr. Mil— Roger treats me just fine, he’s a gentleman, and if you don’t want me to be so damn prickly, you could try taking lessons from him. Stop that.” She grabbed his wrist. “I’m not going to sunburn there.”

  “Oh, I don’t think I’ll be takin’ lessons from Dr. Milton anytime soon. I know what that darlin’ wee hole is for.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Have you been talking to my brother? Has Will been blabbing to you about my personal life?”

  “You mean did he tell me you have yet to receive a thorough examination from the good doctor?”

  “That bastard!” She jerked upright, heedless of the stares of those around her.

  “No, he didn’t, but thanks for verifyin’ my suspicions, lass. Flip over now so I can do your back.” He squeezed more lotion onto his palm.

  Judith could have refused. She could have continued to spar with Fergus as she always did—which never failed to give him the upper hand. This man was a master at keeping her off balance. It was time to turn the tables.

  She shifted onto her stomach and folded her arms under her head. “Your powers of deduction are impressive, Fergus. That you could guess that about me and Roger.”

  “Guesswork had nothin’ to do with it, Mrs. Drinkwater.”

  “Oh yes, I forgot. You’re trained in that sort of thing.”

  His fingers stroked between her shoulder blades. “Meaning what?”

  “Will told me all about you. Oh.” Judith tossed a disingenuous look over her shoulder. “Was he not supposed to?”

  “Told you what precisely?”

  “You know.” She twitched her shoulders in a little shrug. “Your past. It’s okay, Fergus. My lips are sealed. But I am curious as to what it was like. How you, you know, got into that line of work.”

  Fergus shifted his attention to the back of her thigh. His hand felt huge and strong and deliciously rough. Somehow she managed not to wriggle.

  One year, four months, and thirteen days. God help her.

  “How I got into that line of work?” He repeated her question. “Oh, by the usual routes, I suppose.”

  “It sounds fascinating, Fergus. I’d love to hear about it.”

  “That part of my life is over,” he said. “It wasn’t nearly as exciting as you make it out.”

  “Oh, I find that hard to believe. All right, just tell me this. Did you ever have to . . . terminate anyone?”

  “Ah, lass, I’d really rather not get into—”

  “You did, didn’t you?” Judith twisted around to look him in the eye. She felt a flush of heat that had nothing to do with the sun. “How many?”

  Fergus smoothed sunscreen down her calf and massaged it into her ankle. “It’s not somethin’ I like to speak of.”

  “Yes, but . . .” But she was dying to know. Judith slumped onto her stomach. She pictured it in her mind’s eye. Fergus Dowd, double agent, extracting secrets from a Russian spy. And then poisoning the man’s martini. Or maybe it’s an American spy. A beautiful American spy whom he first seduces to gain her trust—before receiving the order to terminate her, which he obeys, regretfully but without hesitation.

  Maybe his past had nothing to do with the Cold War. There was always the Irish Republican Army. Of course, it was entirely possible he hadn’t been a spy at all. She’d imagined him as a “made man.” Some sort of Mafia kingpin. Was there an Irish Mafia?

  Judith found the notion of Fergus Dowd, master criminal, even more stimulating than Fergus Dowd, master spy.

  She sighed. “You’re not going to tell me anything, are you?”

  “I’m afraid not, lass. My first career involved secrets which I am not at liberty to share. You understand.” He lifted her foot and began to massage it with the slippery lotion.

  “You don’t have to do that. I doubt I’ll burn on the bottoms of my—” She broke off with a moan of pleasure.

  “Better safe than sorry.” His sinewy fingers found every pressure point. He fondled the arches, the toes, and between them.

  Judith knew she should stop him—this kind of fondling had nothing whatsoever to do with sun safety—yet she couldn’t find the will to do it. Her eyes fluttered shut. When was the last time she’d had a foot rub? Not from Roger, certainly, and Donald hadn’t been the touchy-feely type.

  It had to have been Hal, she realized. He’d definitely been the touchy-feely type—that is, until he’d become the Jekyll-Hyde type. He used to rub her feet, brush her hair, and . . . well, the man had just the most talented mouth. Hal Lynch had without a doubt been the most physical, sensual, just plain sexual man she’d ever been with.

  Of course, that level of intensity wasn’t restricted to his libido. He’d been possessive to the point of obsession, a circumstance she’d found flattering until even her platonic male pals were afraid to stop by for a beer or a few puffs on the bong. And she’d been afraid to let them.

  “You’re frowning.” Fergus’s voice was low and intimate. “Am I doin’ it wrong?”

  She allowed herself a snort of amusement. They both knew what he was doing, an
d he was doing it just right—damn him. “I was just thinking of someone I used to know.”

  “And I remind you of this cad?” He switched to the other foot.

  “No, it’s just . . . he used to do that. Rub my feet.”

  “Did your husband know about this foot-rubbing bloke?”

  “This was before Donald. Before I cleaned up my act.” She sighed. “I’m sure Will has filled you in on my ‘before.’ All the gory details.”

  “I know some of it. No one but you knows the whole of it, lass, not even your brother, I’d wager.”

  “Thank God for that,” Judith whispered into the cradle of her arms. She hadn’t meant to say it aloud.

  He was quiet a few moments, kneading her heel with his slick thumbs.

  “Don’t mind me.” She forced a light tone. “Sunshine brings out my maudlin side.”

  “Tell me more about this foot-rubbin’ fella,” Fergus said. “Does he still come sniffin’ around?”

  “He couldn’t if he wanted to. He’s locked up for life.” Judith’s stomach did that little twist it did whenever she thought about where Hal was—and that she was the one who’d put him there. Not that she regretted it for an instant. But fear and secrecy were a sickening combination. “The sentence was twenty-five to life, actually, but there’s no way that psycho’s getting out.”

  Only Judith knew who had kidnapped her brother from the studio in Astoria. And only she knew the man wasn’t running around free. Harold Stuart Lynch would never run around free again. He’d told her the ransom money was stashed in five different bank vaults. No doubt he’d been paying rental fees on the safe-deposit boxes all these years, in the pitiful hope that some parole board might suffer collective insanity and decide to release him. Judith didn’t even want to know which banks he’d chosen. She wanted nothing to do with that blood money, not since she’d seen what Hal had done to her brother to get it.

  As far at the rest of the world was concerned, the kidnapper was never caught. In fact, he was caught, but for an unrelated crime. Will must have spent the past twenty-five years looking over his shoulder. Judith had spent the past twenty-five years wishing she could tell him not to worry. He’d never lay eyes on that monster again.