by Tia Siren
*****
“You're what?” Radley said, the furrows on his forehead looking deeper than ever. There was a distinctly cool atmosphere in his office as they discussed Tyra's situation.
“She said she was pregnant,” his wife intervened. “Unmarried and pregnant. Tyra, I'm very disappointed in you. How could you let us down like this?”
“Steady, Eliana. Don't be too harsh on her. Accidents happen. She's had a rough time lately, and maybe she needed a bit of love.”
“Well, whatever she thought, she's let us down. She'll be off work for lord knows how long now. And even when she returns, she'll be cutting her days short to look after the child.”
Will you stop talking about me as if I weren’t here? Tyra thought. “I'm sorry. It wasn't intentional, and we took precautions. Something went wrong.”
“Who's the father?” Eliana asked, leaning forward in the armchair.
“He’s Russian. I met him when he came to buy jewelry. He asked me on a date. I wasn't thinking straight; I'm sorry.” Tyra was feeling ill. It was just going on nine, and for the last three days she'd had terrible morning sickness.
“A client. Tyra, you have been fraternizing with one of our clients? You know we frown on that kind of behavior.” Eliana slapped the arm on the chair in frustration.
“Does he know?” Radley asked.
Tyra looked up at him, startled. “No, and he never will. I will keep the baby and bring it up on my own.”
“Then I'm afraid we will have to think what else we can do with the business,” Eliana said. “Under the circumstances, it would be foolhardly to go ahead with our plan to leave it to you. I don't want a Russian's bastard getting his hands on it in the future. You can keep your job here, but that's all.”
“Eliana!” Radley exclaimed. But when he looked at his wife, he knew it was time for him to keep quiet.
*****
When Tyra got home to her studio in Washington Heights, she undressed and got into bed. She put her hands on her belly and closed her eyes. She began to wonder when life would stop kicking her, but she was so exhausted she could come up with no answer before she fell asleep.
The next day was a bright summer day, and she woke up feeling better. For her, the most important thing now was to protect the child growing inside her. It was a blow that Eliana had reacted in such a way, but she accepted she had been foolish. What she had seen in Dima was now beyond her. Perhaps it had been his good looks or his money, or both. Maybe it had been the loss of her parents that had made her blind to his shortcomings.
As usual, she showered, dressed, and sat down at the small table in the kitchen to eat some toast and jam. Yesterday she had been repulsed by strawberry jam, but today she couldn't stop eating it. She even considered having cheese with it. She'd always loved her morning coffee, but from now on she'd resolved to have tea in the morning. On her way home she decided she would buy some fresh mint from the organic shop downstairs and make mint tea herself. The last thing she always did before leaving home was pick up her cell phone from the table next to the front door. Fifteen missed calls from Dima. Delete his number, she told herself.
Her apartment was in a block of twenty on the Upper East Side. It wasn't a large apartment, but it was expensive. When she was younger, she'd always wanted to live in the Upper East Side because it was so cosmopolitan. Just before she'd left home, she'd looked at rents there and decided she would never be able to afford it. Her mother and father had put money away for this eventuality, though, so Tyra had been able to get her dream location.
She opened the door to leave and almost fell over a bouquet of flowers that had been left on the doorstep. She read the card. So sorry. please forgive me. Dima. She picked them up and took them with her. As usual, she nodded at the man from two floors up. He was on his way to work as well. She didn't know him, but they nodded at each other every morning. Wouldn't it be funny if we nodded at each other for the next forty years until we retired? she thought. So much happening in our respective lives yet never exchanging a single word about any of it. She followed him downstairs and out onto the street. There was the usual hustle and bustle as she walked to the bus stop. She dumped the flowers in the first trash can she came across.
When a man bumped into her, she thought for a split second that she'd been in the wrong. She’d been looking in the florist’s window and not really concentrating on where she was going. But when he grabbed her and bundled her into the gray van, she tried to scream, but his hand was over her mouth. Nobody heard or saw anything. It all happened so fast. He slammed the door shut from the inside and put his weight on top of her while he reached for some tape.
“What the hell are you—” she managed to say before he put his hand back over her mouth.
“Shut up and do as I tell you. If you do, you won't be harmed. If you insist on making a noise, I'll have to hurt you.”
Thinking of her baby, she decided to be quiet and do as he asked. The duct tape he placed over her mouth clung savagely to her delicate skin, and when she tried to speak through it, it stuck to her lips, making it impossible for her to move her mouth. He put her hands behind her back and taped her wrists together. He did the same to her ankles.
When he drove off, Tyra had no way of holding on, and she slid across the floor, bumping into the side wall. When he turned a corner, she slid to the other side. Use your legs as buffers, she thought. Protect your belly at all costs.
She concentrated on the man. Try and remember him, she told herself. He was short and bald, and she noticed a tattoo on his neck. He was wearing a navy T-shirt and a pair of old jeans, and he had a gold chain and a Rolex. She repeated all of that to herself a couple of times.
When they stopped, Tyra let out a sigh of relief. She had been thrown from side to side, and it had been a great effort to stay on her back and keep maneuvering her feet in front of herself all the time. The van door opened, and she blinked against the sunlight. The man cut the tape at her ankles and pulled her out of the van.
She was in a yard behind what appeared to be a mansion. It was, in any case, a large single property, but she was unable to determine whether it was a dwelling or for office use. A tree hung over the yard, and a gray squirrel ran in front of her and darted up it. The man pushed her to a door, and they entered the building. They were on the ground floor at the rear, in the old servants’ quarters. He opened another door and turned on a light. She saw a flight of steps.
“Go down there,” he said. She put her foot on the first step and slowly began to descend, the man following close behind. Her arms were still tied behind her back, making it difficult to balance. She was petrified she would fall and lose her child. Eventually she made it to the bottom. She was in a damp cellar. There was just one solitary wooden chair in the middle of the room, nothing else.
“How long you stay down here depends solely on you. If you tell me what I want to know, you can go soon. If you refuse to answer my questions, this may very well be the last place you ever see.” He was Russian; he sounded exactly like Dima. She figured he wanted to know about the Hope Diamond.
Without saying any more, he sat her on the chair. He left her arms tied and the tape over her mouth. When Sergey climbed the stairs, he chuckled to himself. She wouldn’t ever leave this cellar, even if she told him what he wanted to know.
*****
At 9 a.m., Dima rang the bell at the jewelry store. Leon answered. “Hi. I need to speak to Tyra,” he said, stepping inside.
Leon picked him up by the collar and took him outside. “You've got some nerve showing up here. She doesn't want to speak to you ever again, and officially I should be handing you over to the cops. She asked me not to when she told me what you'd requested from her.” Leon's twisted Dima’s jacket collar with his giant palm. “Leave, and don't show your face here again. You Russians are all the same. You may have bucket loads of money, but there is one thing money can’t buy: class.” Leon shoved him away and went back inside.
I deserved that, Dima thought. No point in trying again; he's far too big.
At ten, Radley came into the store from his office. “Where's Tyra?” he asked Leon.
“I don't know, Mr. Samuels. I haven't seen her yet today.
“But it's ten. She's always here early.” He looked at his watch again. “I'm worried about her.”
“There was a Russian here an hour ago looking for her.”
“Indeed. What did you tell him?”
“Er...” Leon was lost for words. Tyra had told him in confidence about Dima's desire to pinch the Hope Diamond, and he didn't want Radley to think he'd scared a client away. “I told him she hadn't arrived yet.”
*****
When the light came on, Tyra closed her eyes against it. When she opened them, she saw the same man standing in front of her. He had a knife in his hand. Tyra screamed and stamped her feet as he ripped the duct tape from her face.
“All right, miss.” He leaned in close, and she could smell vodka on his breath. “You work at Samuels, and you are going to tell me about the Hope Diamond. I want to know all the details.”
“Please...I'm pregnant. Please don't hurt my baby.”
“Who said anything about your baby? But good you mentioned it. I was going to punch you in your stomach; now I won't. I'll cut you instead.” He laughed as he held the knife to her chin.
“Okay. What do you want to know?” she said.
“I want to know where exactly in the store it will be held. I also want to know how many guards there will be, and camera positions and number. Then I want a diagram of all the wiring in the room and the security codes.”
My god, I don't' know any of that information, she thought. “I really don't know any of that, but if you let me go, I will see what I can do.”
Again he laughed. “Good try, but pathetic. I suggest you think about it a bit more, because if you really don't know anything, the best you can hope for is a painless end.”
She was cast into darkness when he switched off the light. She tried to recall what she knew about security. The problems was, it wasn't something they did at the store. It was outsourced to a specialist company, and she really did know nothing about it.
Think! Darn well think, girl, she told herself. What have you noticed down here? What is there that can help you? Blank walls, a chair, a light, and nothing else. Nothing else at all.
*****
Radley and Leon stood in front of Tyra's front door and knocked loudly. There was no reply. “I don't know what to do now, Leon. We've rung her and knocked on her door. If she's inside, surely she would have answered.”
“She went to work at the usual time.” Behind them, a door had opened. It was Mrs. Smith; she was the eyes and ears of the building. When she'd heard two male voices echoing on the staircase, she was curious and decided to see what all the fuss was about. “She took some flowers that a foreign-looking guy left on her doorstep last night and went to work at the usual time.”
“What did the foreign guy look like?” Leon asked.
“Blond, tall, well built, and wearing an expensive suit. He parked down the road in a red Ferrari.”
“Sounds like the same man who was at the store this morning,” Leon told Radley. “He was blond, and there was a red Ferrari on the street.”
“All right. Let’s go back to the store. This man was a client, wasn't he?” Radley asked.
Leon nodded. “Yes. Tyra sold him some jewelry. In fact, a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth.”
“Well in that case, we'll have his details at the store. Anyone spending that kind of money has to fill out a form stating that the funds used were legal funds and declared to the IRS.”
Back at the store, Radley went through the paperwork until he found the name Dima Asarov.
*****
When Sergey pressed the light switch, nothing happened. No light. It must be the bulb, he thought; she's tied up. He went outside and rummaged around in the garage. He found a bulb and grabbed a flashlight.
“What the hell!” he shouted when he reached the bottom of the stairs. He dropped the flashlight and bulb and put his hands to his neck.
Tyra spun the piece of wood in her hand as fast as she could, and the cable on the end of it did what she wanted. It tightened beautifully around his neck. She gritted her teeth and wound the board as hard as she could until there was no more play in the cable. Standing behind him, all she had to do now was hold on until he dropped to the floor, but he wasn't so willing. He bucked and tried to throw her over his shoulder, and when that didn't work, he tried to stamp on her feet. Her strength was running out fast, and he was still struggling. He battered against her, but she held on. In desperation, she gave the wood a third of a turn more. Come on, girl, she muttered, hold on. She let out a cry as she pulled the wood to its breaking point. Suddenly he stopped struggling and began to make a hideous noise. When he slumped to the floor, she told herself to keep the wire tight. He may have been playing dead, but he wasn't.
When she finally let go, she dropped to her knees and picked up the flashlight. She shone it on Sergey and noted that his face was purple. As she was about to stand up, she heard someone on the stairs. She dropped the light and picked up the piece of wood and stood against the wall. When the man came into the room, he saw Sergey on the floor and a flashlight shining into the far corner of the room. Tyra lunged forward and hit him as hard as she could with the piece of wood. There was a sickening crack and a cry.
“Dima?” she asked.
“Yes! Shit, that hurts.”
Good, she thought. “And this is for being an ass,” she said as she hit him again on the upper arm.
“Stop, stop! For heaven’s sake, stop!” He grabbed the wood and pulled her to him. She tried to break free, but he held her against him.
“I'm sorry, so sorry. I didn't plan any of this. This was all Sergey's doing.”
“Then how did you know I was here? It's a bit of a coincidence, isn't it? You turning up like this so suddenly?” She landed a blow to his shin with her shoe, but he still held on to her.
“Stop struggling. Mr. Samuels called me and told me you hadn't shown up for work. He was worried about you. Somehow he knew we were friendly, and he wondered if I knew where you were.” She tried to break free again. He put his head to her neck and inhaled her scent. “I have missed you so much. I'm sorry. I know I can't ever make up for it, but please believe me when I say I have fallen in love with you.”
At his words, she relaxed. When she felt liquid dropping onto her face, she put her hand to his head. He was bleeding badly. “Come on. Let’s get out of here,” she said. “You need help.”
He bent down and picked up the flashlight. He shone it around, trying to get an idea of what had taken place. He saw a wooden chair with just three legs, and when he shone the light at the ceiling, he noticed the cable from the light had been ripped out. There was a groove of broken plaster in the ceiling where someone had yanked the cable from the light fitting all the way to the wall. Upon further inspection, he saw someone had made a noose out of it with a winding mechanism. Gruesome, he thought.
*****
The doctor told Dima that a blow to the head of that intensity warranted a night of observation in the hospital. Dima reluctantly agreed. When they wheeled him out of the treatment room toward a free bed, Tyra stood up walked with them. Once he was in bed, she looked at him. He had a deep gash in his head and a terrifying bruise on his arm.
“Jesus, I'm so sorry for that,” she said. “That looks really painful.”
“Don't worry. I deserved it after what I wanted to do. I was being foolish. It was the stupidest plan I've ever thought of.”
“Yes, it was, and it will take a long time before I can trust you again.” She scowled.
“Are you willing to try? If you want me to beg, I will. Tyra, when you were mad at me, and you left me and wouldn't answer my calls, I realized I can't live without you.”
“I'm carrying your chi
ld.”
He looked at her, stunned.
She decided to say something, realizing he was temporarily speechless. “Here is what we'll do. I love you as well. When I was in that cellar, I too realized that I didn't want to be without you. But I am mad as hell with you—madder than I have ever been with anyone.” She reached out and took his hand, mindful not to dislodge the IV. “However, I don't want to miss out on the chance of a happy life with you. I will have our baby, and you and I will be together. But if I hear any more BS about stealing things, I'll kick you out, forever. Agreed?”
He nodded, still speechless. He gestured for her to come closer. When she did, he whispered, “Thank you.”
*****
Radley was in the middle of breakfast when the phone rang. “Thank God, Tyra. I was so worried about you. How are you? What happened to you?”
Several minutes later, when he closed his cell phone, he was fully aware of what had taken place. He knew someone had wanted to steal the Hope Diamond and that Tyra had been kidnapped. He also knew she had said nothing and had been very brave. He didn't know that the father of her baby had in fact intended to steal the diamond. Tyra had kept that from him. All Radley had to know was that a savage man had intended to steal it, and he was now no longer able to.
“Eliana, get in here,” he shouted at the top of his voice.
“Radley, how dare you shout at me like that,” she exclaimed as she appeared from the kitchen.
“I'll shout at you how I like. I've had a bellyful of you. It's my business. My family founded it and I run it. My name is above the door, and the tax man calls me when he wants something, not you.” Eliana stood open mouthed and wide eyed as his verbal attack continued. “We both decided to give it to Tyra. She's a good girl, but you pompously decided to take it all away from her just because she made a mistake. You're a prude, and you always have been.”