Night Moves (60th Anniversary)

by Heather Graham

  Gayle laughed, a pleasant, husky sound that reminded Bryn of Lee. “Don’t worry, they’re absolutely normal. At least Phil says so. And he should know.”

  “He should?”

  “Umm. He’s a child psychologist. Didn’t I ever tell you that?”

  “No, and I never thought to ask,” Bryn murmured sheepishly. “What do you do?” she added with sudden curiosity.

  “What else? I’m a violinist with the Philharmonic.”

  “What else?” Bryn mused with a laugh in return.

  “Anyway, we’re so anxious for you two to get here! Mom and Dad are coming in next weekend, and they can’t wait to meet you!”

  “That’s wonderful,” Bryn murmured a little nervously.

  “Well, let me go now and deal with these little Indians. Nothing new, is there?”

  “No,” Bryn said regretfully. “Nothing new, but nothing bad has happened, either.”

  “Well, we’ll see you soon.”

  Bryn handed the receiver back to Lee and he hung up the phone, then pulled her into his arms. “Are you going to spend the day studying that new stack of blowups?”

  Bryn nodded, fitting herself comfortably against him. “I glanced at them last night, and I still don’t think that you can see anything clearly. Every time I blow them up the result becomes granier. I don’t know, Lee. We may never be able to see anything. There is a couple coming out of the motel…but…”

  She felt Lee shrug. “Keep at it, okay? That Hammarfield is sleazy.”

  “Lee, that’s a value judgment!” Bryn cautioned.

  “It’s not personal. Politicians tend to be a little sleazy. It’s the name of the game. The public wants its servants perfect, but no one’s perfect. So keep looking. I know that things have been quiet, but there’s always a calm before the storm, you know.”

  “Is that why you’re being so calm?” she teased.

  “Hmmm…maybe…” he began, but they both started as the doorbell began to chime. Lee sat up, gazing at the bedside clock. “Eleven,” he groaned. “That’s someone from the band.”

  He had mentioned last night that they were having a practice.

  Bryn jumped out of bed, padding across the room to quickly grab underwear, jeans and a T-shirt from a drawer. She glanced back with a frown at Lee, who was still lying lazily in the bed and watching her with amusement. “What are you doing?” she demanded with exasperation.

  He chuckled. “Enjoying the view. There’s nothing like watching a nude dancer fumble her way into her clothing.”

  “Very amusing,” Bryn retorted, throwing a pair of briefs at him. “You’re the stickler for time! Get dressed. I’ll get the door.” She paused before leaving him. “I thought you said the sound was already mixed. What’s the session for?”

  “Christmas carols. We’ve been asked to do an album, and our business manager wants it released by October.”

  “Rock Christmas carols?”

  “Hey, that’s been my lifelong ambition! I can be the Bing Crosby of rock ‘n’ roll.”

  Bryn shrugged with a smile and left him, pelting quickly down the stairs. Checking through the peephole, she saw that Mick and Perry, as well as Barbara and Andrew, were standing there, chatting as they waited. Bryn twisted the key that turned off the security system, then unbolted the door.

  “See! I told you!” Barbara chuckled to the others as they stepped inside. “They’ve been in bed all morning.”

  “Hmmm,” Bryn murmured dryly. “And what have you been doing?”

  “Nothing illegal, immoral or terribly exciting—but at least healthy,” Andrew said with a feigned sigh. “We’ve been golfing.”

  “Golfing!” Bryn exclaimed, staring at Barbara. As long as she’d known Barbara, she’d never heard about her friend golfing.

  Barbara grimaced. “It was all right. Except I landed in one of those sand traps and they made me take another point for it!”

  Mick shook his head at her terminology, then reminded her, “That’s the way the game is played, Barbara.”

  “Well, I still think you should just have let me pick the ball up and then swing at it.”

  “We did!”

  “Yeah, with an increase to my score!”

  “You were expecting to come in under par?” Andrew teased.

  Barbara glanced at Bryn with another grimace. “My score was one hundred and twenty. But that’s all right. I wasn’t exactly playing with Mike Winfeld, anyway. These guys all were in the nineties.”

  “We’re musicians, not golfers!” Andrew defended himself.

  “Where’s Lee?” Perry asked.

  “He’s coming,” Bryn murmured.

  “One of us should get some coffee on,” Mick advised.

  Bryn laughed. “I’m going right now!”

  Barbara followed her into the kitchen. “Guess what! I’m coming up to the Black Hills with you!”

  “You are?” Bryn exclaimed with pleasure. “But what about your show and your business?”

  “I quit the show and I hired an assistant. I’m taking a gamble, Bryn. On this really being it.”

  Bryn hugged her friend. “I hope so, Barb! Wouldn’t that be wonderful!”

  Barbara hugged her back, then disentangled herself. “I’ve got to run and start getting things straightened out with the new assistant. I just wanted to tell you what was going on with Andrew. Wish me luck, Bryn. As much luck as you’ve had with Lee!”

  “I do wish you luck! All the luck in the world!”

  Barbara waved and started through the swinging doors, then paused. “Oh, by the way! I wasn’t golfing with Mike Winfeld today, but I did see him. And he asked about you.”

  “That was nice,” Bryn said.

  “Umm,” Barbara agreed, then added, “Gee, I wonder what he’s still doing here? He should be chasing the tournaments! Oh, well, gotta go!”

  Bryn finished the coffee and brought it out to the living room on a tray, only to discover that everyone had already gone up to the studio. She carried the coffee upstairs, looked through the glass window and saw them all sitting around. She couldn’t hear a word they were saying, but she smiled because she knew the conversation was animated. Perry and Mick were both waving their hands around wildly.

  She called out for someone to open the door, then realized they wouldn’t hear her anyway. With a sigh she set the tray down and opened the door herself.

  “Coffee, guys!”

  A chorus of “Thanks” came her way. Lee walked over and gave her a quick kiss on the forehead. “Interrupt us if you need anything,” he told her.

  Bryn laughed. “Don’t worry, I can entertain myself. I have the pictures, and I want to work out a bit.” The den, she had discovered during the week, had a stereo and a good wooden floor perfect for dance workouts. “I’ll be fine,” she assured Lee. Then she waved to the other guys and closed the door behind her as she left them.

  Bryn went down to the kitchen and made herself a cup of coffee, then took it to Lee’s desk, where she pulled her latest batch of blowups from his top drawer. One by one she turned them over; then she flipped through them as an animator might to create a motion picture effect. There it was, a man and a woman leaving a motel room. The man hugging the woman…opening the door of a dark sedan…ushering her into it. She had captured the action.

  But what did it prove, she asked herself bleakly. You couldn’t see the man’s features clearly. She could try another blowup, but by that time the film would be so grainy it would still be impossible to see anything.

  She sighed and put the blowups back in the drawer. When Lee finished with the practice they could go back to the town house and take another stab at it.

  Bryn yawned and stretched and walked back upstairs. Lee was pounding away at the drums; everyone was working. She smiled; it seemed so strange to be able to see him but not hear him.

  She changed into a leotard, tights and leg warmers, and went down to the den. Setting a Bach piece on the stereo, she allowed her mind to wa
nder as her body moved automatically to the music.

  Hammarfield… If he were guilty of kidnapping a little boy and terrorizing her, he had to be stopped. He was campaigning for the senate. For public office…

  Sand traps.

  She frowned, tripping in midspin as the words popped unbidden into her mind.

  Sand traps? What was she thinking about?

  Then cold chills enveloped her, and her teeth started to chatter. Something that Barbara had said had been tugging at her subconscious all the while. She didn’t know anything about golf, but what was it that Barbara had said? They should just have let her take her ball out of the sand without adding to her score.

  Golf, golf, golf… In the game of golf you were trying for the lowest score possible.

  Mike Winfeld won the tournament. But on the day that she had been taking the pictures, she had shot an extra roll because someone had been alone at the sand trap.

  Alone… No! Not really alone. Because in the next shots there had been a dozen heads rising from behind the dune. People had been following the golfers like a giant wave. There had been only a matter of seconds when the man had been alone—perhaps twenty feet ahead of the others—and only alone for those seconds because of the slope of the dune. Seconds she had captured because of the speed of her film? Seconds…seconds were relative. It only took a matter of seconds for a quick and clever man to…what?

  Bryn rushed out of the den and back to Lee’s desk. She pulled out the original set of pictures that she had done and found the roll with the golfer. She could vaguely see the man in the sand, but to know anything for sure she would have to blow up those shots and do what she had that morning with others: flip through the thirty-six exposures and create a motion-picture effect.

  Bryn raced back upstairs, past the glass windows to the studio door. Then she paused. The group was all wearing headsets, harmonizing by a microphone. She bit her lip. She might well be crazy; it would probably make more sense for her to do the pictures, then interrupt Lee.

  Full of purpose, she changed back into her jeans and scribbled out a note telling Lee that she was developing new pictures “on a hunch.” She taped it to the door and left.

  She had driven halfway to her town house before she realized she had forgotten to turn the security system back on.

  Bryn thought about going back, then decided that the whisperer wasn’t going to attack four healthy males. And she was so anxious to see if she was right….

  Bryn took her negatives straight into the darkroom. As the minutes passed, she became more and more excited. From dripping blank paper, the pictures began to emerge.

  She could barely wait for the enlargements to dry. She forced herself to wait for the pictures to fully develop; then she carried them back into the house.

  Chills rippled through her, but there was excitement as well. She could see it all clearly. Disjointed, jerky as she flipped through the shots, but the story was obvious.

  There he was…Winfeld. Looking at the sand with dismay. Looking back to see if he could be seen. The wave of people was close, but he must have reached a conclusion with split-second determination.

  The film had caught it all. A rustle of his foot hid his ball beneath the sand. From his pocket he dropped another.

  Bryn must have been clicking off a roll of film one shot after the other. At 1000 ASA, she had it all. His hand in his pocket; the ball, falling; falling…and on the green.

  A game! she thought furiously. It has all been over…

  A game. Adam had been kidnapped, and she had been struck and terrorized because of a foolish game where grown men chased a little white ball around a green….

  A game for which Mike Winfeld had earned a prize of two hundred fifty thousand dollars.

  She had to show the pictures to Lee. Now she could interrupt the band without a thought….

  Bryn was so engrossed with her thoughts that she didn’t notice the black sedan on the corner.

  She was, in fact, turning down the isolated road that led to Lee’s house before she realized that she had been followed.

  And then it was too late.

  Panic surged within her as she at last saw the car in her rearview mirror. She had to reach the driveway first. Had to get through the front door. Had to slam it…

  Perspiration beaded on her body, and her fingers began to slip on the steering wheel. Bryn raced over the gravel driveway, jerking to a stop before the front door.

  The sedan screeched to a stop behind her.

  She flew wildly from the van, throwing herself toward the front door. She got it open; she got inside; she turned to slam it shut and couldn’t, because he was there already, throwing his athlete’s weight against it….

  Bryn screamed. Mike Winfeld—handsome, young, suntanned Mike Winfeld—was reaching for her, his lips menacingly compressed, his eyes hard and cold. “You can’t escape me…” he began, but she could. With a cry tearing from her throat she raced for the stairs. He was behind her every step of the way. She heard his footsteps in rhythm with her heart.

  She reached the glass-encased studio; she saw Lee. He was sitting at his drums. He was laughing, smiling at something Andrew was saying.

  “Lee!” She screamed out his name just as his handsomely muscled arms brought the sticks crashing down on the drums. He just kept smiling. He couldn’t hear her, and he was still looking at Andrew….

  Bryn started to run past the glass toward the door. She was jerked to a painful stop as Mike Winfeld’s hands tangled in her hair. He was spinning her around, dragging her down to the floor.

  Bryn grasped madly at the glass, banging against it. But Winfeld was tackling her around the legs. She started falling, her fingers clawing furiously, desperately, at the glass.

  “Lee! Lee! Leeeeee—help me! Help me! No!”

  Lee just kept smiling; she could see the muscles bunching in his arms as the drum sticks flew and twirled out their beat at his command.

  “Lee!”

  Her nails made a screeching sound against the glass, horrible to her ears. Unheard inside. “No!” she screamed again.

  And then she was on the floor, shielded from the band’s view by the paneling. She kept screaming and fighting, but to little avail. Another man was coming toward them as she and Winfeld grappled. Bryn recognized him. The nondescript stranger who had tried to buy the pictures that first day.

  “Took you long enough!” Winfeld panted as he held Bryn down while the second man stuffed a gag into her mouth and looped rope around her wrists and flailing legs. “Don’t stand up, idiot! Condor might glance this way! Drag her past the glass….”

  Bryn kept trying to scream through the gag as they dragged her to the stairway. Then she found herself thrown over Mike Winfeld’s shoulder and carried from the house.

  Mike Winfeld paused to rip her note to Lee off the front door. Outside, he told the second man to take her van and follow him in it.

  Bryn was stuffed into the passenger seat of the sedan. She kept telling herself that she couldn’t pass out with the terror. The fact that Winfeld decided to talk conversationally didn’t help any.

  “We’re going to the old Fulton place,” He told her. “You’re going to have an accident while doing a little private rehearsal. You’re so dedicated, you know, and loyal to Condor. And when you’re discovered at the foot of the stairs, well, even dancers can be clumsy at times. I want you to know that this really hurts me, Bryn. You’re so beautiful…but…well, you see it isn’t just the money for the tournament. It’s my career. If it was known that I had cheated…” He sighed deeply. “Over the next couple of years, it could mean millions and millions.”

  Bryn worked furiously at the rope tying her wrists. Too soon she could see the Fulton place looming before them.

  * * *

  Lee glanced at his watch, surprised to discover that they had worked so long without even thinking of a break.

  “Hey, big chief,” Mick called out teasingly, “are we calling it qui
ts for the day?”

  “Yeah,” Lee said, stretching. “I was thinking about spending the afternoon in the hot tub with a freezing cold beer—”

  He broke off suddenly, and Andrew frowned at him. “What’s wrong?”

  “I don’t know,” Lee said, puzzled. He shook his head. “I just had the weirdest feeling.”

  “Indian intuition?” Andrew teased lightly, but he was frowning, too. Lee strode across the room, throwing the door open. “Bryn?”

  There was no reply. He hurried down the balcony hallway, staring down to the first floor as he called her name. “Bryn!”

  Andrew, Mick and Perry chased after him. His weird feeling had communicated itself to them all.

  “I’ll take the upstairs,” Andrew muttered.

  “Outside,” Mick mumbled.

  Lee and Perry tore apart the ground floor; Bryn wasn’t there.

  Mick ran back in from outside. “Her van’s gone, Lee. But I think there might just be something wrong. The gravel out here is all ripped up.”

  Lee stared at Mick for a moment, then barged through the swinging doors to the kitchen phone. By the time the others had followed him, he was listening to someone and scribbling information on a piece of paper. He hung up the phone with a curt “Thanks,” then swung back around. “Andrew, go to Bryn’s, will you? There’s no answer there, but…Mick, Perry, hang around here, okay?”

  “Sure,” Mick said, “but where are you going?”

  “To see Dirk Hammarfield.”

  He strode into the living room, grabbing his keys off the cocktail table. He turned and noticed his hunting collection. With an absent shrug he grabbed a bow and a quiver of arrows.

  * * *

  Mrs. Hammarfield opened the door with caution. “Oh, Mr. Condor! I’m so sorry, he’s just too busy to see anyone without an appointment—”

  Lee breezed past her. He could see a library door ajar, and he swiftly crossed through the plush living room, pushed it open, then closed it sharply behind him.

  Hammarfield was behind his desk. He paled when he saw Lee walk in. Lee didn’t pause. He strode with lethally quiet steps to the desk and leaned over it, grasping Hammarfield’s lapels.