The Seduction of Jason

by Fayrene Preston

  Just then, the door behind Sami burst open, forcing her five-foot six-inch frame backward, until she was scrunched between the door and the wall of the building. The owner of the store stepped out. “What’s going on here? … Oh, Mrs. Thornbruster! Do come in. It’s much too hot for you to be standing out here.”

  Indecision shone in the lady’s thoroughly made-up features. “I don’t know if I should, Mr. Strucely. She’s saying that you’re involved in killing baby seals.”

  The man’s face, which bore more than a passing resemblance to a weasel’s, turned beet-red. “I’ve never heard of anything so preposterous in my life.” He craned his neck around the door to glare at Sami. “I’ve warned you before, miss. If you don’t leave the premises, I’ll have to call the police. You’re interfering with my business.”

  Sami stood up, brushing the dust and dirt from her white lace camisole and turquoise cotton tiered skirt. The summer heat was beginning to get to her, causing her soft, wispy bangs to stick damply against her forehead. “Go right ahead, Mr. Strucely.” She picked up her sign that read Save the Baby Seals! and waved it. “I’m more than willing to tell the police all about your illegal activities.”

  “They’re not illegal,” the man bellowed, “but what you’re doing is!” He drew a deep breath and then turned to smile at the perplexed matron, who stood between them. “Mrs. Thornbruster, please forgive this little disturbance. Let me show you into the store and get you something cool to drink. The riffraff on the streets these days is simply deplorable, and sometimes we just have to ignore it.”

  With philosophical resignation, Sami watched as they retreated into the cool interior of the store. She reached up to straighten her copper-and-gilt headband of twisted cord; iridescent black feathers dripped from one side of it, and she flung them, along with about half of her hair, behind her shoulders. Just because the owner of the store wouldn’t take her seriously was no reason to give up.

  “Sir?” she called to a rather prosperous-looking, gray-haired man who was approaching. “Wouldn’t you like to help save the baby seals?”

  “Sure,” he answered rather too easily, running an appreciative glance over Sami and at the same time whipping out his wallet. “How much?”

  “Oh, I’m not collecting money. I’d just like you and your friends to help in boycotting this furrier. He’s associated with people in Europe who are involved in killing baby seals.”

  “Why don’t we talk about it over dinner?” he suggested, running the palm of his hand up her bare arm. “I’m sure if we put our heads together, we can find a lot of interesting things to talk about.”

  Sami backed hastily away from his unwelcomed familiarity. “No, thank you. The only thing I’m soliciting is help to save the baby seals.”

  The man shrugged good-naturedly and walked off at about the same time that Mr. Strucely came marching back out of his store. “Now, look here, miss, you simply must leave. You’re disturbing my customers inside as well as out. One of my assistants has called the police, but if you leave right now, there won’t be any trouble.”

  “I’m not an unreasonable person, Mr. Strucely. All I want is for you to say that you’ll stop trading with those people overseas who are in the wholesale slaughter business.”

  “Those people are my suppliers, and very reliable ones, too, I might add. Now, do go away. Here comes Mrs. Rolph.” Turning toward the approaching lady, his lips turned up in an eager smile.

  He started toward his new customer, who even in August had a fox stole draped around her shoulders with fox heads hanging off it. Sami, however, had no intention of being ignored, and took hold of his arm, tugging him back. As she did, the picket sign she had been holding slipped and hit him on top of his nearly bald head.

  “You assaulted me!” he screeched wildly. “She assaulted me! Did you see that?” he asked the lady wearing the fox.

  “I certainly did,” Mrs. Rolph proclaimed indignantly. “My poor Mr. Strucely, you’re bleeding.”

  “What?” His fingers came off his head with a small smear of blood. “Oh, my God! I’ll have to go to the hospital and have it stitched.”

  “For heaven’s sake”—Sami sniffed with disgust—“it’s only a scratch. Here, let me show you.” She reached toward the place on his shiny head, which had already stopped bleeding, but the gesture only seemed to upset the man even more.

  Yelling, “You stay away from me!” he began to back away from her. Unfortunately, in his hurry his feet became entangled, and he fell just as the police arrived. “Arrest her, arrest her,” he began screaming hysterically. “She’s trying to kill me!”

  Sami threw up her arms, totally out of patience with him. “I will if you don’t stop yelling!”

  The two patrolmen approached just in time to hear Sami’s remark. “Okay. That’s enough. Break it up.” The older of the two policemen turned to the customer. “Did you see what happened?”

  Mrs. Rolph was more than willing to give her version. “It’s just as Mr. Strucely said. This vicious young woman assaulted him for no reason.”

  “Oh, really!” Sami appealed to the younger of the two policemen. “How can you believe a woman who has fox heads dripping off her bosom?”

  Even though he appeared to be inclined to agree, the younger officer stayed silent. It was Sergeant Johnson, if his name tag was to be believed, who asked, “Do you want to press charges, sir?”

  “Yes, absolutely. Yes. My name’s Strucely. I own Strucely Furs. And I’m sure I should go to the hospital.”

  “The scratch on your head doesn’t look serious. Do you have reason to believe that she might have inflicted other injuries on you?”

  “You can never be too careful,” the lady with the fox heads broke in with encouragement.

  “You’re so right,” Mr. Strucely agreed, mollified that someone seemed to see the seriousness of the situation.

  Sergeant Johnson turned to Sami with a pair of handcuffs, and she felt the first stirrings of fear. “We’ll have to take you in, miss. You have a right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.”

  “Wait. You don’t understand …”

  “You have the right to talk to a lawyer and have him present with you while you are being questioned. If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed to represent you before any questioning, if you wish one. Do you understand each of these rights I have explained to you.”

  “No.” She shook her head. This was going all wrong. She was going to have to do something. If she could only think …

  The sergeant frowned. “Which part don’t you understand?”

  “Why you’re taking me in, to start with. You have no reason—”

  “Of course he does. My head!” Mr. Strucely stepped back up.

  Sami turned on him. “Oh, hush! I didn’t hurt you.”

  “Having these rights explained to you and keeping them in mind, do you wish to talk to us now?”

  “Talk to you?” Nothing was making sense to her. “You know everything there is to know. The baby seals— I thought I told you about them, didn’t I? These people are killing them.”

  “Well, I’m certainly not,” Mrs. Rolf stated emphatically.

  Sami’s eyes narrowed, and she nodded toward the fox heads. “You know, you’ve got nothing to brag about. They’re a very unfortunate fashion choice.”

  Handcuffs clicked decisively shut on Sami’s wrists, and she panicked. This couldn’t be happening! How could something that had started out with such good intentions end up so wrong?

  As the policeman started to lead her toward the car, Sami stopped, trying to dig her heels in. “Wait a minute! You can’t arrest me. You don’t understand. I’m simply trying to save the baby seals. I didn’t do anything wrong. And it’s not my fault he’s bald.”

  Sergeant Johnson appeared unimpressed, and kept walking, making Sami’s feet skid along the concrete as he did. “I’m sorry, lady, but you’re going to have to tell it
to the judge.”

  Put without ceremony into the back seat with the younger officer, she swung to him, instinctively knowing that he was the more sympathetic of the two. “W-where are you taking me?”

  “Down to the station to book you. The charge will be assault, and if you have a lawyer, you’d better get in touch with him.”

  “Book me? A-And when are you going to take these handcuffs off? A-And you’ll let me go in a few minutes, right? I can’t be locked up. Not in a cell. Or closet. Nothing like that, okay?”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t help you. It’s all about procedure.”

  “But you won’t lock me up. Promise me.”

  The younger officer shrugged.

  No, no, no! Sami stared out of the window of the moving police car, her insides churning with a very real fear. She had really done it this time—and it wasn’t at all hard for her to figure out how. She seemed to be in an unusually restless stage of her life; she was finding herself going off on even odder tangents than usual, and it had begun to bother her that she seemed to have no true direction, that she was following no specific course.

  Seven years ago, she and Morgan Saunders, the girl with whom she had shared her traumatic adolescence, had moved to St. Paul. She had bought an old warehouse in the Lowertown district and completely renovated it. The bottom floor had been divided into space for Morgan’s South Sea specialty shop, Little Bit of Paradise, and for storage. The top floor contained an apartment for Morgan and an enormous one-room loft for Sami, plus her studio/workshop.

  Jerome Mailer had come into her life a few years later, when she had found the eighteen-year-old at a flea market selling garishly painted stuffed birds. She had brought him home and created an apartment for him at the rear of the warehouse.

  Now, however, her two best friends were both settled. Over a year ago, Morgan had married Jason Falco, the man with whom she had fallen so desperately in love on a holiday in Martinique, and she was expecting a baby. Jerome had matured into a serious, highly intelligent young man and was attending law school. In addition, he seemed to be spending more and more time with Morgan’s new shop assistant, Michelle.

  Consequently, Sami was looking for something of her very own. It seemed she had been doing just that all of her life.

  But what was she going to do now? The idea of being locked in a jail cell for an indeterminate length of time was unbearable, unthinkable. She could feel the cold perspiration breaking out on her pale, peach-colored skin as her stomach turned over sickeningly at the thought of jail. An old abyss of terrors had been opened up, exposing all of her nerves, and she knew, without a shadow of a doubt, she wouldn’t be able to stand it!

  Yet who could help her? Whom could she call? She didn’t have a lawyer in St. Paul. It was the middle of the afternoon. She had no idea how to get in touch with Jerome at the law school. Morgan might be in her shop, but there would be nothing she could do, and Morgan’s husband, Jason, who might be able to do something, was out of town. Oh, God, what was she going to do?

  Think, Sami, she urged herself. Sure, she had plenty of friends, but none of them was a lawyer, and any call for help was going to take time. Besides, as Sami paused to consider, she hated phones, and never used them, so calling anyone was out. She groaned inwardly. None of her ideas was any good. She had to have help now. It was imperative!

  The police station only highlighted the seriousness of her situation. A confusing melange of noise and a jumble of motion poured in upon her terrified senses. It was like the worst surrealistic nightmare imaginable, in which everyone wore guns and looked at her as if she were quite mad. And perhaps she was.

  Struggling for sanity, Sami forced herself to concentrate on what she was being asked to do. A man wearing a uniform and an impersonal expression ordered her to turn over all of her personal belongings. She didn’t have much—only the large carpetbag purse she carried.

  The man dutifully wrote down the contents: three lipsticks, two different-colored felt-tip pens, a coin purse with a few dollars in it, a stapler, a pair of scissors, a comb with every other tooth broken, a flashlight, spare batteries, a pair of large hoop earrings, and a stray feather. She had left her keys and driver’s license in her car, and her picket sign had been confiscated as evidence.

  “Sit.” Sergeant Johnson pointed toward a chair beside a cluttered desk, then turned his attention to his computer screen. “Name?”

  A long-ago ingrained instinct for preservation made her answer, “Sami Adkins.” There were very few people in St. Paul who knew her real background, and she wanted to keep it that way. The press would have a field day if they discovered that the eccentric, madcap heiress, Samuelina Adkinson, had been arrested.

  “Address?”

  “Uh, just put down no permanent address.” There again, if they found out that she lived in a renovated warehouse that she owned, it could lead them to the truth about her, and that was just one of the many things she had always feared. She had more fears than anyone she knew.

  Officer Johnson looked up. “What does that mean exactly—no permanent address? I have to put down an address.”

  Sami improvised. “I’ve sort of been hanging out here and there, you know … no one place in particular. Just put down the YWCA.”

  All the while she was talking, Sami’s eyes were darting nervously around the room. She felt as if she were about to suffocate. It seemed as though there were hundreds of people jammed into one small room, although in reality, the room wasn’t that small. And they were all busy, doing things at a rapid pace, talking loudly, breathing up all the oxygen, until she was sure that soon there would be none left for her.

  Yet it was the strangest thing. Even with her mind turning ten different ways at once, her eyes always went back to the same person. A man, sophisticated and elegant amid surroundings that were anything but sophisticated and elegant, stood in stark relief. He seemed to radiate quiet superiority, remaining slightly aloof from the confusion about him even while standing in the center of it. He was having a conversation with a man who, one had the feeling, was in charge of the confusion.

  “Any scars, marks, or tattoos?”

  “What?”

  “Scars, marks, or tattoos?”

  “No, no. Look, Sergeant Johnson. This is all some terrible mistake. You have to understand, I can’t be locked up. I thought I explained that. Maybe I’ll just sit here instead. For as long as you want, of course. Well, maybe for a little while, anyway.” She looked around. “A short while.”

  “Miss Adkins, the charge of simple assault is no mistake. That man you hit didn’t look to be the type you could reason with. You’re in trouble, and I would suggest you get a lawyer. The court can appoint one if you can’t afford one.”

  “But won’t that take time?”

  “Everything takes time.” His tone was that of a bored man who had seen it all before.

  “I don’t have time!” Sami swallowed hard, trying to keep the hysteria out of her voice. “You see,” she tried to explain as clearly as she could, “I just can’t be put into a cell.”

  “You said that, lady, and I’m saying there’s no way you can keep from being locked up, at least for a while. Even with a lawyer, it will probably take hours for you to be processed and arraigned.”

  “You’ve got to be wrong.” Why couldn’t she make him understand? Sami’s gaze flitted urgently around the room once again, seeking salvation, some way out. Everything was beginning to blur before her eyes. The room was getting darker, and clouds of pain too horrible to speak of had begun to mist in through her terrified mind. It was the old monsters rearing their ugly heads— excruciating memories of an emotionally abused childhood, the wounds still deep and unhealed.

  Her tormentor was speaking again, still in his jaded tone. “Next of kin?”

  “N-none.” It was true. She had no living relatives, and even when her mother and father had been alive, she could still have given the same answer —no living relatives who cared. Her p
arents had barely thought of her when they were alive. In fact, they had cared so little for her that, in their ultimate indifference, they had hired an uncaring, cold woman to look after her. This governess would lock her in a small dark closet for hours on end when she was “naughty.” It was something Sami had never recovered from, and as a result, she had been afraid of darkness and small places all of her life.

  Still, when her parents had been killed in a yachting accident on the Riviera, they had left her, their only child, a vast fortune, along with a firm of Boston lawyers and advisors to take care of it for her. It was Sami who had insisted upon a foundation to oversee generous grants and munificent contributions to needy charities.

  She tried again. “Look, give me another chance. I promise I won’t go near that man’s place again.”

  “This isn’t kindergarten, Miss Adkins. It’s no use. Saying you won’t do it again won’t make everything all right. Not even a lawyer like that one over there could keep you from spending at least a little time in the holding cell.”

  Sami’s heart was hammering so loudly she couldn’t hear. “Who?”

  He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Daniel Parker-St. James. Our state’s big-time attorney-at- law. Haven’t you heard of him? He’s always in the news, one way or the other, either in the society columns, with some classy lady, or on the front page, with his big cases. He’s brilliant, and takes on only the toughest, usually those that involve the mega-bucks. I’ve seen him in action, and he can be a deadly opponent in the courtroom. I sure wouldn’t want to go up against him.”

  Sami’s desperate gaze followed the direction of Sergeant Johnson’s thumb to the same man whom her eyes had been drawn to again and again. There could be no mistaking him. Distinguished-looking and distinctively dressed, he didn’t need the large black-and-brown marbled glasses he wore to give him an unassailable air of authority. He gave the impression of absolute control.

  Before anyone could stop her, Sami launched herself from the chair and rocketed across the room, hurling her body against the man whom she now saw as her savior. “Please, oh, please, you’ve got to help me.”