Never Trust A Lady

Chapter 7

The door of the taxicab slammed with a harsh and final thunk.

I’m not going to look, I won’t look, Jane told herself as she leaned forward to speak to the driver.

Finally, as the cab groaned into gear and lurched away from the curb, she did look back, just once. But Tom Hawkins had already turned to light a cigarette, his shoulders hunched in the brown bomber jacket, hands cupped beneath the brim of the baseball cap, the incongruous black briefcase wedged between his feet. He didn’t look up, or wave.

Odd, she thought, settling once more into her seat, and into a boggy little slough of depression for which she could find no reasonable cause.

He says he’s going to kiss me, and with such convietion I almost believed him, but as far as I can see, this is goodbye. And he doesn’t ask for my phone number, or give me any way of reaching him. Why? I wonder…

Well, okay, she could think of two logical answers to that question. One, he was just a very good actor and hadn’t meant it, after all, about kissing her. Or two, he had no intention of saying goodbye, and simply had his own way of finding her.

Both scenarios seemed equally possible to her. And oddly enough, neither one made her feel happy.

Tom had told her the truth about one thing, at least; it wasn’t far to Georgetown. It seemed only minutes, in fact, before the taxicab was pulling up to a curb on a bustling street filled with shops and restaurants offering every kind of cuisine imaginable, many of them housed in converted residences dating back she could only guess how many hundred years. Ordinarily, she’d have been delighted at the prospect of an afternoon of window-shopping and exploring, including the quaint and narrow side streets she could only catch glimpses of. Now, though, all she wanted was to find Connie’s friend’s gallery as quickly as possible and lay to rest all these wild imaginings about valuable art “finds” and mysterious strangers with sinister agendas.

She paid the driver and extricated herself from the back seat of the cab, a little awkwardly because of the bulky tote bag. She slammed the door and stood for a moment watching the cab pull away from the curb, absently smoothing the front of her slacks and tugging her jacket into proper order. Somewhere nearby, a car door opened and quickly closed again.

She glanced once more at the piece of paper in her hand and then at the number etched in the semicircle of glass over the door of the nearest shop. Ah-hah, she thought. Left.

But she’d taken only one step in that direction when something-someone-a man-suddenly brushed against her, filling up all the space on her right.

Aaron Campbell! Even with one panic-stricken glance out of the corner of her eye, she’d recognized that angry black glower and hawk-faced profile. But before she had time to react, even to draw breath for a scream, a hand closed around her elbow and a voice just loud enough to override her soft gasp of surprise, said, “Mrs. Carlysle, I’m going to have to ask you to come with me, please.”

How polite he seemed. But she saw him reach inside his jacket with the hand not holding her elbow, the right hand. And it was reaching into the left side of his jacket, the side next to her, where she was absolutely certain she could feel something hard, like a… Oh, God-the man was wearing a shoulder holster with a gun in it, and he was reaching for it now. What should she do? What should she do?“

Take control! Take action! Shing Lee’s commands shrieked inside her head like an alarm klaxon.

With adrenaline already tingling her nerves to readiness and her heart racing in high gear, she searched for, and found, the quiet place in her mind, the place where all things moved in slow motion, the place in which she had absolute control. From that place of peace and tranquillity, she willed her breaths to come slow and even, gathering her strength as she wrapped her left hand over her right fist.

A split second before the strike, she uttered a loud, “Eeeyuh!” which had the effect of startling Aaron Campbell so that he eased his hold on her elbow just long enough for her to drive it, with all the combined force in her upper body, into the softness of his belly, just below the apex of his ribs.

Jane found the sounds he made as he dropped to his knees on the sidewalk somewhat disturbing; Shing’s demonstrations had somehow neglected to include that ugly little detail.

Fortunately, she was pumped up enough by her success to carry her through the next step, which was to drop the tote bag to the sidewalk and bring her clasped fists down as hard as she could, with all her weight behind them, onto the back of her opponent’s neck.

She was considering whether to follow that up with a good solid knee to the underside of the chin, or perhaps a swift kick to the, uh, groin, when something struck her arm-not hard-and a voice hissed urgently, “Cartyste-quick! This way-come on!”

She whirled, still riled and combative, arms raised in the defensive position. Tom Hawkins, poised like a relay runner about to accept the baton, relaxed momentarily and looked pained. “For God’s sake, put that away. I’m on your side, dammit! Come on, give me that bag and let’s go.”

“Over my dead body,” Jane shouted.

She only meant that in response to the first half of Tom’s command, of course; the second part seemed only good sense. Though she thought it probable that only seconds had elapsed since she’d stepped out of the taxi and into Aaron Campbell’s clutches, a few curious spectators had already begun to drift in her direction, drawn by the always-mesmerizing specter of violence. It would only be a matter of time before it occurred to one of them to summon someone in authority. Which Jane, being a law-abiding citizen, would definitely have welcomed if it hadn’t become apparent that her fallen foe was only temporarily vanquished. He was already on his feet, in fact, and shaking his head like a dazed prizefighter. And there was still the matter of that gun.

No time to think about alternatives-she just snatched her tote bag and ran.

No time to wonder how it was possible Tom Hawkins could be here, when just moments ago he’d said goodbye to her in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial-it was toward him she ran, and reached for his outstretched hand.

No time to question the surge of joy she felt inside at seeing his face, hearing his voice, feeling his fingers close around hers. Because at that point, her arm was nearly wrenched out of its socket.

“Slow down,” she gasped. “I can’t…run that fast.”

“Sure you can. You’re doing it, aren’t you?” Tom retorted, pulling her down a side street. “Here-this way.”

At first she thought she’d surely fall flat on her face, but when she didn’t, she began to feel exhilarated instead. It was as Tom had said-she could run that fast. Imagine-at her age!

“Why don’t you let me cany that damn bag?” Tom asked in a bumpy voice as he ran, matching his stride now with hers. He no longer had the briefcase, she noticed. He’d also ditched the baseball cap and sunglasses.

“No way, you can run faster than I can.”

He grunted, glanced her way and then ran for several paces in silence before growling, “You think I’d take the damn painting and leave you to Campbell, is that it? What the hell kind of guy do you think I am?”

“I don’t know,” Jane managed to say. “That’s pretty much…the problem.” She ran a few more steps. “I think…you owe me…an explanation.”

“Yeah, well, this is hardly the time or place for it. Look who’s got his legs back.”

One brief, wild glance over her shoulder confirmed it: Campbell had just turned into the narrow residential street behind them, running hard. “Oh, God,” she moaned. Her chest was on fire and she was developing a side ache. “He’s gaining on us, isn’t he?”

Her companion didn’t answer that but instead veered suddenly, yanking her after him as he dodged between two parked cars. She gave a horrified squeak as they narrowly missed a collision with a bicyclist, skittered on across the street with her heart in her throat and almost tripped over Tom’s heels when he ducked into an even narrower cross street. She was following blindly now.

Hawk had had a reason for choosing this particular street He’d spotted a moving van parked about halfway down the block, facing out, taking up most of the pavement. He could see that the doors on the side facing the sidewalk were open, and that the interior of the van was all but filled with boxes and indeterminate shapes shrouded in packing blankets. And also that no one was in sight.

A quick look over his shoulder told him Campbell hadn’t made the turn into this street yet, although he couldn’t be far from it, and had surely seen them do so. And Jane was tiring; she couldn’t keep this up much longer. It wasn’t a hard decision to make.

“In here.” Jerking Jane up beside him, he pushed her ahead of him into the van.

There wasn’t much room; the van seemed to be fully loaded, though whether going or coming he had no way of knowing. After wasting precious seconds in search of a nook or cranny big enough to hide them both, he shoved Jane down into a space between a washer and dryer and what appeared to be an upright piano wrapped in blankets. He then squeezed in after her as best he could, pulling a blanket over the part of him that didn’t quite fit.

And not a moment too soon. In the sudden breathy stillness, he could hear the sound of footsteps slapping on the pavement outside the van.

“Not a sound,” he hissed. And then there was silence, so heavy it seemed to thunder with the beat of his heart.

It was stifling under the blanket. The footsteps grew louder, scraping past, finally, only inches from their hiding place. They receded, but only a short distance, then stopped…hesitated… scuffled around first one way, then another. And then came back.

Hawk uttered a very nasty word under his breath. Feeling Jane’s body jerk slightly-whether because of the language he’d used or the gravity of their situation, he couldn’t be sure-he reached out a hand to touch her, to steady and caution her, while with the other he found the comforting shape of the gun nestled in the small of his back. Braced and ready, he waited.

The footsteps drew nearer…and nearer. Slowly this time. In his mind’s eye, Hawk could see his adversary, see the suspicion in his face, feel the tension in his body as, so cautiously, so carefully, he advanced, knowing his prey was cornered, but suspicious, too, of traps and ambushes. He could see him in the doorway, now, every nerve, every muscle vibrating, his own breath suspended… One foot, now, on the floor of the van-he could feel it give a little with the weight…then-

Suddenly, just like that, he was gone. In the distance, Hawk heard voices, low and casual, bantering voices. The movers were returning.

He let his gun hand relax and with the other, the one still touching Jane, gave her a couple of reassuring strokes and encouraging pats.

But relief was short-lived. He barely had time to register it in his consciousness before a new series of sounds elevated the short hairs on the back of his neck and sent a fresh shot of adrenaline into his system. First, a loud and prolonged squeak, metal on metal…then a reverberating clang…and another…and then a sliding thunk. And finally…dead silence.

“Uh-oh,” said Hawk, and muttered that word again.

“They’ve shut us in,” said Jane, her voice small and air-starved.

Hawk drew his head out from under the blanket and into total darkness…“Yep,” he grunted. “Looks that way.”

“Sh-shouldn’t we do something? Yell, or bang on the door?”

“Yeah, and then what? They let us out, listen to our explanation-you’ ve got one, I suppose?-and assuming they buy it, drive off and leave us here? Campbell’s still out there, you know. He won’t have gone far. He knows we have to be here somewhere.”

Just then, there was a belly-deep roar, like a growl from the throat of some gigantic beast, and then a low, continuous rumbling. Under their hands and knees the floor of the van had begun to vibrate.

“Oh dear,” said Jane. There was a pause, and then a surprisingly meek and tremulous. “So, what do we do now?”

“Hope and pray it’s not a long-distance move, I guess.”

There was another pause during which the van lurched from one side to the other, but in an almost stately manner that reminded Hawk of a very large and tipsy lady.

And then in an altogether different voice, one he couldn’t quite interpret, he heard Jane say, “Tom? Would you stop stroking my bottom, please?”

He snatched his hand away from her as if she’d bitten him, and muttered, “Sorry,” under his breath.

“Under the circumstances, I forgive you.” And now there was no mistaking her amusement. That teetering-on-the-brink-of-laughter quiver in her voice was contagious, too; he could feel the almost-forgotten sensation building inside him like an oncoming sneeze. Well, hell, he supposed it was one way to react to a crisis.

“Let’s get the hell out of this hole,” he said in a monotone, fighting hard against the influence of that insidious itch.

Squirming backward until he’d managed to free his shoulders, he stood up gingerly, feeling the blackness above his head for obstacles. “Damn,” he said gruffly. “Wish we had some light.”

Jane’s voice drifted up from somewhere near his feet. “I have…a flashlight, if I can just-”

“You’re kidding! You do? Where?”

“I always carry one. I grew up in California-earthquakes, you know. It’s in my bag. Just let me…okay, I’m out. Now, where did I…oh, here it is.”

She came crawling out backward on her hands and knees, kneeling on his feet, brushing against his legs. He tried to give her more room, but there just wasn’t any; his back was smack up against a wall of boxes. When he leaned over to help her up, he got a mouthful of her hair.

“Mmpf. Ptoo, ” he muttered, spitting it out.

Breathless and obviously still quivery with laughter, she whispered, “Oops, sorry,” and rose to her feet, clinging to his arms and unfolding her body along the front of his.

“Tight quarters,” he said stiffly.

“Yes, isn’t it.”

Her hair was on a level with his face again. This time, he kept his mouth closed, and discovered that he could appreciate the tickly softness of it on his lips and chin. And the smell of it…nothing he could place, just a part of that indefinable “nice-woman” smell he’d noticed before.

His stomach growled suddenly. For Hawk, that had always meant one or the other of two different kinds of hunger, and he couldn’t have sworn, at that moment, which one this was. It had been a long time since breakfast, but even longer since he’d had the sweet scent of a woman in his nostrils and her breasts brushing up against his chest like this, and her legs shifting to make room for his…

“I know-I’m starving, too,” Jane said with a sympathetic chuckle, certain she at least knew which hunger his juices were giving voice to.

“Don’t suppose you have any food in that bag of yours along with the flashlight?” He could feel his pulse in his loins.

“As a matter of fact, I do. Here-hold this.” She thrust something large and flat against his chest.

Clutching the painting, hearing the crackle of the paper it was wrapped in, Hawk’s blood pressure and temperature began a slow descent back to normal. This is it, Hawk, the game ends here, and you’ve won. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“Here it is-got it!” There was a little cackle of triumph as a thin beam of light stabbed through the blackness. It danced giddily for a moment, like a sprite set free. flashed briefly in his eyes and then stabilized at chest level between them, illuminating her features-and his, too, he imagined-with ghoulish shadows.

Maybe something in those shadows gave her the inspiration, who knows; he’d stopped trying to figure this woman out. She waggled the flashlight playfully, and her face seemed to grow longer and her voice got higher, and she quipped, “Well, Ollie, here’s another fine mess you’ve got us into!”

Hawk snorted to keep from laughing-damned if he was going to let this woman make him laugh. “Carlysle,” he growled, “damned if I don’t think you’re starting to enjoy this. Give me that.” Laying the painting carefully on top of the washer-or the dryer, he wasn’t sure which-he took the flashlight from her and pointed it downward. “We’re gonna want to conserve the batteries. You say you have food in that thing?”

She had her head down, already digging in the tote bag. Her voice came muffled. “Well, not food exactly. But I still have the peanuts they gave me on the plane-Connie’s, too. And these.” She held it out to him-a package of fat-free cookies.

He sighed. “Nothing to drink, I suppose?”

She slowly shook her head, her eyes glistening, over-large in the oblique illumination of the flashlight. Her voice was calm, but with no traces of laughter in it, when she asked, “How long do you think we might be stuck in here?”

Hawk shrugged. “No telling. If this is a coast-to-coast move, it could be days before they get where they’re going. On the other hand…” Her face looked so stricken he couldn’t bear to look at it, so he thumbed the flashlight off and went on in the darkness. “On the other hand, these guys have to stop sometime-to use the john, to eat…”

“There’s no place to go to the bathroom in here.” That was pointed out in a small, horror-stricken voice.

“You noticed that, did you?” said Hawk dryly. Taking pity on her, he added, “Look, the first time they stop, we’ll bang like hell on the door and hope somebody hears us. That’s all we can do.”

“This van isn’t…airtight, is it?”

“Airtight? Hardly. Other good news is, this is a diesel, so we don’t have to worry about carbon monoxide poisoning. The bad news is, it’s probably gonna get colder’n hell in here pretty soon.”

“Well, at least we seem to have plenty of blankets.” She sounded calmer, even brisk and purposeful, as though she was quite ready to deal with the situation now that she knew what, exactly, the situation was.

Hawk was just glad she seemed to be okay again. He refused to let himself admire her spirit; he was already getting to like her too much as it was. “I think there’s room for both of us right here in this space by the door-gonna be a little snug…”

With faultless timing, the truck chose that moment to turn a corner. Jane swayed slowly and inexorably against him, weighted by centrifugal force and utterly helpless to stop herself. Her head eased in under his chin like a boat going into its slip. It would have been a pretty nice fit, Hawk thought, if it hadn’t been for her arms being full of stuff and all doubled up between them.

From the darkness came a doleful, “I knew I shouldn’t have let myself gain those five extra pounds.”

A snort burst from him, like a pressure, valve letting go. He couldn’t think of anything else he dared add to that, but he was thinking that if she was carrying around five extra pounds, they felt perfectly all right to him.

It seemed an hour or two before the truck slowly righted itself. Hawk took Jane by the elbows and gently pushed her back to vertical, muttering something like, “There y’go…”

Her contribution was a breathless whisper. “Thanks…sorry about that.”

“Don’t mention it.”

“How ’bout this,” she said brightly, after a brief, mysterious silence. And then he could feel her stirring at his feet, spreading blankets. “We sit facing each other-you know, legs alongside? Come on-you sit right there, like that, and I’ll sit-” and once more he heard her huffing and scuffling around as she got herself settled “…like this.”

He thought about turning on the flashlight again but didn’t. It was bad enough imagining the close quarters; at least he didn’t have to see the legs that lay warm and firm along the outside of his, the feminine hip nudging his ankle, the slender foot-“Hey,” he said, “you took your shoes off.”

“Take yours off, too, if you like,” she said generously. “I don’t mind if they smell.”

Hawk gave a single whoop of laughter, he couldn’t help it.

But it was a struggle, trying to push off one laced-up athletictype shoe with the toe of the other. And he didn’t dare lean over too far, because he knew if he got the taste of her in his mouth again, the smell of her… Then he felt her hands, strong, no-nonsense hands. A moment later, first one foot, then the other experienced the chill of suddenly exposed, sweat-damp socks. “Thanks,” he said gruffly.

“Don’t mention it.” Her voice was as cool as his socks. “Want a blanket?” -

“Yeah, please.” He felt the weight of the packing blanket fall across his knees, felt her pull and tug it until she had it wrapped snugly around his ankles and feet. “Hand me a blanket,” he heard himself say. “and I’ll do you.”

There was a curious pain in his chest, like something stuck way down deep in his esophagus, something he couldn’t get rid of. And hard as he tried to stop the memory, it came anyway…

He and Jen, sitting on opposite ends of the old sofa in the den at her parents’ house…a fire roaring in the fireplace and half-drunk mugs of cocoa on the floor. He’d been home from college on Thanksgiving break, her parents were out for the evening at some party or other, and they’d just been rough-housing in the unexpected snow, the first fall of the season. He could hear Jen’s voice, with that bossy self-confidence he’d loved so much, saying, “Here-you do me and I’ll do you.” His icy-cold feet in her lap, hers in his…he couldn’t remember who’d started the tickling, but inevitably they’d wound up in a tangle on the rug, kissing breathlessly and with escalating passion. It had been the first time they’d made love…

“There you go,” he said as he shoved Jane’s swaddled feet back down beside him, wishing he could do something about the roughness in his hands and voice, hoping she wouldn’t read into that things about him he wasn’t ready for her to know. “Hey, how about some of that food, now, huh?”

“Okay, let’s see, which do you prefer, peanuts or cookies?”

“Oh, hell, I don’t care-you choose.”

“Well, maybe we should each have some of both-protein and carbohydrates-what do you think?”

God, she sounded like his mother. Well, okay, not his mother, but somebody’s. Like June Cleaver. “Fine. Need the light?”

“No, that’s okay. Give me your hand.”

“Come on, Tom, you get on, too! Quick, give me your hand, give me your hand!”

“Wait-I want to take one more picture… wave next time you come around, okay? Jase, wave at Daddy, now…”

He put his hand into the darkness and felt her cool fingers close around his. He could feel his heart beating.

“Ooh…I hate the way they make these dam packages of peanuts so hard to open, don’t you? I just hope I don’t lose them all in the dark…”

He took a breath. It was like dragging shards of glass through his chest. “Want some help?”

“No, that’s okay, I’ve got it now… Mmm, boy, those taste good.”

For a while, Hawk sat with his mind in neutral and listened to the sounds of her genteel munching, giving his emotions time to drift back into quiet waters. When he felt pretty sure he was back on course again, he opened his own stubborn little foil pack and downed the peanuts in a couple of greedy handfuls, figuring they’d make more of an impact on his stomach that way. The cookies he nibbled; he wasn’t much of a sweets person. Jen had been the one-

“For once I’m not sorry I have a bit of a sweet tooth,” said Jane with a sigh. The cookie wrapper crinkled softly in the darkness.

Suddenly feeling as if he had rocks under his butt, Hawk shifted and growled like a bad-tempered dog, “All right, let’s cut the crap. Out with it. Get it over with.”

He felt her legs twitch as she gasped, “I beg your pardon?” But she said it on a little ripple of laughter, and he had a feeling she wasn’t really all that surprised.

“You’re wondering what the hell this is all about,” he went on, his voice still guttural and harsh with diverted emotions. “You said I owe you an explanation. So go on. This is your chance. Ask your questions.”

There was a pregnant little silence, and then a solemn, “You’ll tell me the truth?”

He gave a short, hard laugh. “Well, I’ll try.”

Questions. Jane took a bite of cookie and chewed thoughtfully. Funny, up until the moment she’d stepped out of that taxicab in Georgetown, all she’d been able to think about was questions. And boy, had she wanted answers! She’d been feeling angry, victimized, threatened and just plain scared.

But ever since that tussle with Aaron Campbell, well, how on earth to describe it? She’d felt…exhilarated. And at the same time, calm. Right now she felt strong. Confident. And yes, Tom was right, in a strange way, she was sort of enjoying this. She was alive, uninjured, and it didn’t really matter what the explanation was for whatever it was she’d stumbled into: never again would Jane Carlysle be able to say that nothing ever happened to her!

“I’m not sure I know where to begin,” she said finally. She frowned, trying her best to inject a degree of sternness into her voice and thinking that what it reminded her of was when the girls were little, and she’d been forced to discipline them when actually she was secretly entertained by the mischief they’d done.

It wasn’t that she didn’t still want-need-answers and explanations; goodness no. But somehow the urgency was gone. She felt strangely at ease with Tom Hawkins now-this mystifying stranger she hadn’t even met before yesterday, and whose bundled bare feet were now snuggled cozily under her elbow. She wasn’t sure she could have explained why, it was just a feeling she had. The feeling she was going to have all the time in the world to learn about this man, including the answers to questions she hadn’t even thought of yet.

“I guess,” she said at last, dabbing cookie crumbs from her lips with the tip of a forefinger, “you could begin by telling me who you are.”