The Hostage

Lightning Jack nodded. He looked at Deborah briefly. “Find something to eat. You’ll need your strength.”

“But you—what—” Before Deborah could get the words out, he was gone. She glared at Tom Silver. “We were in the middle of a conversation.”

“I heard.”

“You had no right to interrupt.”

“You have no rights, period.”

She shot up from the table. Her vision swam, and for a horrible moment she feared she might swoon. She grabbed the edge of the table to steady herself. “I have every right to know why you took me against my will. I have every right to know why you forced me aboard this smelly boat and why you’re taking me far from home. I have every right—”

“You claim a lot of rights for someone who’s a prisoner.”

She tried to form an answer, but lost her grip on the edge of the table. The deck raced up to meet her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, bracing for a fall. But something stopped her. A giant male hand caught her, gripped her shoulder and steadied her. She opened her eyes, and a shiver of nauseating revulsion rolled over her. His touch was harsh, impersonal. It set off a reaction within her that made her sick.

“Let go of me,” she said, breathing the words through clenched teeth. “I beg you, let go.”

“Don’t beg. I can’t stand that in a female.” He gave her a shove, and she staggered back to the bench. “Do as you’re told and keep your mouth shut, and we’ll get along a lot better.”

“Did it ever occur to you that I don’t care to get along with you?”

“No, but it occurred to me that I could tie you up and gag you.”

Her jaw dropped. The utter cruelty of this man stunned her. She was accustomed to the little refined cruelties of ruthless social climbers, but not to the raw force of Tom Silver’s brutality.

“What’s this?” he asked, picking something up off the floor.

Deborah reached for the velvet pouch. “It’s mine. It must have dropped when I nearly fell just now. Oh, don’t—”

But he did, of course. He opened the pouch, and out fell her lavaliere. The blue topaz prism, set in silver filigree, was not the most costly of baubles, but its sentimental value to Deborah was beyond price. “That was my mother’s. Give it back,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Nope.” He stuck it in his pocket. “We’ll send it to your father—so he knows we’re not bluffing.”

It was the one possession that truly meant something to Deborah. “Please,” she said. “Not that. You’ve already taken my diamond engagement ring. That’s much more valuable.”

“And more likely to be stolen by the messenger.”

“My father might think you simply found that in the confusion of the fire,” she pointed out. Then, realizing her mistake, she covered her mouth.

“You’re right,” he said. “Maybe I should send an ear or a finger.”

“This is a nightmare,” she whispered. “This can’t be happening.”

He stared at her narrow-eyed for a few minutes, then took a wickedly sharp knife from the top of his boot.

Deborah gave a shriek and scrambled for the door. He grabbed a handful of her hair and used the knife to slice off a thick blond lock. “This’ll do,” he said, sheathing the knife.

She moaned, sinking to the bench and clutching at her ruined hair.

He left her sitting alone in the cramped galley, struck speechless and motionless by the fact that she had lost everything in the world and was bound on a journey into the wilderness with two madmen.

Chapter Eight

Smokestacks and grain elevators rose ghostlike through the mist enshrouding the city of Milwaukee. At the stern of the trawler, Tom felt the presence of the girl like the weight of an albatross tied around his neck. He understood all too well that long poem Frère Henri had studied with him one winter. A man had to wear the evidence of his deeds, and he could never go back to what he was before.

He had abducted the woman on impulse, but now she was his, totally dependent upon him. Holding the daughter of Arthur Sinclair as a hostage on the boat was sheer idiocy, but as a means of revenge it might just work. Lord knew how this would turn out. The whole damned thing made his head ache, a common occurrence since he had been whacked in the skull by Deborah’s father. The swelling had subsided, but not the pain.

His hostage was in the pilothouse, pacing back and forth, stopping occasionally at a portal to look at the city. He found himself thinking of a time, when he was a boy, that he had caught a butterfly. It had been beautiful, yellow and royal blue, with long-tipped wings and antennae as delicate as a silk thread. He had put the creature in a glass jar, adding a branch of honeysuckle for it to feed on and carefully poking holes in the metal top of the jar. In the morning he’d found the butterfly dead, its wings ragged from beating against the jar, the honeysuckle wilted and brown.

Deborah Sinclair hadn’t eaten in days.

He wondered why she hadn’t tried to escape again. After that first attempt, she seemed resigned, defeated. Either it was a ruse, and she was biding her time, or she had surrendered. He stalked across the deck and yanked open the door of the pilothouse. When he stepped inside, she turned a cool gaze upon him. The dog she called Smokey lifted one side of its mouth in a snarl, but otherwise didn’t move from its favorite napping spot on the galley bench.

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