Ryan's Rescue Read online

  Not only would everyone think she was a liar, they would think she was a slut, too. Well, hell, maybe she was. Minutes ago, she’d been in bed with Ryan. And she was still officially engaged, never mind that Robert, the slimy invertebrate, cared more about his stupid car than about her.

  Ryan came back into the room, alone. He froze when he saw what she was doing.

  She looked up at him and narrowed her eyes, then tossed the offending photo across the bed toward him. “Want to explain what you planned to do with this?”

  Ryan picked up the photo, studied it. She wondered what he thought of it, from an aesthetic standpoint. It was a beautiful photo, artistically composed, with just the right mixture of light, shadow and steam. All kinds of steam.

  His face revealed nothing. “I wish you had let me explain about these before you looked at them. I told Fran not to print this one, but I guess she couldn’t resist.”

  “I’m listening now. But I don’t think there’s anything you can do to make these photos less damning. It’s taken me all day to convince you I was kidnapped, if you’re even truly convinced. If people see these, they’ll never believe it.”

  “You underestimate my writing abilities,” he said, reaching for the rest of the photos. He scooped them off her lap and spent a great deal of time studying each one. “You said you would be able to explain why you didn’t call the police first thing this morning. You explain, I’ll write it in a way that makes my readers see it exactly as I see it. The photos won’t change that.”

  She didn’t believe him, not for a second. They’d been dealing in words all day. Words didn’t carry nearly the weight of those inflammatory images.

  “I’ll explain it, all right. Tomorrow.” With that she scooted back under the covers, flopped over on her side facing the wall and pulled the blankets nearly over her head. She was too confused to deal with Ryan any more tonight. Tomorrow, when she was fresh, she would figure out how to tell him that her father hadn’t wanted her back.

  Ryan took the stack of photos to his bed, stripped off his jeans, then sat down to study the pictures at leisure. Fran was really good, he thought again. He could understand why she’d been excited about the kiss picture. It spoke. He was surprised the passion didn’t burn right through the photographic paper.

  But none of these photos was right for the story. Maybe he could use one or two of them. but he needed something else. Too bad no one had photographed Chrissy when he first found her, filthy, disheveled, beaten, half-starved, and being harassed by the Pit Bulls. That would have been a picture that told a story.

  Now, here was one he really liked-Chrissy watching the mother baboon. The expression on her face was poignant, almost tragic—hardly carefree. He suspected that had been one of the few times today when Chrissy dropped her guard and let anyone see how she was really feeling.

  What had made her so sad? he wondered. He glanced back at the bed, where she was again feigning sleep, or perhaps actually sleeping. It was getting late, and today had been exhausting.

  He regretted Fran’s timing, even though he knew, from a strictly intellectual point of view, that her awkward arrival was the best thing that could have happened to him. If Chrissy had said yes, she wanted him to stay in bed with her, he wouldn’t have settled for a cuddle.

  He was pretty sure she’d known that, too. For all her seeming innocence, she wasn’t that naive.

  What would she have answered? He probably would never know. She was good and mad about the photos, and he might never again achieve the degree of trust they’d shared earlier.

  Still, the photos had had their desired effect. She knew now, better than ever, how her behavior today had implicated her. He only hoped that now she would follow through, with the whole truth: She still had a lot of explaining to do.

  Ryan worked for another two hours on his story. During that time, Chrissy hardly made a sound, only a deep, sighing breath every so often. There were no more nightmares, for which he was thankful, though he wouldn’t have minded another chance to comfort her. When he could no longer hold his eyes open, he knocked off for the night, but his sleep was restless. He kept imagining that Denny had found them and was trying to break into their room.

  Dawn couldn’t come soon enough. With early-morning light brightening the room, Ryan’s heebie-jeebies melted away. Chrissy was still safe. Denny didn’t have a clue as to their whereabouts:

  Ryan got up, took a quick shower, shaved, elbowed his way into a long-sleeved T-shirt and jeans. Chrissy was still snoozing blissfully, or at least she seemed to be.

  He called room service and ordered the works for breakfast, never mind that it cost the national debt. He needed sustenance if he was going to continue wrestling with this story, and he wanted to keep Chrissy fed and happy.

  It occurred to him then that, since it was Monday, Chrissy could go to her bank and make a withdrawal. She wouldn’t be dependent on him for anything after that. Anything except her safety. He was still betting that she wasn’t ready to tackle life alone on the streets just yet.

  She stirred. He tensed. “Chrissy?” he said softly.

  She rolled over, opened her eyes, blinked a couple of times, as if trying to get oriented, then smiled. “I’m starving.”

  “That figures.” The woman ate like a linebacker. “Breakfast is on the way.”

  “Oh, good.” She sat up and swung her legs to the floor. The terry robe didn’t come with them, and she hastily adjusted herself, hiding her thighs with the bedspread Darn. “What did you order?” she asked.

  “Legs, bacon, toast, orange juice and cof—”

  “What? What did you say?”

  Had she developed a hearing impairment from the drug? he wondered. “I said, eggs, bacon, toast, OJ. and coffee.”

  She smiled—a soft, secret smile, the meaning of which was a total mystery to Ryan. But at least her sour mood of last night had vanished. She licked her lips. “Mmm. I hope the bacon’s crisp. Can we eat in the car?”

  “Excuse me?” Maybe he was the one who needed his hearing checked.

  “I was hoping we’d get an early start for Raleigh. You know, where my sister lives.”

  Raleigh. He’d forgotten all about his promise to take her to her sister. “Um, how early? There are a few things I’d like to take care of first..”

  She looked at the digital clock on the nightstand. “Earlier than this,” she said with a frown. “Why did you let me sleep so late?”

  “It’s not even eight o’clock yet. I didn’t figure we were on a tight schedule.”

  “I’m anxious to get going. I want out of Washington.” She folded her arms. “You are still taking me to Raleigh, aren’t you?”

  “I was planning to. But I haven’t exactly gotten that exclusive interview you promised,” he reminded her.

  “I thought we could take care of that on the way to Michelle’s.”

  He shook his head. “I can’t take notes or look things up while I’m driving.”

  “I could drive.”

  He laughed at that. “Do you even have a driver’s license?”

  “Not with me, but I have one,” she said huffily. “About once a week. Dad’s chauffeur lets me drive the limo around. I can drive as well as anyone you could name.”

  “Yeah, well, you aren’t driving my Vette. No one does.”

  “Oh, all right. You can grill me during breakfast. I’m sure you can eat and take notes at the same time. Then can we leave?”

  He thought about it. He could get most of the information he needed in an hour or two. But he would have to do some digging here in town if Chrissy wasn’t forthcoming about her father’s dealings with NATURE—or even if she was. He would have to verify everything she said through second sources.

  So, he supposed he could drive down to Raleigh and turn right back. He would have tomorrow and Wednesday to finish up his research. He also wanted to check the pawnshops to see if anyone had hocked a two-carat engagement ring:

  There was one las
t detail. “Okay. We’ll leave after breakfast, as soon as we take care of something. You don’t have to do it, but it might help your case.”

  “What?” she asked suspiciously.

  “I want to go to an independent medical lab and have your blood drawn. Whatever drug the kidnappers gave you, traces of it might still be in your system. A blood test would also prove you weren’t on any other types of illegal drugs.” He held his breath, fully expecting her to refuse.

  To his surprise, she smiled. “Why, Ryan, that’s a brilliant idea. I wish I’d thought of it yesterday.”

  Chapter 10

  Ryan’s relentless questions extracted any pleasure Christine might have taken from the sumptuous breakfast. She’d had no idea how gentle he’d been with her before until this morning, when he started shooting rapid-fire questions at her. There was little sympathy shown now; Ryan Mulvaney was pure, unadulterated unbiased journalist.

  Whenever she hesitated, even for a few seconds, he looked up from his computer where he was taking notes, his eyes boring into hers, as if searching for a weakness.

  She tried not to take it personally. This was Ryan at work, showing her a different persona from the man who’d held her last night, gently coaxing responses from her. This was how he made his living. He wasn’t nasty or unfair, just direct.

  They went over the specifics of the kidnapping again, minute by minute. He prompted her to remember details she never would have thought of—the color of the paint on the walls of the apartment where she was held, for instance. She remembered now that it had been a nauseating pea green.

  When he asked what kind of bush she’d fallen into, she drew the line. “I wasn’t on a first-name basis with the bush, okay?” she said impatiently. “How am I supposed to know what kind of bush it was? I’m not a horticulture expert.” She had long since given up on breakfast, and was now stretched out on the bed, staring at the ceiling so that she wouldn’t have to look at him.

  “Then what did it look like?”

  “Like a bush!”

  “Try to remember.”

  She sighed in defeat. He wasn’t going to give her an inch. “Okay, if it’s that important. Um, let’s see...it had long, straight, spiky branches, sort of all coming out from a middle trunk.” She closed her eyes, trying to picture the dam thing. “No leaves. I think maybe it was getting ready to bloom, because there were little bumpy bud things on the branches.” She was amazed at the sensory detail Ryan was able to pull out of her.

  “Good, that’s good!” he said as he typed furiously. “A lot of this is to protect you, you know. If we do locate the place you were held, and all of these details are verified, no one can doubt your story.”

  “They’ll just think I was in collusion with the environmentalists,” she said glumly. “That’s what my father thinks.” And with that statement, she opened up the can of worms she and Ryan had been tap-dancing around all morning. She supposed she couldn’t avoid it any longer.

  “Let’s explore that more deeply,” he said, sounding much like the shrink she’d seen after her mother’s death. “You’ve only spoken with your father once since the kidnapping, right?”

  “Yes. When I called him from Costello’s. We talked for maybe a couple of minutes. The other time I called him, he was asleep. I talked to his personal secretary, and to our housekeeper.”

  “You weren’t allowed to talk to him while you were a hostage?”

  “They had me say hello into the phone once, just to prove to him they really had me, but that was all.” She told him about the one-sided conversations she’d heard between the terrorists and her father. She had never doubted—still didn’t—that they’d made a clear demand for one million dollars, and that they’d identified their organization to her father.

  “I did some research on your father last night, on the Internet,” Ryan said cautiously. “He not only voted against environmental issues on several occasions, but he introduced a controversial bit of legislation that passed recently, allowing certain kinds of legal chemical dumping.”

  Christine sat up and stared at him. She’d forgotten that part. “Yes, that’s it! That’s what they were talking about. They’re blaming Dad for the destruction of a waterbird habitat, and they wanted the million bucks to restore it. I can’t believe I forgot that part.”

  “I can’t, either,” Ryan said, shaking his head, dutifully typing in what she’d said.

  Oh, dear. It did sound as if she were making things up off the top of her head. “Really, Ryan, I think it was the drug. It killed off some short-term-memory brain cells or something. They told me all this when I was under the influence of that drug.”

  “It’s okay, Chrissy. I believe you.”

  Did he? she wondered. Did he really? She was anxious to go to the medical lab and have her blood tested, but that wasn’t going to happen until she answered all Ryan’s questions. She decided to get on with it, to blurt out the rest. He’d pull it out of her eventually, anyway.

  “Let’s get back to this phone call to your father, the one from Costello’s,” Ryan said. “I’d like you to go over it word for word, as closely as you can remember.”

  She did. Humiliated, she repeated every hurtful word she and her father had exchanged. She didn’t even have to try that hard to remember. The conversation was etched into her brain.

  “So...let me get this straight,” Ryan said. “Your father’s story is that he was trying to pull the money together?”

  “That’s what he tried to tell me,” Christine said. “But it’s not true. My father is a very wealthy man, and I know everything about his finances. He could have had twice that amount in unmarked bills in the blink of an eye.”

  Ryan didn’t seem shocked. He just continued typing. “It staggers me to think about that much money,” he said, more to himself than to her. Then, like a bird of prey, he went for the kill. “You know, when faced with a kidnapped child and a ransom demand, people usually do two things. They pay it, or they call the police. Your father didn’t do either, or at least not right away. Why? You mentioned the word collusion a few minutes ago.”

  She was prepared for this one. “There are two possible reasons for my father’s behavior. The first is because he thought I was in cahoots with these environmentalists, so I wasn’t really in danger.”

  “Any particular reason he would believe that?” Ryan wanted to know.

  “Dad and I have had frequent arguments about environmentalism. It’s the one issue we’re diametrically opposed on. But I’ve never openly contradicted his views, and I’ve certainly never gone out of my way to make friends with the environmental lobbies or anything like that. So it makes only minimal sense he would believe I could do such a thing as fake my own kidnapping in order to extort money from him. But it’s what I want to believe.”

  “Uh-huh. And what’s the second reason?”

  Christine took a deep breath. “That he didn’t want me back. That he didn’t care if the kidnappers killed me.”

  Ryan was very good at hiding his reactions, but this time he couldn’t disguise his shock. His mouth hung open, his fingers stilled on the keyboard, and he stared.

  “What are you saying?” he asked.

  “I’m saying that, for various reasons, I’d become a liability to him, and I was worth more to him dead than alive. Think of all those sympathy votes.”

  Ryan swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. Stan Greenlow was no choirboy, but only a monster would stand by and do nothing when his daughter’s life was in danger. “You are going to elaborate, I hope,” he said. “What ‘various reasons’?”

  Ryan sensed he was at the heart of the matter—the real raison d’être for his story. Kidnapping, threatened rape, daring escapes, those were all window dressing. The emotional part—the part people would salivate to read about—was about to be revealed.

  Christine got up and started pacing. “I don’t want to tell you this,” she said. “It could destroy my father’s entire political future. But t
he whole story doesn’t make sense unless I do tell you. I’m just hoping you’ll find some way not to reveal it to everybody who can read.”

  “I’ve already told you I’m committed to telling this story in as fair a way as possible. Facts only, no conjecture, everybody gets to tell their fair story—including your father, if he’ll talk to me. That’s the only assurance I can give you. Everything you tell me now is on the record.”

  “I know. Okay, here’s the deal.”

  Ryan listened as Chrissy outlined her father’s ten-year downward spiral into prescription drug addiction. He dutifully took notes, but he wondered how he would ever communicate the pain in Chrissy’s voice, the agony of a young woman faced with too much responsibility too early in life, watching as her father disintegrated before her eyes.

  “So far we’ve always managed to cover for him,” she said.

  “Who’s ‘we’?”

  “Gerald, me, and our family doctor. No one’s ever suspected. But there’s another doctor in the picture now. I don’t know where Dad found him. He’s one of these Dr. Feelgoods—you know, the kind that passes out pills like candy. So in the past few months things have gotten much, much worse. I was beginning to worry that Dad would accidentally kill himself with those damn pills, or send himself into a coma. So I laid down an ultimatum. I told him he had to check into Betty Ford...or I would go public with his problem.”

  Damn, that was gutsy, Ryan thought. “Did you mean it?”

  She seemed to think about his question. “Yes, I did. I’d made threats before, but this time I was serious. I didn’t want to lose him, especially not by slow, painful degrees.”

  “And when did this confrontation take place?”

  “About a week ago, I guess.”

  Mere days before the kidnapping, Ryan thought. Perhaps, in Stan’s mind, his daughter’s anger was motive enough for her to try and extort money from him. “Were you angry?” he asked. “Did you raise your voice?”