Читать книгу Dance with the Devil - Sandy Curtis - Страница 5

Blackness. So intense it was suffocating.

Drew fought to quell the panic rising in his gut, and waited for the footsteps that heralded another duel with the devil. A verbal duel, very one-sided, because he only had questions and the devil knew the answers but refused to talk in anything but riddles. Or parables.

But something was different. There was softness beneath his fingertips. Warmth and softness that made him ache to feel more. And scent. A woman's scent. Not perfume, but a fresh fragrance of clean skin, feminine skin; soft skin that enticed him with the promise of pleasure. He felt his reaction to it, the ache that pulsed through his body, the yearning for something good and sweet and loving to take him from his hellhole.

The blackness grew thicker, more solid. The devil was back, taunting him, cursing him. The devil swung the mallet and pain sliced through his foot and he heard his groan echo in the darkness.

'It's all right. You're safe. No-one's going to hurt you. I knocked your foot. I'm sorry.'

The voice was mellow and smooth as melted butter. The woman - her voice. Her hand moved over his chest, and his heart thumped rapidly against her cool palm. Memory returned in a rush.

'It's okay.' He hesitated, felt his sweat slick under her fingers. He took a deep, slow breath. 'I was just…dreaming.'

She must have pushed the mattress back because cooler air rushed over him. The intensity of the wind had eased, but now the rain poured down in torrential persistence. He tried to make out details of the woman's shape, but pushing the mattress off the bath had done little to lessen the solid feel of the blackness.

'I'm just going to get the candles and matches I stored in here.' Her hand moved away and her voice became disembodied. 'Don't move until I get some light going.'

Drew heard her climb out and grope in the darkness. Soon a pale yellow light flickered shadows across the walls. The flame reflected in amber eyes that gazed assessingly down at him. Eyes that seemed too big in a pale face with delicate high cheekbones and framed by hair in wild disarray, like toffee spun from a madman's spoon.

'Stay here.'

It was an order, and his reaction was instantaneous. 'Why?'

'I'm going to the kitchen to get some hot tea. I think we could both use it.'

Before Drew could speak, she walked out the door, a flickering shadow disappearing off the wall. He realised then that she'd left another lighted candle on the handbasin.

Who the hell was she? She'd said she was a doctor, and his bandaging looked professional. Was that why he'd been dumped here? So she could look after him? Or was she another step in the psychological torture he had endured for the past week? Perhaps the cyclone had disrupted whatever plans the devil had for finishing him off. Perhaps even now the woman who called herself a doctor was phoning the devil and telling where to find him. The doubts tumbled around in his mind, making his head throb.

Whatever the answer, he couldn't just lie there and wait to see what would happen. Cautiously he managed to haul himself out of the bathtub and stand up. The pain in his feet swirled a grey mist across his eyes but he clenched his teeth and waited until it cleared.

Damn! He wouldn't have a chance of escaping if the devil arrived now. He'd better pray this woman was what she seemed.

Holding the candle, he walked gingerly down the hallway towards the light he could see at the far end. With his free hand, he steadied himself against the wall, the tongue-and-groove timber smooth beneath his fingers.

The hallway ended in a large, old-fashioned kitchen, dominated at one end by a sturdy wooden table and six chairs, and at the other by an old wood stove with a kookaburra emblazoned on the green oven door. A kerosene lamp on the bench cast warm light over the room.

The woman wasn't there. For a moment, he panic surged through his chest. Where the hell had she gone? To get the man he had called 'the devil'?

A movement beyond the doorway of the opposite room caught his attention. He looked around for something to arm himself with, but before he could act the woman walked back into the kitchen.

'I told you to stay in the bathroom!' Exasperation showed on her expressive face. 'You shouldn't be moving around too much. You'll start your feet bleeding again.'

She skirted the table and pulled out a chair. 'Sit down.'

Her tone indicated she was used to being obeyed, and he instinctively rebelled against doing so, but the pain in his feet left him no choice. He shuffled to the chair and sat.

'Where did you go?' He hadn't meant the question to be so abrupt, but with what he'd been through it was hard to maintain his equilibrium.

Opening a cupboard door, she bent down and picked up a gas camping stove. She placed it on the bench, turning her head slightly to talk to him.

'The electricity went off when the cyclone first hit, but we have this and a wood stove so cooking's no problem. I just had to light the old kerosene fridge in the laundry. As soon as it's cold, I'll move the food over from the one in the kitchen.'

She connected the stove to a large gas cylinder in the cupboard, lit one burner, filled a copper kettle and placed it on the flame. Within seconds she had mugs and a teapot ready, then sat across the table from Drew.

'What's your name?'

He studied her face. He'd thought her eyes were amber, but now he saw they were more like rich dark sherry, with liquid depths a man could drown in. Warm, sincere eyes, with lashes so long and delicate against her pale skin she reminded him of a porcelain doll.

'Drew. Drew Jarrett. Who are you?'

Emma took a deep breath. She could feel the frustration simmering beneath the surface of the man, the fierce emotions held tightly in check.

'Emma Randall.' She chose her next words carefully. 'Who did…this…to you, Drew?'

'I don't know.'

'You don't know!' Emma found it impossible to keep the incredulity out of her voice. 'Were you blindfolded?'

'Masked, actually. A hood, it covered my head, taped at the neck, with just a slit so I could eat and drink. Chained, so I couldn't reach up to take it off - or escape. And drugged, so I'd be compliant.'

The calm, flat tone of Drew's voice and the pictures his words evoked sent a shiver down Emma's spine.

'How did they drug you?'

'In the food.'

'Why did you eat it? Didn't you realise?'

'Yes. But it's difficult to refuse with a gun muzzle against your forehead.'

Emma shuddered. In her work, she had seen the cruelty one human being could inflict upon another, had dealt with the physical and psychological effects of that cruelty, but she still found such cold-blooded viciousness abhorrent. She tried to imagine the terror she would have felt in the same situation. Being trapped by military battles was one thing, frightening enough when it had happened, but to be chained like an animal…

'How long were you chained up?'

'A week. At least I think it was a week. I tried to keep track of the days but the drugs he gave me made it hard to concentrate. I kept falling asleep.'

'How else did the drugs affect you?'

'Where is this place?'

Emma blinked at his sudden shift. He had answered her questions easily enough, but now suspicion lurked in his eyes. He didn't trust her, she could see that, but it worked both ways. She didn't trust him either. He looked like he could be a feral, one of the dropouts from society who lived wild in the bush. He didn't talk like one, she reasoned, but not all ferals came from the lower socio-economic strata, there were even a few professionals who'd found modern life too stressful and dropped out. She remembered her father telling her, in one of his lucid moments, that there was a band of them up in the hills a few years back who'd built teepees and danced around campfires like American Indians.

The whistle of the kettle interrupted her train of thought. When she placed two steaming mugs of tea on the table, she almost offered to hold Drew's for him, but the stubborn gleam in his eyes and the sliver of distrust had her sitting down again.

'This is O'Connor Valley. It runs back up towards the mountains south-south-west of Cairns. Where do you live?'

He frowned. 'Cairns.'

In the silence that followed, Emma sighed. He certainly wasn't keen on giving any information away, but if he were going to stay here with her for any length of time, and by the sound of the torrential downpour outside it was highly probable, then she needed to know what she was dealing with.

'How did you get here?'

The faint tightening of his mouth indicated his reluctance to answer. Emma strove to contain her impatience. Her nerves were starting to frazzle. Today's events were threatening to crack the self-discipline she'd gained through years of working in war-torn and disaster-plagued countries.

'Drew, you can trust me, I won't harm you. Haven't I proved that?'

Hell, she was right, Drew thought. But the past week had almost had him questioning his sanity. The sense of isolation in that damned hood, the disorientation caused by the drugs, and the fear that any moment he would be killed - they'd taken their toll on him emotionally.

'At this time every year I take three weeks holiday at a small fishing shack near the mouth of the Bloomfield River north of Cairns,' he began. 'About a week ago I went fishing, came back to the shack, drank a stubby of beer and passed out. When I opened the fridge, I thought it was strange there was only one bottle there because I was sure I'd left two, and even stranger that the beer was a little flat. But I was hot and sweaty and the beer was cold.' He shrugged, then winced at the pull of the dressings across his back.

'When I woke up, I was chained in a shed. A hood covered my eyes but I could smell wood shavings, oil, grease, rusted metal.'

'Do you have any clue as to who did this to you?'

'No.' He shook his head, shivering slightly at the memory. 'Even when he brought food and…a bucket for me to use…he only unchained one hand. He kept quoting the Bible at me - atonement, sacrifice, that sort of thing. I gathered he blamed me for someone's death, but I have no idea whose.'

He took another drink of the tea, savouring its heat. Everything he'd been forced to eat and drink in the past week had been lukewarm, and although it should have been the least of his worries, it was another reminder of how helpless he had been, of the power his captor had held over him. His one attempt at escape had ended with the butt of the gun crashing into the back of his head. After that, the devil had increased the amount of barbiturate, and only loosened the chain when necessary to allow him slightly more movement.

'Can I use your phone?'

'Sorry,' her regret seemed genuine, 'the line's dead. I tried it when I came out here.'

Suspicion surged through him again. 'Who did you try to phone?'

A hint of exasperation gleamed in her eyes. 'My mother. She lives on the outskirts of Cairns - in Cascade Heights. The cyclone was predicted to hit Cairns first and I was worried about her.' She frowned. 'What about you? Do you have family who'd be worried about you? Surely after you'd been missing a week they must have - '

'No. I don't normally contact anyone when I go on holidays. My office knows not to phone me unless it's an emergency. I have three weeks of fishing, diving, and reading all the novels I've saved up for the previous twelve months.'

Before she could reply, his stomach gave a loud growl, and he listened in amazement as she chuckled, a low throaty sound that sent tingles up his spine. 'I'm not a very good doctor, am I, forgetting to tend to my patient's basic needs.'

She rose and took a large bowl from the fridge. Drew watched her, noting the economy of her movements, the graceful lines of her body. When she'd helped him to the bathroom her arm had supported him around the waist, and he'd realised then that she had no bra on. Now her firm breasts moved against the thin fabric of her T-shirt as she poured soup into a saucepan and placed it on the stove. He couldn't stop the heat flooding his groin as he imagined her breasts sliding over his chest, as she tended to his need that was more basic than food.

'I hope you like beef and vegetable soup.' She turned back to Drew, and he hoped she hadn't caught him staring. 'I'll light the wood stove and make some toast.'

He tried to swing his thoughts back on a more constructive track. 'What about a mobile phone?'

'Sorry.' She shook her head and put a match to the paper and kindling in the firebox of the stove. 'They don't work in the valley.'

'Then would you be able to drive me back to Cairns tomorrow?'

She cocked her head to the sound of the never-ceasing rain. 'By now it will be impossible to cross some of the small creeks that cut across the valley. They're mountain fed and it's been raining like this for…' she glanced at her watch, 'almost five hours. You slept deeply.'

'How do you make contact with the outside world during the wet season?' His frustration made his voice harsh, and his head ached with the lingering effects of the drugs.

'We don't. It's a fact of life here and you plan accordingly. We have plenty of food, rainwater in the tanks, wood stove, kerosene lamps and candles. It might seem a little primitive but I've been in places where this would be thought of as luxury.'

Although her tone was still soft, Drew felt appropriately rebuked. 'I'm sorry if I sounded churlish,' he said, 'but - '

'Don't apologise. If I were in your position I'd be so damn angry and frustrated I'd probably try to walk back to Cairns.' She glanced down at his feet, the white bandages stark against the wooden floor. 'But you won't be able to do much walking for a while.'

Emma finished cooking the meal, acutely conscious of his scrutiny, and even more conscious of her reaction to it. She kept telling herself she was only feeling this way because she was emotionally strung out - too much had happened in too short a time for her to come to terms with it all.

'Will you be all right with the spoon?' she asked as she set the bowl of steaming soup in front of him.

'I'll manage.'

Emma watched him eat. He was awkward at first, then gradually he manoeuvred the spoon so it balanced between his fingers. Long, strong fingers. Capable hands. His chest gleamed bronze in the lamplight, dark hairs lightly sprinkled across hard muscles, tapering down to where she knew the towel covered what Nature had amply endowed.

Heat flushed through her body, creating an ache she hadn't felt for a long, long time. She gave herself a mental shake, forcing her thoughts onto more practical matters. Clothing - she'd have to find some for him. He couldn't spend the next few days wearing nothing but a towel. Not if she wanted any peace of mind he couldn't.

'We'd better find some clothing for you,' she said as she put the empty dishes in the sink, 'and a bed. You look exhausted.' She smiled tiredly. 'And I feel it.'

He picked up the lamp, hoping he wouldn't ask her to help him up. She was starting to feel frazzled around her emotional edges, her usual iron control slipping under the events of the day. But he only nodded and levered himself upright, awkwardly tightening the towel around his waist as he did so.

Mellow lamplight moved their shadows along the hallway. Emma paused briefly at the doorway to her bedroom and sighed with relief to see no damage. But as she opened the door into the spare bedroom her heart fell. A large tree limb had crashed through the window, showering glass over the room. The curtains hung ragged and dripping, ornaments shattered, a bookcase toppled across the bed, and books scattered like broken birds.

She felt the heat of Drew's body as he limped closer to her, his breath warm on her hair as he gazed at the chaos. Her skin tingled as though he had touched her.

Sighing, she closed the door. There was only one bedroom left. She squared her shoulders, took a deep, slow breath, subconsciously following a routine which had helped get her through other difficult situations.

Reluctantly she walked to the end of the hallway and into the last bedroom. Somehow she expected it to look different, as changed and marked as she felt. But the old silky oak dresser, wardrobe and matching ends on the double bed looked as solid and substantial as they always had. The bedspread was a serviceable brown and gold check; a man's hairbrush and an old-fashioned alarm clock the only items on the dresser. The cream lace curtains were the sole feminine touch in a decidedly masculine room.

Emma felt a lump form in her throat, but swallowed determinedly. She placed the lamp on the dresser and opened a drawer. Her hand shook slightly, but she picked out briefs and a pair of shorts, took a shirt from the wardrobe, and placed them on the bed. She turned back to Drew, hoping he wouldn't ask whose room he was taking, but his expression was carefully neutral and she wondered what he was thinking.

'I'll leave you the lamp. I'll use the candle I left in the bathroom.' Still he didn't speak. 'Do you need anything else?'

'A toothbrush, if you have a spare. I've learned that the proper answers to the question, "What would you take to a deserted island?" have more to do with hygiene than good books and a fine Scotch. Although,' he gave a wry grin, 'I don't think the gorgeous female part was too far off the mark.'

The appreciation in his eyes stopped Emma's breath in her lungs. She stood speechless for a moment, then walked past him to the doorway. 'I'll leave a toothbrush and paste in the bathroom for you. Goodnight.'

'Emma,' his hand lightly gripped her arm, stopping her. He seemed to hesitate, then his hand fell to his side. 'Thank you.'

She nodded, acknowledging and dismissive in the one motion, and walked back to the bathroom. As she washed her face and brushed her teeth, her mirrored reflection showed a wild-haired woman whose face was lined with exhaustion. Gorgeous female indeed.

She found a new toothbrush in the drawer and placed the packet next to the toothpaste.

In her bedroom, she quickly undressed and pulled a cotton nightgown over her head. She opened the windows and listened to the steady beat of the rain on the verandah roof. The faint tang of eucalyptus mingled with the rain's freshness. The air was no longer oppressive as it had been before the cyclone, but it was still warm. She picked up her brush and gently stroked the tangles from her hair, brushing until the light brown strands flowed softly on her shoulders. She rubbed moisturiser over her face, lay down on the bed and blew out the candle.

Should she have asked Drew more questions, tried to learn more about him? Was he a criminal who'd cheated on his cohorts? What did a criminal look and sound like anyway? Emma had been too long away from the veneer of civilisation to even hazard a guess.

Why would anyone want to kill another human being in such a bizarre manner? Was Drew mixed up with some weird religious cult? Was he mentally disturbed? Emma considered this last possibility but decided that, although he was obviously trying to keep his emotions under control, he was probably more stable than most people would be under the circumstances.

But fear and suspicion still lingered. She rose and pushed her rocking chair under the handle of the door. Then she sank back onto the bed, hers since she was a child, and wriggled into the familiar shapes of it.

Exhaustion rolled over her in waves. She forced herself to concentrate on the task that lay ahead of her in the morning, where she could safely store the lifeless body in the stables for the next few days. Guilt ate into her heart but she fought against it, trying to find the strength to face what had to be done.

And overlaying all other sensations was her foreboding chill that somewhere out in the darkness was a man with murder on his mind.