Dance with the Devil. Sandy Curtis
Читать онлайн книгу.
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