Princess, Without Cover (17 page)

“If we can’t call the police, then how can I help?” he asked, his face confused.  

“Do you think… I mean, could you… could you drive us back down there?  And do you have something to break the lock?  And I know it’s a lot to ask, but would it be possible for you to take me to my house in Chicago?  I know it’s a long drive, but we’ll pay you for your time.  My…my father is Senator Randall Ross.” 

She didn’t want to play that card, but it was the only one she had left.  And it was effective.  The man’s weather beaten face went slack and his mouth dropped open. 

“Please… we’ve got to hurry!” she urged. 

“Of course, I’m sorry.  Of course I can help you.  I’ll get an ax and a crow-bar from the barn.  My truck is over there.”  He motioned toward a large F-250 parked by the barn.  “Get in and I’ll be right there.” 

She and Danny ran to the truck and she wrenched open the door, giving him a boost so that he could get in.  They waited impatiently until the farmer came back out carrying the tools. He also carried a long shotgun.  Sydney’s breath caught in her throat as he dropped everything into the bed of the truck and got in the driver’s side door. 

“Which way?” 

Sydney pointed and he tore out of the driveway, dust from his driveway billowing out behind them.

“My name is T
o
m, by the way. Are you both okay, other than being scared?”

“We’re fine now.  I’m Sydney and this is Danny.  He’s my neighbor and he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.  He doesn’t have anything to do with this mess. I need to get him safely back home.” 

She wrapped one arm around the slender little boy as she spoke. 

“Don’t worry about a thing, Sydney.  I’ll get you both safely back home.”

Tom’s confident tone made her believe him.  Something about him reminded her of the old John Wayne movies that her dad liked to watch.  She was still jittery, but sitting next to the old farmer was calming her nerves just a little bit at a time.  He was big and strong and had a shotgun.  She took a deep breath and tried to make her foot stop bouncing. 

The truck roared down the deserted road and came upon the isolated little house in just a few minutes time.  Sydney’s heart started pounding again.  The truck lurched to a stop amid clouds of dust and Sydney leaped out, with Tom and Danny close behind her. 

As Sydney barged through the backdoor, she started calling Deidire’s name.  Deidre shouted back in relief as they led Tom to the door.  The stench in the little house was so overpowering that it almost bowled them over. She briefly wondered why she didn’t notice the smell the first night she was here, but put it out of her mind.  She was probably in shock that night.

Tom knelt in front of the door and made quick work out of the padlock with his tools.  Sydney decided wryly that having an ax made all the difference.  She rubbed her raw feet as she watched him work.   Within half a minute, the padlock and hinge dropped to the ground and the door swung open.

“Deidre?” Sydney called.  “Come out- we’re not going to hurt you.  We’ve got to get out of here before he comes back.” 

Deidre didn’t answer and she didn’t come out and Sydney didn’t have the patience to wait.

She crept into the doorway of the room and peered inside.  Deidre was crouched in the back corner, eyeing the door cautiously, like a caged animal. 

Sydney could tell that she was probably a pretty girl, but her beauty was hidden behind quite a bit of grime and ugly harsh bruises.  Her blondish-red hair was matted and tangled and she smelled horrible, like she had crawled straight out of the sewer.  Bright, suspicious green eyes peered out from under a layer of filth.

“Deidre?” Sydney said softly.  “Come out. You’re going to be safe now.  But we have to leave here.”

Deidre’s face crumpled and she started sobbing.  Sydney rushed into the room and put her arm around the distraught girl, but the girl shirked away from her.

“Deidre, I know it is hard for you to believe right now, but I’m not going to hurt you. I promise.  Now let’s get you out of here before Harrison gets back.”

The girl nodded and Sydney helped her hobble outside. It was clear to all of them that Deidre was in a bad way.  She was very weak.  Her clothes were ragged and her legs were covered in lash-like bruises. 

Sydney winced as she saw the slashes on Diedre’s back.  It appeared as though she had been whipped. She swallowed hard as she tightened her grip on the injured girl.  Tom and Danny led the way to the truck and they all piled inside. 

Sydney turned to Tom. 

“Thank you so much for helping us!  Can you take us to my house, now?  Please?” 

She was hoping that Stephen would be at home.  She desperately longed to hear his voice but she couldn’t chance calling him.  Harrison had probably tapped his phone.  

 “I know this is going to sound really stupid, but where are we?” She looked sheepish. 

Tom didn’t miss a beat, he just looked at her sympathetically. 

“You’re about ten miles east of Gary.”  That made sense.  It had taken less than an hour to get from her house to the hide-away house the night she had been taken.

She settled back into the seat, leaning her head back and closing her eyes.  She hadn’t rested easily in a couple of weeks and the soft leather truck seat suddenly felt really good.  Her eyes stung from lack of sleep.  The hum of the road as they flew over it toward Chicago lulled her to sleep even in the midst of life-changing excitement.  A body could only stay awake so long.

Jolting bumps intruded into her peaceful sleep, and she startled awake.  She hadn’t even been aware that she had fallen asleep.  She jerked up in the seat to look out the window and was relieved to find that they were crossing the bridge on I94 into Chicago. She could see the Willis Tower rising out of the horizon.  She was almost home.  Her close proximity to Stephen made her antsy all over again, but she tried to ignore it.  She couldn’t make the truck go faster.

“I’m sorry I fell asleep,” she apologized to Tom.  I haven’t slept much at all for weeks.  I can’t tell you how thankful I am that you helped us.  I don’t know what we would have done…”

He interrupted her.  “Don’t think a thing about it.  I’ve never seen a sorrier looking pair than the two of you walking up my drive.  I couldn’t just go about my business, now could I?”

She smiled a jittery smile at him.  She was on pins and needles.  Would Stephen be home when they got there?  What if he wasn’t?   What should they do?  What should their next steps be?  She took deep, calming breaths and focused on the road in front of them.  It wouldn’t do any good to fall apart now.  Tom turned onto the Skyway and headed into town. 

Fifteen minutes later, they pulled up in front of her house.  Tom pulled the truck up behind Stephen’s T-Bird before he turned to her. 

“If you don’t mind, I’ll walk up with you to make sure that he’s here.”  It was as if he had read her mind and discovered her secret fear…that Stephen wouldn’t be home.

“Thanks, Tom.” 

She flashed a brief grin of relief at the kindly man before running up the sidewalk, her bloody feet barely touching the concrete.  She didn’t feel the pain, though.  Or the exhaustion, fear and fatigue.  All she knew was that she was just a scant twenty yards from the love of her life.

Before she even reached the door, it opened and Stephen filled the doorway, surprise and shock freezing him in place. 

“Sydney?” 

He opened his arms up just in time for her to leap into them, wrapping her legs around his waist.  She buried her face into his neck and breathed him in.  He smelled like soap and musk and Stephen.  She was so relieved that she felt tears welling up in her eyes.   After a minute, Stephen pulled his face back. 

“Sydney, how are you here?  Are you alright?  What happened?” 

He fired questions at her, one after the other, before she even had a chance to speak.  And he didn’t loosen his grip on her even a little bit. She smiled and pulled him close for just another second.

“Stephen, I love you so much.  And I’ll answer your questions, but not right now.  There’s no time. We’ve got to leave.  We can’t stay here.  I’ll explain in the car.” 

She unclasped her legs and dropped to the ground, wincing a little as pain shot from her feet up into her calves.  She started to tug Stephen toward his car and then remembered Danny.  He had trailed up the sidewalk behind her and was watching her now uncertainly. 

She knew that his parents must be frantic with worry, but she was too afraid to turn him over to them right now… not with Harrison probably hot on their tail.  All of a sudden, an idea occurred to her.

“This is going to sound crazy, but we need to get to my parents’ house, I think. All of us.”

Stephen did a double-take but she continued before he could interrupt.

“Danny, I know you miss your parents, but you need to come with us for a little bit longer, okay?  We can call your parents from a secure line.” 

The little boy nodded quickly, glancing wistfully at his house. 

Tom stepped forward. 

“Sydney, it isn’t my place to say so, but won’t the detective be looking for Stephen’s car?  Maybe I should just give you a ride on over to your parents’ place.  No one will be looking for Ol’ Red.” 

He motioned to his big red truck as he spoke.  “It might be safer and I’m happy to do it for you.  It beats throwing hay bales around this afternoon.”  He grinned briefly before he started back toward his truck.  “But you’re right. We’d better move.”

Luckily Stephen was dressed and he hesitated only long enough to lock the front door before he hurried behind them to the truck.  They piled in and the heavy truck lurched forward toward Highland Park- a direction that Sydney hadn’t thought she would travel toward for a very long time. 

“Are you going to tell me what is going on now?” Stephen asked. 

All the while, he had one arm around tightly around Sydney’s shoulders, clutching him to her.  Sydney never wanted him to let go of her again even if she did reek to high heaven.

“You’re not going to believe it, but… here goes.  Detective Daniels’ had me kidnapped.”      She paused to let him absorb that information.  His expression froze, along with the hand that had been lightly rubbing her back.

“Come again?” he asked politely, as though he hadn’t heard her, but she knew that he had.

“Detective Daniels’ is the one who took me.  He’s crazy.  He just doesn’t act like it.”

“Oh my God,” he muttered.  “Sydney, he created a gag order forbidding anyone to tell the press that you had been taken. He said it was so they didn’t accidentally alert your dad but really, it was to protect himself.”  He slapped a hand to his forehead.  “How could I have been so stupid?”

“Stephen, seriously!  No one in their right mind would have expected him to be the bad guy here.  No one.  This is not your fault.
I
certainly didn’t see it coming.” 

“It’s my fault that I didn’t wake up when he took you.” His voice was soft as he stared into her eyes.

She stared back incredulously. 

“Stephen, I’m only going to tell you one more time… because I mean it so completely.  This is not your fault.  None of it.  The guy snatched me so fast that you couldn’t have helped me even if you had heard. It wouldn’t have been possible.  But let me tell you something else.  It was you--- remembering
you
that gave me the strength to kick down the door and escape.” 

       “You kicked down a door?”  The incredulous look on his face made her smile. 

“I know, hard to believe, right?  It turns out that I’m kind of self-sufficient.” 

She grinned good-naturedly, all the while rubbing her dirty, bloody feet.  She wasn’t sure that she would ever be able to wear heels again, not that it mattered.

“Why, though?  What did he want with you?” Stephen stared at her, perplexed.

As Tom drove, she continued to tell Stephen everything, including the part where they had to return to the house to get Diedre.  By the time she had finished, she was shaking-both from the memory and from the feeling of immense relief that she was safe. 

“And I still don’t know exactly how he came up with using me to get to his step-dad, but that’s exactly what it is about,” she concluded.  Stephen lifted her hand and kissed it, then stared at it as it visibly shook. He grasped it soothingly.

“Sydney, don’t think about it anymore.  You’re safe now.  As far as I know, he hasn’t released that video to any news channel.  Yet.  Maybe if we can get to your dad and explain everything… well, maybe he’ll know what to do.  But I just have to tell you—you are so brave that it blows my mind.  I’m so proud of you!”

 She leaned into the softness of his shirt and inhaled his clean scent.  He wrapped his arms around her and she closed her eyes.  She had been so afraid that she would never see him again. With his arms around her, she felt as though she was safe from the world.  It was heaven. 

She had barely closed her eyes before Stephen’s voice penetrated her bubble of serenity.

“Sydney, what are we going to tell your parents?”

Her eyes snapped open.  “The truth.  My dad’s got connections much higher than Detective Daniels’.”

Tom smoothly pulled up to the gate of her parents’ neighborhood and while the big red truck idled noisily, Sydney handed the guard on duty her identification.  He examined it, handed it back and waved them through, although he did look at her curiously.  She decided that she probably looked less than her best after not showering for two weeks. 

She showed Tom where to turn and then nervously stared out the window as the luxurious homes passed her window.  Each one of them was magnificent and a year ago, she wouldn’t have thought twice about them.  They were simply a part of her world.  Now, as she passed them, she wondered fleetingly what kind of secrets the families inside of them were keeping.  Because apparently, everyone had secrets.  The world was not a simple place.

“Sydney…” Stephen’s voice trailed off before he cleared his throat and tried again.  “How do we know that we can trust your father?” 

Tom pulled into her parents’ cobblestone driveway at just that moment and Sydney stared up at the massive house looming in front of them.