The Scottie Barked At Midnight (21 page)

“Wow. I look like Hollywood royalty.”

“Nothing but the best for the woman at the top of the leaderboard.”

Liss winced.

“What? You don't want to win?” After a curious glance from Liss's expression in the mirror to the one on her face, Mel busied herself with the few minor adjustments needed to make the costume perfect.

“Not so much.” Liss hesitated. “Mel? What do you know about what comes next? I mean, does the champion of champions have an obligation to make appearances, do publicity, that sort of thing?”

“Didn't Mr. Eastmont talk to you about that?”

“No, he didn't. I, uh, signed some papers. I don't remember one that addressed events after the end of the season.”

“How about ‘standard postproduction publicity'? Did you agree to that?”

“Maybe. I'm not sure.” The phrase had an ominously familiar ring.

“Deidre's contract would have covered it. Did you sign something that promised to honor her contractual obligations?”

“I don't think so, but I can't be certain. It was all done in such a rush. I thought I was being careful, but Eastmont was looming over me. I skimmed when I should have taken the time to analyze every word. If I'd really been smart about it, I'd have had a lawyer look over the papers before I signed anything.”

“You'd be well paid, you know.” Finished sticking pins in the hem, Mel stood.

“That would be a change. How much?”

“Don't hold me to this, but from what I've heard, it's a hundred thousand.”

The sum had Liss's eyes widening. “If the show has that kind of money, they ought to be spending more on the contestants
during
the competition.”

“Amen to that.” Mel helped her out of the costume, transferring it to a padded hanger. “Healthier staff salaries would be good, too.”

Liss bent over to unbuckle the shoes that went with the dress. How Mel managed to keep finding them in her size, let alone with taps on them, she had no idea, but that was not the question she asked once she'd kicked them off. “Did everyone but me know there would be a nice payday for the winner?”

Mel carried the gown into the connecting bedroom and placed it on the bed, where she'd already assembled the needle and thread she'd need to hem the skirt. “Sure. They all won their own seasons, didn't they? Of course, the appearance fees for those wins was only half what it'll be for the champion of champions.”

Was the “reward” for winning sufficient temptation to explain everything that had happened? Liss pondered that question as she got dressed in the comfortable jeans and warm sweater she'd put on as soon as she returned to her suite after recording the finale. To someone living in small, rural Moosetookalook, Maine, it was a small fortune. To someone from away? Not so much.

“You know you're a shoo-in, right?”

“So I've been led to believe. And a hundred thousand dollars would be nice. We could pay off our mortgage. But I have other obligations and a life of my own apart from the dogs.” Liss slid her feet, already encased in woolly socks, into the warmly lined moccasins that had served as both shoes and slippers during her stay at Five Mountains. “And what about Dandy and Dondi? They don't belong to me. Desdemona will probably demand two-thirds of the appearance fee if we have to fulfill that part of her mother's contract.”

“Bummer,” Mel said.

Liss gave a short laugh. “I thought about trying to throw the competition. I'm beginning to wish I
had
tried to turn in a poor performance.”

“You think it would have made a difference?” Mel sounded skeptical.

“I don't know.” Liss sighed. “It's too late now, anyway. The last performance has been recorded, along with the judges' scores.” She'd been awarded all tens for her showing on the finale. The Great Umberto had also earned a perfect score. Mo's juggling act had received two tens and a nine.

“Hey, look on the bright side,” Mel said with a grin.

“What bright side?”

“Maybe the viewer votes will make a difference.”

“Yeah. Right.” Waving farewell, Liss let herself out of the costume suite.

She stopped with her fingers still touching the door handle. Maybe Mel was on to something. Since the show was rigged, that explanation
would
account for someone else being named champion of champions. All she had to do was convince Roy Eastmont that an upset victory would boost ratings.

 

The
Variety Live
MC was not in his suite, but there weren't that many places he could have gone after dark on a cold night in mid-March. She checked the hotel dining room first. Her second stop was the hotel's sports bar. Eastmont had holed up alone in a corner booth to drown his sorrows.

He was not receptive to Liss's idea.

“The fans will love it,” she insisted. “They'll think they really did make a difference.”

“The fans want the doggies to win.” He drained his glass and signaled the waitress for a refill.

“At least consider it. There are problems if I win. The dogs aren't mine.”

“Deidre's doggies,” he mumbled.

She waited while the empty glass was taken away and a full one placed in front of him. “Get you anything, honey?” the middle-aged waitress asked.

“I'm good.”

Eastmont stared at her, bleary-eyed. “You
are
good, Deidre. You're the best. The champion of champions.” He lifted his glass in a toast, slopping some of the liquid onto his hand before he took a long swallow.

“Oh, good grief!” She put a hand on his arm to stop him from lifting the glass a second time. “Listen to me. I'm not Deidre. And I don't own those two Scottish terriers. Desdemona does. And assuming Desdemona ever decides to surface again, she'll have a say in what they do after the last show airs. What if she doesn't
want
them doing PR work for the show?”

“Got to.” Eastmont's words grew more slurred every time he spoke. “Got a contract.”

“Deidre had a contract, and no matter what I signed when I came in as her substitute, it's not binding on Desdemona.”

She watched him try and fail to process that thought. Forehead wrinkled, lips working, he stared at her as if he'd never seen her before. After a bit more cogitation, he asked, “What act are you?”

Liss sighed. “Deidre and her Dancing Doggies, but—”

“That's right!” He took another swig of his drink and slammed the glass down on the table with a resounding thump. “And it's all set. You listen up, Deidre. You signed a contract. I'll sue you if you don't fulfill your obligations.”

Liss gave up. Since he kept calling her “Deidre,” she couldn't be sure how much credit she should give to any statement he made. She'd have to tackle him again in the morning, when he'd be hung over instead of falling-down drunk. Oh, there was something to look forward to!

As she made her way back to the lobby, she was dimly aware of the presence of other members of the cast and crew. Preoccupied, she acknowledged greetings and waves but paid little attention to who was in the bar and who wasn't.

She needed to get back to her suite. She needed to talk things through with Dan.

Out of the blue, another thought momentarily stopped her in her tracks. Margaret! With so much else going on, she'd forgotten all about her ailing aunt. She hadn't even asked Dan for an update on her condition.

Guilt swamped her. Was it too late now to call? A glance at her watch told her it was already nine. She'd been gone longer than she intended. Dan would be wondering where she was.

She jabbed at the elevator button and waited. Nothing happened. The display above the doors told her that all the cars were on the second floor. Some kind of function must be taking place in the ballroom. Too impatient to wait any longer, Liss headed for the stairs.

Passing the back exit leading to the parking lot, Liss started to climb. She felt a cold draft as someone used that door to enter the hotel. Intent on getting back to Dan, she didn't bother to look over her shoulder to see who it was.

When rapid footsteps pounded up the stairs behind her, Liss edged over to her right to give the other person room to get by. She was prepared for a tight squeeze, since the stairwell was narrow, but what happened next caught her completely off guard. Without warning, someone threw a blanket over her head, then seized her in a bear hug from behind and lifted her off her feet.

Liss tried to scream, but the heavy wool muffled her voice. With her arms immobilized and her legs next to useless, she was half carried, half dragged back down the stairs and out into the cold. An engine was running—a vehicle ready and waiting to take her away.

Struggling, Liss managed to kick the person holding her, but then there were more hands grabbing at her, pushing her in the direction they wanted her to go. Fighting at least two people, she gained her footing for an instant, but the surface of the parking lot was slick. She couldn't get traction. Blinded by the blanket over her head and upper body, she couldn't even figure out which way to run.

She was already panting when one of the people attempting to subdue her got the bright idea to smother her. A large hard hand clamped down over her nose and mouth, pressing the thick wool tight to her face and cutting off what little air she'd had. In the darkness beneath the wool, Liss's world faded to black.

Chapter Thirteen

L
iss had no idea how long she was unconscious, but when she came to she was still wrapped tight from head to knees in the heavy blanket. Oxygen remained in short supply.

She fought down a flare of panic and tried to order her rattled thoughts. A cocoon of wool held her prisoner but she
could
breathe.

When she'd calmed sufficiently, she took stock. She was not in any pain, so she hadn't been damaged physically. She wasn't even tied up, although the blanket did a good job of holding her motionless. She was inside a vehicle. She could hear the engine and the sound the tires made on the road. Every time it hit a pothole or a frost heave, she felt it right down to her bones.

She had been kidnapped.

That staggering realization triggered a burst of anger, one that cleared the rest of the confusion out of her muddled brain. She'd been on her way back to the suite when someone had tossed this blanket over her head and made off with her.

Dan! He'd have missed her by now. He'd search. Sound the alarm. But he'd have no idea where to look for her. No one would.

Intent upon escape, she tried to sit up, only to discover that she had no leverage and no room to maneuver. Until she was pulled free of the cramped space where she was lying, she wasn't going anywhere.

The realization made her heartbeat accelerate. She tried to gulp in more air, but none was available. Afraid she would black out again, she willed herself to take small, even breaths.
Don't panic! Think!

She was not tied up, she reminded herself. Put that in the plus column. She supposed her captors hadn't thought it necessary, since her hands were already immobilized by the folds of the blanket and the size of the area into which she'd been wedged.

And they'd made the mistake of leaving her feet free. It cheered her considerably to contemplate how much damage she could do with a few well-placed kicks. All she needed was an opportunity to deliver them.

Liss strained to hear, listening for voices, but no one spoke. The steady swish of tires over pavement told her they were on a paved road, but she supposed it was too much to hope for that a passing motorist would be able to see in to where she was stashed and notice an oddly shaped bundle. Even if one did, what were the odds he'd report it to the police?

She was not lying on the floor in the back of a car, she decided. Her prison had to be a station wagon or a van . . . or an RV.

For an endless span, nothing changed. Then Liss felt the vehicle slow and wondered if they had reached their destination. Instead of stopping, the driver made a left turn onto a road in worse shape than the previous one. More potholes! Liss felt sure she'd have a splendid assortment of bruises by the time they stopped.

That was when it occurred to her that she might not have to worry about bruising.

Her kidnappers could be taking her somewhere far away from witnesses so they could
kill
her. Were they planning to bury her in the woods? It was not at all reassuring to feel the vehicle make yet another turn, this time onto what felt like a dirt road, rutted and uneven.

Liss tried to tell herself that if they'd meant to kill her, they'd have done it back at the hotel. Transporting a body had to be easier than dealing with a captive.

She wished she knew for certain who “they” were. There had been two people in the parking lot. Okay, yes, that and the van—she was sure it was a van now—suggested Oscar and Iris, working as a team. But she'd begun to think of Iris as a friend, and Iris had saved Dandy from being run over, at the risk of her own life.

Who else? Who would team up with the Great Umberto to take Liss out of the competition? Mo? Had Iris been right to be jealous of the juggler?

Then again, maybe she was on the wrong track. Someone could have stolen the magician's van, or maybe this wasn't Oscar's vehicle. Liss didn't know what vehicles any of the others connected with
Variety Live
drove, except for Valentine.

It didn't matter. She had to leave evidence that she'd been held prisoner in
this
van. For later, she told herself, after she was safe at home and needed proof of what had happened to her. Grimly determined, she wriggled until she felt something other than wool with the tip of one finger. A tool box? Part of the van? She couldn't tell, but all that counted was that the surface she was touching would take fingerprints, a signpost saying, “Liss MacCrimmon Ruskin was here!”

A particularly violent bounce slammed Liss's head against a hard surface. She saw stars, and pain shot through her entire body. It took her a moment to realize that the van had stopped.

She held her breath. The side door opened, and a blast of cold air eddied around her feet and legs. Then strong hands gripped her ankles and tugged, pulling her straight out of the vehicle.

For just a second, her feet touched solid ground, but before she could put up a fight, the edges of the blanket were pulled tight and she was lifted into a fireman's carry. She tried kicking, but it had little effect. The arm clamped across the back of her knees defeated her best efforts. Head down, still blinded by the thick wool, her upper body bounced against her captor's back.

She heard snow crunch as he strode farther and farther away from the sound of the engine. Very faintly, she heard the unmistakable metallic thump of a heavy vehicle door being closed. A van. No doubt about it.

They stopped moving after what seemed an endless interval. For a moment he did nothing, said nothing. Liss was gathering herself to try kicking again when he lifted her off his shoulder. A second later, she went flying.

Thrown with such force, still wrapped in the blanket, Liss was unable to control how she landed. It was pure dumb luck that she didn't slam into a tree and that her shoulder struck the ground first, padding the landing for her head. The wind knocked out of her, senses reeling, desperate to drag in air, she struggled with the folds of wool.

The blanket was twisted beneath her, frustrating her efforts. By the time she managed to fight her way free and stagger to her feet, her captor had vanished. Her thrashing had covered the sound of his retreat. She couldn't tell which way he'd gone.

She was alone . . . in the middle of the woods . . . in the middle of the night.

This is
so
not good.

Liss had no idea where she was. It was pitch-dark. It was mid-March. There was still snow on the ground. It was cold, and she didn't even have a coat.

Wrapping the blanket around her for warmth, she stared up at the sky. Where was the moon? The North Star would work, too. But she was in a pine forest. Even in winter the evergreen branches were too thick to see much of anything overhead.

“Okay,” she said aloud to bolster her courage. “Think positive. You're still alive.”

Obviously, her captors hadn't wanted her dead, just out of the way. She wasn't going to dwell on what made her different from Deidre Amendole and Troy Barrigan.
Don't look a gift horse in the mouth. Or whatever.

They'd driven most of the way here. That meant there was a road . . . somewhere. A dirt road, but there might be houses along it. And even though, at the time, it had seemed as if she'd been carried for miles, that road was probably not too far away.

Liss had been standing in one place for too long. Her feet, although they were encased in woolly socks and fur-lined moccasins, were already cold, and she didn't have a lot of confidence that the leather would keep out the wet.

“My kingdom for a pair of boots and a warm coat,” she muttered. “And gloves. And a woolly hat.”

She'd have to move soon, before she turned into an ice sculpture.

Liss blinked, realizing that her eyes had begun to adjust to the darkness. She could see enough of her surroundings to make her think that, if she walked with care, she could probably avoid running head-on into a tree.

She put a hand out in front of her for extra protection and took a cautious step forward. In that moment, her sense of humor surfaced. She wasn't blind. She wasn't even nearsighted.

It was no wonder so few of the detectives in the mysteries she read wore glasses. Take the sleuth's spectacles away, and the poor, nearsighted boob would barely be able to function. She tried to picture Margery Allingham's Albert Campion in a situation like this one. He'd be hard-pressed to find his way out of the woods. So would Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter, or even Ellery Queen.

She took another tentative step and broke through the surface of the snow with a resounding crunch. She pulled her foot free, wishing she'd had the good sense to trade her moccasins for something sturdier. Even walking shoes that laced up would be an improvement. What if she lost one of the moccasins? Her foot would get wet. Wet and cold were a sure recipe for frostbite, and frostbite led to amputated toes.

Maybe she
should
stay put. Wasn't that what the guidebooks advised for lost hikers? Liss didn't want to end up walking in circles for hours on end. She'd heard of skiers who'd gone off the marked trails and stayed warm overnight in snow caves. Somehow, she didn't think that would work. For one thing, what was on the ground here wasn't the right kind of snow to burrow into. To make matters worse, there had already been a couple of thaws this month. Puddles of cold water or patches of cold mud weren't any healthier to step into than plain old snow.

Staying put was not a good idea. Not in this case. Liss was already shivering beneath the blanket. She would freeze to death if she didn't do something to keep herself warm. That said, she decided she might as well try to find her way out of the woods.

With fear of hypothermia as a powerful motivator, Liss took another step forward. Once again, she heard a distinctive crunching sound, the same one she'd heard when her captor had been carrying her. He'd broken through the crust of snow, just as she had. That meant he'd punched holes in it, holes that must still be around her somewhere, marking the path he'd taken from the road. If she could locate them, they'd lead her right back to it.

Hoping her hands weren't already too cold to feel the breaks in the surface, Liss clutched the blanket more tightly around her and bent double to begin her search. She found the first of the footprints a few minutes later. After that, she had only to place her feet where he'd walked.

It was a long trek and not easy going. Liss stepped out of the moccasins more than once and stumbled half a dozen times, once landing on her knees and another time on her backside. Only knowing that there was a road at the end of the tracks, a road that would eventually lead her back to civilization, kept her moving forward.

Liss had no idea how much time passed before she staggered out of the woods and into the middle of a narrow dirt road. The relief that washed over her was quickly followed by a terrible sense of uncertainty. Which way should she turn?

Her back to the woods, she stood still and closed her eyes, trying to call up the memory of her captor pulling her out of the van. The woods behind her must have been on the same side as the door because she'd been carried straight away from the vehicle, not around it. That meant the van had been facing to her right. To retrace its route, she had to turn left. Taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders, Liss set off in that direction.

Her pace was brisk at first, but it wasn't long before slow, plodding steps were the best she could manage. The light was better on the road—a half-moon hung in the sky, along with a canopy of stars—but when she came to a signpost, she could not make out what it said.

Its presence suggested that she was on a camp road. That cut down her chance of finding people nearby but increased the odds that there were buildings, maybe even one that boasted a fireplace, a supply of firewood, a cupboard full of canned goods, and a closet containing odds and ends of warm, dry clothing.

She swayed slightly as she considered what to do. Then she caught sight of what she thought might be the reflection of moonlight off a glass window. If the camp was that close . . .

The drive leading up to it had not been plowed, but it was short. The camp had been built overlooking a lake. That was what she'd seen—moonlight on ice. Unfortunately, the building itself was no use to her. Only the chimney still stood. The place looked as if it had burned down years ago.

Discouraged, Liss retraced her steps to the dirt road and kept going. She told herself survival stories to keep her spirits up. There had been that man who broke his leg in a nighttime snowmobile accident. He'd crawled a mile back to a friend's house to get help. It had taken him four hours, but he'd made it. Of course, he'd known where he was to start with and in which direction to go to find help.

Miles of walking might lie ahead of her. That thought was discouraging, but Liss's choices were limited. She could keep going until she found the paved road, where there would be passing cars and maybe even houses with people in them. Or she could try again to find a camp she could break into. Either way, she would survive. Anything else was unthinkable.

 

Liss felt as if she'd been trudging along the uneven dirt road for hours when she came to a second signpost. She couldn't read what it said either, but once again she turned off the dirt road, hoping to find shelter and warmth. Instead, the path led her out onto a scenic overlook. She came within two steps of falling off a cliff and landing in the lake below.

Back on the dirt road, faced with a third signpost, she wasn't as quick to take a detour. Even if the lane did lead to a camp, she might not be able to break in. She felt weaker by the minute and was having a hard time just putting one foot in front of the other. At this time of year, no one would be living at their camp. There wouldn't be a working phone. The owners might not have left even basic supplies behind, given that camps were prime targets for thieves during the off-season.