The Oxenburg Woman, page 3
The wound in his chest was a raw, pulsing thing sensitive to his smallest movement and his gut felt like it had been stretched and beaten. But his mind seemed to be once again under his control and within minutes it drove him to investigate his surroundings. There were three rooms in the wing of the house where he found himself: bedroom being used as an office, connecting bath, laundry room, all unlit, cold, and silent.
He could not hear anything inside the house, only the rain and occasionally the wind outside. He sensed it was a big house from the way it took the wind. No other sound, no voices, no music, no appliances. The wide hall past the laundry room jogged at the corner, and the offsetting expanse of tiled floor was flooded with light from a source beyond the angle of the wall.
He stopped and rested against the doorframe when he reached the lighted doorway. The floor had stopped heaving after his first few steps but he gripped the door frame with his left hand for insurance.
She was leaning against the kitchen counter, her back to the sink. He couldn’t see much of her face behind the mass of her loose, dark hair. Her body was braced on one leg, the other knee was bent and swung in brief side-to-side motion while she stared across the kitchen at something beyond his field of vision. With both hands she held a steaming mug at chest height. While he watched she raised it to drink then lowered it slightly so the steam was trapped by her hair and rose directly into her face. He read fatigue in her posture, in the abbreviated act of raising and lowering the cup and in her fixed, dazed expression.
She gave a small start when he moved out of the doorway and into her sight. She straightened but at first didn’t move away from the support of the counter. Then she put her cup down, selected and filled a second cup with coffee and placed it on the island opposite one of the stools. She resumed her position by the sink and only then looked directly at him, with the island between them. He knew what he looked like. He’d seen his face in the mirror of the dim bathroom.
“How do you feel?” she asked.
He moved to the island to face her. “I’ve felt better.”
She was slight and nondescript, unremarkable except for her hair. There was a lot of it and it was wet or at least damp and long, falling below her shoulders in a kinky, heavy mass.
She was wearing a white long-sleeved shirt with the collar standing up untidily so the pallor of her face was accentuated under the tangle of dark hair. The sleeves were rolled carelessly, the shirttail out, trailing almost to her knees. Under it she wore a pair of faded old cords. He envied her the warmth of the pants. His own were damp and he was barefoot, shirtless and chilled. She seemed harmless enough for the moment so he took the opportunity to check the rest of the house.
He saw an open room with a dining area on one side, a large living room with leather sofa and chairs facing a fireplace to the right, adjoining the kitchen. It was a deep room with high windows across two walls overhung by roof extensions, so the rain wasn’t actually hitting the glass. Due to fog and drizzle, he could detect nothing of the world beyond the windows.
The windows surrounded paned French doors that would open to a weather-shrouded deck. The wall of glass continued to the next story. He noticed that the house was lofted over the living room although there was a ceiling above them here in the kitchen. A central rock wall contained the fireplace, with an open fire. That limestone wall ended perhaps ten feet short of the glass end wall and between the windows and rock wall he saw the bottom steps of a staircase. The stairs were carpeted in the same muted Berber as the living room, their presence nearly invisible.
A glass dining table on a pedestal occupied the dining area. At the head of the table, a telescope sat on a tripod. His gaze swept the room, taking a rapid audit.
Only one picture on the fireplace mantle was large enough for him to see clearly. It was a candid shot of a tall, smiling man in glasses leaning against a car. The picture had been enlarged and framed to center the car, an old convertible. Red. British or Italian … hmm, British. He let his gaze rest on the picture but his attention held on the telescope. It was the one feature in the room that felt out of place. It was Japanese, expensive, and powerful. He was frustrated by the fog that denied him a view out the windows at whatever somebody had had under surveillance. Like maybe himself. He was already cold but the thought hit him hard with a fresh wave of alarm.
He turned his attention back to her with resolve. He’d made it this far; the end had to be in sight now. She wouldn’t be an obstacle.
He had expected his memory loss to be temporary. Now he was forced to acknowledge that the events that had brought him to the house were gone. He could recall some of his actions after he’d been shot but only up until this woman had appeared out of the rain. He knew he’d hallucinated during the hot daylight hours in the sun, relived past events then and during the cold, wet periods in the dark. He definitely remembered this woman leaning over him. After that, nothing. There had to be a reason for that.
“Have you reconsidered getting some medical attention?” she said. Her voice was low, even, and unexpectedly polished for a woman whose hands had been shaking just seconds before.
His attention sharpened. Everything about her was off. It was all a bit much, the deliberately unkempt hair, the oversized shirt, her waiflike thinness, the bravado of her bare feet on the cold tile floor. Most of all, her solitary presence in the carefully decorated house. Whoever she was, she must have one hell of an opinion of herself to think she could manage him alone. That would be a stretch, even with a bullet in him. So she wasn’t alone, couldn’t be.
He wrapped his hands around the hot cup and rested both forearms on the counter. “I don’t need medical attention,” he said, “at least not right now. You’re helping me.” He kept his expression bland, gauging her, waiting for her to break. Whatever she thought was going to happen next, she was wrong.
She frowned. “I did my best last night, but I don’t have any medical training.”
“Tell me about last night. I don’t remember asking to come here.”
“You didn’t. You asked me to leave you alone. But I couldn’t do that. You were in a bad way, so I moved you, with some help from Val.”
“I feel like I’ve been dragged behind a car. I’d like to speak to this Val.”
“No,” she said. She obviously planned to say more but he didn’t wait to hear it. The No was enough. She’d moved away from the sink and set her cup on the island. She was close enough now.
He caught her wrist, not applying pressure just holding it lightly. “How about you just do what I tell you?” he said, “Call everybody out here so I can find out how I got here.”
She didn’t resist, just nodded past him at the bookshelves, “There’s Val, Prince Valiant, actually. I assure you he is quite capable of carrying you.”
He swiveled on the stool. He’d just checked the room. He went over it again. There was nobody there. He looked down at his hand on her arm. She looked at it too and tried to withdraw her arm. He stopped her, still lightly, closing his grip just enough.
“Let go,” she said, “and I’ll show you.”
He gave her a long look of warning, then released her and watched her but there was no run for the door, no dash up the stairs. Instead, she walked quickly to the bookshelves beyond the fire and returned with a picture that she placed on the island facing him. The picture was of a woman, in a riding jacket and high boots, smiling brilliantly from atop a glistening black horse. It might have been her but he doubted that much hair would fit under the helmet.
“Prince Valiant is a horse?” He had her wrist again.
She looked at him carefully. “Stop doing that,” she said. “I’m not threating you. There’s no one else here.”
“Why am I here?” he said.
“I couldn’t leave you, not in your condition. You were a long way from a road. The fastest way to get you out of the rain and safe from whoever did that to you was to bring you here, cross country.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“I don’t care if you believe it. What difference does it make now that you’re here? You can believe anything you like. You were bleeding, in shock, losing consciousness. You needed help.”
“And this?” he touched the bandage with his hand. “Did you do this too, Good Samaritan?”
“Don’t call me that,” she snapped. “You don’t seem like the kind of man who has much use for good Samaritans.”
He raised his eyebrows at that. “Enlighten me. What kind of man do I seem like?”
“The serious kind. You had a gun, a Walther PPK. That’s a pretty serious gun. You’re wearing an Italian tuxedo, also serious and very nice, expensive.” She studied him thoughtfully for a moment before continuing, “They go together, and they don’t. The suit’s yours. I don’t know about the gun. Is it yours? Or did you take it away from somebody after they shot you?”
He’d almost convinced himself he’d hallucinated having the Walther. There was no reason for her to give him that information. The less he knew, the better for her. On the other hand, it was a brilliant hint to remind him of his position: shot, disarmed and taken alive. And all the while maintaining that benign expression, so normal, so harmless. Infuriating. He steadied his breathing.
“Let’s see it,” he offered. “My memory is a bit off but maybe I’ll recognize it.”
She shook her head, “No. I put it away. I don’t like guns.”
Right. What she meant was she didn’t like him with a gun. Well, that was fine for now.
“I see. Well, if I’m not going to call you Good Samaritan, what am I going to call you? What’s your name?”
“My name is none of your business,” she said. She tensed when his fingers closed around her wrist, but she continued firmly, “I want you to leave now. The phone is back so I can call an ambulance. But if you refuse proper medical care then you can just go.”
He looked pointedly at the kitchen windows, streaked with rain. “Not a great day for a walk,” he said mildly.
She looked at the rain. He waited for her attention to return to him. “So last night you couldn’t leave me out in the rain but now you’re fine with it?” His grip tightened. “Who are you?”
She didn’t struggle, just returned his stare. “Still not your business,” she said.
Her hair offered a convenient way to reset things. He used it to yank her tight against the counter and hold her there, off balance and close to him while his hold on her wrist hardened. “You’ve made it my business,” he said. He saw her shock and fear but no anger, no calculation of his next move or her own defense. Their absence bothered him but only briefly. “Tell me you name.”
She steadied herself with her free hand on the island, stubbornly meeting his gaze. “What’s yours?”
He had a handful of her hair close to her head. It was a simple matter to twist it around his hand. “My name won’t help you, but I’ll have yours. Right now, please.”
“Suzanna.”
He opened his hand, released her hair, relaxed his grip on her wrist, rewarding her cooperation. “Okay then, Suzanna, I like to know who I’m talking to. I’m going to stay inside where it’s dry and give the ambulance a miss for now.”
“It’s daylight and you’re upright, so you need to leave. I helped you as much as I could last night.”
“So you say. I have my own opinion about that. The way I feel, I think that horse of yours must have kicked me a few times. Or was it someone else?”
“Nobody kicked you. You fell. It was my fault.”
“I think so, too,” he said. “Maybe you should have left me alone and gone about your business.”
“I moved you, brought you in out of the rain, made you as comfortable as I could. That’s all. Why are you acting like this?”
“Who have you called?” he demanded.
“Nobody,” she said. “The phones were out; it was storming. It’s not unusual for the lines to go down out here.”
“Landlines maybe. What about your cell phone?”
“This is a private development, a bit exclusive. Hundreds of acres, not many houses. People who choose to live here want privacy and quiet when they get out of the city so no cell towers, no service. It’s part of the covenants.”
“Now, that’s a new one,” he said. “Most people can’t survive five minutes without one.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Apparently you don’t have one.”
“Maybe I lost it,” he said, holding the frustration out of his tone but worried that he had gained no ground in undermining her confidence. He’d hurt himself, ignited the fire in his chest, to reset the situation but she was still unafraid, obstructive, stubborn. Still holding the high ground in some hidden power position that made her sure she had control.
“Maybe,” she said agreeably but she was looking directly at him, measuring him. “Look,” she said, “this is pointless. I’m sure you don’t feel well. Why don’t I take you to emergency and — “
He stopped her mid-sentence. “You’re not taking me anywhere. You and I are going to go in there, by the fire and have a little talk. And you’re right about one thing: I don’t feel good. So let’s cut the crap.”
He went first to the windows but fog still frustrated any hope of checking the surroundings. He shot another glance at the telescope. He had the strong feeling that out beyond the deck was the same wasteland he had walked and jogged and crawled through in the rain. He had moved under cover of darkness which should have eliminated any application for the telescope. But still, there it was. If not him, could it have been used to watch Gerald’s center with its bloody wonderful security? Where he’d arrived in full daylight like a damn duck in hunting season.
“What’s out there?” he asked her.
She stood well away from him. “Open country, undeveloped foothills, high desert.”
“Sand dunes?”
She shook her head, “No, rocky foothills. We’re up on a little ridge. Down there is the valley of the Little Sandy River. It’s a dry river, most of the time. It’s really just a wide river bottom filled with saguaro and tamarisk. Beyond that you can see for miles, to the Maricopas.”
“No roads? No houses?”
“Oh, yes. Águila Canyon Road runs right through there. Big homes on acreages, though you can’t see any of them from this window.”
“Where’s the closest house?”
“Over there.” She pointed across the dining room.
The fog could lift at any minute. When it did, he would see for himself but he expected it would be as she had described. She wouldn’t bother lying about anything obvious. It didn’t matter right now when he needed to get warm and get some answers out of her.
It was a cruel disappointment to find absolutely no increase in the temperature even directly in front of the fire. Suzanna added wood and it leapt up greedily into the fresh fuel but in character with the rest of the glassy house even the fire was bright but cold. The entire room seemed sullenly determined to freeze him. Her apparent comfort despite her wet hair and bare feet increased his impatience with his condition. And increased his sense that she was manipulating him.
Observing her with the fire he noted her easy competence with the heavy screen, the blocks of split wood and the poker. She was quick and precise, as though she belonged in the house. But that was unlikely. This would be a safe house and she was almost certainly a specialist, an expert at playing out the tricks of disorientation.
“Tell me everything, starting with when you first saw me,” he said when she’d replaced the screen and settled herself in a chair, “and don’t leave anything out.”
She looked into the fire. “I found you in the park, near the dam. It was around three o’clock”
“Three o’clock what day?”
Her gaze swung back to him, startled. “Yesterday, Friday. Today’s Saturday. You’ve only slept a few hours.” She faced the wall of windows at his back. In the flood of natural light her eyes glowed a deep blue, almost navy.
He’d never seen eyes that color and put it down to the flat, white light. Or tinted contact lenses. “Go on.”
“Well, I found you and at first you were unconscious.” She paused and looked down at her hands. “Don’t you remember me finding you? Do you remember how you got shot and ended up out there? What happened to you?”
He could have exploded with frustration. “Just tell me your part in it, all the details,” he demanded.
“I am telling you. I’m not lying. Why can’t we just talk about it?”
He shot upright, reached for her shoulder, and jerked her out of the chair and onto the couch in one motion. He had held his right arm close along his side but all the muscles in his chest had tensed to snatch her out of the chair. The arm was one thing, his chest another. He was stunned by the agony under the bandage. He sat down beside her abruptly, breathing carefully.
“Tell it,” he said through clenched teeth, “unless you want me to hurt you.”
She shrank back into the corner of the sofa, as far away from him as possible. He raised his eyebrows at her impatiently.
“I found you around three o’clock, yesterday afternoon. It was raining pretty hard by then. You were unconscious at first, then you came to. You said you didn’t want a doctor. You told me to go away.” She had been looking into the fire, now she hesitated and frowned. She faced him. “You were afraid of my dog. That was the first thing.”
“What kind of dog?”
But suddenly he could recall the beast perfectly. He felt a flicker of memory of the wet hillside. He was jolted, thinking about the dog in the rain. He hadn’t actually been afraid of a dog for years. And why was his memory restored, sharp and immediate when she said dog, but only of the animal and nothing else?
“German shepherd. You called him an Alsatian.” Her voice quickened. “You’re bleeding again.”
