Eric Lustbader - First Daughter

She heard someone with her voice say, "What are you holding?"

"Your life." He looked up. "You see, Alli, I know everything about you."

The schism inside her deepened-or widened, whichever. "You don't… You couldn't."

His eyes flicked down, skimming information with which she could see he was clearly familiar. "You were born Allison Amanda Carson-Amanda was your maternal grandmother's name-on January twenty-third, daughter of Edward Harrison Carson and Lyn Margaret Carson, nee Hayes, married thirty-seven years this past September fourteenth. You were born in Georgetown University Hospital, your blood type is O-negative. You attended Birney Elementary, Lincoln Middle, and-let's see-Banneker High School. At age five you fractured the ulna in your right forearm. At age eight you twisted your left ankle so severely, you were required to wear a cast for seventeen days. Neither injury had a lasting effect.

"In ninth grade you were diagnosed with Graves' disease by your pediatrician-what's his name?" He turned a page. "Ah yes, Dr. Hallow. He recommended you for treatment at Children's Hospital, where you stayed for six days while tests were being performed, medication prescribed and evaluated in your system."

He looked up into Alli's stricken face. "Have I left anything out? I thought not." Returning to the file, he struck himself lightly on the forehead and a smile spread over his face like taffy melting on a July afternoon. "But of course I have! I've failed to mention Barkley. Philip Barkley. But you called him-what? Help me out here, Alli. No? All right, all on my own then. You called him Bark, isn't that right? Bark was your first love, but you never told your parents the truth about you and Bark, did you?"

"There was a reason."

"Of course. There's always a reason," Kray said. "Human beings are so good at rationalization. Did you or did you not tell your parents the truth about Philip Barkley? A simple yes or no will do."

Alli gave a little moan, appearing to sink as much as she was able into the chair.

"You see the futility of your current predicament?"

It was a measure of her mental paralysis that it wasn't until this moment that the thought occurred to her. "How could you possibly know about Bark? I never told anyone about-"

"That night on the raft?"

She gasped. "It's impossible! You couldn't know!"

"And yet I do. How to reconcile this seeming impossibility?" He cocked his head. "Would it help if I tell you that my name is Ronnie Kray?"

Some inarticulate sound got caught in the back of Alli's throat, and she almost gagged.

I'M A PRISONER , Lyn Carson thought for the first time in her life. She, her support staff, and her bodyguards were in a motorcade, on their way from a luncheon, where she'd spoken to the Washington Ladies' something-or-other, to a fund-raiser where she was standing in for her husband, who was God knew where, doing God knew what. This morning, she had been on Good Morning, America . She barely remembered what she'd said.

Normally, she loved these functions; they allowed her to feel senatorial-and now presidential-all on her own without feeling like Edward's elbow. But these days, she was so preoccupied with thoughts of Alli that the luncheons, fund-raisers, photo ops… these days what an effort it was to keep her smile intact, the tasks that usually filled her with joy dragged by like a ragged filmstrip. What a useless process life is , she thought as the armored limo sped her crosstown, traffic peeling away, pedestrians peering briefly, wondering which member of the government was passing by. Without Alli, my life is without purpose .

In desperation, she pulled out her cell phone, dialed an overseas number. Checking her watch, she calculated it would be just after dinnertime in Umbria. Blue shadows would have already fallen over the olive groves, the ancient stone house would be lit by warm light and the smells of tomato sauce and roasted meat would have permeated the thick-walled rooms. Perhaps music would be playing softly.

"Hi, Mom," she said when the familiar voice answered. "Yes, I'm fine, everything's fine. Of course, Alli misses you, too."

She listened for some time to the melodious drone. Not that she was uninterested in what was fresh in the market that day or the old man who pressed their olives into fragrant green oil, the one who was teaching her to speak like an Umbrian. It was simply that her parents' world seemed so far away, so carefree it was almost criminal. She felt suddenly older than her own mother, who continued rabbiting on about this year's oil, the cinghiale they'd eaten for dinner, the series of paintings her father was completing.

Suddenly, she realized that this was no respite. As long as Alli was missing, there was no respite for her. She could run herself ragged with daily tasks, mindless work, but it wouldn't change reality one iota. The nightmare descended on her once again, roosting on her shoulder like a vulture.

"I've got to go now, Mom." She almost choked on her emotions, had to bite back the words that threatened to keep tumbling out: Mom, Alli's been abducted. We don't know whether she's alive or dead . "Our love to you and to Dad."

She snapped the phone shut, bit down on it until the metal showed the marks of her small white teeth.

ON THAT note, maybe we should talk about Emma, your best friend," Ronnie Kray said. "Our mutual acquaintance." He slipped a photo out of the file, held it up for Alli to see. It was a snapshot, slightly grainy, of two girls walking across the Langley Fields campus. "Recognize the two of you? You and Emma McClure."

Alli, staring at the photograph, remembered the moment: It was October 1, just after noon. She remembered what they were talking about. How could she forget! Seeing that intimate moment preserved, knowing that she and Emma had been spied upon gave her the willies. Then it hit her like a ton of bricks: The surveillance had been going on a long, long time. Someone-maybe the man facing her-had wormed himself into her bed, under her skin, wrapped himself around her bones, lying out of sight while she, unknowing, went about her life. She had to fight the queasy churning of her stomach. Having read both 1984 and Brave New World , having her own life so tightly controlled, she was under the impression that she knew the meaning of intrusion. But this invasion was monstrous, Big Brother on steroids.

"I told Emma about Bark." Her mind was racing so fast, she grew dizzy, even more disoriented. "Emma told you?"

"Did she? What do you think?"

"What do I think?" she echoed stupidly. She felt as if she were in an elevator whose cable had been cut, was now in free fall. "I knew her. She couldn't, she wouldn't."

He cocked his head. "May I ask what might seem an impertinent question? What in the world were you doing slumming? Emma McClure wasn't from your socioeconomic class. She was rough-and-tumble, from the wrong side of the tracks, as we said back in the day. Not your kind at all."

Alli's eyes blazed. "That just shows how much you don't know!"

His face hardened like a fist. "I thought we were friends. I was even thinking of untying you, despite the danger it would put me in. But now…"

"Please untie me. I'm sorry I talked to you that way." Her cresting fear made her voice quaver like a glass about to shatter. "I'll never do it again, if only you'll untie me."

He shook his head.

The pain congealed with outrage into an intolerable barb inside her. "You can't treat me like this! My father will move heaven and earth to find me!"

Abruptly, Kray took out surgical pliers. Alli thought she was going to pass out. What was he planning to do to her? She'd seen plenty of films filled with scenes of torture. She tried to remember what happened in those scenes, but her mind was blind with panic. Her terror mounted to unbearable heights.