Chris Jordan - Torn

“There has to be a better way.”

Shane leans back in his chair, making the legs creak ominously. “I’m open to suggestions.”

“Come back with me to D.C. We’ll work it from there. We’ll make a case. We’ll get you the HRT.”

Shane smiles wearily. “I’ll bet you could. But how long would it take to work through channels, convince the ’crats that my hunch is good, that their butts won’t be on the line, careers ruined? You’re good, Maggie, the best. But even for you, it would take weeks. Weeks that Haley and Noah might not have.”

“You’ve made up your mind.”

Shane nods.

Maggie sighs. “There might be a way to get you inside.”

“I’m all ears,” he says, wide-awake.

Snow is falling. I know that snow is falling because there’s a skylight in one of the many bathrooms, and the fat white flakes are starting to accumulate, blocking out the slate-gray sky. The skylight is the only window not obstructed by storm shutters. My only view of the world outside, and soon it will be covered.

For all I can see, I might as well be confined in a million-dollar igloo. Although, come to think of it, a home of this size and quality-the kitchen alone has more square feet than my entire farmhouse-probably goes for a lot more than a million.

Missy says that it snows frequently, because of the elevation, and that’s one of the many things they love about Conklin, the perfect snow. She says the village is like a ski resort without the lifts or the lines, and she should know because she and her husband own homes in Vail and Park City, for when they want to actually ski. They also own homes in Silicon Valley, Manhattan, Nantucket, and Key West, and, oh yeah, she almost forgot, this adorable little mews in London.

The Barlows are filthy rich and, from what I can tell, about as shallow as the manufactured celebrities they seek to emulate. Missy tells me that Eldon is brilliant-and I suppose he must be, on some level-but I haven’t seen it. In my presence he seems more keenly nervous than intelligent. Frightened, actually. As if terrified that complicity in my abduction will come back to haunt him.

Which it will, if I have anything to say about it.

For now I’m biding my time, holding my tongue. The strange, ugly little man with the beautiful eyes convinced me, for the moment, that calling in the authorities would put Noah’s life at risk. But watching that DVD of my little boy being tutored by that snake-in-the-grass Irene Delancey very nearly drove me over the edge. On one level I was intensely relieved to see him looking healthy, if not happy. On another level I’m outraged that they’ve stolen nearly two months of his childhood, two months that I didn’t get to share, two months I’ll never get back. How dare she! How dare they! To make it worse, there’s no sound on the DVD, so I’ve no idea what poison Delancey is spewing, or how much my little boy knows about what’s really going on.

Does he know I’m searching for him, that I won’t give up until he’s back in his mother’s arms? He must know. He’s his father’s son, and he knows the most amazing things.

Wendall Weems, my real captor-abducting me was his idea, obviously-claims he knew Jedediah as a child. “He was still in diapers when Arthur bought back and republished his book,” he says. “Quite a handsome baby, as I recall, but given to crying when he wasn’t being held. Colicky, I think they call it.”

Weems is musing, trying to be friendly, and I can only stare at him in disbelief.

“Colicky? I haven’t read that horrible book, but Jed did show me the chapter on child rearing. Unbelievable! His father thought it a worthy experiment to leave a three-month-old baby unattended in a dark room for twelve hours. He calculated an infant would not actually die of neglect in that time period, and that it might, quote ‘learn the futility of crying.’”

Weems nods solemnly. “Barbara-she was Jedediah’s birth mother-as I recall she was perfectly frantic at the time. Arthur insisted on the full twelve hours. The exercise was really as much about Barbara as it was the baby, of course. Arthur firmly believed that the mother-child bond often does more harm than good, in terms of self-actualization. He’s a man of immense, unshakable willpower. Or he was until recently.”

The strange little man’s indifference to the notion of tormenting a child to prove a point drives me wild. Especially because that tormented baby was my own husband. It’s all I can do not to leap out of my chair and slap the complacent expression off his homely face. “I was wrong about you people,” I say, practically spitting out the words. “You’re not just greedy and selfish, you’re unspeakably cruel! This great man you so admire. You know what he did? When a homesick boy wrote home from boarding school, saying that he loved and missed his parents, his father cut him off. Told him love was weakness, and that he was not to contact his mother again until he’d grown up.”

“Granted, that may have seemed cruel at the time. But in the long run-”

“In the long run, what?” I interrupt, almost shouting. “In the long run Jed’s mother died! He never saw her again. And his father never even bothered to let him know she was dying. That’s the man you admire. That’s the man you revere. A monster!”

Weems studies me, as if aware that he’s miscalculated. “You’re angry,” he observes. “It’s a natural enough reaction.”

“You think? Your people blow up a school, steal my son, kidnap me, all because years ago some cranky professor wrote a book on the importance of being selfish? And I dare to be angry?”

The little man regards me with great solemnity, exuding infinite patience. “No one dares to be angry, my dear,” he points out. “Anger originates in the atavistic part of the brain, not the cognitive. You can dare to risk everything, you can dare to be great, but you can’t dare to be angry or afraid. Anger and fear being linked, of course. Manifestations of the same instinct.”

I can’t stand it anymore. Leaping up, I grab the front of his shirt, yank him close, and scream into his startled face, “Give me back my baby! Give him back or I swear I’ll kill all of you!”

Then I’m flat on my back, the wind knocked out of me, held down by the Barlows, both of whom look sick with fear but nevertheless determined to protect their precious leader.

“Ruler Weems,” gasps Eldon as I squirm and struggle to get free. “Are you okay? What do we do? Tell us what to do.”

His voice is utterly calm. “Let her go.”

Instant obedience. My arms are released.

“If Mrs. Corbin wants to attack me, she is free to do so. I will not defend myself, and you will not interfere.”

Hands relaxed upon the arms of his chair, Weems awaits my reaction. I crawl to my feet, shooting venomous looks at my so-called hosts.

I’m shaking with adrenaline, so wobbly I can barely stand. “Do not speak to me of Jedediah,” I say, boring in on the strange little man. “My Jed was worth a thousand Arthur Conklins. He was good and true and loving. He was smart and funny and kind. His father tried to wreck him, but Jed couldn’t be wrecked. He had a heart of gold, and if his stupid plane hadn’t fallen out of the sky none of this would be happening. Jed would have known what to do. He always knew what to do.”

Then I’m sitting on my butt-how did that happen?-and bawling into my hands, crying for my dead husband, crying for my little boy, crying for me.

“Your husband’s plane didn’t fall out of the sky,” Weems says gently. “Not by accident. He was murdered.”

Shane considers himself lucky there were no Lincoln Town Cars available for rental at Denver International Airport. Indeed, his request for such a vehicle had prompted much rolling of eyes. “You’ll need the four-wheel drive,” they kept saying, and they were right; he does need the four-wheel drive. And if the Jeep Grand Cherokee feels bumpy and windblown compared to his precious Townie, it proves to be surefooted on the snow-slicked highway out of Denver.