Susan Wiggs - The Hostage

What sort of person was she, Deborah wondered as her father reappeared at her door, that she could be so calm about losing everything?

She noted that he had donned his best Savile Row suit and kid leather spats. Even in the face of disaster, he seemed determined to keep up appearances. He held his cane and the bulging case containing his most important documents. “Are you ready?” he asked.

“Yes, let’s go,” she said briskly. “And I’m glad we’re together,” she added.

They hastened to the door, and her father stopped. He put out his hand and cupped her cheek. She froze in surprise, for he rarely touched her with affection.

“I’m pleased that you came to see me tonight,” he said with the gruff tenderness that never failed to remind her that she was all he had in the world. “This matter with Philip—we’ll find an accord. You’ll see that marrying him is the proper course of things. The proper course indeed.”

“Oh, Father.” She bent her cheek into the cradle of his hand. “We really must go.”

She stepped out of the room and he turned, his hand on the door handle. A look of pure and utter desolation settled over his craggy face. In that moment, she realized that, although there was nothing for her in this house, nothing for her to clutch to her chest and go running through the streets with, it was different for Arthur Sinclair. This vast mansion was his dream, his place in the world, built by his own hard work and ambition.

“Come,” she said gently. “This pile of wood and stone isn’t worth your life.”

Together they went to the head of the main stairway. Then Deborah stopped and glanced over her shoulder toward her private suite of rooms.

“What is it?” Arthur asked. “Did you forget something?”

“Mother’s lavaliere,” she replied, suddenly remembering the one thing she wanted to keep. “I know just where it is. Wait for me outside, Father. I’ll be right behind you.”

He nodded and went to the elevator cage. Deborah dashed back to her suite and hurried to the dressing room. She had no need of a lamp, for the ominous glare of the fire turned the darkness to unhealthy noon. An entire large chamber was devoted to her wardrobe, a forest of Worth gowns and Brussels lace bodices on wire forms, cuffs and collars of every description, stacks of bandboxes containing hats. In a tall narrow armoire that smelled of lavender sachets, she found what she sought—her mother’s lavaliere in a red velvet pouch tied with silken cords. Stuffing the treasure into her bodice, she rushed back to the stairs.

Her father waited in the foyer, brightly illuminated by fireglow streaming through the skylight. Arthur Sinclair looked as neat and precise as the black-and-white checkerboard pattern on the floor. It was hard to believe that outside this elegant sanctuary, throngs of Chicagoans ran from the fire. But the clanging of alarm bells and shouts from the street hinted that the flames were racing ever closer.

“I’m ready, Father,” she called.

Just then, the heavy front door slammed open.

Deborah froze at the top of the steps, one hand on the newel post. A huge man, covered in soot, with blackened holes burned into his fringed buckskins, stood at the threshold. Behind him, the blaze flared up and roared with an inhuman howl. The wild man burst into the house, crossing the foyer with long, purposeful strides. Even from a distance, she could see the fury in his eyes and the smoke that rose from his smoldering garments.

A looter, she thought, her stomach clenching.

His relentless stride, his swirling dark hair and the gun in his hand made him the most frightening spectacle she had ever seen. She could not even manage to scream.

Arthur Sinclair didn’t move, but stared at the five-shooter in the stranger’s huge hand. Her father did not look up at her, and it took her only a second to realize why. He didn’t want her to make her presence known to the looter.

She bit her lip to keep from calling out.

“See here now,” her father said sternly. “If thieving’s your aim, you’ll find baubles a-plenty throughout the house. No need to harm me or—No need to harm me.”

“I’m not here to rob you, old man.” The looter’s voice was low and harsh.

Deborah’s father gestured with his brass-tipped cane. “The liquor and wine are kept in the basement. Just take what you want and be gone.”

“I want you to look at me, Sinclair,” the looter said. “I come from Isle Royale.”

Her father stiffened, and his knuckles whitened as he gripped the handle of his cane. His jaw began to tic as he clenched and unclenched his teeth. He took an uneven step toward the narrow hallway that led to the alley in the back, where the phaeton waited. “Look,” he said, “if it’s about the copper mine, my claims adjusters will settle—”

“Yes, that’s why I’m here.” The man took a step closer, planting himself between the stair rail and Sinclair. “To settle with you. And it’s not about money.”

He planted his feet wide and brought his arm up, pointing the revolver at Arthur’s chest.

Sinclair raised the satchel like a shield. “Don’t be a fool. I can pay—”

“With your blood, you son of a bitch.”

Deborah didn’t give herself time to think. As nimble as she had been as a little girl, she propped her hip on the gleaming, waxed stair rail and shoved off. The much-polished surface was as slick as grease. In the blink of an eye, she zipped down the rail, seeing things only in flashes of awareness: her father’s astonished, openmouthed face, the man half turning, even as the gun went off.

She felt a terrible blow as her body collided with that of the intruder, and all the air rushed out of her lungs. The glass skylight over the vestibule shattered with an explosion of noise. The gun went sliding across the floor, then spun like a top in the middle of the foyer. Arthur grabbed a marble cherub from the statue in the curve of the stair and brought the white stone down on the intruder’s head. The wild man gave an animal bellow of pain and rage, then sank with a groan.

“By God, you saved my life,” Arthur said, regarding Deborah with astonishment.

“Father,” she said, gasping for air as she picked herself up off the floor. “Do you think you killed him?”

“It would be no more than he deserved. May he burn in hell.” Moving quickly despite his infirmity, he headed for the rear of the house.

Deborah put a hand to her bodice, and with a sense of dismay discovered that it was empty. There, at the foot of the stairs, lay the velvet pouch with her mother’s lavaliere. She went to snatch it, then moved to follow her father out to the phaeton.

But she felt a tug of resistance. Looking down, she saw the hamlike fist of the wild man clutching the hem of her skirt.

His head pounded like a fist-sized heartbeat. The ringing agony made him want to puke.

The woman with the yellow hair stood like Joan of Arc over him. Her image blurred and melted around the edges, and for a moment he thought he was going blind from the blow to the head. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them again and let out a shuddering breath. His vision was sharp and clear once again, but he didn’t like what he saw. The woman’s mouth formed a red O of abject horror. This was no Joan of Arc. He could see the uncertainty flickering in her eyes, could practically read her mind. Should she scream and alert Sinclair, or keep mum so he could get away?

“Go ahead and holler for him,” he said, letting go of her dress and giving her a shove. “You’d be doing me a favor.” She stumbled back against the stairs, lost her footing and fell like a broken doll, sinking in a puffy tangle of skirts.