Chapter 41
KANE
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Ross folds his arms across his chest. “Amy can stay, but she won’t be a prisoner in this house.”
The three of us are huddled in Ross’s living room, the puddle of light from a table lamp highlighting loose threads on the carpet, the sky outside the bay window a moody gray, threatening an evening thunderstorm.
I filled Ross in on Amy’s kidnapping and the stunned expression still hasn’t left his face.
Merele hasn’t yet returned from her shopping expedition and I’m grateful for the reprieve.
It’s bad enough I have to contend with Ross’s obvious disappointment in me.
I don’t want to be hit with the impact of Merele’s as well.
“Would you prefer the police in your house?” Nolene asks Ross, bottle feeding a lamb in a long-limbed slump on her lap and looking softer and lovelier than I’ve ever seen her. “Because she’ll try to escape the moment an opportunity presents itself.”
“That’s a problem the two of you will have to manage,” Ross insists. “I’m not having this woman locked in a room twenty-four-seven. Not in my home.”
“All right,” I agree, Saba sprawled like a huge furry ottoman at my feet. “Amy will be allowed outside as long as one of us is with her at all times. But she doesn’t set foot outside the sanctuary.”
Ross nods. “I want your promise no more harm will come to her.”
“You have it,” I say without hesitation.
Nolene frowns. “If Highness Hutchinson is allowed to wander all over the place, we’ll need to keep up our disguises. And I don’t want to be wearing a ski mask all day. Not in this heat.”
“You still have those Zorro masks?” I ask Ross. “The ones we wore when we crashed Mel’s bachelorette party?”
“Yeah, they’re packed in a box somewhere. You know Mel, she hates to throw anything away.”
“Dig them out for me, will you,” I say. “They should do the job.”
Ross rolls his eyes. “Won’t we look stupid.”
I summon up a smile. “Finally a disguise to match your IQ.”
“Right back at you, buddy.”
“What about the people you have working at the sanctuary?” Nolene asks.
“I’ll tell them to take a leave of absence, starting today.”
“We’ll fill in for them,” I offer. “Amy can help.”
A spark of interest lights up Nolene’s face. She’s probably calculating how soon she can get Amy to muck out a stall.
“I’ll remove any visual references to the name of the sanctuary,” Ross says. “How long do you intend to keep Amy here?”
“About a week. That’s the deadline we’ve given the father. It might be less if he makes his announcement before then.”
Ross shakes his head. “I don’t understand. This isn’t the sort of action AFD engages in. We never hurt people. Ever. That was our policy right from the start.”
“In this case,” I say slowly, “there were...extenuating circumstances.”
“If you knew what the father did at his lab,” Nolene interjects, her voice hushed because of the lamb now asleep on her lap, but her tone still fierce, “you wouldn’t have a problem with what we do to the daughter.”
Ross turns on her. “Yeah, I’d still have a problem.
First, your issue is with the father, not the daughter.
Second, I don’t have to know what the father does at his lab; it’s pretty much what nearly every animal researcher does, and yeah, it’s always bad.
But what’s done to the animals is never an excuse for what we do to people. ”
Nolene’s lips thin. “Why? Because the law says so? The same law that legally protects research experiments on animals? Well, that law is wrong. And when the law is wrong, the right thing to do is to break it.”
Ross throws her a disparaging look. “I’ve read the same books you have. Don’t bother quoting from them.”
“Ross, why can’t you see it?” Nolene asks. “We’ve had years and years of legal campaigning. What real difference has it made?”
“I agree there’s a need for both underground and above ground action,” Ross says, “but neither Gandhi nor Martin Luther King endorsed violence and look at the revolutionary goals they achieved.”
I let out a tired sigh. “You two, save it for the lecture hall. What’s done is done.”
“Doesn’t mean it can’t be undone,” Ross counters. “Extreme actions can cause extreme public opposition. From a PR standpoint, we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.”
“I realize the risk,” I admit.
“What if the deadline passes?” Ross asks. “What if the father refuses to meet your demands?”
“He won’t,” I maintain. “The man loves his daughter. He’ll meet them.”
“If he doesn’t?” Ross persists.
“What do you think I’ll do?”
After a moment, Ross asks, “It’s all a bluff?”
“Of course it is.”
#
Merele arrives at the sanctuary half an hour later.
I watch from the window as she emerges from a dusty Jeep, juggling shopping bags on either arm.
She’s cut her hair. It used to hang to the last knot on her spine, but now its rich auburn length barely brushes her shoulders.
Her skin is more tanned, and I wonder if her eyes still flash between green and hazel, depending on her mood.
A strange sense of loss fills me as I observe Ross take the shopping bags from her and touch his lips to hers. I’m happy for them. It’s the truth, even if at times it feels like a lie.
“You still hung up on her?”
Irritation flares at the question. Trust Nolene to go straight for the jugular. “She’s married to my closest friend,” I state flatly.
Nolene shrugs. “That doesn’t stop half the men I know.”
“It stops me.”
“You know, I could never shake the feeling there was always a third person in our relationship.”
The open hostility in her voice darkens my already black mood. “Let it go, Nolene.”
“It’s pathetic, really, your habit of falling for women you can’t have.”
I stiffen. I know who she’s really referring to. This is quicksand territory. If I lash out at her, I’ll reveal too much. So I say mildly, “Your tongue was always too sharp for my liking.”
“Fortunately for you then, my tongue is no longer your concern.”
She leaves me in the sour wake of her parting comment. I rub the now neatly stitched cut on my temple, Nolene’s insinuations like claws scratching at all the closed doors in my head.
#
While Ross empties the groceries out of the bags, Merele methodically packs them away.
There’s a rhythm to their routine, a marriage dance of synchronized steps they’ve perfected over the years.
I know any attempt by me to assist will only disrupt the rhythm, so I settle instead on making a round of drinks for everyone and filling Mel in on everything that’s happened.
There are dozens of questions she could throw at me.
Do you know what you’re doing?
Why did you bring her here?
Why are you risking our freedom?
Instead, she toes off her sandals and sits on the bar stool next to mine.
Ross drags a stool to the other side of the kitchen island and eases himself onto it, rubbing his left thigh with the heel of his hand.
Knowing how hard he pushes himself, I’m guessing this is the first opportunity he’s allowed himself to relax today.
“When we’re finished here,” Mel says to me, “I want you to take me to see Amy.”
Ross flicks a glance my way. “You okay with that?”
“It’s your house,” I say neutrally.
The memory of Merele’s chaste kiss of greeting still lingers. It wasn’t as bad as I feared. There was no sharp pang this time, only a bittersweet pull of what might have been.
And then, as though these last few months apart don’t matter, the three of us slip into the comfortable habit of discussing the sanctuary.
“A couple of days ago, Animal Welfare dropped off two stallions,” Ross tells me. “The usual story. Owner ran out of money so he left them to starve.”
“Any other horses on the property?” I ask.
“A mare. But they didn’t get to her in time.”
Merele shakes her head. “When the stallions arrived here they were so weak they could barely stand. We had to drip-feed them and it was touch-and-go for a while.”
Ross stares into the remains of his coffee mug. “There was feed in the adjacent paddock,” he says quietly. “One of the stallions lacerated his right hock pretty badly trying to scale a fence to get to it.”
Merele touches his arm. “We haven’t named them yet. Nothing we come up with seems to fit.” Her eyes meet mine. “Maybe you’d like to give it a go.”
I nod. “I’ll take a look at them in the morning.”
Nolene joins us, her hair wet and spiky from her shower. Merele makes a move to stand, but Nolene waves her back down and helps herself to a glass of water. She catches my gaze. Sorry, she mouths.
I nod, my chest tightening. Just when I’m ready to write her off, she surprises me.
Ross glances at his watch. “Time for the evening feed.” He gives Merele a meaningful stare. “Be nice to Kane. He’s here for at least a week. Plenty of time for you to prank him.”
“You want to wait until I’m out of the room?” I ask.
Merele slants me a mischievous look. “Nervous?”
“I’d be a fool not to be.” I smile slightly, appreciating their attempt to lighten the mood, realizing at the same time I’m testing our friendship by bringing Amy here.
Nolene rises with Ross. “I’ll help with the feed.”
If Ross is surprised, he hides it well, saying easily, “We’re always grateful for an extra hand.”
I catch a brief glimpse of Nolene’s face before she leaves with Ross. The expression carved there says she knows all too well she’ll always be the outsider to our cozy threesome, a stilted participant amid our easy camaraderie.
As soon as they’ve gone, Merele turns to me. “Will you take me to Amy now?”
I drink the rest of my coffee and set the cup down. “All right.”
We walk in silence down the hallway. The smell of Merele’s perfume stirs up memories of loss, love, and happier days. Days when I laughed more, when the lines on my face weren’t dug in so deep, when the weight of my actions didn’t ride so heavily on my shoulders.
I unlock the door to Amy’s room and ease it open, stepping aside to let Merele in. Without a word, she moves past me to stand at the foot of the bed, her head tilted to one side as she stares down at Amy’s sleeping form.
“What did you give her?” she asks.
“A mild sedative.” Not to mention major mental trauma.
I sit on the edge of the bed and take my time checking Amy’s pulse and thumbing back her eyelids to examine her pupils.
Satisfied she’s suffering no ill-effects, at least not physically, I carefully lift her head to adjust her pillow and force myself to face Merele.
She’s an easy read and I prepare myself for what she won’t be able to hide.
It takes a couple of seconds before I realize there’s no condemnation in her eyes, only a gentle understanding that unexpectedly nooses my throat muscles.
“I’ve seen enough,” she says with an enigmatic smile. “We can go now.”
#
The moment I’m alone and out of earshot, I dial Andries. “We have a problem.”
“I believe you do,” he replies. “I hope you have an explanation as to how the package managed to contact the father?”
It takes effort to suck in enough air so I can speak. “How do you know?”
“I make it my business to know.”
No way am I going to be fobbed off so easily. “How did you find out?” I repeat more forcefully.
“I have a contact inside the father’s place of work.”
I suppose I should be relieved Andries is on top of things, but it isn’t relief I’m feeling. “If you’re so knowledgeable, what can you tell me about a red Nissan staking out the safe house?”
Andries remains silent.
A heavy feeling settles in my chest. “Start talking.”
“We have someone keeping an eye on the house,” he finally admits.
“This operation’s off unless you tell me exactly what you’re playing at.”
“Calm down, man. The surveillance is insurance. There’s a lot at stake here. We want to be sure our interests are covered.”
I can well believe that PAMS, the animal advocacy group Andries represents, would want their interests covered.
The Prevention of Animals for Medical Science has promised us nearly half a million in funding.
It’s a lot of money, money we desperately need, but if I’m brutally honest with myself, Amy’s kidnapping is a decision I’m beginning to regret.
“I’m told you’re no longer at the safe house,” Andries says.
“We left because we thought we were compromised.”
“Where are you now?”
Instinct stops me from divulging my new location. I want to protect Ross and Merele, but I also want Andries to deal only with me and no other person associated with AFD.
“You don’t need to have that information,” I tell him.
There’s a fleeting, static silence. “How is the package?”
“We’re looking after it.”
“I hope so,” Andries says. “The father’s worried.”
“I’ll get in touch with him. Do you know if he’s contacted the police?”
“He hasn’t. It appears your bluff was effective.”
“Good.”
“The deadline you’ve given the father expires soon,” Andries reminds me.
“Yeah, the date’s in my diary,” I say sarcastically, and hang up.