Willing Hostage by Marlys Millhiser

Author:Marlys Millhiser
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media

Chapter Twenty-two

Leah sat on a canvas stool drinking coffee and feeling embarrassed about her unwashed condition.

One of the grim-faced men handed her a cheese sandwich and sat on the edge of a cot facing her. “I’m Peter Bradley.” He smiled and it made him handsome, even if his name probably wasn’t Peter Bradley. His rumpled white shirt was rolled to the elbows and open three or four buttons down the front to show off the brown hair on his chest. “There are a few holes in your story, Miss Harper. For instance, how did you know we were with the government and looking for this man you say left you this morning?”

“He told me you were CIA men.”

“When? You say he left you before you came upon our camp.”

“We’d seen the helicopter when we were on Big Marvine.”

“Uhm. Now, there’s miles of wilderness here. How did you happen to find us?”

“I didn’t find you. I sort of … stumbled across you. I heard the dogs and the helicopter—”

“That’s handy, that helicopter. This man you call Glade Wyndham dragged you around the Rockies for a week and then just left you alone in the wilderness this morning. Why?”

“I’ve told you … or them.” She motioned toward the two men who were going through her backpack.

“Tell us again.” His eyes warmed, inviting confidences.

“He said that he had something to do and that I slowed him down. He said if I walked west long enough I’d find a marked trail.”

“Seems kind of cold-blooded, doesn’t it? To bring you all that way and just leave you?”

“I … guess so.”

“And yet you’re protecting him—”

“No!”

Peter Bradley squeezed his lower lip between his thumb and forefinger. The helicopter and dogs had left again and it was quiet. Now and then a slight clank sounded as her belongings were spread out on a long table. Charlie lounged in the tent opening with his beer can and his grin. A fly landed on her cheese sandwich. Leah was growing tired of cheese.

“Why did you go with him?”

“I told you. He made me go at first and then after we found Sheila … I felt threatened too, so I stayed with him.”

“Why did you feel threatened?”

“Sheila was in my car.”

“And yet you walked boldly into this camp this afternoon.”

“Trap”… the very air breathed it. Leah tried not to blink. “He said goons did that to Sheila. I thought you were a different bunch because you had the helicopter.”

“But some days ago you hid from our search plane … left your sweat shirt—”

“I didn’t know it was you then.”

“But you knew this afternoon. You didn’t suspect your goons, whoever they may be, could have had a helicopter, so you just walked in—after walking haphazardly for miles since early this morning—across miles of wilderness and just happened to stumble in here.” Something about him resembled a less formal, less staged Joseph Welker,

“I heard the dogs.”

He lit a cigarette and walked to the folding table. The size of the tent, the long table and cots, the map pinned to a board—it all reminded Leah of a Civil War movie.

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