Uncaged (5 page)

“But his body was found downstairs,” she reminded him. When he hesitated, she gave a little smile and said, “Then you have to say, ‘You could have killed him easily. He wasn’t a big man, and I’ll bet you’re not as fragile as you look.’”

“Did I say that?” Daniel asked awkwardly.

“Oh, come on, we’re being honest. I’ve looked at those tapes, which means
you
certainly have. How come they let you remove them from the station?”

“They didn’t. I got copies.”

“Why?” she asked quickly.

Realizing what he’d given away, he shrugged and prevaricated. “Does it matter?”

She shook her head, smiling, and he knew he’d revealed too much about the inner turmoil she was causing him. Although they were reenacting the interrogation, he had the uneasy feeling that she’d somehow taken command. “Let’s get back to the point,” he said uneasily.

“All right. You said I wasn’t as fragile as I looked, and I did the stupidest thing, didn’t I? I proved you right by losing my temper and flying at you like this—”

She launched herself at him suddenly. He rose and put up his arms, trying to fend her off without actually taking hold of her, but she renewed the attack until in the end he was forced to seize her. For a few moments they struggled until he managed to imprison her in his arms, holding her tightly. She looked up at him, her face flushed from the struggle, her eyes alight with an emotion he didn’t understand, but which was actually triumph. She’d drawn him further into her spell. She knew it from the thunder of his heart that she could feel against her own, from the rasping sound of his breathing, and from the look on his face as he stared down at her: part unease, part desire, part alarm.

The pounding of his heart had communicated itself to her own, so that it, too, was beating madly. A hot sweetness streamed through her body, and she knew it was the sweetness of revenge. To turn the tables on the man whose prey she’d been and make him
her
prey, to know that he was becoming as helpless in her clutches as she had been in his—that was pleasure. “I forget how the next bit went,” she breathed. “What did we do?”

He loosened his grip on her and placed his hands on either side of her head, twining his fingers in her hair. His chest was rising and falling rapidly, and she could feel the force of his struggle in her own flesh. “We—”

“Yes...tell me—”

A shudder convulsed him. With an effort he freed himself from her. “I pushed you away from me,” he said hoarsely.

She was disappointed, but only a little. She’d always known she was contending with a strong man, a hard man, who wouldn’t fall easily. It would make his eventual subjugation doubly satisfying. “And you asked me if this was how I’d gone for Henry Grainger,” she reminded him.

Daniel took a deep breath and forcibly pulled himself together. He felt buffeted by a whirlwind. “Ashtray,” he said. “He was killed with an ashtray. It had your fingerprints on it, and nobody else’s.”

“It was mine. I’ve never denied it. But I didn’t take it down to his flat,
he
did. That was one of his charming little habits. He’d call on me on some feeble pretext or other, and when he left he’d steal something of mine so that I had to go to his place to get it back. When I got there he’d apologize, pretend to have lost it, offer me a drink, anything to drag it out. It was that kind of sneaky behavior that made me loathe him. Are you seriously suggesting that I took my own ashtray down to kill him, and then forgot to take it away?”

“That was always the weakest part of the case against you,” he conceded. “But it was the murder weapon, and it had your prints on it.”

“Since it belonged to me, that’s hardly surprising.”

“There was no doubt that it was used to kill him.”

“But not by me. Look, I know you don’t have to prove motive—you told me that often enough—but did it never worry you that I didn’t
have
a motive?”

“You loathed him. You’ve admitted it.”

“That’s a motive for kicking his shins, not for killing him. Good grief, if I killed every man who’s tried to paw me in my life I’d be knee-deep in corpses by now.”

He wished she hadn’t put on the glamorous mask. It took him back in time in a way he didn’t want. He tried to fight down his antagonism, but he couldn’t prevent it infusing his voice. “I believe you. There must have been quite a few men who wanted you.”

She shook her head so that her glorious hair swirled about her shoulders, and stood with her arms folded, regarding him satirically. “Yes, there have. After all, look at my career—first modeling, then escort work. That practically makes me a scarlet woman, doesn’t it?”

“No, but it makes you Tiger Lady.”

“Don’t tell me you were blinded by that stuff, too?” she demanded with an ironic humor that mocked his naiveté. “It was all a load of publicists’ nonsense. Inside I’m just like any other woman.”

He looked down at her flushed face and glowing brown eyes. “No,” he said slowly, “you’re not just like any other woman. You never could be.”

“That’s it, isn’t it? Tiger Lady was different—guilty from the start.”

“That’s nonsense.”

“No, it isn’t. There was something about me that set your back up the moment you saw me.”

“We’re getting off the point,” he said, wishing she’d stop this.

“But it’s true, isn’t it? What was it that made you hate me?”

“I don’t know,” he said somberly.

“Is it still there? Do you hate me now as you did then?” Helplessly, he shook his head. “What do you feel this minute?” she persisted. “Tell me.”

Desperation made him candid. “I don’t need to tell you. A woman who’s been pursued by so many men must know it when she sees it.”

A speculative smile touched her lips. This was proving easier than she’d thought. “Perhaps,” she murmured.

“Does that please you, Megan?” he mocked. “Is that what you really want, to make me your slave like the others, so that you can enjoy kicking me in the teeth? Would that give you satisfaction?”

“I have no plans for kicking you in the teeth,” she told him softly.

“So what’s in your mind? You had a reason for changing your clothes, and it wasn’t just authenticity. You were determined to make me say that I want you—”

“I don’t need to hear you say it,” she reminded him.

“That’s right. I gave myself away last night, and that’s when you decided...what? Just how far into the net do you want to lure me?”

“Why don’t you try and find out?” she suggested.

The suggestion was too much for him. With a low growl from his very depths, he pulled her against him and smothered her mouth with his own. There was madness in the passion that swept over him, engulfing him in its pounding urgency. Everything about this situation was insane. He knew that, but he was helpless in the grasp of sensations that he’d never experienced before. Her lips parted under his, inviting his tongue into the dark, hot depths, where there was mystery and magic. He could feel her luring him on, deliberately offering herself up to his passion, provoking him with the touch of her hands and the caresses of her lips. A tiny part of his mind that was still able to think asked,
Why?
But the question was drowned in the roar of his senses.

He ran his hands over the soft, pliant body that was pressed against him. It was slender but curved, the body of an experienced woman, who instinctively understood sensual pleasure and knew how to tease it alive in a man. Had she teased Henry Grainger to destruction, and then stamped on him like a worm when he got out of control? Part of him said it was impossible. The woman in his arms was all sweet, feminine urgency. She was the way a woman should be, eager and responsive, inciting and surrendering at the same moment.

But there was also something else, an undertone that was dark and fierce and hinted at primitive regions of her soul. It was alarming, thrilling and enticing at the same time.

The questions tormented him. He had a million facts on file about her life, and yet he knew nothing about her. There were two opposing pictures—either a murderess, or a deeply wronged woman—and he had no idea which one was the truth.

“Did you do it?” he heard his own voice asking hoarsely. “Tell me.” But even as he asked, he kissed her wildly on her eyes, her face, her mouth, her neck.

“Do you think I did?” she taunted him.

“I don’t know.”

She lay back in his arms and looked at him through half-closed lids. “Well that’s a step in the right direction,” she murmured in a voice that hovered on the edge of a laugh. “Once, you were very sure you knew.”

“And now I’m not, is that it? Do you think confusing me is the answer?”

She smiled hazily. “And you are confused, aren’t you, Daniel?”

“Yes, damn you, I am.”

“Never mind. Kiss me, Daniel. You know you want to. And you want more than that, don’t you?”

He hesitated, torn by a struggle that was harder than anything in his life before.

Megan looked up at him, observing every expression on his face. At exactly the right moment she sank onto the sofa, leaning back against the cushions and pulling him down toward her. He covered her mouth again, kissing her with fierce intensity.

Megan returned his kiss with equal force. Part of her was observing everything that happened, watching him being drawn further into Tiger Lady’s net, but to her alarm, something unforeseen was happening to her. The anger and bitterness that should have kept her safe in Daniel’s arms were melting under the onslaught of his passion. Ripples of excitement were beginning to scurry through her body, going faster and faster until they overtook each other and became one pulsating rhythm. She tried to ignore it and keep her mind on what she thought of as her mission, but there was simply no way to ignore the relentless pounding of her heart, or the tremors that were set off wherever he touched her.

Irrational anger rose in her breast. How
dare
he do this to her? How dare he thrill her and set her body aflame as no other man, including Brian, had ever been able to do? He was her enemy, yet his touch was like electricity, igniting sparks that started on her skin and glittered right through her. She fought them, striving not to be conscious of physical delight, to think only of subduing her enemy and bending him to her will. But her enemy had enchantment in his touch. It made her crave what was forbidden, like the caress of his fingers against her breast. When she felt him pulling open the buttons of her top, she arched up against him and threw her head back, inviting him to trail kisses down her neck to the base of her throat.

She put her hand behind his head, drawing it lower so that his mouth was against her breast. Lightning forked through her as his lips drifted across the sensitive skin, and a long moan broke from her. What was happening was so wrong. It wasn’t in her plan—somehow she must cling to her plan—but the pleasure taking possession of her made a mockery of calculation.

She was alive to every movement of his body, the feel of his hand sliding lower, opening more buttons, cupping the fullness of one breast in his palm, the fingers and thumb moving to tease the nipple. She knew that at any moment he would start working on the fastening to her slacks, and soon they would both be naked, ready for each other. She was tense with thrilling expectation. Soon—

But the movement he made wasn’t the one she’d expected, craved. She felt a convulsion possess his body, then he became totally still. Megan touched him and found that he’d turned to stone.

“No.”
The cry was torn from him.

“Daniel—”

“
No.
Not like this!” Daniel wrenched himself free and backed away from Megan as though her touch burned him. “Dear God, what am I doing?” he breathed. The desire in his eyes had been replaced by anger. “I nearly fell for it, didn’t I?” he demanded.

“Fell...for w-what?” she stammered, trying to collect her wits.

“Don’t act innocent. I don’t know what you’re playing at, but I do know that you’ve got your own agenda.”

The letdown caused a violent revulsion of feeling inside Megan, making her horribly aware of her open buttons and exposed breasts. She hastened to cover herself, trying to calm her breathing.

Daniel was watching her through narrowed eyes. “You were making me jump through hoops, weren’t you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she prevaricated. She knew this was a disaster.

“I’m talking about a woman who hates me in the morning and melts in my arms in the evening. No, not melts. Scorches is more like it. You sent me up in flames and you came on as if you were in flames yourself, but
why?
Is that how Tiger Lady gets her kicks?”

“Don’t call me that,” she cried desperately. “It’s not
me.
”

“So I nearly thought, until you showed your claws. But they were a little too sharp. I’m a plain man, Megan. I don’t play sophisticated games, and I don’t like them. So what’s going on?”

“Nothing,” she said desperately. “It was a mistake. Forget it.”

She tried to pass him but he took her arm and forced her to face him. “Was it for the pleasure of making a fool of me, or was there an even more devious plan? Was I to be something more than a fool...an instrument, maybe?” This came so close to the truth that she flushed. He saw it and his hand tightened. “So that’s it. I have my uses, don’t I? I’ll bet you never even realized that you could use me until last night, but then Tiger Lady’s brain started working. Get the poor sap in a lather for you and he’ll do anything...like clearing your name. Very clever. Very cunning. Very calculated. And to think I was beginning to feel sorry for you.”

“Let me go,” she cried.

“I’ll let you go all right. Tomorrow morning you are out of this house for good. Got that?”

Megan didn’t answer. She wrenched herself out of his grasp and flew upstairs, away from his condemning eyes.

T
he darkness was dreadful, like the blacking out of her last hope. It pressed in on Megan as the hours of the night passed, revealing with merciless clarity that she was facing a blank. She’d taken a desperate gamble and it had failed, leaving her with no cards left to play.

The revelation of her own sexuality had shattered her, throwing her off balance when she most needed a clear head. She’d never thought of herself as a sensual woman. Her youthful passion for Brian had died quickly under the discovery of his true nature, and the publicists’ projection of her as an erotic fantasy had merely amused her. In the year following their separation, all her attention had been claimed by her son and her work, and during her incarceration her rage and bitterness had blotted out any need of physical satisfaction.

Yet all the time the truth had been crouching like a tigress, ready to spring out of the darkness. And the truth was terrible. Her body, so alluring on the surface, so cool inside, could be awakened to flaming life by the touch of just one man. And by a dreadful twist of fate, that one man had turned out to be the one she hated.

She didn’t weep. She was past that. But the ache in her breast, that never left her night or day, grew heavier. All that mattered was Tommy and finding a way of getting him back. For that she’d been prepared to pay any price. But she’d fumbled it and lost her chance.

Tommy was with her this minute, as he always was. She closed her eyes and her thoughts dwelled on him lovingly: how it would be when they were together again, what he might look like now; how much they would have to tell each other. But thoughts weren’t enough. She needed his physical presence, his smile and the feeling of his arms around her neck. The lack of those things was a never-ending pain, and tonight the pain was greater than ever, for he had never seemed so far away.

Suddenly she opened her eyes, wondering if she was going mad, because for a moment she’d been sure she heard him calling. She sat up in the dark, straining her ears, and heard him again, seeming to come from a long way off. She threw off the bedclothes and hurried out of the room without putting on a robe.

“Mommy. Mommy, where are you?” He sounded lost and frightened, as he’d sometimes done when he had nightmares.

“I’m coming,” she called. “Don’t be frightened. Mommy’s here.”

She stumbled down the hallway, seeking him in room after room, until finally she came to a room fitted out for a little boy. In the moonlight she could see that the bedspread was decorated with pictures of racing cars, photographs of football players adorned the walls, and a small teddy bear was perched on the pillow. Suddenly her heart was joyful because the long, lonely separation was over, and she opened her arms to her son. “I’m here,” she told him. “Oh, Tommy, its so lovely to see you again.”

* * *

Daniel didn’t know what had awakened him, but he sat up quickly, certain that something was wrong. He was out of bed in a moment, pulling a light robe over his nakedness, and hurrying into the hallway. There he stiffened with shock. The door to his son’s room was open, and a voice was coming from inside. He went quietly as far as the door, and there he paused, halted by an instinct for danger that warned him to take the next few steps cautiously. The voice coming from inside was Megan’s, saying things that broke Daniel’s heart.

“Did you think I wasn’t coming back, darling? I know I’ve been away a long time, but I thought of you every moment. I knew we’d be together again one day. I’ve missed you so much...but now we’ve found each other at last.”

Daniel crept noiselessly into the room. Megan was sitting on the bed, smiling and talking eagerly to someone that only she could see. His first unnerving thought was that she’d lost her wits, his second was that she was trying another trick. But as he grew closer he realized that this was no trick. Daniel had seen sleepwalking before and could recognize the real thing. Megan’s eyes were open, but it was clear that she was oblivious of him. Daniel held his breath lest he make a clumsy move and awaken her abruptly. As he stood, undecided, she began talking to her son again, and Daniel listened, not to the words, but to the aching loneliness that infused them. There was a note in her voice that told him, as nothing else could, the truth about what she’d suffered in the past three years, the distracted misery of separation from a beloved child, a misery that drove out every other thought, and that he understood so well. Now she thought the separation was over, and he dreaded the moment when she must learn the truth.

“Megan.” He spoke quietly, leaning down to touch her on the shoulder. “Leave him now. Let him sleep.”

She answered without looking at him. “But he can’t sleep. He had a nightmare. I heard him calling for me. I’ve heard him so often...but it was always a dream before.” She smiled and the radiance took his breath away. “Now he’s really here at last...I want to stay with him...just a little longer—”

Daniel looked around him wildly. He must get her back to bed before she awoke to cruel reality, but he didn’t know how. Playing for time, he sat beside her and slipped an arm around her shoulders. “He needs his sleep,” he urged. “He’s just a little boy.”

She spoke wistfully. “He needs his mother. He’s been without me for so long. Perhaps he’s forgotten me.”

“Of course he won’t have forgotten you. He loves you.”

Her face lit up. “Do you think so? Do you really think so? It’s been so long. I wonder what they’ve told him.”

“Does it matter?”

“No, not really. All that matters is that Tommy and I are together again, aren’t we, darling?” She appealed to Tommy. “We’ve got so much to talk about and so much to do—all the things that we used to do together. Do you remember how we loved going to fun fairs? And we’d go on the scenic railway and you held my hand when the big dips came because I was always scared? We’re going to find the biggest fun fair in the world...and it’ll be just like old times....”

Something seemed to be grasping Daniel’s throat and making it ache, and for a moment he couldn’t see properly. And then the thing he’d feared happened. A motorbike screamed past in the road outside, making a noise loud enough to awaken the dead. A violent shudder went through Megan, and she turned to stare at Daniel with wild eyes. “It’s all right,” he said quickly. “I’m here.”

Why he should think this might comfort her was later to puzzle him, but he spoke instinctively, and he seemed to be right, for the tension left her face and she didn’t protest when he took her hand. “I don’t know this room,” she said, blinking vaguely. “How did I get here?”

“It’s my son’s room. You were walking in your sleep,” he said gently. “Come on. Let’s get you back to bed before you catch cold again.” He took hold of her shoulders, but she wouldn’t move. “Tommy...” she said desperately. “He was here—”

“Megan, he was only a dream. You were asleep.”

“You mean, he was never here at all?” she whispered. “I don’t really have him back?” She crossed her arms over her chest and bent her head, rocking back and forth in silent grief.

Her pain seemed to shiver through him unbearably. If only he could do something, anything, to make things right for her. “Come along,” he said helplessly. “Come back to bed.”

She let him draw her to her feet and lead her away. She seemed stunned. Once in her room, he urged her to sit down on the bed, lifted her feet and swung them around until he could pull the blankets over them.

“I didn’t even know I’d gone to sleep,” she said slowly. “I was thinking about Tommy...and then I heard him call me... It was so clear...but I was just hallucinating, wasn’t I?”

“Not hallucinating, dreaming,” he said. “When you want something very much, it can be so strong that it seems real.”

“Want something very much,” she echoed. “Yes, you could say I want Tommy very much. For three years I dreamed about nothing else, night and day. When I knew I was going to be freed I thought I’d see him again. I knew Brian would fight me about his custody, but I didn’t think he’d refuse to even let me see him. It’s become an obsession. I’d do anything—anything...” Her voice trailed away.

Daniel sat down beside her. “Was that what it was all about?” he asked gently.

“Yes,” she admitted wearily, “that’s what it was all about. I want him back so much I just couldn’t see anything else. You don’t have to tell me that I behaved badly—”

“I wasn’t going to—”

“I know I did. I tried to use you. You were right, I was trying to turn you into my instrument, to clear me. I didn’t think about you as a person, or your rights. I was too desperate to care what I did.”

“Would you have gone through with it?” he asked curiously.

“Yes,” she said simply.

“With me? Hating me as you do?”

For the first time she looked him in the eye. “With the devil himself if he’d help me get Tommy back,” she said. “There, now you know how wicked I can be, and you’re disgusted, and you’re probably right. I’ll be out of here tomorrow.”

“Where will you go?”

She shrugged. “Back to the boarding house, I suppose.”

Only a few hours ago he’d told himself that he’d enjoy throwing her out, but now he heard himself saying, “You can’t go back there.”

“I can’t stay here,” she said stubbornly.

He wasn’t by nature a tactful man, but somehow tact came to him now. Or perhaps it was guile. Whatever it was, it was what he needed. “But you don’t have to rush off tomorrow morning. Take a couple of days to find something.”

She didn’t answer him directly. For the first time she seemed to become aware that she was holding a small teddy bear in her hand. “How did I get this?”

“It was in my son’s room. You must have thought it was Tommy’s.”

“I’m sorry.” She gave it to him.

“Go back to sleep, Megan.”

Daniel crept out and made his way back to the room where he’d found her. He put on a small table lamp at the side of the bed, straightened the bedspread and replaced the teddy bear, adjusting its position twice before he was satisfied. When he was sure everything was as it had been, he looked around him. Normally nobody ever came here but himself. His cleaning woman had strict instructions never to enter. Megan was the first intruder since— His mind always stopped there. Since.

But she didn’t feel like an intruder. Her anguish over her son gave them a companionship in grief, even if she didn’t know about it, and he didn’t resent her presence as he would have resented anyone else’s.

He opened a drawer and took out a photograph of a little boy. He was about seven years old, with a cheeky grin, a tooth missing in the middle, and a face full of mischief. Daniel touched the glass over the picture, his fingers straining to find a way through to the child, but there was only coldness. Megan’s words echoed through his heart.

How would you know what it’s like to lose your child and think about him every moment of every day, becoming obsessed with him?

He could have told her how he knew, if only he could have found the words. But he wasn’t used to having to express his deepest feelings. With Sally, it had seldom been necessary. She’d loved him enough to understand the things he couldn’t say. But now, no words would come.

And where, in any case, were the words that would describe the little boy full of fun and devilment, yet with a heart that was kind beyond his years? How could any man describe the feel of his son’s arms around his neck, and the warmth of his childish, unsentimental love? In agony, Daniel bowed his head over the picture, pressing his lips to the cold glass again and again. But there was no returning embrace, no eager whisper of “I love you, Daddy.” And the little boy’s shining eyes stared out sightlessly.

* * *

Daniel was out when Megan got up the next morning. She made herself some breakfast and was starting to pour tea when she heard a key in the front door. Assuming it was Daniel, she stayed as she was, to finish pouring, and heard a startled gasp behind her, and a woman saying, “Oh, my Lord!”

Megan turned and saw a plump, elderly woman in a smock, her hand over her heart. “You did give me a start,” the woman said. “I thought you were a ghost.” She recovered her wits and regarded Megan with suspicion.

“Mr. Keller invited me to stay for a few days,” Megan explained. “My name is Megan Anderson.”

The woman registered only the barest flicker. Perhaps contact with Daniel had taught her not to be surprised at anything. She went on imperturbably. “I’m Gladys. Yes, I’ll have a cup if there’s one going. Three sugars, please. I need all my energy for this house.” She saw Megan looking at her inquiringly and added, “I ‘do’ for Mr. Keller. Three afternoons a week. I’ve been off looking after my sister, who’s been poorly. I told Mr. Keller I wouldn’t be back until next week, but my sister’s better now and I can’t stand that idiot she married at any price, so I popped home a bit early.” She ran out of breath.

Megan handed her a cup of well-sugared tea. “Why did you think I was a ghost?”

“That sweater, dear. It’s like one Sally had—Mrs. Keller. I often saw her standing in this kitchen in it. She used to wear it for working because it’s yellow.”

“I don’t understand....”

“Cheerful, you see. She always liked to be cheerful. She used to laugh and joke all the time. She could even make
him
smile, and that took some doing. Not a naturally cheerful man, Mr. Keller, but he’d smile and laugh for her.”

“What happened to her?”

“Died. She was out in the car with their little boy and another car just smashed into them. It was terrible. I thought he’d go mad.”

“He? You mean, Mr. Keller?”

“That’s right. They were everything to him, and all the lights went out for him when it happened. It was two days before Christmas. They had all the decorations up, and the tree, with the presents around it. There was a big box with his gift to her, all shiny wrapped. She kept begging him to tell her what was in it, and he kept teasing her, saying, ‘Wait and you’ll find out.’ Well, she never did find out, poor lass.”

Megan remembered her last Christmas of freedom, the first since the break-up of her marriage. She’d taken Tommy to visit some cousins who had five children of their own, and it had been a happy time. There had been no hint of the horror that was about to fall on them. That horror was Daniel Keller’s fault. But somehow it was impossible to hate him when she thought of him alone in this house with the tree and the presents that would never be given. “It must have made a ghastly mockery to spend Christmas here, with all those happy preparations around him,” she murmured.