Holding her breath, the moments seemed like hours as Anne-Claire waited and listened for sounds that the caped horseman was following her. She flinched when she heard his muffled and inquisitive voice drift into her hiding place, ready to retreat further into her dark world should the threat increase.
“Mademoiselle, are you dressed modestly now so I can direct a proper conversation appropriately towards you and determine the extent of your behaviour? It would not surprise me to hear your confession that a member of the Savoie clan had abducted you and left you in such a despicable circumstance...!”
Anne-Claire took small, quiet breaths listening to the man babble on, understanding nothing of his impassioned rant.
“Mademoiselle...? Mademoiselle...?!”
She heard a frustrated huff as the man searched around to find her, clattering over the pebbly shoreline and disturbing the water with his crunching boots. At one stage, the pounding feet came close to the tunnel entrance, forcing Anne-Claire to scurry backwards into the gathering darkness; yet just as quickly as the man approached, the clambering boots thudded away. The disturbing game quickly descended into an uneasy silence and left Anne-Claire desperate to understand what was happening above her.
The man’s intention became clear when she heard an annoyed, ‘HAH!’ and then the unmistakable sound of speeding horse’s hooves clattering on cobblestones and becoming quieter as the rider hastily rode away.
Anne-Claire exhaled noisily and shuddered, trying to make sense of what she had just witnessed, discounting the incredulous game the stranger played. It all seemed so real, but it couldn’t be. After what she had seen outside and the strange man’s behaviour, a preposterous idea formed in her head but she immediately dismissed it, thinking she was going crazy. She closed her eyes, feeling secure in the confined squeeze of the cold stone tunnel wall and willing the strange dream to end when she reopened her eyes again. But the long moments with her eyes closed drifted into an exhausted haze and tiredness took its toll, making it almost impossible to pry open her uncooperative lids and soon, with her body demanding rest, she drifted off into an exhausted sleep instead of waking from the confusing dream.
A chill trifled with her skin and she shivered as the cold shook her from a fatigued nap. By the time she recognised the cold rock passage pressing into her back, it was completely dark outside and the temperature was dropping fast. Anne-Claire felt something soft in her hands and remembered the caped avenger who for some reason thought she was bathing in her underwear and wanted to cover her shame with his cloak, thus preventing her embarrassment and the reason she now held onto his garment. The whole experience wasn’t making any sense, but the velvet cape bore undeniable evidence of the charade and the confrontation with the weird stranger. She decided to wrap the soft cape around her and stay close to the entrance while she spent the night in the tunnel, hoping the morning would bring some answers to the vexing situation.
It didn’t take long for the warmth and security of the cape to close in on her and her eyes began to droop closed from exhaustion again, falling deeply asleep. In her dreams, she heard the sounds of a heavy door creak open and then a menacing voice calling into the darkness, “Your supper, my lady!” and then a booming sound as the door slammed shut, reverberating up and down the passageway.
Anne-Claire’s eye sprung open, shaken from the deep sleep and confused in the darkness. Her heart pounded with fear, finding it difficult to reason fact from fiction in her new environment and left her wondering what had disturbed her sleep.
*~*~*~*
Chapter 35
Cicadas chirruped in an unorchestrated choir as the balmy stillness of a late Mediterranean night closed in around his prostrate and sleepless figure. Shifting uncomfortably and rolling his tall physique on the lumpy mattress, his feet protruded from the small bed frame, too short to contain his full length. The small cottage bumped and groaned, settling in the thickening humid air after an exhausting day shading its occupants from the baking sun. Now as the deepest part of the night rapidly approached, its secure walls, always on sentry duty to protect its dependent residents, prevented intruders from gaining access to those trusting its gallant defences.
Still suffering from the pitching deck of his father’s floating palace and even after many hours back on land, Philippe’s body swayed uncomfortably as he lay in the motionless bed. A tingle excited his memory and shot uncontrollably throughout his body, remembering the brown eyed beauty who had so shamelessly flaunted herself at Philippe, pretending to have tripped and fallen into his arms. Leaning against him, she'd felt soft and enticingly magnetic, pleasing to look at and sweetly scented, taking every ounce of courage and will to tear himself from her seductive presence, knowing his father was behind her actions and using the temptress, enticing him to fall.
Trying to forget the incident with the voluptuous siren and turning his head to face a slender open window pane, Philippe gawked up at the moonless sky and watched the starlight silhouetting against the flying insects busily entering and leaving through the unscreened open space. The stifling, breathless night allowed the insects to navigate his room unperturbed, with ravenous female mosquitoes following the exhaled carbon dioxide from his breath to its source and droning around his ears and nose, ready to take advantage of any unguarded and exposed flesh. A hubbub of warning disturbed the air around his face and as a protective mechanism, Philippe pulled the thin frayed blanket covering his body up over his face, denying the attacking mosquitoes a host to draw much needed blood from. One thing the poor and wealthy shared alike: mosquitoes could inflict any number of life-threatening blood-borne diseases. Even in the prosperity of his father’s estate, unprotected flesh was a target regardless whether blue or red blood flowed within its veins.
Philippe drew in heavy breaths under the frayed blanket, trying to protect his head from the needle-like onslaught and as the blanket filtered the night air, its tattered threads released the faintest hint of a pleasing gentle scent. He recognised Petrisce’s soft perfume immediately, letting his mind unguardedly drift over Anton’s beautiful daughter and realising she had at some stage adorned her own body with the tired coverlet. Risking an attack of swarming insects, Philippe lowered the blanket from his face and stared at the roof above him. Just the thin wooden ceiling separated his room from hers.
Prompted by the siren’s unabashed flirting onboard his father’s boat, Philippe allowed his wildly wandering imagination to take him to dark places of unrestrained desire. But suddenly feeling convicted and ashamed of his musings, Philippe began to pray for Anton and Petrisce, confessing inappropriate thoughts, asking God to strengthen him and bless the two people who had so generously rescued him from his father’s lurid plans.
Trying to block the beguiling temptation, he concentrated on the young woman’s conduct, looking for a fault in her character that would lead him to understanding the inappropriate ruminations and maybe give a hint to the attraction he was feeling for her. But after examining himself and Petrisce’s integrity, he found no fault in her reputation. It seemed her actions were always guarded around Philippe and she hadn’t given him a reason for the betrayal his mind had so easily drifted into. She made sure her father was always in the room when Philippe was home and she kept her appearance indelibly modest but flawless. Her softly spoken persona seemed direct, but wise, and when she did speak her thoughts were upright and worthy to be heard.
As he examined the evidence, Philippe began to chide himself, believing his father’s attempts to corrupt his mind were at fault and quickly came to the conclusion he was way off beam, determining to restrain the unworthy thoughts and offer his hosts the respect his God would rightly require of him. Philippe remembered hearing Petrisce humming a hymn before she went to her room and the unmistakable sounds of the young woman’s voice by her bed, petitioning her God with prayers just before he saw the light between the cracks in the ceiling boards disintegrate into darkness as she settled onto her mattress for th
e night.
Respectfully averting his stare from the young woman’s room directly above him, Philippe rolled over, intent on finding sleep but an immediate annoying buzz hounded his objective and he pulled the tattered blanket over his face, trying to ignore the subtle allure of Petrisce’s scent.
*~*~*~*
A pounding knock at Philippe’s door drew him from the depths of disturbed sleep and into the bright light of a new day.
“Philippe...! Time to unsaddle your bed. We have work to do and it appears Petrisce has the breakfast already made!” Anton’s directness beckoned through the closed door, leaving no doubt where Petrisce had learned the art form.
Pulling open the door to his room, Philippe witnessed father and daughter’s affectionate morning salutation followed by a hug. Then dragging himself from the room and after greeting Anton with a sleepy, "Bonjour," his guilty eyes locked onto Petrisce’s and offered a culpable, "Bonjour, Mademoiselle."
She responded with a coy, "Bonjour, Monsieur," before looking away and continuing on with her busy morning routine.
“I see Monsieur Rousseau’s philanthropic boat ride has not agreed with you, Philippe,” Anton noticed the dark rings around Philippe’s tired eyes.
Flushing red like a naughty schoolboy and before answering Anton’s question, Philippe stole an awkward glance at Petrisce, feeling as if last night’s shameful thoughts were still on show and somehow written across his face. “You are right, Anton; I told you I wasn’t much of a sailor and I don’t think I slept at all last night,” Philippe offered tiredly.
“I don’t think I would have slept at all last night either, after that woman’s obvious and shameful attempts at flirting with you,” Anton smirked, and Petrisce turned to face Philippe with a strange expression.
“Are you a ladies’ man, Monsieur de la Calle?” Petrisce’s question was direct and to the point while her gaze seemed almost stern, but she softened as if she had deliberately restrained her feelings, trying to hide an unwanted telling expression.
Philippe’s guilty eyes held her enquiring hazel stare for a few seconds before he lost his nerve and looked away, more than sure she was searching the troubled hallways of his mind. “No, not at all, Mademoiselle. I have no idea who she was or why she did what she did. She must have mistaken me for someone else.”
“Hmmm...!” Petrisce’s haunting hazel glare held his fleeting glance for a few seconds, searching for signs of treachery and mulling over his reply before turning back to her chores. “I have to go to the markets in Nice today, Father; I will need some money to buy food and my train pass will expire at the end of this month. Should I renew it today as well?” Petrisce asked, recovering quickly from Philippe’s defensive and embarrassed expression.
Anton reached into his pocket and drew out his money purse and placed a fifty euro note on the table. “I have fifty euro until I am paid. Can you stall buying another rail pass until then, chaton?”
Petrisce leaned over the table and kissed her father’s head. “Of course, Papa,” then turning her attention to Philippe, “Is there anything I can get you while I am shopping today, Monsieur de la Calle?” Petrisce smiled softly, stunning Philippe with her splendidly clear hazel eyes and perfect white teeth.
Philippe stuttered, wondering whether the beauty was searching his culpability and the polluted path his mind had recently taken, unwittingly challenging her integrity and calling her moral fibre into question with no evidence other than his scandalous fantasy. “N...no, thank you, Mademoiselle. I, too, must wait for payday before I can add to the housekeeping.”
Petrisce smiled again, obviously entertaining another thought. “I can see from the kindness in your eyes, Monsieur de la Calle, that you are trustworthy and a man of integrity. My father is also a trusting man and has often brought home people needing help, but sometimes these people become confused and try to take possession of more than just Father’s kindness.”
Petrisce left no doubt in Philippe’s mind she had seen into his muddy soul and was firmly setting her boundaries.
*~*~*~*
Chapter 36
Sergeant Bob Maxwell’s generous frame overflowed and taxed the police-issue office chair to its physical limits, groaning under the supersized policeman’s substantial physique while his red-dust-stained booted feet rested tiredly on Birdsville’s Police Station’s front desk. It had been a long day, but every indicator pointed to it being even longer still, and with every passing hour the possibility of the situation ending amicably disintegrated further. Communications into the remote police outpost had slowed considerably and trickled into silence, leaving the monotonous hours dragging by in a constant tedious line-up. There was still no word from Bob’s good friend, Butch and although Mishy, his frantic wife was keeping up a positive front for her children, Bob knew she was suffering terribly under the weight of not knowing the whereabouts and condition of her missing husband.
Bob’s mind drifted back to the conversation and warning he’d given Butch earlier this same morning, not realising his words—and the prophesied pain Mishy was suffering—would come to pass only hours later. An angry rasp bubbled up in the hulking policeman, but the trouble was directed at himself and not at Butch. If only he’d insisted Butch rethink his plan, the day would have finished quite differently.
A distraction outside the station’s walls pulled the police sergeant from the negative and defeated if only mindset; he had to remain positive and professionally detached just in case the situation turned down a street he wasn’t expecting. Diverting his tired eyes to the exposed front window, desert insects buzzed and collided against the glass, attracted to the light inside, an unusual event for the isolated police station. The small police annex located near the Queensland, Northern Territory and South Australia borders rarely, if ever, blazed its lights into the night. However, tonight things were anything but normal and Bob had a sick, gnawing feeling a close family tragedy was in progress and he was powerless to intervene.
Bored and frustrated with the lack of information and the pace of the rescue effort, he concentrated on the crazy disturbed flight of crashing insects instead, searching for the pleasing illusion of light but finding a solid barrier to their quest. Bob sighed at the fruitlessness of their mission, banging their heads against the glass and feeling an affinity with their futile attempts, wondering whether the countless hours of stress was taking its toll on his anxious wits. In an attempt to regain perspective and looking for something to distract his troubled mind, he drained the last cold dregs from an oversized coffee mug then wearily glanced up at the police station clock standing guard over the entry door and noticed Michelle Slater was overdue with her latest half-hourly midnight check-in call. It was another worrying development, but he decided to give her a couple more minutes before he took the initiative and instigated a check, if for nothing else but to satisfy his own curiosity and make sure she had just overlooked the time, instead of facing a further crisis.
The wily policeman pushed against the desk with his feet, scraping complaining castors across the linoleum floor and struggled arthritically to his feet, hobbling around until the blood flow re-established restricted pathways and chased away stinging pins and needles, finally allowing his numb appendages to support his substantial frame. Bob sighed, limping around the tiny space and recalled the official police bulletin that had turned his tame and dull desert beat into a city-like crime scene. After numerous recent shootings around his jurisdiction, Bob Maxwell and the small police station were on high alert for another suspected homicide.
Closer to home this time, Bob’s good friend, Butch Slater was now almost eight hours overdue from a work trip with Mishy, Butch’s wife in hysterics after raising the alarm. Bob remembered the frenetic pain in her panic-stricken voice, taking a substantial amount of effort to calm her down. If it wasn’t for the maniac running around the outback taking potshots at cattle station people, Bob would have adopted a less serious approach, assuring Mishy Butch’s
vehicle had simply broken down. Yet the lack of communication with Butch indicated something was seriously wrong and Bob was sure Mishy understood that too, with a simple breakdown appearing too remote to be a feasible explanation.
Pearl Springs was an hour and a half from their closest neighbours and at least six hours by road from police intervention, leaving the four women alone and unprotected. Knowing the killer's ruthless strategy, sizing up his victims and then waiting hours for the perfect shot, Bob wasn’t taking any chances with the girls' safety, mentally preparing Mishy for the worst and grooming her to use Butch’s guns if she needed to. Although police communications had contacted the special tactical forces combing the substantial outback and searching for the suspect, they were hours away from Bella Creek; and the only available helicopter equipped with night vision had to come from Amberley Airbase near Brisbane, and that was hours away, too.
The only bright spot on a dark horizon: Don Clarkson’s head stockman and a cattle hand were searching the back roads between Valerie Downs and Bella Creek looking for Butch, and by now they should have made contact with the situation and at least someone would know the harrowing outcome. Bob shuffled uneasily, aware the search party didn’t have a working VHF radio, leaving Jackson Reynolds and Troy Anderson vulnerable to another sniper attack and possibly a similar fate to Butch.