CHAPTER FOUR
Harry and Khalid were seated at the dining room table when Olivia came downstairs for breakfast. The aroma of bacon, grits, and freshly baked biscuits made her stomach gurgle. And she could eat a horse since she’d spent the early morning hours working up an appetite packing. Thinking of her plan, a tremor of apprehension ran down her spine as she paused at the dining room entrance.
“Good morning, sleepy head.” Harry smiled at her over the rim of his coffee cup. Per her usual routine and not wanting to arouse suspicion, Olivia walked into the room and gave her brother a peck on the cheek.
“Good morning,” Khalid chimed in, as if expecting the same treatment.
Olivia glanced at him. How did he succeed in looking more handsome in a mechanic’s jumpsuit than a suit? Irritated because he made her want to take his clothes off with her teeth, she gifted him with a curt nod as she walked over to the sideboard. She noticed his crestfallen expression, and smiled to herself.
“Khalid and I were thinking you were going to sleep in.”
“Why would you think that?” Olivia ladled three spoonfuls of sausage gravy over her biscuits. Meredith’s recipe had been passed down for three generations and was so good Olivia could practically eat it by itself.
“You had a late night,” Khalid supplied.
Thankfully, Olivia had taken her seat because her knees buckled. “And how would you know that?” she asked, relieved she didn’t sound as terrified as she felt.
“Last night I went downstairs to have a smoke and I noticed your bedroom light was still on.”
Relieved he didn’t disclose the details of their clandestine encounter, Olivia’s fear and anxiety evaporated. “You just let the cat out of the bag, Khalid. I spent the night packing,” she lied.
“Packing?” With a concerned expression, Harry set his coffee cup down.
Mired in guilt, Olivia couldn’t meet her brother’s gaze. She’d meant to break the news to him on his way out the door.
“All of your reminiscing last night had me yearning for my friends,” Olivia lied again. “Before retiring last night, I called up a former classmate to see if her invitation to come visit was still open.”
Afraid he would see right through her ruse, Olivia refused to look at Khalid. “I’m not sure if you remember my former lab-partner, Clarisse Thompson. She’s been begging me to come to Washington D.C. for a visit. While I’m there, I?ah?I thought I’d also see Nathaniel.”
Harry’s expression turned stormy at the mention of her college sweetheart, Nathaniel Musgrove, and with good reason. On the eve of their graduation, Nathaniel had proposed to her. Traditional in mindset, he’d wanted Olivia to move with him to Washington, D.C., throw aside her degree and be a housewife. After four years of nursing school and brought up to be self-sufficient, his plan didn’t sit to well with her or Harry, who’d footed the bill.
Several excruciating seconds passed and then Harry said, “If anyone deserves a break it’s you, baby girl. Go have fun, hang out with your friends, but make sure you send me a postcard.” He reached out and tweaked her arm.
Harry took a sip of his coffee and Olivia sat back relieved. He’d brought her charade hook, line, and sinker.
“So?when are you leaving?” he asked.
“This afternoon on the six-thirty train out of Grand Central Station.”
“Why so soon?”
Olivia smiled reassuringly as she patted his hand. “The quicker I leave, the sooner I’ll return.”
“I need to get to the track.” Khalid threw down his napkin and stood, drawing Harry’s regard and in spite of her best efforts to ignore him, hers as well. “We have morning inspections.” He hesitated a moment, his gaze locked with hers. “If I do not see you again, Olivia, I wish you well.”
“Thank you, Mr. Du?s.” Olivia noted the ardent tick in his jaw and realized her deceit had worked all too well. So why did she feel so darn guilty?
***
“Your train is leaving from track seventeen.” The clerk handed Olivia her boarding pass. “It’s on the far end of the main concourse. Take the stairs to your left, go down another flight and all the platforms are numbered.”
Olivia slid her ticket inside her handbag. She picked up the half steamer trunk she’d packed in the wee hours of the morning and set off. Her train to Washington D.C. would arrive within the hour.
Currently undergoing renovations, Grand Central Station was a beehive of activity filled with travelers, local commuters, and construction workers. A native New Yorker, the press of the crowd and the rush hour chaos didn’t faze Olivia one bit. She navigated her way through the main concourse and made her way downstairs.
With time to kill and not wanting to arrive empty-handed, she slipped into Collingsworth, a confectioners shop known for selling salt water taffy. After perusing a few shelves, she decided against the obvious and chose two boxes of Belle Mead Sweets’ caramels.
“Good choice,” the clerk said. “They’re our most popular specialty candy to d—”
“Paging Olivia Bryant…Paging Olivia Bryant…please come to the ticket booth.”
Olivia frowned. Why would anyone be paging her? Maybe they’d given her the wrong change, but she quickly discounted the notion. She didn’t give the ticket clerk her name or any form of identification.
Somewhat frazzled by the unexpected turn of events, she exited Collingsworth, retraced her steps, and headed back upstairs, leaving her housewarming gifts behind.
The ticket lines in the main terminal had grown exponentially, and the clerk who’d issued her boarding pass was busy with another traveler, so Olivia walked up to the first available window. “Hello, I’m Olivia Bryant. I just received a page to come back to the ticket office.”
The agent peered at her over a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. “Do you see that man over there in the navy pinstriped suit and white carnation in his lapel?” The clerk pointed to a nondescript fellow standing beside a circular booth in the center of the terminal. “He had you paged. Said it was a family emergency.”
Having lost both of her parents as a child and with Harry being her only immediate family remaining, Olivia hurried over.
“Is my brother okay?” she asked, cutting to the chase. If anything happened to Harry, Olivia didn’t know what she would do. For almost a decade, it had been just the two of them. Her mother died shortly after delivering Olivia and her father succumbed to tuberculosis before her thirteenth birthday. Ever since, Harry had filled the role of both father and mother, and she’d wanted for nothing.
“Are you Olivia Bryant?” The man asked.
Caught off guard by the man’s French accent, she nodded.
“Your brother, Dr. Harry Bryant, has been taken to the hospital. I was sent to retrieve you.” Stepping forward, the man took her trunk in one hand, her arm in the other, and steered her toward the Forty-Second Street exit.
“W-what happened?” Olivia asked, trying to keep up with the man’s long stride and hold back tears at the same time.
“I only know that he’s taken ill and been taken to Presbyterian General Hospital,” her escort replied, without slowing down or looking in her direction. Staring straight ahead, he seemed more intent on completing his mission than her actual welfare.
Upon exiting the station, he hustled her across the sidewalk to a waiting sedan. “I have a car. It will be faster than taking public transportation,” he offered, while opening the passenger door.
A deep shade of maroon, immaculate and sporting white-walled tires, the car looked expensive. Harry was a physician, but there were very few people in their circle of friends who had the means to afford such a vehicle.
Apprehensive, Olivia hung back. She’d seen her brother less than six hours ago and he’d been healthy as an ox. How could he have taken ill so quickly? Well-versed in medicine and graduating at the top of her nursing class, Olivia knew of very few ailments that could run their course so quickly.
“How do you know my brother?”
To his credit, the man’s expression remained impassive. Still, it did nothing to relieve Olivia’s uneasiness.
“I work for Khalid Francois Du?s. I’m his butler, Eugene Martae. After this morning’s trials, he returned to your home and was met by your distraught housekeeper. Meredith, I believe was her name. Khalid accompanied her to the hospital and dispatched me to retrieve you.”
“Khalid sent you?”
The man nodded stiffly.
“You should have mentioned Khalid’s name from the beginning,” Olivia gushed as she climbed into the car. As his name rolled over her tongue, an odd giddiness washed over her. “I would have—”
A handkerchief suddenly covered her mouth, cutting off her oxygen. Struggling for breath, Olivia tried to scream. Her lungs exploded with fire from the chemical fumes. Bleach mixed with isopropyl alcohol, the household cleaning agent became chloroform. Panicking, Olivia clawed at the door handle.
“Shhh…” the man cooed. His arms wrapped around her, trapping her. “Don’t fight it. It’ll be better for the both of us.”
What did he mean by for the both of them? Would he get in trouble if something happened to her?
Olivia blinked. It was an effort to lift her eyelids or focus. Disoriented and needing something solid to hold onto, she reached out for the front seat but came up empty.
She blinked again. Unable to keep her eyes open she lost consciousness.
***
Olivia wasn’t sure how long she’d been unconscious or how long they’d been out to sea. Her only contact so far had been with a spry, little man dressed in Middle-Eastern garb. During the early days of her journey, Olivia had peppered him with questions, all of which were met with silence.
Waiting and wondering about her future had become debilitating. Any kind of break from the monotony of waking up on a boat in the middle of nowhere and not being able to get any answers to where she was being taken would’ve been a relief. She’d even begun to wonder what happened to her abductor.
Maybe that was Khalid’s plan. Starve her for communication with another person so she would be hungry for any and all interaction, including his own.
They’d even taken her half-steamer trunk and replaced her clothes with loose-fitting silk caftans and matching slippers. Good thing because they were traveling south. As the days multiplied, the weather grew hotter.
At least her accommodations were luxurious. She had a walnut wood four-poster bed fitted with a soft mattress, silk sheets, and dozens of pillows. Two walls contained ceiling-to-floor shelves filled with books covering every imaginable genre, particularly medicine, and a large porthole which kept the cabin ventilated. They even heated warm water for her daily so she could take a bath in the claw-footed tub sitting in the corner.
All things considered, Olivia had all the comforts of home. And yet, she hated her gilded cage as much as she despised her jailer. As the days passed, Olivia tried to wrap her head around the reasons why Khalid took her from everything she knew. And her heart ached thinking about how worried her brother would be when she didn’t return from her visit as expected. And she became more restless. So much so, that when she spotted land, she couldn’t wait to disembark.
Through the cabin’s porthole, Olivia watched the boat maneuver toward its berth, while checking out the town in the distance. Even from afar, the colonial influence was evident in the wide streets lined with pastel-colored plantation-style homes with flat roofs and wrought iron balconies.
Had they sailed to the Caribbean? Olivia’s heart filled with hope. She had several classmates from the islands and even a former roommate from Cura?ao.
As the boat docked, longshoremen scurried about making preparations, while others stood idly by. Struck by their dress, long robes and turbans, Olivia’s hope immediately waned. She’d aced all of her geography and history courses and she knew without a doubt they hadn’t landed in the Caribbean, but somewhere in North Africa or the Middle East.
Hours passed without anyone coming for her. The wait, like the voyage, wore on her nerves. To be this close to finally learning the truth and having another delay was just too much. She would almost be happy to see Khalid right now if he could put an end to this interminable uncertainty.
It wasn’t until after sunset when her attendant finally came for her. He carried a tray of food and clothes draped over one arm. Olivia ignored the tray. The thought of eating anything made her physically ill. Instead, she followed him over to the bed and watched him lay out the garment.
Nondescript and made of black cloth, there were only two pieces. Like her other clothes, the main garment was a long caftan which would cover her entire body. The other was a headdress that when placed on her head concealed everything but her eyes.
So Khalid wanted her presence to remain a secret? Olivia took no comfort in the added precaution. Even a thousand miles away, he knew Harry would be looking for her. Bastard! Considering what he’d done to her, he had more to fear than just her brother.
Once dressed, Olivia followed her escort from the cabin and up a narrow flight of steps to the upper deck. Several deck hands stopped working and looked at them with shocked expressions. They obviously had no idea there had been a woman on board.
Olivia ignored them. She tipped her head back and inhaled. She even lifted the hem of her robe and allowed a cool breeze to tickle her toes. She was so happy to be out of that sardine can she felt giddy.
“Ta-aal,” her escort implored, moving toward the gang plank.
For the first time since her release, Olivia hesitated. After enduring weeks of solitary confinement, she still wasn’t quite sure she was ready to face Khalid. Would he repay her rejection with rape? Olivia gulped down the fear clawing at the back of her throat.
“Get a grip,” she chastised herself and then took a deep, calming breath. She’d never been a coward and she wasn’t going to turn yellow-bellied now.
From here on out, she would fight Khalid tooth and nail until he’d became so fed up with her he’d ship her back to her brother. She’d thwarted his advances before, and she’d do so again.
Shoulders back and armed with renewed determination, Olivia followed her escort to the fate which awaited her ashore.