Untrue Love Read online

  This is more like it, she thought to herself.

  There was no sign of her bag. Ellie trusted that it was being loaded into the baggage compartment. She briefly colored at the thought of how hard she had worked to fit everything into a single carry-on bag. This was one trip where she would not be struggling to get her luggage into the overhead compartment.

  That thought brought another in its train: I might never need to fly coach again. It was a strange idea to contemplate, like trying to imagine what it would be like to be six feet tall. And yet it was true!

  If that was what she wanted, that was. On reflection, she allowed that what Philip wanted might have something to do with it as well.

  She took one of the waiting seats and sank gratefully into the cushions. Somehow it was even more comfortable than she’d been expecting. “Yes, thank you,” she said to the champagne-bearing stewardess before the woman even had the chance to make the offer.

  The stewardess gave her a bright smile, set down the delicate flute on a retractable table in front of Ellie’s seat, and then produced a tray of mixed berries.

  Ellie took a strawberry and bit into it with a sigh, savoring the burst of sour-sweet that filled her mouth. Yes, she could definitely get used to this.

  Her purse buzzed, offering a reminder that she hadn’t set her phone to airplane mode. She pulled her iPhone from the purse and reflexively glanced at the screen.

  What she saw there made her heart twist for just a moment. The call was from Paul. Despite everything that had happened, part of her still wanted to answer it. She might actually have done so, except what did he have to say to her now? What could he ever say to her? Now that he had lied to her, she could never be sure of him again.

  “Do you need to take that call?”

  Ellie looked up to see Paul in the seat next to hers, looking at her with a patient smile. He was willing to wait for her. He would give her the time she needed.

  She held down the power button until her phone switched off. “No,” she said with a smile, and reached for another strawberry.

  The champagne sparkled in her mouth, and she savored the slow warmth of the alcohol entering her system. No, she didn’t want to talk to that man. He was in the past. Where she was now felt much better.

  73

  DESPITE ALL THE creature comforts, it wasn’t long before Ellie was wishing she had packed reading material for the trip. Her laptop was in her bag, right next to a stack of journals that she had thought to bring with her but didn’t have under her arm when she boarded the plane. In her mind she had imagined that she would spend the time in conversation with Philip, and in fact had been looking forward to getting to know him better, but he spent most of the flight absorbed in a series of telephone conversations. She could tell from his body language that something was wrong, but she didn’t ask him about it. She imagined that a man like him dealt with a hundred problems a day running his many businesses throughout the world. No doubt this was just an ordinary day for him.

  As it was she spent most of the flight looking out the window, watching the wrinkled landscape crawl slowly by beneath them. She could tell from the position of the sun that they were flying to the east. Philip still hadn’t told her their destination, and she didn’t ask. In a way it was more fun not knowing. Whatever waited on the end of this trip, she was confident that she could handle it.

  She frowned, though, as Philip came partially into view. He was up in the airplane’s galley, his phone pressed to his ear and his free hand jammed deep into his pocket. Ellie strained to hear some portion of that conversation, but it was lost beneath the roar of the jet engines.

  Finally he put his phone away and came to sit in the adjacent seat. “Is everything OK?” she asked.

  He glanced at her, distracted. “Nothing I can’t handle. I was expecting this situation, in fact, but I thought I’d have a little more time to prepare.”

  “Does it have to do with the conference?”

  He gave her a blank look, not comprehending, but then shook his head. “No. Nothing to do with that.”

  Ellie wanted to know more but she was determined to give him his privacy. It’s what she would have wanted him to do, had their roles been reversed. “Are we almost there?” she asked, not knowing what else to say and uncomfortable with the silence that was building between them.

  He gave a long sigh, as if willing himself to relax and clear his mind. “We’ll be landing soon to refuel.”

  “Wherever we’re going, I hope it’s in the U.S., because I didn’t bring my passport.” She was joking, but only a little bit. Why would they refuel on a flight east if they weren’t headed overseas? The prospect of an impromptu trip abroad was both thrilling and a little frightening. She was beginning to wonder what she was getting herself into.

  He gave her a reassuring look just as they began their descent. “I still have to keep a few secrets from you, Ellie, but not for much longer. Everything will be clear soon.”

  She didn’t find his answer very reassuring, but there seemed to be very little she could do about it, so she buckled herself in and prepared for a wait.

  As the plane descended for the landing, Ellie looked out the window at the runway of the small, private airport they were approaching and noticed a row of flashing red and blue lights along it. She stared at them in idle curiosity, wondering if they were part of the airport’s lighting system, until they were close enough to the ground that she could see that they were lights on the top of vehicles.

  “Has there been a fire or something?” she asked.

  Philip unbuckled his seat belt and stood to get a closer look. “God damn it,” he muttered under his voice.

  “What?” She couldn’t see anything out the window except for the flashing lights along the runway.

  Not answering her, he walked to a table that held a man’s leather bag and fished around inside it. When he turned back toward her, a handgun was in his hand.

  “Philip?” she asked, her stomach dropping suddenly. “What’s going on?”

  He barely gave her a glance as he walked purposefully toward the cabin. His face held the grim expression of a man on his way to the gallows, who still had some hope that he might be able to fight his way to freedom. The stewardess gave a sharp gasp when she saw the gun, but he paid no attention to her at all. He opened the door to the pilot’s compartment and pitched his voice to carry to everyone in the plane.

  “OK, this is how it’s going to go,” he said with the full authority of a man accustomed to being followed blindly and without question. “We’ll land this plane, we’ll taxi off of the runway, and then you all will do nothing. No one will attempt to exit this plane until I say it’s all right. I will very soon be deep in negotiations, and right now every one of you is a bargaining chip, nothing more. Don’t kid yourself that you’re any more important to me than that.”

  Ellie stared at him wordlessly, her mouth dry. This wasn’t happening. It couldn’t be happening. It was the sort of thing you might see in a movie or on television, but she never seriously believed that something like that could happen to her.

  “What the hell, Philip!” Her uncertainty coalesced into anger and outrage. “You’re being ridiculous!”

  He looked at her with a mirthless smile. “That’s funny. Do you know what I think is ridiculous? A woman coming to a small Midwestern university and then freaking out because it’s not New York or San Francisco. Honestly, what the hell were you thinking?”

  His mockery felt like a punch in the stomach. She fought to keep the hurt from her face. “It wasn’t too ridiculous for you to invite me on this trip.”

  He laughed. It was a terrible sound. “I wanted you in my bed. I booked a stay for the two of us at a out-of-the-way resort in a country that doesn’t bother with extradition treaties. You might even have enjoyed it.”

  Things were suddenly very clear to her. “There was no anonymous donor for the conference, was there?”

  He smirked at her. �
�Did you seriously believe that? A wealthy man has nothing better to do with his money than fund a boring academic conference? Of course there’s no donor, and if you weren’t such a narcissist you would have suspected that the first time I mentioned it to you!”

  Ellie could feel the color rush from her face. She had been such a fool. She had followed his track of crumbs because he promised her everything that she wanted. She didn’t give much thought to the way things looked from the other side—what he wanted from her.

  “So now what? You’re going to kill us?”

  He snorted in derision. “Of course I’m not going to kill you. What point would that serve? No, I’m going to strike a bargain. The police out there want to arrest me. I want enough fuel to fly to a safe place. I’m going to trade you for what I need.”

  At that moment the airplane touched down with a jolt. The moment of truth was at hand.

  74

  A THOUSAND AND one thoughts forced their way through Ellie’s mind in a moment. In flashes she saw her potential futures: abducted, brutalized, bleeding out on the floor. For just a moment her fear was displayed on her face, and in that moment she saw the corner of Philip’s mouth crook in scornful disdain.

  Two twinned thoughts entered her mind: He has contempt for me, and: That is something I can use.

  Her face crumbled. Her knees shook and she reached out a hand to catch herself from falling. “Philip, please,” she said, her voice faltering.

  He shook his head, looking away as if the sight of her disgusted him. “Get a hold of yourself. In no time you’ll be back home, and I’ll be on my way. Unless you’d rather come with me?”

  With eyes squeezed tightly shut, she held up one hand as if in supplication. “I’m afraid, Philip. Please don’t hurt me.”

  The scorn was thick in his voice. “I expected more of you, Ellie. But I suppose we all see our own true nature in the moment of greatest trial. I’ve been tested so many times over the years that something like this is nothing special. It’s one more obstacle to surmount, like all the others I’ve overcome to get to where I am. And once I’m past it, I’ll be stronger than ever.”

  Ellie’s breath came out in ragged gasps. “Let me go,” she whimpered.

  Philip was losing patience with her. “I already told you that I’ll release you when I get what I want. The police out there would like to send me to prison, but my bet is they’ll want to keep you alive even more. We’ll make a deal, and then you’ll be on your way home. Back to that boring, depressing little town. God, if there’s one good thing to come of this it’s that I never have to go back there again.”

  She stumbled toward him. “Please!”

  His gun was in his right hand, and he raised his left hand in warning. “Ellie, really. Pull yourself together.”

  “I can’t—” she said, faltering. She stumbled a few steps closer.

  “Return to your seat, Ellie.”

  “Please?” A few steps more.

  “Ellie,” he said, his voice full of menace.

  It didn’t matter. She was close enough now. She shifted her wait to her left leg and, remembering the self-defense classes she took in college, brought her right foot up with merciless force into his groin. She felt the soft flesh there flatten against the hard leather toe of her shoe.

  The breath whooshed out of his lungs in a great gasp. Philip’s face purpled, and he began to topple forward. With one great and final effort he tried to bring the handgun to bear on her, but she was waiting for that and took his wrist in her left hand, her right closing on the cold metal. She twisted the weapon free of his grasp.

  She stood over him, her head whirling and her blood singing with adrenaline. Her situation had a strange feeling of unreality, as if she was watching herself in a dream. Had she really just done that? Did she really come that close to doing something that, if it had gone wrong, would have been horribly, fatally stupid?

  Evidently she had. Her eyes locked with the stewardess’, and the two of them traded ragged chuckles. The woman hurried to the door and began the process of opening it. Ellie stood over Philip’s prone body, not knowing what else to do. She listened to his groans with a growing feeling of satisfaction.

  Finally the door was open and she felt a rush of cold, moist air from outside. She turned to see blue-clad police officers rushing inside.

  “Down! Put the gun down!” one of them shouted. “On your knees, now!”

  Ellie dutifully dropped the weapon and raised her hands in surrender. She dropped to her knees and laced her fingers behind her head, the way she’d seen it done in movies and television. She wondered whether it was a crime to be as stupid as she’d been. If so, she was definitely going to do serious time.

  One of the police officers hurried over to kick away her gun. She closed her eyes, wanting to look as submissive as possible for as long as it took for them to realize that she was not the one they should be arresting. Then she heard the very last thing she expected to hear.

  “Let her go,” Paul said, stepping into the airplane cabin. “She’s not the one we’re after.”

  Ellie stared at him incredulously as he walked slowly over to examine the still-prone body of Philip, who lay groaning on the floor.

  Paul knelt beside him. “Philip Baptiste,” he began, “you are under arrest for fraud, extortion, money laundering, and a lot of other things that I’ll bet I can think up later.” He glanced at Ellie. “Possibly kidnapping, too, but I still have to get to the bottom of that one.”

  75

  IT WASN’T LONG before Donna realized that something was amiss. She was working with an undergrad on her writing, and it was increasingly clear that the girl wasn’t paying much attention. Finally Donna put down the pen she was using to mark up the student’s draft.

  “What is it, Sally?”

  “What do you mean?” the other girl asked, pushing a blonde lock of hair behind her ear.

  “I’m here, your term paper is here, but you’re somewhere else. Where are you?”

  The girl rolled her eyes. “You don’t want to know.”

  “Maybe I don’t, but if we’re not going to talk about your bad habit of splitting infinitives and using the passive voice, we may as well talk about this other thing.”

  Sally crossed her arms across her chest, looking off to the side, then sighed. “It’s boy stuff.”

  Donna nodded. “It usually is. Are we talking about your boyfriend?”

  “Maybe. Not anymore. Probably. I don’t know.”

  Donna whistled slowly. “Four answers in one! That’s a complicated situation. How old are you, by the way?”

  “Nineteen. Why?”

  Donna smiled gently. “Because, when I was nineteen, everything in the world seemed confusing and not at all the way I wanted it to be. Is that the way it is for you?”

  The girl peered warily at her. Donna was finding herself increasingly jealous of the girl’s bright blue eyes; how could someone so pretty have any real problems? Still, she was beginning to get the idea that being beautiful was not the solution to all of life’s problems the way she might have thought it was. “I think everything would be fine,” the girl said, “if he would stop acting like such a jackass.”

  “What did he do?”

  Sally rolled her eyes. “We were at a party, and I was talking to a friend who I know from my physics class, and he saw us talking and got all jealous about it. I mean, we were just talking!”

  Donna nodded. “Does he get jealous a lot?”

  The other girl shrugged. “He didn’t used to. But now he says he doesn’t know where he stands with me.”

  “Have you told him where you stand?”

  The girl was visibly frustrated. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t know! We’ve only been seeing each other for a few months. It’s not like high school, where every boy I dated was someone I’d been going to school with for years. Joey’s sweet and everything, and we have fun together, but I don�
��t really know him yet and I’m not ready to say that I only want to spend my time with him.”

  Donna nodded. “Sounds reasonable. Does he know that you feel this way?”

  She shook her head. “No. He’s really into me, and I don’t want to hurt his feelings.”

  Donna smiled gently. “It’s sweet that you want to protect him, but do you know what really hurts? Finding out after a really long time that something you were counting on isn’t real. That’s pretty devastating. I think you and he will be a lot better off if you just level with each other.”

  The girl looked at her with a dubious expression. “You’re saying I should tell the truth.”

  Donna nodded slowly. “I’m saying that you should absolutely be concerned with his feelings and not hurting him needlessly, but not to the extent that you’re lying to him. Either in what you say or what you don’t say. Trust him with the truth. My bet is that he’ll like you even more if you do that, but either way it’s the right thing.”

  Sally still looked unconvinced. “Is this what you do? Does it work?”

  Donna smiled sheepishly. “Actually, no. I’m a big liar, and the person I lie to the most is myself. But I can tell you that it’s never worked out for me in the long run, not even a little bit. And every time I do tell the truth to someone I care about, my life gets a little better. The truth is scary, both to the person hearing it and to the person saying it, but it’s a healing thing. I really believe that.”

  Sally was looking thoughtful, and Donna couldn’t resist adding one final bit of truth-telling.

  “You’re already so pretty that it’s completely unfair, and I know that you have a kind heart. If you add ‘honest’ to that list, you’re going to be some kind of super-heroine. They’ll write songs about you.”

  Sally laughed, and shortly after they got back to the task of working on her term paper, but all the while, in the back of her mind, Donna was marveling at herself.

  Look at me, she thought, giving advice to the lovelorn! She couldn’t wait to tell Glenn about it.