The Columbus Affair: A Novel

CHAPTER TWO

ALLE BECKET LAY ON THE BED, ARMS AND FEET TIED TO THE RAILS. A strip of tape sealed her mouth, which forced her to breathe rapidly through her nose. The small room was dark and unnerved her.

Calm down, she told herself.

Her thoughts centered on her father.

Thomas Peter Sagan.

Their last names were different thanks to a marriage she’d tried three years ago, just after her grandfather, Abiram, had died. Bad idea all the way around, especially when her new husband decided that a ring on his finger entitled him to carte blanche use of her credit cards. The marriage had lasted ninety days. The divorce took another thirty. Paying off those balances required two years.

But she’d done it.

Her mother taught her that owing people was not a good thing. She liked to think that her mother had provided her with character. God knows it had not come from her father. Her memories of him were terrible. She was twenty-five years old and could not remember a single time the man had ever said he loved her.

“Why did you marry him?”

“We were young, Alle, and in love, and we had many good years together before the bad ones came. It was a secure life.”

Not until her own marriage had she understood the value of security. Utter turmoil was a better description for that short union. All she took away was the last name, because anything was better than Sagan. Simply hearing it turned her stomach. If she was going to be reminded of failure, at least let it be of an ex-husband who had, on occasion—especially during those six days in the Turks and Caicos—provided lasting memories.

She tested the restraints holding her arms. Her muscles ached. She worked out the kinks and readjusted herself. An open window allowed cool air inside, but sweat beaded her brow and the back of her shirt was damp against the bare mattress. The few lingering smells were not pleasant, and she wondered who else had lain here before her.

She did not like the feeling of helplessness her predicament provided.

So she forced her mind back to her mother, a loving woman who’d doted on her and made sure she’d earned the grades necessary to make it into Brown University, then graduate school. History had always been a passion, especially post-Columbus America, the time between 1492 and 1800, when Europe forced the Old World onto the New.

Her mother had also personally excelled, recovering from the hurt of the divorce and finding a new husband. He’d been an orthopedic surgeon, a loving man who’d cared for them both, 180 degrees away from her father.

That marriage had been a success.

But two years ago a careless driver with a suspended license ran a stop sign and ended her mother’s life.

She missed her terribly.

The funeral remained vivid in her mind, thanks to her father’s unexpected appearance.

“Get out. She wouldn’t want you here,” she told him loudly enough for the mourners to hear.

“I came to say goodbye.”

“You did that long ago when you wrote us both off.”

“You have no idea what I did.”

“You only get one chance to raise your child. To be a husband. A father. You blew yours. Leave.”

She recalled his face. The blank expression that revealed little about what lay beneath. As a youngster she’d always wondered what he thought.

Not anymore. What did it matter?

She tugged again at the restraints.

Actually, it might matter a great deal.