“That was the day it started,” she whispered. “And it never stopped.”
He let go of her face. Her jaw hurt where he’d clenched it, but that was nothing compared to the pain in her soul.
“You aren’t to leave this room,” he said, his quiet voice throbbing in intensity. “Your meals will be delivered here. You aren’t to have any contact with the rest of the family. We will inform you what we decide.”
She waited until his footsteps retreated down the stairs before staggering to collapse on the mattress. She couldn’t help Luke anymore. All she could do now was pray.
Twenty-Eight
Sweltering heat from the laundry dragged on Luke’s energy. The rotary drums of the drying machines emitted constant waves of warm air, and the vent didn’t do a good job siphoning off the heat. It had been hot in Cuba, but it was a natural heat. There was nothing natural about the man-made heat pouring out of the laundry. It was over a hundred degrees in here, and the air barely moved. His hands were inflamed by the bleach and sweat that cracked his skin and made them sting.
To make it worse, Marianne hadn’t visited him today. So far, she’d always come in the mornings, but it was almost dinnertime and she still hadn’t appeared at the dryer vent. He’d left the laundry for thirty minutes at lunch and had asked Stillman if there’d been any sign of a visitor while he’d been gone.
“No sign of that girl, if that’s what you’re asking,” his fellow inmate said with a wink. At first Luke tried to hide Marianne’s visits, but Stillman quickly caught on. Luke had slipped him a few sticks of candy Gray brought him, and that was more than enough to keep Stillman quiet about Marianne’s visits.
Luke lifted another armful of wet sheets into the drying drum, trying to use only his forearms to spare the cracked skin on his hands. He closed the door on the drum and pulled the metal lever to start the machine into motion.
A guard entered the laundry room. “Delacroix! You’ve got a visitor in the meeting room. Hands out for the cuffs.”
Luke swiped an arm across the sweat on his face. He hated meeting Gray looking like this. His prison uniform was soaked with wash water and perspiration, but maybe the unexpected visit signaled something good. His lawyer planned to file an emergency appeal to a higher court, and maybe there was already some movement on that front.
The guard locked the handcuffs and leg-irons onto him, then led him out of the room. Luke followed, but the leg-irons made it impossible to move more than a few inches with each step. Damp strands of hair were plastered to his face, and he felt as limp as a wet rag as the guard opened the door of the meeting room. Luke shuffled forward.
Clyde Magruder stood inside. Luke immediately went on the alert. A hint of a sneer tugged at Clyde’s mouth when he saw the handcuffs and leg-irons.
“Charming,” Clyde said.
Luke recovered quickly. “It’s always a pleasure to see you, Clyde.”
Clyde glanced at the guard still standing in the doorway. “Close the door and leave us,” he ordered.
“Yes, sir,” the guard said.
Luke tried not to cringe as the locking mechanism slid into place, trapping him in this enclosed environment with his bitterest enemy.
Clyde kicked a chair a few inches and ordered him to sit.
Luke refused. “You can order the guards around, but not me.”
“Suit yourself.” Clyde sat, folded his arms across his chest, and glared. “It has come to my attention that you have been carrying on with my daughter.” He tossed a stack of photographs on the table, damning proof of the relationship.
A crushing weight settled on Luke’s chest. This was why Marianne hadn’t come today. She was in trouble and probably suffering at this very moment because of him. He wouldn’t volunteer any information, but he had to stop aggravating Clyde. This needed to be handled as carefully as a time bomb. Clyde held all the cards, and Luke could only gather information.
He pulled out the chair and sat opposite Clyde, setting his hands on the table, letting Clyde see the cuffs and his completely defenseless position.
“I know she was the source for that incendiary article you wrote,” Clyde said.
At this point Luke would normally start taunting Clyde about the article, but not today. If he aggravated Clyde, Marianne would be the one to pay. All he did was raise a brow, an invitation for Clyde to keep talking. He braced himself to endure a round of insults or slurs against his family, but when Clyde finally spoke, he said the last thing Luke had been expecting.
“I am prepared to drop all the charges against you, provided you leave the city and never see my daughter again.”
Luke drew a quick breath of air but tried not to get his hopes up. It was probably just a cruel taunt, like a cat playing with a mouse.
“I don’t believe it,” he finally managed to say. “Why would you open the prison door when you’ve got the opportunity to twist the knife even deeper?”
Clyde’s eyes narrowed. “As much as I would love to twist that knife, it would cost too much. My objective is to expunge you from my daughter’s life. I can’t do that if she harbors misplaced guilt over you.”
Luke wouldn’t trust Clyde to make him a ham sandwich. “You don’t have the power to drop the charges. The complaint against me was filed by the chairman of the Committee on Manufactures. That’s Roland Dern. Get him in here to make the promise, and I’ll consider it.”
“Absolutely not,” Clyde said. “You have already endangered my daughter’s reputation by involving her in this scandal.”
Luke leaned back in his chair. “Did I? Or am I languishing in jail because I’m protecting her? I will never do anything to hurt Marianne, and that should say something about my regard for her.”
“Take your regard and get out of town with it. My daughter is on the verge of becoming engaged to Colonel Henry Phelps, a man of valor whose good name will honor and protect her.”
It was a slap in the face, but Luke tried not to show how badly this hurt. The worst thing was that it was true. Colonel Phelps did have a sterling reputation. He was a decent, battle-tested man with no demons inside. Marianne probably would be better off with Colonel Phelps, and it sickened him.
But he would never take a payoff to turn his back on her. Marianne was the one pure thing in his life. She made him want to be a better man. She inspired him to reach higher, try harder, and seek out the better angels of his nature. He would protect Marianne, no matter what the cost to himself.
He stood, the leg-irons making a loud clank in the barren room. “No deal.”
The guard led him back to the laundry, where the heat and confinement threatened to suffocate him.
Marianne didn’t have much experience with boredom, and the hours stretched painfully in her bedroom prison. It had been two days, and Clyde made good on his threat to send all her meals upstairs and had forbidden her from mingling with the rest of the family.
Her bedroom door had no lock, but the force of Clyde’s anger was more effective than any dead bolt. She stayed in her room, but the isolation terrified her. Some people might be able to be alone, but she wasn’t one of them. She already knew what Andrew and Delia thought of her, but what did Vera think? Surely her mother had been told, but Vera made no attempt to see her, and that snub spoke with the power of a trumpet blast.