"Wait a minute," Mildred said, directing her words toward Remington's mother. "Your late husband's sister isn't named Roselli. I would have noticed that in the report."
"Peter Roselli was Marge's first husband. He was a policeman in New York and was killed in the line of duty when Antony was- six, suppose. Marge remarried a few years later."
"Oh," Mildred said.
Watching Eileen closely, Remington asked, "When did you last see Antony?"
"A week ago," she admitted. "No, two. It was just before I found those papers in Father's things. I'd been so busy trying to take care of things after Father's death that I'd only just seen the news reports about Daniel- Antony came to see me, said he was on a very hush-hush assignment and I wasn't to tell anyone he had been there."
"Antony was the agent who Daniel's death helped to clear," Remington informed her. The newspapers hadn't given the agent's name. "Let me guess: It was he who suggested that you contact Daniel Chalmers' old friend Remington Steele to help you find your son," Remington surmised.
Eileen nodded slowly. "I'm afraid so. I showed him the brief interview you had done, and he suggested that I come here. I take it that you and he aren't friends?"
"You- might say that," Remington confirmed dryly.
"Friends?" Mildred said with a derogatory snort. "Not likely. That rat tried to prove that Mr and Mrs. Steele's marriage was a fraud so Mr. Steele would have to help him- nearly got Mr. Steele killed-"
"Mildred," Remington said, cutting off the woman's story, "let's not bore her with the details, shall we? I think our first order of business should be to find out where he's taken Laura."
"I'll get right on it, Mr. Steele," Mildred promised, leaving the office to go to her desk.
Eileen sighed. "I feel responsible for all of this, Remington."
"You couldn't have known that he was using you."
"No- but why IS he using me? Why would Antony kidnap Laura?"
Tony turned the car onto the narrow road, slowing its speed on the graveled surface. "We're almost there," he told Laura, glancing to where she sat beside the passenger door.
"You realize that I won't stay here, Tony. The first chance I get, I'll leave."
"I'm just asking for a few days, Laura," he said. "Besides, Steele's gonna be too busy renewing his acquaintance with his mother to miss you very much, don't you think?"
Laura's eyes widened at his words. "How did you know about that?" she wanted to know. Seeing his smug smile, Laura frowned. "You sent her to him, didn't you? Who is she really?"
"Oh, she's really Steele's mother, alright. You don't think I'd risk sending a ringer in, do you?" He shook his head. "Too easy for you to check out her story. Nope, Eileen's the real McCoy."
"How did you find her?"
"You're not gonna believe this, but I've known Eileen since I was a kid. She married my uncle."
"Edward Mitchell was your uncle?"
"Yeah. It was just luck that I stopped in to see her before I left Dublin. Once the police let me go, I went to Ashford, hoping to talk to you. But you and Steele had already left to come back here." Laura remembered her haste to leave the castle, and Remington's attempts to convince her to stay on for a few days. But she had known that Tony would come back there once he was able, and she had wanted to be gone by then. "The authorities wanted me to stay in Dublin for a few more days. I saw a newspaper report about Michael O'Casey's death. But when I got there, Eileen was upset over having seen Chalmers' picture in the paper. I was there when she opened her father's safe and found the adoption records. That's when she told me about her son- and that Chalmers had been the father- Harrison Daniels. I just put two and two together and came up with the possibility that Steele was that long lost son that Eileen wanted to find."
"So you sent her here to distract Remington," Laura finished.
"I see you're calling him Remington now instead of Mr Steele," Tony noted as the car came into a small clearing near a lake. A log cabin sat in the middle of the glade, waiting.
"It's customary for married people to call each other by their first names," Laura reminded him.
Tony stopped the car. "It's a long walk back to Los Angeles, Laura," he told her. "Will you give me a week? Seven days, that's all I ask."
"Tony- I love Remington," she began, only to jump as Tony brought a fist down on the steering wheel.
"Don't say that! You only think you love him because you haven't given me a chance." He made sure that she saw him take the keys from the ignition, then opened his door. "Let's go inside the cabin." He got out of the car and closed his door.
Laura remained where she was, so Tony walked around to the passenger door and opened it. "Take me back to Los Angeles, Tony. If you don't, you're looking at a kidnapping charge. IF Remington doesn't kill you before the authorities get to you."
"He's gotta find me, first," Tony reminded her, grabbing her arm and pulling her out of the car. "Let's go. It's getting late. And there have been reports of wolves out here after dark."
Unwillingly, Laura's eyes scanned the dark woods at the edge of the clearing for any sign of wildlife as she pulled her arm from his hold and headed toward the cabin.
Jimmy Jarvis watched as the cab was searched for a third time. After Steele's last call, saying that he believed the man they were looking was Anthony Roselli, and that Roselli probably had Laura with him, Jarvis had come down to the garage to oversee the search personally. There had been too many fingerprints to get a good match on many of them, but one partial had matched Laura Holt Steele's prints.
Hearing voices at the entrance to the garage, Jarvis looked up to see Remington Steele approaching. "Steele."
"Anything, Jarvis?"
"Nothing concrete- except that Laura was in the cab." He lifted the evidence bag. "A partial print. She was in the back seat- we lifted this off the left side window. You think this Roselli character wants to hurt her?"
"I don't think so. He thinks he's in love with Laura."
Jarvis concentrated on the search as he thought that being in love with Laura seemed a common problem. If he hadn't been a happily married man, he might have tried to give Steele a run for his money at one time. A quick glance in Steele's direction blew that little fantasy out of the water, however. No way Laura would have ever preferred Jimmy Jarvis to HIM.
"Got something, Lieutenant," one of the men said, slipping a piece of paper into a plastic bag and carrying it over. "Found it stuffed up under the front seat."
Jarvis took the bag and showed the paper to Steele, who nodded. "It's Laura's handwriting," he confirmed, looking at the brief note.
"Tony." And then a number.
"Looks like an automobile license number, doesn't it?" Steele suggested.
"Davis!" Jarvis called, and an officer came on the run. "Check out this license number. And light a fire under the DMV."
"Yes sir," Davis said, taking the plastic bag.
"Anything else, Cohen?" Jarvis asked the man in charge of searching the cab.
"Not that we can find."
"Let's go up to my office and wait," Jarvis said to Steele. "Shouldn't take long to get a response on that plate number."
Laura pushed the plate Tony set before her away. "You're not hungry?" he asked.
"No."
"You need to eat," he told her.
"Are you going to force feed me as well?" she asked in an angry tone of voice. "I need to go to the bathroom."
"That door over there," Tony told her, pointing with his knife.
Laura rose from the table. "Thank you."
"Just so you don't waste time trying, the window in there is too small even for you to get out of."
Laura paused for only a second, then continued toward the door he had indicated. She had been surprised by the size of the cabin's interior. A spacious living area/kitchen/dining room made up the lower floor, with stairs leading up to what Tony had informed her were two bedrooms and a second bath. "Belongs to an old friend who owed me a favor. Told him I needed to get away for awhile, figure out what I'm gonna do with my life."
"I think the authorities are going to decide that for you," Laura had said as he had moved around the kitchen, preparing a quick meal from tin cans.
"Not if you decide not to press charges," Tony had replied.
Now, Laura stood in the tiny bathroom and realized that he hadn't been lying about the window. It was indeed too small for her to get through and make her escape. "Laura?" a tap on the wood caused her to whirl and stare at the knob, as if afraid Tony was going to open the door. "I'm going outside to get some wood for the fireplace. Don't try to leave the house. I wasn't lying about the wolves. Not to mention the cougars."
"Okay," she said, turning on the faucet at the sink. She had to find someway out of this mess. She heard the front door close, and cautiously opened the bathroom door. "Tony?" she said in a quiet voice.
Feeling more secure with him out of the cabin, Laura went to the kitchen area and opened the refrigerator door, looking for something that might be safe to eat. She was a little hungry, truth be told, since she had missed lunch. When she looked at the counter beside the stove, Laura froze. Glancing at the door, she moved closer to the stove and nonchalantly picked up the car keys that were laying there. He had laid them down to fix the food, and apparently forgotten all about them.
The front door opened, and Laura stepped toward the table, pulling her plate back to where she had been sitting as she sat down again. "Decided I was hungry after all," she told him as he carried an armload of firewood to the hearth. "You know, this isn't such a bad place, really. Needs a woman's touch, though." *Keep him off balance, Laura,* she said to herself. *Make him think you're accepting the situation.* "Guess your friend isn't married."
"No. He only uses the place a couple of times a year for fishing," Tony told her, laying the logs in the fireplace.
"Pity to let it sit empty so much." She managed to get the bite of food she had taken down, and pushed the plate away again. "Guess I'm too nervous to eat after all."
Tony lit the fire, then looked at her. "Laura, I'm not going to force you into anything, okay? There are two bedrooms upstairs. Even locks on the doors. You can take your pick as to which one you want to use while we're here." He watched the fire catch, then went to the fridge and took out a beer. "Want one?"
"Sure," she said. While beer wasn't her drink of choice, she wasn't averse to having one every now and then. And if it furthered her plan to escape, then so much the better. Tony poured hers into a glass, and placed the empty can on the counter where the keys had been. He paused for a moment, and Laura held her breath, waiting for him to ask about them. But he didn't. He brought the glass to her.
"Why don't we go sit by the fire?" he suggested.
Laura sat in a chair instead of the couch where he sat down, and while Tony smiled ruefully, he didn't say anything. "Why did you lose your job, Tony?"
"They didn't like my using a civilian the way I did. Said it was reckless and unnecessary."
"Were they right? Could you have done it without using Remington?"
"Possibly," Tony said with a shrug. "But they might not have cut me loose if Steele hadn't told them that I tried to blackmail him into helping."
"You DID blackmail him," Laura pointed out. "You were holding Shannon's statement over his head."
"Yeah, but once I gave Steele that statement, there was no proof that he'd lied about your marriage. So he was able to convince my superiors that I threatened to manufacture documents to prove that the marriage was a fraud if he refused to help."
"He never said any such thing," Laura insisted. "I was there when Remington gave them his statement. All he said was that you had asked him to help and he had agreed because you promised to clear up his immigration problems if he did."
"I don't want to talk about Steele. For the rest of this week, he doesn't exist, okay? The only two people in the world for the next seven days are you and me." He finished his beer and went to get another as Laura sat staring into the fire, wondering if anyone had found the note she'd left in the cab. "Hey," Tony said.
"I'm sorry. Did you say something?"
"I asked about your family. Brothers, sisters, parents."
Laura stifled a yawn. "I'm sorry, Tony. It's been a long, tiring day. If you don't mind, I think I'll go upstairs to bed." She saw his disappointment, worried that he might not keep his promise to her. Rising, she waited for him to speak.
"Sure. I understand. Pick whichever room you want upstairs. I'll take the other one."
Laura nodded. "Goodnight," she said, moving toward the narrow stairway.
"Pleasant dreams."
Laura picked the first room, and made certain that the door was locked once she entered and closed it behind her. For good measure, she found a wooden chair and slipped it beneath the knob, bracing the door closed. Going to the window, she opened it, only to be confronted with a twenty foot drop onto a nasty looking dark hedge. No handholds, either. There was no escape there.
She sat down on the bed, waiting. Once Tony went to bed, she would wait until she was certain he'd fallen asleep- and then take the car back to Los Angeles- or at least to the nearest telephone where she could call the police.
###
Davis brought a paper into Jarvis' office, causing Remington to stop his pacing. "Well?" Remington asked.
"The license is registered to a Walter Johnson." He picked up his coat. "Care to come along with me to ask Mr. Johnson what Roselli's doing with his car?"
"Try and stop me, Jimmy," Steele said, opening the door.
Laura peered at her watch in the dim moonlight. It was nearly two a.m. Tony had come upstairs two hours earlier, stopping at her door to turn the knob. Finding it locked, he had called softly, "Good night, Laura," and then gone to the other room. There hadn't been any sound since then, except for the sound of the wood of the house creaking with the air outside cooling. Very carefully, Laura removed the chair, and unlocked the door to her room, sticking her head outside.
The corridor was dark, but having been sitting in the dark for so long, she was able to make out where things were. Tony's door was closed, there was no sign of a light beneath it. Taking a deep breath, Laura cautiously made her way to the stairs, then moved down them, freezing as one of the boards creaked.
She listened for any sign of Tony waking, but after what seemed an eternity, she decided that he either hadn't heard the sound, or had dismissed it as the house making noise. The front door was unlocked, and Laura slipped out onto the broad porch before releasing the breath she had been unconsciously holding.
Halfway to the car, Laura jumped as she heard something that sounded like a scream. Recalling Tony's words regarding cougars, Laura ran the last steps to the car and quietly opened the door. She got inside and put the key into the ignition, and turned it.
Nothing happened. She tried again, then pulled the key out to make sure it was the right one. Turning the knob for the interior lights, she frowned as they didn't come on, and then almost screamed when the door was opened. "I took the battery out when I came out to get the wood," he told her. "Face it, Laura. You're spending the next seven days here with me."
Laura got out of the car and handed him the useless keys before turning back toward the cabin. She went directly to her room and locked the door again before throwing herself onto the bed in angry frustration. A beam of moonlight was caught and reflected in the silver of her wedding ring, and Laura sighed deeply, sliding down on the bed. Tomorrow she would have a look around, try to find a way back to civilization- and Remington.