A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

Phone Call

He was wrapping himself in the robe again when it occurred to him that he could at least find the telephone Zayn had hidden and call his parents to let them know he was safe. Stopping beside his bed, he laid his hand on Zayn's forehead, watching him breathe. His temperature felt closer to normal, and his breathing was deeper now, in the steady rhythm of exhausted slumber. The rush of relief Harry felt made his knees weak as he turned to stoke up the roaring fire he'd built.

Satisfied that Zayn was warm enough, he left him to sleep and went to look for the telephone, closing the door behind him. Deciding the bedroom he'd slept in was a logical place to begin looking, Harry opened his bedroom door and stopped short, staring in wonder at the incredible luxury spread out before him. He'd thought his room with its stone fireplace, mirrored doors, and spacious tiled bath was the absolute height of plushness, but this room was four times as large and ten times as lavish. Mirrors lined the entire wall on his left, reflecting an enormous bed with huge skylights above it and a gorgeous white marble fireplace opposite the bed. Long windows covered the back wall then fanned out in a semicircle on the end wall to create a wide alcove for a white marble hot tub on a raised dais. A pair of curving silk sofas upholstered in an ivory-, mauve-, and seafoam-green-striped fabric were positioned by the fireplace. On the dias, on either side of the hot tub were two more overstuffed chairs and ottomans upholstered in the same colors but in a quilted flowered fabric that matched the bedspread.

Harry walked slowly forward, his feet sinking into the deep wool pile of the pale green carpeting. On his left he saw brass handles on two of the mirrored panels and he gingerly pushed them open then drew in a startled breath at the sight of a vast marble-floored sky-lit bath that was divided precisely down the center by two long marble vanities with double sinks and a mirrored half wall above them. Each half of the bathroom had its own enormous shower stall enclosed in clear glass and its own marble tub with gold fittings.

Although the rest of the house could have been furnished to suit a man or a woman, there was no mistaking the feminine touches that had given this suite an aura of inviting opulence that would surely make a man feel as if he'd been invited into a woman's private boudoir. Harry had read in some home furnishing magazine that married men who were confident of their own masculinity rarely objected to their wives' desires for feminine bedrooms and, in fact, rather enjoyed the implied illicitness of invading a formerly "forbidden" domain. Until that moment, he'd thought the notion odd, but as he noted the subtle touches designed for a man like the huge bed and comfortable, overstuffed chairs by the hot tub, he decided the theory had definite merit.

He headed for the door to the walk-in closet that opened off the right half of the bathroom and went inside to look for the telephone. After a thorough and fruitless search of both closets and all the drawers in the bedroom, Harry yielded to temptation and borrowed a red silk Japanese kimono embroidered in gold threads from the woman's closet. He chose that partly because it was sure to fit and partly because he had a helpless urge to look nice if Zayn woke up before morning. He was tying the belt around his waist wondering where on earth Zayn had hidden the phone when he remembered the small closet in the hall, the one with a deadlock on it. He went straight to it and tried the knob, and when it proved to be locked tight, he tiptoed into his own bedroom. He found the key where he expected it to be—in the pocket of his soaked trousers.

The locked closet contained an enormous stock of wine and liquor and four telephones, which he found on the floor behind a case of Dom Perignon champagne, where Zayn had hidden them.

Stifling an unexpected attack of nervousness, Harry took one of the phones into the living room, plugged it in, and sat down on the sofa, his legs curled beneath him, the phone in his lap. He'd already dialed half the long-distance number when he realized the enormous mistake he was probably making, and he hastily slapped the receiver onto its cradle to disconnect the call. Since kidnapping was a federal offense—and Zayn was an escaped murderer—it stood to reason that the FBI would probably be at his parents' house, waiting for him to phone, so they could trace the call. At least, that's what always happened in the movies. He'd already made his decision to stay here with Zayn and to let God handle whatever came along, but he absolutely had to talk to his family and reassure them. Idly tracing the flamboyant gold peacock embroidered on the lap of his red kimono, he concentrated on how to accomplish his goal. Since he didn't dare call family members, he had to reach someone else first, someone he could trust implicitly, someone who wouldn't be flustered by the errand he was going to give them.