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Contessa in Disguise

By Linda Siebold

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Chapter One
Contessa Selena Carmichael-Simmons Russell shifted on the wooden cot where she lay and the fetid odor of the ticking rose around her in the darkness. She wrinkled her nose and willed herself not to make a sound. Broken panes of a small window reflected the flickering light from the next room. Was the window large enough for her to escape? Maybe…
Cords bound her hands and feet. She pushed herself up on her elbows to take a closer look. The window was her only chance as the stone walls around her provided no exit. She froze as feet shuffled across stone near the door, then let out the breath she was holding when they moved away.
Rolling to the edge of the cot, Selena lowered her feet to the floor and sat up. Stretching her fingers she rubbed her palms back and forth. The cords loosened. Her right hand dropped and she pulled her fingers free. She glanced down at her left hand, then pushed the silky cord off—Montaire red. It pooled on the floor beside her flip flops.
Wood scraped against stone in the other room. Go now before he comes. She pulled her feet free and cleared the shards from the windowpane. Holding on to the top of the frame, she drew herself up and out, and whooshed a breath into the night air.
She ran through the tall grass and away. At least he’s too big to fit through the window.
A moving circle of light shone from the hilltop behind her. He was coming. Her exit through the window at least gave her a head start.
Selena’s thoughts went to the man chasing her—at least she thought it was a man. Who was he? Why had he forced her into the car? Her head still hurt from the sickly sweet cloth he’d held over her mouth and nose. She pressed her fingers against her forehead.
The sliver of moon cast little light through the hazy clouds. She zigzagged across the newly harvested milo field, trotting as fast as she dared on the cracked and cratered ground. A step too close to sharp stubble made her wince when the edges slashed her bare legs. Her flip flops provided little protection for her feet, but if she kicked them off, the ground would shred her soles, preventing her from running at all. Powdery dust billowed up with each footstep, and she tried not to cough—to lead him to her.
The skeleton of a hedge loomed ahead. As Selena crossed over the remains of a barbed-wire fence that bordered the field and grass ahead, the branches of a long-dead locust tree grabbed her auburn hair, cotton blouse, and jean shorts like bony fingers. She pulled to a stop, her ears alert.
Birds twittered from the branches above her. A windmill with missing tines swung in the breeze and the screech of metal against metal made her grit her teeth. To one side was a plot of fallow prairie grass, towering over her head in some spots. A hiding place. He would have to look hard for her there, but her path through it would be slower.
Remnants of an old farmstead sat on her right. Foundation stones marked where the house had been. Rusty farm equipment stood like sentinels over the grass and weeds around it. The outbuildings were long gone, if there had been any.
Skirting a pile of stones, she headed that way. A coyote howled in the distance and one answered back close by causing a shiver to climb up her spine. She picked up a dead branch to use as a weapon, but it fractured into pieces when she swung it. He was coming. She couldn’t spend any more time looking for another. She dodged around a seed planter with its red paint chipped and peeling, and crossed behind other relics.
Her nose prickled at a musky smell, and she stepped up her pace around a metal corn bin. Alert for the shine of eyes in her path, she pushed through the brush at the edge of the yard. When she slid into the dry creek bed, the tck tck of a raccoon competed with the trickle of water downstream. Does a raccoon have an odor? Maybe that’s what was by the corn bin.
Selena pushed through feathery weeds in the creek bottom and sneezed at the pollen scattered in the air. She covered her mouth to squelch the next sneeze. Her flip flops slid on the loose dirt and dislodged rocks, scaring a deer to its feet. Her heart thundered in her chest as hoofbeats pounded away through the field.
She scurried through a narrow patch of soybeans, cut lower to the ground by the header. Labored breaths slowed her down. Sweat trickled into her eyes, and she rubbed them with the ends of her blouse. Sheer terror kept her moving like a hunted animal.
Another fence, its barbs glinting in the light, barred her way. This one was well maintained, tight to the posts, and bordered a ditch and a dirt road. Placing her hands on the top strand between points she set a foot on the bottom wire. Her swung-up leg was too short to step over without being caught by the sharp barbs. She huffed and stepped back down to the ground. Her only option was to crawl under.
A prickle of light bounced behind her, closer, closing in. He was coming.
Selena flattened to the ground and slithered under the fence. As she rose to her feet, a stray thought crossed her mind. What if he’s after Sam? She ran down the hill as fast as her flip flops allowed. I’ve got to warn him.
The sound of trickling water met her ears when she reached the bottom. Cattails hovered beside the road. A small spring? The air smelled damp like the cellar…
Scrunching her eyes, her feet slid to a stop. She needed to get to Sam before it was too late.
But when she opened her eyes, things were different. The cellar was different. The cot was gone. Afternoon sun slid between crisscrossed bars in the window, making a pattern on the floor. Pieces of ancient armor scattered around her and a coil of rope was splayed on the broken stone.
Selena tried to move, but silken cloths bound her in place. Perspiration ran down her body. She thrashed, squirmed, and flailed with her feet. Anything to get free.
The man didn’t see her. He wore a black suit, not a hoody. His eyes looked up, bright with anger. He dragged an old wooden chair across the floor, scraping the stone with the back legs, stepped on it, and threw the free end of the rope over the beam.
“No.” Selena moaned and propelled her legs and arms forward.
Then he was gone. Sam took his place, sitting at a table in the same dark room with a box in front of him. Tick tock. Tick tock.
Her eyes were drawn to a digital face on the box. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four… No. It’s a bomb. Run, Sam. But Sam’s hands and legs were chained to the table.
Three, two, one.
The concussion of the blast rocked the night. She screamed as the room burst into flames.
“Honey, wake up. Selena, I’m here.” Sam wrapped his arms around her and drew her close. “That must have been a doozy of a nightmare.”
Selena opened her eyes and gazed around the suite in Montaire Manor. A gentle breeze lifted the curtain at the window. Moonlight painted a stripe of white on the carpet by the bed. She lay her face against his. “I’m sorry I woke you. I’m okay. It was scary, but it’s fading.”
He brushed the hair out of her face and kissed her gently. “I love you, wife.”
“I love you, too.”
She turned over and snuggled into his arms, lying still. Soon his even breaths signaled he’d fallen back to sleep. Hopefully, the dream wasn’t a harbinger of what was to come. The naming of a successor to the empty seat on Montaire’s council brought out the worst in people.

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