Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [91]
“You will never see him again,” the man told him in his light singsong voice.
A red rage filled Sammy’s brain. It was the kind of rage that made him lose control … they had taken Josh from him, they had hurt him … they had killed him. Snatching the knife from his pocket he suddenly hurled himself at the Chinese man.
Lai Tsin saw the flash of steel in the lamplight, he felt its sharpness split his cheek and then the warm trickle of blood. He stood unmoved as the two hired tongs grappled Sammy to the ground. Then he bent and picked up the knife. He said calmly, “And now you will do as I tell you.”
Sammy was on his knees. One of the Chinese held his arms and the other had him by the neck, his hatchet at the ready. Lai Tsin put writing paper, pen, and ink on the floor in front of him. He said, “Pick up the pen and write what I say.”
Sammy peered bewilderingly at him and then down at the pen. The man holding his neck jammed his knee painfully into his back and he quickly picked it up, waiting for what came next.
“Let him go,” Lai Tsin ordered, and the man released him. He stood behind him and the other stood in front, and Sammy glanced fearfully at them. He shook his head. This was all wrong, it was a nightmare. What did they want from him? A confession, the Chinese had said….
He looked up. Lai Tsin’s eyes met his and he said, “You will write, ‘I, Sammy Morris, confess to the murder of five innocent people.’”
“No,” Sammy roared, throwing his pen to the ground. “You’ll never get me to write that.”
Lai Tsin nodded to the men and they grabbed him again. And this time Sammy felt cold steel against his own neck, sharp as a whisper against his flesh and the sudden warm ooze of his own blood.
“Now you know how your victims felt,” Lai Tsin said. “You know their terror and their helplessness. Pick up the pen and write.”
Trembling, Sammy did as he was told. “I confess to the murder of my schoolfriend, Murphy,” Lai Tsin continued.
Sammy’s head shot up and he looked around, panicked. Nobody knew about that, nobody—except Josh. He had confessed it all to blind, silent Josh … he was the only one who could possibly know about Murphy.
“Write!” Lai Tsin commanded. The knife touched his neck again and Sammy quickly scrawled the words, “I confess to the murder of the three women that my friend, Josh Aysgarth, was blamed for.”
His breath came in short, frightened gasps. Josh must have been faking, he had heard all the time, he had told on him….
Terrified, he stared at Lai Tsin. His jaw hung slackly and a strangled groan came from his throat. Now he knew who this man was. He was the Chinese who had befriended Francie Harrison. It was she who had told him all this, she who had sent them to make him confess, she who had taken Josh away from him again.
“Write,” Lai Tsin commanded. His voice was cold. Terrified, Sammy bent over the paper and wrote what he said. “Sign it,” Lai Tsin ordered.
“Where is Josh? What have you done with him?” Sammy screamed. “You can’t take him away from me, we’re brothers, we love each other. … I saved him, I looked after him, I always have—”
“Sign,” Lai Tsin repeated stonily.
Sammy’s hand trembled so much he could barely hold the pen and his signature scrawled unsteadily across the page.
“Sign again,” Lai Tsin ordered, “so that we can read it.” Sammy felt the hatchet blade threateningly on his neck as he wrote his name again.
Lai Tsin nodded to the men and they grabbed Sammy’s arms, wrenching them behind him until he screamed with pain.
Lai Tsin calmly picked up the paper and read it. He nodded, satisfied. He stepped closer to Sammy and looked into his burning eyes for a long moment. They were the eyes of a murderer, a madman who killed without compunction. A man who would kill Francie if he could. “You know what to do with him,” he told the two men, turning away.
“No!” Sammy screamed, lurching after him. “No.” But Lai Tsin had already