Read Online Journey by Danielle Steel - Free Book Online Page A

him, as did everyone's, as they listened. “I tried to negotiate with them myself. I did everything I could. I almost went crazy trying to get her back. But they were too smart, too quick, too evil to beat. We paid the ransom, and three days later, they killed her. They dumped her body on the steps of the Embassy,” he said, choking on the words and giving in to tears now, “and they had cut her hands off.” He sat there sobbing for a moment, andno one moved, and then Phyllis Armstrong reached out and touched him, and he took a deep breath, as the others murmured their sympathy to him. It was a horrifying story, and a trauma everyone wondered how he had lived through. “I felt entirely responsible for making a botch of it. I should never have tried to negotiate with them myself, it just seemed to make them madder. I thought I could help, but I suspect that if I had left it alone and let the experts handle it, they'd have kept her for a year or two, as they had with others, and then released her. But by doing it myself, I more or less killed her.”
    “That's nonsense, Bill,” Phyllis said firmly, “I hope you know that. You can't guess what might have happened. Those people are ruthless and immoral, a life means nothing to them. They might very well have killed her anyway. In fact, I'm sure they probably would have.”
    “I think I'll always feel as though I did,” Bill said mournfully, “the press more or less said that.” And suddenly, as she listened, Maddy remembered Jack telling her that Bill Alexander was a fool, and she wondered how he could be so heartless, now that she knew the story.
    “The press likes to make a sensation of things. They don't know what they're talking about most of the time,” Maddy added for good measure, as he glanced up at her with eyes full of sorrow. She had never seen so much pain in her life and she wanted to reach out and touch him but she was sitting too far away from him. “They just want to sell a story. I can tell you that from experience, Ambassador. I'm so sorry all of that happened to you,” Maddy said kindly.
    “So am I. Thank you, Mrs. Hunter,” he said, and blew his nose in the clean handkerchief he took from his pocket.
    “We all have tough stories. That's why we're here. That's not why I asked you to be here,” Phyllis Armstrong brought them slowly to order. “I didn't know most of these histories when I asked you to come here. I asked you because you're intelligent, caring people. That's why you came, and why you want to help the commission. We've all learned from experience, the hard way, or most of us at least. We know what we're talking about, and what it feels like. What we need to do now is figure out what to do about it, how to help the people who are still out there. We're survivors, all of us, but they may not be. We have to get to them soon, and to the media, and the public. The clock is ticking, and we have to get to them before we lose them. Women die every day, murdered by their husbands, raped in the streets, kidnapped and tortured by strangers, but most women are killed by men, men they know, and more often than not, their spouses and boyfriends. We need to educate the public, and show the women where to go to get help before it is too late for them. We have to change the laws, and make them tougher. We have to make the prison sentences match the crime, and make it too costly to commit an act of violence on a woman, or anyone for that matter. It's a war of sorts, a war we have to fight and win. And I want each of you to go home and think about what we can do to change things. I suggest we meet again in two weeks, before most of you go away for the summer, and let's try to come up with some solutions. Today, I mostly wanted you to get to know each other. I know each of you, someof you fairly well in fact, but now you know who you'll be working with and why they're here. We're all here for the same reason essentially and some of us may have