Aftermath — Sharon Ervin

Shamed by her responses to a kidnapper's titillations, Anna Fulenweider, 24, a fair, white freckled-faced newspaper reporter, refuses to talk about the abduction even six weeks later, despite the fact she is plagued by shakes and tremors. Police have not been able to identify, much less capture, the man who abducted the once-haughty reporter and released her 53 hours later, pensive, cowed and unwilling to talk about her ordeal, even to the psychiatrist provided by her employer newspaper. Desperate to undo the psychological damage to his friend and coworker, black news photographer Wesley Stemmons, 32, arranges a meeting between Anna and Wesley's boyhood friend, the irrepressible Joe Marsh. Before her abduction, Anna had interviewed Marsh, long distance, about his development of an ingenious family of tracking devices. He provided her prototypes. When Anna vanished, it was Marsh who activated a satellite tracer from 500 miles away and booted up a receiver in Anna's purse by remote, enabling him to send local police close enough to impel her release. Wesley reluctantly brings Joe and Anna together although fearful the playful playboy, Marsh, and the beautiful, somber Anna will be mutually attracted. Wesley tells Marsh of his own romantic interest in Anna and warns his friend not to complicate things. Marsh is annoyed to find the bright, funny reporter he befriended by telephone timid and subject to occasional, uncontrollable shakes. Determined to help, Marsh coaxes, bullies and cajoles Anna, forcing her to recall her abhorrent experience by fits and starts. His efforts become more complex as the romantic tension between himself and Anna grows and as Stemmons' jealousy mounts. In spite of Marsh's resistance, his interest in Anna takes root and blooms. Being in love with the same woman ignites animosity between Marsh and Stemmons which escalates from uneasy tension to hostility. Still, the men doggedly follow the kidnapping case's cold trail together. Eventually, it is Anna who discovers the culprit and unmasks his age-old motive: unrequited love. Marsh steps up his campaign to prove to Anna, one-on-one, that her very responsive sexual impulses are normal and that sensuality between a man and a woman is a gift, not an affliction.