A Perfect Darkness (3 page)

“Not exactly. That would explain Dad's behavior, though.”

And his glow. She hadn't known what the colors meant then, and thought the glimmer of violet blue meant despair. Years later she'd come across a man climbing over the railing at a bridge. With the conviction of someone who had lost a loved one to suicide, she'd talked him into seeking help instead. His glow had been a deep yellow. Her father's had been the color of anger. Angry people didn't take their lives. Unless, as Cyrus had suggested, she hadn't remembered it right.

“Think about it: who would have wanted to murder your dad? He did administrative work for the Army. And he was a nice guy. Nothing was taken from the house, and it was his gun.”

She hadn't realized she was waiting for some revelation until her body slumped in disappointment. “But how did Lucas find out?”

“Maybe he met someone who knew your dad or found some old papers. His mind creates a conspiracy theory. Killing women might be part of his delusion.”

“Maybe,” she echoed, getting to her feet.

“If you need to talk…”

She shrugged. “There's nothing more to say. Lucas is dead and there doesn't seem to be any way to find out more.”

“Let it go. Try to forget it ever happened.”

After he left, she sat on the floor and spun the constellation globe. When she was seven she'd taped a picture of her dad over his favorite constellation, Ursa Major. He was smiling in the picture, young and handsome.

She tried to convince herself that what Cyrus said must be true. It made sense, right? Well, sort of. So why couldn't she quite make herself believe it? Because Lucas said she hadn't felt right about her father's suicide, she realized, and there was no logical way for him to know that.

The thought that her dad hadn't consciously decided to abandon her tightened her chest. If he hadn't just selfishly killed himself, that changed everything.

Everything you think you know is going to change.

She rubbed the stars on the charm bracelet he'd given her as a child, real silver stars and bright plastic beads that she'd had redone on a silver chain. She remembered how they'd lie in the grass together and he'd show her the constellations. He told her stories about her mom. Sometimes she'd hear him talking to her mom when he thought she was asleep. It broke her heart to hear him cry.

She needed to know more about Lucas Brown. She pushed off the sofa and went to her computer to do a search on his name. Tons of stuff came up but nothing relevant. There seemed to be only one other place to go, and that was the man whose name was on the slip of paper Lucas had given her.

She looked around at her cocoon, as Ozzie had called it. He was right. This was her safe haven. Going out in the dark was not something she liked to do.

Forget about all this. Go back to your nice, quasinormal life. Dig up lost data. That's what you're good at.

She went back to work, beginning diagnostics on another drive. She cranked Linkin Park and belted out the lyrics to “Crawling.” The words died on her lips, though, and her fingers stilled. Her mind drifted to Lucas, to his breath on her ear and his urgent warning. The third time it happened, she gave up. She wasn't going to be able to push this into the back of her closet.

 

Amy closed her door and steeled herself to step into the darkness, even if it was a bright spring day. What she would tell Bill Hammond, she had no idea; something would come to her. She got to the bottom of her stairs when a woman with long blond hair and the smile of someone who knew a secret handed her a flyer.

“Come alone and tell no one,” she said, her smile intact. “Make sure you're not followed.” She floated down the walkway and stuck another flyer in a door-jamb, giving her a glance before heading on to another door.

Amy would have laughed—hell, conspiracy theories,
Make sure you're not followed
—except it didn't seem so awfully funny anymore. She watched the woman for a minute before pulling her gaze to the flyer in her hand. The four-color brochure depicted ethereal stained-glass works and announced the artist's appear
ance the next day at the Blue Rain Gallery, in West Annapolis, near the historic area. Even though she'd lived here for the last nineteen years, she'd been to that part of town only a few times.

When she walked to another door and plucked the flyer the woman had stuck there, however, she discovered that it wasn't for the gallery at all. She looked around. That one and all the other flyers announced the opening of a car wash. The deluge of flyers, then, was a cover. Her finger slid across the edge of the one she'd been given—a message meant just for her.

T
he next day, Amy opened her refrigerator door, stared at the rows of organic yogurt, and pulled out one along with the container of fresh strawberries. When the toaster dinged, she lifted out the Pop-Tart and set it on a plate, then heaped yogurt and fruit on top. She glanced at the clock: noon, the usual breakfast time for one who worked into the night and slept all morning. She hadn't slept, though. She felt as though she'd ingested four cups of Fair trade French roast coffee on an empty stomach.

Orn'ry flapped his wings and squawked. “Popcorn!”

He didn't talk very clearly, but she recognized the request for food. She poured in fresh birdseed and changed the water. “I've got to go out for a while. Be good.” She pointed at him. “Don't make me cover you.” Luckily she had only one apartment butting up against hers.

She'd decided to wait on talking to Bill Hammond. She grabbed the flyer from where she'd stuck it on the fridge. “Let's see what this is about first.”

As soon as she reached for the door, Orn'ry started
making his plaintive sound. Once the door opened, he went into screech mode, and she quickly left. She headed for the Blue Rain Gallery, not with trepidation but a desperation that thrummed through her veins. That's where she would find the truth—or at least the beginning of it.

They call us Offspring.

They.
Who were they? Who was Lucas? More importantly, why did the thought of him being dead leave a hollow feeling in her chest?

She was actually wearing civilized clothing instead of the cotton pants and tank tops she usually wore. As she pulled out of her allotted space, she caught the movement of a car in the rearview mirror. The man behind the wheel had dark sunglasses and bushy hair. When she turned left, so did the car. It fell back, though, and other cars filled in until she couldn't see it anymore. Still, her gaze flitted to the mirror as often as it watched what was ahead of her during the drive.

When she reached the designated address, she saw the white car drive past. Just as her heart started thumping, she saw that the man behind the wheel didn't resemble the one she'd seen leaving her lot. He had wispy blond hair and, more important, wasn't looking at her.

“You're getting good and paranoid now, Amy girl.”

The building had once been a Victorian two-story home that, like others in the area, was now converted to commercial space. Blue neon limned the windows and set off the white exterior.

As she walked toward the entrance, her tongue felt like a towel in her mouth. A man stood inside the
front window, and he was so still that she wondered if he was a statue. Bells tinkled when she pushed the door open. She expected harp music to match the cool blue lighting instead of U2's soulful song “One.” Light poured through stained-glass panels depicting nature scenes that were painfully exquisite. A deer nuzzled her fawn in one, and a rabbit and wolf played together in another, both set against an outer-space-like background.

People milled about, talking softly as though they were in church, and indeed that was the way this place felt. A bearded man was describing his near-death experience that inspired a piece that featured dolphins swimming in a pink vortex. He acknowledged her with a smile. She stared back, watching for some signal. After several uncomfortable moments he turned away. Hell, he probably thought she was a stalker.

The man standing inside the window was real. At least she was pretty sure he was. His bright blond hair, spiked like flames, caught the sheen from the blue neon. His body was perfection, at least six-foot-three, thick muscles and hard lines encased in black pants and a tight bronze shirt. He continued to watch the parking lot, though his eyes flicked toward her once.

No one approached. She'd wait, be patient…as impatience screamed through her veins. She turned her attention to the large room filled with artwork of various mediums: statues of lovers melting in a goodbye embrace; a painting of a woman crying over lost love perhaps, her tears turning into a bloody pool. A painting of a couple looking lovingly into each other's eyes, making her think:
Someday one of you will die and the other will be left alone
.

Most of the art was of a sensual nature, though all very tasteful. She glanced back to the man in the window. He was gone. Letting out a long sigh, she continued to look around. Maybe she'd misunderstood what the girl handing her the flyer had said. Maybe it was her own desperate need for information—or worse, her own delusions of conspiracy—that made the girl's words sound the way they had. She couldn't think of a damned thing that sounded anything like “come alone and make sure you're not followed,” though.

The soft buzz of conversation calmed her nerves—until she saw a collection of paintings on the far wall.

No.

No frickin' way.

But there they were, as real as the wall they were hanging on: images from her erotic dreams. Heat seared her cheeks. The man's face was in shadow here, too, but her face was clearly defined, even down to her dark green eyes and the freckles sprinkled across her nose and cheeks. These were sexy and romantic and everything her dreams were, painted against surreal backgrounds of blues, greens, and glittering gold. The beauty took her breath away. So did the bizarreness of seeing them here.

She put her hand to her chest to hold back the pressure building inside her.
Me. My dreams. But how?
Her gaze went to the plaque identifying the artist: Jason Stark. No picture or biographical information.

“We wondered if she really existed,” someone said beside her.

Amy spun around with a gasp. It was the woman who'd handed her the flyer. She smiled, the silky hair flowing over her shoulders and pearlescent skin reminiscent of a fairy's.

Questions stampeded over one another in Amy's mind. “Who is Jason Stark?” Her abrupt tone grabbed the attention of people nearby. She lowered her voice. “Who is he?”

“You don't know? I mean, you had to be the model for these.”

“I've never seen them before.”

The woman looked surprised. “He never intended to sell them, you know. He kept them in his office. One of our regular clients was looking for just such a painting, and I showed him one of these. He was blown away and insisted on buying it. Then we got more requests from people who saw his painting, and finally we convinced the artist known as Jason Stark to display and share them. So he did, but he wouldn't talk about them and he didn't want his name associated with them. He's intensely private.” She looked at the paintings again, placing her hand against her heart. “They move you when you look at them. The passion. The romance.”

Keep calm and don't take off the nice lady's head,
Amy told herself with gritted teeth. “Who is Jason Stark?”

In a low voice she said, “It's a pseudonym for Lucas Vanderwyck. He owns the gallery.”

“Lucas Vanderwyck,” Amy repeated. “Do you have a picture of him?”

“No, afraid not. Wait, the gallery was featured in a magazine last month.”

Amy followed the woman to the glass case that held jewelry, but her gaze kept going back to those paintings. All her feelings, her desire, her private moments right there on the wall for everyone to see.
Gawd.

When she turned around, she bumped into the frame the woman was holding out. Amy tried not to snatch it too fast. The article featured four full-color pictures, but the only one she cared about was the man with the Mona Lisa smile looking uncomfortable about being photographed.

She put her hand over her mouth as her head swam. Lucas Vanderwyck, not Brown. The man who'd broken into her apartment. And even more bizarre, her dream lover. His voice whispered in her mind:
Amy, we're not strangers.

The dreams…they were real.

She looked up to find the woman watching her with open curiosity. Amy asked, “Is he—?”

“Not here,” she said quickly, as though she couldn't bear to speak the words. “We don't know…where he is.” She maintained her pleasant facade even as she spoke words that caused her glow to turn a mix of yellow for sadness and brown for fear. “I have some other pieces you might be interested in, if you like these.”

With her fingers at Amy's elbow, the woman led her to an open doorway filled with a curtain of crystals that resembled the blue rain of the gallery's name. Beyond that there was a long hallway, then a small office, and then she followed the woman into a storage room. She was beginning to feel like Alice in Wonderland. If the woman offered her a drink or a square of cake, she would swallow without question.

Down the rabbit hole I go…

Her heart thrummed inside her, but not out of fear. It occurred to her that no one knew where she was and no one in the gallery would likely remember her because she wasn't the kind of woman people noticed.

“Wait here, please.” The fairy woman closed the door, leaving Amy alone to look at stacks of artwork waiting to be displayed and a box that reminded her of the art supplies container she kept her computer tools in, only it wasn't purple with colored polka dots.

The door opened and the man she'd thought was a statue walked in. She expected him to explain the summons, but he appeared to be there for other reasons. “Excuse me,” he said, reaching behind her. As she moved out of his way, something white flashed in front of her eyes. The man had pushed a cloth over her face! A minty odor rushed into her nostrils as he held her in a grip so tight she couldn't move.

She wrenched her head from side to side to get a breath, but his hand stayed with her. Panic escalated her breathing. She felt as though someone had poured soup into her brain and begun stirring her thoughts around. Shapes floated in front of her just before blackness closed in. Her body fell as limply as Lucas's had, and her last taste of consciousness was feeling strong arms go around her.

 

Amy swam to consciousness, the smell of mint saturating her nostrils and coating her tongue. Gasping, choking, she opened her eyes to find two figures standing in front of her. Or, more precisely, hovering over her, since she was lying on a couch. She lurched to a sitting position, blinking to clear her vision. Nausea rose in her throat at the sudden movement. It felt like fists were pummeling her muzzy brain.

The fairy woman was nowhere in sight. Wait a minute! The
storage room
was nowhere in sight. Amy
scrambled to her feet but sank back to the burgundy couch when the whole room rocked.

The man in bronze and a striking woman with long, golden blond hair watched her orient herself. The two shared the same statuesque build, glacial blue eyes, and strong facial structure, though his angles were sharper than hers. The woman stared at her with the same curiosity the woman in the gallery had, though without the smile. What particularly baffled Amy was that these two had the same mysterious glow as Lucas. Which meant she had no clue as to their intentions. As much as she detested her curse, she needed it now.

“Who are you?” she said, her voice still slurred. “Why did you knock me out?”

The woman, wearing a stylish black lace top and black jeans, came closer. “We don't know if you can be trusted.”

A laugh bubbled out of Amy's mouth. She looked down at her five-foot-five frame. “Because I'm, what,
dangerous
?”

The man stood with his arms crossed over his chest, a stance that made his biceps bulge. He was built like a damned Hummer. “Because of what you know and who you could tell it to.”

The woman said, “We don't want you to know where this place is.”

Amy took in the long, large room, part living and dining area and part artist's studio. Not one window or even a door. There was a kitchen behind her, and a hallway that led out of sight. It had the cool feel of a basement. A barrage of artwork styles covering walls that were each a different color looked
like something out of a schizophrenic nightmare: a sepia-toned canvas of a woman with a man behind her, whispering in her ear; an Andy Warhol style one of Betty Boop; and at the far end, one of the dream paintings of her lying in a meadow. Stacks of charcoal sketches done in jagged lines crowded a corner. The one on the easel depicted a scary scene of someone falling to the ground.

Before she could study it further, the man said, “What happened two nights ago?”

She turned to them, her chin jutted out and anger prickling her skin. “You summon me here,
drug
me, drag me off to some…basement, and you want me to
talk
? Let me out of here.”

“Not until you tell us what happened to Lucas,” the woman said, worry creasing her forehead. Her glow, Amy saw, was jagged, indicating she was agitated.

“And what he told you,” the man added.

Anger surged at their audacity. She got to her feet. “Pardon my lack of manners, but who the hell are you people?”

“I'm Petra. This is my brother, Eric.”

“Lucas's friends,” Amy said, leaning back against the sofa and crossing her arms in front of her.

“He told you our names?” A vein throbbed in Eric's temple. He turned to Petra. “This is why we can't let emotions get in the way.” To Amy, he said, “What else did he tell you?”

Was Eric implying that Lucas trusted her because he was emotionally involved with her?

Petra stepped closer. “What happened to him? Please tell us.”

Amy's anger dimmed in light of the fear in Petra's eyes. All right, what would it hurt to tell them? Then they'd tell her stuff, too. She sat on the arm of the sofa. “Lucas broke into my apartment…” Reliving the experience as she recounted the events renewed her fear and confusion. She wrapped her arms around herself as she finished. “Then these men busted in and…and they shot him in the neck.” That's when it hit her. He was gone. No more dreams. “And still he fought those men…for a few minutes…until he dropped. Then they took his body.”