A Perfect Darkness (4 page)

Petra choked back a sob. “Oh my God, he's dead—body, she said
body
.”

Eric's jaw tightened, but if the death of his friend affected him, he hid it well. “What did you tell the men?” He stood so close she could feel his breath on her hair. “They asked what he'd told you, didn't they?”

Amy nodded. “Lucas told me not to say anything, so I didn't.”

“They didn't interrogate you?”

She shook her head. “I told them Lucas wasn't there long enough to tell me anything before they charged in.”

“Did you tell anyone what Lucas said?”

“Only my uncle Cyrus.”

His voice sounded strained. “Your uncle?”

“He's not really a blood uncle. He—”

“You told someone what Lucas said?” he repeated. “After he told you not to say anything to anyone?”

Petra added, “Didn't he warn you that someone you trusted would betray you?” Her eyes glistened with tears. “That's why he risked his life.”

“Yes, but I didn't think—”

“You didn't think.” Eric banged the heel of his hand against his temple. “Stupid.”

Amy shrank back but just as quickly felt her own anger rise. “A man breaks into my apartment in the middle of the night, mentions my father's suicide, then gets shot, and I'm supposed to
think
?”

Petra stepped forward. “It's just that we're scared and now Lucas is—”

Eric put his arms around Petra and pulled her close. He closed his eyes for a second, as though gathering his emotions as Petra tried to rein in hers. After a moment he looked at Amy. “How long have you known Cyrus?”

“My whole life,” she was happy to assure him. “He was my dad's best friend since their Army days.”

Instead of looking relieved, he said, “Is he still in the Army?”

“No, he's worked for the CIA for twenty-some years.”

“You may have just signed your death warrant.”

“Why?”

“Because Cyrus probably works for them, and now he knows that Lucas told you about our suspicions, so you'll need to go, too.”

She got to her feet. “Go? What do you mean by ‘go'?”

“Be eliminated. Taken out. Killed. I'm sure we're already on the hit list. They probably suspected that we knew too much, but now, thanks to what you told your uncle, they know for sure.”

“Cyrus wouldn't tell anyone. He wouldn't be the person Lucas said would betray me.”

Eric looked skeptical. “I told him it was a bad idea to make contact with you, and we all agreed. We figured they'd be watching you.” His expression hardened. “But he went to you anyway.”

Guilt twisted inside her. She had caused him to get killed. “Why did he come to me if he knew it was dangerous?”

“He wasn't thinking either,” Eric said.

Petra wrapped her arms around her waist and paced, her tears flowing. “If only he would have told us. If we'd all gone, we could have saved him.”

“Or gotten killed, too. No, he wouldn't tell us because he knew we'd object. No way was he going to let us stop him from going to her.”

But why? Amy wondered. Why her? With her hand in her pocket, she wrapped Lucas's chain around her fingers. She followed Petra's gaze to a corkboard above the desk that held several photographs. Most looked old, from maybe twenty years ago. They reminded her of the pictures of her mom and dad she kept in places she looked at frequently. She was ashamed to admit that if she didn't have the pictures, she would forget their faces.

Two photos were of Lucas and his mom, an exotic woman with a head full of dark curls. The one in the center showed five children playing in a kiddie pool on a bright day, grinning at whoever held the camera. Something stirred as she stared at the picture. The little girl, green eyes, freckles, and thick, frizzy brown hair.
Her.
The boy holding her protectively, the skinny boy with dark hair and blue-gray eyes, was Lucas.

Amy, we're not strangers.

They had known each other as children years ago, and, inexplicably, they knew each other in dreams, too.

As she was about to turn and ask questions of her own, something white flashed over her face. Mint assailed her senses.
No, not again!
Before she could think of fighting, everything went black.

S
he woke in the storage room to U2's “The Sweetest Thing.” The fairy woman knelt next to her with a bottle of water. Amy's first thought was to knock it out of her hand and demand answers, but her head was too foggy to put action and intention together. Might as well let the woman help her sit up.

Amy saw none of the suspicion that had been so apparent on Eric's face. She accepted the water and drank half of it in one gulp. Her throat felt parched and her mouth tasted of that minty smell.

“I'm so sorry,” the woman said, meaning it. “I'm Kira, by the way.”

Breathless, Amy said, “Please tell me what's going on.”

“I don't know. It has something to do with Lucas, though, and I'll do whatever I'm told if it'll help bring him back.” She gave Amy two aspirin. “For the headache.”

“I don't have a—” As though the mention triggered it, she became aware of a distant throbbing in her brain, and it grew larger by the second. She downed the aspirin. “What did they use?”

“Chloroform.” Kira gave her a pained look. “I'm so sorry.”

“Do you know why Lucas is gone?”

She shook her head. “Eric only told me that something happened to him and to get in contact with you. Bring you back here. Then wait for you to wake up. He promised they wouldn't hurt you.”

Kira tried to help Amy to her feet, but she needed to do it on her own. As before, she had to hold onto something as the room spun. “Where was I?”

Kira shrugged. As secretive as Eric and Petra were, it was likely that Kira didn't know, confirming the honesty Amy could see.

“I'll be all right. I just want out of here.”

“I'm supposed to give you a message,” Kira said. “Don't tell anyone where you were or who you spoke with. If anyone asks, you came here for the showing. Your life could depend on it.”

Anger and confusion surged through Amy's body as she shakily made her way through the gallery. She felt like a ghost wandering among living beings. Melting faces leered at her, colors throbbed. She paused to look at the dream paintings. Lucas had looked at her in the way someone who cared about her would, and now she knew why. There was so much more she didn't know, and it wasn't likely that Eric and Petra would enlighten her. Damn them. Double damn them. Cyrus would never betray her. Someone was lying to him, that's all.

She walked outside, blinking in the afternoon sunlight, feeling as though she'd crawled out of a bizarre dream. She collapsed into the driver's seat of her car, letting the cool air and heavy bass of Saliva's “Ladies
and Gentleman” surround her. That they welcomed her to a show that would make her eyes and ears bleed seemed appropriate. As they suggested, she even checked to see if she was still breathing.

Now what? Part of her wanted to run home and never come out. The other part needed to know more. Something was going on here, and it was connected to her father—and to Lucas's death.

You're as tenacious as a bulldog,
Mr. Bromley had told her when she reported how she'd finally managed to pull his report out of the scrambled data. She
was
tenacious about retrieving other people's data from a puzzle of bits and pieces. She'd go to the moon for her clients. She could at least go one more step for herself.

Energized by anger and determination, she pulled out that slip of paper Lucas had given her. He said she'd been the first so-called Offspring that he and his friends had contacted, which meant they hadn't approached Bill Hammond. He was her only lead to figure out what the hell was going on here.

 

Bill Hammond lived in a small, neat apartment complex twenty minutes from her place. Just in case someone was watching, she'd taken several detours with an eye on her rearview mirror. She hadn't seen any suspicious vehicles, including that white one. Still, she had the eerie feeling she was being watched. No way could someone have followed her, she'd told herself. She was just being paranoid.

Now she sat in her Rav 4 and stared at Bill's door, wondering how to approach him.
Hey, this guy broke into my apartment and gave me your name.

Nah.

Ten minutes of mulling produced no brilliant ideas. She got out of the car and hoped something would occur to her before she reached the door. As it turned out, she didn't have quite that much time. Just as she reached his landing, the door opened and a wiry man with cream-and-coffee-colored skin stepped out with a basket of laundry in his arms. He was about her age and clearly puzzled to find a strange gal at his door.

Amy knew her smile was clumsy. She could talk someone down from the ledge by assuring him that his life wouldn't end if his data was lost, but this situation was way out of her expertise.

“You're Bill? Bill Hammond?”

“Yeah?” he said, drawing out the word.

“I'm Amy.” She shoved her hand at him, and he limply shook it around the basket. “Sorry to bother you. Lucas said I should talk to you.” She waited a beat to see if the name registered. When it didn't, she plunged on. “I'm looking for a place to live, and he suggested I ask you how you like it here. I'm a girl on my own, and I want to find a secure place. My apartment just got broken into and—” She took a breath. “Is this complex safe for a woman? Not that you're a woman, of course, but maybe you could tell me anyway.”

Gawd, she wanted to slap her forehead.

“Who's Lucas?” he asked, instead of answering her. He balanced the basket on a slim hip.

She appeared to look confused. “Lucas…well, you know, he never told me his last name. I figured he was someone you knew since he gave me your address.”

Bill had that same blend of glow colors as Lucas, Petra, and Eric. It meant he was definitely connected to
whatever this Offspring business was. And to her. She let her gaze drift behind him and saw an old framed picture of a serviceman on the wall. Below it were three faded roses tied with a black bow.

“Your father?” she asked, walking into his apartment as though riveted by the picture. She recognized Bill's features in the handsome black man. “Army?”

He followed her but couldn't seem to voice his obvious objection to her boldness, which was just as well. His glow, which had started out close to his body, now flared out. He set down the basket with a thud.

“My father died, too,” she went on, because babble was good; babble was working for now. “He was in the Army. But he didn't die in a war.” She looked at him and the words “He killed himself” tumbled out of her mouth.

Bill's face changed from disbelief to a mix of pain and surprise. He looked at the picture. “My father did, too.”

Now she knew why she'd been compelled to say it.
Always trust your instincts.
“Gun?”

“Hanged himself.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, wincing in sympathy. “When did…it happen?”

“January seventeenth, 1989, 5:32
P.M.
”

Her eyes watered at the date recited from memory, down to the minute. “September second, 1990,” she said. “Two-thirty.”

Gunshot coming from her house!

Spray of blood.

Shallow breaths.

His eyes wide and fearful, pleading,
Save me. Save me.

“Daddy, no!”

She could hear his words even though his mouth hadn't moved. A shocked girl's imagination.

She and Bill faced each other. He was probably remembering as she was. His gaze shifted to the floor. “We'd just moved out of Fort Meade.”

“That's where we lived…where it happened. Bill, did you ever have a weird feeling about your father killing himself?”

“A million times. But then…”

“That would mean it was something more than just despair. Did your father have a history of mental illness?”

“No.”

“Did it run in your family?”

“Not that I know of.” He was getting impatient with the questions, but she forged ahead.

“What was your father doing at Fort Meade?”

“I dunno, research, I think.”

“Mine was in administration. Don't you think it's a strange coincidence, both our dads in the same place, same time, and both killed themselves within a year of each other? I have two friends who also lived near Fort Meade and they each lost a parent, too.” Maybe the Army was yet another commonality between the Offspring.

He snatched up the basket and walked toward the door, a signal for her to follow. “Look, I don't want to talk about this anymore. I've got to get my laundry in, so…” As soon as she was out the door he locked it, and went down the stairs without looking at her again.

Amy wandered to her car and didn't even remember turning the key and driving home. She should have
felt relieved that she couldn't go any farther. She could go back to her life and forget all this madness. Fatigue melted her and she could barely keep her eyes open as she dragged herself up the stairs. Locking herself inside, she curled up on the Killer Grape. She couldn't even make it to the bedroom.

She drifted through the hypnagogic state of sleep, slipping past the frightening voices. Then sleep drew her deeper yet, and she sank into dreams. In the middle of one about the FBI men breaking in and shooting
her
this time, the dream morphed into the one she knew so well. She saw her dream lover approaching, only this time she saw his face.
Lucas.
His expression wasn't tender, though, but tense. As she always did, she ran to him.

“Lucas!”

His image flickered, like a television station that wasn't coming in properly. She felt his touch on her shoulders. His mouth moved a second out of beat with his words. “Amy, forget what I told you. Stay out—of it. Tell no one what—I said.”

“Lucas. How are you here? Is this just a regular dream?”

“No, it's real.”

“But that means…you're alive.” She ran her hands over his face, needing to feel him. “Please tell me you're alive.”

“I'm alive—shot with a tranquilizer gun.”

He was alive! Cyrus had lied about Lucas's name and that he was a killer. It made sense that he'd lied about Lucas being dead. Joy rushed through her.

“Where are you? I talked to Eric and Petra. They wanted to know what happened to you. We thought
you were dead. But you're not.” She couldn't believe it. “We can save you.”

Even with the flickering, she could see his distress. “No. Don't. Forget—me. Keep yourself safe.”

Like hell.
The words jarred her in their vehemence. Her dream lover was real, and he was in danger. She had a choice: stay in her safe world or save Lucas. She already knew her life would never be the same. Her cocoon had split open, and though she was no butterfly, she had to fly out into the dangerous world. “Lucas, why do you keep flickering in and out?”

“Giving me—drugs, something.” He held her face, looking at her. “Amy, stay away. Promise me.”

She nodded.

He kissed her, his body pressed to hers, and God, he was real…this was real. Her fingers trailed through his soft thick hair. He was hard, pushing into her stomach, and she rocked against him. He held her face, tilting her to just the right angle to plunder her mouth. He paused, looking at her in wonder, his thumbs rubbing the corners of her lips. With a small groan, he kissed her again. His tongue laved hers like a man starved. She ran the tip of her tongue along his teeth, darting it against the roof of his mouth. As she sank into the magnificence of the moment, he flickered.

Then he was back, holding her as though if he held on tight enough he wouldn't leave. She wanted to ask him more about where he was and what they were doing to him, but knew he wouldn't answer. So she took what he would give her. She loved that he would protect her, even though she wasn't going to let him get away with it.

He began to unbutton the dress she wore in her
dream—for some reason, she wore dresses, though rarely in her waking life. She sighed, tilting her head back and letting him kiss down the length of her neck and then lower to the soft indent between her breasts, just as he had so many times.

“Lucas…” she whispered, meaning
Take me
and
Help me find you
all at once.

When he didn't respond, she opened her eyes. He flickered out, leaving her in a deep, sudden darkness. She sat up, breathless as always, attempting to button up a dress she wasn't even wearing. That's how real it was. As much as she wanted to cherish those sensual moments, she had to push them to the back burner to savor later. Lucas was in trouble. With fear and adrenaline shooting through her, she lurched up from the couch, grabbed her keys and left.

For a few minutes she wasn't sure where she was going. When she found herself back at Bill's complex, she didn't question it. Instinct again. Bill was a link to Lucas, or at least to whatever Lucas had been about to tell her. She needed to find out more without freaking him out.

This was why Lucas broke in and forced it on me.

As she opened her car door, her gaze caught on something that stopped her. No. Couldn't be. She blinked just to make sure. Yes, Cyrus. Cyrus was there, walking toward the apartment building. Lucas's warning sounded in her mind:
Someone you trust is going to betray you.

Not Cyrus. So it was surely a coincidence that he was here, of all places, of all times. Surely an even bigger coincidence that he was heading to the stairs that lead to Bill's apartment. He wasn't actually going
to Bill's apartment, of course. That would be too much of a coincidence. Yet, he did walk right up to the door and knock. Bill opened the door, and she was shocked to see the two men shaking hands and do the shoulder-patting thing men who know each other well did.

“Huh?”