Dark Sky (22 page)

Time to call out the troops, Ethan thought.

“You're not—are you armed?”

“No. It's okay, Juliet. Go.” He winked at her. “I'll be stealthy.”

“There's a spring—” She held her breath a second, as if pushing back her emotions. “It's through the woods—you'll see the path near my tent. There's a picnic area. It's one of Wendy's favorite spots. And if she didn't bring water with her and got thirsty—”

“I'll take a look.”

“Kelleher—”

“He said he was going back to work. I saw him head toward the barn, but I didn't see if he went inside.”

Her gaze focused on him. “Who is he?”

“We'll find out.” But Ethan thought of Mia O'Farrell, her tips, her fear, and wondered if, somehow, the Longstreets' recent hire was the reason she was on her last nerve, hanging by a thread.

Juliet had walked over to Kelleher's truck and raised the hood. “Do you know how to disable a truck? I don't want this bastard going anywhere.”

“I'll take care of it. Go on. Go raise the alarm with your family.”

Her eyes shone. “Ethan—
damn.
”

“It'll be okay,” he said, although he had no idea whether it would or not, just wanted to cut through her palpable sense of dread. “Wendy handled herself well in New York, and this is her turf.”

“Tatro—” She shut her eyes briefly. “Let him come after me. Not her.”

Ethan kissed her, and she brushed her fingertips along his jaw, their eyes connecting, just for an instant, before she pulled away and headed back down the driveway. But that split second of eye contact was enough, a wire tripped, launching them onto a different plane. It was as if he'd seen into her soul.

She turned, walking backward. “Stay safe, Brooker.”

Then she spun around and trotted down the road, out of sight. He returned to the camper and got a sharp knife from Kelleher's tool kit.

In less than two minutes, he had the ignition wires on the truck cut.

When he reached the path to the lake, Juliet's truck was gone—he'd seen her head up the dead-end road, undoubtedly to see if she could spot Wendy before turning around and heading home. He ducked onto the narrow path, noticing the play of light and breeze and shadow on ferns and wildflowers, and tried to think like a seventeen-year-old girl with too much on her mind.

Before leaving that morning, Juliet had zipped her tent up tight. Ethan unzipped it now and crawled inside, thinking that it was small for the two of them. But not, as he recalled,
too
small. Wendy wasn't taking a nap atop the sleeping bag, nor did he see any sign that she'd been there. As he crawled back out, he took one of Juliet's gold-wrapped chocolates with him. Juliet could operate just on caffeine. He needed food.

He walked down to the lake, glistening in the morning sun, the water rippling with a cool, steady breeze.

“Hell.”

The cracker tin. Ethan made his way over to a three-foot boulder just into the woods and took the tin, pulled off the lid. The dog's ashes were still there.

He carefully replaced the lid and set the tin back on the boulder.

Okay, so Wendy had been there. Where was she now? Hiding? They'd met for only a few seconds in New York—she wouldn't necessarily recognize him. If he was a teenage girl and saw him marching through the woods, he'd hide, too.

“Wendy? It's Ethan—Ethan Brooker, your aunt's friend.”

Nothing, just the rustle of leaves in the breeze.

He'd check the spring. He found the path, less used than the one from the road to Juliet's clearing, but it was a short walk through the woods to another clearing, with a picnic table, some kind of red-leafed bush, and a wooden sign, which just read, prosaically,
Spring.

But no Wendy Longstreet, sitting in the shade with a book of poetry.

If she was out here, she was being damn quiet about it.

Ethan got his chocolate out of his pocket and unwrapped it, popped it into his mouth. It was dark chocolate, filled with gooey caramel. Thick.

He didn't know Vermont. He didn't know the Longstreets. Teenage girls. He was so damn far out of his element, he was eating Vermont-made chocolate.

A flutter of paper caught his attention, and he picked it up, then saw a wallet—a man's wallet. And tracks in the grass and mud. A canoe or a kayak had been there, and recently.

The paper was a boarding pass for Ham's flight from Dallas to LaGuardia.

And the wallet belonged to him.

Ethan took a breath. A red squirrel chattered at him from a hemlock branch. Somewhere in the thickets, a duck squawked. Ham was a genius, but he was also a romantic and an idealist. If he believed his parents had paid off his kidnappers on the sly and in so doing had endangered others, he'd want to make up for their narrow-sightedness, their willingness to put themselves ahead of anything—anyone—else.

Ethan tucked the boarding pass and the wallet into his jacket pocket and walked out to a pine tree on a rocky point where he had a better view of that end of the lake.

He stood under the pine tree.

The squirrel had quieted. He'd scared off the duck.

Something bobbed in the water out by a small lake house tucked on the shore.

A kayak.

 

Ham sank onto his knees in the tall grass and waited for another poke from Tatro's walking stick. They'd left the path to the spring and had taken another one, less well-traveled, up to an old board-and-batten barn. It looked empty, long abandoned. They were behind it, on the side overlooking the lake, in what had once obviously been a small field but now was overgrown with briars, grapevines, barberry, honeysuckle and poison sumac—probably poison ivy, too.

The blow came, hard to the small of his back, but Ham didn't moan or make any noise at all. The last time he'd collapsed, Tatro had threatened to knock him out cold or kill him. Ham had no reason to doubt him. The bastard enjoyed inflicting pain.

Soundlessly, Ham staggered to his feet. As it was, he'd be pissing blood for a week.

Tatro leaned in close to him, his foul breath on Ham's neck. “I want my emeralds.”

“I'm here to see Juliet Longstreet. The marshal. I told you.” Ham kept his voice low, just as Tatro had. “I'm not lying.”

“That bitch. Did you give her my emeralds? Did Brooker give them to her? I know you stole them, you asshole. Left me with rocks. What did you do, use them to pay Brooker?” Tatro snorted. “I like that. Stealing from me to pay for your rescue.”

“That's not what happened.”

“I know people who can make you talk.”

“Yeah? Well, remember, they're willing to die for the cause. I bet you're not. You're just in this for the money. They're using you. Don't you see that?”

Tatro shoved the stick into Ham's kidneys again, but grabbed him by his waistband to keep him on his feet. Ham's head spun. No way would he ever tell this bastard that the emeralds were in his kayak. Thank
God
he'd left his hip-pack behind, after all. Taking Tatro back down to the lake, trying to buy himself time, was out of the question. Too risky. He didn't want them to run into Wendy. Let her get to safety. Let her get to the
cops.

And once Tatro got the emeralds, Ham would be floating facedown in the lake or dead and buried in some rocky Vermont hole.

A door to the barn opened. It was a regular door, to Ham's left toward the far end of the barn. In the middle was a wide door—for animals and wagons—but it was boarded shut.

“Hang on, Bobby.” Another man's voice came from inside the barn, quiet and soothing, with an undertone of authority. “Let's think this through.”

Ham breathed through his clenched teeth, his deep breaths only worsening the pain.

Tatro eased off. “You told me to get this fuck—”

“I know, I know. But we have a problem. Wendy Longstreet took off this morning. Her family's out looking for her.”

“She was at the lake.” Tatro poked Ham with the stick, but not as hard. “This fuck yelled for her to call the cops. I figured I'd dump him back here and go find her.”

“I'll go. The girl trusts me.”

With that gentle, reassuring voice, Ham thought, anyone would. “Don't hurt her,” he said. “It's my fault—”

“Shh, shh. Don't worry, Mr. Carhill.” The man tucked a finger under Ham's chin and lifted his head. “I think some of those bites are infected.”

Tatro grunted. “He stole my emeralds. I told you—”

The man came out of the barn, showing himself. He was lean and fit, with a shaved head. He continued to address Tatro. “And I told you that you shouldn't take matters into your own hands. That's how you landed in jail. I can buy us some time. Once Wendy's back with her family, she'll tell them everything. By then, we'll be gone. I don't believe in taking innocent lives.”

“What about the woman and this bastard?”

“We leave them. We shut down. We can't risk trying to take them with us.”

“Then it's all for nothing?”

“We can come back after things cool off here. Chances are no one will think to check the barn. Either way, we'll know.”

“They'll die without food and water—”

“Then they die.” His voice hardened. “Traitors deserve death.”

Ham coughed. “Traitors?”

Both men ignored him. Tatro said, “I thought you wanted Major Brooker.”

“I do. And you want Deputy Longstreet.” The other man's voice was soothing again. “Patience, Mr. Tatro. That's what I've learned in recent years. Patience.”

In the haze that was his brain, Ham put pieces of what they were saying together and came out with a bad ending for himself and whatever woman was already in the barn.

The guy with the shaved head opened the door, and Tatro shoved Ham inside, pushing so hard he practically pinwheeled across the floor.

He landed against a wall that smelled like hay.

It was dark inside, but some daylight came through cracks in the walls.

In short order, Tatro tied Ham's hands and feet, then gagged him with a bandanna, but didn't bother with a blindfold. He grinned. “Have fun.”

The door slammed shut.

Ham managed to sit up. Did these bastards think he was going to take a nap and wait for them to get back?

Hell, no.

His eyes adjusted to the semidarkness. He could make out the outlines of the two doors. And whoever owned the barn had never bothered to clean it out entirely. There were rusted antique farm tools that could probably pull in a fortune on eBay hung on nails and pegs, and there were old barrels, car and tractor parts, a wagon wheel, wooden apple crates. Even if Tatro and that other guy had locked him in, Ham figured he could find something in this mess to get himself out of there.

Turning, dizzy, he blinked rapidly, trying to make out what was in the far end of the barn.

A giant meat hook hanging from a rafter. A thick rope shaped into a noose.

What was this place?

There were car batteries lined up side by side on the floor under the meat hook. There were jumper cables. A bucket of water.

Mesmerized, shocked by what he was seeing, Ham didn't move.

He thought he heard something. A muffled cry, a moan.

His stomach lurched. He didn't want to throw up with the gag on.

The woman Tatro had mentioned.

She was tied to a chair, her feet bound, her mouth gagged, her eyes blindfolded.

Oh, my God,
he thought, making a guttural noise to get her attention. She flinched. She had to be terrified.

But who was she?

Ham's pulse raced. Mia O'Farrell. It had to be.

There was nothing either of them could do but wait.

 

When she saw Matt on the road, Wendy almost cried with relief. She ran out to him, her knees buckling under her. He caught her by the arm, steadying her, and she kept gulping in breath after breath, trying to get control of herself.

“Easy, Wendy. Just take it easy. Your family's looking for you—”

“He's got Ham.” She got the words out, felt her fingertips and her cheeks go numb. “Someone. I don't know who. I didn't see him. I was at the lake. I decided to scatter Teddy's ashes, like you said and—and—”

“Who's Ham?”

“I don't know. A guy. He was in a kayak. He's from Texas. The army guy—Brooker. Aunt Juliet's friend…
he's
from Texas, too.” But she couldn't seem to speak to make herself coherent and was sure Matt didn't understand what she was saying. “Please. We've got to call nine-one-one. I need to tell my dad.”

“Okay. We will.”

She started to cry. “I didn't mean to worry anyone. That's why I snuck out of the house. So I
wouldn't
worry them. Now—I'm scared, Matt. The pack—Ham's pack. There are emeralds in it. The doorman, Juan. He asked me about precious gems. Why would he do that? Why would he and Bobby Tatro think that Aunt Juliet had emeralds? Who—”

“Wendy—whoa, honey. Slow down. We can get all your questions answered. Let's concentrate right now on getting you to your family and calling the police. Okay? Makes sense?”

She took a breath, nodding, and made herself stop blurting things out.

“Where are the emeralds?” he asked.

“What?”

She stared at him, her heart pounding, that buzzing, alert feeling happening again.

Something was off.

She heard a noise in the woods behind her. “Hey, little girl.” Bobby Tatro stood under a maple branch. “Why don't you take me to the emeralds?”

Matt looked pained. “I'm sorry, Wendy. I like you. I really do. But I can see now this just isn't going to work.” He shifted his attention to Tatro. “Stay in the woods, out of sight. Don't hurt her unless you have no other option. Bring her back.”