Edge of Darkness (29 page)

The frantic search took over two hours. The sun had dipped below the horizon. At any moment, Christian would come back, and her window of opportunity would vanish.

Panicked, shaking with tension and about to burst into hysterical tears, she ran out the back door and looked wildly around the elegant patio, the rambling garden, the burbling fountain surrounded by a circle of uneven stones.

That’s when she saw the woodshed.

Dreary and decrepit, it stood off to her left, partially obscured by a thicket of pines. The moment she saw it she knew it was where she needed to go.

The hinges made an eerie groan when she opened the door. It was dark and dusty, filled with cobwebs, and smelled of damp wood and mold. There was no light so she stayed still a moment, allowing her eyes to adjust, and just looked around.

A cord of wood, stacked teetering along one wall. A bare dirt floor, a small rack of saws and tools, a large plastic chest near the back.

The chest sported a large, shiny padlock, obviously new. Unlike everything else in the shed, the chest was not covered in a thick layer of dust.

Ember’s heart began to pound even harder.

Big enough to fit a body in
, she thought in mounting dread as she ran her hands over the smooth plastic lid. The realization that Christian might keep the key somewhere in the house, or even on him at all times, didn’t deter her from looking for it anyway. She felt under the edge of the lid, all around the bottom, strained her eyes for any small nook or cranny in the walls where one could hide a key. She looked everywhere, until the dirt floor finally revealed a clue.

In the dust were two sets of footprints. Her own, and one much larger pair. They crisscrossed and obliterated each other in some places, but there was one place her own prints did not go but the others did: to the rack of tools on the opposite wall.

Ember stood in front of the rack and just stared at it, every cell in her body screaming for her to hurry. On the very back of the lowest shelf, past the handsaw, ball-peen hammer, and a rusted, bitless drill, there was a rock. A rock without a speck of dust that sported a perfectly flat bottom.

A bottom that opened when twisted, revealing a tiny silver key.

Ember tossed the plastic hide-a-key to the floor and fit the key into the padlock on the chest. She opened the lid, peered down at its contents, and felt all the blood drain away from her face. Her mouth went dry and her pounding heart stuttered to a dead stop inside her chest.

She had found what she was looking for.

In retrospect, Ember’s plan wasn’t much of a plan at all. In fact, it could quite accurately be called a classic example of delusional thinking.

She wasn’t stupid; she realized what a piss-poor operation this was, but on such short notice it was really the only option available. As the cab slid away from the front gate of the mansion, she wished she were religious. Given the circumstances of the moment, prayer seemed apropos.

The cell phone in her jacket pocket rang and she gasped, startled, nerves frayed. She answered it with shaking hands, swallowing the hysterical sob that threatened to burst from her throat.

“Hello?”

“Ember! Oh my God, did you hear what happened to Dante?”

It was Asher, shrieking at her from the other end of the line. She sat forward on the seat, muscles as rigid as the old leather. “What do you mean? What happened?”

“He was attacked by some psycho with a gun—who was looking for
you!
”

At the exact moment the breath left her lungs, Ember spotted Christian’s black Audi flying up the opposite side of the mountain road about half a mile away. She threw herself down on the back seat, flattened herself against it, and whispered into the phone, “Oh, God, no! Is he all right? Tell me what happened—is he hurt? Where is he? Where’s Clare?”

Terror, dark and encompassing, gripped her. She clutched the phone so hard she thought it would splinter to pieces in her hands.

“They’re both at the hospital. Clare wasn’t home at the time, thank God! She was getting her treatments for cystic fibrosis. Dante’s going to be okay, but Jesus Christ, Ember—a man with a gun is looking for you!”

Ember swallowed, fighting the panic that wanted to claw its way out of her chest. “I know.”

Asher gasped, “
What?
How do you know if you didn’t know about Dante? Forget that—where are you? I’m coming to get you and we’re going to the police—”

“No. No police. I’m taking care of this myself.”

Her voice, though shaking, was firm enough to give Asher pause. “What the hell are you talking about?” he demanded. “Does this have to do with Christian?”

She hadn’t told him she’d moved in with Christian, because at the time, she’d thought it was temporary and she’d be back at her apartment before he could find out. She also hadn’t told him she was the target of a mass murderer, that Christian was on a suicide mission, or that she’d decided to take care of that last thing herself. At this moment, knowing she only had a few hours left, she thought there was really only one important thing Asher should know.

“I love you, Ash,” she said, and now her voice went beyond shaking; it broke. Tears began to gather, hot and prickling, in her eyes. “You were the best friend I ever had—the best friend anyone could ever have, and I’m so grateful to have known you.”

She felt his shock, his growing horror at the realization that something was very, very wrong. “Ember. Whatever this is about, we can fix it together—”

“I want you to know that no matter what happens, you did everything right by me. I know you; don’t second-guess yourself. You’re amazing, and I love you, and…and…”

She had to stop because her throat closed. Tears began to stream down her cheeks and she wiped them angrily away with the back of her hand. “I love you, that’s all, okay?”

“Ember! Goddammit! What the hell is going on! Where are—”

“Good-bye,” Ember whispered, and pressed “End” on the phone.

The only sound in the cab for a few moments was the flamenco station on the radio. Ember guessed the driver didn’t speak English—either that or he was used to having hysterical females lying down on the back seat of his cab, saying teary goodbyes to their best friends.

The phone rang again. Assuming it was Asher, she looked at the screen and was shocked to see it was her stepmother, Marguerite.

She remembered a documentary she’d once seen on television about ancient torture methods. The one that had struck her as somehow the worst was stoning; not the kind where angry townsfolk lobbed rocks at you until you died, but the pressing kind where they strapped you to the ground and placed a big board over your chest, then slowly and methodically added weight in the form of large stones until your ribcage snapped and all your organs were crushed.

Looking at the readout on the phone, she felt exactly that.

She clicked the “send” button and whispered a hello.

“Well,
hello
, September,” came an unfamiliar male voice, silken and purring and dark. “I’m so glad you answered your phone. And your stepmother is glad, too.”

In the background, Ember heard a long, trembling wail of pain, and all the tiny hairs on her body stood straight on end.

“W-who is this?”

The caller clucked his tongue. “I’ll give you three itty bitty guesses. But I’d advise you to make it quick—I’m not sure how much more mileage I can get out of our Marguerite, here. We’ve had a bit of fun, but the old gray mare is fading fast.”

“Caesar,” she breathed, choked in horror.

“Bingo!” came the delighted response.

“You sick son of a bitch!”

This was screeched as Ember kicked the door, realizing Caesar was, at that moment, doing something very bad to her stepmother. Though she hated the woman and had often wished her ill, falling into Caesar’s hands was not something she would wish on anyone. The taxi driver flicked her a disinterested glance in the rearview mirror, then turned his attention back to the road; just another routine drop off.

On the other end of the line, Caesar chuckled in glee. “Oh, dear! Someone sounds a bit
put out.
Well, I know how awful it is when things don’t go your way. But surely you must realize I have no interest in you—forgive me, but you really aren’t that interesting. You know who I want.” His voice hardened, losing all its playful lightness, and like a snake he hissed, “Give him to me and your stepmother lives.”

Ember’s mind was a sudden tangle of flying goose feathers. This wasn’t something she anticipated. She’d have to get Caesar to let Marguerite go before she could get him alone—but how was she going to do that?

“I-I’ll need proof that she’s okay. You have to let her go first—”

“Plain
and
stupid, hmmm? She’s not going anywhere until I have what I want.”

Ember swallowed, shaking hard. “I don’t know where he is right now,” she said, stalling for time to think.

“Let me worry about the details, September. I assume you have a way to contact him?”

She whispered, “Yes.”

Caesar made a noise of approval. “Just come to me and I’ll take care of the rest. Once I have what I want, you and your stepmother can go. As I said, I have no interest in you. You’re just a means to an end. Give me what I want and neither of you will get hurt. Or…”

There was a pause, then a scream came over the line, hair-raising, vibrating with agony.

“…or I’m going to make you both suffer so badly you’ll beg for death, and I won’t give it to you.” His voice had dropped to a husky, excited whisper, and Ember’s skin crawled in horror.

Whatever he was doing to Marguerite, he was enjoying it.

“Where…where do I go?”

“Your bookstore.” There was a slight pause, another broken scream from Marguerite, then he added darkly, “You better hurry,” and disconnected the call.

The cell phone in Christian’s pocket rang and he answered it without looking at the screen.

His attention was fully absorbed with thoughts of Ember, of getting back to her and getting her in his arms. He and Corbin were almost home; it wouldn’t be long now. And in the two hours since he’d left her, Christian had a revelation.

He couldn’t do it.

He couldn’t leave her alone.

He’d been sitting there with the banker and the transfer paperwork, staring at the pen in his hand, when that epiphany had stolen his breath.

Ember mattered more to him than anything. His family, his future, even his
honor
.

How could he abandon her? How could he voluntarily die, now that he had something so precious to live for?

Put simply, he couldn’t. The thought of leaving her burned like acid in his throat.

So Christian tore up the paperwork and ran out of the bank, thinking he’d just have to make alternate plans to kill that bastard Caesar. Now that Christian knew his whereabouts, he could lay low and determine some other way to wipe him from the face of the earth that didn’t include getting himself killed in the process.

Ember. That’s all he could think about now. His heart pounded in anticipation.

He was so eager to see her he even imagined he could smell her. A hint of orange blossom teased his nose, and he closed his eyes, inhaled deeply, and relaxed back into the plush leather seat. He must have her scent on his shirt from when they’d said good-bye earlier; it was so luscious a flash of heat tightened his groin. He almost groaned with hunger for her.

Into the phone, he said, “Yes.”

“Good evening, Mr. McLoughlin. This is Dr. Katharine Flores,” a woman said in response. Christian frowned, not recognizing the name.

“Dr. Flores? I’m sorry, are we acquainted?”

“I’m September’s psychiatrist. Is this a good time for us to speak?”

Christian’s attention snapped back into the present and honed in on the ominous note in the woman’s voice. “How did you get this number?” he asked, instantly, violently on edge.

“September listed you as her emergency contact on her treatment form.”

Christian realized several things simultaneously. One: Ember had listed him as her emergency contact during the two weeks they hadn’t been speaking and she’d first seen this doctor, which he guessed meant she assumed he’d refuse to hear anything about her and would just hang up. That made his heart ache as if someone had put a hammer to it. Two: this phone call was not going to make him happy.

He growled, “What’s this about?”

She began hesitantly, her voice full of professional concern. “Well, this is a delicate situation, but September signed a standard release waiver allowing me to communicate the details of her medical history with other healthcare professionals or immediate family if I felt it necessary to the success of her treatment plan.”

“Go on,” he insisted, bolting upright in the seat. It became a little harder to breathe.

“And, I must admit, after speaking with a few of her former doctors, I’m very worried for her. For her safety.”

Christian felt as if he’d been injected with adrenaline. A cold sweat broke out all over his body and his heart throbbed painfully. He said, “Former doctors?”

Dr. Flores paused for a moment that felt like years. Then she asked in a gently compassionate tone, “If I might ask—are you aware of Ember’s history with mental illness?”

“Mental illness?” he repeated in a horrified whisper. Everything beyond the sound of Dr. Flores’s voice faded to black.

“I’m guessing by the tone of your voice that’s a no.” She sighed. “That’s very common; many patients are reluctant to share that kind of information with people they care about, fearing it will drive them away.”

“I…the accident that killed her family. I know she was…she’s understandably haunted by that—”

“The clinical term is ‘survivor guilt.’ It’s a symptom of posttraumatic stress disorder, and in Ember’s case it’s quite severe. Sufferers blame themselves for the deaths of others, even though there was nothing they could have done to save them. It’s commonly found among survivors of combat or natural disasters, even among friends and family of people who commit suicide. It’s extremely debilitating, and, in my clinical experience, sufferers of this particular syndrome are prone to very self-destructive behaviors. Even to the point of taking their own lives.”

From Christian’s throat came a strangled, incoherent noise.

“Ember believes she is responsible for the automobile accident that killed her mother and brother—”

“She was drinking—she told me all about it!” Christian choked out. His throat was so constricted his voice sounded unnatural. Corbin glanced at him in the rearview mirror, his brows raised.

“That is the script her mind has adopted to cope with the guilt of surviving. It’s an adaptive reaction to unbearable stress. You see, Mr. McLoughlin, the truth of the matter is that Ember had a single drink—a light beer—at a friend’s house prior to driving home to pick up her mother and brother that night before dinner. She had a blood alcohol level of exactly zero when she was tested at the accident site, and several witnesses testified that the single drink she’d had was hours before she got into the car. There was a comprehensive investigation, as you can imagine, but Ember was cleared of any wrongdoing. The car simply hydroplaned in the rain.

“But for Ember, the accident is entirely her fault. Her mind has created an alternate version of how much she had to drink that night. Put another way, her mind’s way of dealing with the terrible reality of being the only survivor of a crash that killed her mother, younger brother and eleven other people was simply to…improvise. The human brain is a beautiful monster, Mr. McLoughlin. When it works perfectly, it’s a miracle of engineering. But it also possesses the ability to cannibalize itself until there is nothing left of what you and I would call the ‘truth.’ ”