Steal the Light (Thieves) (21 page)

Sarah nodded, her whole body still trembling a bit. “He’s right. I took a bottle of scotch from your dad’s vault. It’s really old and expensive. If your lordship would just look behind the chair, I think you’ll find it to your liking.”

“Normally I would, but I find I have different appetites tonight.” He looked directly at me. “I’m afraid nothing will satisfy me but you, my dear.”

I was revolted at the suggestion and couldn’t hide my distaste. He laughed at the thought.

“Nothing like that, dearie.” He walked dangerously close to the edge of the circle. “I have something different in mind.”

He held his hand out, and I found myself in Hell.

Chapter Fourteen

In an instant, I was younger and older, the story of my life playing out in flashes of time. Hell, I discovered, wasn’t fire and brimstone. Hell was a personal journey.

I run in the door to our house in Corpus Christi. I am six years old and so excited. I just made a new friend. Her name is Holly, and her dad runs a marina. He has a boat and everything. I run into the house giddy with excitement, bursting to tell my mother about what happened at school. She is my everything and nothing is really real until Momma knows about it. I love my dad, too, but it is in a vague, ill-defined way. I love my father because I’m supposed to. He’s gone a lot, and I’m not allowed in his office where he spends the bulk of his time when he’s home. So I want to see Momma. I run in and stop because Daddy is home, and he’s yelling.

“For chrissake, woman, what do ya mean? What the hell are ya trying to say?”

I stop at the sound. My father rarely raises his voice. I listen closely, and Momma sounds so hard and cold.

“My plane leaves at 6:00, so I’ll make this short and sweet. I’m leaving. I hate this life. I hate these creatures you deal with. I hate having to worry about what happens to you. I’ve been having an affair with our accountant, and we’re leaving tonight.”

“Then good riddance to ya,” my father says. “But don’t think I’ll be sending you a cent. I’ll send money for the girl, but I better not find out yer spending a cent of it on yerself.”

My mother laughs, but it is not the sound I am used to. “Don’t bother, Harry. I’m so done with the mommy thing. That child clings and clings. It makes me sick. Let’s see how you handle it.”

I feel something inside me break. It is a real, physical pain.

“What the hell am I supposed to do with her?” Daddy asks.

I fall down on the linoleum floor when I realize no one wants me.

Then I’m standing in a colder place. I shiver because it’s freezing here. I wish I had a sweater, but it’s late spring and the days are starting to get hot. I didn’t think I would be here. I thought I would be watching a little television and then studying for a biology test after dinner. I didn’t think I would stand here in front of this small, utilitarian window with its gray curtain.

It isn’t him. I would know if he was dead. I would know the second he was gone. I wouldn’t just sit in front of the fucking television while he bled out and died on the street. He’s the other half of me. I wouldn’t have sat there and complained that he was taking too long. I would have known.

“Are you ready, miss?” an attendant in blue scrubs asks.

My heart beats erratically, and I can barely breathe. Am I ready?

Then I’m running. I have the package. It’s some old book, a grimoire, I think. I don’t ask questions. I need the work too much. I need the work because I need to forget that he’s gone. The client is a witch, so it’s probably full of spells. It’s just me and Morty tonight. I like him. He’s not like the other contractors my father works with. He’s kind and has grandchildren. He also turns into an old gray wolf. He likes being a wolf, and he’s running behind me. We pass the gates of the house and hit the woods. The car is parked half a mile away, but it’s a beautiful night, and I laugh as the wolf runs circles around me and then takes off.

He runs so much faster than me, but I pick up the pace. I hear the snap of metal, but it doesn’t register that anything has gone wrong until I hear that howl.

I am standing beside Morty. He’s in human form, his skin leathery and wrinkled and covered in blood. The trap is a shark’s mouth with a firm hold on its prey.

“Go,” he whispers.

I try to pull the trap off, but in the distance, I hear the sound of dogs. The alarm must have been silent.

“Go. Too much silver. Too old,” he says.

I will try to save him.

I will fail.

The curtain opens, and I see the body.

You loved butterscotch pie, but I was always too tired to make one. It was too much trouble to make a damn pie. If you’re just not on that fucking table…if it’s someone else and you’re at home wondering where the hell I am, then I promise to make a pie every day for the rest of my life…

He starts to pull the sheet back, and I realize I am not ready.

I watch them take Daniel from me. They pull him right out of our bed. They lock him in chains that leave welts wherever they touch and nothing I do can change it. I fight and plead and cry and they say nothing. Their will is implacable.

It is only when Daniel is gone that the last one turns his silver eyes on me.

“Pity,” he says. “You are quite lovely but rules are rules.”

I don’t know what he means.

“There’s no place in my life for a child,” my father says.

“Are you ready?” the attendant asks.

“You killed my husband,” an old woman cries, and her grandchildren huddle around her. They look at me with accusatory eyes. “He was all I had, and you let him die.”

“I’ll be right back,” Daniel says, and he smiles and runs off to die.

“It was your idea to have a kid,” my mother says as she takes a drag off her cigarette.

Daniel returns after three years with nothing in his eyes. I am his responsibility.

“Are you ready?”

Hell is a feeling. The rooms and landmarks are familiar, though there is not an ounce of comfort in them. There is only the certainty that I am nothing. The things I feel and do and the love I give means nothing. It is worthless. I am utterly alone.

This is the place for thieves.

I stand in that hallway at the bottom of the hospital, and I am ready because there is nothing else to be. This place is my home now.

The sheet is pulled back, and I understand.

* * * *

There was a terrible pressure on my chest, and I fought to breathe.

“She’s back,” Sarah said. She was on her knees beside me. When had I gotten to the floor?

Neil sat back on his heels, his face flushed. He ran a hand through his hair and tears pierced his blue eyes. “I thought we lost you.”

Daniel was suddenly at my side, pressing Sarah out of the way. His hands moved across my body as though trying to find injuries.

And all I could think about was that place. It was deep inside me. I might have come back home, but Hell was inside me now. I would see it when I slept, know that it waited for me always. I shivered.

Daniel dragged me up and into his arms. “You’re cold.”

It was always cold in Hell. I had thought it would be hot, but I was shocked at how cold I’d been.

“The ambulance is on its way.” Dev ran back into the room. He took a long breath as he realized I was alive. “Thank god. Oh, Zoey, that was horrible.”

He couldn’t know what horrible was. I groaned a little as Daniel held me too tight. “Why do my ribs feel like someone jumped on them?”

“Because Neil pressed too hard,” Daniel accused.

Neil shook his head. “It’s CPR. I had to press on her chest. And I had to do it because you were way too freaked out. The next time you want to control the compressions, keep it together, buddy.”

Daniel cuddled me close. It was the most affection he’d shown me in years, but I just wanted to breathe. “I’m just saying you could have been gentler.”

Dev sank to his knees on the other side of me. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”

Daniel growled, a predatory sound.

Nope. I was so not all right. And I wasn’t about to tell them about it. I wanted to be alone, to process what had happened. “I’m fine. I don’t need an ambulance. Is Halfer gone?”

“He disappeared a couple of minutes ago,” Sarah said.

“I was only gone for a minute?” It seemed so much longer. It seemed like forever.

“You weren’t gone at all,” Dev told me. “Halfer held a hand out and then he disappeared. You stopped breathing.”

“You died,” Daniel sounded hollow. “You died. He killed you.”

“He didn’t kill me. I just had a bad reaction to him playing in my brain.” I pushed my way out of his arms. I had to be strong. I had a job to do. If I had learned one thing it was that I didn’t want to go back to that place. I wasn’t sure I could avoid it, but I was damn straight going to try. “I’m fine. I don’t need an ambulance.”

I needed to get to work. I allowed Dev to help me up.

I was ready. I was ready because I had to be.

* * * *

“Hey, are you coming?”

Sarah’s voice pulled me out of myself for the fortieth time that day. I was slightly startled, and it took a moment to remember where I was. I was in the Greenley Hotel standing outside the Gilmore Suite. I was dressed in a maid’s uniform, and I was pushing the cart that contained all of our cleaning supplies. I was lost, my mind back in that terrible place Halfer showed me that night almost two weeks before.

I shook off the previous moment and got doggedly to work, pushing the cart toward the now open door.

“Sorry. I’m just tired. I can’t sleep at Daniel’s. It’s too quiet. Even when I have the TV on, it still seems too quiet. I wish he’d let me go home.”

“You know why he won’t.” I could hear the resignation in Sarah’s voice. She was letting it go for now.

Daniel considered my apartment unsafe. Since the night we called Halfer, there had been no further attempts to kidnap me. Halfer sent a cryptic message telling us not to expect any more trouble, but Daniel chose not to believe him. I couldn’t really blame Daniel. I didn’t trust Lucas Halfer either. So Daniel chose to hide me in the safest place he knew. That very night, over my father’s vigorous protests, he took me to his building and introduced me to the concierge as his companion.

That single word worked some sort of magic on all the men in the underground portion of the complex. Michael was deferential, and even the dude Danny thought was a serial killer gave me a wide berth. It was like someone tattooed “property of Daniel Donovan” across my ass and no one bothered to tell me.

We had only been out of the house to buy groceries and order the supplies we would need for the job. Dev or Neil escorted me to work every day and Daniel was there to pick me up. We had dinner each night at my father’s house to plan and discuss the heist, but other than that, Daniel kept me in his well-appointed prison. He’d even stopped going to his club for dinner, preferring to stay in with me to make sure I didn’t get myself murdered. He was on blood from a blood bank. He kept it in the fridge and microwaved the bags. His new TV dinner diet had not made him pleasant to be around.

Even though it was driving me crazy, I knew better than to protest too much. It wouldn’t do any good. And I didn’t really have the will to fight. I moved through the days a little like a zombie, just willing myself to get through this job because the last thing I wanted was to go back to Halfer’s tender care. It was sad that I looked forward to these shifts Sarah and I had taken to acquaint ourselves with the hotel we planned to rob tomorrow.

Neil had a job waiting tables and delivering room service. And Dev convinced the front desk girl to boot the people who were staying in the suite we needed. He was booked in a suite on the top floor right above the room where the Light was being moved to tomorrow.

We were set. The night before, Daniel drilled small, almost invisible holes in the ceiling and installed mini cameras to get surveillance on the room. Sarah and I would clean up any dust the drilling left behind and install a few bugs of our own before the party checked in to the room at four this afternoon.