Endless Night (19 page)

“I’m going to flip him over,” he asserted.

“Give me the gun then.”

Jake wanted to pretend he didn’t hear her, even though what Megan suggested had merit.

“For one second.” He acquiesced only because he needed both hands. “Just long enough for me to turn him over, and then hand it back. If he moves, shoot an arm, a leg—”

“Preferably one of his?”

Jake found this witty side of Megan remarkable considering the circumstances, but even the dull glow of the flashlight could not conceal nerves pushed to their extreme. She shook from head to toe, and her lips still quivered until she bit down on the bottom one. The quips were just another form of defense.

At his feet the figure moaned. He was coming around. Jake had to move fast. He stooped down, reaching for the beefy set of shoulders and flipped the man onto his back.

Megan stared down at the flat nose and broad forehead of the Jones boy. He was no boy, though. He was a man capable of inflicting great physical harm with his size alone. Though he was still unconscious, his eyes beneath sallow, vein-laced eyelids moved back and forth. He was coming around and his fresh moan confirmed it. Her finger wrapped tightly around the trigger and her other hand came up to brace her wrist for maximum control.

“What do you have that we can tie him up with?” Jake’s voice broke in, but her eyes did not waver from their target.

“I have something downstairs.”

When she came back, she found Jake crouched, his muscular thighs, tight and powerful and honed for an attack should Jones move. Tiger eyes sliced the shadows and met hers, and he looked like he had no problem seeing in the dark, like he was born with an innate advantage.

“Will this do?” Megan held out the balled-up string of speaker wire.

Her jungle creature smiled.

“Yeah.” He nodded his approval. “Yeah, that’ll do just fine.”

Considering the length of Jones’s legs, they nearly ran out of wire, but by the time they were through, Jones looked like a spool of thread. His legs and arms were wrapped and when he came to, he thrashed about like an insect caught in a web. Spouting Russian curses, his icy eyes glared, but Jake sat back on his heels, unimpressed.

“Did he speak English when you saw him?” Jake raised his voice to be heard over Jones’s protests.

“I’m not sure. Everyone just sort of stopped when I walked in the room.”

“Yeah, I imagine you have that sort of effect,” he said and shifted his attention back to the writhing behemoth below.

“I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt—” he spoke to the man, “—and guess
that you were
hired
by Fortran to come here and that you didn’t do so by your own design. I’ll report that to the police, but if you want to offer up any additional defense, you’re going to need to speak in English right now.”

“Bakapor,”
Jones seethed through thick lips.

“Alrighty then.” Jake removed one of Jones’s leather gloves from a hand that was rendered useless by its wrist bindings. He moved to shove the garment into the Russian’s mouth.

“Wait!” Jones shouted with a thick accent. “I speak.”

“Okay then. You speak.”

Jones’s cerulean eyes sliced over toward Megan and she could sense the keen frenzy of fear in them.

“Do not call the police,” he pleaded. “My—my father. He will not be safe then.”

A sickening feeling struck Megan as her knees slowly buckled enough to bring her down to Jones’s level. The Russian was no longer concerned with Jake, he was staring at her.

“Gordon,” she whispered.

Jones’s head nodded in earnest. “Yes. Yes. Mr. Fortran will kill him. He told me to come here. To hurt you. I have never hurt anyone before. I have never hurt a woman—”

“What’s your name?” Megan asked.

“Serge. Serge Baskov.”

“Serge, tell us. Tell us why you are here. What power does Gordon Fortran have over you?”

Serge’s head tipped back against the floor and a torrent of Russian words spilled out as his head shook back and forth and his eyes stared straight up at the ceiling.

“We don’t know you, and honestly my first inclination is to punch you in the face.” Jake leaned forward till he caught Serge’s eye. “But if you have the opportunity to help your father, and help Miss Megan here, I think a few words in English aren’t a lot to ask.”

Serge raised his head and had to use his stomach muscles to keep it up as his elbows were useless. His gaze shot from Megan to Jake and back again. He frowned. “What sport do you play?”

“What sport—?” Megan’s eyes widened. “No sport. I witnessed a murder. I saw Gordon murder a man in his office, and I have been on the run since then.”

“Oh.”

Uneasy, Megan didn’t know if
oh
meant he was unimpressed that she did not play a sport, or that Gordon murdered men in his office every day.

“I play basketball,” Serge said, slumping backward again.

“No sh—”

“Jake.” Megan cut him off with raised eyebrows. She inched forward so that she could look at Serge while his head was still reclined. “You play basketball. Is that how you and your father met Gordon?”

Blue eyes lolled backward into his head and then returned to focus on her. “I remember you now,” he said. “You came into the office the first time we were there. I thought you were pretty, but Mr. Fortran was so mad. He slammed the door after you left and told us we were never to speak to the staff. That our business was too conf-conf-confidential. He said that we were never to discuss the scholarship with anyone other than him or we would get shipped back to Uglich.”

There was no satisfaction in hearing that her theory was correct. Megan met Jake’s eyes and he offered a slight nod.

“My father, he talked about you,” Serge said, looking at Megan. “He knew about you because he knew who that man was that was murdered.”

Megan’s eyes jumped back to the Russian. “Vladimir Romanov? How?” She nearly cried out, the prospect of answers almost a reverent phenomenon.

“Because that man tried to kill Mr. Gordon.” Serge hesitated and pulled his head up from the floor. “And so did my father. My father tried once, but how do you say it, he chickened out?”

Serge awaited their nod and continued, “That man, Romanov, he went to see Mr. Gordon after he heard about my friend, Andre. Andre does not take drugs. We never took any drugs, any steroids. We have no need. That man went to Mr. Gordon because he was so mad.” He looked forlorn. “And he never came back. He was killed. Mr. Gordon told my father that would happen to him if he didn’t stay
in line.
And they used my father to keep me
in line.
”

“In line for what?” Jake inserted. “What does Gordon Fortran have on you?”

“Mr. Gordon brought me to this country. He arranged for my scholarship at BT. He told me I would go pro. Professional. He saved me and my father from poverty in Russia. In return he owned us. We saw no money. He kept it all. I was okay when I was in school. I was fed. But for my father…” Serge’s voice hitched, “…for my father, poverty just moved with us from Uglich.”

Jake startled everyone by grabbing the Russian by the shoulders and hauling him backward so that he was propped against the wall and could now sit up without struggling to keep his head up. A silent communiqué from Jake told Megan there was no way in hell he was lightening up on his restraints.

“
Spasibo.
Thank you.” Serge breathed in deep as his broad shoulders strained against the speaker wire. He shook his head, dejected.

“That man, Vladimir Romanov, that man you saw get killed. He was the father of a volleyball player. He got mad at Mr. Gordon for his greed. He confronted him and said he needed money to live. He said he would tell people that Andre did not do drugs. He had a gun—”

“How do you know this?” Megan asked.

Serge met her eyes. “Mr. Gordon told my father what happened to Vladimir when my father brought a gun to the office two weeks ago. My father knows Mr. Gordon is a bad man. My father asked about you. He started to wonder why you were the only one to ever see us, and now you were gone, too. Mr. Gordon just said, yes, he had Andre killed, and he said that you also needed to be killed. And he told my father that he could do nothing when he ordered me to find and kill you.”

For as much as she expected it, the information still made her gasp and throw a hand up against her mouth, feeling slightly nauseous.

Serge continued, “We are poor. We were brought here under the promise that we will make great money, but only Mr. Gordon sees the money. We are in a strange land and he is our master. What was my father supposed to do?” Plaintive, he added, “What was I supposed to do?”

Megan rocked back on her heels, swiping her hand through her hair. “I’ll tell you what you can do. You can tell the authorities exactly what you just told us. You are not alone in this, Serge. Gordon Fortran will not control any of us anymore.”

A glint of interest brightened Serge’s blue eyes. “But my father?”

“Your father is going to be okay. We’re going to be okay.” She looked up at Jake as she said the words.

“I’m calling the police now, Meg.” Jake rose from his crouch.

She closed her eyes and swayed with the impact of that statement. One year of her life
was gone because she could not utter those words, and now, too mentally spent to answer, she merely nodded.

Naturally the phones were out. At first Megan considered that Serge might have tampered with the outside line, but he said no and surely a Russian basketball player’s skills with phone systems could not be as precise and destructive as a brewing nor’easter.

“Just another challenge, that’s all,” Jake assured, although his voice was rough. “If only my damn cell would come in. Where’s my network? Where’s the guy saying, ‘
Can you hear me now?’
I guess his crew never made the trip to Victory Cove.”

No phone. The storm was kicking up. Her mind churned in search of options.

“Let’s get in the car then,” Jake offered to her silence. “Serge will be fine here. I’m still reluctant to untie him, but I can make him comfortable.”

Outside, the wind howled. The snow which kicked up in pace could not be seen, but could be heard. Millions of pinpricks assaulted the window, miniscule bullets of ice that could sting skin like glass splinters.

They would not make it far, but she didn’t trust Gordon. Every second that he didn’t hear from Serge escalated the danger. Perhaps the storm could prove an ally and deter him.

“There’s a radio,” she remembered, “for occasions like this—if Gabrielle needed to reach Harriet. When the real-estate agent was showing me the shed, she told me about it.”

A pained look skewed Jake’s face. It was the inadvertent use of his mother’s name, a subject that had been deferred, but which still tormented him. With a flinch he cast the ache aside and nodded. “Okay, where?”

“I don’t know if it still works.” Her voice grew soft. “I never had any occasion to use it myself.”

“Any idea where it might be?” he asked.

“Down in the cellar somewhere.”

“I didn’t see anything down there.”

“That’s where I remember it last. Unless the battery ran out and they just threw it in the shed with the rest of the stuff that’s supposed to be disposed of after Estelle—after she—”

“I understand.” Jake cut her off.

He made a quick scan of the kitchen, seemingly distrustful of the heavy shadows.

“Alright, come with me. We go down there together.”

That was fine with her. For all the bravado she had preached in the past—right now she wanted nothing more than to stay attached to him.

“What about Serge?” She glanced up the stairwell where she could see the shadow of his reclined figure against the wall.

“We have to be sure, Meg. When the police arrive, we’ll set him free and explain that he’s innocent. But not before then, not when you’re at risk.”

His raw concern for her moved Megan. “Do you think he’ll be scared up there?” she mused.

Jake smirked. “The winds are kicking up. He’s about to hear the ghost wailing, so yeah he might be.”

“There’s no ghost here.” She crossed her arms. “I was just building up the hype to intimidate you.”

Instead of the expected smirk, Megan was surprised to see Jake’s face sober. “There is a ghost at Wakefield House.”

Her lips parted, but he continued in a husky tone, “She’s so haunting. So beautiful. Pure of heart. Something divine, yet cloaked in shadows. Rooted to this house as if chains were linked
about her ankles. Her wings are spread, they pump and pump, but still she can’t escape.” His smile was sad. “And so she sits, as a sentinel—a prisoner, and waits for someone to come and release her.”

Breath fled her body. She reached for the back of the chair and tried to stave off the haunting image. Was it really her? Was that the image she portrayed?

At the same time that this house was her refuge—was it not also her dungeon?

“Have you come to release me?” she whispered, breathless.

Jake shook his head, advanced a step, and she felt the warmth of his palm infuse her cheek.

“No, Meg. It’s not that simple. Only one person can do that.” His thumb brushed her skin. “Maybe her name is Margaret Simmons, maybe it’s Megan Summers, but she’s the only one who will give you liberation.”

A small whimper passed across her lips. She recoiled from his touch despite admitting that he was right. Jake voiced the obvious. For the past year her motivations stemmed from fear, revenge and resentment, so much so that they became a living animal she could not control.

“One day,” he continued gravely, “you will flap those wings one last time and break free.”

He couldn’t look Megan in the eye any longer. It was like finding the darkest point of midnight—as if he stood at the edge of the universe, where one blink could spell complete obscurity or the promise of another world.

He dropped his hand to hers and held it tight. “Come on, let’s go check out the dungeon.” He grinned. “I mean basement.”

It was slow in coming, but Megan smiled. The gesture took her ashen pallor and turned it into something luminous. He wanted to share that with her.

Once again in possession of the gun, Jake called up the stairwell, “You okay, Serge?”

“Yeah,” came the weary reply.

“We’ll be right back.”

Megan carried the flashlight, but Jake led the way. The shakiness of her hand was still evident by the beam that bobbed and swayed along the damp concrete wall. At the bottom he switched on the single overhead bulb, and what that dull ring of light could not reach, Megan jabbed the beam at.

“See anything?” he asked.

“No. It was a black box, old, looked like something from one of the world wars.” She looked around again. “But it’s not here, it must be in the shed.”

“I don’t remember seeing a shed.”

“It’s off the back porch, no more than ten yards.” Megan squared her shoulders. “I’ll run out back and you go check on Serge. I feel bad leaving him alone.”

“No way. I’m not letting you go outside alone.”

Her lips pursed in a look of petulance. “It’s just out the back door. I’ll be fine.”

“Meg.” The emphasis he used on her name told her there would be no compromise.

He enjoyed her soft pout and added, “We’ll go check on Serge and then
together
we’ll find that radio.”

“I’m sorry, Serge, but we just have to wait until the police arrive before we can untie you. Your intention when you broke in here was to hurt us after all.”

Serge’s face fell. “I would not have hurt you. Maybe scared you. That would have been all I would do. But I understand. I just wish I could call my father.”

“That’s the problem,” Jake inserted. “The phones are out.”

“I do not trust Mr. Gordon,” Serge said in a grave tone.

Jake gripped the gun tighter. “Do you think he followed you?” It was his greatest fear, but something he had not yet dared to voice.

“I just say that I do not trust that man.”

“I know.” Jake placed his free hand on the giant’s shoulder and said, “Meg, we better get out there and find that radio.”

She didn’t respond.

“Meg?”

Behind him, the hall was empty.

Jake charged to the top of the staircase. “Megan!” he yelled and felt the reverberation all around him.

Fool,
his shout echoed back. How could he turn his back on the ghost of Wakefield House? As if she had been nothing more than an ethereal mist, Megan vanished.

Heart hammering with adrenaline, Jake bounded down the steps, his boots hitting the landing with a thunderous rumble. Unfamiliar with the layout of the rear half of the house, and unable to stop and ferret out a lamp, he fumbled through the dark until he located the back door. A cruel mix of ice and snow slapped him in the face, the gale forceful enough to make him stagger backward.

“Megan!” Jake leaned into the wind and used the leverage of one of the porch’s wooden columns to propel him down the steps. With the sleet falling at an angle, he could barely keep his eyes open against the assault. Arm raised in combat against the elements he reached the bottom and started across the icy plane. His steps were awkward on the slick surface, and his sight was reduced to a two-foot circumference.

With this limited progress, he prayed that his next step would not be off the cliff.

Megan traveled this path a thousand times during the summer to reach her homemade shooting range, cans sitting atop three abandoned cedar posts from a fence that had either decayed or was sucked off the cliff and into the ocean. If not for that daily training, she would have easily lost her bearings in this deluge. Any hint of the moon vanished behind clouds so thick there was no distinct line where land began and night ended.

Megan felt it was quicker for her to run out here and retrieve the radio herself. It would have taken precious moments to escort Jake down a path unfamiliar to him. She knew she would get an earful for it, but it was expeditious for them to divide and conquer.

The strong coastal wind made her hair billow about her, and the icy snow stung her exposed ears. Megan drew her collar up high. She noticed the impotence of her flashlight beam and turned it off, not certain how long the quarters would last and knowing she would need it once she reached the shed
.

Positioned near the edge of the cliffs, many a nor’easter like this one had stripped the once-sturdy shed into a lean-to of splintered wood. It was bound together by rusted nails and stubborn hinges made of a metal resistant to salt and any recipe of destruction the coast could whip up. So flimsy were the panels, it appeared they could be torn apart by hand like string cheese, but the obstinate hinges kept the door from flying away when she yanked it open.

Just as stubborn, the door refused to close as she hauled with all her might and latched the rickety panel from inside. As fragile as it was, the stockade helped to keep the weather at bay, although the wind still howled its fury that she had temporarily escaped. Frigid tentacles reached for her through every crack until she felt colder in here than being exposed outside.

Not wasting any time, she rummaged through the heap of broken sewing machines, dysfunctional lamps, shattered furniture, and located the ham radio atop a leather-bound trunk. The radio was a sturdy metal box with tarnished meters and knobs, but it struck her as being remarkably preserved for something that must date back to the thirties or forties. She had no clue how to operate it. How could she have not studied up on this one small detail that could prove to save their lives? Having never planned for this source of communication was an inexcusable oversight. Perhaps she expected that if it came to the point where she left the haven of Wakefield House, it would already be the end and communication would be too late.

Megan felt that she was a fool to ever believe that she had control of her fate.

Her intention was to run back inside with the radio, but with it immediately accessible, she couldn’t resist fumbling with the knobs. She knew there was an electrical source to the device—batteries, a generator, a mouse on a treadmill. The real-estate agent had advised her that it was still functional if she ever needed it, but all Megan could elicit from the machine was static. She tried to shout into the stream of electrical fuzz that it was emitting, hoping that anyone out there listening might hear her, but ultimately the static fell still and she slapped the top of the device in frustration. Jake would know what to do. He would use his magic and probably manage to contact NASA on this antique. Closing the trunk and hoisting it under her arm, she reached out to throw the latch open as the door ripped from her hands and the Atlantic screamed at her.

She screamed back.

Even with the collar pulled up over her ears, the sounds of the tempest assaulted her. In the wind, she heard the ghostly woman crying, the phantom that besieged her at night. Outside of Wakefield’s dark chambers, the cry took on a hollow sound, like a woeful moan meant to lure souls toward its source, the yawning black shadows beyond the cliff’s edge. Megan also heard the anxious murmur of ice and snow, like a thousand voices whispering about her, berating her, cajoling her. Amidst their dissonance, one voice broke through.

“Margaret.”

Her body jerked and the radio fell to the ground. It wasn’t the storm that called her name. She spun around and instinctively crouched, prepared to attack, but she did not have her trusty GLOCK. She had nothing but her bare hands and a flashlight.

“Margaret,” that chilled voice called again.

Megan whirled and saw his outline. Night swelled into the menacing form of a man. There were no distinct features, only a shadow—a frightening profile that looked as if the storm had taken its vivacity and breathed life into this very monster.

The man spoke in a controlled cadence that masked the scream of the gale. “I’ve been looking for you.”

All her preparation for this moment was whisked away by the wind. Even now, Megan felt the tug of that coastal current drawing her toward the cliff’s edge with a pull of deadly proportions. Her cry was one of denial, or perhaps madness.

“Go to hell, Gordon.”

His laugh rumbled like thunder. “Hell is for heroes, darling. I’m not the hero type.”

The absurdity of that statement failed to humor Megan. Frigid shards from the storm wormed into the gap at her collar and she felt her limbs grow numb. Frantically she clamped and unclamped her fingers to keep the circulation going.

“You found me,” she hissed over the chatter of her teeth. “So what now, you kill me? How tidy.”

“Quite,” the chiseled shadow murmured.

“It’s too late for you, Gordon. I know it all now. You can’t control people. Your mistake was greed. You thought you were above the law.” She began to shout over the wind. “I know about the scholarships. You planted these athletes and prospered off them and then left them near poverty. The problem is,” she added with remarkable composure, “you brought in too many. You couldn’t control them. They started to fight back.”

There was no immediate response, no arrogant retort, but finally his refined voice carried over the storm. “You have it all figured out, Margaret. You always were smart. My best assistant, and hot to boot.”

Gordon stepped forward into the scope of the fading flashlight. The muted orange glow cast him as if he basked in firelight, or the flames of hell, making his features more brutal than refined. Deep shadows set his face in a skeletal mask, and his black eyes were malevolent portals to a soul that had already been dealt to the Devil.