Shadow Stations: Unseen (8 page)

More alarm bells went off, but I walked over to a small wall mirror and stared at the necklace. It was the kind of delicate jewelry an older woman might wear to an important dinner. Not exactly my style.

“
Is it an heirloom?” I asked.

That same eager tenderness passed across his face. “It belonged to my grandmother.”

“
Oh.” His grandmother. And then I got it. I felt so stupid because I hadn’t seen it until now. Mike was in love with me. The glances, the hovering, the way he always paid for everything, and now a precious family heirloom. I’d been so grief stricken about Ben and so caught up with the prisoner that I hadn’t paid much attention to the way Mike was always looking at me.

He came closer and kissed me on the mouth before I realized what he was doing. Seconds later, he pressed himself against me, moving his hands over my shoulders and down my arms, pulling me against him. I could feel his hard muscles and his warmth and breathed in his masculine scent.

“
No, stop it,” I told him, wrestling away. “I can’t do this.”

He looked aghast. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

I moved back, shaking with anger. “Look, I don’t want a boyfriend. I don’t. Get that through your head, okay? Ben just died and I can’t even think about anybody else. I can’t. I don’t know what you think I am.” I took the necklace off. “And I absolutely can’t accept this.”

“
I didn’t mean to upset you, Amy. I want you to have the necklace. It’s a gift.”

“
No, I can’t keep this thing.” I put the necklace in his hand.

He reached for his coat with a troubled face and went to the door. I thought he was going to leave without saying a word, but he turned around. I knew he was searching for something to make things right. “I’ll always be here if you ever need anything.”

“
Mike, you need to go.” When I shut the door I could still smell his scent and feel his hands on my sweater.

Chapter 12

I couldn’t believe I didn’t see it coming. We’d known each other for years. I wondered if he’d been watching me the whole time, hanging back in the shadows, hiding his feelings, not saying anything because Ben was always there.

The house phone jolted me out of my thoughts. It had to be Mike again. I hurried to the kitchen, shaking my head over his persistence, but by the time I grabbed the phone the ringing had stopped.

Unknown Caller. I waited for a message to come in, but nothing showed up.

It was probably a wrong number.

Uneasy, I wrote it off, peeled my gloves off, and returned to my obsession. I was going to the island one more time. I would never be able to get Ben back, but there was a small chance I could save the prisoner’s life. There had to be some way to communicate with the man if he was still alive.

Four o’clock. I found the flashlight, shone the beam on the device, and felt the probe seize my bruised, swollen wrist.

* * *

Dusk had fallen over the island. Thousands of insects chirred as the last light of day descended into night. The prisoner stood with a rock in his hand in front of the hut’s one window while I floated behind him.

“
I’m back again,” I whispered.

He didn’t answer. With amazement I realized I could see my faint reflection behind his shoulder. My phantom eyes gazed out over my phantom nose, anxious mouth, and long dark hair. It was either a trick of the twilight or my body was changing and becoming more visible.

The prisoner’s reflection stayed in shadow.

“
Do you know the name of the island?” I tried to tap his shoulder, but my hand passed through his muscles and came out on the other side of his body.

All of a sudden he saw me in the window, whirled around, and stared into the rainforest. Breathing hard, he returned to the window and saw me again. He threw his hands over his shoulders, horribly agitated, trying to feel behind his back, and turned in a frantic circle, searching for the phantom.

“
I’m here,” I told him. “Behind you.”

He screamed when he saw my reflection the third time, took the rock, and smashed the glass with a violence that shocked me. My heart fell. He must have thought the image was a lie, a ghost, an apparition. Then he knocked the shattered fragments from the window frame, pulled his legs up on the ledge, and squeezed inside the empty room.

I streamed after him, deeply disappointed. We’d probably lost our best chance to talk to each other, maybe our only chance.

Shadows fell over the sleek camp table, chair, and metal cot I’d glimpsed before. A cabinet stood against the wall, but it turned out to be locked. The prisoner braced his legs and raised the rock to do some serious damage to the cabinet doors when someone crashed through the distant underbrush.

Ominous footfalls pounded toward the hut.

The prisoner’s scream must have given him away and now there was nowhere to hide. He scrambled to the hut’s single door and grabbed the handle. Locked like the cabinet. The footfalls grew louder.

In a panic, the prisoner threw himself under the cot. My phantom body flew with him and we both saw it at the same time: a wooden trapdoor, painted gray to blend in with the stone floor.

The prisoner kicked the cot away, wrenched the trapdoor open, and leaped into the narrow black hole. Just before he pulled the trapdoor down, he saw a bolt underneath and slid it into place. Locked in. The light died out. We frantically wormed down into a claustrophobic tunnel with rough dirt walls that descended into the black unknown.

“
I’m still here,” I whispered.

Thock.
The shot blasted above us.

Thock, thock.
More shots. Wood splintered and cracked apart. Dim light flooded the tunnel, but a thick shape blotted it all out, followed by a grunt and the sound of a big body squeezing into the opening. Dirt crumbled down.

He was coming after us.

The tunnel twisted every few feet. More dirt sifted from the walls. Bigger pieces, clods and pebbles, rained down from above. Another grunt came out of the dark. A hard object suddenly struck the tunnel walls, dislodged a shower of dirt, and hurtled toward us with terrible force. The missile went through my phantom hands and smashed the prisoner in the shoulder. Groaning in agony, he picked it up.

It was the rock from the trap.

More grunts followed.
Thock
. The shot missed, hit the bend in the wall, and filled the tunnel with a small avalanche of dirt.

Around another turn, a faint light appeared, and something else. The crash of the sea. My worried joy vanished when I looked up and saw the hunter’s boots and legs and face, his taunting smile and low forehead. Something glowed.
Thock
. He fired at close range.

The prisoner rolled like mad. The shot struck half an inch from his head. Dirt fell everywhere in huge chunks. Feet. Legs. Murderous six-fingered hands snatched out of the dark, followed by a vicious face with teeth full of dirt. The hunter grabbed the prisoner’s hood, went for his eyes, and the two men were on each other, tumbling over and over.

Gasps. Grunts. Hands clawing flesh. A sickening punch in the dark and a strangled cry. One man beat the other over and over with violent thuds. He had the rock.

Thock.
The tunnel walls collapsed with a roar and buried us all. In the terrible silence that followed, I wondered if the dirt had suffocated both men. But a foot moved, and a leg inched out, and a body rolled free and gasped. One man, not two. He braced his arms against the piles of dirt and dug his way out until he stood on a rocky hillside under the open sky.

The prisoner was still alive. He began to scramble away from the tunnel with the rock still in his hand, looking back at the opening as he hurried toward the sea. I could feel his terror as I streamed behind him and expected to see the hunter’s face emerge from the hill at any moment.

Moonlight shone through fog that drifted over the shore. The sea was at low tide. In the distance small waves foamed over the sand and surged out again. Sweet freedom. I couldn’t smell anything, but I knew the air must have a fresh, salty tang. We were out of the rainforest. Insects chirred behind the towering walls and a faraway animal screamed.

“
Did he die in the tunnel?” I asked, but the prisoner didn’t answer.

The nightmarish lava field lay before us. I thought he would try to cross it again, but he climbed down to the shore instead and began to half-sprint across the wet sand toward the horizon where the fog shrouded the coastline. His footfalls and the crash of the surf were the only sounds in the dark. He ran for so long I began to wonder if he would run all night. Then, he suddenly slowed down to stare out to sea.

Someone in a small boat was rowing near the tide line.

Chapter 13

“
Hey,” a man shouted out of the fog. He waved one arm in a huge circle.

Panicking, the prisoner began to scramble over the rocks, away from the surf.

“
Hey, hey, fuck no, man, they’ll catch you.” The man in the boat had a Caribbean accent and was calling in the same strange tone I’d heard before, as if he were underwater or at a tremendous distance.

The prisoner stopped with one hand on the rocks as though he couldn’t make up his mind while the man in the boat turned to pick up an oar. The telltale silver device protruded through the back of his gray clothes. Another prisoner.

That must have swayed my prisoner’s mind because he climbed down from the rocks, crossed the wet sand, and waded through the dark water toward the boat. Waves slapped against the hull’s peeling paint and splintered wood. The man with the oars looked as rotten as the boat. His salt-encrusted braids hung over blistered, leathery skin and a raw place on his skull where his ear was missing.

The prisoner grabbed the edge of the boat and swung himself inside. I floated in after him and hovered beside his shoulders, but the man in the boat didn’t notice me.

“
Antoine.” The man held out a filthy hand.

The prisoner seemed to size him up and reluctantly shook his hand.

“
No name?” Antoine said. “Oh, they broke your jaw. Nice.” He leaned closer as though he was afraid his voice would carry over the water. “I know what they are and I found out where they’re coming from. I’ll tell you when we get away from shore.”

The prisoner nodded his head. Antoine took up the oars and began to row away from the tide line. The boat creaked as the two men moved into the drifting fog.

* * *

Seconds later, I came to in the living room with my heart racing a thousand miles an hour. I was back in the real world, back on the solid couch, my mind and heart and ears still filled with the sounds of the sea. The house phone was ringing. A violent ache pulsed through my hands when I got up to answer it, followed by sharp nausea.

The ringing stopped. It had to be Mike again.

I waited for the nausea to pass, hoping I wouldn’t puke all over myself. Luna and Nikki looked up expectantly. What time was it? Eight o’clock. Way past time for their dinner. Taking a deep breath, I forced myself into the kitchen, expecting to see a message from Mike, but three messages showed up, two from Unknown Caller. With a ripple of apprehension I went through them.

Hang ups again, which made no sense. John Savenue had no way of knowing I was staying in Professor Wu’s house. He couldn’t know. And the number was unlisted.

I was right about Mike. He’d left the last message.

“
It’s me,” his subdued voice said. “I wanted to apologize again. I know everything’s been hard on you since you lost Ben, and anyway, I was out of line today and I hope we can go back to where we were before this happened….” His voice trailed off. “Uh, the reason I’m calling is because I’m collecting shoes and coats for a charity drive… mostly shoes, and Karin is donating some, so I thought I’d ask you, too, so if you have something you want to donate, give me a call and I’ll come by and pick it up, and that’s it, okay? Goodnight, Amy.” Another pause as if he didn’t want to end the connection, and then finally the click.

I erased the message. No, I didn’t have anything to donate. Maybe it would be a good idea to put some serious distance between us.

I found my coat and took the dogs out in the cold. Eerie clouds raced over the brilliant moon. Nikki wagged her tail and loped up the driveway, but Luna stared into the night with glassy eyes and sat down.

“
What’s the matter, Luna? Come on, let’s go for a little walk.”

I nudged her until she got up, crunched over the gravel with her to the woods, and then, unnerved by the darkness and Unknown Caller, took the dogs in and fed them their dinner. Nikki devoured her food, but Luna just sniffed at her bowl, walked stiffly into the living room, and sat down again. She was an old girl. She had the right to an off night.

“
Come on, Nikki,” I said on impulse. “Let’s go for a ride.”

I was going to the place where Ben died by the roadside. Until tonight, I’d never been able to make myself go out there.