#2 in The Midnight Saga:
The Darkness Visible
By Tori de Clare
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This book, as in all of my work, is dedicated to my husband and children. Every day they inspire me to get up, to work, to smile, to improve, to learn and to grow.
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Acknowledgements
I needed help with this book. Friends rallied and supported me. Did they volunteer, or did I threaten them? It’s all a blur now, but I do know that I’m indebted to a special few. Thank you never seems enough, but it’ll have to do. My warm thanks go to my lawyer friend Robert Ripley and his other half, Helen, my very creative friend who did the photo shoots for the front covers. Thanks to the two gorgeous girls who posed for me and risked life and limb on a slim window ledge, and then in front of an open window respectively. Thanks a million to Stephen Meredith, my very knowledgeable CSI friend who gave hours of his time to my cause, without complaint. Thank you to my lovely friend Deb Bartlett, who’s always on the end of my phone to help with technical problems. Deb helped with the final look of the new front covers and did all the stuff I couldn’t do. Thanks to those who read this work upon completion and pre-publication. Your feedback has been invaluable. And finally, thank you to two friends in particular, Sally Harrison and Dawn Crooks, who I’ve never met in person but who have kept in touch and helped to motivate me into completing the book. I owe all of you a big hug and an obscenely-proportioned box of chocolates. Thank you so much!
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No part of this work may be reproduced, electronically transmitted or photocopied in any way or by any means without the express permission of the author and publisher
Copyright © Tori de Clare 2014
Tori de Clare has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work
All rights reserved
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The Darkness
Visible
By Tori de Clare
Prologue
On a bitter late-October morning at nine forty-two GMT, with strangled light feeding through the venetian blinds at a large bay window overlooking an impeccably-kept garden, a person pulled back an office chair and sat down at a light oak desk. He deposited his mug of Brazilian filtered coffee onto an aluminium coaster and rolled up the sleeves of a new shirt that was as crisp and white as the frosted lawn beyond the window.
He dragged a laptop towards him, booted it up while he consulted his watch and noiselessly sipped his coffee, then added a carefully selected password and logged on to the internet. His Apple Mac took just over a second to obey the instruction, after which he positioned both hands over the keypad and supressed a smile. The world had shrunk to a screen fourteen inches by eight. Everything was within reach. There was barely a pocket of the planet that couldn’t be picked.
He highlighted the toolbar and added a website address one deliberate letter at a time: www.Flightradar24.com. The screen threw up a one-dimensional map of the world with small diagrams of yellow planes dotting the earth, with huge clusters smothering the major cities. He was watching all the world’s flights. As they happened. Right then. On the top left of the screen, two tiny boxes stacked up. One showed a negative sign, the other a positive. He lined up the cursor and clicked the positive sign until the globe expanded and the USA and Russia vanished either side, leaving Europe centre screen with a hundred little planes swarming the UK, and a thousand others choking the continent.
He pinned the left button down and dragged the planet right to left, moving east and down, across Europe, through Turkey and the Middle East, and out into the Arabian Sea. He slowed now and plunged into the Indian Ocean where a solitary plane was flying solo across a watery chasm of apparent nothingness.
‘Hello.’
He returned to the tiny box and clicked the positive sign and the area blew up to uncover the Seychelles, and further north, the Maldives, with the line of the equator scoring the bottom ring of the islands. Upon the latter, he focussed his attention. One more click and the capital, Male, revealed itself by way of a red splodge, indicating the position of the only airport in the region. The yellow plane shifted economically every few seconds, eating the small gap. He clicked on the plane itself and it turned red and threw up some information. Emirates flight EK0020 from Manchester to Male with a one-hour stop in Dubai. Aircraft: Boeing 777. Flight time: thirteen hours forty-five minutes plus an additional hour to refuel in Dubai. Expected landing time: 14.55 local time. Status: on time.
He checked his watch through habit, though clocking the time would only have needed a flash glance to a corner of the screen. The Maldives were five hours ahead. 14.55 translated to 09.55 GMT. It was 09.44. Ten minutes of flight time remaining. There was the option of tracing the journey so far, which he clicked to fill time. A perfect green arc plotted the line of the flight path from North West England to the west side of the Maldives where the plane now hovered above countless square miles of ocean.
Another click and he got a view of the cockpit. Out of interest he checked the speed, the altitude, the view from the aircraft. He opened another window and looked at average temperatures for the Maldives in October – the wet season. It typically enjoyed eight hours of sunshine a day, punctuated with rain, which didn’t pull down the temperature at all. Highs pushed twenty-eight degrees with a difference of only three degrees at night.
‘Nice,’ he muttered, returning to the flight while he drew deep gulps of coffee and pushed back in his chair and watched the plane plummet another couple of hundred feet.
He finished the last half inch of coffee and returned the mug to the aluminium coaster, positioning it exactly centre. Then he linked his fingers behind his head and stretched out his legs and decided that the house needed some heat. The plane dipped further. Six minutes to landing.
‘Showtime.’
PART ONE
1
Naomi Hamilton had her cheek squashed against the window as the plane descended through swirls of cloud towards a cluster of islands that looked like scattered pebbles in the sea. The plane clunked and slowed as the wheels rolled down and the final layer of mist cleared. The view from the air was an exotic display of dazzling shades of pale blue and turquoise amid a wider picture of deep indigo.
The islands took shape and gained detail. Each one was unique in size and shape – some perfect spheres, others small strips of land painted in vibrant oil colours in the middle of a very blue sea.
Dan Stone lifted the armrest and leaned over Naomi as the islands unfolded beneath them in all their glory and the plane descended and the water gained froth and yachts, then life and motion. Dan took her hand, knitted his fingers inside hers and placed his free hand on the top of her leg. Out of earshot of the middle-aged man who was dozing, mouth open, on the aisle-seat next to Dan, he leaned into her hair. His fringe tickled her cheek. His breath was warm against the air-conditioned cabin and smelled of the mint he was sucking to relieve the pressure in his ears.
‘I want you so badly,’ he whispered, depositing a noiseless, lingering kiss beneath her ear.
Naomi smiled and Dan squeezed her hand. ‘Ditto.’ They fell into silence for a few moments, until Naomi said, ‘I can’t believe we’re actually here.’
‘Me neither.’
‘Have you ever seen anything so stunning?’
‘Never.’
It was the way his voice hung on the word that made her glance over her shoulder to find that Dan was looking directly at her through those crystal blue eyes of his, set in an intense expression. His hair was dark and straight. He wore it long on top
and short around the back and sides and was always pushing it out of his eyes. A smile played on his lips.
Naomi turned her back on the islands and twisted her body to face him. She tipped the side of her head against her seat and Dan shifted back and mirrored her position on his seat. Dan was never certain how tall he was, but he reckoned around, six one, six-two. He had broad shoulders, big hands and long fingers. Naomi reached out with one hand and touched the tips of Dan’s fingers with the tips of hers. They sat gazing at each other, lips a few centimetres apart, legs shoved uncomfortably together.
‘Soon,’ she quietly told Dan.
‘Not soon enough.’
‘Would you two get a room,’ came an ungentle voice from behind them. Annabel Hamilton, Naomi’s non-identical twin, was standing and grinning down from the seat behind, her luscious blonde hair tied up in a high pony. It was Annabel’s birthday. She wore a yellow badge which said, birthday girl. Naomi’s birthday was the next day. They were born either side of midnight.
‘Keep your voice down,’ Naomi said, tilting her head up, feeling a flush of colour in her cheeks. The man next to Dan was beginning to stir.
Annabel’s face was pale, her eyes a little bloodshot. She’d slept for half the journey. ‘Get a room,’ she repeated more gently, before dropping out of view.
Dan said quietly, ‘We intend to.’
Annabel shot up again. ‘About time.’
She was pulled down sharply this time by Joel Martin, her long-term boyfriend. Naomi could see him through the gap in the seats, his long, fair hair flopping about in his eyes.
Joel said, ‘You’re supposed to have your seatbelt on, you naughty girl.’
An air steward appeared and echoed Joel’s words, ‘Could you put your seatbelt on please? Armrest down, sir.’ He was glaring at Dan now.
Annabel giggled again and Naomi grinned at Dan as he pulled the barrier between them. Naomi turned and looked through the window to monitor progress.
The captain said, ‘Cabin crew, seats for landing.’
The water was fast approaching. The horizon – two almost identical shades of blue – was a line across the window now and Naomi couldn’t see how the plane was going to land safely. Dan’s hand was warm and made tiny sweeping movements across the top of her leg. He rested his chin on Naomi’s shoulder and they held hands and watched the rest of the descent in silence.
The sea was rising to meet the undercarriage of the plane, which was unnerving when scattered islands dotted the sea and none were equipped for a landing. Finally, Dan pointed out a cluttered island that was in view right ahead and had buildings instead of palm trees. It was the capital, Male. The plane wasn’t lining up with it. A hundred yachts and boats zipped along the coastline trailing lashings of cream.
The city was level in the window now. Dan squeezed Naomi’s hand firmly as the plane touched down gracefully on a slice of land adjacent to Male that was nothing more than a runway and a few airport buildings.
They collected their luggage and exited the building to be met by brilliant sunlight. To leave a chilled country one day and step into summer the next, seemed miraculous – like rising from the dead and being reborn. There was a short walk to a wooden jetty that had a floating plane at the end of it. The sun was radiating pleasant heat in an azure sky, fanned by a warm wind. The seaplane’s engine chugged while it waited; the whole patch of water between the two islands was an artery of passing traffic as the capital collected and scattered holidaymakers all over the Maldives.
Reluctant to part with Joel’s hand, Annabel climbed aboard the plane first, and Dan followed with Naomi. A handful of people filed in behind them and fastened seatbelts, and the plane skimmed the water and took off in search of the final destination, which was reached exactly thirty-four minutes later.
Conrad Maldives Rengali Island was actually a pair of idyllic islands about six-hundred metres apart, joined at one end by a narrow wooden bridge. Annabel and Joel’s choice of accommodation was a beach villa on the bigger island with a private tropical garden and a shower room that merged with the house but had no roof. Naomi and Dan’s place was across the water on the slimmer finger of land over the long wooden bridge that clung on to the bigger island like an umbilical cord. At the furthest tip in a secluded corner, overlooked by nothing at all, sat two luxury water villas a pleasing distance apart. The furthest one, theirs, was out on a long wooden limb and was suspended over the ocean on white stilts, with panoramic views of the lagoon and coral reef.
The plane touched down on water and was tied to the jetty by a man who’d climbed out of the plane while it was still skiing. A small welcome committee was waiting on the beach, dressed in white, playing primitive music. Having stepped into a kind of heavenly paradise filled with exotic scents and the kind of colours seen only in Disney films, they made their way to Conrad reception area where a small, smiling man held an arm out to lead them outside again.
Having made plans to meet up with Annabel and Joel for dinner later on, Dan and Naomi said a temporary farewell and followed the man while he loaded their luggage onto a strange-looking open car and drove them to a jetty where they caught a ferry across to the quieter island. They emerged onto a wooden deck which sat on powder-white sands. A small man in a blue tunic was waiting for them. He greeted them warmly and pulled their cases a short distance across the sand, until they picked up a wooden path.
Dan and Naomi followed hand in hand as their luggage clattered across the bridge in front of them. A warm wind gently pushed them from behind. They were shown to a glass front door on the deserted edge of the island. The man stood the two cases side by side and unlocked the front door and invited them to enter first.
Naomi pressed cautiously forward onto slabs of marble tiles with Dan close behind. Beyond a small hallway was an open-plan sitting area with a huge glass panel in the centre of the floor, surrounded by padded seating. Glass doors on the outside wall had been thrown open. Sunshine flooded in, inviting them outside. They could see the bedroom, parallel to the sitting room through a big open archway. In the bedroom were matching glass doors on the same outside wall, opening onto the same wooden deck. There were no internal doors in the place so far.
‘Wow,’ Dan uttered into the room.
Naomi added, ‘It’s stunning.’
The small man couldn’t have looked more proud if he’d designed and built the place himself. Dan slid an arm around Naomi’s waist as they wandered, speechless, into the main bedroom where the beaming man had moved ahead to demonstrate the capabilities of a huge circular bed which could electronically rotate to watch the sun rise and set. That done, the man headed outside onto the private wooden deck to point out the sun loungers, a table, a whirlpool and a swimming pool that teetered on the very brink of the deck above the ocean. A wooden staircase beside the pool plunged into the ocean, which shifted smoothly around the second rung, and rose, he told them, to the fourth rung when the tide was in.
Naomi stood, aware of Dan’s hand in the small of her back, the sea breeze rousing her hair. The water was pristine; the air clean. The water gurgled like a baby. It was possible to filter it out and listen to absolutely nothing. The sun was unrestrained. A few clouds were pinned into the sky, unmoving, and there was an unimpeded view of miles of empty shallow water, with a tide bubbling a fringe of froth onto the reef in the distance.
They had a brief tour of the rest of the place, which had another bedroom and bathroom. The man told them about the butler service and the famous people who’d stayed there, wished them a happy visit, bowed once, then left them alone. Dan locked the door. Naomi was looking out to sea from the sitting room, feeling strangely tearful when Dan returned in silence. He took her hand and they strolled through the bedroom and into the bathroom just off it, which had no wall or door, and had a round Jacuzzi bath in front of a clear-glass window with another spectacular open view.
Dan pulled her in front of him. The peace and seclusion of the place was a powerful presence
. He cupped her face in his hands.
‘So.’
She looked directly into his eyes and smiled. ‘So,’ she replied in a breathy whisper.
2
‘Tired?’ Dan held her close.
Naomi shook her head. ‘You?’
‘How could I be? Look at this place.’
‘It’s breath-taking.’
‘But it’s so extravagant, Nao –’
‘Shh, Dan,’ she said, touching his lips. ‘I want to forget about everything while we’re here. This is just about us now. It’s a once in a lifetime thing. Who cares about the cost?’
Dan continued to gaze at her and found no words. Naomi added, ‘When are you going to realise that everything that’s mine is yours now?’
Dan shrugged. ‘That’s hard for any man to accept.’
‘You’ll manage.’
‘I’ll have to,’ Dan said, inching closer. ‘So, how are you feeling about being here? Not long ago this would have freaked you out.’
‘I’m fine. I wanted to prove to myself that I could be surrounded by water and not be afraid. I’m done with living in fear, Dan.’
He said nothing more, just leant in and gently kissed her and held her face and shuffled closer. When he drew back, he said, ‘I won’t let anything happen to you. I’d die to protect you, you know that.’
‘I don’t want you to die for me, Dan. This is the beginning for us, not the end.’
‘I know that,’ his mouth went in the direction of a smile. ‘The threat’s over. You’re safe now.’
They listened to the sound of perfect peace until Naomi lightened the mood. ‘Do you think this is all a bit of a cliché?’
‘What?’
‘You know, boy abducts girl at knifepoint, ties her up, pervs over her in the shower, gets her to fall in love with him, drags her out to the Maldives?’
The Darkness Visible (The Midnight Saga Book 2) Page 1
