Dark Powers

by Rebecca York

  “Christ. Sorry,” Ben said.

  “My fault. I saw the activity down by the river and got too close.”

  “I assume they’re smuggling something in.”

  “My guess is drugs. Somebody spotted me and started shooting.”

  “How bad?”

  “Luckily, just a flesh wound. We can take care of it when we get back to the Beach Breeze.”

  He got into the passenger seat, and Ben drove off.

  “Wish I’d known about the smuggling,” Cole muttered.

  “If they wanted anyone to know, they’d be doing it in broad daylight.” Ben kept alert for any car following them. “Did you find a body?”

  “Yeah. About a quarter mile from that boat dock.”

  “And you can show me where?”

  “If we can get back in there without being seen. I put them on alert.”

  When they got back to the motel, they exited the car, still surveying their surroundings. Sure they hadn’t been followed, Ben knocked on the door.

  Nobody answered.

  “I guess she’s still mad,” he said as he inserted the key in the lock.

  When he saw the room was empty, his chest constricted.

  “Sage?” Ben crossed rapidly to the bathroom and threw the door open. Empty. “She’s not here.”

  “She could have gone back to Baltimore,” Cole said.

  “I don’t think so.” He charged across the room again and checked the parking lot. “Not in my car. It’s still here.”

  “And you don’t think she would have just gone out?”

  “She was mad—but not reckless.”

  “Is anything missing?” Cole asked.

  “As a matter of fact, the gun I left with her.”

  Cole hurried to her suitcase and pulled out one of the shirts Sage had brought and pressed it to his nose. Then he walked outside and along the parking lot to a spot a couple of doors from the room. “She came along here. To a vehicle. .”

  “I can’t believe she’d just go off with someone and not leave me a note.”

  “Unless the cops arrested her again.”

  “For what?”

  “For bursting into that meeting.”

  “Where you probably saved some lives.”

  “Who the hell knows what Judd would do?”

  They both stepped inside again, and Cole walked around the room, taking deep breaths. He stopped short near the bed. “Wait a minute. I smell something I didn’t pick up before.”

  “What?”

  “If I had to guess, I’d say chloroform.”

  Ben felt his heart stop, then start up again in double time. “Chloroform. Oh Christ.”

  He wanted to rush out of the room, but he didn’t know where to go. And he still had to take care of Cole’s injury.

  As quickly as he could, he washed Cole’s arm. “It’s a graze,” he said as he applied antiseptic from the car’s first-aid kit, then pressed down a sterile pad and held it in place with gauze.

  While Cole put on his shirt, Ben fought the sick feeling tightening his chest. “We’ve got to find Sage.” Even as he said it, he was wondering how they were going to do it, considering they hadn’t even found Laurel.

  oOo

  “Sage. Wake up, Sage.”

  Someone was calling her name.

  “Sage.”

  She struggled back toward consciousness. Her head hurt, her mouth was dry, she was lying on a hard surface with her hands cuffed behind her back, and she was sure she didn’t want to be wherever she was.

  But the urgency of the voice penetrated the fog in her brain, and when she realized who was speaking, her eyes blinked open.

  “Laurel.”

  “Thank God. I’ve been so worried when you wouldn’t wake up.”

  Sage awkwardly pushed herself to a sitting position and squinted at her sister. It was easier to see with one eye closed.

  What she saw made her gasp. Laurel’s hair had been dyed blond, she was dressed in little girl pajamas, and her skin was pale. “Are you okay? What happened to you?”

  “I woke up here and found out he’d dyed my hair.”

  Sage looked around the frilly room. “Who is he?”

  “I wish I knew. He’s weird. One minute he’s trying to be nice. Then he gets so angry.” She paused and stared at her sister. “And now he’s brought you here, and I don’t know why. Did he go to Baltimore to get you?”

  “No. I’ve been in Doncaster with a private detective for a few days looking for you.” She tried to move toward her sister and found she was restrained by a chain attached to the cuffs that tied her hands.

  “Then I guess I got you captured,” Laurel said.

  “It’s not your fault. I was desperate to find you.” She looked around the room and fought to control her panic. “How long have I been here?”

  “I’m not sure. There’s no clock. I never even know if it’s night or day. But I think he comes in late at night. And sometimes in the morning.”

  “When Ben comes back to the motel, he’ll see I’m missing,” she said.

  “Who’s Ben?”

  “An agent from Decorah Security. I hired them to help me find you.” It was what she didn’t say that hung between them in the charged air. She and Ben had struck out, and now the guy who had Laurel also had Sage.

  Laurel moved toward the end of the bed and stretched out her arm, but she couldn’t reach her sister. “I saw him bring you in here,” she said in a voice she couldn’t hold steady.

  “You keep saying ‘him.’ It was Bettie Henderson who came to my motel room and said she had information about you. She—” The memory seemed just out of focus, and she struggled through the haze. “She put something over my mouth.”

  “Bettie Henderson!” Laurel gasped. “Yes, I remember talking to her outside the restaurant after my shift. And then—” She stopped and started again. “I didn’t realize this had anything to do with her.”

  “She must be working with the guy.”

  Laurel nodded, obviously trying to wrap her head around the new information.

  Sage kept her gaze on her sister. “He hasn’t done anything to you? I mean . . . hurt you. . . raped you?”

  “No. He wants me to be his little girl—and to like him, only he can’t hold it together.”

  “What else can you tell me about him?”

  “Nothing that’s going to help. I’ve wracked my brain, trying to figure him out. He always wears a hood over his head, and it muffles his voice.” She stopped and gave a mirthless laugh. “I call him Mr. Hood. But not to his face. Even if he’s someone I know, I wouldn’t be able to figure it out.”

  She stopped and took a breath. “He acts like I’m a little kid. He wants to watch me play. And if I don’t do it right, he blows up, and then he cries and stamps out.”

  “He cries?”

  “Yes. And he calls me Wendy. I guess he wants me to be someone with that name.”

  Wendy. The name triggered a memory, and she gasped.

  “What?”

  “Ben and I found a body,” she said slowly. She remembered how he’d touched the bones in the abandoned warehouse. Ben had gotten into the woman’s final memories. She’d been killed by a man who wore a black hood and called her Wendy. Chill bumps rose up on her arms.

  “What?” Laurel said again as she zeroed in on Sage’s expression.

  She didn’t want to tell her sister about the hood and the name.

  “Nothing,” she murmured.

  “It’s got to be something.”

  Sage switched tactics. “This guy must be an emotional mess, but somehow he’s gotten Bettie Henderson to work with him,” she said. “Did he tell you his name?”

  “He wanted me to call him Dad. But once he said his name was Jim.”

  “You believe him?”

  “I don’t know what to believe.”

  “Suppose he and Bettie are married?” Sage theorized. “That might explain why she’s helping him. Like that horrib
le guy in California who kept that girl captive for eighteen years or something. His wife helped him.”

  “That could be right,” Laurel replied. “But I can’t imagine anyone living with him.”

  “Maybe they had a child and lost her, and he’s trying to recreate their life together.”

  “But Bettie never comes here with him.”

  Sage nodded. Some screwed-up guy had taken Laurel captive, apparently to play like she was his little girl. He’d kidnapped other women and killed them. And now she was here, too.

  She didn’t want to think about what that meant. Instead she wanted to think about Ben. About him discovering her missing—then trying to find her.

  At that first meeting, she hadn’t liked him. But she’d gradually realized he was rock solid and steady. If anyone could figure out where she was now, he could. But did he even have a clue where to look? Maybe he’d found that other body tonight. Maybe he’d gotten something he could use from her. She had to hope that was true.

  “Now you’re here, and I don’t know what to think,” Laurel said, echoing her earlier thoughts.

  “Did Bettie bring me in here?”

  “No. It was him.”

  What did it all mean? Sage wondered. Nothing good, she was sure.

  oOo

  “If someone took her, do you have any idea who it could be?” Cole asked Ben.

  He shook his head. “If I knew that, we would already have found her sister.”

  “I guess you know it’s not the father because he’s in jail. Do you think it has anything to do with the smuggling?”

  Ben shook his head. “Not directly. But the people involved are probably worried that our poking around looking for Laurel could stir up trouble for them.”

  “And who do you think the smugglers are?”

  “Certainly the guy who owns the golf course, George Myers. Either that or they’re doing it right under his nose.” He thought for a moment. “And the chief of police, Everett Judd, has to be looking the other way. In fact, maybe that’s why he got so hyper when he found us at that old warehouse. Maybe it’s an alternate drop-off point for the goods they’re bringing in. That would make sense. If they vary the location, there’s less chance of getting caught in either place.”

  Ben dragged in a breath and let it out. “I want to lay my hands on that body. But I think going out there without police protection is a mistake, especially tonight.” He thought for a moment. “Our best move is to tell Judd we’ve got proof that he’s involved in the smuggling. Let’s see if we can force him to go out there with us and protect us from the other guys.”

  “You know where to find him?”

  “We took a tour of town when we first got here, and Sage showed me his house.” As he said her name, his insides clenched. He’d been trying to avoid thinking about what might have happened to her, but it was impossible not to let his imagination run wild.

  He ruthlessly cut off the images running through his mind.

  “Let’s go lean on Chief Judd,” Cole said.

  “You’re sure you’re okay?”

  “I told you, it’s minor.”

  They drove past the chief’s house and parked up the road, then made their way cautiously back through the woods.

  “What are we going to do when we get there?” Cole asked.

  “Make sure he’s alone, then knock on the door. If we tried to break in, he’d have the perfect excuse to shoot us.”

  “Where do you want me when you’re getting his attention?”

  “Out of sight at the side of the porch.”

  “With my gun?”

  “Yes.”

  “If this goes south, we could be in big trouble. Look what happened when he caught you trespassing.”

  “Sage is already in big trouble,” Ben clipped out, then ordered himself to calm down. “Sorry. I realize you don’t have to be involved in this.”

  “I’m not leaving you twisting in the wind. You’re the reason Emma and I got off the Windward.”

  “I think it was a joint effort. And let’s not waste our breath arguing about it.”

  Cole nodded tightly, then asked, “You think the chief is withholding information about the kidnapper?”

  “I don’t know.”

  When they reached the property, Ben motioned for his friend to stay in the woods while he crossed the lawn to the house. Through the window he spotted the chief in the living room, drinking beer and watching a recorded baseball game on a big-screen TV. Several more cans sat on the table in front of him.

  Ben beckoned to Cole, who joined him on the porch and took up the position they had discussed.

  Ben’s heart was pounding hard as he rang the bell and waited while the light clicked on and the chief eyed him through the panes of glass in the top of the door.

  “What are you doing here?” he called out, his voice both surprised and belligerent.

  “Sage Arnold has been kidnapped. I need your help.”

  “No shit?”

  When Judd opened the door, Ben pushed him inside without waiting for an invitation.

  The chief went for his weapon, but Ben grabbed his gun arm and pushed him farther into the hall. Cole followed.

  “What the fuck is going on?” Judd bellowed, looking from one invader to the other. “Were you shitting me about Arnold?”

  “No,” Ben answered.

  While he held his gun on Judd, Cole disarmed the chief and checked to make sure he didn’t have another gun in an ankle holster.

  “Who the fuck are you?” the lawman demanded.

  “Cole Marshall from Decorah Security.”

  “What do you want? Whatever it is, you and your buddy are in a heap of trouble.”

  “Let’s sit down.” Ben gestured toward the living room. “Like I said, we’re here to ask for your help.”

  Judd resumed his place on the sofa. Ben and Cole took chairs on either side of him.

  The chief fixed Ben with a combative glare. “You have a damn funny way of asking.”

  “True, but we’re going to give you a little incentive.” He kept his gaze fixed on Judd, gauging the man’s reaction. “We know there’s a smuggling operation going on out at Pine Fairways—with a delivery having arrived tonight. And we know the alternate location is the warehouse where we found that body. Well, not in the building, but outside at the dock. That’s why you were so hot under the collar when you found me and Sage poking around there.”

  Ben had expected the chief to react with anger or outraged denial. In fact, to Ben’s astonishment, the man’s expression changed to one of relief. “You know all that?”

  “Yes.”

  “So the operation’s blown, whatever happens now?”

  “Yeah.”

  Judd looked thoughtful. “But the way it works, the guy who testifies against the others can cut a deal.”

  Ben nodded.

  “So if I’m willing to spill my guts to the State’s Attorney, you think that smart lawyer who came down here and got you out of the pokey could get me a good deal?”

  Ben struggled to keep his jaw from dropping open.

  “Yeah, I see you’re surprised,” the chief continued. “But I’ve been thinking for a couple of years now that I was in deep shit, and I didn’t know how to dig my way out. Did you ever get yourself into something that you wished to hell you could get out of—only you knew you were stuck?”

  Ben glanced at Cole, then back at the chief. “As a matter of fact, yes.” The chief’s words had zinged him back to the six months of horror he’d spent on the Windward—until Cole and Emma Richards had shown up.

  “And now you can help me get out of this town from hell. On the surface it looks peaceful.” He laughed mirthlessly. “Poke in the swamp a little bit, and dead bodies come floating to the surface.”

  “I think you can get a good deal, if you’re willing to testify against the others. Who else is involved besides George Myers?”

  “The mayor.”

  “Wh
at are you bringing in?”

  Judd kept his gaze steady. “I’m not bringing anything. Myers and Hinton make all the arrangement. And it’s Myers in charge, not the mayor. I get the feeling Myers has something on him, but I don’t know what.”

  “And we stumbled into the middle of it tonight,” Ben muttered.

  oOo

  “What does it mean that you’re here?” Laurel repeated her earlier question, her voice not quite steady.

  “That he knew I was looking for you, and he wanted to stop me.” Sage focused on her sister. “I’m not giving up. You can’t either.” She scrunched herself into a ball, then carefully worked her body through the loop formed by her arms and the handcuffs. After some effort she was able to slip her hands from her back to her front.

  Cautiously, she stood up and walked on shaky legs as far as the chain would allow.

  “You come this way,” she said to Laurel.

  Her sister got off of the bed and came toward her. If they reached out their hands, they could touch each other, but that was all.

  Sage turned around and looked at the place where her chain was attached to the wall, then to the place where Laurel’s chain was attached. The wall mounts were different. Laurel’s was fixed to a metal plate. Hers was on a bolt that went directly into the wall. “What have you got over there?” she asked Laurel. “A knife? A fork? Anything sharp?”

  “I have a fork.”

  “Give it here.”

  Again they walked toward each other. Laurel reached out and handed her the stainless steel utensil. She brought it back to the place where the bolt was secured to the wall and stabbed at the plaster, having to move both hands at once because of the cuffs. A tiny bit of plaster came off.

  Laurel watched her. “That’s going to take all day, especially with your hands like that.”

  “You have a better idea?”

  “No.”

  Sage went back to working on the wall, and as she dug at the plaster and twisted with the fork tines, she thought about Ben. About their relationship. He was the kind of man she’d wanted since she was a teenager. She’d finally found him, and she might not be alive to have anything more with him. Not if the man in the hood came back before she dug the chain out of the wall.