Dead By Nightfall

by Beverly Barton

“I’m sorry. I’m so very sorry.”

  “All out of miracles, huh? That’s okay. Having human emotions would just get in the way of what I have to do. Yves Bouchard is still alive. And so is Harlan Benecroft. I’ll need to use them to find Griff’s wife. Then once they’ve served their purpose ...”

  While she stood there looking at him, tears in her eyes, her heart breaking, Rafe gave her a final bittersweet smile, and then turned and walked away.

  Nightfall was fast approaching. The sun’s dying light set the western horizon ablaze. Fiery red and flaming orange melted together around the descending orb, announcing day’s end. The overgrown jungle, heavy with humidity and damp from the afternoon rainfall teemed with life and yet smelled of rot and death. Bloodsucking mosquitoes searched for victims. And half a dozen armed hunters tromped through the tangled undergrowth, each man eager to bag the most challenging animal and claim the ultimate prize.

  Griff paused by the shallow stream, knelt down, and cupped a handful of water. After drinking his fill, he splashed his leather-tan face and dirty, sweat-drenched torso before rising to his feet.

  Repetitive bursts of gunfire shattered the quiet, muted hum of the steamy jungle. Birds flushed up into the sky by the dozens. Griff ran away from the abrupt clatter of the hunters’ high-powered rifles and their triumphant yells. Apparently at least one of the hunters had scored a hit, killing the prey he had been tracking for hours. Four captives had been sent out earlier today. Jules, Perry, Carlisle, and Griff. Knowing each man as he did, Griff figured that Perry would have been the easiest to find and kill. The young Canadian had been on Amara a little over a month and lacked the survival skills to keep him alive on his first hunt. Griff and the others had done their best to help him, but there was only so much you could do to train a guy in such a short period of time.

  Hurry, sundown. Darkness couldn’t fall soon enough.

  If he could make it past nightfall, he would live.

  York’s hunts always concluded at the end of the day whether or not the hunters had killed one of their human quarry. But that seldom happened. York always made certain that at least one of the captives sent into the hunt was weak and vulnerable. His goal was to keep his wealthy friends and business associates happy so that they would become repeat customers.

  Griff knew the jungle on this godforsaken island, knew how the hunters thought, knew how to stay alive. Damar Sanders had tutored him, teaching him survival techniques that he had learned as a Gurkha. But even the smartest, most cunning prey could be killed. All it took was one mistake.

  As he went deeper into the forest, the sounds of celebration faded, but Griff didn’t relax. He wasn’t safe. Not yet. Just because one of the hunters had made his kill, didn’t mean the other three would stop tracking the other captives.

  A barely discernible crackle of human footsteps on the jungle floor alerted Griff to imminent danger. One of the hunters was nearby. He’d lay odds that it was Mayorga. The cunning Spaniard was a seasoned hunter, having traveled the world over on hunting expeditions, beginning when he was a boy and had accompanied his father. Griff had heard him bragging to the others about how he had learned from the best—his papa.

  The bullet whizzed over Griff’s shoulder, the shot barely missing him. He dove into the thicket, the brambles and thorns nipping his bare back, chest, and arms. His heart pounded. His pulse quickened. A rush of fear-induced adrenaline pumped through his body.

  If Mayorga zeroed in on him, he would be unable to defend himself against a rifle. He lived or died by his wits, as did all the captives on Amara.

  The hunter was close. Griff could not only hear him, he could smell him.

  Griff waited. Sweating profusely, barely breathing, he peered into the oncoming darkness and spotted the rifleman. Not Mayorga. A new visitor to Amara, some guy named Brzezinski, who right that minute had his back to Griff.

  Acting immediately, Griff came up on his feet and lunged into the clearing. Tackling Brzezinski with the force of one of his former UT teammate linebackers, Griff took the man down to the ground and ripped his M-16 away from him. Bounding up and over the hunter on the ground, Griff aimed the gun at him. Every instinct urged him to kill.

  Pitch blackness suddenly surrounded Griff, blinding him. Where the hell was Brzezinski? Why was there no hint of moonlight?

  You can’t kill him, Griffin. If you kill one of my hunters, I’ll kill Yvette. Or perhaps I’ll kill Sanders or execute three or four of your dungeon mates. Malcolm York’s voice echoed through the darkness, seeming to come from every direction.

  Where are you, you son of a bitch? Show yourself, damn you!

  Griff’s eyes popped open as he awoke from a recurring nightmare. Only recently those old dreams had returned, memories that plagued him in his sleep. Every waking moment, he fought the images his mind conjured up about Nic being subjected to the horrors he and many others had suffered on Amara. But his subconscious would not allow him any peace.

  The bedroom lay in darkness, with only narrow slices of moonlight slipping through the shutters. Griff stared up at the ceiling, his eyes unfocused, his mind and body recovering from the all-too-real nightmare. He tossed back the covers, got up, and slipped on his robe. The digital alarm clock blinked the time—11:50 P.M. He’d been asleep less than an hour.

  Glancing back at the bed, he imagined Nic lying there.

  She smiled at him, opened her arms, and invited him to come to her.

  If only ...

  But the bed was empty, as empty as his life without Nic.

  Barbara Jean Hughes was his friend and lover. Her generous spirit and loving heart had reawakened a part of Sanders that he had believed long dead. During the first few days of their acquaintance four years ago, he had felt an immediate attraction to her, one he had tried to deny. She physically resembled Elora only slightly, but in so many ways, she reminded him of his late wife. There was gentleness inside Barbara Jean, an innate kindness, just as there had been in Elora.

  He could never forget Elora and their infant son, both buried on Amara. They were ingrained in his memory forever. They were a part of his heart and soul. And he could never love another woman the way he had loved Elora, the way he still loved her. Love does not end with death.

  Sanders cared deeply for Barbara Jean. Perhaps he loved her. He knew that she loved him. She accepted him as he was, never expected more from him than he could give, and never questioned him about his past.

  But she deserved to know the truth.

  “Are you awake?” he asked, keeping his voice whisper soft.

  She stirred beside him in the bed they had shared for three and a half years, reached out, found his hand in the darkness, and said, “Yes, I’m awake.”

  He squeezed her hand. “I do not want to ever lose you.”

  “You won’t. I’ll never leave you.”

  He released her hand, eased back the covers, and turned to sit on the side of the bed. “Nicole needed to know the complete truth about Griffin’s past, about his years on Amara, and his relationship with Yvette. If he had been totally honest with her, she never would have left him.”

  “I’m not Nicole,” Barbara Jean said. “I don’t need to know more about your past.”

  Sanders flipped on the bedside lamp and glanced over his shoulder. Barbara Jean lifted herself into a sitting position.

  “You do know how much you mean to me,” he said. “I do not deserve you. I would not blame you if—”

  “What’s wrong, Damar? You’re not acting like yourself.”

  “Do you mean that I am not acting secretive, aloof ... even emotionally distant?”

  “You’re worrying me by saying these things.”

  Sanders stood, rounded the foot of the bed, and sat down beside Barbara Jean. “I was a Gurkha soldier as my father and his maternal grandfather had been. My father’s father was an Englishman, therefore my surname, Sanders.” He took her hand in his. “You know all of this, of course. But you do not know anything about
Elora.”

  “You don’t have to do this,” Barbara Jean said. “Not for me.”

  The corners of his lips lifted in a melancholy smile. “If not for you, then for me. I want you to know.”

  She squeezed his hand. “Then tell me.”

  “I met Elora in Singapore. I was assigned there and she was working at the British Embassy. She was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen and I think I fell in love with her at first sight.” Sanders closed his eyes as the memories swept over him like a gentle tide caressing the shoreline. “We married less than two months later.”

  “A whirlwind courtship,” Barbara Jean said.

  Sanders looked at her and nodded. “We were so happy, so in love, so unaware of the hell that fate had in store for us.”

  “It’s too painful for you. Please, you don’t—”

  “Elora was an empath.”

  Barbara Jean released a soft sigh. “Like Yvette.”

  “Yes, like Yvette. But only a handful of people knew. Elora hid her talent quite well and used it rarely,” he said. “We had been married two years when Elora met Malcolm York at an embassy function of some sort.”

  “Oh, my dear ...” Barbara Jean lifted Sanders’s hand and brought it to rest against her chest.

  “A few weeks after she first met York, he invited us to what we believed was a fund-raiser for a Singapore orphanage, held aboard York’s yacht. It was a very exclusive party, but we didn’t suspect anything, not until we awoke the next morning, locked in one of the guest cabins. Our drinks had been drugged, my champagne and Elora’s virgin cocktail.”

  “York had kidnapped you.”

  “He had kidnapped Elora because somehow he had discovered she possessed empathic abilities. We never knew how he found out,” Sanders said. “I was kidnapped because I was with Elora. And of course, York soon discovered that he could manipulate Elora by threatening me.”

  “And control you by threatening Elora.”

  Sanders nodded.

  “Only days before the party aboard York’s yacht, Elora had told me that she was pregnant.”

  Barbara Jean lifted Sanders’s clenched fist to her mouth and brushed her lips across his knuckles.

  “Once we reached Amara, they separated us. I was placed with the other male captives and Elora was taken to York’s house. He used her to gain information from his business associates without their knowing that when she touched them, she was able to absorb their thoughts and feelings.

  “I was trained for the hunt and in those months before our child was born prematurely, I took part in three hunts and managed to survive. Each time I survived, I was allowed to visit Elora. Three times in five months.”

  With the retelling came renewed pain. Memories he had strived so hard to bury deep inside him rose to the surface with agonizing clarity.

  “The night before Elora went into labor, York had granted a request from his guests who had come to Amara for the next hunt. These three men asked for Elora. They were intrigued by her beauty and the fact that she was pregnant.”

  Sanders swallowed hard.

  “No more, please, no more.” Barbara Jean leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him.

  He embraced her, rested his head against her heart, and surrounded with the strength of her love, he managed to continue. “York’s three guests raped Elora. They brutalized her. I did not know what was happening, and even if I had known, there would have been nothing I could have done. The following day, she went into labor with only a midwife in attendance. My son was born dead. Elora hemorrhaged to death.”

  Tears streamed down Barbara Jean’s cheeks as she clung to Sanders, holding him with all her might.

  “I was allowed to see them, Elora and our son, the day York buried them. I went into a murderous rage and York had me beaten so severely that I didn’t recover for weeks.”

  “My poor darling.” She caressed the back of his neck.

  “A few months later, York brought his bride to Amara. Yvette might have been York’s wife, but she was as much a prisoner as Elora had been, as I was. And York soon learned to use Yvette to control me. That’s when he put me in charge of training the new slaves who were brought in for the hunt. I did what I could to help the new captives stay alive, but it wasn’t until Griffin was brought to Amara that I saw the chance to train a champion, someone who could survive long enough to help me with my plans to kill York.”

  “Killing York was your idea?”

  “Does that shock you?”

  “No.” Barbara Jean kissed his cheek. “I’m glad you had Griffin to help you and that you were able to save Yvette. And I understand why you and Griffin and Yvette share the bond that you do.”

  Sanders lifted his head, and then he reached up and placed his open palms on either side of her face. Holding her with the utmost tenderness, he said, “You are a very special lady ... my lady. I love you ... I love you very much, Barbara Jean.”

  Chapter 27

  For the past two weeks, Nicole’s life had consisted of morning and afternoon training sessions with Jonas as her supportive partner and Vartan as her strict trainer. Although she didn’t like Vartan, she had found that she didn’t hate him. The man was like a robot, programmed for one task. He trained her as he would have a prized Thoroughbred being prepared for an important race, and he treated her accordingly. After that first day, she had realized that Vartan’s sense of right and wrong was somewhat skewed. He did as he was told and danced to York’s tune regardless of the consequences. And then there was Jonas MacColl. The more time she spent with the former NASCAR driver the more she liked him. Her instincts told her he was a good man, someone she could count on no matter what they had to face in the weeks or months ahead.

  Nic believed that she was probably about four months pregnant and thankfully still was not showing except for a small baby bump and a slight increase in the size of her breasts. Apparently, no one had noticed or if they had, thought nothing of it. Of course, she hadn’t gained any weight due to excessive exercise and meals of lean meat, vegetables, and fruit. As far as she knew, she and her baby were healthy. But they were not safe and would never be safe as long as she was York’s captive.

  During the fourteen days she had spent at this tropical compound, she had seen York only once. He had stopped by to watch a training session three days ago and afterward had taken her aside and instructed her to write a note to her husband.

  “You will write exactly what I tell you to write. Nothing more. Understand?”

  She had written the note.

  “Thank you.” York had taken the dictated message, folded it, and placed it in his pocket. “I’m excited that your first hunt will be this Saturday. It won’t be anything major, only two hunters. You and Jonas will be paired together, of course. I have guests arriving on Friday, one a business associate and the other a friend of my friend Bouchard.”

  York had grasped Nic’s chin. “I want you alive for a while longer, so don’t disappoint me. I could care less about Jonas. He can be replaced. Remember that.” He had looked Jonas over from head to toe. “I’ll give her to you for the next three days, in case they are your last three on Earth. Enjoy her.”

  As York had walked away, his taunting laughter resonating all around them, neither Jonas nor she had said a word.

  For the past three nights, she and Jonas had shared her room, an armed guard outside the locked door.

  Jonas had slept on the floor each night.

  Griff ripped open the vinyl-coated envelope that had just arrived at Griffin’s Rest via international courier service. The return address on the envelope was for a London-based business, Kroy Enterprises. Sanders had hand-delivered the package and remained with Griff. Inside the thin eight-by-ten padded bag, Griff found a handwritten note and a glossy four-by-six photograph. He removed the note first.

  “It’s from Nic,” Griff said. “It’s her handwriting.”

  My dearest Griffin,

  I am alive and well and will
remain alive as long as you follow York’s instructions. If you love me, please do whatever he asks you to do. I miss you terribly and long to be with you.

  All my love,

  Nicole

  Griff held out the note to Sanders. “What do you make of this?”

  Sanders took the single piece of paper, read it hurriedly, and said, “This does not sound like Nicole. York dictated the words to her.”

  “I agree. Any other instinctive insight into why he sent this particular message and why he sent it now?”

  “After two weeks of silence, without a word from York, apparently he has decided what your next challenge will be. This message is a reminder that you must do as he demands. I would say that you can expect to receive a call from him very soon.”

  “We have to be prepared for anything.”

  “Yes, we do,” Sanders said.

  Griff slipped the photograph from the envelope and studied it. Nic in shorts and a halter top, her hair damp with perspiration, stood facing a bare-chested man. They were both smiling.

  He flipped over the snapshot. Four words had been printed on the back of the photo. “Nic with her lover.”

  Griff cursed silently, knowing damn good and well that if Nic was having sex with the man in the photograph, it was not consensual. Their smiles had nothing to do with them being lovers. He could not allow York to manipulate him, to make him think Nic was being unfaithful to him. Messing with his mind was all part of York’s master plan.

  “He’s had her for nearly a month now,” Griff said. “God knows what she’s been through. We should have located her by now. With all the info we’ve collected on Kroy Enterprises, why hasn’t any of it led us back to York again? We had two chances to rescue Nic and blew them both.”

  “We will keep digging until we find another link that takes us directly to York. And next time, we will not fail.”

  “What the hell is taking Rafe so long to find out something and get back to us?”