Black at Heart

by Leslie Parrish

  Should have listened to you, Wyatt. Shouldn't have gotten involved. In over my head. Sorry. So sorry.

  At least she had heard him one more time, strong and reassuring. There was some justice in the world that the voice of the vicious monster who'd attacked her would not be the last one she would ever hear. Wyatt Black-stone's would.

  I'm coming. Hold on.

  Did he say that? Had the call really gone through? Or had it merely been a fantasy, a final desperate wish disguised as a lifeline? Was she fooling herself before giving in to the pain and the blood loss? Maybe the physical torment and emotional torture she had endured since that awful night when the FBI sting had gone so horribly wrong, and she'd been taken by a monster wearing a human face, had finally broken her, cracked her mind into a thousand splintered pieces.

  You heard him. He heard you.

  She had to believe that. Yet the hours that must have passed since her desperate attempt to save her own life made her doubt.

  Breathing deeply, she struggled to remain conscious, trying not to give in to the dazed, confused helplessness that had clouded her head for the past week.

  A week? More? Less? How long since she'd been shot, captured by a sociopathic monster who killed another agent right before her eyes? Time had meant nothing from the moment she'd awakened to the ruthless ministrations of a man who wanted to keep her alive only so he could hurt her some more.

  The murderous pedophile blamed her for his losses and he wanted retribution. Badly.

  The night lengthened. Cold. So damn cold. She had weakly pulled clothes on over her naked body before making her escape, risking the few precious extra seconds to do it. She'd had no way of knowing how long he would be gone. He had believed her unconscious, incapable of movement, but that didn't mean he would take his time on whatever fiendish errand he was running. Still, escaping naked from the hellhole would have given her probably thirty minutes tops before she lost consciousness to hypothermia. So while her clothes were tattered and bloodstained, she was thankful for them.

  They wouldn't keep her alive for much longer, though. Even if she had not reopened one of her roughly stitched wounds with her desperate, lurching crawl, foot by foot up the beach, she'd eventually freeze to death.

  Laura. Zach.

  The faces of her sister and nephew filled her mind. Her death wouldn't be as anguished as theirs had been. She'd just go to sleep. Close her eyes on this frigid, windswept dune. Never wake up. It wasn't so bad, really. Just sleep, perhaps even with no nightmares to torment her the way they had since everyone she cared about had been so brutally taken from her.

  "Lily!"

  Coming, Laura.

  "Can you hear me?

  Yes. She heard. It wasn't the first time she'd heard Laura. Somehow the echoes of her voice had rung in Lily's ears back at the shack earlier this evening before she'd escaped.

  "Missed you," she whispered. She forced her eyes to open, certain she'd see the faces of her beloved twin sister and the little boy they had both loved more than life. But they weren't there. Above her she saw nothing but dark sky, filled with a glowing white moon shimmering against a backdrop of black, endless nothingness. Eternity.

  "Lily, we're here!"

  Laura? No. A male voice.

  Wyatt.

  Then he was there, lifting her, holding her close, offering warmth and protection. He whispered soft, comforting things against her hair and her cheek, telling her she was safe. His handsome face was bathed in emotion, tenderness evident in every gentle stroke of his hand on her skin.

  Impossible. Wyatt Blackstone was never emotional. Never tender. Her boss never showed weakness.

  "I've got you. It's okay. Brandon's right up the beach, too. We're getting you out of here."

  She swallowed, trying to process everything. His warmth, his smell, the throaty voice.

  "Wyatt?" she whispered, starting to believe. "You heard me?"

  His footsteps crunched on the sand and he kept his grip tight around her. "I heard you. I can't believe it- you were like a voice from a grave. Jesus, Lily, we held a memorial service for you one day ago!"

  True. Here. That voice at the other end of the telephone call had been real, not a figment of her imagination. Tears filled her eyes and erupted from them, freezing onto her cheeks before they could travel down her face. "You found me."

  "We found you. You're safe. We'll catch him and he will never hurt you again."

  Her blood, already cold, turned to ice. They hadn't caught him. Hadn't captured the man who'd done this to her. She began to shake, and to whimper, thinking of the fists and the wicked needles used to stitch her wounds, with no anesthetic, nothing to prevent her from feeling every rough, agonizing thrust.

  "Not safe." Not as long as the psychopath who'd held her was out there. She couldn't even help them find him- she'd been blindfolded until the minute she escaped. She'd never laid eyes on the man; she knew only his voice. And his hateful, brutal touch that had taught her lessons about pain no person should ever have to learn.

  Pure terror sent shudders throughout her entire form.

  "Shh, yes, you are. I'm taking you out of here. We'll get you to a hospital and you'll be home before you know it."

  Home? To her small, sad apartment and her small, sad life? To the four walls that echoed with the voices of those she had lost, and would cage her as she tried to remain out of sight of the madman who would never rest until he had killed her?

  No. Home was not safe. No place would ever be safe. There couldn't be enough security or enough guards. She could never return to a normal life, never let herself be visible or live in the light. Not while that monster lived.

  She needed to remain in the darkness. Lily, but not Lily.

  Off the grid.

  "Wyatt," she whispered, "please…"

  "What is it?"

  "Please let me stay dead."

  Please let me stay dead.

  The nightmare began again.

  Though once a drunk, Will Miller had always considered himself an honest man. He'd never stolen, never injured anybody. He'd only ever lied to avoid hurting his ex-wife and kids about his little problem with the bottle. He'd managed to keep working in a good job, been respected and liked, right up until the day he'd hit rock bottom.

  It was the one thing he'd had any pride in-that he was a good man. A weak one, but a good one. He wanted to be that way again. He might have lived in a fog for several years, but now he'd been totally clean for seven months. Clean, sober, and on the path to a new life.

  That new life could be made even better with some money to start it.

  He stared at the computer screen, having sneaked into his daughter's family room, where she kept her ancient computer, long after she and her baby had gone to bed. She might be a waitress, living in a tiny two-bedroom apartment, barely making it on her own. Yet his youngest child had given him a place to stay. She was the only family he had left, and he owed her a lot. More than he could ever repay.

  "Or maybe not," he whispered, keeping his voice low so as not to wake the woman and child sleeping in the next room. "Maybe I could do more for you both than you ever dreamed," he added.

  The computer screen wasn't big, but the number in the Balance column was enormous.

  All he had to do to get the access code to all that money was tell one teeny, tiny little white lie. Just one. Then all his troubles-and his daughter's-would be over. He'd be able to take care of her, of the kid. Maybe he'd even be able to get his ex and his two sons to start talking to him again. Really get back to his life.

  Hell, maybe it wasn't a lie at all. He'd been drunk for a solid four years before getting himself a spot in a rehab center. He could very well have sat next to this Boyd guy in his favorite Annapolis bar one cold February night, two and a half years back. He'd been there practically every night. So maybe they really had shared a bottle and some stories. Just because he couldn't remember didn't mean it hadn't happened. Boyd remembered, right? If the guy
had been railroaded by some lying cops, he deserved a helping hand. Just as Will deserved one. And his daughter deserved one.

  The number was hypnotic, shining in the darkened room like a beacon toward a new world. A second chance for all of them.

  With just one little lie-which maybe wouldn't be a lie-it would be his.

  From the next room, he heard his baby grandson coughing. The kid had been hacking and snotting all week, poor little champ. No insurance, no free clinic within bus range. His daughter was trying to make do with that over-the-counter crap that killed little kids if you gave 'em too much.

  You can make this all go away.

  Decision made. His stomach didn't even churn as he reached for the phone, ignoring the late hour since he'd been told to call at any time of the day or night.

  Will dialed the number he'd been given. When a muffled voice answered, he said. "Okay. I'm in. Tell me what I gotta do."

  Chapter 4

  When he'd brought Lily here last March, after more than a month in the hospital and a private rehab center, Wyatt had stayed with her for a couple of weeks, ignoring his own discomfort and loathing of the house. The renovations he'd ordered had been completed at top speed, with crews working 24-7, so the place at least looked different enough to allow him to pretend it was another building entirely. And the construction, the gutting of the central part of the house so it was now a huge, airy space full of light and brightness, had been worth it, for Lily's sake. He'd wanted to make sure she felt safe and comfortable and had the strength to remain on her own. He'd also overseen the installation of the security system she'd asked for, even while he tried again to convince her that he could protect her and she did not need to stay in hiding.

  To no avail.

  She had asked him to let the world think her dead. And on that bitter cold night, when she had seemed so close to death anyway, he had given his word. So had Brandon, the one person Wyatt had contacted after getting Lily's pained call for help.

  To this day, he honestly didn't know why he had called only Brandon and none of the rest of the team. Maybe it was because he'd been so desperate, panicking when he never panicked. Brandon's number had been the one he'd dialed, certain if anyone could trace the cell phone's signal and help him figure out Lily's location from the few clues she'd been able to provide, it was the young computer expert. It might have been because he hadn't entirely trusted his own senses, had wondered if he'd been mistaken, hearing Lily's voice when his rational mind told him he couldn't have.

  Hell, maybe even because somehow, with the sixth sense he'd always relied upon, he had already known he was racing into a tangled situation that could very well end up hanging him. Them. And while he didn't figure he had much else to lose with the FBI, the others on his team all did. Kyle Mulrooney was too close to retirement. Jackie Stokes had a husband and kids to worry about-and she'd been the most distraught over Lily's death. Why raise her hopes on something that might have been a prank? Alec Lambert was new and already on probation, Dean Taggert just starting to seem to have some kind of personal life again with a new live-in girlfriend. A girlfriend who was also a cop who might ask uncomfortable questions.

  Brandon, though, was young and single. Utterly brilliant. And a rule breaker. He'd also been the closest to Lily, sharing an office with her, not to mention a warm friendship.

  Looking back, would he have done it any other way? Brought in the cavalry so there would never have been any question of whether Lily Fletcher would return to her life or cease to exist altogether?

  He didn't know. And it was too late to worry about it now.

  There were other things to worry about.

  "HeIp me, Wyatt."

  Her voice was faint, though he heard it clearly. Just as he had the very first night they'd spent here and he'd realized she was tormented by nightmares. The beach house wasn't overly large, just two bedrooms and a loft upstairs. Even over the churning of the surf and the gusty March winds, he had easily heard her tormented cries. Like now.

  He didn't go to check on her, to see if she truly needed help. Lily was physically fine, not battling any real demons, just the ones in her head.

  In the beginning, he often tried to console her, going to her, letting her know she was safe. He would whisper soft reassurances from the doorway of her room, not wanting to enter and startle her with the presence of a man reaching for her in the darkness. He knew better. She'd told him enough about her ordeal for him to realize that much.

  His voice often quieted her and she'd stop thrashing and moaning. He would remain there, watching her slowly drift back into a deeper sleep, the vulnerability of her features stark against the scarred head covered in a layer of pale blond fuzz.

  But it hadn't helped every time. On a few occasions, his whispers that he had found her and she was going to be all right hadn't done the trick. And at those times, he had known she was dreaming about something other than the night he'd rescued her.

  Those nightmares were more heartbreaking. She wouldn't talk about them, but he had his suspicions about the horrors she saw in her sleeping hours.

  Perhaps the face of her nephew, peering in terror through the window of a dark van driven by the sick bastard who had kidnapped him. Lily had, after all, been the last one to see him alive. She had even had to testify in the murder trial against Jesse Boyd, the sexual predator convicted of killing the child.

  Or perhaps her dreams were of a few weeks later, when she'd walked into her sister's home and found her twin in the bathtub, her wrists open and weeping blood.

  Such sights could haunt a person for life, drive them right into madness. Or into a need for complete, emotionless self-control.

  But her dreams might not have been merely about the torture of losing her loved ones. They could have been of the week she'd spent blindfolded in that old shack. Learning the real meaning of torture.

  Which dream are you having right now?

  She cried out again. He got out of the bed, crossing the room in silence, resisting the urge to continue into the hallway, to her door.

  He didn't do that anymore. Not ever.

  When Lily had been so injured, frail, and helpless, he had felt like nothing more than a friend or caretaker looking after a child. But she was no longer injured, frail, or helpless. And not at all childlike. He'd acknowledged that one night in July when he'd gone to her, only to have her wake up and stare at him from the bed. The full moon and the glimmer of the outside floodlights had brightened her room. Enough for him to see the strong jut of her jaw, the hint of angry determination in her expression as she brought herself under control.

  Not to mention the flush of color in her lovely face, the fullness of her lips as she heaved in deep, gasping breaths. Or the clinginess of the thin nightgown that skimmed over her body.

  Their stares had met and locked. Her breaths had slowed. His had deepened. Neither spoke, but their thoughts were communicated nonetheless.

  In that one long, heavy moment, he'd stopped seeing Lily, the girl he had liked and taken care o£ And had begun to see the woman she was now. Strong. Fierce. Beautiful.

  It was as if he were seeing her for the first time.

  He'd wanted her. Suddenly. Unexpectedly. Completely. God help him, he had wanted to touch her and pleasure her and give her one night of heated sexuality to replace the coldness of her dreams.

  Which was utterly impossible. Wanting Lily was almost as unacceptable as actually having her. He was her protector; he'd been her boss. She was a decade his junior and trusted him to keep his distance.

  He'd told himself all those things. But still, Lily's image had intruded any time he had even thought about another woman since that night.

  So, no. He no longer went to her room when she cried out in her sleep. After fiercely insisting she was strong and capable of looking after herself, and didn't need to be coddled, Lily probably suspected that was why he had backed off.

  It wasn't her strength he had doubted. It was his own.
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  Frankly, he was also beginning to question his own sanity. Was it possible he was really considering her a suspect in the lily murders?

  "It's insane," he whispered, all the suspicions that had driven him here to see her this weekend having faded into ridiculous conjecture once he was back in her company.

  Ridiculous conjecture or not, he had a job to do. And ruling Lily Fletcher out as a suspect was chief on his to-do list.

  Ruling her in, he didn't even want to contemplate.

  He heard movement and leaned closer to the door, silent, quieting even his breaths. Lily's bedroom door opened. She stepped into the hall, her footsteps firm, as if she had leapt out of bed. angry at her own subconscious. But they faltered when she reached his room.

  Wyatt closed his eyes, his hand flat on the middle panel of the door, his fingers splayed.

  Would she knock? Would he answer?

  A moment more. She moved on.

  Not sure whether he was relieved or disappointed, he remained there, waiting for her to return. She had likely gone downstairs to get a drink of water, take a sleeping pill, perhaps. But the minutes stretched on. And on. Until finally, he needed to make sure she was okay.

  He moved silently through the house and down the stairs, expecting to find her in the kitchen. It was empty, as was the living room.

  "I'm out here," a voice said from the darkness without.

  The coldness inside finally registered, as did the open patio door. He stepped out to find her at the railing, staring down at the beach. She wore simple cotton shorts and a T-shirt and should have been shivering from the night air, but seemed oblivious to it. Oblivious to everything, really, except the sound of the waves and the newly lit cigarette in her hand.

  "Haven't quit yet, hmm?"

  She gestured toward the table but didn't look around. "That's the same pack I bought in May."

  The small package was still half-full. It rested beside her laptop, which was open and turned on, an Internet news page displayed on the monitor.