Whispers In The Dark

by BJ James

In the tradition of their leader, they were dedicated men and women, often existing on two levels. One a public life for public interest, intended to comply with the norm. The second, the truest and most consuming, a private life defying any semblance of normality. From the day they became one of Simon’s they were a people apart. And from that day must accept that there would be no recorded past, no real present, perhaps no future.

  For the cause, for their country and its people, for The Black Watch, and for Simon, their lives were sacrificed. In return, Simon protected them with his.

  “We will continue,” Simon said at last. “So long as there are those who are willing.”

  “Willing to do your bidding, no matter the cost to themselves.” Rafe hammered home his point without mercy. A point he knew Simon lived with and coped with every day of his life.

  The wily Scot’s face was blandly expressionless, his formidable body seemingly relaxed. Yet deep in his hooded eyes writhed a veiled emotion few had seen and fewer would believe.

  But Rafe saw. Rafe believed. For this was the Simon he knew, the man who cared, perhaps, too much. Even in that knowledge, this was a rare rent in an iron facade. Coupled with his small triumph, this nearly invisible fissure offered as much leverage as he would ever have.

  “At all and any cost is true.” Rafe spoke softly, and though he asked no question, added even more softly, “Isn’t it, Simon?”

  “It’s true.” The words of admission were carefully spaced, a painstaking care that for any but Rafe would have signaled danger.

  “Men like David Canfield, nearly destroyed by his partner’s death and betrayal.” Borrowing an old and familiar habit from Simon, the Creole lifted a hand, folding a finger into his palm as he called the name of each agent of The Black Watch, making each painful, dreadful point. “Jamie McLachlan, concert pianist cum spy, with his shattered hands. Jeb Tanner and a love nearly lost to a serial killer. Mitch Ryan, who can never in all his life save all the children. And Matthew Winter Sky with a portion of his strength lost to a rattler’s bite.”

  With all fingers folded and the fist complete, with a need that transcended a condemning conscience, Rafe went for the jugular. “Now a tortured woman like Valentina O’Hara. A casualty in the line of duty, for The Black Watch. For you, Simon.”

  “Yes.” The snarl of a wounded creature. Simon’s guttural accord, whispered on the release of a long-held breath, more compelling than a shout. “Damn you, yes!”

  Rafe would not be diverted by the curse spilling out like blood from his wounding thrust. “Yes! Damn me. Damn you. And for what we’ve asked of her, damn us all!”

  The leonine head reared back. With heated currents swirling in their depths, eyes as chilled as a mountain pool stared back at Rafe. A look long and fiercely probing. Discovering a counterpart for his own consuming passion, recognizing the familiar disquiet that left this once invulnerable and unfaltering younger man needful and desperate, Simon, better than any, understood the implacable burden. One that must be resolved, if it meant turning friend to foe.

  “Where is she, Simon?”

  What he’d seen in Rafe’s eyes was in his voice, the sound of compassion. Its depth, more than any threat, became the deciding factor. The quality of singular capitulation.

  Leather sighed, the metal structure of the massive chair groaned as tensed muscles relaxed and Simon leaned forward. In a move that was purpose and power controlled, he drew pen and tablet to him, scrawling in swift, sharp strokes the address Rafe required. Wondering if this bold challenger understood the driving demand torn from the complexities of his own mind and heart, he ripped the sheet from the pad. Folding it once, he offered it up with no more fanfare than if it were a grocery list.

  Taking it from him, Rafe opened the fold of crisp bond. Reading the hard-won lines, with a nod of thanks, he wheeled about.

  “Rafe.”

  The younger man turned again, his hand on the latch. “Yes, sir.” In deepening respect born of an uncommon communion of thought and mind, he waited for Simon to continue.

  “Before you go, there’s more I have to tell you.” Simon’s decisions were never half measures, this would not be. “Things not in any dossier, people and circumstance that laid the foundation for who she is, if not what.” His smile was grave. “A story that won’t take long, or much of your time.”

  “For Valentina, I have all the time in the world. How could I not, Simon?”

  “Because of Courtney? And only Courtney?”

  Rafe hesitated, a long, slow breath rose and fell in his chest. An uncommon flicker of doubt scored his face. His voice was soberly thoughtful. “I don’t know.” A shoulder lifted negligibly. “It’s complicated.”

  Simon nodded. A truthful answer, the only answer the Creole would ever give. “What I have to say can’t resolve your conflict. But if you understand the life she’s lived, the people that made her who she is, if not what...perhaps it would...ah...ameliorate the situation.”

  “Perhaps.”

  Little encouragement, but enough. Tersely, with no frills nor digressions, Simon proffered a concise history of Valentina O’Hara. In his way of cutting issues to the bare minimum, revealing all that was pertinent, her story was not long. When he finished and fell silent, only one glaring gap remained.

  David.

  Rafe didn’t ask. He understood that David was a story only Valentina should tell. If she would. If she could.

  “In spite of all I’ve said, she’s fragile. The strongest and toughest lady I know, but...” The leader of The Black Watch struggled in this extraordinary breach of his own protocol. Stern lines of frowning indecision threatened the granite composure of his magnificent face as he searched for the right words to make Rafe understand one last important point. “Precarious...” His struggle grew no easier. “Her situation is precarious. It is after each time, but this will be worse. In all her years with The Watch, with all the shots she’s taken in the line of duty, she has wounded, but never killed. Until now.”

  The steely gaze that had turned inward focused on Rafe. “Even though she’s seen the psychologists and dealt with it, she won’t speak of it. Valentina is vulnerable now. Closed in, withdrawn.” The normally articulate man had come full circle as he muttered, “Fragile.”

  Rafe’s dark head inclined in agreement. He couldn’t argue with what he’d seen.

  “Maybe more fragile than you know.” The dour Scot drove home his point.

  “I came to help in payment of a debt, no more, no less. I won’t hurt her, Simon.”

  “Are you sure?”

  This time a shift of a shoulder, the tilt of his head, signaled Rafe’s apprehension. “As sure as anyone can be.”

  “There are other circumstances...”

  “I know about David.” The disclosure was interjected quietly. “I don’t know who he was, or what he was to Valentina, but I know he existed. I know that something tragic occurred, that it involved Valentina and changed her life forever. Until I understand, I give you my word I’ll go carefully.”

  It was Simon’s turn to nod. No more was needed, for there was no one he trusted more than this saturnine man of the bayous. “Where will you go? Where will you take her?”

  With no hesitation or questioning how Simon could guess he would take Valentina anywhere, the answer came quickly. “To Eden ”

  “Patrick’s island paradise. His gift to Jordana.”

  “Is there a better place to heal a sorrowing soul?”

  “No better place for anything,” Simon avouched. “The real question is, will she agree to go?”

  Rafe smiled then. A smile as mischievous and kind as it was determined. A smile that changed the line and plane of his face and left one wondering how he ever seemed grim and brooding. The remnants of it lingered as the door swung open. He stood, lean, lithe, gilded in gold against the purple hues of a Blue Ridge sunset. “She’ll go.”

  The latch fell from his hand. With a rakish salute he stepped into twilight. The doo
r closed after him in a decisive click as his footsteps sounded faintly, then faded from the walk.

  A hush returned to Simon’s mountain retreat, only to erupt into the sudden clamor of an engine gunned to life. The cacophony quieted to a powerful rumble. Halogen lights flicked on, careening off windows, giving the illusion of glancing rays of the sun.

  Just as suddenly, all was quiet again in gathering darkness broken only by the lamp on Simon’s desk. Easing his chair around, he stared out the window long after the Jaguar streaked like an ebony thunderbolt from the valley. The last purple ribbon of twilight faded into the shimmering black of the sky, before he moved again. Fumbling absently at a sweater pocket, he searched for the pipe he’d discarded years before.

  In the overflow of irritation provoked by a habit long unbroken, the source of his troubled thoughts surfaced. In this sanctum, the only place he called home, surrounded by the mountains he loved, Simon McKinzie wondered what manner of man he’d become.

  “A user.” Blunt, splayed fingers slapped the arm of the chair. “For malignant cause, without malignant intent.”

  When he’d first read of Valentina and the sensationalism of her tragedy, he’d looked beyond misfortune and the guilt of failure. Above all, he’d seen a uniquely gifted woman, a superb markswoman, a champion equestrienne. In recruiting her for those skills, he’d hoped to offer her redemption in her own eyes by giving her the chance to do what she couldn’t once before.

  It was to be a dual-edged bargain—a champion markswoman for The Watch, absolution and peace for Valentina.

  A bargain easier made than fulfilled, for the burden of her guilt was deeply entrenched. Absolution was elusive, and without it there could never be the peace Simon wished for her. But he never gave up. With each step she took forward, he gave her more and harder missions, reveling discreetly as she rose to his demands.

  But, Simon asked himself, in this case, by breaking his own ironclad rule and revealing personal information, had he gone too far? If there was a chance that what he’d done might bring ease to Valentina, would consequence justify the method?

  “Could it?” If what he saw in Rafe Courtenay gave Valentina the peace she needed, would it be worth the worry and the heartache? “Yes!” His fist thumped an armrest. “Every minute of it.”

  The chair groaned again as he spun back toward the room. Certain now of something the stalwart Creole, himself, did not comprehend, he drew pen and notepad front and center again. Slow, looping strokes turned to flowing lines on paper.

  “It was the smile,” he groused. Looking down at unconscious thought translated in bold black and mellow cream, the explanation for the deviation from his own inflexible rules leapt out at him. First he chuckled, then he laughed, for the stern and ruthless leader of the most dangerous organization on earth had drawn hearts and flowers.

  Laughter boomed. Rich, deep notes erupted again and again in the cavern of his sanctuary. And for the first time in days there was light in the darkness, hope for Simon McKinzie’s own redemption.

  “Had to be the smile.”

  A small breeze stirred, rustling the crimsoning leaves of trees along the shore. A fish jumped, slapping water with its tail. Out of the distance, borne on twisting currents of air, came the uneven thrumming of a windlass raising a sail. A loon cried from the marsh. Another answered. The tide lapped in an unchanging rhythm at the weathered pilings of the dock.

  Familiar sounds, comforting sounds, all noted subconsciously by rote, out of old habit. Each as natural to Valentina as breathing, each a very real part of her estuarine retreat. She smiled, a wan, sad grimace, but did not stir as the dock swayed beneath her.

  The day had grown cold with the passage of time. Her faded shirt and threadbare jeans offered little protection against its creeping chill. Soon she would be faced with the choice of fetching the sweater that dangled from a jutting piling or returning to the lodge.

  Soon, but not quite yet. Not while the boards were still warm at her back and the sun wrapped her in its glowing cocoon.

  She had no concept of the time she’d lain there on the splintering, peeling dock. She didn’t care. Hours and minutes meant nothing to her as she emptied her mind, drifting with the day, absorbing it, gauging it simply by the rare indulgence of creature comforts.

  This haven by the Chesapeake was truly a haven and truly hers. Though the O’Hara estate was only a few miles away by water, and a few more by land, her gregarious family never disturbed her. Who better than the gregarious to understand the need for solitude?

  A paradox? No. Simply her family. The O’Haras who were anything but simple.

  Stirring, seeking the last bit of warmth from the sun, a real smile, a look of pleasure too rare, flitted over her face. If she had to think, it was best to think of those she loved, and let them keep the rest of the world away.

  Time spun away again as they marched through her mind one by one. Not as the rest of the world saw them, or even as she had described them to Rafe Courtenay, but as they were to her. The special people, as she remembered them.

  Patience, pretty and sweet, youngest and yet bravest. The small, feminine embodiment of Francis of Assisi. Who ran tiptoe through field and stream, collecting a menagerie of lost and hurt creatures fortunate enough to cross her path.

  Tynan, thoughtful, thought provoking family philosopher, who made her think and understand her thoughts. One who believed in the healing power of solitude, and that it needn’t be lonely. Who found his own, for reasons of his own, on a Montana ranch.

  Kieran, the determined. A child of the modern world with old-fashioned codes. Living proof of a wonderful cliché, a black-haired knight in shining armor in search of dragons to slay. Or, for lack of armor and dragons, a gallant seeking out the challenge of the impossible, making it possible. As only Kieran could.

  Lastly, but before them all, the eldest in years, youngest in spirit, Devlin. Laughing, teasing big brother. Guardian and teacher. Hero and thorn in a young sister’s existence. Restless wanderer, exuberant adventurer. Risk taker extraordinaire among a family that lived for adventure and thrived on risk. Devlin, with nine lives and the luck of the Irish, always with an edge of mischief and a devilish grin.

  And best, Keegan and Mavis, foundation of the O’Hara family. Brilliant, dynamic. Whimsical and wonderful. Strength and guiding force in the formative years of their children, anchor for the adults they became. An uncommon union. An uncommon man, an uncommon woman, a part of whom existed in each of them.

  Only their strengths. Our weaknesses are our own.

  Valentina never knew if the pain filled admission was spoken or only a thought. There was never the time to know. As quickly and as devastating as a dagger to the heart, as the smile her family could always draw from her faltered, David was there. In her thoughts, in her heart. An oddly nebulous figure, but as she would forever see him. Tall, handsome, beloved, standing with rigid courage in a hostage gnp. His captured weapon a deadly threat at his throat, his eyes pleading with her to do what both knew she must. Certain she would not hesitate.

  David’s eyes, David’s face.

  But, somehow, not.

  The face that looked from the shadow of memory was leaner, darker, older. The piercing gaze of green eyes, not golden brown, speared through the void of despair to the arid desert of her soul. Lips that shaped her name were sterner, cynical. The voice that should have been soundless, yet murmured softly to her, was deep, and rich. Haunting and tormenting with comfort she didn’t merit, couldn’t accept.

  Green eyes. Cold and probing and yet...

  Valentina’s hands jerked, taut fingers covered her face, denying the blurring of memory. Though the pain was more than she could bear, though she avoided it if she could, she didn’t want to forget. She wouldn’t. Not David. Not ever.

  Succumbing with perverse gratitude to the deluge, bit by brutal bit the past unfolded unhampered in mind and reverie. For once she welcomed it and with it the sorrow.

  Waves o
f guilt and regret washed over her, sweeping away the last shred of disorder. Grief, elemental, without ambivalence, tore at her, body and heart. And with its constance consumed her, excoriated her, sending her lurching, at last, to her feet. Spinning drunkenly, like a dervish courting ecstasy after penance, arms lifted in supplication, she sought some escape.

  Escape, but never freedom.

  A hoarse cry rose in chorus with the loons, then sank to a ragged whisper. “Never.”

  Exhausted, she collapsed again on the dock. Knees drawn to her chin, face buried in her arms, she curled into herself. And with her own cry ringing hollowly in her mind, she knew nothing could take away the guilt. A hundred Edmund Browns, a hundred successful rescues, couldn’t ease her loss. Nor could a hundred green gazes. A hundred soothing voices.

  For Valentina O’Hara, there was not, and must never be, forgiveness.

  Tears she thought finished long ago streamed from her eyes, soaked the sleeve of her blouse and turned it dark. She wept for the past, she wept for the future. When the well of tears ran dry, she wept without them for the love that lived only in grief.

  Finally quiet, finally calm, she huddled on the dock. Numb, without thought and, for a precious while, unfeeling, she had no idea when the chill crept into her bones and the sound of the engine into her mind. At first, as she became aware of it, she was certain she imagined the subtle nuance, the small rumble. Her little part of shore was isolated, removed from popular lanes of traffic. That she might have visitors never occurred to her. She was home so seldom guests were infrequent and few.

  Mercifully distracted, she sat woodenly, listening, concentrating. One moment there was nothing. More the next. And the next.

  The deep and heavy thrum grew stronger and unmistakable only the flicker of an eye before a small sloop rounded a bend and hugged the shore. The natural inclination was to expect her family, yet the craft was unfamiliar and distinctively different from the weathered old tub Keegan O’Hara loved. A name painted on the dazzling white of its bow and the logo on pristine sails were indistinguishable from her distance and angle.