Dark Memories (The DARK Files Book 1)

by Susan Vaughan

  Byrne and Snow were stationed outside. Isaacs ought to be in the theater, and Ward was backstage. He tapped the button to connect to them all. “Two and Three, come in.” No response.

  “Four, Five, you there?”

  No response.

  He shook the phone. It was working, but the connection to his team — and to Laura — was dead. What the hell was it with these high-tech gadgets? His laptop freezing. Now this.

  Wait and see. Maybe his alarm was for nothing and she’d gone up the other stairs. He’d find her happily congratulating the actors as they came offstage.

  But the itching on his scalp said different.

  Something about the play, about Cookie’s dual role raked at his brain. A suspicion fuzzed and sharpened like a shadow puzzle. Staring at his phone, he almost had a grasp on how. What if the signals were jammed? Or tinkered with? That was it.

  Now for who. Slowly his mind made the connection.

  Realization burned, an acidic poison in his veins.

  Shoving away emotion, he inched along the corridor. At the first door, he crouched and stepped inside, sweeping the cramped space with his pistol. Prop storage. Old dummies, chairs, backdrops, the window seat from Arsenic and Old Lace.

  Damn. There must be a dozen doors and little rooms like this one. The old box stalls from the structure’s stable days. He turned and straightened, ready to perform the same sweep farther down the corridor as applause erupted from above.

  The long black snout of a gun suppressor projected around the doorjamb.

  Before Cole had time to react, the weapon spat.

  The bullet hit him square in the chest. White-hot pain hammered his bones. Fire filled his lungs. The impact threw him backward onto the cement floor. Shards of pain exploded in his skull.

  But he was right. He knew.

  Janus. The two-faced god.

  He knew the name, the face as the darkness dragged him down.

  Too damned late.

  ***

  Laura’s captor shoved her down on the hard-packed dirt floor of the dark boat shed. With her hands tied and a gag in her mouth, she flopped to her side, helpless and numb. Her mouth and tongue were dry as sand, all moisture sucked out by filthy cloth.

  A flashlight beam played over the walls. “Don’t move or you’ll be next.” The voice was familiar.

  The identity of her captor stunned her. Kent Isaacs.

  No, Janus. Isaacs was Janus. He shot Cole.

  Cole! Oh God, Cole!

  The menacing hiss of the silencer echoed over and over in her head. It branded her brain and pierced her heart. A dark shroud filled every crack in her soul.

  Isaacs had forced her to go down to the wardrobe rooms. Shocked and stunned at the identity of her enemy, she was trussed up and gagged before she could react.

  Then they waited.

  When Cole came down the steps, she struggled against her gag, straining to warn him. Powerless.

  Her phone was in her pocket, but she couldn’t reach it. The killer shoved her in among the soft folds of costumes, so she could kick nothing that would make noise. He kept her pinned to his side with one hand. With the other he held the gun, made more evil looking with the matte-black metal extension.

  If she somehow escaped from this terrible mess, she’d never forget as long as she lived what happened next. Isaacs dragged her along the corridor to the next open door. They stopped just as Cole turned, his sidearm raised.

  The killer didn’t hesitate. He pulled the trigger.

  Oh God, she could hear the muted sound of the gun firing. She saw the scene in slow-motion. The bullet slamming into Cole. The impact launching him backward. Then falling, falling with a sickening thump to the cement floor.

  Where he lay motionless.

  Her throat closed. She couldn’t breathe. If he died because of her, she didn’t want to live. Her chest ached as though her heart had been ripped out. She squeezed shut her eyes, the image of Cole, so still, branded on her pupils.

  Then Isaacs had doused the lights and closed the door. He’d dragged Laura out of the theater building while the actors above were still bowing and blowing kisses during their curtain calls.

  Was Cole dead? Or was he alive and bleeding? Would someone find him before it was too late?

  Her pulse jittered, and her breath puffed in shallow pants. No, she couldn’t let the agony of it break her. Nor let it suffocate her. If Cole was alive, she was no good to him unless she could take control.

  He had to be alive. She had to believe it.

  She clung to the burning hope in her chest and worked to control her breathing. Slowly, in, out, until she was centered.

  The boat shed’s familiar smells of musty dirt floor, varnish and bottom paint calmed her nerves. Piled up in the corner were the sails for her class. Anchors, life jackets and boat cushions hung on the walls. Old friends.

  Now she would see what could be done.

  Across the room, the rasp of a match caught her attention. Its flame was the only pinpoint of light. A moment later, the lantern always kept in the shed glowed with a steady light, casting shadows in the back corners.

  The glare set in stark relief the features of the man standing over her.

  Gone, the affable gardener in his green work khakis. Gone, the government officer. The hit man looked malevolent and cruel in his black trousers and sweatshirt.

  But she understood at last how Janus had fooled them all. How he’d known where she’d be and when Cole would be away. How he avoided the surveillance. Half the time he did the surveillance. What she couldn’t fathom was why a respected DARK agent, supposedly the cream of intelligence officers, could also be a professional assassin.

  She had tumbled down the rabbit hole.

  The killer — oh God, Cole’s … approached her. She recoiled, scooting back until she hit a plastic crate. But he only bent down and removed the gag. The smell of his sweat wrinkled her nose.

  “Don’t want to bruise that soft mouth.” He chuckled, more of a cackle. “This has to look like an accident. Stay put, or I’ll tie your feet too.” He walked away, weaving though the piles of boat equipment, and collected items that he piled close to the lantern.

  The boat shed door stood ajar. The wind blew ragged curtains of fog and misty rain against the only window and through the narrow opening. The old sliding door creaked and groaned.

  Working her cheeks and tongue, she forced saliva to moisten her parched mouth. A windmill of questions whirled in her head. “You can’t hope to make my … death look like an accident. How can you explain the bullet in Cole?” Putting the events into words gave them too much reality. She trembled from the images in her aching skull and fought a wave of nausea.

  She had to maintain her cool. She had to.

  Thank goodness for Burt’s laziness. Once the shed was cleaned up, he’d started leaving some garden tools inside. Within reach was a small folding saw, locked in the open position.

  If she could saw through her bindings…

  Isaacs barked a laugh that sent shivers down her spine. “It appears the lovers have had a spat. First you shot him with this gun. I’ll hate to leave this little black-market beauty behind, but those are the breaks.” He held up the small lethal instrument.

  She had to keep him talking. If she could free her hands, she could reach the phone’s panic button. Maybe it would reach one of the other officers.

  No wonder the mysterious attacker Tuesday night had known the stage so well even in the dark. Isaacs had worked all over the theater side by side with the lighting techs.

  “A lover’s quarrel. No one will believe that.”

  On a shrug, he tucked the gun into his holster and began shredding a boat cushion with a pocketknife.

  She backed away from him. And closer to the saw.

  “Yeah, doll, they will.” To hear this jackal’s plot in matter-of-fact tones chilled her to the core. “Lots of people notic
ed that you weren’t speaking to each other today. I made sure of it.”

  She rubbed her bound wrists across the blade. The jagged edge bit into her as it shredded at the rope. She controlled her breathing and ignored the sting, the feel of blood soaking into the braided material.

  Such a small amount of blood. Nothing to her.

  “Then in your panic,” Isaacs continued, apparently proud of his plan, “you ran to the boat shed — which you opened up with your key.”

  He held up the padlock with her key inserted, then tossed it aside.

  “Once inside, you bumped your head. When you fell, you knocked over this handy lantern. Too bad for such a classy chick to die in a fire. Hell of a shame. But my regrets will be overcome when I check my Swiss bank account.”

  She forced herself not to dwell on the future the killer mapped out for her.

  She sawed at the rope.

  A sneakered foot kicked away the garden saw. It landed with a clatter against the wall.

  He slapped her. “I told you not to move!”

  “No!” She rolled to her side.

  “I warned you, bitch.”

  Her face stung with fiery needles. Damn. She’d been so close. Tears burned, but she refused to let him see weakness.

  He yanked at her hands and checked the rope. Unfortunately it was still whole. From somewhere he produced another length of the braided fiber. “Now you’ll stay put.”

  While he bound her ankles together, she searched for flaws in his plan. “How will you explain my being tied up? Will you untie me after you knock me out?”

  “I could untie you, but I don’t think I will. Markos was right about you being clever.” He twisted the cap off the lantern fuel can and grinned with satisfaction. “Those are custom-made paper ropes. They leave no marks, and the fire will reduce them to unidentifiable ashes.”

  He crossed the room and sprinkled the clear fluid over the cushions. The acrid petroleum smell stung her nostrils. Isaacs had once been an ATF agent, so he’d know better than most how to start a whiz-bang fire that looked accidental.

  The lantern’s flame flickered and danced. It animated his shadow against the wall.

  She had little time. He was going to overturn the lantern and set the shed on fire. Her only chance was the phone. She prayed Isaacs didn’t know she had it.

  The serrated blade hadn’t cut through, but her efforts had stretched the rope and loosened its grip. Her pulse skipped. Spreading the fuel around occupied her captor.

  Keeping an eye on him, she lowered her hands to her right side. She twisted so she could inch her right hand into her pocket. Good. She touched the device. It might save both Cole and her. She prayed he still lived.

  Shaking and sweaty and blood-smeared from the saw blade, her hands slipped on the smooth plastic. Come on. Concentrate. She turned the phone until she was sure of its orientation. The speed-dial button was at the bottom of the screen. There. At last.

  She pressed, hoping she’d remembered correctly.

  All she had to do now was talk. If Cole was conscious, he would hear her and know where she was. Or the others would. If he was de— no, she couldn’t think about that — maybe her voice would help the others find him. And her.

  Please someone, listen to me!

  “Why are you doing this, Isaacs? Are you really this hit man, this Janus? Or is Markos blackmailing you into murder?”

  The wind howled like a furious ghost. Rain sheeted through the rickety shed’s opening. Thunder cracked the night and rattled the sliding door.

  The stool where the lantern sat wobbled.

  She chewed her lower lip. Don’t let it fall.

  Isaacs bent over her, grinning like a jack-o’-lantern.

  That’s it. Come closer. So someone can hear you.

  In the flickering shadows, his dark eyes were empty sockets. A frisson of revulsion skittered down her spine.

  “Blackmail? Nothing so banal. Janus is my alter ego. The two-faced Roman god of doorways. For seven years, I’ve fooled them all. Occasionally government agents come under suspicion of espionage, but no one has ever suspected my little hobby.”

  “But why? You have respect, a decent salary, excitement in your work.”

  He stalked toward the shelving beside the lantern. “Excitement? Maybe that’s how it looks from the outside. First in the ATF and now DARK, all I get handed is the boring background work, the surveillance. This gig is more of the same crap plus grunt work trimming hedges. So I make my own excitement. No one suspects. And I get well paid for it.”

  “You were spotted in Boston making the deal with Markos. Wasn’t allowing your face to be seen dangerous?”

  He tilted his head back and laughed, a hoarse rasp that grated on her nerves. “I’m smarter than the Feebs. That was my associate. He makes my … arrangements.”

  He hadn’t caught on to her temporizing. Museum board meetings had taught her that inflated egos liked to expound on themselves. “You punctured my brake lines and fiddled with the gas heater? It was you who shoved the piano at me?”

  “More than I should’ve needed to do. You’ve been a tough gig. Thanks to Stratton. Your macho lover kept turning off the gas valve. Ruining my plans. But a boat shed fire will be the final answer.” Another hoarse laugh punctuated his grim joke.

  “Won’t the fire marshal know it was arson? What happened to your accident plans?”

  He shook his head. “This old firetrap has too many fuel sources. They might guess arson, but they won’t prove it. What difference it makes to Markos, I don’t know.” He lifted a paint can and set it back down. Next he hefted an anchor.

  A paint can? An anchor? Her pulse shot to the roof. He was choosing something to knock her out with. Time was running out. “Switching the boats was a clumsy attempt. Not professional.”

  “Not professional is right. That lovesick idiot Burt bragged to me about his little boat-switching scheme. Thought he’d race to your rescue and be your hero. He didn’t count on Stratton being Johnny-on-the-spot. So I backed up his story.”

  Poor Burt. Cole had been right about his feelings for her.

  “But the ham-fisted plan worked for me. Made Stratton think Janus had paid the local yokel to do you.”

  The suspicion on Burt had been enough to confuse Cole temporarily.

  The combustible fuel was soaking into flammables all around the shed. At any moment, the storm could rattle the shed and knock over the lantern without any help.

  Her heart sank to her toes. No one heard her call. Or Isaacs’s confessions. No one was coming.

  Chapter 28

  SHE HAD TO do something. Fast. An old six-foot oar that didn’t fit any of the newer, smaller boats lay on the floor where the now sunken skiff used to be. Laura scooted her legs around and rolled to her knees. Pulling the white-painted oar toward her, she judged its usefulness. Much longer than a tennis racquet, and heavier.

  A weapon. Bracing herself with the oar, she pushed up. Up, up, inch by inch, until she stood wavering on her bound feet.

  Her captor’s back was to her, apparently certain of her helplessness. He didn’t hear her over the roar of the storm.

  With the oar as a crutch, she scuttled toward him. The dirt floor and the pounding rain covered her steps to within two feet of the man. Striking distance.

  She lifted the oar high over her head.

  Isaacs hummed while he worked. He picked up an old wooden lobster buoy. “Just the thing. It might even burn up in the fire.”

  She slammed the oar down on his head. Her overhand serve knocked the man to his knees. Still clutching her weapon, she hopped, hobbled toward the open door.

  “No! You bitch. You won’t escape again!”

  An iron grip on Laura’s ankles stopped her dead, sent her crashing to the floor. Pain splintered through her from her knees to her temples. Bruises on bruises, she thought inanely as she kicked at him.

  “Let me go!” She st
ruck out blindly with the oar. Heard the solid thud against bone and muscle.

  He roared in pain, but didn’t release her.

  A shot rang out.

  The hit man lay still. His hand fell away from her ankle. A flow of crimson soaked the dirt beside him.

  Panting as though she’d swum the length of the lake, Laura scrambled away. Thank God. One of the DARK officers had heard her.

  The man shoving the creaking door wider wasn’t her savior.

  The man who stepped inside was Alexei Markos.

  ***

  Cole reached the boat shed as a gunshot split the night.

  Laura! No!

  He was too late. His blood ran cold. Then hot. “I’ll cut out his beating heart!”

  “Hold on, buddy.” Simon Byrne, rain streaking his hair into his eyes, clamped Cole’s arm. “That bump on the head is playing tricks with your vision. Look inside.”

  Cole squinted through the downpour that screened them from the view of those inside.

  The prone figure was not Laura.

  He swiped a hand across his eyes. Thank God.

  Hands and feet bound, she was pushing to her knees. The man she confronted like a warrior held a pistol pointed at her. A Ruger. A .22.

  Alexei Markos. Cole would recognize the smarmy Continental bastard whether he was drenched or dry. Perfectly styled ebony hair gleamed wet like shiny plastic in the lantern light. His dress pants and leather jacket were the real deal, designer expensive.

  Cole flicked the safety off his 9mm.

  “Be cool, Stratton,” the other officer warned. “We need him alive.”

  Not knowing what Markos would do flayed strips off Cole’s heart. His fear for Laura was huge, primitive, a fire burning him from the inside out. Blocking those thoughts, he reminded himself why they needed him alive. Husam Al-Din and the New Dawn Warriors, Markos’s extremist playmates. Damn. “You’ll get the bastard alive.”

  But maybe not in one piece. Not after what he’d done to Laura.

  “What’s the plan?” Ward, braid streaming over her shoulder in a wet ribbon, said in his ear.

  Watching their backs, Snow waited at the corner of the building. He’d discarded his cane in favor of a Glock.