Hidden in the Dark (Harper Flagg Book 1)

by Alyson Larrabee

  “I plan on staying until the killer’s been caught.”

  Before Dad or I can react to our guest’s announcement, a big fist pounds on the front door twice, and Shane barges in. He knows the alarm code but always knocks anyway. “Whoa. What smells so good? I’m starved!”

  My father introduces him to Mr. Stone, and Shane says, “I’d shake your hand, but I’m drowning in sweat. Is that your car out front? The Challenger?”

  “Yup.” Gabriel’s smug smile looks pretty self-satisfied. I’d be smiling like that, too, if I drove a Challenger.

  “Wow! Hey, Harps, I’m gonna run upstairs and take a shower then run down and eat some of those cookies. I didn’t know you could bake!”

  “Dad and I made them together, and we used a mix.”

  “Oh-oh. A mix! What would Grams say?” Shane stands for a second with his foot on the bottom step, hands on hips, grinning at me. He’s overheated and wearing a tank top so I can see the scar from the killer’s knife, brilliant red, engraved in the pink flesh of his upper arm.

  “I know. I wish these were her cookies. But they’re pretty good, actually.” I grab another one to prove my point.

  “They smell awesome. Save me a few. I gotta go shower.” He races upstairs.

  Gabriel asks, “Shane showers here? Not at his own house?”

  “Shane and his father have been staying with us,” Dad answers, then gives me a look that says don’t say another word about it.

  I change the subject to one Dad might be more comfortable with. “You drive a Challenger?”

  “Yep, just bought it. A Hellcat. Pitch black. I thought about the red, but it’s too flashy for a guy my age.”

  “I like the black. With a car like the Hellcat, you don’t need the red exterior to scream at people, ‘Look at me! Cruising around in my fast, red car!’ You can whisper, like a phantom, and just slide by.”

  “I’m guessing you’re a car enthusiast?”

  “I’m only enthusiastic about fast cars.”

  His abrupt laugh claps once in the otherwise silent living room. “C’mon outside and take a look.”

  I jump up and run out the front door before he has a chance to get up from his chair. I’m willing to overlook his awkward laugh if he drives a Hellcat.

  The gleaming black vehicle’s parked at the curb in front of our house. I rest my palm on the sun-warmed hood and imagine the V8 engine rumbling to life. Dad’s standing just inside my peripheral vision leaning against the doorjamb in the open doorway, arms folded, watching me, like a panther on a tree limb, silent and intense.

  “Would you like to drive it?” Gabriel pulls the key fob out of his left pocket and presses the remote with the pad of his thumb. The locks on the doors click open, and I run over and yank on the driver’s side handle.

  My father jogs down the front path. “Not now, Harper.”

  His voice is calm and quiet, but I recognize the deadliness of his tone. It’s the one he uses when it’s useless to try and negotiate. I let go of the handle and roll my eyes, but Dad’s immune. His stare remains steady, patient, and as immoveable as a mountain.

  “Maybe some other time, then, Harper. I’ve got to get going now, anyway.” He looks at his watch then turns to Dad. “If there’s anything I can do to help, please call me, Thomas.”

  My father shakes his hand. “Thank you, Gabriel. I’ll do that.”

  “I hope you’ll keep in touch. Let me know if there are any new developments.”

  “Of course.”

  “Bye, Harper. I still owe you a ride in my new car. Don’t forget.”

  “I won’t. Nice meeting you, Mr. Stone.”

  “Gabriel.” He smiles that unsettling smile again, climbs into the car, and pulls away from the curb.

  Dad and I watch him drive off.

  “Harper, under no circumstances are you to ever get into that car with him.”

  “I get it, Dad. But aren’t you being kind of unsympathetic? He has no one. He’s completely alone.”

  “I don’t trust him. He’s too perfect looking, and I don’t like the way he stares at you.”

  “Dad, he’s old enough to be my father.”

  “That makes me trust him less. He didn’t take his eyes off you the whole time he was here.”

  “Maybe you shouldn’t be so judgmental. Maybe it’s because he misses his own daughter.”

  “Maybe,” he concedes.

  “Dad, I know he’s weird, but we are, too. The murders have made us all strange. We’re not like other people. Mr. Stone’s probably just lonely.”

  “You may be right, but I don’t care. My first concern is to keep you safe, and I don’t want him near you unless I’m around.”

  “Okay. But it’s a great car.”

  “I don’t care if it’s a Rolls Royce and he offers to transfer the title over to you.”

  “I’d rather have the Hellcat than the Rolls any day.”

  The right side of dad’s mouth quirks up. He slings one arm around my shoulders, hugs me close, and kisses the top of my head. “I love you, baby—one hundred percent. Forever.”

  “I love you, too, Dad. Even though you’re being a Grinch about the whole car thing.”

  “I always liked the Grinch. One of my favorite stories. Let’s go eat some of those cookies before Shane comes down and finishes them off.”

  Chapter 23

  Gabriel

  Scheming

  The killer felt the engine’s vibration seethe down into the pit of his stomach. Wrapped in the Hellcat’s muscled embrace, he flew through the night, reveling in the control he held over all that power and speed. His car was the only one on the highway. The only one in the universe.

  He’d gone to bed around midnight but couldn’t sleep, so he hopped in the car and began driving down one street and then another in the dark, until he’d finally ended up on the highway. The whole time, he kept thinking about how well his brilliant plan had worked out so far. No one suspected a thing. As he headed full throttle down the path he had chosen for himself, he felt invincible. Today Gabriel Stone had finally come face-to-face with Harper Flagg. Stood close enough so he could distinguish one separate, gleaming strand of honey-blonde hair from another. Met her brave brown eyes with his own. Soon they’d be together, and he would be everything to her.

  And the car would do its part. No one loved power and speed as much as Harper. He couldn’t wait for their life together to begin. But he had to wait. He had to be patient.

  If he took his time and stuck to the plan, she would be his within a few days. No one could stop him. No one could protect her. Certainly not that gangly redheaded dude. Thomas Jefferson Flagg was another type of adversary, though. Gabriel couldn’t afford to underestimate the girl’s obsessive father. He had underestimated Harper, and this mistake had led to the failure of plan A. Those Flaggs were trouble. Quick, strong, and lethal. Worthy opponents.

  He didn’t want to think about what might happen if plan B failed. But he should, at the very least, consider the possibility.

  What if his plan for capturing Harper failed and he had to escape before he could be captured or killed? He needed to be ready to act fast. He had to stay in control no matter what. He couldn’t falter like he had faltered with the boy. With Shane.

  But failure wasn’t on his agenda. Power was on his agenda. Speed was on his agenda. The future he envisioned with Harper loomed just ahead of him, bright and beautiful like the full moon shining down on the highway.

  He took the nearest exit and then got back on the highway, headed toward home and Mother. She would enjoy Harper’s company. But Harper would probably not enjoy hers. He laughed out loud. A few days in the ancient root cellar with Mother would subdue the strongest spirit, even Harper’s. He’d finally convince her. And eventually she’d stay with him willingly. Forever. With a little coaxing from Mother, of course.

  Chapter 24

  Gabriel

  Boyhood

  The first time he committed an act o
f violence, Gabriel Stone was only six years old. One beautiful spring afternoon about thirty-four years ago, during recess time at Wendell Fogg Elementary School, two of the playground aides were engrossed in a gossipy conversation and didn’t notice that three small piles of dried sticks were blazing away close by. Neither one looked up until a little girl screamed in pure terror. Gabriel was chasing the golden-haired child around and around the jungle gym with a flaming stick. Her long blonde hair flew out behind her as she fled the giggling boy. One strand had just begun to sizzle when the adults in charge put an end to Gabriel’s dangerous version of Tag, You’re It.

  He was expelled until his mother agreed to allow the school system’s psychologist to examine him. His father wasn’t in their lives, so Gabriel’s mother’s decision was the only one that counted. Her family believed in the Old Testament God, and there was no mention of psychology in the Bible. She refused to send her son back to a public school run by liberal-minded teachers and worse, psychologists, so she decided to homeschool.

  Gabriel still remembered every second of the day when he was expelled from school and sentenced to ten years of homeschooling. Mrs. Stone, as his mother preferred to be called, even though she was technically a miss, had walked into the principal’s office and closed the door behind her. Gabriel was left outside sitting on the famous white bench, where children who had committed crimes were forced to wait for sentencing. His feet dangled a few inches above the worn boards of the old oak floor, and he watched his small blue sneakers swing back and forth while he sat and worried. He didn’t have long to wait. Soon his mother marched out of the principal’s office. She didn’t speak to anyone, not even a polite goodbye to the secretary. She simply grabbed Gabriel’s hand and hauled him out to the car.

  After tucking him safely into the seat beside her, she fastened his seatbelt and hers. When he caught sight of his mother’s facial expression, he began to cry and plead, “No, Mommy, no!”

  During the whole ride home, Eve Stone ignored her son’s wailing. Finally they arrived at the house that had belonged to her family since the beginning of the nineteenth century. She yanked him out of the car and slung him over her right shoulder. He wriggled and kicked, almost knocking her off balance. She was a petite woman and sometimes worried about the day when her son would be too big and strong for her to handle in this way, but for today, she was still in charge, still the boss.

  “Sack of potatoes!” she demanded. Gabriel immediately quieted and forced himself to go limp. He knew from experience his struggles would only lead to more time underground, surrounded by darkness so deep even when his eyes were open it was as dark as when they were closed. His mother lugged him through the woods in back of their house toward the darkest place on earth. The Stone family’s root cellar had been built to last, in 1918.

  In the early twentieth century, root cellars were used to preserve vegetables for long periods of time. The Stone’s root cellar had an earthen floor, cement walls, and one narrow, round ventilation unit built into the ceiling. This thick, metal pipe extended a few feet above the ground and was painted green and brown to blend in with its surroundings. The pipe regulated the temperature and vented the area so the vegetables wouldn’t spoil. Above ground, a heavy metal cap covered the shaft loosely, preventing unwanted sunlight from entering the dungeon-like area below.

  Even in the middle of a beautiful, sunny spring afternoon, Mrs. Stone needed to use the small flashlight on her key chain when they were inside the root cellar.

  The sturdy main room was built of reinforced concrete. Various cement companies, back in the early 1900s, had published booklets with detailed plans for constructing underground storage facilities. Eve’s great grandfather had used one of these booklets to plan the Stone family’s very own subterranean hellhole.

  The only access to the root cellar was through a heavy wooden door set into the side of a grassy hill. The year 1918 was stamped into the concrete above the door, which opened inward onto a long, dark passageway.

  A heavy mesh screen door stood between the passageway and the storage room to keep rats out of the main room. Built of concrete poured over forms, the root cellar had three cement columns inside. They provided support for the arched roof, which drained water away from the ground above. The manmade cave was constructed to last. If the Stones ever decided to get rid of their bunker, they’d have to use heavy-duty explosives.

  Inside the storage room, Mrs. Stone panned the beam of her flashlight over the metal shelving along the right-hand wall before she tucked her sniveling child into a large wooden bin resting on the bottom shelf. It was designed to hold vegetables, though, not children. Slots were carved into its sides so the air could circulate and the excess moisture and gases produced by the vegetables could escape.

  The petite blonde woman ignored her son’s whimpering and marched through the passageway, away from him and toward the light of day. When she reached the door, she called back over her shoulder, “If you keep crying, I’m going to unlock the door and let the Avenging Angel in, and he’ll hack off your arms and legs with his sharp sword. He doesn’t like crying and screaming, so shut the hell up, Gabriel!”

  She stood at the door and continued to shout. “For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil.” When she shouted these quotes from the Bible at him, he couldn’t figure out what they meant. He only knew she was dangerously angry, and he’d be better off if he quieted down. Good behavior meant less time in the dark. So young Gabriel worked hard to stifle his sniffling and whimpering. Within minutes, he grew silent. Soon he heard her close the door and padlock it from the outside.

  Because he was getting too big for the container, his limbs began to cramp painfully after the first hour, but if she came in and found him outside the bin, she’d leave him underground longer. When he was sure she wouldn’t hear, he began to recite elephant jokes from one of the school library books the first graders were allowed to bring home for one week at a time. He was looking forward to second grade, when the students could bring home three books and keep them for two weeks instead of only one.

  As he strove to make himself smaller inside the box, Gabriel tapped into his incredible memory and began to picture each page of the book with its brightly colored cartoonish drawing of an elephant in a ridiculous situation. His imagination turned the pages as he called up the lines and colors of each drawing and the bold printed words. He forgot about how much his arms and legs hurt and how cold he felt and how dark it was beneath the ground in the woods behind the house where he lived with his horrifying young mother. After he finished reading and rereading the library book in his mind’s eye, he began to think about what he would do to her when he finally grew too big to be slapped, shaken, carried out to the root cellar, and locked inside.

  For the first time ever, that day, he thought about revenge. He thought about the matches kept near the fireplace and the knives in the wooden knife holder on the kitchen counter. Smiling to himself, he envisioned finding the key to the root cellar’s padlock and gripping it tightly in his fist. As soon as he was big enough, he’d steal the key, grab his screaming mother, and carry her out to the backyard like a sack of potatoes. The louder she screamed, the longer she would spend locked underground. Maybe he’d keep her there forever. The only problem was the Avenging Angel she kept talking about. He might hurt Gabriel or even kill him. The poor, shivering child didn’t know how big the Angel was, or how strong, because he had never seen him. Where did the Angel live? Nearby? Gabriel decided the only solution was to try and grow bigger, stronger, and smarter than the Angel. He could do it. He had to do it. But he wasn’t big enough or strong enough yet, and thinking about the Angel scared him. So, to keep his mind off the huge, strong scary angel his mother was always raving about, the little boy began picturing the elephant joke book again. A reassuring thought occ
urred to him, and he spoke it aloud: “The Angel couldn’t be bigger than an elephant.”

  The child’s laughter rang through the darkness, but no one heard.

  Chapter 25

  Harper

  Knock, Knock, Who’s There?

  Saturday morning I hear a knock on the front door, race over, and peek out the window to see who it is. Gabriel Stone is standing there with a dazzling smile on his handsome face. Smiling back at him, I wave, disable the alarm, and open the door.

  “Beautiful weather,” he says. “Great day for a long ride in a fast car.”

  There’s nothing I’d rather do, but I hesitate before I say yes, even though I could sneak out if I act fast. Dad’s at the station. Shane’s still sleeping, and Mr. MacGregor’s in the kitchen making a second pot of coffee. The poor man has a problem with caffeine. I could slip out the door and no one would know who I was with or where I had gone. Nah. Bad idea. Stupid idea.

  I step quietly onto the porch and politely decline Mr. Stone’s invitation. “I’d love to, but I can’t. Early practice. I should actually run up and change right now.”

  He grabs my upper arm and pulls me toward him. Something sharp stabs the back of my neck. A wasp. I slap at it with one hand and look up at the porch ceiling to see if there’s a nest. Then my world turns black.

  Chapter 26

  Gabriel

  Gone in Five Seconds

  Gabriel pulled Harper’s right arm up and over his shoulder. Gripping her right hand tightly in his, he wrapped his left arm around her waist and walked her limp body out to his car. He had her in the front seat and buckled up within five seconds of knocking her out. A fast shot of the propofol he had stolen from his ex-girlfriend’s house had done the trick.

  It’s helpful to be both observant and friendly. When he invested in pharmaceuticals, he did a lot of research first. He talked to doctors, nurses, patients, and company sales reps. They had been happy to chat with him. Especially the females. He had even dated some of the women but never for very long. He had some professional-quality business cards printed to aid him in his career as a phony financial consultant to high-profile pharmaceutical companies. Then he had a very authentic-looking, laminated ID made and clipped it to the pocket of his suit jacket. Soon he was hanging around a lot of hospitals, meeting a lot of people, and asking out some of the women. A couple of them even asked him out, like his ex-girlfriend, the doctor with the substance-abuse problem.