Carved in Darkness

by Maegan Beaumont

  She opened herself up. Let her legs set a brutal pace, eating the trail with hungry strides. Forced her mind to pull free of the nightmares of just a few hours before. Her legs burned, but she didn’t slow. Instead, she used the pain to sandblast the dregs of last night from her thoughts.

  Footsteps pounded behind her, the sound of them almost perfectly matched to her own. It made her uneasy, and she pushed herself harder. Ran a bit faster. The footsteps behind her faded for a moment then doubled, catching up with her. No more than fifteen feet now. Shifting across the trail, she hugged the tree line to give the person behind her room to pass. They didn’t pass but seemed intent on closing the gap between them.

  Forcing out another burst of speed, she widened the gap momentarily, but the advantage was short-lived. The man, judging from the heavy sound of his footfalls, closed the space between them again.

  Shooting through a gap in the trees, Sabrina ran for the open area of the park. Faking a cramp, she gripped her side before stumbling to a stop. Bent forward, her elbows braced on her knees, she took deep breaths. Her arms dangled loosely, waiting for the man behind her to make an appearance. He burst through the trees and continued on the trail without even a glance in her direction.

  He ran past, not more than twenty feet away from her. Eyeing him, she took in his black track pants and white muscle shirt. Extensive ink decorated his shoulder and upper arm. The Celtic design was distinctive.

  His hair was dark, cut shorter than she remembered, and his face was leaner, harder than it had been the last time she’d seen him. His name was Michael. They’d grown up in the same small Texas town, gone to school together, attended the same church. Her heart was pounding so hard it hurt, and her palms were suddenly slick with sweat.

  They’d never known each other well, but he’d often stared at her a little too long, gotten a little too quiet when she was around. He’d always made her uncomfortable; seeing him now scared the shit out of her.

  Every instinct Sabrina had was screaming, telling her she was in danger, urging her to run. He didn’t appear by accident. This wasn’t a coincidence.

  Michael knew exactly who she was, and he’d come here for her.

  Three

  Two people. Only two people knew who she really was—that she survived those eighty-three days of rape and torture. Valerie, her roommate, never knew Michael. If Val had run into someone claiming to be from her past, she’d sure as hell say so.

  That left her Grandma Lucy.

  Factoring in the time difference, she hesitated, but Lucy had always been an early riser. Walking home from the park, Noodles ambling along beside her, Sabrina unclipped her cell and dialed.

  “Hello?” Lucy sounded like she’d been up for hours.

  “You want to explain to me why Michael O’Shea nearly ran me down while I was out for my morning run?” Her question was met with silence. “Lucy, what did you do?”

  “Would it kill you to call me Grandma?” Lucy said in her usual no-nonsense way.

  Yes.

  “Please … please explain to me why you told Michael O’Shea where I am—who I am. Of all people, why him?”

  “He was headed your way, and I asked him to look in on y’all,” Lucy said.

  “I can take care of myself.”

  “I know.” Lucy sighed. “But I’m your grandmother, no matter what you call me. I’m allowed to worry about you.”

  “Call him. Tell him to leave. Tell him I don’t want him here.” Her demands were met with silence. “Lucy—”

  “He’s only there for a few days, and then he’ll be gone. He just wants to help,” Lucy said.

  “Why would he want to help you?”

  “He’s my friend.”

  “Your friend? Michael O’Shea doesn’t know the meaning of the word. He’s manipulative and self-serving—he uses people. If he’s claiming to be your friend, it’s because he wants something from you, Lucy. Don’t be stupid.”

  Lucy was quiet for a few seconds. “You never did give him a chance,” she finally said, sounding wounded. Sabrina instantly felt horrible for speaking so harshly, but she continued on, intent on making Lucy understand that trusting Michael O’Shea with anything was a horrible mistake.

  “He didn’t deserve one. After how he treated his parents, the hell he put them through … he spit in their faces every chance he got. Sophia and Sean adopted him when no one else wanted him, loved him in spite of all the pain he caused them, and he didn’t even have the decency to stick around after they died. He just dumped his sister off on the first relative he could find and took off,” she said. It was something she’d never been able to understand—the way he’d turned his back on his sister without a backward glance. It was that, more than anything, that told her what kind of person he really was.

  “You aren’t being fair. Michael changed after Frankie was born, though most folks didn’t care to notice. He loved his sister … he only did what he thought was right. He was in no position to raise Frankie—she was practically a baby,” Lucy said.

  “Sounds pretty fucking selfish if you ask me.”

  “You’ll watch your language, little girl.” Lucy’s tone was firm, one she remembered well. Suddenly, she was a child again, desperate for her grandmother’s approval.

  “Yes, ma’am. I’m sorry.” Sabrina took a calming breath. She’d allowed Lucy to pull her off topic. None of this mattered. What mattered was why Michael O’Shea was here now. She started again. “I know you wouldn’t have done this without a reason; tell me what’s going on. Please, help me understand.”

  “I asked a friend to look in on you. I hardly see the crime.”

  “He’s still there, the person who took me. Michael could be the person who took me—”

  “Girl, you’re talking nonsense. Michael was nowhere near here when you … when you left.” Her voice drifted off on a ragged breath.

  “What if he knows the man who hurt me? He could’ve told him, led him here … do you understand what you’ve done?” She hated the way her voice sounded: scared. Scared and desperate. Something she swore she’d never be again.

  Opening the Harpers’ front gate, she urged Noodles into the yard. He turned a mournful look her way. Their run had been cut short. She gave him an absentminded pat on the head over the fence before walking away.

  He could be the person who took me … he could’ve led him here. Her legs felt rubbery and unsteady beneath her. Her heart still galloped in her chest. She took a deep breath and then another in an effort to steady her nerves. It was useless. It’d felt like someone had been watching her for weeks now. What if Michael had been following her this whole time? What if he wasn’t alone?

  Walking up her driveway toward the back of the house, it hit her. There was no one there, but the feeling of being watched was so strong, it was a physical weight on her back and shoulders.

  The key almost flipped out of her hand when she tried to jam it into the lock. Next door, Noodles let out a series of sharp barks. She shot another glance over her shoulder. Still no one there, but the feeling intensified.

  “Michael isn’t the one who hurt you and he’d never tell anyone. I’m sure of it,” Lucy said, her tone firm. Lucy had always been too kind, too trusting.

  Wrestling the door open, Sabrina ducked inside. The alarm system was flashing, counting down the seconds until it could start squawking. She punched in the code to keep it quiet. A flick of her wrist drove the deadbolt home, and she sagged against the doorframe for a moment. Relief did little to calm her nerves.

  “How do you know for sure?” she said. The faint whirl of Lucy’s KitchenAid filled the line between them.

  “I trust him,” Lucy said, and Sabrina had to bite back a harsh laugh.

  “Why would you send someone here to spy on me anyway?” The idea of anyone, let alone Michael O’Shea, skulking around in the shadows,
watching her, made her skin crawl. The fact he was here at Lucy’s request did nothing to put her at ease.

  “Why? Girl, you never were one for stupid questions. Don’t start askin’ ’em now. You know why.” Lucy sounded angry, but she was right. If Lucy sent Michael here to watch over her, it was understandable why she’d do so without telling her. The last time she had felt danger breathing down her neck, she grabbed her brother and sister and took off.

  Fifteen years ago she’d been Melissa Walker. She loved a boy named Tommy, a short-order cook in the diner where she worked, and he loved her back. She worked hard, labored under the long shadow cast by her mother in order to prove she was nothing like her. She took care of her brother and sister. Made sure they were fed and cared for. Protected them from their mother when she got too drunk or high to know where she even was. Tommy was the one bright spot in her life. She saw herself with Tommy forever, saw them growing old together. She allowed herself to believe it was possible. That she could be happy.

  She should’ve known better.

  Tommy was half Apache. In a backwoods, East Texas town of less that fifteen hundred, that set him apart. The fact that his mother was white made him good enough to cook their food and clean up after them, but no matter who his mother was, his father’s blood ensured he would never be good enough to marry one of them. Even if the person he wanted to marry was the bastard daughter of the town whore.

  At Tommy’s urging, they kept their relationship a secret, being careful not to touch or even look at each other while other people were around. The night he slipped that lapis and sterling silver band on her finger and asked her to be his wife was the happiest of her life. She’d said yes … and twelve hours later he was found, stripped naked—bludgeoned and stabbed several times on Route 80. Obviously they hadn’t been careful enough. They hadn’t been careful enough.

  She stayed with him, sleeping in the chair next to his hospital bed. She didn’t care who knew about them—she never had. She left his room for only a moment, long enough to fill a pitcher with ice chips from the nurses’ station. When she returned, there was a piece of paper stuffed in Tommy’s slackened grip. It was a note: Leave him or I’ll finish what I started.

  She left the hospital then, collected the twins from her grandmother’s, and was gone before sundown. She never looked back, never doubted that the decision she made had been the right one. Not even when the person who tried to kill Tommy came after her. Not even when that person dragged her into the dark and kept her there for eighty-three days.

  Time had done little to dull the memories. It all seemed like it happened yesterday, and yet she felt like she’d aged a century since she’d been that stupid girl who said yes. And now here was her grandmother, desperate enough to confide in a man like Michael O’Shea and refusing to tell her why.

  “Tell me what’s going on. Why him?”

  “Not my place to say. Next time you see Michael, you’d do best to ask him yourself.”

  Next time. “Lucy—”

  “And you’re wrong about him. I’m telling you, he changed after Frankie was born. Sean and Sophia’s dying nearly killed him … he’s far from perfect, but I trust him.”

  “What does he do for a living?” Sabrina said. The question was meant to throw Lucy, and it worked.

  “He never said.”

  “It’s a pretty basic thing to know about a friend, don’t you think? Maybe he sells life insurance or roadies for a Neil Diamond cover band … or maybe he’s something a hell of a lot worse. Ever think of that? Do you have any idea what kind of man you’ve trusted with my life?”

  Sabrina tightened her grip on the cell for a second before snapping it shut. Something had happened. Something bad. Nothing short of disaster would have pulled the truth about Sabrina out of her grandmother.

  Thoughts of Michael caused her apprehension rise. Why had Lucy told him about her, and why would he even care? If Lucy could be persuaded to tell someone like Michael O’Shea something as important as the fact of her survival, what else had she told him?

  Finding her way downstairs to the kitchen table, Sabrina sat. Pulled her shaking hand into fists, felt angry with herself for being so afraid. The trembling crept up her arms and settled into her shoulders before inching downward until her whole body shook. She’d known this day would come. That the man who’d kidnapped her would eventually find her.

  She stared out the kitchen window, but the view was lost on her. All she could see was the dark …

  She couldn’t see—couldn’t open her eyes. The dark was absolute. No cracks of light, no pinpoints in the black to guide her way as she crawled around the room he kept her in. She couldn’t see, but she could hear and smell. Her ears and nose told her everything she knew about the place he kept her. Dripping water pinging off a metal pipe, the distant passing of an airplane overhead. The frantic scurry of rats; she could smell the unclean stench of them. Other smells surrounded her. The smell of the bucket she used as a toilet … the metallic tang of blood. Her blood. Every breath she took brought her the smell of it, and with it, the memories of what had been done to her.

  Next door, Noodles let out another series of barks. The sound of them snapped her back to reality. Blinking hard, her gaze settled on the cabinet above the coffee pot. In the back, hidden in the hand-painted mug Jason gave her for Mother’s day when he was eight, was a prescription bottle with her name on it. Ativan—3mg PO, PRN for anxiety. Before she knew what she was doing, she was out of her seat. Reaching out, she gripped the cabinet knob with trembling fingers but stopped herself from pulling it open.

  No. Falling apart wasn’t an option and neither was relying on drugs to keep herself together. She was stronger. She wasn’t that stupid girl anymore.

  The clock display on the timered coffeemaker read just after six a.m.

  Pouring herself a cup of coffee, Sabrina carried it up stairs, in a hurry to be dressed and out the door before Val woke up. Her roommate would know right away something was going on, and she didn’t want to get into it.

  It was clear she’d get no answers from her grandmother. Luckily, she had other ways to get what she needed.

  If she hurried, she could get to work early and run his name through the computer, figure out what Michael had been up to for the past fifteen years and what it had to do with her.

  Sometimes, being a cop had its privileges.

  Four

  Sabrina showered quickly, not bothering to comb out her hair before throwing it up into a damp ponytail. Afterward, she pulled on a pair of black cargo pants and a plain black T-shirt. Reaching into her nightstand, she pulled out her SIG P220 and attached the holster to her waistband. Socks and boots came next, and she sat down on the edge of her bed to lace them. The floorboard outside her bedroom door creaked, and her head snapped up. She dropped the laces of her boot and stood. Years of training dropped her hand to the SIG strapped to her hip, and she waited. Knuckles rapped softly a moment before the door was pushed open.

  “It’s me—can I come in?” Val said.

  Nodding, Sabrina dropped the hand on her hip. The movement wasn’t lost on Val. Sabrina sat back down to pull her boot laces tight, ignoring the worried glare she was getting. Val leaned against the doorframe and crossed her arms over her chest, saying nothing.

  She’d known Valerie only a handful of months before her abduction, but they’d formed a close friendship. So close that when she finally opened her eyes in the hospital, Val’s was the first face she saw. She’d taken care of Jason and Riley during her absence and the long and brutal recovery.

  She’d been a minor and the fact that the detectives investigating her case had no leads into who’d kidnapped her made her survival an easy secret to keep. As her guardian, Lucy had her case records sealed and helped her with getting her name changed. Then she let her go.

  Even though Lucy never believed the person who raped and t
ortured her was from Jessup, she knew there was no forcing her to come home.

  As soon as Sabrina had made a full recovery, she and the twins made the move to San Francisco with Val, who attended interior design school while Sabrina waited tables, biding her time until she was old enough to apply to the police academy.

  Most days it was easy for her to remember how much she owed her friend. Today was not one of those days.

  Boots laced and tied, she stood again and crossed the room to her closet. Reaching up, she pulled her tactical bag off the top shelf and turned to drop it on the bed. She pulled out her Kevlar vest and strapped it on. Val finally looked away. She never liked to watch her put it on.

  “What’s going on? Some nut job holding his cats hostage?” Knowing Val, she was trying for flippant but ended up sounding angry.

  “We’re doing an eight-thirty serve and search.” Her team was serving a high-profile search warrant connected to a string of bank robberies. She and the boys would take point and clear the way for the Feds to come in and do their thing.

  Her coffee was still hot, but she slammed it anyway. The search and serve was nothing she hadn’t done a hundred times, but she was going to need the blast of caffeine to get through the next few hours. This was it though—her last assignment with SWAT. She’d finally given in and transferred out. Val should’ve been doing backflips. Instead, she looked like she was about to come unglued, which meant they were about five seconds from a full-fledged fight.

  “You look like shit.”

  Right—shut your mouth, grab your gear, and leave. “I have to go.” Hefting her bag onto her shoulder, she shot a look at the clock—it was six thirty. She had less than an hour to get downtown and behind her desk before the seven thirty briefing. By the time they got back from serving the warrant, her partner would be there. All she needed was for him to catch her running a background check on Michael. One look over her shoulder and the questions would start flying, and she’d be stuck. If she wanted answers, she’d have to get to the station before Strickland did. She turned and headed for the door.