Out of the Darkness

by Jaime Rush

  Jaime Rush

  Out of the Darkness

  To RJ Newton, nephew and U.S. Marine.

  We’re so proud of you!

  To great friends, Jeff and Gretchen Naidenhoff.

  To my soul sisters: Rachael Wolff,

  Sandra Palin, and Mary Olderich

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  “This would go a lot easier if you’d stop screaming…

  Chapter 2

  Zoe was in the bathroom putting on her makeup when…

  Chapter 3

  After a day and a half, Zoe finally believed that…

  Chapter 4

  Zoe staggered past the aquarium, which, like the stores down…

  Chapter 5

  “Time to go.”

  Chapter 6

  It annoyed Zoe that a part of her felt she’d…

  Chapter 7

  “I’ll take her downstairs.” An hour later, Rand walked over…

  Chapter 8

  “This bird’s going to be a pain in the ass,…

  Chapter 9

  DARK MATTER had started rather simply: find Offspring and offer…

  Chapter 10

  When Amy and Lucas emerged from the bedroom and walked…

  Chapter 11

  Freedom. The word loomed large in Rand’s mind as he…

  Chapter 12

  Zoe woke, blinking in the darkness. She hated not knowing…

  Chapter 13

  Homes lined one side of Braden’s street, commercial buildings the…

  Chapter 14

  R and heard a shot and saw a man drop…

  Chapter 15

  As much as Zoe didn’t like being closed up in…

  Chapter 16

  A my watched as Eric used the computer to call…

  Chapter 17

  Zoe held on tight to Rand as he maneuvered through…

  Chapter 18

  Petra was still wiped out from healing Eric. They had…

  Chapter 19

  “Dude, you sound like a porno flick,” Rand said as…

  Chapter 20

  With her hands wrapped around a hot mug of coffee,…

  Chapter 21

  Jerryl reclined in the chair, his eyes closed. “I can…

  Chapter 22

  Zoe’s arms tightened around Rand’s waist as he maneuvered the…

  Chapter 23

  A my snuggled in Lucas’s arms while they lounged in…

  Chapter 24

  Zoe and Rand dyed their hair back to their normal…

  Chapter 25

  Sam Robbins paused outside of Darkwell’s door and listened. He…

  Epilogue

  That night the Rogues lit a candle in honor of…

  Acknowledgments

  Other Books by Jaime Rush

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  CHAPTER 1

  “T

  his would go a lot easier if you’d stop screaming in pain,” Zoe told the muscular man lying beneath her. “Nobody told me this was going to hurt so much,” he said in a strained voice.

  She arched one of her dark red eyebrows. “What did you think a tattoo needle was going to feel like?”

  “Just finish already.”

  She gave him a sympathetic smile and decided not to point out the girl who actually looked bored while getting her tattoo. “It’ll be over before you know it.”

  A line of people waited to get their tattoos at Creative Ink, and her three artists, RJ, Rachael, and Michael, were all busy doing one of three tattoo designs she’d limited the event to for efficiency. Nothing was more beautiful than the sound of all their tattoo machines buzzing through the shop. Zoe could hardly enjoy the fact that her charity event for SafeHouse was a success. She struggled to maintain control, a mega feat considering how many freaking things had gone wrong so far.

  She absolutely could not let frustration bubble to the surface. Especially with the news cameras rolling. When she lost her temper, crazy things happened. Embarrassing things.

  She’d arrived an hour early, psyched to find about sixty people already waiting. She was totally not psyched about the cop demanding to see the owner. That would be her. Apparently she hadn’t set up proper crowd control. Heck, she hadn’t expected a crowd. She’d made arrangements to get the velvet ropes that nightclubs used for their overflow lines. Relief. She’d enjoyed that for about five minutes, until the power died for a half hour.

  RJ’s car had broken down, making him late. Rachael had a cold and had barely dragged herself in. She wore one of those respiratory masks and complained how ridiculous she looked.

  “You look like a world-class surgeon, Rach,” Zoe called out. “Work it, babe.”

  Rachael’s eyes crinkled in a smile as she lifted one of her blue-glove-clad hands and gave her the finger. A photographer snapped the picture. If that made it into the paper, Zoe was going to—calmly—kick Rachael’s pretty little ass.

  The hot day spiked impatience levels. Ugly black clouds threatened to dump rain on the people waiting in the line that snaked around the block.

  And now this six-foot-two bodybuilder was whimpering in pain before her needle even touched him.

  “Key West,” Zoe said between clenched teeth. “St. Barts. St. Martin. Nassau.” She looked at the poster of Aruba that she’d pinned up next to her station. The tack at the right corner trembled.

  Breathe.

  “Jamaica.”

  “Say what?” the guy asked.

  “I recite island names for stress relief. You know, visualization, imagining the salty breeze fluttering through my hair, hearing the ruffle of the palm fronds.” Someday, when she could afford a vacation, she was going to experience those sensations firsthand. She lowered the needle to his chest.

  He screamed like a little girl, and she almost dropped her machine. The photographer walked over to capture the moment. The guy in the chair pasted on a tough-guy smile. What a bozo.

  Zoe took advantage of the situation and leaned forward to finish the tattoo. The guy jerked when the tip touched his skin. “Look,” he said, “I’ll give you the money for the shelter’s playground but no more of this torture.”

  She placed her hand on the center of his chest. “You are not walking around with half a tattoo telling people that Zoe Stoker did that to you. Buck up, ’cause I’m finishing it.”

  With a sigh, he slumped into the chair again. She had to hide her grin when he said, “Nassau…Paradise Island…”

  At least she had music. The Russian rock tunes she dug pounded through the shop. They no longer reminded her of Vladimir, the sexy Russian college student she’d superficially fallen for years ago. She didn’t have his gorgeous body or his hot temper around, but she had his music. Cued up next was some local rock band RJ liked, where the lead singer screamed the lyrics to every song. Luckily, RJ didn’t sing along.

  The phone rang off the hook. She couldn’t afford a shop manager; she was still making payments to the guy who’d sold her the shop. For today, she’d hired a friend of Rachael’s to man the phones and collect money. Breanna kept the coffee brewing, filling the shop with the scent of it. She walked over, her body language giving off vibes of not wanting to disturb Zoe.

  “Cyrus Diamond is on the line. He says it’s life-and-death important.”

  Cyrus, the CIA guy helping her to dig into her father’s past?

  Twenty-one years ago, Jack Stoker, respected Army and family man, walked into the office where he worked and started shooting people. He killed three and wounded four more before taking his own life. He had been working in a classified program. Her mother refused to discuss it, choosing to push the ugliness into the distant past. Or even worse, acting like he nev
er existed at all. Zoe had tried pretending the same thing for a while, too. God, her father had killed people.

  Then one day, in a fit of anger, her mother screamed something that struck fear and curiosity in Zoe: He had something in him, something that made him crazy at the last part of his life. And you have that inside you, too!

  Zoe did have something in her. Her mother called it evil, but Zoe didn’t buy that. But this thing inside her was interfering with her life. Would it make her crazy, too? What her mother refused to see was the connection between what her father was involved in during those last years and his mental illness. Was there a connection at all? What might have triggered a rage so out of character for him? So she had begun a long and tedious journey into the labyrinth of the U.S. government.

  After getting the runaround, she’d finally connected with someone who at least could verify that her father had worked for the Army and that his assignment was classified. The man promised to look into it. When he didn’t call her back, she called him, and he’d told her he’d been mistaken. Her father’s file couldn’t be found. The next person she tried said there was no record of her father’s employment with the Army at all.

  Then, out of the blue, Cyrus Diamond contacted her, having learned of her inquiries. He also had questions about a friend who had worked with her father. So far, he’d found out very little. So what could be life-and-death?

  “Relax,” she told the guy as she pulled off her gloves. “Be right back.”

  She walked to the corner, where posters showcased a selection of flash, her shop’s stock designs. The one filled with old horror movie monsters was all hers, as were most of the tropical tattoos.

  “Cyrus, what’s up?”

  “Zoe, I’m sorry to lay this on you. You may be in danger because of our snooping. I’m afraid we got the attention of someone who doesn’t want us to find out the truth.”

  “In danger? From whom?”

  “The U.S. government.”

  His breathless warning seemed so bizarre, she could hardly compute it. “Cyrus, this doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Stay somewhere else tonight. They know where you live. Beware of strangers.”

  “What about the police? Can’t we go to them?”

  “No. You go to them, and first of all they’ll think you’re crazy. I can’t back you up. I’m being watched. I’ll be killed immediately, and they’ll make it look like an accident. I can’t help you if I’m dead.”

  “Are the police involved, too?”

  “They’re not involved, but if a powerful agency claims jurisdiction, they have to cooperate. I know how it works. You’ll be taken somewhere for questioning, and no one will hear from you again. I’ve got to go. I’ll call you as soon as I can and explain everything. Be careful, Zoe.”

  For a moment, she couldn’t breathe. His fear was as solid as the phone she held. Now it was her fear, too.

  One of the posters jumped off the wall.

  No, not now. Control, Zoe, control. St. Thomas. Kitts. Fiji, Fiji, Fiji.

  She looked at the line of people that wound out the door and the cluster of lookie-loos crowded at the window peeking in. She was freaking surrounded by strangers!

  Cerulean oceans. Balmy breezes. Sand between my toes.

  She returned the phone to the front desk. A pencil flew off the counter. Damn! She picked it up and set it next to the message pad, glad Breanna hadn’t noticed.

  “Are you all right?” Breanna asked. “Bad news?”

  What could she say? Zoe gave her a halfhearted shake of her head. She returned to her chair and couldn’t even muster up annoyance that her wussy-boy had fled. Surely, Cyrus was paranoid. Except that he hadn’t struck her as being high-strung. She looked at the line, and a man took that as the signal to walk over. She pulled the plastic sheet off the chair and replaced it with another while they talked about design and placement.

  She prided herself on giving clients one hundred percent of her attention, but damn, how was she supposed to do that now? She tattooed robotically while he chatted about the grouchy guy who’d done his last tattoo. She kept pausing and looking at the crowd.

  What had her father been involved in that their inquiries would piss off the government? Would someone actually hurt her? Or, like in the movies, just threaten her to keep her nose out of it?

  This is crazy thinking.

  She worked in a fog for the next hour. When she finished the umpteenth rose, she looked up. Her heart jumped. A guy at the window was looking at her, and not with either the amused or morbid curiosity of the others. He had a rigid expression, and his brown eyes were cold and empty. He was well dressed and not bad-looking, but he gave her the heebie-jeebies.

  “Are you done?” her client asked.

  She realized she’d been patting his arm with the paper towel for probably a whole minute. “Yes. Thanks for participating.”

  She pushed back her fears and tried to focus on her work. She owed that to her clients and the kids who were benefiting. Every few minutes, though, her gaze went to the window. The man was still there. She turned away, whispering more island names as she prepared for the next client. He was watching her; she could feel his eyes on her back. She shivered, fighting not to turn around. Maybe he was just a weirdo or your run-of-the-mill stalker and not some government agent out to get her.

  And that’s supposed to be a comforting thought?

  “Nice tat.”

  The voice, along with a finger tracing across her back, made her scream as she jerked around. The man had a face to match his sultry voice, but she was too annoyed to be charmed by his smile. First, he’d used the word tat. Second, he’d touched her.

  “So, does your tat mean you’re a she-devil?” he asked, that smile edging into a leer.

  She glanced in the mirror at the sexy she-devil tattoo that spanned her lower back just above the hip-hugging waistband of her black jeans. “Are you here to get a tattoo?”

  “You betcha, babe.” He indicated muscular biceps. “Set me up with a tiger, right here.”

  He already had several tattoos, so he knew the drill. He settled onto the chair, that smile still in place. “I like redheads. The black streaks are hot, too.”

  Oh, brother. Sometimes she felt this strange obligation to tell people who commented on her hair that she hated the soft red curls she’d been born with, but her pale complexion looked terrible with blond or brown hair. She gelled the curls straight and spiky, to match her personality, one ex-boyfriend had said. Precisely why he was an ex.

  “And legs all the way up to your armpits,” he continued in a dreamy voice. “And you’ve got that way of walking chicks have when they know what they want and who they are—”

  She pressed her gloved finger over his mouth. “What I want is for you to be quiet so I can concentrate. I am totally not interested in dating anyone right now.”

  She prepped the area with antiseptic and glanced to the window. The stalker had been there for twenty minutes now, and he was always watching her. Even more disconcerting, he never looked away when their eyes met.

  “Whoa, what was that?” the guy in the chair asked as a plastic ink cup—thankfully empty—went flying across his chest.

  “Air just kicked on.” She settled on the stool and began to tattoo.

  Zoe, get yourself under control.

  Even though the press wasn’t there at the moment, she still didn’t want people talking. No one knew about her crazy energy, the term she’d given it. She’d gotten good at keeping her emotions under control. It was hardest with people she saw every day, like her employees.

  Having her mother think she was possessed by evil spirits was bad enough. She’d sort of mostly gotten used to that once her mother had given up with the exorcisms and holy water and crosses everywhere. Her granddad was the only one in the family who didn’t look at her as though she might sprout horns or spew vomit as her head spun around.

  Granddad had explained about people being energy and th
at thoughts and emotions were energy, too. Her energy was stronger than most, and that was why it affected nearby objects, which were also energy. She wasn’t sure if she believed it, but she loved that he accepted her.

  After graduating from high school, Zoe had gone to New Orleans and met a man she now considered her onetime guru. He taught her to meditate and visualize, like she did with her island names, and corroborated her granddad’s theory of energy. One day, during a long meditation, she connected to a presence she could only describe as God. The most divine joy, love, and above all, acceptance, flowed into her. No way could she have evil inside her when she could feel God.

  To celebrate releasing that burden, she’d gotten her she-devil tattoo and a taste of the art of tattooing. When she’d returned to Baltimore, she apprenticed and practiced on melons and greasy pigskins, transforming her love of art into a profession.

  She turned her attention back to the man before her. She never forgot how privileged she was that people trusted her to put something permanent on their bodies.

  Four hours later, the crowd was gone. So was the heebie-jeebie freak. Except she still felt him watching her. She looked out the large glass window to the street beyond. It was dark now, nearly midnight. People wandered down the sidewalks and in and out of the bars in the area, but she couldn’t see their faces.

  Someone across the street could probably see into her shop, though.

  She shivered.

  “Thanks!” she called out to the last guy as he walked out the door. Breanna relocked it after him. “And mad thanks, guys, all of you. You rock.”

  “Glad to help,” Breanna said.

  Zoe saw the same feel-good tiredness on their faces that she felt. Except they weren’t worried about some guy stalking them. She kept hoping Cyrus would call back. If he didn’t call that night, she’d go crazy. Fortunately, she was so damned tired, she’d at least get some sleep.