Dark Sky Falling

by Richard Ryker

  She was at the door now, gripping the door handle. “You have your little party with your friend here. But when I come back, I want him gone.”

  Marcus glanced at the door behind her, willing her to leave, at least for now. He wanted her to stop talking, she was just making things worse, more confusing.

  “And you know what else? He’s going to say horrible things about me. But he’s not the one who is taking care of you. He’s not the mother of your child.”

  Dmitry chuckled. “I certainly hope not.”

  “Shut up! If you cared about him at all you wouldn’t be here. You’re the one who hurt Marcus. You put his name in the paper and tried to stop him from saving his daughter.”

  “Saving my daughter?” Marcus said. “You said she was safe at home.”

  Tears of frustration welled in her eyes. “That’s not what I meant.” She scowled at Dmitry. “If you’re not gone when I get back, I will make you leave.”

  She slammed the door behind her.

  ***

  Dmitry stood. “We have to hurry.”

  “Why?” Marcus lifted the cup to his mouth, but Dmitry jerked it away from him before it reached his lips. “Hey!”

  “I don’t think you need any more of that.”

  “You’re the one who brought a whole bottle of whiskey.”

  “A ruse, my friend. A reason to get my foot in the door. Marcus, you aren’t yourself.”

  “I know that.”

  “No, you don’t. That woman is not your wife, Marcus. If I am right, she is your sister-in-law, Kamila. The one who kidnapped your daughter.”

  “Kamila kidnapped Alyssa?”

  “Yes, do you understand?”

  “No. Yes. I mean, I do but why?”

  “Why did she kidnap her?”

  “Why do I feel that what you are saying is true, but I can’t remember everything? It’s like it’s true but my memory is blocked.”

  “She’s poisoning you. Some sort of mind altering drug.”

  How? Marcus closed his eyes, tried to focus on what had happened today, and the day before. There were fragments of memories. Dreams that are as powerful as real life, but that fade in the minutes and hours that follow. Except these dreams were real, and he was being dragged back to sleep every time—that was it!

  “She keeps pushing that tea on me. That’s how she’s doing it.”

  Dmitry’s eyebrows rose. “That same tea she just tried to get you—and me—to drink.”

  Dmitry washed Marcus’s cup out in the sink and filled it with water. He handed it to Marcus.

  He downed the water. “I’ve been vomiting all afternoon.”

  “Maybe your system has had enough. You look better now compared to earlier.”

  “Tell me everything. Tell me the truth.”

  Dmitry explained to Marcus that his daughter had been kidnapped by Kamila. That he had followed Kamila to Russia, then Chechnya. Marcus’s friend Stormy was there as well. Kamila had killed a man from the US Embassy in Moscow. Dmitry then explained that he, Dmitry, had left them in Grozny after they reached the aunt’s home.

  It was all true. Marcus knew this. As Dmitry spoke, it was like looking at an old photograph, remembering an event you had forgotten.

  “And that’s why I’m mad at you. You abandoned us.”

  “I did say I was sorry.”

  Marcus nodded. Then, he pulled his arm back and swung as hard as he could. His fist landed on the side of Dmitry’s head. Not exactly where he was aiming, but not bad for being drugged.

  He reached down, gave Dmitry a hand up.

  Dmitry rubbed his head, eyeing Marcus. “Maybe I deserved that.”

  “I feel a lot better now,” Marcus said.

  “Glad to be of help. Are we even now?”

  Marcus considered the question. “Get me out of here. Then we’re even.”

  “Let’s go then.”

  “I don’t even know where we are.”

  “Dagestan. But I don’t know where you were going.”

  “Let’s just get out of here. Before Kamila comes back.”

  Chapter 66

  .

  Marcus fell into the front seat of Dmitry’s car, exhausted, but feeling better than he had in days. Dmitry sped out of the parking lot, while Marcus couldn’t help but look back, to make sure Kamila hadn’t seen them leave.

  “Where to?” Dmitry said.

  “Back on the highway,” Marcus said. “Wait—first we need to head back toward the mountains.”

  “Back to Chechnya.”

  “No, just a couple of miles up the highway. We had a car—Kamila and I. There’s a rifle in the trunk.” He still had the keys in his pocket. “I’ve learned one thing the last few days. Don’t go anywhere around here without a weapon.”

  “So, what exactly has happened that you are here in Dagestan?” Dmitry asked. “I understand you have been drugged by Kamila. But where is Stormy? And your daughter? How did you end up with Kamila to begin with?”

  Marcus explained how they’d found Kamila’s father, that he had sent Alyssa to an orphanage in Dagestan, and how Stormy had been kidnapped by Hassan after the Russian helicopter had crashed.

  “And then Kamila tried to run me over.”

  “So she went from attempted murder to claiming to be your wife.”

  “Crazy, I know.”

  “Indeed.”

  “But she knew the name of the orphanage where Alyssa was sent, and how to get there. That’s why I kept her around. Except, in the end, after she drugged me, it was more like her keeping me around.”

  “You said your daughter was sent to this area. Is it a religious organization that runs the orphanage?”

  “That’s right.”

  “There’s only one of those within two hundred miles of here,” Dmitry said. “I know where it is.”

  “How?”

  “If you remember, that’s why you asked me for help to begin with. Way back in Moscow. I know this area.”

  “That makes sense. But why are you still around here? I do recall you thought a big story would get you noticed. Get you out of this region.”

  “So I thought. Instead, my reward was a new assignment, to find more stories in Chechnya—personal interest—like yours.”

  Marcus raised an eyebrow. He didn’t like the sound of that.

  He pointed to the turnoff on the side of the highway where he and Kamila had left the car. He retrieved the rifle from the trunk and they headed back down the highway toward the orphanage.

  After a few minutes, Marcus said, “You mentioned doing another human interest story. You’re not thinking of writing about what just happened back at the hotel.”

  Dmitry glanced at the rifle leaning next to Marcus. He smiled, massaging the side of his head where Marcus had punched him. “No, I wouldn’t consider it, not even for a second. Too painful.”

  “I don’t know what Stormy would think if she found out...”

  “You were under the influence of an evil woman. It’s the oldest excuse in the book.”

  “Yeah. I don’t think she’d go for that one.”

  “Probably not.”

  ***

  Kamila stood in the middle of the empty motel room.

  Marcus was gone. Kamila should have killed the reporter before he had a chance to open his big mouth.

  What had he told Marcus? She had left the room out of frustration. Now she wished she had stayed and figured out what he knew. Was he the reporter that her father mentioned? The one that knew Kamila had kidnapped Alyssa?

  What mattered was that Marcus was gone, and any chance she had of getting him back. She was so close, Marcus was almost hers. Not that she could keep drugging him forever. She didn’t want to kill him. Just convince him that she was as good as Anna.

  He had kissed her, hadn’t he? Acted like he loved her, like he wanted to be with her. She swiped the cup of tea off the table, splashing t
he tainted drink across the wall. Those pills were expensive. Not just her own but others she had bought in Moscow. Ones that make people forget things. And she had wasted them on Marcus, spent all that time crushing them into a fine powder, putting them into his tea.

  Everything had worked, until now. She knew Marcus would find her, that she could get him alone, that she could convince him. Sure, she had almost run him over, but that was only because she was angry, had seen him with that American woman.

  “I would have loved you,” she said. “Taken care of you.”

  But no one had ever loved Kamila freely. They had to be tricked or forced or have nothing better to love.

  She had tried to do things the right way. The nice way. Things were different now and some people needed to be eliminated. They were all going to regret everything they had ever done to hurt her.

  Chapter 67

  Marcus and Dmitry pulled into the parking lot outside the orphanage.

  Marcus slid out of the front seat, his knee aching from the gunshot wound a few days earlier. It was another sign that Kamila had drugged him. He hadn’t been in pain until now. Whatever it was she had given him, it had made him numb in more ways than one. Now that it was wearing off, the reality of his situation—much worse than a small wound—hit him with full force. His focus was back on finding Alyssa, and Stormy.

  Dmitry came around to Marcus but kept the car running.

  “You coming in?” Marcus asked.

  “No. I think my work is done here. For real this time.” He smiled.

  “What if they’re not here?”

  “This is an American mission. You will find help here one way or another. More than I can give at this point. And I have an editor back in Moscow that wants a story.”

  Marcus frowned. Dmitry put his hand up. “Not about you. Or your family. Trust me, my friend.”

  “Believe it or not, I do,” Marcus said. “Thank you for everything. Especially the last couple of days. You saved my life.”

  Dmitry shook his hand. “Watch your back. This is not over. Kamila has not given up, I am sure.”

  Marcus checked the main office first. It was empty. Next, he looked in a classroom window. There were several students and a teacher with her back to him. None of the students was Alyssa. He looked around. Maybe there was another group of children. He entered the large building which inside looked like a gymnasium. It was empty. He was about to leave when he heard a sound coming from another room within the building. It was laughter and giggling—Alyssa.

  Marcus ran toward her voice.

  Alyssa sat at a table with Stormy, playing cards between them. He looked at Alyssa’s face. She was older—too much older—but it was her. He stood there and admired his beautiful, lovely daughter. She was alive. God, thank you, he whispered. Alyssa turned to him, and the look of bliss on her face filled him with joy.

  ‘Daddy!” she screamed, and the sound of it was so loud it shook him. “Daddy!”

  “My baby! My little girl....”

  They hugged and he picked her up and held her in his arms like he hadn’t since she was a toddler. She kissed his neck and cheek and their tears mixed together. They continued to embrace and after a long time they both remembered Stormy. Marcus put Alyssa down.

  “Yes, I’m here too.” Stormy smiled back at him.

  “How? I mean...Hassan?” He reached out and picked her up, swung her around. “Never mind. Tell me later. You’re both here, both safe.”

  The clatter of children’s voices came from the gym. A moment later, a woman came in the room.

  “Mr. Shelton?”

  “Yes,” Marcus said, wiping the tears off his smiling face.

  “Thank God!” she said. “This is wonderful. My name is Amelia, I’m a teacher here—”

  “Thank you,” he said, holding out his hand, but she was holding the weapon Marcus had set down outside the door.

  “You are welcome...but for this,” she looked down at the gun, “it’s not a good idea to have this around the children.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “It’s come in handy where I’ve been the last few days.”

  They followed her to a small office set off to one side of the gym. She hid the rifle in a closet, sliding the door tight. “We’ve been working on a plan to get you out of the country. I’m friends with an American pilot who works with our mission group. I should be hearing back from him soon. There’s a small airport about 20 kilometers from here.”

  “Good,” Marcus said. “I’d like to get us out of here as soon as possible.”

  “You’ll be safe here for a short while, at least.” Amelia said.

  “Except that Kamila knows we are here.”

  “How?” Stormy asked. “I thought she had left her father’s house before we arrived.”

  “Probably her friends there told her where we are,” Alyssa said.

  “Friends?”

  “I saw her talking to one of my grandfather’s soldiers before we met him.”

  “After you were taken, Stormy—Kamila must have been following us. She tried to run me over.” Marcus explained what had happened from the time Stormy had left with Hassan until his arrival, leaving out the part where Kamila kissed him—more than once.

  “She drugged you?”

  Marcus nodded, his head still thick from the after effects.

  “It’s a good thing Dmitry showed up when he did,” she said.

  Marcus liked to imagine he would have resisted Kamila on his own, figured out what she was up to, drugged or not. He didn’t want to think about the consequences had Dmitry not interrupted them.

  “You said Kamila knows where we are,” Stormy said. “That means she could come here at any time.”

  “Maybe she decided better of it,” Amelia said.

  “No,” Alyssa said. “She never gives up on anything.”

  Stormy held Alyssa closer to her. “Either do we,” she said.

  ***

  Marcus’s excitement at having found Alyssa didn’t fade over the next few hours, but his thoughts did turn to the future. They had rescued Alyssa from Kamila, but they weren’t home yet. There would be time to celebrate later, when they were back in the States, away from Kamila and everyone who had gotten in the way of Marcus and Stormy in their search for Alyssa.

  Alyssa had suffered more than all of them. Would she ever recover from the trauma Kamila had put her through? Alyssa recounted her adventures with Kamila over the past weeks, and his little girl seemed as full of courage and resolve as any adult could hope to be under the same circumstances. As he listened, it seemed her account was creating more anxiety in him than in her. He wanted to know what had happened, but then he didn’t, didn’t want to imagine how alone she had been, how helpless she had felt.

  Alyssa shed tears only a few times through her retelling. She was like Anna in that way, showing resolve no matter what life dished out. Marcus wanted her to cry, to be a child, to show how afraid she was. Maybe that was selfish on his part, but if she did that, got all of this out of her system, then maybe things would return to normal, they could go back home and start life over.

  Of course, that was impossible. Things wouldn’t be the same, just as they weren’t the same after Anna died. They all had changed, Alyssa and Marcus. What about Stormy? There was no doubt, he did love her. And she loved him, in some sense of the word. But whether that would survive or not outside of the context of this crisis was yet to be seen.

  If they were to have any future, though, Marcus would have to be honest about Kamila.

  To Marcus, it wasn’t that big of a deal. Two years ago he’d had a few weeks of intense emotion directed toward his ex-sister-in-law. His wife had died a year earlier.

  It had been intense, and physical, but brief. Kamila would have taken it further—something she reminded him of several times. She was doing well back then, and in fact it seemed for a short while that she’d been cured of the mental health iss
ues she’d had earlier. But he put an end to it. He knew we wasn’t going to be with Kamila.

  It wasn’t until the last few weeks that Marcus understood just how ill she was.

  It was early evening and Alyssa lay asleep on the bunk, while Marcus and Stormy sat across from her on another of the beds.

  “There’s something I need to tell you,” Marcus said.

  She rested her hand over his. “What is it?”

  “It’s about Kamila,” he paused, “and me.”

  Stormy’s hand moved just a little, as if she had resisted the urge to pull away.

  “You asked me a long time ago if there was anything between us.”

  “And you said there wasn’t.”

  “That’s right. And what I said was true. I never told Kamila I’d marry her.”

  “So what are you telling me?”

  Honesty was a good thing. It could also kill his relationship with Stormy, once and for all. It was too late to change his mind now. Stormy was too smart for that. She probably already knew what he was going to say.

  “The last couple of days, Kamila really seemed to believe that I wanted to be with her. I never told her that—not that I can remember.”

  “Either you did or you didn’t.”

  “I can explain.”

  “Please do.” Now her hand did move away.

  “Two years ago, after Anna died—”

  “We already went over this. You told her you’d take care of her. But you also said there was nothing between the two of you.”

  “I said there was nothing between us now.”

  “I don’t think that’s what you said.”

  “It’s what I meant to say.”

  “Get to the point, then.” She sat up on the edge of the bed, her feet on the floor now. Her eyes were on Alyssa.

  “It lasted two weeks, and it was two years ago. Physical, yes. Sex, no. I regretted it, put an end to it. There, I said it.”

  She turned her head and met his eyes. “Is that the whole truth?”

  “Scout’s honor,” he said. Being drugged and kissed by Kamila didn’t count.

  Stormy turned, facing him now. “Marcus, I’m not worried about what you did two years ago. Any more than you want to hear about what I was doing with a man last year or the year before.”