The Darkest Joy

by Marata Eros

  I hear a clanking of running steps down the plank. They sound strange because the tide’s out, making it steep like a ladder.

  I look up in time to see a tall man in a suit, a fish out of water, so to speak, jogging down the steel ramp on as dead of a run as a person can manage when it’s that vertical.

  My gut seizes.

  I’d recognize him anywhere. He’s the Fed from the phone. From Brooke’s cell. The icon tile matches the face, though in the phone there is no fear in his expression: Marshal Clearwater. His black suit jacket flies behind him like a sinister short cape, revealing a gun, snug in its holster.

  He reaches the bottom, his head whipping first left then right.

  His eyes fall on me with an ominous weight. A buzzing pressure begins in my head. I shake the vertigo that threatens and jog to meet him.

  We’re an arm’s length apart and I notice how black his eyes are, the angles of his face arranged in a way I instantly recognize: Native American.

  Not from Alaska.

  My scrutiny lasts long enough that it can be counted in seconds, a wound at his neck looking like death has brushed him closely.

  My eyes collide with his. “Brooke,” I say as both question and statement.

  He nods. “Chance Taylor?”

  I nod.

  “We need you.”

  I don’t wait for an engraved invitation. I leave the fish in its bed of ice.

  Frozen and dead.

  Agent Clearwater introduces himself as we make our way up East End. One hand wraps the steering wheel so tightly it chases the blood from his knuckles.

  “What the fuck is going on?” I begin, forgetting that he’s the highest of the law and I’m in his care. He doesn’t skip a beat.

  Please tell me Brooke’s okay. The tension makes my body feel like one solid line of cement, cold and deep—impenetrable.

  He doesn’t answer right away, instead he gives back story. “In all three homicides there was one pattern that we couldn’t make work.” His eyes slant my way, his longish hair shifting as he does, then his gaze hits the dirt road again. The shadows make it seem like night when true twilight is still hours away.

  “All the families knew the killer. No forced entry, no clue, warning . . . no foresight for the potential for violence.”

  Interesting at any other time, but now, who gives a rat’s ass? “Is Brooke okay?” I have to know . . . she’s who I breathe for now—live for. The thought of her . . . gone—not possible.

  Unacceptable.

  His face swivels to mine for a heartbeat, a moment longer. “No.”

  Jesus—fuck. My stomach feels hot and greasy, the food I sucked down for a fast supper threatening to go back up the way it came.

  “Then there was the method. The knife work took skill. An accuracy born from practice. When forensics came back with spatter patterns and hand dominance we knew we were no longer looking for a man.”

  “Serial killers aren’t women,” I say, trying to convince myself. Talk instead of puke. Sounds like a plan. My hand slaps the oh-shit handle as we make a corner at forty that should be twenty, the tires lifting. Clearwater’s eyes tighten as he checks his speed, the SUV’s tires settling, then presses on the gas pedal again.

  Insanity.

  Brooke.

  “No, they’re not, usually. But sometimes . . . they are. It’s rare, but it does occur. Usually in a male-female pair—”

  “Who is it?” I interrupt.

  I fight not to punch Clearwater in the chops. Fuck: they’re the cops, couldn’t they have done something to keep her safe?

  Couldn’t I?

  I’ve been thinking she’s safe while she couldn’t be in greater danger.

  “Lacey Colbert.”

  Fuck me, I think, my body breaking out in gooseflesh. Fucking Lacey. Brooke’s best friend. I try to wrap my head around that psycho morsel.

  It can’t be true.

  We pull up in front of Milli’s cabin, yellow tape like a portentous snake winds and twists in front of the porch.

  Still, I fight what he’s told me. Anybody would. “No, man . . . She’s been her best friend since kindergarten. They told me that.” I look at him, begging for a different answer, thinking how vulnerable Brooke is with the killer living with her.

  “She’s more than that, Mr. Taylor,” Clearwater says. He clears his throat, looking over to Milli’s cabin as I rip off the belt and my hand goes for the door.

  He stays my progress, gripping my forearm.

  “Take your fucking hand off me.” My voice comes out like a growl, and I hardly recognize it as my own.

  Obsidian marbles glitter back at me. “I know you’re upset. But Lacey’s not here. I need you in the right state of mind so we can find her. Your panic doesn’t help us.” His eyes search mine and I release the handle. I’m not fucking panicked . . . I’m pissed. Pissed at the circumstances, myself . . . and that nutcase, Lacey.

  Brooke.

  “She’s never been a friend to Brooke. She’s . . . obsessed.”

  My head whips to his. “What?”

  He sighs, raking a hand through his hair. He scoops it to his nape and expertly ties it in an elastic band. With his face naked of hair, it looks almost brutal in its angles and planes; the eyes burn with keen intelligence.

  “Our field office got permission to search the Colbert home when we had enough evidence to support our suspicions.”

  “And?” I ask, my hand still gripping the handle of the car.

  Clearwater looks at me. “Lacey Colbert is a sick girl. She has every newspaper clipping, photograph, award . . . every scrap of any kind that pertains to Brooke Starr in a hidden shrine in the family attic. And that’s just the beginning.”

  I groan, my head falling back against the headrest on the seat.

  I watch the wind move the tape and my eyes burn with tears that I won’t shed. Weeping in frustration won’t save her.

  Brooke’s with that psycho bitch.

  “What can I do?” I finally ask, the fine trembling of my body begging for action . . . begging to rescue Brooke.

  Clearwater looks at me. “Our Anchorage division liaison is dead.”

  He sees my expression and expounds. “Haller knew who we were looking for . . . I don’t know how she got close, anything. He was the expert on this community and we’d been trying to reach Brooke along all the regular channels without success.” Clearwater looks around at the rugged landscape, the dense trees, the endless sky, as we hear the crashing ocean below.

  “Lacey killed Haller?”

  He nods.

  How would Lacey kill a trained FBI agent? Women aren’t capable of that, are they?

  Apparently . . . they are.

  My mind moves furiously over the details of meeting her. The sharp gaze, the snarky humor. But always, her restless eyes moving over Brooke.

  “Fuck . . . Evan.”

  “A friend?” Clearwater says.

  Kinda. We’d been on the outs because of Brooke, but I’d hoped it was coming around when Lacey entered the scene.

  “She hooked up with him last night.”

  “Yeah,” Clearwater says softly.

  “No,” I say, though I know.

  “We haven’t identified the male yet, but there’s been a stabbing . . . Local police have their hands full in a town that normally doesn’t see murder.”

  They’ve seen it now.

  “Are you sure it’s Evan?”

  I listen to Clearwater’s description. The blond hair and tie-dye apparel give it away.

  I hang my head, my chin dipping to my chest. I batten down the hatches on my emotional turmoil, guilt being number one. “Okay . . . What do you need?”

  “We need the ten-minute geographical lesson. We’re betting that she’s familiar with all of this.” Clearwater sweeps his hand around the area.

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “I would be.” I look at his serious eyes and think instantly of backup. “I have a cou
ple of people that can help me,” I say and he nods.

  “We’re beyond keeping this under wraps. The longer she has Brooke, the closer it comes to . . .”

  Clearwater doesn’t finish, but his eyes carry the words easily. Like an unseen wind. You can’t see it but you know it’s there by the damage.

  I text Tucker . . . Then I call Jake. If the three of us can’t find Brooke then there’s no hope.

  I can hear the clock of Brooke’s life ticking away.

  Brooke

  I slowly come to—almost a conscious floating. I become aware of a tuneless humming, grating. Those of us who are lucky enough to possess perfect pitch fight harmonizing with a droning lawn mower or wayward hair dryer.

  My eyes pierce the gloom, my head thudding with the beginnings of what promises to be a horrible headache.

  The memories crash into me like relentless waves and I’m the shore—battered: Lacey.

  My eyes softly close, my eyelashes soaked with tears. Tears for everyone, tears for me . . . sadness swallowing my ignorance.

  How could I never have a clue about what my best friend is capable of?

  “Brookie?”

  I open my eyes and there is Lacey, looking fresh as the day she was born.

  Her shirt is new, the bloodied one gone.

  I swallow, turning my face away, and her fingers grip my chin, forcing me to look into her eyes.

  Hazel eyes that have shown compassion, comfort, and, I thought, love. Now that gaze looks empty, like dead marbles in the eye of hurricane, devoid of any shred of humanity. I struggle to grasp that my closest friend, the one person who still feels like family to me, is the monster behind the tragedy that destroyed my life.

  “Don’t you look away from me, Brooke,” Lacey commands in an alien voice, and she drops her hand. I try to move and realize with sickening horror that I’m bound.

  “I’ve sacrificed everything for you, and you’d better be grateful for it.”

  “I . . .” My unused voice croaks out and I give another dry swallow. “How could I be grateful to the person who killed my family?” I stare at her as each word drops from my mouth and Lacey gives me cool eyes back. “Joey . . .” Silent tears huddle at the corners of my eyes. Breaking formation, they run slowly down my face, reaching my collarbone and soaking my shirt. The smell of blood freshens with the dampness. A lump rises in my throat and I try to swallow it down.

  Lacey rolls her eyes, swinging a clean blade around, and I flinch as the silver flashes in the low light. She does a deep chortle, the sound such a manic note of evil my breath hitches in a gasping sob. I know I’m hanging by a thread, shock hovering like a vulture seeking carrion.

  “I’m not going to kill you, Brooke.” Lacey looks off in the distance, the soft rocking underneath me begging to lull me back into the sleep of the truly drugged.

  “But I am going to take everything you love.”

  “Why?” I know I should try to reason with her, but all I want right now is to understand. “Why did you kill my family . . . those other families?” I ignore my wet face, my dry mouth, the throbbing in my head.

  Her eyes find mine in the darkness—relentless. “Those other competitors were in your way . . . our way. What better way to incapacitate but by dismantling their emotional framework?” She taps the blade on her jean-clad leg with the movement of long practice, with an ease that speaks of use.

  “So you kill their families . . . ?”

  Lacey nods smoothly. “Yes, it’s almost as easy as surgery. You remove the heart and the spirit is unable to cope. Playing music becomes something that is unbearable in the face of their grief.”

  I’m trying to understand this . . . her. It’s insensible. “Why not just hurt them? Why entire families?”

  Lacey laughs, a deep throaty bark. “Too easy,” she confesses. “Too small, too targeted.” Then, her eyes unnervingly find mine again. “No fun.”

  My mind stumbles over that phrase: No fun.

  Evan.

  I look at Lacey in horror as a soft smile curls her lips. “Yeah . . . Evan was fun. Very fun.”

  I can’t help it, I turn my head, just as I’d done pinned underneath Agent Haller, and dry-retch into the nothingness of where she’s holding me.

  I finally stop and Lacey rolls her eyes. “Such a weak stomach. Why do I love you?”

  My eyes widen, my breath coming faster. Suddenly, a horrible idea solidifies. A deep fear like a pincer clamps onto my guts. My stomach hopelessly roils around in a sick, hot lump.

  “Chance?” I ask breathlessly. My eyes begin to bulge. Please, God, not Chance.

  “Not yet,” she says in a considering tone. “I need him.” Her eyes shift to mine. “And then, when I do not . . .” She slides her index finger down the cool metal of the blade of her knife in a lover’s stroke.

  I blanch, giving another hoarse retch at thought of Chance walking into a trap because of his association with me.

  Then my mind brings images of Chance’s hands on me, his mouth kissing away my tears, his loving encouragement against my sadness.

  Removing it with his love.

  Lacey is suddenly there, grabbing my shoulders, jerking me to a sitting position, the knife under my nose. “I see you’re thinking about lover boy.”

  I gulp, the blade very silver, very sharp . . . very close.

  “You love only me. That’s why your family isn’t here, Brookie. It’s about what we are to each other. You don’t need them to distract you from me. From us.” Her fingers involuntarily squeeze the hilt of the blade as Lacey continues in a reality of her own making, “Just like those other competitors needed to be released from working against you.” Her eyes blaze at me with the fire of her belief and I swallow, a hiccup masking an inhale. She smiles at my anxiety. “Once their families were culled from the herd, it’d be just you . . . and me,” she says, jamming the hilt into her sternum and making a red mark like an angry comma on the center of her chest.

  I search her frantic eyes and see that there’s a fire that burns within, a passion that has passed over into zealotry.

  I look into her eyes, and they look bloodshot, crazy. She isn’t Lacey . . . She isn’t sane . . .

  It occurs to me then: she’s never been sane. My mind flashes on a thousand instances of her trying to control the small details of my life, even from when we were children: what to wear, whom to befriend, whom to date . . . Even recently, with her resistance to my move to Alaska, her insistence on coming here to be with me. Lacey’s constant presence . . . but always in the background. An obsessed cheerleader to the hills and valleys of my life.

  A clunk distracts her and she lowers her blade as her eyes stay on me. It’s not like I can go anywhere: I can feel the plastic zip ties that bind my wrists digging into the soft flesh of my arm.

  A knock comes at the door and I pray, so hard I swear God hears me. Until I hear the body drop.

  There’s no saving me unless it’s by my own hand.

  Lacey comes back into the dark, soft room she has me in. I don’t know where I am, though it seems familiar somehow. I move my cheek against the side of something fuzzy. I can smell the sea but that’s normal in a coastal town. There are no windows, but a vague ambient light slithers at the edges, teasing me with its nearness. The lack of light disorients me, making time seem surreal, suspended.

  Lacey comes into focus and lifts an object and I flinch, knowing she’ll hit me with it.

  Instead, she gives a soft chuckle. I look closely and see the ivory of the handle.

  Jake’s cane.

  Oh no, my mind wails, another casualty of knowing me. That old man has never hurt anyone.

  “Don’t cry, Brookie.” She brushes my tears away tenderly and I shy from her touch. “What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, right?”

  No. It only makes us wish for death, I think. But I say nothing.

  My eyes follow her progress as she turns the walking stick to put it away and I see a tuft of pewter hair on the c
ane tip, the blood holding it to the worn surface like glue, very red against the cream.

  A rage like a slow-burning fire slides through me and I instantly recognize what it is.

  Hatred.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Chance

  I take the steps two at a time, banging on the huge sliding metal barn doors of Tucker’s shop, the echo of my fist reverberating and shattering the silence of the day. He’s a tinker by profession: people need him when their pipes are frozen underground in winter and when their engine block needs an overhaul in summer. He’s a modern-day Grizzly Adams . . . of indeterminate age and a true Alaskan man: part MacGyver, part outdoorsman, and all hard living. You’d think someone like him wouldn’t do high-tech but that is Tucker’s best hidden skill.

  He’d known about Brooke for a while, encouraging me to find out for myself, not a gossiper. Tucker had also warned her off me. And to his credit, for what he knew of me, it was warranted.

  Not anymore. Her abduction by a deeply deranged killer has necessitated every person on her side. I’m acutely aware that time is against us.

  Tucker slides the door open, a quizzical expression on his face. He barely has time to assimilate my frantic presence as I burst through the door.

  “What’s going on?” he asks, calm as a priest, his dark eyes traveling from my disheveled hair to my dirty boots. Looking for a reason in the madness. He doesn’t know the half of it, but he will.

  “Brooke’s in trouble.”

  His eyes meet mine. “What kind of trouble?” He sets the socket wrench down.

  “The murderer’s got her.”

  Surprise blanks his former expression even as thunder begins to consume it. He stands still for a moment, his contemplative expression darkening.

  We look at each other.

  “The Feds are here, they’ve enlisted the help of locals to start a ground search.” I don’t say that the locals are whoever I think will help—Clearwater has given me that much latitude at least.

  Tucker sighs, and I can see the wheels of his brain turning. He’ll have to make sense of Brooke being in danger and the unbelievable component of Lacey’s deadly involvement. I hope he does it fast; time is our enemy. “Do they know who?” he asks after a lengthy pause.