Nocturne In Ashes: A Riley Forte Suspense Thriller, Book One

by Chase, Joslyn

  Though she’d risen to her feet, she couldn’t feel the ground beneath her and she arrived at the piano bench with no thought of the mechanics that brought her there. Music and the moment worked within her and her fingers were on the keys, spilling out the chaotic tones of Mendelssohn’s Agitation, feeling the release of expression. She moved into the aching melancholy of Blumenfeld’s Berceuse, the flowing notes of the midsection building to an almost unbearable loveliness that seemed to mirror the power of love, even amid ruin and decay.

  She felt determination solidifying within her. Rachmaninoff, next, the militant maneuvers of the Prelude, Op. 23, No. 5, building, firming, triumphant, with the heart-tugging arpeggios halfway through that never failed to bring goosebumps to her arms and tears to her eyes. It lived in her, the music. The travails of their plight had not killed it, and it sang forth with fervor and meaning.

  The playful doctor gradus ad parnassum came next, like trills of laughter, lifting her so that she felt the smile on her lips. She glided up and down the keyboard like a child in the sunshine, and her mind fetched a picture of Jim, his eyes crinkled against the slanting light.

  She skittered to a stop, shaken and blank, a sheet of desolation descending and enveloping her, locking down the music. She felt the shock in the room, the awkward silence, and the pity.

  She started from the bench, making straight for the door. She saw Nate leap forward to intercept her and she saw Teren grab his arm, holding him back with a grim look and the shake of his head, and then she was out the door and into the night.

  CHAPTER 70

  RICK WATCHED THE FLICKERING LIGHT play against Bobbi’s features. Now that the tension of the day had eased, he saw the close-held misery that owned her face. He rooted through his pack and found the fragment he’d kept for her. She sat on a downed tree trunk, and he settled down beside her, placing the package in her hands.

  “What’s this?” Bobbi folded back the wadded tissues Rick had used to encase the broken piece of plate. She stared down at the shard of hand-painted pottery, ran her finger over the glossy surface. Several minutes passed before she spoke in a creaky voice. “We bought this at the medina in Assilah, a village in Morocco.” Again, she traced over the pattern of the plate and uttered a harsh laugh. “I was so happy playing the newlywed. Foolish and deceived, as it turns out, but during that time in Morocco, I was so blissfully in love.”

  “What happened?” Rick asked, his voice soft against the crackling of the campfire. They’d climbed out of the helicopter into a gathering dark beneath the tall pines, gathered firewood, eaten a simple meal, and sat now, warming their hands around tin mugs of coffee.

  “I opened Pandora’s Box.”

  Rick leaned forward and poked at the fire. He said nothing, waiting.

  “I met Robert in Iraq, where he was born. His parents still live there, but he embraced western culture, Americanized his name and started an import business. He became very successful. He’s a charming and persuasive man. Not handsome. Never handsome, but startling to look upon. Compelling and maddeningly attractive. I fell, like head meets guillotine.”

  Rick saw that her hand still gripped the rough fragment of Moroccan pottery. A smear of blood stood out against the paint and her face looked cruel in the firelight.

  “He’s a strange man. A mixture of ancient and modern. He had a mystique which drew me and which I refused to examine too closely. I was willingly blind, in a way, so I bought and paid for my troubles.” She stopped and bit her lip, looking away.

  “Buyer’s remorse?” Rick asked.

  She expelled a pent-up breath. “In spades.”

  She tipped her head to the sky and Rick could see the rapid pulse in her throat. “I flew helicopters for the Army. Loved the rush, the unpredictability of it. But Robert…” She stopped speaking and turned her face away from the firelight. She was silent for a long moment and Rick, expecting to hear a sob in her voice when she resumed, was startled by the dusty dry syllables which followed.

  “I twisted myself inside out for Robert. We married and I put in for a transfer stateside, looking to settle, do the domestic tour, you know? I ended up at Joint Base Lewis McChord for a while and then I left the Army and started up that sheep ranch. Robert is always traveling. He’s got an import business. It made sense and I didn’t question it.” Her voice was bitter.

  “I was happy enough and busy enough that I didn’t give it much thought. I have a couple of ranch hands keeping me company and enough baby lambs to keep my bottle-feeding whims at bay. We own horses and I love to ride. I’ve got a beautiful house, plenty of land, enough money and then some. Life is good, right? So, why’d I open the box?”

  “You’re talking about a literal box, aren’t you?” Rick said.

  “I am.” She bolted up from the log and paced beside the fire. “We have an enormous walk-in closet. Right at the back of it there’s a shelf, empty except for the box. It’s a lock box, about the size of a microwave, and covered in red silk, traced with gold. Beautiful. Robert called it Pandora’s Box and warned me never to open it. A joke, right? Surely a joke. But I respected his privacy and I left the box alone.”

  “Until…?”

  She sank back onto our makeshift bench and buried her face in her hands. “It’s so stupid. So unbelievably absurd. I watched something on TV, one of those unsolved mystery type programs. An American woman snooped in some of her husband’s papers and found out she was married to a mobster. I started wondering what was in the box. What if Robert was a sleeper agent for some terrorist organization? What if his import business was a cover for moving drugs or weapons?”

  “Did you find proof of anything like that?”

  “Oh, I found proof of his illegal activities, but it’s nothing so earth-moving as all that.”

  She stopped. Dropping her hands from her face, she turned to look him in the eye. “Robert is a bigamist. He has a wife in New Jersey and, I suspect, one or more in Iraq. I’m not his first wife, so in the eyes of the law, we’re not even married. I’m nothing but his harem girl. And the thing that really burns me is how easy I made it for him. I was cheaply had.”

  Rick shifted, the rough bark of the tree biting into his flank. He didn’t know how to field this one. He’d been prepared to commiserate with her over clandestine crime of some sort. But not this sort. The sting of her lover’s betrayal shimmered in her eyes and his impulse was to do something. Fix it, or at least reciprocate and allay the hurt by revealing his own quandary. The temptation was strong. She’d opened herself, given him a piece of her private pain. But the road he’d started down was a solitary one, paved with loneliness and the emptiness of closed doors.

  A chill wind rustled through the pines. Rick stood.

  “It sounds like one small helicopter won’t put paid to his account,” he said, pouring the remains of his coffee onto the fire. “Goodnight, Bobbi.”

  He crossed to the other side of the dying flames and climbed into his sleeping bag. With his eyes shut tight, he tried to ignore the silence which radiated across the gap like a siren.

  CHAPTER 71

  ON THE GRASS BESIDE THE lake, Riley sat hunched and miserable, her knees hugged to her chest. The ball of ice in her stomach sent chills through her, amplified by the cool breeze of the night, and she shivered. She’d been running from these phantom thoughts and images, the unfocused dots of Jim’s portrait, for so long. She’d kept herself busy, filling her days and nights with music and rehearsals and preparations. Now, in the ash of her ruined world, it was time to stop and let it come into clarity.

  His face materialized before her, sharpening in intensity, until every detail was visible; his irises, a precise gray-blue flecked with green; the slight folds on either side of his mouth, laugh lines; the shadowed stubble that bloomed on his strong jaw at the end of the day; his dark hair, slightly curling over his high brow, both artless and beautiful. For two years, she had banished this clear image, allowing him only in the periphery of her mind, he an
d Tanner ghostly shadows she was unable to face head-on.

  Now she looked him in the eye. What had she to say to him? She must ask forgiveness, but for what? She’d puzzled it out, discarding the survivor’s guilt. She accepted that the fire had not been her fault. That wasn’t it. A glimpse of the real, hidden reason flashed, like a fish jumping in a pond, sending out ripples. The ripples radiated through the coils of her brain, creating patterns until the picture solidified and she steeled herself, resisted pushing it away, and looked into the harsh face of regret.

  She’d used Jim. She’d loved the idea of Jim, her fortress, her Forte, the man who held down the fort so she could play. She’d used him as so many men have used women; as a token figure. She had a husband and a son, an ideal little family. He was handsome, a heroic figure as a firefighter. He made a great foil and looked good in her media kit.

  Soaked in bitterness, she rocked on the dewy grass, trying on this guilt, feeling its snug, pinching fit. It was too late. Nothing she did now could change it. The ball of ice inside her grew heavier and colder. This burden, this blockage within her is what stopped her fingers at the piano. How could she ever melt it? She didn’t deserve to play and she could never win his forgiveness, never make it right.

  But she had loved him, she knew that. Her choice to marry him, build a family with him was never calculated, never weighed like that in conscious terms. But she’d never quite broken through his walls, nor let him completely inside her own. She’d held back from making that connection and now that it was too late, she understood that connection was what mattered most.

  And Tanner. She’d loved him with an almost aching tenderness, but again from a certain distance, never wholly dissolving the blockade around her heart. Why had she done this, putting up these barriers until it was everlastingly too late?

  Music was about relationships. She’d said it hundreds of times to students, in lectures, in conversations to herself. How had she not understood it was true of life, as well? She had treated Jim as a symbol, and he should have been so much more. Tanner, too. They were gone, her chance was over. That could never be changed.

  Fierce regret stabbed into her. The moonlight reflecting off the lake shimmered with dark streaks, blurring before her burning eyes. Despair and recrimination clutched at her and she let the sobs come, let them wrench and carry away some of the tension she’d held onto with such intensity. But they could never wash away the guilt.

  She was broken.

  CHAPTER 72

  NATE WATCHED RILEY FROM HIS stance in a knot of trees beside the lake. He felt like a rat, spying on her through what was clearly a private moment, but he refused to leave her unguarded. Teren had pulled him back from following her and they both understood that what she was going through needed to be done alone, so he kept his distance while watching her back.

  She looked small and forlorn, a hunched figure in the moonlight, misery written in the sag of her shoulders. He wanted to run to her, hold her, help her banish the demon of her despair, but he planted his feet and locked his jaw. For a long moment she sat, folded into herself, still and silent, and then he watched in powerless agony while Riley rocked in the rhythm of grief, snatches of desolation reaching him as if torn off and floating in the sooty air.

  Time passed and Riley grew still again, a brooding silence settling over her, so thick he could feel it from his place among the dark-shadowed pines. She stood and he cast about for the best course of action. Should he go out to meet her, walk her back to safety, offer some words of comfort or support? Or was it better to fade into the trees and pretend he was never there?

  Should he voice his suspicions about the killer’s identity and present his proofs, or save it for a less sensitive moment? Should he let her see how she was beginning to affect him, let her know she was becoming more to him than a sounding board and neighborhood liaison? He felt for the bar of chocolate in his jacket pocket and decided on compromise.

  He went to meet her, under the moonlight, pulling her into a long and wordless hug. In silence, they returned to the quiet clubhouse and he imagined she knew all the things he wanted to say. In the end, he simply handed her the candy he’d pilfered from the kitchen.

  “Life is full of sweet things, Riley, and you deserve the best of them.”

  He brushed his lips against her forehead and retreated to his cot beside the entrance, knowing exhaustion would put him deep under tonight. He feared what the morning might bring.

  CHAPTER 73

  SOMEONE WAS SQUEEZING HER SHOULDER. Riley flinched and pushed against the grasping hand, pulling herself upright on the couch, the blanket sliding off over the slippery leather surface. The room was dim, lit only by the gray-tinged sky outside the window, and she couldn’t see the face which loomed beside her, though the willowy silver hair gave it away.

  “Shhh.” Jess brushed a cold hand against Riley’s mouth. “Come with me.”

  Her head felt heavy, full of cotton, and she glanced at the luminous hands of her watch, realizing she’d only managed two and a half hours of sleep after an eternity of restless tossing. She allowed Jess to pull her from the couch and lead her into the corridor. She looked to the left, where Nate’s cot would be, but Jess pulled her to the right, weaving between the tables in the dining room until they reached the kitchen. There was a flicker and then light flooded the room. Riley shielded her eyes until they got used to the full brilliance, while Jess guided her into the chair at the kitchen desk.

  “We need to talk.”

  Riley blinked her eyes, trying to clear the sleep from them as she watched Jess fill a kettle and put it on to boil.

  “What’s up?”

  Jess pulled a stool from the chopping bar and brought it close to Riley’s chair. She leaned forward and spoke in a whisper, her breath tickling Riley’s cheek.

  “Some of us were talking last night and we came to a frightening conclusion.”

  “Only one?”

  Jess ignored the sarcasm. “Several, actually.” Her gray-specked eyes darted around the room, lingering on the door with its high, little window. “We all know each other pretty well.” She paused and fastened her gaze on Riley. “But we don’t know Nate.”

  A pulsing shock ran through Riley, bringing her fully awake. “You’re not suggesting—”

  Jess pushed a finger against her lips. “Shhh.” She nodded. “I am suggesting that, but hear me out. What if he’s not who he says he is?”

  She began ticking points off on her fingers. “First, we checked the glove box in the Explorer. It is a registered law enforcement vehicle, but the driver ID lists an unfamiliar name and photo. You’ve got to wonder what became of that guy.

  “Second, Nate claims to have contacted the Sheriff’s department, but if that’s true, why has no one shown up? Did you actually hear him speak to someone on the radio?”

  Riley shook her head.

  “I thought not. We tried the radio and got nothing but static.”

  She held up another finger. “He just happens to be in the neighborhood when this whole thing goes down. How long have you known him, Riley?”

  Riley’s stomach felt hollow and she offered no answer.

  “We know from news accounts where the first victims were found. Isn’t that where Nate came from? He was there, Riley, where those people were murdered.” Jess paused, taking Riley’s hand. “And now he’s here and more people have died.”

  Riley pulled her hand away and shook her head, breaking out of Jess’s intense gaze.

  “No,” she said, standing. “I don’t believe it. That’s ridiculous. Nate is here because he’s investigating those deaths. The trail led here.”

  “Did it? Three high-profile murders on the other side of the Sound, and someone from our little neighborhood is their best suspect? That seems unlikely.”

  “I would know if it was Nate. I’d be able to tell.”

  Jess blocked the way out. “Would you? If it’s not Nate, then it’s someone else in this group. Wh
o is it Riley? Which one of our friends is a butcher?”

  The room was airless. Riley couldn’t breathe, she had to get out. She pushed past Jess and butted through the kitchen door, leaving it swinging. In the darkened dining room, she ran up against a table, its legs screeching across the floor like nails on a chalkboard. Recoiling, she moved at a more cautious pace, gaining the corridor where Nate slept.

  The killer could not be Nate. Though the sleep fuzz had left her brain, forcing such an idea through a logical thought process was proving difficult. Her mind and emotions had taken such a pummeling she didn’t trust herself to think straight. She needed some distance. She wanted to go home, but could she get out the door without waking Nate?

  She stared toward Nate’s cot, limned in pearly light from the windows. Jess had not followed her, and the early morning silence was complete. She took a step forward and then froze. The cot creaked as the sleeping figure stirred. She couldn’t see well enough to tell if his eyes were still closed or staring right at her. She shivered and turned for the staircase, treading its steps into the basement.

  Meeting Room C, she remembered, had an exit door. She padded along the hallway, using the wall to guide her. At the door to the vestibule, she paused, recalling the horrendous shriek it had made when Nate pushed it open during their search for the missing knife. She drew a deep breath and gave the door a gentle nudge. It swung open, smooth and silent. Someone had oiled the hinges. Someone who wanted to come and go without signaling his movements.

  Her scalp prickled and she bolted through the vestibule, stumbling across the meeting room floor, stubbing her toe against the wooden podium. Ignoring the pain, she fumbled with the door handle and let herself out into the chill of dawn.