Chapter Ten

In the confines of the car, her awareness of him took on a new potency. His scent assailed her. His hands on the steering wheel whipped the odd little flutters in her stomach into a whirlwind.

The dark scowl on his face hurt her heart.

As they hit the highway and headed north, leaving the small Ohio town behind, his dark mood seemed to grow darker. Indeed, the farther north they drove, the more she sensed him pulling away. He was turning inward, away from her, and after their intimate interaction in the hotel room, she didn’t understand why.

They passed over the border into Michigan, and for the next three hours, they drove north and west. Cities faded into rural landscapes and the sun dipped low in the sky. By the time the sun slipped behind the earth, cloaking them in a blanket of darkness, the change in him from the hot, attentive man in the hotel room to the cold, withdrawn one behind the wheel of the car was complete.

She stared out her window and watched small snippets of scenery pass by in the car’s headlights. Nearly four hours after leaving the hotel, Leo steered the car from the highway. They journeyed along a rural road, deeper into the night. After a time, they passed through the smallest downtown she’d ever seen and then, at the end of a prototypical main street, turned the corner.

A large ship loomed before them. Leo maneuvered into a small gravel parking lot and joined a line of cars waiting before the boat.

“What is this?”

“A car ferry. It’s a short ride out to the island.”

“Wait, you were serious about the island?”

The ship’s hull opened and the first car inched forward, disappearing inside the boat’s dark underbelly.

“I was serious.” He inched the car forward.

Curiosity overcame her. “What’s the name of it? How big is it?”

His scowl deepened. “Thief Island, and it’s small, but the population swells in the summer now that the damned tourists have discovered it.”

He eased the vehicle up a gently sloping ramp and slipped inside the steel ferry. They filed with the other cars into parking spots, and then he switched off the car’s engine.

“We’ve got to go above deck for the trip over.”

She tucked Arlo inside her purse and followed Leo across the dim lower deck to a poorly lit stairwell. They climbed the steep steps and emerged on the boat deck, where a gusty wind lifted off the lake to whip at her hair and the hem of her top.

Passengers gathered at the deck rails and she squeezed into an open spot while Leo hung back. Far below, water lapped at the boat’s sturdy sides while in the far distance, a few lonesome lights twinkled in the dark.

A low rumble soon sounded, and beneath her feet, the floor began to vibrate as the ferry’s engines powered on. Minutes later, the boat began to pull away from the dock. She crept slowly through the water until they reached the edge of the harbor. Then, with the blast of a horn, the engines thundered and the boat set out into the night.

She had no sense where they were headed. No light guided them. No moon or stars dotted the sky. Behind them, land fell away.

Amazed by it all, she turned to Leo with a smile.

But he wasn’t there.

A brief search of the small crowd tracked him to a white bench a few feet away where he sat with his elbows on his knees, staring down at the concrete flooring.

Feeling the loss of him acutely, she turned toward the darkness. She stared into the black void, which her fears rushed forward to fill until, in the distance, lights winked to life. The railing pressed into her chest when she leaned against it, desperate to catch more glimpses of lights.

Soon, the shadowy form of a landmass rising from the sea took shape in the night sky.

When the boat eased into a harbor much like the one they’d departed, she followed Leo back downstairs into the ship’s hull. In the car once more, he steered them onto land, but while most of the other cars leaving the small parking lot exited to the right, he went left.

They drove for a time along another dark, rural road. Towering trees sprang up around them and the darkness became stifling, suffocating. The smooth stretch of road became rough and bumpy, and she grabbed onto the handle above her door.

Deep in the woods, he turned up a rocky path and when they came to a seemingly random spot, he slowed the car to a stop. He switched off the engine and she peered through the window into utter blackness. Instinctively, she shrank back in her seat.

When he shoved open his car door and the overhead light winked on, she could make out the form of a small building in the woods. A house maybe? Was it his home?

He stepped into the abyss and slammed the door shut behind him. A moment later, the car’s interior light faded and she was alone in the darkness. With extreme reluctance, she left the safety of the vehicle and stumbled along an uneven path after him.

Using the light from his cell phone, Leo fumbled with the door while she shot quick glances into the black night surrounding them. A shiver passed through her. Then he pushed open the door, and with a bracing breath, she followed him inside.

He moved into the home’s interior and in the next moment the pitiful light from his phone vanished.

Total blackness engulfed her, and panic closed around her throat. Noises sounded in the dark as he rummaged through a closet. Then suddenly, the dim glow of bobbling light splashed across the room and she could breathe again.

Flashlight in hand, he crossed to her and handed her a second flashlight, which she quickly flipped on. Pointing the light around, she discovered they were in the living room of a small house. A bungalow.

At the back of the house stood a wall of glass, through which the black void of nothingness loomed while the other end housed a tiny kitchen. The white paint on the walls must’ve been put there several decades prior, and the dark wood ceiling, although vaulted, did little to add a sense of space to the room.

Two darkened doorways sat on either side of the living room, and Leo shined his light in the direction of one of them.

“You can sleep in there.” His eyes wouldn’t meet hers. “There are blankets in the closet.”

But his fortress wall suffered a crack when he thrust a hand through his hair and she saw that it trembled. Then he turned abruptly and stalked to the doorway opposite hers.

The beam of his flashlight flickered off the walls in the dark room before he lifted a foot and kicked the door shut with an unqualified bang.

His heart raced, pounding with painful thumps against his breastbone. In the past twenty-four hours, he’d slept little, and fatigue clawed at him. Drained and exposed, the burden of standing in this house again hit him all at once.

He sat on the edge of the bed and dropped his head in his hands. What the hell had he been thinking, coming here?

That someone was trying to kill Prue.

Even after avoiding this place for the past four years, it was harder than he expected to come back to it. So much harder.

Everything inside him snarled and twisted with grotesque anguish. He couldn’t make sense of it, except that it all pointed back to one thing. It always came back to this. They were gone, and he was the reason why.

Under heavy assault, he wanted to fall back, to retreat from the threat of his own mind, but there was nowhere to run. Nor was there a drop of alcohol within reach to dull his awareness of the mutilation taking place inside him.

He collapsed back on the bed, defeated, and closed his eyes, trying not to see her face.

It was no use. He was dead to rights. There was no hope, and running only ensured he’d die tired.

God damn, but it was so fucked-up. He was so fucked-up.

His last thought before exhaustion claimed him was how desperately he needed a drink.

The lack of alcohol proved to be the fatal blow. Sober and weakened, he couldn’t fight off the memories, which slipped past his defenses at the first chance.

Four years earlier

The moment he saw her, he knew he would marry her. One day.

Her hair and makeup were overdone, the way all TV reporters overdid it, but her smile and her excitement for her first real assignment with a major TV network were genuine. She lit up the room full of seasoned military men. The brightest star in the sky, she sprinkled her stardust on everyone she encountered.

Leo was just one of the grunts assigned to the crew’s security detail as they arrived in Syria to cover the escalating civil war. She paid little attention to the six-man team, preferring the company of her coworkers instead.

Until their second day in the city center, when a fight erupted between some locals. Leo moved to shield her from the shoving while Owen and Claymore broke up the brawl and dispersed the gathering crowd.

Leo eased away from her. “You okay?”

She snuck a glance at him from beneath the sweep of her eyelashes and nodded.

Later that night, she approached him while he ate dinner alone at the hotel.

She slipped into a chair across from him and regarded him with huge round eyes. “I wanted to thank you for today.”

He finished chewing and swallowed. “Just doing my job.”

She fiddled with a corner of the tablecloth. “How long have you been a security guard?”

“You’re my first.”

She managed to blush and frown at the same time.

He didn’t bother to hide his grin. “Don’t worry. It’s not my first rodeo, only my first private security gig.”

“It’s my first international reporting gig.” Her brilliant smile appeared then. “I guess we’ll be virgins together.”

Oorah.

“I guess we will,” he said.

Prue wasn’t tired.

And she was seriously creeped out.

She refused to switch off her flashlight, and directed its beam around the small bedroom. Light touched every surface and pushed into every corner until she felt certain no bugs or critters occupied the space with her.

The strange, rickety old house made weird sounds, not at all like the creaks and groans made by the historic house she lived in in Boston. Noises outside kept her on edge, the worst offender a sustained, low-level rumbling. It wasn’t a roar, or a hum, but a growl that never stopped. The leaves rustled in the trees as though they, too, were agitated by the monster grumbling in the dark.

Along with a thick layer of dust, her bedroom boasted the same washed-out white paint as the living room. It, too, featured one wall made almost entirely of glass and beyond the fragile barrier, the black abyss loomed.

Turning her back to the disturbing void, the opposite wall contained built-in bookshelves, which sat empty. A row of boxes lined the floor in front of them.

She plucked her cell phone from the pocket of her purse and thumbed through her apps. After her attempt to log in to her email failed, she searched for a Wi-Fi connection.

There was none.

If he didn’t have Wi-Fi, maybe he had a cable connection? Curious, she poked her head through a crack in her bedroom door and shot her flashlight’s beam around the main room for signs of the hookup. But she spotted no wires or evidence of any internet connection at all. In fact, she found no signs of any technological device whatsoever. There was no TV. No laptop or PC. No stereo, or radio, or tablet, or mp3 player. Nothing.

Indeed, she would be surprised if the home had been upgraded from candle to electric light. What was the point?

With a sigh, she dropped her phone on the bed. Then she went over to one of the boxes and lifted the dust-covered lid.

It was stuffed full of books. Tilting her head, she read their spines.

Books on military history and weaponry abounded. With a flip of her wrist, she flicked up the lid on the next box, and the next. All full of books, on every topic from world history and philosophy, to political theory and psychology. One entire box was crammed with classic fiction novels.

In all, there were hundreds of books.

Sitting in boxes.

Were they Leo’s books? Had he moved in recently? Maybe the home was a fixer-upper that he hadn’t yet fixed up?

Selecting one of the novels, she settled on the bed and flipped it open.

After she’d been reading for a while, a sound pulled her from the story. She grew still, listening.

There it was again.

Arlo hopped down off the bed and slipped through the small crack of the door’s opening. Prue tossed the book aside and pushed up off the bed to scurry after him.

By the time she caught up to Arlo, he sat in front of the closed door Leo had disappeared behind. He peered up at her and meowed.

She inched closer but drew up at the harsh sound of Leo’s voice. She leaned forward until her ear almost touched the door, trying to make out his words, but the words coming from him were mumbled and jumbled together.

Was he on the phone? Or was he dreaming? She recalled the night he’d slept in her bed in Boston. Was he having another nightmare?

Reaching out, she twisted the knob on his bedroom door.

Arlo bounded into the room and onto the bed. Prue hesitated, but when Leo whimpered, the sound filled with agony, she sidled closer. In sleep, he grimaced as though he were in pain, and his hair appeared damp with sweat.

Her heart throbbed. She wanted to help him but knew of no way to do so. When he flinched in his sleep, she went around the bed and drew back the covers. Climbing beneath the sheets, she snuggled close to him and laid a hand on his spine.

When he didn’t wake or startle, she rubbed his back in light, slow circles. Motor humming, Arlo settled into the crook of Leo’s knees.

She didn’t speak or whisper reassurances. Considering she knew nothing of what troubled him, she didn’t have any reassurances to give anyway.

Eventually he calmed and his breathing evened out. The tension left his body.

But Prue didn’t leave his bed.