Covered in Darkness

by Heather Sunseri

  Memories of the afternoon flooded back. I grabbed Dimitri’s shirt. “Yury. He’s in the men’s steam room. We have to stop Jewel.” I moved to stand.

  “Look, I don’t know who you are,” Jared said, “but you need to leave. If my boss finds out you were here, my ass getting fired will be the least of our concerns.”

  I moved to get up. Dimitri helped me to my feet, and I swayed. My head had ached most of the day, and now it was throbbing, and I was dizzy.

  Dimitri held my elbow. “Did you hit your head?”

  “No. I’m probably just dehydrated and overheated.” I looked at the receptionist. “Jared, I need you to go get Jewel, and stop Yury from leaving.”

  He hesitated. “Jewel left fifteen minutes ago.”

  “Left?” I looked from Ty to Dimitri. “How long have I been out? What time is it?”

  “Not much longer than that,” Ty said. “You’d asked for thirty minutes, but when Dimitri showed up, he decided it was time to bust in here all hero-like. Good thing.”

  I turned back to Jared. “Where did Jewel go? Her shift couldn’t possibly have been over.”

  “Some of our clients asked her to accompany them tonight.”

  “The Russian clients?” Obviously.

  “Yes.”

  “Do you know where they’re staying? What hotel?”

  Jared shrugged. “We only have their cell numbers. They pay us up front. We don’t ask questions.”

  I looked at Dimitri, then touched my hair—my long, dark hair. “She took my wig. She was trying to serve Yury. She wanted the tips.”

  “Brooke,” Ty said. “What’s going on? Who locked you in that steam room? This Yury?”

  “No. Yury was the one who took me to Sam yesterday. He was here, and wanted to… spend some time with me. Maybe he recognized me, maybe he didn’t. But Jewel—she’s one of the girls who works here—wanted to get closer to him, so she locked me in the steam room and stole my red-haired wig. I guess she was going to try to take my place with Yury. He might have taken her just for fun. Or maybe she went willingly. Either way…”

  “You think Jewel’s in some sort of danger?” Jared asked. “Because of those Russians?”

  “Jared, you need to call your boss. Get him down here. Expect the police, and possibly the FBI, to be here within thirty minutes.”

  Jared grabbed his hair with both hands. “The boss is going to kill me,” he said.

  “Like you said, getting your ass fired is the least of your concerns right now. Call him.” I turned to Ty. “Get me out of here.”

  “You don’t want to stick around to talk with the FBI?”

  “For what? They don’t want me involved.”

  “They’re going to know you’re already several steps ahead of them in this investigation,” Ty said, then smiled. “Which is another reason to draw them here.”

  “They need to see that they’re stupid for not communicating with other law enforcement.” I rubbed my temple. “Besides, I’ve got a killer headache. I want to go home. I’ll call Louisville Metro on my way. I’ve got some ideas on where this group might be staying, but I’ll let the police who are more familiar with the area start the search.”

  “You also mentioned that Sergei Charkov might be coming to town tomorrow?” Ty reminded me.

  I lifted a finger. “Right. Get someone researching that. There’s got to be some sort of trail. Even if it’s a private plane, there has to be some documentation of someone traveling all the way from Russia, right?”

  “If he’s coming from Eastern Europe, I’ll find him,” Dimitri said.

  I stared at Dimitri. It felt weird to accept help from a man who was, for all intents and purposes, a civilian—but if it would help me find Sam, I would take whatever help I could get.

  I swayed again on my feet.

  “Brooke?” Ty said.

  Dimitri caught me with an arm around me. “I’ve got you. You’re just overheated, I think.”

  “Wait,” Jared said. “Your name is Brooke?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “Yury left you an envelope. I didn’t know who he was talking about. It’s at the front desk.”

  I traded looks with Ty and Dimitri. My cover had been blown.

  As we followed Jared, Dimitri kept an arm around me and carried my bag. In the reception area, Jared reached under the front desk and pulled out a small envelope.

  I started to take it, but paused. “You have any gloves?”

  “I’m sorry?” Jared said.

  “Gloves. Maybe in the lost and found, or ones you clean with?”

  “Oh.” He thought for a second, then held up a hand. He put down the envelope, turned, and ran down the hallway. He returned a minute later with a pair of rubber gloves. “The girls don’t like washing the glasses behind the bar without gloves on. They say it messes with their nails.”

  I took the gloves and put them on, then picked up the envelope. I carefully opened it and slipped out the piece of paper inside.

  * * *

  You didn’t think I recognized you? I’ll let Jewel entertain me for now, but if she begins to bore me… you are next. Our ransom has now doubled, and the deadline has changed. I now want $320 million in bitcoin by midnight Tuesday or the grid goes down. You can explain to the power companies why they owe another $20 million each.

  * * *

  “Ty, do you have an evidence bag?”

  “I think I have an emergency evidence kit in the car. I’ll be right back.” He ran out of the club.

  The note shook in my hand.

  Dimitri must have noticed, because he put a hand to the small of my back. “Set it down.”

  I did as he instructed, then pulled the gloves off. “He’s going to kill her.”

  “You don’t know that.” But his words didn’t match the doubtful look in his eyes.

  Ty returned with the evidence kit. While he grabbed the gloves, and put the note and envelope in an evidence bag, I retrieved my bag from Dimitri, pulled out my phone, and dialed Agent Marshall.

  “Agent Erica Marshall.”

  “Agent Marshall,” I said. “You’re going to want to send a team down here to a men’s health club called Churchill’s.”

  “I know the place.”

  “The Russians rented out the entire club for the week. I’m leaving a note here that might have one of the men’s fingerprints—a man by the name of Yury. He’s one of the men who kidnapped me yesterday. I would also fingerprint around the steam room. The receptionist, Jared, will show you the other areas these men frequented.”

  Instead of a smartass comment about how I didn’t get to tell her to do her job, she simply said, “Thanks for the tip. I’ll put a team on it right now.”

  I hung up. “Okay, let’s go. My head’s killing me.”

  When I arrived at the mansion, Declan was nowhere to be found. I had spoken to him only very briefly on the phone as Ty drove me from Louisville, and I was still pondering his few words.

  “I’m glad you’re safe,” he had said when he picked up, though he didn’t ask how I was, and I knew Ty had told him they found me unconscious inside a steam room. Then he said, “I’m in a meeting. I’ll see you at home.”

  And that was that.

  Of course, I had been taken aback by this aloof tone.

  I went straight to the master bathroom, where I put on some soft rock music, took three ibuprofen, and ran a cool shower. Though it had been hours since my adventure in the steam room, and Ty had made me drink what seemed like a gallon of water, I still felt dehydrated and overheated. I was pretty pissed at the stupid girl who had thought it was a good idea to lock me in a steam room—but I was also frightened of what Yury might do to her.

  After several minutes under the cool water, I climbed out and wrapped myself in an oversized bath towel. I stared at my dark brown eyes in the mirror, and I had to admit, I looked tired. I’d spent too many hours in the fusion center and too little time sleeping the last week.

  My
phone buzzed beside the sink. “Hi, Ty,” I answered.

  “Your father is looking for you.”

  I straightened. “How do you know?”

  “I stopped by the fusion center to go through what we know with Jude and Carson. Your father was outside when I got there. I would have called you sooner, but Jude and Carson trapped me, and I forgot until just now.”

  “What did he want? Did he have questions about what Ryan had to say?”

  “If he did, he didn’t ask. What he did want to know was why he got a call from Louisville Metro about your visit to Churchill Club instead of hearing that directly from you.”

  I laughed. Not because anything was funny, but because for most of my life my father had tried to control my decisions—and me—yet even as director of the FBI, he was failing. I would not be controlled. Not by anyone. “What did you tell him?”

  “I told him he would have to ask you.”

  “Good.”

  “But…”

  “Oh no.”

  “… that it was probably because he shut you out of the case. I told him we were prepared to work with the FBI on this investigation, as evidenced by our show of good faith when we delivered Ryan Saltzman to him, but that he had made it clear that he didn’t want our help.”

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  “No, you couldn’t.” He smiled. “How’s your head?”

  “Ibuprofen seems to be doing the trick.”

  “How’s Declan? Is he angry you went off on another wild goose chase without much backup?”

  “No idea. Haven’t seen him.” Which was more than surprising, given that he usually was the first in line to tell me I’d made yet another poor decision. “I’m about to go find him now that my head is feeling better.”

  “Get some rest. If this group of thugs keeps moving the deadline up, we’re going to run out of time.”

  “Yeah. That’s exactly what I’m afraid of.”

  I had just hung up with Ty when the alarm on the front gate sounded. I clicked over to the app on my phone, and saw Director Waller staring into the camera. “Of course,” I whispered to myself.

  I pushed the button for the intercom. “Director,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  “Let me in, Brooke.”

  I sighed, then opened the gate.

  I slipped into jeans and a T-shirt. As I was walking down the front staircase, a knock sounded at the door. After taking a deep breath, I opened the door and faced my father.

  “I had no idea you left the Bureau to put yourself into even more danger,” he said. He walked right past me and into the living room.

  “Oh, please. It wasn’t that big of a deal. And I had plenty of backup,” I said, following close behind him. “Besides, I didn’t leave the Bureau to sit on the sidelines. I work for the Commonwealth of Kentucky, and we are under attack.”

  He faced me. “The United States is under attack.”

  “And the cyber terrorists seem to be here.”

  He walked to the back windows and stared out. “Erica tells me that you identified the man who took you yesterday. You’ve also discovered that Sergei Charkov is on his way from Eastern Europe to Kentucky.”

  “That’s correct. On both counts.”

  He rubbed a hand across the stubble on his jaw. “I’ve got the best intelligence agents in the world, and you’ve discovered more in forty-eight hours than my whole team.”

  I shrugged. “I had a head start. And I’m driven by different aspects of this case than your agents.”

  He looked over at me. “You’re driven to save one person.”

  “When you say it like that, you make it sound like I’m only after Samantha. I follow the evidence and the intelligence, and I’m driven to remove the bad guys from the equation. Of course, what I don’t have is a team of cyber experts who can stop the power grid from going down. But in the interest of inter-agency cooperation in the service of shared objectives, I’ve given you every bit of information I’ve discovered. How’s the malware investigation going, by the way?”

  “We’ve discovered the software on the other companies’ networks. But developing a decryption key before this group follows through with their threat? That’s a tall order.”

  I stood beside my father and stared out the back windows. “These guys are reckless. They’re going to make a mistake.”

  “Well,” my father said, “there is another option.”

  I turned to him. “What’s that?”

  “We’ve analyzed what the Kharkiv Bratva did to take down Louisville’s power—and it wasn’t just a matter of installing ransomware. Unlike most ransomware, it didn’t bring down the system directly; rather, it allowed them to take control of the system remotely. They used that capability to manually take down the system. And since it takes specialized training to operate these systems…”

  “If we take out the attackers—”

  “Then they can’t sabotage the systems, and we stop the attack.”

  “Interesting. You said you placed a team in Eastern Europe?”

  “Yes. They’re hiding out in Moldova, exhausting their contacts in the region, and awaiting further instruction.”

  “Moldova? That’s just west of Ukraine, right?”

  “Very good, Agent.” He shrugged when he realized his slip. “Old habits die hard.”

  “Will you tell me if—when they find something?”

  He smiled. “How could I not? You’ve been so generous with sharing. It wouldn’t be very nice for me not to return the favor.” He began walking toward the front door, stopped, and turned. “FBI is now working with LMPD, which has twenty-four-hour surveillance set up on that ‘spa.’ If we can find those Russians, we might be able to force them into admitting their plan.”

  “Good. I’ll be sure to pass along any information I discover.”

  “Any way I can talk you into letting the FBI take it from here?”

  “You do your thing, Director. I’ll do mine.”

  He leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Please make smart decisions, Brooke.”

  “Always.”

  Chapter 30

  Declan still hadn’t returned. Was he angry with me? It sure seemed like he didn’t care what had happened.

  Maybe what Dimitri had said about Declan leaving the world of intelligence was true. Maybe what was happening now was too much for him—and too soon after he’d nearly lost me. He had deliberately left that kind of work behind a long time ago, but now my work had put his past life and my present case on a collision course.

  As I walked through Declan’s house, I thought more about his statement that he’d “see me at home.” Though his mansion was large and decorated with high-end furnishings and art, it very much reflected who he was. It was truly a “home”: comfortable, not stuffy. I had kicked up my feet in the living room many times. We’d lounged in his library and read on rainy days. And, of course, the pool area had been a popular spot for us to relax in the summer.

  But was this home for me? Was I being fair to Declan if I said it was? His aloof tone earlier had most likely been born of frustration—frustration with my career, the choices I made, and his lack of control over those choices. Maybe I’d be doing him a favor by moving on. He might not be ready to say goodbye to me, and I definitely wasn’t ready to make that decision, but I knew what it was like to lose someone to this job, and I didn’t want to cause him that kind of pain.

  Declan had moved to a quiet horse farm in Central Kentucky for a reason. It couldn’t have been so that he would fall in love with a woman who was constantly putting herself in dangerous situations. A woman who might drag him right back into that life he had left behind.

  Yet I didn’t seem capable of stopping. This was who I was.

  The sun was setting on another day, and dark shadows filled the front foyer, the living room, and the kitchen. I left the lights turned off as I stood at the windows along the back of the house and tried to make out the shadows i
n the back fields. Landscaping lights accented various parts of the backyard and the pool area.

  After a while, I heard the sound of the front door opening. A second later, Declan stood in the doorway of the living room.

  “Hi,” I said. I crossed my arms, then dropped them.

  He stalked toward me, wordlessly. My heart rate sped up, and I wasn’t sure why. Declan was still a mystery to me, and sometimes when I saw him, it was as if I were seeing him for the first time again.

  It only took seconds, though, for him to slide a hand around my waist to the small of my back and bring me close, and then I felt like we’d known each other for years.

  But we hadn’t. I’d had an entirely different life less than two years earlier. A life that had made me happier and more fulfilled than I’d ever imagined possible, but one that had ended tragically, with the deaths of two people: the man I thought I would grow old with, and the child we had created together.

  A significant piece of me had died with them.

  “I lose my mind when I know you’re in danger,” Declan whispered next to my ear.

  “I know,” I whispered back, because I couldn’t manage anything louder than that. “I thought you were angry.”

  He pulled back; his brows tilted inward. “Angry? No.” He let his hand wander down until it found mine. “Come with me. I have something I want you to see.”

  He led me to the back door and outside.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as we walked toward the fence that separated the pool area from the fields behind his house.

  “Patience.”

  As we neared the fence, I noticed a horse trailer and a couple of men beside the barn to our left in the distance, and a horse in the back field, which was unusual at this late hour. Typically the horses were put away in their stalls before sundown.

  Declan dropped my hand so that we could stand on the lower fence plank and watch the young horse run and frolic in the field. When I looked closer, I noticed the gray colt had a small saddle on his back.

  “Is that my horse?”