Sidney Sheldon's Angel of the Dark

by Sidney Sheldon

  The woman in the SUV was yelling at Matt, shaking her fist out the window. Behind him, honking vehicles began to drive around him. Matt was completely oblivious.

  Mancini was dead.

  Matt had held on to his hatred for Frankie Mancini for a long time. He’d needed someone to hate so he could continue loving Lisa. But now that Frankie was actually gone, Matt felt none of the satisfaction, none of the sense of closure and of justice rendered that he’d expected to feel. Instead he felt…robbed. He’d interviewed just about everyone connected with the Azrael killings for his documentary, and during the trial he’d heard Lisa’s—Sofia’s—side of the story. But the one person who knew the most about what had happened on those terrible nights, and why it had happened, had never uttered a word about his crimes. Whatever his motives and feelings, Frankie Mancini had taken them to his grave. Even his death had been on his own terms.

  When Cassie got into the car, she’d already heard the news. CNN was playing in the locker rooms.

  “Are you okay?” she asked Matt.

  “Sure.” He still looked dazed.

  “I wonder how it happened. I mean, aren’t they supposed to have all death-row inmates on twenty-four-hour suicide watch?”

  Matt nodded absently. He wasn’t thinking about Frankie Mancini, or how he’d managed to outwit the authorities at San Quentin and take his own life. He was thinking about another prisoner, behind another set of walls, only a hundred miles or so north of where he and Cassie were talking. A prisoner he hadn’t thought about for a long, long time. A prisoner he’d trained himself to forget.

  Was she grieving? Was she suffering? The thought of her distressed and alone tore through Matt’s heart like a drill. He winced.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Cassie’s face clouded with anxiety. “We can do the wedding planner another day if you want.”

  The wedding planner. Shit. He’d totally forgotten. Like a physical weight he forced thoughts of Lisa out of his mind. Our wedding. Our future.

  “Yeah. I’m sure.” He forced a smile. “Let’s go choose that cake.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  MATT AND CASSIE DALEY’S WEDDING DAY was a triumph. The garden in Brentwood exploded with flowers, the sun shone brightly and the bride and groom looked as happy and in love as two people could possibly be. The small group of family and friends who came to toast their union with nonalcoholic fruit punch—Matt had given up drinking in support of Cassie, and half their friends were in AA—all agreed that the intimate, low-key ceremony was a perfect reflection of the relationship of this adorable couple, both of whom had been through so much. It wasn’t their happy ending. It was their happy beginning.

  The honeymoon in Tahiti was idyllic, with nothing to do but sleep, snorkel and make love beneath the stars. Occasionally thoughts of another, earlier experience of paradise in Indonesia flashed into Matt’s mind. But he banished each one firmly, remembering the mantras he’d learned at Wildwood, little sayings he’d come to believe and that had literally saved his life.

  My mind is my own.

  I can control it.

  The past is gone.

  Only the present was real. Only the present mattered. And the present belonged to Cassie. At first Matt struggled, being so totally cut off from the outside world. The private atoll they were staying on was the last word in reclusive luxury, but by design, the honeymoon villa had no Internet access, television or phone. Cassie made fun of Matt’s twitchiness (“I swear to God you’re like an addict. Is it really that hard to go two weeks without Anderson Cooper or an in-box full of junk mail?”), and after a few days, Matt started to relax to a degree he hadn’t managed in years. Perhaps it was his imagination, but he felt as if even his back and leg pain was receding. He swam every day in the warm, pale blue waters and often walked from the house to the beach and back without his cane. In every possible sense, his marriage to Cassie was healing him. Matt felt profoundly grateful.

  It wasn’t until they got back to L.A. that the marriage faced its first big test. Claire Michaels came to meet them at the airport. Both Matt and Cassie instantly knew that something was wrong when they saw that Claire and her husband, Doug, were accompanied by two uniformed police officers. At customs, they were pulled aside into a private room.

  “What is it?” Cassie asked, panicked. “Is it Brandon? Is he okay?”

  “Your son’s fine, ma’am,” the older cop assured her. “There’s nothing to worry about. We’re really only here as a courtesy. In case you had any questions.”

  “Questions about what?” said Matt.

  Claire took her brother’s hand. “Matt…Sofia Basta died while you were away. It happened last Wednesday, but we had no way to reach you.”

  “Died?” Matt couldn’t take it in. “What do you mean? How?”

  “It was an accident,” said the policeman. “It wasn’t public knowledge, but she’d been allowed some limited freedoms at Altacito over the last six months, as it was felt that her mental state was improving and she was no longer a danger to society.”

  Matt nodded absently.

  “She was on a hiking trip somewhere in the mountains,” the policeman continued. “She was with two other patients and four members of the staff when it happened.”

  Claire took over the narration. “Apparently she slipped and fell into a deep ravine. They called 911, and sent down search-and-rescue helicopters, everything, but where she fell was like a crevasse, incredibly narrow and miles deep. They never recovered the body. But, Matt, she’d have been dead on impact. She wouldn’t have suffered.”

  Matt stared at his sister blankly.

  “They’re sure she’s dead?”

  “Quite sure. One of the guards and one other patient were there with her when she fell. There’s no way anybody could have survived that fall. The helicopters were only ever there to try and extract a body.”

  “Matt…honey.” Cassie wrapped a protective arm around her husband’s waist. “Do you want to sit down?”

  “I know it’s a huge shock,” said Claire. “But we wanted you to know before you went through arrivals. As you can imagine, the media have been all over the story. They knew you were coming back today, so there’s a whole horde of photographers and reporters out there all wanting a reaction.”

  Cassie looked horrified. From their perfect honeymoon to this. It wasn’t fair.

  The cop caught her anxious look. “Don’t worry, Mrs. Daley. We’ll escort you outside. We have a car waiting.”

  The words Mrs. Daley jolted Matt out of his stupor. Cassie was his wife now. His first thought must be for her, not for himself.

  “I’m okay,” he said reassuringly, pulling her into his arms. “It was a shock, that’s all. But I’m fine. And maybe…” He hesitated to say it, but he made himself go on. “Maybe it’s for the best.”

  Both Cassie and Claire looked at him wide-eyed.

  “Not that I would have wanted it to happen. But if she didn’t suffer, maybe that’s a better way to go than lingering into old age, behind bars, with nothing to do but dwell on the past…You know?”

  Cassie nodded. She knew.

  Matt kissed her, closing his eyes and breathing in the scent of her, searching for reassurance, for safety, for love. “And for us too. It’s awful and it’s tragic. But it draws a line. The past really is gone now.”

  Cassie Daley looked up at her husband and burst into tears of relief.

  At last, at long, long last, the nightmare was over. Once and for all.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  EIGHTEEN MONTHS LATER…

  THE WOMAN WALKED INTO THE STARBUCKS unnoticed. There was already a long line. It was nine in the morning, right after school drop-off time, and the place was packed with moms picking up their iced lattes en route to the gym. The woman wore the same mommy uniform as everybody else: Hard Tail yoga pants, Nike sneakers and a Stella McCartney for Adidas running top just tight enough to emphasize her pert breasts and flat stomach without bein
g showy. Her pretty face was hidden behind a pair of Chloé aviators, and her shoulder-length blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail.

  Matt Daley didn’t look up from his computer. He was supposed to be working, coming up with a first draft for a piece for Vanity Fair on the comedy business in Hollywood. Having left Azrael behind him, Matt had returned to his first loves, comedy and writing, and was enjoying something of a renaissance in his career. This morning, however, he was goofing off, scouring Marie Chantal online for cute baby clothes. They’d found out a few days ago that, quite unexpectedly, Cassie was expecting. An elated Matt was convinced that the baby was going to be a girl.

  “Is this seat taken?”

  The woman was hovering next to him, coffee in hand.

  “Oh, no. Please…” Matt moved politely to one side to make room for her to sit down. She did so, putting her coffee cup down on the table first. Something about her hand and the languid way she moved her arm caught his eye. She reminded him of someone, but at first he couldn’t remember who.

  “I’m not disturbing you, am I? It’s just that the place is so packed…”

  The voice. Matt felt the hairs on his forearm stand on end.

  Aware of him staring at her, the woman took off her sunglasses. “What’s the matter?” She smiled. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  THE PHONE WAS RINGING. CASSIE DALEY dragged herself from the bathroom, where she’d just finished throwing up for the second time that morning, into the kitchen.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  Typical. The moment she got there, the person hung up. Perching at the kitchen counter, Cassie poured herself a tall glass of filtered water and sipped it slowly, nibbling at a piece of dry toast. She’d forgotten about morning sickness and how rotten it made you feel. It had been so long since she’d given birth to Brandon, and almost three years since her last hangover. Nausea felt like a novelty.

  The ringing of telephones, on the other hand, was grimly familiar, the sound track to Cassie and Matt’s marriage ever since they got back from Tahiti. Claire’s warnings at the airport that day about the media circus following Sofia Basta’s death had been depressingly prophetic. They’d walked into the hallway of their house to a cacophony of ringing telephones, home, office and cell, all competing for Matt’s attention. Even the fax line buzzed insistently like an angrily trapped bee.

  “Mr. Daley? This is CBS News. Do you have any comment on Sofia Basta’s death…?”

  “Mr. Daley, do you buy the coroner’s verdict of accidental death…?”

  “Matt, hi, this is Piers Morgan. I’m sure you must be inundated with offers right now, but I wanted to call personally to see if I could persuade you to talk to us first.”

  Some callers were pushy, others respectful. The magazines, though, were the worst. The bitch who called from Star actually implied that unless he agreed to give them an exclusive interview, they were planning to run a story about Matt and Sofia having met up for “trysts” on the days she’d been allowed out of the hospital. “Your wife would be shocked to read the stuff our sources have told us,” the reporter had the gall to say. “This is your chance to set the record straight.”

  When Matt told her where she could stick her sources, the woman was as good as her word and ran the story anyway, a preposterous hodgepodge of grainy, blatantly Photoshopped pictures and conspiracy-theory nonsense. It was the biggest-selling issue of Star that year.

  Cassie was furious. “Sue them! Sue them for libel. Force them to print a retraction.”

  But Matt had persuaded her that engaging with tabloid morons would only add more fuel to the fire. That eventually, if they continued to maintain a dignified silence, the story would fizzle and die. And he was right. Two Altacito guards lost their jobs and the hospital’s director was forced to resign. With public lust for vengeance at least partially satisfied, and no more salacious revelations forthcoming, the calls finally stopped. But not before Cassie Daley had developed a powerful aversion to the sound of ringing phones.

  The message light was flashing. Hitting play, Cassie smiled when she heard Matt’s voice.

  “Hi, honey. It’s only me. Listen, something came up with this Vanity Fair thing. I…I have to go meet someone. Anyway, I might be late tonight, so don’t worry and don’t cook for me. Okay, see you later.”

  He’s a terrible liar, she thought lovingly. She wondered what surprise he was planning this time, what secret it was that he didn’t want her to know. Probably something for the baby. Or earrings to go with the necklace he got me last week. Or maybe he’s finally booked that trip we’ve been planning, our “babymoon.” Always generous, Matt had gone into gift-giving overdrive since Cassie became pregnant. He’d even started spoiling Brandon with a cell phone (at nine!) and a cool new thousand-dollar diving watch.

  I’ll talk to him when he gets home. He has to stop with the spending. The baby is blessing enough.

  MATT CLOSED THE DOOR BEHIND THEM, his hand shaking. The hotel was expensive, exclusive and discreet, just the sort of place where rich men brought their mistresses.

  Is that what I am? A rich man with a hard-on?

  Sofia Basta sat down on the bed. There was so much to say, to explain. She’d run through this scene a thousand times in her mind, but now that she was actually here, she had no idea where to begin.

  “I know you’re married now,” she said hesitantly. “I haven’t come to spoil anything for you. To ruin your life again.”

  “You never ruined my life,” said Matt. “I did that all by myself.”

  “But I had to see you, to explain. You’re the only person I can trust and I needed you…I needed you to know…” She started to cry. “I couldn’t stay in that place. I couldn’t. They were burying me alive!”

  “Shhhhh.” Matt sat down beside her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders. “It’s okay.” She looked so different. The surgery to her face was radical this time. But holding her felt the same. A wave of longing almost drowned him. He tried to think about Cassie, to picture her face, but her image too was swept away in the flood of desire.

  “I got a new passport, a new ID,” she murmured through her sobs. “I changed my name…obviously. Here.” Fumbling in her purse by the side of the bed, she handed Matt a California driver’s license. There were the same, haunting liquid-brown eyes gazing into his. The name underneath the picture read…Lisa Daley.

  “I hope you’re not angry with me. It felt right.”

  Dropping the license, Matt pushed her back onto the bed, kissing her with so much force she could barely breathe. She felt the weight of him, the power, the passion. Desperately he tore at her clothes and ripped off his own, biting and clawing at her like a man possessed. Finally naked, he plunged inside her with a scream that was half agony, half ecstasy. “Lisa!” This wasn’t lovemaking. This was a man fighting for his life. He was consuming her, inhaling her, breathing her in like a half-drowned man finally breaking through to the surface and desperately gasping for air. It wasn’t just Lisa who had come back from the dead. It was the old Matt Daley, the man Matt thought he had destroyed at Wildwood and buried on his wedding day.

  “Matt!” She wrapped her legs around him, clasping his face in her hands, trying to hold him at bay, to calm him. She was the comforter now, rocking him like a baby, soothing him with the warmth and wetness of her body, drawing him in. “I love you! I’m sorry. I love you so much.” Matt reached orgasm, grasping her hips and thrusting so deep inside her that she felt like he might pass right through her body and out the other side, as if she really were a ghost. But the sweat and heat and tears were no shadows. This was real, this joining of the flesh. An agonized celebration of life, like childbirth. Afterward Matt cried like a baby.

  “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me, Lisa, please! I’ll do anything.”

  And she knew he meant it.

  THEY MADE LOVE AGAIN, FOR SEVERAL more hours, then slept until dusk. When they awoke, Matt ordered room service—two deluxe cheeseburgers
and fries—and they ate till their bellies hurt. Finally, at around seven, Lisa started talking. She told him about her illness. How after many years she finally seemed to have broken free of its shadow and was off her medication.

  “I was scared at first, going off the pills. But taking them made me feel like I was in a fog. Now, for the first time I can remember really, I feel like myself.”

  She told him how a “sweet man” named Carlos Hernandez, one of the psychiatric nurses, had helped stage her “accident,” rigging up a simple animal trap in the mountains to make it look as if she’d slipped into the crevasse, while in fact she was concealed in a cave just a few feet below the mouth of the ravine. Given that the only witness to her fall was an impressionable girl of nineteen who was being treated for, among other things, acute hallucinations, it was easy for Carlos to steer the rest of the group back to camp, buying Lisa enough time to climb out of the cave and make her way down to a remote hunting lodge Carlos had prepared for her.

  “Were you lovers?” Matt was ashamed to hear himself asking.

  “Nooooo.” Lisa frowned. “I think he would have liked to be. But no. He was my friend. He risked his own neck helping me and he lost his job, poor man. But he knew that I was well again, mentally, and that they would never in a million years have let me out. Especially after Frankie…you know. They needed one scapegoat to punish for all those poor men who died. I was it.”

  “But you lived with Carlos?”

  She shook her head again. “No. That would have been too dangerous. He paid for me to go to South America for the surgery. It’s funny how easy it is to sneak over the border when you’re coming from the U.S. I was in Brazil for eight months, recuperating and then working. By the time I got back, Carlos had moved on.”