Midnight Jewels

by Jayne Ann Krentz

  It must have been in the goddamned fish. He would never eat smoked salmon again. But no. The poison or drug had probably been in the wine.

  Drunk. The poison or drug had made him feel and act drunk. Was that how it had been for his father?

  He pushed the stray thoughts aside. They were a weakening influence on him and he could not afford any more weakness.

  He needed strength. He found the source of it within himself, sensing that he would be draining all his reserves when he tapped into what remained of his energy.

  In the distance he heard the muted roar of the Jeep’s engine. Whoever had followed them from the Gladstone estate had finally realized the quarry had taken a detour at Drifter’s Creek.

  Croft moved farther into the shadows, his mind steadying on the focal point of calm strength that was his only hope now. He realized he had temporarily stopped shaking.

  It was cold in the starlit shadows, but there was a sense of rightness as well. The darkness offered concealment while allowing his primitive senses full rein. Mercy would probably say this was his kind of place, Croft thought grimly, a ghost town.

  The Jeep roared back into town and halted abruptly at the end of the street. Two male figures leaped from the front seat. Croft saw the odd shapes jutting from their hands and knew that Dallas and Lance were both carrying guns.

  Chapter 15

  Mercy huddled in the shadows of the ruined structure and listened to the sound of the returning Jeep. Croft was right, as usual.

  Mercy wished disappearing was a viable option. Under the circumstances it looked like the best way out of an untenable situation. She inched carefully toward the wall, wary of unseen objects lurking the shadows waiting to trip her. There was one window in the old shack, but it had been boarded up long ago, her questing fingers discovered. Fortunately there were plenty of cracks and knotholes in the wooden walls. When she pressed her face close to the boards she could see a couple of other disintegrating buildings looming in the shadows outside. Their outlines seemed a little clearer now than they had earlier. Maybe her eyes were getting more accustomed to the darkness.

  She hugged herself against the chill. It wasn’t just cold in Drifter’s Creek. There was something more. She remembered the vague uneasiness she had experienced when she and Croft had first driven through the ghost town. Croft hadn’t seemed aware of anything out of the ordinary, she recalled.

  Possibly because the strangeness she had felt hadn’t seemed particularly out of the ordinary to him, Mercy thought wryly. The man was an enigma. It was awkward being in love with an enigma.

  Mercy caught the flash of the Jeep lights between a staggered row of buildings as the vehicle stopped right in the middle of the road. Whoever was driving probably wasn’t unduly worried about blocking oncoming traffic. There wasn’t much likelihood of any traffic on this road, especially at this hour of the night.

  The lights of the Jeep were left on to illuminate the road between the dry, rotting hulks of buildings. The vehicle itself was in deep shadow, but Mercy thought she saw a shape jump out of the front seat and move forward to crouch beside the fender. Perhaps there were two shapes. She couldn’t be sure. It seemed very probable that Dallas and Lance traveled as a pair. Snakes were said to do exactly that.

  She knew she couldn’t be seen, but Mercy drew back instinctively, wondering where Croft was. She glanced around blindly, desperately trying to quiet the panic that threatened to inundate her. She hated being cooped up like this. She felt like a trapped animal waiting for the arrival of the hunters.

  She had to get out.

  Under normal circumstances it was possible Croft could handle the situation outside. There was a terrifying kind of strength in him that had its roots in the emotional as well as physical side of his being, and he freely admitted that violence held some sort of fascination for him. Mercy forced herself to acknowledge that he was one of the hunters of the world, a predator who was at home in the darkness.

  But tonight Croft was weakened by whatever had been used to poison or drug him. The thought of him trying to take on Gladstone’s two musclemen was appalling.

  Croft could get himself killed out there in the shadows and she wouldn’t even know it until Dallas and Lance finally tracked her down in her poor hiding place.

  Mercy shuddered. She hated this dark, cold room. She wondered what it had been when Drifter’s Creek was a flourishing mining community. It wouldn’t surprise her to find out this particular building had once served as the town’s morgue.

  The thought made her almost sick to her stomach. She tried telling herself that towns the size of Drifter’s Creek wouldn’t have had morgues, but somehow the image of a dead body sprawled on a table nearby wouldn’t vanish.

  She could see the body very clearly in her mind’s eye. The dead man was dressed in miner’s clothing, his dirty shirt stained reddish brown from the bullet wound in his chest. The town doctor was leaning over him, shaking his head. It was too late. Just another victim of a claim feud.

  The miner’s small store of personal belongings were stacked on another table. Α gun in its holster, an iron shovel with a wooden handle, a battered hat.

  He had never had a chance to draw the gun.

  Mercy gasped and came back to her senses with a start. She was going to drive herself crazy. Even if Croft did survive to fetch her he would find a crazy woman waiting for him. It was no good. She had to get out.

  Mercy bolted for the door and nearly went sprawling as she stumbled over an object in the darkness. Her scrambling hands encountered a long wooden object and instinctively closed around it. It was a length of wood that was surprisingly round in shape.

  Rising to her feet, Mercy headed once more for the door. She clung to the wooden stick as she let herself outside into the shadows. It wasn’t much, but the stick gave her a feeling of being armed, albeit poorly.

  She felt a little better outside in the open. Lately she seemed to be developing a sizable case of claustrophobia. First it was the fear of being locked in Gladstone’s vault, and then those nightmare images of a dead man inside the old cabin a few minutes before. Hanging around Croft was proving uncomfortably stimulating to her imagination. His streak of melodrama was definitely starting to rub off on her.

  Mercy made her way cautiously along the wall of the gutted structure in which she had been hiding, keeping the building between herself and the view of the road. Α faint gurgling sound warned her of the small creek a few seconds before she would have stumbled into it. Glancing down she could see the dark swath of water. It would have been bitterly cold. That made her think about Croft running around in the chilled night without his boots.

  Overhead the wind sighed in the treetops, an eerie, desolate sound. She hated that whispering cry, Mercy thought. It was the epitome of loneliness and isolation. Just like Croft. He was out there somewhere, the burden of protecting her and himself resting squarely on his shoulders. She knew instinctively that he was accustomed to facing this kind of thing alone. He probably wouldn’t appreciate help from an amateur.

  But he was in a seriously weakened condition. He needed her help. She had as big a stake in the outcome of this night’s work as he did. Mercy was convinced now that both she and Croft were fighting for their lives.

  The shot, when it came a moment later, crackled through the night, startling Mercy into realizing just how serious matters had become. She froze, waiting in an agony of suspense for a shout or cry from one of the three men who were hunting each other through the ruins.

  “Over there, damn it. I saw him.” The voice belonged to Lance.

  Mercy closed her eyes and silently told Croft that he couldn’t be dead. She wouldn’t allow it. Then, clutching the stick, she moved away from the shelter of the cabin and edged toward the shadow of the next ruin. More voices drifted toward her. She caught bits and pieces of conversation from Lance and Dallas. The
clear night air carried sound very well.

  “What about the woman?”

  “No problem. We’ll find her later. Falconer is the one we have to worry about. Are you sure you saw him?” Dallas sounded angry and impatient. He also sounded a little worried. Perhaps this business of hunting ghosts at night wasn’t his cup of tea.

  “Something moved.”

  “It could have been anything,” Dallas muttered.

  “He’s not armed. We know that. And he’s fighting that stuff I put in the wine. You saw the condition he was in when the woman pulled him out of the pool. He can’t last much longer. That stuff should have made him pass out by now” Dallas sounded as if he were trying to convince himself.

  “Don’t bet on it. He should have keeled over in the garden and he didn’t. I don’t know how he stayed on his feet. I was lucky to get him into the pool. He almost got me, instead. I’m telling you, Dallas, the guy’s fast and strong.”

  “You should have made sure of that scene in the pool. If you had, we wouldn’t be here now Gladstone’s not happy. Stop worrying about how fast the bastard is. With that stuff still in his system Falconer can’t be anything but dead slow by now.” Lance sounded satisfied with that deduction.

  “I like the sound of that. Dead slow Yeah, that’s what he’s gonna be all right. You want to split up or handle this together?”

  “Let’s split up. We can cover more ground that way. But pay attention if you use the gun. It’s dark and we don’t want any mistakes. Make certain you’re aiming at Falconer or the woman and not me.”

  “Gladstone wants this to look like an accident, remember? We’re supposed to dump them both over the edge of a cliff, not put a bullet in them.”

  “You think the local cops are going to be looking for bullet holes if they find two charred bodies in the wreckage of a burned-out car?” Lance scoffed. “Once they find the fake alcohol in Falconer’s system they won’t ask any more questions.”

  “Yeah, but Gladstone—”

  “Stop worrying about Gladstone. We’ll handle this our own way.”

  Α cold breeze was stirring the branches overhead. The increased moaning of the tree limbs covered whatever response Dallas made to Lance’s comment. Mercy retreated behind another shack and crouched low, trying to listen for footsteps. It would be awkward if she blithely rounded the corner of one of these old buildings and ran straight into Dallas or Lance. Or Croft, for that matter, she added silently. In his present state he could easily mistake her for the enemy before he realized who she was.

  For the first time she realized that was a very real danger. Perhaps she should have stayed in that horrible place Croft had left her.

  The unfortunate second thoughts were shattered by a man’s shout and the rapid firing of two more shots.

  “I got him. Over here, Dallas. I got the bastard.”

  Mercy cringed as heavy, running footsteps came straight down the narrow alley between buildings where she was hiding and passed by. Her first reaction was complete denial. Lance couldn’t have shot Croft. It wasn’t possible. But earlier that evening she would have sworn it was impossible for Croft Falconer to get drunk and wind up facedown in a pool. The man might be part ghost, but he wasn’t completely inhuman.

  Mercy’s second reaction was to follow Lance. If Croft was wounded, she was his only hope. Grabbing her rounded stick, she got shakily to her feet, listening for Dallas, who was calling for his buddy.

  “Lance? Where are you? Are you sure you got him? What about the woman?”

  But there was no answer from Lance. Warily Mercy stepped out into the narrow strip of uneven ground that separated the two rows of shacks.

  There was no exclamation of triumph or anger. No call for help. Nothing. Not a sound except the moaning of the wind. It appeared that Lance had simply run down the aisle between the row of wooden hulks and vanished into the darkness at the far end.

  The looming structures on either side of Mercy seemed abruptly less substantial than they had a few minutes before, once again taking on that aspect that made them seem half in and half out of the real world. Rocky Mountain starlight played unpleasant tricks on the eyes.

  “Lance! Where the hell are you, man?”

  Dallas’s voice sounded from behind Mercy. Automatically she stepped out of the dim starlight back into the dense shadows between two buildings. There was still no response to Dallas’s call.

  “Goddamn it, Lance, what the hell’s going on?”

  There was real fear in the man’s voice now. Mercy recognized it and thought it strange. Dallas was the one with the gun. Interesting that he should be starting to panic. Ghost hunting in Drifter’s Creek was not turning out to be the sporting game he had originally thought it would be, apparently.

  There was a hesitant footstep nearby and then the crashing sound of a sagging door being thrown open. Dallas was on the broken porch of the building to Mercy’s right. The flashlight he held cut a jerky path through the darkness. Mercy flinched as he fired into the black shadows of the interior. It occurred to her that Croft was right. She had led a very sheltered life. She had never, for example, heard a gun fired at such close range. It made her ears ring.

  “Shit. Where the hell are you, you bastard?” Dallas spoke in a confused, angry whisper. “Where are you?” It wasn’t clear if he was speaking to his silent partner or talking about Croft.

  Mercy heard his footsteps on the porch and then a thud as rotting wood gave way beneath Dallas’s foot. He swore violently, yanked his foot free from the splintered trap and leaped off the porch.

  His lurching jump took him directly into the narrow path between the shacks where Mercy was hiding. His flashlight picked her out immediately.

  For a split second Dallas simply stared at her. “Goddamn bitch.” And the hand holding the gun came up in a swift, smooth arc.

  But Mercy was already moving, closing her eyes against the blinding glare of the light and running straight at him. She held the stick in both hands as if it were a sword aimed at his chest.

  There was a muffled thud and a furious gasp as Mercy found her target. Dallas flailed awkwardly, staggering backward as he lost his balance under the impact. The gun in his hand went off and Mercy thought that this time she would lose her hearing, the sound was so close and so loud.

  Without any warning Croft was there, materializing in the alley behind Dallas as the other man floundered in an effort to keep his balance. Dallas seemed to sense that he suddenly had another enemy in the small space besides Mercy. He swung around awkwardly, trying to bring the nose of the gun up to aim at Croft, but it was too late. Croft was already reaching out for him.

  Mercy was watching the whole thing, but later she couldn’t describe what happened. One instant the man in front of her was trying to aim a gun at Croft, the next Dallas was lying in an unconscious sprawl on the cold ground.

  Croft stood quietly, his bare feet slightly spread in a balanced stance, his hands at his side. He glanced down at the man on the ground and then looked at Mercy.

  “Are you all right?” Croft asked, his words unnaturally even.

  Mercy gasped for breath and nodded, staring at him. “What about you?”

  “It’s cold out here.”

  He appeared vaguely surprised, as if he were noticing the mountain chill for the first time. Mercy glanced down at his bare feet.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s cold.” But the shiver that went through her had nothing to do with the mountain air.

  “You should have stayed in that shack where I left you.” There was no masculine outrage or chiding complaint in the words, no male fury over disobeyed orders. There was no emotion whatsoever. There was only perfect calm.

  Mercy wasn’t sure how to respond. She wasn’t being chastised, so there was no reason to launch into a passionate self-defense, although that was her first instinct. She wanted to
scream at Croft in an effort to break through the unnatural serenity that gripped him. She wanted to throw herself into his arms and be soothed and comforted while she offered soothing comfort in return. She wanted to hear him chew her out for having disobeyed his orders so she could have the release of yelling back at him.

  The potent cocktail created in her bloodstream by the aftermath of violence was causing her to tremble with reaction. She wanted to seize Croft and shake him while she pointed out that although this might be a normal occurrence for him, it certainly was not for her. She craved some sort of emotional explosion, needed it to use up the nervous energy flooding her system.

  But one look at Croft’s remote, too-serene expression was enough to keep Mercy still. Somehow it seemed futile to use emotion of any kind as a weapon against such an impregnable fortress of self-contained isolation. She hardly knew this man.

  Croft went down on one knee beside the unconscious Dallas. He started going through his victim’s pockets. The process was a curiously detached one, methodical and totally without emotion.

  “I think we’d better get out of here,” Mercy offered tentatively She found herself groping helplessly for words as she tried to communicate with the stranger in front of her.

  “Yes,” he agreed, pulling Dallas’s wallet out of a back pocket. He flipped it open.

  “What are you looking for?” Mercy whispered.

  Croft didn’t bother to respond. He was slipping a credit card out of its plastic envelope. He picked up the flashlight and used it to glance at the name on the card.

  “Well, I’m glad to know you have some normal human limitations,” Mercy heard herself mutter before she stopped to think. “I was beginning to think you might even be able to read in the dark.”