Jonas shrugged. "The more I considered it, the more it seems to me that there's no more in that computer than what we've already found."
Emma couldn't help speaking up then. "Come on, you guys. Don't give up yet. You never know. We still might find something."
Jonas sent her a tender, indulgent look. "Emma, it's not very damn likely."
"Maybe it's not. But do you mind if I stick with a positive attitude?"
"Be my guest. Tomorrow, we'll look through the rest of the house and that shed. And then on Thursday, I think it's time we turned over what we've got to the authorities. Let them do whatever they're willing to do at this point."
* * *
They went to bed at a little after eleven. Jonas didn't complain of his headache, but Emma could see it was bothering him. The skin beneath his eyes looked more bruised than ever. She asked him if he'd taken anything for it. He told her not to worry, that he was fine.
She knew very well that he was not fine.
And she also knew it wouldn't help to keep nagging him about it. She pressed her lips together to keep from fussing over him any more than she already had, turned off the light and tucked herself up against him, spoon-fashion. He nuzzled her ear affectionately and she rubbed her foot down the front of his hairy leg, sighed at the feel of his warm breath in her hair.
She thought of how they had teased each other earlier, the little challenge he'd thrown out, that he'd like to see her try making love without doing any shouting. But that had been before they'd spent the afternoon in Blake's dingy office, seeking some little hint that might lead them to Russell – and finding nothing at all.
She could not even imagine what it must be like for him. To get his hopes up after all these years. And to have to live through the death of those hopes all over again.
It wasn't easy, when a person learned to open up. Being opened up meant you were more likely to get hurt.
Emma did understand that. There was a price, for openness. It was called pain.
But then, as Aunt Cass used to say, You also get joy and love and tenderness. Only people who open their hearts get those things.
Jonas's arm lay across her waist. She took his hand, twined her fingers in his and pressed their joined hands close to her heart. He slid a leg between her legs, pulled her in closer against his body.
Emma closed her eyes. The day had been a long one. And she was very tired…
* * *
Jonas lay awake, listening as the sound of Emma's breathing became shallow and slow, feeling her fingers go lax in his. Good. At least one of them would get a little damn sleep.
His head felt as if someone had turned a demon loose in there – a sadistic little devil with a ball peen hammer and a yen to batter his way right out of Jonas's skull.
It hurt.
But not as much as the thought that they probably weren't going to find Russell, after all. Not by themselves, anyway – and most likely not even with the help of the authorities.
They were out of their depth with this. They should have turned it all over to the police yesterday, right after Marsh gave him the scrapbook and the diamonds. Hell. They might even have destroyed evidence, poking around in Blake's things, though he doubted it. Everything they'd touched today was thirty years and half a continent removed from what had happened to his brother. But still. It was a possibility.
And it was also water over the dam, at this point. They had done what they had done – and tomorrow, they would do more. Because somewhere deep inside him, hope still burned, a pinpoint of golden light that wouldn't give up, though he knew it was bound, in the end, to be swallowed by the looming shadow of disappointment.
Jonas closed his eyes. He breathed in the sweet scent of the woman in his arms, took what comfort he could from the warmth of her body, the tender feel of her fingers in his, the twin swells of her breasts pressing soft and full against his forearm.
His headache faded a little. He closed his eyes with a long sigh. Sleep came creeping over him, light as a mist or a shadow not quite seen, so that he hardly knew he had slipped the moorings of consciousness and drifted out into the dark sea that was the dream.
* * *
Chapter 19
«^»
One moment Jonas lay in the guest room of his cousin's house, with Emma in his arms.
And the next moment, he was home. At Angel's Crest. Home in his bedroom, with the moon shining through the tall palm trees outside making funny, scary shadows against the walls. Like big fish fins, or strange arms, the shadows of the palm branches…
He was awake, though he knew he had been asleep just a moment ago. He looked at the glowing dial of the Mickey Mouse clock by his bed. Mickey's long arm was on the one and his short arm pointed at the two. That meant two o'clock. Five minutes after two o'clock.
Yeah. That was right. Very late. Too late to be awake.
"Go back to sleep, young man," his daddy would say, if he knew that Jonas had opened his eyes.
And his mom would shake her head. "Jonas, darling. It's the middle of the night…"
He closed his eyes. He was going to go back to sleep. He really was.
But then he remembered.
His eyes popped open again.
He knew what had woken him up. His new red truck, the fire engine truck that made a siren sound when the wheels turned and had a working ladder that could stand up and pull out, get longer so the firemen could save people from burning buildings and rescue scared cats trapped in tall trees…
His new red truck was in Russy's room. Under Russy's crib. He'd left it there yesterday, when he was playing in Russy's room and he'd revved it up and let it go and it rolled right under the crib. And then Paloma, his nanny, who was also Russy's nanny now, had said he could hold Russy.
Jonas really liked that, sitting in the rocking chair and holding Russy, who was just a tiny baby, only three months old. It made Jonas feel very big and grown-up.
So he'd sat in the rocker and Paloma gave him Russy. He was very careful. Very gentle. He rocked only a little and he looked down at Russy's pink face and his little baby mouth and he whispered, "You are my brother and when you get a little older I will teach you how to write your name and how to tell what time it is…"
Jonas liked having a brother. He liked it a lot. He wanted more brothers. And even maybe a sister, too. Their house was a very big house and it would take a lot of kids to fill it up. Jonas would always be the oldest, though. The first one. He would be a big brother. And he would take care of the littler ones.
This always pleased him, to think of himself as the oldest of a whole bunch of Bravo kids. It made him feel proud and big and real good about himself.
That was probably it, why he went and forgot the red fire truck. He was too busy thinking about being a big brother. And then his mom came and told him to go and wash his hands for dinner.
"Let's have that little sweetheart." She'd bent over him, smelling so good, like she always did. She kissed him – just touched her soft lips to his cheek – and at the same time scooped Russy right up into her arms. Russy made one of those googly, smiley sounds. Jonas's mom had laughed. "Oh, you are a happy boy." She looked at Jonas, her face all soft. "Go on now, wash your hands." Her words told him what to do, but her voice said that she loved him so much.
"Mom. You love me, don't you?"
"I certainly do."
"That's good. 'Cause I love you, too."
He had slid off the rocker and gone to wash for dinner.
And he had forgotten all about the red truck.
Until now. Until five minutes after two in the middle of the night.
He should go back to sleep. He knew that. He could get it later. After the sun came out, at a time when a boy was supposed to be awake.
But it just bothered him. He wanted that truck.
Jonas sat up in bed. The wind was blowing outside a little, moving the tree branches so that the shadows waved at him from the wall of his room. He decided not to lo
ok at them. Not to think about how late it was and how dark and if there was such a thing as a creature in the closet or a monster under the bed, well, this would be the right time for something like that to be awake and looking for a kid to grab and carry away somewhere, wherever monsters came from, the dark places, the scary places, where a kid would never see his mom or dad again.
Stop thinking about monsters, he told himself silently. There are no monsters. No creatures in the closet. No such thing. Not in real life. Uh-uh. Nosiree.
Jonas pushed back the covers and swung his bare feet to the floor.
Slippers. He thought about slippers and then decided to skip them. He could tiptoe a lot better without them, and he did want to be quiet when he went into Russy's room. He didn't want to wake up the baby – or Paloma, who slept in the room on the other side of Russy's. If he woke Russy, Russy might cry. And if he woke up Paloma, or if Russy's crying woke her up, he might get in trouble.
He wasn't sure about that, about the trouble part. He hadn't exactly done this kind of thing before, so he'd never been told that it was a wrong thing to do, sneaking into Russy's room in the middle of the night.
He'd never been told it was wrong. But he thought maybe it might be. So he decided it would be better if he just kept real quiet, snuck in, got his red truck and snuck back to his bed. No one would ever have to know, and the getting in trouble part wouldn't even have a chance to happen.
Careful not to look at the swaying shadows on the wall, Jonas tiptoed to the door that opened onto the hallway. He wrapped his hand around the doorknob and turned it, very carefully. The door gave inward as he pulled on it. It didn't make a single sound. He stepped out into the hall, onto the hall rug, which had pictures of leaves and flowers all over it, though right then, in the dark, the leaves and flowers were hard to see. They looked a little like snakes in the dark, snakes in the rug, wiggling and wrapping all around each other, snakes that might come alive in the rug, come alive and curl around his ankles, slither up his legs and—
No. Stop. No scary thoughts.
The rug was just the rug. It had flowers and leaves on it and he wasn't even going to look at it anymore right now.
There were small lamps on the walls, with lightbulbs shaped like candle flames at the top of them. But they didn't help any, because they were all turned off. The only light came from either end of the hall, silvery moonlight glowing in the high windows there. It wasn't much, but it was enough that Jonas could see where he was going.
Very quietly, keeping to the middle of the rug where he imagined he'd be less likely to cause any creaking sounds, he moved down the dark hall toward his baby brother's bedroom. It wasn't far. There was his room and then the big playroom where he kept most of his toys, and where there was also a table for studying. He was old enough now that he had to study sometimes. He was "very bright." His mother said so and his teachers did, too. Most people, when they were six, were in first grade. But he was studying some things that a lot of kids learned in third.
And someday, he and Russy would share the playroom. And when his other brothers came, and his sister, they would share it, too.
Sharing, he thought. That would be another thing that he would have to teach them. Little kids needed to learn how to share. He would say things like, "This is my red truck. If you promise not to break it, you can play with it, too." Jonas smiled to himself, pleased to think what a good big brother he would be, how he would—
He blinked. And his plans for his future as a big brother flew right out of his head. Something wasn't right. His brother's door was open. There was a shadow of emptiness, the darkness of Russy's room, where the closed door should have been.
Well, and that was okay. Wasn't it?
He wasn't sure. For some reason, it didn't feel very okay.
He thought he could hear noises in there, in Russy's dark room – rustling noises, noises that spoke of secrets and of hurrying. The kind of noises the monster under the bed might make – or the creature from the closet.
He tiptoed closer. Then, without even really deciding to do it, he stepped toward the wall and flattened himself against it, right next to the dark hole that was the doorway to Russy's room.
More rustling. Something fell to the floor – one of Russy's rattles. Jonas recognized the sound it made.
As the rattle dropped, a man whispered in a voice that sounded like a snake hissing, "Damn you, Lorraine. Quiet."
Jonas shrank against the wall, biting his lip to hold back a whimper. There were no monsters in his brother's room. There were strangers in there.
Jonas wanted to turn and race away down the hall. He wanted to hide, somewhere safe, where the man with the snake-hiss voice could never find him. And he wanted to get his daddy. To get his daddy to protect him. Protect him and Russy from the strangers in Russy's room.
But his daddy and mommy were sleeping two long hallways away. It would take him forever to get there. By then, the strangers could be gone. By then, they might have hurt Russy. They might—
His mind seemed to freeze up. And his body moved kind of all by itself. His foot just stepped out and he turned around. All of a sudden, he was standing right in the open doorway to Russy's room.
He saw the two strangers. They both wore clothes as black as night, clothes that covered them all over, so hardly any skin was showing. And black stocking hats, the kind Jonas's mother had made him wear last winter when they went to the snow, the kind that pulled down all the way over their faces and had cutout places for their mouths and their eyes.
One of the strangers had Russy. It was a lady, that stranger. He knew that. She was shaped like a lady – and the man with the snake-hiss voice had called her a lady's name: Lorraine.
The other one, the man, saw him first. The man had scary eyes. He looked at Jonas and Jonas looked at him.
And Jonas wanted, again, more than just about anything, to turn and run away.
In order not to do that, he ran forward – he ran straight at the man with the terrible eyes. He jumped on him, he shouted, "No!" He would have shouted a lot more, but the scary-eyed man clamped a hand over his mouth.
"My God, Blake…" whispered the woman.
"Shut up," the man hissed.
Jonas kicked and tried to hit and even bite the bad man who was holding him. But the bad man had gloves on his hands and he cupped his palm in such a way that Jonas couldn't get his teeth in it. And he was strong, the bad man.
"We'll have to take them both," the bad man whispered, as Jonas continued to kick and wiggle and squirm.
"No way," whispered the lady. "A baby's one thing, but a kid…"
"Then what do you suggest?"
"I don't… Oh, God. I don't know…"
"If we don't take him…" The bad man got Jonas around the throat. He started squeezing. Jonas sucked for air, he grabbed the bad man's gloved fingers, tried to pull them free.
The lady went on whispering, a whisper so scared it was like someone screaming, "No! Don't. You can't. He's a child…"
Little lights seemed to dance and pop inside Jonas's head. He couldn't get any breath in his mouth and his throat was shut off, closed tight by the squeezing hands of the bad man. He was dizzy and he wanted to keep fighting, but his body was getting strange and heavy and Russy's room was starting to go away.
Now the man was holding him with just one hand, holding him around the neck, off the ground. And he felt so limp and weak. He was supposed to help his brother. But he wasn't helping. He wasn't helping at all.
The bad man reached behind him, pulled out something he'd had tucked in the back of his belt. Jonas stared. A gun. A black gun. The bad man was going to shoot him. Jonas looked right in the bad man's terrible eyes – and remembered.
The pictures. The pictures on the table in the front room downstairs, and the ones on the piano in the music room. The man in the pictures who had the bad man's eyes.
"Who is that, Mommy?"
And Mommy's voice, sad and serious, "That's y
our uncle Blake, my darling. He passed away a while ago…"
Passed away. Jonas knew what that meant. His uncle Blake was dead.
Or he was supposed to be dead.
Passed away. Gone to heaven – or maybe, if he'd been as bad as the look in his eyes, to the other place.
So why was he here in Russy's room? Why was he stealing Russy? Strangling Jonas? Going to shoot him with a big black gun?
Jonas hung there in that powerful gloved hand, held by his neck, waiting for the shot. It never came. His dead uncle only brought the gun down hard on the side of Jonas's head. Little stars seemed to wink bright and burst all around him.
And then there was nothing.
* * *
It was dark when he opened his eyes. The room was very quiet. He wasn't sure where he was.
But then he recognized the legs of his brother's crib. And a shadow beneath it, a shadow of red.
"My red truck…" he whispered to the silent room. It hurt, doing that. Whispering.
What was he doing here, in Russy's room? He didn't remember. His head was hurting and his throat was very sore.
He put his hands flat on the floor, to push himself up. But it was no good. His hands wouldn't push.
He laid his head down with a sigh and the world went away again.
* * *
He woke seconds later – in the bed in his cousin's house in Norman, Oklahoma, the sweet warmth that was Emma close at his side.
For a time, he didn't move. He lay there on his back, staring into the darkness at the shadowed shape of the ceiling fan overhead. His headache was gone.
Emma sighed and snuggled closer, her arm sliding over to wrap around his chest. He should probably let her sleep.
But then again, he would go stark, raving mad if he didn't tell her everything immediately.
"Emma?" He turned on his side, cupped her nape and nuzzled his nose against hers.
"Umm? Jonas?" She smiled and she yawned.
He waited, watching her, as she came fully awake. Those green eyes met his. "What?" She blinked. "Somethin' has happened…"
THE BRAVO BILLIONAIRE Page 19