Someone else’s face stared back at me.
I spun around, my hands clenched into fists, ready to defend myself as my heart pounded in my chest and adrenaline flooded my system.
My own eyes, wide and frightened, stared back at me from the surface of the mirror.
There was nothing, and no one, else there.
Just my reflection.
“You’re seeing things, Hunt,” I said aloud, trying to reassure myself, but my voice sounded hollow against the backdrop of the running water.
I could have sworn the face I’d seen hadn’t been my own. My years hunting my daughter, Elizabeth, had given me a lean, wiry look, never mind an upper body covered in tattoos. The face I’d seen had been wider, and darker, than my own. I think it was the eyes that caught my attention though; it’s hard to miss the pale whiteness of my orbs, but the eyes I had seen had been dark and full of a kind of crackling intensity that had shocked me to the core.
And yet … I had to have imagined it.
What else could it have been but that?
Well aware of what stress can do to a person, I shook my head to clear it of the crazy notion and stepped into the shower, convinced the hot water would turn me into a new man.
A shower and some food, that’s what you need, Hunt.
A shower and some food.
Half an hour later I knew I’d been right. The shower had washed away the grime of the city streets and half a large pizza supreme had eased the hunger pangs in my gut. I felt good, better than I had in days really, and the nonsense of the face in the mirror seemed to be just that—nonsense and nothing more. A result of poor lighting on a barely glimpsed image and a day spent staring at photographs of Jack Bergman and his employer, Michael Durante, though borrowed eyes.
Shaking my head and laughing at my own absurdity, I grabbed another slice of pizza and sat back, trying to figure out my next step. I needed to find Bergman, if he was still alive, that much was clear. Bergman could explain the relationship between Durante and Fuentes, might even be able to tell me what this mysterious Key was and why Fuentes wanted it so badly.
Right now he was my only link to some badly needed answers, and I had to find him before anyone else did.
Unfortunately, I had no idea where I might find the guy, which made setting up a meeting between us rather difficult.
I was going to need some help.
I might not know where Bergman had gone to ground, but I knew someone who most likely did. All I had to do was ask her.
I stood up and moved to the center of the room. I raised my face to the ceiling and extended my arms out to either side, palms up. Closing my eyes, I called out softly.
“Come to me, Whisper. Come to me.”
As I called her name, I pictured her doing what I wanted.
I repeated my request, over and over again, until at last I felt the air pressure in the room change and knew that I was no longer alone.
I opened my eyes, expecting to see Whisper standing nearby, and was surprised to find her standing on the far side of the room, as far away from me as she could get without being in a different room entirely. She was staring at me with an expression that could only be defined as fear.
What the hell?
I hadn’t seen Whisper this edgy, not even the night this had all started, when she’d shown up in my motel room with warnings that “he’s coming.” Rivera and his crew had shown up seconds later, bashing down my door and doing what they could to take me hostage. Only Whisper’s warning had allowed me to fight my way clear and get out of the room. Of course I hadn’t gotten far, but at this point that was like water under the bridge; nothing to be done about it now. I’d come to the conclusion that the “he” Whisper had been referring to was either Rivera or Fuentes, though I supposed it could refer to someone I had yet to meet.
Now there’s a lovely thought.
I shook myself, chasing the negativity away. Focus, Hunt.
“I need your help, Whisper,” I told her now.
She just kept staring at me with eyes wide open and that uneasy look on her face.
I’d never seen her react to me like this before. The first, faint stirring of irritation passed through me.
“Come here, Whisper. I need you to help me, understand?”
Whisper shook her head.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I processed the fact that she’d actually responded to a specific statement, that she’d shown beyond a reasonable doubt that she recognized what I was saying, and felt a thrill of wonder that the two of us were actually communicating directly. That wonder, however, was quickly replaced with irritation as I realized that she was refusing my request.
My temper flared and I could feel my lips curling into a snarl of anger.
“I said get over here!”
The shout echoed in the confined space of the bungalow, leaving no doubt as to who thought they were in charge of the relationship.
What was wrong with me?
I didn’t shout at Whisper. Ever. It was something you just didn’t do; I knew that instinctively. Had known it since the day we’d met. And yet here I was, raising my voice.
Expecting Whisper to vanish at the first sign of confrontation, I was surprised when I looked up again to find her still standing there.
Now, however, she wasn’t alone.
Where Whisper went, Scream was never far behind.
I should have remembered that too.
Scream stood roughly halfway between Whisper and me. He, too, stared at me, with not a fearful but a disgusted expression on his face.
Being in his general vicinity makes most people uncomfortable; being right beside him could make you literally sick with fear. I had never experienced Scream’s aura of terror before—had, in fact, thought I was immune—but as I stood there I was suddenly assaulted with all my worst fears at the same moment. My thoughts were flooded with all the things that haunt my psyche in the deepest dark of the dead of night, the things that no matter how hard I try I can never seem to get away from, and the sensation made me literally take several steps backward, away from my ghostly companions.
If I thought my temper had flared before, it went positively supernova now. I did not like being intimidated, particularly by something as insubstantial as a ghost, and my fury enveloped me with the swiftness of a summer storm rolling in off the plains.
My hand dipped into my pocket and came out again with my harmonica clenched securely in its grip. I’m not sure exactly what I intended to do—control him? banish him?—but thankfully, whatever it was, I didn’t get the chance to see it through. As my harp rose to my lips, Whisper and Scream exchanged a glance between them and then vanished as if they had never been there at all.
I stalked around the room, ranting and raving and doing God knows what all; everything was pretty much a blur after that. I know I broke a few dishes and smashed my foot through the coffee table in an effort to release all the anger that had built up inside me during the confrontation. It must have worked, for eventually I wandered into the bedroom, collapsed on the bed, and fell asleep …
20
… only to find myself behind the wheel of the Charger I don’t know how much later. I was parked by the side of the road, staring across the two lanes of traffic at a three-story motel that looked like a thousand others across the city, including the fleabag place I’d been staying in when Rivera and his crew had found me the week before. It was the kind of place you went to when you needed to lie low and didn’t want to be found for a while.
I had no idea how I came to be there. I didn’t remember getting in the car. I didn’t remember driving there, wherever there actually was.
Had I been sleepwalking?
I’d heard of people doing crazy things while caught in a fugue state somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, but I never thought it would happen to me. I knew I was under a lot of stress, but come on! Driving while asleep? This was ridiculous!
I glanced around, noted that i
t was still dark out.
The clock on the dash said 4:16 a.m., which meant dawn wasn’t all that far away. I wasn’t sure exactly where I was, but figured I’d have a better chance of getting back to Fuentes if I left now than if I hung around waiting to be trapped by the rising sun.
I shook my head to clear it, put one hand on the wheel and the other on the key, intending to start the engine, when my gaze drifted back to the motel across the street.
A blond-haired man was hurrying along the second-floor crosswalk, a bag of groceries in his hands. I only caught a glimpse of his face, but a glimpse was enough.
It was Jack Bergman.
I was positive of it.
My first instinct was to rush across the street, but I stayed were I was, watching him. From here I had a good view of the entire upper floor of the motel and was able to watch as he stopped at the third door from the end, pulled out a key, and, with a wary glance around him, opened the door and slipped inside.
The fleabag motel. The early morning run for groceries before anyone else was awake. The surreptitious glances around him to be sure no one was watching.
This was a man on the run.
But from who? Fuentes?
Or someone I didn’t even know about yet?
Only one way to find out.
I got out of the car, locked it up, and hustled across the street. I figured I had, at best, another half hour of darkness left in which to make my move. After that, it was back to being blind for the day until darkness fell once more.
Hopefully it would be enough time to do what I needed to do.
I had no clue how it had happened, but somehow my subconscious mind must have put two and two together and deduced where Bergman was hiding out. Stranger things had happened, I knew, so I didn’t try to analyze it too much as I hurried across the street and into the motel parking lot.
The room he’d rented was the third from the end, which meant the only window was the big plate glass one in front. That was also the only other exit besides the door, as his unit backed up against the one behind him on the other side of the building. Bergman wouldn’t be expecting anyone at this hour; hell, he probably wasn’t expecting anyone at all. If I could get inside the motel room I was pretty confident that I could get him to listen to me.
Hard and fast, that’s the way it needed to be done, I decided. Explanations could come after I knew he wasn’t going anywhere.
I hurried down the walkway until I reached the room I’d seen him enter. Looking around and not seeing anyone else, I leaned close to the door and listened for a moment.
Nothing.
Hopefully Bergman was alone.
I bent down to where the edge of the building met the surface of the walkway and scooped up a little of the dirt and grime that had gathered there with my finger. Adding a bit of spit, I smeared the guck over the outside surface of the peephole. Bergman wouldn’t be able to see through it now to confirm I was who I said I was.
Satisfied, I stepped to the side and put my back to the wall next to the door. Reaching out with my left hand, I knocked briskly.
A moment passed, then a voice called out from inside.
“Who’s there?”
“Management, sir,” I said, in a clear voice. “You dropped this on your way across the parking lot.”
I heard the chain come off and the bolt thrown back as Bergman unlocked the door. As soon as it started to open I spun around and slammed all my weight against the door, forcing it open and sending Bergman falling backward to the floor.
Had to give him credit, he rolled over and started scrambling for the bathroom on hands and knees even as the door was swinging shut behind me. I let him go, knowing he wasn’t going anywhere once he locked himself inside.
As the click of the lock resonated in my ears, I went around the room, turning off the lights and restoring my ability to see.
I walked over to the bathroom and knocked on the door.
“Hey, Bergman! Come on out of there. All I want to do is talk.”
For a long moment there wasn’t any response and then a querulous voice said, “You’d better leave. I’m calling the police.”
I looked around the motel room, noted the cell phone sitting on the little table next to the bag of groceries he’d just carried in, and grinned.
“That’s fine with me,” I said. “Call away. We can all have a little chat together. I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to come down here, especially when they remember that you’re a material witness in the murder investigation of a mayoral candidate and all around superrich dude. This should be fun.”
I walked over to the table, turned one of the chairs near it around to face the bathroom door, and settled down to wait.
After a couple minutes of silence, his voice came through the door again.
“Are you still there?”
I nearly laughed. “Yes, I’m still here.”
“Who are you? What do you want?”
“My name is Jeremiah and I already told you what I want. I want to talk.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re one of Fuentes’s people, aren’t you?”
Now that was an interesting leap of logic. I frowned. I thought I was the only one who’d been looking for Bergman, but apparently that wasn’t the case. I wondered just what else had been going on behind the scenes that I hadn’t been aware of. Did Fuentes have people out looking for Bergman even now? Had I been followed here?
I stepped over to the window and drew the curtain aside a few inches, looking out into the parking lot below. This early in the morning it was deserted; the cars empty and dark.
Relieved, I turned around, only to find Bergman standing in the doorway of the bathroom, the shower rod held over one shoulder like a baseball bat.
“You’d better leave before I hurt you,” he said. His voice didn’t even shake. Much.
I knew that I wasn’t in any danger; even blind I was confident I could take the guy. But I raised my hands anyway, wanting him to understand I really wasn’t a threat.
“We both know you’re not going to hit me with that thing, so why don’t we sit down and talk? That would be much easier on both of us, don’t you think?”
Apparently, no, he didn’t think so, for he gave a shout and charged right at me!
I waited, timing my move for the moment when he was committed to his own, and as he started to swing the shower rod as if hoping to hit a grand slam with my head as the baseball, I stepped inside the arc of his strike, blocked his forearms with one of my own, and used the other to deliver a sharp blow to his solar plexus.
That was all it took.
Bergman dropped like a stone, fighting to suck air into his temporarily paralyzed lungs.
I kicked the shower rod out of reach, grabbed him by the shoulders, and hefted him up and into the seat I’d vacated earlier.
Then I waited for him to catch his breath.
It took several minutes, and a lot of gasping for air like a fish out of water, but eventually he had control of himself. In between his overeager attempts to get air into his lungs, I tried again.
“Look, Bergman. I told you all I wanted to do was talk and I meant it. Why is that so flipping difficult to understand?”
“Fuentes’s people aren’t exactly known for their conversational talents.”
Touché.
“Well, I’m not one of ‘Fuentes’s people.’ At least, not by choice.”
I gave him a quick rundown of how I’d been blackmailed into working for the man and how the last thing I wanted was for Fuentes to come out on top in anything, including his search for Bergman.
“So this isn’t some elaborate set-up to get me to tell you what I know, only to have you cut my throat and leave my body in the Dumpster out back?”
I stared at him, surprised at the utter deviousness that would be required to think up such a plan.
“Do I look like the kind of guy who…” I started to say and then thought better of it. With my mess
ed up eyes, dyed hair, and esoteric tattoos, yes, I probably did look like the kind of guy who would do something like that.
I sighed. Decided I’d had enough.
“All right, forget about it.” I pointed at the door. “There’s the exit; be my guest.”
He looked at me and then at the door. You could practically see the wheels turning in the guy’s head. Is this just trap? Just a way to get my hopes up and then, when I make a break for it, discover he’s got half a dozen other thugs with him waiting to make my life miserable?
I suddenly felt sorry for him. Just what the hell had he been through?
I thought for sure he was going to make a break for it, but it seemed my offer had the opposite effect. For whatever reason, Bergman seemed to relax and settled back in his chair.
“You mind if we turn on some lights?”
“Actually, I do. Sensitive eyes.”
He seemed to take that in without too much fuss. “Okay if I smoke then?”
I realized then how odd this must seem to him; me sitting out here in the pitch dark while waiting for him to come out of the bathroom. Even now, with just the thin strip of light spilling out of the bathroom door, everything else was still pretty much lost in the shadows.
I nodded my head. Then, in case he couldn’t see me, said, “Be my guest.”
He pulled a crumpled pack out of the front pocket of his shirt and shook out a cigarette, which he placed between his lips but didn’t light.
“Trying to quit, but not quite there yet,” he said, in answer to my unspoken question.
He watched me watching him for a long moment.
“So, Jeremiah, if that’s even your real name,” he said at last. “What is it you want to talk about?”
21
“Durante,” I said, without hesitation. “Or, more specifically, his relationship with Fuentes.”
I thought getting answers out of him was going to be like pulling teeth, but once he started talking he didn’t hold back.
“Relationship? What relationship?” Bergman asked. “The two of them were like gasoline and fire; if you brought them together things were bound to get explosive.”
Watcher of the Dark: A Jeremiah Hunt Supernatual Thriller (The Jeremiah Hunt Chronicle) Page 12