The Last Night (The Last Series Book 2)

by Harvey Church

  When Ethan came to the first “driveway” that meandered through the trees, he turned and followed it deeper into the forest. As with the gravel road, he stuck to the inside of the trees, staying out of sight. But when he reached the end of the driveway, he noticed that this place—just as large as the log McCabin, except this one was brick, two floors, and looked more like something he might find neighboring Lisa Hyatt’s estate than the backwoods of Michigan—was unoccupied.

  He stepped up to one of the front windows and noticed the covered furniture inside. Everything had been turned off. When he walked around to the back of the cottage, he glanced through the sliding door to the kitchen area. The stove, he saw, had a clock but its display window was blank. Without question, this place had been shuttered for the season by its owners.

  And definitely no sign of Raleigh.

  Ethan noticed the water at the end of the property, down a slight slope that led to a dock and an elaborate boathouse. The lake wasn’t huge, just big enough for waterskiing and recreational fishing. And it was private, secluded, the kind of exclusivity that the dozen or so cabins along this dirt road would have paid a premium to enjoy.

  Across the lake, he spotted a few more docks and boathouses, which suggested another gravel road existed to take the owners of those “cabins” to their property.

  Instead of walking back through the property and continuing along the gravel road, Ethan decided to hike along the waterline. In some areas, the land rolled up, offering Ethan a spectacular view of the private lake as the sun slowly lowered itself behind the tree line.

  The next property was a little different. For starters, he noticed an aluminum boat in the water, a Mercury outboard engine on the back. He wasn’t sure what was inside the large boathouse, but there was a rooftop deck with a couple of hammocks and a patio set.

  Seeing that the boat and patio furniture were still out in plain view, it was easy for Ethan to deduce that this property’s owner was still around.

  Ethan’s eyes followed the boardwalk-style decking and stairs all the way up the sloping hill to an elaborate A-frame cottage.

  Lots of glass, a ton of lights on inside.

  Still no sign of Raleigh, but from the dock, at that distance, he couldn’t see if anyone was even inside the well-lit cottage. And so he backed into the trees and hiked through the thick forest, all the way up to the property. Safely behind the trees, he had a better view of the cabin. Just a dozen yards away, and if he took a few steps closer, he could even make out movement inside. A few more steps closer, and he would be exposed, but he took that chance, and that was when he froze.

  The Cherokee he’d seen in Boyle Mills was parked at the front of the A-frame, just inside the open door of the three-car garage. The two other garage doors were closed but, at this angle, he saw there was another vehicle inside the middle bay. With the sun behind the trees now, and not much light pollution spilling from the A-frame’s front windows, he couldn’t identify the make of that second vehicle, or whether a third one occupied the farthest bay.

  But at least one more person is inside that cabin.

  There was another outbuilding in the front yard, across from the triple-bay garage, something a parent might build for her child. It looked like a miniature version of the A-frame. A shed, perhaps. Except bigger, large enough to park another vehicle.

  Maybe it’s a guest cabin.

  Possible.

  Unable to see inside the A-frame at that angle, Ethan took a chance and emerged from the trees at the front of the property. Crouching forward, he hurried across the front walkway to the other side. As he slipped into the trees on that side of the property, he let out a tense breath. Anyone standing at the front door would have seen him or, at the very least, his shadow.

  Stupid risk.

  He walked deeper into the forest, putting enough distance and trees between him and the A-frame that he couldn’t even see it anymore. And then he waited for the deep darkness of night to settle over the area.

  Once that happened, he would make his move.

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Now that it was darker, Ethan had to use his arms to reach for the nearest trees. He tiptoed carefully through the forest to the back of the property, edging out from the protective shadows and giving himself an unobstructed view of the A-frame. Whenever he exhaled, he could see his breath, but the rest of his body didn’t register the chilled temperature, not with all of the adrenaline. From his vantage point, he could see what was going on inside the A-frame. Lowering himself onto a knee to remain camouflaged by the heavy darkness, Ethan saw her.

  His chest tightened at the sight of his wife after all of these years.

  With tears pooling in his eyes, Ethan watched Raleigh in the kitchen, moving behind the large counter with stools set up along its length—she’d always loved their big breakfast bar at 121 Cobalt, eating there every morning while reading the Chicago Trib or one of the trade magazines she brought home from work.

  It made sense to Ethan that she would settle for a home like the A-frame, one with a vast breakfast bar overlooking the now-still lake, instead of a box-sized backyard that faced a tight alleyway and the neighbors’ yards on the other side. This property was private. Secluded. Beautiful.

  Based on the way she moved, Raleigh had no idea that he’d followed her. She clearly had no idea that he was watching her, not yet anyway. But she would know, he assured himself. The same way his chest had tightened at the sight of her moving clean dishes from the dishwasher on the other side of that counter, Ethan knew that Raleigh would experience some sort of physiological response to his closeness as well. They were like magnets, he understood, and even at a distance like this one, once they were close enough, magnets felt compelled toward each other.

  Yes, he and Raleigh were exactly like that, even if the one magnet had run off with a wealthier one.

  I know you still love me, Raleigh.

  Shifting from one knee to the next, Ethan looked up and saw that Raleigh’s attention had shifted. Inside that A-frame, she stared out toward the lake, her gaze shooting a few feet wide of where Ethan knelt next to a large tree.

  She seemed distracted by something.

  Magnets…

  Ethan turned his head to see if there was indeed something else outside with him, but when he looked in the same direction as Raleigh, all he saw was the darkness of night. Returning his attention to Raleigh, he saw that she’d resumed cleaning the counter. She wiped a rag across the surface—she’d always been something of a neat freak—and then tossed that rag at the sink the same way a basketball pro would take a shot from the three-point line.

  When Raleigh missed, she raised her hands to her head, overly dramatic in that beautiful and charming way of hers. In the quiet darkness, Ethan stifled a chuckle, feeling the moisture in his eyes, the heaviness turning to tears.

  I’ve missed you. So much.

  Raleigh walked to the sink, draped the rag over the faucet so that it could dry, and then wiped her hands on a dishtowel. She walked toward him, it seemed, coming right up to the glass and staring outside again. Except this time, her focus came closer to him. He could tell from her eyes that she was staring at something on the other side of him now.

  Ethan followed her line of sight.

  All he saw was shadows. More trees and, beyond that, complete and utter darkness. Turning his attention back, he found she was still staring out at him. Her eyes. Her mouth—oh, how he wanted to feel those lips against his again.

  And then Raleigh frowned. She looked worried, as if she recognized danger in whatever shadow she was staring at, the same shadow that Ethan couldn’t see.

  She did something at that point that surprised Ethan. Her lips moved. She seemed to say, “I still love you.”

  Although Ethan couldn’t hear her voice through the glass—oh, how he’d missed her voice, wished he’d kept one of her voicemails, anything because that was the one gap that all of the photos and memories couldn’t fill, the s
ound of her sweet and perfect voice—he was able to read her lips. “So much.”

  “I still love you so much, too,” he said before making his big mistake. In the darkness, Ethan rose from his crouched position next to the tree, and that was when Raleigh screamed.

  Suddenly, Ethan felt the unmistakable, cold muzzle of a shotgun press to the side of his head, but not for long. When the man on the other side of that gun cocked it, the only thing Ethan could feel was betrayal.

  “Looks like you didn’t get the message,” a man said, sighing in the darkness.

  Raising his hands in surrender, Ethan closed his eyes. He knew what had happened to Paul Hyatt and Thomas Braun. Was this man—Maltby?—responsible for their deaths? Or was he Damien Parker?

  Or is he both?

  Gulping, Ethan gave a solid nod. “I got the message. I just wanted to see her. One last time.”

  “Yeah?”

  The cold metal left the side of his skull, but in that instant when Ethan felt relieved and turned his attention to thank the man for sparing his life, all he saw was a wild flash of light and pain, heavy and sharp agony, before everything went black.

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  He’d fought death. Even though Ethan couldn’t remember what had happened after the flash of light and pain, he remembered thinking that he’d been spared, that he wasn’t going to die, not now that he’d come so close to rescuing his wife.

  But the pain that resonated in his head like a pounding drum made him wish for death. He wanted to scream. He felt dizzy and sick to his stomach and even with the thumping agony that seemed to manifest itself as darkness and light in his vision, he wanted to just die and make it all go away.

  Not now.

  Not ever.

  When Ethan finally managed to force his eyes open against the pulsating aches, he saw nothing but shadows.

  There’s something over my head, a pillowcase or canvas bag, something light and semi-see-through. Because there’s a light, overhead. A long one like in an old classroom, fluorescent white and it hurts like a knife being rammed into my eyes, but I’m alive, and I’m going to see Raleigh again and . . .

  And his hands were tied or secured behind his back, linked in such a way that they were somehow attached to the solid chair where he sat. Tapping his foot—where are my shoes?—he felt wood snag the pads of his stocks. Not polished hardwood, nothing that belonged inside a house, but a rough and unfinished kind that belonged on a deck.

  Or a boathouse. I’m inside the boathouse with the rooftop patio.

  “Are you awake, asshole?”

  Ethan didn’t recognize the voice. But it was raw, rough, and somehow reminded him of Agent Mike Klein of the FBI.

  This isn’t Klein, can’t be.

  But this guy had the same type of voice.

  “I just wanted to see my wife.”

  The man laughed. He wasn’t genuinely amused by the comment, even Ethan could deduce that.

  “I want to see Raleigh.”

  “Who’s ‘Raleigh?’” the man asked.

  What? “The woman at the window.”

  Ethan heard footsteps approaching on the rough wood floor behind him. A second later, he felt the maniac’s voice corkscrew into his ear, his breath stinging his jaw through the pillowcase or canvas bag over his head.

  “There’s no woman here,” the maniac whispered, and then grunted as he swung a closed fist or something else hard and unforgiving against the side of Ethan’s face. The assault sparked another flash of light, and then a deep pain cut along the entire side of his body before settling into an agonizing and deep throb.

  Ethan knew it was the same side where the man had struck him earlier—he didn’t shoot me, he swung the butt-end of his gun against my face, though, and that hurt a helluva lot.

  “But I saw her,” Ethan insisted, trying to speak louder than the pain in his head. “I saw her.”

  “You saw . . .” the man struck him again, “nothing. You saw nothing.” Another substantial blow to the side of his face.

  Ethan was just too dizzy now. He kept his face lowered, hoping to fool the maniac into thinking he’d lost consciousness, because maybe he’d leave him alone then. Maybe.

  But he didn’t.

  My foot is still bouncing on the deck wood, and I can’t stop it.

  The footsteps circled around to the front of Ethan. The man’s figure felt cold as it settled over Ethan, shielding him from part of that long line of fluorescent lighting above him.

  Dark and intimidating, the man stood directly in front of Ethan. And then he waited.

  The silence became too much for Ethan, so he raised his head, and that was when the man took another swing at his face. This time, the dizziness morphed into a sprinkling of lights—stars, I’m seeing stars—and then Ethan didn’t have to fake losing consciousness anymore.

  Chapter Sixty-Four

  Just as the maniac’s beating had put him to sleep, the next onslaught woke him. This time, the blows hit Ethan’s chest, jolting him awake and causing his chair to topple backwards. He didn’t realize what was happening until his head hit the floor and the man pulled him back into an upright position. With the taste of blood in his mouth and the canvas bag, or whatever it was, over his head, Ethan watched the maniac’s shadow circle around to the front of him.

  “Why are you doing this?” Ethan asked, his voice cracking and full of anxiety, but at least it cut through the pulsating pain that made him think his brain was inside an unbalanced clothes dryer—thump-thump-whomp, thump-thump-whomp.

  If Raleigh wasn’t there, then he’d hallucinated the image of her at the glass, the words “I still love you . . . so much,” on her silent slips, the whole thing, and Ethan was just another man who’d wandered onto private property, a stray hiker looking for his dog. It didn’t quite justify this kind of beating, did it?

  Because Raleigh’s here. And this maniac wants me gone, once and for all.

  The shadow moved in such a way that Ethan was able to brace for the impact of the next blow, but it still hurt. And this time, because he’d been expecting it, his chair didn’t topple over.

  “She’s here,” Ethan said, grunting. “I know she is.”

  Another blow and Ethan gasped for air.

  “Now, I know.” Because if she hadn’t been there, Ethan would have been sent along his merry way, not knocked out and then dragged into whatever torture chamber this boathouse was meant to be.

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The next time the man hit him, Ethan felt his nose break, the brittle bone shattering and causing tears in his eyes, followed by an awful feeling in his sinus cavity that left him feeling like he needed to sneeze and scream at the same time.

  “You should’ve just gone about your life, asshole.”

  Another blow to the face. The world began to spin.

  Before the fist plowed into his face next, Ethan managed a nasal-sounding, “I just wanted to see her. See for myself.”

  And then the maniac’s fist connected with his already broken nose.

  The lights went out.

  Chapter Sixty-Five

  When Ethan opened his eyes, it was dark. The overhead lights were out, and the pillowcase or bag over his head had been removed, allowing his broken nose and split lip to bleed out into his lap. His crotch was soaked a deep, dark red mess of dried blood.

  My head isn’t pounding anymore. As if the clothes dryer’s cycle had reached its end.

  Lifting his attention against the sharp pain in his neck—it ached the way it would if he’d slept awkwardly, which he supposed he had—he noticed that he was indeed inside a boathouse. He could make out the bright moon through the old, dusty and ratty blinds on a window next to him.

  There was a roll-up door directly in front of him, like a garage door, no windows. This was where they stored their boat in the winter, a single bay that kept the boat safe from the elements.

  Turning his attention as far to the left
as he could, Ethan saw the window again. Its blinds were closed, with a slim blade of moonlight cutting into the darkness. He knew there was a full, bright moon somewhere in the sky outside that window, beaming down on the lake.

  There was another door next to that window, a regular one, the top half of it frosted glass. It was tough to turn his head far enough to see the door, so Ethan tried to swivel his body to get a better view, but the pain flared up. Not wanting the throbbing to return, he faced forward to ease the pain.

  Not much to see out of that window anyway, but the small amount of moonlight pouring in through the blinds provided just enough lighting for him to study his immediate surroundings.

  Inside that dark storage room, he made out loungers, a pile of water noodles and other floating devices stacked in a heap in the corner. Along the other wall, there were no windows, just hooks and other shelving that allowed Raleigh to organize her tools, marine engine oil, a windsurfing board and sail, paddles, a kayak, jerry cans of fuel, anchors, and other stuff. In the winter, this room was clearly used to store all of the summer items, and its current mess explained why the boat hadn’t been lifted out of the water just yet.

  Taking a deep breath, Ethan assessed his compromised position. Looking down at the metallic arms of the chair, he deduced that it must belong to the patio set he’d seen on the boathouse’s rooftop deck. That deck was upstairs, he realized as he tilted his head back and noticed the idle fluorescent lighting that ran the length of the ceiling, hanging by a heavy chain. He also made out electrical cords, the outdoor kind with the metal sheathing along the ceiling.