The Last Night (The Last Series Book 2)

by Harvey Church

  The ceiling won’t help me escape. Stop admiring the electrical workmanship and figure out a getaway plan.

  Unable to see what secured his hands together, Ethan angled and stretched his fingers as far as they would go. He remembered reading somewhere that when you lost one of your senses, the others amplified, so he closed his eyes and ran his fingertips along the length of his restraints. He didn’t feel that closing his eyes had improved his sense of touch all that much, but even in his panicked state, he thought the material felt like rope.

  When he pulled his wrists apart, he noticed that those restraints weren’t budging.

  At all.

  I’m not escaping anytime soon.

  He closed his eyes and tried to imagine how he might die. He’d have to convince his captor to bring Raleigh to him.

  That’s all I really wanted. To see Raleigh one last time. Hear her voice. Tell her I’ll never stop loving her.

  Opening his eyes, he decided he should try to stand, but when he leaned forward he discovered that the chair was exceptionally heavy. Made sense; if it was part of the patio set on the rooftop, the furniture pieces needed substance and weight to keep from flying over the railing and into the water anytime the wind picked up.

  I’m really not going anywhere anytime soon.

  Sitting back in the patio chair with the metallic armrests, Ethan considered his options. Based on his experience with his maniac captor thus far, it sure seemed possible that the other man was forceful enough to kidnap his wife and take her away from her happy home. That meant the other man wasn’t Damien Parker. Why would one of the Parker sons, even the black sheep, move here when the whole world was available to him? Wouldn’t kidnapping another man’s wife be a whole lot easier to pull off if you moved them across international borders?

  And if the kidnapper wasn’t Damien Parker, then it meant Raleigh hadn’t run off with him like Ethan had feared.

  Unless, like Agent Klein has been telling me all along, this was never a kidnapping.

  Because if Raleigh had been forced to leave him, forced to accept this life of captivity in the backwoods of northern Michigan, even with a kayak and pool noodles at her disposal, why had she appeared so carefree in the kitchen? As far as Ethan could tell, she hadn’t exactly been chained to the kitchen counter.

  Maybe she’d left on her own terms.

  As the throbbing in his head flared, Ethan looked around for his escape. But with his arms tied up and no give in the rope, he really wasn’t going anywhere. Straining, Ethan tried to force his hand through the loops around his wrists, but it was useless. Those restraints were pulled so tight that he’d have to shave off his thumb and baby finger to get his hands free.

  Of course, that wasn’t going to happen.

  And that was precisely when he felt the hand on his shoulder.

  Chapter Sixty-Six

  Although the sensation of someone standing behind him should have sounded an alarm or aroused fear, the hand on his shoulder calmed him. At first, Ethan questioned whether the sensation was even real, but when he slowly turned his head toward it and saw the long, narrow fingers, the dark polish, he knew.

  Raleigh.

  He’d dreamed of holding those hands every night for the past seven and a half years.

  If that wasn’t enough, he could smell her, the faint but distinct scent that he identified as the woman he’d married and loved his entire life.

  When Raleigh spoke, she whispered so quietly that if he hadn’t recognized her hand on his shoulder or the scent of her perfume, he’d have questioned his sanity. The breath of her voice reached the back of his neck, and he knew he hadn’t imagined that.

  “Stay still.” Even in a quiet whisper, Raleigh’s voice was unmistakable.

  As directed, he stilled. His breathing settled to a level where he could barely sense it slipping past his swollen, split lips. When Raleigh’s hand began to slip off of his shoulder, he tensed. “Don’t—”

  “Shhh,” she hushed, and then he noticed the canvas bag falling over his head again. It became incredibly dark.

  “No.” He wanted to see her. Wanted to look into her eyes and see whether he’d made the right decision to come here, to try and rescue her “Raleigh, why—?”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “None of this was supposed to happen. Now close your eyes. Sleep. You’ll be safe soon.”

  “But—”

  “Ethan, do you trust me?”

  He thought about that question for a moment. He wanted to trust her. His heart was telling him to, the same way any husband’s heart would tell him to trust the woman he loves.

  But logic was warning him.

  He’d trusted her before. He’d loved her and slept next to her every night for all of those years. And when she’d disappeared, he’d looked for her at all of the local hospitals. He’d gone after Chicago EMS, threatened to sue them, claimed a cover-up, a conspiracy that didn’t sit well with the authorities.

  He’d looked everywhere. Hell, he’d even been arrested, he’d nearly gone to jail! Until Paul Hyatt died a few weeks ago, he’d virtually written her off, erased her from his life and accepted the likelihood that she was dead.

  Gone.

  But here she stood, her breath on the back of his neck and her voice in his ears.

  She wasn’t gone.

  She wasn’t dead.

  Raleigh’s alive.

  After all of these years, all of his suffering, she was alive.

  And she wanted him to trust her?

  “Never mind,” she said at last. “Pretend you’re asleep, Ethan, or you’ll hurt a whole lot more.”

  And then he felt something sliding along the side of his leg into his pocket, a sensation that awakened him more than anything else, but he lowered his head like he was told as Raleigh’s hand left his pocket, releasing the telephone.

  What did you do with my phone? he wanted to ask.

  He heard distant footsteps. Not Raleigh’s, but someone else’s, and they came from outside the boathouse. The deck outside.

  “It’ll all be over soon,” Raleigh promised with a quiet sigh before squeezing his shoulder.

  Who did you call? The maniac to come beat me? Is that what you meant by “it’ll all be over soon?”

  Ethan heard her walking away, her footfalls fading in the direction of the frosted-glass door and the window with the blinds.

  Ethan heard the door open. And when heard it close, he decided to trust her.

  A few seconds later, muffled voices—definitely Raleigh’s voice. He could tell from sound of the conversation—even though he couldn’t quite make out more than a few random words—that Raleigh and this other man weren’t intimate.

  Business associates, at best.

  They weren’t even getting along, not based on the tone.

  Definitely not lovers.

  The conversation quickly turned into an argument. As the volume increased, Ethan was able to make out more of the words. From what he could understand, Raleigh said it needed to end.

  “He’s not a threat, and look at what you’ve done!” she said. “Now set him loose, he’s not part of this!”

  The maniac didn’t see things her way. “Do you see where he is? He’s on our property. He found us! And if he can—”

  There was a sharp slapping sound, but Ethan knew to keep his head lowered.

  It sounded like the next thing Raleigh said was, “I’m going to get some sleep. Don’t touch him until we get a call back.” With her voice quieter after the slap, the rest of her words lacked clarity.

  A call back? From Damien Parker? Was this all of Damien Parker’s doing?

  A second later, Ethan heard the door opening. Then the scrape of the maniac’s footsteps. The scraping stopped, and Ethan sensed that the man was standing behind him, off to the right. The maniac—had to be Maltby if Damien Parker was the mastermind behind this, whatever this was—cleared his throat, but Ethan stayed still, wondering after the fact whether he shou
ld have flinched or given some kind of reaction. After all, he was supposed to be afraid, on-edge, his entire body and mind sensitive to the most delicate sounds.

  Had he screwed up?

  The footsteps moved around to the front of him. He could hear the man breathing. Opening his eyes, Ethan tried to make out the edges of the man’s shadow, but he hadn’t flicked on the lights like the last time he’d assaulted him, and in the dark like this, the man remained camouflaged in blackness. All that came from him was the steady inhaling and exhaling of his deep, sinister breathing.

  With his head hanging over his chest, Ethan closed his eyes and waited.

  The next time the maniac cleared his throat, Ethan flinched.

  “Well, well,” the maniac said. For obvious reasons, Ethan hated the sound of the man’s voice. Definitely not Raleigh’s lover, she wouldn’t find anything attractive about a voice like that.

  Ethan kept his head bowed, hoping to convince the man that he was still unconscious. But that didn’t last long. He felt the man lift his head, pushing upwards on his forehead as if he wanted Ethan’s concealed eyes staring at him through the bag’s fabric.

  “You think you came across something here, don’t you?”

  Ethan said nothing. He wondered if the man knew he’d actually heard Raleigh’s voice. Maybe it was only whispered, but he’d heard it.

  The man didn’t like Ethan’s silence; holding Ethan’s head in place with one hand, he hit him with the other. Hard. And because it was so dark, Ethan hadn’t been able to see what was coming and brace for it.

  “You’re going to die here, Ethan Vernon.” The nasally voice turned angry, and Ethan imagined spittle spraying from his mouth. “I’m going to drag this on until morning, then tie anchors to your ankles before dumping you into the middle of that cold lake.” A pause ensued, and Ethan could feel the man’s breath pushing against the exterior of the bag over his head.

  He’s so close, I could head-butt him.

  “Let me see my wife,” Ethan said. If he snapped his head forward and moved fast enough, he might cause a bit of pain. But then what? Raleigh wasn’t around to save him, was she?

  The man struck him in the gut. Ethan gasped, and then he vomited on himself. But he didn’t taste bile so much as blood.

  “Just fucking great, you’ve puked on the floor, asshole.”

  “I’ll leave on my own,” Ethan managed to say, but the man didn’t like that and struck Ethan in the head next. Not just once, but three times in quick succession. Again, the darkness meant Ethan couldn’t prepare for the next assault.

  “You’ll leave when I say you can leave.” The next time the man hit Ethan, it was in the gut again. Ethan didn’t vomit that time. “And I’m telling you, you’re not leaving here. You’re dying here.”

  When the man struck again, Ethan swore he’d also turned on the lights. But that wasn’t the case; the man was causing some serious damage. The follow-up blow put those same lights out.

  Ethan was fine with that. He preferred the darkness because he felt it would bring Raleigh back, and he couldn’t wait. So he closed his eyes willing and let consciousness slip away.

  Chapter Sixty-Seven

  Chaos woke Ethan. The worst kind with lots of shouting, followed by the smashing of windows—the one to the left as well as the glass in the door, too—with the shards raining through the slats in the blinds before cascading down onto the floor. Something was happening, and he wasn’t being beaten.

  The chaos of death.

  Or a rescue effort.

  Ethan raised his chin off his chest and then began shaking his head as if that might scatter the canvas bag or pillowcase away. He wanted to see what was going on.

  “I’ll kill him!” the maniac shouted. “Get back or he’s dead!”

  Suddenly, he heard a hissing sound.

  The maniac cursed, followed by the rapid thump of footsteps that preceded Ethan’s chair, and Ethan himself by default, being forcibly toppled over. When his shoulder hit the floor, the bag flung off of his head and all he could see was smoke. One breath later, his eyes burned so much that he wanted to squeeze them shut and wipe them, but with his hands restrained behind his back, he couldn’t do anything.

  Still cursing, the maniac’s footsteps stomped right past him, headed for the roll-up door straight ahead. With the hissing from the tear gas canister dying down, Ethan heard the maniac’s footsteps come to a stop.

  “Motherfuckers, he’s dead!”

  Ethan tried to inhale a deep breath but ended up coughing, a lot. Once he managed to control his hacking, he tried to say he wasn’t dead, he was alive, he was in here, come rescue me now, but he was interrupted by the sound of the door rolling open, followed by the rapid sequence of gunfire.

  The boathouse interior wasn’t exactly large, but if Ethan recalled correctly, he knew there was a distance of probably five or six feet between his position on the floor and the rolling door that led to the dock. Still, even with that distance, he felt the spray of the maniac’s blood in the fractions of a second before the man’s body collapsed backwards, the momentum blowing away the tear gas like a boat’s bow cutting through the water.

  When the body came to a rest, a few feet away, Ethan saw that half of the man’s head was missing. The rest of the man’s face was red with gore, one eye locked wide. Ethan wanted to vomit—his core tightened, his mouth shot open, but nothing came out. He was empty after vomiting previously.

  A few seconds later, lights cut through the remaining tear gas fog. Next came the army of footfalls as men in swat gear, yielding assault rifles and wearing sophisticated helmets, flooded into the boathouse area and swarmed around Ethan.

  Someone said, “Secure!” in a voice that sounded like it came over a radio speaker, and then the officers next to him lowered their weapons and then knelt at his side. Blinking through the heavy tears, Ethan made out the eyes of the swat officer directly in front of him. He recognized them as Raleigh’s eyes—I swear they were hers—but the voice that came through the helmet belonged to a man.

  “Are you hurt?”

  Ethan nodded.

  The helmet nodded back. “Keep your eyes shut, we’ll get you out of here.”

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Once the medics finished patching Ethan’s nose—since he refused the ride to the hospital, there wasn’t much else they could do but ask him to see his family doctor about concussion protocol and suggest he double up on the Tylenol to help with pain and discomfort—he stepped off the back of an ambulance and noticed a man in the a suit, smoking a cigarette next to the small, A-frame replica shed. The man had his back to Ethan as he stared into the empty garage bay where Raleigh’s Cherokee had been parked. Even with his back to the action, it didn’t make the smoking man any less recognizable as Agent Klein from the FBI.

  As if sensing Ethan’s eyes on him, Klein pivoted on his heels before taking one long, final drag from his Winston cigarette and walking over.

  “You look like hell, Ethan.” He flung the cigarette stub onto the ground and smothered it with his heel. “Let’s have a chat, huh?”

  Klein escorted him toward the cottage. There were other officers milling about, including Terminator who walked by and offered the kind of nod that suggested they knew one another. Ethan knew it was more to make Terminator feel like he fit in than it was to make Ethan feel like they were buddies.

  He followed Klein to an office off the foyer area. It had a desk with two large computer monitors, right in the middle of the room and a couple of reading chairs in two of the corners. The bookshelf along the wall contained awards, photographs, and a few trophies. The absence of books didn’t surprise Ethan; the maniac hadn’t come across as overly intellectual. As he approached one of the photos, Klein interrupted him by shutting the door for privacy.

  Ethan turned around and watched the federal agent scratch at his head.

  “Mind telling me what’s gone on here, Ethan?”

  After a deep breath, he e
xplained it all. How he’d tracked Raleigh down using some of the information he’d gleaned from Klein’s hints—the girls found in a torture chamber, the hospital in Hollis Falls—and then found her walking out of the grocery store on the main street before she’d disappeared inside the Boyle Mills community health center.

  “Everyone in town was tight-lipped about her,” Ethan explained, which he didn’t quite understand. “Yet her face is on a missing person poster inside the restaurant.” He shook his head, confused about all of that.

  Klein listened, his eyebrows tightening as he grunted through his understanding of Ethan’s version of events.

  “And then, after following her to this dirt road, I found her. Here.”

  One of Klein’s tight eyebrows rose. “You did, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Ethan leaned closer, grinning from ear to ear but not sure whether he should be angry that Klein and his band of monkeys for not tracking her down sooner, or happy with himself that he’d been the one to find her after all of this time. “She looks a little different, but I found Raleigh right here.”

  Taking a step back, Klein raised a hand to his mouth and then dragged it down the length of his chin, all the way to his neck before letting out a disappointed sigh and shaking his head. At first, Ethan wondered if they’d shot her the way they’d shot the maniac who’d been holding him hostage and assaulting him.

  “What is it, Agent Klein?” His voice cracked, the worry welling in his eyes and arousing pain in his nose. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  With a stern stare, Klein shook his head some more and said, “Raleigh’s not here, Ethan.”

  “She lives here.” He glanced out the office window, noticing the empty garage bay. “She probably left right before . . .” Before what, exactly?

  “Ethan, there’s no indication she ever was here.”