Dead By Nightfall

by Beverly Barton

  When they drove past the entry gates at Griffin’s Rest, Yvette asked that they take her to her home.

  “You should stay with us,” Griff said. “You shouldn’t be alone.”

  “I will hardly be alone in a house filled with students.”

  “Come to dinner tonight,” Sanders told her. “Barbara Jean will be disappointed if you are not there.”

  “I dare say that she will be the only one.”

  “If you are referring to Maleah—” Sanders said.

  “I sense Maleah’s dislike and distrust whenever I am near her. And I’m sure that Nicole’s brother would prefer not to see me while he is here.”

  “If Charles David blames anyone for what’s happened to Nic, he blames me. As well he should,” Griff said.

  Sanders dropped Griff off first at his request before driving Yvette home. This was where Griff wanted to be, where he needed to be, not halfway around the world chasing ghosts from his and Yvette’s past.

  And what will you do if York sends you off on another wild-goose chase?

  Griff stood on the porch and gazed out at the land surrounding his house, acres and acres of woods and winding dirt pathways and shoreline along Douglas Lake. Home. Seclusion. Sanctuary. Safety.

  Where are you, Nic? Are you safe? Are you well?

  He could not bear the thought of Nic in pain, of her being raped or tortured or hunted like a wild animal, of her being subjected to any of the horrors that the captives on Amara had endured.

  “Welcome home,” Barbara Jean said.

  Griff had been so engrossed in his thoughts—in the waking nightmare about Nic—he hadn’t heard the front door open.

  Facing the attractive redhead confined to her wheelchair, he said, “Thank you,” and then leaned down to kiss her cheek. “It’s good to be home.”

  She grabbed his hand. “A lot of people care about you and Nic and they all want to help you.”

  “I know.”

  Backing up her wheelchair so that Griff could enter the foyer, Barbara Jean said, “Maleah and Derek are in the office. They’ll join us for dinner this evening. Charles David went out for a walk half an hour ago. He’s been taking a lot of long walks since he got here. Ben and Meredith are back from Shelter Island. She sensed that Nicole had been there, but wasn’t able to figure out where she is now. Ben’s in the office filing a report.”

  “I had hoped Meredith would be able to sense something while she was on the island about where they had taken Nic,” Griff said. “I know she tried, that she did her best.”

  “Cam Hendrix has called every day,” Barbara Jean told him. “And so have Lindsay and Judd. They all want to do something—anything—to help.”

  “There’s nothing they can do.” Neither his longtime buddy and lawyer nor two of his dearest friends could help him.

  “They can do what the rest of us are doing. They can pray. And they can keep on sending out positive thoughts and believing that you’re going to find Nic and bring her home.”

  “I hope you’re right about that,” a voice from behind them said.

  Griff spotted the lone figure, wearing jeans and a polo shirt, standing at the back of the foyer, apparently just having come in from the patio. Charles David, his wife’s younger brother was tall, dark-haired, dark-eyed, and bore an almost twinlike resemblance to his sister.

  “Dinner is at six thirty,” Barbara Jean said as she wheeled off toward the kitchen.

  Griff faced Charles David, searching the guy’s handsome face for any sign of hostility. He saw none. Was it possible that Nic’s brother didn’t hate him, didn’t want to beat him within an inch of his life?

  “How are you, Griffin?” Charles David asked.

  Griff didn’t denote any hint of sarcasm in the man’s voice. “I’m hanging on to my sanity by a very thin thread.”

  “Hang on tightly. Nicole needs you.”

  Griff released a deep, whooshing breath. “I’m heading to my study.” He inclined his head in the direction. “Why don’t you come with me? We can talk in private.”

  “And share a glass of your best Scotch whiskey?”

  “If you’d like.”

  As they walked side by side down the hallway toward the study, neither of them spoke, not until they reached the open doorway to Griff’s private domain.

  “Whatever you’ve done wrong, whatever mistakes you’ve made, Nic will forgive you,” Charles David said. “She loves you.”

  Griff swallowed hard as his emotions threatened to overwhelm his iron resolve. “I swear to you that I’m going to find her. No matter what I have to do, what price I have to pay, I will bring Nic home.”

  Yvette had left Meredith in charge when she left for England and had found out only after she had arrived in London that Sanders had asked Meredith to accompany Ben Corbett to Shelter Island in the hopes of picking up Nic’s trail.

  “Adam managed quite well without either of us,” Meredith had explained. “He’s a rather remarkable person and far more in control of his talents than I am.”

  Adam Marlow was one of six highly gifted students Yvette had taken under her wing, giving them instruction and protection. She guarded her young charges as fiercely as any mother tigress.

  If only someone had been able to do that for her when she was a young girl ... before Malcolm York had come into her life. Instruct her, protect her, guard her.

  Yvette slipped out of the clothes she had worn on the flight from London, stripped down to her underwear, and walked into the bathroom. Standing in front of the mirror, she stared at her reflected image. Most women longed for physical beauty, would go to any lengths to achieve it. For Yvette, beauty had been as much of a curse as her empathic gifts had been. Few men looked past the surface to see the real woman behind the flawless mask. Inside, she was not beautiful. She was ugly, hideously ugly, her very soul black with sin.

  After removing her silk bra and panties, she turned on the shower and stepped beneath the cool, refreshing spray. If only she could wash away the past as easily as she washed the grime from her skin.

  Her perfect body had given pleasure to countless men, some whose faces she could no longer recall, many of them Malcolm York’s friends and business associates. She had been coupled with dozens of the slaves held captive on Amara during the years she had lived there as York’s wife. Sometimes, the man had been brought to her bedroom where she seduced him in order to get inside his thoughts and emotions and report back to York.

  “Either you do as I ask or I’ll kill him and force you to watch,” York had told her.

  The first time, she had not believed he would actually kill one of his prized “animals” used in his sadistic hunts. But she had been wrong and her stupidity had cost the slave his life. As long as she lived, she would never forget the moment York had placed his pistol to the man’s head and fired.

  On special occasions when York entertained certain friends who especially enjoyed sexual voyeurism, she and whatever slave York chose would perform in front of a very select audience.

  Some of those poor souls had begged her to forgive them, while others had taken her with savage pleasure and walked away when they had finished without saying a word. And then one evening, York had chosen his most valued captive, a man who had survived numerous hunts, a man who had outsmarted York and his fellow hunters time and time again. On that fateful night, Griffin Powell had been delivered to her bedroom.

  She had lured him with her naked body, taken him into her bed, and used her empathic talents to connect to his thoughts. Able to see past the lust that drove him, she had sensed an innate goodness in him, a fierce pride and unbendable strength. And oddly enough, without any psychic abilities whatsoever, Griffin had instinctively known, that despite the fact she was York’s wife, she was nothing more to him than a pawn used in his evil games. She had been as much a slave as he.

  Griffin had become her friend. He had been her friend then as he was her friend now. In another world, another time, another pl
ace, if they had met under different circumstances, then perhaps they could have been more than friends.

  But the heart wants what the heart wants. It loves whom it pleases, without regard for right or wrong or for sensible choices and suitable matches. If only Griffin could have loved her. If only she could have loved him.

  Perhaps she had never truly loved anyone. She had been infatuated with York, at least in the beginning before she had seen past the glossy façade to the corrupt, despicable creature beneath the surface. The real Malcolm York.

  She had cared for Sanders as if he were her brother. Helping her survive the horrors York inflicted on her became Sanders’s only reason for living. After losing his wife and child, he had tried to kill York and had been severely punished. When York had brought her to Amara as his new captive bride, Sanders had appointed himself her guardian, just as he had taken on the role of Griffin Powell’s mentor, teaching him all he needed to know about surviving “the hunt” time and time again.

  Remembering the past serves no purpose. Nothing can change what had happened.

  Yvette rinsed her hair, turned off the shower, squeezed the excess water from her hair, and stepped out of the shower. After winding a towel around her head and drying off her body, she slipped into her turquoise silk robe.

  Don’t think about him. He is dead to you. Dead to anyone who knew the boy he once was.

  She eased her feet into her soft house slippers and then sat down at the vanity table. A pair of sad dark eyes stared back at her from the mirror. She did not want to be sad. If Suzette had been her daughter, she would have been happy. Finding her child would give her great joy. Becoming a mother to that child could possibly restore a part of her soul.

  What if Suzette had been your daughter and Griffin had not been her father, what then?

  No matter who had fathered her child, she would love her ... or him.

  Could you really love a child fathered by Yves Bouchard?

  Bouchard, who preferred teenage boys, had surprised her when he had requested that she participate in a ménage à trois with him and his favorite Amara partner.

  Yvette removed the towel from her long, straight hair and blotted it partially dry, and then she speared her fingers into her hair, running them through from her scalp to the tips that reached her shoulder blades.

  Until the pseudo-York had renewed her hope of finding her child, she had refused to believe that anyone other than Griffin was the father. Now she faced the truth—unless she found her child, she would never know.

  But if not Griffin, then please let it be Lunt Anderson.

  Never Bouchard!

  Somewhere deep inside her, another truth emerged ever so gradually, a truth she had refused to acknowledge, a truth that even now she did not want to accept. Perhaps, she had loved once. Only once. Loved with tender passion, her emotions and his fragile, otherworldly, far removed from reality. He had been a boy of eighteen to her woman of twenty-three the first time York had sent him to her. Such a sweet, gentle boy, his soul as pure as a child’s.

  Do not do this. Do not remember.

  He could be your child’s father.

  No! Yes. It would explain why your baby could shield herself from your probing, why you could never connect with her in order to discover her paternity.

  Raphael Byrne had possessed latent untutored psychic abilities he had refused to acknowledge because he had been taught such things were “of the devil.”

  Once, long ago, Raphael Byrne had been an angel.

  Now, Rafe Byrne was a demon.

  Chapter 24

  She lay beneath him, their bodies joined so completely that they were one. Arching her back, she lifted her legs and wrapped them around him as he lunged into her again and again. Sweet Jesus! If the loving got any better, he wouldn’t be able to stand it. His mouth found hers. Soft, moist, opening for him.

  He grasped her hips, lifting her, pressing her closer as he ground into her. Her nails raked across his back as she came, her breath hot against his neck, her whimpering cries of release sending him over the edge.

  Griff loved this woman, loved her beyond reason. He would do anything for her.

  Nicole. His Nicole.

  “I love you,” she whispered as she clung to him in the aftermath of their lovemaking. “I love you so much.”

  Griff woke abruptly from the sweet dream.

  Nic was not lying beside him.

  Reality hit him hard.

  He flung back the covers and bounded out of bed. Anger coiled inside him, needing to be vented. A good workout in the gym should help clear his mind and reduce his stress level, at least temporarily.

  He slipped into sweatpants, an old UT T-shirt, and a pair of athletic shoes, combed his hair with his fingers, and headed downstairs. Before he reached the foyer, he saw Sanders at the foot of the stairs.

  “Morning,” Griff said. “What’s up?”

  “We just received Suzette York’s DNA results from Mitchum,” Sanders replied. “I thought you would want to know immediately.”

  “And the DNA test proved what we already know.” Griff met Sanders in the foyer.

  “The young woman is definitely not your child or Yvette’s.”

  “Mitchum is going to have DNA tests run on the other two girls, just to make sure.”

  “It’s being done now.”

  “Any word on—?”

  “The girl in the hospital is hanging on still in critical condition. They have not been able to identify either the hospitalized girl or the dead girl.”

  “Have you spoken to Yvette this morning?” Griff asked. “I’m concerned about her.”

  “As am I, but there is nothing either of us can do to help her. Would you like for me to give her the DNA results?”

  “Yeah, thanks. And see if Barbara Jean can persuade her to come up to the house later today. If ever we all needed to be together, it’s now.”

  Anthony Linden came for Nic that morning, not Malcolm York. Did it mean that York was no longer in residence or simply that he couldn’t be bothered with mundane chores? Upon entering her room, Linden tossed a pair of denim shorts and a skimpy halter top to her.

  “You’re to wear these today.”

  “I’ll change in the bathroom,” she told him.

  “Go right ahead.” He grinned at her.

  She shot him a bird.

  “One of these days ...” he threatened.

  She wanted to say, “Bring it on, you son of a bitch,” but Nic wasn’t stupid. Under most circumstances, she could handle any man who tried to attack her. But Linden wasn’t just any man. He was former SAS, a highly trained, skilled warrior with killer instincts. Common sense warned her that she was outmatched.

  Without a word, Nic hurried into the bathroom, stripped out of her dirty oversized shirt and pants, and put on the skimpy shorts and stretchy knit halter that clung to her breasts. She doubted anyone would notice that her breasts were fuller now, having increased gradually with her pregnancy. But how long would she be able to hide her condition? Already her belly had begun to swell, just a tiny baby bump, but it was only a matter of time before her body blossomed. Having had so much idle time on her hands the past couple of days, Nic had thought a great deal about being pregnant, about the child growing inside her, about how to protect her baby when she wasn’t sure she could protect herself.

  By her calculations, she was probably about ten weeks along, but looking back and remembering her last period, she realized that it was possible she was farther along, perhaps closer to three and a half months. If that was the case, then she would probably be conspicuously showing within another month.

  The longer I can keep my pregnancy a secret from York, the better.

  When she came out of the bathroom, Linden inspected her from head to toe. “You have a great pair of legs. They’re so long they seem to go on forever.”

  “Gee, thanks for the compliment.”

  “I look forward to the day when someone teaches you to
keep your mouth shut,” Linden told her. “Unfortunately, it won’t be me, but I’ll be around to watch and enjoy vicariously.”

  She took him at his word, having learned that Linden didn’t make idle threats. Not knowing what the outcome of his most recent threat would be, Nic tried not to formulate any theories.

  “Let’s go. Your trainer is eager to meet you.”

  “I’m ready.”

  As he escorted her from her bedroom prison, Linden said, “You have to be dying of curiosity. You must want to know what you’re going to be trained to do.”

  “I guess I’ll find out soon enough.”

  “You may think you’re prepared for what’s in store for you, but I can assure you that you are not.”

  Malcolm lingered over breakfast, enjoying being hand-fed by two delectable young girls, one a dark-skinned beauty from Ethiopia and the other a petite French redhead. The girls had been a birthday gift from Harlan Benecroft a couple years ago when they had both been only twelve. The old man had a penchant for sweet young things, preferring their adolescent bodies and inexperience to nubile women with lush figures who were trained in the art of pleasing a man. But Malcolm preferred the latter, so for the past two years, he had shared the girls with friends who appreciated their immaturity. Now, at fourteen, their bodies blossoming into womanhood, he found them both delightful bedmates.

  As he caressed the girl’s back, Malcolm bit into the ripe strawberry she held to his mouth. Aisha’s body reminded him of an Arabian thoroughbred, dark and lean and sleek. Dusty nipples topped her small, firm breasts. A thatch of wiry black curls formed a bushy triangle between her long, slender legs.

  Wanting his attention, Chantal traced her bright red fingernails down the T-shape of his chest hair until they reached the tip of his penis. If he didn’t stop her, she would work feverishly to arouse him. He grabbed her by the wrist, brought her hand to his mouth, and sucked on each finger. She curled against him like a contented little kitten, her melon-size breasts pressing against him.