Dead By Nightfall

by Beverly Barton

  “As for Rafe ... give him time. I have no doubt that he will eventually play a role in our rescuing Nicole.”

  “We both know that the longer Nic is in captivity, the more difficult it will become for her to simply live from day to day.”

  “And for you as well,” Sanders said.

  “My personal hell is unimportant.”

  Sanders pulled the envelope and the photo from Griff’s tight grasp, and then glanced at the picture. “Nicole looks well. That is what you need to see in this photograph. Nothing else should concern you. Not the man. Not Nicole’s smile. Not what York wants you to assume.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I keep telling myself.”

  Malcolm rose from his seat at the head of the table. “Gentlemen, please continue with your breakfast. I have to place an important business call to the United States. Once that’s done, I’ll introduce you to your guide. He will take you into the jungle for today’s hunt. Since it is the first time for both of you, I have decided to join you, at least for a part of the day.”

  He had instructed the guide to make sure if either hunter tracked down Nicole Powell, he should not be allowed to kill her, but he could take her for the night and exact whatever punishment he preferred.

  Thirty-year-old playboy Peter Curnow had inherited a fortune from his wealthy parents who had died in a tragic house fire when Peter was twenty and supposedly away at Oxford. Half of Europe suspected the amoral Peter had, if not lit the match, paid someone quite well to torch the family home. The handsome, blond, adrenaline junkie’s death-defying exploits around the world were legendary. York had known Peter would jump at the chance to hunt human prey; it was just the sort of sport that would excite him.

  York’s other guest, Frederick Strauss, an Austrian-born financier and Bouchard’s new business associate, who stood barely five-five, was a chubby troll with thinning brown hair and round, shiny, dark eyes that moved continuously, like a vulture searching for its next meal. At twenty-nine, he had already made a sizable fortune and became infamous for his savagery in dealing with anyone who crossed him.

  Both men had paid handsomely to participate in today’s hunting session, an experience he hoped would prove to be immensely enjoyable for each of them. If so, they would become two of his many repeat customers.

  After leaving his guests in the dining room, Malcolm slipped away into the den at the back of the house on his small private estate in Ecuador, just across the Colombian border. Of all the compounds where the hunts were held, this one was his least favorite, but one favored by his associates in Colombia. If all went as planned, he would leave on Monday and take Griffin Powell’s wife with him. He had given her his most experienced warrior as her partner and put her through two weeks of extensive training with Vartan, all in the hopes she would survive her first contest without incident. He suspected that, if necessary, Jonas MacColl would die to protect her.

  He wanted Nic to experience everything, to learn what it meant to be a slave, at the mercy of her master. And he longed for Griff to know what his wife was going through every day, every night, with every breath she took. But he did not want Nic to die. Not yet. Not until the time was right.

  Closing and locking the door behind him, Malcolm ensured his privacy. His personal business with Griff was no concern to his guests.

  He placed the call. The phone rang four times.

  “Griffin’s Rest,” the man said. “Sanders speaking.”

  “Hello, Sanders. How are you today?”

  Momentary silence.

  And then, “I want to speak to Nic,” Griffin told York.

  “I’m afraid your wife is unavailable at the moment,” Malcolm replied. “She’s still in bed with her lover. But I’ll allow you to speak to her again very soon, after you’ve completed your next assignment.”

  “I want to speak to her now.”

  “It is not going to happen today. I don’t want her upset, not today of all days. She and her partner are participating in her first hunt. It should be quite an experience for her. I’d much rather her speak to you after she’s lived through such an exciting adventure.”

  “If anything happens to her—”

  “You’ll do nothing. You can’t save her. You have no idea where she is. But I promise you that I’ll do what I can to keep her alive for as long as possible, but only if you continue to follow my instructions.”

  Malcolm loved being able to make Griff squirm, and one day soon he would make the big man beg. For years now, his ultimate goal had been to acquire enough power to humble the great Griffin Powell and exact revenge against him and Sanders and Yvette for what they had done on Amara.

  “What do you want from me now?” Griff asked.

  “I want you to go to Amara.”

  “Why?”

  “I have my reasons. And I don’t want you to go alone. I want you to take Sanders with you on a sentimental journey.”

  “And what do we do once we are there?”

  “Remember the past.”

  “We don’t need to go to Amara in order to remember,” Griffin said.

  “Humor me.” Malcolm smiled. “Leave today, as soon as possible. I’d like you to arrive by sometime tomorrow morning. I want you to stay at the hotel you had built on the site of my old home. I’ll contact you in a few days with further instructions. Oh, and one more thing—I want Sanders to take Barbara Jean Hughes with him.”

  “And if we refuse?”

  Malcolm laughed. “I don’t think you’ll do that, will you, knowing what is at stake if you refuse my request?”

  Outfitted in loose-fitting khaki cargo pants and an oversized long-sleeve shirt, Nic sat down on the wooden bench beside Jonas to lace up her hiking boots.

  “No matter what happens today, stay with me,” he said. “I’ve participated in a couple of hunts here at this compound in the past. Although the jungle changes constantly, there are only a limited number of acres on York’s estate and they’re surrounded by the river on three sides and guarded around the clock on the remaining side. There’s water and food, if you know where to find them. And this is far from my first hunt. If you’ll trust me, I promise that I’ll make sure you survive.”

  When she glanced up at Jonas, he tossed her a small amber bottle. “Rub this on your face and neck and hands and anywhere else you can.”

  She uncorked the bottle, took a whiff of the foul-smelling liquid, and frowned. “What is this stuff?”

  “It’s the native version of mosquito repellent. Old Pepe, one of the groundskeepers, slipped it to me. He sort of owed me a favor.”

  Without a word of protest, Nic poured a handful of the atrocious concoction into her palm and hurriedly spread it over her face and neck.

  “Out there where we’re going the mosquitoes are huge and vicious,” Jonas told her. “I’ve come off these hunts looking like I have measles.”

  Despite the seriousness of the situation, Nic managed to smile.

  Jonas picked up the cotton slouch hat lying between them on the bench and put it on her head. “It’s going to be hot and humid and muddy after all the rain. You’re going to get awfully tired so we’ll rest when we can, but if I say we keep going, that means we don’t stop for anything. They’ll send us out before noon and give us about a thirty-minute head start before the hunters begin tracking us.”

  Before Nic could reply, movement near the barn doors caught her attention. Four armed guards escorted three other couples inside, each of the six people outfitted with boots, hats, and khaki pants and shirts. Anyone seeing them from a distance wouldn’t be able to tell them apart. They would all look alike, including Jonas and her. One set of captives consisted of a woman and a man; the other duos were comprised only of men.

  “Looks like we’re not the only captives being hunted today,” Jonas said. “Two hunters and eight quarry. I’ll take those odds. My guess is that York wants to give you more than a fighting chance to stay alive.”

  “What about the others?” Nic ask
ed. “There’s another woman over there and she looks awfully young and scared and she’s about half my size.”

  Jonas’s expression hardened as he grasped her shoulders. “When the hunt begins, you can’t worry about anybody except for yourself and your partner. Staying alive until nightfall is your only goal. It doesn’t matter what happens to anyone else. If you forget that fact for one minute, you’re in trouble.”

  For a split second Nic hated Jonas for what he’d said. He’d sounded so cruel and heartless. But common sense quickly replaced sentiment and she understood the necessity of setting aside human decency and compassion. Today she would become an animal being stalked by human predators determined to kill her. At the end of the day, no matter what she had to do, she had to be among the survivors, she and her baby.

  “I understand,” Nic said.

  He nodded and loosened his tight grip on her shoulders.

  A few minutes later, Vartan entered the barn and, speaking Spanish, issued orders to the guards. They quickly rounded up the four teams and herded them into the central courtyard in front of the house. Nic kept her gaze down as she stood by Jonas, her hands clammy and her pulse racing.

  When she heard York’s voice, she glanced up, but kept her head lowered. Two men flanked York, both relatively young, one tall and fair and handsome, the other short, stocky, and dark, with the face only a mother could love. Each sported a shiny new rifle. Nic thought they were Ruger M77s, no doubt provided by York, but she’d need to inspect the weapons more closely to be a hundred percent sure. And she sure hoped she didn’t get close enough to either hunter to find out anything else about his weapon.

  York and his guests chatted, their laughter at odds with the impending horrors the eight captives would soon face. At that moment, Nic thought about Griff and what it must have been like for him on Amara before each terrifying hunt. How had he managed to survive for four years?

  Suddenly, Vartan shouted as he held up a revolver, aiming it toward the cleared pathway that led into the dense forest. “The hunt begins now.” He fired the gun.

  Without hesitation, Nic followed Jonas onto the pathway, running as fast as possible. He stayed several feet ahead of her, but within sight at all times. The other six captives lagged behind, but two of the men were catching up quickly. For what seemed like days but was probably only an hour or so, Nic ran until her lungs ached, her feet throbbed, and her mouth felt parched. Jonas had kept them on the narrow pathway that snaked crookedly through the forest while the others had veered off into the jungle.

  When she reached the point where she doubted she had the strength to continue, Jonas slowed his pace, reached back, grabbed her arm, and brought her to an abrupt standstill. Staring at him, she opened her mouth to speak, but he slapped his hand over her mouth and shook his head. She nodded, understanding that she shouldn’t make a sound.

  Jonas led her slowly through a dense thicket of verdant foliage, their bodies pressing against the limbs, stretching them to the breaking point. Smothered by the oppressive heat and the cocooning coppice, Nic tried to ignore the panic rising inside her. Sunlight shimmered randomly high above them, the majority of light blocked by the towering trees, with only shards of shadowy illumination dotting the undergrowth beneath their feet.

  Nic struggled to keep up as Jonas took her farther away from the cleared pathway. Just as she began to wonder how long they would be trapped in the lush tropical weald, the thicket gradually cleared enough so that she could see the savage beauty all around her and hear something other than her own frantic heartbeat. Forest insects hummed, the unique sounds blending together to create background music for the jungle. In a nearby tree, a couple of colorful parrots fluttered their wings and higher up a spider monkey swung from one limb to another.

  Jonas slowed as he approached a shallow stream trickling smoothly over large slick rocks. He motioned silently to her and then knelt down on the muddy ground by the stream. He cupped his hands, delved them into the water, and brought the water up to his mouth. Nic joined him, grateful not only for the chance to catch her breath, but to be able to quench her thirst.

  Without warning, Jonas grabbed her upper arm, hauled her to her feet and placed his index finger in the center of his lips, signaling silence. Her gaze shot from side to side as she listened for whatever sound had alerted Jonas to danger. The crackle of breaking limbs and the dull thud of footsteps plodding over the gray, mud-soaked earth warned them that someone was nearby. Was it a fellow captive running for his life or one of the hunters tracking his prey?

  Jonas pulled her along with him away from the stream and through a small grove of Podocarpus trees, several reaching over sixty feet high. As the approaching footsteps drew closer, Jonas pushed Nic up against the three-foot-round tree trunk, fluted and twisted with age. With his lean body pressed protectively against her, her chin touching his shoulder, they waited. Silently. Barely breathing.

  The footsteps halted.

  Oh, God, had one of the hunters tracked them and now knew where they were? Was it only a matter of minutes, perhaps seconds, before he aimed his rifle directly at them? Once he had them in his sights, running would be futile. You couldn’t outrun a bullet.

  The explosive rifle shot thundered through the jungle. A single human cry followed. And then another gunshot.

  Nic clamped her teeth together, effectively trapping the scream vibrating in her throat. It took her a full minute to realize that neither she nor Jonas had been hit. She snapped her gaze up and connected with his. They shared an unspoken “poor soul” thought and yet at the same time she knew he was as grateful as she that they had not been the targets, that they were still alive.

  Chapter 28

  The Powell jet took off shortly after one that afternoon, their final destination Amara. The small South Pacific island had once been the scene of bloody, inhuman atrocities perpetrated by a group of extremely wealthy, supercilious monsters. Now the island was a vacationer’s paradise, with a luxury resort complex overlooking the ocean.

  Even though she had not been included in York’s invitation, Yvette had insisted on going with them to Amara.

  “Whatever he has planned for you and Sanders, I should be there with you, to help you if possible,” she had told Griff when he’d tried to talk her out of coming with them.

  Realizing how important it was to Yvette, Griff had finally allowed her to join them; but he suspected that her presence wouldn’t be required. York had already put her through her trial of fire in England where her hopes of finding her long-lost child had been brutally destroyed. So now it was Sanders’s turn. Griff didn’t know what York had planned for Sanders, but he suspected it would somehow involve the two women he loved. Yvette’s child was her Achilles’ heel; Sanders’s weaknesses were his memories of Elora and his affection for Barbara Jean.

  Griff opened his laptop, intending to spend the next few hours going through all the updated information from Powell headquarters concerning their ongoing search for Nic. But before he tapped the first key, Sanders sat beside him.

  “Barbara Jean is napping,” he told Griff. “She has not been sleeping well lately.”

  “I’m truly sorry that she’s being dragged into my fight with York.”

  “Our fight,” Sanders corrected him. “If this man is intent on avenging Malcolm York’s death, then Yvette and I are equally guilty of his murder. Perhaps I am more guilty than either of you since I formulated the plan to kill him.”

  “But I’m the one who chopped off the bastard’s head.”

  “Enough guilt for all of us, right?”

  “More than enough.”

  Neither of them spoke again for several minutes. Griff thought of Nic. Always Nic. And he knew that Sanders was thinking of Elora. Always Elora.

  Finally breaking their silence, Sanders said, “If only we could figure out who the fake York really is.”

  “If only,” Griff agreed. “But knowing that he has to be someone with a connection to the real York, s
omeone who knew him and admired him, perhaps even loved him, hasn’t helped us discover his true identity.”

  “Is it possible that someone actually loved such a monster?”

  “Another monster.”

  “All of York’s closest friends are dead now, everyone except Yves Bouchard,” Sanders said. “But we’ve ruled out Bouchard. Rafe has seen the man recently. Whoever is impersonating York has gone to the trouble of having cosmetic surgery to alter his appearance.”

  “He has York’s face.”

  “And I suspect he is as psychotically evil as his namesake.”

  “Kroy Enterprises was formed five years ago,” Griff said. “Harlan Benecroft and Yves Bouchard were two of the major investors.”

  “Along with Malcolm York.”

  “Which probably means that the pseudo-York came into existence around that same time.”

  “I thought so, too, but so far no evidence has come to light to substantiate that theory,” Sanders said. “Benecroft and Bouchard could have simply used York’s name when they founded Kroy Enterprises. But we have nothing that irrefutably proves the reincarnated York came into existence precisely five years ago. He could have been around years before that or—”

  “Or he could have come to life only a couple of years ago when we first heard the rumors about Malcolm York being alive.”

  “There are too many variables in the York equation. The only thing we know for certain is that he is not the real Malcolm York. We do not know this man’s true identity and we do not know how he was connected to York. We can speculate about when he became the resurrected York, but we cannot pinpoint a year.”

  “And we don’t know whether he is the man in charge and is the one pulling the strings or if someone else is the mastermind and he simply chose a willing participant to undergo facial reconstructive surgery and take on the role of Malcolm York.”

  “If that’s the case, then the man’s true identity is relatively unimportant.”

  “What does your gut tell you?” Griff asked.