Black As Night (Quentin Black Mystery #2)

by Andrijeski, JC

  The combination of thoughts made me grit my teeth. I swung my body harder that time, putting most of my weight behind it.

  I was rewarded with a cracking sound.

  I also lost my balance. My legs and lower body crashed back down on the bed. I was sweating by then, and my wrists hurt so badly from the repeated chafing I was biting my tongue against the pain. Even so, I didn’t wait, but threw myself back up into another shoulder stand. That time, I launched my whole body at the plywood covering.

  A crashing sound greeted me. I let out a low gasp, losing my balance again.

  That time, when I got back up in the shoulder-stand, I worked to jam my bare toes under the edge of the plywood. I gasped a few times at sharp edges, feeling something slice open my big toe. Groaning at the pain that shot down my leg, I forced that same foot harder and deeper into the crack until I finally felt what I’d been waiting for.

  Pieces rained down past my foot, nicking my leg. At least one good-sized one fell down through that opening I’d created, and landed on the bed.

  Extracting my toes and feet from the plywood made me gasp again as I sliced more skin on my way out. Biting my lip harder now to keep from crying out, I felt around frantically on the bed with my leg and back until I found the shard that fell, and was relieved to find it was as big as I’d thought when it landed. Then I slid my body up the bed, wincing again at my foot as the cut bottom bled on the sheet. I found the shard with my feet again and managed to grip it between the soles.

  Holding it as tight as I could, gasping with a focused concentration and a near-terror I might drop it, I scooted down the bed again, then threw my lower body up, this time into a plow position, with my feet up over my head to where my hands were. I managed to keep hold of the glass as I did it, my whole body shaking with exertion as I plucked the piece of glass from between the soles of my feet.

  Gasping again, I let my feet fall back to the mattress, still panting with exertion.

  I didn’t wait, but started sawing, hard, through the rope.

  It seemed to take forever.

  I barely breathed while I did it. I sawed methodically, gripping the shard in a death grip, oblivious to it cutting my fingers or hands in my determination not to drop it. It got slick with sweat––then with blood––but I still gripped it with every ounce of strength in my fingers, sawing determinedly at the rope between my wrists, right at the point where I pulled it taut between my hands. I nicked my wrists and winced but didn’t stop, didn’t loosen my hold. I kept sawing, my eyes closed, my jaw clenched as I saw in my mind where each strand parted.

  When it finally came away, some part of me didn’t believe it at first.

  I still gripped the shard in my hand, still held onto it for dear life, when suddenly, I yanked on my wrists and they pulled completely away from the wall and from one another.

  It took every ounce of my willpower not to scream aloud.

  I gave myself two deep breaths, then I lurched up to a seated position. Without waiting, I began to saw through the rope on my ankles.

  That one didn’t take as long...the angle was a lot better. Even so, I didn’t take out the gag until I’d cut through the last of that rope.

  I stood up on the bed at once. Gripping the edges of the plywood in my fingers, I was startled to feel how loose it was. I’d actually split the wood in half with one of those kicks, and now, when I yanked on it, a piece of it came away from the window in my hands, causing more glass to rain down on the bed. I yanked harder on the wood.

  I could see light out there. Artificial, but I felt air on my face. I smelled smoke. Diesel fumes. Food.

  Legs walked by me and I froze, looking up.

  A woman in a red dress. She staggered past the window, her feet at my eye-level, and I realized, looking in both directions, that we were in an alley. It was night.

  I could hear traffic somewhere, now that the wood was gone.

  I hadn’t been imagining that before. But why had Solonik left me in a room with street access?

  But I already knew why.

  I didn’t know how I knew exactly, but I must have picked that up from Solonik, too. He knew the people around here. They’d heard sounds coming from this place before...they thought he was a crazy Russian who liked to get rough with his girlfriends. No one fucked with him because of his mob ties. Because of his ties to “Mr. Lucky.”

  I almost had a picture of the latter in my mind by now, too.

  Shoving all of that out of my head, I yanked harder on the wood, desperate now to get it off. I had no doubt Solonik had been serious about taking me with him when he left Thailand. I’d even felt glimpses of where he meant. Moscow. Possibly Riga, since he wouldn’t want to be too close to Mr. Lucky’s people while he “tamed me,” as he thought of it.

  The word brought another wave of revulsion in me, right before I threw my whole weight into trying to yank the plywood off the window.

  That time, the bigger piece came off.

  Jagged pieces of glass stuck out of the bottom of the window frame, but I couldn’t suppress a sigh of relief that there were no bars. I began pulling the bigger chunks of glass out of the metal frame with my hands, almost oblivious to cutting myself now. Then I picked up the wood and broke what I couldn’t pull out. Once I decided I’d done enough, I jumped off the bed, heading for the corner where I’d occasionally seen Solonik’s bag of clothes.

  I felt all around the table and the bench, but it wasn’t there.

  Hesitating only a half second, I briefly turned on the light.

  I took in the room in two turns of my head, looking for something––anything––I could wear out of there, but even the sheet on the bed was gone.

  I remembered then. Solonik had muttered something about laundry the day before.

  Once I remembered that much, I turned off the light.

  I stood there, wondering how far I’d get naked, covered in blood, then realized I didn’t give a fuck about that either.

  Black? I sent tentatively. Black? Can you hear me?

  Silence.

  I couldn’t wait any longer.

  Urgency practically burst out of my skin. I could no longer tell if it was paranoia or real; to some part of me the distinction almost didn’t matter. If I didn’t get out now, I’d never get out. I knew that. I’d never get another chance; Solonik would make sure of it.

  As soon as the thought came, I crossed the room in a handful of steps and leapt up on the thin mattress. I grabbed the window frame as well as I could and pulled myself up, grimacing in pain as more glass sliced my palms from my weight. Ignoring it as best I could, I got my head and shoulders through the opening and sucked in a lungful of damp air. It smelled like chicken and chili and sweat and exhaust but right then it was the freshest air I’d maybe ever tasted.

  Feeling a sudden rush of energy from even being half-way through the opening, I started crawling the rest of the way out, crying out as my leg caught on another shard of glass, my back and shoulder scraping a few more.

  Then I was clear.

  I knelt there, gasping. Then I was on my feet.

  I’d barely gotten up when I was running, flat-out, for where I could hear the most cars.

  CATCALLS FOLLOWED ME as soon as I hit the streetlights, nervous laughter.

  An older woman yelled at me in Thai, gesturing up and down and frowning before she spat on the sidewalk. I didn’t bother to read her, but I got whispers of drug addict...farang whore. I stared up and down the street, scanning faces without really seeing any of them, barely hearing the voices or noticing the stares as I fought panic, trying to decide which direction to run, which direction he’d be least likely to come from.

  I had no way of knowing.

  I’d already been running for blocks. I’d tried to run in straight lines. I’d followed the loudest sounds I could, but I might have gotten turned around.

  He could be anywhere.

  I had no idea where I was. I didn’t know Bangkok at all.
r />   Black? I thought, even softer than before. Black? Are you there?

  MIRI! MIRIAM MY GOD! MIRI! MIRI!

  I flinched, nearly fell to a knee as his mind exploded in mine. I held out a hand, saw people walk around me, staring at me, looking like ghosts.

  MIRIAM! WHERE ARE YOU? WHERE ARE YOU?

  I don’t know...I’m on the street. I’m...I have to get out of here, Black. I don’t know where I am. How do I get out of here? I looked down at myself, swallowing. I’m conspicuous. I can’t stay here...

  Where are you? What street? I could feel his panic coiling through me still, but the military guy was back. I felt it in his mind and it steadied me somehow. What street, Miri?

  His mind clicked into sharper focus.

  Never mind, he thought at me. Are there cabs nearby?

  I looked around, then saw a small group of them. Yes...a few. But Black––

  Walk to the curb. Get in the first cab you can. I’ll stay with you. I’ll push them if I have to. One of them will take you...

  Push them? I said. How? I thought––

  Just do it, Miri. Walk straight to the curb. Now.

  I looked down at myself again. That time, I felt a flicker of his mind through mine.

  I felt him understand, even as panic once more exploded out of him.

  WALK TO THE FUCKING CURB. RIGHT NOW, MIRI.

  I began to walk, feeling him trying to will me out of there with his mind. When I reached the edge of the road, in an opening between street kiosks, I again glimpsed the short row of cabs. An older male driver stared at me, open-mouthed, as I approached his car.

  Where am I going? I asked Black.

  Hanu Hotel. Tell him you will pay triple if he gets you there in ten minutes. Black hesitated. Promise him whatever you have to, Miri. I’ll be at the hotel before you...but I’ll call ahead. People will be waiting for you, Miriam...

  I felt another flush of emotion off him.

  Grief hit me tangibly, guilt...

  That time I shoved it back, hitting out at him violently.

  Stop it, I snarled. I can’t deal with your bullshit right now!

  He retreated at once.

  That panic never stopped vibrating my skin.

  “Hanu Hotel,” I told the driver, ignoring Black as well as I could. “Triple if you get me there in five minutes,” I added, feeling strange saying it, even beyond how I must look.

  The cab driver looked at his friends, two other drivers, both of whom were shaking their heads at me and laughing. The driver himself looked about to tell me no, his eyes holding a thinly veiled contempt as he looked me over. I felt Black gearing up in my mind, ready to do something, but I walked closer to the driver, until I stood directly in front of him. Biting my lip, I fought not to react to the eyes I felt on me from all sides.

  “Do you speak English?” I said.

  He smiled, looking down my body with raised eyebrows “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ve been kidnapped,” I told him, my voice hard. “And raped. Please take me to the Hanu Hotel. Now. My family is waiting for me. Now. They will pay you whatever you want.”

  Emotion plumed off Black, so intensely I clenched my jaw.

  “Now,” I repeated to the driver. “Please. My family will pay whatever you ask.”

  That time, when the driver looked me over, something in his eyes changed.

  I saw pain there briefly, then pity, right before he nodded. My use of the word “family” hit him the hardest. I was so open then, with Solonik having torn every shred of shielding out of my mind, I could feel the man had a family of his own––including a young daughter of maybe seven or eight, a daughter he already worried about. Walking up to the passenger side, he started to open the back door, then he stopped, looking me over another time. Rather than opening the door, he straightened, walking around to the trunk of his cab.

  “Wait,” he said in stilted English. “Wait please.”

  “No,” I said, fighting tears. “No. No wait...no wait...please...”

  But he just kept walking.

  Fear washed over me again, a sudden panic that maybe I hadn’t read the right things on him, that he might know Solonik too, that he might be on the payroll of Mr. Lucky. I looked up and down the street, wrapping my arms around my body. I remembered only then that my hands were bleeding, that my feet were bleeding too.

  “Please...” I watched him rummage through the trunk. I started to back away, slowly shaking my head. “Please. Please take me out of here...please...”

  He shut the trunk, holding up a hand towards me in a calming gesture.

  In his other hand, he held a blanket.

  Seeing it, my knees nearly buckled.

  “It’s okay,” he said, walking back around the car. He motioned towards me, holding out the blanket, smiling at me reassuringly as he nodded. “Come back. It’s okay. We go now.”

  I wrapped the blanket around me as soon as I’d shaken it out.

  It smelled faintly like dog.

  When he opened the back door to his cab, I practically dove inside, sinking down low in the seat so I wouldn’t be visible through the windows. I decided to sit entirely on the floor by the time he’d opened the driver’s side door, wrapping the blanket around me so that it covered my hair and most of my face along with my body.

  I’d also locked both of the back doors.

  Seconds later, we pulled away from the curb.

  Ten

  NO MORE MIRIAM

  WHEN THE CAB’S door opened, I found myself looking up the steps of the Hanu Hotel. Two men stood outside those glass doors with dark gray uniforms and white gloves. I watched them open a door on each side as a beautiful Chinese woman in an emerald dress walked out, her head thrown back in a laugh as she walked next to a man who wore a charcoal-colored suit.

  I stared at them numbly.

  Then a hand extended towards me.

  The person attached to it stepped closer, blocking my view.

  I flinched back, but the hand didn’t try to touch me. When I looked up, I saw Black standing there, his face utterly unreadable. He didn’t move, but continued to offer his hand. I could feel him, so much of him it made my eyes close. He felt more open than I’d ever felt him, but I couldn’t tell if that was because of me or because of him. Despite that openness, the main thing I felt off him was caution, along with a very deliberate distance.

  He was afraid to get too close to me.

  Biting my tongue, I averted my gaze from his face. I took his hand though. I let him pull me to my feet, even as my cut hand clutched the blanket around me.

  Once I stood there, wincing from my weight resting on my feet on the pavement, I looked down at the blanket.

  I cleared my throat, glancing back at the taxi. Someone I vaguely recognized as one of Black’s employees was speaking rapidly to the driver in Thai. I’d only ever seen the man once before, and that had been in San Francisco, flying a helicopter.

  I wondered how long he’d been out here.

  Gripping the blanket tighter, I looked up at Black. “Can someone...” I cleared my throat when he met my gaze, seeing him flinch. “The blanket. I can get it back to him...”

  “Don’t worry about the fucking blanket, Miriam.”

  I felt my jaw harden, but I didn’t answer.

  “Will you come?” he said then. His voice was polite, and I felt him kicking himself for swearing at me. Fear expanded off his light, nearly suffocating me all over again. “Miri,” he said, softer. “Will you come? Please?”

  I looked down, and saw him holding out a hand.

  I felt him wanting to get me inside, off the street.

  It was the middle of the night, still dark out, but he felt we were too visible out here, too exposed, even though I sensed that a lot more of his employees were around than the handful I could see.

  Realizing I agreed with him, I took his hand, making him jump. It occurred to me only then that he’d meant the gesture to shepherd me towards the doors––he
hadn’t actually expected me to take his hand. When I started to release him though, he gripped my fingers, clasping me with an intensity that I found myself relaxing into for some reason.

  I let him lead me to the front of the hotel.

  Then I came to a stop.

  “Pete,” I said. I looked up when I felt Black’s stare. “I might know where Pete is. I don’t know if they’re going to wait for the full two weeks, Black. It felt like it would be over sooner than that. A few days, at most.”

  Black stiffened, gripping my hand tighter. “You’re sure?”

  I nodded, not meeting his gaze. “Pretty sure.”

  “Do you know where he is?” Black said. “Do they plan to kill him?”

  I focused on my feet, which didn’t even look like mine. I didn’t recognize them at all. Hearing his question then, after that odd delay, I nodded again.

  “I don’t know. If they plan to kill him,” I clarified. “But he’s on a barge. In the lower levels.” I looked up, and flinched a little, finding Black’s gold eyes on mine. “It smells like fish...and garbage. It’s near the wats. Near where the bodies have been found. I think maybe the killer’s been leaving the bodies there, too. When he...finishes with them.”

  Black renewed his grip on my hand. I could feel him thinking, standing this close.

  “Miri,” he said, hesitating. “I hate to ask. I hate to ask this so much, but––”

  “Yes,” I said, not letting him finish. “Whatever you need. Whatever I can do to help you find him.” I looked up. “We shouldn’t wait, Black. Solonik...”

  I felt Black stiffen as I said the name.

  I couldn’t tell if he recognized it.

  “...he’s not going to be happy I left,” I finished, fighting to ignore whatever I’d felt. “He might take it out on Pete. Or he might move him. He might know I have some idea of where he’s being kept. I asked him questions...about Pete...”

  Black nodded, but that time he didn’t speak.

  He began tugging me gently towards the glass doors, that fear back in his hands about me being visible from the street. He didn’t slow his steps as he clicked his fingers at two more black-clad soldier types standing to one side of the doormen. Black gestured a series of hand-signals to them, but I didn’t try to interpret those either.