Gone Black

by Linda Ladd

  Then came Phase Two. Marcel’s son, Max. Black had found out that he was brighter than Jaxy, but even more cruel and unfeeling than his sister. He was always in control of all emotions, never slipping into rage, unable to be pushed into making stupid mistakes. He would pull on his specially designed leather gloves and inflict horrible physical punishment on his prisoner. Each blow was crafted and perfected to hurt and maim and demoralize and engender debilitating despair. But he would never lose control and kill Black or any other of his victims.

  That pleasure came in Phase Three, where Marcel himself took the reins. But he rarely dirtied his hands too much. He would simply bring in a victim’s loved one and make the victim watch the suffering he perpetrated on them. And that would be Claire, in Black’s case. But she wouldn’t come, and that was what kept Black going. As long as they were here, tormenting him, they weren’t after her.

  Then at the very end, Soquet presented his grand finale. That’s when it was time for the victim to tell them everything they wanted to know or die. But they always died, anyway. Usually, from a pipe bomb or specially constructed grenade vest, perfected by Marcel and detonated from another room. One that was powerful enough to blow the human being strapped to the bomb into a million tiny pieces and destroy the room in which he was held. All three phases of abominable behavior were filmed for acolytes of torture methods and sold to the highest bidder. The Soquets, all three, were a scourge against humanity and decency.

  Black was just glad he was still in Phase One. He remembered how Jaxy had taken such pleasure in telling him how he would suffer at their hands, which was the only the reason he wasn’t dead yet. That he needed to just wait and see the fun they had in store for him. The woman was so sick in the head now that he knew he could never reach out to her or talk her out of her dark proclivities for violence, much less elicit any kind of guilt or sympathy or remorse. So he wasn’t even going to try. If he was correct in his diagnosis, she had no capacity for any kind of empathy, and probably hadn’t since she was ten years old. So he had to steel his own mentality and force of will. Dig even deeper inside himself when she was there working on him. Booker and Holliday would show up. Once they knew he was alive, they would search him out and free him. Still, that was little comfort at the moment, because he was still freezing, his body trembling so hard that he couldn’t stop it. When the music stopped abruptly in the middle of the song, the light slowly dimmed again until he sat alone in darkness. Then he waited to be attacked.

  Nothing happened right off, so he endeavored to dredge up more mental strength, force himself to think about other things, other times when cold and wet meant pleasure for him, not pain. So he shut his eyes and pulled out the day he’d given Claire the engagement ring. They’d been in the snow, at her house on the lake, not long after she had barely escaped one of her horrific ordeals with serial killers. But that day, the snow, the cold had felt good to him, refreshing and clean. He had pulled out the ring and surprised her, and he tried to forget where he was now, how cold he was now, how hard his limbs were quivering, and think only of that one day when cold meant good things, when cold meant Claire was underneath him and he was kissing her cold lips.

  That dream worked for a little while, but it didn’t last nearly long enough. He felt as if he was already partially frozen. As if his skin had grown hard to the touch, red and frostbitten and covered with a thin sheet of ice. Soon he would stop feeling the cold or the pain of being cold. Freezing to death had always been purported as the easy way to go, he knew that much, probably easier than anything else they had done to him so far. But this time, they might have overdone it. Because he knew he would lose consciousness soon and eventually stop breathing. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe that’s the way he was meant to go.

  Chapter Four

  As it turned out and after long hours spent restlessly pacing the floors and obsessing over the awful things that Jaxy Soquet was capable of and might be doing to Black, Claire began to think her phone would never ring. They were making her wait. She had not expected that. She had expected to be summoned very quickly so she could not bring in any law enforcement to thwart their plans or to track their movements. But the long hours of worry were probably designed to make her nervous and edgy and prone to making mistakes. And it was definitely getting to her all right. She looked at the clock. Midnight and still no call. Two a.m. and still no call. They no doubt wanted her bleary and tired and unable to think clearly when they picked her up.

  Claire did feel exhausted, mentally, physically, and every other way, but she was still alert enough to match wits with the triple maniacs from hell. Her adrenaline levels were absolutely through the roof, causing her to pace endlessly, making her a little bit crazy, but keeping her awake and alert. She would not get any rest, not as long as they had Black, so she wasn’t even going to try. She probably wouldn’t shut her eyes until he was out of that psycho’s torture chamber, safe and sound and back home.

  So when her phone buzzed at six o’clock the next morning, she stopped in her tracks and jerked up the phone. She took one very deep breath and punched On. The three men lounging around the living room in various stages of sleep, all sat up and became attentive.

  “I’m ready. Tell me where I’ve got to go,” Claire said into the phone.

  “What? Where are you going?”

  Claire recognized Jacques Montenegro’s soft Cajun drawl at once. Black’s big brother, the New Orleans mafioso, who still thought Black was dead. She should have called him; it was wrong of her not to, but she hadn’t even thought about him or about anybody else since she knew Black was alive and suffering. But this man had a right to know. She had to tell him. “Jacques, listen to me, please listen and don’t say anything. I can only talk to you for a few seconds. Black’s alive. He’s been abducted. So I can’t use this line because they’re calling me back. He’s in terrible danger, but he’s alive, Jacques, he’s still alive.”

  At the other end of the line, there was a momentary silence, and then she could hear Jacques crying. Just sobbing out loud like a little girl would, a little girl who had lost her mommy in a crowd. Then after a second or two of pure gut reaction, Jacques got hold of himself and down to business and real quick, too. “Who took him? Goddamn them, who did it? Do you know their names? But he’s alive? Are you sure he is alive?”

  No, she wasn’t. But she wasn’t gonna tell him that. “There’s this guy carrying a grudge against him. A bad man. Marcel Soquet. Do you know him? Can you give us any information on him? Where he is? Where he would’ve taken Black?”

  Silence. One beat, two beats. “He is a Frenchman, and a gunrunner and white slaver, and assassin among other things. He is a master torturer and known as the Grenadier. He has taken my brother? Are you sure it is he?”

  “Yes, yes, positive. Is there anything you can do to help us get him out of there?”

  “I can hunt the Grenadier down and tear him apart in the worst way humanly possible.”

  That was uttered rather calmly in true Godfather fashion. It sounded good to Claire, actually. “No, no, Jacques, please, you can’t do that. Not right now. Look, you probably know about Black’s covert activities, right? I know you must. Well, his team has already found out where he is. He’s somewhere around Marseilles. We think it’s an old chateau on the coast. We don’t know exactly where it is yet, but we will. And we’re going in to get him out. Okay? But you have to stand down. Understand me, Jacques. They will kill him if anybody makes a move against them. This has to be done right if Black’s gonna come out of there alive. His team knows what to do, and they’re going in to get him. You stay here and wait. I’ll keep you informed. I promise you, I will. But I’ve gotta get off this line.”

  “What does Soquet want? Money is no object, you understand that? I can give you whatever you need whenever you need it. Just ask me. I can provide men to storm the place, lots of men, from all over Europe. We have many trusted contacts over there.”

  Claire hesitate
d. She knew what he would say if she told him Soquet’s demands. She knew he would not want her to go in alone. But that didn’t matter. She needed to alleviate his concerns so he would back off and not get Black killed by doing something stupid. So she lied. “We’re still waiting for their demands. So, please, Jacques, don’t do anything to put Black at risk. He’s in enough trouble as it is. Just try to be patient and wait.”

  “I am not a patient man. Not when it comes to Nicky. He is very dear to my heart. He is my only blood kin.”

  Yeah, well, Claire knew that feeling well enough, but they had to play by the rules. And Jacques never played by the rules.

  “I know. But I will keep you informed about everything. I promise. Just stay out there on Black’s yacht and wait for me to call.”

  “You will keep me informed.”

  That was more of an order than a request, but the Montenegro crime boss was used to giving orders and taking control. It would not be easy for him to sit idle. “Of course, I will. Please stay calm until we can figure out how to get Black safely out of Soquet’s hands. Just be glad he’s still alive.”

  “I thank God for that. Do you have proof of life on him? Have they hurt him?”

  Claire hesitated. She had lied enough. Jacques was his only living relative, just as he’d said. He deserved the truth, or most of it. “They are not treating him well, but we will get him out. We will do whatever they say, whatever it takes. You can trust me on that, Jacques. I swear you can. I will get him out.”

  “How bad are they treating him?”

  “They are beating him. Soquet’s daughter, Jaxy. She has a weighted sap that she’s using on him. But he was awake and talking at first. He’s not critically injured yet.”

  Claire could almost sense the contained rage permeating through the phone. Then she could hear it in Jacques’s next words. “I shall put out feelers for this man who dared to take my brother and beat him. But I will need to know exactly what is going on. You must keep me informed. You do understand that? You must do that, Claire.”

  “Of course, I promise. But I’ve gotta go now. They may be trying to call. So please be patient. We’ve got everything under control.”

  That little assurance was so far from the truth that her stomach did a forward flip. Nothing was under control, damn it, not one single thing in her life. No telling what that awful psycho bitch Jaxy was doing to Black, right now, as Claire stood talking to his brother. She didn’t want to think about it, couldn’t think about it. What she’d seen so far was enough to make her sick. So she hung up quickly and sat down with the others, who were all awake now and staring out the big plate-glass windows at the misty lake. Nobody said a word.

  The second day passed with no word. Claire kept the phone clutched tightly in her hand, but she was going crazy with the waiting. She had to do something. She couldn’t eat or sleep. The others took turns resting in the guest rooms, and she would lie on her bed, the bed she had shared with Black, and smell his aftershave on the pillow and miss him desperately as she waited on pins and needles for the phone to ring. Still, no call. Nothing.

  After a while, she walked down to Black’s hidden room and found his files and dossiers on the Soquet family. She opened the first page, an introduction to the maniacal family, and began to read, absolutely horrified at what they did to people under their control. They had specially designed rooms that they could set up at a moment’s notice. They filmed their atrocities and sold the tapes as how-to films. Oh, God, why weren’t they calling?

  Throughout day two, Claire and the men sat tensely on the long white sofas in Black’s office. Their gear and weapons were packed and ready, Jack’s plane ready to go, everything set on go, but all they could do was wait, nerves pulled as tight as harp strings. Booker and Holliday had trained themselves to sleep under adverse circumstances so they did exactly that, and Claire was glad they could. They said they would need to be rested and alert for the rescue attempt. Claire wished she had that kind of military training to kick in and make her unconscious, but she couldn’t do it, not for longer than a few minutes of shallow dozing. Novak made a lot of calls to his friends and family in France, putting out feelers, but nothing had come of it yet. He slept some, but just his presence seemed to calm her down a little. His stoic quiet transferred to her and she needed that.

  The other guests had returned to Cedar Bend and had been told that Black was alive, that the news of his death was premature, a mistake of the media, and that the wedding was merely postponed until he arrived home from Europe. Lies, lies, and more lies, but it assuaged the reporters and news people. Most of the guests elected to stay on and enjoy the hotel’s amenities, and everything at the cabin was left exactly as it had been when ready for the ceremony to begin. A complete wedding in limbo, just waiting to see if the groom survived. That day up in her loft in her wedding gown seemed as if it were a thousand years ago. Claire did not drink, but for the first time in her life she felt like she needed one. Maybe a whole bottle. Just pour whisky down her throat and drink herself into oblivion. Some of Black’s Chivas, maybe, but she didn’t do that. She had to keep her wits about her.

  On day three, they blew up Claire’s house. All of them heard the explosion go off far away in the distance. It rattled windows at Cedar Bend Lodge and vibrated the floor, but they didn’t know what had happened until Harve called an hour later and told her the bad news.

  “Was anybody inside?” she asked, terrified to hear the answer. What if Laurie and Nancy had gone back there to get something? Or Joe and his little Lizzie? Oh, God, she couldn’t stand to think about it.

  “No, everybody was gone. I don’t know how they got down there and did it. The fire trucks are there and so are Bud and Charlie. They’re trying to figure out what happened.”

  “I know what happened.” Claire told Harve everything, because if she had ever trusted anybody in her life, it was her oldest and dearest friend and LAPD ex-partner.

  “My God, I can’t believe it. So you think they’re here in the States.”

  “Yeah, some of them must be. They’re coming here for me.”

  “Don’t go, Claire. You cannot go with them. Not after this.”

  “I have to.”

  Harve tried some more tactics to dissuade her but he gave up because he knew he couldn’t talk her out of it. She told Novak and the others, and none of them seemed surprised. Claire guessed she wasn’t, either. Not really. She wasn’t particularly upset about the loss of her house, as strange as that was. That’s when she realized, with some shock, that none of her material possessions mattered in the least to her. Except for a few of Zachary’s baby things that she’d kept after he died, but they were safe and sound, back inside their trunk in Harve’s guest room closet. Nothing else mattered to her, not with Black in the hands of people like the Soquets. She didn’t care about her house, didn’t go over there to see the smoking ruins of everything she owned in the world, didn’t want to think about that. She just wanted them to call so she could go get to Black.

  After she hung up with Harve, three more long, endless, stressful, horrible hours passed, full of waiting and worrying and anguishing over what they could be doing to Black. She kept her phone in her hand the whole time, waiting, but then at three o’clock in the afternoon on July 7, it finally vibrated against her palm and then played Black’s song to her.

  Claire punched On, looking at the three men who were now up on their feet and listening to her every word. A deep male voice said, “You will be picked up at the Cedar Bend Lodge heliport in exactly ten minutes. Be there. If anybody comes with you, if the police show up, if we even see anybody watching you depart, your missing groom here is going to die a very horrible, painful death. Ten minutes. Be there.”

  “I need proof of life,” Claire cried into the receiver. “I won’t come without proof he’s alive!”

  The line went dead. She grimaced and clutched the phone, furious, but after reading those detailed psych evaluations, she knew that he
was most likely still alive. That’s why she was being summoned. She turned to the men, who were now gathered around her. “They said I had to be out on the heliport in ten minutes. They’re picking me up right here at the hotel.”

  “We can take them out.” That was Novak, looking grim. “We can bring the helo down, if that’s how they’re taking you.”

  “And get Black killed the minute Soquet finds out what we’ve done? We’ve gone over this a hundred times. I have to go. And you guys have to get us out. That is the deal. That is our only choice. The only scenario where Black can come out of this alive. I am going to do exactly what they tell me to. Anything they say. Just make sure you stay with my GPS signal. You can do that, right?”

  Booker said, “Yes, we can. If they don’t find the chips.”

  “We’ve gone over this. If they find it, you’ll still have Black’s GPS to follow.”

  “What if they find that one, too, Claire?” Novak, being his usual pragmatic and pessimistic but realistic self.

  “Then I’ll be dead and Black will be dead, and that will be the end of this story and you can go along on your merry way.”