The Messenger: A Novel

by Burke, Jan

  “Yes. If you’d like to wash up before we leave, there’s a bathroom just through that first door. Take the candle on the sideboard with you for light.”

  She glanced up at him, took both the candle and a large empty bowl from the sideboard, and went into the bathroom.

  The taking of the bowl puzzled him, but he had a bigger enigma before him. “Shade,” he whispered, “what in hell was that all about—that business of groveling?”

  Shade wagged his tail.

  “She’s not the queen of England, you know.”

  The tail wagged faster. Someone less familiar with the dog might not have seen what Tyler saw—an unmistakable gleam of amusement in the dog’s eyes.

  “Fine, have your joke.”

  The dog cocked his head to one side, then lowered it and stepped forward, softly butting up against Tyler’s legs.

  Tyler sighed and bent—somewhat painfully—to stroke the soft fur along the dog’s neck. “Of course I’m not angry.”

  He heard the water shut off in the bathroom, and soon Amanda emerged, candle extinguished and apparently left behind. She held the bowl carefully with both hands. It was filled nearly to the brim with water. She carried a towel and washcloth over one arm.

  He looked at her uneasily, and she said, “Now, after everything else, don’t start being a baby. Sit down, please.”

  He obeyed, mostly out of curiosity.

  She carefully washed his face, and when in response to her question he told her that he didn’t have any medical supplies here, she used her little first-aid kit to put an antibiotic on his cuts and to bandage one of the deepest. He didn’t have the heart to tell her how unnecessary this was, but when he saw her eyeing some of the smaller cuts, he said, “I heal quickly. No need to bandage the others.”

  She looked doubtful, but took him at his word, and went to work on his hands.

  He looked at her long, graceful—yes, graceful—neck, the dark strands of her hair falling to either side of her nape. I must be starved for affection, he thought.

  “Did I frighten you, earlier this evening?” he asked.

  She blushed but kept her head bent over her work. “A little. But mostly—it was—Todd embarrassed me, that’s all.”

  “He has two black eyes and a swollen nose. And I’m going to have to replace a few broken bottles of Rebecca’s booze.”

  He heard her give a little snort of laughter. “Thanks. But my, um…honor…was hardly worth fighting for.”

  “I disagree.”

  The blush deepened, she ducked her head a little more, and fell silent.

  Definitely too long without human affection, he decided. That must explain why having this young woman brush a warm cloth over his hands, spread his fingers, stroke them slowly and tenderly, was nearly enough to make him want to pull her to the floor with him. He began to feel grateful to the louts who had beat him to the point of not having the strength to do it. Despite his mind’s wild imaginings, his body was tiring quickly, a sure sign that the fever was not far away.

  “Thank you,” he said.

  She looked up at him. Big brown eyes. Long lashes. She wasn’t hard to read—she was happy.

  He shook himself. “I appreciate all you’re doing, but I think we’d better get back to L.A. To be honest, I’m concerned that they may try something there.”

  “Ron!”

  Yes, he thought, that’s the way of it. Remind yourself of whose territory you’re poaching.

  “I’ve hired security,” he told her. “But I’d like to get within cell phone range and check on him as soon as possible, wouldn’t you?”

  “Oh, yes! Let’s go. Do you need anything from here?”

  “No, provided my car keys are still inside my jacket. Judging from the bruises on my side—ah, yes.” He gingerly extracted them from the inside pocket and handed them to her.

  She was a little wary when he told her that Shade might want to ride in the passenger seat. “Won’t you be in the passenger seat?”

  He could feel the beginnings of the fever, knew that soon he would not be able to hide it from her. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to sleep on the way home. I’ve got a bed in the back.”

  “Oh! Yes, that’s a good idea. But I still think we need to stop by an emergency room. I’m so afraid—you didn’t see what happened, but it was horrible, and you probably aren’t fully in your senses—”

  “Amanda,” he said, and she fell silent. “Amanda, I have to ask for a promise from you. I know I have no right to ask it, but it is extremely important.”

  “What is it?”

  “No doctors, no hospitals, no police. Other than warning Ron, you tell no one what’s happened.”

  There was a long silence. “Why?”

  “Are you worried about the car? I’ll replace it. I’ll buy—”

  “No. Don’t be silly. You know I can replace it myself. My concern is you, of course.”

  “I can’t imagine why.”

  She blushed and looked away, but said, “I owe you an apology, for one thing. When I first met you, I was very rude to you.”

  “I was rude back. We don’t have time for this now.” He felt his skin growing hot and dry. If they could leave soon, get on the road—if she had to concentrate on driving—if he could manage to be quiet—if, if, if. He felt his thoughts grow muddled between the fever and the injuries. “If I promise to tell you about this later, will you trust me for now?”

  “You’ll tell me the truth?”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “I’m asking for the truth.”

  When he didn’t answer, she said, “Are you some sort of criminal?”

  He wanted to lie to her but found he couldn’t. “No.”

  “I don’t suppose a criminal would answer that honestly,” she mused aloud. “You don’t look like a criminal, but I guess the really skilled ones don’t.”

  “I’m not a criminal,” he said again. He fought a wave of dizziness.

  “You don’t look well, Tyler. Maybe we should stay here.”

  “They may come back. You must get away from here, even if you leave me behind. In fact, perhaps that’s the best idea.”

  “Forget it. Let’s go.”

  She helped him into the van. By then he could hardly make sense of what she was saying to him. She had noticed that he felt warm. “I’ll be fine,” he said thickly. “Get me home.”

  Shade lay next to him, which further disconcerted her.

  “It’s all right,” Tyler managed to say.

  She was studying him. He could see the fear in her.

  “You have nothing to fear from Shade.”

  “I’m only a little afraid of him. I’m very afraid for you.”

  “Of me, too, I suppose.”

  “A little,” she admitted. She bit her lower lip. “God, I wish I knew what to do.”

  “Take me home. I promise it’s the best place for me to be right now.”

  She moved up to the driver’s seat and started the van. He stayed awake as she pulled out from beneath the carport, awake along the dirt road where she had helped him. He fought hard and managed to stay awake until they reached the nearest freeway, a distance of twenty miles. Shade lay his head on him then, and Tyler surrendered to fever and fatigue.

  12

  The stench, Daniel thought, was growing stronger. He tried to breathe through his mouth. It didn’t help.

  “Which one of you is bleeding?” the voice asked from a corner in the darkness.

  “I am, my lord,” Evan said meekly.

  “Hmm. Minor wound, is it?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “A shame.” He paused. “Let me bring a few matters to your attention. What made last night different from most, Daniel?”

  “Hawthorne would be separated from the dog, my lord.”

  “Not just separated by a few feet, Evan?”

  “Yes, my lord. I mean no, my lord—I mean, you’re right as always, my lord. He was to b
e miles away from the dog.”

  “So tell me, Daniel, why have you arrived here without him?”

  “We were about to leave the motel, my lord, on our way to watch the house, to look for our best chance to take him, when we got a call from—”

  “Yes, I know. Our friend.” He sighed. “I believe the late Eduardo may have been mistaken in his choice. I often regret his lack of skill in choosing good recruits.”

  Daniel might have been insulted by this, since Eduardo had recruited him, and Evan as well. But whenever Eduardo’s name was mentioned, he felt a sharp pang of loss. And fear. He could not forget what the dog had done to Eduardo.

  “Go on,” the voice said.

  Daniel refocused—it was always a mistake to let your attention wander when in the presence of his lordship. “The caller said that Hawthorne rode off on his bike after some kind of fight there—said he left the party about five minutes after he arrived. Made the woman who owns the place mad as fire—in fact, while our contact was calling us, she interrupted him and hung up the phone. He didn’t give us a lot of details, my lord.”

  “As I said, I seem to be short of good help these days. Go on.”

  “We figured we’d do what we could to stop Hawthorne from getting back to the dog. There was only one place to come at him by the time we heard he was leaving the party. So we waited on a side road until we saw him coming. Then we hit him, and he went flying, but it was only then we noticed that a car was driving some ways behind his motorcycle. Well, it crashed, and there was nowhere for the driver to run, so we took care of business with Hawthorne. Made sure he wasn’t going to come to his feet anytime soon.”

  “Hmm.”

  Daniel didn’t like the sound of that. He waited, but his master again urged him to continue.

  “We decided to take care of whoever was in the car, if the driver had lived. It was a girl. Didn’t look like she made it. But before we could be sure, we heard the dog.”

  “Are you certain?”

  Daniel felt himself break out in sweat. “Yes, my lord.”

  “You don’t really seem to be so sure. I can smell your perspiration, Daniel. Why is that?”

  “I get scared thinking of that dog, my lord.”

  “So scared that you might run at—oh, say, the sound of a coyote?”

  “I hope not, my lord,” Daniel said carefully. “My lord knows best.”

  “And when you regained your courage, and went back to look?”

  Daniel swallowed hard. “We did not regain our courage, my lord.”

  “You disgust me. So now there may be someone who bore witness to all of this?”

  “Yes, my lord. But our faces were covered. We wore these coveralls. We took the plates off the truck.”

  “Plates?”

  “The license plates, my lord. The ones that identify the vehicle.”

  “Ah yes. That is something, in any case. Bring the candle and the map to the table, both of you.”

  They both hated the table. A large wooden affair, it was never free of bits of hair and bone. The manacles at the corners hung empty, never yet used in their presence, but each heavy iron cuff carried its own threat. Evan and Daniel were fearful of the table, but they came forward immediately and spread the map out on its stained surface.

  Daniel could feel the coldness shifting in the room even before the stench grew stronger. His lordship was within striking distance.

  “Point to the place where this happened.”

  They searched until they found the spot. Evan pointed at it.

  “Step away. Take the candle.”

  They did so.

  There was a roaring sound. They cowered together.

  “You damned idiots! Do you not see? Of course not! What do you know of such things? You struck him at a crossroads. Near a cemetery. You fools never stood a chance of taking him there!”

  There was a silence. Daniel felt Evan shiver against him.

  “I will say,” the voice said calmly, “that the dog was undoubtedly nearby. That would be where he left it. Did you reconnoiter the area at all, Evan?”

  “No, my lord. We barely had time to get in position to hit him with the truck.”

  After another long silence, he said, “Go back to this place. If you can discover who the witness is, do so. In any case, bring our little friend to me.”

  “Here?” Evan said, only remembering in the nick of time to add, “My lord?”

  “Now, Evan, where else would I be?” the voice said bitterly.

  13

  They were still about an hour from Los Angeles when Amanda heard Tyler stirring. She glanced into the rearview mirror and saw him sitting up, rubbing his hand through his hair. Groggy, but not senseless.

  The relief she felt was tempered by her continuing concern that she had been crazy to agree not to seek medical care for him. She pictured herself trying to explain to his friends, relatives, and the authorities that she had seen Tyler hit by a truck and beaten while unconscious—and when this man who had taken hard blows to the head and acted woozy told her that he would recover without help, she had just gone along with the idea, and as a result, he died. Was there a Bad Samaritan law?

  At one point during the drive, not long after they had reached the highway, he had started shouting unintelligibly. She had taken the next off-ramp, pulled the van to the side of the dark, deserted road at the end of the exit. She turned the interior lights on and hurried to the back of the van, but Shade, who had been lying on the mattress not far from Tyler, came to his feet, hovering over his master. That kept Amanda from moving closer, but she could see that Tyler’s skin bore the flush of fever; he was shaking and muttering in delirium.

  She nearly used the cell phone to call 911, promises or no promises. But then the shaking had suddenly stopped, and Tyler half-wakened. He seemed oblivious to her presence but aware of Shade, who snuffled at his ear, then returned to lie close to him, his head across Tyler’s chest. She was trying to think of how to shoo the dog off him without being bitten when she became aware that Tyler’s color was more normal, and he had calmed into a quiet sleep.

  Looking at his face, she saw that the bandage she had applied had come off. The place where the cut had been had closed up, only the thinnest line showing that he had been injured there. She frowned. It must not have been as bad as it had seemed to her by the light of the oil lamp.

  She watched him for a while, then dared to reach out to feel his forehead even though the dog lay so near. Shade did not stir but gazed at her with an unnerving intensity. Tyler’s skin felt warm, but not fever hot. After spending some unmeasured amount of time listening to the rhythms of Tyler’s breathing—with a steady counterpoint of soft snores from Shade—she returned to the driver’s seat and resumed their journey. Tyler’s sleep remained untroubled.

  “Are you all right?” he asked now.

  “I’m fine. How are you doing?”

  “Better. Did you reach Ron?”

  “Yes. I didn’t give him many details, but he’s worried about you. He said to call again when we get closer. He wants to know if you want help from any of the people who are caring for him.”

  “No—but I’ll call him myself in a moment. First I need to make sure the wreckage gets cleared away before anyone stumbles upon it.”

  She heard him call someone about removing the wreckage of the car and the motorcycle. He certainly sounded clearheaded now, sounded even better than he had at his desert house, where she was sure his ribs had been bothering him.

  He called Ron. He spoke softly. She tried to convince herself that she didn’t really want to eavesdrop on his half of the conversation anyway.

  He made a third phone call. He apparently had no shortage of people he could phone in the middle of the night, she thought, then recognized this as bitterness over thwarted nosiness and smiled to herself.

  He ended the call. “Are you tired?”

  “No. I’m wide awake. I like driving late at night.”

 
; “I’m just going to sleep a little longer, then,” he said. “You’ll pull over and sleep if you need to?”

  “Yes, but I don’t think it will be a problem.”

  “Sorry to be such poor company.”

  “Damned ill-mannered of you to need to recover when I want small talk.”

  She heard a little cough that might have been a laugh, then he asked, “Do you make small talk, Amanda Clarke?”

  “I’m afraid it’s not numbered among my few skills.”

  “Oh, not so few,” he said, and lay down again.

  Shade moved away from him and came up to the passenger seat. Her muscles stiffened, and she made a conscious effort not to reach up and touch the scar. She kept her eyes straight ahead.

  “Is Shade bothering you?” Tyler asked.

  She forced herself to glance at the dog. The huge dog. One of the biggest she’d ever seen. And just now he had a truly goofy expression on his face—eyes half closed in contentment, the tip of his pink tongue sticking out of one side of his mouth as if he’d lost track of it.

  Impossible to view him as threatening.

  “No,” she said. “We’ll be fine.”

  “He likes the window open a bit, if the noise won’t bother you. You don’t have to do it for long, but—he likes it.”

  She lowered the window a few inches, then, when the dog looked over to her expectantly, lowered it enough for him to stick his head out. The wind and surrounding traffic made a roar that she was sure would keep Tyler awake. When she looked back, he was lying on his side, watching the dog and smiling. Okay, she decided, worth it.

  Shade looked as if he had just found the outdoor equivalent of an opium den—ears flattened, eyes closed in bliss, he was chuffing and making a kind of reverse-bobbing motion with his head, lifting it back as he caught passing scents.

  Eventually he pulled his head in and gave her one of his doggy smiles.

  “Enough for now?”

  He didn’t answer, but he kept his head inside, so she rolled up the window.

  I’m talking to a dog, she thought in wonder.