A Perfect Darkness

by Jaime Rush

  She put her hand to her chest to hold back the pressure building inside her. Me. My dreams. But how? Her gaze went to the plaque identifying the artist: Jason Stark. No picture or biographical information.

  “We wondered if she really existed,” someone said beside her.

  Amy spun around with a gasp. It was the woman who’d handed her the flyer. She smiled, the silky hair flowing over her shoulders and pearlescent skin reminiscent of a fairy’s.

  Questions stampeded over one another in Amy’s mind. “Who is Jason Stark?” Her abrupt tone grabbed the attention of people nearby. She lowered her voice. “Who is he?”

  “You don’t know? I mean, you had to be the model for these.”

  “I’ve never seen them before.”

  The woman looked surprised. “He never intended to sell them, you know. He kept them in his office. One of our regular clients was looking for just such a painting, and I showed him one of these. He was blown away and insisted on buying it. Then we got more requests from people who saw his painting, and finally we convinced the artist known as Jason Stark to display and share them. So he did, but he wouldn’t talk about them and he didn’t want his name associated with them. He’s intensely private.” She looked at the paintings again, placing her hand against her heart. “They move you when you look at them. The passion. The romance.”

  Keep calm and don’t take off the nice lady’s head, Amy told herself with gritted teeth. “Who is Jason Stark?”

  In a low voice she said, “It’s a pseudonym for Lucas Vanderwyck. He owns the gallery.”

  “Lucas Vanderwyck,” Amy repeated. “Do you have a picture of him?”

  “No, afraid not. Wait, the gallery was featured in a magazine last month.”

  Amy followed the woman to the glass case that held jewelry, but her gaze kept going back to those paintings. All her feelings, her desire, her private moments right there on the wall for everyone to see. Gawd.

  When she turned around, she bumped into the frame the woman was holding out. Amy tried not to snatch it too fast. The article featured four full-color pictures, but the only one she cared about was the man with the Mona Lisa smile looking uncomfortable about being photographed.

  She put her hand over her mouth as her head swam. Lucas Vanderwyck, not Brown. The man who’d broken into her apartment. And even more bizarre, her dream lover. His voice whispered in her mind: Amy, we’re not strangers.

  The dreams…they were real.

  She looked up to find the woman watching her with open curiosity. Amy asked, “Is he—?”

  “Not here,” she said quickly, as though she couldn’t bear to speak the words. “We don’t know…where he is.” She maintained her pleasant facade even as she spoke words that caused her glow to turn a mix of yellow for sadness and brown for fear. “I have some other pieces you might be interested in, if you like these.”

  With her fingers at Amy’s elbow, the woman led her to an open doorway filled with a curtain of crystals that resembled the blue rain of the gallery’s name. Beyond that there was a long hallway, then a small office, and then she followed the woman into a storage room. She was beginning to feel like Alice in Wonderland. If the woman offered her a drink or a square of cake, she would swallow without question.

  Down the rabbit hole I go…

  Her heart thrummed inside her, but not out of fear. It occurred to her that no one knew where she was and no one in the gallery would likely remember her because she wasn’t the kind of woman people noticed.

  “Wait here, please.” The fairy woman closed the door, leaving Amy alone to look at stacks of artwork waiting to be displayed and a box that reminded her of the art supplies container she kept her computer tools in, only it wasn’t purple with colored polka dots.

  The door opened and the man she’d thought was a statue walked in. She expected him to explain the summons, but he appeared to be there for other reasons. “Excuse me,” he said, reaching behind her. As she moved out of his way, something white flashed in front of her eyes. The man had pushed a cloth over her face! A minty odor rushed into her nostrils as he held her in a grip so tight she couldn’t move.

  She wrenched her head from side to side to get a breath, but his hand stayed with her. Panic escalated her breathing. She felt as though someone had poured soup into her brain and begun stirring her thoughts around. Shapes floated in front of her just before blackness closed in. Her body fell as limply as Lucas’s had, and her last taste of consciousness was feeling strong arms go around her.

  Amy swam to consciousness, the smell of mint saturating her nostrils and coating her tongue. Gasping, choking, she opened her eyes to find two figures standing in front of her. Or, more precisely, hovering over her, since she was lying on a couch. She lurched to a sitting position, blinking to clear her vision. Nausea rose in her throat at the sudden movement. It felt like fists were pummeling her muzzy brain.

  The fairy woman was nowhere in sight. Wait a minute! The storage room was nowhere in sight. Amy scrambled to her feet but sank back to the burgundy couch when the whole room rocked.

  The man in bronze and a striking woman with long, golden blond hair watched her orient herself. The two shared the same statuesque build, glacial blue eyes, and strong facial structure, though his angles were sharper than hers. The woman stared at her with the same curiosity the woman in the gallery had, though without the smile. What particularly baffled Amy was that these two had the same mysterious glow as Lucas. Which meant she had no clue as to their intentions. As much as she detested her curse, she needed it now.

  “Who are you?” she said, her voice still slurred. “Why did you knock me out?”

  The woman, wearing a stylish black lace top and black jeans, came closer. “We don’t know if you can be trusted.”

  A laugh bubbled out of Amy’s mouth. She looked down at her five-foot-five frame. “Because I’m, what, dangerous?”

  The man stood with his arms crossed over his chest, a stance that made his biceps bulge. He was built like a damned Hummer. “Because of what you know and who you could tell it to.”

  The woman said, “We don’t want you to know where this place is.”

  Amy took in the long, large room, part living and dining area and part artist’s studio. Not one window or even a door. There was a kitchen behind her, and a hallway that led out of sight. It had the cool feel of a basement. A barrage of artwork styles covering walls that were each a different color looked like something out of a schizophrenic nightmare: a sepia-toned canvas of a woman with a man behind her, whispering in her ear; an Andy Warhol style one of Betty Boop; and at the far end, one of the dream paintings of her lying in a meadow. Stacks of charcoal sketches done in jagged lines crowded a corner. The one on the easel depicted a scary scene of someone falling to the ground.

  Before she could study it further, the man said, “What happened two nights ago?”

  She turned to them, her chin jutted out and anger prickling her skin. “You summon me here, drug me, drag me off to some…basement, and you want me to talk? Let me out of here.”

  “Not until you tell us what happened to Lucas,” the woman said, worry creasing her forehead. Her glow, Amy saw, was jagged, indicating she was agitated.

  “And what he told you,” the man added.

  Anger surged at their audacity. She got to her feet. “Pardon my lack of manners, but who the hell are you people?”

  “I’m Petra. This is my brother, Eric.”

  “Lucas’s friends,” Amy said, leaning back against the sofa and crossing her arms in front of her.

  “He told you our names?” A vein throbbed in Eric’s temple. He turned to Petra. “This is why we can’t let emotions get in the way.” To Amy, he said, “What else did he tell you?”

  Was Eric implying that Lucas trusted her because he was emotionally involved with her?

  Petra stepped closer. “What happened to him? Please tell us.”

  Amy’s anger dimmed in light of the fear in Petra’s ey
es. All right, what would it hurt to tell them? Then they’d tell her stuff, too. She sat on the arm of the sofa. “Lucas broke into my apartment…” Reliving the experience as she recounted the events renewed her fear and confusion. She wrapped her arms around herself as she finished. “Then these men busted in and…and they shot him in the neck.” That’s when it hit her. He was gone. No more dreams. “And still he fought those men…for a few minutes…until he dropped. Then they took his body.”

  Petra choked back a sob. “Oh my God, he’s dead—body, she said body.”

  Eric’s jaw tightened, but if the death of his friend affected him, he hid it well. “What did you tell the men?” He stood so close she could feel his breath on her hair. “They asked what he’d told you, didn’t they?”

  Amy nodded. “Lucas told me not to say anything, so I didn’t.”

  “They didn’t interrogate you?”

  She shook her head. “I told them Lucas wasn’t there long enough to tell me anything before they charged in.”

  “Did you tell anyone what Lucas said?”

  “Only my uncle Cyrus.”

  His voice sounded strained. “Your uncle?”

  “He’s not really a blood uncle. He—”

  “You told someone what Lucas said?” he repeated. “After he told you not to say anything to anyone?”

  Petra added, “Didn’t he warn you that someone you trusted would betray you?” Her eyes glistened with tears. “That’s why he risked his life.”

  “Yes, but I didn’t think—”

  “You didn’t think.” Eric banged the heel of his hand against his temple. “Stupid.”

  Amy shrank back but just as quickly felt her own anger rise. “A man breaks into my apartment in the middle of the night, mentions my father’s suicide, then gets shot, and I’m supposed to think?”

  Petra stepped forward. “It’s just that we’re scared and now Lucas is—”

  Eric put his arms around Petra and pulled her close. He closed his eyes for a second, as though gathering his emotions as Petra tried to rein in hers. After a moment he looked at Amy. “How long have you known Cyrus?”

  “My whole life,” she was happy to assure him. “He was my dad’s best friend since their Army days.”

  Instead of looking relieved, he said, “Is he still in the Army?”

  “No, he’s worked for the CIA for twenty-some years.”

  “You may have just signed your death warrant.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Cyrus probably works for them, and now he knows that Lucas told you about our suspicions, so you’ll need to go, too.”

  She got to her feet. “Go? What do you mean by ‘go’?”

  “Be eliminated. Taken out. Killed. I’m sure we’re already on the hit list. They probably suspected that we knew too much, but now, thanks to what you told your uncle, they know for sure.”

  “Cyrus wouldn’t tell anyone. He wouldn’t be the person Lucas said would betray me.”

  Eric looked skeptical. “I told him it was a bad idea to make contact with you, and we all agreed. We figured they’d be watching you.” His expression hardened. “But he went to you anyway.”

  Guilt twisted inside her. She had caused him to get killed. “Why did he come to me if he knew it was dangerous?”

  “He wasn’t thinking either,” Eric said.

  Petra wrapped her arms around her waist and paced, her tears flowing. “If only he would have told us. If we’d all gone, we could have saved him.”

  “Or gotten killed, too. No, he wouldn’t tell us because he knew we’d object. No way was he going to let us stop him from going to her.”

  But why? Amy wondered. Why her? With her hand in her pocket, she wrapped Lucas’s chain around her fingers. She followed Petra’s gaze to a corkboard above the desk that held several photographs. Most looked old, from maybe twenty years ago. They reminded her of the pictures of her mom and dad she kept in places she looked at frequently. She was ashamed to admit that if she didn’t have the pictures, she would forget their faces.

  Two photos were of Lucas and his mom, an exotic woman with a head full of dark curls. The one in the center showed five children playing in a kiddie pool on a bright day, grinning at whoever held the camera. Something stirred as she stared at the picture. The little girl, green eyes, freckles, and thick, frizzy brown hair. Her. The boy holding her protectively, the skinny boy with dark hair and blue-gray eyes, was Lucas.

  Amy, we’re not strangers.

  They had known each other as children years ago, and, inexplicably, they knew each other in dreams, too.

  As she was about to turn and ask questions of her own, something white flashed over her face. Mint assailed her senses. No, not again! Before she could think of fighting, everything went black.

  CHAPTER 5

  She woke in the storage room to U2’s “The Sweetest Thing.” The fairy woman knelt next to her with a bottle of water. Amy’s first thought was to knock it out of her hand and demand answers, but her head was too foggy to put action and intention together. Might as well let the woman help her sit up.

  Amy saw none of the suspicion that had been so apparent on Eric’s face. She accepted the water and drank half of it in one gulp. Her throat felt parched and her mouth tasted of that minty smell.

  “I’m so sorry,” the woman said, meaning it. “I’m Kira, by the way.”

  Breathless, Amy said, “Please tell me what’s going on.”

  “I don’t know. It has something to do with Lucas, though, and I’ll do whatever I’m told if it’ll help bring him back.” She gave Amy two aspirin. “For the headache.”

  “I don’t have a—” As though the mention triggered it, she became aware of a distant throbbing in her brain, and it grew larger by the second. She downed the aspirin. “What did they use?”

  “Chloroform.” Kira gave her a pained look. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Do you know why Lucas is gone?”

  She shook her head. “Eric only told me that something happened to him and to get in contact with you. Bring you back here. Then wait for you to wake up. He promised they wouldn’t hurt you.”

  Kira tried to help Amy to her feet, but she needed to do it on her own. As before, she had to hold onto something as the room spun. “Where was I?”

  Kira shrugged. As secretive as Eric and Petra were, it was likely that Kira didn’t know, confirming the honesty Amy could see.

  “I’ll be all right. I just want out of here.”

  “I’m supposed to give you a message,” Kira said. “Don’t tell anyone where you were or who you spoke with. If anyone asks, you came here for the showing. Your life could depend on it.”

  Anger and confusion surged through Amy’s body as she shakily made her way through the gallery. She felt like a ghost wandering among living beings. Melting faces leered at her, colors throbbed. She paused to look at the dream paintings. Lucas had looked at her in the way someone who cared about her would, and now she knew why. There was so much more she didn’t know, and it wasn’t likely that Eric and Petra would enlighten her. Damn them. Double damn them. Cyrus would never betray her. Someone was lying to him, that’s all.

  She walked outside, blinking in the afternoon sunlight, feeling as though she’d crawled out of a bizarre dream. She collapsed into the driver’s seat of her car, letting the cool air and heavy bass of Saliva’s “Ladies and Gentleman” surround her. That they welcomed her to a show that would make her eyes and ears bleed seemed appropriate. As they suggested, she even checked to see if she was still breathing.

  Now what? Part of her wanted to run home and never come out. The other part needed to know more. Something was going on here, and it was connected to her father—and to Lucas’s death.

  You’re as tenacious as a bulldog, Mr. Bromley had told her when she reported how she’d finally managed to pull his report out of the scrambled data. She was tenacious about retrieving other people’s data from a puzzle of bits and pieces. She’d go to the
moon for her clients. She could at least go one more step for herself.

  Energized by anger and determination, she pulled out that slip of paper Lucas had given her. He said she’d been the first so-called Offspring that he and his friends had contacted, which meant they hadn’t approached Bill Hammond. He was her only lead to figure out what the hell was going on here.

  Bill Hammond lived in a small, neat apartment complex twenty minutes from her place. Just in case someone was watching, she’d taken several detours with an eye on her rearview mirror. She hadn’t seen any suspicious vehicles, including that white one. Still, she had the eerie feeling she was being watched. No way could someone have followed her, she’d told herself. She was just being paranoid.

  Now she sat in her Rav 4 and stared at Bill’s door, wondering how to approach him. Hey, this guy broke into my apartment and gave me your name.

  Nah.

  Ten minutes of mulling produced no brilliant ideas. She got out of the car and hoped something would occur to her before she reached the door. As it turned out, she didn’t have quite that much time. Just as she reached his landing, the door opened and a wiry man with cream-and-coffee-colored skin stepped out with a basket of laundry in his arms. He was about her age and clearly puzzled to find a strange gal at his door.

  Amy knew her smile was clumsy. She could talk someone down from the ledge by assuring him that his life wouldn’t end if his data was lost, but this situation was way out of her expertise.

  “You’re Bill? Bill Hammond?”

  “Yeah?” he said, drawing out the word.

  “I’m Amy.” She shoved her hand at him, and he limply shook it around the basket. “Sorry to bother you. Lucas said I should talk to you.” She waited a beat to see if the name registered. When it didn’t, she plunged on. “I’m looking for a place to live, and he suggested I ask you how you like it here. I’m a girl on my own, and I want to find a secure place. My apartment just got broken into and—” She took a breath. “Is this complex safe for a woman? Not that you’re a woman, of course, but maybe you could tell me anyway.”