A Perfect Darkness

by Jaime Rush

  He walked past the open door and then around the corner, out of sight. She jumped on top of the washing machine below the window, saw the green Pinto through the grimy window—and Spy Guy! She ducked back. While making sure the bathroom had no window, he looked up at the window she was next to. Could he see her? She held her breath while he studied it for a moment. If he saw her, he’d know she was up to something.

  He walked around to the other side of the building and, seeing it blocked by a fence, quickly walked back toward the front again. As he did, she jumped down and ran back to the bathroom. Shut off the water, waited a second, then came out. Now, he was standing in the open doorway. He replaced the worried look with a casual nod and continued on.

  Playing along, she tossed her paper towel into the garbage can as though attempting to make a basket, and dropped down into the chair. A second later she launched herself up and on tiptoe and looked out the high, short windows. Spy Guy was pretending to watch the people in the garden area, though his head was turned slightly toward the laundry building. He started to wander back. He wasn’t going to give her a lot of time. She jumped back onto the washing machine, opened the window, and pushed the button that released the grill. It was stuck. She pounded it while watching him through the side window.

  Fluck, as Orn’ry would say. “Damn it, come on!”

  Spy Guy was getting closer.

  She pounded on the button. It finally gave. With a rusty screech, she pushed it open. Spy Guy glanced at his watch and then at the building she was in. He was almost there. Five more steps and he’d see her, ass sticking out the window. She only realized how far the drop was when she looked down, half in, half out. She landed on the concrete with an Oof! No dignity, and, unfortunately, not unobserved. A woman who stood nearby, next to her car, was staring at her.

  “Sorry,” Amy whispered. “Trying to get away from my ex.”

  The inside of the Pinto smelled old, looked old, and frankly, was old. Eric had probably looked for the crappiest car he could find. Didn’t these things blow up if you sneezed in them? She found the key and started it. A cap and sunglasses were on the passenger seat, and she slipped them on as she put the car in gear. And not a second too soon. Spy Guy came through the corridor as she passed it.

  Stay calm, don’t gun it. If this thing can be gunned.

  Through the rear view mirror, she saw him watching the car. Her fingers tightened on the wheel. He ran toward her. Stopped, looked at the stairs going up to the apartments near him. Then he glanced in the other direction, looking for her in places other than the Pinto.

  Adrenaline shot through her veins. “Ohmygod, ohmygod, I’m crawling out windows and hiding from CIA dudes.” She took several deep breaths and then a laugh bubbled out of her. “I ditched a CIA dude. Me! Little ol’ computer nerd me!” She started howling in laughter, knowing she was only one step away from hysterical. More deep breaths. She sobered herself by wondering what Spy Guy would have done if he’d caught her climbing out the window.

  She’d only felt such an adrenaline rush one other time, six months ago. She had been summoned to look at a guy’s drive on his yacht at a marina. Admittedly, she’d been busy looking at the stars in the night sky, thinking of her dad, and only glancing ahead enough to make sure she didn’t walk off the dock. She’d entered a dark section where the lights were out and became aware of a guy working on his boat. He said, “’Evening.” He had the same dark glow the creep she’d worked for had.

  She had continued walking, trying to appear cool and unconcerned. Animals could sense fear, after all. In a flash, hands grabbed her from behind, a knife was pressed to her throat, and a gravelly voice said, “Walk with me toward the boat. Don’t mess with me or I’ll cut your throat.” He edged her toward his boat, and she frantically tried to figure out what to do.

  Then she saw another guy running toward them and thought, Oh, God, there are two of them, except the second guy did a Rambo on the first. He told her to get out of there, and she raced to the office to get help.

  By the time she’d returned with the manager, the creep was cuffed to the railing on a boat, her rescuer gone. She’d never even seen his face. The police had asked him to come forward as a witness, thankfully keeping her name out of the press, but he never did. She hadn’t gotten to thank him.

  One of the things that still haunted her about that night was what the police had found on the creep’s boat: ropes and nonspecified instruments of torture (it was better that she not know). The other thing was the blood on the dock, which was nowhere near the creep. She hoped it was the creep’s blood, but…what if it wasn’t?

  Now, once she was on the highway, she let out a long sigh. “I’m already exhausted and I haven’t even gotten to the tough part yet.”

  The car coughed, then paused before continuing. She called Eric’s number. “Nice ride,” she said, her voice dripping with sweetness.

  “It runs, doesn’t it? You’re on your way, I presume.”

  “After ditching my parasite.” She wasn’t going to tell him how close it got. “Is Cyrus still online?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know? Do you have a camera or something?”

  “That’s not for you to worry about.”

  Implying that she had plenty of other things to worry about. Another call beeped in.

  “Who’s that?” Eric asked.

  She glanced at the screen. “A client. I’ll catch him later.”

  “Client? What do you do?”

  “I save data from damaged hard drives. Ever heard of Disc Angel?” Even now she could hear pride in her voice. Until she wondered how all this was going to affect her business.

  “No way,” he said. “No frickin’ way.”

  “Yes, way.” She made a turn onto the highway and toward Cyrus’s neighborhood. “And that seems strange to you because?”

  “Never mind. All right, remember what I told you to look for?”

  “DARK MATTER. Names and addresses.”

  “Right. Petra is going to show up at his door and use her feminine wiles to convert him to the Order of Brotherly Love. You won’t have long, but you should have enough time to at least get a few names. She’ll be on the sidewalk by his house. Make eye contact and then she’ll wander to the door. Okay, good luck.”

  He hung up. She passed Cyrus’s house and saw Petra in a simple dress and plain top with one button too many left undone. Her hair was plaited in braids and she wore glasses. She held what Amy surmised was a Bible and some pamphlets. They nodded to each other, and Petra walked toward Cyrus’s door. Amy turned into the common area and parked, feeling a sick turning in her stomach. She walked along a path that meandered through the green space behind Cyrus’s house. Doing this in the daytime was going to be tricky, but she didn’t have much choice. Hopefully most of the close neighbors would be at work, as all reasonable people were. Not that she’d ever been reasonable.

  Like, for instance, she still held onto some brainless hope that this was all a big fat misunderstanding, and all she’d find on Cyrus’s computer would be boring government secrets about the Clintons or Al Qaeda sex orgies.

  She slinked to the back porch. Fortunately she’d never convinced him to take one of the shelter dogs that she worked with, so no animal would give her away. As she’d hoped, the back door was unlocked, and she slipped inside just as Cyrus opened the front door.

  His office was in a second bedroom off the main hallway. She knew that he conducted CIA business on his Company-issued laptop. She kept one ear tuned to the door, where she heard Petra introducing herself. She knew she probably wouldn’t have time to get out of the office when Cyrus shut the door in Petra’s face, which would be as soon as his patience wore out. If that happened, she would duck into the closet he used for storage. Maybe she would learn more by listening for a while.

  Now, however, she slid into his chair, which was still warm. He was logged into exactly what Petra had described as a MySpace page. She was startled
to see her god-awful driver’s license picture staring back at her: green eyes, hair she’d tried to tame until she stepped out into the humid day. On the left were several links: Background, History. Skills, and Notes. He was typing in a Notes section of the page. Resisting the urge to read more on herself, she clicked on the Home link and saw links for BLUE EYES and DARK MATTER. The CIA logo wasn’t at the top, but rather, DEPARTMENT OF TACTICS AND DEFENSE. She clicked on DARK MATTER and saw a list of about a dozen names, hers included.

  “But I can tell that you’re lonely,” Petra was saying in her effort to keep Cyrus talking. “We’re all lonely until we accept God into our hearts. Don’t you want a family to embrace you, to keep you warm during the cold nights?”

  Good grief, she was mixing seduction with religion, and she wasn’t very good at it.

  She saw Lucas’s tab, too, and her finger twitched to click on it. But she needed new names. Unease shivered down her spine, as though someone was standing right behind her. She jerked around. No one. Eric’s camera?

  She clicked on the name Randall Brandenburg. His driver’s license picture showed a good-looking guy who could be in a rock band, with his goatee, eyebrow piercing, and two-toned hair. She jotted down his address, using the pen and the pad she’d brought, then went back to the main page and clicked on the next link.

  “But sir, I really need to talk to you more,” Petra said in an urgent voice. “I’ve got to save someone’s soul or they’ll punish me.” Time was running out.

  “If you belong to some cult that punishes you for not getting converts, you need some intervention. Unfortunately, I’ve got too much on my plate to do it.”

  Next she chose Nicholas Braden, going right to his address. Then Jerryl Evrard, only memorizing his address when she heard Cyrus say “Get help” and close the door. Just as she was about to scram, a thought hit her: she had to go back to where he’d left the cursor. No time! If she didn’t, she’d be busted anyway. She clicked on her link again and positioned the mouse at the end of the last sentence: Still no indication of…

  If only she had time to read it. She pushed away from the desk. His footsteps sounded across the wood floor. Coming down the hallway. She opened the closet door. Oh, jeez, it was more jammed than she remembered. Boxes stacked up to her waist, and Cyrus had been tossing stuff in.

  Footsteps came closer.

  She climbed up on the boxes, feeling one collapse a bit beneath her. She folded her legs up and pulled the door closed just as she heard Cyrus walk into the office, muttering about religious crazies.

  She realized she was holding her breath and released it in degrees. The box beneath her crumpled more. She squeezed her eyes shut. God, if You get me out of here I’ll never…I don’t know, cuss or something, again.

  The phone rang.

  “Diamond…Yeah? All right, I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

  Could she dare hope that he’d leave his laptop sitting there logged in? Not reasonably. She heard him snap his laptop closed, and a minute later he walked down the hallway and out the front door. She gave him plenty of time to leave before emerging. Feeling fully paranoid, she half expected Cyrus to be standing at the doorway.

  He wasn’t. She did note that he’d taken his laptop, and she knew he didn’t keep anything work-related on his regular computer. She searched his desk and the file cabinets but found nothing about DARK MATTER, whatever that was, or any familiar names.

  “Names.”

  She picked up his telephone and scrolled down his speed dial entries, writing each one down. Bill Hammond, the Offspring she’d tried to talk to, was there. The phone rang, startling her into dropping it. It was, in fact, Bill’s name on the caller ID screen. She was tempted to answer it, but knew that would be a bad idea. She wrote down the last entry and set the phone in the cradle, then waited until Cyrus’s outgoing message finished and the machine beeped.

  “Hey, it’s Bill. I’ve been picking up some weird energy. And there’s some guy hanging around who’s definitely putting out a vibe. This all started after that weird chick came over talking about her dad. I’ve got a bad feeling about this. Call me.”

  Weird chick. Didn’t sound like he would be open to another visit. But what did he mean? Did he have a CIA spook watching him, too?”

  “Damn, maybe because I went over there. Were they watching me that day?”

  She shivered and quickly left.

  Amy ditched the car near the City Docks in the historic section of Annapolis. The boats and salt air reminded her of her terrifying encounter the last time she went near the water, but she tried to pretend to enjoy the breezy day, like many of the others who were eating their lunches in the sunshine. The smell of food made her stomach rumble, though she didn’t feel hungry.

  She walked around the edge of the square brick area where people sat on benches. She’d been there only a couple of times in recent years. Too many people, too many glows. As she glanced around at the yachts tied along the seawall and the shops and restaurants, she scanned for anyone who looked suspicious.

  She spotted Eric and Petra standing in the shadow of a tree on the opposite side, where the boardwalk edged the common area. It gave them an escape, she realized. It scared her that they had to think in those terms.

  Petra looked like a fashion plate, as always, with slim black hip-huggers and a tight shirt with a butterfly painted on the front. Eric’s now red hair looked even more like flames as it spiked up.

  She meandered over to them. “I’m sorry, I only got three names.”

  Eric shrugged. “Three’s a start.”

  She realized she should be pleased she got three names, under the circumstances, instead of apologizing. It was a bad habit, always feeling sorry. “Randall Brandenburg—”

  “Rand,” Eric said to Petra. “He’s the fifth kid in our group.”

  “In the picture you saw,” Petra clarified.

  “Who else?” Eric asked.

  She glanced at the paper on which she’d written down the names and addresses. “Jerryl Evrard.”

  “Never heard of him.” Eric leaned close to look at the paper. “Or Nicholas Braden.”

  At the strange sound near her ear, she turned, furrowing her eyebrows. “Are you sniffing me?”

  “You smell good.”

  “I smell sweaty.”

  “You smell like a woman.”

  She stepped away from him. “So are you going to tell me how you knew Cyrus was online?”

  “Nope,” he said without apology.

  Amy let out a frustrated sigh. “Have I proven myself?”

  “I suppose,” Eric said. “Be a hell of a lot easier, and smarter, if you just walk now and let us handle this.”

  She met his gaze. “I know that.”

  A breeze blew Petra’s silky blond hair across her mouth. She pulled it back and wrapped her fingers around it like a ponytail. “He’s ours. Our concern, not yours.”

  He’s mine, Amy caught herself about to say. Whoa. Did she feel that way?

  She didn’t know for sure, but it was everything and more that she’d read in all those tragic romances—a tidal wave lifting her skyward, ready to plunge her down to drown in the depths. She’d kept herself safe by not connecting emotionally. Now, she had to admit, she’d torn her cocoon as much as those three men had back at her apartment. She had fallen in love with a man who might die before she ever saw him again. That thought tore through her, leaving a gaping hole inside.

  Eric interpreted the grief on her face as fear. “You have every reason to be afraid. Get the hell out of this while you can. Petra and I live off the grid now. No credit cards, no freedom—”

  “Living in fear,” Petra added. “Never getting to just go out to the mall and shop.”

  Eric said, “Walk away now, go back to your life, and forget all of us.”

  The breeze blew her thick hair around, too, but it wasn’t long enough to twist into a ponytail. “I thought you wanted to round up all the Offspring, band t
ogether. Why give me an out?”

  “You’re too emotionally involved. That’s dangerous.”

  She, Amy Shane, too emotional? She would have laughed if…if it wasn’t true where Lucas was concerned.

  He said, “So get the hell out of here and save yourself. It’s okay to admit you’re scared. Tell your uncle you’ve decided we’re crazy, all of us.”

  Or was she crazy to think he was trying to protect her as well as get rid of her? Maybe she looked scared. She felt scared, oh yes, she did. Just as much of finding out the truth about who she was, or of getting killed, as she was of losing Lucas. She could walk with her pride intact. But could she walk?

  Amy Shane would run whee-whee-whee, all the way home. Something hit her: she wasn’t that Amy anymore. She’d always considered herself a bit on the cowardly side, but look at what she’d done since Lucas broke into her apartment. She’d escaped spy guys, sneaked onto Cyrus’s computer, and met with two people who, frankly, she didn’t trust or like. She’d done things she’d never thought she could or would do. For love.

  “I’m in.”

  She was both terrified and excited to find out who this Amy was.

  Neither Petra nor Eric looked especially happy.

  Petra leaned against a large piling with her arms draped in front of her. “Why are you so passionate about finding Lucas? You don’t even know him.”

  “You saw the paintings. They weren’t just any dreams.” Her cheeks reddened, and she saw Petra’s do the same. “I can’t explain what Lucas and I share, and I won’t. But I’m here, so that should tell you what you need to know.” She met their gazes. “I want the same things you do. To rescue Lucas. To find out how my father was involved in all this…whatever ‘this’ is. Why am I an Offspring? Who are these people watching me? I can’t walk away from those questions…or from Lucas.”

  Eric nodded, a grim expression on his face. “You realize that once the bad guys figure out that you’re working with us, you’re going to have to go into hiding. There’s no turning back.”