Dark Sky

by Carla Neggers

  Absolutely nothing.

  He couldn’t hear any of the voices he’d come to know during his captivity, men’s voices, speaking Spanish and English or a mix of the two languages. Ham spoke fluent Spanish—the creeps who’d snatched him in Bogotá knew that from the start. It was like they had a nice little dossier on him. Hamilton Johnson Carhill, only son of billionaires Faye and Johnson Carhill of Nowhere, Texas, who would pay to keep the indignity of his kidnapping from hitting the public airwaves even faster than they’d pay to free him.

  His parents had opposed his trips to South America, but assumed he was hiking in Patagonia or lying on the beach in Rio. They hoped he’d bulk up on his adventures, get a tan and return home ready to join the Carhill empire.

  A cockroach crawled up his shin, but Ham didn’t move to flick it off.

  He was on a bare, flea-infested mattress on a cot in a cinder-block hut somewhere in the Andes. The darkness in the single room was nearly complete. He only knew it was a cockroach on his leg because it wouldn’t be anything else. The place was full of them—huge, ugly things that scurried and raided in the dark. He often wondered how such a country, with its startling contrasts of stunning landscapes and stark poverty, of kind and friendly people and incessant violence, could produce the most beautiful emeralds in the world. Precious gems—in particular, emeralds—had become his passion and, in a way, his undoing.

  Ham listened, squeezing his eyes shut as if it’d help sharpen his hearing, and for a moment thought he might have gone deaf.

  But he was alone in the hut, perhaps alone in the camp.

  The handsome, dark-eyed American and the Colombians—they were gone, all of them.

  Had they left him here to die?

  Sitting up, Ham fell into a spasm of coughing, holding his ribs, thinking they might start breaking off into pieces and stab his lungs. The creeps had fed him pinto beans and more pinto beans, a little fatback once a day, and once—an immeasurable treat—a can of beanie weenies.

  His hair hung down his back, stringy and unwashed. He had a sketchy, nasty beard. He figured he must have lice. His bowels were a mess, but he didn’t think he had any parasites or infections.

  Maybe his captors thought he was such a coward he’d just sit there, whether they were there to guard him or not. When they grabbed him, stuffing him in a jeep, he’d passed out—he had no idea where they’d taken him, except that it was a remote area in the mountains. The altitude made breathing only that much more difficult.

  I’ll die here like a cockroach.

  He felt a draft, smelled the outside air and realized the door was open. He staggered toward the fresh air. He kept expecting his eyes to adjust to the dark, but they didn’t. Christ—was he blind? But the nights were often pitch black, only he’d never been allowed to walk around, even with a guard.

  Something moved. He saw a shadow, heard a swish—fabric on fabric?

  “Shh.” A gloved hand clamped down on his wrist. “We’re United States soldiers, Mr. Carhill. We’re here to rescue you.”

  “Ethan?”

  Ham didn’t know if he spoke out loud. His voice was scratchy. He was so damn weak—was he imagining his own rescue?

  A flash, a shot.

  The camp wasn’t entirely abandoned.

  All hell broke loose, and Ham scrambled in the darkness for his boots, his pants, refusing to be taken half naked—and desperate, he thought. He didn’t want to look so damn desperate.

  He tucked a small plastic bag inside his pants. The bag contained fifteen perfect, beautiful cut and polished emeralds that would bring a good price on any market, legitimate or otherwise.

  Did Ethan know about the emeralds? Unlikely, Ham thought. He’d found them late that afternoon, when his captors were in a panic about something—bad news, obviously. Colombia was world-renowned for its emeralds. They were popular with smugglers. But Ham didn’t believe these were intended for smugglers—they were the ransom payment for him.

  He’d switched them for small, worthless stones.

  “Let’s go,” Ethan said.

  Ham nodded, but he was hyperventilating, feeling faint. Ethan hoisted him over one powerful shoulder. Ham felt himself go limp, tranquil in the knowledge that his friend, neighbor and idol—Ethan the Magnificent, he’d called him as a boy—had come to save him.

  Four

  Juliet tapped the calendar on her computer monitor with her pencil eraser and counted one, two, three, four, five—six days since Ethan had left her in the rain at Federal Hall. And not a word since. She didn’t know whether to be worried, annoyed or relieved. That was one of the problems he presented. Her feelings toward him were complicated.

  But she didn’t want him to be dead. She knew that much.

  She shook off such a thought, refusing to give it any traction. If something had happened to Ethan, she’d know. If she didn’t feel it in her gut, someone privy to such information would get word to her. A matter of courtesy.

  Mike Rivera stopped on his way past her desk. He was one of two chief deputies in the office, a bulldog of a man and the fifty-two-year-old father of five daughters. “You’re going to stab a hole in your monitor with that pencil.”

  Juliet didn’t want to mention Brooker. One, she hadn’t told Rivera that she and Ethan had met on the steps of Federal Hall to discuss an ex-con who’d once threatened to kill her. Two, Rivera basically thought her new Special Forces friend was a shit magnet. The chief wasn’t one to mince words. And he didn’t believe Juliet when she protested that Ethan wasn’t, really, a friend. The man had thrown caution—his career, his life—to the damn wind since his wife’s death. Rivera and a few others who shared his opinion didn’t question that Ethan was a good guy, a combat officer whose commitment and sacrifice they respected. They just questioned the tendency for bad things to happen when he showed up.

  And they questioned his interest in Juliet, although they’d never admit as much. She was a federal agent who had a degree in plant science. It wasn’t until after college that she’d decided on a career in law enforcement. Her father and brothers had thought it’d be a passing fancy—that she’d flunk out of training. They didn’t want to see her fail so much as end up doing what they were convinced she was meant to do. In general, men tended to treat her like a sister, maybe because she had five older brothers and was good at acting like a sister.

  Rivera pointed a thick finger at her coffee mug. “How many cups of coffee is that so far today?”

  It was two o’clock in the afternoon. “I have no idea. I haven’t kept count.”

  “It’s at least your fifth.”

  “Chief, come on. You’re not spending your time keeping track of how much coffee I’m drinking, are you?”

  “It’s too damn much. You’re going to be in the middle of a takedown one of these days and have to pee. That happened with my first partner—”

  “It’s not going to happen to me.”

  He sniffed, making a face. “How old is that stuff?”

  “I don’t know. I finished off the pot.” She was notorious for drinking coffee any way she could get it, but she preferred it black, hot and fresh. “I’m not that fussy. The only kind of coffee I won’t drink is flavored. Hazelnut, vanilla.” She gave a mock shudder. “Raspberry.”

  “My wife loves hazelnut. She says it’s like having a milkshake.”

  “When I want a milkshake, I’ll have a milkshake.”

  “You ever get tested for ADHD?” he asked. “Attention deficit hyperactive disorder.”

  She creaked back in her chair. “No, Mike. I’ve never been tested.”

  “My youngest is ADHD. Smart as a whip, funny as hell. She’s on the go all the time. I can’t keep up with her. I don’t know if it’s true, but I read somewhere that coffee doesn’t affect people with ADHD the same way it does other people. Supposedly it calms them instead of winds them up.”

  “Do I look calm?”

  He grinned at her. “Imagine if you didn’t have all that caff
eine in you. You’d be shooting up the place.”

  Fortunately, he left it at that and retreated to his office without launching into a lecture on post-traumatic stress disorder. Better, Juliet thought, to have Rivera watching her for signs of ADHD than PTSD. After two high-stress and highly publicized events this past year—both, not coincidentally, involving a certain Special Forces officer—Rivera had earmarked her as a prime candidate for PTSD. All she had to do was mention a nightmare, and he was on her. PTSD was a serious concern, and a certain amount of vigilance was called for, given what she’d been through the past five months, starting in May with the Central Park sniper-style shooting of Rob Dunnemore, a fellow deputy with whom Juliet had had a brief, romantic relationship, and Nate Winter, a senior deputy and her mentor. Rob was seriously injured, Nate back on his feet that same day. The shooting was the first inclination the USMS had of the very complicated plot to extort a presidential pardon on behalf of Nicholas Janssen. Rivera insisted it alone was reason for Juliet to be on alert of PTSD symptoms, never mind the rest of what had transpired that week. She still had the scars from a killer road rash she’d received after Janssen’s goons had grabbed her and she’d leaped out of their moving car. Then it was on to Tennessee and meeting Ethan over the bodies of the same two goons, distracting their killer—crazy Conroy Fontaine—before he could shoot Ethan, too. Fontaine had proceeded to drag her to a dark, dank cave, tie her up, gag her and leave her there with the snakes.

  If she’d had to, Juliet would have hurled herself into the river below the cave to escape. Even bound and gagged, she’d have managed to swim. But Ethan had found her and convinced himself he’d saved her life. Conroy Fontaine was dying of a snakebite by the time he was taken into custody. Meanwhile, Ethan took off to find Nick Janssen, who’d placed the order to have Ethan’s wife murdered the previous fall.

  More grounds, in Rivera’s view, for him to watch Juliet for PTSD.

  Then came August and the assassin. Juliet had reminded her boss more than once that she’d never been in serious danger, but he’d just give her a skeptical look. After Ethan had chased Janssen over the summer, putting pressure on him, a Diplomatic Security agent—Maggie Spencer—got a tip that led to Janssen’s arrest. Even in a Dutch prison, he was dangerous. His hired assassin started working her way down a list of targets he’d given her—with a few of her own thrown in. Maggie Spencer and Rob Dunnemore finally caught up with her in a pretty village on the Hudson River. But Ethan—and Juliet—had been on the scene.

  Rivera had warned her that Ethan was a prime candidate for PTSD himself. No doubt. How many people could tolerate the stresses he’d endured? Combat, black ops, the grief and guilt of his wife’s murder—and that was all before Juliet had met him in May. But, as she’d reminded Rivera—and herself—as a Special Forces officer, Ethan was uniquely trained, and perhaps naturally mentally and physically suited to endure extreme stress.

  Juliet pulled herself out of her thoughts and took a swallow of coffee, but it had gone cold.

  Tony Cipriani, her partner, ambled over to her desk. In his late thirties with a wife in the NYPD and two small boys, he was a wiry, mostly bald, ultrafit guy and one of the more likable federal agents Juliet had encountered. They’d been working together for a few weeks, and so far, so good. As a favor, she’d asked him to do some basic research into vigilante mercenaries.

  “There were these guys who showed up in Afghanistan,” Cipriani said in a low voice. “Americans. One of them was an insurance salesman, for the love of God. They decided the U.S. military was being too namby-pamby with interrogations and flew to Kabul to set up their own jailhouse. The military shut them down.”

  “I remember reading something about it in the papers.”

  “Press was all over the story. The military turned two of these wingnuts over to Afghan authorities but there wasn’t enough evidence to hold them. The rest disappeared.”

  “Do we have any names?” Juliet asked.

  “No. I’m still working on it.”

  “Any hint they put up shop in South America?”

  Tony shook his head. “That’s all I’ve got.”

  Juliet wondered if Ethan, as an army officer, had been deployed to Afghanistan at the time, but warned herself not to go off on a tangent. Follow the facts. She sighed. “Thanks, Cip.”

  “Anytime. When you want to tell me what this is all about, you know where to find me.”

  Juliet understood the subtext. If she wanted him to go further, they’d have to have a talk—he’d want to know exactly why she was interested in vigilantes. With six days and counting since Ethan had turned up asking about Bobby Tatro—and almost a month since Tatro was released from prison—and no sign of him, she doubted that a heart-to-heart with Cipriani would be necessary. In two days, it’d be October. A whole new month. Maybe she’d heard the last of Tatro, vigilantes and Ethan’s secret mission.

  After a morning picking pumpkins and chasing a few stray chickens back into their pen in the barn—a humane pen—Wendy Longstreet treated herself to a glass of fresh-pressed apple cider on the steps of the side porch. Spaceshot was flopped on his back in the grass. No one was around. Her grandparents, her uncle Jeff and her uncle Will were all off at job sites. Even her uncle Sam, who was usually around working on the machinery and tending to the barn and greenhouses, had driven to town for parts. Wendy was to deal with any passersby who stopped to buy a pumpkin or who wanted to pick apples. It was the end of September, and the leaf-peepers were out in full force.

  A truck pulling a small camping trailer turned into the driveway. The truck had an Arizona plate, which Wendy noticed right away because it was unusual to see one in Vermont. She got up, leaving her cider glass on the steps.

  The driver got out, a tall, rangy man with a shaved head. He had on a denim jacket, jeans and running shoes, and he waved to her. “Afternoon.”

  Spaceshot stirred but didn’t get up. With all the coming and going at Longstreet Landscaping, he didn’t trouble himself to investigate every arrival. Wendy smiled at the man. “Can I help you?”

  “I’m new in town. Name’s Matt Kelleher. I heard that you all were looking for temporary hires. Anyone around I can talk to?”

  Wendy didn’t want to tell him no. That was one of the rules her father had drilled into her—never tell a stranger she was alone. “Everyone’s busy right now, Mr. Kelleher.”

  “That’s okay. I don’t mind waiting.” He smiled, as if he knew she was nervous and wanted to help her to relax. “I’ll just sit in my truck.” He nodded at Spaceshot. “That’s some lazy dog, huh?”

  “He’s old,” Wendy said, smiling tentatively back at him. With his shaved head, she found his age hard to guess—forty, maybe? She had no idea. He had lines at the corners of his eyes but none of the puffy bags older men often had, and while he wasn’t handsome, he wasn’t horrible-looking, either. His nose was kind of big, and his chin was pointy. He looked okay when he smiled.

  “You work here?” he asked her.

  She nodded. “But I’m family—Wendy Longstreet.”

  He squinted at her against the bright autumn sun. “Shouldn’t you be in school?”

  “I graduated in June.”

  “Not going to college?”

  “No, I am. I’m applying early decision to several schools.” She didn’t want to get into the homeschooling and finishing her requirements for graduation a year early details. “I was going to work on my essays this afternoon.”

  “Don’t let me keep you. What do you want to major in?”

  She lowered her eyes, as if he might not see her hesitation that way. “I’m applying as a premed student.”

  “No kidding? You want to be a doctor?”

  She shrugged. “Sure.”

  “That’s a tough row to hoe. I didn’t go to college. I got married right out of high school—” He stopped himself, looking out at the hills, the autumn leaves turning fast now. “My wife died in June. Cancer. Hell of a way to go.”
>
  “I’m sorry,” Wendy said, meaning it. He seemed so sad.

  “Well, we had a good twenty years together. I try to remember that. We always talked about buying a camper, seeing the country—I’ve been tending her the past two years, and before she died, she made me promise to get out and do it, not to wait. So, I bought myself this old rig here and headed east.” He seemed pensive, and Wendy thought she saw tears in his eyes. “I learned the hard way life’s too short.”

  “You’re from Arizona?”

  “Phoenix. I’ve lived there my whole life.” He smiled at her again. “You probably should go on and get to those college applications. I’m just looking to work a few weeks, until the snow flies. Then I’ll be on my way.”

  “I just poured myself a glass of cider. Would you like some?”

  Some of the sadness went out of his face. “Why, thank you, Miss Longstreet. I’d like that.”

  “You can call me Wendy.”

  “And you can call me Matt. It’s a pleasure meeting you.”

  But before she could run into the kitchen, her father pulled into the driveway in his state police cruiser. Matt Kelleher glanced over at her. Wendy sighed. “It’s my dad. He’s checking on me.”

  “Well.” Matt grinned suddenly and winked at her. “I wouldn’t procrastinate on those college applications if my dad was a state trooper.”

  Wendy laughed, but she saw her father’s frown when he got out of the car in his trooper’s uniform. She went over to him, introducing Matt, explaining that he was from Arizona and his wife had died and he was looking for a job. And although she’d done everything right and Matt was totally fine, she knew her father wasn’t going to get back in his cruiser and leave her there with him. He stayed until her uncle Sam arrived. But it was only ten minutes, so at least it didn’t seem like that big a deal to Matt and she didn’t come across as a twelve-year-old to him.

  Before he left, her father pulled her aside. “A friend of mine had two tickets to the play in town tonight that he couldn’t use. I thought you might like to go.”