Darkness & Shadows

by Kaufman, Andrew E.

  “We don’t.”

  “Huh?”

  “We’re going over.”

  “But it’s got to be more than twenty feet high.”

  She crossed her arms, shook her head. “As rich as these bastards are, it amazes me how stupid they can be. They spend a fortune building walls, gates, and locks.” She pointed off to the side. “Then they’re too cheap to trim their freakin’ trees. Just brilliant.”

  She was right. Next to the gate wall was an oak tree, its lowest branch a mere four feet off the ground. Additional branches spread like rungs to take them right over this impressive-looking yet completely ineffective security measure.

  “Follow me,” she said, glancing around at her surroundings one more time before she began to climb.

  Patrick went after her. At the top, she said, “And they were kind enough to provide a way down, too. Very thoughtful.”

  A tree on the other side had been equally neglected.

  Moving toward the house now, she said, “Follow directly in my footsteps. Do not stray. Not even an inch.”

  Patrick obeyed.

  Tristan left him standing along the wall as she moved beneath the shadows of the massive house and slunk to the front doors, their wooden panels at least fifteen feet tall and twice as wide. She peered through the stained glass windows, then returned.

  “We’re in,” she said. “Cops didn’t reset the alarm after they left. They hardly ever do. Less work for me.”

  She led him on to the garage area to the left of the house, eight large doors with inset windows. She stepped to one of them, reached in her pocket, and produced the contraption Patrick had seen earlier. She gave it a quick snap, and suddenly the thing was over six feet long. She winked at Patrick; he looked at her in amazement.

  Gently, she began pushing it up and under the weather stripping near the top of one door, watching through the window as she did. Then she gave a quick yank. There was a distinct click as the emergency latch disengaged, and she lifted the garage door about three feet off the ground.

  “Welcome to our lovely abode,” she whispered.

  Before crawling under, they each put on latex gloves and cleaned their shoes thoroughly of any moisture or dirt. Tristan was leaving nothing to chance.

  Once they were inside the garage, Tristan lowered the door quietly and gently, then proceeded toward the interior doorway leading into the house.

  They flicked their flashlights on as they entered the kitchen area. “You go to the second level and do your thing,” Tristan said. “I’ll walk the property, make sure nobody’s coming.”

  Patrick gave a nod of compliance, began heading toward the staircase.

  “Wait,” she said.

  He turned around.

  She reached into one of her pants pockets, pulled out a pistol, reached into the other and produced a second. Opened one to check the rounds. Held it out to him, grip first.

  Patrick stared at it.

  “Just in case,” she said, briskly motioning for him to take it. He shoved it gingerly into his waistband, headed up the steps.

  When he reached the top, Patrick found himself on a semi-circular landing with a domed ceiling. A solid wall on both sides, the back made entirely of glass. Waterfalls trickled down both sides and into a pond filled with seashells and beautifully colored sea glass. The exotic fish had probably once been quite a sight, too; now they were just dead, innocent victims of neglect.

  He let his gaze move down the long hallway. A series of doors lined each side, but one in particular caught his attention: the one with an electronic keypad and deadbolt lock. Patrick edged his way closer, thinking about how to get in.

  But he didn’t have to think very hard; the door was already pried open. Giant crowbar gouges marked the doorframe. The cops had been impatient.

  Patrick knew chances were slim he’d find anything earthshaking here—not after the cops had already picked through everything—but he couldn’t afford to pass it up. He pushed the door open.

  The office was an average-sized room, thoroughly ransacked. Every drawer had been pulled open. Books, yanked from their shelves, were strewn about on the floor. Fingerprint residue coated nearly every surface. He fixed his hands on his hips, looking around, wondering where to begin… or if there was even anything left worth seeing.

  He shone his light along a shelf holding empty test tube racks. He quivered, looking at the vacant spots, wondering if they’d held vials filled with blood and, if so, whether investigators had taken them as evidence. Patrick put a palm against the back of his neck, trying to stop the sensation of tiny hairs crawling across his skin. Even in its semi-vacant state, the room had an ominous presence—bad deeds hurriedly abandoned without warning. Patrick wondered what Clark actually did in here. There was nothing good about this place. Nothing at all.

  The rest of the room appeared to have been completely tossed, and Patrick couldn’t find anything to confirm his suspicions or answer his questions—other than the sick feeling in his stomach. He decided to move on.

  At the end of the hall, ornately carved moldings framed immense wooden doors like a precious crowned jewel. The master bedroom. Patrick entered and swept the flashlight beam around, stopping at a huge bed in a sunken floor area opposite the biggest flat-screen TV he had ever seen. The nightstands on each side yielded nothing of interest. Nor did the space beneath the bed—not even a speck of dust. Nothing in the dressers, either; nothing behind the paintings on the walls.

  He went through the downstairs, but room after room proved to be one disappointment after another. Anything remotely relevant to the case was probably sitting in the evidence locker by now. He’d expected that, but on some level hoped he might have recognized something the police couldn’t.

  Think, Patrick. This is your last card. Find your ace or fold.

  He refused to give up. He would not. Something had to be here. He just needed to work and find it. But his worry of getting caught grew with each passing minute, and desperation gnawed his stomach in time with the circle of sweat blossoming down the front of his T-shirt. He glanced at the landing atop the staircase again. Work smarter, he thought, then remembered how much Marybeth loved the ocean. He decided the water feature deserved a closer look; it might have held something the cops had failed to recognize.

  A beam of blue moonlight washed through the glass wall, illuminating his view as he leaned over and gazed into the pond. He looked for a long time, but there was nothing special, just glass and shells.

  He sighed. I’m sorry, baby. I tried to find answers for you.

  Then his eyes locked on a single conch shell in the middle of the pond. He smiled sadly: her favorite. He stretched his arm as far as it would go to reach for the shell, pulled it from the water, and examined it with sadness.

  “Looking for this, Pat?”

  Patrick jerked upright and around to find Wesley Clark stepping out from the shadows.

  With the necklace Patrick had given Marybeth dangling from between his fingers.

  Chapter Fifty

  A veil of blue moonlight passed over Wesley Clark’s emotionless face as he moved forward, silent and implacable.

  Patrick backed away slowly, black dots dancing before his eyes to the beat of a hammering pulse. For a few moments, an eerie calm lingered between them, each man staring at each other with fixed intent. Though still partially shrouded by shadows, Wesley’s flinty expression couldn’t have been clearer.

  “Nice to finally meet you, Pat,” he said, shoving the necklace into his pocket.

  “Wish I could say the same.”

  “Nevertheless, it was bound to happen, of course. You knew that…”

  “I think you made that pretty obvious, yes. It isn’t every day a guy finds a body burning in his driveway.”

  Wesley smiled, studying Patrick with what seemed like perverse interest, then the light began to dim, the planes of his face shading toward gray. Seeing the man in real time added a new and eerie dimension. Even
with the moonlight glinting in his eyes, they were hard and dark, the pupils barely traceable. He took a few more steps forward and said, “I figured it was time you and I had a little chat.”

  “Awful nice of you to come out from the shadows to do it.”

  “It’s all about timing, my friend.”

  “Is that like ‘the devil’s in the details’?”

  “Something like that, yes.” He smirked.

  “You can start by telling me what you did with Charlene.”

  Wesley cocked his head, feigning confusion. “I thought you’d already figured that out.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “I think you do.” He took on a mocking tone. “Murder, murder, murder, murder, murder?”

  A wave of shame washed over Patrick, quickly absorbed by a rising tide of fierce anger. “Quit playing games. Tell me what you want.”

  “Well, Pat,” he said. “I can call you Pat, can’t I?”

  “Sure, Wes. You can call me whatever you want.”

  “I’m just wondering what you really know.”

  “About what?”

  “It’s kind of like this: you and I… well… we aren’t really all that much different.”

  “There’s nothing even remotely similar about us.”

  “But there’s the one thing.” His shrug was lazy and apathetic. “We’ve both been fooled by her—our Charlene. By her beauty, that is. It’s like a dangerous drug. A weapon, actually, and she uses it oh so well. Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Only when others take advantage of it.”

  Wesley’s voice fell deeper. “She took advantage of you, Pat. And the saddest part is you weren’t even aware of it.”

  “What’s the point, Wes?”

  “The point, Pat, is that it was all part of her magic. I mean, even you’d agree, she could have had any man she wanted, right?”

  “And?”

  “And you didn’t find it a bit… oh, I don’t know… odd that she chose you?”

  “As opposed to a psychotic troll like you?”

  Wesley frowned. “That wasn’t a very nice thing to say, Pat.” He took another step closer.

  Patrick lowered his gaze and could now see Wesley was hiding something behind his back; the doctor brought his hand around, revealing a gun. Now Patrick knew the man didn’t want to talk, that he had every intention of doing to him what he’d done to Helene Lockhart. It was payback time. Patrick also knew he needed to think fast or end up dead. He still had his own gun tucked away in his waistband—the only question now, how to grab it without Wesley blasting a hole through his head.

  Wesley moved closer, steadying his aim.

  A shot rang out from behind Patrick. Wesley dropped as the glass wall behind him shattered into pieces. Patrick dove across the floor, trying to escape possible crossfire; as he did, he saw Tristan at the top of the staircase, gun aimed and ready to fire again. But Wesley was already flying down the hallway.

  “Don’t let him get away!” Patrick shouted.

  They both scrambled to follow, guns drawn and aimed ahead of them. When they reached the end of the hall, there was no sign of Wesley, but the elevator’s indicator panel showed he was headed toward the first floor.

  “Forget it. He’s gone,” Tristan said. “We need to get the hell out of here, fast!”

  When they reached the bottom of the staircase, Patrick started for the front entrance. “Rear door,” Tristan said with urgency. “Just in case!”

  They came out onto the grounds and searched for a safe route off the compound. Already they could see flashing lights in the distance, coming over the hill, and headed straight for the property. No sirens, but the vehicles were moving rapidly and almost there.

  “Shit!” Tristan said. “Bastard tripped the silent alarm on his way out! We need to split up. Less chance of getting caught.”

  “How the hell do we get off the property?” Patrick said. “The place is surrounded by walls!”

  “Climb a damned tree!”

  He was about to make a run for it, when Tristan said, “Wait!”

  Patrick wheeled around.

  “Give me your gun. I’ll get rid of it.”

  He handed it to her, and they each took off, Patrick heading toward the north end of the compound, Tristan going south. As he ran, Patrick could see lights flashing onto the shrubs in front of him. The cops were on the property now. He kept sprinting but didn’t get far: a powerful beam of light fell onto his path, turning night to day, bathing him in blinding white radiance.

  And then a tough, hard voice. “Freeze, motherfucker! NOW!”

  Patrick stumbled to a stop, nearly skidding onto his face in the process.

  “Put your hands on top of your head! Do NOT turn around!”

  Patrick obeyed, hearing footfalls coming toward him. Then he was down on the ground.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Patrick lay facedown in the dirt, hands cuffed tightly behind his back, lights blinking around him like blue and red fireflies, burning strong, then fading formlessly into darkness.

  His reality, however, was not fading. He’d just been busted for breaking into what was probably the most high-profile home in the county. If he hadn’t done a thorough enough job derailing his career before, he’d certainly nailed it now; there wasn’t a media outlet in the world that would hire him after this. He was finished.

  A deputy grabbed the cuffs and pulled Patrick roughly to his feet, then hustled him to the patrol car.

  The press stormed the vehicle as soon as it pulled through the front gates, photographers and reporters trotting alongside, shining their bright lights through the windows at him. Patrick dropped his head to his chest. He could imagine what he looked like with hands cuffed, face and body disheveled and filthy. He was That Guy, the very one he’d spent years chasing as a reporter on so many stories.

  After passing through the media frenzy, he entered the next circle of hell: the sheriff’s substation where the degradation continued. He was processed, photographed—complete with dirt-and-muck-covered face—fingerprinted, and deposited into a holding cell. He waited there for over an hour, and with each tick of the clock, his fear and apprehension escalated exponentially.

  The nerve-racking anticipation continued, then Patrick heard an electronic door suck open, followed by footsteps coming his way. Just when he thought he couldn’t sink any lower, again bad luck laughed in his face: Steve Pike appeared outside his cell, chewing a granola bar, wearing an expression of mild amusement. The last person Patrick wanted to see right now.

  Pike unlocked the cell, escorted Patrick down the hallway.

  “Got a light?” one of his new neighbors shouted.

  Patrick avoided eye contact, keeping his gaze straight ahead, then heard the unmistakable sound of urine splashing against a wall.

  “Welcome to the pokey,” Pike said with a smug, self-indulgent grin.

  Patrick held his sober expression. He’d be damned if he was going to let this ass enjoy the moment any more than he already was.

  Pike took Patrick into an interrogation room, waved him into a chair, then took a seat across the small interview table. He said nothing for a good minute, studying Patrick, working the granola bar from side to side in his mouth. Patrick did his best to stay calm, keeping his expression steady and unflinching. He knew Pike was carefully observing every movement, from his eyes, to his lips, to the muscles in his neck; even the slightest involuntary response could trigger the detective’s doubt.

  Pike finally swallowed. After finishing, the detective’s expression flashed folksy, in a way that said: Just two old boys having a little chat.

  Patrick wasn’t feeling it.

  “So here’s the deal,” Pike said. “I’d like to make this as easy as possible for both of us. Throwing you in jail just makes me look like the bad guy, and I don’t need that right now. If you cooperate and tell me what I need to know, we can break this down to a simple trespassing charge.” He smiled. �
�You get to go home to a warm bed tonight, everyone’s happy. No harm, no foul.”

  Patrick nodded with caution.

  “But if you don’t cooperate, things could get sticky. Very sticky. So what do you say, simple or hard? You want an attorney?”

  After their last encounter, Patrick wasn’t so sure he was buying the sudden act of goodwill. But he was at a distinct disadvantage, seeing as how he’d been caught on the compound premises. He decided to see where this went; he could pull back and ask for an attorney if the detective started showing his evil side.

  Patrick said, “I’ll play nicely. No attorney, as long as you behave.”

  “I’ll do my best,” Pike said, flipping through pages, keeping his gaze there as he spoke. “So… want to tell me what you were doing at the Clark residence?”

  “I was doing my job.”

  He looked up at Patrick, gave a benevolent shrug. “As in?”

  “Looking for information.”

  “What kind?”

  “On the Clark case.”

  Pike nodded as he flipped a sheet of paper up to glance at the one beneath it. “How’d you get in?”

  “I didn’t.”

  He looked up at him. “I’m sorry?”

  “I never went inside.”

  Pike’s unreadable gaze lingered on Patrick a few seconds, then returned to the paperwork. He scribbled a note. The whole routine felt perfunctory: cop behavior designed to build tension and promote uncertainty. Pike looked up at Patrick abruptly—another cop thing—and said, “Rear door was wide open.”

  Patrick shrugged. “Place has been abandoned since the Clarks disappeared, right?”

  Pike did some more paper pushing, leaving his gaze on Patrick with masterful intent. “You’re telling me you never entered the premises…”

  “Correct.”

  “Someone hit the silent alarm inside,” Pike shot back.

  “Obviously wouldn’t have been me,” Patrick answered just as fast.

  “So you were doing your job on just the perimeter of the house…”

  Patrick wasn’t sure if that was actually a question. He kept silent.

  “With no intention of ever going inside…” the detective added.