The Darkness Gathers: A Novel

by Lisa Unger

  “I’m sure,” said Jacob with an indulgent smile. “It doesn’t matter. There’s no law-enforcement or media agency in the world that will touch it. If you try to expose it, you’ll be destroyed. You’ll go from Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist to conspiracy theorist in no time. One day, you’re on the cover of Time magazine; the next, you’re on the cover of the National Enquirer. You, of all people, should know never to underestimate the power of the media. Trust me. You’ll never work again.”

  Lydia stood up, walked over to the fireplace, and looked into the flames. Jenna moved to the other side of the room and stood by the door. Lydia’s anger was reaching a crescendo, leaving her suddenly feeling shaky and weak. Hers was the anger of a person who knew she’d lost a battle; she felt small and powerless, beaten. But there were still a thousand questions floating around in her head.

  “And what about him?” she said, looking at Sasa, her voice rising. “He just walks away from it all, no justice for the women he has sold, or murdered, or watched murdered in Technicolor? What happens to American Beauty?” asked Lydia.

  She looked at Sasa and thought of the girl they had seen murdered on the tape. She remembered how the girl had trusted him at first, then how frightened she had been, and finally how horribly her life had ended. She was nameless and faceless and would never have justice. She wanted Sasa to feel that kind of pain and felt sick that he would walk away from this with no punishment, no remorse. She looked at him, and he looked back at her with a kind of smug, heavy-lidded gaze, his mouth twisted into a condescending sneer. Lydia wanted to beat him with her fists until he felt something, wanted him to know what it meant to hurt, to be helpless and afraid, and then to die alone.

  “The terms of our agreement are not your concern,” said Jacob.

  “Nothing happens, right, Jacob?” said Jeffrey, standing and walking over toward Lydia. “It’s business as usual. It never stops.”

  Bentley and Negron stood stone-faced now. Lydia thought she saw anger in Bentley’s eyes, but she couldn’t be sure. She didn’t know that people who made the rules were playing a game that most people didn’t even know about. Maybe this kind of justice was good enough for the FBI, but it wasn’t good enough for her.

  “We’ll stop Nathan Quinn. That’s about all I can promise. The rest of it … well, it’s too complicated,” said Jacob. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but we’re the good guys here, for Christ’s sake.”

  “It’s getting a little hard to tell the difference,” said Lydia.

  “How did you get involved in this, Jacob?” asked Jeffrey.

  “I can’t discuss that with you, Jeff.”

  “Why not, buddy? Aren’t we partners?” said Jeffrey, his voice tight with angry sarcasm.

  “You’re better off not knowing,” answered Jacob with monklike composure. “Think of it as a freelance project.”

  “It’s just like the George Hewlett case.”

  “There are similar forces at play,” he admitted. “But last time, you listened.”

  “I didn’t have a choice. It disappeared.”

  “If you’d listened this time,” he said, looking at Lydia, “Jed McIntyre would still be behind bars.”

  Jeffrey rose quickly, and just as quickly Bentley and Negron moved in. “Easy, boys,” said Jacob as Jeffrey sat back down, eyes on their guns.

  “Did you orchestrate that?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Do you think I’d be in Albania with these assholes,” he said, gesturing toward Negron and Bentley, “if I had that kind of power? I already told you that it was Quinn who arranged that. He knew you were close to finding out about American Beauty. It was his way of trying to get you two to back off. All I did was to come up with a body that we pretended was Tatiana. That was really to throw Quinn off. But I thought it would end it for you and Lydia, too. But it didn’t. I guess I can take comfort in knowing that no one can stop Lydia, not even Nathan Quinn.

  “I’m only a pawn in this game, Jeff,” he went on. “I just do what I’m told.”

  “Why, Jacob? Why play at all?” Jeffrey asked, his tone now some combination of exasperation and sadness.

  Jacob looked out the window, as if trying to get a fix on the answer himself. “It’s the only game in town.”

  They were all silent for a long moment. Jenna kept her eyes focused on the window, looking out at the ruined countryside. Negron and Bentley stood near her by the door, their faces expressionless. Lydia walked back over to the couch and sank into it, feeling like she’d lost the strength to stand. Jeffrey stayed by the fireplace and seemed to be in a staring contest with Jacob. Sasa stood behind Jacob, smiling malevolently. They were a motley crew with mixed agendas and conflicting motivations, and Lydia wondered what good could come of all of this.

  “What about Valentina and Marianna? Why did they have to die?” she asked, looking at Sasa.

  “If it hadn’t been for them,” Sasa said, “you never would have known about any of this. They betrayed me … their own flesh and blood.”

  Lydia didn’t even bother to suppress a laugh at his righteousness, and he turned an ugly stare on her.

  “They were innocent,” said Jenna bitterly, practically spitting the words at Sasa. “They feared for Tatiana; they never knew she had been hidden by the FBI. Valentina had always been tortured by the knowledge of her brother’s activities. When she believed that Tatiana had fallen prey to him, she couldn’t bear it. So she contacted you. It was a mistake that cost both of them their lives.”

  Lydia watched as Sasa and Jenna glared at each other. Trouble in paradise, thought Lydia.

  “And the tape?”

  “Tatiana was lonely and afraid when we first put the plan into action,” said Jenna. “She was in the custody of the FBI. She was angry at me and wanted to talk to the only people she trusted, Valentina and Marianna. She knew she wasn’t supposed to call anyone, but she got to a phone before she could be stopped.”

  “So, what happens now, Jacob?” asked Jeffrey.

  “Mom?”

  Everyone turned toward the doorway, where Tatiana was standing, her young face pale and wet with tears.

  She was lanky and awkward, with the beauty of a foal not yet sure of its legs. Her lustrous hair was pulled back in a thick ponytail. Her blazing green almond-shaped eyes were framed with impossibly long black lashes. She wore a pair of jeans and a simple short white T-shirt. Her nails and toes were painted the same cotton candy pink. She was loveliness personified, and it was clear to see that she would grow into a goddess. But today, she was just a girl, a teenager wrestling away from childhood, not quite ready for adulthood. A girl who in her short life had lost her father and her home … twice. Lydia wondered about the things she had seen in her life and what impact it would have on her, what kind of woman she would become after all of the death and horror she had witnessed. Tatiana moved slowly into the room and seemed suddenly shy because everyone was looking at her.

  Lydia smiled at her. Because for all the girls that were lost in the world, all the girls that had left on a boat in the middle of the night, hoping for a new life and finding only pain and death, for all the Shawna Foxes who never had a chance, Tatiana was safe. And even one life saved was a victory for good in a battle where the lines had grown vague and the enemy uncertain.

  “Is this all true? What they said … is it true?” she asked her mother.

  Her mother didn’t say anything, and for a moment everyone in the room saw themselves through Tatiana’s innocent eyes. Even Sasa’s smile faded. Jenna walked over toward her daughter and led her out of the room. Lydia heard her whisper something to the girl when they were out of earshot.

  “They’re dead. You lied to me again,” Tatiana yelled from outside the room, her voice despairing and shrill.

  “What happens now, Jacob?” repeated Jeffrey, ignoring the adolescent scene outside the door. He was more concerned with getting Lydia and himself out of Albania alive than he was about Tatiana’s psyche.

/>   “You go back to New York and handle Jed McIntyre. Leave Nathan Quinn to us,” he said, trying to place a hand on Jeffrey’s shoulder, which Jeffrey quickly shrugged off.

  “I don’t think so,” said Sasa. No one had noticed him moving toward the door or that he had drawn a gun with a silencer and was holding it down by his leg. And in the time it took the three of them to look around, Sasa had put a bullet between the eyes of Agents Negron and Bentley. They slumped down against the walls like deflated blow-up dolls, leaving long, dark trails of blood on the walls, both dead instantly. Lydia cried out, feeling panic rise in her chest, and heard a gasp from outside the door. She moved instinctively for Jeffrey. And as she turned, she caught sight of Jenna pulling Tatiana back from the door frame. Jeffrey was on his feet, ready to grab Lydia and move her behind him, by the time she reached him. Jacob rose slowly from his chair and Sasa pointed the gun at him.

  Lydia stared at the dead men, stunned at how fast the life had drained from them. She remembered Negron’s words: “Is the body count so high everywhere you go, Ms. Strong?” And she grieved that it had to be that way between them.

  “What are you doing, Sasa? There’s no problem here,” said Jacob, narrowing his eyes and slowly raising his hand in response to the weapon Sasa had turned on him. Lydia saw perspiration beaded on Jacob’s forehead, a vein throbbing in his throat. Sasa’s leash had just snapped, and Jacob knew he was fucked.

  “I couldn’t agree more,” he said, his tone level. “Why don’t the three of you lie down on the floor and put your hands behind your heads?”

  At this, Sasa started to laugh, “Who’s the piece of shit now?”

  The three of them hesitated, exchanging a look. They were all thinking that Sasa couldn’t kill all of them before one of them got to him. Jeffrey had to assume Jacob was armed. He saw Jacob’s right arm twitch.

  “Don’t even think about it, Jacob,” said Sasa calmly. “Reach very slowly for the weapon.”

  As he spoke, he reached behind him and grabbed Jenna by her hair. He pulled her into the room as she shrieked and clawed at his hands. Lydia saw her draw blood, but Sasa didn’t even flinch as he pulled her into a headlock and held the gun to her temple.

  “Mom,” Tatiana yelled, her voice shrill with panic.

  “She’s dead if anyone moves,” he said quietly. “The gun, Jacob. Slowly. Slide it over here.”

  Jacob removed the gun from his waist as Lydia scanned the room, looking for a weapon, for a way out for them. She saw the men in masks through the window. One paced and another smoked a cigarette. She wondered whose side they were on and how she could get their attention.

  Jacob squatted down to slide the gun across the wood floor.

  “All of you, on the floor,” Sasa barked. Lydia could hear Jenna whimpering.

  “Shut up,” he yelled, tightening his hold on her throat. She made a horrible choking sound, and Lydia could see that her face was turning bright red.

  Lydia’s mind raced as they moved slowly to the floor. She couldn’t stand to put her head down, not wanting to turn her eyes away from Sasa, sure if she did that the floorboards would be the last thing she would ever see. She met Jeffrey’s eyes and wanted to tell him how sorry she was for never listening to him and dragging them into hell.

  “This accomplishes nothing for you, Sasa,” said Jacob, trying to keep his voice calm but having trouble controlling the pitch. “If you kill me, you’ll get no deal. This house is surrounded by agents, and you’ve just killed two of their own. You’ll be hunted by the FBI and by Nathan Quinn, if you even make it out of this house alive.”

  “You’re still trying to control me, even though I have the gun, Jacob? You are ignorant of my power. I am not afraid of you or your agents. Those two never had a chance to pull their guns,” said Sasa with a smile.

  Lydia dropped her eyes from Sasa’s face and saw a tiny hand snaking around the doorjamb, reaching for the semiautomatic pistol that was holstered at Bentley’s waist. She looked up and met Tatiana’s green eyes.

  “Do you think I need your fucking little deal, your protection?” Sasa went on, his tone becoming angrier. “The terms of this arrangement have changed.”

  Jacob looked uneasily at Lydia and Jeffrey, then back at Sasa. Lydia could hear the blood rushing in her ears as her eyes locked with Tatiana’s.

  “We can discuss it,” he said quietly.

  “We are discussing it,” Sasa said with a laugh.

  Tatiana had managed to withdraw the weapon from the holster and was raising it to Sasa’s head. The heavy Glock shook in her grasp as she wrapped both her hands around the grip. Lydia was struck by what a bizarre image it was: Tatiana’s tiny arms and her pretty face seemed so incongruous with the murderous intent in her eyes and the gun in her hand. If she’d been in any position to do so, Lydia would have wrested the gun from Tatiana’s hand and shot Sasa herself. With everything she’d been through, Tatiana definitely didn’t need to be the one to kill her mother’s boyfriend. But she seemed more than prepared to do it. And she looked to be their only hope. Lydia watched as Tatiana switched off the safety on the side of the gun like a pro.

  Tatiana never moved her eyes from Lydia’s, as if seeking strength and approval there. Lydia nodded slightly; as she did, Sasa dropped his eyes to her. Time crystallized into milliseconds as Sasa followed the path of Lydia’s gaze. A look of surprise crossed his face, and he spun quickly around, forgetting Jenna and allowing her to fall to the floor. She hit the ground hard, gasping, her hands to her throat, and pushed herself away with her legs. Sasa swung his weapon toward Tatiana but seemed to hesitate when he saw her there.

  It was in that moment of hesitation that Tatiana emptied the gun into Sasa’s chest and head. The room exploded in gunfire as the mirror that hung over the fireplace shattered and fell to the floor, a lamp exploded into a million pieces, and stuffing burst from the couch and chairs. Jeffrey crawled toward Lydia in an effort to shield her. Jacob lay on the floor, hands over his head. Jeffrey watched as Sasa fell to the floor, his chest open and dark with blood, his face a mass of torn flesh. Jeffrey dove for the semiautomatic weapon that went sailing from Sasa’s hand, catching it before it hit the floor. There was a moment of silence, everyone too afraid to move.

  Then Tatiana dropped her hands, which still held the gun, her mouth slack and her eyes glassy. She burst into tears, releasing heartbreaking sobs. “Mom,” she called, her voice sounding so young and desperate.

  Three FBI agents from outside burst in through the front door, cradling machine guns as Tatiana sank to the floor. Jenna rushed to her daughter, removed the gun from her hands, and slid it across the floor. Then she took Tatiana into her arms. Lydia could see them both shaking from across the room.

  “Nice work, guys,” Jacob said sarcastically to the men as they entered the room too late. Jacob stood and brushed himself off. The agents took off their ski masks and stared at Sasa’s dead body. “Make yourselves useful and get rid of that,” he said, trying to sound cool and in control, but the quaver in his voice told the tale.

  “Jesus,” Jeffrey said as he and Jacob knelt next to Bentley and Negron, pointlessly checking for a pulse on both of them.

  “They were the good guys,” said Jacob, as if it needed clarifying. And maybe it did.

  The other FBI agents lifted Sasa’s body and carried it out of the room. He wore an expression of stunned surprise, the smug grin permanently removed from his face, his expensive suit soaked in blood. Tatiana’s sobs filled the room as Jenna rocked her like an infant. Lydia looked around at the mess, amazed at how the moment she had opened the envelope in her office, she had set a sequence of events into play that had led them all to this. Like a magnet, the darkness had gathered them all together, for different reasons and to different ends, but together nonetheless.

  One down, two to go, thought Lydia, walking over to the girl to tell her she had done the right thing. She wanted to tell Tatiana that they were all okay and that everything was going to be
all right. Even though she wasn’t sure that was the truth.

  chapter thirty-four

  It had grown dark in the quiet suburban neighborhood. He’d sat there for hours and hadn’t seen one person on the street, not one car go by. He’d dozed for a few minutes here and there when the sugar rush had passed, but mostly he’d just watched as one by one the lights in the home of David and Eleanor Strong had gone off. He hadn’t seen any movement in the house, no shadows in the windows. But he hadn’t wanted to risk walking onto their property and trying to peer inside. He knew enough about these neighborhoods to know that even when you thought people were all snug and sound asleep in their beds, there was always some insomniac watching out the window, waiting for a reason to wake everybody else in the neighborhood. Misery loves company.

  He was cold, and he was getting stiff and numb, in spite of his gloves and heavy boots. He couldn’t have the engine on all this time; people notice that kind of thing these days, someone sitting in a running car for hours. So he just sat low in the backseat, behind the tinted windows, and waited.

  He remembered when he’d sat in front of Marion Strong’s house, not far from here. It had been different then. He almost hadn’t known what he was doing. He was only aware of a desperate psychic hunger churning within him, a kind of edgy desire. And the knowledge that the act he was about to perpetrate would soothe the ache within him for a time. There had been so much speculation, so many books written on the how and why of killers like him. People were endlessly fascinated by what drove the madman, what made him, what made him different from other people. But Jed believed that it wasn’t the differences that made him fascinating, but the similarities.

  He remembered with clarity the day he’d discovered his passion. He was twelve, living with his uncle Bill and aunt Mary. The year before, almost to the day, he’d watched his father murder his mother in their kitchen. Watched him slit her throat with a cleaver. She died slowly, bleeding out, the wound on her neck bubbling and hissing as she tried to draw breath. Jed had sat beside her in a kind of shock, trying to stop the bleeding by putting his hands on her wounds, one and then another, until she was silent. His father lay on the floor weeping, and Jed cried, too. For the last time.