Behind Closed Doors (The Mccloud Series Book 1)

by Shannon McKenna

  Raine’s mind expanded, hushed and awestruck, as the dark hulk of Stone Island grew closer. A sense of silent immensity extended in every direction from the place. Wind sighed through the pines, and swollen clouds hung heavy in the sky. The morning fog was beginning to lift, revealing the familiar shape of the shore. The scent of moss, damp wood, algae, pine and fir filled her nose.

  Clayborne, Victor’s personal assistant, was waiting for her on the dock. He was a middle-aged man with a pencil-thin gray mustache on his long, twitching upper lip, and a manner of perpetual anxiety.

  “Finally,” he fussed, waving for her to follow. “Come along. We needed your French during business hours, and it’s past seven in the evening in Morocco. What on earth kept you?”

  “Sorry,” she murmured absently. The house rose up before her eyes as they ascended the path, a sprawling but still somehow graceful structure. It was deceptively simple from the outside, sided with wood shingles that had mellowed to a glowing silver-gray.

  The scents of the luxurious interior shocked her sense memories to life. Bowls of lavender and pine potpourri were in every room, and the walls were faced with fine cedar paneling. Alix had always complained about the rich smell of the wood, claiming that it gave her headaches, but Raine had loved it. The scent had lingered in her things for months after they had run away. She still remembered how bereft she had felt that day in France when she had buried her face in the folds of her coat and realized that the perfume of cedar had faded entirely away.

  Clayborne led her directly to the bustling office on the second floor, shoved her behind a desk and began to fire instructions at her at full speed. Just as well. She was grateful to him. There was so much to do, and all of it in such a tearing, anxious hurry that there would be no time to work herself into a state. It was the perfect way to hold memories at bay.

  At some point, sandwiches and fruit were left on the sideboard, but nervousness got the better of her and eating seemed unthinkable. The house beckoned and whispered to her. If she turned her head fast enough, she would catch a glimpse of her former self: a silent scrap of a girl with big, startled eyes magnified behind coke-bottle glasses.

  Wind sighed and moaned outside, whipping the pines into a frenzy. Raindrops trickled down the windows by her desk, and bit by bit, the frantic activity and the roar of white noise ceased to shield her from the memories.

  There had been no other children to play with on Stone Island when she was small. Her father was closeted in the library with his books, or out sailing with only his silver flask as a companion, and more often than not her mother stayed at the apartment in Seattle. Raine had made friends with silence, with trees and water, stones and gnarled roots. The whole island was her own private fantasy landscape, inhabited by dragons and trolls and ghosts. Later, amid the noise and chaos of changing cities and languages, the remembered silence of Stone Island had become like a dream of paradise to her. That fantasy world pulled at her now, whispering in a thousand hushed voices.

  Towards the end of the day, Clayborne bustled into the room. “Raine, go to the library, please,” he said importantly. “Mr. Lazar has correspondence that needs to be Fedexed as soon as we get back to the mainland. Go on, hop to it.”

  She grabbed her notebook and set off, and was halfway there before she realized that she hadn’t asked where the library was. A stupid lapse, but too late to fuss about it now.

  It was strange how she had forgotten how lonely and chilly Stone Island was. The only warm, colorful thing about the place had been Victor. Compared to her father’s detached melancholy and her mother’s self-absorption, Victor had been a hot blast of dynamism and danger. She stood in front of the library door, her hand trembling.

  Too much dynamism and danger. She pushed the door open.

  The familiar room reached out and twined sensuously around her, pulling her in. It was lined with books from floor to ceiling, with tall windows between each bookcase. The windows were adorned by borders of stained glass, designs of curling vines and morning glories, rain-spotted and glowing with the deep blue of early evening.

  She stole in to the empty room, drawn by a shelf of photographs that bore the look almost of an altar. There was a photo of Victor and her father as a skinny boy of twelve. The eighteen-year-old Victor was wearing a thin tank top. His muscular arm was flung over his little brother’s neck, and a cigarette dangled out of his mouth.

  There was a faded pencil portrait of her grandmother, a pretty dark-haired girl with pale eyes, and a photo of her when she was a handsome older woman, from which the portrait that hung over the credenza was copied. Raine studied a school photo of herself, in the sixth grade at Severin Bay Middle School. She remembered the itchy lace on the collar of that hateful green velvet dress.

  The last photo was of her father’s sailboat. She stood in front of it, along with her mother, Victor and an unknown man. The strange man was dark-haired and handsome, with a thick mustache. He was laughing. Something about him made the back of her neck prickle, but the thought would not rise to the surface. It flashed away, like a fish disappearing into dark water, accompanied by a pang of sharp, sick anxiety. She forced herself to pick up the photo and examine it.

  It was a rare sunny day, and her mother was glamorous and beautiful in a yellow halter sundress, her hair tied back with a silk scarf. Victor’s arm was flung over Alix’s shoulders, and his other hand was ruffling Raine’s hair. She remembered the bathing suit with the green frogs on it, the green frog sunglasses that matched it. Victor had yanked on her braid for some reason, hard enough to bring tears to her eyes. Then his cool, dragging voice, faintly accented, echoed through her memory. “Oh, for God’s sake, Katya, toughen up. Don’t be a crybaby. The world is not kind to crybabies.”

  She’d blinked the tears back, glad to have the sunglasses for a shield. She could at least pretend not to cry.

  The same frog sunglasses were sitting next to the photograph. She reached for them, convinced that her hand would go right through them like a hologram. They were real. Cold, smooth, hard plastic. She stared down at them, marveling at how small they were.

  It started in her stomach, a sick roiling. Fear, spiraling wider, higher. Running, screaming. Water. A dizzy green blur. Blind panic.

  “Katya,” came a low voice from behind her.

  She spun around with a sharp gasp. The glasses dropped to the carpet with a thump. No one but her mother knew her former name. No one had addressed her by it in sixteen years.

  Victor Lazar stood in the door, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his fine wool trousers. “Sorry, my dear. I didn’t mean to startle you. I seem to be making a habit of it.”

  “Yes, you are.” She breathed deeply, trying to stop trembling.

  Victor indicated the photo still clutched in her hand. “I was referring to the photograph. The little girl is my niece, Katya.”

  “Oh.” Raine placed the photo on the shelf. The obvious next move was a polite inquiry as to his niece’s well-being. She didn’t want to draw more attention to the photo, but with every second that ticked by, her lack of comment drew more attention to it than any comment ever could. “She’s…a pretty little girl,” she faltered. “Where is she now?”

  Victor picked up the photo and looked at it. “I’m afraid I don’t know. I lost touch with her many years ago.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry.”

  He nodded towards the glasses that lay on the carpet. “I kept those as a memento of her. The same ones she is wearing in the photo.”

  She scooped them up and put them back in their place. “Um, excuse me,” she stammered. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Think nothing of it.” He gave her a soothing smile. “Speaking of spectacles, I see you are still wearing your own.”

  She was ready for this one. “I’m afraid I don’t see well enough to do my work without them.”

  “What a pity,” he murmured.

  She summoned up a businesslike smile. “So. Shall we begin? I n
eed to hurry if you want the letters Fedexed tonight, so—”

  “How goes your fiery romance with our mysterious security consultant?”

  She pressed her trembling lips together. “I thought I made myself clear last night. I have nothing to say about—”

  “Oh, come now. Last night you told me you never wanted to see him again. He must have made a very strong impression indeed.”

  “I am not interested in discussing Seth Mackey. Now or ever.”

  “He is using you, too, you know,” Victor said. “Or if he is not, he soon will be, the world being what it is. Does he deserve such stoic loyalty from you just because he is capable of giving you an orgasm?”

  He was doing it again; twisting the world around himself like a black hole with his low, insinuating voice. Making her doubt herself. “What you ask is inappropriate,” she said. “This whole conversation is inappropriate.”

  Victor’s laugh was beautiful, rich and full. It made her tight, nervous voice sounded ineffectual and prissy. It made her feel dull and humorless. A fool for not agreeing with everything he said.

  He pointed at the photos. “Look here, my dear.” The faint Russian flavor in his voice intensified into a perceptible accent. “See this? My mother. And this boy here, my little brother, Peter. Nearly forty years ago I ran away from the Soviets. I worked and schemed, made money for the bribes and the papers to bring my mother and brother here. I built this business for them. To do this I made many compromises. I did many, many inappropriate things. One must, because the world is not perfect. One becomes accustomed to it—if one wishes to be a player. And you do wish to be a player, no?”

  She gulped. “On my own terms.”

  Victor shook his head. “You are not yet in any position to dictate terms, little girl. The first step toward power is to accept reality. Look the truth in the face and you will see your way more clearly.”

  She clenched something deep inside herself and resisted the pull of his charisma. “What on earth are you talking about, Mr. Lazar?”

  Her voice was clear and sharp. It broke his spell.

  He blinked, and an appreciative smile flashed across his face. “Ah. The voice of truth. I talk too much, do I not?”

  She wasn’t touching that one. Not with a ten-foot pole. She kept her mouth shut and concentrated on inhabiting her world, not his.

  He chuckled and placed the picture back on the credenza. “No one has had the nerve to tell me that in years. How refreshing.”

  “Mr. Lazar…the letters?” she reminded him. “The ferry will be here soon, and I—”

  “You are welcome to stay here tonight, if you wish.”

  Her skin crawled at the thought of a whole night at Stone Island with no one but Victor for company. “I wouldn’t, ah, want to put your staff to any extra trouble.”

  He shrugged. “My staff exists to be troubled.”

  Your world, not his, she repeated to herself, with a deep, calming breath. “I would prefer to go home tonight.”

  He nodded. “Good night, then.”

  She was bewildered. “And the dictation?”

  He gave her a charming smile. “Another day.”

  The man at the marina flashed through her mind. “Oh, yes. Mr. Lazar, I met a man this morning who gave me a message for you.”

  His smile hardened. “Yes?”

  “He was a well-dressed blond man in his thirties. He wouldn’t tell me his name. He was missing a forefinger on his right hand.”

  “I know who he was,” Victor said curtly. “The message?”

  “He said to tell you that the opening bid had doubled.”

  The humor and charm that animated Victor’s face was gone. Beneath it was cold, hard steel. “Nothing more?”

  She shook her head. “Who was he?” she asked tentatively.

  “The less you know, the healthier you will be.” In the fading light, he looked suddenly older. “Do not encourage this man, Raine. Avoid him in every way possible if you should see him again.”

  “You don’t have to tell me,” she said fervently.

  “Ah. You have good instincts, then.” He patted her shoulder. “Trust them. With trust, they grow stronger.” He picked up the frog glasses, turning them over in his hands. “Another thing. Take these.”

  “Oh, no, please.” She backed away, alarmed. “They’re a memento of your niece. I couldn’t possibly—”

  He pushed the glasses into her hand, closing her fingers around them. “You would be doing me a service. Life marches on, there is no stopping it. It is very important to be willing to let go of the past, no?”

  “Ah…yes, I suppose so,” she whispered. She stared down at the glasses, afraid that the strange panic would seize her again.

  They lay quiet in her hand. Cool, inanimate plastic.

  “Good night, Raine.”

  It was a clear dismissal. She hurried out of the room. God forbid that the boat leave her here, stranded on an island full of ghosts.

  She thought about Victor’s cryptic words on the ferry, with icy wind whipping through her hair. Let go of the past. Hah. Her hand dug into her pocket and closed around the frog glasses. As if she hadn’t tried. As if it were that easy. Her life got more complicated by the day. Now she had the mysterious blond man to watch out for, as well as Victor.

  And then there was Seth Mackey. Her knees buckled, and she grabbed the railing. She shouldn’t get involved with Seth. He was a wild card, strong and restless and arrogant. He could derail her. But he countered the sad, lonely chill Stone Island had given her. He was a roaring furnace of life-giving heat. She craved it, even if it burned her.

  Her heart hurt when she thought of the halting, barebones story he had told her of his mother’s death. She ached for the pain he’d tried so awkwardly to gloss over. It made her furious. She wanted to punish anyone who had ever hurt or neglected him, to protect the innocent little boy he had once been. Tears sprang into her eyes. She thought of Victor’s long-ago words at the dock.

  Toughen up, Katya. The world is not kind to crybabies.

  All her life she had tried to follow Victor’s hard advice. She was finally realizing the truth. The world was not just unkind to crybabies. The world was unkind to everybody.

  She blinked as the wind blew the tears out of the corners of her eyes, mourning for all that foolish, wasted effort at self-control. The lights on the shore melted and swam into a soft wash of color. So did something inside her chest that had been brittle and frosted for years. She let it melt, with a dawning sense of wonder. More tears slipped out, and she let them fall. She might as well cry. It didn’t necessarily mean that she was weak. It meant that her heart wasn’t dead.

  And that was good news.

  He was going to kill them. Both of them. Then he was going to kick his own ass, hard, for having been stupid enough to collaborate with such dickheads as the McCloud brothers.

  Connor stopped limping up and down the room, and flopped into a chair with a disgusted sigh. “Get over it, Mackey. She’s the best bait we’re ever going to find. You saw the tape. You heard them talk. He wants her. We could wrap this up quicker than we thought if—”

  “She froze him out. He may never approach her again.”

  Davy McCloud grunted and crossed his long legs. “Nah. Not Novak. Now he probably wants to teach her a lesson.”

  Seth’s stomach rolled. “That’s why she’s leaving town. First plane to anywhere out of SeaTac tonight.”

  The two brothers exchanged long, knowing looks. “Oh yeah?” Davy asked. “Gonna tell her everything?”

  Seth spun around in the chair, and rubbed his reddened eyes. His mind swam with grisly images of what that man had done to Jesse before he killed him. He couldn’t stop the images, couldn’t block them. Couldn’t let Novak get his hands on Raine. Couldn’t.

  “Look at it this way,” Connor said, in the voice of one trying to reason with a lunatic. “She’s bait whether we use her or not. Now you have a God-given excuse for sticking t
o that chick like glue. It’s all you ever wanted to do, so get into it, already. Enjoy it.”

  “No. I want her out,” Seth repeated. “It’s too dangerous.”

  Connor shook his head. “You can’t pull her out of this without ripping out all the stitches, Seth,” he said gently. “Don’t fall apart on me. I need your techno magic to pull this off.”

  “Do not condescend to me, McCloud,” he snarled.

  Connor just stared at him, his pale gaze calm and unnerving.

  He hated admitting he was wrong. It made his jaw hurt. He closed his eyes and tried to organize his thoughts. “I have to be right on top of her. Guarding her,” he conceded grimly. “Not just tailing.”

  The two brothers exchanged long, silent looks, and Seth turned away. It reminded him too much of Jesse. Not that there had ever been much silence when Jesse was around. Jesse had never shut up.

  God, he was so angry. At the McCloud brothers for still having each other when his brother was dead. At Jesse for getting himself killed like an idiot. At Raine, for getting herself mixed up in this fucking snakepit when she obviously didn’t know enough to come in out of the rain.

  What maddened him most of all was the image of Jesse in the back of his mind, doubled over laughing. One would think that the ungrateful little jerk would appreciate his big brother’s efforts to avenge him. But no. In death, as in life, Jesse just had to be original.

  He opened up one of the black plastic cases full of Kearn’s gizmos. He grabbed a cell phone, pried it open, and started messing with it.

  “What are you doing?” Davy asked.

  He sifted through the transmitters in the case. “Putting together a present for my new girlfriend,” he said. “A cell phone with a Colbit beacon in it. I’ll dust the rest of her stuff, too. I want to know where she is at all times, when I’m not with her. Which won’t be often.”

  Davy looked thoughtful. “Novak’s less likely to make a move if you’re always lurking around.”

  “Tough shit,” he snarled. “Whenever I’m not with her, one of you guys will be watching. Armed and ready to kick ass. Is that clear? Now get out. I can’t concentrate with you guys breathing down my neck.”