Vision of Darkness (16 page)

He kept his face impassive. The old lady was too smart for her own good. “Ma’am, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Of course not.” Grandma Mae leaned forward. Her lips brushed his cheek, soft and dry. “You’re a good man, Alex, with a good heart. Keep her safe.”

CHAPTER 15

Keep her safe.

Yeah, Alex thought with a soft snort as the jeep rambled up the driveway toward the lighthouse. Grandma Mae’s words had put a bitter taste in his throat. He’d tried to cleanse it away with cider and tender grilled chicken, corn on the cob, and fried sweet potatoes. No such luck. If anything, the excellent food and enjoyable company only made it worse.

Keep her safe.

Dammit, he was trying, but it was a tall order when he had no idea where the danger came from.

The top of the driveway rose into view and Alex stiffened in his seat as he spotted a silver truck parked in front of the carriage house. He reached for his hip only to come up with nothing. Patted his side in disbelief. Jeans, cotton shirt, leather jacket. No weapon. Fuck.

“Pull over.”

“What?” Pru shot him a sideways glance that might have been a little annoyed—okay, he amended, a lot annoyed. He hadn’t exactly been stellar company since they left Grandma Mae’s, shooting down her every attempt at conversation until she finally jabbed on the radio and ignored his presence.

“Pull over,” he said again.

“Why?” she asked, but still brought the jeep to a stop short of the last steep incline of her driveway.

“Because I don’t know who that truck belongs to.” And that made him twitchy. Too many bad things had happened to take an unexpected visit from an unknown truck lightly. Alex studied the vehicle: Chevy Silverado with rental plates and an Avis sticker in the window.

“It’s probably a customer,” Pru said and an unspoken
duh
came out in her tone. “I do own a bed and breakfast.”

Which was another thing that made him twitchy. Inviting strangers into your home with a smile and a wave was a good way to get yourself killed by some nutjob. “I thought you weren’t open yet.”

“Well, not officially, but I have enough finished rooms that I sometimes take in the spillover from Mermaid’s Purse in town. Gladys Sherry probably sent this person up here for a room.”       

He turned in his seat to face her. She had a regal profile: high cheekbones and a slim nose without a freckle or blemish to mar her ivory complexion. Her sweater hugged her curves and the seatbelt had nestled itself comfortably between her breasts. How pathetic was it, he wondered, to be jealous of a seatbelt?

Sexual frustration simmered below the surface of his skin like a hot, uncomfortable rash. Great. Like he hadn’t been aggravated enough without adding a dose of unfulfilled lust to the mix.

“You don’t get it, do you?” he said. “You can’t trust every Tom, Dick, and Harry you meet.”

Pru crossed her arms over her chest. “And why not?”

“Because there are a lot of crazy people in the world and most are out to hurt whoever they can. You know that. You’ve experienced it firsthand.”

Her lips trembled once before she pressed them together in a grim line. Before his eyes, she yanked the slipping pieces of herself together, viciously reining in what had to be a storm of emotions. Such an intriguing contradiction, he mused, so vulnerable and yet so strong.

Respect bloomed soft and warm in his chest. It was dangerous to add that to the mix of lust and admiration he already felt, and he damned himself for it even as he fantasized about cupping her jutting chin in his hand and kissing the scowl from her lips.

“I refuse to be drawn into the dysfunctional world you believe in,” she said after a charged moment. “People are mostly good.”

The woman was incredible. And naïve as hell. Alex wanted to reached over, grip her lovely shoulders, and shake some sense into her. “How can you still believe that after what you’ve been through?”

“How can you have such a harsh view of the world?” she shot back.

“It’s a harsh world.”

She huffed out a breath. “Don’t you trust anyone?”

“No.”

Pru finally glanced over at him, a sharp slice of blue eyes that cut straight to the heart. He knew she disapproved, but at the moment he didn’t care, distracted by the uncomfortable feeling that the answer had come out too fast and too easily for even his own liking. It had sounded callous and downright…well, coldblooded.

So what? He refused to qualify his answer. He was a coldblooded son of a bitch and it’d be best for the both of them if she remembered that.

“Stay here,” he ordered and opened the jeep’s door.

She threw up her hands with an exasperated sigh.

Alex shut the door behind him without making a sound and started up the hill at a jog, angling himself so that he came at the truck from the back passenger side. He wished for his weapon as he approached in a half-crouch. Technically, with all his training his hands were lethal weapons, but as an average-sized guy, he always felt at a distinct disadvantage in hand-to-hand combat, especially if his opponent was bigger than average. He’d rather have a gun.

Staying low, Alex peeked in the truck’s passenger side window. Empty, but someone had spent some time in the vehicle. A handful of fast food bags sat in the foot well. Half a bottle of caffeine-free diet coke in the cup holder. A green military-style duffle bag in the seat, unzipped. Several CD cases lay on top of the clothes in the bag—George Straight, Garth Brooks, Toby Keith, Dixie Chicks.

Dixie Chicks?

There was only one man in the world that could listen to that garbage without his balls shriveling to the size of raisins.

Alex circled to the front of the truck and scanned the yard. “All right. Where are you?”

The tap on his shoulder didn’t surprise him. Nick Gray Wolf moved with all the soundless grace of the animal he was named for. Alex turned and Nick grabbed him in a rib-crushing, backslapping hug.

“Howdy, Range.”

Alex gave him a jab in the gut. “Seriously? People don’t say howdy anymore.”

Nick grinned and stepped back, hooking his tanned leather hands into the belt loops of his Wranglers. “Says you.”

A big guy with hopelessly mixed ancestry—Lakota Sioux, Mexican, White and a bit of Japanese tossed in, he always said, “to make things interesting”—he dressed with a similar clash of styles. A fringed buckskin jacket covered his broad shoulders, half-concealing a Red Sox T-shirt. As if that wasn’t sacrilege enough, he’d topped the ensemble with a pair of brown cowboy boots and hat, his dark hair hanging in twin braids over his shoulders.  

“Lemme guess,” Alex said. “You’re petitioning to move the Sox to the Wild West?” 

He flashed a smile and a set of dimples that ladies swooned over. “Bet you rue the day you got me hooked on baseball.”

“Somewhere, Wally the Green Monster is crying,” Alex said, but grinned. Nick was once again the man he remembered from their days as impulsive young marines—quick feet and even quicker mind—and not the vagrant that had shown up on his doorstep several years ago, penniless, substance-addicted, scarred from a fresh attempt at suicide and desperately depressed that he would succeed the next time he tried to off himself.

Nick laughed and clapped him on the back. “So what’s up with the G.I. Joe routine, Al? Saw you creepin’ up the hill like you expected Hajji to jump out at any second.”

Down the hill, the Jeep’s engine fired and rumbled closer. Pru, ignoring his order to stay put. Alex sighed and rubbed his face hard with his fingertips, remolding the flesh over his cheekbones as if that would stop the shooting pain she caused in his skull.

Nick’s grin faded. “That bad?”

“You tell me. Sully’s the one who thinks I need a babysitter.”

At least Nick didn’t bother denying it. “Well,” he said after a second. It sounded like
whelp
. “Sully’s just bein’…Sully. The careful, paranoid first lieutenant we all know and love. Safety in numbers and all that.”

“Yeah, right.” Alex started toward the jeep as Pru parked behind the truck, slid from the driver’s seat and eyed them both warily.

CHAPTER 16

“Honestly, Pru, this place is amazin’.”

She beamed at Nick as they entered the kitchen, where Alex had started a pot of coffee while she’d given a tour around the lighthouse. As Alex had promised when he introduced them, she did like Nick very much—although his fashion sense was horrid, also as Alex had promised. She didn’t want to consider how many Bambis had to die to make his coat.

“Thanks, I think it’s pretty amazin’”—she copied his country accent, dragging out the word— “as well.”

Nick grinned. Dimples softened the hard lines of his face and made him look less like a stoic Sioux warrior and more like a New Age science geek intrigued by all the strangeness happening around Danger Ledge Light. He was so not what she’d expected from one of Alex’s military friends. From her short phone conversation with him after Sherriff Forbes arrested Alex, she knew he could be an intense, ruthless, and scarily efficient soldier, but she saw no sign of that in him now.

“And I completely believe it’s haunted,” Nick added, an edge of excitement in his Montana drawl. “It has a feel to it, energy. It pulls you and repels at the same time.”

“Don’t get him started,” Alex grumbled and handed Pru a mug while sipping from his own. Their fingers brushed and his lingered a moment too long. He had been touching her all day, a caress of his thumb against her wrist, a whisper-soft touch to the back of her neck, a hand on her arm or leg. She wasn’t even sure he was aware of doing it. Grandma Mae had noticed, though, and made a suggestive comment about it as soon they were out of Alex’s earshot.

Pru prayed Nick hadn’t noticed the constant touches too, and took a drink of her coffee to hide the blush she felt riding her cheeks. Then she realized Nick still didn’t have a cup. Alex hadn’t even offered one to him.

She sent Alex a scowl and crossed to the coffee maker, reaching for a third mug on the shelf overhead. “Would you like some coffee, Nick?”

“Decaf?” he asked.

Alex shook his head. His eyes narrowed a bit as he took another sip. “Nope.”

Nick held up his hands. “Won’t touch it then.”

“Good,” Alex said.

Okay
, Pru thought, watching unspoken words pass between the two. She put the mug away. “Would you like something else?”

“Nah. Thanks, but I gotta get back to the motel and hit the hay.” He stifled a yawn behind his hand. “Long trip out.”

It took her a second to process his words. She’d fully expected him to stay in one of the lighthouse’s finished rooms. More than that, she wanted him to stay. He acted as a nice buffer between her and Alex, and she needed the lust dampened. If she had to toss and turn through one more night of achy, sex-filled dreams, knowing Alex was right upstairs but that a fling with him was so not a good idea—she was pretty sure she’d explode.

“Motel? Nonsense,” she said, doing her best impression of Grandma Mae’s won’t-take-no-for-an-answer voice. “You can stay here for free.”

Nick slid a glance toward Alex, who had gone very still. She could almost see the word pass between them—
cockblock.

Ugh. Men!

Nick’s mouth kicked up at the corner. He shook his head. “Nah. Motel’s good.”

“I insist. It’s already getting late and—” She checked her watch. The hands had stopped at seven-eighteen. Again. Frustrated, she took the watch off and tapped its face. “Dammit. This is the third battery I’ve gone through.”

She looked at the clock on the wall over the sink, the one her father had handcrafted out of driftwood, usually so steady and reliable. The hands were still, trapped at seven-eighteen.

“What on earth?”

“That’s weird,” Alex said and flicked the face of his own watch. “Mine stopped at the same time.”

“Mine too,” Nick murmured. On the floor at his feet, Triton whined and pressed closer to his legs.

Pru frowned at her dog. How odd. Triton was usually weary of strangers. It’d taken Alex days to win him over.

Nick reached down and patted Triton’s side. “Does that happen often around here? Go through a lot of batteries, do ya?”

“Like water since I moved here.” She crossed to the sink and stood on her tiptoes to take the clock down. After replacing the battery from the hundred-count value pack she’d bought last week, which was half-empty already, the second hand jumped to life. She checked the time on her cell phone and reset the clock. “I can’t figure out why.”

“Here, let me.” Nick came up behind her, took the clock, and hung it back on its nail without even stretching. “Supposedly, ghosts use all the energy they can get when they manifest. They suck the heat out of the air, creatin’ cold spots, and the power out of batteries and other such things. Electronics rarely work when spirits are hangin’ around.”

“Really?” She never knew that, but it sure explained a lot. Like why that hundred-count pack of batteries was fast dwindling and why some of them, although they were brand new, were dead before she ever used them.

Nick nodded. “That’s why paranormal investigators use electromagnetic field readers when lookin’ into a hauntin’. Ghosts suck up the energy around them, creatin’ jolts the EMF scanners pick up. Have you ever considered havin’ someone investigate here?”

A paranormal investigation? Huh. A little thrill chased around in her belly. The possibility hadn’t occurred to her, but boy, that would give her an interesting story to tell her guests come spring when she opened. And, maybe, she’d get proof The Green Lady existed so she could rub it in Alex’s face.

“Do you know any paranormal investigators?” she asked.

“Oh, come on,” Alex groaned and plopped into a chair at the table. “Let’s change the subject, please.”

Nick ignored him. “Yup,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I do.” Triton again whimpered and he gazed down with honest sympathy. “You got one of the best investigators right here. Dogs are acutely sensitive to the preternatural.”

Pru followed his gaze and her heart squeezed. Poor pup cowered underneath Nick’s legs, his ears pressed to his head, his tail tucked. “Triton has been acting strangely since we moved here. He sleeps less, paces a lot, almost like he’s frightened. He’s even had accidents in the house, and that’s not like him. I thought the new surroundings had him agitated, but it’s been over three months.”

“He senses somethin’s not right,” Nick explained, “and his doggie brain can’t quite get a handle on it. He probably is scared.” He gave Triton’s head a soothing rub. “Poor guy. Tell you what, Pru. I do know a human paranormal investigator. Alex does too.”

“Jesus Christ,” Alex muttered.

“Though he doesn’t like to admit it,” Nick said with a flash of dimples. “See, I’ve made a hobby out of studyin’ the paranormal, but my expertise lies more in cryptozoology, the study of mythological animals—Big Foot, the Jersey Devil, that sorta thing. But a guy from our squadron has made a livin’ from studyin’ ghosts out around Seattle. I could contact him, if you’d like—”

“Jacob Street is a nut job.” Alex rolled out his shoulders to hide a shudder. It was a slight movement, but Pru, intensely aware of his body in every way, noticed. Her curiosity perked.

“Why don’t you like him?” she asked.

“Never said that. I love the guy like a brother. The war just hit him harder than it did the rest of us.”

Pru wasn’t so sure about that. From what little she knew of these enigmatic men sharing her company, war had also effected them both profoundly.

“Jacob lost his best friend and got a bit screwy afterward,” Alex told her. “He claims K.C.’s still hanging around. His way of coping, I guess.”

“Maybe K.C. really is,” Nick said.

“Bullshit. Case is dead and has been for eight years. For fuck’s sake, they didn’t even have enough left of his body to bury.”

“Means nothin’ if he’s a ghost.”

“Ghosts don’t exist.”

Nick scoffed. “See, Al here doesn’t like what he can’t prove. Jacob’s a friend, but also a medium, and psychic abilities are exceedingly hard to prove.” He all but skewered Alex with his strange yellow eyes. “Especially to a latent psychic who doesn’t want to believe and who’s workin’ mighty hard to suppress his abilities.”

Alex’s returned gaze was just as cutting. “I’m not psychic.”

“Ah, but Jacob figures you are and he would know.”

“You do have those feelings,” Pru said.

“They’re called hunches and everyone gets them. God, I told you not to get him started on this.” He rolled his eyes toward the ceiling in exasperation, but Pru noticed he was also rubbing his bad knee under the table. It was an unconscious gesture, one she’d come to realize he did when he was feeling uneasy or threatened. The ache in the joint was probably a constant reminder of his mortality, and something like that would bother a man like Alex.

She turned her gaze back to Nick. “I think it’d be interesting. If your friend’s willing to fly out here, I’ll pay him for an investigation. I’m curious as to what he’ll find.”

“You might not like it,” Nick said, smile fading. “If what I felt when I arrived here is any indication—and, mind you, I don’t have an ounce of psychic ability—I’d venture to guess Jacob will find somethin’ evil. I talked to him about it while I waited for you to come home, and he thinks we should try a séance.” 

Alex snorted. “Are you fucking serious?”

“What, Alex?” She leveled her gaze on him. Because of the last half hour of conversation, his mood was dark now, but the fire, the lust, was still there. If anything, his bad mood had only intensified it. He looked as if he would ravage her right there on the kitchen table in front of Nick if he didn’t think she would protest it. She shivered. “Don’t you believe in evil?”

He stood so abruptly his chair scraped on the floor and crossed the kitchen to drop his empty mug in the sink. His expression was unreadable, but his spine had gone stiff. “Only the evil that people do to each other.”

“So why can’t that still exist after those people die? It has to go somewhere.”

“She has a point,” Nick said.

“I’d like to do a séance,” Pru added.

“Youse two knock yourselves out,” Alex said and pulled out his cell phone as he headed toward the front door. “I have some calls to make.”

Pru watched him go. “He gets so touchy whenever someone mentions the paranormal.”

Nick looped an arm over her shoulder and gave her a friendly squeeze. “No worries. He has…issues.”

She had to laugh, remembering Alex’s response when she’d said the same thing about herself. “Doesn’t everyone?”

“True enough,” Nick agree with a smile that had the slightest hint of sadness to it. “That’s true enough.”

***

Alex paused on the front porch, drawing a breath of the brisk evening air. The lighthouse beam flashed across the quiet lawn at regular intervals, reminding him of a spotlight in a prison yard seeking out potential escapees. He had the odd sensation that if he ran out across the lawn he’d be gunned down by unseen guards, and the even odder sensation that he was being watched. Through the window, he could see that Pru and Nick were deep in conversation, probably talking about that damn séance idea, not paying attention to him. Nobody else was around. The night was still and silent enough that he could faintly hear a rock-n-roll band playing at Buzzy’s, the only bar in town, which was nearly four miles down the road. If a living being were watching him, he’d hear it breathing.

Living being?

Hah. He was letting Pru’s beloved ghost stories go to his head. He snorted and dropped into the creaky Boston rocker on the porch, flipping open his cell phone and jabbing out Our Lady of the Incarnation’s number. Romano hadn’t called him about Theo’s condition as the nurse he talked to this morning had promised. If the doc wasn’t in—which, given the time, he probably wasn’t—then Alex would get his private number. He deserved to have some answers, and couldn’t shake the feeling that Romano had purposely ignored his call.

A different receptionist answered, not as chirpy. She put him on hold and he listened to the same elevator music for five minutes. He pushed his feet against the floor, starting the rocker. Waited another three minutes. Just as he was about to hang up, Romano answered.

“Alex.” His voice dripped with forced cordiality. “I’m so sorry I haven’t had a chance to get back to you.”

Yeah, right. “I want to know how my brother’s doing. The nurse I spoke to this morning insinuated he’s not well.”

A pause. Romano cleared his throat. “I’m afraid Theo’s condition is deteriorating. He’s alternating between manic episodes and catatonia. We’ve had to keep him away from the other patients and, unfortunately, we’ve had to restrain him on more than one occasion these past few days.”

Alex leaned his head against the rocking chair and swallowed a surge of emotion. His big brother—who taught him to ride a bike and tie his shoes, who took care of him when their mother, too doped up to be bothered, left him cold and hungry—was deteriorating. Yes, there was a lot of bad blood between them, but Theo had always been a foundation for Alex. Even when Theo started showing the first signs of schizophrenia.

Oh God.

“I’d like to set up a meeting to consider our options,” Romano was saying. “Maybe tomorrow?”