Alone in the Dark

  ‘Did your mother cut him off?’

  ‘Not totally. She finally put him on an allowance and got angry. He hit her.’

  ‘Oh, Marcus, I’m sorry.’

  ‘I wanted to kill him, but he was the size I am now and I was scrawny.’

  ‘You were eight.’

  ‘And so angry. He begged her to forgive him and bought her an expensive bracelet – with her money – as an apology. I wanted her to make him leave, but she forgave him. Turned out it wasn’t the first time. He’d run up gambling debts in the past.’

  ‘So he figured he’d stage a kidnapping, get the ransom and pay off his debts.’

  He nodded once. ‘She didn’t know. Doesn’t know. Please don’t tell her.’

  She took his hand, kissed it again. She needed answers, but he needed reassurance even more. ‘I won’t. I wish I could say I can’t imagine a father risking his sons for money, but I can. I’ve seen it too many times.’

  His strong shoulders sagged. ‘All those things you can’t unsee,’ he said. ‘And now I just added one more.’

  She considered her words carefully. ‘If I told you that I’m not visualizing a frightened young boy betrayed by his father, afraid to sleep at night, I’d be lying. If I told you that the image doesn’t break my heart, I’d be lying even more. If that hurts your pride, then I’m sorry. But you’re mine now, and I will hurt for you if I want to.’

  Slowly his head lifted, his eyes intense. Hungry again. ‘Say that again,’ he whispered.

  She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. This was too important. ‘You’re mine, Marcus.’

  His eyes slid closed, his swallow audible, his throat working as he fought to contain his emotion. ‘God.’

  Hoarsely uttered, she couldn’t tell if it was plea or prayer. Maybe a little bit of both, she thought, her eyes stinging. Still on her knees, she crawled to his side and drew him into her arms. He turned his head, burying his face in the curve of her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her waist. She held him as the minutes ticked by, rocking him gently, letting him restore his composure.

  Finally he drew a deep breath, lifted his head and ran one hand up her back, pulling her down for a hot kiss that left her reeling. ‘You’re mine, Detective. You have been since that first day I saw you.’

  When he’d been shot protecting a woman he’d never even met. She smiled at him. ‘I know. But it’s nice to hear, isn’t it?’

  His lips curved, just a little. ‘Hell, yeah.’ Effortlessly he scooped her into his arms, setting her on his lap, gently pressing her cheek into his chest when she tried to look at him. ‘I have something to tell you. It’ll be easier if you’re not looking at me while I do it.’

  She braced herself. Not gonna be good, she thought. ‘Okay. I’m ready when you are.’

  Twenty-eight

  Cincinnati, Ohio

  Wednesday 5 August, 6.25 A.M.

  ‘I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready to tell anyone, but I need you to know.’ He grew still, his only movement the rising and falling of his chest as he breathed. ‘You didn’t ask me how I knew my father had hired the kidnappers.’

  ‘I wanted to, but I figured you’d tell me when you were ready.’

  His arms tightened around her. ‘Why am I so lucky?’ he murmured, then sighed. ‘Mom sent a car to drop us off and pick us up from school every day. Stone and I were taken when our driver was overpowered. He was found a few hours later, wandering the streets in Lexington, drugged and confused. By then, Matty had been taken too.’

  ‘From his bed.’

  ‘Yes. They took us to a warehouse by the river, but we didn’t know that. They locked us in an old beef freezer that was no longer used. It smelled bad, but it wasn’t cold. Stone and Matty were so scared. I tried to be brave, but I was terrified too. I knew we were rich. I knew my mother worried that something like this might happen one day.’ He was quiet for a moment, rubbing a lock of her tangled hair between his thumb and forefinger. ‘We weren’t tied up at first. I guess they figured three little boys couldn’t cause them any trouble.’

  ‘I guess they didn’t know the O’Bannion boys,’ she said, and he huffed a small laugh.

  ‘The day Jeremy O’Bannion adopted us and gave us his name was the best day of my life, up until that point. I couldn’t stand introducing myself as Marcus Gargano. Gargano was his name and I hated him.’ He’d grown stiff, but he drew a few breaths, his hold on her relaxing. ‘The freezer had a single bulb hanging from the ceiling, but the light switch was on the outside wall so we couldn’t turn it on.’

  ‘You were trapped, alone in the dark,’ she murmured. His littlest brother had died in the dark. Like Tala. ‘Oh, Marcus.’

  Another audible swallow. ‘Yeah.’ His voice broke and he cleared his throat. ‘I’m sorry. I haven’t talked about this in twenty-seven years.’

  ‘Your mother didn’t get you counseling?’ she asked, appalled.

  ‘Sure, but . . . I didn’t tell the counselors anything. I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I didn’t want my mother to know what I’d done and I didn’t trust the counselors not to tell her.’

  Didn’t want his mother to know? Hell. ‘What did you do?’ she asked gently.

  ‘I climbed on a box and unscrewed the light bulb so that they wouldn’t have any light when they came in to check on us, then I used a paperclip in my pocket to loosen some of the screws on the metal shelving unit against the wall. I used one of the rods as a club and hit one of the kidnappers with it.’

  She jerked in surprise, even as the knowledge registered that he was not answering her question. But this was his story and she’d let him tell it. ‘Wow. You were very resourceful.’

  ‘I watched way too much television. It was foolish, actually. I was only eight years old, and even though I hit him with all my might, it didn’t hurt him. It just made him mad. He wanted to kill me, but the other kidnapper calmed him down. The two of them brought in a chair and tied me to it, then turned me so that I couldn’t see my brothers. They tied Stone and Matty too. Didn’t blindfold or gag us.’ He shook his head. ‘It was winter and we all had colds. The calm one was afraid we’d suffocate if they covered our mouths with duct tape. I couldn’t get to my brothers, but I could hear them crying.’ He shuddered out a breath. ‘Stone kept asking me to make the men go away, saying he just wanted to go home. I kept promising him it would be all right.’

  She remembered Stone’s near meltdown in Marcus’s office the day before. ‘He said that yesterday. Said to make me go away. You promised him it would be all right.’

  Another shuddering exhale. ‘Certain things set him off. One of the kidnappers was the security guard for the warehouse. Told Stone he was a cop and would shoot him if he cried. For a long time he couldn’t look at anyone in uniform without unraveling, but he got past that eventually. Jeremy helped a lot. He’s a calm man and helped us calm down too.’

  ‘But Stone was in the Army. He wore a uniform.’

  ‘That was a personal challenge to himself. The ultimate “fuck you, world, I’m over that shit”. He wore a uniform, served with uniforms, took commands. He served his time and got out. His issue with cops, though . . . It’s still there. If he feels threatened by a cop . . .’

  ‘I don’t wear a uniform.’

  ‘Doesn’t matter. I’ve always thought that for him to get over his fear of uniforms, he had to transfer it somewhere, so it’s generalized to all cops.’

  ‘But . . . He didn’t trust me when I met him nine months ago, but he didn’t melt down.’

  ‘Not while you were there. He melted down later.’

  ‘That’s why you were so fierce that day in the hospital, when I criticized him for lying to us. You told me that when I’d walked a mile in his shoes, then I could judge him. I didn’t understand.’

  He kissed her temple. ‘Of course you didn’t. How could you have? I wasn’t going to tell you, because it’s Stone’s secret. But it’s mine too.’

  She petted his chest, soothing hi
m. ‘I won’t let him know that I know. I think we’ve achieved a truce and I don’t want to ruin it. Or hurt him any more.’

  A shrug of his muscled shoulders. ‘Thank you. At this point he doesn’t think you’re Satan.’ His huffed chuckle was sad. ‘You made some kind of impression. A good one, I think. It’s hard to tell with Stone sometimes.’ He straightened his spine against the wall, jostling her a little in his lap, but his arms kept her close.

  ‘There are other things I can’t tell you. Things . . . they did to him.’ His voice was stark, filled with pain. ‘They knew I was listening. Saw how hard I fought to get loose so I could make them stop. I . . .’ His chest heaved once. ‘That was . . . Oh God. I still hear his voice, crying for me to help him. They didn’t touch me. I wish they had. I begged them to, to leave Stone and Matty alone. They just laughed and said I’d get my turn.’

  Scarlett was trembling with anger, her fists clenching helplessly. She bit her tongue to keep from saying anything, knowing her fury would spill out into her words.

  Marcus stroked her hair. ‘More things you can’t unsee,’ he murmured.

  ‘I hope they’re dead.’ Because if they weren’t, she’d find them and kill them.

  ‘They are very dead.’

  The darkly satisfied way he said it made her pull away to try to see his face, but he held her tighter. ‘Not yet,’ he said harshly. ‘Don’t look at me yet.’

  She ceased her struggling, giving him his privacy. ‘Were they caught by the police?’

  ‘No.’ He sounded a little amused at that. ‘I’m sure they would have preferred the cops.’ He resettled her in his lap and continued, his voice surprisingly calm. ‘They gave instructions for the ransom, said no police or FBI should be contacted. Gayle told me later that my father wouldn’t let my mother contact the authorities, but she snuck away and did it anyway. The Feds followed the pickup man to the warehouse complex. That’s how they found us, but they had to do a building-to-building search. When the kidnappers realized the Feds were closing in, they freaked. They grabbed the money and ran, but not before trying to take care of us. We’d seen their faces. I was just a kid. I didn’t realize that from the beginning we were dead in their eyes. One of them opened the freezer door and . . . fired.’

  His arms tightened around her until she had trouble breathing, but she didn’t say a word. He abruptly loosened his hold, his voice trembling now. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you.’

  She pressed her fingertips to his lips. ‘I’m fine. You don’t have to tell me any more.’

  ‘I haven’t told you anything yet,’ he said wearily.

  Her heart sank. What was coming was much worse, then. She kissed the base of his throat, tasting the salt of his sweat. ‘Then tell me,’ she murmured. ‘But you don’t have to.’

  ‘I think I do. No, I know I do. You need to know. But you need to know why.’

  Need to know what? she wanted to demand, but she let him tell it his way. They had time.

  ‘You read the articles so you know that Matty was killed and Stone almost died. They were tied up close to the door, an easy shot. They’d put my chair toward the back. I threw myself down and the chair teetered just enough that the bullet missed my head and grazed my ear. I ended up on the floor and stayed there, waiting for the second shot, but finally realized the bastard thought he’d hit me. He pulled the door shut and left us alone there. In the dark.’

  Swallowing the bile that burned her throat, she struggled to hide her horror, but knew that was useless. ‘Jesus, Marcus.’

  He pressed his lips to her temple and kept them there for a long time. ‘I could hear Stone crying, but I couldn’t hear Matty at all. Not even breathing. I was thrashing, trying to get free. I’d been thrashing ever since they’d tied me up.’

  She cleared her throat. ‘How much time, Marcus?’

  ‘We were held for a little more than three days.’

  Her chest hurt. ‘Three days was an eternity.’

  ‘It was.’ A long, long pause. ‘When I fell, the wooden back of the chair broke. Between that and the thrashing, I managed to get my hands free. My feet were still tied to the chair’s base, but I dragged myself to the door, chair and all. It was locked – the bastards had padlocked it before they ran with the ransom cash, so we were trapped. I got my feet free and tried to use part of the broken chair to get us out. Stone had stopped crying and I thought he was dead too, but I couldn’t see to know if he was okay. I guess I became kind of an animal, trying to break the door down. The officers searching our warehouse heard me. When they came in, I saw the uniform and thought they were the kidnappers, come back to finish us off, so I attacked them. I didn’t want them near Stone and Matty. It took two officers to pull me away and hold me down.’

  ‘I’m so sorry about Matty.’

  He nodded, the stubble on his face catching in her hair. ‘He died almost immediately, so he didn’t suffer so much. Stone . . . he was hurt bad. I still remember the blood when they carried him out. He was in a coma for a week. In the hospital a lot longer than that. He missed Matty’s funeral, which was probably a blessing for him.’

  ‘How did you find out that your father was involved?’

  ‘A few days after we were rescued, the phone rang in our apartment. Gayle was at the hospital sitting with Stone and my mother was asleep. She’d taken a sleeping pill that the doctor had given her. That was the beginning of her addiction. Anyway, I answered the phone before it finished ringing because I didn’t want it to wake Mom up. And, um . . .’ He swallowed hard. ‘I heard him. One of the guys who took us. The one who hurt Stone and Matty. I didn’t scream, didn’t make a sound. It was like I was frozen with fear because I thought he was coming back. Then I heard my father answer the phone from another extension. It all happened pretty fast. They started talking, and I realized they knew each other. My father was angry. He said, “Nobody was supposed to get hurt. You killed my son and the other might die too.” Then the guy told my father that he’d broken the agreement by sending in the FBI. My father blew up, so angry that my mother had involved the law. But he was madder that the other guy hadn’t given him his share of the money.’

  Scarlett wanted to curse, to hit something. Wanted to kill his father, rip out his withered heart with her bare hands. But she kept her cool. Kept her voice calm and her hand warm on his chest. ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I wanted to tell someone, but I didn’t know who. Mom was out like a light and Gayle was at the hospital with Stone. My paternal grandfather lived nearby and watched us sometimes, but he was just like my father and I was afraid to tell him. Afraid he wouldn’t believe me. I tried to walk out of the apartment to find a beat cop, but my father stopped me from going out, said I could be kidnapped again because they’d gotten away and I’d seen their faces.’

  ‘Sonofabitch. He deliberately terrified you.’

  ‘I didn’t know what to do. I got paranoid, thinking he was watching me. I was afraid to pick up the phone, afraid that he’d listen to me like I’d listened to him. So I cowered in my room and didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t know who I could trust.’

  ‘What about your Grandfather Yarborough? You trusted him.’

  ‘I loved him. I loved spending time with him when we visited him, but even back then I never knew who he was going to be, so I was a little scared of him too. He came down to Lexington as soon as we were taken, but he spent all his time at the hospital with my mother and Stone after we were rescued. I never had a moment alone with him when my father wasn’t hovering.’

  ‘Your father kept you isolated.’

  ‘Yes. Plus, my grandfather liked my father. Everyone liked my father. He was pleasant and fun and threw a good party. My mother was the moody one, the one everyone said was eccentric. My father was well-loved by everyone who didn’t live with us.’

  ‘Gayle lived with you.’

  ‘Gayle got days off. Vacation. My father timed his outbursts very well. And when he couldn’t hold back . . . Wel
l, my parents were very good at fighting in private.’

  ‘Dammit, Marcus, I hate the thought of you being so alone in your own home. Surely your mother would have listened when you told her what you’d heard your father say.’

  ‘She would have listened, sure. But she wouldn’t have heard. She was in shock. Matty was dead, and Stone almost was. And the bottom line was that she loved my father, even though he’d slap her around sometimes. Nobody knew. I don’t even think she knows that I even knew. I kept trying to find the right time to tell her what he did to Stone and Matty, but I never did.’

  To Stone and Matty, but not to you. ‘How did your father die, Marcus?’

  He drew a deep breath and held it.

  ‘Marcus?’

  The breath rushed out almost desperately. ‘At the funeral, a man came up to my father. Big guy. Really big. Bold, too. Came right up to the casket where we were standing. Asked where his money was. My father said, “It’s my son’s funeral. Can’t you wait?” He asked the man to call him later. So when we got home, I listened and waited. I didn’t dare pick up the phone again, but when the call came, I hid nearby and eavesdropped on my father’s side of the conversation. He said, “I’ll get you the money even if I have to inherit it.”’

  Scarlett’s dread amped up. ‘He was going to kill your mother?’

  ‘That’s what it sounded like to me. And I made my decision then. I remember that night she tucked me in and sang me a lullaby. Kissed me goodnight. I guess I knew she was sad and scared, and I let her treat me like a little boy.’

  ‘You were a little boy, Marcus.’

  ‘I sure didn’t feel like one anymore, I remember that. I wanted to warn her then, but I didn’t know how. I stumbled through it, being all cryptic. It should have been simple. I should have just said, “Your husband paid someone to kidnap your children so he could get some money and now he’s trying to kill you.” But I couldn’t get the words out. I started with “My father” but then stumbled and said “Your husband”, and then I just couldn’t get the words out. All she got was that I was afraid of my father, and she told me that the psychologists said I might mix up reality with fiction for a while as I processed things.’