Hunting Daylight (9781101619032) (55 page)

She gave it to Jude, got behind his chair, and steered him down the corridor. At the far end, a tall metal door swung open, dangling from its hinges. Beyond the veranda, the night sky spun out, jammed with stars. She pushed her dad through the doorway onto a wooden veranda.

What now? She’d gotten them out of the building, but how could they leave the compound? Dammit. She walked to the edge of the veranda. Three bodies lay in the gravel road, and a dark, shining stream ran between them.

Jude pointed to a yellow Hummer that was parked at an angle. “If you can get me to the Hummer, I can drive.”

She stared, uncomprehending.

“There’s no time to explain,” he said. “Just help me walk to the Hummer.”

Walk? The poor guy had lost his grip on reality. But they still had to get to the vehicle. She pushed his chair to the edge of the veranda. “What about the gates?” she asked.

Behind her, she heard a gasp. Then a musical voice said, “Girl!”

She turned slowly, expecting to see Mustafa, but it was Fadime. His cheek was gashed, and blood streamed down the side of his face. He shuffled to the wheelchair and pointed a gun at the back of Jude’s head.

Vivi’s nostrils flared, and she tugged in a breath. Oh, what if she accidentally Induced Jude? Or hurt Bram?

“Put your face on the floor!” Fadime yelled at her. “Move it.”

Jude reached around and grabbed the soldier’s hand. The bone snapped. Fadime screamed, and his gun clattered to the veranda.

“Grab that forty-five,” Jude said.

She scrambled over to the gun and snatched it.

The little Turk got to his knees, his eyes glowering, cradling his arm. A bone jutted up through the flesh, and dark blood streamed down.

“Don’t move, Fadime,” Jude said, aiming the Glock. “I don’t want to kill you in front of my daughter.”

Fadime’s lips drew back, showing his teeth. “Shoot me, cripple.”

“Look away, Meep.”

But she didn’t.

Jude squeezed the trigger. Fadime’s head kicked back and he thudded to the veranda.

Down the road, toward the security checkpoint, a
fireball exploded, and flames rolled up into the darkness, sparks arcing in all directions. The veranda trembled, then went still.

Above them the air began to roar. Three lights cut across the dark sky. Helicopters? Vivi’s heart began to pound. “More soldiers!”

“We’ll be ready for them, Meep. Get behind my chair.”

Vivi pointed at the sky. “Look. Those are Raphael’s helicopters.”

Each door was stamped with D
ELLA
R
OCCA
, LTD.

Vivi’s eyes brimmed. She crouched beside Jude’s chair and reached for his hand. She was going home to her mom. And she was bringing her dad with her.

Daylight spilled over the compound, casting a pink glow over the helicopters. One of Raphael’s men came to the door. He wore tactical gear and combat boots. His light brown hair was combed straight back.

“Vivi, your dad wants you.”

She followed him inside the building, past the blood-splattered walls, into the dining hall. Mustafa was strapped to a gurney, and Jude sat beside him, adjusting the tubing of an IV machine.

“Are you ready for daylight?” he asked Mustafa.

Mustafa gritted his teeth, his face turning red.

Jude rose slightly from his chair and stabbed the needle into a rubber stopper of a small IV bag. The tubing looped across the cot into Mustafa’s arm.

The Turk wrenched from side to side, trying to loosen the restraints.

“You wanted to walk in sunlight,” Jude said. “Now you will. I adjusted the dose, by the way. So you’ll have maybe five minutes before you fry.”

Mustafa arched his back. Tears streamed down the sides of his face.

Vivi sat on the floor, petting Bram. He wrapped his paws around her wrist. “I’ll take good care of the ferret,” she said.

“You little bitch,” Mustafa said.

Jude punched Mustafa in the mouth. A tooth flew out and clattered to the floor. Dark, smelly blood ran down the Turk’s bottom lip.

Vivi felt a little trembly inside, as if she might fly apart. Had she become like Mustafa? Was her life more important than his? Maybe the difference was, she felt remorse. She didn’t want to be the kind of person who hurt others. But she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life hiding, either.

Signore Dolfini, Raphael’s head security guy, walked up. “Are you ready, Dr. Barrett?”

“Yes.” Jude turned back to Mustafa and examined the intravenous bag. It was almost empty.

Mustafa’s lip curled. “Long after I am dead, you will still be a cripple.”

Holding his gaze on the Turk, Jude braced his hands on his chair and rose.

Mustafa’s face knotted. His mouth looked rubbery as he shaped and reshaped his lips.

“Jude!” Vivi scrambled to her feet.

He put his arm around her and turned to Signore Dolfini. “Will you please move this piece of trash to the lawn?”

“My pleasure,” Dolfini said.

As Raphael’s men pushed Mustafa’s cot into the hall, Jude sank down into the chair. Vivi put the ferret in his lap.

“This is totally awesome,” she said. “Have you been faking the paralysis?”

“No, no. It’s a long story.” He smiled.

From the veranda, Vivi heard Mustafa yelling at Raphael’s men, calling them donkey fuckers. “Will he die?”

Jude nodded. “The light will take him.”

“I want to see.” She walked toward the door.

“Vivi, no,” Jude called.

She turned. “I want to make sure Mustafa’s gone. Or I’ll always wonder.”

Jude pulled in a ragged breath, then nodded. “I’ll be waiting.”

As Vivi stepped onto the veranda, she saw Raphael’s men push the gurney across the lawn. Mustafa struggled beneath the restraints, his head whipping from side to side, hands fisted. The sun bulged over the horizon, and a crisp wind blew from the west, stirring the long grass. Mustafa stiffened his back. “Do not leave me here. My eyes are burning. It hurts. I will pay you. How much do you want? Name your price.”

Vivi inched toward the edge of the veranda. The Italians parked the cot in the sun, then stepped back to the veranda.

“You are nothing,” Mustafa yelled. “A wrinkle in history. But I was a Turkish warrior. A
Sipahi.
”

“You are a demon,” Vivi whispered.

His fists opened and his fingers clawed the air, as if trying to shred the light.

A shimmer radiated around his head. Bubbles spread across his scalp, down his forehead, over his cheeks. Mustafa began to gurgle as a deep scarlet flush rose to the surface of his skin and boiled out. Bits of flesh peeled back and floated up, wafting on the cool breeze. Sores erupted over his hands. Smoke drifted from his nose and ears. He opened his mouth, and a belch of steam curled out.

Vivi almost expected to see the restraints snap away from his body, allowing him to rise off the cot and spread leathery wings. Signore Dolfini guided her back into the building, where her father was waiting.

VILLA PRIMAVERINA, ISLA CARBONARA

VENICE, ITALY

I spent a week floating in a drug-induced ennui where time moved in concentric circles, each one pressing tightly against the other, my past looped around the present. I perched inside the spiral, watching moments revolve: flames leaping out of a white house; Uncle Nigel leading me up the Egyptian escalator in Harrods; Jude holding Vivi on his shoulder; night wind rushing through the pink house in Saˉo Tomé. I dreamed of objects that wouldn’t close: an overstuffed box, a door that refused to latch, a bracelet with a broken clasp. I dreamed of things that were lost and found. I dreamed that Jude had gone missing again, and I surrendered myself to grief.

I awoke in Raphael’s bedroom, my chest heaving, my vision blurred. I tried to find a still place in my mind, and
I focused on an arrangement of seascapes that hung on the far wall. Lamplight washed over a carved desk, where my hairbrush lay next to Raphael’s old rosary beads.

Maria came in later and set a tray on the bed. She tucked her wiry, gray-blond hair behind her ears. “I brought breakfast.”

Enticing smells of coffee and pastry wafted over me, but I couldn’t shake the ashes out of my thoughts.

“Caro, you’ve got to try. And you must get out of bed. You haven’t moved in seven days.”

“Just give me a minute.” I gazed up at the ceiling. The trompe l’oeil clouds seemed different, larger and darker. I sat up, rubbing my eyes.

“I made croissants,” Maria said.

She had a soft voice, infused with Germanic angles. She’d fallen in love with Beppe over a bowl of gnocchi. As a professional chef, she believed in the healing powers of food.

I pushed back my hair. “I feel dizzy.”

Maria sighed. “It’s those pills. Dr. Nazzareno shouldn’t have given them to you.”

“It’s not every day that I murder someone,” I said. I’d aimed for a cynical tone, but my voice held back a sob.

“It’s not every day that an evil bitch gets her comeuppance,” Maria said.

A cold feeling edged up my neck. I couldn’t believe I’d taken a life. Now I had to live with this knowledge for the rest of mine.

Maria tore open a croissant. “I made Scotch marmalade, just the way you like it. Do you need me to do anything else? Are your hands still sore?”

“No, I’m much better.”

I peeled off the bulky gauze bandage. My hands had healed rapidly. A two-inch scab ran across my left palm and dozens of tiny scabs marked my right hand. I gave silent thanks for hybrid DNA as I flexed my fingers—they were only a little sore.

The wounds had healed, but I wasn’t sure that I would be quite the same. I’d murdered Tatiana, but I’d moved closer to a blurry line. How could I pull back from that line?

I glanced up. Maria looked troubled. “You acted in self-defense,” she said.

Her words flowed right over me. She was loyal to Raphael, and that loyalty extended to me. Not only that, she was always impossibly upbeat, sunny, and positive. I’d never seen her crack, not even the year she’d burned the Easter ham. She just didn’t have enough darkness to understand that I no longer recognized myself.

I drank a few sips of coffee and forced myself to taste the croissant. It was buttery and flaky, and I took another bite.

“It’s ten
A.M.
,” she said. “A beautiful August morning.”

I sighed. It might as well be ten
P.M.

“I’ll get your clothes.” Maria walked to the armoire.

I closed my eyes. A sense of impending doom rose up, and I knew something terrible was going to happen. I tried to shake it away, but it jerked me into a dark vault where all the clocks were ticking out of rhythm, where events and people meshed into one continuum. All the minutes and seconds and years ran together in a spiral.
Maria’s voice brought me back. “Do you want to wear this dress?” She held up a pink, dotted shift.

“Perfect,” I said a little too brightly. “What’s been happening at the villa?”

“You’d know if you left this room.” She placed the dress on the bed. “Shall I draw your bath?”

“I can manage on my own.” I moved to the edge of the mattress. “Where’s Raphael?”

“In the library, worrying about you,” she said, a smile in her voice. “I’ll tell him you’re up.”

After she left, I went into Raphael’s bathroom. It was the size of a ballroom, with a sunken tub and pale blue tiles that ran along the edge. Fluffy white towels were stacked on a shelf. On the counter, clear jars held soaps from Grasse, France.

I drew a bath, got into the tub, and closed my eyes. The water sluiced down my thighs, a kind of baptism, rinsing away the scummy edges of the sleeping pill. Steam drifted up, fragrant with the smell of lavender.

A while later, I heard a knock at the door. I sat up, suds falling down my breasts. “Yes?”

“It’s me,” Raphael said.

“Come in,” I called, brightening at the sound of his voice.

The door opened, and Arrapato raced into the room. Raphael followed him, looking handsome in a brown cotton shirt and white shorts. His hair fell in straight panels to his chin. I couldn’t read his expression, and he wouldn’t let me into his thoughts.