Soul Thief (Blue Light Series) (4 page)

The large business jet was waiting when they arrived at the airport. The small crew was cordial but businesslike. The flight left the ground within five minutes of boarding. An attendant, a smartly dressed woman in her late forties named Greta with a pretty but smug face and shifty eyes handed Annie a phone.

“Daddy?” Annie said, her voice breaking, sounding oddly like that of a child’s
. “Tell me what happened. Yes, I’m okay. I want to know how my mother died.” Annie kept the phone to her ear for a long time, occasionally exclaiming in awe or grief. “Oh no. My God, no. Daddy . . . I know. Yes, I love you too, daddy.”

Slowly, as if in a trance, Annie put the phone down. Doug wanted to puke. He was pitting his love for Annie against his hatred for her father and in the process he was totally ignoring the fact that her mother was dead and that she was hurting. But he couldn’t help it. This was all wrong. They’d vowed never to go back there. Now they were being forced
to do so; De Roché was manipulating Annie’s emotions like a talented maestro conducting an orchestra.

Annie fixed Doug with a vacant, helpless stare. “Oh . . .
God, Doug,” she said, and the words were choked in an odd way, as though she was trying to swallow them.

Doug reached over and touched her trembling hand. “
Jesus, Annie, I’m so sorry.”

“Daddy . . . heard . . . her . . . get out of bed around
midnight. He drifted back to sleep and woke up to the sound of gunfire. He went . . . looking for her and found her on the bathroom floor with a  . . . bullet through her heart.”

“Annie, that place is a fortress. How could a gunman get through security?”

“I don’t know.”

“Has anyone ever gotten through before?”

“I don’t know. Why are you asking me this now?”

“You know damned well why.”

She glared at him. “I think you’re wrong. And I think you’re a bastard for insinuating that my father was involved in my mother’s death!”

“Then who were those guys this morning, Annie? Tell me! They blew
our house up! They tried to kill us.”

“I don’t know who they were. My father would never do anything to hurt me.”

“Of course not! He knew I’d get you out. That’s why he called, for Christ’s sake. He set the whole thing up to trick you into going back there. Don’t you see?”

“No, I don’t see. He called to tell me my mother was dead. I would have come home anyway. He didn’t need to blow the house up. He didn’t need to send gunmen after us.”

“Annie, my God, he told me to get you out of the house; he said that someone was going to try and take you. Tell me how he knew that?”

“I don’t know.”

“And obviously you don’t want to know.”

Annie did not reply.

“Why would someone kidnap you to begin with?” Doug asked.

“I don’t know that either. Maybe for the same reason they killed my mother.
My father has a lot of money, and power. He has enemies. Maybe they want to ransom me. Maybe they want to get back at daddy for some other reason. Years ago when I went off to college he warned me that something like this might happen. He said the rich and powerful need to be more careful than ordinary citizens, that enemies are a given, that’s why we needed to be constantly on guard. He tried to assign a security force to watch my every move but I refused to allow it. I called him paranoid. Now I’m not so sure anymore.”

“Annie—”

“No, Doug. This is about you and your jealousy. My mother’s dead and you’re freaking out because you hate my father.” Annie burst into tearful sobs.

Doug felt like killing something. He knew that Annie had a point and he suddenly realized just how ingenious De Roché’s plan had been. Annie didn’t know about her father’s desire to possess her baby so therefore she would never suspect his real motives. Yes, it was pure genius. Doug should have suspected something like this from the start. How could he have been so stupid? De Roché was not the kind of man who would do anything on a sane level. Guns blazing and houses exploding. Yes, that was De Roché’s style to the letter.

Greta, the shifty-eyed attendant approached them. “I have something that might calm you, Mrs. McArthur,” she said, glancing reproachfully at Doug.

“What is it?” Doug said crossly.

The woman ignored Doug and looked directly at Annie. “It’s Valium,” she said. “Your father told me that sometimes you . . . have a need for it.”

“She hasn’t had a need for it since she left that bastard,” Doug said.

Greta shot Doug a look of poisonous hate.

“Yes, thanks, I’ll take one,” Annie said. “
How strong are they?”

“Ten milligrams.”

“Give me two.”

“Awe,
God, Annie, the baby!”

Annie nodded at the woman, ignoring Doug’s objections. The attendant marched down the aisle and in a moment she was back with a bottle of water and two tablets. Annie swallowed them both, put her seat back and stared out the window
, ignoring Doug. In a few short moments she was snoring softly.

Doug wanted to scream. He wanted to tell Annie that her father, for whatever sick reason, wanted her first born and that she was playing right into his hands. But he couldn’t say a word. If he did she’d accuse him of making it up, of being insecure, of hating her father. She’d be right on two of those counts.

Doug picked up the phone Annie had used to talk to her father and dialed a number. It rang three times before an answering machine picked up. “This is Rick Jennings” a familiar and friendly voice said. “I’m not in right now but please leave a message. If it’s an emergency dial the station, or try my cell phone at 207-893-6210.” Doug put his thumb on the off button and dialed the cell phone number but the call went immediately to voice mail. He did not leave a message and he did not call the station. He hung up and dialed a third number. Seth Baxter, his crew foreman picked up.

“Seth, this is Doug.

“Doug, what the hell’s going on?” Seth gushed. “Man, what a relief hearing your voice. I thought you and Annie were dead.”

“We’re both okay, so don’t worry. Listen, I’m going to be out of town for a few days. I’m counting on you to keep the crew going while I’m away.”

“Sure, Doug,” Seth replied. “You know you can count on me. But where are you? What happened?”

“It’s a long story.”

“You know the cops are looking for you.”

“Yeah, I figured. Listen, Seth, I can’t talk now, but I want you to do me a favor.”

“Anything, man. I’m just glad you’re alive.”

“Get in touch with
. . . my friend at the police station. You know who I mean. Tell him we’re all right and that I’ll be in touch as soon as possible. But don’t call the station.”

“Why not?”

“Just do as I say, Seth, okay? I’ll give you his cell phone number.” Doug gave Seth the number. “And don’t talk to anyone but him, understand?”

“Sure, Doug. Jesus, this is weird. You know they’re combing the wreckage of your house right now. I tried to go in but they wouldn’t let me near the place.
What the hell happened?”

“
Somebody turned the gas on and lit a match.”

“Are you saying . . .?”

“Yes. I think somebody tried to kill us.”

“Oh . . . my . . . God. Why?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”

Greta was eyeballing him from her position at the front of the cabin.
“Listen, I’ve got to go.”

“Be careful, Doug.”

“Sure, Seth. You too.”

After making the call, Doug sipp
ed his coffee, trying to calm his rage, thinking about the circumstances that had brought Annie and him together in the first place. Suddenly nothing felt right. The world seemed skewed slightly off-center. His house, and all they’d worked for was gone, they’d barely escaped with their lives. Just like that their world had been torn to shreds, and here they were, winging headlong toward an uncertain future.

“I am an artist,” Annie had proclaimed without conceit on the very day she and Doug had met. It was almost the first thing she had said to him, as though she were setting ground rules around which the two could establish a relationship.

Doug had been left with little doubt that art
was
Annie’s calling. Regardless of her position in life as sole heiress of a financial dynasty and the responsibilities that must go along with that position, Annie considered herself first and foremost an artist. They’d met at the University of Maine in Orono. It was their first day of classes, freshman year when Annie had made her proclamation.

“
Very cool,” Doug had replied. “What sort of artist are you?”

“I paint pictures,” she said.

“Pictures? Lots of artists do that. What kind of pictures?”

“Whatever comes to mind,” she said with a broad and beautiful smile, her mysterious eyes twinkling. Doug was lost in them almost immediately.

The University of Maine was the only school Doug could afford, and he was grateful to be there. Annie could have afforded anything, but that’s where she’d decided to go. Doug had been skeptical at first, little rich bitch slumming with the commoners, but the better he’d gotten to know her, the more he believed she was sincere. She was bright, and so filled with life. Like she was tasting freedom for the first time.

Little did he know.

And she was
indeed
an artist. As he would later discover, her work was both beautiful and strangely unnerving. She’d told Doug that she’d been painting since the age of two, much to her father’s chagrin. He had wanted her to become a lawyer, a diplomat, a statesman, a scientist, anything but an artist. Artists didn’t change the world, he’d told her. They were merely mute observers, albeit, documenters, of the changes wrought by the world’s true movers and shakers.

She’d begged to differ, however, reminding her father that artists such as Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Bach and Beethoven, Shakespeare, Hemingway, Dylan and the Beatles had indeed been more than observers and documenters. They had shaped events, probably in more profound ways than any politician or businessman ever had.

“Not the sort of difference I want my daughter to make,” he’d told her, and went about the task of doing everything in his power to discourage Annie’s artistic pursuits.

To no avail. She would be an artist at all costs and the only way to accomplish it, at least in her way of thinking, was to abandon her life of privilege and live among ordinary people. Annie could have lived anywhere, yet she claimed to actually like living in the dorm, sharing her space with dozens of other young people. Doug had later learned that her growing up years had been so sheltered and lonely that by the time she escaped her father’s influence she’d been literally starved for the companionship of other human beings. And something he didn’t find out until years later; the close proximity of other people, “sane and normal people” is how she’d put it, helped in some small way to keep her demons at bay. Doug could only guess what terrible baggage lay at her core. Back then she rarely talked about her childhood. Whenever Doug broached the subject she’d tell him that it had no relevance to the person she was now. And Doug hadn’t pressed her
, even though he sensed she wasn’t being totally truthful.

Annie liked bicycle riding on campus. Doug knew this because he would ride with her for hours, talking and dreaming, feeling the cool, clean
New England air in their faces. She grew to love the great outdoors, hiking and backpacking—experiences which were totally new for her. Doug remembered sitting on the edge of a wilderness lake with Annie in the gathering dusk listening to the call of wild loons. She was like a kid caught up in the miracle of discovery. She carried within her the grace and refinement of money and breeding, yet she had the sensibility and compassion of an ordinary person. But Antoinette De Roché was far from an ordinary person. Doug had sensed this from the beginning, and he had been in love almost from the moment they’d met.

From what Doug had been able to glean, Annie had grown up in a whirlwind of wealth, privilege and power. There had been mention early on about her father having descended from some obscure French
royal bloodline. But it had just been in passing and the truth was, Doug did not care about those sorts of things so he had never pressed her for details. She’d been born in Boston where her parents had a home, lived in Stone Harbor, Florida, where they had another, and in various places around the globe including France, the United Kingdom and the Cayman Islands where her father had vague business interests. He’d also done diplomatic work for several U.S presidents.

Annie had
often jokingly referred to her stint at the University of Maine as slumming. In truth her choice of school had been an act of rebellion against a domineering father and a mother who was so unhappy she spent half her life sleeping, the other half drunk, drugged or both. Annie was a perfect mix of her two parents, Doug surmised. Like her father, Annie was stubborn and independent. Doug sensed that this irritated her father. He’d wanted someone more compliant, like his wife, a daughter he could mold and manipulate to his liking. She’d gotten her mother’s beauty, grace and compassion, however, along with an unhealthy share of her insecurity. In the years since Doug had met Annie he’d found her contradictions to be a volatile mix. Up one minute and down the next. She was a balancing act, but to Doug, well worth the effort.

Her father had literally kept her prisoner until it was time for her to attend university. He’d been infuriated when she’d chosen a small state university over some of the most prestigious ivy-league colleges on the east coast. He’d tried to stop her, of course, but with warnings to stay out of her way, Annie had escaped his influence and vowed she’d never go back.

De Roché didn’t take no easily, however. He’d tried everything in his power to talk sense to his daughter. But she’d had a will of her own. Then she met Doug, and that had been the icing on the cake. They dated until their senior year. When she’d decided to marry him, De Roché had gone nearly mad.

In the end he had reluctantly relinquished her, of course. Annie had made her wishes perfectly clear; it was either lose her altogether, or gain a son-in-law. De Roché opted for the latter, albeit reluctantly, and the relationship between Doug and De Roché had always been filled with resentment and rivalry.

Up until that moment, De Roché had been arrogantly confident of his daughter’s eventual acquiescence. He believed she would come to her senses. Big miscalculation on his part. Ten years had passed since the marriage, and Annie had not relented, and the resentment had only deepened. Communication between parents and daughter had become less and less frequent until it was nearly non-existent.

“Excuse me, Mr. McArthur.”

Doug started. “Yeah?”

The reproving attendant had broken his reverie. He didn’t like her at all. There was something about her . . . something more than her smug attitude. Doug
’s instincts said that this woman was more than a simple flight attendant. “Sorry to disturb you,” she said, voice dripping with saccharine. “But it’s time to fasten your seatbelts. We’re about to land in Tampa.”

“Annie, wake up.”

He had to shake her to bring her out of her Valium-induced stupor. She stared at him dumbly, as if she was seeing him for the first time. Recognition finally dawning on her face, Annie smiled wanly and said, “Hey, Dougie-boy. We there yet?” She was drunk on the Valium. Out of her senses. Doug no longer recognized her. All their work, years of effort, had all been eroded in one morning of chaos. Annie had reverted back to type, and the realization was freaking him out. But
had
she changed suddenly or had the real Annie been there all along, hiding from him, as if the woman he thought he knew was a construction, covering something else entirely.

Such pursuits were useless, he knew, and he did not wish to go down that path. One thing was certain: the closer he and Annie got to De Roché’s world the less he recognized her. She’d spent the past
ten years convincing him that she’d escaped her father’s powerful influence. Now Doug was sure of nothing. Something unnatural and a little frightening flickered in Annie’s eyes. Doug flinched, for he thought he recognized the same fluttering darkness that accompanied his own worst nightmares, the ones he’d tried for so long to put behind him. Then, like a thief in the night, the vision was gone, and he could not say with any real certainty that it had been there at all. Now what he saw were Annie’s beautiful baby blues staring dazedly back at him from a sad and pallid face. He was paranoid. He understood this. But more than that, he was scared.

There was still so much he did not know about Annie and her family; so much he’d never cared to know. He suddenly felt as if he’d been living in the dark for the past decade and now he was about to emerge into the light. A cold prickling sensation began at the base of his spine, swiftly progressing northward through his brain stem. The sensation settled in his frontal lobe making his brain squeal. He lowered his head feeling the dim stirrings of the migraine that was almost certain to follow. He reached his hand up and massaged the place where the bridge of his nose met his skull, the place where a long-lost seven year old friend had unwittingly driven a bone shard into his frontal lobe. Behind Doug’s eyes the black and ethereal fluttering that had been so much a part of his youth blossomed and took wing, momentarily blinding him with fear and dread.

My name is Ariel and I need your help,
a voice as clear as day said inside his head.
Won’t you please help me? I’m in the House of Bones and I don’t know how to get out.

Doug moaned; he was totally freaked, afraid that it was all com
ing back on him again.
Dear God,
he begged of his maker.
I can’t do this again. Don’t you see? I’ve never been able to help them, no matter how hard they pleaded. And I can’t help this one either. No matter how much I want to.

“We’ll be on the ground in a few minutes,” he told Annie, his heart sinking with the thought of what lay ahead of
them. He reached over and squeezed Annie’s paint-stained hand. It fell limply back into her lap as though she’d felt nothing at all.