The Secret Night

She had just purchased a Charm City T-shirt and was about to step into the lobby when she saw a man approach the front desk. Her blood ran cold when she realized who he was—Mort Frazier, one of the guys from Damien Caldwell’s inner circle.

As she stood behind a display rack of scarves near the shop entrance, she watched Frazier approach the desk, which was only a short distance away.

“Can you give me Ms. Birmingham’s room number?” he asked the desk clerk politely.

The clerk pulled an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, sir. I’m not allowed to give out that information. You can call her on the house phone.”

Frazier grimaced. “I know you’re following the rules, but I’m her brother. I don’t want to call ahead. She doesn’t know I’m in town, and I was hoping to surprise her.”

The clerk hesitated.

“Please. She’ll love opening her door and seeing me.”

Emma waited with her heart pounding.

The clerk looked over her shoulder to make sure nobody on the staff was watching her, then she leaned forward and whispered the room number.

So much for privacy rules. Emma clenched her fists, wishing she had the time to get the woman fired. But then, as Frazier strode to the elevator, she realized that the clerk might have done her a favor. Without her room number, Frazier probably would have waited in the lobby for her to appear. This way, she had a chance to escape before he figured out that she wasn’t in her room.

As soon as the elevator doors closed behind him, Emma slipped out the hotel’s front entrance and walked rapidly in the direction Alex Shane had said led toward the inner harbor.

She had followed Shane’s advice and not used her credit card when she’d booked the room the previous night, but it hadn’t occurred to her to use a false name. Had Caldwell’s men called a bunch of hotels looking for her? Or did they have some other, secret source of information?

No matter how they’d found her, she’d made a lucky escape. Still, she kept looking over her shoulder as she walked to Light Street, where she found the harbor, restaurants and all kinds of attractions for tourists. At an ATM in a shopping pavilion, she withdrew the daily maximum allowable amount from her account, then she made for the exit. Thinking hard, planning her next move, she crossed the street to the Ramada Renaissance hotel, where she booked a shuttle to BWI Airport, alternating between the lobby and the ladies’ room until it arrived.

At the airport, she went to the first rental car company she came to and used her credit card to pay for a vehicle. She had no choice; car rental companies required the use of a credit card, and she required the use of a car. Still, her nerves were jumping until she was on the road again.

She watched the rearview mirror as much as the road ahead until she was well away from BWI.

At a drugstore in a little town called Elkridge, she consulted a phone book, then called the closest gun shop and found out that, in Maryland, since she wasn’t under twenty-one or suffering from a mental disorder, she could walk in and buy a gun without a waiting period. An hour later, she had a Sig Sauer P210 tucked into the compartment of her driver’s door. Again she used her credit card. Then she cleared out of the area, heading south, toward D.C.

The risk was worth it. With the weapon beside her, she felt a lot more secure.

Her next stop was at a Wal-Mart. She didn’t want to show up at Nicholas Vickers’s house to ask for help with her clothes looking as if they’d been run through a boot camp obstacle course. She bought clean jeans, a couple of T-shirts, tennis shoes, and a toothbrush and toothpaste. After changing in the ladies’ room and brushing her teeth, she felt more like herself. And much more secure about making a decent impression.

Storm clouds were gathering in the west as she consulted the detailed street map she’d picked up in Wal-Mart. With Vickers’s address still imprinted on her brain, she quickly saw that she’d been closer to his place in Elkridge. She plotted a circuitous route that would take her northwest, and headed for the private detective’s home.

It was a long drive, over an hour, and as the sky grew darker and more ominous, so did Emma’s thoughts. An odd sense of fate seemed to be drawing her forward, toward Nicholas Vickers. As if she were seeking him out not merely because he was a private investigator and Damien Caldwell loathed him, but because of her dreams and fantasies as well. As if she and Vickers really did have some intuitive connection, the way she and Marg did—or used to before Damien Caldwell sucked all the autonomy out of Margaret’s brain.

All day she’d been focused on getting away from Caldwell’s goons and getting to Nicholas Vickers. As her thoughts turned to her twin, she held back tears. Gritting her teeth, she blinked to clear her vision.

She had no time for tears. She had to help her sister. And finding Nicholas Vickers was her best option. She hoped.

When she finally turned onto the rural road where Vickers lived, the clouds hanging low in the sky had turned the afternoon as dark as midnight. Lightning crackled, making her feel as if she were an actor in a horror movie.

The map showed no other access to the narrow, poorly maintained country lane, and no houses peeked through the trees as she drove by. It appeared that Vickers had no close neighbors. Yet when she had gone a few hundred yards, Emma saw a bunch of motorcycles parked on the gravel shoulder beside the crumbling blacktop. Was Mr. Vickers hosting a biker convention?

She slowed the car, craning her neck, looking for the riders, but she saw no one.

The wind began to blow, and a shaft of lightning split the sky, followed a few seconds later by a long roll of thunder. It was followed almost immediately by another flash and, within a shorter interval, another rumble. The storm was going to break soon. Emma sped up, trying to beat the rain.

A little farther along the lane, she rounded a curve and saw a beautiful, large Victorian farmhouse, complete with gingerbread and a wraparound porch. She felt a flood of relief at the sight. It looked so very nice and normal.

Her relief was short-lived, dying as soon as she spotted a cluster of tough-looking young men on the left side of the house. Clad in dirty jeans and leather jackets, they were sneaking along, hugging the foundation. One of them was carrying something red. Something that looked suspiciously like a can of gasoline.

NICK WOKE WITH A START. He glanced at the clock and saw that it was just after seven—still well before sunset at this time of year. Unless something unusual happened, he normally slept until dark.

Wondering what was going on outside his private lair, he sat up and reached for the controls that activated the security cameras, which were set to show exterior views of the house. Pressing the remote, he opened the floor-to-ceiling drapes along the wall opposite his bed, uncovering the eight screens that displayed what the cameras were picking up.

Seven of the screens showed nothing out of the ordinary except that the sky was already as black as night. But the eighth riveted his attention.

There, on the east side of his house, he saw the Ten Oaks graveyard gang.

Bloody hell! How the devil had they found him?

As he watched the screen, Nick saw lightning fork through the storm-gathered clouds. A second or two later, he heard a massive clap of thunder. And in the next second, a car pulled into view.

Now what?

Hitting the remote again, he switched on the sound and heard the bikers speaking.

“Hurry up. If it starts to rain, the fire will go out.”

“Not with gasoline, man. This old place will go up like an oil refinery.” He punctuated the comment with an evil laugh.

Nick muttered another curse as he leaped out of bed and reached for the black highwayman’s britches he’d draped over a chair the night before. Pulling them on and jamming his feet into the high boots, he paused only long enough to turn off the basement alarm system. Then, throwing open the bolt on the door into the storage area, he raced for the stairs.

WIDE-EYED, Emma stared at the man with the gas can as he took off the cap and doused the foundation of Nicholas Vickers’s clapboard house. When he pulled a cigarette lighter from his pocket, she grabbed her new gun and jumped out of the car.

“Hold it right there!” she shouted, pointing the automatic at the would-be arsonists.

The guys’ heads all jerked up, and to a man, their jaws dropped open in shock.

“Jeez! What’s a broad doing here?”

Emma felt her adrenaline pumping, but she managed to keep her voice steady as she replied, “Making sure you don’t do something stupid.”

“You’re the one acting stupid, honey, stickin’ your pretty little nose in where it doesn’t belong,” one of them called out tauntingly, taking a step toward her. “Put the gun down, and we won’t hurt you.”

In answer, she squeezed off a shot, aiming for the ground right in front of the thug’s feet. The bullet kicked up dirt, and the guy stopped in his tracks.

“If you don’t want me to aim for your crotch, get the hell out of here.”

Some of the gang looked ready to run. But she soon learned that a couple of them had come armed with more than a cigarette lighter. One pulled a small pistol from his boot and raised the weapon. Another pulled an automatic from the waistband of his pants.

Faced with the decision to shoot one of these guys, Emma hesitated a split second too long.

The bikers had no such compunctions. A bullet slammed into her body, and she staggered backward, dropping her gun to wrap her arm around her middle.