Nature of Darkness Read online

  “It feels so good,” he continued, but his voice sounded more distant like he was standing in the other room. “Don’t stop.”

  Elizabeth opened her eyes. The room was pitch black and she could see nothing. She was in a seated position, which was about the only thing her foggy mind could make out. She tried to stand but quickly discovered that one of her wrists was handcuffed to the table in front of her.

  A mechanical groan sounded above her. She looked up, but there was nothing but darkness. Elizabeth thought back to the last thing she remembered. Mike had given her another glass of red wine. She recalled drinking some of it. The wine hadn’t tasted bad, but he must have drugged her.

  A loud buzz sounded and a dim lightbulb hanging from the ceiling flickered to life. Elizabeth looked around the room, but everything was a slight blur from the effects of the drug. She could barely make out the cinder block walls and the absence of windows. Elizabeth assumed she was in a basement, if she could even trust her eyes.

  Then she noticed several figures standing around her. They were all white and they had hideous masks on their faces. She didn’t know if these expressions of horror were just an illusion conjured by her confused brain.

  “They all failed us,” the man’s voice said behind her.

  She thought it was Mike, but she couldn’t be sure. Elizabeth tried to turn to face him, but the handcuffs were too tight.

  “What do you want with me? I’ve done nothing to you,” she said.

  She heard footsteps on the cement floor as he walked closer to her.

  “Do you think he’ll see you?”

  “Who? Who will see me?” she asked.

  “Are you a person of the light?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Please let me go. I won’t tell anyone about this, I swear.”

  The man stepped closer to her. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her neck.

  “I tried all of the faces. He didn’t notice,” the man said.

  The voice was definitely not Mike’s. It was deeper, much deeper, yet it must have been him. Elizabeth looked at the white figure closest to her. Her vision cleared somewhat, and she finally noticed it was a mannequin. She looked at its face. The plastic looked deformed, like it had been melted by a blow torch. Then she realized the face was a different color than the body. It was the color of flesh.

  “Let me go, please,” she said again, and she started to cry.

  The man finally walked around Elizabeth to face her. He wasn’t wearing a dress shirt and pants as he had before. Now he was in jeans and a black hooded sweatshirt. She looked down at his right hand and saw he was holding a knife with a long, thin blade.

  Elizabeth tried to speak again, to plead for mercy, to beg for her life, but the words wouldn’t come from her mouth. She started to sob, and she could barely catch her breath.

  The man pulled his hood back and revealed a hideous face that matched those of the mannequins.

  “I am loneliness. I am emptiness. I am despair.”

  He stepped closer to her and Elizabeth knew her life was about to end.

  2

  A Diversion

  It had been six months since Alex Penfield’s last investigation had concluded. There had been other opportunities for work since then, but the money he’d earned on the previous job gave him the luxury to pass on these new assignments. Following cheating spouses and doing background checks for overpaid executives was not the direction he wanted his relatively new career as a private investigator to head.

  Besides, the spring and summer months had been the ideal time to repair his cabin and tend to the yard at his new home in the Shenandoah Valley. The tiny cabin had been willed to Penfield and his brother at the passing of their parents. It had been years since Penfield had visited, but the cabin now offered him a chance to start over, to forge a new path for a life that had gone off track after the loss of his law enforcement career.

  Penfield had spent the day replacing several rotting boards on the boat dock behind the cabin. At first, he didn’t think he’d use the dock much, but then he’d bought a small kayak that he used both for exercise and the occasional fishing trip on the river.

  After a few hours of labor, as well as one hour of fishing on the aforementioned kayak, he found himself sitting on the front porch and enjoying a beer. Summer had ended about a month ago and the autumn winds had brought a chill to the air that he wasn’t used to from his years living in the more moderate region of Hampton Roads, Virginia.

  He was about to go inside when he saw a white SUV turn the corner at the end of the road. He recognized it as the Elkton police vehicle belonging to Officer Catherine Drennan. The SUV pulled onto the gravel driveway behind Penfield’s sedan a few moments later.

  The red-headed Drennan exited her SUV and walked to the porch. She stopped and placed a foot on the bottom step.

  “What brings you by, Officer?”

  “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d see how you were doing,” Drennan said.

  Penfield wasn’t sure how to respond. He and Drennan had been doing some kind of flirtatious dance the last few months. Neither seemed willing to make the first move.

  “I’d offer you a beer, but I’m guessing you’re still on duty,” he finally said.

  “For another hour at least.”

  “Perhaps I can meet you at the bar later.”

  “Perhaps,” she said.

  Drennan went to say something else when the police radio in her SUV squawked.

  “Drennan, are you there?” the frantic voice on the radio asked.

  The Elkton police officer looked annoyed, but she walked back to her SUV anyway. She leaned through the open window and grabbed the radio.

  “Go for Drennan.”

  “There’s been a shooting at the McKnight house. It’s Al. He’s been hit.”

  Penfield stood after hearing the report from the loud radio. He walked down the porch steps and moved closer to the SUV.

  “What the hell happened?” Drennan asked.

  “Domestic violence call. That’s all I know right now,” the voice on the radio said.

  Penfield knew domestic violence calls were some of the most dangerous assignments a cop could get. There was usually alcohol involved, which also made the suspects unpredictable.

  The approach was standard and well-rehearsed. Two officers would respond. They would park a few houses down so as not to make themselves an easy target upon arrival. One officer would go to the front door, while the second walked to the back of the house.

  After both officers had made it inside, the first rule was to separate the quarreling spouses. Typically, one officer would keep the husband, almost always the perpetrator, in one room while the second officer would escort the wife to another.

  There was a good reason to separate the spouses. Although the wives were usually the ones to call emergency services, they would often flip during the interview and try to protect the husband from the police. Penfield had even seen wives physically assault cops when they attempted to put the husband in handcuffs.

  Even after separating the spouses, the danger was still present. The police didn’t know the layouts of the houses anywhere near as well as the occupants, so it was easy for the drunk and disorderly husbands to hide weapons between sofa cushions or under ordinary household items like an open book or magazine.

  “Where is Velasquez?” Drennan asked.

  “She’s the one who called it in. She said Teddy McKnight shot Al when he approached the house. He pulled him inside. Kari can’t get to him.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  Penfield stepped even closer to Drennan. He’d made friends with the officers in the past few months. But more than that, he knew their numbers. There were only four full-time officers in the department, the senior of which was in the hospital recuperating from a recent surgery. That left Drennan as the only other cop who could respond to the emergency.

  “Let me help,” Penfield s
aid.

  Drennan hesitated a moment. Then she nodded.

  Penfield ran around the front of the SUV and opened the passenger door. He climbed inside as Drennan started the vehicle and hit the sirens.

  “Do you know this McKnight guy?” Penfield asked as Drennan backed out of his driveway.

  “We’ve been called out there four times in the past few weeks.”

  She shifted the SUV into drive and slammed her foot down on the accelerator.

  “What’s the layout of the house?” Penfield asked.

  “Small foyer in the front. Living room off to the right. Kitchen behind that. Two bedrooms off to the left of the foyer.”

  They didn’t speak for the ten minutes it took to get there. Drennan turned the corner to McKnight’s street and saw a police sedan in the distance. She parked her SUV behind it. The driver’s side door was open, and Penfield could see two legs protruding from the inside of the vehicle. One of the pant legs was soaked in blood.

  Penfield and Drennan climbed out of the vehicle and approached the sedan.

  “It’s Catherine,” Drennan said.

  They walked up to the driver’s side door and saw Kari Velasquez lying behind the wheel. Her worried face was covered in sweat. She tried to turn toward Drennan but stopped when the pain from her injured leg overwhelmed her.

  “Where’s Al?” Drennan asked.

  “Before I could get to the back door, I heard gun shots. Then I saw McKnight dragging Al inside. I was going to return fire, but I was worried about hitting Al. McKnight started firing at me and I ran. He got me in the leg. I barely made it to the car to call for backup,” Velasquez said.

  “How bad was Officer Sexton hurt?” Penfield asked.

  “It looked like he took one to the gut. I don’t know how much longer he can make it.”

  “Damn it,” Drennan cursed.

  “You don’t have time to talk this guy down,” Penfield said.

  “I know,” Drennan said.

  Penfield looked at Velasquez and saw the fear in her eyes. Elkton was a small town. Things like this weren’t supposed to happen here.

  “Where was Officer Sexton when you saw him?” Penfield asked.

  “In the foyer by the front door. McKnight might have moved him, though.”

  Penfield took a quick look at the house and then turned back to Velasquez.

  “Do you see the window on the far-right side of the house? How far from that do you think Sexton was?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe around ten feet,” Velasquez said.

  “What are you thinking?” Drennan asked.

  Penfield ignored her question. He looked around the area and saw a white Ford F-250 pickup truck about twenty yards away. The heavy-duty truck looked brand new.

  “Whose truck is that?” he asked.

  “Pretty sure it’s McKnight’s,” Drennan said.

  “All the better,” Penfield said.

  “What do you propose?” Drennan asked.

  “We need a diversion and that new Ford is going to provide it.”

  Penfield ran to the truck, keeping low the entire way. Three quick shots rang out from the house. Penfield heard the bullets hit the street a few feet from him. He dove behind the truck for cover. He crawled to the driver’s-side door. Penfield tried the handle, but the truck was locked.

  He removed his tactical folding knife from his pocket. He stood and smashed the window with the heavy, steel handle of his knife. Penfield reached through the broken window and unlocked the truck. He climbed inside and heard another three-round burst. A moment later, Drennan was beside him.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “Hotwiring this truck.”

  Penfield connected the wires and there was a spark, followed by the engine roaring to life.

  Penfield climbed out of the truck.

  “Give me sixty seconds. Then drive this truck straight for that living room window.”

  “Are you serious?” Drennan asked.

  “Keep your head low and don’t forget to jump out at the last minute.”

  “Where will you be?”

  “I’m going to grab Al.”

  Penfield ran off before she could protest. He darted back toward the police vehicles. McKnight fired again. This time the shots were way too close for Penfield’s taste.

  Penfield circled around the vehicles and then ran between the two houses on the right side of the McKnight household. He sprinted toward the back door of McKnight’s home when he heard the Ford’s engine rev. A few seconds later, there was a loud smash as the F-250 slammed into the vinyl siding of the one-story house.

  Penfield timed his approach perfectly. He was through the backdoor and running past the kitchen as the pick-up truck grounded to a halt.

  Dust and debris were everywhere, but Penfield could still see Teddy McKnight. He threw his body into McKnight’s. They crashed to the floor and the weight of Penfield’s two-hundred-and-twenty-pound frame pushed the air out of McKnight’s lungs. He tried to catch his breath, but Penfield’s fist connected with the bridge of his nose first.

  Penfield went to hit him a second time, but then he saw Drennan climbing through the massive hole in the side of the house. He flipped the dazed McKnight over so that Drennan could pull his arms behind his back and handcuff him.

  Penfield ran over to the injured Al Sexton. He was on his back, just a few feet from the front bumper of the truck. Penfield looked at the vicious wound in his abdomen. Blood was everywhere and Sexton’s face had already lost a lot of color.

  A second later, Penfield heard the sirens of what he assumed was an ambulance in the distance. With any luck, Sexton would make it.

  The next hour was controlled chaos. Sexton and Velasquez were loaded onto an ambulance while Drennan took Teddy McKnight to jail. Mrs. McKnight, who looked like she’d been struck a few times under her left eye, declined medical attention. She also declined to press charges against her husband, not that it mattered. The man was going down for attempted murder, or perhaps even a murder charge if Sexton didn’t pull through.

  Penfield caught a taxi back to his cabin. The pain in his side started about halfway back. He hadn’t injured it in his attack on McKnight, at least he didn’t think he had. But the sight of Sexton’s abdominal injury had sent Penfield back in time several years. He and his former partner had gone to an informant’s house to check on her, only to find the woman’s body lying on a sheet of black plastic in the middle of her apartment. Her throat had been slit down to the vertebrae and blood was everywhere.

  They’d encountered her boyfriend in the apartment, a local drug dealer and killer. Like Sexton, Penfield had been shot in the abdomen, the bullet tearing through his small intestines. He’d almost died twice, once from the initial shooting and a second time in the hospital from an infection. It had taken years for the pain to go away.

  He thought he’d finally gotten past it, but now it was back, and he felt hot beads of sweat form on his shaved head. The agony was like a thousand knives being slowly pushed into his side at once. It was a constant reminder of his failure and what was eventually in store for him some day. There was no escaping death. That was the only thing he knew for sure.

  The taxi dropped him at the cabin. He walked inside and stripped off his clothes in the bedroom. They were covered with the dust from the damaged wall in the McKnight house. He climbed into the shower and let the hot water hit his injured side. It helped the pain a little, but he knew it would be back to its full strength the second he got out. Penfield looked at the jagged pink scar just above his waist. Then he heard the phone ring in the other room.

  By the time he got out of the shower, dried off, and wrapped the towel around his body, the ringing had stopped. He walked into the bedroom and called Drennan back.

  “Sorry I missed your call,” he said.

  “Sexton’s still in surgery. They don’t know if he’s going to make it. He lost a lot of blood.”

  Penfield didn’t respond
. He didn’t know what to say.

  “Thanks for helping me back there. If he pulls through, it’s because of you,” Drennan continued.

  “I wasn’t the one who drove a truck through the side of a house.”

  Drennan laughed.

  “Oh my God, I can’t believe I think that’s funny.”

  “It will be even funnier later. You three can tell it at the local pub in another month or so.”

  “Thanks, Penfield.”

  “You don’t need to thank me.”

  “I better get going. I need to check on Kari.”

  “Of course, talk to you later.”

  Penfield ended the call. He tossed his phone onto the bed and walked over to the dresser to get fresh clothes. Before he could open a drawer, though, the phone rang a second time. He guessed that Drennan had forgotten to tell him something. He walked back to the bed and looked at the display. It showed the name Doug McMahon, Penfield’s friend from the FBI.

  3

  The Journal

  Renee Rankin stared up at the great ceiling of St. Peter’s Basilica. She’d always dreamed of seeing Vatican City, but she never thought she’d get here. She looked at her watch. She still had two hours before her meeting with the priest.

  She waited for the small crowd to walk away. Then she approached Michelangelo’s famed statue, the Pieta, a magnificent marble carving of the body of a dead Christ resting in the lap of his mother, the Virgin Mary.

  Renee had read the renowned Renaissance artist was only twenty-three years old when he’d created the masterpiece. She thought back to what she was doing at that age and could only shake her head. Renee stood transfixed by the statue. She couldn’t believe how the artist had carved the intricate details, like the folds in Mary’s clothing, out of a block of stone.

  Renee finally stepped away from the Pieta as a large tour group approached. She walked across the church to St. Peter’s Baldachin, a massive bronze canopy designed by the artist Gian Lorenzo Bernini. The structure was created to mark the location of St. Peter’s tomb underneath. Renee studied it for several minutes. Then she instinctively reached into her bag to feel for the leather book inside.