Gone Black (17 page)

The house into which Claire was taken was huge. It appeared to be some kind of old castle or fortress of some kind, with thick walls carved from dark gray stone. It didn't seem to look exactly like the pictures she'd seen of the chateau, but they'd brought her inside from an underground tunnel and the darkness had thrown her perspective off. She hoped to God it was the same place where they were holding Black. Inside, the ceilings were high and wood-beamed. The halls were wide and dim and cool, tiled with large black slate squares and lined with unlit open sconces. Jaxy had not reappeared; off doing God only knew what. But that bitch didn't have Rico, thank heaven. Max had a firm grip on Claire's upper arm as he led her into what appeared to be some kind of banquet hall. The furnishings, however, were modern, almost homey, with plush red couches and ornate tables with tall lamps with drum-shaped, fringed brown shades. Great big blue and red and gold rectangular Persian rugs lay over most portions of the tiled floor. It looked almost like a personal domicile of sorts, Rico's home, probably, commandeered by the devil's monsters that came calling in the night.

As she was marched through the wide expanse toward the far end of the room, she continued to get her bearings, judge distances, and locate hiding places along her eventual escape route. Max, Barto, and Ronald were actually acting a bit cavalier with her now, no handcuffs, no leg irons, no rough stuff to speak of, not yet, and that surprised her. These people did not handle prisoners with kid gloves. They wasted no time starting the mental and physical abuse, and it didn't end for a very long time, if ever. Not according to Black. So why were they giving her slack all of a sudden?

As they walked, Claire found that shelves lined one wall, all set with many family photographs in black and white frames. She examined the people in them as she was prodded past. Most appeared to be of Rico and his family. A pretty blond woman, most likely his mother, and a tall, dark-haired father, with a younger Rico riding on his shoulders. This was their house all right, their property. Is that why they had been killed? It did make sense in a terrible sort of way. The place was more than isolated, certainly not anywhere close to the outskirts and suburbs of the city of Marseilles. She wondered how and when they had taken the chateau and murdered the boy's parents. And why? Was it all in preparation for Black's abduction? Or a serendipitous opportunity to find a secure place to torture him? That didn't make sense to her, either. But these people were crazy, all three of them. She had to remember that and react accordingly.

When they reached the far wall of the big hall, it was filled with antlers and stag heads and crossed swords. She was jerked to a stop in front of a wide and arched, hand-carved, dark wood door. Max went inside and left her standing outside between the twin goons. Nobody said anything. The whole house lay in an odd, noiseless hush. She looked up the wide staircase to one side of them with its carved bannisters and newel posts and found that it led up into the pure darkness of the second floor. Black was up there somewhere. Suffering. She was sure of it.

A few minutes later, Max came back out, not looking particularly chipper. “Go on in,” he told Claire. “But if you try anything, if you get smart with my father, I will kill you in the worst way I can think of.”

Yeah, and he could probably think of some pretty awful stuff, too. He had definitely ratcheted up the threat now, from locked up in a metal trunk to outright loss of life and limb. The expression on his tanned and utterly somber visage said she had better believe him, too. And she did, at least she would until she got a chance to flee for her life after she got inside that room. Then she was going to take it. Hell, yeah.

So the heavy door was pulled opened for her, and she was shoved unceremoniously inside. The portal closed behind her with a click of finality. She stood right there in the threshold and scoped out the long, narrow room. All four walls were covered with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. No books. Must not be Max's favorite place. No windows, either, and no other doors. Max didn't have to worry about her escaping. There was not a chance in hell she could get out of that room.

There was, however, sitting at the very far end, which was probably a good forty feet away, a long desk made out of heavy dark wood. A man sat there, waiting for her, no doubt. Two extra tall gold lamps were lit, positioned an equal distance on each side of him. The illumination they threw out was the only light inside the big room. Shadows hugged the walls and made everything look downright forebidding and creepy. Like in a horror movie or in a penny dreadful. She was in a horror movie all right; it just hadn't been filmed yet.

“Please, Ms. Morgan, come along now. I don't bite.”

Yeah, I bet
, Claire thought. She'd been literally bitten before by homicidal maniacs. And he was definitely one of the highest calibers of nutzoid. Especially if he had sired that crazy psycho bitch with the pink sap and her brother of minus zero empathy and/or humanity. She recognized him right off, of course. He looked exactly like his photo. Marcel Soquet himself, the monster father of monster children. She stared down the room at him and then glanced around, wondering about trapdoors in the floor under the rug that plunged one down into shark pools or spiked pits. The whole scene reminded her of the early James Bond movies that Black loved so much, with maybe that guy, Goldfinger, sitting down there waiting while he stroked his fluffy white cat who looked so bored. But this wasn't a Bond villain, this was real. This was Marcel Soquet, more villainous than all of them combined, and Claire was pretty damn sure he was much worse than anybody 007 had ever had to face. He probably wasn't delighted to have her as a guest, either, unless she was a soon-to-be-dead guest.

“Come now, don't be ridiculous. My problem isn't with you, Ms. Morgan. It's with Nicholas Black and him alone.”

“A problem with Nicholas Black makes it a problem with me,” Claire said angrily.

“So I've heard.” The man smiled and creaked back and forth a bit in his old leather chair. “Truly I have no wish to harm you. Come sit down, here in front of me, so that I may see you better. I won't touch you or molest you. I just want to talk to you.”

Right
, thought Claire.
Sure he did. As he tied her to a stake on top of a pile of straw and lit the match.
But she would have to play his game. Maybe he was weaker from heart problems than she had envisioned. Maybe he was a polite criminal who minded his Ps and Qs. Maybe he was so gentlemanly and off his game that she could subdue him without a weapon. Maybe she could talk him out of killing Black. She knew none of that was anywhere close to the realm of possibility, but she wished it was.

So she walked slowly down the long rug centered on the floor, another very ancient-looking red and gold Persian carpet. She glanced from side to side as she moved along. Yes, she expected a trick. But he was the one who was going to get ambushed, and not too long from now, if Black's team was as good as purported and ever had the decency to show up.

“Please sit down, my dear. Would you like a drink? I'm having brandy. It's very good.”

Claire stared at him and the brandy snifter he was holding in his open palm with his fingers cupping the bowl. He kept swirling the brandy. Mr. Suave and Polite Country Gent impressing his new prisoner, schmoozing and shooting the bull before all the inhuman torture techniques commenced. Up close, he looked a lot like Max. Once big but now shrunken down some with age. His hair had been white, but was gone now. The heavy white beard made him look like a skinny, bald Santa Claus. But he was dressed in a black cardigan sweater and blue dress shirt. He was still swirling his booze. The remnant of a cigar lay smoking in a brass ashtray. She sat down right in front of him. Said nothing.

“Don't look so wary. You are my guest here. Nobody's going to hurt you.”

“Better tell that to that girl with the pink sap. She's your daughter, right?”

“Oh, yes, Jacinda is quite high strung. But she will do as she is told. Not to worry.”

“Right. Has she been told to abuse a helpless little boy? You okay with that?”

“She likes him. Treats him like you treat your little Jules Verne, I'd wager.”

Jules Verne was Claire's white toy poodle, the one Black had given her for Christmas once upon a time, not long after they'd met. If Soquet knew about their beloved little dog, he knew a helluva lot about them and their life together. Oh, yeah, he'd been planning this for years all right, and that was for damn sure. His obsession with Black had driven his life for the last ten years, and it was finally coming to fruition. That was not a good thing. Nothing she'd seen thus far had been a good thing.

“So you are Mr. Soquet the Elder, I take it?”

“I am he, but please, call me Marcel.”

“No thanks. Hey, but I know what—why don't you take me down to your dungeon and let me see how much you've tortured Black? Then even better, let Black and I go along our merry way. You know, alive and well.”

“Alas, my dear, he is only getting what he deserves.”

“And he deserves to be kidnapped and tortured? So tell me. Why is that?”

Marcel took a sip of his very swirled-up brandy. “I believe you know the reason. He corrupted my beautiful Lorraine, and she was murdered because of it. Murdered in the most horrible way imaginable.”

“Yeah, I heard about your doctored version of her death. I also heard the truth, which is that you supply weapons to terrorists and she didn't want to look the other way. Black didn't kill her. You drove her away with your criminal dealings with terrorists and then you finished her off with your very own homemade bomb. You killed your wife, not Black.”

Okay, now that made Soquet hot under the collar, no doubt about it. His paler-than-the-moon face grew ruddier, blood red to be exact, and his breathing heated up to labored. He had heart trouble. Maybe he was having a coronary. That would solve some serious problems of the moment. He took a long drink of the brandy and took a moment to calm himself considerably before he spoke again. “I hope you'll be comfortable during your stay here. It won't last long. You may go now. Max will show you to your room. You should try to get some sleep.”

“I want to know where Black is and if he's all right. You wanted me here, and here I am. Tell me if he's okay. You promised to show me that he was still alive.”

Behind them a door opened and Max appeared and strode quickly toward them. Apparently, Soquet had a button under his desk. Or some very strong familial ESP. “Take her to her room, Max. She tires me.”

“Yes, sir.”

So off she was taken again, but she began to feel more comfortable with the situation. They were being rather gracious in a here-darlin'-enjoy-your-last-meal sort of way. She had been introduced to the entire family now, and knew who to shoot when she got the first chance. But getting out of their clutches and finding Black was now at the top of her priority list.

They walked up a very serious amount of steps, three flights of them, in fact. Wide, stone, cold-under-your-feet stairs, despite the sultry night and her high-top Nikes. On the third floor, they turned down a rabbit warren of dim corridors and ended up at a room with a very prominent door with two guards standing outside. Max didn't say a word, just opened the door, put his palm in the middle of her back and shoved her inside. She heard the key rattle in the lock behind her.

The room before her lay in total darkness, and she was a little afraid to see what was inside. She listened, didn't hear any feral growling, a.k.a Zeus the devil dog ready to attack, so she felt along the wall for the light switch. Her fingers finally touched one, and she flipped it on. The overhead brass chandelier flared, but the three lamps did not. The room was cool, and it felt like the air-conditioning was turned on full blast, but it might be the thick stone walls insulating it from the outside summer heat. Comfortably furnished, it had a large white four-poster bed sitting against one wall with pale blue coverlets and carved newel posts but no canopy, a small red velvet settee at the foot of the bed, a two-drawer bedside table in the same white French provincial as the bedstead, and another matching table beside the door.

Ornate wood panels decorated the stone walls and there were more empty bookcases similar to the ones in Marcel Soquet's study, or his murder lair, or whatever the hell he did in there. Max probably had all the good books and best-sellers in his room. She immediately searched for cameras and found one in the corner opposite the big white bed. It was blinking red so she moved up close and gave it a smart-ass wave, and then she sauntered her way around the room looking for a way out. There was another door and she went inside, but it was only a tiny bathroom with a sink, toilet, and small recessed mirror. It looked as if it had once been a closet or storeroom.

Claire headed to the window next. It was draped with heavy blue blackout drapes, so she thrust them back, tried the handles on the tall French window, and got a jolt of hope when she found it unlatched. She opened it quickly and discovered a Juliet balcony of sorts, one with an iron rail that reached to her waist. The fresh sea winds blasted her in the face and sent the curtains billowing inward around her, but it was a way out. The sea sounded very close, loud and ferocious. She leaned against the railing and looked down, straight down a vertical stone wall to the sheer cliff on which the castle or chateau, or whatever the hell it was, was perched, and then down, down farther into a boiling, crashing, maelstrom of waves roaring in and attacking the rocky coast below. Claire's heart fell because then she knew for sure that there was no other way out of that room. She was as much their prisoner now as Black was.