The Messenger: A Novel (7 page)

“You’ll tell me the truth?”

“You don’t know what you’re asking.”

“I’m asking for the truth.”

When he didn’t answer, she said, “Are you some sort of criminal?”

He wanted to lie to her but found he couldn’t. “No.”

“I don’t suppose a criminal would answer that honestly,” she mused aloud. “You don’t look like a criminal, but I guess the really skilled ones don’t.”

“I’m not a criminal,” he said again. He fought a wave of dizziness.

“You don’t look well, Tyler. Maybe we should stay here.”

“They may come back. You must get away from here, even if you leave me behind. In fact, perhaps that’s the best idea.”

“Forget it. Let’s go.”

She helped him into the van. By then he could hardly make sense of what she was saying to him. She had noticed that he felt warm. “I’ll be fine,” he said thickly. “Get me home.”

Shade lay next to him, which further disconcerted her.

“It’s all right,” Tyler managed to say.

She was studying him. He could see the fear in her.

“You have nothing to fear from Shade.”

“I’m only a little afraid of him. I’m very afraid for you.”

“Of me, too, I suppose.”

“A little,” she admitted. She bit her lower lip. “God, I wish I knew what to do.”

“Take me home. I promise it’s the best place for me to be right now.”

She moved up to the driver’s seat and started the van. He stayed awake as she pulled out from beneath the carport, awake along the dirt road where she had helped him. He fought hard and managed to stay awake until they reached the nearest freeway, a distance of twenty miles. Shade lay his head on him then, and Tyler surrendered to fever and fatigue.

T
he stench, Daniel thought, was growing stronger. He tried to breathe through his mouth. It didn’t help.

“Which one of you is bleeding?” the voice asked from a corner in the darkness.

“I am, my lord,” Evan said meekly.

“Hmm. Minor wound, is it?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“A shame.” He paused. “Let me bring a few matters to your attention. What made last night different from most, Daniel?”

“Hawthorne would be separated from the dog, my lord.”

“Not just separated by a few feet, Evan?”

“Yes, my lord. I mean no, my lord—I mean, you’re right as always, my lord. He was to be miles away from the dog.”

“So tell me, Daniel, why have you arrived here without him?”

“We were about to leave the motel, my lord, on our way to watch the house, to look for our best chance to take him, when we got a call from—”

“Yes, I know. Our friend.” He sighed. “I believe the late Eduardo may have been mistaken in his choice. I often regret his lack of skill in choosing good recruits.”

Daniel might have been insulted by this, since Eduardo had recruited him, and Evan as well. But whenever Eduardo’s name was mentioned, he
felt a sharp pang of loss. And fear. He could not forget what the dog had done to Eduardo.

“Go on,” the voice said.

Daniel refocused—it was always a mistake to let your attention wander when in the presence of his lordship. “The caller said that Hawthorne rode off on his bike after some kind of fight there—said he left the party about five minutes after he arrived. Made the woman who owns the place mad as fire—in fact, while our contact was calling us, she interrupted him and hung up the phone. He didn’t give us a lot of details, my lord.”

“As I said, I seem to be short of good help these days. Go on.”

“We figured we’d do what we could to stop Hawthorne from getting back to the dog. There was only one place to come at him by the time we heard he was leaving the party. So we waited on a side road until we saw him coming. Then we hit him, and he went flying, but it was only then we noticed that a car was driving some ways behind his motorcycle. Well, it crashed, and there was nowhere for the driver to run, so we took care of business with Hawthorne. Made sure he wasn’t going to come to his feet anytime soon.”

“Hmm.”

Daniel didn’t like the sound of that. He waited, but his master again urged him to continue.

“We decided to take care of whoever was in the car, if the driver had lived. It was a girl. Didn’t look like she made it. But before we could be sure, we heard the dog.”

“Are you certain?”

Daniel felt himself break out in sweat. “Yes, my lord.”

“You don’t really seem to be so sure. I can smell your perspiration, Daniel. Why is that?”

“I get scared thinking of that dog, my lord.”

“So scared that you might run at—oh, say, the sound of a coyote?”

“I hope not, my lord,” Daniel said carefully. “My lord knows best.”

“And when you regained your courage, and went back to look?”

Daniel swallowed hard. “We did not regain our courage, my lord.”

“You disgust me. So now there may be someone who bore witness to all of this?”

“Yes, my lord. But our faces were covered. We wore these coveralls. We took the plates off the truck.”

“Plates?”

“The license plates, my lord. The ones that identify the vehicle.”

“Ah yes. That is something, in any case. Bring the candle and the map to the table, both of you.”

They both hated the table. A large wooden affair, it was never free of bits of hair and bone. The manacles at the corners hung empty, never yet used in their presence, but each heavy iron cuff carried its own threat. Evan and Daniel were fearful of the table, but they came forward immediately and spread the map out on its stained surface.

Daniel could feel the coldness shifting in the room even before the stench grew stronger. His lordship was within striking distance.

“Point to the place where this happened.”

They searched until they found the spot. Evan pointed at it.

“Step away. Take the candle.”

They did so.

There was a roaring sound. They cowered together.

“You damned idiots! Do you not see? Of course not! What do you know of such things? You struck him at a crossroads. Near a cemetery. You fools never stood a chance of taking him there!”

There was a silence. Daniel felt Evan shiver against him.

“I will say,” the voice said calmly, “that the dog was undoubtedly nearby. That would be where he left it. Did you reconnoiter the area at all, Evan?”

“No, my lord. We barely had time to get in position to hit him with the truck.”

After another long silence, he said, “Go back to this place. If you can discover who the witness is, do so. In any case, bring our little friend to me.”

“Here?” Evan said, only remembering in the nick of time to add, “My lord?”

“Now, Evan, where else would I be?” the voice said bitterly.

T
hey were still about an hour from Los Angeles when Amanda heard Tyler stirring. She glanced into the rearview mirror and saw him sitting up, rubbing his hand through his hair. Groggy, but not senseless.

The relief she felt was tempered by her continuing concern that she had been crazy to agree not to seek medical care for him. She pictured herself trying to explain to his friends, relatives, and the authorities that she had seen Tyler hit by a truck and beaten while unconscious—and when this man who had taken hard blows to the head and acted woozy told her that he would recover without help, she had just gone along with the idea, and as a result, he died. Was there a Bad Samaritan law?

At one point during the drive, not long after they had reached the highway, he had started shouting unintelligibly. She had taken the next off-ramp, pulled the van to the side of the dark, deserted road at the end of the exit. She turned the interior lights on and hurried to the back of the van, but Shade, who had been lying on the mattress not far from Tyler, came to his feet, hovering over his master. That kept Amanda from moving closer, but she could see that Tyler’s skin bore the flush of fever; he was shaking and muttering in delirium.

She nearly used the cell phone to call 911, promises or no promises.
But then the shaking had suddenly stopped, and Tyler half-wakened. He seemed oblivious to her presence but aware of Shade, who snuffled at his ear, then returned to lie close to him, his head across Tyler’s chest. She was trying to think of how to shoo the dog off him without being bitten when she became aware that Tyler’s color was more normal, and he had calmed into a quiet sleep.

Looking at his face, she saw that the bandage she had applied had come off. The place where the cut had been had closed up, only the thinnest line showing that he had been injured there. She frowned. It must not have been as bad as it had seemed to her by the light of the oil lamp.

She watched him for a while, then dared to reach out to feel his forehead even though the dog lay so near. Shade did not stir but gazed at her with an unnerving intensity. Tyler’s skin felt warm, but not fever hot. After spending some unmeasured amount of time listening to the rhythms of Tyler’s breathing—with a steady counterpoint of soft snores from Shade—she returned to the driver’s seat and resumed their journey. Tyler’s sleep remained untroubled.

“Are you all right?” he asked now.

“I’m fine. How are you doing?”

“Better. Did you reach Ron?”

“Yes. I didn’t give him many details, but he’s worried about you. He said to call again when we get closer. He wants to know if you want help from any of the people who are caring for him.”

“No—but I’ll call him myself in a moment. First I need to make sure the wreckage gets cleared away before anyone stumbles upon it.”

She heard him call someone about removing the wreckage of the car and the motorcycle. He certainly sounded clearheaded now, sounded even better than he had at his desert house, where she was sure his ribs had been bothering him.

He called Ron. He spoke softly. She tried to convince herself that she didn’t really want to eavesdrop on his half of the conversation anyway.

He made a third phone call. He apparently had no shortage of people he could phone in the middle of the night, she thought, then recognized this as bitterness over thwarted nosiness and smiled to herself.

He ended the call. “Are you tired?”

“No. I’m wide awake. I like driving late at night.”

“I’m just going to sleep a little longer, then,” he said. “You’ll pull over and sleep if you need to?”

“Yes, but I don’t think it will be a problem.”

“Sorry to be such poor company.”

“Damned ill-mannered of you to need to recover when I want small talk.”

She heard a little cough that might have been a laugh, then he asked, “Do you make small talk, Amanda Clarke?”

“I’m afraid it’s not numbered among my few skills.”

“Oh, not so few,” he said, and lay down again.

Shade moved away from him and came up to the passenger seat. Her muscles stiffened, and she made a conscious effort not to reach up and touch the scar. She kept her eyes straight ahead.

“Is Shade bothering you?” Tyler asked.

She forced herself to glance at the dog. The huge dog. One of the biggest she’d ever seen. And just now he had a truly goofy expression on his face—eyes half closed in contentment, the tip of his pink tongue sticking out of one side of his mouth as if he’d lost track of it.

Impossible to view him as threatening.

“No,” she said. “We’ll be fine.”

“He likes the window open a bit, if the noise won’t bother you. You don’t have to do it for long, but—he likes it.”

She lowered the window a few inches, then, when the dog looked over to her expectantly, lowered it enough for him to stick his head out. The wind and surrounding traffic made a roar that she was sure would keep Tyler awake. When she looked back, he was lying on his side, watching the dog and smiling. Okay, she decided, worth it.

Shade looked as if he had just found the outdoor equivalent of an opium den—ears flattened, eyes closed in bliss, he was chuffing and
making a kind of reverse-bobbing motion with his head, lifting it back as he caught passing scents.

Eventually he pulled his head in and gave her one of his doggy smiles.

“Enough for now?”

He didn’t answer, but he kept his head inside, so she rolled up the window.

I’m talking to a dog, she thought in wonder.

A beefy security guard with a uniform marked
DANTON’S SECURITY
greeted her at the gates at the end of Tyler’s drive, and insisted on speaking to Tyler. Tyler had apparently awakened at the sound of their voices. He stretched—a little carefully, but apparently without a great deal of pain—and began moving forward to the passenger seat, which Shade reluctantly vacated.

He greeted the guard and asked after his children, naming them. The guard said they were fine, thanked him for asking, smiled, and opened the gates.

“He doesn’t have any children,” Tyler said as they drove through. “But now he knows you aren’t holding me hostage.”

“You’d better change the code. Who knows what my intentions will be the next time I’m up here?”

“I’m afraid I’m the one who has held you hostage. Amanda, thank you.”

She waved this away and they fell silent until the van was parked and the engine off.

She saw another guard in the garage, talking into a headset. He started to come toward them, but at some signal from Tyler, stood a discreet distance away.

“Amanda, I know it has been a long and trying evening for you. You must be exhausted. Do you want one of the guards to give you a ride home?”

“Nice try, but I’m not leaving until you meet your end of the bargain.”

“That was concern with your comfort, not evasion.”

She lifted her brows.

“All right, it was both,” he admitted.

“You—you seem to be doing much better.”

“Much better. Just needed some sleep. Well, let’s go inside.”

He got out and would have come around to open her door for her, but she was already getting out of the van. He opened the van’s side door for Shade.

Ron’s grandfather, Derek, had installed an elevator in the house years ago, when Ron first came to live with him. It ran from the garage to the third story, and during the times when Ron was not quite up to managing stairs, it allowed him easy access to every floor. Now its doors opened, and Ron—supported on the arm of another guard—came toward them. He was improving rapidly, she thought, then looked toward Tyler.

Speaking of rapid improvement, how the hell had he managed it? Naturally, she didn’t want Tyler to be suffering, but—had she been that mistaken about his injuries?

Ron hugged her and said, “I’ve been so worried about the two of you…” His voice trailed off as he looked at Tyler. “Sorry, I thought—Amanda said—”

“We’re fine, as you can see,” Tyler said quickly. “Let’s go inside. Amanda and I will tell you all about our adventures.”

“Yes, of course,” Ron said.

A small awkward silence fell. Amanda said, “Ron, you didn’t tell me Tyler had a dog.”

“No small talk?” Tyler murmured.

“Oh, that,” Ron said with relief. “Are you and Shade friends?”

“Shade adores her,” Tyler said. “I’m almost jealous.”

“Isn’t he wonderful?” Ron asked, petting the dog as they moved together toward the elevator.

“Quite wonderful,” she said. “I’m really amazed by some of his special powers.”

They came to a halt, and she was concerned to see that Tyler looked a little pale. Maybe he wasn’t feeling so well after all.

“What special powers?” Ron asked.

“Invisibility, for one. How is it that I never saw him any of the times I visited you here?”

“He was with me,” Tyler said.

“That’s not the whole truth,” Ron said. “I asked him to keep Shade out of sight whenever you were visiting. I told Tyler that you were afraid of dogs.”

She glanced self-consciously at the guard, whose face remained a polite blank. Tyler caught the look, though, and said to the guard, “Thank you for your help—I think we can manage from here. Would you please tell the others that we are not to be disturbed?”

As soon as the elevator doors closed, Amanda said, “Tell the world, why don’t you, Ron?”

Tyler said, “I’ve told no one else, Amanda.”

“I doubt that guard is as deaf as he pretended to be.”

“Lots of people are afraid of dogs,” Ron protested.

Shade made a sighing sound.

They rode to the second floor, where Ron’s rooms were. As they exited the elevator car, Ron took hold of Amanda’s arm, a plea for forgiveness as much as a request for support. She laid her hand over his and said, “It’s okay.”

She looked up to see Tyler watching her. He looked away.

Tyler had given Ron the rooms Ron had always occupied, a suite that consisted of a spacious bedroom, a bathroom, and a large adjoining room that Ron used as both an office and a sitting room. It had a stone fireplace, bookshelves, a television, a computer, a small refrigerator, two couches, and several big comfortable chairs. Also adjoining Ron’s bedroom was a smaller bedroom, now used as an office and medical-supply storage area by the nursing staff.

Ron and Amanda sat on one of the couches. Tyler lit a fire, then sat in one of the chairs. Shade moved near him, then rested at his feet.

Unprompted, Amanda told Ron about their evening. Tyler did not interrupt her, intrigued by her view of events. She finished her story
with their arrival here. “And I made the whole trip sitting next to Shade,” she said, not without a little pride.

There was a short silence. Ron and Amanda both looked toward Tyler expectantly.

Now or never, Tyler thought. Or—no, there were other choices, weren’t there? He wouldn’t lie to them, but he couldn’t risk the whole truth. Not yet. To buy some time to think over his options, he asked Amanda, “Why are you afraid of dogs?”