Wake to Darkness Read online

  “Thanks, kid.” She slugged it back in a single gulp and set the glass down. Mason made a mental note to ask his nephew how the hell he knew where the liquor was kept. Tomorrow. It was one-something in the morning, and he needed some privacy with Rachel.

  “Why don’t you two take Josh up to bed? Misty, there’s an empty bedroom up there you and Rachel can use for tonight. Jeremy will show you where the sheets and things are.”

  Misty nodded, but instead of leaving, she crouched down and put her hands on her aunt’s shoulders. “Is that what you want me to do, Aunt Rache? It’s probably too late to go home, anyway.”

  Rachel nodded. “I’m sorry about all this. I’m not the greatest company for you on this visit, am I?”

  “Not really. But I’ll make you take me shopping to make up for it, okay?”

  Jeremy was standing nearby, and Mason had fully expected him to argue about taking his brother up to bed, because he argued about just about everything these days. But when Rachel’s gorgeous blonde niece turned to him and said, “Well, what are you waiting for? You don’t think I’m gonna carry him upstairs, do you?” he scooped his sleeping brother out of the beanbag chair, and the three of them trooped up the stairs.

  Mason helped Rachel up off the floor. She kept putting her hands to her back, as if it hurt.

  “There’s another one, Mason,” she said.

  He searched her eyes. “Another...murder?”

  She nodded. “What did you find out about the last one? You never said.”

  “Kids were around. And frankly, I didn’t want to think about it.”

  “Think about it now,” she told him, eyeing the empty glass, then the cabinet across the room.

  He sighed. “Full autopsy results won’t be in for a day or two, but on initial exam, the coroner said the pancreas was missing.”

  “The pancreas? So...what organ did that woman get from your brother?”

  He lowered his head. “His pancreas.”

  She rubbed her back again, left of center. “I think maybe someone should check on whoever got his kidneys, Mason.”

  “I will.” He pulled out his phone.

  She put her hand over his. “Wait, I want to get this all down while it’s fresh. Everything I saw.”

  “Shit, Rachel, you were memorizing details while someone was cutting out your kidney?”

  “Just before. Get a pen and a notepad or something, will you?”

  He nodded and let go of her for the first time. Hell, he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding on to her until then. Her hair was tousled, plastered to her face on one side by her tears. Her eyes were red, like she’d popped a blood vessel or two. Her cheeks were tear-stained, and he could see the pulse beating in her neck.

  “Stop looking at me like you think I’m going to keel over, and go get a pen and paper, Mason.”

  “I’m going.”

  He looked around the room, moving to the same cabinet Jeremy had left standing open. It had cupboards above and below, a row of three drawers in between. He pulled open one of the drawers, rummaged around for a pen, yanked out a notepad, closed the drawer and reached up to close the cabinet door, too.

  He paused when she said, “Bring that BV over here with you.”

  He nodded. “I could use a shot myself.” He grabbed another glass and the bottle. Then he set the bottle, pad and pen on the coffee table, went to the kitchen for some ice and ginger ale. A minute later he was back.

  She took the makings from him, and put the pen and pad into his hands instead. Then she poured the drinks and started talking.

  “I was in a house, facedown on the floor. I think it was the victim’s house. There was a hardwood floor, light-colored, maybe maple. A brown sofa with claw feet. Mint-green walls. A god-awful afghan with a dozen garish colors. Looked like someone made it out of all the leftover yarn they could find. An orange throw pillow. I saw a couple of pictures on the wall, little kids, but they were old. You could tell by the haircuts and the fading. Looked like school pictures. Two kids, a girl and a boy. The boy’s a little older. Carrot curls and freckles, both of them. He had a plaid shirt on. She had a yellow dress with a white collar.”

  He was scribbling as fast as he could. “Was there a clock on the wall that you could see?”

  “No.”

  “How about windows, anything that would tell you whether it was day or night?”

  “No uncovered windows.” She bit her lip, nodded once. “There was a ceiling fan light fixture thing.”

  “You said you were facedown.”

  “I was face-up at first. I saw this ceiling fan with palm frond–shaped blades, ivory or cream. The fan was off, but the light was on. I think it was nighttime, because it was darker where the light didn’t touch the ceiling. Then someone kicked me over.”

  “Did you see them?”

  She shook her head.

  “Not at all?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “Rache, if you were face-up, and they came close enough to kick you over onto your face, you would have had to have seen them.”

  She frowned really hard, her brows drawing together. “No, something went over my face right before I felt the foot in my side. I remember, something covered my eyes.”

  “A hand?”

  “Maybe a piece of cloth. It didn’t feel like a hand.”

  “Okay, okay. And then you felt someone kick you over?”

  She nodded. “I was completely paralyzed. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t turn my head. Couldn’t even breathe. I could see, but I could barely move my eyes enough to get a better look around me. But I could feel everything.” She lowered her head and hugged herself, rubbing her arms up and down. “Everything.”

  “I’m sorry, Rache.” He put a hand on her shoulder, kneaded it softly, repeatedly, like he could massage away the horror.

  “It’s not your fault,” she said.

  “I gave you his corneas.”

  “You gave me my eyesight. You didn’t know it was gonna come with a downside.”

  He lowered his head. “What else do you remember?”

  “Just the cutting.” She reached out, took her drink, slugged half of it. “And praying to die fast.”

  He swore softly, set the pen down and hugged her. He put his arms around her shoulders, and he pulled her to his chest. Her head rested against him, but her arms stayed at her sides, under his.

  “Check on whoever got his kidneys,” she said again, staying stiff in his arms, not returning the embrace, but not pulling away from it, either. He let go, and she sat up straight again. “You had a list before, when we were looking at your brother’s recipients as potential killers. We need to check on whoever got the kidneys.”

  “The list was just the hospitals. Not the patients. But I think we can trace them from there. There are probably two—two kidneys, two recipients.”

  “It was the left one.”

  He nodded and wondered why he didn’t doubt a word she said. Admittedly, there was some small voice of reason way down deep inside his brain saying Wait just a damn minute here. Saying they couldn’t be sure the victim she’d dreamed of was another of Eric’s organ recipients. That the dream might have just been a nightmare and not a real event. He could say those things himself. He’d said them before, after all.

  But he’d been wrong.

  He went to the computer and pulled up the list he’d wheedled from a transplant-unit nurse. His brother’s body parts were listed in neat rows, along with the hospitals to which they’d been sent. His kidneys were not labeled left or right. He had no idea if they should’ve been or not. There were two separate hospitals beside them, though. Piedmont Transplant Center in Atlanta and Strong Memorial in Rochester.

  “Care to take a drive with me tomorrow?” he asked.

  She didn’t even ask where, just nodded her assent. “Misty won’t mind me leaving her again. She and Amy were planning a Christmas shopping trip tomorrow, anyway.”

  “I take the boys h
ome at noon on Sundays. So we’ll go after that, all right?”

  “Sure.”

  “Think you can sleep?”

  She looked at her glass. “One more of these and I’ll sleep like a baby. For a few hours, at least.” She downed the remainder of her drink. “Please, God, no more fucking dreams. No more.”

  Sunday, December 17

  “It’s just a day trip,” I told her for the tenth time at a quarter to one while I waited for Mason to pick me up. “I feel really bad for leaving you again so soon after the book blitz, but it’s just for the day, and I’ll bring you back something, okay?”

  “Will you bring me back something, too?” Misty asked.

  “Me, too. I want something,” Amy said.

  I rose from the floor, where I’d been scratching Myrtle right in front of her ears, which was her bliss-spot. “Yeah, yeah, I owe you both my life. If for any reason I don’t make it back tonight—”

  “I’ll stay over,” Amy said.

  “Yeah, because being seventeen, I need a babysitter who’s twenty-five.”

  “Twenty-four,” Amy corrected.

  Misty rolled her eyes. “I could manage just fine on my own overnight.”

  “I know you could.” With Aaron, Lloyd or whatever her current boyfriend’s name was. I just remembered the double letters at the beginning. I’d met the kid, hated him on sight. Cocky, arrogant little prick.

  “I wish we were having more fun, Misty,” I said in all honesty. I did feel bad. She was missing the trip of a lifetime with her family, but it was obvious she didn’t mind that, and I had no doubt she’d been seeing plenty of the boyfriend while I was doing the talk show hop, with or without Amy’s knowledge.

  Sandra thought it was fine when I talked to her about my suspicions, said she trusted Misty. If you asked me, “trust” and “seventeen” should never be uttered in the same sentence if there was a boyfriend involved. Teenage girls loved harder than any other species. Teenage love was apocalyptic. Wild horses couldn’t stop it.

  “I’ll get back as fast as I can and we’ll do something fun. Really fun, I promise. Maybe we’ll go find a Christmas tree and decorate it.”

  “I had a lot of fun at Mason’s yesterday,” Misty said. “Don’t feel guilty, Aunt Rache. You always say it’s a wasted emotion.”

  Yeah, I did say that. In print and in front of live studio audiences. That didn’t make it true. Guilt was never wasted. It was going to net the kid a Swarovski crystal swan to add to her collection.

  Mason pulled up in that big black boat he called a car. I closed my eyes, hitched my “just in case” bag over my shoulder, hugged Misty, then Amy, then Myrtle one last time. “Okay, I’m outta here. See you late tonight, and if there’s any change, I’ll call.”

  They said so long and I was gone. I opened the driver’s door, and Mason looked up at me from behind the wheel.

  “What, you want to drive?”

  Damn, he’s good-looking. It’s like I forget just how good-looking when I’m away from him, and then I see him again and it knocks me on my ass.

  “I know you love your boat and all, Mace, but—”

  “It’s a seventy-four Monte Carlo, and it’s a classic.”

  “It’s a rear-wheel-drive behemoth, and it’s an accident waiting to happen. We’re heading into the snow belt. What if we hit a blizzard? Why didn’t you bring the Jeep?”

  He sighed. “It’s a clear day, maybe my last chance to drive my baby for the season.”

  “Which part of the words snow belt did you not understand?”

  “You want to take your Subaru, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I do. You have any objections?”

  He lowered his head. “I have to tell you something I’ve never told you before, Rachel.”

  Hell, this sounds serious. I frowned, watching his face. “Go ahead. What is it?”

  “I hate your driving.” His head came up, and he was grinning, probably at the way my mouth was hanging open. I clamped it shut. “I don’t mean to insult you, but you scare the hell out of me when you drive.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re always looking at everything but the road.”

  “I am not!”

  “‘Oh, pretty mountain! Oooh, what kind of bird is that? Hey, look at that cloud.’”

  I bit back my automatic defensive response and took a breath. “Try being blind for twenty years and see how much looking you do your first fall, first winter—”

  He held up both hands to stop me, midrant. “I love the way you see everything like it’s the first time, Rachel. Makes me see things from a fresh perspective myself. It...enhances my every experience just being around you.”

  Damn. That was almost poetic. My anger cooled a degree or two.

  “I just don’t love being a passenger in a car while you’re doing it. That’s all. You gonna shoot me for that? You wanna use my gun? ’Cause it’s right here—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Mason.” I dug my keys out of my pocket, hit the garage door opener button on the key ring, then dropped them into his lap. With his irritatingly perfect reflexes he caught them before they landed.

  “You can drive, okay? But we’re taking my car.”

  “That sounds fair.”

  “You can put your boat in the garage if you want.”

  “It’ll be fine outside.” He shut off the engine, dropped his own keys into the ashtray and got out. He had a dark green backpack on the backseat, and he grabbed that and was good to go.

  So I let him drive. And yeah, I stayed mad at him for the first hour, until we drove past the wetlands preserve, partially frozen over, and I saw a red-tailed hawk dive-bomb not twenty feet from the highway, then soar up again with something furry in its talons.

  “OhmyGod, did you see that? That hawk just nailed a freaking squirrel or something. Look, look at it go!” I was pointing and craning my neck. When I looked over at him, he managed to hold back for about three seconds and then he burst out laughing, and I did, too, in spite of myself.

  “All right,” I admitted, no longer angry. “I’ll have to try to stop doing that.”

  “Don’t ever stop doing that. That was amazing, and I never would have even noticed it if you hadn’t been with me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.” He shrugged. “Just...try not to do it when you’re driving.”

  I rolled my eyes and returned to watching the passing scenery.

  * * *

  At Strong Memorial Hospital’s Financial Services Center, Mason made the impossible as easy as 1, 2, 3. He got in to see a patient accounts manager, claiming to be an insurance adjuster and saying he needed to verify some information about the patient who received the kidney on August 17 of this year. Then he shuffled papers looking for the patient’s name while the woman at the desk clicked her keys, bringing up the info. I waited in the hallway outside the office door, and when he sneezed, I walked up the hall a few steps, made sure no one was looking and, with a tissue covering my fingers, pulled the fire alarm.

  People poured out of offices left and right, including Mason and the accounts person. I joined the throng moving forward, exclaimed, “My purse!” in case anyone was listening, and ducked into the same office he’d just left. I hurried around the desk, took a quick look at the computer and there it was. The patient’s name and address. Three patients had kidney transplants that day. But only one of them received a left kidney. I scribbled the info on a notepad, jammed it into my pocket, zipped out again with my heart in my throat and caught up with the throng heading for the stairwells. By then someone in charge was telling everyone to stay calm, it was probably a false alarm. Maybe even a prank.

  “Fucking kids,” someone muttered.

  I saw Mason talking to the woman whose office I’d just left and looking at his watch, making excuses to leave and follow up with her later. Then he entered the stairwell. I passed her in the hall as I went to join him, but there were lots of people heading down and I had to wait un
til we were outside. He was ahead of me, and he got into my car and started the engine. I hurried the last few steps and hopped in on the passenger side.

  “You get it?” he asked.

  “Henry C. Powell of Sodus Point, New York. You know where that is?”

  “No, but your nav system does.” He poked buttons. “Street?”

  “Twenty-five Lake Street.”

  He punched a button, then another, and the nav system plotted a route and said it would take less than an hour to reach our destination. “We’re in business. You want to grab a bite first?” It was close to four-thirty, after the two-and-a-half-hour drive out here, and the time we’d spent executing our plan. Flawlessly, I might add. Neither of us had eaten lunch.

  “Yeah, but only if it’s a drive-through. I’m kind of eager to check on Mr. Powell.”

  “Me, too.”

  So we grabbed some fast food and ate while he drove.

  An hour later we were cruising slowly along the southern shore of Lake Ontario, which looked more like an ocean than a lake, since you couldn’t see to the other side. The water was dark and moody, deep blue-black, with whitecaps like sharp teeth in the mouth of a monster. The sky matched. Of course, it would be dark in another twenty minutes, so it was already dusky under heavy clouds.

  We located number 25. I’d been searching for info on Henry Powell online, via my smartphone, for much of the drive. His Facebook page relationship status was “Single,” and he only had forty-seven friends, despite having posted daily up until about a week ago. He looked pale and pasty in his profile pic, and I imagined that was one of his better photos, because who uses their bad ones, right? Ruddy cheeks and pale blue eyes, blondish hair going gray, a long, horselike face.

  “I don’t think he won too many beauty contests.”

  “Does it say what he does for a living?” Mason asked.

  “Retired. Doesn’t say from what.”

  He pulled to a stop on the deserted road. I got a chill but told myself to buck up. We weren’t going to know anything until we got a look inside.

  “You stay here, I’ll go check on things.”

  “Uh-uh. I need to see the inside of the house, see if it’s the same as the dream.”

  “You described it to me. I can tell if it’s—”