F Wilson - The Dark at the End

A few minutes later a car appeared with its headlights out. Jack swung the garage doors open and held them until Dawn’s Volvo was inside, then closed up and replaced the padlock without securing it. Weezy and Dawn emerged from the garage’s rear door with the bare-necessities groceries they’d picked up in Amagansett. Weezy had her backpack with her precious Compendium slung over her shoulder.

“Okay,” he said as they unpacked the bags in the kitchen. “We’ve got heat, water, and power.”

The backwash of light from the front room provided enough illumination to allow them to see what they were doing.

“All the comforts of home,” Weezy said.

“Not quite. We need to stay out of the front room while the light is on. Same for the lighted room upstairs. The owners may have hired some security people to drive by now and then, or they may have some sort of neighborhood watch. We don’t want to risk someone spotting movement in a supposedly empty house.”

The women nodded.

“I’ll find a blanket to drape over the bathroom window, so we can at least put that light on when we need it, but otherwise no lights.”

Dawn looked at him. “Sounds like you think we’re going to be here a long time.”

“I don’t know. I hope not.”

She looked from Jack to Weezy. “I’ve got a feeling there’s another agenda here.”

No dummy, this girl.

Weezy said, “I want you to get your baby back. But…”

Dawn turned to Jack. “But what?”

“Mister Osala is important too,” he said.

She frowned. “Why?”

Okay. Time to lay out as much as he could for her. He gestured to the kitchen table.

“Maybe we should sit down and discuss this.”

They pulled out chairs and seated themselves in the near dark.

Jack said, “Where do I begin, Weez?”

She cleared her throat. “I think we should keep this on as mundane a level as possible.”

Explain it without mentioning the Otherness and the Ally? Not easy, but it would keep them from looking like head cases.

“Worth a try.”

She leaned toward Dawn. “There’s a war going on. It’s being fought behind the scenes. Mister Osala is a very big player in that war. He’s not a detective, your mother never hired him to protect you-in fact, your mother never met or even heard of him. Everything he told you is a lie.”

“Then why-?”

“He leads a cult. You saw their symbol on the back of your obstetrician’s watch. They think they can take over the world.”

Dawn slapped her hands on the table. “Oh, I don’t believe this!”

Jack saw where Weezy was going.

“ You don’t have to believe it,” he said. “What’s important to know is that Osala believes it. And he believes your baby is the key to that takeover.”

Jack didn’t know if that was true-he had no idea what Rasalom had planned for the baby-but it might be. And even if he was wrong, it sounded good. Whatever it took to widen Dawn’s focus from just her baby to a bigger picture.

“But that’s crazy!”

Weezy said, “No argument. But crazy or not, the baby is why he took you in during your pregnancy and dumped you as soon as you delivered. That’s why he spirited the baby away.”

“And that,” Jack said, tapping the table, “is why he’s got to figure into what we do here.”

“But I just want my baby back.”

Jack hit her with an angle he thought would lock her in.

“Do you want to keep your baby once you find him?”

“Of course!”

“Well, you can depend on Osala to do his damnedest to get him back. So unless we deal with Osala here and now, you and your baby could spend the rest of your lives on the run.”

Dawn leaned forward. “What do you mean by ‘deal’ with him?”

“Leave that to me.”

A pause, then, “You’re a little scary, you know that?”

“Scarier than the guy who locked you away in his apartment for months on end and then stole your baby?”

Another pause. “Score one for you. But how does this affect what we’re doing here?”

“Okay,” Jack said. “We’re working with only two facts right now: Osala’s driver is over there, and the pediatric surgeon present during your labor has paid a visit. Everything else is assumption. We can assume your baby is there but we need to establish that as a fact. And even if we do, we can’t move until we can establish beyond a doubt that Osala is there.”

“But why?”

Jack thought he’d made that obvious but Dawn’s tunnel vision persisted.

“So that when you take the baby and leave, I can make sure no one hounds your trail.”

Weezy rested her hand atop Dawn’s. “Larger issues than you and your baby are at stake here, Dawn. You don’t need to know the details, but you were right: We have another agenda. But it dovetails perfectly with yours. We’ll help you get and keep your baby, but you’ve got to promise us you’ll play it Jack’s way and let him decide the timing. That way we’ll all walk away with what we came for.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Of course you have a choice,” Jack told her. “But if you do something rash, we could all come away empty-handed.”

“Rash?” She sounded offended. “Like what?”

“Like going over there and peeking in the windows to see if you can spot the baby.”

She didn’t reply.

“On target?” Jack said.

She sighed and he saw her nod in the dim light. “Yeah.”

He’d figured if she hadn’t already thought of that, it wouldn’t be long before she did. Might as well get it on the table.

“Just promise me, Dawn, that the only window you’ll peek through is one of those upstairs, okay?”

A reluctant tone: “Okay. But somebody needs to look in that house.”

“I agree. And that would be me. Dark is the best time. In fact, I’ll take a look right now.”

The bayfront mansion occupied an oversize lot-at least triple, maybe quadruple. The excess land on either side had been left untended and filled with a tangle of wild bayberry. The leaves had dropped in the fall and the bare branches scratched and tugged at Jack as he made his way toward the west side of the house.

Before approaching the mansion, he’d done a quick reconnoiter of the neighborhood. Half a dozen houses occupied this end of the street. He already knew about the mansion and the O’Donnell house, so he checked out the others. All four were empty. Still had to be careful, though. Never knew who was going to drive by.

When he reached the yard proper, he encountered an expanse of three-quarter-inch gravel that substituted for grass out here.

Good thing it was March instead of summer. No way to cross those stones in silence. If the windows were open, he’d be busted. But even though they were all shut tight against the cold, he moved as carefully and silently as he could.

The icy wind off the bay cut at him as he peeked through a lighted side window that looked in on the house’s great room. Probably should have been called a huge room. It had a high, raftered ceiling and took up the entire waterfront side of the first floor. An unbroken line of sliding-glass doors faced the water; the stained plank walls were bedizened with all the standard beach house paraphernalia: framed seascapes, sailboat-racing pennants, mounted fish, and an assortment of nets and buoys suspended among the rafters.

Two people-a heavyset gray-haired woman on the sofa and a big guy in an easy chair-watched an appropriately large flat-screen TV.

And off to the side… a white bassinet.

Isn’t this cozy. Just a down-homey, Norman Rockwelly domestic scene.

Okay, the guy had to be Georges, and the woman fit Dawn’s description of Gilda, the housekeeper. The baby himself wasn’t visible and no tentacles coiled in the air above the bassinet. But after Dr. Heinze’s visit today, the mere presence of the bassinet was enough.