Scared of the Dark: A Crime Novel Read online

  Scared of the Dark

  By Easton Vaughn

  ABOUT SCARED OF THE DARK

  Stephen King’s MISERY meets John Grisham’s A TIME TO KILL

  Trouble is brewing on a mysterious barrier island off the coast of North Carolina. All of the island’s inhabitants are black. And all of them are fugitives from the law. Their leader, an enigmatic man who calls himself Shepherd, envisions the island as an oasis offering both redemption and rebirth. But James Merritt, Shepherd’s second-in-command, sees the island as something else entirely. So when a white Harvard Medical School student accidentally harms one of the island’s daughters, Merritt quickly puts his evil plan into motion. The fourth-year medical student is locked away in a shed and forced to fight for his life. And he isn’t the only white captive. It’s a startling reversal of history.

  Slavery is back.

  But this time … black men are holding the whips.

  The rain came down,

  When you and I slept away

  The night’s burden of our passions

  Their newfound wisdom

  In quick lightning flashes

  Revealed the truth

  That they had been

  The slaves of fools.

  “The Search” by Kwesi Brew

  Night of Friday, June 22

  A few minutes before the woman stepped out from nowhere and Aiden hit her, he was driving north on a sliver of dusty road in Tar Heel country. Bugs swam in the wash of his ancient BMW’s high beams. A/C busted, he had the driver’s-side window down, soupy thick air rushing in, slapping his face and stirring his wheat-colored hair. Later on he would think about the fact that he’d only had one hand on the steering wheel. Think about how his right hand, his dominant hand, was clutching a link of cool metal chain. How, using his thumb and forefinger, he’d advanced the chain until he had hold of the heart-shaped locket at the end. How he’d ever so briefly closed his eyes at that point and pictured the young woman in the small picture frame: copper brown skin, lustrous black hair, intense Cimmerian eyes. Not Saina, the love of his life, but the spitting image. Her mother at about the same age as Saina was now. Priya Chatterjee had died of ovarian cancer, the reason Saina was working so feverishly to become a doctor. Saina had shown Aiden the locket for the first time right after they’d gotten their white coats with Harvard Medical School embroidered on the breast in crimson cursive. “The moment I start complaining about rectal exams and threatening to quit,” she’d said to him that day, during their Holmes Society orientation, “remind me of why I’m here, Aiden. For my mother. Okay?” He’d promised he would, and he had, more than once.

  Aiden wondered how much Saina was missing the locket now, how crazy she was driving herself trying to locate it. Pictured the fury that would flame up in her dark eyes the moment she realized he’d stolen it. And it was at that moment that the woman stepped out of nowhere and Aiden hit her.

  A sickening thump sounded. Aiden lost control of the BMW for a moment, the nose edging into the oncoming traffic lane on the other side before he was able to right the car and slam on the brakes.

  “Shit!”

  He looked back, didn’t see anything on the dark road behind him.

  He took a deep breath just the same, knowing what was back there.

  He moved from the car.

  He heard her before he saw her. Moaning and wailing like a strong winter wind. Aiden trotted toward the sound. Sloshed through what was probably stagnant water, but in his mind it was the warm blood of a dying woman. Her moans and wails weakened to a register barely above a whisper the closer he got to her.

  He found her, tossed near the side of the road. He fumbled out his cell phone and used its light to get a closer look. “Dear God!”

  A youngish black woman. Skin only a shade or two darker than Saina’s. Most of her face was pulped. One watery eye was open, jittering about, communicating both her confusion and deep hurt. Her lower limbs were twisted unnaturally in jeans shredded to hell and further marred by stripes of blacktop and raw earth. Her halter top was damp with what had to be blood. A sound rattled around in her chest that wasn’t breathing. A sound that would haunt Aiden’s dreams. He swallowed hard and told her, “Hold on.”

  Hold on?

  His healing touch was usually aided by epinephrine, atropine, the capable assistance of others with equally healing hands. He felt helpless out here in the dark. Alone. And this woman would suffer because of his ineptitude. Poor boy from the wrong part of Boston, who’d gone and gotten lucky. Hit-the-fucking-lottery-lucky. Tricked the shit out of Harvard, had them believing he was worthy.

  He touched the woman anyway. An offer of modest comfort. Saina on his mind as he did it. Would helping this woman make up for what he’d done to Saina?

  “What’s your name?” he thought, not saying it out loud, knowing even if he did ask the question, no answer would be forthcoming from the broken woman lying before him.

  In the close distance, a sound cut through the otherwise eerie quiet of the night. Twigs snapping like brittle bones as heavy footfalls crunched through brush. Aiden looked up, flashed his cell phone for light once again. A man emerged from the tree line. “Here,” Aiden called, waving his arms. “Thank God. Over here.”

  The shadowy figure moved toward him. Aiden wanted to yell for the man to hurry his steps, to stop moving with such slow purpose. Didn’t he realize this was an emergency? Couldn’t he hear the panic and helplessness in Aiden’s voice?

  “Quick,” Aiden said. “Over here. We need your help.”

  The man reached Aiden and peered down at the chaos. He was relatively large, bigger than Aiden by several inches and outweighing him by many pounds. Dressed inappropriately for the uncomfortably hot weather: mud-caked boots, baggy dark pants, a heavy dark coat, a dark wool cap. A strange odor clouded around him, a mixture of exertion and apathy. He was eggplant-colored and completely featureless. Even using the cell phone, Aiden could make out the whites of the man’s eyes and very little else.

  “She was hit…by my car,” Aiden said, gesturing at the broken mess of a woman who lay before him.

  He was considering how to explain this—hit by my car, as though he wasn’t the one driving, as though the car ruled itself and he was just some passive participant—when in an instant of surprise, Aiden realized that instead of focusing on the woman, the man was solely focused on him. “Hey?” Aiden said to him.

  But in the next instant, the featureless man enveloped Aiden like the blackness of the night.

  Aiden’s scream died only a moment before the woman.

  It felt to James Merritt as though his heartbeat actually slowed in moments like this—moments of utter chaos. Each tick of time became part of a movie, and he had complete control over advancing every frame. It’s go time, he thought, as he clopped through the brush in the direction of his trusted rucksack. He’d stashed it three hundred feet deep or so in the mouth of the woods, on a carpet of burned brown pine needles. He’d propped it against a loblolly. Almost everything he needed was inside the cloth sack: thermos of crudely made black coffee, Maglite, a hacksaw, a roll of duct tape, a hammer, an unlabeled bottle of bleach, industrial-strength garbage bags, a Zippo lighter, and a menacing, ten-inch, black-bladed knife. Next to the sack, also leaning against the tree, stood a round-point shovel, the spade end recently sharpened.

  Despite all of the energy he’d already used, Merritt moved along at a steady pace. His rough hand clasped on one of Candace’s swollen ankles, her free leg flopping about as he dragged her. A moment earlier, the leg had snagged on something and he had to turn and give it a tug. Two more tugs after that and she finally broke free. He paused now for a breath, h
ocked up a thick bowl of phlegm and spat. A line of saliva found his coat sleeve, yo-yoed a few times before he brushed it off. That caused him to shake his head. “Hell of a night.”

  He looked back in the direction of the road and wondered what would happen if someone were to come upon him now. Dressed for trouble, smelling like rotten crab meat, black enough to melt into the night, Candace hitched to him like a deflated parachute. He shook aside the thought and started moving again. He hadn’t wanted it to end this way, but he’d prepared for the strong possibility that it might. Will and Ruck were looking to him for leadership, and he hadn’t disappointed. He would continue on, calm and collected, in control. It would be messy, grueling work, stretching through the black of night to nearly the purple dawn of morning. They would have to work efficiently. And Merritt would ensure that they did. When they returned to the island he would have a good report for the others.

  He came to a sudden stop and released Candace’s ankle, her leg thudding as it hit the ground. He turned and stepped over her, wiped his dirty gloved-hand on his pants, hocked and spit again. A sound like squirrels trampling through leaves pierced the quiet. He turned back just as Will and Ruck exploded from a clump of bushes. Both men were breathing hard.

  Merritt reached in his jacket pocket, pulled out a small tub of Vick’s VapoRub. He eased off a glove and sank a finger into the ointment, then offered the tub to Will. “Here. Rub this just below your nostrils.”

  Will took it, dipped in a finger of his own, then handed it on to Ruck. Ruck didn’t move. It didn’t appear to Merritt as though he could.

  “Go on,” Merritt said. “Take it.”

  Ruck still didn’t move.

  “Candace voided her bowels and pissed herself,” Merritt said. “Then there’s the blood. Copious amounts of it. And this heat isn’t helping matters. She’ll start to go bad a lot sooner than you think. I’d take it, Ruck.”

  Ruck moaned, closed his eyes.

  Merritt took the VapoRub from Will and moved beside Ruck, placing a heavy hand on his shoulder. Whereas Merritt and Will were dressed in thick jackets, durable clothing, and sturdy boots, Ruck had opted for blue jean shorts, a threadbare N.C. State T-shirt, and plain white Reeboks that were painted green with grass shavings. Some months ago, Merritt had made note of Ruck’s weak chin, the guys all drinking rotgut whiskey around a campfire one night and talking shit behind it. Merritt had given Ruck some real shit about the soft curve of his chin, and in response Ruck had grown out a beard. Unfortunately for him, it grew in unevenly and attracted lint.

  Merritt squeezed his shoulder now. “The universe in its infinite wisdom sent along a battered old BMW to deal with Candace. Who are we to question the universe’s authority? We didn’t cause this. And don’t you go thinking that we did.”

  Ruck groaned. Merritt noted the tremble beneath his hand. He gripped Ruck’s shoulder tighter. “Candace ran away from us, but I was prepared to forgive her, welcome her back to the island with open arms. You believe that, don’t you?”

  Ruck nodded.

  “Good.” Merritt softened his voice. “I hate that it’s ending this way. But I have to believe it’s for the greater good. This is bigger than Candace now. The sanctity of our home is in jeopardy. Good people along with it. I—we have to make sure that Candace is buried properly. If she’s somehow discovered, we don’t want the law being able to discern who she is. We certainly don’t want them to connect her back to the island. You understand?”

  Ruck swallowed. “I don’t know as Shepherd would want us involved in all of this.”

  Merritt looked around, frowning. “You see Shepherd right now?”

  “No, but—”

  Merritt tightened his grip on Ruck’s shoulder by several more measures. “You’re sounding like you don’t have confidence in my leadership, Ruck.”

  “It’s not that, James. But…”

  “But?”

  Ruck tried unsuccessfully to shrug from Merritt’s grasp. “Shepherd trusted you to handle things while he’s gone. It’s just…this is all pretty drastic. A lot has happened out here tonight. You think Shepherd would be for all of this?”

  “Ruck, I think you need to make a decision right now.”

  The movement was subtle, Will taking a short step to crowd Ruck’s right, Merritt already containing his left. Ruck looked back and forth between the two men, making note of their strong postures and the dimness in both of their eyes. “I’m with you,” he stammered after a moment.

  “Take the VapoRub,” Merritt said softly.

  Ruck gripped it with both hands as if it was a warm coffee mug, then dipped two fingers into the ointment and coated his upper lip and nostrils, his entire body shaking terribly. Merritt nodded. “Good. I need you to go dig some holes now.”

  “Holes?”

  “At least thirty feet apart. Pace off the distance using your feet. Thirty lengths, plus add another five for good measure. Don’t go too wide when you dig, but go deep. We’re gonna need four holes.”

  “Four holes?”

  Merritt sighed. “Candace’s head. Her hands. Upper torso. Lower torso.”

  “You’re going to…cut her up?”

  “Yes, I am,” Merritt said. “If any part of her is discovered, it’ll still be difficult for them to get a complete profile. You have to trust me on this.”

  Ruck began to sob. “Cutting her up like steaks? I can’t do any more of this, James.”

  “You’re already deep in this,” Merritt replied. “There’s no turning back now.”

  Ruck’s sobs intensified.

  Merritt patted his back, indicated the shovel leaning against the loblolly. “You’ve never let me down. Not ever. Now wouldn’t be a good time to start. I need you on this.”

  Ruck continued to sob, but he was able to move. Robotic steps toward the shovel, a clumsy fumble to get his hand on the handle, another series of mechanical movements taking him into the darkness of the woods.

  “Man’s got no heart,” Will said, watching him go.

  “Yeah, he’s soft,” Merritt agreed.

  “Sorry to say it. I know you two are close.”

  Merritt nodded. “Known him practically my whole life. No heart, but plenty loyal. He’ll be alright.”

  “If you say so.”

  Merritt turned and regarded Will with hard eyes. “I say so.”

  Will nodded, jaw tight, not backing down but not pushing the issue, either. “Man does have a point about Shepherd, though. He wouldn’t like any of this.”

  “Same response,” Merritt said. “You see Shepherd anywhere right now?”

  Will nodded. “What we gotta do here?”

  “Ruck’s only thinking about the Candace that we all grew to know and love,” Merritt explained. “I have to think about Candace Hightower, reported missing from Franklin, Virginia. I have to consider her mother, Nina. Her older sister, Yvette. Her Nana, Patrice. A body surfaces, about the right age range, female, black, even hundreds of miles from Franklin, Candace’s family is gonna have all kinds of questions. I wouldn’t be surprised if their church helped them hire some kind of private investigations firm to check into any prospective hits.”

  “They can keep praying, holding candlelight vigils, holding out hope,” Will said. “If we do this right. Make sure this body is buried and stays buried.”

  Merritt smiled for the first time all night. “You get it.”

  Will seemed to understand that this was all for the greater good of everyone. “So what we gotta do here?” he said again.

  Merritt cleared his throat. “We need to drain her body of fluids. Makes it easier to cut, slows decomposition.”

  “I don’t need an ounce more of trouble,” Will said. “What about that DNA stuff the police do? They get to sniffing around here, they gonna be pulling my fingerprints off leaves and shit?”

  Merritt frowned and regarded Will, searching his face to see if he was serious. “I tell you what we have to do to Candace’s body and all you’re
worried about is leaves?”

  “She’s already dead, no use worrying about her now.”

  “You sure you never served?”

  “No offense, but no army could hold me, man. I have this habit of wiping my ass however I see fit to wipe it.”

  Merritt shook his head in amazement. This man had some stones. “Don’t worry about fingerprints. And we’ll put garbage bags under her to collect the fluids that leak out.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll slice her thighs, diagonal cuts. Gotta tap her femoral arteries. You pump her chest like you’re doing CPR, get the fluids circulating.”

  “Alright.”

  “I’ll cut off her hands at the wrists. You burn off the fingerprints with my Zippo. Then I’ll do the rest of the cuts. Her teeth need to be loosened from the gums with a hammer. You’ll have to handle that. Then we’ll put her in garbage bags, top it off with quicklime. Fill in Ruck’s holes with the dirt.”

  “Thorough,” Will said.

  “You sure you’re up for this?”

  “Sounds like you’ve got it all figured out, boss man. I’m just an employee.”

  Merritt shook his head. “We’re family now, Will. All of us. Don’t forget that. We have to stick together, watch each other’s back.”

  “Like you said, it’s for the greater good. I’m fine with it.”

  “Good.”

  “One question, though…”

  “Yeah?”

  Will nodded at a hump resting a few feet beyond Candace’s body. The hump gagged at the mouth, bound at the wrists and ankles, and lying close to Merritt’s rucksack. “What do we do with him?”

  Merritt didn’t hesitate as his dead gaze fell on the unconscious white boy. “Take him back to the island with us.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  The island was over twenty miles long, but never more than a mile wide, in the Pamlico Sound south of Ocracoke, the liquid, blustery edge of the coast. Only accessible by boat. And only reachable by those with both familiarity and resolve to their credit. The water route in was known to be choppy, the winds downright ornery; a destination starved for shade and blanketed by mosquitoes and biting flies. The breadth of the island’s white beach was peppered with small treasures vomited from the sea—Scotch bonnets, sand dollars, whelks, and cockles. In the quiet of pre-birdsong morning, beyond the beach and the dune ridges, beyond the salt marsh, the only sound to be heard was the thrum of a surprising lawnmower. It would be hours before the chatter of the island’s few inhabitants floated through the air, hours before the cormorants flew overhead, their wings busy with a pitchy flap.