then pain.
Pain burned through from his head to his toes and he realized he’d been battered beyond repair. The sea had not swallowed him but bashed him against rocks somewhere and spit him back out only to die on dry land.
He should have gone down with the Spencer.
And where were his men?
He opened his eyes to a night as dark as any he’d ever seen. Oddly enough, he’d landed under shelter of some kind, out of the rain. He felt mist in the air, and heard the thunder of great waves crashing against the shore, but the ground around him was dry.
He tried to roll to his side. Searing pain like a red-hot iron pierced his chest and drew a cry from his throat that he could not suppress. He remained still and waited for the pain to ease, but it didn’t.
“Damn you, Satan,” he said through gritted teeth. “Take me now.”
Suddenly, a figure appeared above him.
An angel? He wouldn’t have expected such an escort into the afterlife. Not that he’d done such horrible things as to warrant eternal damnation, but he’d never been one to follow the ways of the Good Book.
She must be an angel. Against the night, she was as white as new snow with golden hair that hung well past her shoulders. Her eyes glowed in the darkness like quicksilver, and she wore a white robe.
He wanted to ask her name, but he couldn’t find his voice. Perhaps he wasn’t supposed to speak.
She leaned close, her lips parted slightly, and his pain began to fade. Her silver eyes studied his face as if looking for redemption.
If only he could reach for her, his angel. He would gladly forfeit his life to wrap her in his arms.
A blaring horn startled Benjamin from the past.
He whirled around and watched a rusted blue and brown van swerve to barely miss a vehicle pulling out of the Tangled Net’s parking lot. The driver of the car gestured with his middle finger, and then sped away. The van slowed and turned at the next corner.
Benjamin glanced back at the angry sea where the bones of his crew had long ago dissolved. Good men, most of them. He still felt the loss of them like an ancient break that hadn’t knitted well.
Why had Cassandra appeared in his thoughts tonight? How long had it been since he’d seen her last? Five years? Ten?
Perhaps more.
He hadn’t thought much about her lately, which probably meant she was due to turn up. She had a way of appearing to stir up his existence just when things were pleasantly quiet. He always spent a year or two longing for her after she left.
And she would leave, just as she always had before. Ironic that he was the one who waited on the shore like a sailor’s wife.
With a sigh, Benjamin drew his cloak around him against the rain and started up the road toward his house.
“Come on, dammit.” Star pumped the accelerator twice and turned the key. The old van cranked and cranked, but didn’t catch.
“You flooded it,” Jack said.
“No shit.” She turned the key again, and the engine cranked slower.
And then it stopped.
“Oh, this is great,” Kyle said from the back. “Just fucking great.”
“Shut up,” Star said.
“We’re on a road in the middle of fucking nowhere, the battery’s dead, and it’s raining so hard I can’t see out the window.” Kyle’s voice rose in pitch. “Just fucking great!”
“I’m starved,” Wendy said. “We should have stopped at that bar.”
Star glanced at the woman in the rearview mirror. How could she think about food at a time like this?
Without the van’s knocking engine, the storm sounded even more savage. An especially nasty gust of wind sucked out the piece of cardboard covering a missing back window, and the vehicle suddenly filled with swirling wet air.
Kyle shoved Wendy aside and scrambled around, looking for something to cover the hole. All he found was a dirty towel. Holding it in place, he frowned over his shoulder. “Now what? We can’t sleep in this shit can.”
“Maybe there’s a motel back near that bar,” Jack said.
Star cupped her eyes to the driver’s side window trying to see something past the pounding rain, but could make out nothing in the darkness. “I don’t really want to walk around in this crap unless we’re sure.” She wished for the hundredth time they had a cell phone that worked.
Her pulse pounded as she looked into the night, half expecting a car to pull up at any moment. She could have sworn they’d been followed since they left Atlanta, but figured it was just paranoia. Still, she felt like a sitting duck in a van that wouldn’t start.
“Look,” Jack said. “Some guy just walked by.”
Star looked in the direction Jack pointed and thought she saw a shadow disappearing into the storm, but she couldn’t be certain. “You sure?”
“Yeah.”
If they were being followed, it wouldn’t be by someone on foot.
“Maybe he’s got a phone we can use,” she said.
“Maybe.” Jack opened the van door and a gust of cold, wet wind whipped his blond hair across his face.
After the van door slammed, Star watched Jack fade from sight.
“Shit.” She took a deep breath, opened the driver’s side door, and dashed out. Cold sucked her breath away, and wind-driven rain stung her face.
She caught up with Jack where he stood at a gate nearly hidden by overgrown hedges.
“Jesus Christ!” Wendy ran up and grabbed Jack’s arm to use him as a shield against the weather. “This must be a hurricane.”
“Hardly.” Star squinted against the darkness, trying to make out the silhouette of the house before them. It looked like a mansion, but she couldn’t really tell where the building ended and the trees began. She saw no sign of life. “He went in here?”
“He must have.” Jack opened the gate and started up the walk.
“What are you going to do?” Star called after him.
“Ring the doorbell,” he said over his shoulder.
Wendy kept her grip on Jack’s arm, and Kyle hurried after them.
Star glanced back toward the van parked across the street, which she could barely see now. If they were in the middle of a neighborhood, the houses must be spaced really far apart. And there certainly wasn’t any traffic on the road.
“What
