Primary Valor Jack Mars (miss read books TXT) 📖

would help her. He would light the stonesalong her path.

“21, I want to tell you something.Right now, this moment, is the most beautiful you’ve ever been. And the longeryou stay with me, and the better you obey me, the more beautiful you’ll become.”

He paused, just for a moment. “Doyou believe me?”

He gazed into her doe eyes.

“Yes,” she said.

“Then do something for me, 21.”

She nodded, but said nothing.

“Remove your robe.”

She froze for a long moment. Darwindidn’t touch the moment, or try to control it. He let it unfold by itself. Aftera while, she undid the belt of the robe, but didn’t open the robe itself.

Darwin gestured with his hands. “Justopen it, and let it fall to the floor. Remember the promise you made. Totalobedience, without question.”

She did as she was told. The robedropped. Underneath it, she wore a small blue bikini that Elaine must haveprovided to her. It fit her small body perfectly. The sight took his breathaway.

“Turn around,” he said. “All theway around, so I can see all of you.”

She did.

“My God, 21. What an angel youare. Only God could have made you.”

Someone cleared his throat. Darwinlooked up and a man was standing there at the doorway. The effect of 21, thedream of her, was suddenly shattered. The man was one of Darwin’s privatebodyguards, not one of the Hondurans. He was a big man, an American, wearingdress slacks and a sports jacket despite the heat. The jacket was to concealhis gun, of course. He looked a little sheepish for a hired killer.

“Yes?” Darwin said.

“Sir, that call you wereexpecting? I’m told he’s on the line and ready.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 

 

1:15 p.m. Eastern Standard Time

Cape Fear Hyatt Regency Hotel

Wilmington, North Carolina

 

 

“It’s okay here,” Luke said. “Kindof pretty. I mean, it’s not the Grand Canyon or anything.”

Luke stood on the balcony of thehotel room, sipping a paper cup of room coffee, and talking to Becca on thetelephone. From where he stood, he could look across the Cape Fear River at thehistoric brick buildings of downtown Wilmington. The river was dark brown andthe buildings were three and four stories high.

Up the river from here was an oldnaval destroyer they had turned into a museum, and further upriver were themassive dock cranes of the Port of Wilmington.

Luke had slept a bit, and hadstrange, vivid dreams.

Ed wasn’t the only one who hadlost a girl when he was young. Luke never spoke of it, and could go yearswithout even remembering it, but there had been an incident when he was achild. It was not his life. It took place entirely on the TV.

He had grown up in NorthernCalifornia. When he was seven or eight, a pretty blonde-haired girl about hisage had disappeared from a town near his. Her name was Megan. Megan RoseAbbott. God, he could see her so clearly, even now. There was a photograph ofher, smiling in a pink dress and a sun hat. The light around her seemed toshimmer.

She was gone, just gone, herfamily distraught and crying on the TV news every night. The days turned toweeks. Her father was detained, but then released. A local auto mechanic wasdetained, but released. Hundreds of people were searching for her in woods andgrasslands. Time passed, and the story faded from the news. Then only a handfulof people were still looking.

One day, they found her body atthe bottom of an old boarded up well twenty miles from where she lived. How didshe get there? Did she fall in?

No. She had been taken. She hadbeen viciously assaulted. Then she had been thrown away, discarded. The man whohad taken her was an animal. He was not fit to live. A man like Ed Newsam, ifhe could find this animal, would pull him apart, like taffy, like aThanksgiving turkey. Maybe Luke would even do the same. He wasn’t sure, and hedidn’t want to find out.

But the animal was never found. DNAevidence did not exist in those days. There were suspects, but they all hadalibis. A drifter, a beast, someone unknown, a darkness in human form, hadstolen Megan, and he had done this.

Luke used to dream of her, off andon, for years. And he did again, today.

She was still a child. They weresitting together, cross-legged on the wooden floor of a cabin, like childrenwould do. It was similar to the cabin where he and Ed had brought Louis Clare,but it was not that cabin.

Luke and Megan faced each other. Shewas his mentor. She knew more than he did. Her suffering had made her wise, notbeyond her years, but beyond all time and space.

“What is this nightmare world?” heasked her.

She looked into his eyes. She wasa very serious little girl now.

“It’s a vale of tears,” she said.

She nodded to herself. “It’s avalley of shadow.”

“‘Yea,’” Luke quoted, “‘though Iwalk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.’”

She shrugged. “If that helps you.”

He nodded. “I think it does.”

“Okay,” she said softly.

“Is there anything I can do foryou?” he said.

She shook her head. “No. What’sdone is done. There is no going back. All you can do is your best.”

Luke was crying then, tearsstreaming down his face. Megan stared at him, her face blank. She said nothing.

Later, he dreamed of a sturdy oakdoor. He was on one side of the door, trying to keep it shut. On the other sidewere at least a dozen men trying to push their way in. With a giant effort, hewas able to slam the door closed, but then found out that the lock was broken. Ashe stared at the broken lock, it changed. Not only was the lock broken, therewas no lock. In fact, there wasn’t even a doorknob. There was just a hole inthe door where the doorknob would be.

A hand came through the hole. Itwasn’t attached to a wrist. It was just a hand. It reached Luke’s side of thedoor and crawled up the door toward his arms like a crab.

That’s when he woke up.

He imagined that this was the lifeof a real FBI agent. Hotel rooms in semi-picturesque places, waking up with astart from