Promises in the Dark Read online

  Zane. That’s what Mom and Dad named him in the hotel. Dad was a huge Zane Grey fan. Wanted his new son to have a fresh start. “Olivia didn’t deserve what she got.”

  “Most of the good ones don’t.”

  But then, just last month, reports started trickling in, that DMH had been offering rewards for the capture of a woman. That she’d been spotted in different African villages and towns. Some called her a healer, and some a killer, but they all agreed on one thing—she was American and danger surrounded her.

  Now he planned on following that lead, no matter where it led him.

  Some people might consider this place hell, but Olivia Strohm knew it wasn’t. No, Kambia was far from it, and since she’d been to hell on earth twice already, she considered herself something of an expert.

  It was nearly dark, but the heat wasn’t retreating. Wouldn’t.

  She wrapped the rag around her hair and rubbed another cloth over her neck. She took a long drink of water because her body demanded it, even though she’d long grown used to ignoring most of her body’s needs in exchange for freedom. She had work to do, and that superseded anything else.

  She hadn’t needed much money here. No, with her services, she’d been able to barter for the more important staples, like food and clothes and places to stay. This house was hidden behind two others, abandoned long ago. But the women she’d met had hustled her back there and helped her settle in without question.

  Later that first night, they came back. Shy. With questions, with medical problems, some she could help with and some she couldn’t. There was a clinic twenty miles away that she could refer some of them to. For women like Dahia, who’d lost her child to typhoid two months earlier, Olivia had to be the one to reiterate to her after an exam that more children were impossible, just like the midwife had.

  Sometimes, she felt as if she did more harm than good, but Dahia brought her cassava and bread later as a thank you.

  For the last two days, there had been ripples of gossip in the small village that a pregnant woman was looking for help and running from an important man who followed, intent on taking her back.

  Olivia had run too, and she’d learned that no man was that important.

  In the past months, she’d killed several men—on purpose—and in the aftermath, struggled with her conscience. Wondered if she could even function back in the real world, and decided no.

  She was safer here. Alone, with no real ties. And even though the local women insisted that she shouldn’t get involved with the pregnant woman heading her way, that the men who ran the human trafficking ring would take her away and lock her up—or worse—she didn’t listen. Told them her home was open to give shelter to whomever needed it.

  She’d survived so much already—she would not let the threat of a random stranger take her down or destroy her will.

  Outside the small, three-room house, she heard a rustle in the bushes. It could be an animal … or it could be a woman, too frightened to come inside.

  She’d left a candle burning outside—a signal, Ama once told her. Ama, the angel who’d helped her for a month after she’d escaped and taught her some of the ways to survive this harsh place.

  Ama, who had not deserved what had happened to her.

  The lump rose in her throat but she pushed it down ruthlessly. No, not now.

  She grabbed a heavy iron skillet before she stepped outside onto the creaky porch and stared out, unable to see anything but shadows.

  “Come, come,” she said, her voice low and urgent in the dark. She repeated herself in Krio as well, kam naya, to encourage the woman to come forward.

  You can’t save them all. But you can help some.

  Those words from her first year of residency rang in her ears more often than she’d like to admit.

  And so she waited, impatiently shifting from one foot to the other, fighting not to let her nerves get the better of her. But it wasn’t a woman who came forward. No, it was the outline of a man. She saw the fatigues and the guns and thought it might be one of the soldiers coming to try to close down her makeshift office.

  She would have to pay—or close up and move. Or possibly fight for her life.

  She tightened her hand around the cold handle of the skillet held behind her back and waited for the bark of an order.

  But this man stepped into the light with his hands in view, free of weapons. Blond. Blue-eyed. Face of an angel and the devil mixed, and the throb in her belly overrode the sudden, sharp fear.

  She was being rescued. And that was the worst thing that could happen to her now.

  “Dr. Strohm? Olivia?” The voice was deep and dark, washed over her like a sudden rain.

  He knew her. But she’d never seen him before in her life—she would’ve remembered. “What do you want?”

  He came closer, through the tangle of bushes and up the small red dust path to the house she’d taken over. She’d moved in, swept it out and cleaned it as best she could. It didn’t matter what it looked like. It was temporary.

  Everything about her life now was temporary. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Zane Scott. A friend of Skylar’s.”

  Skylar. Her former patient. Her friend. One of the reasons she was in this mess to begin with, and yet she felt no malice toward the woman. Only the hot stab of fear at being found. “What are you doing here?”

  “I’m here to help you.”

  There was a calm in his voice that nearly mesmerized her. He’d gotten close now, was in front of her and had extended his hand toward her. When she glanced down, she saw that she was actually holding out her free hand as well.

  She pushed it down by her side again.

  “Has anyone else come here tonight?” he asked.

  “No, you’re the only one.” Her voice came out more softly than she’d intended. Fear, she told herself. Nothing to do with the contact with someone who might be from her not so distant past.

  The wind rustled the bushes again, and when Zane turned to check that no one was behind him, she struck, surprised him with a blow to the side of the head.

  He sank to the ground with a heavy thump and her heart beat wildly because she had no plan. There was nowhere for her to go tonight. No, she’d have to wait until morning to leave, to escape this seemingly well-meaning man.

  Which meant she’d have to keep him with her.

  Zane Scott was tall—over six-foot-three—and heavy with muscle, although he wasn’t overly broad when he’d stood in front of her. No, he was just right.

  It took all her strength to get him inside the door and close it behind them. She stood, panting, realized that she’d only been here for three weeks.

  How had she been found?

  Trouble comes in pairs, Ama used to say. A warning for Olivia that just because one bad thing had happened, she was not to let her guard down against the possibility of more.

  That was rare. Even her sleep was broken and uneasy. Dreams replaced by nightmares. If she could physically do so, she’d stay awake all night, every night. As it was, the few hours cost her. Her hands shook and her focus was off.

  Good thing the medicine she practiced here was battlefield, because oftentimes, it wasn’t pretty.

  Zane was wearing green jungle print camouflage. Military. He appeared to be alone, but he wasn’t the only one who knew where she was—he could have reinforcements that would come to help him.

  Has anyone else come here tonight? She rifled through his pockets, bypassing the weapons, until she pulled out a roll of money. A further search yielded nothing—no dog tags, nothing that would identify him as military beyond his clothing and weapons, nothing that told her anything … until she checked the pocket by his thigh.

  A note, written by Skylar. Zane is one of the good guys. Trust him, she’d written, but for all Olivia knew, it was penned under duress. Yet it was written on Skylar’s personal stationary, and she recognized the signature, since Skylar had signed all of her books personally for Olivia.r />
  Behind the note was a photograph—well worn and instantly recognizable. It was from her apartment back home in New York.

  It was a picture of her and her mom, taken in Central Park. She’d been laughing. If she turned the picture over, she’d see the handwritten note from her father.

  Zane really was here looking for her. And something in addition to Skylar’s letter told her that he wasn’t DMH. No, those men would not talk to her the way he had. They would just take her, like they’d done before.

  Zane stirred and she froze. But he only woke for a second, just long enough to open his eyes and stare at her.

  He murmured, “Beautiful,” and passed out again.

  The only mirror she’d seen in the past months was a small piece of glass that had remained in the frame, long after the rest of the oval piece was shattered.

  She wondered if maybe she’d hit him harder than she thought. Because beautiful was not how she felt. Ragged, but not beautiful.

  She no longer resembled this picture … couldn’t recognize herself no matter how hard she stared.

  No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d laughed. Not since DMH had kidnapped her from the parking lot of the hospital in New York.

  Escape from the extremist group had been easier than she’d thought and to this day she still questioned whether her conscience had been destroyed along with that clinic.

  She went back and forth, feeling a cross between anger and pity for the staff who were killed. Transplanting illegal black-market organs was a lucrative field and the doctors working there absolutely knew what they were involved in, and had admitted as much to her when they thought she’d begun to believe in the process as well. The patients knew it—they were paying through the nose, but she bet they had no idea that some people were being killed for their organs and others had them taken out against their will.

  Maybe those who paid the high price for their new organ wouldn’t care. Faced with death, their survival instinct had gone into overdrive, pushing them to risk everything, even jail, to save their lives or the lives of their loved ones.

  Olivia had done her share of survival long enough to understand their reasoning.

  And she had more names—of doctors, both in the States and Europe, who were part of DMH’s illegal operation. She was valuable to DMH and the only way they would leave her alone was when she was dead.

  Now she slid the stiff rope around her rescuer’s wrists, tying them awkwardly behind his back and then went to work on his ankles. She took his weapons and placed them out of his reach. Stared at the guns and the knife and remembered how she’d had one of each when she’d left the clinic, how they’d stayed by her side while she lay on the floor of Ama’s house and gotten the drugs DMH had been feeding her out of her system.

  The withdrawal had been the worst. Olivia could still feel the bile rise thinking about the hours and days that blended as she writhed in pain on the floor. Sweating. Shaking. Alternately praying for death and wanting to get strong enough to take revenge on DMH.

  Bastards.

  Her fists clenched, and she knew the hatred had been the only thing that had gotten her through that terrible time. That and Ama, who Olivia discovered had been tortured to death after Olivia had left, and only because she’d helped Olivia and refused to tell the men from DMH where she’d gone.

  All because of you.

  So much death and destruction, all on her hands—her soul. She’d had it before she’d been captured, for sure, but even then, all her patients had been consenting.

  Ama hadn’t consented to being beaten senseless.

  And no matter how many times she’d told herself that she’d been forced to remove the organs and transplant them, that it had been a combination of fear for her family and the drugs, she knew she wouldn’t forgive herself. Couldn’t.

  But she could attempt to make amends. And she could even pretend that it might be enough.

  CHAPTER

  2

  In his dreams, the rescue did not go like this. Not at all.

  Zane kept his eyes closed. Although she hadn’t hit him hard enough to knock him out but rather stun him momentarily, his gut told him to play along. She’d been through hell and if this got him in the door—which it did since she’d literally dragged him inside her house—he’d deal.

  Now he just had to convince her he had nothing to do with DMH.

  He’d heard her sharp intake of breath when she’d found her picture in his pocket.

  And when he’d opened his eyes and told her she was beautiful, he’d meant it. She was. Tanned. Wild.

  She’d survived against all the damned odds, and asking if anyone else had been there looking for her had simply served to freak her out further.

  But she was in imminent danger and it was time for him to get her back in the game. He opened his eyes and stared up at her, his hands tied tightly, but not all that securely, behind his back. He could get out of this easily—if and when he wanted to.

  Now was not the time, not when Liv still had that fierce look in her eyes and the heavy skillet in her hand, and fuck, his head was going to hurt like a mother for days.

  She looked a little remorseful. But still angry. Her dark hair was longer, framed her face now that she’d taken it down from the cloth she’d had wrapped it in earlier, but her eyes still glittered.

  It was so much fucking better than a photograph. “Olivia, I’m a friend. I’m here to help you. You need to come with me.”

  “You’re not exactly in the position to tell me what to do,” she pointed out.

  He shifted on the dirt floor so he was up on his elbows. “I’m not going to hurt you—you know that.”

  “Either way, you’re not doing me any favors. In the morning, I’m leaving, but not with you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you not understand English? I don’t need your help, if you’re really here to give it.”

  He blinked in disbelief. Shook his head even, as if he wasn’t sure he was hearing correctly, then looked around the small house with its bare walls and lack of windows, plumbing and other niceties. “I know being captured can fuck people up.”

  “You’ve been captured?”

  He didn’t answer and she probably took that as a resounding no.

  “You were saying something about how you think I’m fucked up,” she continued.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you didn’t know me before, so how can you tell if I’m different?”

  Okay, yeah, the woman had a point. But who the hell would want to stay here? “Your parents are—”

  She held up a hand. “Don’t tell me—worried sick?”

  Of course they were. He’d hated going to the house, speaking with them. The police and the FBI had already been there, as had the CIA. But Zane had been the only one whose hope they’d clung to. “They miss you. They want you home.”

  She was shaking her head, her eyes not meeting his, and something was really wrong. He’d rescued many people before and all of them were happy to see him.

  This couldn’t be Stockholm syndrome, since she’d escaped from her captors already. “We’ve been looking for you a long time—since the beginning.”

  “Why?”

  Why? Because he’d heard her yelling and had been helpless to stop her from being taken. “I heard you scream the night you were taken from the house in Minnesota by DMH’s men.”

  She flinched as if he’d slapped her.

  “We didn’t have enough manpower to save you then. I wasn’t at the house, but if I were, I would’ve tried.”

  “You’re absolved of your guilt.”

  “What?”

  “I forgive you.” She dismissed him with a wave of her hand, turned her back and walked through the open doorway to another room in the small house.

  She was packing.

  “You’re coming with me, then?” he called.

  “No, I’m shifting locat
ions so you won’t keep bothering me. Someone will come by and free you when I’m gone,” she assured him.

  He lowered himself back down to the ground, his head throbbing from both the blow and frustration. He hated the idea of rescuing her against her will, but he’d do it. When they got back to the States, a psychologist could help her deal with everything that had happened.

  It wasn’t every day a woman blew up a clinic. God knows what else she’d been made to endure. Everyone had their breaking point. But Olivia didn’t seem broken. No, she seemed … determined.

  And then he stopped thinking and went still, his instincts screaming.

  Someone was outside the house.

  In seconds, he was out of the bonds and moving across the floor slowly, his weapons back in hand from where she’d left them.

  He moved silently into the bedroom, where she was still throwing clothing and supplies into an old bag. Pressed his body to hers and put a hand over her mouth so she wouldn’t scream.

  “It’s just me. Don’t make a sound,” he whispered against her ear and then moved his hand from her mouth. She turned, looked stunned that he was free.

  “Stay here. Don’t move,” he told her. “There’s someone outside.”

  She nodded, fear in her eyes. He moved out the back door and wound around to the front, using the thick brush that surrounded Olivia’s hideaway for cover.

  There were three other houses in front of hers—making it impossible to see from the road. You wouldn’t know her house was even there unless you were told specifically where it was.

  The bushes tangled around his legs, forcing him to move more slowly than normal. His night vision was pretty good, developed from years of missions that forced him to depend on his own senses, rather than equipment that was heavy to carry and could break easily.

  The air carried the scent of aftershave his way. He pulled his knife as he got closer to the spot he’d checked out earlier—the perfect place to watch the comings and going from the small house.

  A man was there, waiting in the dark, watching the house, wearing night vision goggles, and Zane wondered what had taken him so long to get from the other village to here.