The Secret Night

There was no mistaking who she was….

Small and delicate and very beautiful, she was the woman from his dreams.

Her blue gaze was focused on him, full of astonishment and confusion. “It was you,” she whispered. “In my dreams. But how…?”

How indeed? How had they connected in such an intimate way without ever having met? Nick couldn’t focus on that now, not with her in his arms, the feminine scent of her body drawing him to her, as it had in his dreams.

She skittered her fingers across his chest, her touch raising a shiver that raced across his skin. He knew he should put her down, break the contact, yank himself out from under her spell.

That thought confused him. He was the one who wove spells, who bent mortals to his will. But with her in his arms he only reacted.

He wanted more of her. He felt the fang slits at the sides of his mouth throb with need, and he clenched his fists and teeth to keep from doing something he’d regret. But there was another powerful aroma about this woman now—the undeniable, irresistible scent of her blood.

Dear Reader,

I’m delighted to be writing another ECLIPSE book for Harlequin Intrigue. If you know my writing, you know I love the dark and spooky. Nicholas Vickers, the hero of The Secret Night, storms out of the night to hook up with Emma Birmingham, a woman in deep trouble. She’s just escaped from a commune on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Her sister, Margaret, is still there, and her life depends on Emma’s rescuing her.

Emma and Nick are attracted to each other from the first. But can Nick trust her? Or has she been sent by the cult’s sinister leader to trap him? Nick is one of my classic wounded heroes—with an edge that makes him more dangerous than most.

I’ve also brought in some of my favorite characters from previous Light Street books. Chief among them is Alex Shane, who runs the Eastern Shore office of the Light Street Detective Agency.

Next up for me is another paranormal story in an exciting Harlequin Intrigue miniseries called SECURITY BREACH. (Books two and three are by Ann Voss Peterson and Patricia Rosemoor, respectively.) Reality twists and turns, then twists again, in this exciting three-book series. The action begins after an accident in a chemical weapons plant where four men end up with paranormal powers.

Enjoy,

Ruth Glick writing as Rebecca York

The Secret Night
Rebecca York

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Award-winning, bestselling novelist Ruth Glick, who writes as Rebecca York, is the author of close to eighty books, including her popular 43 Light Street series for Harlequin Intrigue. Ruth says she has the best job in the world. Not only does she get paid for telling stories, she’s also the author of twelve cookbooks. Ruth and her husband, Norman, travel frequently, researching locales for her novels and searching out new dishes for her cookbooks.

CAST OF CHARACTERS

Nicholas Vickers—He had secrets to hide.

Emma Birmingham—She was desperate to save her sister’s life.

Damien Caldwell—He used people for his own ends.

Henry Briggs—Damien Caldwell trusted him, but only so far.

Trailblazer—Why was he following Nicholas Vickers?

Margaret Birmingham—She’d gotten into a bad situation, and she couldn’t get herself out.

Butch McCard—He made no secret of his hatred for Nicholas Vickers.

Alex Shane—Could Emma and Nick count on the Light Street detective?

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter One

Nicholas Vickers, private investigator, was as comfortable in a graveyard as he was in his own game room. That the graveyard hadn’t seen a new grave dug in a very long time only enhanced his sense of belonging.

Wrapping the night’s shadows around himself like a cloak, he stood beneath a large maple tree and watched a biker gang enjoying the ambiance of Ten Oaks Cemetery. Their idea of fun did not include showing respect for the dead.

Eight of them had roared up on bikes half an hour ago. The two who’d brought girls with them had made use of the scant privacy afforded by a pair of chipped and listing headstones to satisfy their sexual needs. They were now relaxing with their friends, lounging among the tall grass and weeds.

A scruffy blonde in a leather jacket finished off his beer, tossed the can over his shoulder and opened another. He took a swig just as one of his cohorts leaned over to deliver the punch line of a joke. The blonde laughed uproariously, spraying beer all over the headstone next to the fallen one on which his butt was perched. Another partygoer clambered to his feet and wandered off into the shadows only to return a minute later, zipping his fly.

Nick watched the goings-on with disgust. These animals had no respect for sacred ground. Or any other ground, as far as he could tell.

Over the past several weeks, he’d learned that the repulsive crew had ridden down from Baltimore, about twenty miles north, to enjoy the rural atmosphere of Howard County. School playgrounds, local parks, old cow pastures—they’d put their unique stamp on a number of spots. But Ten Oaks Cemetery seemed to be their favorite. Unfortunately for them.

The small burial ground was a stark contrast to Dayton Acres, a new development of two-story colonials that stood only a cornfield away. Not surprisingly, the owners weren’t eager to share their costly locale with a bunch of crude invaders. They’d complained to the cops, who had come out a few times but, failing to catch the bikers in any illegal acts, had more or less washed their hands of the problem.

Frustrated but determined, the homeowners’ association had taken matters into its own hands and hired Nick.

As Nick watched, two of the big lugs pushed over a gravestone. It fell to the ground with a thud and cracked in half.

“Oops!”

The witticism drew a burst of laughter from the leather-clad crowd.

“Okay, gentlemen, it’s time,” Nick muttered. He was going to enjoy scaring the spit out of these worthless jerks.

He was wearing one of his favorite outfits, a reproduction of an eighteenth-century highwayman’s costume—black shirt, black britches and high black boots. In his machine shop, he’d made two flintlock replicas, except instead of holding a single shot, they each held a sixteen-shot clip filled with blanks. He stuck the weapons into his belt, then donned the other props he’d brought—a hood and vest, both black. The hood was painted like a skull, while the vest was adorned with ribs and vertebrae, all in white fluorescent paint.

He hated to resort to cheap tricks, but he figured it was the fastest, cleanest way to get rid of these brainless slobs. And, really, he couldn’t suppress an evil grin as he imagined his quarries’ reactions to the surprise he had in store for them.

Halloween costume in place, he drew one of the pistols and stepped from under the shadows of the maple. In the next instant, he charged.

Moving with superhuman speed, feet barely touching the ground, he zoomed toward the gang. At the last second, just before reaching the blonde, he veered off, whipping past the little cemetery like a creature who had clawed his way up from one of the graves.

“Wha’ the hell was that?” one of the bikers gasped.

“Dunno,” his companion replied.

Nick changed his angle of attack. Weaving among the headstones, using the moves he’d learned in one of the video games he liked to play, he fired off a couple of blanks. Like a wraith out of “Phantom Combat,” he reached out with his free hand to knock over a couple of the revelers as he sped past.

The two guys cried out as they hit the ground. The women who’d come for fun and games screamed like banshees. Nick let loose with his best Tales from the Crypt cackle, then fired off a couple more shots.

By the time he wheeled around for another pass, the bikers and their lady friends were scrambling for their hogs. Only one of them was dumb enough to stay and challenge the supernatural intruder who had interrupted their party.

Nick recognized the moron as Butch McCard, the unofficial leader of the group. Reaching into his boot, McCard pulled out a small pistol and fired in Nick’s general direction. The bullet took a chunk off the top of a headstone five or six feet away.

“Big mistake,” Nick growled, zooming toward the shooter like a monster escaped from a horror movie, firing blanks from the pistols as he went.

The guy stumbled backward a few paces. “No! Please! Don’t kill me!”

“Be gone!” Nick roared. Suiting action to words, he shoved his pistol into his belt and jammed his hands into McCard’s armpits. Lifting the two-hundred-plus-pound man as if he were a bag of lemons, Nick tossed him so hard that he landed twenty feet away, in the cornfield beside the burial ground.

The jerk lay still for a moment, gasping for breath. Then he scrambled up and dashed toward his bike.

The engine wouldn’t start, and he desperately cranked the ignition, cursing like a sailor. When his bike roared to life, he didn’t even look back as he raced away into the night.

Nick stood at the edge of the cemetery, watching the departing figure and fighting a vague feeling of disappointment. The bikers hadn’t been much of a challenge.

Turning, he surveyed the beer cans and fast-food wrappers littering the ground. Cleanup wasn’t part of his job, but he returned to his hiding place, shucked his skeleton costume and pulled out the plastic garbage bag he’d brought along. He left the trash neatly at the side of the access road. Then, finished with the night’s work, he walked across the field to the car he’d hidden behind a tangle of honeysuckle vines, and headed for home.

He’d purchased the Victorian farmhouse and surrounding twenty-five acres when prices were still reasonable. From the outside, none of the eccentric renovations he’d made showed, changes made to bring the place up to his specifications—along with a few ideas borrowed from Batman.

The garage was underground, the ramp hidden by a door that looked like a wooden retaining wall. Behind the garage were his workshop and laboratory. He’d made certain that the contractor who had done the work would never tell anyone about it.

As far as the interior of the house went, Nick had done most of the work himself, utilizing some of the useful skills he’d acquired over the years. As he walked through the lower level to the restored first floor and looked around, he felt a familiar sense of satisfaction. His home was a showplace decorated with eighteenth-and nineteenth-century antiques. He’d made a satisfying life for himself here, and he intended to hang on to it as long as he could. Which was why he kept to himself. None of his neighbors and only a few of his clients had ever set foot inside the house, and he meant to keep it that way.

And yet…

His gut was telling him that change was coming. It had overtaken him too often in the past for him not to feel the vibrations. He wasn’t ready for it—he never was—but if time had taught him anything, it was that change was inevitable. It would come whether or not he was ready and, good or bad, he would have to face it.

Something else he’d learned—worrying about the future was energy wasted.

Moving quickly, he strode down the hall to his office, where his computer appeared as a strangely modern addition to the Winthrop desk on which it sat. Pulling up his chair, he typed a report on the evening’s activities for the Dayton Acres Community Association, attached a bill and e-mailed it to the organization’s president.

Not that he needed the money. He could have lived very nicely on his investments. But having once “enjoyed” a life of leisure, he knew he’d be bored witless inside a week if he didn’t keep busy.

He checked his e-mail for the next chess move from his opponent in Quito, Ecuador. Juan had moved his knight into a position that would prove vulnerable six moves down the line. In the library he moved the piece to its new position.

Work and play finished for the night, he went downstairs to the basement to set the alarm system—not a conventional alarm but something a lot more creative that he’d invented in his spare time. After crossing the unfinished section of the basement, he stepped through a doorway that led into a completely different environment: his private living quarters, with its comfortable lounge and bedroom, and an admittedly sybaritic bathroom.

Sleep tugged at him. Yet he sat for an hour on the wide leather couch in the lounge, surfing the hundreds of television channels beamed in through his satellite dish. He used all six screens, flicking through multiple images in four languages—English, Spanish, French and Arabic.

He knew why he was avoiding the inevitability of sleep, and in the privacy of his own thoughts, he could acknowledge the cowardice involved. He didn’t want to face the dreams that had been disturbing his slumber for the past few weeks.

Sometimes they were scenes from long ago, scenes that he had struggled to banish from his mind. He saw Jeanette again. He saw himself, bound and helpless. He saw a monster—a monster he recognized—leading Jeanette off to her death.

Then, as his dreaming self watched in confusion, Jeanette was transformed. Her sophisticated French upsweep had become straight, shoulder-length and blond. Her large brown eyes changed to blue, her small rosebud mouth widened into full, sensual lips and her complexion paled.

He was dreaming about another woman. He was certain he’d never met her, yet she returned again and again to haunt his sleep. At first, the dreams had all been nightmares of her death. Lately, though, things had taken a very different turn.

He’d be holding Jeanette in his arms, kissing her, making sweet love to her with all the tender emotions he had felt so long ago. And then, suddenly, it was the other woman he was holding, and all the passion he’d learned to keep tightly in check was unleashed. Their clothing vanished, and they were skin-to-skin close, chest to breasts, legs tangling together amid silky-soft sheets. His mouth devoured hers as he caressed her breast with one hand and, with the other, searched to find the slick heat between her legs. She lay back on the bed and held out her arms, and he came down on top of her…then awoke, blood pounding, breathing ragged, body covered with sweat.

He squeezed his eyes shut, struggling to banish the heated scene from his mind. He didn’t want to dream. Not of the few sweetly tender moments of love he’d shared with Jeanette, nor of her death or the fiend who had caused it. And certainly not of wildly erotic lovemaking with a woman who, if she even existed, he’d never met and could never hope to have.

Finally, when his body dictated that sleep was his only option, Nick wearily undressed and lay down on his bed. His last conscious thought was to hope that the dreams would leave him be.

“DAMIEN WANTS to speak to you.” The message was delivered with a verbal smirk that set Emma Birmingham’s teeth on edge.

Without glancing over her shoulder, she finished tucking in the sheet at the side of her narrow bed, one of eight in the crowded room where she’d been sleeping for the past couple of weeks. Shoulders tensed, she turned inquiringly toward Henry Briggs, the man who had shattered the relative tranquility of her morning—if anyone could be tranquil after so many nights of the same highly erotic but still unnerving dream she’d been having.

“Don’t keep him waiting,” Briggs added in a silky voice that carried more than a hint of warning.

Emma kept her own tone calm. “I’ll be right there. Just let me comb my hair and put on a little lipstick.”

“The Master will like you well enough without the primping.”

She started to offer a stinging retort, then clamped her mouth closed. Briggs was one of the men in Caldwell’s inner circle, and it was dangerous to anger him.

Quickly, before she could get herself into trouble, she grabbed her brown suede purse from the nightstand and slipped into the adjoining communal bathroom. Thankfully, her roommates had already gone to breakfast, so she had the bathroom to herself.

The face that peered back at her from the mirror was taut with anxiety, and Emma struggled to coax a dreamy look into her blue eyes. She’d seen that look often enough among the women, her sister, Margaret, included, who drifted like Stepford wives around the Refuge.

Her own mind was still functioning independently, but the place was getting to her in insidious ways. Not a night went by now that she wasn’t waking from the same shockingly vivid dream. At first, she’d had only nightmares, most of them about her own death—at the hands of Damien Caldwell.

In the past week, though, a new dream had replaced the nightmares. A dream about a darkly handsome man she had never met, yet he knew her, mind, body and soul, as no one else ever had. Her dream lover came to her out of a misty darkness, taking her into his arms, kissing and caressing her and soothing away all her fears—until he vanished, leaving her hot and frustrated.

She dragged in a breath and let it out slowly and evenly, reminding herself why she was staying in this scary little community.

A month ago she’d gotten a letter from her twin sister burbling about how she’d come to the Refuge for a self-actualization seminar and decided to stay. Emma knew it shouldn’t have surprised her. Their own mother had been a dud at raising a family, and Margaret was always searching for a sense of stability, of security, of home. Joanie Patterson had been married four times and had lived with more than a dozen guys. Luckily for her, only one of the marriages had resulted in offspring—twins—so she’d only had two daughters to neglect while she focused on the series of men in her life.

With the uncanny intuitive bond identical twins often shared, Margaret and she had taken turns mothering each other, with Margaret far more likely than Emma to get the laundry done or a hot dinner on the table when Mom failed to show.

The lack of actual parenting had made Emma independent, self-reliant, freewheeling. She’d been in and out of so many brief relationships that Margaret had warned her she’d end up like their mother if she wasn’t careful. The warning had brought her up short, and she’d been cautious—and unsatisfied—ever since.

She and her twin might look alike, but their personalities were very different. In fact, their home life had had just the opposite effect on her sister. Margaret was always solicitous and caring, but introverted and a bit insecure. While Emma had pursued her dream of becoming an artist who created beautiful pieces of silver jewelry, her sister had worked summers and afternoons in the quiet of a health food store and, later, as an accountant. And she had never stopped looking—unsuccessfully—for a father figure in the men she dated.

So at first Emma had been delighted to find out that Margaret was attending a self-actualization seminar in Maryland. It sounded as if her twin was branching out, and her latest enthusiasm wasn’t simply another inappropriate older man.

Yet something about her sister’s letter, saying she was staying indefinitely at the Refuge, had triggered Emma’s “twin intuition.” She had sensed that not all was well with her sister, so she had looked up Damien Caldwell on the Internet.

What she’d learned about him had made her stomach clench, starting with the title he’d made up for himself—the Master. She wanted to know where he had come from and how he’d become so successful so quickly, but there was no information about him prior to two years ago, when he’d bought the Refuge after the millionaire who owned it had died.

Since then, it appeared that Caldwell had run the estate—really, more like an entire enterprise—as a cult or a commune, using his self-help seminars as a lure to rope in converts. Apparently if the people who attended the seminars were susceptible to his…his what? Charisma? Mind control? then he would invite them to stay on.

Unfortunately, Margaret had turned out to be one of them. No surprise, really, given that the Master exuded “paternal” authority.

Worried about her sister, Emma had signed up for Caldwell’s weekend-long seminar. She’d hoped that, face-to-face, Margaret would respond to her, as she always had. But their former connection seemed to be lost, replaced by her twin’s devotion to Caldwell.

Worried sick and unable to abandon her sister, Emma had managed to come across as “worshipful” enough to be asked to stay at the Refuge—at least on a trial basis.

But this was the second time in the past few days that the Master had asked to see her alone. Why?

Did he know that in the middle of the day, when everyone was busy, she’d been sneaking around the mansion, looking through his private papers? Lord, if someone had seen her and told Caldwell, she was a dead woman. And she feared that was no exaggeration. People had disappeared from the Refuge. Usually it happened in the middle of the night, when everyone was sleeping. The next day, it was as if the person had never even existed, as far as the zombies living here were concerned.

Knowing she couldn’t keep Caldwell waiting any longer, she splashed cold water on her face and dried off with a paper towel. Then she hurried down the hall to the stairs.

The Master’s study was at the back of the mansion. As she stood before the closed door, she ordered her heart to stop pounding. It failed to cooperate.

“Come in,” his deep voice called out in response to her knock. “And close the door.”

As she stepped into the room, her gaze focused immediately on the man’s broad shoulders and shaggy dark hair, which he wore at shoulder length. That and his black coat made him look a little like a taller version of Johnny Cash in his prime. But there was nothing folksy about Damien Caldwell. He radiated a malevolent power. At least that was how he came across to her. A lot of other people, including her sister, obviously saw him differently.

He was standing by the French doors, gazing out across the manicured lawn that sloped down to the Miles River, but he turned from the window, fixing her with his penetrating gaze—more intense than the eyes of any other man she had met. She knew many people—both men and women—had lost themselves in their fathomless depths.

To distract herself, she focused on a tree outside the window.

“Thank you for coming, my dear. I know you must be eager to get to breakfast,” he said in the gravelly voice that grated on her nerve endings. His accent was strange—not anything she could identify except to know that it wasn’t American.

“I’m always glad to see you,” she answered.

“But you’re nervous,” he countered.

“Yes. Your personality is so…magnetic. When I’m with you, it’s hard for me to think.”

“Just relax. I wanted to compliment you on your work. How are you getting on with the other silversmiths?” he asked.

“Very well,” she answered, hoping it was true, now that she had tamped down her creative flair for design.

Caldwell had a genius for discovering people’s talents and putting them to work for the good of the commune. Some Refuge residents traveled to Baltimore every day to work in offices and bring their paychecks “home.” Some ran his e-mail-based publications business. Others did publicity for his seminars. Margaret was kept busy doing his bookkeeping. And still other residents, like her, had special talents that Caldwell could exploit.

Emma had learned her craft from Betty Blanchard, a master silversmith in Manitou Springs, Colorado. Two years after starting to work with Betty, she’d begun supporting herself on the sales from her original jewelry, first as an employee, then as a partner. Thank God Betty had been okay with her rushing off to Maryland. She understood the twin thing.

Caldwell moved from his place beside the window, gliding toward her almost as if his feet didn’t need to touch the floor. He stopped directly in front of her.

When he reached out a hand, she looked down at it. To her surprise, his nails were yellow and brittle, with grooves running from the nail beds to the tips. Even though his skin was smooth, those nails made him look a hundred years old.

She stood very still while he stroked her shoulder-length hair, her cheek, the side of her neck, her back.

Closing her eyes, she endured his touch. But when his hand drifted to the top of her breast, she took a quick step away.

“Don’t,” she said softly.

“You don’t enjoy intimacy?”

She had heard the women talking about their sexual experiences with Caldwell and had considered what to say if he put the moves on her. “I’ve had some bad experiences with men. That makes me cautious—even with you.”

He tipped his head to one side, studying her. “Speaking your mind is one of the qualities that makes you stand out.”

“Thank you,” she whispered. “If you meant it as a compliment.”

“I’m thinking about how I mean it,” he said with a chuckle.

But she wasn’t fooled. He truly was weighing her merits, and she was sure her very life hung in the balance.

“You should go on, before you miss breakfast.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, and she exited the room.

She had to get out of here. But how could she leave Margaret at this place?

She couldn’t. Not alone.

It was extremely hard for Emma to admit she needed help. If her mother’s example had taught her anything, it was that the only person she could rely on—besides Margaret—was herself. Now Margaret was lost to her. And every day she spent at the Refuge had driven her closer to the conclusion that this was a situation she couldn’t handle on her own.

So she had come up with Plan B.

The star of the not-fully-formulated plan was a man named Nicholas Vickers. She didn’t know him, but she thought he might help her. During her snooping in Caldwell’s office, she’d found a thick folder on Vickers, containing a lot of notes about his job as a private detective, as well as his personal life.

Reading between the lines, she’d gathered that Vickers and Caldwell were mortal enemies. She didn’t know why, exactly, but she had the feeling the animosity had something to do with a woman. Maybe someone Vickers had loved had come to the Refuge for a weekend seminar and had been brainwashed into staying. Whatever the case, she knew something bad had happened between the two men in the past. And she knew that Caldwell considered Nicholas Vickers a threat. Coming from the Master, that was a powerful endorsement.

She’d begun thinking of Vickers as a possible ally. As her own sense of helplessness had grown, she’d started pinning her hopes on him, praying he could help her get Margaret out of here. Maybe because she was stuck in such an untenable situation, she’d actually started daydreaming about his charging in here on a white horse and sweeping her and Margaret to safety.

Caldwell hadn’t included a picture of the man in his files, but she’d made up a persona for Nicholas Vickers. And she was pretty sure she had started dreaming about him, too. He was totally appealing with his dark good looks, quick mind and muscular body. A dangerous opponent, yet a man with compassion. An expert lover, knowing and strong, able to bring her both intense fulfillment and complete contentment. Not a bad man to have around to help her forget, for a little while, about this horrible place she so desperately needed to escape.

There was a flaw in her scenario, of course. She always awoke from the dreams sweaty, tangled in her sheet and unsatisfied.

And then she’d tell herself sex wasn’t the important issue. The important thing was convincing him to help her rescue Margaret. Was that crazy? Pinning her hopes on a man she didn’t know? Maybe she was just as wacky as everyone else here. She was sane enough, however, to realize that Nicholas Vickers could never live up to her fantasies about him, either as a lover or a rescuer of deluded women like Margaret. But he was the only hope Emma had, so she’d memorized his name, address and phone number.

A man passed her in the hall, giving her a speculative look, and she realized she was standing like a statue in the corridor.

Ducking her head away from him, she hurried to the communal dining room. Relieved to find it almost empty, she grabbed a piece of toast from the buffet—then hurried out to the workshop.