Midnight Jewels

had a chance to draw the gun.
    Mercy gasped and came back to her senses with a start. She was going to drive herself crazy. Even if Croft did survive to fetch her he would find a crazy woman waiting for him. It was no good. She had to get out.
    Mercy bolted for the door and nearly went sprawling as she stumbled over an object in the darkness. Her scrambling hands encountered a long wooden object and instinctively closed around it. It was a length of wood that was surprisingly round in shape.
    Rising to her feet, Mercy headed once more for the door. She clung to the wooden stick as she let herself outside into the shadows. It wasn't much, but the stick gave her a feeling of being aimed, albeit poorly.
    She felt a little better outside in the open. Lately she seemed to be developing a sizable case of claustrophobia. First it was the fear of being locked in Gladstone's vault, and then those nightmare images of a dead man inside the old cabin a few minutes before. Hanging around Croft was proving uncomfortably stimulating to her imagination. His streak of melodrama was definitely starting to rub off on her.
    Mercy made her way cautiously along the wall of the gutted structure in which she had been hiding, keeping the building between herself and the view of the road. A faint gurgling sound warned her of the small creek a few seconds before she would have stumbled into it. Glancing down she could see the dark swath of water. It would have been bitterly cold. That made her think about Croft running around in the chilled night without his boots.
    Overhead the wind sighed in the treetops, an eerie, desolate sound. She hated that whispering cry, Mercy thought. It was the epitome of loneliness and isolation. Just like Croft. He was out there somewhere, the burden of protecting her and himself resting squarely on his shoulders. She knew instinctively that he was accustomed to facing this kind of dung alone. He probably wouldn't appreciate help from an amateur.
    But he was in a seriously weakened condition. He needed her help. She had as big a stake in me outcome of this night's work as he did. Mercy was convinced now that both she and Croft were fighting for their lives.
    The shot, when it came a moment later, crackled through the night, startling Mercy into realizing just how serious matters had become. She froze, waiting in an agony of suspense for a shout or cry from one of the three men who were hunting each other through the ruins.
    "Over there, damn it. I saw him." The voice belonged to Lance.
    Mercy closed her eyes and silently told Croft that he couldn't be dead. She wouldn't allow it. Then, clutching the stick, she moved away from the shelter of the cabin and edged toward the shadow of the next ruin. More voices drifted toward her. She caught bits and pieces of conversation from Lance and Dallas. The clear night air carried sound very well.
    "What about the woman?"
    "No problem. We'll find her later. Falconer is the one we have to worry about. Are you sure you saw him?" Dallas sounded angry and impatient. He also sounded a little worried. Perhaps this business of hunting ghosts at night wasn't his cup of tea.
    "Something moved."
    "It could have been anything," Dallas muttered.
    "He's not armed. We know that. And he's fighting that stuff I put in me wine. You saw the condition he was in when the woman pulled him out of the pool. He can't last much longer. That stuff should have made him pass-out by now." Dallas sounded as if he were trying to convince himself.
    "Don't bet on it. He should have keeled over in the garden and he didn't. I don't know how he stayed on his feet. I was lucky to get him into the pool. He almost got me, instead. I'm telling you, Dallas, the guy's fast and strong."
    "You should have made sure of that scene in the pool. If you had, we wouldn't be here now. Gladstone's not happy. Stop worrying about how fast the bastard is. With that stuff still in his system Falconer can't be anything but dead slow by now." Lance sounded satisfied with that deduction.
    "I like the sound of that. Dead slow. Yeah, that's what he's gonna he all right. You want to split up or handle this together?"
    "Let's split up. We can cover more ground that way. But pay attention if you use the gun. It's dark and we don't want any mistakes. Make certain you're aiming at Falconer or the woman and not me."
    "Gladstone wants this to look like an accident, remember? We're supposed to dump them both over the edge of a cliff, not put a