Midnight Jewels

glance, just like Gladstone/Graves, himself.
    Gladstone, Croft decided finally, would probably have stuffed Mercy into the vault and locked the door. Mercy wouldn't have a chance of figuring out how to open the trap from the inside.
    Croft turned the logic over in his mind one more time and decided it was sound. The vault was the first place to go looking for his sweet, reckless Mercy. If she wasn't there he would go through the house until he found her.
    He continued to stand among the aspens for a long while, letting dark settle in around him until it dominated everything. The lights blazing on the compound walls were the only bright spot in the enveloping shadows, and as far as Croft was concerned, their glow would prove to be only a futile attempt to hold back the night.
    He could see twin spots of darkness moving about in the compound now. The Dobermans had been released. The dogs were the least of Croft's worries. He understood them and they responded accordingly.
    The easiest way into the compound was over the wall at the back of the house. He would have to avoid the electronic security cameras, but that would be no problem. The discreet monitors were set up to see human beings, not ghosts, he told himself wryly.
    The next step was to get to the helicopter and the one remaining vehicle that stood inside the walls. A few minutes with the machines was all he needed. After that he would enter the house.
    He took a deep breath of the clear, cold air, letting the energy of it sift through his senses. The darkness was a friend and companion. He was a shadow among shadows. He followed paths that could not be seen by others; moved with a silence that could not be detected by others. All this was natural to him. He was a part of it.
    The night was his.

    Inside the vault Mercy fought a silent battle within her mind. She had thought at first she would be able to handle the confined sensation, especially after she managed to find the interior light switch. After the utter darkness, the illumination was a blessed relief.
    But the relief was short-lived. As time passed it became increasingly difficult to block out the closed-in feeling. Mercy found herself prowling the small room the way a zoo animal paced in its cage. The restless movement only seemed to make things worse, yet she could not stay still.
    She studied the locking mechanism for a while, but that was futile and she soon gave up on the project. Croft might have been able to deal with the complicated lock system from the inside, but Mercy was a bookseller, not a locksmith.
    Gladstone had said this room was not a trap for him but that it would be for anyone else. Mercy shuddered.
    When the brief shudder became a more long lasting shivering sensation, Mercy really began to worry about the state of her mind. It was cool in the vault but not cold. There was nothing wrong with the air, she told herself. Eventually she might need a bathroom, but she would deal with that problem when it cropped up. In the meantime, other than being confined she wasn't in any great discomfort.
    The little lecture didn't help very much. Mercy kept prowling her cage and time passed. Isobel appeared once, unlocking the outer door and motioning Mercy silently into the downstairs bathroom. Mercy tried a few sarcastic remarks but her captor ignored them.
    When they returned to the vault Isobel made Mercy stand to one side while Gladstone stepped inside the metal room and quickly removed a number of books from the shelves.
    "I'll take only the most exquisite volumes," he told Isobel. "The rest can be replaced." He left the vault.
    Mercy didn't like the sound of those cryptic words but she didn't say anything. There wasn't anything useful to be said as far as she could see.
    When the door was sealed shut again Mercy's shivering began to occur more frequently and lasted for longer periods. As the time passed, the free-form anxiety that was preying on her mind grew to swamping proportions. The worst part of all this was not knowing where Croft was or what was happening to him. Hours passed. She dozed at one point but awoke with a start to find her anxiety worse than ever.
    She would have given a great deal for even a small measure of Croft's bottomless well of detached calm.
    Throwing herself down into a corner, Mercy hugged her knees and stared straight ahead of her at a shelf of valuable old books. As she had in the helicopter she tried to find an inner point of focus. She needed to get herself