The Long Night Read online

  The Long Night

  Jessica Scott

  Jessica Scott

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  About the Author

  Also by Jessica Scott

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Jessica Scott’s debut suspense is a haunting novel about war and the sacrifices good men must make.

  * * *

  [email protected]

  http://www.jessicascott.net

  Jessica on Twitter

  Jessica on Facebook

  Jessica on Tsu

  Sign up for Jessica's Newsletter

  * * *

  Whatever it takes, just come home to me. Promise me, Sam.

  * * *

  In eight months, Staff Sergeant Sam Brown will become a father. But first, he has to survive his fourth tour in Iraq. On his last night home, he tries to pretend that everything is fine, that the war is fine, that his life is fine.

  * * *

  But as he returns to the war zone, things are anything but fine and the promise he made to his fiancé takes on a desperate edge. As things spiral down, Sam starts to wonder about that promise.

  * * *

  How high is the price he will pay when the long night comes to an end?

  Note – this is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to real people or events is purely coincidence

  1

  Faith was soft against him. He groaned low in his throat and inched closer, pulling her body flush against his. He stroked his hand over her fur, wanting to get clos—

  Fur.

  He opened his eyes as Maggie's tongue scraped over the side of his face. He was snuggled up to the yellow lab in a deeply inappropriate manner.

  "Ugh!" He scrambled back, shoving her out of the bed. She landed with a thud. "Damn it, Maggie!" Her tail thumped on the floor and she twisted her golden head to rest it on the bed and look at him with adoring eyes.

  Never mind that he'd just sexually assaulted his dog.

  "If you ever tell anyone," he muttered. Her tail slapped the floor harder. Clearly, he was already forgiven.

  Sam sat up slowly as the light from the hallway attempted to pierce his retinas. He cradled his head in his hands and waited for the pressure to ease off his stomach. He still wasn't entirely sure he was going to make it through the morning without puking his guts up.

  A quiet knock made him lift his head. Faith stood in the doorway, already dressed and fully functional. She had tied her hair back, away from her face. She looked far too alert and perky for first thing in the morning. "Your mother called," she said.

  Sam closed his eyes again. “What did she want?”

  It wasn't that Faith and his mother didn't get along. It wasn’t that they had a difficult relationship. It wasn’t even that Catherine Brown was the Sainted Mother of all long-suffering parents.

  No, it was much simpler. It was that – according to his mother -- he'd shacked up with the Whore of Babylon and Catherine Brown didn't bother to hide her condemnation of Sam's future wife.

  That was only part of it, though. The rest of it…the rest of it was purely Sam’s fault.

  He groaned and cradled his head in his palm some more. One of his last days in the States, and he was going to spend it refereeing between the woman who'd given life to him and the woman who had chosen to spend her life with him.

  And he was nursing one hell of a hangover. He was not in the mood for this shit. "Why is she calling so early?"

  Faith shifted and smiled from the doorway. "It's almost noon."

  "Oh." He scrubbed his hands over his head. "Guess I don't really have a response to that, then."

  "Not really. Now if you're done molesting the dog, you might want to take a shower."

  Sam scowled as heat crawled up his neck. He looked up at her. "You saw that?"

  "I woke up and you were spooning with Maggie instead of me.” Her lips pressed into a smirk that was just shy of a full-blown laugh. “I'll try to contain my jealousy," she said dryly.

  Sam made a sound and reached down to stroke Maggie's head. She arched her neck to put her head against his palm. Her tongue lolled out of her mouth. "You said you weren't going to tell anyone, mutt."

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  Sam straightened and stepped over the dog. He stopped a foot in front of Faith. "I'd ask for a good morning kiss, but I'm afraid you left a cat in here last night."

  She lifted her hand to cover his mouth. "Yes, a toothbrush would be wonderful first." Her eyes danced and he stole a quick kiss anyway.

  "Thank you for playing nice with my mother. I'll be down in a few." He paused. "Can you bring me up some Motrin?"

  Faith smiled and held out her hand. Four little white pills rested in her palm. Sam swallowed them dry and immediately regretted it. "You're a saint. You know that, right?"

  She patted his shoulder. "Hurry up or I'm not responsible for my actions."

  Sam ducked into the bathroom and turned on the shower. The pipes creaked in the wall, groaning in protest as they forced hot water from the cellar through the aging pipes and into the shower. He stepped into the hot stream, savoring his last hot shower for who knew how long.

  Showers were few and far between on the shitty base he occupied. Oh, they were there and available, but the fungus on the floors was so thick it took a braver man than him to walk into it. It wasn't like anyone was around to complain about his balls smelling like something died in his pants if he went a few days without bathing.

  The Iraqi heat could do that to a guy.

  Well, Lewis complained, but Lewis bitched about everything.

  Even listening to Lewis bitch was better than braving whatever unkillable diseases were growing on the inside of the shower stalls in Iraq. The last time his feet had started itching, he'd lost a toenail and had attempted to kill whatever it was growing between his toes with lighted gasoline. His brigade surgeon had been somewhat less than impressed. But the burned skin had grown back fungus free. A little pain had been worth it.

  Sam soaked his head and tried to stop thinking about Iraq. He had one goddamned day left at home. He didn't want to spend it thinking about the fucking war.

  He was reaching for the faucet when a crash exploded in the bedroom. Maggie's bark was muted by the steam, but it sent his pulse racing. He grabbed a towel and damn near broke his neck slipping on the floor before he caught himself on the porcelain sink. He skidded into the bedroom.

  And froze as Maggie lowered her head and snarled at him. She stood on the bed, the lamp and the alarm clock twisted on the floor. Her hackles were a rigid line down her back, her teeth exposed and wicked.

  She was snarling. Not at the threatening lamp.

  At him.

  His throat closed off. He lifted his hand, palm out.

  "Maggie?" He'd been the one who'd brought her home to Faith when she'd been a puppy.

  She lowered her head and took a single menacing step closer. One paw hung in the air as she hesitated, ready to strike.

  Sam's breath was stuck, his lungs refusing to work as all t
he blood in his body pushed to his limbs.

  He reached for his weapon.

  It wasn’t there. It was a half a world away, in a weapon’s rack in his company arms room.

  He was unarmed.

  “Fuck me,” he muttered. The emergency room hadn’t been on his to do list for his last day home, that was for damn sure.

  She took another step toward him, a low and threatening growl rumbling deep in her body. Her hackles were spikes of anger along her spine.

  Footsteps pounded on the stairs.

  Faith stopped in the doorway. Maggie's intense stare didn't waver from his. "Sam?"

  "Stay away, Faith." He ignored her, focusing entirely on the dog’s twisted muzzle and deep black eyes that had looked at him with love only a moment before. "Maggie. Maggie, listen to me. It's just me, Mags." He held up his hands, hoping the towel stayed in place. He wasn’t so scared that the idea of his dog biting his dick off wasn’t a pressing concern.

  Her throat rumbled, deep and savage.

  He was ninety percent sure he was about to have his throat ripped out by his own dog.

  "Maggie!" Faith's voice snapped from the doorway.

  Maggie paused. Her tail dropped, her hackles lowered and she fell into a crouch, before rolling over onto her back, exposing her belly. Her tail fluttered in apology.

  Just like that Maggie was back.

  Sam looked up at Faith, fear rolling back in waves like a receding tide. "What the hell was that?"

  Faith's skin was parchment white. "I don't know. She's done that a couple times to people."

  "Do you think she's sick?"

  "I took her to Doc McLauren's. She couldn't find anything wrong with her."

  Maggie's tail thumped on the quilt that Faith had bought from the church sale a few summers ago. Thump. Thump. Sam gripped the towel and crouched down, ashamed to see his hand tremble as he reached for her. She rolled further onto her back and showed her belly, no trace of the snapping, snarling menace who'd just threatened him.

  "Okay, Mags," he whispered, patting her belly. Her fur there was soft and thin. Her paws twitched and her tail wiggled as he rubbed her. She groaned and wriggled happily. "Okay." He lifted his gaze to Faith. "Well, that was exciting."

  "Heh. Not so much." She picked up the lamp and set it back on the table. "That was really strange." She bent back down, lifting a small pendant from beneath the bed. “Your mother gave me this for you. Glad I found it.” Faith looked up at him. “I don’t think she’d believe me if I told her the dog knocked it off the table.”

  “What is it?” Sam was willing to bet dollars to donuts it was something religious that she’d picked up on the Home Shopping Network or whatever it was that fleeced old ladies out of their retirement money. He hesitated then retreated. His mother’s religion wasn’t his.

  It couldn’t be. Not any more.

  There was no God to forgive the things he’d done.

  “Just tell her you gave it to me and throw it away.” He turned his back on her extended hand. He couldn’t take it from her.

  If there was a God, he’d be more likely to get struck by lightning than have his soul saved.

  "Something must have spooked her.” It was easier to talk about the dog and her potential schizophrenia. “She's fine now."

  "You think she had a nightmare?"

  Sam shrugged. "Not sure. Not outside the realm of possible," he said. "I suppose my parents would now be convinced she's possessed."

  Faith smiled and tucked an errant blond hair behind one ear. "No, only your mother. Hurry up and get dressed before I molest you." She crossed the small space between them. "You're not allowed to stand there all wet and sexy and not expect me to get turned on."

  "You've been awfully needy of my cock lately," he said with a smile, hooking his index finger in the waist of her jeans and tugging her closer.

  "I'm blaming the pregnancy hormones." She slid her arms around his neck and pressed her body close to his.

  "You're so much sexier than the dog." He covered her laugh with a kiss, wishing like hell that he wasn’t going back to Iraq so soon.

  It was Faith who broke the kiss. "Seeing how you get to leave for Iraq tomorrow and I'm left dealing with your mother, please come downstairs and make arrangements for tomorrow. For me?"

  "Of course. But we'll finish this later, or I am not responsible for my actions."

  Faith left him alone with the dog. Maggie had jumped off his bed and now laid on her dog bed in the corner, her head down, her eyes calm and brown.

  Sam pulled on a pair of pants, occasionally glancing over at her. She was asleep. But he couldn't shake the feeling that she was somehow watching him.

  2

  "When do you go back?" Tommy held a Sam Adams in one hand, a Marlboro unfiltered in the other. Sam couldn't believe Tommy still smoked those. Sam had given them up when he'd discovered how hard they were to find in the post exchange. They were even harder to find in the desert. But Tommy had spent his life in the tiny Maine town where they'd grown up and Sam…well. Sam had run off and joined the Army at the precious age of seventeen. Tommy worked at the mill and bitched about the jobs drying up.

  And Sam? Sam held his breath during thunderstorms and waited for the boom.

  When the rain came on suddenly, like buckets of nails being dumped over a thin tin roof, Sam paused. And waited. The lights in the shitty hole-in-the-wall bar flickered and threatened to quit.

  Sam tensed and waited for the explosion that followed the burst. It always came. He held his breath. When the boom came, distant and feeble, he took no comfort from its weakness.

  Real explosions came with a concussion wave. And sometimes with shrapnel.

  He tried to relax and have a drink like everyone else in the Elks’ Lodge. The wood paneling glistened with years of spilled grease and cigarette smoke. The giant moose still hung in its traditional home next to the big screen TV, which was currently blaring a Patriots game. The Patriots were losing.

  Sam couldn't summon the energy to care. It felt like he was the only thing that had changed in the Elks' Lodge in ten years. He glanced at Tommy, whose mouth moved without words. Tommy was fatter than when they were kids, his face rounder, his nose red from too many Maine winters and too much coffee brandy.

  Sam was leaner and stronger than when he'd lived here, his face marked with a permanent tan line around his eyes. He figured it would fade at some point. After the wars stopped.

  If they ever did.

  Sam gave himself a mental shake, pushing the war away. For a few more hours at least. Tommy's voice and the buzzing noise of the bar rushed back, like the pounding of rapids over the falls.

  "Tomorrow night," Sam said, to Tommy's repeated question. The entire time Sam had been humping the streets in Baghdad, he'd thought about home. Now that he was here, all he could think about was being back over there.

  Home…wasn't, anymore. Except when he was around Faith. When he was with her, everything felt better. Not right—no, Sam didn't think he'd ever feel right again. But he definitely felt less wrong around her.

  He didn't say those words out loud. Tommy would mention it to his mother, and then his mother would worry and try to take Sam to church. His father would tell him to toughen up.

  And Faith? Faith would flitter and try to fix things that weren't broken. Things that weren't her responsibility to fix.

  Things that she would be better off not knowing. Just like his mother.

  He supposed he should keep that similarity between the two women in his life to himself. Neither would appreciate the comparison.

  So he kept his thoughts to himself and pasted on a smile. It felt fake, but Tommy didn't seem to notice.

  Sam took another pull off his Coors.

  "That must be a bitch of a flight," Tommy said. He motioned toward the bartender, Curtis Lethe. They’d gone to high school with him, but neither had spoken to him the entire four years. Curtis was still the same dark, gothic, angry guy Sam remembered, exc
ept now that seemed to make him popular with the ladies. He'd graduated from a single piercing made by a needle sanitized with a lighter to a gauge in both ears and colorful South American gods tattooed over each forearm.

  "Yeah, it sucks."

  Tommy lined up four shots of tequila on the bar. A fifth had an ominous-looking worm hanging out at the bottom.

  Sam grinned. "Some things never change," he muttered.

  The first time they'd ever tried tequila, Tommy had explained that—according to his uncle who was an expert on all things involving alcohol—it was mescal with the worm and not tequila. Sam hadn't cared then and didn't care now, but Tommy had insisted it mattered.

  He grabbed his first shot and tipped it back. The mescal burned all the way down and got stuck halfway between his mouth and his stomach. He hurked and almost puked it up but managed, through the desire not to be fucked with for his last few hours in the States, to keep it down.

  Tommy laughed at him as he tipped his second shot and swallowed it like a smooth cube of Jell-O.

  "Fuck," Sam muttered. That last shot with the fucking worm was going to put him under. Faith was going to be pissed.

  But the worm went down smooth and easy. Easier than Sam had figured it would. Now if it would just stay down. He wasn't in the mood to listen to Tommy fuck with him if he puked.

  ’Course, in 24 hours, puking would be the least of his worries. Getting blown up in the middle of the Surge was a much more relevant fear. With luck, the mother of all hangovers would make sleeping on the plane a no-brainer. The ride to Bangor was going to be lovely in a few more hours.

  "So." Tommy cleared his throat. "Tell Faith thanks for letting you out to hang with your old high school buddy."

  Sam ran his hand over his too-long brown hair. He needed a haircut before he went back. He'd probably take care of that in Kuwait. Guaranteed that plan was going to get him ripped apart by the first sergeant major he ran into on his way to the barbershop. Maybe he'd get Faith to buzz him up before he left. There was that same familiar warmth every time he thought of Faith.