The Ghost of Blackwood Lane Read online

  And it had been an unfortunate set of circumstances that had led up to that particular evening. The wedding had been fine, a glittering affair marred only by the protestations of her parents and their pointedly obvious absence from the ceremony. But Vincent’s brother had chosen their wedding reception to break the news to his younger brother that he would have to leave the family organization and strike out on his own.

  It had been a blow to Vincent, Judy knew, and hearing it at the reception had meant that he had been unable to react how he would have preferred. His smile had been forced the rest of the evening.

  She found out what had happened when they got into the limousine.

  All her life, she’d looked forward to this evening. But instead of a wedding night for a happy couple, they were mired in a heated discussion about Vincent and his family. She didn’t feel like talking about it, but Vincent was upset, so she’d tried to understand.

  Tony had made it very clear: the Luciano family was going legit and Vincent was out on his ear. He’d talked to some of the guys at the wedding reception after he’d gotten the news, and they’d agreed to join him in setting up a smaller organization.

  His eyes had darted angrily as he’d told her these things, and she’d listened, but inside all she wanted was for him to put this family business aside for the evening and enjoy their new life together.

  On their wedding night, she didn’t have the opportunity to give him the gift that she had so carefully preserved for so long. He simply took it, like a pillaging conqueror.

  He was rough and angry and distracted by the events of the evening. His immediate pleasure was all that mattered. She glimpsed in his dark eyes as he moved roughly over her the beginnings of her new life. He seemed to hardly notice her weeping.

  And after it was all over, as he lay next to her, sleeping contentedly, she pulled the sheets tight around her, feeling violated and humiliated, crying softly to herself.

  Rape. That was the only word she could think of to describe what had just happened to her.

  Lying there in that spacious bed in the honeymoon suite at the Adams Mark hotel, with its breathtaking view of the Mississippi River and downtown St. Louis, Judy Luciano began to wonder, for the first time, if she had made a terrible mistake.

  She’d started to sob. The tears came and there was nothing she could do to stop them. Moments later he stirred, and the words he said to her were like a slap in the face, almost as brutal as what he had done before.

  “Shut up, bitch,” he’d said.

  I should’ve gotten up and run out right then, Judy thought as she stood on her porch and watched the sun sink below the horizon. The Gateway Arch was visible just to the left of the setting sun, its graceful curve now dark in the shadow of the red sun.

  Judy went back inside and took the soup off the stove, checking to make sure it had thickened up before putting the lid on snugly. She would have some now and put the rest in the fridge, and when he got home she’d warm some up for him. It was her favorite, chicken and dumplings.

  She poured herself a bowl of the soup and some of the peas she’d boiled and carried a tray back out onto the porch. The sky was ablaze with colors as the sun slipped out of the sky, and wide orange streaks painted the sky and the clouds above her with the palate of the gods.

  Her parents had told her not to get married so early, especially to someone like Vincent, but she hadn’t listened. So they had refused to come to the wedding, and her attempts to contact them over the years had been rudely rebuffed.

  Then she’d gotten the letter from San Antonio, Texas, and her last avenue of escape had been ripped away. The letter from her parents’ attorney, dated four years ago, stated coldly that her parents had been killed in a car accident, and that a sizeable amount of money was hers to be claimed. At the bottom of the letter was the name and address of the lawyer that she needed to contact.

  They hadn’t approved of her wedding and had refused to listen to her complain about the marriage, but it seemed that after they had moved away they changed their minds and decided to look out for her in their own way. If only they had come to her and offered their help.

  Now she was on her own. Chris was gone, her parents were dead, and no one in this town dared to help her.

  Chapter 7

  It seemed like Gary was asleep for only a minute before the dream was upon him again.

  The darkness of the room, the feeling of dread, they all returned, but this time the dream felt deeper, more real. He noticed more, saw more, felt more.

  Gary was in the strange bed as always, the sheets pulled up around his strangely skinny body. Again, the pounding began on the heavy wooden door—incessant, echoing, the wood sounding like it would give at any moment. With each pound of the man’s fist, the door threatened to break. The wood wasn’t thick enough to keep him out. After moments the wood buckled and shattered inward, pieces of the door flying past him as he cowered in the bed, waiting.

  The man came into the room slowly, dragging one leg painfully. He was outlined in the hazy light from the room beyond, and then, for the first time he could recall, Gary heard himself speaking. The words came high and fast—and they were spoken by a woman.

  “Please. Please, don’t hurt me again, please? I’m sorry about the accident! It wasn’t supposed to be like that. No....”

  The words sounded odd coming from his lips. And the voice sounded familiar—or did it?

  He wished he could say something else—he would have yelled at the man, or jumped out of bed and tried to run away.

  Anything but just stay there, begging. And waiting for the knife to come at him, sharp and angry.

  But the woman was in charge, and all she did was scream. Gary wished he could somehow turn to her inside the mind they seemed to share to warn her about what was coming.

  And then the man spoke, his mouth bleeding, his eyes red, his anger palpable. “Shut up, you whore. You could have killed me with that stunt. I’ll make you shut up....”

  Gary could tell the guy wasn’t listening to her pleas. And somehow, inside the dream, he knew that this was the clearest look he’d gotten of the man—even asleep, Gary realized that every other time he’d had the dream, he had awakened before this point.

  The knife whispered into view as the man’s arm came around. His left arm and hand were wrapped in something. One of his legs looked pretty messed up, but the man didn’t seem to notice it—he was powered by anger and adrenaline. The man looked down at her and Gary, cowering in the bed, and smiled.

  The knife danced in the man’s crazed hand.

  “And now, bitch, you die,” he croaked, the words full of menace.

  Gary tried to put his hands up, but they wouldn’t move. The knife curved toward his face, and just before the knife was to strike, he heard something shouted inside his mind.

  Gary knew immediately that the woman had not yelled it—he had heard what the woman was thinking in her final moment. “Their” lips had not moved, but the words were clear in his mind. They were the last thing he heard before the dream ended as abruptly as a car wreck on a dark country road.

  “Oh, God, Chris, help me!”

  Gary sat up, fully awake.

  The headache was on him like an angry surf, crashing over him, pulling him down. He got up and went to the open window, leaning his head down against the sill like he’d just run a marathon.

  This time it had been different—he had realized that he was somehow inside the body of someone else, some woman, and the man was talking to her, not Gary. The man with the knife had called the woman a whore before, and tonight he had called her a bitch. But the knife was the same, sharp and shiny with reflected light from the doorway behind him.

  And that last word before the dream had ended—the woman had called out a name in her mind. That hadn’t happened before.

  And then the man’s face clicked in his mind.

  It lasted just a second, the sudden recognition. The face, the hard line of the ma
n’s jaw, the way the hair had receded back from the forehead in a way that made the man’s eyebrows look ominous and scary. There was something he’d glimpsed in those bloodied features that reminded Gary of someone, some face he’d seen before.

  Gary sat back down on his bed, the windows open, and thought back.

  They say that the brain works in crazy ways. And the dreams we have use images and people from our past—could this guy be someone he knew?

  And then something clicked into place—he could almost hear it. The man was someone from his past.

  The headache surged, cresting like a wave on the ocean. He sat down hard on the bed, reaching for the bottle of Advil on his side table. He popped some in his mouth, neglecting to count them. He’d stopped counting them a while ago—now he just went by the size of the pile in his palm. He swallowed them dry and tried to sleep.

  Chapter 8

  Vincent could see that his brother, Tony Luciano, wasn’t having a very good Wednesday.

  Vincent sat in one of the comfortable chairs at the massive wooden conference room table, watching his brother run the meeting. Vincent was trying to not shake his head in disappointment. His brother just didn’t have a backbone—no wonder his “business” was going into the toilet.

  This meeting and the one that had come just before it hadn’t been good, and Vincent could sense the storm of problems that had been born. Tony would have to deal with all of those issues before Vincent and he could even get started on all the other things they needed to get done today. But it was still a very big day for their family—it felt like things were finally coming to a head, after weeks and weeks of talking. This meeting would resolve at least some of their problems.

  One way or another.

  “And lastly, we have those truckers up in Champaign–Urbana that aren’t working with our union. Those men will have to be dealt with, because if we don’t, the other trucking companies in the area will be able to undercut our prices and service levels. Someone needs to talk to them about things,” Jack Fremonti said, sitting back from the conference table. “That’s all I’ve got.”

  There was a smattering of polite laughter from the other men arrayed around the polished oak table—Jack Fremonti, the director of operations, had been speaking for over twenty minutes straight.

  Vincent figured it was always like this—Jack looked like the kind of guy that once he got started talking, it would be exceedingly hard to shut up.

  And Tony had never cut him off.

  What was wrong with him?

  All these stupid men quibbling about their little problems, talking and talking about how they were going to solve them.

  Vincent knew that none of the people at this table, least of all his brother, knew the first thing about really solving problems. If there was anyone at this table that could fix problems, and fix them for good, it was Vincent.

  While these people had been playing around for the past ten years, he’d really been out there, running an organization, making money, getting things done.

  Sure, he’d run into trouble here and there, especially with the East St. Louis gang called the “Red Dogs,” but he had dealt with them as best as he could.

  Vincent thought this meeting was a huge waste of time. Tony’s methods clashed horridly with Vincent’s gut impression—he understood that Tony had tried to take the family legit, but it hadn’t worked, and now he had to sit here and listen to these men drone on and on about nothing.

  Things had changed so much in the thirty years since he and Tony had sat and listened to their grandmother talk about the old days in New York City. Had all her words been lost on his older brother?

  Tony Luciano nodded at Jack Fremonti. “Okay. The St. Louis Beverage Company problem is being looked into. Louisville is fine—I just talked to them this morning, and they’re informed of my concerns. Louisville will be an important market for us, and we need to grow them right, from the start, if they’re going to make the kind of money I think they’re capable of. And it might be a good idea for some of us to go down there next month and make an appearance, just to show them how it’s done.”

  Some of the other men glanced at each other curiously. Vincent looked up at his brother, interested for the first time during the entire meeting.

  Tony looked around at the six other men around the table, his eyes stopping on Vincent for a moment, as if drawing strength and resolve from him.

  Vincent glanced around the table and saw the six other men dressed exactly as his brother was, all decked out in expensive, conservative business suits, each wearing a muted tie that drew no attention to itself. None of them was wearing jewelry; none was dressed in a way that set them apart from ordinary businessmen—none of them even smoked. Smoking was illegal in the entire office building where they had their offices, for Christ’s sake! No stogies, no guns, no lackeys or women to run and get them drinks or take notes, nothing but legitimate business.

  His father wouldn’t have recognized this meeting for what it was supposed to be—even if he were still alive to stroll in here and observe.

  And right now, there was nothing Vincent needed more than a smoky room filled with fighters and scrappers, working hard in whatever way they could to grow their business. He had never seen that kind of fight in his brother, so it made sense that no one in his organization would either. But somewhere along the line, Tony had realized that he’d taken the family down the wrong road.

  He’d tried to save the family from itself after his father went to jail—at least, that’s what he’d told Vincent not too many weeks ago. Tony also said he’d almost destroyed it in the process.

  No, this wasn’t a meeting of powerful men—this was like an undertakers’ convention or some corporate meeting in downtown St. Louis. There was no way that any of these men could project the kind of respect they deserved. This family was dying out, victim of a hostile corporate takeover from a bunch of suits and a bunch of ideas that would have served the Disney corporation well. A powerful organization, turned into a boring and toothless corporation.

  Vincent Luciano hated it.

  He hated even sitting at a table with these men. But after many, many months of talks with his brother, it sounded like things were about to change.

  Tony continued, still looking at his brother and avoiding the eyes of everyone else in the room. “As for the St. Louis Beverage Company, their trucks and transportation equipment are privately owned and operated out of garage in Lynwood, Missouri. It’s time to play hardball with them. A couple of truck fires, or maybe a fire at the garage itself, and they’ll come around.”

  Silence around the table.

  It was as if Tony had stood up and said that he had recently engaged in sexual congress with all of these men’s wives at the same time during an amazing weekend in Cancun.

  The silence was so thick that Vincent almost laughed. He’d expected some type of reaction to his brother’s words, but this was what he had feared the most. There were no shouts, no anger, no one raising their voices or arguing with Tony.

  These men had done business in such a civilized manner for so long, they couldn’t even imagine infighting. Vincent’s grandmother had warned them about betrayals and double-crosses; she’d cautioned the young boys about the inherent problems that came with any familial, patriarchal organization. Always keep one eye on the men around them, she’d said.

  On the “good” side, there was not enough fire in the bellies of any of these men to challenge Tony for leadership of the organization—but Vincent would have to keep an eye on that, if things changed the way he wanted them to. If something happened to Tony, control of the family would fall to him.

  It had been decided a long time ago, not long after his father had gone to jail, that there would be no more strong-arm tactics and no more of the behavior that had, for so long, typified the way his family had done business. Tony had led the change, taking the family in a new direction. Vincent had argued against it, too loudly and for too lo
ng, and it had gotten him kicked out.

  Many years had passed without any words between the two brothers, and so the recent spate of invitations to lunches and dinners from his older brother had surprised Vincent. At first it had been about getting to know each other again, but inevitably the talk had turned to the family business. Vincent had fibbed, but only a little, saying things were going well, and that was when Tony first spoke about the problems he was having with the organization.

  For all intents and purposes, the American Mafia was dead, as far as anyone could tell. Gotti had finally fallen in 1992, and with him the inestimable power of the East Coast and New York Mafia. It had been coming for years. The FBI and the New York City prosecutor’s office, especially Rudy Giuliani, had swept in with too much money and too many sweetheart immunity deals. Too many “made” guys and people with damaging information had rolled over and testified and then disappeared to Idaho or somewhere else in the Witness Protection Program. The Mob’s connections inside the New York City government and the federal government evaporated, and with them, the wealth of information the various families had used for decades to stay ahead of the authorities. Now, the golden years were gone. The current thinking was that the New York Mob was dead, or at least lying very low for a few years, watching and waiting.

  But that didn’t mean the entire Mob was dead. There were splinter groups and cells of activity all across the country, and sometime in the late ’80s and early ’90s, most of those groups had done exactly what the Luciano family had done here in St. Louis—gone legit. Now, all or most of their activities were completely legal, and even those that were illegal were so carefully concealed that only a few people inside each organization knew about them.