The Case of the Cupid Caper

by Kathi Daley

  A lot had happened since the time Ivana had run away from Henderson, but at this point, both Ivana and her daughter were dead.

  After we discovered the background relating to the woman who seemed to have been connected to whatever was going on with my father, Tony and I widened the parameters of our search. Eventually, Tony received an email containing the name Darwin Norlander. As it turned out, Darwin Norlander had been an associate of Layton Henderson until eight months before the email had been sent, at which time the two had gone their separate ways. We began to suspect that Norlander might have been the man behind Star’s death but needed proof. I supposed, based on the way things worked out, we’d never get that proof, but given the fact that Norlander was looking for my father and would most likely have killed Tony if given the chance, Mike, Tony, and I all felt that Norlander was the killer we’d been looking for.

  Our research eventually led to a showdown at Tony’s home just before Christmas. Norlander had shown up at his house, needing Tony’s help finding my father. I’m sure once Tony did as was asked of him, Norlander planned to kill him, but my dad showed up at the eleventh hour and saved the day. Of course, as soon as Norlander was good and dead, my dad disappeared, and the dreams I’d been having started showing up almost every night. At this point, I didn’t know where my dad was or how his activities from the past might continue to affect us, but based on the dreams that seemed to serve as some sort of a warning, I doubted whatever was destined to happen, had completely played itself out.

  “Can I get you some water?” Tony asked, still holding me tightly.

  I shook my head. “I’ll get it. I think I’m just going to get up.” I glanced at the clock, which read four twenty-two. “I doubt I’ll get back to sleep anyway.”

  “I’ll get up with you,” he offered. “We can curl up on the sofa in front of the fire and wait for the sun to make its way over the horizon.”

  “You don’t have to get up with me. You had a long day yesterday, and we’re going to have a long day today. You’ll be exhausted if you don’t go back to sleep.”

  “I want to get up with you. I’ll make us some coffee, and once we wake up a bit, I’ll rustle up something for breakfast.”

  I appreciated the fact that Tony always got up with me when the nightmare returned, which had been happening more and more frequently as of late. The interruptions to my sleep pattern had been taking a toll on me, and I knew Tony was worried about my overall health.

  “I feel like these dreams have a purpose,” I said to Tony after he handed me a cup of freshly brewed coffee. My cats, Tang and Tinder, curled up on the sofa with Tony and me, while my dog, Tilly, and his dog, Titan, curled up in front of the fire and went back to sleep.

  “What sort of purpose?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I’ve considered the fact that my subconscious mind knows something important that my conscious mind has blocked. I suppose the dreams could be my subconscious needling me to pay attention to something I otherwise might not have.” I took a sip of the coffee before I continued. “Another explanation is that I’ve developed psychic powers in the past few months, and I’m channeling something which has already happened or will happen in the future.”

  “I’m not sure that you’ve developed psychic powers in the past few months, but I do think the whole thing we went through at Christmas with Star and your father might have left a deep impression you haven’t fully dealt with yet. Maybe the dreams are simply your way of figuring everything out.”

  I shrugged. “Perhaps. It does seem like things have grown increasingly complicated since we found the first photo of my father.” I laid my head on Tony’s shoulder. “To be honest, I feel like we’ve only exposed the tip of the iceberg. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s like I know somewhere deep inside that something truly horrific is going to happen, and when it does, I’m going to realize I should have seen it coming. When this horrible thing happens, I’ll realize that if I had seen it coming, I would have been able to stop it from happening.”

  “It sounds like you are taking on a level of responsibility that perhaps is not yours to bear.”

  I turned my head and glanced at Tony. “Isn’t it? I feel like, in some cosmic way, everything that has happened since we found the first photo is my fault. I know that Star hired a detective and went looking for answers to her past independent of my searching for answers to my past, and logically nothing I did or didn’t do would have changed the outcome of that situation. Still, I can’t help but feel at least partially responsible for what happened. I know it isn’t logical to feel this way, but none the less, it’s how I feel.”

  “I can see that you are becoming even more stressed than you were when you first woke from the dream. Maybe we should talk about something else for a while,” Tony suggested.

  “That would be nice, but I’m much too distracted to think about anything else right now. I can’t help but wonder if my dad is still alive. I know he was here in December, and that he was alive and well then, but he had very bad men after him, and we haven’t heard a word from him since. I really thought after everything that happened, we would hear from him. The fact that we haven’t has me terrified.”

  “I’ve heard from him,” Tony said.

  I raised my head off his shoulder. “You’ve heard from him? What do you mean you’ve heard from him? Have you been keeping things from me?”

  He nodded his head slightly. “I wanted to tell you that he’d contacted me, but he asked me not to. He convinced me that telling you would put you in danger.”

  “Telling me what?” I demanded. “I am right here in the middle of this. I have the right to know what is going on.”

  Tony flinched. “I don’t disagree. It’s just that…”

  “Just that what?” I screeched. I supposed that the sleep deprivation I’d been experiencing might have led to a slight overreaction, but my emotions were high and my need to express myself strong. “What possible reason could you have for keeping this from me? You know I’ve been having the nightmares. You know how worried I’ve been.”

  “I do know, which I guess is why I decided to keep things to myself until I could look into them further.”

  “I don’t need you to protect me. I need you to include me. I need you to be honest with me.”

  Tony took a deep breath. He hugged me tighter as if he feared I’d flutter away. “I know. I’m sorry. I should have told you what was going on.”

  “So, tell me now.”

  He let out a long breath and then began to speak in a voice riddled with hesitation. “A few weeks ago, I received an encrypted email from an unknown server to an account I own that is totally secret and has only been used for a single purpose a long time ago. I knew right away that the email had to be from your father since no one else in my life has the skill required to get into this particular account. I responded to the short message, and we began a dialogue, which led to him ask me for a favor.”

  “Favor? What kind of a favor?”

  “He wants me to track down three people, all women.”

  “Women?”

  “Apparently, Star wasn’t the only baby produced by Henderson and his human engineering team back in the nineteen eighties. According to your father, Ivana Kowalski wasn’t the only mother he helped escape.”

  “So, he’s looking for the other children?”

  Tony nodded. “He’s looking for the other mothers who escaped, but most likely the other children as well. Although, these children are no longer children, and are in fact, all over forty by this point. He wants me to track down these individuals and then inform him of their whereabouts.”

  I couldn’t help but frown. “My father seems to be very capable. Why doesn’t he simply track them down himself?”

  “He told me he’s hesitant to search for these women on his own since he is being watched. The last thing he wants to do is inadvertently lead Henderson to these individuals.”

  I sl
owly shook my head. “No. This feels wrong. You haven’t found any of these women have you?”

  “Not yet,” Tony admitted. “Your dad didn’t give me much to go on. In fact, he gave me almost nothing to go on. But I have been doing some digging.”

  “What if the email isn’t from my dad? What if it’s from someone associated with Layton Henderson who wants to harm these individuals and is using you to find them?”

  Tony pulled away just a bit. “I did consider that, but it seemed as if this individual knew things only your dad would know. I really think the emails are from him.”

  “No. He wouldn’t ask for help. My dad never asks for help, even when he clearly needs it. Besides, if the emails really are from my dad, why exclude me?”

  “I told you. He wants to keep you safe. I want to keep you safe.”

  I got up from my place on the sofa and began to pace around the room. “I don’t think that is what’s going on. I think the person behind the emails told you not to involve me because he or she knows that I would know stuff about my dad that you wouldn’t know. Things he should know that I could use as a test to prove his identity.”

  Tony’s brow furrowed in thought. “You think that is what’s going on?”

  I nodded. “I do. Let’s test that theory. Email the person and ask him something only Grant Thomas would know.”

  “Okay. Like what?” Tony asked.

  I paused to consider this. I needed to come up with something that only my dad and I would know. Something even Mike or my mom didn’t know. Something even the best hacker couldn’t find on the web. I also wanted to have Tony ask a question that wouldn’t tip the person on the other end of the emails off that we were onto them. If we could prove the person who approached Tony was not my father, we might still be able to use this contact with this person to gather information for our own use.

  “Email the man and tell him that you are going to send him an encrypted file. Tell him that the password to that file is the name of the sick puppy in the story he made up to help me feel better the summer I got the chickenpox when my mom was out of town visiting her family.”

  “Do you think he would remember a detail like that?” Tony asked.

  “He’ll remember. If he says he doesn’t, then the man you’re corresponding with is not my father, if he says okay, we’ll send him an encrypted file that simply lets him know we decided to conduct our own test. If the person behind the email is my dad, he’ll appreciate that. If it isn’t my dad, at least we’ll know before we provide information to him that we wouldn’t want anyone other than Grant Thomas to have.”

  Books by Kathi Daley

  Come for the murder, stay for the romance

  The Inn at Holiday Bay:

  Boxes in the Basement

  Letters in the Library

  Message in the Mantel

  Answers in the Attic

  Haunting in the Hallway

  Pilgrim in the Parlor

  Note in the Nutcracker

  Blizzard in the Bay

  Proof in the Photo – March 2020

  Gossip in the Garden – May 2020

  A Cat in the Attic Mystery:

  The Curse of Hollister House

  The Mystery Before Christmas

  The Case of the Cupid Caper

  The Secret of Logan Pond – March 2020

  Reunion Trilogy — Island Reunion

  Summerhouse Reunion – April 2020

  Topsail Sunday’s – May 2020

  Campfire Secrets – June 2020

  Zoe Donovan Cozy Mystery:

  Halloween Hijinks

  The Trouble With Turkeys

  Christmas Crazy

  Cupid’s Curse

  Big Bunny Bump-off

  Beach Blanket Barbie

  Maui Madness

  Derby Divas

  Haunted Hamlet

  Turkeys, Tuxes, and Tabbies

  Christmas Cozy

  Alaskan Alliance

  Matrimony Meltdown

  Soul Surrender

  Heavenly Honeymoon

  Hopscotch Homicide

  Ghostly Graveyard

  Santa Sleuth

  Shamrock Shenanigans

  Kitten Kaboodle

  Costume Catastrophe

  Candy Cane Caper

  Holiday Hangover

  Easter Escapade

  Camp Carter

  Trick or Treason

  Reindeer Roundup

  Hippity Hoppity Homicide

  Firework Fiasco

  Henderson House

  Holiday Hostage

  Lunacy Lake

  Celtic Christmas

  Zimmerman Academy The New Normal

  Zimmerman Academy New Beginnings

  Ashton Falls Cozy Cookbook

  Whales and Tails Cozy Mystery:

  Romeow and Juliet

  The Mad Catter

  Grimm’s Furry Tail

  Much Ado About Felines

  Legend of Tabby Hollow

  Cat of Christmas Past

  A Tale of Two Tabbies

  The Great Catsby

  Count Catula

  The Cat of Christmas Present

  A Winter’s Tail

  The Taming of the Tabby

  Frankencat

  The Cat of Christmas Future

  Farewell to Felines

  A Whisker in Time

  The Catsgiving Feast

  A Whale of a Tail

  The Catnap Before Christmas

  A Mew Beginning – Publishing 2020

  A Tess and Tilly Mystery:

  The Christmas Letter

  The Valentine Mystery

  The Mother’s Day Mishap

  The Halloween House

  The Thanksgiving Trip

  The Saint Paddy’s Promise

  The Halloween Haunting

  The Christmas Clause

  The Firework Folly – June 2020

  Rescue Alaska Mystery:

  Finding Justice

  Finding Answers

  Finding Courage

  Finding Christmas

  Finding Shelter – Spring 2020

  The Hathaway Sisters:

  Harper

  Harlow

  Hayden – Publishing 2020

  Writers’ Retreat Mystery:

  First Case

  Second Look

  Third Strike

  Fourth Victim

  Fifth Night

  Sixth Cabin

  Seventh Chapter

  Eighth Witness

  Ninth Grave

  Haunting by the Sea:

  Homecoming by the Sea

  Secrets by the Sea

  Missing by the Sea

  Betrayal by the Sea

  Thanksgiving by the Sea

  Christmas by the Sea

  Tj Jensen Paradise Lake Mystery:

  Pumpkins in Paradise

  Snowmen in Paradise

  Bikinis in Paradise

  Christmas in Paradise

  Puppies in Paradise

  Halloween in Paradise

  Treasure in Paradise

  Fireworks in Paradise

  Beaches in Paradise

  Thanksgiving in Paradise

  Sand and Sea Hawaiian Mystery:

  Murder at Dolphin Bay

  Murder at Sunrise Beach

  Murder at the Witching Hour

  Murder at Christmas

  Murder at Turtle Cove

  Murder at Water’s Edge

  Murder at Midnight

  Murder at Pope Investigations

  Seacliff High Mystery:

  The Secret

  The Curse

  The Relic

  The Conspiracy

  The Grudge

  The Shadow

  The Haunting

  Road to Christmas Romance:

  Road to Christmas Past

  USA Today best-selling author Kathi Daley lives in beautiful Lake Tahoe with her husband Ken. When she isn’t writing, she likes spending time hiking t
he miles of desolate trails surrounding her home. She has authored more than a hundred books in twelve series. Find out more about her books at www.kathidaley.com

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