Cancelled Vows

by Lauren Carr

  As soon as she closed the door, Yvonne wrapped her arms around David’s shoulders and pressed her lips to his.

  Enjoying the feel of her body in his arms, David welcomed the kiss—until he remembered why he was there. Peeling her arms from his shoulders, David clutched her hands in both of his. “I can’t do this.”

  “That was one area where we never had any disagreement,” she said breathily. She reached up to stroke his face. “I’ve missed you so much, David. Those weekend get-togethers at Quantico–”

  Her alluring scent, which was not unlike that of the sea, was evaporating his resolve. Stepping away, he went to the window to take in the view and clear his head. “I’m getting married this weekend … to Chelsea.”

  Folding her arms across her chest, she narrowed her eyes and glared at his back. “Then what are you doing here?”

  “Taking care of some unfinished business.”

  “David, we haven’t seen each other in a year.”

  “We’re married.” David waited for her response. Hearing nothing, he turned back to her and saw her staring at him with wide eyes.

  Her mouth hung open. Finally, she said, “Cute, David. Really cute.”

  David removed the papers that Mac’s lawyer, Ed Willingham, had sent to their hotel that morning from his jacket pocket. “It’s true, Yvonne. I found out yesterday when Chelsea and I went to get our marriage license. They refused because I was already married to you.”

  She moved to take the papers from him. “Seriously? When did that happen? How did we not know?”

  “Las Vegas, four years ago,” David said. “Remember the drive-through? We got the value pack.”

  “The place with the lukewarm cheeseburgers and wimpy fries?”

  “That’s the place,” David said. “Seems their meal deal included bonus nuptials.”

  A sensuous grin came to her lips. She placed her hand on his chest. “I vaguely remember the drive-through, but my memory of later … at the hotel … in the heart-shaped tub …” She slid her hand down his chest to his stomach.

  Before she could reach his belt, David pulled back. “I need you to sign these papers, Yvonne.” Taking them from her, he leafed through to the last page, where Willingham had marked the signature line with an X. David had already signed on the line across from it. “Mac’s lawyer drew these up. All you have to do is sign them, and Mac and I will take these papers over to the courthouse, and our marriage will be dissolved.” He thrust the papers toward her.

  Instead of taking the papers, she gazed at him with wide eyes.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Mac dropped the leash to allow the dog to run over to the corner, where he sat down and stared imploringly at the wall. Mac rose to his feet.

  “No offense, sir,” Ali said, “but looks to me like keeping him in line is ’bout as easy as puttin’ socks on a rooster.”

  Searching his mind, Mac recalled the last time Gnarly had behaved in this manner—that is, the last time he’d refused to be deterred by something that only his hypersensitive senses could detect.

  “If I recall the details correctly …” Mac said. “Yvonne Harding interviewed Audra Walker for Crime Watch in this studio.”

  “The interview was for her new book that had just been released—the one ’bout the death of Jolene Fitzgerald. She was a sex symbol in the eighties who was rumored to be having an affair with Senator Brennan, who was fixin’ to run for president. Audra Walker found proof that he’d had Jolene Fitzgerald killed because she was going to go public ’bout their affair. Of course, he still failed to make it to the White House and died of cancer about fifteen years ago. His son, who took over his father’s senatorial slot, was all worked up ’bout Walker’s book.”

  Mac moved the table out of the way and searched the floor underneath for any treats that may have captured Gnarly’s attention. There was nothing on the floor, except an empty mousetrap.

  As soon as the table was out of the way, Gnarly parked in front of the wall and whined mournfully. Kneeling next to Gnarly, who turned to gaze pleadingly at him, Mac asked, “After the interview with Yvonne, didn’t Audra Walker go back to her hotel?”

  “Four Seasons,” Ali said. “She and her assistant. As soon as they got back to their suite, Audra Walker went to work on her next book. She was working away like a hound during flea season when her assistant went to bed.”

  “What book was she working on?”

  “Oh,” Ali shrugged. “It was just something that she’d been working on off and on for years, sir. During the night, Audra left the hotel and was never seen or heard from again.”

  “But they found the cabdriver whose taxi she got in after leaving the hotel.” Standing up, Mac pressed his hands against the wall.

  “He dropped her off—”

  “Here in midtown,” he said. “Didn’t I see a couple of years ago that many of ZNC’s shows were getting new sets and that ZNC got a new studio? These floors were being renovated.”

  “Less ’n two years ago, sir.” Her voice, breathless with excitement, sounded even sultrier. She hurried out from behind her desk. “What’re ya thinkin’?”

  Mac was tapping the wall with his ear pressed against it. “The last time Gnarly behaved like this, we found a dead body.”

  “Whatta ya mean?”

  Mac rapped his knuckles against the wall up and down. “There’s something behind this drywall.”

  Agitated, Gnarly began clawing at the wall.

  “Do you have something I could use to make a small hole in it?” Mac asked her.

  “How ’bout a sledgehammer?”

  Before Mac could answer, she yanked open the bottom drawer of the file cabinet behind her desk and hurried over to him with a small sledgehammer. “Why do you have a sledgehammer in your desk drawer?”

  “Contrary to what experts may tell you,” she said, “when it comes to makin’ an impression, size does matter.”

  “I’m afraid to ask what you’re talking about.”

  Sensing that things were about to happen, Gnarly stood up and barked at them.

  “You’d better not be lying,” Mac told Gnarly before swinging the hammer at the wall.

  “David, I haven’t seen you in a year,” Yvonne said. “Now suddenly you show up here at my office, telling me that you and I have been married for the last four years, and you want a divorce.”

  “That about covers it.” David held the papers out to her.

  She refused to touch them. “Are you happy with Chelsea?”

  “If I wasn’t happy with her, I wouldn’t be marrying her.”

  “If you were happy with her, you wouldn’t have slept with Katrina,” Yvonne shot back.

  “Now that’s a low blow, and you know it,” David replied. “We were kids back then. I was a fool.”

  “You weren’t a foolish kid when we were together a few years ago,” Yvonne said. “When we got married.”

  “No, then I was drunk.”

  She brushed his cheek with her hand. “Remember all the good times we had together?” She added in a whisper, “We were so happy.”

  “If we were so happy, why did you leave me as soon as you got the offer to come to New York?”

  “Did it ever occur to you to ask me to stay?” she replied.

  David stared back at her.

  “I didn’t think so,” she said.

  As soon as the sledgehammer hit the wall, sending drywall dust scattering, Gnarly plunged through the opening and clawed through the mess. Spying plastic, Mac reached inside to yank away hunks of drywall.

  “What’s going on here?” a booming voice demanded.

  Whirling around, Mac saw a tall white-haired man wearing a black suit and a red tie charging across the office toward him like he meant business.

  Ali stopped him by putting her hand on his chest. “There’s som
ethin’ behind this wall, Mr. Wiehl.”

  Pam Wiehl was directly behind him. “There’s nothing behind that wall except electrical wires and—”

  “Who is this guy?” Jim Wiehl asked. “What’s that dog doing here?”

  “He’s Mac Faraday, dear,” Pam explained. “The detective I was telling you about. He’s famous.”

  “I don’t care how famous he is. He has no right tearing up our walls?” Turning back to Mac, who was yanking out clump after clump of drywall, he said, “I’m Jim Wiehl, an executive producer with ZNC, and I’m ordering you to—”

  “What’s going on?” Yvonne threw open her office door to learn the cause of the yelling. Upon seeing the sledgehammer, she asked, “Mac, what are you doing?”

  “Ali, call the police,” Jim Wiehl said.

  “You’d better do what he says,” Mac told Ali.

  “Gnarly was chewin’ his bit like there was no tomorrow, I swear,” Ali argued. “He smelled somethin’ inside that wall.”

  “Maybe that’s because the dog is nuts,” Jim countered.

  “Gnarly is a lot of things,” David said while moving in closer to peer inside the hole Mac was creating. “But nuts isn’t one of them.” He whispered to Mac, “What did Yvonne’s assistant just tell him?”

  “Gnarly was upset because he smelled something behind this wall, and she’ll swear to it.” Mac squinted at him. “Weren’t you paying attention?”

  “What’s this all about?” Yvonne asked everyone, hoping someone could answer.

  David turned around from where he was examining the space on the other side of the drywall. “A dead body.”

  Mac stepped back from the hole he had created. He revealed the plastic he had torn away and exposed the skull with long, dark hair that was peering out at them from inside her drywall coffin. “I’m willing to bet whoever this is didn’t crawl into this wall and die of natural causes.”

  Chapter Four

  “Why can’t you just read a magazine while waiting like a normal person?” David asked Mac while keeping curious onlookers and news journalists thirsting for exclusives out of the office. Taking in the sledgehammer and the drywall dust littering the outer office, he shook his head. “What possessed you to smash a hole in the wall in the first place? Where did you get the sledgehammer?”

  “Ali gave it to me,” Mac stopped examining the skeletal remains to jerk a thumb in the direction of the desk where Yvonne’s research assistant was sitting with her head down between her knees. “Gnarly was doing that thing he does when he senses a dead body in the area. I knocked on the wall and could tell something was behind it.”

  David went over to Ali, who looked like she was going to be sick. “Are you okay?”

  Slowly, Ali sat up. Gnarly laid his head in her lap. She stroked him on his head and down his back. “I just don’t believe it. I’ve been workin’ here for five months, and she’s been no more ’an a foot away.” Her hands trembled when she wiped the tears from her eyes.

  “Here. Take this.” David took a handkerchief from his jacket packet and held it out to her. When she took it, their fingers touched. The touch of his hand made her jerk back into her seat. Feeling his eyes on her face, she concentrated on the dog resting his head in her lap and on wiping away the tears in her eyes.

  “You’re going to need to develop a thicker skin if you want to make it as an investigative journalist on the crime beat, Ali,” Yvonne said in a harsh tone that surprised David.

  “Audra Walker was a human being worthy of tears,” Mac replied.

  “I’m simply saying that if you let these types of atrocities get to you, you’re not going to last long in this business,” Yvonne said. “You’re going to end up at the bottom of a bottle, in a rubber room, or bitter and unemployed.”

  “Audra Walker was one of the most compassionate journalists I’d ever met,” Mac said. “But she was none of those things. She channeled her outrage over the injustices people perpetrate against one another into passion for uncovering the truth.”

  David broke the glare between them and asked, “When was this wall built?”

  “These two floors, the offices, and the studio downstairs were renovated two years ago.”

  “Back when Audra Walker disappeared,” Mac noted.

  “Yes, they were being renovated then,” she said. “I remember because I interviewed Audra in the old studio down on the thirtieth floor. You’re just assuming that’s Audra Walker. We don’t know that for sure.”

  “It’s Audra,” Mac said.

  “Kind of early in the game to be making assumptions about the identity of the victim, isn’t it?” Pushing his eyeglasses up on his nose, a man wearing the gold shield of a police detective stepped through the doorway. Wordlessly, he motioned for the uniformed officers to take control of the scene.

  Already by the detective’s side, Jim Wiehl was quick to introduce him. “This is Lieutenant Wayne Hopkins with the homicide squad.”

  A cocky grin crossed the lieutenant’s face when he shook Mac’s hand. “I work on the major case squad.” Mac quickly noticed that the detective was clad in a tailored suit with an expensive fitted shirt, which was not the way Mac had dressed when he’d been a detective. Every strand of his thin blond hair was in place.

  “That means he worked on the investigation into Audra Walker’s disappearance,” Yvonne said, “and apparent murder.”

  “I’m glad to see you remember me, Yvonne.” Lieutenant Hopkins smiled, revealing a mouth full of bright-white straight teeth. “You look stunning, as always.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.” She stepped back toward Ali’s desk.

  “Please, call me Wayne,” he said.

  Stepping between them, David gestured to the wall behind the police detective. “Wayne, the dead body is over there.”

  Seeing Gnarly, who had stood up to place his front paws on Ali’s desk in order to lap up the then cold coffee, Lieutenant Hopkins asked, “Is that a dog?”

  “Very good,” David said. “I see your investigative skills are top-notch.”

  “I hate dogs,” Lieutenant Hopkins said. “They can’t be trusted.”

  “I’d trust that dog with my life. As a matter of fact, that very dog has saved my life.” David jerked his thumb over his shoulder to where Gnarly had finished the coffee and had sat down between Ali’s legs to be petted. “So I trust him more than I trust some humans.”

  “I don’t care if he saved you and your whole family. He’s contaminating my crime scene,” the detective said. “So get him out of here.”

  Taking the cue from the police lieutenant, Ali took Gnarly’s leash and led him to the doorway. They waded through the crowd to go down the hallway.

  Turning to where Mac was showing the skeleton wrapped in plastic wrap to a member of the crime-scene investigative team, the police lieutenant said, “As I was saying, we don’t know that that’s Audra Walker. Not until our medical examiner does the autopsy.”

  “How many women connected to this building have disappeared in the last two years?” David asked.

  “And how many wear a cameo locket with their children’s baby pictures in it?” Mac added while using a pen to point to the area that had once been the skeleton’s chest.

  “I don’t care if you are Mac Faraday,” Lieutenant Hopkins said. “This is not Spencer, Maryland. You’re in New York, and this is my crime scene—not yours.”

  Mac held up his hands to indicate he was wearing evidence gloves. “I saw the locket, which is still around her neck, and recognized it.” He stepped aside to allow the investigators to peer into the hole in the wall at the skeleton.

  “Recognized it?” Jim Wiehl repeated what Mac had said.

  Behind her husband, Pam seemed to be holding her breath as she gazed at the skull peering out at them from the hole in the wall.

  “Audra Walker
always wore that cameo locket,” Mac said. “She was wearing it every time I saw her.”

  “When was the last time you saw her?” Lieutenant Hopkins asked Mac with a wicked grin.

  Mac paused to think a moment. “At least six years ago.”

  “How close were you two?” the lieutenant asked.

  “We worked together for several weeks,” Mac replied. “We became friends.”

  “Close enough friends for you to know about a locket she never took off,” the detective noted.

  “Mac Faraday had never been in this building until today,” David said. “He didn’t have access to the crime scene.” With a wide sweep of his arm, he indicated Yvonne, her producer, and the other news journalists who were crowding in the doorway to get a view of the scene. “They all did. They are your suspects.”

  “Did you get the papers signed?” Mac asked David in a low voice after they’d been ushered out of Yvonne’s office and into a conference room.

  Gnarly had climbed up into a chair at the head of the conference table. Draping his head over one of the chair’s arms, he proceeded to take a nap.

  “Yvonne didn’t have a pen,” David answered Mac’s question.

  Mac looked over his shoulder at a box of pens resting in the middle of the conference table. Each pen was marked with the name, logo, and address of the ZNC news network. “Seriously? We’re in an office building, and Yvonne couldn’t find a pen?”

  “We’re going to go have lunch together,” David said. “She wants to catch up—though I don’t know if we’ll be making lunch now. Don’t worry. I’ll get her to sign the papers.”

  “David,” Mac said, “take my advice. It’s never a good idea to play with fire—especially with old flames less than a week before you’re supposed to get married.”

  “I’m not going to cut all of my old friends and acquaintances out of my life simply because Chelsea has trust issues,” David said. “I’m not going to sleep with Yvonne. We’re just going to have lunch together—unless she blows me off for this story and that idiot police lieutenant.”