Unleashed

by Jami Alden

  “Likewise, Danny Taggart.” She shook his hand slowly, deliberately, before she released it.

  He forced himself to stand still, impervious as she looked him over. He fought the urge to cup his hands in front of his crotch. Caroline wasn’t the only one bearing signs of their little tussle in the kitchen.

  “You’re a private investigator, you said?” Melody asked, looking between him and Caroline like she didn’t believe it for a second.

  He pulled a card out of his wallet and held it out to her. “We specialize in private investigations as well as personal and corporate security,” he said as she studied the card.

  “Danny was with me today when…” Caroline stopped short and swallowed heavily. “He saved my life.”

  “Well thank God and the Baby Jesus he was there,” Melody said.

  “Can I offer you a drink or something, Melody?” Caroline asked, her hostess instinct making Danny want to grit his teeth. If it had been left up to him, he would have kicked Melody out on her pampered ass and gotten back down to business.

  “That’s sweet, honey, but I need to get back home before Patrick calls. He had to go out of town on business or he’d be here too. I was thinking I’d take you home with me since I don’t want you to be alone tonight after what happened.” Her gaze flicked back to Danny. “But it looks like you’re in good hands.”

  Danny nodded. “I’ll stay with her tonight.”

  “If you do it will be in the guest room.” Caroline interjected.

  Melody patted her on the arm and gave her a knowing grin. “Whatever you say, sugar. I know it’s awful, what happened to Rachael and all, but don’t you worry. She wasn’t the only high-powered attorney Patrick knows. We’ll get you all squared away in no time, this time with someone who hasn’t made so many enemies.” Melody gave Caroline another quick squeeze and a kiss on the cheek and floated out the door on a perfumed cloud.

  Caroline slid the deadbolt home and started back to the kitchen.

  “Alarm?” he said. If her life was in danger, and he was pretty damn sure it was, she needed to be a lot more careful. Not that her alarm was even close to foolproof, as he’d discovered himself. He watched her key in the code. “How many people have the code?”

  “Me, Kate, the cleaning lady, I think.”

  He shook his head impatiently. “Change it. From now on, the only one who knows it is you. Better yet, I’m going to call the office tomorrow and have someone replace your antiquated system.”

  “I just had this installed six months ago,” she protested. “The guy assured me it was top of the line.”

  “And I’m telling you it’s too easily compromised. You need to install infared motion detectors that will give you enough warning if someone breaks in. Right now all anyone has to do is cut the wires on the doors or windows and you’re screwed.” He struggled to keep himself calm as he was assaulted by images of Caroline lying vulnerable, alone in her bed, ignorant of the fact that someone was in her house and on his way to hurt her.

  He knew it was crazy, getting close to her again, but in that moment he knew he wasn’t letting her out of his sight until he knew she was safe.

  “Right,” she said. He could see her visibly choke back her fear, force herself to remain calm as she no doubt entertained visions that were as scary—or scarier than his. “Whatever you say.”

  Now that was an interesting proposition, he thought as he followed her back into the kitchen. As quickly as his brain jumped to terrifying visions of Caroline alone, vulnerable, and under attack, it jumped right back to where they’d been about ten minutes ago, before Melody’s unwelcome interruption.

  Caroline grabbed his mother’s datebook off the breakfast bar and took a seat in one of the armchairs. “Like I said before, I’ve been through this a bunch of times and nothing popped up.”

  With her rounded shoulders and tightly crossed legs, Caroline’s body language practically screamed, “Go away.”

  No problem. If she wanted to go back to the starting line and pretend he hadn’t been about to lay her back on her breakfast bar and fuck her into oblivion, he’d let her. For now.

  He ignored his cock, throbbing like a caged beast behind his zipper. Patience grasshopper. If he made good on his plan not to let Caroline out of his sight, he’d have plenty of opportunity to wear down her defenses.

  He sat across from her and took the book from her hands, immediately sobering when he flipped the book open to June, 1991. A month before his mother disappeared. He flipped over another page.

  “There was one entry with an address—” Caroline started.

  “Where?” he cut her off and flipped through a couple of pages.

  “Sometime in May, I think.” She got up from her chair and looked over his shoulder. A lock of her hair fell forward and teased his hand. He fought the urge to bring it to his nose for a deep, satisfying inhale. “There,” she tapped her fingertip against the entry.

  HH. 1223 Harper Ave. San Mateo.

  His brain started going a thousand miles an hour and he got that weird prickly feeling in between his shoulders like he did whenever he was on to something.

  “I looked it up,” Caroline said, “but it’s just a dentist’s office. They’ve only been there for a little over five years.”

  “But what was it before?”

  “No idea,” she replied with a frown. Then understanding dawned on her face, followed by a look of self-recrimination. “Right. We need to find out what was there before, that would have interested your mom. Duh.”

  “Not quite as quick on the uptake as you once were,” he chided, but his tone was teasing.

  “Never had days like this before,” she said with a tired smile, immediately followed by a jawcracking yawn. “Speaking of which, I think I need to go to bed.” Her gaze flicked from his. “You’re planning to stay tonight, right?”

  He nodded, holding her stare with his, willing her to invite him to stay in that great big bed with her. Right now, he didn’t give a shit that she’d shared it with another man. Besides, after Danny was done with her, any other man would be obliterated from her memory. Her pupils dilated slightly and her sweet little tongue flicked her plump bottom lip.

  She shot up from the chair so quickly she staggered a little. “Good then. There are three empty bedrooms, pick whichever one you want. You probably don’t want Kate’s room because she still has the pink canopy bed she got when she was nine,” she said in a nervous rush. “There are clean towels in the guest bathroom…” she trailed off.

  “I’ll be fine,” he said. “Go get some sleep.”

  Fine. Yeah, he was pretty fucking fine all right, he thought forty-five minutes later. Still hard as a rock, trying to keep his mind off the woman upstairs by poring over the notes and scribblings that represented the last days of his mother’s life.

  His body was tired but his brain was doing its usual pinging around. He knew he wouldn’t sleep, not with his brain on overdrive and Caroline upstairs tempting him like s siren. He went out to his car to retrieve his laptop, and settled in at the breakfast bar to start his search.

  Bleary eyed after a restless night, Caroline was jolted to full awareness when she ran into a massive, damp, muscular chest in her upstairs hallway. Danny reached out to steady her as she bounced off him. The touch, combined with the awesome display of male near nudity was enough to make every nerve ending in her body sit up and say hello.

  Why? Why did he have to look even better than he had at twenty-three? And why did he have to parade around almost naked, showing off his perfection and blowing apart her already shaky resolve? She’d barely been able to restrain herself the night before, and knew that if Melody hadn’t shown up when she did, Caroline would have found herself naked and spread under Danny.

  Even as she warned herself to steer clear, she couldn’t tear her eyes away. Through clothes, she could see that Danny had packed on at least twenty pounds since they’d been together. Naked, it was clear it was all pure, powerf
ul muscle. Bunching and rippling under acres of tanned skin. Skin that was covered in goosebumps.

  “Is the hot water working?” She dragged her gaze up to his face, not that that was much better. His hair stood up in damp clumps, making her fingers itch to smooth it down. His jaw was scraped clean of stubble. She wanted to rub her cheek against it to see if it was as smooth as it looked. His wet eyelashes stuck together in pointy clumps, and the look in his gray eyes told her he’d noticed her lustful stare.

  “It’s working fine. Why?”

  “You’re covered in goosebumps, like you’re cold.” She, on the other hand was going to have a core meltdown if she didn’t get away from him soon. She wanted to trace her tongue down the deep groove of muscle bisecting his abs, pull away the towel, take him in her mouth. Rediscover the hot, musky taste of him. The towel twitched before her eyes, tenting out in front as a skyscraper of an erection threatened to pull the towel from his waist.

  “So much for my cold shower,” he muttered. He stomped past her into one of the guest rooms and slammed the door.

  By the time he joined her downstairs forty-five minutes later—fully dressed, thank God—Caroline had managed to pull herself together. After her shower she’d pulled on jeans, a turtleneck, and a thick knit wool sweater, as much a barrier against him as to the cold.

  “Did James ever mention Harmony House?” he asked as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the stainless steel carafe.

  “Doesn’t ring a bell. Why?”

  “That’s what the HH stands for in Anne’s book,” he replied. “The address used to be the location for Harmony House, a home for teenage girls who were pregnant. They’ve since moved to a bigger facility.”

  “I can’t imagine James had anything to do with a shelter for pregnant teens.” Not that he hadn’t been philanthropic, but his charities of choice usually centered around disease. Caroline was the one who’d been involved in various community groups, and James had never shown any interest whatsoever in helping kids of any flavor in the community.

  “Well we’re going to pay them a visit and find out.”

  Harmony House’s new headquarters was a massive craftsman style house in a neighborhood just off the freeway in San Mateo. Danny parked next to the tree lined sidewalk across the street from the house. A concrete walkway bisected a patch of lawn, leading to the front steps of a house that, while homey and inviting, looked a little frayed around the edges. A slat was missing from the railing on the stairs, and the paint curled in a couple of spots near the door.

  Their knock was answered by a girl with strawberry blond hair and freckles, who couldn’t have been older than fourteen. She sized them up with eyes as jaded as any thirty-year-old’s.

  “Yeah?” she said in a tone that would have gotten Caroline smacked in the mouth at the same age.

  “We need to ask some questions about someone who might have worked here,” Danny said.

  “You the police?” The muscles in the girl’s arms tensed, poised to slam the door in their faces.

  “We’re not the police,” Caroline said quickly. “We’re trying to find information about someone who disappeared a long time ago. It has nothing to do with anyone who lives here now,” she added, when the mulish curve of the girl’s lip told Caroline she was about to get blown off.

  The girl finally shrugged and turned around with a vague motion for them to follow. Her pregnancy was so advanced, her belly so huge, Caroline couldn’t imagine how she even managed the awkward waddle as she made her way down a dark hallway.

  The sound of television and girls talking rang through the halls as they followed the girl. Caroline peeked into the doorway of a sitting room and saw two girls sitting on a couch. One was nearly as pregnant as their guide. The other was cradling a baby wrapped in a blanket. Both had their heads bent over the baby, whispering as they took turns stroking the baby with gentle hands.

  That could have been me. Caroline’s throat went tight at the thought. Of course, she had been older than these girls. And she wouldn’t have been alone.

  It could have all been so different.

  “Caroline, are you coming?” Danny’s voice snapped her back to reality and she hurried to catch up.

  The girl knocked on a door marked simply, “Office,” and opened the door at the muffled, “come in.”

  An African-American woman with elaborate braids and a no nonsense attitude looked up at their entry. She sat behind a cheap laminate desk, covered in such a mess of paper it made Caroline’s fingers twitch with the need to straighten everything into neat, organized piles. A name plate on the front edge indicated her name was LaTanya Jackson.

  “What is it, Ginger?” LaTanya asked.

  “People to see you,” Ginger said, indicating Danny and Caroline with a thumb over her shoulder. Without another word, the girl turned and waddled back down the hall.

  Danny introduced them both and cut right to the chase. “We’re private investigators working on a missing persons case, possibly a homicide, and we’re hoping you can help us out.”

  The woman gestured, indicating for them to take a seat in the hard plastic chairs opposite her desk, her brow knit with concern. “Is this regarding one of our residents?”

  “We think it was someone who might have volunteered here, or worked here in some capacity.”

  “When did she work here?”

  “It would have been sometime back in 1991,” Danny said.

  LaTanya shook her head. “I’ve been here a long time, but not that long. I’m afraid I wouldn’t have known your friend.”

  “Did they keep records of all the volunteers?” Caroline asked, shifting to get comfortabe in the hard plastic seat. “Maybe we could take a look, just to make sure we’re on the right track.”

  LaTanya barked out a humorless laugh. “Records? Let’s just say the former director wasn’t too keen on paperwork. She barely kept up with the residents, much less anyone coming in and out.”

  Danny’s jaw tightened in frustration. “Where is the former director now? I’d like to talk to her, see if she recognizes the woman we’re looking for.”

  Again LaTanya shook her head. “She’d be the one to talk to, but unfortunately Christine Williams died in a car accident fifteen years ago. I came in to replace her, and let me tell you she left this place a god-awful mess. It took me six months just to get the bookkeeping worked out and get the girls’ information into the computer system.” She launched into a laundry list of all the things Christine Williams had left undone. Losing track of the volunteers wasn’t even the half of it.

  Caroline jumped in when she paused to take a breath. “What about former residents? You said she kept their information on file. If we could talk to some of the girls who were living here then—”

  LaTanya cut her off. “No can do. We have strict confidentiality rules. A lot of the girls who come through here don’t want anyone to know they’ve ever been pregnant or had babies. I’m afraid I can’t share any of that information with you.”

  “The information would be used to solve a crime,” Danny said, and Caroline could tell he was barely keeping his temper in check. “Surely that’s good reason to bend the rules.” Danny sat forward in his chair, leaning into the desk, using his sheer size to will LaTanya into compliance.

  LaTanya just leaned forward herself, not batting so much as an eyelash as she met Danny’s hostile gray stare head on. “I don’t bend the rules for anybody. My job is to protect these girls, and unless the police show up with a warrant to search through my records, I’m keeping them sealed.”

  Danny nodded and pushed up from his chair. Caroline rose as well, offered her hand to LaTanya and thanked her for her time. LaTanya ushered them back into the hall and closed the office door with a decisive click.

  “Well that was a bust,” Caroline muttered. Damn, why did everything have to lead to a dead end?

  “Not entirely.”

  “We didn’t find out squat. We still don’t know if your m
other has ever even been here.”

  “There’s more than one way to get information,” Danny said.

  “Like what?”

  “I’d tell you but then I’d have to kill you.” It was said with a cocked eyebrow and a half smile that hit Caroline straight in the chest. She knew that look, a look that said he was up to no good but that she was going to love the results.

  As he started down the dim hallway, Caroline caught sight of a small figure hovering in the first doorway down from LaTanya’s office. When she realized she’d been spotted, she immediately made herself busy sweeping nonexistent dirt from the hardwood floor.

  She looked to be in her late forties or early fifties, and Latina. It was obvious she’d been eavesdropping. “Excuse me,” Caroline said. “I was wondering, how long have you worked here?”

  The woman shook her head. “No Ingles,” and started to retreat down the hall.

  Caroline repeated the question in Spanish.

  “Veinte anos,” the woman replied somewhat reluctantly.

  She looked up at Danny to see if he understood. “Twenty years. So she would have been here.”

  Caroline nodded. “How’s your Spanish?” she asked.

  “Not as good as yours, but if you ask her some questions I can follow along.”

  Caroline introduced herself and learned the woman’s name was Ines. Ines had worked as a cook and a cleaning lady for the shelter for over twenty years. Though the girls had to help with chores as part of their board, Ines made sure everything got done.

  “Do you have time to answer a few questions about someone who might have worked here?”

  Ines’s brown eyes were wide and wary. “Are you the police?”

  “No,” Danny said in his own stilted Spanish. “We’re trying to find out what happened to someone. Someone who was lost, and now she’s dead.”

  Ines’s eyes flashed with panic, immediately followed by resolve. She swallowed hard and nodded. “I think I know who you are talking about. You’re talking about the blond lady who disappeared, and everyone thinks she ran away from her family.”