The Hiding Place

by Karen Harper

  “You’ll have to let the cops in. I’m not leaving Beamer!” Nick shouted to her as she darted into her bedroom. It also looked normal, but the extra cash she kept in her top drawer under her lingerie was gone. Her small leather jewelry box had been dumped on the bed, but there was nothing of great value there. Maybe it just was a break-in for cash and drugs, not a warning. Living in the mountains used to be so safe, but urban life was intruding. She started out to meet the police, who had shut down their siren just outside. She heard car doors slam.

  But she ran back into her bedroom, to the cabinet at the bottom of her bedside table where she’d left the urn with Sarah’s ashes. Shaking, she fell to her knees on the floor by her bed and opened the cabinet doors.

  The urn still sat there, but she knew it had been moved. The small, framed baby picture of herself she had placed behind it had been shoved back into the cabinet, and the urn itself had been slightly rotated. She was sure of it.

  “Ms. Kinsale!” came a man’s voice from the front with a rapping on the door. “Evergreen Police, Ms. Kinsale!”

  She banged the cabinet doors closed and raced to let them in.

  That night, after putting Claire to bed in Tara’s room, since she was disturbed by the break-in and didn’t want to sleep alone, Nick and Tara sat on the living room floor with a drowsy Beamer between them. The Lab’s head was heavy in her lap as Tara stroked his silken ears. Nick gently rubbed his back, as if, Tara thought, he were their baby. The vet had come and gone, observing that it was good Beamer had not eaten more of the sedative-tainted meat that must have been heaved through the broken window. Two big cuts on the pads of his feet, which had made the blood in the kitchen, had been bandaged.

  “I don’t care if the police say it has all the earmarks of a break and enter for cash and drugs,” Tara said, “I think it was Marcie or a Lohan lackey looking for something about my search for information about Sarah.”

  “But you said your office didn’t seem to be disturbed, and no one knows your password to access your online work.”

  “I know, but I’m telling you the urn was moved. I don’t put it past Jordan or Laird to be so ticked off I took the urn that they hired someone to switch it with an identical one, so I wouldn’t even have her ashes.”

  “Tara—”

  “I know, I know. I’m starting to sound over the edge. Well, maybe I am. The police may have fingerprinted some spots, but I didn’t want that black graphite dust all over the urn. Besides, of course, it would have had Jordan’s fingerprints on it anyway.”

  “It’s ironic, after all you’ve been through, we end up bringing in the police because of a break-in.”

  “I thought of that. I would have loved to be calling them in because we proved something against Marcie, or better yet, the Lohans. But I’ll need to really lay the groundwork for that. I have a lawyer friend in Seattle, a former client. After I traced Carla’s ex and she got her daughter back—Annelise is about Claire’s age—Carla got her law degree and specialized in child advocacy. At least I’d know she’s not tied to Lohan money and power.”

  “Okay, a lawyer and law enforcement—I can see we’d need that, which is why it was good we told the police we think Marcie’s been casing the house for days and may have conned us to get inside to look it over. But I don’t want you personally going up against Jordan or, worse, Laird.”

  “So far I’ve never been able to stomach researching anything to do with Laird. I couldn’t bear to see his face or even read about him online. I’ve wanted even less to do with him than he evidently does with me. But he’s betrayed me in more ways than one, and I’m at the point I’m going to have to force myself to look into his and Jen’s life, just as I have so many other victims’ exes.”

  “Long-distance research or working through that Seattle lawyer, fine.”

  “No, maybe more. Nick,” she said, turning to face him, though she slightly jostled Beamer’s head, “I think I’m going to have to go to Seattle to do some on-site, pretext work on Laird and Jen. I’ll see my lawyer friend before I go to the police. Maybe when you and Claire head east, I’ll drive to Seattle and—”

  “You’re not facing them up close and personal, and definitely not alone. We can’t be separated. Not yet, not now anyway. Duty may call me, but it’s going to have to wait. I’m with you on this. Whoever is behind everything is willing to hurt those who are innocent, and that’s my definition of real evil. They’ve harmed Beamer, maybe your Sarah. They’ve harmed you, but I still don’t want you taking them on face-to-face. And it’s going to take both of us to protect Claire, so—”

  As if that declaration was doomed, from down the hall, Claire shrieked once, then again. Tara started to move the dog’s head off her lap, but Beamer’s body tensed, and he sat up as if on alert.

  “Stay. Beamer, stay,” Nick told him. As Tara ran down the hall, she could hear Nick racing behind her. She shoved the bedroom door, which stood ajar, all the way open. Light from the hallway spilled in. The child stared vacantly into the shaft of hall light.

  “Claire, I’m here. It’s just a bad dream, sweetheart.”

  Claire knelt on the bed, pressed against the headboard, clutching her pillow. “She’s dead with dark eyes!” she cried. “She’s in the hall!”

  Tara sat on the bed, pulled Claire to her and held her hard. Nick came in and sat close, rubbing Claire’s back. “No one’s in the hall,” he said, his voice gentle. “We’re both here, and no one is going to hurt you.”

  Tara had feared the day’s events might disturb the child, when she’d been doing so well. It had been an entire week since she’d had one of her screaming nightmares, but with the house broken into, police around, reminding her of terrible times, and Beamer harmed…Sometimes, Tara wondered if Claire didn’t just subconsciously absorb her own fears, even when she tried to act steady and strong around her.

  Finally, still holding tight to Tara, Claire quieted to sniffles. For once, Tara was not hoping she would simply fall asleep and forget the dream. Tara had learned the hard way—Nick had, too, she thought—that it was better to recall and face nightmares rather than trying to ignore or bury them.

  “Claire,” she whispered, “don’t worry about anyone coming back into the house. Robbers don’t return once they’ve hit a place, especially not with people here and the police knowing all about it.”

  “But I heard you tell the police it was maybe that lady Marcie.”

  “I didn’t know you overheard that.”

  “Yes, after I got home from school. They said they would look for her. But she came back a second time after she was in to the hall and your office.”

  “No, that was just in your dream,” Tara said. “She was in our bathroom and downstairs, the night she stayed here, but not in the hall or in my office.”

  “I saw her,” she insisted, nodding. “She had bad, black marks under her eyes that night. Beamer sat outside the bathroom door, then you called Beamer. Then she went quick and quiet down the hall and in your office. I was peeking out of my door at her.”

  Nick scooted even closer on the bed. “Honey, why didn’t you tell us before?”

  “I didn’t remember till the dream tonight. If she was the robber today, she came back a second time. I guess in the dream I kind of thought she was Mommy’s ghost come back to find me, crying with dead eyes.”

  “No, no,” Tara crooned, rocking her again. “Mommy’s not a ghost, and she’s not coming back that way, but she’ll always be in your mind and heart.” With wide eyes, Tara looked at Nick. So, Tara thought, Marcie wasn’t in the bathroom all the time. But what was she doing in the office? Deciding they had to know more, she said quietly to Claire, “I didn’t know you saw Marcie that night.”

  “I guess I forgot. See, I had to go to the bathroom, but I heard someone crying and was scared it was you. So I peeked out and saw a strange lady with dark, dead eyes go in the bathroom. Then, when Beamer went downstairs, she came out of the bathroom and ran down the hal
l to your office. I didn’t know if it was one of your sad ladies you help or not.”

  “No, sweetheart,” Tara cried, squeezing her harder. “Marcie’s not one of my ladies, and her mascara was smearing under her eyes from her crying about losing a friend. What else do you remember? Did she have her pretty jacket on with the gold and silver sequins in a star pattern on her back?”

  “No, I think a T-shirt is all.”

  “Well, it’s good you remembered now. You were just woken out of a deep sleep that night and saw someone you didn’t know.”

  “But since you took her in, you know her, right?”

  Nick spoke. “We thought we knew all about her, but we didn’t. Just remember, AuntTara and I are both here to take care of you, so—so nothing else bad is going to happen.”

  Tara heard his voice waver. Like her, he was waiting for some other, awful shoe to fall. But what could be worse than losing little Sarah and Nick’s beloved Beamer getting hurt?

  “I’m sleeping in Aunt Tara’s bed tonight, and you can, too, if you’re scared,” the child told Nick.

  “A great idea,” he said, “but some other time, because I’m going to sit up with Beamer to make sure he keeps getting better.”

  “I’m glad you put boards over that kitchen window that got broke,” Claire told him with a big yawn. “You know, even if we had a robber, I still don’t want to leave this house, Uncle Nick. I won’t be afraid to keep living here, really. I like it way better than somewhere called North Carolina and Fort Bragg.”

  “You just get some sleep,” he said, his voice tense again. “We’ll be right here so just call out if you want us.”

  Tara knew what she was going to do. She was horrified that, as an investigator who was paid to find people, she hadn’t even thought about locating listening devices in her own house. She kissed Claire good-night again, then Nick did, too. At least, she thought, trying to buck herself up, they finally had the answer to how someone had known their every thought and move, even from inside the house, maybe even from inside her computers.

  At 9:40 p.m., Veronica jimmied the bathroom window of her clinic cabin with a nail file and climbed out while the shower was running full tilt. The past three nights, she had taken long showers and told her nurse that she thought the heat and steam were helping her. Veronica had taken it as a good sign that Jordan had come back for his cell phone and found it exactly where he had thought it might have fallen out. When she’d said goodbye to him earlier this evening, she had forced herself not to add, And good riddance.

  Still, it really did pain her to leave her old life behind. Thane and Laird might disown her and turn the grandchildren against her. But she was leaving. She had to do this, had to desert not so much Jordan as the old, obedient and weak Veronica. She must find herself again.

  It was chilly outside, especially in just a nightgown, robe and slippers, but it felt bracing, she told herself as she hustled along, first down the path and then off it. Her nightclothes would have to do because she dared not take anything else out from under the eagle eye of that nurse. She soon felt warm from exertion and excitement. The tiny, puffy clouds of her breath seemed to lead her on.

  She prayed that Rita would be waiting. She thought she would, for Veronica had been in the Lohan lair long enough to know how to put clipped command in her voice. Once she finally escaped, she could become just Veronica Britten again, whatever the cost of her ruined past.

  As if standing shoulder to shoulder against her, the pines and firs thickened here, but she pushed on. Yes, outside the fence, someone with a flashlight, playing it upon a ladder! She prayed Jordan had not somehow found out. Surely he had not bugged their home’s phones, the way she’d overheard him boast he had that of a financial rival several years ago. He was good at having people watched and at setting traps, and she could only pray Rita had not betrayed her.

  If she’d not been panting so hard, Veronica would have held her breath in anticipation. Two ladders over the fence, the lofty doorway to new beginnings. That is, after she checked on Laird and Jennifer. She had to know one thing, and, however long it took her to drive to Seattle, she wasn’t turning back.

  “Rita?” she whispered. Then louder. “Rita!”

  “Yes. Here. Me and Carlos, we here.”

  Hiking up her robe and nightgown with one hand, Veronica grabbed the highest rung of the ladder she could reach and started to climb.

  In the hall outside her bedroom, Tara wanted to scream, but, leaning against the wall with Nick, she whispered to him, “I feel like a complete fool. That night we took a supposedly hysterical, grieving woman in, I’ll bet she planted bugs in my office, then had to break in to get them out.”

  “I shouldn’t have let her stay, but I felt sorry for her.”

  “Don’t blame yourself. She would have gotten in somehow—maybe like she did today.”

  “Damn her for almost killing Beamer. And who’s to say she didn’t kill Rick for some reason?”

  “I know. How convenient he typed a suicide note on her laptop. I’ll bet she got all the bugs ripped out of my office, but let’s search anyway.”

  Not saying another word, Tara looked under her desk and behind her file cabinets while Nick got down on floor level and looked under her chair and in the closet. He reached up and ran his fingertips along the top of the molding on the doors and windows.

  “I think the coast is clear,” Tara said in a normal voice.

  “At least in here. If you find one of those bugs, I’ll buy you a diamond ring.”

  That off-the-wall remark stopped her for a moment, but she grabbed a flashlight out of a desk drawer and searched on. He might have meant the comment as a joke, but it was strange he seemed to have that on his mind.

  “And if I don’t find a bug, no diamond ring?” she asked, hardly believing they were talking like this. If she thought a listening device was still in here, she’d stage a little play where they gave out all kinds of disinformation to whoever was listening. Maybe that’s what he was doing, because he was sure confusing her.

  “Diamond ring or not,” he said, “I’m still thinking the four of us make a good team.”

  The four of us, she thought. Ah, yes, Beamer, too.

  Her light caught something far back under the knee space of her desk. “What do I get if I only find the tape one of the bugs was anchored with?” she asked, and pulled off the small piece of black duct tape. Eager to show it to him, she bumped her head when she came back up.

  He reached to take it, but it snagged their fingertips together.

  “You get my solemn vow I won’t go east until we find out who’s behind all this, and I don’t just mean Marcie. If you’re still listening, Jordan or Laird Lohan,” Nick declared with bravado as if he were speaking into an invisible microphone, “you’re soon going to be toast.”

  She wanted to laugh at that. Laugh in defiance, laugh in joy that Nick now believed her about the Lohans, laugh that he would stay to help her and wanted her in his life even after—after whatever befell. She wasn’t stopping until she solved her own Finders Keepers case.

  “I’ve got to check my PCs for spyware,” she said, “the sophisticated kind that’s downloaded directly and doesn’t come in online, because my anti-spyware programs would have sniffed that out. I’ll bet all she had to do that night was pop a CD or disk in and out.”

  “I’d be shocked if Marcie is the brains behind more than installing that. You know that precious, pricey Wi-Fi laptop of hers? It was probably given to her so the data coming out of your computers went directly to hers and then she reported to her employer.”

  “Maybe she was reading what the bugs picked up that way, too—or just by hanging out above the house with some sort of audio receiving equipment. You mentioned the army using that, and I know people’s cell phone calls can be picked up by a receiver in the vicinity. I’m thinking we owe Dietmar Getz a couple of new tires or something, though he’s still a jerk.”

  She was excited now, o
n a roll, as if they were really getting answers. And that could mean finding out what had happened to her little Sarah.

  “You know,” she went on, giving her main PC commands to search her hard drive, “computer spyware has shown up in several cases I’ve had. One ex-husband installed something called Lover Spy on his former wife’s PC. Yes—yes, Nick, here it is!” she cried, leaning closer to her screen.

  “What?” he asked, bending over next to her. “How can you tell?”

  “See this encryption message? It’s reporting a specialized spyware called a key logger, which records a victim’s keystrokes and sends images of the computer’s screen to whoever installed it. Maybe she didn’t have time to uninstall this today, or just thought I wouldn’t catch on—which I almost didn’t. I feel like I’ve been conned by the Lohans all over again! This stuff tells everything. Nick, they now know I’ve researched sedative drugs to keep a patient in a coma and that I tried to track the specialist they hired for me at the clinic, the one I’ll just bet they sent, all expenses paid, to Europe.”

  “At least, if they wanted to get rid of you, they could have by now.”

  “How about that boulder that just missed me at Red Rocks?”

  “I’m still hoping that was an accident. But maybe they have some strange loyalty toward you, since you were once a Lohan.”

  “It could be. After all, they figure that Laird’s leaving me is already a fate worse than death. I just don’t know. I used to love puzzles, solving things, tracking people, but I’m just so lost in all this!”

  “Can you remove that crap from the computer?”

  She tried to get hold of herself again. Thank God she had Nick to keep pushing her on, keeping her on course. She forced her fears down again. “I’ve advised others not to until they contact a lawyer or law enforcement. I’ll check to see if it’s on my older PC and, if not, just use that. We may even be able to use this to throw them off, because it’s evidently still functioning. Since the ladder was left outside, maybe our arrival caught Marcie, or whomever they sent, before they could remove this.”