Too Far Gone

by Marliss Melton

  “Please,” said Sean. His blue eyes enjoined her cooperation.

  Glancing at Ellie, Skyler’s compassion won out over fear. “Okay,” she agreed. “Carl lives in our carriage house. Perhaps you could meet him in the garden on the side of the house. I could unlock the gate so you could get in. You would have to be terribly discreet, though,” she cautioned. “If my father catches you trespassing, he’ll have you arrested.”

  Sean didn’t look at all intimidated. “Can we do it tonight?” he asked, putting added pressure on her. “We’re due back in Virginia tomorrow.”

  Skyler paced to the podium to think, her heartbeat quickening. Lately, her father had taken to leaving the house after supper and not coming home until ten or so. But the sun set late in the evenings. “What about nine o’clock tonight?” she decided. “The house is just off Abercorn on East Jones Street, number twelve. It’s a big brick Federal home with a garden on the left. If the gate’s unlocked, that means it’ll be safe to enter. Keep to the shadows and out of sight of the windows. Carl should come out within fifteen minutes.”

  “You’re sure he’ll come?” Sean asked.

  “Oh, yes,” said Skyler, meeting Ellie’s bitter gaze very briefly.

  “Tonight at nine,” Sean agreed, extending a hand. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” she murmured as his hand engulfed hers. “Please, if you’re caught, don’t tell anyone that I helped you,” she added as an afterthought.

  “No worries,” he replied. “Ellie, you ready?”

  Ellie pushed to her feet. “Thank you,” she added, sending Skyler a grateful grimace.

  “I hope you find them,” Skyler called, trailing them to the door.

  Sean had pulled it open. Halfway out the door, he hesitated and frowned at somebody retreating down the hall. “Who’s that kid?” he asked shortly.

  Skyler leaned out in time to see Drake dart around the corner. “Oh, that’s Drake. He’s a runaway teen,” she informed the man.

  With a thoughtful grunt, Sean reached for Ellie’s hand. He drew her down the stairs and out the shelter’s front doors.

  Skyler watched them go, wondering at their relationship. Her stomach churned with mixed excitement and dread. The thought of luring Carl to the garden left her faintly nauseated. Still, if it helped poor Ellie locate her missing children, the ick factor would be well worth enduring.

  “Everything okay?”

  The voice in her ear made her gasp and whirl. “Drake, you startled me!”

  “Sorry.” He grinned apologetically, his eyes alert as they rested on her flushed face. His proximity had the same effect as it always did, whether they spoke or not. Her heart felt lighter, her senses sharper. She was aware of everything about him, from the appealing curve of his lower lip to his clean scent. He was one of the few men who showered every day. He owned maybe three different outfits, which he washed and rotated regularly.

  “Can we talk?” he asked her unexpectedly. “In private?” He nodded toward the meeting room.

  “Oh, I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” she demurred, her mouth going dry at the thought of being alone with him.

  “Look, I couldn’t help overhearing you in here with that couple,” he admitted.

  Skyler gasped. “You were eavesdropping?”

  “I was checking up on you,” he insisted. “That guy looked kind of dangerous.”

  Flattered by his concern but worried that he might now reveal their plans, Skyler firmed her mouth and marched into the meeting room, closing the door behind him. “Drake, you can’t tell anyone what you heard,” she insisted, struggling for an authoritative tone.

  He regarded her at length through lush, dark eyelashes. “How are you going to lure Carl into the garden?” he finally asked.

  Her heart tripped over itself at the jealous-sounding question. “That’s none of your concern,” she retorted. Nonetheless, heat flooded her cheeks, betraying her.

  His mouth twisted into a bitter smile. “Yeah, that’s what I thought,” he muttered. “Tell you what, how ’bout you help me get Carl’s job, and I’ll forget what I heard here.”

  His ultimatum confounded her. He wasn’t the easygoing wanderer she thought he was.

  “You need a gardener, right?” he pressed. “Carl’s going to be the chauffeur.”

  “Right,” she agreed, marveling that he’d heard so much through doors hewn out of chestnut.

  He spread out his hands and shrugged. “So, I need a job,” he reminded her. “Then I can leave this place.”

  And live with the servants on the third floor of my house, Skyler thought, shocked that her blood heated at the prospect. Of course, she was supposed to marry Ashton at the end of the month. Even if there was time for an affair with an eighteen-year-old, what good could it accomplish? Not that she was even considering such a thing. Still, as the thought took hold, desire clawed at her insides, exhilarating and insistent.

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she promised him shakily. “Just . . . please, stay out of this business with Carl.”

  “I will,” he agreed, flashing a boyish grin that left her weak in the knees.

  She wished that he would back her against the door and kiss her until all thoughts of her impending marriage to a man twice her age just melted away.

  Obviously, she was losing her mind. Drake was the last guy on earth she ought to be attracted to. Groping for the latch, she hauled the door open and fled through it, before temptation—and the will to live free—got the better of her.

  Cybercrimes Special Agent Dale Robbins nailed the pass phrase immediately this time. Of course, he’d been expecting a call.

  “Do you have an answer for me?” asked the dry, uninflected voice.

  “Yes, I do,” said Dale with a nervous glance over his shoulder. “Ellie Stuart opened an e-mail account with EarthLink on September fifteenth of last year,” he murmured, “using a PC belonging to the library at Tidewater Community College.”

  “Excellent,” said the stranger. “I want you to take possession of that address.”

  “Uh, I’ll need a supervisor’s clearance to do that.”

  “It’s sitting in your box in the mailroom.”

  A shiver of awe coursed through Dale’s spine. Who was this man that he could pull strings with the ease of a puppet master?

  “Once you have administrator rights to the account, you will transpose the messages coming into your Inbox . . . now. Take a look at them.”

  Dale’s computer chimed to signify the arrival of new mail. With shaking fingers, he opened the anonymous message to find three attachments. Each was a letter allegedly written by Ellie Stuart, addressed to a Sean Harlan with a military e-mail extension, each dated a couple of months ago.

  “I want this correspondence to appear authentic. Can you make the dates work?” asked the voice.

  Dale broke into a light sweat. “I can alter the sent date at the client server, but the stamp on the receiving server will reflect the actual time received.”

  For a tense moment, the voice remained silent. “That’ll have to do. Print the e-mails before you send them. Place the hard copies in an envelope and mail them in-house to Special Agent Greg Butler, CID.”

  Butler was a criminal investigator with limited powers—he couldn’t be the owner of the voice.

  “Yes, sir,” he replied, honored to be part of a society so well networked yet still so secretive. “He’ll have hard copies by tomorrow morning,” he promised quietly.

  Without a word of thanks, the caller hung up.

  Within the walled garden steeped in shadows, Ellie waited. Sean had positioned her behind a broad azalea bush beside the wrought-iron gate. Peering through leafy branches, she could make out the brightly lit fountain in the center of the enclosure. The scent of ivy and honeysuckle hung in the humid air. Over the gurgling of the fountain and the chirping of crickets, she could hear the faint thud of her own heart as it rocked her subtly, to and fro. Her upper lip tasted of sal
t as she licked it nervously.

  What if Carl had taken her boys? What would she say to him?

  The sound of a stem breaking under someone’s heel made Ellie freeze. That had to be Sean. He’d promised to remain nearby, yet no matter how carefully she sought his silhouette in the dense foliage all around her, she couldn’t see him. Still, his presence was a comfort. Knowing he would protect her from physical harm was a luxury she’d never before known.

  “Miss Dulay?” Carl’s singsongy voice cut across the garden, silencing the cricket symphony. “Are you here?”

  Ellie’s skin crawled at the familiar-sounding lilt. Peering through leafy branches, she watched Carl tiptoe toward the fountain where the light at its center briefly illumined him. He’d grown soft around the middle since she’d seen him last. Life was treating him well, but well enough to raise three boys?

  “Show yourself, pretty bumblebee,” he crooned, moving past the fountain toward the shadows in which she hid.

  She waited, as Sean had suggested, for Carl to duck under the branches of a blooming crape myrtle before stepping from her hiding place. Repugnance rose up, and her nervousness subsided as she stepped onto the path in plain sight. “Hello, Carl,” she announced herself.

  He froze. Even with the shadows obscuring his features, she noted his gaping mouth and the whites of his eyes. “Ellie! Wh-what’re you doin’ here?” he croaked, taking a step back. He looked around guiltily, as if still expecting Skyler to show up.

  “What do you think, Carl?” she countered on a steely note. “I’m here for my boys. Tell me where they are—now.”

  He bobbed his head in a gesture of indignation, reminding her of a nervous chicken. “How would I know? I didn’t take ’em.”

  “How do you know someone took them?” Ellie demanded, jumping on his slip of the tongue like a dog on a bone.

  “It was on the news, so what?” He shrugged. “I don’t know nothin’ about it.” He took another step back.

  Though wary of being seen from the windows, her suspicions were unexpectedly roused. She pursued him, desperate to see his face more clearly. Hope pounded through her. She hadn’t thought Carl would know about the kidnappings. Surely, as a parent to the missing boys, he would have come forward to aid in the effort to find them. “You knew?” she hissed, forcing him farther back, driving him toward the light. “And you’ve done nothing to try and help me find them?” Disgust and contempt mingled with suspicion, making her want to claw his eyes out. She poked him in the chest instead.

  “Ouch,” he yelped, and backed out of arm’s reach, his face to the light at last.

  “If I find out you had anything to do with this,” Ellie warned, eyeing him for the smallest sign of suspicion, “so help me God, Carl, I will kill you.” With a ragged breath, she reined herself in to keep Sean from having to interfere.

  “I ain’t lyin’, woman,” Carl insisted with disgust. “Why would I kidnap our boys? You know I can’t look after ’em.”

  His assertion abruptly cooled her fury. There was nothing in his expression now but self-righteous resentment.

  “I can’t believe you came all the way down here to accuse me,” he added. “Would’ve thought you knew me better’n that,” he added, flicking his stringy hair from his eyes in a familiar gesture.

  But the muscle in his cheek didn’t twitch. Not once.

  “You swear you didn’t take them or pay someone to do it?” she demanded. Her voice quavered as hope tumbled toward despair.

  “Hell, no,” he insisted. “I barely make enough money to feed myself.”

  She studied him long and hard, waiting desperately for the telltale sign that he was lying. It never came. “Well, then,” she answered, made hoarse with the urge to weep, “I guess I’m wasting my time here.”

  “I guess you are,” he countered with a smirk.

  Was that mockery lacing his voice?

  Too overwrought to analyze such subtleties, Ellie whirled and walked blindly to the gate. Through eyes that ached with unshed tears, she glanced back to see Carl stalking toward the house, muttering. A wisp of his sentence reached her ears: “That bitch.” She couldn’t say whether he meant her or Skyler, whom he’d probably just realized had tricked him.

  Swinging the gate open, Ellie stepped onto the quiet, tree-shrouded sidewalk and waited, hugging herself to maintain composure, fighting the desire to crumple where she stood.

  Seconds later, Sean dropped from the top of the garden wall and landed almost silently beside her. Closing the short distance between them, he swallowed her briefly in his embrace, then pulled her across the street to his parked car.

  “You did good, Ellie. Really good,” he praised gruffly. “Here, get in.” He put her into the driver’s seat, rousing her from her self-absorption. “I want you to start the car up,” he added, unexpectedly pressing the keys into her hand. “Drive once around the block—slowly. Then come back and pick me up.”

  “What?” she cried, confused by his odd instructions. “Where are you going?” But he had already closed the door and melted into the darkness.

  “Whatever,” Ellie breathed, struggling to focus through her despair. Carl hadn’t kidnapped her boys. She’d already known that. And still she felt as if she’d come up against a wall so broad and high that she would never get around it. Functioning purely on autopilot, she started the car and eased into the street to do Sean’s bidding, too heartsick to ponder what he might be up to.

  Drake waited for the rumble of Sean Harlan’s GTO to fade before daring to release the breath he’d been holding. Since accidentally stepping on a stalk that snapped under his shoe, he’d been sweating bullets, thinking Mr. Harlan, who was a freaking Navy SEAL, was going to realize he was in the garden with them and rat him out.

  But now that the couple had left, Drake was free to leave his hiding place, a narrow aperture behind a trellis woven by climbing roses. It was the kind of space a large man wouldn’t think to hide in, which was why he’d chosen it six weeks ago, when he’d started watching Dulay’s mansion.

  Tonight he hadn’t been tracking Dulay’s movements. He’d hidden in the garden to make sure Skyler didn’t get caught up in a drama that didn’t concern her—a kidnapping involving the sons of Owen Dulay’s gardener. It was curious that an event attracting such media interest had washed right up on Owen Dulay’s doorstep, and still Dulay tolerated Carl living and working for him. The man’s answers to Ellie’s questions suggested his innocence, but to Drake they also raised an interesting possibility.

  Could Owen Dulay have masterminded the kidnappings? If so, why?

  With a grimace, Drake eased from his hiding place, managing to escape with just a few extra scratches. The thorns were well worth the trouble when they kept even a Navy SEAL from suspecting his presence.

  With the garden now deserted, Drake threaded his way through the shrubs and flowerbeds and low- hanging branches toward the gate. The gate was unlocked; he didn’t need to climb it, not tonight. The well-oiled hinges scarcely made a sound as he swung it inward, peeked out onto empty sidewalk, and emerged unseen, closing the gate behind him.

  With a soft whistle, he turned in the direction of the shelter. Too late, he realized he wasn’t alone after all. Sean Harlan stepped from behind the trunk of a live oak with his weapon drawn and his eyes flashing.

  “We meet again,” he said in a menacing voice that suggested he wasn’t surprised. Grabbing Drake’s arm, he nudged the barrel of his handgun under Drake’s shoulder blade and suggested coldly, “How ’bout we go for a drive?”

  Just then, the black GTO cruised around the corner with Ellie at the wheel. Drake shook his head in self- recrimination. Idiot! He should’ve known better than to test the instincts of a sniper. Now, either he admitted to being an undercover investigator—which could blow the lid off his entire investigation—or he kept his mouth shut and dealt with whatever punishment a Navy SEAL could dish out.

  Somehow, the first option sounded slightly more appeal
ing.

  Chapter Eight

  At the light tap at the door, Christopher jerked his face out of the book he was reading and eyed his visitor with mixed feelings. Mr. Dulay, Consul of the Centurion School for Boys, had taken to visiting him at night, just before bedtime, when Caleb was already asleep.

  Five days ago, the silver-haired gentleman had met them as they were ushered from the van into this building of marble and stone. “Your mother is dead,” he’d informed them gently. “You will remain here until your father can be found. I advise you to embrace your new circumstances.”

  He’d gone to shake their hands, and Caleb had bitten him.

  They’d been here for almost a week now. To Chris, it seemed a lifetime. To Caleb, who’d been fed only bread and water as punishment for three days, it must have seemed like eternity.

  The door opened a crack, and Mr. Dulay peered in, his dark eyes going first to Caleb, asleep in his bed, and then to Chris. He smiled with approval at the book in Chris’s lap.

  Chris wanted to detest the man the way Caleb did, only the Consul was kind to him. He brought him stuff to look at—curious artifacts, like a bronze spearhead that once belonged to Julius Caesar and the shrunken head of a Nigerian captive. Speaking of far-off places and powerful leaders in history, he carried Chris’s imagination through the locked doors, beyond the stone walls that confined him. Best of all, he brought him books that helped him to forget, for intervals at a time, how very much he missed his mother.

  “Good evening, Mr. Stuart,” the man said now, approaching his bed.

  “Hello,” said Chris, setting his book aside.

  “How do you like it?” asked the Consul, hitching a trouser leg to ease onto the foot of Chris’s bed. “I see you’re halfway done.”

  Chris was a slow, thorough reader, but the comment sounded like a compliment. “Yes, sir,” he said. “I like how the grandfather goes searching for his grandson.”

  Mr. Dulay gave a nod of satisfaction. “Family is important, don’t you think?”