That was a huge relief. He hated being lied to. Hated having his trust violated. Hated having his hopes dashed time and again.
But Darcy hadn’t done that.
Everything was going to be okay.
He twisted the knob, stepped into the room—and suddenly found himself pitching forward, eggs and fruit flying in all directions.
What the . . . !
He reached forward, arms flailing, his brain processing what had happened even as he fell.
Darcy had ambushed him—and once again shattered his dream of redemption.
As he slammed against the floor, one hand landing in a mass of slippery scrambled egg, he spewed out his anger and anguish in the bellow of a single word.
“N-o-o-o-!”
Mark’s furious roar echoing in her ears, Darcy took off for the basement stairs, running as fast as her shaky legs could carry her.
She had to get to the first floor. Had to slam the door and secure the flip-type safety lock at the top of the basement stairs. Had to run for the front door, escape, and sprint for the nearest car, person, or major street she could find.
Everything had to work perfectly—or she was dead.
She clambered up the stairs, missing one, her breath coming in short, choppy gasps. Behind her, a spew of vulgarity burned her ears as Mark scrambled to regain his footing.
Adrenaline pumping, she increased her speed.
At the top of the stairs, she pushed through the door, spun around—and found Mark taking the steps two at a time.
She slammed the door. Fumbled with the lock.
Please, God, please help me!
The mechanism slipped into place.
As Mark tried the knob and began pounding on the door, she took off for the living room.
The pounding gave way to kicking.
Fear humming through her nerve endings, Darcy reached the front door, grasped the handle, and pulled.
The door didn’t budge.
She flipped the lock and tried again.
Nothing.
There must be a dead bolt too.
Wood splinted behind her, and she jerked around. He’d kicked through the bottom of the door.
At this rate, he’d be free in moments.
She hesitated. The only other exit was the back door, and she’d have to go directly past Mark to get there. Plus, it could be dead bolted too. Should she risk it?
The decision was taken out of her hands an instant later when the bottom panel of the door splintered.
A sob caught in her throat.
No!
She couldn’t come this close and fail.
What about the living room window? Maybe she could open it and climb through. It wasn’t much of a drop to the ground.
She ran to the middle of the front wall and yanked at the cord on the miniblinds that hid the interior of the house from the eyes of the world. She had them halfway up the tall, narrow living room window when more wood splintered behind her.
With a gasp, she spun around to find Mark climbing through the lower half of the door. He’d be on her in seconds.
There was no time to get the window up.
But she might be able to break it and yell for help.
Desperation tightening her chest, she scanned the room. It was bare of clutter and ornamentation except for the decorative fireplace tools that had never touched a fleck of ash, set to one side of the mantel. Her gaze locked in on the poker. That would work.
She let go of the cord on the blinds. They crashed down behind her as she dashed for the poker.
But by the time she grabbed it and turned, he was already on the threshold of the room, mere steps away.
She raised the poker above her head as she faced him.
His chest was heaving, just as hers was. His shirt was torn, and an angry gash on his arm was seeping blood as he glared at her from across the room.
“Put down the poker, Darcy.” His tone was icy. Controlled.
“No.” He walked toward her, and she tightened her grip. “Stay back.”
He kept coming, circling around the couch, toward the fireplace where she stood.
She edged away, moving backward toward the front door.
He stopped.
So did she.
“You’re just like all the others.” His voice was flat. “Too stubborn to let anyone help you. Just like Lil.”
Darcy stared at him. Lil? Was there another girl down in the freezers?
Her mouth went dry, and she moistened her lips. Mark might be crazy, but his eyes had always seemed lucid. Not anymore. Now they looked . . . odd. Disconnected from reality. Focused on some view only he could see.
She had to get out of here. Fast.
Swallowing past her fear, she tightened her grip on the poker. She was only going to get one swing at him; it had to do the job. Even if she merely stunned him, it would give her a chance to open or break the window. After that, she’d . . .
His next move was so sudden, so unexpected there was no way she could have guessed his intent.
One second, he was staring at her, hands at his sides.
Then, in the blink of an eye, he bent down, grabbed the corner of the throw rug where she stood, and yanked.
Her feet went out from under her and she crashed to the floor, falling hard on her back.
And as the poker flew from her grasp, as Mark loomed over her, Darcy knew she was going to die.
19
When the BlackBerry on his nightstand began to beep with the piercing, high-pitched ring tone he always used while sleeping after an all-night surveillance gig, Dev groaned, groped for the phone with one hand, and squinted at his watch with the other. Nine-thirty in the morning.
Meaning he’d logged all of two hours’ sleep since falling into bed.
He tried to focus on caller ID. Connor? The very man who’d relieved him of surveillance duty two and a half hours ago?
This better be good.
Stabbing the talk button, he rolled onto his back. “Yeah?”
“Good morning to you too.”
“I was up all night, remember? You may be able to survive on three hours’ sleep, but not all of us are wired that way. What’s up?”
“There’s been some activity down here I thought you might find interesting.”
“Okay.” He stared at the ceiling, trying to kick-start his brain, wishing he had a cup of coffee in hand.
“You awake enough to hear about it?”
“Yeah.” That was a lie. He forced himself to sit up, hoping the change in position would accelerate the flow of blood to his brain. “Go ahead.”
“Faith Bradley showed up this morning, bearing gifts. I recognized her from the shot Nikki found on her Facebook page.”
That helped wake him up. “Go on.”
“She sat in her car in front of the house for about ten minutes. I figured she was going to pull the same stunt you observed—watch for a while, then drive away. But this time she got out carrying what looked like a plate of homemade cinnamon rolls. I zeroed in on them with the telephoto lens while I snapped a few shots of her. Man, did they make my mouth water.”
Dev rolled his eyes. “You want to stick to the story?”
His colleague’s chuckle came over the line. “I always forget what a grouch you are when you’re tired.”
“Yeah, well, I’m reminding you. Go on.”
“She started up the walk. I was snapping some close-ups—of her, not the cinnamon rolls—when she stopped all of a sudden. She was staring straight ahead, and I switched over to the house to see what had grabbed her attention. I caught the tail end of the blinds dropping down in the front window—blinds that hadn’t been open moments before. She did a 180 and almost ran back toward her car.”
Dev swung his legs to the floor and stood, his mind now firing on all cylinders. “She saw something that startled her.”
“That would be my guess. So, top-notch PI that I am, I decided to try a little pretext.”
<
br /> Knowing Connor, this ought to be entertaining. “You have my full attention.”
“I tore a page out of my surveillance log and hotfooted it down the street. She was nearly to her car by the time I intercepted her. Up close, it was obvious she was shaken and upset.”
Dev planted a fist on his hip. “What did you say?”
“I told her I was trying to track down my sister, who was supposed to be at a party in the neighborhood last night but hadn’t come home yet and my mom was worried. Except I couldn’t read my mom’s handwriting and I wasn’t sure I had the last digit right. So did she happen to know if there’d been a party at Hamilton’s house, since I’d seen her coming down the walk?”
Dev tried to follow the logic of his approach. Failed. “And the point was . . . ?”
“The truth? It was a stab in the dark. I said the first thing that came to mind, hoping she might drop me a few crumbs about Hamilton or mention what she’d seen in the window.”
“Did she?”
“Yep. On both counts. She said she hadn’t thought the guy who lived there socialized a lot or had many parties, but she must be wrong because she’d just seen a girl at the window. That’s why she was leaving. She didn’t want to disturb him.”
Dev’s pulse spiked. “Did you get a description of the girl?”
“I did, on the excuse it might be my sister. No go. The girl in the window had short dark hair.”
Not what he wanted to hear. “Sounds like Hamilton might have a girlfriend.”
“I could run plates for the cars in the alley near his house and in front, then track down the driver’s license info and photos of the owners. We might find a young woman who fits Faith’s description of the person she saw.”
“Not a bad idea.” IDing the girl in the window would give them another avenue to pursue for more info on the reticent daycare center manager. “But we’ll lose surveillance on the front or back while you’re getting numbers on the opposite side of the house.”
“You want to come back down and do the recon?”
“No.” He wiped a hand down his face. “I need some shut-eye. What’s Cal doing today?”
“He and Moira were planning to extend their Valentine’s celebration by sleeping late, going to a brunch in the Central West End, and taking in the new exhibit at the art museum.”
“When did he tell you all this?”
“He didn’t. I overheard Nikki asking him about his weekend plans.”
Dev paced to the window and frowned at the snow. He was still chilled from his all-night stint in the Explorer. Going back out into the cold held zero appeal. “Why don’t you call and ask him if he could spare an hour to run down there before they go to brunch? It wouldn’t be that much of a detour.”
“Uh-uh. This is your case, and I want to stay on friendly terms with him—and his new wife. You call.”
Dev huffed out a breath. “He just got back from his honeymoon. They’ve been together for almost two weeks. You don’t think he could tear himself away from Moira for an hour?”
“Let’s see. Spend the day with a gorgeous woman doing fun things or wander around slushy streets reading license plates? I can understand how that might be a hard choice.”
“Very funny.” He crossed the room toward his closet. “Fine. I’ll check the plates. Look for me in thirty minutes. Maybe forty-five.”
“Get some coffee on the way.”
“Trust me, it’s on the top of my list. Is Faith still there?”
“No. She made a fast exit after we talked.”
He pulled a pair of jeans off a hanger. “What’s your take on her visit—and her reaction to the other woman?”
“The same as yours, I assume. She’s got the hots for Hamilton, was trying to impress him with the way-to-a-man’s-heart-is-through-his-stomach ploy, and got blindsided when she found another female in his house at this hour of the morning.”
“Yeah.” He pulled a sweatshirt out of his dresser. Gave it a sniff. Passable. But one of these days—soon—he had to do some laundry. “That means she’s been noticing Hamilton, paying attention to stuff an ordinary co-worker wouldn’t. I wonder if she’d offer us any interesting insights if Cal paid her a visit on some pretext and did a little digging?”
“Couldn’t hurt to give it a shot . . . but wait until later today, okay?”
“Yeah, yeah.” He pawed through his sock drawer, looking for two that matched. “I’ll call you with the license numbers.”
“I’ll be here. I’ve already got the ones I can see with the binoculars on the street in front of his house. I just need a few that are blocked and the ones in the alley that are in reasonable proximity to his place.”
“I’m on it.”
After dumping the phone and his clothes on the bed, Dev padded toward the bathroom, rubbing his jaw. He needed a shave, but niceties like that would have to wait. The cars parked in front of and behind Hamilton’s place could disappear at any moment, and if one of them held a clue to the identity of the woman inside his house, he didn’t want to risk missing it. If she was close enough friends with Hamilton to be in his house early on Saturday morning—or had perhaps been there all night—she might also know what he knew about Darcy.
And with eight days elapsed since Laura’s half sister had run away . . . with the trail growing colder by the hour . . . they needed every bit of information they could dredge up if they wanted to find the missing teen and bring this case to the best possible conclusion.
Mark pounded the edge of the snow shovel against the patch of ice on his front sidewalk. Once. Twice. Three times. Hard. Harder. Hardest.
When it finally cracked, he jammed the shovel under the ice, hefted the jagged chunks, and hurled them onto the lawn.
Ice, he could break.
People and habits . . . much more difficult to handle.
He’d failed with Lil. Failed with Angela. Failed with Denise. Now he’d failed with Darcy.
He couldn’t save anybody.
Lifting the shovel, he tightened his grip and slammed the edge against another patch of ice. The impact reverberated through his body—just like the ramifications of his latest failure.
Because this failure, unlike the others, had complications.
If Laura had survived her trip down the hill this morning, she might eventually come looking for her sister again, despite what Darcy seemed to believe. On the flip side, other than the busybody volunteer who’d noticed him talking to the girl at the homeless shelter, there was nothing to tie them together and no reason for anyone to suspect she was, at this very moment, locked in his basement apartment.
Besides, she wouldn’t be there long—only until he decided how to handle the situation. She might still serve a purpose if he needed to deal with the sister.
Once again, he scooped up the shattered fragments of ice and flung them onto the lawn. The abraded skin on his arm stung as the edges peeking out under the bandage rubbed against the sleeve of his shirt, and he clenched his teeth. When his vision blurred, he froze.
Were those tears in his eyes?
Yes.
And they had nothing to do with the pain in his arm.
Their source was much, much older than that.
He lifted a gloved hand and swiped the back of it across his eyes as his legs grew shaky. What was going on? He’d stopped crying two decades ago, after learning the harsh lesson that tears never helped. Ever. Instead, they’d made things worse. That’s why he’d learned to control them, to cultivate logic and pragmatism over emotions and feelings. And that approach had served him well, allowed him to survive. Changing course now would leave him adrift.
Yet he felt as if he was drifting, anyway.
Fear snaked through him, and he forced himself to take some deep breaths. Things would be okay. He’d get through this, just like he’d gotten through all the other bad stuff in his life. He’d do what he had to do to survive and never look back. And someday, down the road, he’d find the one he could sav
e—and who would, in turn, save him.
In the meantime, he’d do what he always did. He’d focus on the children at Davis Daycare. They depended on him, and he’d do everything he could to make certain they got a happy, nurturing start in life. He’d see that they were cuddled and cared for and listened to and fed and covered with a warm blanket when they slept—all the things that gave a child comfort and security and a sense of safety.
All the things he’d never been able to count on Lil to provide.
A gust of icy wind swept past, and he began to tremble. But the cold wasn’t to blame for his case of the shakes. The shudders rolling through him were Lil’s fault.
Just as they’d been in the old days.
He clung to the handle of the shovel, using it for support as the memories he’d locked away began to crash over him, seeping around the edges of the door he’d sealed shut years ago.
Lil in his face, yelling at the top of her voice, telling him he was a worthless piece of garbage.
Lil locking him in the dark closet for every tiny mistake, ranting at his ineptitude, ignoring his hysterical pleas for release.
Lil sending him out to huddle on the back stoop for hours at a time whenever a man showed up with money in his pockets, oblivious as he baked in blistering heat or cowered during torrential, lightning-laced downpours or shivered in frigid winds that whitened his nose and fingers with frostbite.
Lil forcing him to eat dog food after he complained about being hungry.
Lil ordering him to clean up the vomit and urine in the bathroom following particularly wild sessions with one of her men.
He closed his eyes and swallowed, trying to ignore the itching in his fingers as he rode out the wave of nausea.
Just like in the old days.
But that wasn’t the real Lil. He knew that. Had always known that. She hadn’t been mean and vindictive and heartless deep inside. On the rare days she wasn’t drunk or high or entertaining men, she’d been a loving mother.
He’d lived for those days.
Treasured them.
Especially his eighth birthday.
Trapped (Private Justice Book #2): A Novel Page 24
