“Are we ready to head out?” Jack asked.
“Give me five minutes to change,” Darby said.
True to her word, she switched to a pair of capris and a top in a matter of minutes. She sat in the back of Declan’s SUV. Well, she wasn’t sitting so much as she was crouched behind the front seats in case the press was still outside the gate.
“Can we swing by the restaurant to see if Sean left any clues as to where he might be?” Darby asked.
“I thought you said it was closed.”
“It is, but I have a key and the alarm code. And if you want to get super technical, I own the place.” Darby explained to Declan.
“Then let’s have a look around,” Declan agreed.
The restaurant was dark when they arrived. Even the outdoor sign was off. Darby used her key and killed the alarm, then switched on the lights. The place was eerily empty. Normally the tables were set for the next business day but now they were bare.
“Follow me,” she said. With both men on her heels, she went through the deserted kitchen to Sean’s office. The door was locked. Darby didn’t have a key. “Damn it.”
“Move away,” Declan said.
He reared back and kicked the door right near the lock and it splintered, then slammed open. They were immediately assaulted by a foul odor.
Declan let out a muffled curse. Darby peered around him and found herself staring into the lifeless eyes of Consuela.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
An hour later, Darcy found herself in an interview room at the Martin County Sheriff’s Department. She rubbed her exposed arms against the chill in the room and wondered how much longer she was going to have to wait.
The scent of stale coffee was strong but she would have loved a cup to ward off the chill. Florida was nothing if not air conditioned.
A female deputy opened the door. As if reading Darby’s mind, she was balancing two paper cups of coffee on her binder. “I’m Detective Melody Younger,” she introduced herself as she placed one of the cups in Darby’s direction. “Cream or sugar?”
“No, thank you. Where is Jack?” she asked.
“Mr. Kavanaugh is being interviewed by another deputy.”
“But shouldn’t he be in here with me? He’s my lawyer.”
The pretty blonde smiled and shrugged. “You can refuse to talk to me. That’s your right. But from what I understand the deceased may have been involved in the kidnapping of your daughter.”
Darby relaxed a little. “You mean you aren’t going to accuse me of killing my baby and Consuela?”
“The woman at the scene has been dead for at least two days,” the deputy explained. “You were in custody at that time.”
Detective Younger slid out a chair and took her seat. She flipped open the leather binder and then thumbed through some notes Darby couldn’t read until she got to a blank page. “Can you tell me what happened?”
“I honestly don’t know,” Darby replied. “Was she strangled?”
The deputy nodded.
“Have you found any evidence of where Sean might have gone afterward? He has my baby.” Darby recounted the phone call and the threats and the more she talked the more she felt tears burn at the back of her eyes. “I know I’ve been charged with killing Mia but I didn’t do that. I couldn’t. I was just trying to get her away from Sean and I couldn’t think of a safer place for myself than jail.”
“The deceased was your maid?”
“More like a helper. She came twice a week to help me keep the house clean and tidy because my husband would literally beat me if the place wasn’t perfect. With Sean, everything had to be perfect. The house, the cars, the baby. Me.”
“Yet you never called the police?”
“I was afraid and embarrassed,” she admitted. “And I was fairly sure Sean could have talked his way out of everything. I didn’t have any real proof of the abuse until recently, when it escalated on practically a daily basis. I didn’t know until after Mia was born that Sean had wired the house for video. He was watching my every move. There’s a DVD back at my house that, much as it pains me to say, if you watch it you’ll get a flavor of what my life was like with that lunatic. Then he killed my parents, and now poor Consuela.”
“Why do you think he killed her and left her at the restaurant?”
“Probably to buy some time. I’m sure with the publicity my case was getting he couldn’t keep a body in our house. Or he may have lured her to the restaurant for some reason. Probably to take care of Mia. Consuela was wonderful with the baby. But I’m guessing that once Consuela saw the baby was alive, she would have gone straight to the authorities to get me out of jail.”
“Did she have family? Do you know why no one has reported her missing?”
Darby hung her head. “Consuela wasn’t legal but she has a daughter who is. Maria Something. Garcia? We were on our way to try to track her down when we stopped at the office and found Consuela’s b-body.”
“You thought she might be at your husband’s restaurant?” the deputy asked.
Darby shook her head. “No. I just wanted to look around to see if Sean left any clues behind to help me find him. If I can find Sean, I can find my daughter.”
“Can you think of anyone else Sean might have confided in or talked to before disappearing?”
“Not really. Greg, the bartender, is the closest thing he has to an assistant manager. Oh, and he’s screwing his hostess, Roxanne Kolkina.”
The deputy was furiously taking notes as Darby talked. “I don’t know how to contact either of them but their numbers should be in Sean’s office. There’s a phone list taped to the wall just above the vendor directory.”
Deputy Younger took out her cell phone and from what Darby could gather, she was asking the person on the opposite end of the phone to retrieve the numbers. “Thank you,” she said, then she disconnected and placed her phone on the well-worn table.
There was a knock at the door and then Jack, accompanied by State’s Attorney Matt Johnson, stepped into the room. Darby’s heart skipped a beat. Johnson’s presence made her nervous. He believed she was a baby killer, so she fully expected the accusations to fly.
Jack came around and sat next to her in the hard wooden chair. Johnson stood, his back braced against the opened doorjamb. “Declan is going back to your place for the DVD,” Jack explained.
Darby hated that another person was going to watch her humiliation. “Okay. Can we leave now?” she asked.
“Not yet,” Johnson said.
Darby began to shake and Jack reached out and covered her tremulous hands with one of his own. “It’s nothing bad,” he promised. “Matt?”
“In light of the discovery of your maid’s body, I’m going to ask the court to dismiss the charges against you.”
She looked up at him as if he was speaking in tongues. “Seriously?”
“I had one of my investigators look into your husband after court. It seems he has a pretty unsavory history.”
“Define ‘unsavory,’” she said quietly, not knowing how much he actually knew about her past with Sean—the rapes, the beatings, the deaths of her parents and her housekeeper. “He has my daughter.”
“Seven years ago he was dating a woman in Michigan. The woman was last seen leaving a bar with Sean and getting into his car. He claimed she stormed out in a huff after a brief argument. Only it was February and she didn’t take her coat or her purse or her keys.”
“Is she dead?” Darby asked.
“Never found a body, so the case is still open, and Sean is the only person of interest in that one. Then there’s Texas.”
Darby was feeling stupider and more scared by the second. “What happened in Texas?”
“According to a young woman he was dating, he beat her so badly her jaw and orbital bones were broken.”
“Why wasn’t he put in jail?” Jack asked.
“The victim backed out. Said she was drinking heavily that night and had no memory of how she got
hurt. Even tried to claim she’d fallen down the stairs and that’s what caused her injuries.”
Darby looked down at Jack’s hand covering hers and squeezed his fingers. “I’m sure Sean talked her out of pursuing the case. He can be pretty convincing and intimidating.”
“And you have no idea where he might be?”
Darby shook her head. “If I can get to a laptop I can tell you if he has taken any money out of our accounts or used any of our credit cards.”
Matt nodded and Darby was taken to an open cubicle where she sat in front of a desktop. The area around the machine was devoid of personal items, so she figured this was just an extra terminal.
It took her about five minutes to access her bank and money market accounts. Sean had been a busy boy. “He’s taken about twenty-two thousand dollars out of the bank. Let me check the credit cards.” Darby dialed the customer service numbers on the backs of both cards and learned a charge had been made on the last day Sean was seen in the amount of $1,257 on one card, and a charge of $439 had been made on a second card. “I’ll have to wait until morning to speak to a rep who can tell me where he spent the money, and to cut him off.”
“Don’t do that,” Matt and Jack said in unison.
Jack continued. “We might be able to track him by the credit cards.”
“Okay.” That tiny tidbit gave her a glimmer of hope. “But isn’t he going to find out that the charges against me have been dropped?”
“That could push him farther underground,” Matt agreed. “Okay, for now I’ll let the charges stand.”
“Thank you,” Darby said. How surreal had her life become that she was thanking a state’s attorney for not dropping murder charges against her?
“You said your husband has a mistress?” Matt asked.
“Roxanne Kolkina,” Darby answered. “She’s worked at the restaurant for about three months.”
“Sean has naked pictures on his office computer,” Jack interjected. Then he explained about Peggy and what Sean had had her do before vanishing.
“You have no idea where this Lyssa person might be?”
Darby shook her head and rubbed her arms as cold fear trickled down her spine. “Her parents are dead, but—” Darby’s mouth snapped closed and she looked up at the two men and one woman staring at her. “But she told Peggy she had visited with her mother. Remember? I think Peggy was trying to throw Sean off track. But Sean has Mia and I’m afraid that the only way he’d have gotten her was to kill Lyssa as well. Maybe she spoke to Peggy before Sean found her?” Darby guessed. “But Lyssa’s mother is dead.” She sighed heavily. “This is so confusing.”
Jack nodded. “So how could she have visited with her mother?”
“Gravesite?” Darby suggested.
“Any idea where her parents are buried?”
Darby started to shake her head, then she froze. “Charleston,” she said just above a whisper.
“South Carolina or West Virginia?” Matt asked.
“The damned paper,” Jack said as he pounded his hand on the desktop. “He gave Darby divorce papers and a newspaper, but it was just the front page of the Palm Beach Post. The interior pages were all from the Charleston Post Courier. He’s known where Lyssa was since before you formally charged her with the baby’s murder.”
Darby practically leapt from her seat. “I have to get to Charleston.” She started to push past the two men but Jack stopped her by bracketing her shoulders in his hands.
“We have to make a plan,” he cautioned. “Sean has obviously put a lot of time and thought into this so we can’t just go charging up there without knowing what we’re up against. Not if we want to make sure Mia stays safe.”
“Can we call South Carolina and ask the police to look for them?” Darby asked.
“We’re going to need something more than just the name of a city and physical descriptions,” Matt explained. “Does your husband have any habits or vices?”
“He likes going first class. Especially when it’s on me,” Darby scoffed. “Like renting a car. He’s probably not going to use Budget.”
“Same with hotels?” Jack asked.
Darby nodded. “Yes. He’s grown accustomed to being served.”
Detective Younger said, “Let me call the Charleston PD. Maybe they can canvass the better hotels for Sean, Roxanne, and the baby.”
Darby’s gut clenched. “Please make sure they understand that my baby is with them. I don’t want a single hair on her head harmed.”
“Got it. Do you have a recent picture of Mia?”
Darby went into her purse and took out her phone. “This was a week ago.”
“Good. I can use DMV photos for Lyssa, Roxanne, and Sean.” She disappeared down a hallway. Darby took the other phone out of her purse and tried the number again, but the call still went to voicemail. She was fighting back tears and feeling utterly useless. She wanted to go to Charleston herself and go door to door if necessary. Sitting around doing nothing only made her feel as if things were getting worse.
“What will they do if they find him?” she asked Matt.
“They’ll hold him, either on custodial interference or in reference to Consuela’s murder.”
“What about Mia?”
“They’ll place her in foster care until you can get to Charleston to pick her up.”
“No, no, no,” Darby insisted. “My daughter is absolutely not going to foster care. I’m going to Charleston tonight. I promise I won’t get in the way of the Charleston P.D. but I’m not going to let anyone pass my baby around foster care even for one night.”
“What if they’ve already left Charleston?” Matt asked.
Darby shrugged. “Then I’ll fly or drive or crawl in whatever direction he’s going with my baby.”
It was Matt’s turn to shrug. “I can’t stop you, but I strongly advise against it. At least wait until morning when you can talk to your credit card companies. It could be that Sean has charged a hotel room to your Amex and then we’ll know precisely where to find him.”
Jack placed his hand on her shoulder. “It’s almost three in the morning now,” he suggested quietly. “We’ll get a few hours of sleep, then deal with the credit cards and plan our next move. Okay?”
Declan joined them just then, handing a DVD over to Matt. “So what’s the plan?” he asked.
All eyes were on her. As much as Darby wanted to go racing to Charleston, she had to admit that patience might just be the right approach. “Sleep, financials, and then we charter a flight to Charleston if it looks like Sean has spent so much as five minutes in that town.”
Declan offered to go to Jack’s place to take care of the dog, and then he wanted to go by his own office to work on some of the databases he subscribed to as a private investigator. With the police focused on Sean, Declan, Darby, and Jack thought it was a good idea if someone focused on Roxanne.
A very jittery Darby and Jack ended up alone together in her house. “Sorry. I think I have cop coffee syndrome,” she joked. “My hands are shaking from drinking that stuff.”
“Then you need to relax,” Jack suggested. “Come here. I’ll help you.”
She joined him on the sofa. Initially his fingers molded the tense muscles at her neck. She knew he was just trying to help but her body was reacting in a completely different manner. Her skin warmed and tingled and she was acutely aware of the slight callouses on the pads of his thumbs as he ran them up and down the back of her neck. It felt so good that she couldn’t help but let a small moan escape her lips.
Ever so gently, Jack picked her up, turned her over and laid her belly-down on the sofa. He straddled her backside as his hands molded her skin. Jack lifted her hair and pushed it to one side, baring one side of her throat. His hands slipped down so that just the ends of his fingertips brushed the sides of her breasts. He dipped his head and began to place tiny kisses against her warm skin.
Darby experienced an odd combination of relaxation and intense desire. There was a
fire in the pit of her stomach and his kisses left a blazing trail on her skin. He nibbled her ear and she felt his hot breath on her. Darby managed to wriggle over onto her back and she immediately reached for the buttons of Jack’s shirt. She was so full of need that her fingers refused to cooperate at first and she was half-tempted to just rip the damned thing off. But she fell into a rhythm and in no time, she was pushing the shirt from his shoulders and admiring his chiseled form.
Lifting her head, she was able to place kisses against the dark hair covering his chest. She put her fingers where her lips had been and traced the hair as it tapered, then disappeared inside his pants.
Her anxiety was forgotten and she was totally immersed in desire. She had forgotten this magical feeling. Forgotten what it was like to want a man more than you wanted your next breath. She wound her arms around him, stopping every now and again to feel the outline of his muscles. She pulled at him, desperate for the feel of his mouth against hers.
He glanced down at her through thick, inky lashes. “Do you think this is a good idea?”
“Yes. A very good one,” she insisted as she snaked her fingers up past his collar and into his hair. Again she tugged and again she felt resistance.
“I need to know you’re sure.”
Hearing the hitch in his voice made her feel powerful and desirable. “I’m very sure.”
Jack shifted his weight so he was next to her on the plush sofa, and he dipped his head forward and his lips touched hers. His touch was much less tentative this time. He tugged the hem of her top free and tried to unbutton its tiny pearl buttons. Darby giggled, then moved his hand aside and slowly unbuttoned her blouse. As she did so, she watched his smoldering gaze follow her every move and felt his hardness against her thigh.
He pushed back the shoulder of her shirt. He began his kisses on her mouth, then dipped lower until he was placing warm, urgent kisses against the swell of her breast above her demi-bra.
He tried to shift their position again but it didn’t work. “Damn it,” he cursed softly as he struggled to remove her top.
“How about we go into the bedroom?” Darby suggested.
Exposed Page 16
