by Julie Miller
Before they could take another step, all the lights went out and the first woman screamed.
* * *
BAILEY FELT SPENCER pushing her against the wall beside one of the Christmas trees, shielding her with his body as several guests panicked and ran from the ballroom, bumping into and tripping over the people who were already there.
A violin screeched and the music suddenly stopped. She heard curses and cries of pain. A glass crashed and shattered on the hard floor. Someone was crying. There were more screams and people shouting for loved ones, the excited chatter of hundreds of people talking all at once. She heard footsteps running toward the back of the house, others shifting like restless cattle.
She heard Jackson’s voice in the ballroom, shouting to be heard above the chaos. “Everyone, remain calm. Stay where you are.” He hollered for Zeiss and his crew to get them some light and the sounds of worried voices swelled. “Please, people.”
“If anyone gets hurt...” Bailey clung to the walnut paneling, hating the frightened sounds she could hear. “Did I ever tell you I’m afraid of the dark? That Brian Elliott put a hood over my head when he wasn’t...”
“Shh.” Firm lips warmed the nape of her neck. “Just focus on the sound of my voice.” Spencer moved behind her. He pulled out his cell phone and punched up an app that lit up the screen with a bright light. “Here.” Suddenly, there was a small beam of light shining at her feet. “See? We’re not in the dark.”
Following the illumination of his phone light, Bailey could see other guests and the Zeiss security guards turning on phones and flashlights, transforming the dark night of the powerless house into a dim twilight.
Still, Bailey didn’t breathe any easier until Spencer took her hand and pulled her into step beside him. He stretched his long arm over his head, forming a beacon that several people came closer to. “I’m Detective Montgomery, KCPD,” he announced. “I need everyone to stay calm. I’m going outside to see if my people can tell me anything about the power outage. Please stay where you are.”
He slowly made his way toward the front door, but he’d made the mistake of announcing his authority and the frightened guests were following in their wake like lemmings to a seaside cliff.
“Stay put, people,” he reminded them, but they were gathering around, closing in. From all directions now.
A man jostled Bailey’s arm. “Spencer?”
Someone bumped her again and she lost hold of Spencer’s hand. “Spence?”
“Bailey?”
She reached for him again, but suddenly she was being pushed back. More people were drifting into the foyer from the ballroom now, separating her from her savior like a deep, rushing stream.
“Bailey?” He swung his light around, illuminating her face in the crowd. But they were moving farther and farther apart.
He flipped his light in a different direction, back to the ballroom’s second archway. “Duncan! Can you reach her?”
A second beam of light hit Bailey from behind. “I got her.”
“Bailey, I’ll meet you outside.”
“Okay.”
The burly bodyguard pushed aside the people in his way and closed his hand around Bailey’s arm. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Bailey nodded, eager to stay with a light and a friendly face. “What about my wrap? It’ll be freezing outside.”
Max tugged out of the path of an elderly couple feeling their way along the wall. “Cloakroom’s the other direction. I’ll take you out the back. I’ll loan you my jacket if we can’t find something along the way.”
The crowd thinned as they cleared the ballroom exodus and Bailey realized Max was walking at a quicker pace than he had earlier this evening. And he wasn’t using his cane. “You must be feeling better.”
He held up the cane and shrugged. “I kept tripping people.”
She smiled, appreciating his attempt to alleviate her concern. What she didn’t appreciate was his grip tightening around her arm. Any more force and he’d be leaving bruises. She patted his hand. “Hey, lighten up. I can keep up now.”
The first tinge of disquiet hit when he didn’t loosen his grip.
The second came when he picked up the pace, walking just as quickly as she could on two uninjured legs. “Max?”
This was wrong. Something was very wrong.
Be aware of your surroundings, Bailey.
She knew she was in trouble when he turned off into a smaller hallway before they reached the kitchen. She tugged against his grip, but he wasn’t stopping. “I grew up in this house, Max. This isn’t the way—”
He pushed open a secluded door and shoved her inside.
She tumbled off one of her heels, wrenching her ankle, but it wasn’t enough pain to stop her from charging toward the door and pummeling the muscle-bound bully who’d put her here. “Damn it, Max, it’s as dark as a closet in here. Where’s your flashlight?”
“Here’s your light.” Another voice. A woman’s voice.
Bailey spun around.
“What?” Suddenly, there was a bright light shining in her eyes, blinding her after the darkness. Bailey shielded her eyes against the sharp beam of the LED flashlight and squinted at the face that went with the woman’s voice into focus. “You’re...Regina Hollister.” Brian Elliott’s executive assistant. Always lurking in the background whenever her employer was around. The papers she’d brought for Mara Boyd-Elliott to sign had probably been fakes. She hadn’t come to the ball for a signature. She’d come for her. “What are you doing here?”
“Cleaning up a mess. Just like I clean up all of Brian’s messes. He needs me for that, you know. From the time we started building his company together, I’ve always taken care of whatever he needs.”
The Cleaner.
Instinctively, Bailey backed away from the woman’s cold, unsmiling stare. But in the small butler’s pantry, she quickly bumped into Max. He hadn’t budged when she’d struck a moment earlier, so she tried pleading. “Please call Spencer. Whatever this woman is holding over you, whatever she’s paying—it’s not worth it. I’ll double whatever she’s paying you.”
“Max,” Regina warned. “We have a schedule to keep.”
Even in the dim tunnel of illumination inside the room, she could see the regret stamped on Max’s bulldog features. “It isn’t the money, Miss Austin. I’m sorry I have to do this.”
“Do what?” The rustling of her long dress was the only sound for several long seconds.
Then a soft cloth came down over her head and she was plunged into utter darkness. Bailey screamed. The flashback to fear was instant and overwhelming. But she was a different woman now than she’d been that night.
She bit down on the hand that covered her mouth. Max swore. She pushed off the hood, but his hands were on her again. Bailey punched up, catching him in the throat. When he grabbed her by the hair, she clawed at his hands, clawed at his face. Her fingers fisted around those ridiculous sunglasses he’d worn tonight and she ripped them from his neck, tossing them away into the shadows.
“Damn it, Miss Austin, quit fightin’ me.”
“You’re wasting my time. Give me that.” Something long and hard struck Bailey in the back of the head, driving her to her knees and knocking her woozy.
“Spencer,” she murmured, feeling the floor rush up to meet her. “I need you.”
She was vaguely aware of her wrists and legs being bound, of the hood sliding over her face. Her head felt like a swinging cannonball when Max picked her up over his shoulder.
This was her nightmare all over again—struck from behind, bound—her world reduced to the blackness inside the hood. Only one thing remained in the re-creation of that horrible night.
The last thing she heard was Regina’s clipped, matter-of-fact voice. “Bring her. He wants to s
ee her before I finish her off.”
Chapter Twelve
Spencer stood in the doorway of the butler’s pantry holding a twisted pair of sunglasses and the midnight-blue heel of Bailey’s shoe.
He’d known she was gone long before they’d gotten the power back on and had cleared the entire mansion. If she was here, she’d have been right by his side, right in the middle of things—asking questions, straightening his tie, adding light to his dark old soul, listening, loving, standing up to make a difference.
But it had taken twenty minutes longer for the Zeiss security guard to report the drops of blood on the rug back there. It wasn’t enough blood to indicate a serious injury, but it was enough to know that she hadn’t gone willingly.
Keep fighting, sweetheart.
Now he just had to get to her in time.
Losing Bailey the way he’d lost Ellen wasn’t something a man could survive.
Spencer unhooked his tie and loosened his collar. Time to go to work.
“What do we know?”
Hans, the muscular German Shepherd who partnered with big Pike Taylor, was panting in the hallway. Pike rubbed the dog’s muzzle and ears, rewarding him for completing his task. “Hans followed the trail to the staff parking lot where Max Duncan’s truck was parked. He had enough of a scent to get us out to the highway. They turned east, into the city.”
“The only prints are Max Duncan’s on the door knob.” Annie Hermann pulled a giant pair of tweezers from her crime-scene kit and plucked a tiny filament from the rug. “I’ve got a black thread.”
“They put a hood on her.” Spencer couldn’t prove it, but he knew how to put together the pieces of the puzzle. The hood was part of the Rose Red Rapist’s M.O. His stomach twisted into knot. The darkness? The disorientation? Bailey would be terrified.
Nick’s gut had him sniffing the air at the back of the pantry. “Do you smell that? Perfume. Unless it’s Bailey’s?”
“No.” Bailey was clean, fresh, citrusy sunshine. “It’s hers. The Cleaner’s.”
Nick’s phone buzzed on his belt and he read the information there. “Got a text from Sarge. Once we narrowed the search to Duncan, she got a hit. Apparently, Duncan has a past he’d like to keep in the past. That’s how she got him to turn on Bailey.” He flipped open the key pad and replied, “I’ll tell Sarge to put an APB out on his truck.”
Kate Kilpatrick waited in the hallway. “I talked to Bailey’s parents and got a list of all the women invited to the party and any female press or staff who were on their checklist.”
Pike stood up beside her. “But if Duncan’s the guy checking her in at the door, he wouldn’t put her on that list.”
“Here’s the kicker.” Kate opened a manila file and pulled out a photograph. “Loretta Mayweather is a wreck with her daughter missing—but that woman knows her guest list. I had her look through the pictures the photographer took, to help us match names to faces, and she spotted this.” She handed the photo to Spencer. “The one person here tonight she didn’t invite.”
“The one person not dressed for a formal occasion.” Spencer brushed his fingertip over the image of Bailey in the middle of her conversation with Mara Boyd-Elliott and Gabriel Knight. But he was looking at the fourth person in that photograph.
The one wearing slacks and a jacket.
Regina Hollister.
The Cleaner.
Spencer handed the picture off to Nick and the others. “Let’s go get her.”
* * *
FIGHT. THAT’S what you do. You fight.
Spencer’s voice filled Bailey’s thoughts when she came to on top of the plastic-covered mattress for the second time.
She rolled onto her side, facing the voices she could hear, hating the sound of the crinkling plastic almost as much as she hated the hood that had kept her in darkness earlier.
She wasn’t quite sure how she could take care of herself with her wrists bound and her head throbbing from the knot on the back of her scalp. A long silk gown with one shoulder and too many stays wasn’t exactly her regular workout gear, either.
But she wasn’t giving up. Spencer would be looking for her. He was smart and observant and knew how to get the best from the people he led. He’d figure it out. He’d find her.
She wasn’t going to be another tragedy weighing heavily on his noble heart.
Bailey tilted her gaze to the discarded leg brace and cane lying on the floor beside the stack of lumber where Max Duncan sat, guarding her. Meanwhile, Brian Elliott and Regina Hollister stood with their heads bowed together over the workbench in the far corner of the construction site—laughing and plotting and not looking anything much like a boss and his assistant.
The sun must be up by now, although there wasn’t a single window in this demolished section of some floor in some old building that was being renovated by Elliott’s company. He owned dozens of buildings across the city.
But Spencer would find her. He would be there for her.
The setting was disturbingly familiar. An old warehouse, stripped down to the studs, covered in layers of plastic. She sat on a plastic-covered mattress in the middle of the floor.
The only difference was that Elliott was allowing her to see her surroundings in detail this time. He was allowing her to see his face without any effort to disguise it.
She knew the only reason they’d let her take off the hood and see the details of her surroundings was that they had no intention of letting her leave here alive.
“Why are you doing this, Max?” she asked, needing to do something before the fear or helplessness got too strong a hold on her again.
“I’ve done some things in my past I’m not too proud of. They could cost me my job.” He laughed, but it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Let’s just say I haven’t always made a living with my clothes on.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t expected that answer from the tough guy she’d once vouched for with the police. But then she supposed she didn’t much care about the choices he’d had to make, since they’d led to her being held prisoner. Surely, Brian Elliott didn’t think he could get away with the star witness in the case against him.
But then, maybe that’s exactly what he thought. As difficult as The Cleaner had been for Spencer’s task force to identify and capture, maybe Regina had a plan that would allow Brian to get away without any blame. After all, who was going to argue his guilt but one dead victim and a weak man being blackmailed into silence?
“What about Corie?” Bailey ignored the ringing in her skull and the throbbing in her injured cheek when she pushed herself up to a sitting position. “She had a crush on you, you know. It wouldn’t have mattered to her who you are or where you’ve been.”
Max leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and resting his chin on his hands.
Brace. He’d removed his leg brace entirely and tossed it to the floor near the edge of her mattress. Maybe he’d never been injured at all, and it had simply been a ruse to gain her trust and give him access to her mother’s guest list last night.
“I’m sorry about your friend. She was a sweet kid.” Bailey scooted to the edge of the mattress and dropped her feet over the side, gathering her long skirt around her legs. “She was spying on you, too. Between her and me we had eyes on you almost around the clock.”
“I had no idea.” Now that hurt. Two people she’d trusted. Two people who’d betrayed her.
Come on, Spencer.
Bailey dropped the hem of her dress down around her feet, letting the edge fall over part of the cane. “So was she killed because she looked like me and someone made a mistake? Or was she collateral damage?”
“Neither. Corie was getting cold feet.” Max’s attention drifted over to the far side of the room to the two conscienceless tyrants who didn’t give a whit about anyone else’s lives but their own. “I don’t think she wanted to see you get hurt.”
Bailey curled her toes around the cane and pulled it out of sight beneath her dress. “I don’t suppose Regina lets you change your mind about helping her.”
“If Regina wants something, she calls you. And if you don’t do what she asks, she finds you.” Max snorted a derisive laugh through his nose. “We’re just pawns. It’s all about Mr. Elliott for her. That is one sick relationship. She’s lover, mother, caretaker, protector to him.”
“What does he do for her?” Weapon? Check. The cane seemed to have done a decent job on the back of her own head. Bailey stretched out her arms, making a show of flexing her fingers while she got her feet planted flat on the plastic tarp beneath them.
“I’m not sure. The money. The job.”
Bailey reached down for the cane and came up swinging. Nose. Pop! She heard the cartilage give when she smacked it across Max’s face. Holding his bleeding face, cursing, he pushed to his feet. Throat. She swung again, catching him in the Adam’s apple and knocking him back to his seat.
“Max!” Regina shouted a warning.
“Stop her!” That was Elliott.
Gut. Max fell backward over the stack of wood and Bailey brought the cane down hard in his midsection, stealing the wind from his belly.
The split second she paused to decide whether to hold on to the cane or go for the gun in his belt was the split second it took for Brian Elliott to reach her.
She screamed when his arms clamped around her body, lifting her off her feet. He shook her like a rag doll until the cane dropped from her hands. After kicking it away, he threw Bailey back onto the mattress and was on top of her before she could scramble away.
