Dark Storm

by Karen Harper

  “And,” Claire added, “does this death link to Darcy’s disappearance or not?”

  “More important, where the hell is Darcy?” Steve muttered, tears in his eyes. “Can she—she be gone, too? Or is she dead, too?”

  “We can’t jump to conclusions,” Claire put in. “Detective Jensen assured me her disappearance is officially still a missing-persons case.”

  “But what happened to her?” Steve said, and his voice broke. The big guy’s hands were shaking. “How can she just be missing? I’m scared to death for her.”

  Claire reached out to cover his hand with hers, and he flinched from the bruises there. Thank heavens he hadn’t been arrested for a barroom brawl. They really needed to keep him home, but then she thought that was exactly what Ken Jensen wanted from them all, and they could hardly stay home and wait around for someone else’s news. Things were taking too long.

  “Like I told you,” Heck said on the speaker phone, “even though the focus is obviously on butterflies, the fact that Larry Ralston and Lincoln Yost were both involved with dolphins might mean something. I’ll look into that as well, along with trying to learn more about this mystery man Clinton Ralston, since there doesn’t appear to be much about him online.”

  “Sounds good, my man,” Nick told him. “Heck, I’m going to have to go into work Monday because that trial delay I asked for is over, so be aware I may not have access to a phone right away, depending on how it goes. At least that still gives me tomorrow to help here.”

  “I’ll leave you a message and let Claire know, too,” he said. “Bye for now.”

  Claire had a feeling Nick didn’t want Heck feeding her information while he was in court, but she didn’t mention that. Not with everyone here and again not later when they went to bed and tried to get some sleep, as exhausted as they were. While she said her jumbled, panicked prayers, she asked that Steve not lose control again and for Darcy to be somehow, somewhere safe. After all, she’d read news items where captive women, like that terrible case in Cleveland, finally made it free, and the abductors and rapists were arrested. She shuddered, just admitting that possibility to herself.

  Tired as she was, she carefully edged out of bed so she wouldn’t disturb Nick. Heck was going to research dolphins. Yet she had another obsession right now. She needed to skim that book she’d taken from Darcy’s house, The Collector, about the butterfly freak who kept an innocent woman prisoner in his isolated house. Maybe there was a clue in that story. Besides, something about Will Warren, butterfly expert and very helpful friend, kept haunting her—his soft heart toward Darcy and obsessive concern over her disappearance, his drifting through their past... Could he have become overly fond of Darcy years ago or even now? Like the demented kidnapper in The Collector, Will evidently lived alone in a fairly isolated house.

  And she could not get seeing that bloated body of the boat captain out of her mind. She and Darcy had once gone swimming with the dolphins down in the Caribbean when they were on break from college. How ironic that Captain Larry had hurt a dolphin and then had ended up swimming with them, paying with his life as if he were now cursed? Surely it was not God’s justice—payback—for him going to Tara’s place to protest her butterfly “prison” and finding Darcy there and one thing led to another. But if he was murdered for that, who was behind it?

  She turned on a light in the den and opened the lid of her laptop. In the search box, she typed in Dolphins + Suspended Animation.

  * * *

  Claire’s brain took in the information and her amazement kept her somehow awake in the heavy silence of the house. She read and printed several articles she would have to show Nick. One was about how susceptible these marine mammals were to sonar. Navy ships emitting pulses of sound had been blamed for a mass beaching. The animals talked to each other with sounds. But she also found proof of what she’d heard before: dolphins could put themselves into a partial sleep while swimming, resting half their brain at a time, before switching to the other half. They controlled their breathing, and one eye at a time kept watch. But they were still quite functional.

  So that, she thought, was like the butterflies in the regard that these animals had control over suspending some or all of their lives and then coming back to full or half consciousness at will. Granted, if mankind could master that, as Will Warren had said, that would be information leading to great riches and power. Not only would that mean overcoming the long distances and time in space travel, but it could lead to a sort of extended life, a step toward immortality.

  Yes, as kind and concerned as Will seemed, she had to find out more about him. But how could this arcane information lead to finding Darcy?

  She nearly jumped out of her chair when Nick spoke behind her. “Sweetheart, don’t just go off like that. Not with your sister missing. When you weren’t in Lexi’s room, I nearly freaked out.”

  “Sorry,” she said, swiveling toward him in her desk chair as he sank into the club chair nearby. “I wanted to look up the dolphin info and take a look at a book I took from Darcy’s bedroom.”

  “Listen, Heck said he’d do the dolphin research, and we can try to further nail down Yost. Seems he wants to talk about that at least,” he said, trying to stifle a huge yawn. He looked exhausted, hair mussed, his cheek with a wrinkle from his pillow; his eyes, even in this fairly dim light, were bloodshot.

  “We need to get you back to bed,” she said. “You have tomorrow, but then court the next morning.”

  “I hope we know more by then. When I couldn’t find you—”

  “Nick, I’m trying to function, to think straight. And Steve getting in a fight like that...”

  “I just don’t want you to go off on something iffy or dangerous while I’m a captive audience at the courthouse this week.”

  A captive audience—the words snagged in her exhausted mind. Was Darcy being held captive as they spoke? A random kidnapping? Or was it someone she knew, someone who had motives other than ransom? She’d be careful, all right, but she’d take a look at that book in the morning, would have done it right now if Nick hadn’t woken up. They had plans for more interviews with the media tomorrow, but Monday she’d spend time after breakfast with Lexi—and that darned doll. But then she was going to make sure Will was at work and take a little trip out to that isolated house of his.

  And unless she found something suspicious, Nick would never even know about it because he’d blow sky-high. But she had to take risks. She’d leave him a note about it in case anything went wrong, and take all the precautions she could. But truth be told, she’d risk her own life to save Darcy’s.

  15

  Claire agreed with Nick that, for Lexi and Jilly’s sake, they should try for some semblance of a family Sunday—at least in the morning—so they went to church. Steve didn’t want questions and concerns, and Jace was home with Brit, so it was just Claire, Nick and the girls. For once, Claire was relieved that Nick had convinced Lexi to leave the doll at home by playing up the fact Cindy needed more rest. Claire just rolled her eyes but she was so grateful not to have Lexi’s “crutch” with them for a while. As much as she’d tried to comfort and counsel her daughter using every psych trick she knew, until now, Lexi had not let go of that doll.

  At church, everyone was supportive but also curious. Claire cried through the prayer from the pulpit for Darcy’s safe and soon return.

  After lunch at home, the parade of television and newspaper interviews began, all carefully scheduled by Heck, who hovered over the lineup while Gina, home from med school for a few days, played badminton with Lexi and Jilly in the backyard. This time, instead of Steve, who still looked banged up, Claire did the sessions one at a time with the reporters and their entourage of cameramen: three TV reporters from Fort Myers and the Fox News reporter from Naples. She also gave the Naples Daily News and the Fort Myers News-Press interviews, asking for tips from anyone who might have seen or overheard anything about Darcy’s disappearance. She held the Christmas picture of he
r sister in front of her for the video and photos.

  The only ground rules were that she would not answer questions about her and Nick’s “stumbling” across Captain Larry Ralston’s body, but would stick to Darcy’s disappearance. A few reporters tried out-the-door questions about Ralston, but she firmly declined to answer, and Nick stepped in to warn them there would be no follow-ups if they got off topic with their coverage.

  When they watched the six and eleven o’clock coverages that evening, Claire noted that not only did her voice shake but also her hands. That made the photo she held look like Darcy was trembling, too.

  * * *

  The next morning, the voir dire went far more smoothly and faster than Nick had expected, so the jury was all seated for the trial, which would start the following day. He was even pleased with those he’d helped to select—and to have psyched them out to be sure they would not be prejudiced against his client. That reading of personalities was Claire’s forte, which was why he’d probably try to get her to work with him part-time when the kids were older. That was, unless another baby came along, which he wouldn’t mind at all.

  But despite the demands of this coming trial, he had to help Claire and Lexi stay strong in this search for Darcy. He’d never say it aloud, but he had terrible vibes. Too much time had passed with no rational answer. This was the fifth day she’d been missing. She and her car might as well have been spirited away by aliens.

  He’d talked to Claire the minute he got back in his office. She’d been “counseling” Lexi, as she called it, despite the doll chiming in. That tech doll was a blessing and a curse, he thought as he went back to wolfing down his sandwich at his desk. His secretary, Cheryl, buzzed him, and despite having a mouthful of pastrami and rye, he punched the talk button on his console.

  “Nick, Bronco says there are two men downstairs at the security desk who insist you will want to see them—a Mr. Ralston and a Mr. Brown. Bronco says if they come up, he’ll come, too, and stay with them. It’s about that dead man you and Claire found.”

  “They should go to the police.”

  “They said they already have earlier today. Did you know it’s in the morning paper that you and Claire found that charter boat captain’s body?”

  “No, in too much of a hurry to read it. Jensen probably had to put it in the official report and the newspaper desk picked it up.”

  “I can call Detective Jensen or summon more security and have Bronco stall or remove them.”

  “No. Send them up. And yes, with Bronco. Also, call Detective Jensen to tell them they’re here.”

  “Will do. Right on it.”

  * * *

  After talking to Nick, Claire phoned the library to be sure Will Warren was there today. “Yes,” the receptionist told her, “he’s here now and will be all afternoon. Story time at two-thirty, so please also invite your friends and their children. We always have a lovely gathering. Will Warren is such a wonderful entertainer.”

  “Oh, yes. Thank you.”

  But she wasn’t telling her friends and especially not her husband. She did, however, leave Nick a note on his desk. She wrote that Will Warren was accounted for elsewhere and she was only going to look around his place to see if there was a shed or outbuilding, or if any of the windows looked nailed shut. In this part of Florida, at least, there would be no basement.

  She had read and reread the pages where the villain of The Collector had taken and kept his victim imprisoned. That man was such an egomaniac and psychopath that he actually thought his victim would fall in love with him. And then it had ended so badly. The captive had tried to escape, been recaptured—had died. Villain and victim, villain and victim, the words kept revolving in her mind as she went to tell Nita she was going out for a little while. As she left without saying goodbye to Lexi for once, she felt almost grateful for the doll the girls were focused on in the Florida room. At least that horrible machine in its cute body didn’t bother Nita at all.

  As Claire hit the remote to lift the garage door, she whispered the haunting refrain again, “Villain and victim. Whatever it takes, I have to find both.”

  * * *

  Cheryl escorted the two very different-looking men into Nick’s office with Bronco trailing. Nick nodded that Cheryl could go, and he shook hands with them, then indicated the chairs in front of his desk. Bronco hovered in the back of the room on a chair near the shelves of law books.

  Jedi Brown was neatly but casually dressed whereas Ralston looked once again as if he’d stepped out of GQ Magazine or at least Golf Digest.

  “May I call you Clinton and Jedi?” Nick asked.

  “If we might call you Nicholas,” Ralston said.

  “Nick is fine.”

  “I don’t use my full name,” the dark-haired man said as he settled himself in the leather chair, then leaned forward as if he might leap out of it. “That is, I don’t go by Clinton, but Clint. Only my parents call me Clinton.”

  “Clint, it is. And Jedi?”

  “If we’re talking parents before business,” the tall blond said, “my name’s really Jedidiah, the so-called blessing name for King Solomon. My parents are big Bible believers. Anyway, I was a Star Wars fanatic for years, so I go by Jedi. But lightsabers are not my weapon of choice.”

  Nick realized he must have been asked about his name ad nauseam. But the way he’d said that about lightsabers... Then what was his weapon of choice?

  “Plus,” Clint said, evidently impatient with the small talk that kept him shifting around in his chair, “the Star Wars Jedi are wise as Solomon, and this Jedi is my information gatherer, which is where you come in. You and your wife, we saw in the paper today, were the ones who discovered my brother’s body.”

  “True. We were in the area and since Larry had requested a Monday appointment with me to talk about his defense on the dolphin case—and I knew I’d be busy then—I thought we’d take a look at his fishing boat, and if he was there, I’d introduce myself.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense,” Ralston said, sitting back a bit as if relaxing his stance to intimidate. “That’s kind of what we figured.”

  Once again, Nick thought, Claire’s continual reading of body language was useful but nerve-racking. As a matter of fact, as calm as he usually kept under pressure, the stares of these men were getting to him. Now that he’d admitted he and Claire had found Larry’s body, what else did they want? To thank him or blame him?

  Actually, Nick would like to grill this man about his occupation. Why wasn’t there any info on him anywhere online? But this was not the time for confrontation. Ralston had lost someone close to him under mysterious, tragic circumstances, and he sympathized with that.

  He also wasn’t going to admit that he had mostly wanted to talk to Captain Larry about Fly Safe and any link dolphin suspended animation might have to the same in butterflies—and if Fly Safe had been at all hostile toward Tara Gerald. The idea sounded impossible, even as he thought of it now. And he certainly wasn’t going to bring up that Larry as well as Linc Yost were possible—though it was a long shot—suspects, at least in his mind.

  Nick explained, “My wife and I were trying to talk things out over her sister’s disappearance, and strolling the docks seemed like a good diversion. We didn’t even know which boat was your brother’s and had to ask, then that quick storm came up. We saw his cell phone in the stern, saw the net bobbing, but didn’t find him at first. It was quite a shock, especially because our focus had been on our own family tragedy.”

  “Understandable,” Ralston said with a firm nod. “Sorry to hear about your wife’s sister and hope you get her back soon. Families—joy and pain. So, I see you don’t have any photos of your family here in the office,” he said, craning his neck to look around. “Kinda unusual, but maybe, you being a criminal lawyer and all, it’s one way of keeping them safe in case people are here who want something from you—or are upset at the way things went.”

  A sharp chill racked Nick. Were this man and his
associate—or protector and enforcer—actually here to intimidate or even threaten him? Or was he just feeling paranoid to protect his own since Darcy had disappeared?

  His eyes met Clint Ralston’s. He stared him down in the sudden silence. Time to turn the tables, go on the offensive.

  “So what do you do here in Naples, Mr. Ralston?”

  “Well, don’t confuse me with my father, who is a behind-the-scenes mover and shaker around here, funeral director extraordinaire up and down the Southwest Florida coast.”

  “I take it you are not in business with him but have your own? It seemed to me that the two of you were at odds with the police and each other yesterday.”

  “Our careers are in direct competition with each other, and he’s always taken it personally, that’s all,” he said with a shrug.

  And that evidently was all. Was this guy a master of deception, in on something illegal or did he just value his privacy? And was his so-called associate indeed a bodyguard?

  “That paper you delivered to Detective Jensen—some sort of living will to claim your brother’s body?”

  “More or less. Privileged information, so the detective better not divulge it, either. Just asking for a quick handover of the body in case of an accident,” he added, looking suddenly more than nervous.

  With a nod and a frown, Clint Ralston rose and his companion popped up, too. Maybe this guy was Mafia or something that he didn’t share his career. Most men liked to advertise what they did, even talk shop.

  And when it came to this apparently well-heeled man’s mysterious profession, exactly what was a career which was in “direct competition” with a funeral home? What were the death choice options besides embalming and burial or cremation and ashes in an urn?