Dark Storm

by Karen Harper

  He almost demanded to know more, but the two of them, with Bronco right behind, were letting themselves out the door.

  Good riddance, he thought, and decided to call Ken Jensen with a full report. Besides, Nick needed to know what had been on that paper Clint had thrust at Jensen on the dock, privileged or protected information or not. As soon as he got home—early today after a meet with his legal team for the trial—he’d tell Claire to be extra careful since Ralston had made that carefully worded comment about his family’s safety. But why?

  * * *

  Claire drove north on Collier Boulevard. Darcy had mentioned once that Will lived out at the end of Golden Gate Parkway, north of a dead end street called Safe Harbor Drive. She’d easily found his address online, but kept racking her brain about whether Darcy had told her why she’d been out to Will’s—taken Jilly along, too, if she remembered right. Claire did recall that Darcy had said they were in a hurry and only dropped something off.

  Claire was fairly unfamiliar with the area so she used her Google search. When she drove so far out that she was approaching wilderness, the area reminded her somewhat of Tara’s. Actually, the wilderness was encroaching here, or else the vintage 1980 houses had encroached on the wilderness. Tall, spindly pines surrounded many of the one-floor stucco homes, most in bland beige. There it was, with his last name, Warren, on the mailbox.

  The house was set back from the street with the next home a ways down the road. Widely spaced near-Naples property, however old and out in the boondocks, must be worth a lot these days. But unlike Linc Yost, Will seemed to have the resources for owning his valuable property. Heck had said Will had made a lot of money in Japan selling rare butterflies.

  She got out of the car, locked it and walked toward the property as if she were just taking a stroll. No one was in sight. Of course, it was almost two-thirty, so Will would be well into his popular library story time by now, so no worry there. If, by chance, someone did suddenly appear, she could just say she wanted to see what butterfly-attracting plants were in his yard so she could enhance her own.

  As she approached Will’s house, Claire hoped he was as concerned and kind—and genuine—as he seemed. Steve had taken him up on his offer to add ten thousand dollars to the reward for information. As far as Claire could tell, Will’s heart was in the right place, but the story of The Collector kept haunting her. And what she considered a terrible omen was finding Captain Larry’s drowned body. At least, except for people who had a swimming pool out here, there were not even lakes. As unnerving as it was, that drowning had to be unrelated to Darcy’s disappearance, didn’t it?

  The house had a double car garage. Claire pressed her ear to the closed door. No sounds within. She knocked quietly, then a bit louder.

  “Hello! Anyone here?”

  No sound. Nothing.

  She walked around the back of the house. Brilliantly colored bushes galore, but no house for butterflies. A few of the bushes she could name—fire bush, flame bush, both with flitting butterflies. She glimpsed a wooden shed beyond that, not big, partly hidden by a huge purple bougainvillea. She strolled to it, took off her sunglasses, cupped her hands around her face and looked through the window. The bill of her visor struck the dusty, rain-streaked pane. Inside she saw a riding lawn mower, a tiller and a bench with neatly arranged garden tools. Well, did she really expect to find Darcy tied up here? Still, she intended to look in every window of the house.

  If Nick hit the roof over her admitting she was here, she’d tell him it was in broad daylight. But then, she’d have to agree that was when Darcy was taken. For once, she almost wished they’d had a gun at home she could have brought, not that she knew how to shoot one.

  She hurried toward the back of the house, taking off her visor so she could get close to the glass to peer in. If there were drapes or blinds, at least they were open.

  The first window was in the kitchen. Nothing looked out of place that she could see. She moved to the next one, which was larger. Her own reflection stared at her until she moved closer and cupped her hands again.

  She saw rows of hanging frames, a collection of butterflies under glass that glinted back at her, all hung on the wall next to a realistic painting of a woman in a flowing old-fashioned gown who was holding a butterfly net in one hand. Her straw bonnet dangled behind her by its blue ribbons, and her gown was a gauzy, lacy white. So lovely, so old-fashioned. And the woman—except for the long, flowing hair—dear heavens, it was Darcy!

  16

  Nick had just finished his last prep meeting with his defense team for the trial, which would begin tomorrow. He decided to go home early, comfort Claire, see Lexi, hopefully bolster Steve and decide what to do next about finding Darcy. Other than trying to talk to Linc Yost again, he was out of ideas. His console buzzed; it was Bronco at the first-floor security desk.

  “Hey, boss, I just let Detective Jensen through to see you. Couldn’t have stopped him, anyway. He said he has an autopsy report for you.”

  “Thanks, Bronco, and thanks for the earlier support with my guests.”

  “Something off about them. Good luck with the detective. He doesn’t usually bring good news.”

  That was all he needed to hear, Nick thought as he put his briefcase under his desk so it didn’t look like he was on his way out. He went to his office door and opened it himself.

  “I’m expecting him, Cheryl,” Nick said as Jensen emerged from the elevator and made a beeline for his office.

  “I guess you have this place memorized,” Nick said as he closed the door behind them. “Just tell me there’s not bad news about Darcy.”

  “No news is maybe good news on her. Nick, I want to assure you and Claire we are not resting on this. The TV coverage Claire did was good. We’ve already received about thirty new tips we’re looking into.”

  “If you can share the most promising tips, we can—”

  “You two have already been too damned involved in solving this, but I understand. Come on now, you’ve seen how your getting in the way can cause problems—like finding dead bodies and the media coming after you for that rather than the search for your family member.”

  “We’ve declined to answer questions about Ralston’s death. Besides, truth is we don’t know anything about it—but do you now?”

  “Yeah, a couple of things. But your finding him puts you in the puzzle, so to speak.”

  Nick sank into the chair next to where Jensen sat, rather than across his desk. Nick told him, “I had a logical, legitimate reason for reaching out to a potential client in Larry Ralston. But what has the ME ruled about his death?”

  “Death by drowning, probably after a fall from his boat. Down Under, what a prophetic name,” he said, shaking his head. “Time of death still being calculated by body temp tests may have been thrown off by the water. He had water in his lungs, et cetera. He did have chin, head and hand contusions, but that could have been from hitting his head on the boat or dock or trying to grab on, then being knocked around in that net by the waves.”

  “If he was conscious, I keep thinking he could have used the net to haul himself up to the surface. I keep thinking it’s ironic that he was in that Fly Safe organization, then ended up accused of killing a dolphin. The group focuses on lots of other animals, but dolphins and butterflies are two of them—and so different from each other.” But, Nick thought, they did have suspended animation in common.

  “Yeah,” Jensen said, “but they’re also militant for manatees, lots of bird life around here. I’m looking into Fly Safe, too. Got the idea from my initial interview with Tara Gerald.”

  “Glad to hear that,” Nick said, his faith in this guy increasing again. “Because what if Ralston or even Linc Yost went to Tara’s place to protest or deface something—take butterflies or free them? Darcy’s there alone, she protests or resists, says she’ll call the police, and someone gets nervous or aggressive.”

  “Yeah, exactly. I guess cops and lawyers—criminal lawye
rs—think alike. Back to my visit here, a follow-up on our quick interview yesterday. So were you two actually there near the boats to check that out with Captain Larry, interview him about Fly Safe? And should I warn you to stay away from Linc Yost because you’re going to question him next now that Captain Larry is gone?”

  Nick swallowed hard. Once again, they were keeping information from Jensen since he’d already talked to Yost—twice. But he didn’t need another lecture on overstepping right now, because Jensen would tell him to absolutely steer clear of Yost, and he had to talk to him again about the dolphin-butterfly connection.

  The detective’s voice hardened; he pointed a finger, suddenly morphing into an interviewer, maybe even an accuser. “And you’ve just given me an idea that you might have been hostile toward Ralston, thinking he’d gone to the Flutterby Farm, so on his boat you had an argument and—”

  “Damn it, you know better! Claire was with me on the boat. I did not argue with, fight with or kill Lawrence Ralston! We couldn’t even find him there—until we found him dead!”

  “Yeah, I believe you,” Jensen said, sinking back in his chair. “Partly because Claire’s such a straight arrow. But either Ralston himself or someone else messed up his boat cabin. Our tech department’s looking for DNA and still examining his cell phone. But—hate to put it this way considering Captain Larry’s career—as a homicide detective, I do have to rock the boat. You were smart to call me right away when you found the body. And to have your secretary call the office to let me know Ralston the younger and that so-called associate of his were here in your office today. They want details of his brother’s death? Were they grateful or hostile?”

  “One thing I can tell you is that I asked them what was on that paper they gave you on the dock—the one they thought would make you hand his body over right away.”

  “Sorry, Counselor, but I think you understand about some legal documents being protected and privileged, and that one was. But I will tell you that, though it was legal, my jurisdiction over a dead body trumped it. And I’ll say it was not anything that pointed to Darcy’s disappearance. So tell me what else those two said.”

  Nick summarized their visit, including the weird vibes he got from them and the subtle threat about his family. “I’m going to have Bronco and Nita move back in with us for a few days for extra protection,” Nick explained. “Someone else can fill in for him here.”

  “Nick, one more important thing. Since at this time, there’s no evidence of a crime and the temporary ruling is accidental death by drowning, the ME did release the body to the victim’s brother, and that’s all I’m at liberty to say.” He rose and extended his hand, which Nick shook.

  “Let me just ask this, then. Never mind that mysterious legal, protected document. Why were the Ralstons at odds with each other on the dock? Was it something to do with either the body going to a Ralston funeral home or some other method of burial? The funeral home also does cremation. What’s the alternative to those two options? Were Larry or Clint Ralston in some religious-freedom-protected cult, where the body is buried at sea? Or Clint didn’t want his father to have Larry’s body over some family feud? Was Larry ill and going to donate his body for research? Ken, I’ve been racking my brain. Can you at least tell me what business Clint is in?”

  “That last question I can’t answer because I don’t know. People do have a right to their privacy if they’re not indicted or under arrest. As a lawyer, you understand that. When and if I can, I’ll let you know the answers to those questions. Let me say, though, as far as I can tell, that information has no link to finding Darcy.”

  Nick was furious but what choice did he have? He liked Ken, trusted him, but he could have grabbed him, slammed him against the wall and demanded more information. He had to be stonewalling him. Oh, yeah, he understood poor Steve losing his control over all this.

  When the door closed, Nick leaned stiff-armed against it and tried to fight off the overwhelming fear that this whole search for Darcy was in deep water.

  * * *

  As shaken as she was by seeing the old-fashioned painting Darcy must have posed for—or was at least the romanticized subject of—Claire calmed herself to drive home and spend the midafternoon with Lexi and Jilly. After all, looking in other windows, some of which had lowered blinds or closed curtains, she’d seen nothing else strange.

  When she arrived home, Jace and Mitch had just left. Tomorrow they were being recalled to their base because it had been predicted that the next weather disturbance, which had paraded across the Atlantic from Africa, was sure to become a named storm headed for the Caribbean. And that meant, although it was several days out, it might turn toward South Florida.

  Great, just great, Claire thought as her stomach cramped in foreboding again. A hurricane was all they needed to blast apart whatever time, clues and sanity they had left to find Darcy. At least, she thought as she played with Lexi and Jilly, the girls hadn’t heard all that on the TV.

  “Where is Darcy?” Lexi’s doll asked again as if it had read Claire’s mind. “We have to find Darcy.”

  Claire could have thrown that little interactive machine across the room. It kept asking prying questions, but then it was surely just repeating what Lexi had said. And the child’s attention to the doll kept her busy, not brooding, because she had someone to take care of.

  Claire heard the garage door go up so Nick must be home early. As angry as he’d be, she’d decided to tell him the truth about what she’d seen at Will Warren’s house. Her plan was for her and Nick to go there when Will was back home, hopefully this evening, supposedly to thank him for his moral and financial support, get invited in, see the portrait, then question him about it. Surely there was more than he was admitting about his relationship with Darcy.

  She left Lexi and Jilly talking to the doll and hurried to greet Nick as he came into the house through the laundry room. She hugged him hard, and he held her to him.

  “I had visits from Clint Ralston and his associate, Jedi Brown, then later from Ken,” he told her. “Ken wouldn’t or can’t say what was on that legal document Clint Ralston thrust at him. No new info except that the ME has ruled Larry Ralston accidentally drowned, though he did have some bruises that could be from bumping around in that net. Approximate time of death not decided yet because of the water temperature. And they’re still examining his cell phone.”

  She nodded and hugged him harder as they both leaned against the washing machine.

  “One more thing,” he said. “There was no direct threat, but I didn’t like the way Ralston made a subtle remark about my not having family photos in the office, asked whether that was so no one would think to threaten them. As a precaution, I’ve asked Bronco and Nita to move into our guest room for a while. Nita has to be here daily, anyway, and I’ll have Bronco’s position at the firm covered by someone else.”

  “But why would Clinton Ralston want to scare you or threaten us? We’re no threat to him, unless he knows something he’s not telling about Darcy. But what could his connection to her be? Maybe Fly Safe is to blame for her disappearance, but I would assume it was Larry involved, not Clinton.”

  “He goes by Clint.”

  “Maybe that name differential is why we can’t find him online, but I think he’d show up under his shortened name.”

  “And he still wouldn’t say what he does. If he has something to hide, why doesn’t he just make something up or use a fake business front? Anyway, let’s go see the girls and Steve, spend some time with them until Bronco and Nita get here.”

  “Steve finally took a nap. But wait—you had news but I do, too. I made sure Will was at the library for his story time and then checked out his house.”

  “Claire! Alone? You didn’t go in?”

  “Of course not, though breaking and entering is not out of the question if it would help find Darcy. Shhh, or that darned doll will be asking me about it, too. And yes, I went alone, just walked around the outside, but I did lo
ok in a couple of windows.”

  “Damn!” he muttered, setting her back at arm’s length to frown at her. Her elbow hit his briefcase off the dryer and it clattered to the floor into an empty laundry basket, but he didn’t make a move to retrieve it.

  “I left a note on your desk,” she said.

  “Oh, very helpful if I needed to start looking for you as well as your sister. I thought we had an agreement not to go out alone. I swear I’m going to chain you to—to this washer and dryer, or something.”

  “Nick, time is precious. Protest and scold me later. When I looked in Will’s back room window, I saw a lot of butterflies mounted under glass but also a large framed painting of a woman with a butterfly net. And her face—it was Darcy!”

  His lower lip dropped. His brow furled. For once he said nothing, so she did.

  “I always had a strange feeling he cared deeply for her, and obviously she liked him. What set me off on that was I was reading that novel I took from her bedroom. It’s about a man who was obsessed with a woman, kidnapped her and took her to his isolated house. I mean, there are lots of houses in Golden Gate, but his is on a big lot kind of back in. I knew you were tied up with work—I just had to go.”

  “If I tell Ken, he’ll go in like gangbusters and maybe scare Will. This has to be finessed,” he said, his voice shaky.

  “Exactly. As soon as Bronco and Nita get here, let’s fill them in on being careful of visitors—then become visitors ourselves at Will’s this evening. He’ll have to ask us in. If he doesn’t, I’ll pretend to faint, you carry me inside. We have to either ask or confront him about how and why he has a painting of Darcy with butterflies. It’s beautiful, fanciful, old-fashioned. I swear if she’d known of it, she would have been proud, would have told me, shown me.”

  “Maybe she didn’t want Steve to know, that he’d not approve—to say the least.”