Dark Storm

by Karen Harper

  “There’s some missing link,” he went on, raking his fingers through his hair. “A piece of evidence to lead to whomever took Darcy. And to explain why Will Warren was so attached to her. I just pray Claire isn’t going to pay a big price for getting those answers.”

  * * *

  Claire could not recall a more pitch-black place. She tried to breathe slowly, calmly, to save the air in the trunk in case Will did not come back. And if not, who could she possibly scream to for help, especially in this storm? What if one of the tall palm trees blew down and crushed this car? People were hunkered down inside their houses or heading for shelters or even driving north or east, out of this area. They would be idiots to so much as walk a dog on this street with such danger looming.

  She imagined she heard the muted music of her cell phone, but that might be wishful thinking, and it was in the back seat of the car anyway. It had only been for a moment in a slight lull in the rain.

  Was Will going to kill Clint Ralston? No, he’d said he would make Ralston explain things, so it couldn’t be that. Or maybe Will meant that he was going to force Ralston to show her where Darcy had been those lost eight days. Or was he only going to bring him out into the storm to make him confess he had taken Darcy and why? Would Will then disappear—it sounded that way—and trust her to deliver Ralston to the police with all she had learned?

  The rain thudded so loud on the trunk that she felt she was in a huge drum. The wind seemed to rock the car. Or was that her mind, her fears? Here she had thought she might have to help poor Steve raise his two children when he was away on jobs, and now Darcy might have to help Nick. She should have fought Will for the gun when they were in the kitchen, when they were not near the children, but she had instinctively trusted him, so she must be crazy. And was he?

  No. No! she told herself. Will seemed protective of her, no matter that she’d more or less been kidnapped. So could he have taken Darcy, stashed her someplace, given her that amnesia drug, then let her go? Again, that horrible story The Collector tormented her. Was all this the price she had to pay for answers about where Darcy had been?

  Worse, she could just imagine what Nick would think when he got back home. Surely he was there by now. How had it come to this, and would Nick ever forgive her—again?

  But she was sure she heard a voice, a man’s. Was Will back? She heard a car door unlock. The car jerked as if someone got in, then a door slammed shut. The trunk opened and wind and rain swept in on her, but she was grateful.

  “We have a guest with us, my dear,” Will told her, and helped her out. “I believe he knows Nick better than he knew you. From what he told me in his futile protests, he dared to try to intimidate Nick when he visited his office by subtly threatening you and the children, so he’ll pay for that, too.”

  He helped her out of the trunk and around to the back door of the car. He half helped her get in but pushed her down and fastened the seat belts over her again, then—as if he’d read her panicked mind—picked her purse off the floor when her phone music sounded, so maybe she had heard it before.

  To her amazement, he answered it. The light of it made his face look like a fright mask. Was he disguising his true intent to harm Ralston and her? But she clung to the gut feeling that, however desperate, he was being helpful, wanting to protect Darcy, Jilly—even her.

  “Nick, it’s Will, and she’s all right. I’ll see that she gets back, and don’t try to trace this call to Sarasota or pinpoint its location, because we’re moving on now. Don’t call again.”

  She lifted her head to see him toss the phone into the outer darkness where she heard a distinct splash, perhaps as it fell into a water-swept culvert or drain. He slammed the car door.

  No sound from Ralston. He must be gagged, maybe unconscious. Will started the engine, drove into a driveway, backed out and turned the car around. She was pretty sure they went out the way they had come in. As they drove closer to a more lighted area, Claire saw it was indeed Clint Ralston in the front seat, trussed up with black strapping tape, a piece of it over his mouth, so no way she could talk to him about this. Maybe he did not know where he was going, either.

  * * *

  Nick caught a glimpse of himself in the bedroom mirror as he paced. So Claire was with Will, evidently as his prisoner, since he controlled her phone and seemed in charge. No good to have the police check Will’s house. The man was too intelligent for that. He must have been behind Darcy’s disappearance, but why?

  Not only was Heck here but Steve had come back, too, and Nita and Bronco had arrived with supplies. Kris and Brit were coming first thing in the morning. But Nick just couldn’t face anyone, at least not their friends. He could only pace back and forth from Trey’s crib to the girls’ room, to his and Claire’s bed, and pray that she would be all right. Why hadn’t she talked to him on the phone? Was she unconscious? Tied up? Or worse?

  Ken would be busy dealing with the hurricane. If Nick told him Claire had been kidnapped, what would he say? What could he do? He hadn’t been able to help Darcy. Nick thought he had never felt so panicked in his life—but then he remembered all the other times she had managed to get as deep into trouble as she was in his heart.

  29

  Steve stared in awe at the portrait Nick had unwrapped in the front hall. The others had gaped at it, too, then had the good sense to melt away, leaving Nick and Steve standing there alone to commiserate.

  Nick could hear the others whispering in the Florida room, except he knew Nita had gone to look in on the sleeping kids again. Both Nick and Bronco had told her to go to bed. She was almost into her ninth month of pregnancy and was carrying a huge weight. People had even kidded her she must be carrying twins, but the ultrasound had shown one baby—a girl she was determined to name Clarita, in honor of her friend Claire.

  “That painting’s something,” Steve said, still staring. “Wait till Darcy sees it—or maybe she has. I don’t care if this is Will Warren’s grandmother or the Queen of Sheba, the guy’s a nutcase.”

  “I keep telling myself that Claire has great instincts about people. And I keep clinging to how calm Will sounded on her phone. He said she’s all right, and he’d see that she gets back. I think he mentioned Sarasota as a diversion, because they couldn’t be there already, since I wasn’t gone that long. But then he said, ‘We’re moving on now,’ and when I tried to call him back, her phone—Well, it doesn’t even ring, like it’s dead.”

  “You gotta call Detective Jensen,” Steve said. “I don’t care if there’s a storm coming. He has to look for Will’s car, since hers is still here. Cops need to check his house, see if Will has any ties to someone in Sarasota, even if it is a ruse. And can I read his note again? I swear to you, Nick, bad as it looks, I didn’t kill Larry Ralston. He was alive when I stormed out, and if Will Warren has any kind of proof of that—damn, I’m just desperate. And,” he said, throwing an arm around Nick’s shoulders, “I’m a guy who knows how you feel.”

  “Yeah, I kept hoping she’d walk in the door. I’ll call Ken, even if he hits the roof. I don’t know what we’ll tell the girls. With Claire gone, Darcy away... And if Will is the one who set up that doll—I want to trust him, but I just can’t.”

  * * *

  Claire’s only consolation was that Clint Ralston seemed more scared than she was. Or maybe that was crazy of her, because he somehow knew what was coming. He was trying to talk through his gag, kept jerking around, though Will was concentrating on his driving again as, through the rain on the back car windows, she tried to figure out from traffic lights and road signs swinging in the wind above where they were going. At least the traffic on these wet roads seemed light.

  She finally glimpsed a large green-and-white sign that marked a north turn onto I-75. They drove quite a ways at a fairly low speed, windshield wipers whipping back and forth. Will had turned on the air-conditioning, perhaps to help keep the windshield from fogging up. Ralston had quit trying to talk. He seemed to pay no attention to Clai
re but was now either asleep or staring out his side window with his head turned away. It was when a car passed them that she saw in the headlights his hair was coagulated in a circle of darkening blood.

  Will must’ve hit him with the gun or something else. So was he unconscious now—or even dying? For the first time, she realized that Will was capable of things she never would have guessed from the dapper dresser and children’s storyteller at the library. So if he was doing this to bring justice for Darcy’s abduction, or Steve’s wrongful arrest, why did he care that much? And he’d had such tears in his eyes when he had gazed at Jilly, sleeping so peacefully.

  But nothing quite clicked. Answers seemed beyond her, so she had to bide her time, cooperate—and so did Clint Ralston.

  * * *

  When Nick finally reached Ken Jensen and told him what had happened—even told him about the doll—the detective said nothing at first.

  “I thought you’d shout at me and cuss me out—or order me to be arrested,” Nick said in the sudden silence after he’d spilled everything in one big rush.

  “I’m thinking. I trust Claire. Yeah, she oversteps all the time, but she’s savvy—and determined—and I can’t fault that. It’s why I’ve been trying to get her to consider working part-time as a forensic psych here. You do understand the Collier County police force is totally obsessed—and specifically assigned—to hurricane duty?”

  “I do, but I wanted you to know in case you can at least make officers aware of Will Warren’s license plate number—if anyone can even see it in this storm.”

  “I’ll get the make and model of his car and see if there’s a unit anywhere near his address to look there, but he’d be an idiot to take her where we’d look.”

  “He’s not an idiot for sure. He’s evidently learned something we didn’t about who took Darcy, or at least where.”

  “But why does he need Claire? Just so she can tell Darcy what happened, maybe to help her get her memory back? But why does he care so much?”

  “The ten-million-dollar question,” Nick muttered. But, pacing back and forth, he kept passing the painting he had recently unwrapped.

  “For one thing,” Nick went on, trying to keep calm, “Will has a painting he did of his grandmother, who was very special to him. He left it here, and the woman in it is a dead ringer for Darcy.”

  “Look, Nick, gotta go. I’ll do what I can. I can’t believe we’ve run into a brick wall on this, tracking Darcy, finding out who had her and why and then letting her go. I’ve been assigned to Germaine Arena, which is going to open first thing in the morning as a public shelter, and it’s highly likely that, if this hurricane’s as bad as they say, even the cell towers will go down, not to mention power outages. So don’t worry if I’m not in touch. I’ll do what I can. At least you’re able to sit out this storm at home. Bye for now.”

  Nick punched off his phone and stared at it. Ken had not really exploded at all. He’d admitted failure, tried to buck him up. And he had to give it to the guy for, like him, he had to deal with Claire, a bright, dedicated and determined woman, but one who kept getting them all into one hell of a mess.

  * * *

  This storm was making a mess of things, Claire thought. But more than once, Will had said it would help. He must have meant to cover his tracks, or did he mean, where they were going, the guards or staff would have been sent home because of the hurricane emergency? Everything was closed now. One reason she’d had trouble looking up through the car windows to read signs on buildings was that most of them had been turned out or gone off. She’d heard it called a killer storm. Was Will ready to be a killer, too? Or was he already, no matter that he said Larry Ralston just fell in the water? But she still couldn’t grasp how Clint Ralston figured in.

  “Truth time!” Will spoke at last as he pulled up next to a fairly large, two-story building. “Look familiar, CEO of Onward?” he asked Ralston as he turned off the engine.

  Despite her bonds, Claire raised her head, trying to see where they were. Yes, a sign, illumined by their headlights, quite small and tasteful over the entryway of a building they had pulled up to. She read, in scripted letters, Onward. Then in smaller script: LLC, Founded 1993.

  LLC meant a limited liability corporation. Claire knew that indicated that the company could be “owned” by a sole proprietorship—one man—and that it protected that owner or CEO from being sued or going into debt. And hadn’t Will just intimated that Ralston was the CEO of this place? But then she saw something else on the building, something shocking that opened up so many possibilities.

  “Oh!” she cried. “That logo on the building. An orange butterfly!”

  “Exactly,” Will said. “A falcate orangetip, the symbol of suspended life that can be brought back again. New life, taking flight.”

  “But what is Onward?” she demanded when he finally turned the headlights off, killed the motor and got out to open the back car door to retrieve her again.

  “I—and its CEO and mastermind—will explain when we get out of this storm,” Will shouted over the wind. He loosed her foot ties and finally produced a key to unlock her handcuffs. “You have to help me now,” he said in her ear. “If you are on my and Darcy’s side, do what I say.”

  He left the back car door open for her to get out. She was so soaked already so she didn’t bother with Darcy’s umbrella she’d brought, but did take her purse. Will had Ralston out of the car, shuffling toward the front door. The three of them stood under a covered entrance, finally out of the downpour.

  Will produced his gun again, though Ralston seemed tied as well as subdued, and lifted the man’s bound hands to press one of his palms to a panel on the front door. Though the entryway inside looked dimly lit, another light came on inside and the door clicked so loudly Claire could hear it over the pounding rain.

  Will half dragged, half shoved Ralston inside, and she followed. More lights came on automatically. What was this place? No one was in sight. She glanced around a well-decorated reception area with a large desk. She saw a glassed-in room, probably for private conferences. Normal, so normal, until she read the sign overhead with arrows pointing down a hall; it read Your Eternity in one direction and Your Future in the other.

  Was this a church? Some strange sect? Or a maverick doctor’s office or beauty salon, promising women an ever-youthful future, maybe like that Fountain of Youth cosmetics scam she and Nick had exposed?

  She was continually amazed as Will forced Ralston into what looked like a cleaning closet, locked him in and jammed a chair—the furniture here was modern and expensive-looking—against that door.

  “Let’s take a quick tour first,” Will told her. “We need to be sure there is no skeleton staff or security still here, or I’ll have to lock them up, too. I made a bogus call, supposedly from the local authorities, saying all businesses with large, flat roofs must be vacated, though the storm might have sent most of them home, anyway. Once this place is secure for us, Ralston will explain all—or else. We’ll both have our answers before we’re done with him. Come on. I haven’t seen this place myself, only photos sent to my laptop as I pretended to be a potential, wealthy California client.”

  Client of what, for what? she wanted to demand, but she kept quiet.

  She followed him through a door to where a long hall went both ways, one toward Your Eternity and one toward Your Future.

  “Will,” she said, unable to hold back and following fast behind him, “what is this place Ralston runs? And how does it tie in to Darcy? Did he bring her here for—for experiments, brainwashing or what? If she was given that drug so she wouldn’t recall what happened to her, why?”

  The air was chilly here, so the air-conditioning must be on. They both jumped when more lights went on from their just entering a spacious, open area with some sort of large, upright vats, also lit from within.

  “Here’s where it all comes together,” Will whispered, looking as awed as she felt, but hardly as puzzled. “It’s the site
of animal research giving way to human suspended animation. The experimentation with drugs to erase bad memories. The secrecy, wealth—and stealth—of Onward. Claire, these capsules, called dewars, are filled with liquid nitrogen and preserved dead people who had hopes to be resurrected someday when a cure is found for their specific illness or injury.”

  He turned to her and took her elbow gently in his hand, not releasing the gun in his other hand. “You see,” he said in almost reverential tones, “this company offers eternal life to those wealthy enough to pay for it and crazy enough to believe in it. Have you heard of cryonics?”

  “No wonder it’s so cold in here. That’s freezing things, for preservation.”

  “In this case,” he said as he walked closer to one of the capsules, drawing her along with him, “freezing humans shortly after death so that they may supposedly be brought back to life in the future, when—the theory goes—whatever disease or even old age killed them has been somehow eradicated. Born again, so to speak, and given a percentage of their massive amount of investment money paid to their preservers. And sometimes, for a cheaper fee and the promise of a new body later, people just have their heads frozen and preserved.”

  Claire gasped. “So that’s why Ralston would have just taken Larry’s head if the police could have had it released to him quickly. But when the ME kept his body—when Ralston argued with his father over the corpse being buried by the funeral home...”

  “I don’t know why it took the police—or even you and Nick—to track this down. It took me a while, but I managed.”

  She recognized that other side of Will now. Yes, a clever, talented, creative man, but one who had such pride in his brilliance that he could be devious and act outside of the average person’s boundaries. And he had turned vigilante to learn and avenge what had happened to Darcy.