Complete Mia Kazmaroff Romantic Suspense Series, 1-4

by Kiernan-Lewis, Susan

  The exterior house light snapped on at the very instant she saw the huge mastiff emerge from the shadows.

  *****

  The morning after receiving the ransom text broke cold, yet sunny. To Jack, it seemed to bring a clearer, more detailed sense of horror to the night’s events. Neither he nor Sandy slept, but instead kept silent vigil in the living room watching Sandy’s phone, as if any relief of pain could only be found through it.

  It rang a little past seven in the morning and Sandy nearly knocked it off the table in her rush to pick it up. It was Jay.

  “Okay, good, you’re home,” Sandy said into the phone, her hands openly shaking now. “And the house looks fine? Good. Perhaps you could start the Ford for me? It hasn’t been driven in months. Yes, very good, Jay. Thank you. Go to the grocery store and get whatever you need. Put it on my account. I’ll let you know when to come back to Atlanta.”

  “We have to call the police,” Jack said to Sandy.

  She sat, an untouched cup of coffee in front of her. “The text said not to.” She looked at him with fear in her eyes.

  “The cops can trace where that text came from. Where Twyla’s phone is.”

  “I know where Twyla’s phone is,” Sandy said, her hands shaking. “It’s in the hands of my bastard, low-life ex-husband.”

  “What if it isn’t? What if you’re wrong about that? What if she’s been taken by someone you don’t know? Think about it, Sandy. You’re a lottery winner, and I’m sure there was publicity about that down South, wasn’t there?”

  A look of uncertainty came over her face. “I’m positive it’s Eugene,” she said, sounding not at all positive any more. “He’s crazy and he’s violent.”

  “Would he really do this to the child he helped raise for fifteen years?”

  “If you can call it help,” she said bitterly. “He never really did all that much with Twyla.”

  Jack felt exhaustion creep into his shoulders. Did he have the right to call the police over Sandy’s protests? Twyla might technically be his, but did he really have any weight about making decisions for her?

  “I hear Mama’s up,” Sandy groaned. She stood and straightened her blouse, looking like she was preparing to face a firing squad.

  Jack didn’t blame her. Even in a good mood, Vernetta Hobson was a Howitzer division all on her own.

  “Sandy? What are you doing up so early?” Vernetta came down the broad stairs that emptied into the foyer and lead to the living room. She was wearing a housecoat and slippers. She squinted at the pair in the living room. “Oh, my God, don’t tell me,” she said with disgust.

  “Mama, something’s happened,” Sandy said in a rush. Jack watched her twist her hands as she prepared to tell her mother the news. Was Sandy afraid of her mother?

  Vernetta stopped at the foot of the stairs and her hand went to her mouth in preparation for the worst. Her eyes blinked in building fear as she stared at her daughter.

  “Mama, Eugene’s kidnapped Twyla,” Sandy said. “She didn’t come home last night and I got a text from him saying she was kidnapped.”

  Vernetta took her hand away long enough to spit out, “Kidnapped?” in clear disbelief. “Eugene? I thought he couldn’t get rid of her fast enough.”

  “Mama, he wants money and he wants to hurt me. You know he doesn’t care about Twyla.”

  Jack stood and he watched the older woman’s eyes shift to him when he did.

  “When did all this happen?” she asked, speaking to Jack.

  “Just after midnight,” Sandy answered. “I sent Jay home and I’m going to cancel all my appointments for the week.” She turned to Jack. “I was just about to ask Jack if he would stay with us until…until we can find her and bring her home.”

  “Jay’s gone?”

  Jack heard the petulance in Vernetta’s voice at the sudden loss of her pet—or whatever he was to her.

  “We can’t have anyone knowing what’s going on,” Sandy said, her voice rising. Clearly, having to defend her reasoning to two people was wearing on her. “The note said not to go to the police or he will kill Twyla.”

  Her words seemed to galvanize Vernetta, who now moved into the living room to Sandy. The two women embraced stiffly.

  “We’ll get her back,” Vernetta said fiercely. “And we’ll kill whoever did this.” She turned to look at Jack and deliberately raked him from head to toe with a steely glare. “So? You going to help us through this Mister Police Detective or are you going to be as useless as your no-good loser brother?”

  “Mama!” Sandy said, turning to Jack in horror at her mother’s words. “Jack, I am so sorry—”

  “Well, are you?” Vernetta said.

  Before Jack could respond to either of them, the early morning quiet was destroyed by the strident and abrupt ringing of the front doorbell. Sandy jumped at the sound.

  “Is that usual?” Jack asked Sandy as he moved to the front door. She shook her head, her face a mask of expectation and dread.

  He pulled open the front door to find nobody standing there. Lying on the threshold was a small padded envelope. Jack didn’t touch it, but bolted out the door and ran down the long curving driveway to the street. He stopped at the end of the driveway and looked both ways up and down the residential street, trying to catch any kind of sound or movement—a rustling bush to indicate someone had fled through the yard or the sound of shoes pounding the ground receding into the neighborhood.

  There was nothing.

  He turned and walked back to the house. Both Sandy and Vernetta stood in the door. Sandy was holding the package.

  “Don’t touch that!” he called and she looked at him with surprise.

  “It’s Twyla’s phone,” she said, pulling the smartphone out of the envelope. “It’s a message from Eugene, isn’t it?”

  Jack came back inside and, although he was sure it had probably been wiped down, he used a tissue from a box on the coffee table to take the phone from her.

  “As soon as I saw it,” Sandy said, the tears coming back into her voice, “I was terrified that it was…that it might be…proof. I’m sorry, Jack, I know I shouldn’t have touched it, but I just had to know the monster hadn’t carved something off my baby.”

  “It’s fine, Sandy,” Jack said, sitting down with the phone. “But he sent it to us for a reason.”

  Vernetta sagged onto the couch next to Jack. He felt her trembling.

  “Maybe we should—” he started.

  “Show us, Jack,” Sandy said, clearly trying to sound brave. “Show both of us.”

  He turned on the phone and saw all apps had been cleared from the desktop, except one allowing the playing of mp3 files. With dread and resignation, he pressed the movie app and saw the clip open up. It was less than five seconds long and as soon as it started he felt Vernetta, that battle-ax of strength and resiliency, go slack on the couch beside him as Sandy began to scream.

  It was a video of Twyla, tears streaming from her eyes, her hands bound in front of her, terror etched across every fiber of her body and face.

  “Please, Mama,” she begged, her voice cracked and childlike. “Please help me!”

  The video went to black.

  Chapter FIVE

  Vernetta and Sandy sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee, a plate of tuna salad sandwiches in front of them, untouched. Seeing Twyla in the video seemed to have confirmed Sandy’s resolve that they not get the police involved. Vernetta agreed. They would wait to hear the kidnapper’s demands—Eugene’s demands.

  Sandy went through the motions of calling her household staff, telling them not to come in to work until the following week. She cancelled her standing hair appointment for that afternoon, and the tennis lesson she took every week at the Dunwoody Country Club. Then she put her phone down and burst into tears. Jack put an arm around her. Vernetta stared at her hands in her lap.

  “Come on, Sandy,” he said to her. “We’ll get her back. This is the bad part. I promise we’ll get her back
.”

  Sandy wiped her tears away. “I’m sorry. Just to see her like that…so…scared.”

  “Don’t be sorry. It’s normal to feel this way.”

  “But not helpful.” She reached for a paper napkin to dry her face and blow her nose.

  Jack sat down with the two women. He picked up Sandy’s hand, hoping to infuse her with some of his calm and strength.

  “Where do your surveillance cameras feed to?” he asked quietly.

  She looked at him in confusion and then her face cleared. “Oh! We got them on video!” She snatched up her phone and found the app connected to her home monitoring system. “I can’t believe you thought of that. Now we know for sure who they are.”

  Wanting to grab the phone from her and do it himself, Jack forced himself to get up and refill everyone’s coffee mugs. Sandy needed to do something. It would be worth the few extra seconds if it helped settle her down.

  “I…I can’t find it,” she said in frustration, gripping her phone and jabbing at it with her finger. “The videos stop after last weekend!”

  Shit. He was afraid of that. “May I?”

  She surrendered her phone to him and he scrolled through the tapes. There was nothing for this morning when the package was delivered. He handed the phone back to Sandy. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Go through it for the past few weeks and see if you see anything suspicious, okay?” He walked to the door in the kitchen that led to the garage. “Is there a stepladder out here?”

  Vernetta answered him. “Over by where the Christmas boxes are stacked.”

  He nodded his thanks and threaded his way through the cavernous four-car garage. He passed another Lexus SUV until he found the ladder. Hitting the remote garage door opener, he carried it outside and propped it against the house where the surveillance camera hung that was pointing to the front door. Within minutes he had his answer.

  The camera had been disabled.

  He figured as much. Most people who plan a kidnapping spend at least some time scoping out the victim’s environment. Eugene—or whomever they were dealing with—wasn’t totally stupid.

  When Jack reentered the kitchen, he saw Sandy was on the phone again. And she was upset.

  “I cannot believe you have the balls to call here, you little turd!” she shouted into the phone.

  Jack looked at Vernetta. “Who is it?”

  Vernetta shrugged. “One of Twyla’s friends.”

  “I don’t care how much money you have,” Sandy said into the phone, now crying. “My daughter is worth ten of you!”

  Jack came up behind Sandy and put a hand on her back. Instantly, she turned to him and tucked her face into his neck, giving free rein to her tears. He took the phone from her hand.

  “Who is this?” he said into the phone.

  “Give me a break,” the boy said. “I’m not stalking her. Tell her old lady to fucking chill. Twyla told me to call. She bailed on us last night without even a text and I need to talk to her like yesterday.”

  “And you are?” Jack repeated patiently.

  “Tell her Ethan called and that Ethan’s pissed and she’ll know what that means.”

  Ethan hung up. Jack held the phone. Sandy still clung to him and he rubbed her back with his free hand.

  “What did the little shit want?” Vernetta asked. “Is he in on it, you think?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack said, easing Sandy into a chair. “But I’m about to find out.”

  *****

  The drive to Ethan’s house was through one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Atlanta. The homes—looking more like bank buildings or museums with multiple wings—lined up one after the other at the end of landscaped lawns that reminded Jack of Arlington Cemetery. It was impossible to imagine anyone out on those lawns throwing a ball or playing with a dog. The expensive garden terraces and lawns were merely frames for houses too big for any one family to live in.

  Jack sat outside the mansion whose address Sandy gave as belonging to Ethan. She didn’t know him well. She had only met him one time, and had loathed him on sight. Jack flipped open his phone and thought of calling Mia. He decided now was not a good time to tell her what was going on—especially since Sandy had begged him not to tell anyone what was going on.

  A movement caught his eye. A new Jeep Compass was backing down the driveway and Jack quickly moved to block the exit by parking at the foot of the drive. The car slammed on its brakes to avoid hitting Jack’s car and the driver burst out in a fury.

  Jack rolled down his window and waited.

  “What do you think you’re doing, jackass?” the teen snarled, his hands clenched into fists as he ran to where Jack was parked.

  “Hello, Ethan,” Jack drawled. “Seen Twyla lately?”

  The boy faltered in his advance and dropped his fists.

  “I’m in a hurry,” he said, but his voice had lost its strength. Jack stepped out of the car and the boy began to move backward up the drive. His eyes took in Jack’s size and even darted to the bulge in Jack’s jacket, where he wore his shoulder holster.

  “Just want to ask you a few questions, Ethan. Like the last time you saw Twyla.”

  “Look, man, I’m sorry I called and if you took what I said wrong. But I’m just trying to get to football practice.”

  “Sorry, Ethan,” Jack said, grabbing the kid and slamming him up against his own car. “You’ll need to come up with something a little more believable than a weasel like you plays football.”

  “Dude, I’m sorry, okay?”

  “What exactly are you apologizing for?”

  “For whatever you’re pissed off about.”

  “Why did you call today? I’ll need the truth if you don’t want to be stuffed into the trunk of your own car.”

  Jack watched him glance over his shoulder at the house. It was a nervous look and not one that suggested he was expecting any kind of help from that direction. Probably there was nobody home.

  “I just wanted to score some weed and Twyla always has some. That’s the truth.”

  Jack narrowed his eyes. His gut told him this kid wasn’t involved in the kidnapping. He was a sleaze and a little creep, but he didn’t know where Twyla was.

  “When did you see Twyla last?”

  “Why? Is she missing?”

  “Just answer me, dickhead.”

  “I…we hooked up yesterday and went to Lenox Square until around five o’clock. She was getting her nails done and we were supposed to meet up at Phipps later for the midnight showing of Rocky Horror. She never showed.”

  “Did you go by yourself?”

  “Do I look that lame? No. I went home. You don’t believe me, ask my Mom. She made a rare private appearance last night. We watched the Late Show together.”

  “Did you text Twyla asking why she wasn’t there?”

  “Duh.”

  “Give me your phone.”

  “What the hell, man?”

  Jack held his hand out. He knew he was radiating impatience. The kid pulled out his phone and handed it to him. Jack went to the messages and saw where Ethan had texted Twyla at eleven last night, and then every fifteen minutes until midnight. He handed the phone back to him.

  “So…is Twyla…did she not come home last night?”

  Jack turned away without answering.

  Dead end. Desperate grabbing at any lead, even the ones that don’t look anything like a lead.

  “All you need to know,” Jack said as he climbed into his car, “is she doesn’t sell weed anymore. So don’t come around looking for it.”

  *****

  Mia didn’t bother looking for a glass for her beer. She pushed the dishes aside from last night’s dinner with Jack and had to stop herself from shoving them onto the floor. The kitchen was still a disaster, too, and the sooner she cleaned it up, the sooner it would stop standing as a testimony to a night of sex with someone who then turned around and walked out the door and never even called her afterward.

  She sagged o
nto the couch with her beer and a bag of frozen peas for her swollen knee. At least her hands had stopped shaking.

  Is this possibly the shittiest day of my life? Coming right on the heels of what I thought was the best?

  Her phone began to vibrate against the coffee table where she’d tossed it and she nearly fell off the couch in her hurry to pick it up.

  “Hello?” she said, forcing her voice to sound casual.

  “Thanks to you, you incompetent bitch, my wife is suing me for divorce!”

  Mia set her beer down and rubbed her eyes. Yeah, tonight had not gone well.

  She’d managed to make it to the stone wall and was nearly over it—limping on her quickly swelling knee—before the stupid dog got her. Her eyes went to the ripped cuff of her jeans unraveling where the beast had snagged her before she’d gotten her leg all the way over the wall. But by then, the wife had flung open the top window and nailed her with a beam of light so bright it had to be military-grade illegal. Mia was sure you could probably see it from the moon.

  When the wife began to scream that she was calling the police, Mia did the only thing she could do to prevent the possibility she was going to have to ask Maxwell—or God forbid, Jack—to come bail her out of jail. She told Mrs. Whitcomb the truth—that she was hired by Mr. Whitcomb to see who was coming into his house while he was out of town.

  As she drove home, aching and humiliated, Mia was sure she’d broken some sacred private investigator code by blurting out her mission to the subject of the mission. But with being dumped so quickly by the first man she’d ever slept with and then being chased by a slathering hundred and twenty pound guard dog, understandably she cracked under the pressure.

  “I’m very sorry, Mr. Whitcomb about how things—”

  “She called me in Milwaukee to tell me she’s filing for divorce, and I could hear her boyfriend in the background coaching her! Did you at least get a picture of him so she doesn’t fry me in the settlement?”