by Justine Davis, Amy J. Fetzer, Katherine Garbera, Meredith Fletcher, Catherine Mann
Only silence answered her.
She tore through the house, searching each room, noticing the overturned furniture, and that Charlie’s backpack was gone.
“Meg!” she screamed, tears running down her face. “Meg!”
Her panic out of control, she raced out into the backyard and nearly fell over Meg sprawled facedown on the steps, the cordless phone inches from her hand. Darcy slid to her knees, checking her pulse.
“Oh, thank God.” Bending, she pushed the curls back off her face. “Meg, wake up, honey, wake up.” She tapped her face, rubbed her wrists.
Meg blinked and moaned.
Darcy felt as if the heavens opened up with hope. “Where are you hurt? Can you feel your legs and arms?”
Meg muttered, “Yes” and pushed up on her hands and knees.
“Where’s Charlie, Meg?”
“He took him. Oh, Darcy,” Meg cried, rolling onto her back. Darcy’s eyes widened at the open cut on her cheek, and the blood smeared over her face and staining her clothes. It was dry. “He was so scared and I fought him, I swear, but he had a gun. He had a gun on Charlie!”
Darcy stared at Meg, helpless tears sliding down her cheeks. Then suddenly she hugged Meg, helping her upright.
“I swear I tried, he came out of nowhere. He ripped him right out of my arms! Charlie screamed and screamed and then…he stopped.”
Darcy’s heart stopped, too, then picked up speed. “I can’t believe Kel did this!”
“No, Darcy. Maurice did.”
Darcy froze. “He was here!”
“I grabbed the phone to dial the police, but he knocked me down. I went for his leg and that’s when he backhanded me with the gun.” Meg touched her face, wincing. “Jesus, I forgot how much that hurts.”
“Come on, let’s get you up.”
Stuffing the phone in her back pocket, she helped Meg onto a lawn chair, then rushed inside for water and a cloth. Meg’s cheek was cut, her left eye bruised. Maurice had had hit her so hard she wouldn’t see out of that eye for days. Pistol-whipped. What a coward.
“Come inside.”
Meg stood uneasily. “Darcy, I tried. You gotta believe me.”
Darcy gripped her shoulders, meeting her gaze. “I don’t doubt you, Meg. It’s not your fault. It’s mine.”
She’d been too slow to take the signs for what they were, and should never have left Charlie alone. She’d walked right into a trap. She helped Meg into the house and into a chair, then hunted under the sink for a first-aid kit. Her hands shook as she cleaned Meg’s wound and put a butterfly bandage on the cut. It was the best she could do right now. The blood was nearly dried and Darcy gave Meg an ice pack, then checked her watch. She’d been out cold for over eight hours.
She pulled out the phone and cleared the line. “You never got to the police?”
“No. I passed out.”
Darcy handed her the phone. “Call them now.”
“What? But you’ve been hiding all this time!”
“It ended when Maurice took my son. Where’s your gun?”
Meg groaned. “Oh, Darcy, no.”
Darcy’s gaze pinned her. “Where is it, Meg?”
Letting out a sigh, Meg pointed to the soffit on the top cabinet. “The bullets are behind the flour, over the stove.”
Darcy climbed on the counter, retrieved the weapon in the plastic bag, then found the ammo. “Call the cops.”
“But…”
Darcy gave her a dark look and Meg nodded, sniffled, then just as she was about to dial, the phone rang in her hand. She answered it, frowning up at Darcy. Her eyes widened and she held it out.
“It’s for you.”
Darcy grabbed it. “Kel?”
“No, my love. It’s your husband.”
Darcy’s stomach rolled loosely. He sounded so smooth and confident. “Where is my son?”
“You mean our son.”
“No, he was never yours. You gave up that right when you tried to make me lose him. He’s mine.”
“Are you referring to the accident when you fell down the stairs? You always were clumsy, Darcy.”
Darcy gritted her teeth, letting him talk, saving her rage for when she met him face-to-face. She loaded bullets into the magazine.
“I want to talk with him.”
“No.”
“Let me talk to him, Maury!”
“He’s sleeping peacefully.”
They flew back to L.A., she realized. Good God, he had to have drugged Charlie to get him to go along without a fight.
“Charles will be all mine to raise when you go to jail for kidnapping him and keeping him from his loving father.” He chuckled softly, a dignified sound, not too harsh, practiced. Darcy wanted to ram it down his throat. “You’ll go to jail and never see him again.”
With her palm, Darcy popped the magazine into the weapon and sighted down the barrel. “Don’t count on it.”
“What do you think you can do to me?”
“I’m going to let you experience that for yourself.” She cut the line, laying down the phone, then stuffed the gun in the back of her slacks and pocketed the ammo.
“Darcy? What’s happening?”
“Maurice has Charlie. He took Charlie for one reason. To lure me back to him.” And have power over her, she thought. But then, Maurice had married a different woman.
“It’s a trap and you know it.” Meg held out the cordless phone. “You have to wait for the police now, Darcy. It’s kidnapping. Let the FBI handle this.”
“No, this is my problem, my son and my husband.” Darcy headed to the door. Time for some payback.
Meg called out to her. “What do I tell the police?”
“Everything.” Darcy was out the door and in her car within seconds. Police sirens roared in the distance as she sped in the other direction. She needed to get to L.A. as fast as she could and wanted to fly, but Maurice would likely have his hired creeps waiting for her. It would take her a few hours by car. She needed the upper hand.
But first, she needed some equipment.
And the help of the Cassandras.
Darcy was scrapping for a fight, feeling like a junkyard dog, mean and willing to bite hard on anyone who got in her way. She’d packed her equipment, clothes and some things for Charlie and pushed the legal side of the speed limit. There was no use charging in without a plan. It would only give Maurice a bigger advantage and that wouldn’t do her son any good.
She was going to get Charlie back the safest way possible.
Rage and worry simmered as she drove the six hours to Los Angeles. Maurice would be waiting for her in Bel Air. If he wanted to come out of this smelling like a rose, then he wouldn’t lay a hand on her son. It was the only thing keeping her from busting into the estate and shooting him on the spot. She rented a hotel room, tried to sleep and couldn’t. She was prepared, waiting for the timing to be right.
Darcy slowed her walk through the west end of Bel Air, high heels clicking on the concrete. Her leather slacks made her thighs rub and sounded like a squeegee on a clean window. It was annoying, but the dark cream leather outfit gave her the look of money and sophistication. Natural and unnoticed in Bel Air. It helped that her wig was black and her face bore the bone structure of an actress whom she knew lived this time of year in Tahoe.
She walked past Maurice’s estate. Just looking at it brought back the memories of Maurice pushing her down the stairs and smiling while he did it, of him locking her up in the guest room for days without food, when he’d used sex as a weapon, tying her to the bed. Though he hadn’t been violent then, it had been against her will.
Old fear made her body perspire under her clothes and she shook the memories loose, focusing on her plan. It was still a couple hours till dusk.
Surrounding the house and land was a two-foot-thick stone wall with a gate that was twice the size of a Mack ruck. It was electrified and on automatic from a keypad inside and a handheld sensor for entering from the street. Maurice ha
dn’t left the house. And no one had come in.
The west end of the property faced the water, the view open to the sea. Darcy could have swum to it and walked up onto the beach if not for the laser alarms near the water’s edge. Maurice had a boat in a slip a few blocks up the coast, but he never set foot in the ocean. He couldn’t swim well.
A car moved up beside her, slowing. She heard the window electronically go down. Great, a pick-up line.
Then a deep voice said, “Get in, now.”
She stilled and turned her head. Jack. He leaned and pushed open the passenger door.
Darcy let out a breath and climbed in. “How did you know?” She was wearing a mask.
“After two years, you ask that?” Jack pulled away and drove out of the area. “Are you nuts?”
“He has Charlie.”
“I know, Megan called me. The police are with her. Let them handle it, dammit.”
“I can’t. He’s got my son!” Darcy rubbed her forehead, a thousand thoughts tripping through her head and slamming against a wall. “What the hell am I supposed to do? The man tried to kill me and he has Charlie. Do you understand? He has my baby!”
“He wants you.”
“I don’t give a shit what Maurice wants! My child is in danger! Don’t interfere, I can handle this.”
“Baby,” he said softly, and immediately tears sprang into her eyes and her lips quivered. Jesus, this man could get to her so easily. “I know you can. I’m on your side.”
She pulled off the wig and fluffed her hair then carefully peeled the mask off as she spoke. “I’m glad you are, Jack, really. But I have to do this alone. This man has made my life hell for years and I just found the guts to fight him at his own game.”
“He won’t hurt Charlie, he wants you and you’re walking into a trap.”
“I don’t have a choice.”
“Yes, you do. The FBI has all the evidence on Fairchild and Maurice.”
“What?” She looked at him, horrified.
“I gave it to them. Don’t look at me like that, woman. It’s the only way, and you know it. You have to let the authorities in or nothing will stand up in court. After seeing your evidence, Agent Bale has agreed to open a case on Fairchild. They’ll have to review it before they go to Maurice.”
“That isn’t going to make a difference.”
“It will when we find the body.”
She shook her head. “Maurice covers his tracks really well, Jack. He was careful when he beat me where anyone could see the damage.”
“I still find it hard to believe you stood for that.”
“I didn’t. He lost a couple teeth to prove it. But he didn’t have to hit me to be abusive. Good God, when I was pregnant with Charlie, he threatened to cut him out of me.”
“Jesus, what a son of a bitch. I’m not going to ask why you married a man like that.”
“I grew up poor with an alcoholic mother, and he was rich, famous and wanted me. I just didn’t realize the price would be my self-esteem and pride.”
Jack reached for her, urging her closer. “That’s been over for a long time.”
Darcy sighed against him, her head on his shoulder. “We need to find the body.”
“The warehouse?” he said.
“I thought of that. But I was in there, and didn’t find one. You know a decomposing body would smell.”
He reached in his jacket and pulled out a slip of paper, reading it and driving. “Do you know what ah…HCHO is? It’s urea-formaldehyde.”
She straightened in the seat. “It’s an adhesive used on fiber, wood movie sets and 3-D background paintings to preserve color and seal the surface. Set designers need it to maintain the integrity of background paintings while filming for months at a time.”
“Well, that’s what’s on the burned clothes.” He handed her the report. “And they were monogrammed, Darcy, with his full name.”
Her mind started clicking. “Take a left here.”
He did.
“You wouldn’t happen to have your old badge, would you?” He gestured to the glove box. She found it, and for a second ran her fingers over the gold shield. “Detective, huh? Would your sister like that you quit because of her?”
“No, she wouldn’t. You’d have liked her.” The sadness in his tone punched a hole in her heart.
“I know I would have.” She kissed his cheek.
“So what’s up your sleeve?”
“Use this to get in the gate.” She handed him the shield. “I’ll tell you where to go.”
Jack’s badge did the trick, and Darcy directed him to the Studio Eight warehouse. It was late afternoon, and shooting was done for the day except for night filming on other lots. The area was deserted. She climbed out and went to the warehouse door.
She cursed. “My lock picks are in my hotel.”
Jack nudged her out of the way and with his own, opened the lock. She looked at him. “I’m impressed.”
“Bounty hunting gives you certain advantages a cop doesn’t have.”
They opened the door, the seal popping loudly. Jack flicked on the light.
“You don’t care if we’re seen?”
“I’m calling the police as soon as we’re sure.”
“You sound awfully confident.”
“You’ve been right all along so far.” He winked at her, then gestured to the cylinders and barrels, the rolls of cord and cases. “You know what all this stuff is for?”
“Yeah. Some of it’s corrosive—acids, ammonia. But the HCHO is over there.” She pointed to the back. They moved together.
“God that stinks,” he said.
“I know. When I was in here before it made me sick, light-headed. I almost got caught. I wrote down all the chemicals stored in here, but with all that’s been going on, I didn’t have a chance to research all of them. HCHO was one of the chemicals listed, but I didn’t realize it was formaldehyde.”
She inspected the barrels, finding nothing untoward. “So what do we do, open them all?”
“Where is the one that leaked?”
She tried to remember where she’d stood, moving from her hiding spot then pretending to go back into the warehouse as she had for her bag. “Here, this one.”
Jack knelt, touching his fingers to the concrete floor then bringing them to his nose. “This is it.” He looked around. “We need a crowbar.”
“The chemicals aren’t opened in here, Jack, they’re taken to the sets. There won’t be one.”
He went to his car, coming back with the tire iron. He pried up the lid.
Darcy’s heart pounded, half of her hoping, and the other wishing that Porche Fairchild hadn’t paid with her life. The lid popped and Jack used the tire iron to swirl the liquid.
Nothing.
“Damn.”
He looked at the bases of the barrels. “We have to open them all.”
She crossed to a row of three and stilled, something catching her eye. She moved to the back where the cylinders were lined up like soldiers. She tried moving one.
“Help me move this.”
He came to her, straining to move the cylinder. “Why am I doing this?” he said.
“Look, can you see in there, between the cylinders? There’s something back there and it’s shorter.” She pointed upward to the tops of the cylinders. “And there’s a gap.”
“They aren’t lined up against the wall.”
“Yeah, but there’s so many, who’d notice?”
Jack moved another; it took a few minutes. They weighed in excess of a hundred pounds.
In the center of the CO2 cylinders, there was a barrel. Jack looked at her, then got the tire iron to pry up the lid. It didn’t pop like the others.
Darcy realized instantly that Maurice hadn’t done his research. Most of the chemicals in here were corrosive, or explosive. Except HCHO. He thought it would disintegrate the body, instead, it preserved it. The night she’d lured him here, he’d checked to be certain the container was st
ill hidden, but had no way he could remove it. So here it had remained. If he’d known the components and put her in another barrel, she’d have had nothing to prove him a killer.
Darcy didn’t have to look close.
Jack didn’t have to stir the chemical.
Porche Fairchild was there.
Perfectly preserved.
So much so that even her hairstyle was still in place.
Jack lifted his gaze. “Now, we call the police.”
Darcy smiled. “I hope you have friends, because we could be charged with breaking and entering.”
It only took the police a few minutes to get there and suddenly it was chaos. Police, forensics, studio officials and chemical experts crowded the area. The barrel was removed with Porche still inside and taken to the crime lab. Darcy had answered several questions and met Agent Bale. She freely offered her DNA, her shoes and prints, but by the time that was done, the place was lit up like a premiere and there were people everywhere, working, or there to gawk. Jack, she noticed, was in detective mode, and Darcy backed away from the crowd, heading toward the gate. Jack was going to be mad, but she had to leave. Now. Maurice would be nailed to the wall in a couple of days.
But Charlie was still in danger now.
She couldn’t waste another moment.
Chapter 16
Without a moon, there were no shadows.
Beyond the occasional streetlight or headlights, it was a soot-black night. Perfect. Crouched in the dark on a property across the wide street, Darcy watched the estate. A couple of the staff departed, leaving one car in the driveway. Maurice’s BMW would be in the garage under a tarp.
She didn’t have much time. When Jack realized she was missing, the cavalry would come and there was no telling what Maurice would do. She had to get Charlie out first.
Darcy removed a small package from her pack before slipping it on her back. The cat suit was black, and she wore a vest over it, zipped to her throat, more for storing a few things than for warmth. She tucked the small package in a vest pocket, then rose to a crouch, ran across the street and ducked into the shadows.
