by D L Lane
Something inside of his heart severely bent.
“Is this a boat your husband owns?” Gage asked, pushing the envy he felt toward Marcus Harding aside.
Danica came to him, glanced toward the screen, then smiled. “Yes. He bought that four years ago.”
“Does he boat very often?”
“Yacht.”
“Huh?”
“Marcus called it a yacht.”
“Ah…”
“But to answer your question, not much anymore. For a while, after he first purchased it and I popped some motion sickness pills, we went out quite a bit.”
“You have motion sickness?”
“When it comes to sailing, I’ve got it big time.”
That was something he didn’t know, but he needed to steer their conversation back to where it needed to be. “If Marcus was upset about something, would he go and hang out there?”
“Upset? About what?”
“I don’t know, Danny. If he had an awful day and needed a place to go to get away for a while, would he go there?”
“Like you?” she asked, drawing his gaze up to her.
“Me?”
“You used to go sit out on the dock at the lake when something was bothering you.”
He was surprised she knew that about him. He did go out there, and sometimes he still would. “Yeah. I guess so.”
“He might.” She shrugged, “But I don’t know for sure.”
Interesting she knew something about him that she didn’t know about Marcus, but he needed to focus on the problem, not Danica.
Turning back to the screen, he tapped a different folder and almost, but managed somehow, not to gasp. It was pictures of Danny, dancing. A dance he saw her perform. One of the many things about her he’d never get out of his mind.
“Gawonii?” Her soft voice seemed to caress him, making Gage snap to his senses.
He rose to his feet.
“Are you okay?”
“Of course, but I’m going to leave you here with Breck and Mase. I have a few things I want to check out.”
“Oh.” She blinked up at him.
“Tell me where Marcus keeps his yacht.”
“You want to go look there?”
“I do.”
“I want to come with you,” she said, and he shook his head.
“Not this time. But I promise to call you the moment I locate your husband.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Before
Gage’s heart was in his throat as he took a seat in the back of the auditorium at Washington State University to see their Spring Show. Well, to see her. He’d been reduced to finding stolen moments here and there where he could watch Danica from afar, but this was different. He’d graduated with his degree in criminal justice and was getting ready to head off to the academy in Quantico, Virginia. She would be graduating with her BA in a few weeks, which meant they would both be in different places, but regardless, he’d made up his mind to lay all his ‘cards,’ as they were, on the table. No matter her response once he did, at least he would have, at long last, told her how he felt.
Glancing around at the sea of heads, he looked for anyone familiar but didn’t see a soul. Although, he knew Mr. and Mrs. Lorry and Jillian, Danny’s best friend, would be there somewhere, probably front and center in the first row.
All the low chatter in the space died down when a dapper-looking man took the stage. “The Department of Dance welcomes you,” he said from his position from behind a microphone. Then, he mentioned the names of the dance director, the assistant professor, the department chair, along with a few facts about the University and the department honors.
The young woman seated beside him spoke to the girl next to her in a low whisper. “Did you see who’s first?” She held up a program. “They are so-o-o-o good.”
“I know,” said her companion, before someone he wasn’t paying attention to, hushed them.
“And now,” the announcer continued, “please show your appreciation for two of our very best as they dance their last performance here with us. Seniors, Danica Dawn Lorry, and Ryan Walker Feilding with their contemporary piece set to Gravity by Sara Bareilles.”
Low rounds of applause echoed as Gage straightened his shoulders. He leaned forward in his chair, the curtain lifted, and a gray smoke rolled along the floor of the stage where a dark-haired young man stood, poised in the middle. He was dressed in black with a sparkle of red suspenders hanging off him, wearing what looked to be red Kabuki-type makeup surrounding his eyes and lining the sides of his nose, the rest of his face unadorned. Then the introduction to the song began, and he moved, almost like a robot or street mime. But all of Gage’s attention shifted when Danica twirled onto the stage, disturbing the fog at her feet, the flowing white dress she wore reminding him of undulating material taken by a current of water while she moved.
He steepled his fingers together in front of his mouth.
She looked like a graceful angel in motion until she was stopped when her dance partner caught her. They wavered there in slow, back and forth movements, before the dance transitioned into fast actions—him grabbing her and she breaking free, not in a creepy way, but a sad, yet sensual set of holds. Then Ryan dipped her, skimming his nose from the apex of her cleavage to the line of her throat, up the side of her face before they twirled apart, and Danica gracefully went to the floor, rolling; him crawling after her, reaching.
Gage was so entranced he couldn’t have budged from his spot even if the apocalypse started.
Over the years, he’d watched her dance, but this, what Danny was doing up there on that stage, was phenomenal. She felt the music, each movement translating the story she told. And not for the first time, he saw her—the beauty within, the whisper of soft vulnerability, a hidden strength, that elegance of a woman with the romantic heart of a girl.
Danica was, in a word, stunning.
~
“Do you know where I might find, Danica Lorry?” Gage asked the Master of Ceremonies once the showcase ended and he stepped out of the auditorium into the large foyer. “She’s a friend of mine, and I would like to congratulate her.”
“I believe you will find all our performing seniors this evening over there”—he pointed—“in that receiving line.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.”
The space was crowded as he made his way through the throng, chatter and laughter swirling all around him as he said, “Excuse me” and “Thank you” when people moved out of his way.
Then, as if Moses had parted the Red Sea, he saw her, smiling, shaking hands with people, her partner at her side, doing the same. He thought to stand there a moment and soak her in. The way her hair shone in the light, the feminine curve of her jaw, how her lips moved when she spoke.
Jillian came into view. “You guys did an awesome job! I couldn’t keep my eyes off you.”
“Thanks,” Danny said, the dark-haired guy wrapping his muscular arm around her waist.
“You are both seriously fantastic together, and I don’t just mean when you dance.”
That made the step Gage was about to take, halt.
Danica glanced up at her partner, who smiled down at her, then looked back at J.J.
“No!” Jillian exclaimed as Danica held out her left hand, a diamond ring sparkling there. “You guys are—?”
“Getting married.” Danica beamed. “Ryan asked me before our performance this evening.”
His lungs seized.
The two friends hugged and squealed, while yet another crack zipped along the faultline of Gage’s heart, spidering off into a jagged configuration.
Without a word, without letting Danny know he was there…that he loved her, he’d always loved her…he turned around, walked out of the building, across the lot, slipped inside his car, and tossed his head back.
“Why?” he screamed, beating his fists on the steering wheel. “Why do You hate me? Why can’t I have just on
e single minute of happiness? Why can’t I have her?”
That was it. The moment loneliness so profound, a sadness so fathomless, and desolation so vast pulled him into a dark pit of despair. Right then and there, Gage severed something, cut himself off from the one person he shouldn’t—God.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
The rising sun had cast the sky into a shade of wavy purple blending into pink as Gage pulled his SUV into the right lane, ready to take the exit.
The chime of his cell started.
Tapping the screen to send the call over to his vehicle speakers, he answered with, “Harrison.”
“Hey, Mack, here.”
He’d called his old buddy who was on the force in Seattle once he knew Marcus hadn’t shown up or been in contact with Danny, asking him for a favor, the kind that would require him to return one just as significant when the need struck.
“Mack, tell me you’ve got some good news.”
It was silent a moment, then the gruff Sargent said, “Where are you?”
“I’m heading into Seattle now, getting ready to see if Marcus might be on his boat, or maybe he took it out.”
“The Rising Dawn in slip eighty-three?”
“Yes, did you find him?”
“We found him.”
The tone in the man’s voice sent that tingle, a specific vibe of imminent bad news over his skin. “And?”
“I’ll see you in a few, Harrison.”
With that, the man hung up.
~
It took Gage fifteen minutes from the time Mack disconnected their call to the time he pulled up to the site of what most assuredly was a crime scene. Police cars were everywhere, a section already marked off with yellow tape, and a vehicle identifiable as the corner.
Gage’s heart and stomach sank at what he would find. At what he would have to tell Danica.
Putting some steel into his spine, he got out of his SUV, showed his badge to the officer who stopped him, and said, “Mack is expecting me.”
“Yes, sir,” the fresh out of the police academy would be his guess, kid said. “Go on.”
Being careful to watch where he walked, he boarded the boat, Mack meeting him with a grim, bulldog set to his face. “He’s in the aft cabin. But I warn you. It isn’t pretty.”
The man handed him a pair of booties to cover his shoes, which he put on.
Making his feet move, Gage went below deck, followed the crime scene investigators wearing jumpsuits and rubber gloves, then walked into the bedroom.
Click.
Flash!
He had to close his eyes for a moment.
“Barnes,” Mack said. “Give us a few.”
“Sure thing.”
Gage stepped aside to let the photographer pass.
“You okay, Harrison?” Mack was watching him.
“Yeah.”
Death saturated the air in the room Gage stood, a specific scent, the kind that once you were in contact with, your sense of smell would file the information away as if waiting for the moment you came across it again. When you did, those olfactory functions were triggered, bringing past horrors back to you in a rush.
“You sure? Do you want to go into the hall and take a moment?”
“No. I’m okay.”
Four Steps. That’s what it took to get to the bed where the body was. Three breaths and Gage started cataloging.
The bedsheets and cover were turned down to the foot, and Marcus lay half propped up on the headboard, slumped, utterly nude with part of his head missing. Blood splatter, and other unspeakable things, were stuck to it, as well decorating the wall behind him in a macabre display of tragedy. But Gage found that place inside of him where he detached from emotion and took it all in. No matter how horrific, he needed to see the site before him—and not with the eyes of a man who loved the woman this would devastate, but with those of a former FBI agent turned cop.
In Marcus’s right hand, a 44-caliber Magnum revolver was loosely gripped. On the wall of gore, just above the line of the headboard, a single bullet hole had bored into the wood, splintering it.
Gage’s attention shifted to the right. The bathroom door was open, light on, and what looked to be a damp towel hung on the hook in the middle of the paneled door.
To his left, a charcoal gray men’s wool overcoat was on the hanger of a coat rack. Next to that, Marcus’s clothing was neatly folded—shirt, pants, tie, all placed on the chair, his shoes, with his socks tucked in them, sat side-by-side on the floor. His belt was rolled and perched atop his clothing. His suit jacket was hanging over the back of the chair. A wallet, not opened, had been placed on the bedside table, a lamp light shining down on it. Next to the black leather sat a watch—Patek Philippe Grand, with a perpetual calendar chronograph. He knew because he’d seen the man with it on his wrist. A cell phone was perfectly aligned beside that. And finally, the platinum band—his wedding ring.
“There’s an empty condom wrapper in the bathroom, but a used prophylactic isn’t discarded anywhere,” Mack said.
Gage pinched the bridge of his nose and dropped his head before taking another visual sweep of the room. It was obvious nothing had been disturbed, or that Marcus hadn’t been in any hurry. Instead, everything looked meticulously placed, as everything about Marcus’s life had seemed to be—ordered, and without clutter.
“You thinking suicide?” Gage asked, turning to look at Mack.
“Looks like it. But I’d say the man hooked-up before doing what he did.”
As if this wasn’t horrible enough, would Marcus being unfaithful in his marriage have to be added to it?
“It doesn’t make any sense why, he of all people, would take his life. Let alone use this place as a sex pad.” Gage shook his head. “He had everything—wealth, a prominent career, and more importantly, he left behind a beautiful wife and two sweet babies.”
“This sort of thing rarely makes sense at first glance, but there’s something that pushed him over the edge. We’ll find those answers.”
Yeah, they would, but the question that was going to haunt him had already started to float through his mind. Can Danica accept whatever the darkness was that Marcus hid from her once we shed light on it?
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Before
Getting out of his rental car, Gage tossed his backpack over his shoulder and walked to the front of the home he grew up in, a thousand pounds of unseen weight holding him down. After his graduation from Quantico, he thought he would save the world; only the world had other things to say about that. It had been a rough couple of years, and even a harsher six months.
Twirling his keyring around his finger, he focused on the jangle, trying not to think about what he’d left behind in California, but failing. He and his partner had been working on a particularly gruesome serial murder case, which ended when they had enough evidence to arrest their suspect, but they were too late. Entering the fancy Brentwood home was like walking into a horror scene from a movie. This psycho had killed his entire family, placing them in different states of repose around the house—his father at the workbench in the garage, his mother in a rocking chair with knitting in her lap, the wife in the bathtub as if she’d fallen asleep while bathing, and his three children... Gage couldn’t think about those kids, the oldest twelve, the youngest only four. The killer had displayed them all like dolls, then took his own life when he was done, with a bullet to the head.
Sucking in a deep breath of fresh air, Gage unlocked the door and stepped inside, then punched in the code on the alarm. He knew his parents had taken a long overdue vacation, so even though they weren’t home, he was glad to be there. He needed the quiet time in a familiar place filled with good memories to help clear the clutter of nasty in his mind. Coming home for a few days seemed like the thing to do.
“Sonoma?” he called, but the housekeeper didn’t answer, so she must be out.
Going up the stairs, looking forward to being in his old room, the bell tones of
his cell made him stop on the landing, pull out his phone and look at the number on the screen. Letting his backpack slip off his arm and land by his foot in a thump, he answered the call.
“Hi, Jenny. Is everything okay with Justin?”
“No,” she said and sniffed.
The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. “What’s wrong?”
“For some reason, he decided to climb the trellis on the side of the house and fell. He busted up his leg, and the doctor is talking about surgery to put a pin in it.”
“Are you at the hospital now?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Which one?”
“Harborview.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Soon?”
“I’m in Cedar Point. It won’t take me long.”
“Oh!” She sounded relieved. “Gage, thank you.”
“Nothing to thank me for, Jenny. You and Justin need me, so hang tight. I’m on my way.”
~
“Thank you for having lunch with me,” Marcus said, his handsome face highlighted by the summer sun streaming in the wall of windows.
Danica placed her palm on his chest, over his name embroidered into his white coat. “That’s a silly thing to thank me for.”
“No, it’s not. You had to make a special trip to accommodate my schedule. But that will change soon. Once we’re married, you’ll be here in Seattle with me.”
She’d never told Marcus she didn’t want to live in Seattle, but she would, just later, after their wedding on the sandy beach of Hawaii and subsequent honeymoon. “Since you brought up the wedding,” she said, “we need to talk about the issue with the resort.”
Marcus frowned. “What issue?”
“The one I told you about last week with the caterer.”
“Oh, yes. I think I do remember you saying something about it.”
“Marcus,” she whined. “Sometimes, I wonder if you listen to me.”
