by Jami Alden
“I can’t find Kara’s computer,” Toni said, raising her voice to be heard over Marcy’s shrill commentary on Jerry’s choice of bed partners.
“And if you weren’t drinking yourself to sleep every night, Kara would have stayed with you,” Jerry retorted before turning his attention to Toni. “What do you need with her computer? I don’t want you taking anything from this house.” He punctuated his words with a mean look aimed at Marcy.
Toni bit back her temper. “I was hoping to get a look at her recent e-mails, chat logs, stuff like that. Since she’s not answering her phone, it’s our best way to find out if she made plans to meet someone last night.” She took off her glasses and pinched the bridge of her nose as fatigue washed over her. She’d been on that stakeout until almost three a.m. and had barely clocked four hours of sleep before Marcy called. She wasn’t in any shape to fight Jerry Kramer every step of the way.
Time for a different approach. She turned to Marcy. “Speaking of her phone, did you sign her up for the chaperone service I recommended?”
Marcy looked at her blankly, and Toni had a bad feeling that that conversation had been sucked into the boozy haze Marcy lived in these days.
“My phone,” Toni explained, “Remember how I told you it has a GPS unit embedded inside. As long as my phone is turned on, my location can be tracked.” She turned to Ethan and Jerry. “I recommend that all my clients with kids sign them up. Makes situations like this much easier to resolve.”
“I completely forgot,” Marcy said, thin shoulders collapsing.
“It’s okay,” Toni said tightly. Of course this couldn’t be that easy. “It doesn’t work if her phone is off, anyway.”
Marcy’s face crumpled into sobs. “I’m sorry,” she gasped, burying her face in her hands. “I should have been on her more, but she was always telling me to leave her alone. I thought I was giving her what she wanted by giving her space.”
It was a familiar refrain, one Toni had heard too many times. Parents who cared more about being their kids’ best friends than acting as authority figures. That’s why they hired Toni to snoop on them, because they couldn’t figure out how to just sit down and talk with their children. It was frustrating to watch, but Toni took satisfaction in the knowledge that in some cases she’d saved kids from potentially dangerous situations.
Despite her frustration with both of Kara’s parents, she felt a wave of sympathy when she took in Marcy’s haggard appearance. When Marcy had first hired Toni over a year ago to find out if Jerry was sleeping around and hiding his assets, she’d been the epitome of the well-preserved, affluent housewife. Now, after a bitter divorce, lines of grief and stress were etched into her face. Her formerly trim body now bordered on emaciated, and she stood with her arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to keep herself from flying apart. Yes, Marcy could be a pain in the ass, but Toni knew firsthand how scared she must be.
“I promise I’ll find her,” Toni said, as Ethan pulled Jerry aside.
Marcy sniffled and wiped her eyes with fingers that shook. She shot a look at Jerry and Ethan, who had moved to the opposite side of the kitchen. Ethan’s dark head was cocked down to listen as Jerry spoke in a voice too low for Toni to hear.
Marcy’s mouth tightened into a flat line. “I want you to keep an eye on him.”
“Jerry?” Toni asked. Jesus, it had been a year since they separated. Well past time for Marcy to let it go already. But she strove for tact when she said, “Don’t you think it’s more important for me to focus on Kara than to spy on your ex-husband?”
“Not him,” she snapped. “Ethan. I want you to find out everything he knows, as soon as he knows it.”
Great. She wanted to get away from Ethan Taggart and forget the way one look was enough to send her libido into overdrive. Now she was supposed to follow him around and somehow get him to divulge any information he collected.
“I don’t think that’s necessary.”
Marcy’s tears suddenly dried. Gone was the grief-stricken mother. In her place was the bitter, vindictive ex-spouse who was never far from the surface. “I don’t trust Jerry. He keeps things from me, always has. He wasn’t even going to call me this morning to tell me my daughter was missing.”
Toni held up a quieting hand. “I’ll do my best. But right now I need to start following up on what we know so far.”
She checked her phone for the dozenth time as she walked to the front door. It was still on, set to vibrate. She hadn’t missed a reply to the text she sent Kara after Marcy first called her. Wherever Kara was, she wasn’t answering her messages yet.
Heavy footsteps approached. She didn’t have to turn around to know it was Ethan. She recognized him from the way every skin cell suddenly went on high alert.
“I know you’re worried,” Ethan said, reaching out to rub her bare upper arm. She knew it was a calculated move, but it didn’t stop her from feeling like sparks were shooting through her fingertips. “But we both know the truth. She’s out with her boyfriend, and she’ll be home as soon as the hangover wears off.” Though the words were cavalier, the sympathy riding his tone was sincere. And she couldn’t fault his logic.
But she couldn’t escape the sick feeling in her gut that told her it wasn’t that simple.
Kara Kramer awoke to suffocating darkness. Fear wrapped her chest in its steely grip, making breathing almost impossible. She blinked her eyes hard, praying the room would come into focus, but she saw nothing but black.
This is a bad dream, she tried to tell herself, struggling to recall the last few hours, searching her panic-riddled brain for some clue as to where she was. Her brain throbbed against her skull and her mouth was dry. Had she passed out after too much vodka? She’d been planning to go to a party with Toby. She remembered that much. But she couldn’t remember making it there.
Had someone slipped something in her drink? It had happened before, and like now, she’d woken up with no idea where she was and no memory of how she’d gotten there.
It had been horrible, terrifying, but right now, it would be a welcome explanation. She feared that the reality was much, much worse.
Gooseflesh prickled on her arms, left bare by the flimsy cami she’d donned earlier in the evening. Wherever she was, it was cold. Too cold, considering how hot it had been lately. And musty. It smelled like the crawl space under her dad’s house. Swallowing convulsively, she tried to wrap her arms around herself to coax warmth back into her icy skin, only to discover that her wrists were tied.
A spike of adrenaline crashed through her, and sweat bloomed on her skin in spite of the chill air. She scrambled to her knees and surged to her feet, running though she couldn’t see even an inch in front of her.
She barely got two steps before she was jerked off her feet by a line of rope securing her bound wrists to the wall. Her knees hit the hard floor with bruising force and her startled cry broke the dead silence of the room.
Sobbing now, she yanked against the rope. The cord binding her wrists bit into the tender flesh, dug against delicate bones. Warm liquid trickled down her arm and she knew she was bleeding. Defeated, she lay on the floor, struggling not to throw up as the throbbing in her head threatened to split her skull.
After several moments, Kara struggled back to her feet and followed the line of rope to where it secured her to the wall. She fumbled at the knot with clumsy, cold fingers.
“You can’t escape, so you may as well stop trying.”
Kara’s whole body jerked as she searched frantically, futilely, for the source of the low, raspy voice.
“Who’s there? What do you want?” The words struggled past her dry lips, intensified the throbbing in her skull.
The disembodied laugh made her stomach pitch with dread. “Cooperation,” he said finally. “And as long as I get it, you and I will get along just fine.”
CHAPTER 3
E THAN WATCHED TONI’S little Honda pull out of the driveway, half tempted to follow her. And not just bec
ause Jerry had told him he expected Ethan to keep tabs on Toni Crawford and any information she uncovered. His interest in Toni had already crossed the line from professional curiosity to personal interest, and his brain was cooking up scenarios where Toni slipped off those nerd-chic glasses while Ethan skimmed her tight jeans off her tight ass.
But finding a missing teen—even one who had probably just overslept after spending the night with her boyfriend—pulled rank over chasing tail. He flipped open his phone and dialed Derek as he pulled out of Kramer’s driveway.
“What’s the sitch?” Derek asked, not bothering with a greeting.
“Kramer’s daughter snuck out last night and hasn’t come back yet.”
“That’s why you needed the logs? I figured they had a break-in.”
“Nope. More like a breakout staged by a pissed-off seventeen-year-old.”
“And they needed you? Why not do a calldown on her friends?”
“No kidding. But the parents say she’s a good kid, never does this kind of thing.”
“Every parent thinks their kids are good kids,” Derek interjected. “For fuck’s sake, Dad thought we were good kids. Shit, he thought Danny was a good kid.”
“Speaking of, is he at the office today?”
“On a Saturday? That lazy sack?”
“Right.” At this hour, Danny was no doubt clocking twenty or so miles, a typical training run for the psycho ultra-marathons he liked to do.
“I need you to pull some info and text it to me.” He rattled off the names of several of Kara’s friends and told Derek to see if he could find a last name for Sean the boyfriend. And before he thought better of it, “And find out everything you can about Toni Crawford.”
“I bet I already know. Blond hair, spray-on tan? Head the size of an orange and double D’s out to here?”
“C’mon, their heads are always at least the size of grapefruits. Seriously though, this isn’t someone I’m sleeping with.” Yet.
“Good, ’cause you know I don’t like to use our resources to stalk your fuck buddies.”
“I don’t either, but sometimes it’s necessary. Remember Amber? She was wanted in Idaho for setting her boyfriend’s pubes on fire.” His brush with genital assault still made his boys shrivel up and duck for cover.
“If you didn’t bang everything that moved, you wouldn’t have close encounters of the psycho kind.”
“Thanks for the advice, but unlike you I want to get laid this decade.” He wasn’t that indiscriminate. Then he remembered going home with Gillian the night before, for no good reason other than that he wanted a warm body next to him for a few hours. Maybe his brother had a point.
Speaking of warm bodies…Toni’s image popped into his brain. Warm, shit. He sensed in Toni a kind of dark intensity that would set him on fire.
But he had his work cut out for him there, if the look she gave him when he said the lipstick on his ear wasn’t his girlfriend’s was anything to go by. He didn’t know why he’d bothered to explain, but he wanted her to know he was single. But instead of looking interested, Toni’s plump red mouth had puckered in disapproval as if she’d been sucking on underripe lemons.
“Toni’s another investigator.” He filled Derek in on Toni’s involvement with Marcy. “I want to know who I’m dealing with.”
He hung up on Derek and spent the next few hours canvassing the neighborhood. Finding out who she’s talking to online will get me a lot further than talking to neighbors who probably don’t even know her name. It galled him to admit Toni was right.
Neighborhood life in the twenty-first century.
Maybe Laurie Friedland would provide him with something useful. Hell, maybe he’d find Kara sacked out on her friend’s couch. He pulled into the driveway, not surprised to see a green Honda Accord already parked there.
Kara’s friend Laurie lived about half a mile from the Kramer estate in a large ranch-style home that looked like it had been given a recent face-lift. He rang the bell and a harried woman answered. Over her shoulder, he could see Toni standing in the foyer, her brows knit into a frustrated frown behind her heavy glasses.
“Oh great, you’re here,” Toni muttered.
He flashed her a cocky grin, purely to piss her off, and turned to the woman he assumed was Laurie’s mother. A brunette in what he guessed to be her late forties, but it was impossible to tell for sure. With her straight, shoulder-length brown hair and an outfit that concealed the beginnings of middle-age spread, she would have been attractive if she’d left her face alone. He knew that women—especially women in this area—worried about aging, but he didn’t get why they thought hacking up their faces until they looked like the Joker was an improvement. “Mrs. Friedland?”
She nodded, her gaze momentarily freezing on his face. Ethan widened his friendly smile for good measure. “Ethan Taggart,” he said, holding out a hand, which she blindly grasped with her manicured fingers. “I work for Kara Kramer’s father, and I was hoping I could ask your daughter a few questions.”
“Is she a friend of yours?” She shot an annoyed glance at Toni. At least Ethan thought she was annoyed. Hard to tell, since her face didn’t move much. “What was your name again?” she snapped. Toni repeated her name. “Yes, Tory also wants to talk to Laurie about Kara, but we’re about to get mani-pedis at LaBelle, and we really don’t—”
“Mrs. Friedland, did Toni explain why we need to talk to your daughter?” Ethan asked, using his larger frame to subtly back her into the house.
“You can call me Joyce,” she said, her wide smile made a little creepy by the fact that nothing moved above her cheeks.
“I didn’t get a chance yet,” Toni snapped.
Joyce’s smile disappeared as she turned her attention on Toni. “No, you just barged in here, demanding to talk to Laurie.”
“Joyce,” Ethan said, placing his hand gently on her bare forearm and looking deep into her brown eyes, “I can assure you we’re here for a very good reason, if you’ll just let us explain.”
She blinked slowly, as though coming out of a trance. “Okay, Ethan, was it? Why don’t you follow me to the kitchen and we can discuss it over a cup of coffee.”
Toni made a noise that sounded like a gag and followed them down the hallway. Though the house was not nearly as large or as ostentatious as the Kramers’, the Friedlands weren’t exactly hurting for money. The house was professionally decorated, with expensively upholstered furniture in the living room and dining room and all that knick-knacky crap that women liked to put on every available surface.
“Can you tell me what this is about?” Joyce asked. “We really are in a hurry. Mai gets booked up weeks in advance, and I don’t trust anyone else to touch my feet.”
“As I tried to explain,” Toni said, her voice so tight she sounded like she had lockjaw, “We’re hoping Laurie might have some information about Kara Kramer.”
Joyce barely spared a glance at Toni as she strode down the hallway. “What kind of information?”
“Kara Kramer didn’t come home last night,” Ethan said as they entered the kitchen. Laurie sat at a farmhouse-style kitchen table, her thumbs moving rapidly over the keypad of her phone. “Have you heard from her at all?”
After a few more seconds of flying digits, Laurie finally looked up. A pretty girl, lanky, with pin-straight dark hair and light brown eyes that stood out from her summer-tan skin.
“I haven’t really talked to Kara in a while,” she said, a little wary.
Ethan nodded, accepted Mrs. Friedland’s offer of a cup of coffee, and sat down at the kitchen table across from Laurie. He watched as Joyce offered Toni a cup, too, almost as an afterthought. Unlike Ethan, Toni remained standing, leaning against the counter as she sipped her coffee. A stray bead of liquid caught on her lush bottom lip, and he watched, mesmerized, as her tongue came out to flick it away. His cock jerked to attention, and he could almost feel that hot, pink tongue flicking along his skin. He had the unwelcome urge to forget this interv
iew and grab her by the back of the neck and see how she tasted, hot, sweet, and bitter from the coffee.
He closed his eyes, gave himself a mental shake. He never had trouble keeping a lid on his sexual urges, and now was not the time to get distracted by a pair of mile-long legs and a mouth that would have done a porn star proud.
“How long since you’ve talked to her?” Toni asked. “It’s extremely important that you tell us anything you know.”
“Are you the police?” Laurie asked, sounding taken aback by Toni’s aggressive tone.
Ethan sighed. Sexy or not, Toni had all the subtlety and patience of a bull in a china shop. He shot a look at Toni. Let me handle the talking. She seemed to get his message because a muscle throbbed in her jaw, but she kept her mouth shut.
“No, we’re not the police,” he said. “We’re private investigators, hired by her parents to help find Kara.”
“Was she kidnapped?” Joyce asked, sounding appalled.
“Right now all we know is that Kara left the house sometime around two this morning and she hasn’t come back yet. We were hoping you had seen or heard from her,” Ethan said, choosing his words carefully. “We hope she’s just at a friend’s house and will come home on her own. But in the meantime, we can’t rule out the possibility that she’s in some trouble.”
“Why would her parents hire you?” asked Joyce. “Why not let the police handle it?”
“They are. We’re simply picking up some slack.” He turned his attention back to Laurie. “So, have you seen or spoken to Kara recently?”
“Laurie’s been in France for a month,” Joyce interjected. “She got into a very prestigious language immersion program.”
“Did you keep in touch with Kara while you were gone?”
“Ah, no,” Laurie replied with such deliberation that there was no doubt as to the state of their relationship.
“Wait.” Toni pushed off the counter with her hip and walked to the table. “Kara’s mom said you two have been close for a long time.
