"It was no accident," Morgan said. "Somebody wanted us to plunge over the side of the mountain. Yeah, I got a good look, but it's dark and I'm only guessing. A red Porsche. Late model."
Bethany gasped. No, it couldn't have been. Surely Morgan was mistaken. It had all happened so quickly and it was very dark on this stretch of road. How could he be sure the car that had run them off the side of the mountain was a red Porsche?
"I can't identify the driver, but I'm pretty sure about the car," Morgan said. "Yeah, I know someone who drives a car just like it."
"Morgan!" Bethany refused to believe it was possible.
"James Farraday. Yeah, you'll need to check it out."
Bethany only half listened while Morgan gave Hal Varner their location. Her mind was totally absorbed in the knowledge that the attacking vehicle had been a red Porsche. Surely it was a coincidence that James drove an identical car, a present from Eileen when he turned sixteen. She refused to believe that her young stepbrother was capable of anything so sinister.
Morgan returned the phone to his pocket, then slipped his arm around Bethany's shoulder and drew her to his side. "Varner's sending out a wrecker and an ambulance. I couldn't convince him we were all right. He said he'll be here as soon as possible."
"Is he sending someone over to Mother's to check on James's car?" she asked.
Morgan held the flashlight like a candle, shooting the light straight up, casting a shady glow across his face. "I can't be a hundred percent certain it was James's Porsche," Morgan said. "But it was one just like his."
"But James would never—"
"I don't want to believe that boy is a killer any more than you do. I like him. But… There's no point in jumping to conclusions. The car might not have been James's. And even if it was his car, there's no proof that he was driving it."
"You didn't get a glimpse of the driver, did you?" Bethany laid her head on Morgan's shoulder. "It was too dark." Morgan was right. Neither of them should jump to any conclusions. If the car that ran them off the road belonged to James, then someone else must have been driving it. She had to hold on to that thought. She would not allow herself to think anything else. She loved James. And more important, Anne Marie loved him.
* * *
"What do you mean, she isn't here?" Bethany glared at her mother's tear-stained face. "How could you have let her slip out of the house? It's dangerous out there for her all alone. People know her face. They know she's my daughter. My God, Mother, you had her at your side at the courthouse yesterday when news crews from across the country were there."
"I had no idea Anne Marie would do something so foolish as to leave the house without asking my permission." Eileen puckered her perfect little mouth into a pout as she dabbed at her eyes with a lace handkerchief. "When she stayed such a long time upstairs, I went to check on her and that's when…" Eileen burst into tears, her slender shoulders trembling. "I found the note. It was addressed to you."
Eileen held up the piece of crumpled notebook paper in front of her. Bethany grabbed it out of her mother's hand.
Mama,
Don't be upset, but I just couldn't miss this chance. Melanie called and asked me to go out with her tonight. She has her own car and just got her driver's license. She knows where James hangs out on Friday nights. She's seen him there before, so we're going to follow him. I didn't tell Grandmother because I knew she'd go into hysterics. I promise we'll be home by midnight. If I'm lucky, maybe James will bring me home.
Love, A.M.
"Damn!" Bethany handed the note to Morgan. "I can't imagine what possessed her. Anne Marie has never done anything like this before in her whole life."
Morgan scanned the note quickly, folded it and stuck it in his pocket. "So James isn't here." Morgan glanced at Eileen. "Where is he?"
"I don't know. Not for sure. He's eighteen, you know, and a very social young man," Eileen said. "He always has plans on weekend nights."
Detective Varner cleared his throat. "Sorry to interrupt, but we're going to have to find young Farraday's car."
"What is he talking about?" Eileen's gaze traveled from Bethany's face to Morgan's, and then she turned to Seth Renfrew, who stood at her side.
Seth patted her tenderly on the back. He looked at Hal Varner. "What's this about James's car?"
Morgan glanced from Seth to Eileen. "The car that ran us off the road tonight was a red Porsche."
Gasping, Eileen clutched her blouse, her ring-adorned fingers centered over her heart. "You can't mean you think James is the person who tried to … tried to… No!"
Bethany grabbed her mother's shoulders and shook her soundly. "Don't go all to pieces. Not now. I want you to think. Do you have any idea where James might be? We have to find him. And we have to find Anne Marie."
Eileen crumpled into a heap, bowing her head, wringing her hands and weeping uncontrollably. Seth pulled her away from Bethany and into his arms, cuddling her, stroking her back and shoulders as he whispered comforting words.
Glancing over Eileen's head, he looked Morgan square in the eye. "James and I have had a few man-to-man talks, if you know what I mean. He thinks of me as an uncle, a confidant. I've made a point of taking an interest in James. During one of our one-bachelor-to-another talks, he confided in me that he often drives to the WHNB station, parks his Porsche and goes off with some friends."
"Do you know where they go?"
"To Southside, somewhere around the Five Points area," Seth said.
"Oh, dear God!" Bethany grabbed Morgan's ann. "If Anne Marie and Melanie have gone to Southside, there's no telling what kind of trouble they've run into. There are all kinds of clubs and hangouts down there. Weirdos and druggies and—"
"We'll call Melanie Harden's parents and find out what kind of car she's driving," Morgan said.
"James may have left his car at the TV station as he's done in the past," Seth told Detective Varner, then returned his gaze to Morgan's stoic face. "He has mentioned a place called the Purple Fizz. It seems no one checks IDs very closely there."
* * *
Standing in the WHNB parking lot, Bethany watched the police wrecker tow James's badly damaged red Porsche. Morgan clamped his hands down on her shoulders. Pivoting her head slightly, she glanced up at him.
"This can't be happening," she said. "James's car was used to run us off the mountain, and Anne Marie slipped out of the house to chase off down to Five Points after him. I know James wasn't driving his car. I can't believe he tried to kill us any more than I can believe he could have killed his father."
"We're going to have to pick the boy up for questioning," Hal Varner said. "If he doesn't have an alibi for the time of your accident, then I'm afraid he's going to be in a lot of trouble."
"He's going to be in a lot of trouble regardless," Morgan said. "If anything happens to Anne Marie, he'll have to answer to me."
Snapping her head around, Bethany stared at Morgan. Not only the protective attitude his words conveyed but the deadly, controlled tone of his voice revealed the paternal feelings Morgan had for Anne Marie. He had sounded just like a worried father.
"Why are you blaming James?" Bethany asked. "He didn't exactly invite Anne Marie and Melanie to follow him." She turned to Detective Varner. "Please, if you don't need us anymore, may we leave? I have a child out there somewhere who could be in danger."
A classic black Pontiac GTO pulled into the parking lot, screeching to an abrupt halt. Tony Hayes opened the door and stepped out. Holding a large paper bag in one hand, he threw up his other hand in greeting.
"Well, hello, Bethany, what are you doing here?" Tony glanced at Hal Varner. "What's going on? I noticed a wrecker pulling James's car, or at least I think it was James's car."
"What are you doing at the station this time of night?" Bethany glared at Tony. Slick Tony. Smooth-talking, cocky Tony, with his silver-streaked dark hair and his bedroom blue eyes. He was every bit the womanizing bastard Jimmy Farraday had been. Two peas in a pod.
"So now you know why I'm at the station, how about telling me what y'all are doing here? Was that or was that not James's car?"
"It was young Farraday's car," Detective Varner said. "His red Porsche was involved in an accident earlier tonight."
"Is James all right?" Tony asked. "Is he in the hospital?"
"James is fine," Morgan said. "We aren't sure he was even driving the car."
"Look, we're wasting time standing here explaining things to Tony," Bethany said. "I want to go find Anne Marie. Now!"
"You two go ahead," Varner said. "I'm going to stay here and question everyone at the station. Maybe somebody saw something that can help us."
"Come on, honey, we'll find Anne Marie." Morgan led Bethany to the green Aston Martin convertible they'd borrowed from her mother.
"Hey, Kane," Varner shouted. "If you find James Farraday before my men do, give me a call."
Morgan nodded to Varner, then put Bethany in the convertible. He slid into the driver's seat and closed the door. He stole a quick glance her way. She sat there rigid as a statue, her small hands folded in her lap. He suspected she was clasping her hands to prevent them from shaking.
He reached over, slid his hand beneath her dark wind-blown hair and caressed the back of her neck. "We'll find Anne Marie. Don't worry. And when we find her, I'm going to lock her up and throw away the key."
"She has never done anything like this before." Bethany looked at Morgan, all the fear and sorrow she felt showing plainly on her face. "I don't know. Maybe it's this wild crush she has on James, or perhaps her new friendship with Melanie Harden. Of course, having her mother indicted for murder and the story being front-page news has turned her world upside down."
Morgan drove the convertible out of the parking lot and onto the highway, taking Bethany's directions on the quickest way to get from WHNB to Five Points. He didn't know how much more Bethany could take without falling to pieces. Her nerves were wound so tightly, now, that he expected her to snap at any time. Over the years, Bethany had developed into a strong woman, but even the strongest had their breaking point. If she had one weakness, it was her daughter. She loved her child more than anything on earth. Amery's child.
He hated himself for the selfish thought. Jealous not only that Bethany had given Amery a child, but that she loved that child with such passionate devotion. It doesn't matter, he told himself, who her father was, Bethany would love Anne Marie the same. It's because Anne Marie is her child that she loves her, not because she's Amery's.
And you could love her for the very same reason. Because she's Bethany's.
They cruised the Southside streets, concentrating their search mostly in the Five Points area. Down University Boulevard
, onto Ninth Avenue
, then Tenth Avenue
and Eleventh. If the Purple Fizz existed, it was well hidden.
"Hell! You'd think a canary yellow, twin-turbos Audi would be easy to spot." Morgan slowed the convertible to a snail's pace, scanning every side street as they passed, checking parking areas, while Bethany searched in vain for Melanie Harden's car.
"We don't even know for sure that Anne Marie is down here," Bethany said. "Just because James told Seth that he comes down here sometimes doesn't mean this is where he came tonight."
"You're right," Morgan admitted, apprehension building steadily in his gut. "But my instincts tell me that James is enough like I was at his age that he gets his kicks out of walking on the wild side."
"Well, my daughter is not old enough to walk on the wild side. I've protected her from the seamier side of life, and I can't bear to think what my arrest and indictment have done to her. She'll never be the sweet, innocent child she was before all this happened to us."
"You can't blame yourself. What's happened to you isn't your fault. And sooner or later, Anne Marie has to grow up. You can't protect her from the real world forever."
"Well, she could have spent the rest of her life without being exposed to— Look! Down that street. See that sign."
Morgan took a sharp right, then pulled the Aston Martin to a halt, momentarily blocking traffic. The sign read Purple Fizz with an arrow pointing toward a small parking area between two buildings.
"How the hell did we miss that the last go-around?" he grumbled.
"I don't like the looks of that place."
Purple neon lights flickered on and off around the double doors of a small one-story building. Loud hard-rock music permeated the air. A swarm of people crowded the parking area, most with either a cigarette in their mouth or a beer bottle in their hand, some with both.
"There's a yellow Audi," Morgan said, nodding to the small, sleek automobile that was half-hidden between a battered, rusty van and a shiny, new half-ton Chevy truck.
Morgan pulled the car into a parking space straight across from the Audi, killed the motor, checked his shoulder holster and then turned to Bethany.
"If that's Melanie's car, then they're probably inside the club." He unhooked his safety belt. Bethany did the same. "Let's check out the license plate number on the car first, then we'll storm the walls and get those girls out of that dump."
With only one security light in the whole parking lot, visibility was limited. The pulsating purple neon lights sent out flickering waves of illumination that cast a lavender glow over everything they touched. A half moon beamed down from a clear, black sky.
Morgan bent over, checked the license plate on the Audi and groaned. "This is Melanie's car."
"How could those girls do something so stupid?" Bethany clung to Morgan's arm.
"Because they're teenagers," Morgan said. "I remember thinking that I was invincible. Nothing could hurt me. Danger simply wasn't a reality."
"But Anne Marie has always been so much like me. She's never been a risk taker like—" Bethany caught herself before she compared her daughter to Morgan.
Draping his arm around her waist, Morgan led Bethany across the parking lot. "You took the biggest risk of your life, honey, by falling in love with me. If you'd been smart, you would have run from me as far and fast as you could have."
"What you're saying is that Anne Marie is doing just what I did, risking everything for love."
Loud voices and a thundering crash directly across the parking lot grabbed Morgan's immediate attention. Instinctively he shoved Bethany behind him and surveyed the scene. A small group of people, mostly men, made a semicircle around two young guys squaring off against each other.
The black-haired youth with his back to them looked familiar. James Farraday! Crouched and ready to attack. Damn that boy! What kind of mess had he gotten himself into with these tough-looking characters? Morgan wondered.
"It's James!" Bethany gasped as she peered around Morgan's side. "Oh, God, look! There's Anne Marie and Melanie."
Morgan's heart stopped beating for a split second when he saw Anne Marie standing to one side of the semicircle, a terrified look on her face. The pint-size redhead grasping Anne Marie's hand had to be Melanie Harden.
"I don't like the look of this," Morgan said. He'd been in his share of fights over the years. As a boy and as a man. As an untrained civilian and as a skilled warrior.
He retrieved his phone from his jacket, handed it to Bethany and repeated the number for her to call. "Get in touch with Hal Varner and let him know we've found James."
When Morgan took a tentative step forward, she grabbed his arm, halting his advance. "What are you going to do?"
What was he going to do to? This wasn't a combat situation where the kill or be killed motto held true. This was a street fight between two equal, unarmed participants. He thought it best not to interfere, to let the boys fight it out, as long as no one was in any real danger.
He could easily whisk Anne Marie and
Melanie away, but he thought the girls should witness the fight. Maybe it would scare a little sense into them.
"Please, don't do this," Anne Marie yelled. "Just let Melanie and me leave. We don't want to go with you and your buddies."
James's opponent, a lean, wiry teenager with curly brown hair, leered at Anne Marie, his lips curving in a cocky smile. "Hey, baby, if your boyfriend wins this fight, you and Red there can leave with him. Otherwise, you two are going with us."
"She's not going anywhere with you, B.J." James snarled, baring his teeth in a show of deadly defiance.
Bethany finished her brief conversation with Hal Varner, then slid Morgan's phone into the pocket of her dirty, wrinkled cotton slacks.
"Do something, Morgan, before they start fighting."
Bethany started to walk around Morgan, but he caught her wrist and jerked her backward. "Right now, this is James's fight."
"What are you saying? Surely, you don't intend to allow those boys to beat each other to a pulp, do you?"
Before Morgan could reply, B.J. let out a blood-curdling yell and went into a typical karate stance. Not to be outdone, James repeated the action. With hands, arms and legs in motion, the two young men began an uncoordinated battle dance that resulted in little more than evasion tactics. Apparently both boys knew a few karate moves, but it took only a few seconds for them to exhaust their limited repertoire of skilled maneuvers.
Apparently tired of getting nowhere fast, B.J. charged, tossing the first punch, but James dodged the blow and quickly retaliated with a right cross. B.J. staggered backward, but recovered and came at his sparring partner again, this time landing a blow to James's midsection.
Anne Marie cried out, but when she tried to rush toward James, Melanie restrained her.
Bethany pulled against Morgan's hold on her, but when he clamped his hand down on her shoulder, she stopped struggling and glared at him. "I want you to stop them," she told him. "Now!"
"Not yet," he said.
Both boys were breathing hard, panting as they tried to stare each other down. Then they went at it again, James getting in several hard punches and one quick, adept move that sent B.J. to the ground.
A MAN LIKE MORGAN KANE Page 20
