The Valentine Mystery

by Kathi Daley

  When I arrived at the bookstore, it was dark inside. There was a note on the door letting customers know Bree had closed early for Valentine’s Day. Mike was on the phone, but he hung up shortly after I got there.

  “I’m going to look for Bree,” Mike said. “You call Tony. Have him dig around to see what he can find out about Coby, Kowalski, and the woman who’s supposedly Coby’s mother.”

  “Okay. I’ll call him. You have to find her.”

  “I will.”

  I called Tony and quickly explained what was going on. He told me that he’d found some irregularities and had planned to call me anyway. He asked me to come to his place and I said I would. What I really wanted to do was go look for Bree, but if she wasn’t at the bookstore or at home, I had no idea where to look. My best bet was with the man who seemed to have a knack for pulling a rabbit out of his hat just when you needed it most.

  By the time Tilly and I arrived at Tony’s, it was getting dark. I realized I’d never finished my route; my bag was back in Mike’s office. The mail within would have to wait. I called Queenie to explain what had happened so she wouldn’t worry, then called Brady to cancel our date. I felt bad for doing it at the last minute, but he didn’t sound like he minded in the least. In fact, if you asked me, he sounded almost relieved. I supposed after he’d thought about things, he’d realized dinner with a friend wasn’t the sort of thing you did on Valentine’s Day if you had no desire for that person to be anything more than a friend.

  I hung up with Brady and called Mike’s cell, who confirmed Bree definitely wasn’t at her house.

  “Okay, what do we know?” I asked Tony after I put away my cell phone.

  He took me by the hand and led me into his computer room, pointed to a seat, and began to speak. “I’m going to throw a lot of information at you really fast. If you aren’t following, stop me.”

  “Okay. What’s going on?”

  “I decided to call the man who’d been waiting for us in the Suburban; the one who left me his business card. I hoped he would be willing to fill in a few of the blanks we hadn’t been able to do on our own.”

  “Why would you think he’d tell us anything?”

  “I didn’t have any reason to think he would, but it seemed he wanted to find Maria as much as we did, so I figured calling him couldn’t hurt.”

  “He could have turned it around and used the conversation to get information out of you,” I pointed out.

  “He could have, but we didn’t actually know anything about where Maria might be.”

  “Yeah, I guess that’s true. So how did it go?”

  “Once again, he told me that he worked for Maria’s husband, Danko Milovich. He assured me that he meant Maria no harm and that his dictate from his boss was simply to protect her.”

  I frowned. “Did you believe him?”

  “Not at first. But he seemed to be willing to talk, so I decided to play things out to see where they went. I asked him how he knew I’d been looking for Maria, and he said one of his men had been following a man who claimed to be Maria’s biological child.”

  “Kowalski?”

  “Yes. According to the man I spoke to, whose name is Dracon, both he and Kowalski had been hired to protect Maria. When she decided to come to the States, they, along with a third man named Borden, came with her.”

  I held up my hand. “Whoa, back up. What do you mean, she decided to come to the States?”

  “Maria had been living in Serbia with her husband until two months ago, when she received a message from a friend in the United States that a man claiming to be her son was looking for her. She’d always wondered what had become of the child, so she made a trip back to the States to check it out. She knew her husband would never let her return on her own, but he was away on business, so she took advantage of it and made travel arrangements. It seems Dracon, Kowalski, and Borden were hired many years ago by Milovich to act as bodyguards for his wife, so Maria had no choice but to let them come with her. If she’d refused, they would have contacted her husband about her plans.”

  “Okay, I’m following so far, but why all the security? Three men to protect one woman? Were they afraid she would run away again?”

  “According to Dracon, there’d been a kidnapping attempt involving Maria when they lived here before. It seems Milovich has enemies who will do almost anything to gain leverage against him.”

  “You said the kidnapping occurred when he lived in the United States. That must have been in the early eighties, when Milovich first met and married Maria.”

  “Exactly. After the kidnapping attempt, Milovich decided to move back to Serbia. At about that same time, Maria found out she was pregnant. She loved her husband and intended to do what was necessary to protect herself from her husband’s enemies, but she didn’t want her baby to grow up in such a dangerous and restrictive environment. She knew as Danko’s son, his freedom would be limited, and she wanted him to have a normal life. A life like the one she’d enjoyed before marrying Milovich.”

  “Okay, so Maria found out she was pregnant and decided she didn’t want her baby to be raised in Serbia, so she ran?”

  “Basically,” Tony confirmed. “Somehow, she managed to give her bodyguard the slip and took off in the middle of the night. She acted rashly, because she didn’t have a plan or any money or means of support, but she was lucky enough to meet Edith her first day on her own. Edith took her in and hid her from everyone who was looking for her. After the baby was born, Edith promised to find a good home for her son, so Maria left her baby with her and went back to her husband.”

  “So the whole church thing was a lie?”

  “Yes. It was part of the story Coby made up. In reality, Edith had placed Maria’s son with a family she knew who very much wanted children but were unable to have any of their own.”

  “If Maria went home after the baby was born, wouldn’t her husband wonder what had become of him and use his resources to find the child?”

  “It seems Maria hadn’t told her husband she was pregnant. He managed to find it out on his own, but at the time of Maria’s disappearance, he was unaware of the pregnancy.”

  I took a moment to work through everything Tony had just told me. In a really twisted way, the whole thing made sense, but I was having trouble fast-forwarding from Maria giving birth and going home to the present day. “Okay, so Kowalski was following Coby because he was looking for Maria.”

  “Correct. After Maria left for the States, her husband called home. It was at that point that he found out his wife had left on a trip to find her long-lost son. Milovich checked in with Maria’s security detail, only to find she had given them the slip. They were looking for her by then and had learned Coby was looking for her as well. Milovich knew right away Coby wasn’t the son his wife had given birth to, knew he most likely wanted to find Maria to harm her in some way, so he ordered Maria’s security detail to follow Coby.”

  “How did Milovich know Coby wasn’t Maria’s son?”

  “Apparently, Milovich had known where the boy was for quite some time. He knew it was important to Maria that their child have a normal life, so he allowed the boy to be raised by the family Edith had found, but he’d been keeping an eye on him from a distance.”

  I leaned forward, rested my elbows on my thighs, then bowed my head into my hands. “If Coby isn’t Maria’s son, who is he and why is he looking for her?”

  “Dracon believes he’s looking for her for the same reason the men who tried to kidnap her thirty-four years ago did: leverage. Milovich is not only wealthy, he’s powerful. In his own country he’s untouchable. Dracon believes the man we know as Coby was hired to kidnap Maria.”

  “They want to ransom her?” I asked.

  “Dracon suggested the plot involves more than money, that whoever hired Coby needs something Milovich has and is determined to acquire it by any means. He wouldn’t go into specifics, but he assured me that getting hold of the one thing Milovich cares about is t
he only way to get to him.”

  I leaned back against the sofa and stared at the ceiling. “So Coby’s been lying to us the whole time.”

  “I’m afraid so. He realized we might be helpful in his search for Milovich’s wife, so he made up a very compelling story and asked for our help.”

  “I’m such an idiot.”

  “You’re not an idiot. Coby had us all fooled.”

  I glanced at Tony. “We need to find Bree.”

  “I know. I’m working on it.”

  I called Mike, who still hadn’t found either Bree or Coby. He promised to keep looking and I promised to stay in touch. What I needed was one of those lightbulb moments when everything that hadn't made sense suddenly did. I needed to quell my emotions and think rationally. Tony was working on his computer, so at first, the only thing I could do was pace. Everyone knew that in tense situations where everything was on the line, someone always paced.

  I took a deep breath and tried to focus my thoughts. It seemed Coby was looking for Maria to kidnap her. We suspected he was working with one of Milovich’s enemies and that he had lured her to the United States by masquerading as her son. She had arrived with three bodyguards in tow but had managed to ditch them at some point. The last time I’d seen Coby he hadn’t found her, which meant she was in hiding. Maybe she wanted to be sure she’d lost her bodyguards, or maybe she was just being cautious and was trying to get more information on Coby before she approached him. The question was, where would she go?

  I didn’t think I had enough information to figure that out, so I turned my thoughts to Bree. Coby had been hanging out with us all week. He’d arranged to take her out for Valentine’s Day. If Coby didn’t know we were on to him, she could be totally safe. Even if they were together, as I suspected, that didn’t mean they weren’t simply engaged in datelike activities until it was time to meet Brady and me at the restaurant. I needed to hang on to that thought; otherwise I was going to flip out completely.

  “Bree and Coby were in the liquor store just north of town at four-thirty,” Tony said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I found them on the security feed.”

  “How do you have access to the security feed at the liquor store?” I glanced at Tony. “Never mind.” I walked up behind him. Both Bree and Coby were smiling as they paid for two bottles of wine. “Okay, so as of four-thirty they seemed to be buying wine for the evening. Its six-thirty now. We’re supposed to meet at the restaurant in an hour. If they arrive and Brady and I aren’t there, they’ll wonder what’s going on.”

  “Have you tried calling Bree’s cell?” Tony asked.

  “About a million times. It goes straight to voice mail.”

  “Maybe she just forgot to charge it.”

  I hoped that was the case, but the feeling of dread in my stomach told me otherwise.

  “What if you and I show up at the restaurant? If they’re there, we’ll tell them Brady had an emergency and asked me to come along to round things out.”

  I looked down at my uniform. “I’ll have to stop at home to change. We’ll need to hurry.”

  “Just give me ten minutes to clean up.”

  I thought about the red dress I’d bought and decided against it. This wasn’t the time to show up looking like a sex kitten, so I put on a dressy pantsuit and a pair of low heels. By the time we got to the restaurant it was five minutes to seven. Bree and Coby weren’t there, so we got a table for four and waited. Every second that ticked by seemed like a lifetime. If they didn’t show up, I didn’t know what I’d do.

  By seven-thirty I realized they weren’t going to show. That terrified me more than I could find words to communicate. “What are we going to do? How will we find them?”

  “I don’t know.” Tony tossed some money on the table even though we hadn’t ordered anything. He took my hand and led me out into the frigid Montana night. After we’d climbed into his truck and he’d turned on the heater, he looked at me. “I know the fact that they didn’t show looks bad, but we can’t panic.”

  I rubbed my hands together in front of the heater vent. “Easier said than done.”

  “We need to keep our heads about us. Let’s review what we know.”

  I took a breath and let it out. “Haven’t we already done that? I feel like we keep going over the same thing, and at the end we’re no better off than we were when we started.”

  “I don’t disagree with you, but I’ve found that at times going over the same information more than once eventually leads to a flash of insight.”

  “Okay. Let’s do it. You start.”

  Tony took a moment before he started to speak. “You first met Coby when you came across the accident he had with Armand Kowalski. Given that someone injected a drug into Kowalski’s system, and Coby was the only other person there, chances are Coby intentionally caused the accident. He knew Kowalski had been watching him. One of them was literally behind the other on the road. Coby must have realized he’d been made and decided to get rid of the guy, so he caused the accident and injected the drug.”

  “And then he asked me to breakfast,” I picked up the story. “He told me a wonderful tale about a son looking for his long-lost mother and I fell for it. We spent the next week running around town trying to get a lead on the woman he apparently just wanted to kidnap.”

  “Meanwhile,” Tony continued, “Maria found out Coby was looking for her and decided to come to the United States to check things out. Her husband was out of town and she saw her opening but still had to bring her three bodyguards with her. Once they arrived, she managed to give them the slip. I guess we can assume she went to stay with a friend while she checked Coby out.”

  “Coby is here in White Eagle. If Maria knew that, it makes sense she would want to be close by, where she could get a look at Coby and decide for herself if he was telling the truth.”

  “Okay,” Tony said. “Say she’s here. Where would she be?”

  “With Carl Willoughby.”

  “The teenager she knew when she was staying with Edith?”

  “Yes. There was an age difference, but I suspect they were close. I found drawings in the sketchpad in Edith’s attic similar to the ones Carl had in his home. They were of Maria. It looked like she must have posed for hours. And she gave him the pendant she’d been wearing when they met. If Edith was still alive, I’d suggest she went to her; Carl seems like the next likely choice.”

  “Okay. Let’s go see Carl.”

  Chapter 15

  When we arrived at Carl’s house, the vehicle Coby had been driving was parked in front. We got out of the truck and slowly snuck up to a window. I couldn’t see everything that was going on, but I could see Bree and Carl sitting on the sofa.

  “It doesn’t look like there’s anything sinister going on,” I whispered.

  “There’s nothing obvious, but look at their body language. There could be more going on than the scene would indicate. Maybe you should call Mike just in case there’s a problem,” Tony said softly in my ear.

  I walked away from the window and made my call. I’d just hung up when I heard a shot. “Bree!” I ran as fast as I could to the front door. Tony tried to stop me, but he’s big and I’m small; I slipped right past him. When I pulled open the door I found Bree on her knees and Carl on the floor. Coby turned to face me, which gave her the opportunity to kick him in the leg.

  “What the…” Coby turned back to Bree. Tony took advantage of the diversion and hit Coby over the head with a bat he’d found propped up against the wall. He was out like a light.

  “Are you okay?” I grabbed Bree and hugged her tight.

  “I’m fine. Carl—”

  “I called 911,” Tony said, kneeling next to him. He placed his finger on his neck. “He has a pulse. Go find some clean towels. We need to stop the bleeding.”

  Bree ran down the hall for the towels while Tony found something to tie Coby up with and I placed the palm of my hand over Carl’s gunshot wound and
applied pressure. There was so much blood. Too much. Luckily, Mike arrived a few minutes after Bree returned with the towels and took over. It was at that point that Bree passed out cold.

  Tony carried her to the sofa and I wet a towel for her head. When she came to, I asked her if she was all right.

  Bree put her hand to her head. “I’m okay. Just a little dizzy.”

  She lifted her head and attempted to sit up. I used my weight to help her.

  “How did you find us?” Bree asked. “I thought we were dead for sure.”

  “I tried to figure where Maria might have gone. The sketches Carl did of her when she stayed here as a young woman suggested a relationship closer than just casual acquaintances. The age difference was significant, so I’m not suggesting a romantic relationship, just a warm friendship. I took a shot that she might come here if she needed a place to hide. I guess Coby had the same idea.”

  “He said he had a feeling Carl was closer to his mother than he let on the first time he spoke to him. He wanted to do a follow-up interview. I had no idea what was really going on until we got here and Carl got all defensive. I know you won’t believe it, but it’s the man Coby works for who caused Maria to run in the first place, after an attempted kidnapping.”

  “Tony and I just found that out today.” I looked to where the paramedics, who had just arrived, were working on Carl. “I hope he’s going to be okay.”

  “Me too. He probably saved my life. Coby pointed the gun at me and threatened to kill me if Carl didn’t tell him where Maria was. Carl insisted he didn’t know, and I thought I was a goner, but then Carl jumped up and tried to get the gun. That’s when he was shot.”

  By the time Mike had followed Carl in the ambulance, Frank had interviewed Bree, and we’d all been released to go home, at least two hours had passed. Bree was pretty shaken up, so we all headed over to my cabin for Valentine’s Day frozen dinners.