by J. Kenner
“She’s here,” Damien said. “We all are. You’re on speaker.”
“Apparently. Damien, I’m so sorry.” There was no mistaking the grief and fear that colored her voice.
“I know,” he said gently. “And I appreciate it. But right now—”
“Yes, yes. And I’ve got something for you. Not much, but maybe it’ll help. Mr. Dilliard was reluctant, of course. But I convinced him to share a bit of info with us. Or rather, Matthew did.”
“Matthew Holt?”
“The man has his finger in every entertainment pie in this city,” Evelyn said. “And let’s face it, that reporter isn’t in the business of news. It’s all about entertainment. So when Matthew assured him that if he didn’t tell us what we needed, he might as well move back to Wisconsin and take up waiting tables, Mr. Dilliard believed him.”
“Thank God. What do we know?”
“Still not much, I’m afraid. He didn’t have a name. He only knows that the person who called to tip him off about Louisa and Rory was a woman. He checked out the facility that the woman told him about, found Louisa, and learned that she’d had past visits from Rory. That’s all he knows. He swears.”
“You believe him?”
“I do. Matthew does, too. I’m sorry it’s not more helpful.”
So was Damien. But all he said to Evelyn was, “It’s something. Thank you.”
“Anything you need, you let me know. You’ll get her back, Damien. There’s no other possible outcome.”
He thanked her, then hung up and looked between Ryan and Quincy, his mind churning with Evelyn’s words. You’ll get her back. You’ll get her back.
“Am I making a mistake not involving the police?” He asked the question bluntly. His mind said they were handling this exactly the way it needed to be handled. With experienced men and the best resources already in the thick of it and the ability to bring in more at a moment’s notice. The police would only add red tape and slow things down.
That was what his gut told him, but he needed to be sure.
And so he looked between the two men he trusted and he asked again. “Is this team sufficient? Can we get her back? Or do I need to call in help?”
“We’ll get her back,” Ryan said with no hesitation. “At this point, law enforcement would only jam up the works.”
The relief that swept over him was palpable. “Right. So Dilliard’s tipster was a woman. Odds are she visited Louisa as well. Let’s pull out all the men. That should narrow the field some.”
“On it,” Quincy said, and he started to flash the ID images of the various women on the projection screen as Damien rubbed his temples, his heart aching and his mind churning.
He couldn’t lose her. Whatever happened, he couldn’t lose her.
Conversation swam around him. Ryan talking with Jeff about possibly tapping into traffic cam footage. Quincy wondering aloud if a second call to Ollie would be a good idea. Behind him, he heard Bree offer the girls a muffin, and then the pounding of little feet as Lara and Anne raced into the open area squealing that they were getting muffins for snacks.
He bent down, scooping them into his arms, his gut twisting as he realized that he hadn’t told Bree that Nikki was missing. She’d been down in the playroom with the girls when Abby’s call had come, and it hadn’t even occurred to him.
“Daddy? Whatsa matter, Daddy?” Lara asked, and since he couldn’t answer, he just held her tighter.
When he could speak, he called Bree over, and she came with Kari, presumably thinking he wanted a muffin.
“Bree,” he began, then noticed the way Kari was staring at the screen.
“Wait, go back,” she said when the image changed.
Damien glanced back only for a second at the returning image, barely even registering the photo ID of a woman in glasses behind which she had eyes rimmed in thick lines of kohl. A mass of wild, curly blond hair covered most of her forehead, and her lips were painted in black lipstick.
Instead, Damien’s attention was on Kari’s face.
“You know her?”
“It’s the same girl,” Kari said. “I thought so when I was here the other day. On the video, I mean, but I wasn’t sure. But that’s her. That’s definitely her.”
Damien frowned, confused. He glanced at Ryan and Quincy, but neither of them seemed to understand either.
“The video?” he asked.
“She was in a parking lot. It was on the projection screen the other day when I was here. It took me a while to place her, but then I realized why she was so familiar. She’s the girl who introduced me to Rory.” She pointed at the screen. “Different hair and way different makeup, but that’s her.”
Damien turned, and this time he paid attention to the image on the screen. He ignored the heavily penciled eyes. The glasses. The unfamiliar hair and strange lipstick.
Kari was right. The woman in the visitor ID photo and the woman in the parking lot were the same.
And both women were Sofia.
A flood of nausea crested over him, and he rose to his feet, trying to battle it down.
“Mr. Stark?” Bree took a step forward as if to steady him, but he held a hand up, warding her off as he turned his attention to Kari again.
“You’re sure? Absolutely positive?”
She licked her lips, looking more than a little intimidated. “Um, yeah. I’m sure. I even remember that one time she told Darla—you know, she works the register in the mornings—that she thought Rory and Bree would be a cute couple. I don’t know. Maybe that stuck in my head and that was why I introduced them.” She turned to Bree with a shrug.
“I don’t get it,” Bree said, tilting her head toward the video. “Who is she?”
“Sofia,” he said. “And it doesn’t make a damn bit of sense.”
It would though. He pulled out his phone and dialed her number, but it went straight to voicemail. “Sofia. It’s me. Call me back.”
He hung up, then tracked her phone. Once again, the map showed that she was in Santa Barbara. Fine. If she was ignoring his cell calls, he’d get through to her on the house line.
He dialed again, this time ringing the hotel’s front desk. “This is Damien Stark. Put me through to Richard Layton,” he demanded, referring to the manager of the Pearl, who Damien had personally hired several years ago.
“Mr. Stark.” Richard was on the line within seconds. “Is there a problem?”
“I need you to check a room. Sofia Richter.”
“Oh. Of course. Are you calling about Ms. Richter’s phone?”
A chill ran up the back of Damien’s spine. “Her phone?”
“Housekeeping found it after she checked out. I was going to have it sent by messenger to your office. That seemed the most expedient way to return it.”
“No. No, just keep it there. I’ll have someone pick it up. Soon.” He ended the call, his body numb. She’d left.
More than that, she’d obviously left the phone behind so that he would believe she was still there and couldn’t track her.
So where the fuck was she?
And was she the one who’d taken Nikki? Or was he now thinking the worst of her, just like he’d earlier been thinking the best?
“Damien?” Ryan stood by his side. “I only heard one side of that, but she left her phone?”
“Send someone,” Damien said. “Get them there fast, get the phone. Before this is over, we’ll probably need to see what’s in her contacts and emails.”
“On it,” Ryan said, signaling to Jeff. “Get Grayson here with a chopper. Five minutes ago.”
“Done.”
“This doesn’t make sense,” Ryan said. “You really think Sofia is behind the kidnapping?”
“I don’t know.” He paced the length of the open area, back and forth, his hands at the back of his neck. Bree and Kari, he noticed, had retreated back to the kitchen. “God knows she’s got the intellect to pull something like this together, but I just don’t see her doing it. And bes
ides, she passed the polygraph.”
“I’m not so sure she did.” The words, low and edgy, came from Quincy, who was leaning against the workstation. His hair stood on end, as if he’d been running his fingers through it, and his expression was dark as thunder.
“What are you talking about?” Ryan asked. “You administered the test when she showed up after Anne’s kidnapping.”
“I did,” he said. “But I didn’t know about Monika Karts. I didn’t know she adopted personalities. I didn’t know about that aspect of her mental health.”
“What the fuck does that have to do with anything?” Damien snapped.
“Polygraphs aren’t an exact science,” Quincy said. “But the bottom line is that they rely heavily on the physiological changes that occurs when someone lies. But someone with Sofia’s history—”
“She becomes the person,” Ryan said flatly. “She believes the lie.”
“I’ve seen this before. Paris. Ten years ago.” A flash of rage contorted Quincy’s face before disappearing as quickly as it came. “Just like Sofia, and the bitch burned me to ashes.”
“Goddammit,” Damien said, lashing out and kicking over the nearest table, sending a laptop and a computer tumbling to the ground. “This is all on me. I didn’t give you the information so you could do your job. And I didn’t look closely enough because she’s like my family. My goddamn fucked-up family.”
He collapsed into a chair, closing his eyes and forcing himself to breathe. To just breathe. “I can’t lose her. Christ, Ryan, if I lose Nikki…”
“You won’t.” Ryan’s voice was calm. Strong.
“The girls.” Damien shot to his feet. “I don’t want them to see me like this—”
“Jamie went to check on them and tell Bree the situation. She’s taking them to the bungalow.”
“Situation,” Damien repeated. “What a fucking horrible word.”
“We’ve got this,” Ryan said firmly. “We just need to focus. We’ll get her back.”
“We will.” He swallowed, once again pushing the fear away along with the self-recrimination. None of it would do her any good. He had to think. He had to act.
He had to find her.
“If Sofia is behind this, then she must have Nikki somewhere. We need to keep looking for surveillance footage. Find video of the grab, and who knows what else we’ll learn.”
“On it,” Quincy said. “And I’ll hook in Ollie.”
“If she was planning this, there might be info in her phone. Get Jeff whatever support he needs to hack into it as soon as he gets to the hotel. Tell him to stay there so he’s got access to a decent internet connection. We may need him to pull information for us. Let Richard know and get him set up with a space to work and whatever tech he needs.”
“Done,” Ryan said, pointing at the other tech guru, who nodded and hurried off to make the calls. “I have to say, though, I don’t think she’s behind this. Involved, maybe. But behind the kidnapping? I don’t buy it.”
Damien looked hard at his friend. “I don’t either,” he admitted. “But I want you to tell me why.”
“Anne,” Ryan said. “Nikki’s a question mark. She’d certainly have hurt her in the past, and I’m not sure about now. But I don’t see her hurting Anne.”
“Anne wasn’t hurt,” Damien pointed out. “But Sofia was hurting. She’d had the miscarriage.”
“Even so.”
Damien nodded. “Honestly, I agree with you. But we both could be wrong. God knows I seem to be that a lot lately. Can’t say I like the feel of it. And if we’re right and she’s not the one pulling the strings, then we’re right back where we started.”
“Except maybe there will be something in her cell phone. A contact. A call history.”
“Maybe.” The idea of waiting for Jeff made Damien’s stomach twist, and he crossed the room again. Like a shark, he had to keep moving or else he’d die. Had to keep his thoughts churning. Had to keep chasing after whatever it was that he was missing, because there was something there. Something important. Something—
No.
Oh, holy fuck, no.
“Damien?”
Ryan’s voice sounded a million miles away. He felt the blood drain from his body. And he heard the echo of his father’s words—And God, even Sofia. I actually went and added that poor girl to the mix. That’s how low I sunk.
He looked at Ryan. “What did he mean by that?”
Ryan’s brow furrowed. “What did who mean?”
But Damien wasn’t listening any longer. He had his phone out. He was dialing his father. And when Jeremiah answered, Damien wanted to reach through the phone and grab the bastard by the scruff of his neck. “What did you do?” he demanded, his words pouring out. “What did you get Sofia involved in? You weren’t talking about the tennis circuit. That was all on Richter. You did something now, you fucking bastard. What did you do, old man? You tell me what the fuck you did.”
“Breckenridge.” Jeremiah’s voice sounded lost. “She was alone. Broke. She was looking for help. And he said he’d let the money I owed him slide until after The Domino investment paid off. All I had to do was introduce them. That was all. She could have walked away any time. I just introduced them.”
Damien’s head throbbed. He tried to make sense of the words. “Sofia’s been dating Richard Breckenridge?”
“I just introduced them,” Jeremiah said again.
Suddenly, Damien understood. “The miscarriage. Breckenridge was the father.”
“It’s not my fault,” Jeremiah said, but Damien barely heard him.
He ended the call and looked at Ryan. “He hooked her up with Breckenridge. All my life I’ve tried to protect Sofia, and my father introduced her to that perverted, abusive, misogynistic pig. He got her pregnant. He’s probably hit her. God knows he’s using her.”
“And isn’t fucking Sofia a stellar way to get back at you?” Ryan said, his voice harsh. “Almost as good as kidnapping your daughter.”
“Or hurting my wife.” He shivered, his body suddenly as cold as ice. “I have to go. I have to find him.”
He started for the stairs.
“Go where?” Ryan called, but Damien didn’t answer. Hell, he didn’t know. He’d call Ryan from the car, get the team searching property records for Breckenridge’s address. Right then, he simply had to move.
He got as far as the guard station and saw another car in the drive. A plain white Toyota. A rental. And there, in the driver’s seat, was Sofia.
She looked up, her eyes meeting his through the windshield. Then she slammed open her door and raced toward him, collapsing at his feet as he bolted from his car.
“Damien,” she cried. “I did a bad thing. I think I did a really, really bad thing.”
Chapter Twenty-six
“What did you do?” Damien demanded, pacing in front of the chair where he’d parked her. “Sofia, tell me where my wife is.”
He’d managed to hold his fury in check until he got her into the house. He’d been silent. Completely silent in the face of her sobs. He knew that if he said even one word—if he opened that gate at all—it would all spill out. And he couldn’t let it. Not until they were inside. Not until he had help.
Not until he was sure he wouldn’t fucking explode.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I swear, Damien, I don’t know.”
He clenched his fists at his sides. He’d never wanted to hit a woman, but dammit he wanted to hit Sofia now. And that reality made him both profoundly angry and desperately sad.
Ryan laid a hand on his shoulder. “Pull it back, Stark. We’ll get there. But we need to give her space.”
“Fuck space,” Damien snapped, but he turned away, his hands clenched behind his neck as if that pressure could vanquish the urge to lash out.
Ryan crouched down until he was eye level with Sofia. “Did Richard Breckenridge organize Anne’s kidnapping?”
Sofia nodded, her nose running and tears leaking down her fac
e. She wiped a hand under her nose and sniffled. “I told him not to. I told him. But he said I should be glad. Because you didn’t deserve what you had. And he said he wasn’t going to hurt her. He was just going to scare you.”
“Did you help?”
“No. Yes. I don’t know.” She licked her lips. “I didn’t tell. I should have told. But then I did, but Damien didn’t figure it out.”
Ryan shot a glance toward Damien as he stood up, then looked back at Sofia. “You mean you did tell? I’m not following you. Can you explain?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain.”
Quincy stepped forward. “We talked. Do you remember? I gave you the test? Hooked you up to wires. You told me you had nothing to do with the kidnapping.”
“I didn’t. Cross my heart.” She drew an X over her chest with her fingertip as she talked. “That was Rory. That was all Rory.”
“How did you meet Rory?” Ryan asked as Damien, finally calming, sat in a chair and watched the woman who was once his closest friend. Who’d been his responsibility for decades.
“I knew Louisa. We met at meetings. When I was in recovery and she was, too. And there was a boy who helped her. And when Richard needed someone to help him—someone who needed money…”
“You suggested Rory?”
“He needed money for Louisa. I didn’t know. I swear. About Anne. About him wanting to hurt you. I didn’t know. I just did what he told me. Because he was taking care of me.”
The words shot straight to Damien’s heart. Breckenridge was taking care of her.
Which meant that Damien hadn’t been.
“He told you to spray paint her office?” Damien asked, his voice low as he worked to stay calm.
She shook her head. “I did that. I was angry about losing the baby. And because Nikki hadn’t. But mostly because I wanted you to figure it out. I wanted you to catch me, because then I could tell you. Don’t you see?”
Her eyes flashed with desperation. “Don’t you get it? If you caught me, I could tell you everything. And then you would protect me. That’s why I looked at the camera. The security one in Nikki’s lobby. But you didn’t find me, and then he took her and then it was too late.”
