Trapped (Private Justice Book #2): A Novel (19 page)

“Mr. Hamilton? May I speak with you for a moment?”

At Faith’s question, Mark looked up in irritation from the castle he was building out of blocks with a group of four-year-olds. She knew the one hour a day he spent interacting with the children was sacrosanct. Interruptions were supposed to be confined to emergencies.

This better qualify.

Patting one of the youngsters on the head, he stood. “I’ll be back in a few minutes, and we’ll add the towers on the corners, okay?”

A chorus of okays followed him to the door, where Faith waited for him.

“What’s up?”

She tucked one of those annoying flyaway curls behind her ear. “There’s a man in the lobby who says he needs to speak with you about an urgent personal matter. His name is James Devlin, and he looks kind of . . . official. Otherwise I wouldn’t have bothered you.”

Mark frowned. “What do you mean, official?”

“I don’t know exactly. Kind of like he’s used to being in charge.”

An image of the guy he’d viewed through the peephole on his front door appeared in Mark’s mind. He’d been dressed in casual attire, but he’d seemed like the confident, in-charge type.

Could it be the same guy?

“Did you ask for a card?”

“Yes.” Faith scrubbed her palms down her slacks. “He said he’d be happy to give you one when you talked with him.”

Why wouldn’t the guy give his card to Faith to pass on?

And could this have anything to do with the message he’d erased on his voice mail? The one with blocked caller ID he hadn’t bothered to play back?

Faith shifted from one foot to the other as the silence between them lengthened. “So, um, do you want to talk with him?”

Did he? Mark’s hands started to itch. He needed to wash them. Now. His breath stalled in his lungs, and he charged toward the hall.

“Give me five minutes, then send him back to my office.” He was almost jogging as he called the instruction over his shoulder.

He didn’t wait for Faith to respond. Instead, he turned the corner and pushed through the door into the men’s room. Lucky thing he was one of the few males who worked on the premises. The bathroom was rarely occupied when he needed it.

After twisting on the faucet, he lathered up his hands, working the soap between his fingers, around his cuticles, scrubbing the palms and backs.

Better.

His lungs resumed their regular rhythm, and he forced himself to take steady breaths as he thought through the situation.

What were the odds this guy was the one he’d seen on his doorstep? And even if he was, there was no way he could have any connection to Darcy. Hadn’t the girl told him she wouldn’t be missed? That she and her half sister . . . Laura, that was her name . . . were almost strangers, that they’d clashed constantly, and that her librarian sibling would be happy to get rid of her?

So who was his official-looking visitor? Not a cop. He wasn’t in trouble with the law. Not a bill collector. He wasn’t behind on any of his payments for the house or utilities or car. Not a lawyer. He hadn’t been involved in a car accident or had any legal-related issues at the daycare center.

Mark rinsed his hands and yanked off a length of paper towel from the automatic dispenser. Maybe the guy was an insurance salesman or some forgotten acquaintance from his past who’d tracked him down. If so, he could blow him off. Why not have one of the aides tell Faith to inform the man he’d been called into a meeting and wasn’t available?

On the other hand, if his visitor was here in some sort of official capacity, he didn’t want to make waves by refusing to talk with him. Given his present circumstances, it was important to stay as far under the radar as possible.

He wadded up the paper towel, hurled it in the trash, and
inspected his hands. They still itched, and he was tempted to wash them again. But the hot water had already turned the skin redder than usual; another round would make them even more conspicuous.

Better to head back to his office and find out what James Devlin wanted. Maybe dealing with him would be a simple matter.

But as he pushed through the door with his shoulder and walked down the hall, a sudden, familiar feeling of unease swept over him. The same one he’d always felt as he’d walked toward the door of the apartment he’d called home, wondering what kind of mood Lil would be in. Would she greet him with a kiss—or lash out at him with a string of obscenities for imagined transgressions?

Mark’s stomach knotted, and his heart began to pound. He hated this feeling. Hated the sense of looming threat, of impending doom.

Why had this stranger resurrected it?

He scratched the back of one hand, then the other, as he rounded the corner in the hall and entered his office. He had to remain calm. After all, no one knew what he’d done. No one. How could they? He’d been careful. This guy, whoever he turned out to be, was probably here on mundane business of some kind. Fifteen minutes from now, he’d be chiding himself for overreacting.

Feeling better, Mark circled his desk and settled in his chair. This was his world. His turf. He was in charge and in control.

There was no reason to be concerned.

Dev folded his hands over his stomach, maintaining a relaxed posture as the woman behind the reception desk in the Davis Daycare lobby pretended to be busy while she cast surreptitious glances his direction. Faith Bradley, according to the name tag pinned to her shirt—the same woman who’d been watching Hamilton’s house last night from behind the wheel of her car, according to the license check he’d run.

Interesting.

She flicked a glance at her watch, then motioned to the door behind her that led to the offices. “Mr. Hamilton will see you now. He’s in the second room on the left.”

Dev rose and followed her, waiting as she entered a security code and moved aside.

“Thanks.” He smiled, but she simply edged away and returned to the desk.

Not the friendliest place he’d ever visited.

Once in the hall, he could hear the high-pitched voices of children from behind the doors lining the corridor. He stopped in front of the office with Hamilton’s nameplate beside it and knocked.

“Come in.”

At the invitation, he pushed through and stepped inside. As Hamilton rose from behind the desk, Dev did a rapid assessment. Midthirtyish, five-nine or ten, neatly trimmed brown hair, crisp button-down shirt and dress slacks. Very preppy. But the bandage on his cheek raised questions, as did the chapped, red hand the man extended as he closed the distance between them.

“Mark Hamilton. How can I help you?”

Dev took his hand. It might be abnormally ruddy, but his grip was firm. A little too firm.

Nerves could do that to a person.

But why was he nervous?

“James Devlin.” He released the man’s hand and withdrew a card from his pocket, which he handed over. “I’m hoping you can answer a few questions for me.”

Twin crevices appeared on the man’s forehead as he read the card, and a faint crimson stain crept across his cheeks. “Are you a private eye?”

“That’s the popular terminology.”

The man’s lips tilted into the facsimile of a smile, but there was no humor in his eyes. “My only experience with private investigators up to this point is Paul Drake on TV.”

It took Dev a moment to dredge up the name from the recesses of his memory. “You mean the PI from those old Perry Mason shows?”

“Yeah. Did you ever see any?”

“My dad used to watch the reruns when I was a kid. I caught a few.”

“It was a great show. As I recall, Perry got the glory, but Paul did the work.” Again, the man tried for a smile but barely managed a stretch of the lips.

“It happens that way sometimes.” Nervous energy was pinging around the room, and Dev’s antennas went up another notch. Hamilton was trying to be genial, but he wasn’t happy about a visit from a PI. Because he didn’t want to waste his time—or because he had something to hide?

A little behavior test was in order before he got to the important questions.

“Do you remember the name of the secretary in that show?” He kept his tone casual and conversational.

Hamilton looked up and slightly to the right. “Della Street.”

“I’m impressed. Wasn’t there a hard-nosed district attorney in the cast too?”

“Yeah.” Once more, Hamilton shifted his focus a bit to the right, then shook his head. “I’m blanking out on that one. Please, have a seat. I’m sure you didn’t come to play Trivial Pursuit about old TV shows.” He gestured to the chair across from his desk and lowered himself into his own seat. “How can I help you?”

Dev assessed the office as he settled into the chair. The room was pristine, unlike his own working space. Other than a few items in the in-box and a neat stack of files on one corner of the desk, all the surfaces were empty. Nor did the office contain any family pictures. There was nothing to latch on to as a conversation starter except for a framed photo of a tropical beach on the wall.

He’d have to work with that.

“Nice picture on a day like this.” He gestured toward it. “A favorite vacation spot?”

Hamilton gave it a quick, dismissive glance. “No. It was on the wall when I moved in last year and I never took it down.”

“Makes me think about vacation, though.” Dev kept his inflection friendly and chatty. “If I could be anywhere right now, I’d pick a place like that. Hawaii would be nice. What about you?”

The man squinted at him, as if trying to figure out what vacations had to do with this visit, then lifted his gaze and flitted his eyes a hair to the left.

Mission accomplished.

Body language wasn’t foolproof, but nine times out of ten it was accurate. When Hamilton was remembering facts, he looked up and right. When he was creating an answer, he looked up and left.

“Florida might be nice. I’ve always wanted to visit there in the winter.” He shrugged. “Maybe someday. So what can I do for you today?”

Dev pulled the two shots of Darcy from the inside pocket of his jacket. “I’m investigating the disappearance of a sixteen-year-old girl who ran away a week ago. We believe she spent a couple of nights at the temporary homeless shelter where you volunteer. One of the other volunteers thinks he saw you speaking with her. I was hoping she might have made some remark to you that would give us a clue about her plans and help us track her down.”

The man’s color surged slightly. “I talk to a lot of people there.”

Dev laid the two shots on the desk, facing Hamilton. “It never hurts to ask, though. You might recognize her.”

The man’s demeanor didn’t change as he studied the photos, but a muscle clenched in his jaw and his nostrils flared.

He knew something.

Yet when he looked up, he shook his head. “Sorry. She doesn’t ring any bells.”

That was a lie.

“I was hoping for better news.” Dev rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and linked his fingers, maintaining a casual posture. “As I said, one of the other volunteers was certain he saw
you talking with this girl on Monday morning. Are you sure you don’t recognize her?”

“I’m sure.” The daycare manager didn’t even bother to scan the photos again.

“I wonder who your fellow volunteer saw you talking with?” He picked up the photos but kept his focus on Hamilton.

The other man looked up and to the left.

Another fabrication was coming.

“You know, there was a young woman at the shelter over the weekend who had a faint resemblance to the runaway you’re looking for. From a distance I can see how someone might confuse them.”

All lies.

Why?

What was the man hiding?

Those were questions that would have to be answered through more discreet tactics, however. And he intended to implement them immediately.

Tucking the photos back into his jacket, Dev rose. “I appreciate your time.”

Hamilton stood too. “No problem. Best of luck with your search.”

“Thanks.” Dev walked toward the door. When he turned at the threshold, he caught Hamilton scratching his fingers. The man stopped instantly and shoved both hands into his pockets. “If you think of anything that might be helpful, I’d appreciate a call.”

“Sure.”

The word was cooperative; the man’s demeanor wasn’t.

Dev retraced his steps down the hall, nodded to a somber-faced Faith Bradley at the front desk, and pushed through the outside door. The cold air that hit him in the face was balmy compared to the chilly reception he’d just received.

Why was the receptionist so nervous? Why had she been watching the daycare manager’s house last night? And what did Hamilton know about Darcy?

Pressing the autolock button on his key chain, he crossed the plowed parking lot, salt crunching under his shoes. He had no answers to those questions.

But before this day ended, he intended to be a lot closer to finding them.

A
t the sound of a key being inserted in the door, Darcy jerked her head to the right and froze, her hand halfway into the refrigerator.

Why was Mark home in the middle of the day?

Her pulse spiked, and she closed the refrigerator without retrieving her lunch.

This wasn’t good.

The knob turned. An instant later, the door crashed against the wall, leaving Mark framed on the threshold, his face mottled with angry spots of color.

Fear clawing at her throat, she backed away and groped for the wing chair, seeking refuge behind it.

Mark slammed the door shut behind him, and she flinched as the noise reverberated through the room. After shoving the key into his pocket, he advanced toward the chair, his eyes scorching her with the heat of his anger.

He stopped mere inches away, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. “You said no one would miss you.” The accusation came out in a hiss.

She stared at him, trying to regroup. This wasn’t about some transgression she’d made? Some inadvertent breaking of rules?

When she didn’t respond, he got in her face and wrapped his fingers around her upper arm in a crushing grip. She gasped and
tried to shrink back, but his fingers tightened, cutting off the circulation and holding her in place.

“You said no one would miss you.”

As he repeated the words through clenched teeth, her brain clicked into gear. Had Laura been searching for her? But if so, how could she possibly have known where to look?

Mark shook her. Hard. “Why did you lie?”

“I d-didn’t. No one cares about m-me.”

The punch in the stomach came so fast and so hard she didn’t have a chance to prepare for it. If he hadn’t had her arm in such a tight grip, she’d have doubled over and fallen to her knees. As it was, she groaned and sagged against him as a sharp wave of pain radiated outward from her core.

“You’re lying.” He bared his teeth, reminding her of a video she’d once seen on the nature channel of a snarling wolf about to pounce on its trapped prey. “You’ve been lying all along.”

The scent of the lotion he used on his hands infiltrated her nostrils, and nausea rolled through her.

Don’t puke! Don’t puke!

“No.” She gasped the word past the pain in her midsection. “I’m not lying.”

He shook her again. Her teeth rattled, and her eyes began to water. “I don’t believe you!”

This time he yelled, directly in her ear. She flinched and once more tried to shrink back.

He didn’t let her.

Instead, he yanked her toward the wing chair and shoved her into the seat. Planting his hands on the arms, he leaned into her face, close enough for her to feel the heat of his breath.

“Who else cares about you other than your half sister?”

She pressed her head against the cushioned back, trying to put as much distance as possible between them. “No one.” Her reply came out in a quavering whisper.

For a long moment he watched her, his eyes boring into hers.
She tried not to cringe as she looked back at him, willing him to believe her.

Her life could depend on it.

After a century of agonizing seconds dragged by, he straightened up, flexing his fingers as he scrutinized her.

Her gaze dropped to his hands, straight in front of her at eye level. She already knew they were strong. Were they also lethal? Had he used those fingers to crush the breath out of the girls resting in their cold tombs on the other side of the wall?

Her heart stumbled.

Please, don’t let him reach for my throat!

Her lungs stalled, the ominous quiet broken only by a sudden mechanical hum as the motor on the dorm-sized refrigerator kicked on.

Finally he reached into his pocket, pulled out a business card, and flipped it into her lap.

She picked up the rectangular piece of heavy stock. Her hand was shaking so badly it was hard to read the lettering, but she could make out Phoenix Inc. The man’s name was unfamiliar, but her eyes widened as she read the words underneath.

Private investigator?

Laura had hired a PI to find her?

She hadn’t expected extreme measures like that. A few circuits of her hangouts, a few calls to friends, maybe, but not this all-out effort.

Her half sister obviously cared a lot more about her than she’d let herself believe.

Warmth ignited in her heart, chasing away some of the chill—but in its wake came regret. Once again her actions had created trauma for someone who cared about her—perhaps even loved her.

Would she never learn?

Darcy’s throat tightened, and tears blurred her vision.

“Is there anyone besides your half sister who might have hired this PI?”

Forcing herself to refocus, she considered Mark’s question, unsure of the safest answer. In the end, she went with honesty. “No.”

“Do either of you have any other relatives you haven’t told me about?”

“No.”

He studied her, his eyes measuring, assessing. Finally he exhaled, as if he’d accepted the truth of her answers. “Then I guess I have some work to do.” He snatched the card back, yanked her lunch from the fridge, and stomped to the door.

Work to do?

Heart thudding, Darcy scrambled to her feet, not certain what he meant but not liking the undertones of his cryptic comment. “Wait.”

He paused on the threshold, key in hand, and looked at her over his shoulder.

“What kind of work?”

“When you have a problem, you eliminate it.”

The knot in Darcy’s stomach squeezed tighter. Laura was a problem, and Mark was going to take care of her—the same way he’d taken care of Angela and Denise and Star.

She clasped her hands in front of her, squeezing them tight, desperation drumming a staccato beat in her chest. “You don’t have to worry about Laura. She’ll lose interest w-when she doesn’t find me. She’ll s-stop looking. I know she will.”

“I’m not going to take that chance. Don’t expect dinner tonight.” With that, he exited.

As the lock clicked into position, her legs began to shake and she collapsed back into the wing chair. Drawing up her knees, she huddled into a protective tuck around her aching stomach as shudders rippled through her body.

Mark was going to hurt Laura. Maybe he’d even kill her.

All because her ungrateful younger half sister had been stupid, stupid, stupid.

A sob tore at her throat. She didn’t care if Mark was watching
from the other side of the peephole. She didn’t even care at this point if he killed her. She deserved to be punished after causing nothing but trouble for the people who loved her. And better her than Laura, who’d opened up her home and disrupted her life for a half sister she barely knew. That kind of sacrifice shouldn’t be rewarded with the boatload of grief that had been heaped on her.

Despair settled over her like a shroud, and in the tomblike quiet of her prison, she continued to weep.

But when at last her tears were spent and her shaking subsided, one clear thought emerged.

Keeping Laura safe had to be her first priority.

She might not survive whatever Mark had in store for her, but she couldn’t let him hurt the sister who’d taken her in. Before another day passed, she had to come up with a plan to thwart whatever he might be plotting.

No matter the risk to herself.

“You want to talk about Mark Hamilton and Faith Bradley?”

At Nikki’s question, Dev looked away from his computer screen and waved her in. “Yeah. Have a seat. I’ll be done in a sec.”

As she dropped into the chair across from his desk, he expelled a frustrated breath and went back to the email he was composing. With Cal caught up in a defense attorney client meeting in a neighboring suburb, and Connor staking out Davis Daycare in case Hamilton decided to take another impromptu trip—as he’d done soon after their meeting two hours ago to make a fast visit to his house—he’d drawn the short straw when an urgent call came in from the corporate client in search of its rogue executive. Things were heating up fast on that front. Fortunately, all three of them kept their passports in order. This would be a three-man job.

So instead of helping Nikki research Hamilton and Bradley, he’d been exchanging phone calls and emails with the corporate security chief as they hammered out logistics for the Costa Rica
trip. He’d be glad to turn this baby back over to Connor tomorrow. Foreign assignments were more his buddy’s forte, thanks to his years of foreign travel with the Secret Service.

After hitting the send button, Dev swung toward Nikki. “Sorry to dump most of the research on you.”

She cocked an eyebrow.

“Okay. All of the research. I owe you a latte. What have you got?”

She opened the folder. “You owe me two lattes. Your Mark Hamilton is an under-the-radar kind of guy. The man has no social media presence—my favorite place to scavenge. I had to dig pretty deep and turn on the charm.”

“But you found some stuff to supplement the paltry facts I came up with last night.”

“Yeah.” She consulted the file in her lap. “He was born twenty-nine years ago. That fact courtesy of the DMV. Property records show he bought the house in Soulard three years ago. He got it for a song since it’s in a historic district and was badly in need of renovation. You already know he volunteers at a homeless shelter. He’s worked at Davis Daycare for seven years, the last year as a manager, as you discovered in that bare-bones news story you stumbled on about his promotion. I found the original press release, which also listed his impressive accreditation in his field. I verified those credentials with the appropriate professional organizations.”

“Any luck on his earlier history?”

“That was harder. I scoured a couple of our best proprietary databases and public records, plus talked with our primo information broker. The earliest address that shows up for him from any of those sources is Columbia, Missouri, when he was eighteen. So I pieced together his social security number and gave Mizzou a call. They confirmed he was a student there. He graduated in three years with a degree in early childhood education.”

“Fast track.”

“Yeah. The guy’s no slouch, that’s for sure. While I had the clerk at Mizzou on the phone, I chatted her up a bit. I told her we were
doing a background check, and asked if she’d mind confirming his address at the time of his application.”

Dev grinned. When it came to finagling information out of people, Nikki had all three of the Phoenix PIs beat. “You got it, right?”

“Yep. Holyoke, Mass.”

“A state with open access to vital records. Finally something goes our way with this case.”

“We lucked out on that one, for sure. According to the birth certificate, our guy’s mother was Lillian Hamilton, age eighteen. No father was listed. I dug into death certificates too. Lillian died at age thirty. Suffocation was listed as cause of death, but it wasn’t ruled as suspicious.”

“Why not?”

“Same question I had—so I did a little digging in the local newspaper archives. From what I was able to cobble together based on articles that quoted police reports, she was a drug addict who made her living as a hooker. She was found ODed on coke in bed, lying on her stomach, face buried in a pillow. BAC was high too. I couldn’t find any mention of family other than a son.”

Dev leaned back in his chair, rested his elbows on the arms, and steepled his fingers. “Hamilton must have ended up in the foster care system.”

“That would be my assumption—not that we’ll be able to prove our theory.”

“Yeah.” Juvenile records weren’t even available to law enforcement personnel in most cases, a fact that had grated on him in his former career whenever he’d had to deal with punks who had the law on their side. No way could a PI get access to those records.

He picked up his mug, took a sip of coffee, and made a face as the cold liquid sluiced down his throat.

“Looks like you could use a warm-up.” Nikki glanced over at him.

“On the coffee and on the case.” He set the mug down and pushed it away.

“Nothing I found is going to help you much on the latter score. Hamilton comes across as squeaky clean.”

Clean.

An image of Hamilton’s hands, along with Balloon Man’s ditty about Mr. Clean, suddenly replayed in his mind. The homeless man had started singing it after Dev asked him whether he’d seen anyone talking to Darcy. He’d dismissed the tune as the rantings of a man whose brain was no longer firing on all cylinders, but there might be more to it than that. The red, chapped condition of Hamilton’s hands suggested he washed them a lot. Was that because he worked among children all day and wanted to avoid passing germs—or for more dysfunctional psychological reasons?

In any case, he’d been wrong to write off Balloon Man’s tune. His little song helped validate the volunteer’s claim that he’d seen Hamilton talking to Darcy.

All the more reason to target the guy.

“Hey . . . are you still with me?”

At Nikki’s prod, he refocused on her. “Yeah. Just making some connections.”