Trapped (Private Justice Book #2): A Novel (21 page)

If he wasn’t pleased . . . well, she’d be no worse off than she was now.

Weighing the pan in her hands, she took a deep breath.

Just do it!

Following that prompt, she reached for the door handle—but when her pulse leapt, she dropped her hand. She needed to let her heart settle down and get her respiration under control.

Once she calmed down, though, she was going to march right up to that door and deliver her gift.

Come what may.

Laura stifled a yawn, slid behind the wheel of her car, and tossed her purse on the seat beside her. It was only nine in the morning, and already she felt as if she’d put in a full day.

But that’s what you got when you tossed most of the night, every night, for more than a week.

Fortunately, she didn’t have anything more pressing on her agenda today than a trip to the grocery store and dry cleaner. Then she’d
put in a few hours on the web, doing her own search for information on Mark Hamilton and Faith Bradley. There wasn’t much chance she’d unearth anything Nikki hadn’t already found, but it was better than sitting around doing nothing while others searched for Darcy.

She turned the key in the ignition, pressed the button for the garage opener, and waited while the door rolled up. Sun streamed in the opening, reflecting off the snow, and she squinted against the glare as she backed out slow and easy. With all the icy patches on her driveway, she could find herself sliding into the mailbox and having to deal with a dented fender if she wasn’t careful. That was one complication she didn’t need, with everything else going on.

A glance in both directions confirmed the street was deserted, and she backed onto the pavement, swinging the wheel to her left at the end of the drive. A flicker on the dashboard caught her eye as she applied her brakes, and she dropped her gaze to the brake warning light, frowning. Now what?

Pausing in the middle of the street, she regarded the light. It could be an electronic glitch, like when the alternator light had begun blinking on and off last year for no apparent reason. Still . . . she’d have to get it checked out, just in case.

One more chore to add to her list.

With a sigh, she shifted from reverse to drive. The best plan might be to swing by the garage on the way to the grocery store, see if they could take a quick look. If the fates were kind, it would be some minor connection thing, similar to the alternator light problem—a minor nuisance that could be ignored until she was ready to have it fixed.

Accelerating slowly on the flat stretch of the street at the top of the hill, she started and stopped a few times. The light came on whenever she applied pressure to the brakes, but as far as she could tell, they were working fine.

The tension in her shoulders eased a notch, and she moved forward, doing her best to avoid the icy patches on the road. That was the one downside to her off-the-beaten-path neighborhood—the
snowplows and salt trucks gave it low priority. A couple of quick passes, that’s all they’d made during the blizzard. On the plus side, her cul-de-sac was in far better shape than the untouched residential streets in the city like the one Mark Hamilton called home.

She dodged another patch of ice as her thoughts drifted to Dev. Was he still there, or had he handed off the surveillance to one of his partners? She hoped it was the latter. But since she hadn’t heard from him, he must have spent a long, cold night with nothing to show for it. She hoped he was now asleep under a thick comforter, all warm and toasty.

A smile flirted with her lips as that image materialized in her mind . . . but she forced herself to erase it. There’d be time for that kind of daydreaming down the road, once Darcy was home and the case was closed.

After skirting a slippery-looking spot, she looked down the hill toward the main road. There were a few more patches of ice to negotiate, but in general it was clearer than the upper section by her house.

She started down the hill, picking up too much speed too quickly, given the marginal driving conditions. Pressing on the brake, she waited for the car to slow.

Instead, it continued to accelerate.

Her pulse ratcheted up, and she tightened her grip on the wheel, pushing as hard as she could on the brake.

The car slowed a tiny bit this time—but not enough.

Apparently the warning light had been significant after all.

As her speed continued to increase, panic squeezed the air from her lungs. In less than ten seconds, she was going to shoot past the stop sign at the end of her street and onto the busy thoroughfare below—straight into traffic.

People could be killed.

Including her.

Think, Laura!

Heart pounding, she forced her brain to engage.

What about pumping the brakes, or slowly applying the emergency brake?

She tried both.

Pumping did nothing. The emergency brake had a small impact, but there was no way the car was going to stop before she reached the bottom.

Now what?

If she jerked the wheel to the left, she might be able to get the car to rotate around and face the opposite, uphill direction. Or she could aim for the empty lot near the bottom of the street and hope she didn’t plow into the house on the far side of it.

Neither option was optimal—but both were better than barreling onto the main road.

The lot was coming up fast on her right. Twist the wheel and hope to reverse the direction of the car, or head for the open ground?

Wait . . . the lot wasn’t an option. There was too much snow and ice piled along the edge of the road, blocking her access. If she went that way, it would be like plowing into a brick wall.

That left her one choice.

She jerked the wheel hard to the left. The back of the car swung around toward the bottom of the hill, just as she’d hoped.

Except it kept going, even as she straightened out the wheel.

The car was sliding on a patch of ice.

Laura tried to counter the spin, calling up every defensive driving tip she’d ever learned. But nothing worked as her Civic careened across the road, directly toward a telephone pole.

She sucked in a deep breath and did her best to brace for the impact.

Yet she still wasn’t prepared for the heart-jarring jolt of the impact or the cacophony of crushing metal and splintering glass or the sudden explosion in her face.

But the chaos was short-lived.

Because everything suddenly went black.

Mark added a sprig of parsley to the scrambled eggs and set the plate on the tray next to a small bowl of fresh fruit. He’d fix Darcy’s lunch later, since he’d be home all day. He might even eat with her. She needed more time to adjust to her new situation, but leaving her locked up and alone for too long wasn’t wise. Solitary confinement could mess with a person’s mind, and that wasn’t his goal. He just wanted to keep her from making any more mistakes and falling into the kind of destructive lifestyle that had killed Lil.

He retrieved the key from the hook on the wall, picked up the tray, and started down the steps, sparing the freezers behind him a quick glance as he reached the bottom. Those were his failures.

Darcy would be his redemption.

At the entrance to her room, he stopped to look through the peephole. The bathroom door was cracked open, and steam was seeping out. She must be in the shower. No problem. Clean was good. He’d leave her breakfast so it was waiting when she came out.

Balancing the tray in one hand, he fitted the key in the lock, turned it, then tucked it away. At least he was calmer today. After the visit from that PI yesterday, he’d been furious at Darcy, convinced she’d lied to him. But when he’d confronted her and recounted what had happened, he’d seen surprise, not deceit, in her eyes . . . giving credence to her claim that she hadn’t expected anyone to expend a lot of effort searching for her.

That was a huge relief. He hated being lied to. Hated having his trust violated. Hated having his hopes dashed time and again.

But Darcy hadn’t done that.

Everything was going to be okay.

He twisted the knob, stepped into the room—and suddenly found himself pitching forward, eggs and fruit flying in all directions.

What the . . . !

He reached forward, arms flailing, his brain processing what had happened even as he fell.

Darcy had ambushed him—and once again shattered his dream of redemption.

As he slammed against the floor, one hand landing in a mass of slippery scrambled egg, he spewed out his anger and anguish in the bellow of a single word.

“N-o-o-o-!”

Mark’s furious roar echoing in her ears, Darcy took off for the basement stairs, running as fast as her shaky legs could carry her.

She had to get to the first floor. Had to slam the door and secure the flip-type safety lock at the top of the basement stairs. Had to run for the front door, escape, and sprint for the nearest car, person, or major street she could find.

Everything had to work perfectly—or she was dead.

She clambered up the stairs, missing one, her breath coming in short, choppy gasps. Behind her, a spew of vulgarity burned her ears as Mark scrambled to regain his footing.

Adrenaline pumping, she increased her speed.

At the top of the stairs, she pushed through the door, spun around—and found Mark taking the steps two at a time.

She slammed the door. Fumbled with the lock.

Please, God, please help me!

The mechanism slipped into place.

As Mark tried the knob and began pounding on the door, she took off for the living room.

The pounding gave way to kicking.

Fear humming through her nerve endings, Darcy reached the front door, grasped the handle, and pulled.

The door didn’t budge.

She flipped the lock and tried again.

Nothing.

There must be a dead bolt too.

Wood splinted behind her, and she jerked around. He’d kicked through the bottom of the door.

At this rate, he’d be free in moments.

She hesitated. The only other exit was the back door, and she’d have to go directly past Mark to get there. Plus, it could be dead bolted too. Should she risk it?

The decision was taken out of her hands an instant later when the bottom panel of the door splintered.

A sob caught in her throat.

No!

She couldn’t come this close and fail.

What about the living room window? Maybe she could open it and climb through. It wasn’t much of a drop to the ground.

She ran to the middle of the front wall and yanked at the cord on the miniblinds that hid the interior of the house from the eyes of the world. She had them halfway up the tall, narrow living room window when more wood splintered behind her.

With a gasp, she spun around to find Mark climbing through the lower half of the door. He’d be on her in seconds.

There was no time to get the window up.

But she might be able to break it and yell for help.

Desperation tightening her chest, she scanned the room. It was bare of clutter and ornamentation except for the decorative fireplace tools that had never touched a fleck of ash, set to one side of the mantel. Her gaze locked in on the poker. That would work.