Trapped (Private Justice Book #2): A Novel (6 page)

Thirty seconds later, she proved that theory by continuing her tale without any prompting.

“The truth is, I hated her for a long time after Dad died.” Her voice was softer now, and laced with melancholy. “She went on a massive spending spree, blowing all the insurance money on designer clothes and jewelry and first-class trips to exotic locales, dragging me along with her until the funds ran out and we ended up in the tenement. During all that excess, I just wanted to crawl into a hole and grieve. I couldn’t understand how she could be living the high life with Dad just dead. I knew she loved him, so it didn’t make sense to me.”

Again, Laura paused, and he heard her take a deep breath. “But as time passed, I realized the spending spree was her way of grieving. She immersed herself in things and experiences until the pain of loss had dulled enough for her to face it. She’d loved my dad since she was fifteen, and his death devastated her, as it did me. She just expressed her grief in a different way. In the end, we mended our fences, but after life with Mom, I craved order and predictability.”

“Which you created—and Darcy disrupted.”

Another sigh from her dark corner. “Yes. Darcy inherited Mom’s spontaneity and sense of adventure, which might explain why we’ve clashed since she arrived. But I like to think I’ve learned a few things through the years and that we could make this work if we both tried. Not that present circumstances would suggest that, however.”

Once more temptation reared its ugly head, and he fought the urge to reach over, cover her tightly laced fingers with his, and reassure her she’d done her best. Because somehow he knew she had.

Instead, he kept his hands on the wheel and settled for more general words of encouragement. “Maybe she’ll learn a thing or two from this experience that will help her understand why living with you is a better alternative—and give her an incentive to do her part to improve the situation at home.”

“That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” She burrowed deeper into her coat. “Sorry to dump my life history on you. It was probably way more than you wanted to know when you asked why I became a librarian.”

“You can never have too much information when you’re working a case. Every piece of background helps.” True, but not the reason for his interest this time. His motives were far less professional in nature.

A fact he did not intend to share.

“I guess that makes sense.” Her tone cooled from personal to polite, breaking the tête-à-tête mood. “You’re very adept at building trust and extracting information. I imagine that skill serves you well in your field. So tell me about Phoenix. The website is rather bare bones.”

He missed the intimate warmth in her voice—but it was better to keep things professional.

Taking the out she gave him, he moved to safer ground. He told her how Cal had gotten the idea for the PI firm five years ago and recruited him as a partner. How Connor had joined them a few months later. How they handled a lot of insurance fraud work but also took on missing persons jobs, protection gigs, murders, and cold cases.

He answered her questions about the name—no, it had nothing to do with the city and everything to do with rising from the ashes. Although he cited the murder of Cal’s first wife as the reason his partner needed to start over, he left his own situation out of it. And he talked about their motto; of their commitment to putting justice first in every investigation, and of their dedication to taking cases that had fallen between the cracks with official law enforcement.

By the time he regaled her with stories about a few of their more interesting cases—names withheld to protect the innocent . . . or guilty—he was cresting the formidable hill on her street that led to her house.

Exactly how he’d timed it.

“So here you are, safe and sound—as promised.” He eased the SUV close to where he thought the curb might be, but in view of the lack of traffic, he could have parked it in the middle of the street for all it mattered.

She released her seat belt and wrapped her scarf back around her neck. “Sorry this trip kept you out so late.”

“PIs don’t punch time clocks. Believe me, I’ve burned plenty of midnight oil on surveillance gigs. Sit tight and I’ll get your door.”

He didn’t wait for her to respond. Pushing his door open, he plunged back into the biting, subzero wind and fought his way around the car. She opened her door as he approached, surveying her lawn in dismay.

“I shoveled the walkway before you came, but now I can’t even tell where it is.”

“Let’s stick to the driveway.” He took her arm and steadied her as she exited the car. “We know that’s level.”

They didn’t talk as they plowed through the snow. The fierce wind would only snatch their words away.

The drifts on her small front porch weren’t too deep, thanks to a sheltering overhang. Once they stepped onto it and sidled past the snow-covered porch swing, a lattice privacy arbor offered a modicum of protection from the storm.

Laura rummaged through her purse for the key, fitting it in the lock before she turned to him. “Thanks for tonight. And for taking the case.”

He read the discouragement and worry in her eyes—and in her voice. “We’ll find her, you know.”

“I know.” Her gaze was steady . . . and trusting. “When I talked to your office manager last night, she said you were the best. After meeting with you earlier today at your office and watching you in action tonight, I know that’s true.”

Nikki had complimented him to Laura?

That was a first.

Assuming she didn’t do something to annoy him first, he might have to buy her one of those Starbucks soy, no-whip lattes she liked. The ones he plied her with whenever the pile of files in the corner of his office began to totter.

“I don’t know about being the best, but I can promise you we’ll all do everything possible to bring Darcy home safe and sound.”

A snowflake landed on one of Laura’s absurdly long eyelashes, and she blinked it away as a gust of wind whipped a swirl of crystalline snow toward the porch. More icy flakes settled on her gold-streaked brown hair. In the glow of the light she’d left on beside her front door, they sparkled like diamonds.

A lady with diamonds in her hair and eyes the color of a summer sky.

Way too tempting.

He was out of here.

Retreating a step toward the driveway, he gestured to the door. “Go on in before we both freeze to death. I’ll be in touch sometime tomorrow. Shall I call you here or on your cell?”

“I don’t think I’m going anywhere. I doubt the library will be open for a day or two. My home phone is fine.”

“Okay. I’ll be in touch.” With a brief wave, he bolted for the Explorer.

Only after he climbed behind the wheel and put the SUV in gear did he look back. Laura had disappeared inside, and a soft, warm, welcoming glow shone behind the shades of her front window.

Nice.

Really nice.

Could he think up some excuse to linger in her cozy bungalow for a while before returning to his dark, empty apartment? Maybe he could ask some more questions about Darcy or . . .

Get out of here, Devlin.

Right.

He jerked his attention back to the road and twisted the key in the ignition. If he wanted to live up to Nikki’s accolade as well as the trust his new client had placed in him, he needed to focus on the job he’d been hired to do.

Pressing on the gas, he plunged back into the storm and forced himself to think about the task at hand. Competent as he was, the odds of success diminished with each hour that passed. Life on the street was rough—and rougher still if Darcy had picked up with a homeless girl who knew her way around. At the very least, the teen was being exposed to a gritty reality far outside her realm of experience and learning some of life’s harsher lessons.

He hoped that was the worst thing that happened to her.

But he wasn’t getting positive vibes about this whole situation—and that was never an encouraging sign.

Taking the descent at a prudent speed, he slowed as he approached the intersection at the end of Laura’s street and flipped on his blinker. Not that it mattered on this desolate night. Funny
how force of habit and ingrained training took over when the mind was otherwise occupied. That had happened to him often in dicey situations and saved his hide on numerous occasions.

Unfortunately, Darcy didn’t have any such coping skills to help her survive in the rife-with-risk runaway world, no hard-earned instinctive defensive measures that would automatically kick in when needed.

Dev pulled onto the main road and accelerated, churning up snow in his wake, leaving a set of tracks in the expanse of white behind him.

And hoping the trail leading to Darcy would remain fresh a lot longer than the Explorer’s, which was already being obliterated by the storm.

A
s the aroma of frying bacon nudged her awake, Darcy yawned and pried open her eyes.

Boy, did that smell yummy.

Stretching, she examined the framed abstract painting on the wall at the foot of the bed and tried to orient herself. One thing for sure. This wasn’t the homeless shelter.

Her gaze still on the painting, she tried to shake off the stubborn fuzziness mucking up her brain. As it slowly receded, yesterday’s events clicked into place. She and Star had spent the night at Mark Hamilton’s rehabbed house in Soulard.

No wonder she was enjoying the comforts of a real bed, snuggled under a downy comforter.

Giving in to another yawn, she sat up and looked toward the other twin bed in the room she and Star had shared.

It was rumpled but empty.

Darcy smiled. Her new friend must already have succumbed to the lure of the bacon. After rubbing her eyes, she peered at her watch. Nine-fifteen?! No wonder the other girl had beaten her to the kitchen. But she didn’t intend to be far behind. After the stale doughnuts in the shelter, she was more than ready for a bacon-and-eggs breakfast. And if Mark wanted to throw in a few pancakes or sausages, he’d get no complaints from her.

Swinging her feet to the floor, she combed her fingers through
her unruly long hair and groaned. Just as she figured—frizz city. But she’d been too tired to blow-dry and straighten it after her shower last night, and she wasn’t going to take the time to do so before breakfast, either. Her rumbling stomach was already protesting the delay.

She stood, started to walk toward the bathroom—and froze as the room tilted. Groping for the wall, she steadied herself until everything settled into place.

That was weird.

Then again, she’d never had to subsist on one sandwich and a couple of out-of-date doughnuts a day, with long periods of fast in between.

She just needed some real food.

After pulling on jeans and a sweatshirt, she flexed the slats in the miniblinds and found a curtain of white. The reporter on the news last night had called it the storm of the century, and it was living up to its name. The whole city was shut down.

But maybe that was just as well. After listening to Star’s stories over the past few days—including the tales she’d told last night under the influence of too much wine—she wasn’t quite as keen on the Chicago idea. It might help to have a little more time to think things through, reconsider her plans. She’d do it on the QT, though. Mark and Star didn’t need to know about her misgivings. She was old enough to make her own choices. This decision would be hers and hers alone, made without interference from busybodies whose intentions might be good but whose attention could be stifling. Like Laura’s.

Leaving her shoes behind, Darcy exited the room, padded down the steps, and crossed the living room in her stocking feet.

The open floor plan of the house gave her a clear view of Mark as she approached the kitchen. His back was to her as he worked at the stove, and she smiled. Lucky thing for her and Star they’d run into someone like him. Laura was always warning her to be careful about trusting people, echoing her dad’s advice. She got that. You
didn’t grow up in New York City without learning to be supercautious around strangers. But this was St. Louis. Middle America. The heartland. If you couldn’t trust these people—especially a guy who ran a daycare center and volunteered at a homeless shelter and had gone through security checks for both—who
could
you trust?

She stopped on the threshold of the loosely defined kitchen area. “Good morning.”

At her cheery comment, Mark whirled around. The spatula flew out of his hand, clattered to the light-colored wood floor, and pinwheeled across the polished surface, spewing pieces of scrambled egg in its wake. His face flushed crimson, and for a brief moment an intense anger seared across his eyes.

Stumbling back a step, Darcy choked out an apology. “I’m sorry. I-I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Two beats of silence ticked by, followed by the sonorous bong of a clock behind her marking the quarter hour.

Mark took a deep breath. The flush receded, and he summoned up a stiff-looking smile. “No problem. I’m so used to being here alone that the sound of another voice spooked me.” He retrieved the spatula and gestured to the table. “Have a seat. Breakfast is ready.”

As he ripped off a paper towel and swiped at the flecks of egg on the floor, she perched on the edge of one of the chairs. Only two places were set.

“Aren’t you going to eat?”

With a final scrub of the wood, he stood. “Yes. Why?”

“You only set the table for two people.”

“Oh. Right.” He deposited the paper towel in the trash can and turned on the faucet. “Star told me last night after you went to bed that she knew someone who might still live here and was toying with the idea of tracking him down. She said she might meet up with him for a few days before continuing on to Nashville.” He finished soaping his hands and rinsed them off. “This morning she asked if she could use my phone to make a call, and twenty minutes later she packed up and disappeared.”

Star was gone?

The bottom dropped out of Darcy’s stomach.

Now she was truly on her own.

Slowly she opened her napkin and placed it on her lap. “She never mentioned she knew anyone here. Why would she go to a homeless shelter if she had a better place to stay?”

“I got the impression she’d just remembered this guy.” Mark squirted more soap on his hands and lathered up again. “She spent a few minutes on the phone with directory assistance before she found his number. I think she said she’d run into him in Chicago at some music event last year.”

“But she didn’t even say good-bye.”

He sent her an apologetic look as he dried his hands and dished up the eggs. “Street people are like that, and the ones who move from city to city are the worst. They come and go on a whim, without any real plan in mind, and they don’t often make permanent connections. They have a loose network of contacts in different cities, but no one they’d call a real friend. Relationships are expedient, nothing more. She did ask me to tell you good-bye, though.”

As he set the plate of food in front of her, Darcy fiddled with the edge of her napkin, trying not to feel hurt. It wasn’t as if she and Star had all that much in common or would ever have been BFFs. Their brief liaison had served a purpose for both of them, nothing more. It had been an expedient relationship, like Mark said.

“Hey.” He stopped beside her chair. “Don’t let it bother you, okay? She’s not worth it.”

At his flat statement, Darcy frowned and looked up. What an odd comment from a man who worked with the homeless. Had she perhaps misunderstood? “What do you mean?”

He appraised her, as if debating his response, then pulled out a chair and sat. “Darcy, you heard Star’s story. Do you approve of all the things she’s done?”

She shifted in her seat, suddenly feeling like one of those people
in an old movie who was being interrogated under a harsh light in a bare room. “I don’t know
everything
she’s done.”

“You know enough.”

“She’s had a hard life.”

“A lot of people have had hard lives. You’ve had some tough times too, from what you told me. Does that excuse immoral behavior?”

Did it? A week ago, she’d have said no. Now, knowing Star’s story, the answer didn’t seem so black-and-white.

Mark scowled at her, and she squirmed under his scrutiny. Clearly he didn’t think adversity was an excuse for questionable moral conduct. Why get into a debate? It was obvious he’d given the subject a lot more thought than she had, and he was her host. There was no reason to upset him.

“I guess not. My dad used to tell me people always have choices, no matter their situation.”

His scowl vanished. “A smart man.”

“Yeah, he was.” People did make choices, after all. Like that story the minister had told one of the times Laura dragged her to church, about identical twins separated as children after living with an abusive alcoholic father. One had become a teetotaler, the other a drunk. When asked in later years why they’d ended up that way, both had given the same answer: What else would you expect, given my home environment?

But what if you were young and desperate, with no other resources—like Star? Could that absolve wrong choices?

The ridges on Mark’s brow deepened again in disapproval. “You’re not certain, are you?”

She shrugged. “It’s easier to say certain things are wrong in the abstract than when you see the circumstances that cause them.”

“Darcy . . . Star didn’t have to steal or sell her body or use drugs. She could have gone to the authorities. There are social service agencies that would have helped her.”

“She said she tried that, and they didn’t believe her story about the situation at home.”

He sighed, as if she was a slow student who couldn’t grasp a simple mathematical problem. “Maybe. But more likely, she was lying. She just wanted to justify her bad choices. People like her don’t contribute anything to society, and once they pass a point of no return, you have to give up on them. The trick is to catch them and offer help before they reach that point.”

Leaning closer, he caught her gaze and held on. “That’s why I like working with children. They’re impressionable, and there’s great potential to exert a positive influence. But the sad truth is, not everyone has a happy childhood. Some of those children turn bad, and you can’t always save them. Like Star. Do you understand?”

It was obvious he wanted her to say yes. So she did.

“Good.” He smiled and gestured to her plate. “Go ahead and eat up or everything will get cold.”

She picked up her fork and poked at the eggs while he went to dish up his own food. She’d eat, because he’d gone to a lot of effort to make breakfast.

But her appetite had fled.

Dev stamped his boots on the concrete stoop, punched in his access code, pushed through the back door of the Phoenix offices—and ran straight into Connor.

“Hey!” The other man reared back, extended his sloshing mug of coffee to arm’s length, and shot him a dark look. “Where’s the fire?”

Shoving the steel door closed against the wind, Dev secured it and turned back to the former Secret Service agent. “I saw your car in the lot. What gives? I thought you were on celebrity bodyguard duty.”

“I was. But after my charge slipped on some ice and sprained her ankle courtesy of ridiculous spike-heeled boots, she decided she’d had it with blizzard city, chartered a bus with a driver who had more greed than brains, and took off for warmer climes—much to the director’s dismay. Last I heard, they were going to pack up
and go back to Hollywood as soon as the airport opens, then try the location stuff again here in a month or so.”

Dev circled around him, detouring toward the kitchen—and the coffeepot. “Exciting while it lasted though, right?”

“Depends how you define exciting.” Connor ambled after him, sipping from his mug. “The director wanted her to learn her lines in her free time. She wanted to drink gin—straight up. I was more referee than bodyguard.”

“Sounds like fun and games.”

“Not. So what’s up here? Nikki tells me you’ve got a new client.”

“Yeah.” Dev retrieved his shamrock-bedecked mug from the hook above the coffeemaker and picked up the pot. “Missing person case.” He gave him a quick briefing as he poured.

“Sounds interesting. Need any help?”

“I will if we end up doing surveillance at Gateway Station.” He set the pot back on the warmer.

“Okay. In the meantime, I’ve got some new employee background checks and a pending child custody case to keep me busy. We may also be tracking down a high-profile rogue executive who’s been cooking the books. Word is he’s fled to Costa Rica.”

“That last one could be dicey.” Balancing his mug in one hand, Dev inspected the refrigerator. The curled-up pieces of pizza were still there—but calling them edible would be a stretch, no matter how hungry he was.

“Tell me about it. He’s got plenty of resources to hide out and, as usual, the company wants this kept under the radar. Shareholders wouldn’t be too happy to discover the chief financial officer is siphoning off funds.”

“No kidding.” Dev closed the refrigerator and scanned the countertop. He was hungry enough to eat one of those granola-heavy, heart-healthy muffins Nikki sometimes brought in. “When did all this come up?” He finished his sweep of the counter. No muffins.

“Yesterday. Nikki fielded the calls and kept me in the loop. She said you were tied up with the hot case that just came in—emphasis
on hot.” Connor propped a shoulder against the door frame, blocking the exit as Dev attempted to pass by. “I hear that’s an accurate description of the client too.”

Faint remnants of the annoying blush it had taken him years to beat into submission warmed his cheeks. Most people wouldn’t notice it.

Connor wasn’t among them.

“Your Irish is showing.” One side of his partner’s mouth quirked up. “Must be tough, having red hair.”