by Maggie Thom
Guy sprinted across the street when he saw Bailey race through the living room, past the open front door. "Wait!"
She didn't slow down nor act like she'd heard him.
Leaping up the stairs he crashed into a small, wiry man who came barreling out. The two men stumbled then caught their balance. The smaller man moved quicker. He lashed out with his left foot, catching Guy just below the knee, sending him stumbling backwards into the railing. The man was already running down the block.
Fear hit Guy like a punch to the gut. Where was Bailey? Who was that guy?
He ran through the house following the direction he'd seen Bailey run. Zipping out the side, he looked toward the street and then ran toward the back fence looking up and down the back alley. There was no sign of her. Or her car. She was long gone. Turning around, he walked back inside. Picking his way over the littered floor, he looked for something that might tell him where Bailey might have gone.
What the hell happened?
Boxes were overturned, bags ripped open, drawers piled on the floor, blood spots on the bed. Since there were only a few drops he was going to assume, at least for the present, that the person wasn't seriously hurt. Scared? Probably. The question was, was it Bailey's?
He pulled out his cell phone and made a quick call. "Graham. I need you to do some more digging into Bailey's background. I need you to go back more than ten years and retrace some of those steps. I skimmed over the history surrounding her mom, thinking they were just the moves of a woman who was looking for love. In all the wrong places."
"Hello to you too. And I'm on it. What's going on?"
"Not sure. But someone broke into her mom's house and she's on the run. I need to know if this was a random burglary or related to her or her mom. I'm thinking the latter." He knew that Graham wouldn't question his gut instinct. It had served them enough times when there was no evidence to go on. Like the time he'd caught the accountant with the impeccable record, who was walking out each day, with hundreds of thousands of dollars in his lunch bag.
"On it."
Guy filled him in on what had occurred that evening. "I'm not sure where to look for her. Let me look around here and see what I find. I'll get back to you."
Following her a few days before had at least given him something to work with. The only person she'd met with had been a lawyer. Would she go to him if she was in trouble? Clicking off his phone, he headed back down the hall. The unmade bed and clothes scattered around in the spare bedroom caught his attention. It wasn't exactly clean but it had a less determined, destructive mess about it.
Lifting the suitcase onto the bed, Guy carefully looked through the items. Nice underwear. Shoving the black lace bra and panties aside, he continued to sift through her clothes. He unzipped the zipper on the inside of the top lid. Airline ticket - old one. Double Bubble supply - which made him smile. A business card - Creative Interiors. Another one - Mr. Robert Lund, Lawyer. Lund, the lawyer's office Bailey had gone to a few days before.
Holding both cards in his hand, Guy walked back to the living room. He made his way to the window by stepping past the overturned items. Outside, he didn't see anything that was cause for concern. It looked like the uninvited guest was long gone. He went with his gut instinct and pulled out his cell, hitting the redial button. "Graham, I need you to get me a home address for a Mr. Robert Lund. Lawyer." He rattled off the information on the business card.
"Right. Give me ten."
His hand clenched into a fist, as a tightly coiled unsettled feeling sat heavy in his gut. He absently rubbed his stomach. How come I didn't see this one coming? Nice and easy my ass, Gramma.
He placed his hands over his face and rubbed hard as though trying to wash paint off. This was not going to be simple. Blowing out an exasperated breath, he turned with the intention of getting out of there quickly, only he tripped. With nothing to grab onto, he soon found himself sprawled on the floor. Since that was a dangerous place to be, he quickly twisted around and jumped to his feet. He booted one of the offending large bags aside.
"Ouch." He reached down and ripped open the plastic. Newspaper spilled out. Grabbing the top one, he glanced at the topics and then the date.
1985. Who the hell keeps the news that long?
1995. 1999. Who gets that many?
There were only some from each year but they were papers from all across the country. Not something you could go down and buy at the local store. He flipped through the stacks of them, getting caught up in the stories.
Da-da-dum. Da-da-dum. Da-da-dum. Charge.
He jerked violently, ripping a paper in half. Sighing in disbelief when he realized it was his phone, he pulled it out. Why he'd let Graham's sister program that ring, he'd never know. It caught him off guard ever time. Not quite like this, though.
"Yeah?"
"Got a pen and paper?"
A pencil was sitting on a stand by the couch. He grabbed it and ripped off a piece of newspaper.
"Go." After scribbling down Lund's address and stuffing it in his pocket, he straightened. "What else?"
"You do realize it's after midnight?
"Yes and I also know that you'll be up until the wee hours of the morning getting all the information you can about all the players that we know exist so far. So give."
Graham's fingers clicked over the keys. "Man you annoy the hell out of me. Mr. Charles Emerson Lund. Upstanding citizen. Lawyer since 1970. Clean as a whistle."
"So far."
"Yeah. So far. He's too clean. I get the feeling there are some deep dark secrets hidden in this guy's history. I have a few feelers out with my buddies on the police force. There's some speculation that he may be flying on the light side."
A gay lawyer?
"We'll see what comes back. Being married is one thing, being married into the Filmore family? They're multimillionaires but speculation is that they are a hair's width from being billionaires. That has to be tough for a guy who came from a family that marginally made the millionaire mark. The Filmores have their hands in many pies. Besides buying up dying companies, turning them around and reselling them, they own sports teams, have their hand in the shipping business and many things I'm sure that don't show up on the radar. Meeting and marrying Betty Filmore had to do wonders for Lund's career. He's had some really high stakes cases. There's question though why he didn't join a big law firm and make partner. If his sexual preference is true, it's not something he's really going to want the in-laws to know about. My thought is that if he's got that slant then someone at some time has probably used it against him. It's too classic. Who wouldn't take advantage of it?"
After securing the house, Guy walked across the street to his SUV. "Do you ever miss it?" They had met when they'd both started out in the police force. Fresh out of university they'd both decided they had wanted to be the men in blue. Two years was all Guy had lasted. Fourteen months for Graham.
"Police work?" There was a pause. "No. I miss the guys though. If that doped up, crazy man hadn't shot me, I'd still be there. Not sure that was really the right place for me... I'm better at behind the scenes snooping. How about you?"
"Nope. I was the worst rookie cop ever."
"That's only 'cause you didn't like all the rules."
Guy laughed along with Graham. It was a standing joke between them that Guy would choose law enforcement when he was one of those people who could not do shift work nor handle the stress of what he'd been through that day. Getting sleep had become an issue. He'd started nodding off, all over the place. It hadn't gone over well with the Staff Sergeant or anyone he partnered with.
"Thanks for the info. Keep me informed."
"Don't park your ass out there."
Guy took in a deep breath. He didn't plan on getting shot and although he never would have guessed it from the start, he was now questioning what really lay in store for him. This situation was not what it seemed.