Now what?
The child was exhausted and wouldn’t sleep unless she was with him. Shifting to one side, he drank tea, checked his e-mail, and waited. He must have drifted off at some point, because when Gianna, Mia, and Ava emerged from the bedroom, dawn flooded the room with light and Lance’s neck felt like someone had beaten it with a stick. He lifted his head from the back of the chair and rolled his shoulders.
Ava and Mia’s chatter woke Sophie, who crawled out of Lance’s lap. He stood and stretched his stiff back, a pins-and-needles sensation flooding his legs.
“We’re hungry.” Ava bounced toward the kitchen, with Mia and Sophie at her heels.
Lance grabbed his mug and followed them. This was going to be a two-cup, maybe a three-cup morning. He opened the refrigerator. “How about some eggs?”
The three children stared up at him like he’d said poison.
Gianna laughed. “Do you have bread? I can make them French toast.”
“In the freezer.” Lance pointed.
She pulled the loaf out.
“Ew. It’s brown.” Ava wrinkled her nose.
“It’s oat bread,” he said. “It’s good for you.”
None of the children looked convinced.
“What are those things in it?” Mia poked at the frozen loaf.
“Sunflower seeds,” Lance said with a sinking feeling. What did kids eat?
Mia frowned. “They look like bugs.”
“How about pancake mix or flour?” Gianna asked.
“Sorry.” Since he’d embraced Sharp’s crunchy and organic diet, Lance’s kitchen was full of eggs, vegetables, seeds, and nuts.
Someone knocked on the front door. Lance checked the time. Who would be visiting at seven thirty in the morning?
“Wait here.” He went to the front door and looked through the narrow side window.
Stella’s boyfriend, Mac Barrett, held a bag of groceries. Lance opened the door.
“Sorry. Just got in a couple of hours ago.” Mac walked in. “I brought child-friendly food.”
“Thank you,” Lance said, grateful.
“You’re welcome.” Mac handed Lance the bag and took off his leather jacket. “Been there, done that with my nephew and niece.”
“Mac!” Ava and Mia raced to hug him. Even Sophie seemed pleased to see him.
Gianna took the grocery bag. “Oh, good. Pancake mix.” She went back to the kitchen.
The hungry girls trailed after her like baby vultures.
Mac hung back in the living room and spoke in a low voice. “Have you talked to Morgan this morning?”
“No. I was going to call her, but I’ve been busy.” Lance nodded toward the crowded kitchen.
“I’ll bet. I stopped at the hospital earlier. Art is out of surgery. He had a few complications because of his age, so they put him in ICU.” Mac pushed his shaggy hair out of his face. “He hadn’t regained consciousness yet when I talked to Stella last. It’s been a long night for Stella and Morgan.”
Lance’s phone vibrated and he checked the display. “That’s Morgan now.”
He turned away to answer the call. “Hey.”
“Hey yourself. How are the girls?”
“They’re fine. Gianna is making them pancakes.”
Morgan updated him on her grandfather’s condition. “Stella is still trying to get a hold of Ian. She’ll stay at the hospital for now.”
“What are you doing?” Lance asked.
“I want to find the man who broke in to my house.” Morgan sounded determined. “This wasn’t a random event. Whoever bypassed our security system knew what he was doing.”
“Harold Burns?” Lance asked.
“Maybe. The intruder said he wanted me. He wasn’t looking for cash or drugs.”
“Just tell me how I can help.”
“Mac is going to take the girls to his brother’s house after breakfast. They’ve been there before.”
“What do you want me to do?” Lance asked.
“Help me. I’m going to grab a shower, stop in to see the girls at the Barretts’ house, and then head to the office. This break-in was related to Chelsea’s case, I just feel it. None of us are safe until we solve it.”
Chapter Thirty-Two
He paced the yard between the storage container and the shed. The morning chill hung in the damp air, but rage warmed his blood to boiling.
Chelsea. Chelsea. Chelsea.
Grabbing his head between his hands, he pressed on his skull, but his brain continued to whisper her name.
What had he done?
He’d gone to the hospital, intent on seeing Chelsea, to figure out how he was going to get her back. Instead, he’d found a sheriff’s deputy at her door. The image of the lady lawyer at the press conference had popped into his head, and all of his rage had landed on her with the force of a speeding truck. As the family’s lawyer, she would be able to get to Chelsea. If he could force her to help him.
Women were weak, he’d reasoned. It was too easy to use their children as leverage against them. That had been his plan. The lawyer lived with three small children, a sickly girl, and an elderly man. How hard could it be?
But he’d failed. He hadn’t expected the old man to be armed. He hadn’t expected the kid to fight back.
He hadn’t planned the break-in beyond circumventing the alarm system. He’d rushed. He hadn’t done any surveillance. Foolishness had nearly ruined his entire plan.
Anger reared its head like a serpent in his chest. The lawyer and her brat could use lessons in being submissive females. If he ever got his hands on them . . . but they were not his problem. Chelsea was.
And he was never going to come up with a new plan until he regained control. Rage tunneled his vision and blocked his common sense.
He turned to the shed and rammed a fist into the side. His skin split on impact, blood bursting from his knuckles. But the pain that throbbed through his hand wasn’t enough to drown out the whispers.
He had to get her back, but how?
By not being stupid!
Chelseeeeeeea.
Stop it!
He ran into the shed, his gaze bouncing from the workbench to the corkboard of tools. He grabbed a hammer and slammed the flat end into his calf, right where he’d branded himself. Agony, blessed and beautiful, erupted from the burn, leaving no room for emotions. Pain cleansed his focus, swept aside his fury, and clarified his thoughts.
His knees buckled. He braced a hand on the wall to steady himself. The weakness was a relief. In a few moments, he’d recover. He’d drink. He’d eat. He’d redress his wound.
Once his body was restored to order, his mind would follow.
He turned toward the cabin, a plan already spinning in his mind. He would get Chelsea back if it was the last thing he ever did.
If it was the last thing either one of them ever did.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“The girls seemed happy with Mac’s brother.” Standing in the doorway of Lance’s office, Morgan lifted a gigantic cup of coffee to her lips and drank. It was her third, but there just wasn’t enough caffeine to jump-start her brain today. They’d dropped off Grandpa’s car and Morgan’s minivan at her house and picked up Lance’s Jeep.
“They were excited to go to the house with the creek and the big, sloppy dog,” Lance clarified.
“It’s a relief to know they’re safe.”
Mac’s brother was a former army officer.
“You look exhausted,” Lance said.
She gave him a wry smile. “You don’t look so chipper yourself.”
“I slept more than you did.” Lance stood. “And Sophie might actually like me now.”
Sometimes the little lifts in life helped get you over the big hurdles.
“Here.” Sharp walked down the hall. He handed her a protein shake and gave one to Lance.
“Thank you.” Morgan sipped the shake.
“If neither of you will sleep, this is the best I can do.” He f
rowned at her coffee cup. “How many of those have you had?”
“I’ll plead the fifth on that question.” Morgan tossed the empty cup in the trashcan. She was more than tired. Worry for her kids and her grandfather was eating a hole through her.
“We need a strategy meeting,” Sharp said.
“Definitely.” Morgan retreated to her office. Lance and Sharp followed her inside.
She settled in her chair, leaned on the desk, and stared at the case whiteboard. “I ran into Tim at the hospital this morning. Chelsea is being released later today. The sheriff has agreed to post a car at her house.”
“For now,” Sharp said.
“Tim has no faith in the sheriff,” Morgan said. “He wants us to keep working the case. The reporter’s suggestion of a possible serial killer in the area spooked him. Plus, he says Chelsea will never have peace until the bastard who kidnapped her is caught.”
“We should interview Chelsea,” Lance said.
“Yes,” Morgan agreed. “Tim is going to call me as soon as they get home. He thought she might remember more details if she was in a familiar setting.”
Sharp faced the whiteboard, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared at it. “First question, was the break-in at Morgan’s house related to Chelsea Clark’s case?”
“Chelsea escaped. Her captor was pissed. Then Morgan appeared on that press conference representing the family,” Lance said. “The correlation is logical. Was it Burns?”
“Burns stalked Morgan,” Sharp added. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean he kidnapped Chelsea.”
“Right,” Morgan said. “Burns followed me after Lance and I confronted him at the auto shop.”
Everything about this case felt so convoluted.
A strand of hair landed on her nose. She brushed it back and smoothed her ponytail. She lowered her arm, and her holster dug in to her hip. She was carrying her handgun until she knew the intruder had been apprehended.
“Do we have any evidence that the body found at the state park is related to Chelsea’s kidnapping?” Sharp asked.
Morgan shook her head. “As far as I know, the only thing that ties the cases together is the physical appearances of the victims. They were both young and blonde.”
“That’s not enough.” Sharp rubbed his jaw. “I nosed around for information yesterday. The dead woman was identified as Sarah Bernard. She went missing from the university last February. She was twenty-two years old and a history major.”
“He held her for eight months.” Morgan’s stomach went queasy thinking about the poor girl’s fate. “She was five months pregnant. The girl died of a placental abruption. She bled to death.” She set her shake aside. “Instead of getting her medical attention, he let her die.”
“If we assume Chelsea was his replacement,” Lance said. “Could he now be focused on Morgan?”
“I’m not blonde,” she said.
“But he might feel a personal connection with you, since you represented the family in that press conference,” Lance suggested.
“And he might be flexible on his target profile,” Sharp added. “Having two similar victims doesn’t mean he has a type. The fact that they were both blonde could have been a coincidence.”
Morgan leaned back in her chair. “Who are our best suspects?”
“Let’s start with Burns.” Lance pushed off the wall and studied the whiteboard.
Morgan started. “SFPD had a car down the road from his residence. He’s already complained of harassment once, so they kept their distance. His car stayed at the house. They saw no sign that he’d left. But there’s no way they’d know if he went out the back door and walked through the woods to the auto shop. There are plenty of cars there to borrow.”
“We don’t know if he was there all night,” Lance said.
“No.” She took a breath. “I talked to my sister this morning. She and Brody knocked on his door to see if he was home. No one answered. The auto shop is closed on weekends. They have zero evidence to support a search warrant for either property. Burns has registered and complied with all legal requirements.”
“Damned lawyers.” Sharp glanced at Morgan. “Present company excluded. What about Levi Gold?”
“Spoke to my mom an hour ago.” Lance shook his head. “Gold is in London right now. He’s off the list.”
“Kirk Armani?” Sharp’s gaze moved down the list of suspects on the board.
“Mom finished checking the list of Speed Net employees and came up mostly empty, though we found a restraining order filed against Kirk Armani a few years ago. A female student accused him of stalking her. There were no subsequent complaints, and the order eventually expired.”
“We should talk to Kirk again,” Morgan said. “We have his home address.”
“Let’s do it.” Lance paced. “Sarah Bernard was a university student. Kirk finished his PhD, but does he have a current relationship with the university?”
Morgan searched her bin for the correct file. “No, but in our original interview, Tim said Speed Net works with the university.”
Anxious to take any kind of action, she started shoving files into her tote.
“Hold on!” Studying the board, Sharp held up a hand. “What about the mysterious message that Chelsea needed to speak with her boss about something too sensitive for e-mail or text?”
Lance answered, “We’ve come up empty with Curtis MacDonald and everyone else at the accounting firm.”
“Chelsea can answer that question for us.” Morgan rubbed the ache in her temples. “I’ll call Tim.” She picked up her cell and scrolled to Tim’s number. “No answer. We’ll have to wait. But what if the answer doesn’t lie in the data within her files? I wish we had a list of her clients.”
Lance and Sharp shared a look.
“What?” Morgan raised her head.
Lance glanced away. “I might have copied the hard drive of Skyver and MacDonald’s laptop when I was at Tim’s house copying the Clarks’ digital data.”
“Chelsea’s work computer?” Interest stirred life into Morgan, along with a healthy dose of apprehension.
“It was in her bedroom,” Lance answered.
“Why didn’t I know about this?” she asked.
“Because it’s illegal.” Sharp flashed an accusing glare at Lance.
Lance’s shoulder twitched, not quite a shrug. “And the files are password-protected. I had to hack into them.”
Morgan’s elbows hit the desk and her head dropped into her hands. “Evidence discovered illegally isn’t admissible. We could all lose our licenses.”
“We could go to jail,” Sharp added.
“All true,” Lance admitted. “I’ll take all of those risks on my shoulders. Neither of you had anything to do with my decision. You didn’t touch the original computer, and you haven’t touched the flash drive. It’s all on me.” The muscles in Lance’s face shifted as he ground his teeth. “I’m tired of having my hands tied while criminals hurt people. Cops put them in jail, and the system lets them out.”
“I know.” Morgan knew that frustration was one of the reason he’d left the force. “But we’re still bound by the law.”
She wasn’t sure if she was annoyed that he’d done something illegal and possibly put both professional firms in jeopardy or because he hadn’t told her.
Or because—at that moment—she felt the exact same way. Everything was out of hand. No matter how many times she told herself that all citizens had the same rights, and that criminals deserved fair representation, when you were a victim, the legal system didn’t seem fair.
For a long minute, she longed to be back in the prosecutor’s office, working for the state rather than a person, not floundering through a messy, active investigation.
She missed her convictions. She missed the certainty that a defendant was guilty. She missed having a clear path: assemble evidence, present to court, take another criminal off the street.
On the private side, everything was pai
nted a million shades of murky gray. It was as if her world had gone from narrow to panoramic, forcing her to view the limitations of every side: accused, victims, law enforcement. She’d once seen the legal system as a tunnel. Now it was a maze.
“I’m sorry if you don’t approve, but I took what I thought were prudent precautions. If I hadn’t grabbed that data at the time, I wouldn’t have gotten another chance.” Lance sighed, his broad chest deflating. “Just pretend you didn’t hear any of this. I’ll handle it. So far, I haven’t found anything unusual, but I’ve only gotten through a small portion of the files. If we’re lucky, Chelsea will tell us what we need to know, and we can all pretend we never had them.”
“Until we hear from Tim, your mom and I can dig around.” Sharp turned toward the door. “Give me that flash drive, and I’ll head over to your mom’s house and help her however I can.” He took the slim black rectangle from Lance’s hand, then left the room, muttering, “We are so screwed if this goes sideways.”
“Sharp?” Lance called.
Sharp poked his head around the doorway. “What?”
“The sheriff’s office is using satellite images to try and locate the place where Chelsea was held,” Lance said. “A clearing with a small house or cabin and a shipping container that may or may not be visible from above. Maybe you can try to track shipping container purchases?”
“I’ll see what kind of satellite photos I can dig up too. If the container has been there awhile, maybe it was visible in older images.” Sharp disappeared.
Morgan had spent her whole life defending the law, but at this point, she’d been pushed over the line. No. That wasn’t true. She was running over it. Her children had been threatened. That superseded all legal requirements. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do to protect them.
Which was interesting because when she’d been an assistant district attorney, she’d prosecuted several vigilante-type crimes with a no exception to the law inflexibility that now seemed naive. Her stomach rolled, and she fished in her bag for a roll of antacids, popping two in her mouth.
“Are you all right?” Lance asked in a concerned voice.
Her Last Goodbye (Morgan Dane Book 2) Page 24