Alone in the Dark

by Karen Rose

  ‘You little punk,’ the cashier spat, which was funny considering the man was only five-three or so. He was the little one. Not me.

  From the corner of his eye, Drake caught a movement in the back hallway where the restrooms were. He didn’t think, he just acted, pointing the gun at the cashier and pulling the trigger. He heard a scream as the man went down.

  A crazy lady with a shotgun ran from the back toward him. Panic closed Drake’s throat when he saw her aiming the shotgun at him. He tightened his hold on the hostage, grabbing her purse and backing out of the store, dragging her with him.

  ‘Put the gun down!’ he yelled at the lady with the rifle. ‘Don’t you fucking move!’

  ‘Please!’ his hostage cried. ‘Don’t shoot! He’ll kill me.’

  ‘My husband!’ the shotgun lady screamed. She ran behind the counter and dropped from sight, probably to check on the cashier.

  ‘Give me your keys and I won’t hurt you,’ Drake said to his hostage. ‘Unlock your car first, then give me the damn keys.’ With any luck it was a smart key and he wouldn’t have to put it in the ignition. The woman in the business suit obeyed, and Drake swallowed his panic, dragging his hostage around the SUV to the driver’s side. He planned to release her and leave her behind when he got in the car, but she began to struggle.

  ‘No! You’re not taking me!’ She thrashed her body, leaving Drake with no choice. He pushed her to the ground and put a bullet in her head, then jumped in the SUV. He flung the purse with the money on the passenger seat, then started the engine and—

  Shit. His gut turned to liquid when he looked in his rear view. The cashier’s wife was running out of the convenience store, aiming the shotgun at the SUV. He floored it, the SUV’s tires squealing as he burned rubber, fishtailing as he sped toward the station’s exit.

  Cincinnati, Ohio

  Tuesday 4 August, 7.30 P.M.

  Scarlett drove a block away from the Ledger building and pulled over again, her heart pounding in her throat. She’d been shaken to the core by her own admission, filled with feelings of guilt and despair as well as grim acceptance of what she’d done, but seeing the panic in Marcus’s eyes . . . He’d been experiencing true fear. For a moment there she thought he was going to be sick.

  Willing her hands to be steady, she Googled Matthias Gargano, Lexington, and 1989. She frowned when the top result was an article from a Lexington newspaper. About a funeral.

  Oh my God. It was a child’s funeral. ‘Who were you, Matthias Gargano?’ she murmured. But she was afraid she already knew.

  She kept reading and found her guess had been right on the mark.

  Mourners said their final goodbyes to Matthias Gargano, three-year-old son of George Gargano and Della Yarborough-Gargano, at Trinity Episcopal Church. The victim was survived by his parents, grandparents, and his two brothers, Marcus, age 8, and Montgomery, age 6. The tragic victim of a kidnapping gone wrong will be interred in the Yarborough family crypt in Spring Grove Cemetery, Cincinnati, Ohio.

  Scarlett had to steady her breathing. How had she not known about this brother?

  ‘Oh my God,’ she whispered. Mikhail was not the first child Marcus’s mother had lost to violence. She’d lost Matthias nearly twenty-five years before. ‘That poor woman.’

  The next article, from the same Lexington paper, was dated a few days earlier, its headline making her racing heart stop short. ‘GARGANO BOYS HOME SAFE’.

  ‘Oh no. No, no, no.’ Her stomach twisting into a vicious knot, she read on. The three boys had been kidnapped in a well-orchestrated operation, taken from different places but at the same time. Marcus and Montgomery had been grabbed on their way home from prep school.

  Montgomery? That must be Stone, she thought.

  The family’s chauffeur had been overpowered, drugged, then ejected from the car. The two boys had been drugged and carried to an abandoned warehouse. Three-year-old Matthias had been taken from his bed during his nap by someone posing as one of a construction crew that had been hired to do repairs on the family’s penthouse.

  A ransom of five million dollars had been demanded. Scarlett’s mind spun both at the amount and that Marcus’s parents had been able to produce it in less than twenty-four hours. Disaster had struck, though, when the kidnappers realized the FBI and Lexington PD were on to them. The family had been warned not to involve the authorities, but the boys’ mother had done so. The furious – and panicked – kidnappers shot at all the boys, hitting two, but their third shot missed the oldest.

  Marcus. He’d been kidnapped and shot at. Shot at. My God. How many times have people tried to kill him? she wondered, horrified. And he’d only been eight years old.

  Eight. That was how old he’d been when his mother was hospitalized after overdosing on pills. Scarlett hated suicide because she was left with the unpleasant task of informing the next of kin and she never had answers for their gut-wrenching questions. But that didn’t mean she didn’t understand it. She’d even contemplated it herself once or twice after Michelle’s death. But Della Yarborough had had two boys left, one of whom had been critically injured. Her boys had needed her. Marcus had needed his mother.

  ‘Oh,’ she breathed. That was why Gayle was so special to Marcus. She’d been his nanny during this time. So much made sense now, all the way down to Marcus’s protection of Stone.

  A car horn blared outside her window and Scarlett suddenly became aware of the time. She was now well and truly late. Pulling back into traffic, she fought to clear her mind.

  Whatever Marcus was holding inside had to do with this kidnapping, although nothing she’d read seemed like it would have involved a sin on his part. He’d only been eight, after all. How bad a thing could an eight-year-old do?

  None of this had to do with Tala, either, she told herself sternly.

  But it had everything to do with Marcus, so while it wasn’t the most important thing on her plate, it was important to her. She wanted to understand. Desperately wanted to help. She rolled her eyes at herself. She wanted to fix him.

  She’d get that chance if she had to tie him to a chair and make him talk to her.

  But for now she had to focus on her job, which was to find Tala’s killer.

  Twenty-one

  Cincinnati, Ohio

  Tuesday 4 August, 7.30 P.M.

  ‘You had twenty-eight callers while you were gone,’ Gayle informed him archly as he tore past her desk, practically running to his office. ‘Marcus!’ she snapped. ‘Stop.’

  He slowed his pace, stopping with his hand on the handle of his office door. ‘I heard you, Gayle. Twenty-eight calls.’

  ‘No. Twenty-eight callers. Half of them called more than once. Most were not polite. Most called to comment on the story Stone uploaded this morning. You remember,’ she said sarcastically, ‘the one where you were unable to save a seventeen-year-old girl you met in an alley. Some of the callers were our advertisers, many of whom wanted to know what the hell you were doing in an alley to begin with. Some threatened to pull their ads. I had to grovel, Marcus.’ She sat back, arms folded across her chest. ‘You do not pay me enough for this.’

  He managed to smile at her. ‘You’re right. Give yourself a raise.’

  ‘Do not smile at me. Do not try to charm me. You always sucked at it.’

  He lost the fake smile, staring at her numbly. ‘Then what do you want?’

  Gayle stood up, frowning. ‘What did that woman do to you?’

  ‘Which woman?’

  ‘That damn detective. She drops you off here and drives away with you looking like you saw a ghost. And . . .’ Her eyes widened. ‘Is that a bandage on your head? What happened?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m tired, Gayle. I don’t want to go over it again. I’ve written the story already.’ He’d done so while sitting with Isenberg. It wasn’t long, and he’d need Stone to punch it up, but it had all the relevant facts. ‘I’ll email it to you. Where is Stone?’

  ‘Your brother’s in his of
fice.’ Gayle frowned in disapproval. ‘Drinking heavily.’

  Marcus wasn’t sure if her disapproval was directed at him or at Stone. ‘Why?’

  ‘He says you’ve turned him into a babysitter. He dropped Jill off at the university, then came back here, took a bottle of Lagavulin from your desk drawer and went to his own office.’

  ‘Wonderful,’ Marcus muttered. ‘First Mom, now Stone.’

  Gayle’s expression instantly softened. ‘Whoa,’ she said. ‘Your brother and your mother . . . two different things. You don’t need to worry about him so much, Marcus.’

  ‘I should save it all for Mom?’ he asked darkly, then shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t take my bad temper out on you. I’ll talk to you later.’

  He went into his office and shut his door. A glance at the security monitor showed an empty space where Scarlett’s car had been. She was gone, off to the FBI field office to meet with her partner, a good man who’d probably never killed anyone. Outside the line of duty anyway.

  His chair groaned when he dropped into it. What the fuck am I going to tell her?

  The truth. He had to tell her the truth. And hope for the best.

  Wearily he picked up the phone and called Stone’s office, relieved when his brother didn’t sound drunk. ‘Can you come see me?’ Marcus asked. ‘It’s important.’

  ‘You’re not going to need another Kevlar vest, are you?’ Stone asked ominously.

  ‘No. The spare is still good.’ He hung up, started his computer and Googled ‘Michelle’, ‘murder’ and ‘Trent Bracken’.

  He sighed as hit after hit was returned. Michelle Schmidt’s brutalized body found in an alley behind a dumpster, just as Scarlett had said. Trent Bracken, Michelle’s ex-boyfriend, was arrested for the crime when it was shown that the victim had identified him as her abuser in her last text, sent to her best friend.

  ‘Criminal justice major Scarlett Bishop,’ Marcus read aloud. There were no photos of Scarlett in the articles he found, although one report described her as ‘in shock’ at the scene.

  ‘I wonder why,’ he muttered. Because it was easier to dwell on Scarlett’s trauma than his own, he picked up the phone and dialed Cal. As the editor-in-chief, Cal would know exactly where to find the information in the archives, although most of that information was also tucked away in his brain. ‘Who was covering the city’s crime beat ten years ago?’

  ‘Jeb was. Why?’

  ‘Shit.’ Jeb had died a year ago. ‘I wanted to find some articles in the archives.’

  ‘I can search for them, or ask Jill to do it.’

  ‘No,’ Marcus said firmly. He didn’t want Jill in his business until he was sure she wasn’t planning to do something stupid – like turn his team in because of the laws they routinely bent investigating child abusers and wife beaters. He especially didn’t want her in Scarlett’s business. ‘Do you remember a murder that happened at the university, a woman named Michelle Schmidt?’

  ‘I remember that one all too well. I’m surprised you don’t – oh, wait. You were over in the Gulf then. What do you want to know, specifically?’

  ‘Everything we’ve got on the guy who did it. Name was Trent Bracken.’

  ‘Okay,’ Cal said slowly. ‘Although he was acquitted by a jury, you know.’

  Marcus didn’t care that he’d been acquitted. He was more concerned about Scarlett at the moment. ‘Just get me whatever we have on file. This one is personal.’

  ‘A new case?’ Cal asked, unable to hide his excitement.

  ‘No. Like I said this morning, we need to lie low for a little while, until this morning’s case is solved. Speaking of which, save room in the printed edition for another article about the possible perpetrators. I was out at the house where this morning’s victim was being held. Starting in an hour or so, I’ll be embedded in the MCES task force.’

  Cal whistled. ‘How’d you swing that?’

  ‘Kissed the lieutenant’s ass.’

  ‘You’re sure you didn’t kiss that pretty detective’s ass? Because if you didn’t, I’ll give it the old college try.’

  Marcus rolled his eyes. ‘You’re an old horn dog, Cal.’

  Cal chortled. ‘And you didn’t deny kissing the detective’s ass. Anything else I should dig up while I’m in the archives?’

  ‘Yeah. Actually, this is something Jill can do. Have her search for anything on human trafficking in the tri-state area – any cases, victim profiles, arrests of perpetrators. I want a wide-net search. If she gets a hit from our archives, I want pictures and any original documentation. She’ll likely get a lot of hits, but most will be anecdotal in nature. I want her to separate out anything that includes hard data or an account of trafficker convictions.’

  Marcus didn’t have the numbers, but he couldn’t recall more than a few actual convictions or even trafficker arrests.

  Cal was quiet for a second. ‘The girl this morning . . . she was being trafficked?’

  ‘It appears so. I’ll also need a mobile camera unit.’

  ‘You planning to carry it on your back?’

  ‘I was, yes. Why?’

  ‘Because I saw how you were favoring it this morning. Let me go with you.’

  Marcus was stunned. ‘You want to go out in the field?’ Cal had been manning the archives and the press runs for twenty years.

  Cal’s answer was gruff. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Mind if I ask why?’

  ‘Yeah, but I’ll tell you anyway. One of the women at our synagogue helps out victims of sex trafficking. She did a presentation for the congregation a few months ago. Not a dry eye in the house. Mine included. If the girl in the alley was trafficked, I want to help.’

  ‘It’s a scorcher out there, Cal,’ Marcus said gently. ‘And I’ve been shot at twice today. I’d feel a lot better if you stayed here and put the intern to work in the archives.’

  ‘Twice?’

  ‘Yeah. Just keep it quiet for a while, okay? Gayle’s gonna chew me a new one when she finds out. I’d like to delay that as long as possible.’

  ‘I can’t say that I blame you. I’ll get to work on the archives. Be careful, Marcus. I only got a few months till retirement and I don’t want to have to break in a new boss before then because you got your fool head shot off.’

  ‘Such tender words,’ Marcus said, then looked up to see Stone in his doorway. ‘Thanks, man.’ He hung up, motioned Stone to come in and close the door. ‘I’m about to make you a very happy man.’

  Stone’s eyes lit up. ‘You’re reassigning Jill to Diesel?’

  ‘Not that happy a man,’ Marcus said dryly. ‘Diesel would kill me. But I am assigning her to Cal. I need a retrospective on human trafficking. In the meantime, I need your polishing skills.’ He quickly emailed Stone the summary he’d written in Isenberg’s office. ‘This is an account of what happened at the Anders house. They were the people who owned Tala. It’s the bare-bones facts. Make it sound good.’ Marcus had done some reporting for the Ledger when he was younger, but Stone’s writing skills had always been superior. ‘Take the byline. I’ll be sending you regular updates.’ He lifted his brows. ‘From the front line, as it were. I just got embedded in the CPD/FBI task force.’

  Stone ignored Marcus’s announcement of his new role. ‘You have a bandage on your head,’ he said quietly.

  Marcus touched it lightly. ‘Yes. Scarlett bandaged me up.’

  ‘I’m not going to like what I read in here, am I?’ Stone asked through clenched teeth.

  ‘Probably not. But I was wearing Kevlar.’

  Stone closed his eyes. ‘Hell, Marcus.’

  ‘I’m fine. Really. Now I’m going home to shower and change my clothes. I’ve been sweating like a damn pig in this torture device. It’s heavy as hell. What’s the status on you and Jill checking out the threats list?’ he asked to change the subject.

  Stone’s continued glare told him he hadn’t been terribly smooth about the topic change. ‘We should have done this check a lon
g time ago. A few of the guys we’ve removed from homes are back to business. A few have new families. A few have new jobs. I sent you a list. It’s in your email,’ he said tersely, ‘but you’ve been too busy getting shot at to read it.’

  Back to business. Abusing their wives and kids. Marcus sank back in his chair, feeling like he’d just been bitch-slapped. ‘Well, shit. We got them out of their homes and it didn’t do any good at all.’

  Stone nodded, his eyes still angry. ‘I sent the list to Diesel to see if he could get anything on them quickly. Apparently a number of them learned from the last time, though, and they’ve password-protected their home computers and are using proxies so damn well that Diesel might not be able to break in.’

  ‘Maybe Scarlett can do something with that list,’ Marcus murmured, eyes widening when Stone surged to his feet, jabbing his finger toward his face.

  ‘No way. No way in hell do you bring that woman into our business. If you want to get yourself arrested, fine, but you let her in and you drag the rest of us down with you.’ Stone was furious, his big chest working like a bellows. ‘You better choose whose team you’re on, Marcus. I don’t need this. I had a career. I could go back to it in a heartbeat.’

  Marcus blinked at him, startled not by the outburst itself, but by the knowledge that Stone was unhappy that he’d come back to work for the Ledger. ‘Okay, okay. Settle down. I won’t drag you down with me.’

  ‘All right,’ Stone grunted. ‘I’ll get this article polished up. You want to see it before it goes online?’

  Marcus nodded. ‘Yeah. I need to make sure I didn’t forget anything in the heat of the moment.’ But that wasn’t the real reason. Anything he printed now might as well have Scarlett’s byline on it too. She’d put her career on the line when she stood up for his right to tell this story.

  ‘Yeah,’ Stone said grimly, and it was as if his brother had read his mind. ‘Fine.’

  Stone stomped out, passing Cal in Marcus’s doorway.