Hidden

by Fern Michaels

  Sylvia might have seemed to be the silent, dutiful, and now-scorned wife, but she was shrewd. Sylvia had moved to Portugal with her substantial settlement. For one thing, Rowena knew that Sylvia wouldn’t want to be hanging around town while she and Arthur were the new “it” couple. Little did anyone know that Sylvia would be doing cartwheels if she hadn’t torn her rotator cuff. Sylvia was fifty-five years old and had a whole lot of living ahead of her. She had bought a villa, drank wine, ate good food, and had the company of a man ten years her junior.

  Rowena suspected that Sylvia had known about Arthur’s serious gambling problem. Sylvia must have sensed the oncoming train wreck Arthur Millstone represented and had probably been greatly relieved to get off those tracks. Thinking about her current situation, Rowena was almost envious of Sylvia.

  Rowena was beginning to wonder how long Arthur could sustain his lifestyle, and her lifestyle, before his debts caught up with him. At the moment, Rowena couldn’t dump Arthur. There was a little matter of the prenup. Sure, she’d get a tidy figure, but at present she had access to the wealth of the family business, Millstone Enterprises International. Rowena suspected that Arthur was dabbling in the culinary art of cooking the books. There was no other way he could cover the tens of thousands he lost every month. Of course, she wasn’t supposed to know about Arthur’s association with the Irish mob, but she had overheard more than one conversation. At the moment, as she watched her husband pace the floor, she knew that her future was hanging in the balance. Pulling another cigarette from her inlaid mother-of-pearl-and-silver case, she thought, Arthur is right. If they didn’t find and destroy that second will, or Colette Petrov, Randolph’s girl Friday, they both could be checking in to the Graybar Hotel.

  Rowena sat on the arm of the leather chair and took a long drag. “I think we should call Amber. I know we scoured the receipts, but maybe she’ll remember something. Something someone said. It’s worth speaking with her.”

  Arthur stopped abruptly. “You were supposed to handle this.”

  “I know. I know. But, like I said earlier, using her was your idea. Maybe you can jog her memory.” She let out a plume of smoke.

  Arthur looked as if he were going to snarl, but immediately thought better of it. He needed to think. Get a grip. He knew there was an imminent deadline in the murky future. Even though the deadline hadn’t been revealed, it was out there. Looming, like a large, dark shadow.

  “Call her,” he barked.

  Rowena flinched. Again. The second time in one day. That was a record. If she flinched once in a decade, that was one time too often. The fact that she was thirty-eight meant she didn’t do it often. She stared blankly into space.

  “Rowena!” Arthur screamed at her. “Get on the damn phone and get Amber in here!”

  “But I thought—” Rowena tried to interrupt him.

  “Damn it! Do I have to do everything?” Arthur yanked the telephone handset off the cradle. He punched a few buttons on the phone.

  Like a coin flip, Arthur’s tone changed. “Hello, Amber dear. How are you?” Rowena felt the bile sour in her throat.

  “I’m very well, thank you.” He paused a moment. “I realize it’s a tad late, but would you be available to stop by this evening? Rowena and I were going over the receipts for the estate sale and we have a few questions.” He listened, frowned, and responded, “Tomorrow morning? How early can you get here?” Another pause. “Yes, eight o’clock will be fine. I’ll have Rowena fix us something to eat.” He glanced up at his wife. Her mouth dropped. She gave him an incredulous look. Arthur waved her off. “Yes. We’re on a limited staff now. We are reevaluating our needs.” He listened again. “It’s no trouble at all. Fine. See you in the morning.”

  Rowena was livid. Rowena will fix us something to eat? “When did I become the chief cook and bottle washer around here?” She stomped over to the credenza and poured herself some good old Kentucky bourbon. Three fingers’ worth.

  “Listen, Rowena, we need to figure this out before Clive tracks down that Petrov woman, or worse, that document turns up somewhere. So you’re just going to have to play the happy little housewife for a while.” He clasped his hands and tightened his fingers. “We can’t let anyone wander around this house until we resolve this mess. I don’t want anyone having access to anything.”

  “What about the cleaning people?” Rowena’s voice had gone up an octave. “Certainly, you can’t expect me to mop the floors and dust?” She was close to shrieking. “Look around. Marble floors. Twenty thousand square feet. More pieces of furniture than you got rid of. No, sir. You need to come up with a better plan than making me Cinderella before her fairy godmother showed up.” She stomped back to the chair and flopped into the big leather seat.

  “Oh, stop pouting.” Arthur’s voice was more even now. “You can keep the cleaning staff, but I want you supervising every move they make. And I mean every move. I don’t want another debacle. We don’t have a lot of time. I know that Clive is anxious to get to the bottom of the mysterious will. How long will it take him to think of learning where Colette is by going to her parents?”

  He unclenched his fingers and buried his head in his hands. The vibration from his burner phone made him sit up. He groaned. “Now what?” he barked, then sat up taller. “Really? Where?”

  Chapter Six

  Charlotte, North Carolina

  Marshal Christopher Gaines had been born in Tuckahoe, New York. His father was a police officer whose ancestors had come from Scotland. His mother, Bettina, was from Brazil. She was a stunning woman, with black hair and blue eyes. The family often joked how lucky Christopher was to inherit his mother’s good looks. And most likely her intuition, or at the very least, to respect it.

  Growing up, he had been a good student and a fine athlete. His speed and coordination won him a baseball scholarship to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, where he majored in criminal justice. Much to his father’s chagrin, he had no interest in pursuing a career in professional baseball. It was grueling, controlled your life, and was tenuous. Gaines wanted something stable and interesting. Professional baseball might be exciting, but it wasn’t stable. But doing the same thing every day for forty years was not his goal either. He wanted a career where he could make a contribution and still be invigorated. He wanted to be involved in something larger than himself, something for the greater good.

  When he graduated from college, he enrolled at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. The masters of arts program offered a variety of areas of study. Criminal investigations was the direction he wanted to go, and he hoped to eventually get a gig in the U.S. Marshals Service. Not an easy task.

  While he was studying for his master’s, he worked for the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office three days a week. It was a lot of drudgery, but he believed it would pay off eventually. If you wanted experience in a cornucopia of crime, he was truly in the right place. Once he completed his course of studies, he became a paralegal in the DA’s office and began to apply for positions with the U.S. Marshals Service. It had taken almost two years, but he had finally been offered a position in the Mobile, Alabama, field office. He was twenty-six years old. It wasn’t an ideal location, but it would do. He would continue to prove himself to his superiors until he could apply for a transfer to a location that was a little less humid. He took on every assignment he could to move ahead. Consequently, it took its toll on his marriage.

  He had met Lucinda Dawson when he first arrived in Alabama. She was a bouncy blonde. Cute. Of course, he was attracted to her. And she was smitten with his worldly ways. The fact that he was a federal marshal scored him a lot of points with her. Little did she know how demanding his work would be and that she would begin to tire of his never being around enough. She thought that if they got married and had a child, he might be inclined to be more family-oriented, but she was wrong.

  For Gaines, getting married seemed like a good idea at the time. He adored Lucinda but always questioned i
f he genuinely loved her. He liked her. A lot. And not unlike women, men also felt their biological clock ticking. Or maybe it’s their social standing. At twenty-seven, he thought it was time to settle down despite not having the slightest inkling as to what that really meant. Lucinda got pregnant right away. Both of them thought it would make things perfect.

  They could not have been more wrong. It only put more stress on their relationship. Gaines thought a change of scenery would improve their crumbling marriage. A new town. A fresh start, so he applied for a transfer, which he ultimately received.

  After they moved to Charlotte, North Carolina, both of them realized they were better at being friends than spouses. She needed more than he could give. When Carter started school, Lucinda got a job working as a dental hygienist, which gave her something to do. But eventually, they separated. Not that they had spent much time together anyway. It was as amicable as a divorce could be. Their main concern was for Carter’s well-being.

  Gaines rented an apartment while they shared joint custody of Carter. In the beginning, Lucinda tried her best to gain full custody, citing his workload, but Gaines’s supervisor promised they would make every effort to schedule him to make sure he had time for his son. It was tricky at times, but they were managing. Lucinda had already moved on to another man, the dentist she had been working for, but there were strict rules about sleepovers. For her and for Carter.

  The time had come for Gaines to get a bigger place, one that was closer to where Carter lived. It was a short fifteen-minute drive, but Gaines didn’t feel it was close enough. Carter was getting old enough to play outside without supervision, and he desperately wanted a dog. Gaines wanted to provide a comfortable home for his son. After attending a number of open houses and scrutinizing websites and the local newspapers, a house three blocks away from where Lucinda lived became available, and Gaines jumped at the opportunity. The place was a wreck, but it was habitable, and because it was in a state of much-needed repair, he got it at a good price.

  Gaines had gained the respect of his superiors and his peers. He was well regarded and established in the Charlotte field office and was able to manage his schedule better.

  Carter was jazzed at the idea of a new house with a big yard, and trees, and a big dog. He hoped. Carter liked the outdoors. Even though the house had a basement, he wasn’t a gamer-basement-dweller. He preferred sports. It was clear he had inherited his father’s athletic ability.

  Gaines had been in good spirits recently. He felt a current moving. Things appeared to be shifting in a positive direction. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it. Then he thought about that wistful woman who had volunteered during the search. Bright. Funny. Interesting. Certainly quirky. For the most part, he hardly noticed women, although a lot of them noticed him. With his work and his son, particularly his relationship history, he didn’t pursue anything that resembled one. But that woman, Luna. She was different. Special. A little kooky, but that was a major part of her charm.

  The day they were looking for Avery and Luna asked to go to the grove, he knew she was onto something. At least he knew she believed she was onto something. If Gaines had learned one thing in his years of law enforcement, it was to always trust his gut.

  During his second year on the job, he had been on a stakeout at the harbor in Mobile. He was supposed to go down the side of a particular pier, but a voice in his head shouted, STOP! He ducked around a corner and pulled out his weapon. It was the only time in his career he had shot someone. Gaines was glad he hadn’t killed the guy, but had he not listened to that voice in his head, he would have been the one lying in a pool of blood that night.

  Gaines was delighted that Luna had agreed to work on the missing-high-school-kid case. Luna spotted the lie after the first question, and she made a few notes. After about an hour of questioning, they took a break. Gaines left the interrogation room and went into the room on the other side of the two-way mirror, where Luna had been observing. He nodded in Luna’s direction. “Do you want to tell me what you think or what you feel?”

  Luna rolled her eyes. “First, she keeps trailing off. She doesn’t complete her sentences, then regroups. Second, she is responding to direct questions with phrases that appear to be answers but aren’t.”

  Gaines’s smile widened. “Continue, please.” He wanted the other two law enforcement people in the room to learn a little from this avant-garde psychologist.

  “Here’s an example of what I mean. When you asked her ‘Do you know if your brother has a special hangout? A place he frequents?’ she answered with, ‘Sometimes he goes out with some kids from school.’ That did not answer your question. Of course he goes out with some kids. But where do they go? You don’t have the answer to that because she neither acknowledged nor denied there was a special place.”

  “What do you suggest?”

  “I suggest you send in Sergeant Hunt.” She nodded to one of the other officers in the observation room. “She’s a woman and perhaps can relate to the sister with how much a pain it is to have a brother. Try to gain her confidence.” Luna looked down at her notes. “Then ask her the same question but pose it differently. Say something like, ‘Does your brother ever talk about his friends and tell you what they usually do when they hang out?’ She may or may not realize she actually knows the answer to the question, but revisiting the same subject in a different manner might get the results you’re looking for. Either by tripping her up, or, as I mentioned, triggering a memory.”

  “Thank you. Anything else you want to add?” Gaines asked.

  “She knows something. She’s holding back. I’ll bet on it,” Luna said with confidence. Her knowledge of body language coupled with her intuition made the odds that she was correct particularly good.

  Gaines looked at the other officers. “Hunt? Got it?”

  “Got it.” Hunt stood and went to the other room, where the missing teen’s sister sat nervously. She was fidgeting much too much for someone who wasn’t trying to hide something.

  Hunt entered the room and began questioning the sister, again pretending that she had no previous information. “I’m Sergeant Hunt. Marshal Gaines got called away. I hope you don’t mind going over the questions again. I need to get up to speed.” Hunt began with similar questions: “When did you see your brother last?” “Who was he with?” “Does he normally disappear for more than a day?” Hunt got the same answers as Gaines had. Then Hunt came to “Does your brother ever talk about his friends and what they usually do when they hang out?”

  The sister squirmed in her seat. “He likes to play video games.”

  “Who does he play with?”

  “A lot of people, like, online.”

  “Anyone local?”

  “Yeah. He hangs out with Don Guesser. They rigged up some WiFi in an old garage, like near Guesser’s father’s auto-body shop.”

  In the other room, Luna popped out a quiet, “Bingo.”

  A few minutes later, the sister was spilling her guts to Hunt about her brother’s transgressions and possible whereabouts. The sister knew exactly where her brother was and why. He was hiding out in the garage everyone presumed abandoned. Only he and Guesser knew about the secret gaming shack, and Guesser hadn’t yet been officially questioned. He was conveniently out of town visiting relatives. Then the why came out in a flood. Her brother owed another kid money for drugs.

  Gaines was standing behind where Luna was sitting. He put his hands on both her shoulders and gave them a gentle shake. “Bravo. Excellent work.”

  Luna spun around in the chair. For a nanosecond it felt like they were going to kiss each other with delight. “Case closed!” But it was an awkward moment. And there were other people in the room. Gaines was relieved he wasn’t alone with her. It was obvious that both of them felt a little clumsy, but the electricity between them was undeniable. It was the jolt. He finally recognized the feeling.

  Once the police retrieved the kid from the abandoned garage, they informed the pare
nts that he was safe and they should pick him up at the police station. They were relieved he was OK but furious when they knew why he had disappeared. Gaines and Luna agreed that there would be fireworks at that house later that night, and not the enjoyable kind.

  “How does a fifteen-year-old kid from a nice family get into debt with a local bully?” Luna asked.

  “Haven’t you noticed? We are becoming a culture in which there are few if any consequences for our actions.”

  “People forget about karma.” Luna sighed, then smiled.

  Gaines had finally realized that he was quite taken with Luna, but he would never admit it. He knew it wasn’t good policy to fraternize with coworkers even though she was technically a subcontractor. A consultant. Still.

  After the interview was over, Gaines invited Luna and two others from the office to grab a bite for dinner. Luna was happy to be spending more time with Gaines but disappointed she would have to share his company. But it was better than nothing.

  Over the next two years, they shared a few meals when they were working on a case, but it never led to anything. Gaines usually invited others to join them. He felt safer that way. Not that he thought Luna would do something to make him uncomfortable, but he wanted to avoid those tricky moments of sexual tension he felt when they were alone together.

  There was one night when he almost kissed her. Then he put on the brakes. They had a nice friendship and a good working relationship. He didn’t want to mess that up by coming on to her. Wouldn’t she have dropped a hint by now if she was interested? Then, much to his pleasant surprise, the mail arrived with a very artsy invitation to the grand opening of the Stillwell Art Center. He had heard about it from a number of sources, including Luna when he had seen her earlier in the year. It was an unexpected pleasure when he opened the invitation. He would definitely work it into his schedule. He was certain that he could figure out a number of excuses to be in the neighborhood.