by B. J Daniels
She could tell there was a whole lot more Buzz wasn’t saying. He acted nervous, twirling the pencil at Mach-two speed.
“You have no idea why he was acting strangely?”
Buzz shrugged. “You know Lucas.”
She’d thought so. “I heard he was in some sort of trouble. Financial trouble.”
Buzz seemed to squirm in his seat. “Who told you that?”
“Does it matter?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t know anything about Lucas’s personal life,” he said.
It was an obvious lie. She tried a different approach. “This new game he was working on—what kind of game was it?”
Buzz twirled his pencil and shrugged. “I really can’t say. This is a very competitive market.”
“Really? I’m surprised you don’t have more security, then.” As far as she could tell, they didn’t have any.
“It’s never been a problem before Friday night.”
“How did the burglar get in?” she asked.
“Broke in through a service entrance downstairs.”
She raised an eyebrow. “No computer equipment was taken? Then it could have been just kids?”
He shook his head. “The only office broken into was Lucas’s. The only game taken was his new design.”
She let that sink in. “So any games he developed while he worked here were the partnership’s property?”
“That’s right,” he said. “Look, I can’t imagine what any of this has to do with Lucas’s disappearance. It seems pretty obvious what’s going on.”
She waited for him to continue because nothing seemed obvious to her.
“Since you’ll probably find this out, anyway—Whiz Kidz is having a little financial trouble.”
She could tell it was hard for Buzz, the original whiz kid, to admit that.
“Actually, we might have to declare bankruptcy.”
“Really?” she said.
“So Lucas skipped out, taking his new game design, leaving me holding the bag.” His tone reeked of bitterness.
“Did you have any insurance on the two of you in case something happened to one or the other?” she asked.
Buzz’s eyes narrowed. “You think I killed him?” He laughed harshly as if the idea had crossed his mind. “The insurance was the first thing that had to go. Lucas’s death wouldn’t benefit me in any way.”
So much for that theory. “What about his other games? He didn’t take them?”
“Why would he? They’re all dogs. Bow-wow.”
She stared at him. “Not all of his games were dogs, right?”
“Well, let’s just say none of Lucas’s games made any real money.”
“None?” She sounded like a parrot. She hoped Will was doing better than she was.
“It seems Lucas has no talent for computer games,” Buzz said even more acerbically. “And my games haven’t done well enough to carry the entire business.”
“What about his latest game?”
Buzz scoffed. “I don’t think he was even working on a game. I think he was just stringing me along like everyone else.”
“Everyone else?”
He realized his mistake. “I think Lucas might have owed money to some people.”
“Why didn’t you dissolve the partnership a long time ago if Lucas was such a drain?”
“The only way out of the partnership was to buy the other person out, and obviously neither of us could afford to do that.”
The plot thickened. “So that’s why you think he took off—because he didn’t have the money to buy you out or a game that was going to bail out Whiz Kidz?”
“Oh, I think he did more than that,” Buzz said. “I think he faked the break-in. He wanted everyone to think someone was after him and that he is now floating at the bottom of the Sound in cement shoes.”
She didn’t like that image. “Where do you think he is?”
“Far away from here,” Buzz said, and suddenly looked angry enough to kill. “Believe me, we won’t be seeing him again.”
She got to her feet, afraid that was true. “You don’t mind if I take a look around Lucas’s office, do you?”
She could see he did mind. But for some reason his expression changed.
“There’s nothing in there to see, but help yourself. It’s the third door on your left.”
“Let me give you my card,” she said, “in case you should hear from Lucas or think of anything else that might help.”
He took her card with obvious reluctance. “I won’t be hearing from Lucas.” Without looking at the card, he dropped it on his desk. “It’s too bad about the boy, though.”
“Yes,” she said as she left, closing the door behind her. Down the hall she spotted Will. He gave her the high sign that he’d finished his part and pointed to a room down the hall on the right.
As she passed the third office on the left—the one Buzz had said was Lucas’s—she looked in. Empty. Obviously it hadn’t been used for some time, judging by the layer of dust on the desk and computer. Why had Buzz lied?
She went down the hall to where Will waited for her. “Are you sure this was Lucas’s?” she whispered as she peered into the office he indicated. It had a small outer office with a slightly larger office facing the street, complete with a window.
The office was empty, as if it recently had been cleaned.
Will didn’t answer, but ushered her to the elevator. Just then, the elevator doors opened and a postman started to step off. Either he wasn’t used to seeing many people on this floor, or they startled him. A small square package balancing precariously on top of his load slid off. He reached for it, but missed. It hit the floor.
Will picked it up and handed it back to the embarrassed postman.
“Thanks. I guess I was gathering wool,” he said, and scurried down the hall toward Buzz’s office.
“So did you find anything?” Sam asked the moment they were out of the building.
“Zack’s key definitely is like the ones that fit the other offices,” Will said.
She looked at him in surprise. “Then how did you know that that particular one was Lucas’s office?”
“Because it appears both doors were replaced after the break-in.” He nodded at her surprised look. “Whoever burglarized the office must have broke down both doors.”
“Does that seem odd to you?” she asked.
“Very,” he said. “But since they were partners it makes sense that Lucas would have had his name on the door, right?”
“Right.” She repeated what Buzz had told her. “Buzz is convinced all of this is just a stunt to allow Lucas to get out of his responsibilities.” The thought scared her because of the phone message. It seemed pretty obvious now that Lucas had wanted her to take care of Zack.
“But why would Lucas go to the trouble of breaking into the building, then knocking down both doors to his office, when he still had a key?” Will asked.
“Because he didn’t break into his office?” she asked, feeling a chill. “Or he did and purposely tried to make it look like a break-in. In that case, he really did stage his own disappearance, just as Buzz suspects.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Will didn’t need to ask Samantha what she believed. It was obvious she was holding out for Lucas’s innocence but having a hard time based on what she’d learned about the man. He felt for her. He knew only too well what it was like to realize a person wasn’t who you thought they were. Only, in his case he was learning that Samantha Murphy was a hell of a lot more woman than anything he’d imagined at the party just days before.
“Where to?” he asked, as they climbed back into the truck.
“Lucas’s apartment,” she said, gazing out the window as if lost in thought. Or just lost.
They drove in silence through the dense morning traffic. Lucas’s apartment was in Fremont, a funky little community with brightly colored shops and interesting architecture. Samantha had an address she’d gotten from the head nurse at
the Lazy Rest in Wolf Point, but couldn’t be sure it wasn’t old.
It turned out to be part of a gray, wood-framed four-plex on a green hillside.
Will watched the street while Samantha tried Zack’s key. The apartment door opened, and he quickly followed her inside.
A wall of stale, damp air hit him in the face. That and the distinct smell of something spoiled.
“Oh, no,” he heard Samantha say in front of him.
He glanced over her shoulder as she clicked on an overhead light. The apartment had been ransacked, but since there wasn’t much to trash, it wasn’t too bad. The place was small and had been sparsely furnished. The bare white walls would have given it an abandoned, empty feel even if the rest of the furnishings hadn’t been so minimal. Will was struck with the thought that when Lucas left here, he hadn’t planned to come back.
He glanced over at Sam and saw that she’d come to the same conclusion. She tossed down a worn couch cushion she’d picked up, then swore as she stepped into the living room.
A desk dominated the room, making the couch and single chair appear out of place. Computer magazines smothered the coffee table along with several dirty coffee cups that had made dark rings on the covers. A large computer sat on the desk, but someone had broken into the back of the computer and destroyed whatever had been inside it.
“I’m going to look upstairs,” Samantha said. “I thought we’d pick up some of Zack’s things while we are here, if there are any left.”
He glanced in the kitchen and bathroom, and then followed her up the stairs to the two bedrooms. All of Lucas’s clothing was gone, his bedroom stripped of everything but the bed and bedding.
As Will looked around, he realized what had been bothering him about this place. There weren’t any nails in the walls. No dents or screw holes or faded areas where anything had hung. No framed photos or mementos gathering dust anywhere. Even the clutter looked impersonal.
Zack needs a real home, he thought, and jerked back from the idea. Sam would find him one.
He brightened as he stepped into Zack’s room. It looked like a kid’s space. The walls were covered with drawings and paintings, all in the hand of a child—a unique child with an active imagination.
“Hey, Zack’s quite the artist,” he called to Samantha, who was still searching Lucas’s bedroom.
He could imagine Zack drawing this stuff. It made him feel a little better about the kid’s upbringing. It also reminded him of when he used to draw a lot. It had been years since he’d drawn anything by hand. Everything was on computer now. Funny, he hadn’t realized how much he missed the feel of a plain white sheet of paper or the smell of a freshly sharpened pencil.
Zack’s room had been ransacked, as well. At least, he thought it had. There were clothes and toys strewn on the floor; the bed sheets were torn from the bed and all the bureau drawers were pulled out.
He noticed then that the toy box, headboard and chest of drawers all matched and looked like relics of another boy’s past—no doubt Lucas’s. Something about that made Will think that Lucas had cared for the boy. His feelings toward Lucas softened a little.
He went through the drawers, pulled out clothes for Zack and piled them on the bare mattress. After a moment, he sensed Samantha behind him and turned.
She stood, silhouetted against the light coming from Lucas’s room. She looked so good framed like that in the doorway. Even tired and discouraged, she looked great. He knew he could be by her side in two strides, lift her into his arms and carry her to the small bed as if she were weightless.
“Did you find anything?” he asked, his voice sounding a little hoarse even to his ears.
She shook her head. “Was there something else that Zack might want us to get for him while we’re here?”
He dragged his gaze from her to the room. “There are quite a few toys—mostly old, though.”
She came into the room, stirring up the molecules of air around him, causing some sort of odd barometric pressure disturbance in the room as she moved to the bed to pick up the clothing he’d stacked there.
It was all he could do not to reach for her. Visions of the two of them making love glided effortlessly into his head. But not here. Not in Lucas’s apartment.
When she turned, what he saw in her gaze welded him to the floor.
“Will?”
Her voice was a whisper, ragged and husky. Her eyes were a magnificent blue, as deep and warm as the Caribbean Sea. Taking a dip in them seemed inevitable—
The phone rang, jarring him out of his lascivious thoughts. Samantha seemed to start, too. She moaned softly and blinked a couple of times as if coming out of some sort of haze.
He followed her down the stairs to where the phone hung on the wall of the kitchen. She picked up the receiver on the third ring and handed it to him, mouthing, Just say hello.
“Hello?”
She moved close to him to listen. A fuzzy silence hummed through the line. He could feel her body heat, smell her scent.
“Who is this?” a female voice demanded.
“Who is this?” Will asked. “You called me.”
“It’s Mercedes. I’m looking for Lucas.”
Wasn’t everyone?
“Funny you should call,” Samantha said, taking the phone. “I was planning to call you.”
* * *
MERCEDES PALMER LIVED in West Seattle in a condo overlooking Elliott Bay.
She greeted Sam and Will at the door in a god-awful brilliant red sarong. She was slim and small with a figure that had to have taken a lot of work. Her hair was cut in a pageboy and dyed a red that perfectly matched the sarong.
“I figured I’d be seeing you eventually,” Lucas’s second ex said resignedly.
“This is Will Sheridan,” Sam said, not feeling compelled to say more—and Mercedes didn’t ask. She did, however, give Will the once-over. Sam felt a pang of jealousy so strong she wanted to sock Mercedes.
“Come on in,” the woman said, not sounding the least bit hospitable. They stepped in, and Sam noticed that Mercedes glanced down the street as if looking for someone. Zack? Lucas?
The condo was painted all white, the only color accent being the sarong worn by its occupant.
Mercedes motioned to a blindingly white pair of chairs by the window before she sprawled dramatically on the couch in movie-star fashion.
“So have you found him?”
“Zack or Lucas?” Sam asked as she took one of the chairs. Will sat in the other.
Mercedes frowned. “Is Zack missing, too?”
“Not anymore,” she said. “Do you have any idea where Lucas is?”
“No, why ask me?”
“Because as I understand it, the ink on your divorce isn’t even dry,” she said.
She got the reaction she’d hoped for.
Mercedes’s eyes narrowed. “Cassie, of course, told you that.” She waved a hand through the air as if it didn’t matter. “Lucas and I haven’t lived together for months.”
“Look, I don’t care about your living arrangements or your divorce. I want to find Lucas. I know he’s in some sort of trouble, because he wouldn’t just take off and leave Zack.”
The redhead seemed to study her, then Will. Will was looking around the apartment with anything but enthusiasm.
Mercedes let out a sigh and sat up, tucking her legs under her. “Did Cassie tell you that Lucas was some kind of great father?” She let out a laugh. “Always had his eyes glued to a computer screen. The boy was an absolute tear, but Lucas was too busy to tend to him. You know the kid steals?”
“I’ve noticed that,” she admitted, not liking the picture Mercedes was painting of Lucas or Zack.
“He’s incorrigible.”
Again, she wondered if Mercedes was talking about Lucas or Zack. “Are you saying Lucas doesn’t care about Zack?”
“Oh, I think he loved the kid in his way even under the circumstances,” she said cryptically. “Which you have to admit are odd as he
ll.”
She noted how Mercedes used the past tense when she referred to Lucas, as if he were already dead. No doubt he was to her.
“What circumstances?”
Mercedes gave her a surely-you-of-all-people-should-know look. “Lucas wasn’t Zack’s real father.”
Sam felt the air rush out of her lungs. She gaped at Mercedes, acutely aware that Will was doing the same thing. “What?” she breathed.
Mercedes smiled, feline-like. “Cassie was pregnant with another man’s baby.”
The floor seemed to drop out from under Sam. Hadn’t she once hoped that the baby Cassie carried wasn’t Lucas’s? That Cassie had tricked Lucas into marrying her? That Cassie had already been pregnant the night she went to bed with Lucas?
“That bitch,” Sam said without even realizing it. “She tricked him.”
Mercedes laughed, obviously pleased with the reaction. “Cassie wasn’t above deceiving him into marrying her, but it wasn’t like that. She made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. Pretend he’d fathered her baby in exchange for everything Lucas wanted. Money, a software business of his own, instant gratification—that was Lucas.”
Sam stared at the woman openmouthed. No. Mercedes was just bitter. She was making this all up. “There is no way Lucas—”
“Zack got hurt a few months ago and had to have blood,” Mercedes said impatiently. “He has a rare blood type. Lucas called Cassie, desperate because he couldn’t give the boy blood because he wasn’t related to him. Cassie didn’t have the right type, either—”
Sam felt as if her heart might leap out of her chest. “Who did?”
“That’s the question, isn’t it? Who is the real father of Cassie’s son?”
“You don’t know?” Sam asked.
Mercedes flipped her red hair back. “A blood donor turned up, so the father was never brought in. But I can tell you one thing—whoever he was, Cassie really was in love with him.”
Sam found that hard to believe. “Right.”
“Seriously, I think it’s why she gave up Zack the way she did. The kid reminded her of the guy. I know for a fact that she’d have married him in a heartbeat, but she found out he’d fallen head over heels for some gal. I don’t think she ever told him about the baby.”