Mysterious Montana

by B. J Daniels

  That didn’t sound like Cassie. Sam tried to remember who her roommate had been dating back then, but there’d been too many guys. None had lasted long. Then a memory struck her of Cassie flirting with Lucas’s friend—

  “You don’t think it could be Bradley Guess?”

  “Formerly known as Arnold Zingler, Buzz and nerd extraordinaire?” Mercedes shook her head. “Too geeky for her.”

  “Surely Lucas knew who the father was.”

  Mercedes smiled—pure Cheshire cat—and shook her head. “It was part of the deal. Not that Lucas wanted to know.”

  Was it possible that Lucas had really made such a deal with Cassie? Was he that desperate for money, a computer business of his own? “Why, if Zack wasn’t even Lucas’s, would he agree to keep the boy when Cassie left?”

  “Keeping Zack was also part of the deal. Cassie wanted that part of her life behind her. Whoever Zack’s father is, he broke her heart big-time.”

  Sam didn’t like the satisfaction she heard in Mercedes’s voice. She’d often wondered what kind of father Lucas was. Not the kind she’d thought, that much was obvious. She felt sick. How was it possible to be in love with a man and not even know him?

  Because she’d made him up, just as Will had made her up based on a woman he saw at a party. She glanced at Will. Talk about a pair of fools!

  “How do you know this?” she asked shakily, wondering if she was the only one they’d kept in the dark, the only one they’d betrayed.

  “I didn’t find out until after I married the jerk. Just like I didn’t know about his gambling problem or what that kid was like.”

  “Gambling?”

  Mercedes smiled as if to say, What kind of detective are you, anyway? “Surely you know about his online trading?”

  “I’d heard he might have been in a little over his head.”

  Mercedes snorted. “When people come to your door to break your legs, you’re in a little more than over your head.”

  “Did someone come to break his legs?” she asked, trying to keep the shock out of her voice.

  Mercedes waved a hand through the air again as if big burly men were always knocking at the door wanting to hurt Lucas over his debts.

  “Is that why you divorced him?”

  “One of many reasons,” the faux redhead said, not bothering to hide her bitterness. “Lucas kept expecting me to bail him out. Funny how he only married women with money, don’t you think?”

  The words stung. Sam’s family wasn’t rich, but they weren’t poor, either. Obviously she hadn’t had enough to offer Lucas.

  “I cut my losses and got the hell out,” Mercedes was saying. “Are you happy now that you know the whole ugly story?”

  Not really. But did she know the whole story? Cassie had said Zack was the problem between Mercedes and Lucas, and that it had been Mercedes who wanted more money in the divorce settlement. But it seemed Mercedes had her own money. Or a boyfriend with money.

  Sam glanced around. The condo was certainly posh and had a view of the water. And Mercedes didn’t look as if she were headed for the poorhouse. That dye job alone must have set her back a good hundred and fifty.

  “Then you think Lucas is on the lam because of his debts?” she asked.

  Mercedes shrugged as if she couldn’t care less. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he turned up in the Sound wearing concrete slippers.”

  Sam shivered, feeling as cold as the frigid decor. That was the second time today someone had suggested that scenario. But Mercedes’s lack of interest in Lucas’s fate chilled her more. Worse yet was the woman’s lack of interest in Zack. She hadn’t even asked about the boy.

  Sam glanced over at Will. He looked a little cold himself. Then a thought struck her. “Why did you call Lucas’s apartment today if you knew he was missing?”

  “Because of the damn package I just got in the mail,” Mercedes snapped, and got up to retrieve a small square white box from the top of the desk in the corner. “He’s not involving me in any of his deals. Not again. I don’t want anything to do with whatever he’s up to this time.”

  She practically threw the box at Sam, and then dusted off her hands as if she felt dirty just touching it. She went back to her original position on the couch. “It’s all yours,” she said. “After all, you’re the detective, right? So find Lucas and tell him to go straight to hell. And if you should see Cassie—Never mind. I’d rather tell her myself.”

  That was succinct enough.

  Sam folded back the flaps on the box, not surprised to see a computer CD game box inside, the name Catastrophe painted across the black cover in what looked like blood.

  Just as Cassie had said, there was a note included. It read,

  In case something should happen to me, and you receive this package, take the CD to the police and tell them it is one of five pieces. They will understand why the game is so important once they put the pieces together. For your own safety, do not keep this piece of the game.

  Cryptic as a computer game.

  “I can’t imagine why he’d send anything to me,” Mercedes was saying.

  Sam couldn’t, either.

  “Just get it out of here,” the redhead said. “I’m sick to death of Lucas’s games.”

  Sam got up, feeling it was time to go. Will was already on his feet.

  “Any idea who got the other pieces?” he asked.

  Mercedes swung her gaze over to him. She seemed to soften. Or maybe it was just Sam’s imagination.

  “No, nor do I care.”

  “Cassie seems to think the game might be worth millions,” Samantha said, throwing out a little bait.

  Mercedes snorted. “Greed is such an ugly trait. Cassie has already tried to buy my piece from me.”

  It definitely was time to go. “Thanks for your help. If you hear anything—”

  “I won’t,” Mercedes said, not bothering to get up. “Lucas knows better than to call me.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  Will opened the door for them, and Sam hurried out, thankful for the warmth of the rainy day outside. She practically raced down the steps, running from Mercedes’s uncaring coldness, running from the image the woman had painted of Lucas. Was it possible he was an uninterested father, a man who married only for money and a compulsive gambler in over his head?

  She could forgive him for a lot. Even for betraying her love five years ago to make a deal with the devil. But how could he betray a boy he’d raised as his own son? How could he put Zack in danger?

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Will didn’t know what to say as he followed Samantha to the pickup. She was obviously upset. He knew that having him here didn’t help matters. It was one thing to be jilted; it was another to learn that the jilter had done it for money. If that were true.

  “Mercedes might have a reason to lie,” he said, an understatement if ever there was one.

  “Too bad it had a ring of truth to it, huh?” she said as she climbed into the truck and looked out at Elliott Bay.

  The dark gray water didn’t do much to pick up the mood. Nor could Will think of anything to say to make Sam feel better. All he could do as he started the pickup was damn Lucas O’Brien, wherever he was. It didn’t seem enough, under the circumstances.

  “I feel like a fool,” Samantha said in a small voice after they’d driven a few miles.

  He laughed. “We’ve all been there.” He glanced over at her.

  She returned his smile with a tentative one of her own. “What a jerk.”

  “He couldn’t have been all bad,” Will heard himself say. “Look at Zack. He’s a good kid. He needs a little guidance, but he’ll be okay.”

  Her smile broadened. “He is a great kid, isn’t he?” She sobered. “If Lucas isn’t Zack’s natural father, then who is? Not only could Cassie come forward and try to take Zack, but so could his father.”

  He nodded, having already thought of that when they were in the Ice Tomb with Princess Mercedes. “It se
ems pretty obvious why Cassie wants Zack after all this time. If the father suddenly appears—”

  “Lucas’s stupid game,” Samantha said, looking down at the box resting in her lap. “Damn Lucas.”

  He seconded that emotion as he drove back toward the city, wondering what to do next. They seemed to have run out of leads, and were running out of time, as well. The more they learned, the deeper in trouble Zack seemed to be. Will tried not to think about Zack waiting for them back at Charley’s, or the bike he’d promised the boy. He couldn’t bear the thought of turning the kid over to the authorities. He had a suspicion that the moment they did, Cassie would suddenly materialize. Or Zack’s father would show up with proof of paternity.

  “Five pieces of the game,” Samantha said. “Cassie and Mercedes each got one. That leaves three.”

  A memory came to him like a lightbulb going on in his head as he glanced at the small white box in her lap. “How was that package sent?”

  She glanced down. “It looks like it came by Special Delivery.”

  “Remember the postman we passed in the hallway at Whiz Kidz? The box he dropped when we startled him at the elevator?”

  She sat up a little. “I remember. You picked it up and handed it to him.”

  Will nodded. “It could have been the twin to the one you’re holding.”

  “Tell me it was addressed to Bradley Guess.”

  “No,” he said, suddenly deflated. “It was addressed to someone named Arnold something.”

  “Arnold Zingler?”

  “Yeah,” he said, and looked over at her. “I take it you know him?”

  “Guess! He changed his name to Bradley Guess when he and Lucas started Whiz Kidz. In college everyone called him Buzz. So he got a copy of the game? How about that? Three down, two to go.”

  She sounded a little more upbeat. He wished he felt the same way.

  He pulled up to a stop sign and rubbed the back of his neck. Why did he feel as if he was waiting for the other shoe to drop?

  * * *

  SAM FELT A SURGE of new hope. Lucas had sent a copy of the game to his partner. Not under his new name, but under the one Lucas had known him by back in college. Did that have any significance? She thought it might. Especially if Lucas suspected Buzz might be Zack’s father.

  She recalled how Buzz hadn’t enquired about Zack, and felt cold inside. What had he said as she was leaving? Something like, “It’s too bad about the boy.” Now those words seemed to take on added meaning.

  She stared out at the rainy day, all the more determined to protect Zack, no matter what. She pulled out her cell phone to call Charley and see how Zack was doing, and remembered that she’d turned it off while she was in Mercedes’s condo.

  She had a message. Cassie? Until that moment, she hadn’t realized that she’d been waiting for Cassie to call again. Sam knew Cassie would be looking for Lucas and the game pieces. So Sam was sure she’d be hearing from her former roommate. Only this time, Sam was looking forward to the confrontation. It had been coming for five years.

  But the message was from Charley, and it was urgent.

  “Charley called,” she told Will as she hurriedly dialed the number, her fingers shaking.

  Charley answered on the first ring, and she knew by the tone of his voice that something was terribly wrong.

  “Is Zack—”

  “Zack’s fine,” he said quickly. “They just pulled a car from the Sound, Sam. There was a body inside, pretty decomposed.”

  She held her breath, knowing what he was going to say.

  “They have a positive ID. It’s Lucas O’Brien. The car is registered to him and the identification found on the body is his, as well. He’d been shot twice at close range with a .38.”

  Just like Al.

  “The coroner thinks the body has been in the water since Friday.”

  The day Zack was kidnapped. The day Lucas disappeared. He’s been dead this whole time.

  She closed her eyes, squeezing the phone tightly. She couldn’t have seen him on the ferry, after all. “Did you tell Zack?”

  “No, I figured you’d want to do that.”

  “We’ll be right there.”

  * * *

  ONE LOOK AT HER and Will’s heart took off at a sprint. “Has something happened to Zack?”

  “It’s Lucas.”

  He listened as she related what Charley had told her.

  “I’m sorry, Sam,” he said, feeling at a loss as to how to help her.

  “Amazing how people pass through our lives, some of them barely making a ripple, and others—”

  She shook her head again and he reached for her, knowing exactly what she meant. Samantha Murphy was one of those people who’d made more than a ripple in his life. And for a man who liked smooth waters—He pulled over and drew her to him. She buried her face in his shoulder, and he cradled her in his arms and damned Lucas O’Brien’s soul.

  “We need to tell Zack,” she said into his shirt.

  He nodded, and she sat up, straightening and drying her eyes. He got the pickup going again and headed for the ferry, sick at heart for Zack. And Samantha.

  * * *

  CHARLEY MET HER at the door and hugged her tightly. “You all right?”

  She nodded. He seemed to study her, and she knew he was wondering how she could still care for a guy like Lucas O’Brien. She couldn’t have explained her feelings to him any more than she could to herself. She’d loved a man she thought was Lucas, and that man had died for her long before his body was pulled from the Sound.

  She’d cried less for that loss than for Zack’s. He’d lost his father. Even if Lucas hadn’t been his biological father. Even if Lucas hadn’t been a great father. Zack had lost the only father he’d known.

  “Where is he?” she asked.

  Charley motioned toward the family room at the end of the hall. She could hear laughter and the sound of some sort of toy. As she neared, she saw that they played with a large racetrack. Tiny cars careered along the track, some flying off occasionally to a roar of laughter.

  “Zack—?”

  She felt Will’s large, warm hand on her back. It sent a surge of something strong and powerful through her, something she didn’t dare put a name to.

  “Will and I need to talk to you a moment.”

  Zack frowned and instantly looked anxious. At least he’d had a few short hours to play and be a five-year-old without the weight of the world on his small shoulders.

  “What is it?” he asked in a tiny voice.

  “Come on, kids,” Charley said. “I need your help.” His children groaned and complained as Charley herded them out of the room and closed the door behind them.

  Zack looked up at her, his brown eyes filled with worry.

  “I have some bad news,” she said, kneeling to take his thin shoulders in her hands. “Your dad—”

  “He isn’t coming back, is he?” Zack said, and looked up at Will.

  “No, son,” Will said. “He isn’t.”

  The boy swallowed, tears pooling in his eyes as he nodded. “I didn’t think so.”

  She drew him into her arms and hugged his small, frail body tightly. “I’m so sorry, Zack.” His body felt stiff in her arms, as if he might break if she hugged him too hard. She pulled back to look into his face. Pain darkened his eyes; his lower lip quivered. He was trying so hard not to cry. Trying so hard to be that tough-guy. Her heart broke just looking at him.

  “Oh, Zack—”

  She shot Will a pleading look.

  Oh, hell. He swallowed the lump in his throat and nodded. She stood and moved back.

  Will pulled up a chair, sick at heart at the sight of the little boy standing in the middle of the room. He sat down and motioned for Zack to join him, realizing he was in way over his head here. What did he know about kids—let alone handling something like this? But he saw himself in Zack, in the way the child was trying so hard to be strong.

  “You all right?”

 
; Zack nodded and moved toward him slowly.

  “I lost my father when I was a kid, too,” he said conversationally.

  Zack’s eyes widened a little. “Really?”

  Will nodded. “I was nine, though, so I was older than you are. I remember trying really hard not to cry.”

  Zack didn’t say anything, but he inched closer.

  “I wanted to cry but I thought I had to be tough, you know.”

  The boy nodded and came to stand at the edge of the overstuffed chair. “My daddy had to go away,” Zack said solemnly.

  Will looked at the boy, afraid to move or breathe or speak for fear Zack might not say any more. “I’m sorry about that.” It was all he could think to say.

  Tears pooled in Zack’s eyes. “He said I had to be strong and brave.”

  Will thought his heart would break. “You are definitely a strong, brave kid, I can tell you that.”

  The boy looked up at him for confirmation.

  Will nodded.

  He could see Zack’s lower lip trembling, the tears spilling—He glanced up at Samantha, but she motioned for him to keep going. He pulled the boy up on his lap and surrounded him with his arms. The rigid little body began to soften, then to jerk with gut-wrenching sobs that Will suspected the boy had been holding back for a long time.

  Will just held him in his arms and rubbed the trembling back with the flat of his hand.

  After a while, Zack straightened and rubbed at his swollen red eyes. “Are you ever scared?” he asked in a little-boy voice.

  “Are you kidding? I’ve been so scared sometimes my knees knock.”

  Zack stared at him, disbelieving.

  “Sometimes I think I’m going to throw up. Or cry.”

  The boy looked skeptical.

  “Everyone cries when they’re hurt or sad. Even me. And everyone is afraid sometimes. Even Sam.”

  Zack really wasn’t buying that. “My daddy’s not coming back ever?”

  “No, Zack, he’s not. But I do know that he’d come back if he could, and I think you know that, too, right?”