Daylight Robbery (An Aspen Falls Novel)

by Melissa Pearl

  Pressing her forehead against his, she couldn’t fight her grin. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a really long time.”

  “You too, huh?”

  His husky voice made her heart flutter, and a giddy breath punched out between them.

  “What took us so long?” It was hard to form the words, her voice trembling with excitement and desire.

  “I don’t know,” Kellan whispered and dove for her mouth again.

  27

  Thursday, September 27th

  2:30am

  It was the dead of night and Leah had yet to sleep.

  She couldn’t stop thinking.

  Thinking about the police station. About that chief. About the pictures. About Bobby.

  What was truth? What was fiction?

  Had Robin been lying to her this whole time? Was he not their savior?

  Or was it the man with the pizza who was the big, fat liar? Was it Chief Marks, with his calm voice and easy attitude, who was trying to bullshit the truth out of her?

  Argh! It was so frustrating!

  Leah thumped her mattress, then peered into the darkness, hoping she hadn’t disturbed anybody. Her roommates remained silent, and she zoned in on the even sound of their breathing until she was satisfied they were all asleep.

  She’d had a thought, just after Robin came through to turn out all the lights.

  An idea.

  One that could get her in huge trouble if she got caught.

  But what if she didn’t get caught?

  Clenching her teeth, she sat up in the bed and eased the covers off her legs. She inched to the ladder and quietly descended, then crept out of the room. Her body was on high alert as she tiptoed down to the bunker and turned right.

  She didn’t dare turn on any lights, and the complete darkness in the tunnel nearly stopped her. It closed in fast, and her breath quickened as she fought off the shadowy demons that attacked her. It had always been this way. The darkness terrified her. Some people were afraid of heights, others afraid of spiders. For her, darkness was her greatest enemy.

  Stopping in the hall, she stood there panting until her brain found a voice loud enough to break through the fear.

  The darkness can’t hurt you. Get over yourself and find the truth!

  She drew in a ragged breath and inched forward.

  “The darkness can’t hurt me. The darkness can’t hurt me,” she whispered repeatedly while her eyes slowly adjusted. As she shuffled into the large training area, she heard the low hum of the computer equipment and was comforted by a few flashing lights that were constantly on. She focused on those and walked toward them, finding a chair and pulling it out.

  Her legs trembled as she perched on the edge of it, ready to bolt and hide if she needed to.

  They weren’t allowed to use the computers without permission. Stella would have her head. She was the tech-savvy one, and the computers were her babies. The woman could hack into anything and get whatever information they needed.

  If she caught Leah touching her stuff, Leah would never hear the end of it.

  “She’s in bed, asleep,” Leah gritted out between clenched teeth. “John’s in isolation. No one is going to catch you.”

  She kept repeating the words until her fingers stopped shaking and she was able to wake up the dormant computer screen. She didn’t really know what she was doing or how to get past Stella’s security walls. Shit, she was probably alerting Stella’s cell phone or something. She glanced over her shoulder, bracing herself for cursing and shouts down the corridor, but all she could hear was silence.

  She turned back to the screen and tried to think of viable passwords to break into the system. How many attempts would she have?

  Frustration mounted after only two failed attempts. Anger and fear were boiling together, a dangerous brew that was making her brain fuzzy.

  “Shit,” she mumbled, thumping the desk with her fist and trying to think.

  “You’ll be locked out permanently if you try that one more time.”

  Leah’s insides nearly came out of her mouth. She jerked in her seat, her pulse rocketing before she glanced over her shoulder and saw who it was.

  “Cricket,” she rasped and deflated into her chair. How had she not heard him coming?

  Her system was on overdrive, quickly trying to restore order after thinking she’d been busted.

  “What the hell are you doing? Was Robin not pissed enough at you this afternoon? Do you want a black eye and isolation?” Cricket’s whisper increased in volume with each sentence.

  She held up her hands to shush him, then pressed her finger against her lips.

  He huffed and glared at her. The light from the computer gave him a ghostly complexion, accentuating his frown even more.

  Cricket was worried for her.

  It was kind of sweet and so incredibly Cricket. He’d been her best friend ever since she got to this place. At first she was too scared to get to know him, but he just kept bringing her food and sitting next to her whenever he got a chance. He’d arrived a few months before her. Like her, his parents hadn’t wanted him. Robin had picked him up, a scraggly mess with cigarette burns on his torso and lice in his hair. Robin had cleaned him up and fed and clothed him. Cricket had soon fallen in love with his kind new father.

  His savior.

  Leah frowned. “I just need to know.”

  “Need to know what?”

  She bit her lips together. “The cop. The nice one who gave me pizza. He told me a story about his missing daughter. I just want to know if it’s true.”

  “What? Who cares?”

  “I care,” Leah snapped.

  Cricket huffed again and leaned down to get in her face. “Why?”

  Her eyebrows bunched and she struggled to voice her thoughts. Eventually she sighed and admitted, “I want to know if he was trying to trick me or not. Maybe he lied about his daughter to get me talking.”

  There was a pregnant, shocked pause before Cricket grabbed her shoulders. “You talked?”

  She blanched and quickly shook her head. “No. No, I didn’t, but I was…I was tempted. He was nice to me, Crick.”

  He didn’t seem to buy that. If Robin said cops were bad, then they were bad. Cricket would never question him, but for some reason he nudged her knee. “Move aside.”

  She followed his soft command and leaned over his shoulder as he quickly unlocked the computer.

  “How do you know this stuff?”

  “Stella’s been teaching me,” he muttered.

  Leah nodded, impressed by the speed of his fingers and the way he worked the computer.

  “What’s his name?”

  Leah didn’t answer right away. Instead she asked, “Why are you suddenly helping me?”

  He turned to look at her, his serious gaze in contrast with his wayward, bed hair. “Because I want to prove that he was tricking you. Robin’s the only man we can trust, Leah.”

  She swallowed and broke eye contact. Scratching the side of her nose, she then pointed back at the computer screen and murmured, “Kellan Marks. I want to find out if he had a daughter go missing…or if he was just lying to me.”

  Cricket swiveled in the chair and ran a quick search: Kellan Marks, missing child.

  It only took a moment for the screen to flash up with a bunch of articles from the Aspen Falls Daily and one from the Balsam Lake Courier.

  Lost in the woods. A tragic end to a little girl’s life.

  Marks family rocked by devastating loss.

  No happy ending this summer. Keep an eye on your children.

  “That one.” Leah pointed to the first article and Cricket clicked on it. They quickly read the first few paragraphs, figuring out times and dates of when the tragedy happened. There was a photo of two devastated parents holding each other and crying.

  Leah’s gut twisted as she looked at the heartbreaking images.

  A happy family to total destruction.

  The article was quite com
prehensive, and had obviously been written months after the incident.

  “Ten years ago.” Cricket mumbled the facts as he read them. “Killed by an animal.”

  “Just a theory,” Leah murmured along with him. “Keep going down the page. I want to read the rest.”

  Cricket glanced over his shoulder before spinning the top of the mouse. He let out an irritated huff. “It’s frozen. I hate it when it does this.” He muttered under his breath as he wiggled the mouse.

  “You can’t scroll down?”

  He shook his head and tapped the keyboard. “I’m going to have to restart the computer. You sure you want to read the rest?”

  Leah folded her arms, a cold sadness settling inside of her the same way it had when Chief Marks first told her about the tragedy.

  “I guess I’ve seen enough,” she whispered. “He wasn’t lying.”

  “Still doesn’t make him trustworthy.” The computer screen went black, and Cricket tapped his finger on the mouse.

  “Are you going back in?”

  “Just have to make sure the history is clear. Don’t want to leave a trace of my search behind.” As he waited for the computer to start back up, the niggle inside of Leah grew with intensity.

  Since he was going back in anyway…

  “There’s one more thing.” She held her breath, not sure whether to ask it or not.

  But if that cop hadn’t been lying about his missing daughter…maybe that picture on the bulletin board wasn’t a lie either.

  With a heavy sigh, Cricket entered the password and got back to the computer’s desktop. He then opened up an Internet browser and started checking the history. “What else do you want to know?”

  She swallowed. It sounded loud in the darkened room.

  Cricket looked over his shoulder, worry creasing his brow. “What is it?”

  “Can I trust you with a secret?”

  “Always.” She loved how fast his response was.

  She chewed her lip. “It’s big.”

  He sighed and rolled his eyes. “Just tell me already.”

  “Okay.” She licked her lips, rubbing her hands before gripping them together. “Okay. So, um, when I was at the station, I thought I saw a picture of Bobby.”

  Cricket’s head jerked back. “Bobby?”

  “Yeah.” She nodded, then swallowed.

  How would he take it?

  Would he believe her?

  “It was on the wall. This big bulletin board and it was…it was a missing child poster.”

  It took a moment for Cricket to absorb the information. His bony features contorted almost comically before he looked back at her and croaked. “What?”

  She wrung her hands. “I think someone’s looking for Bobby.”

  “No way.” Cricket shook his head, adamant. “Robin brought him in because he’d been abandoned. He saved him, just like he saved all of us.”

  Leah cringed, doubt warring with the ingrained belief that Cricket was right. “Can we just look, please?”

  Cricket shook his head again.

  “Come on, Crick. Please.” Her pleading look must have been a good one, because he capitulated after another heavy sigh.

  She couldn’t make out what he was muttering under his breath, but she chose to ignore it. Her need for answers was stronger than her need for approval.

  With staccato strokes, Cricket typed in: Bobby missing child.

  A few articles popped up. Most of them were about fifteen years old. A kid called Bobby Hoffman had gone missing in Florida. There’d been a nationwide search, but he was never found. Cricket clicked on images and a child they didn’t recognize popped up on the screen.

  “Told you.” Cricket scoffed. “Are you happy now?”

  “No, wait.” Leah touched his arm, her brain buzzing with excitement. “That’s not his name.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He liked being called Arnie. Remember, when he first got here, he kept saying it. ‘My name’s Arnie,’ but Robin was like, ‘No, buddy, you’re Bobby.’ Robin wouldn’t let us call him Arnie or Arnold or any of that.”

  “Because his name’s Bobby,” Cricket clipped. “You know Robin hates pretend stuff.”

  Leah bit back her frustration and calmly said, “Could you just please try Arnold or Arnie.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  She lightly slapped his arm. “Try it!”

  Cricket flinched and huffed some more, hitting keys and finally bringing up a search that got them the hit Leah was looking for.

  Arnold Watson - Disappeared five months ago from Tramway Park, Solomon, MN.

  “Five months,” Leah whispered, quickly working out the timeline. That was right. Shit, that was right! “Bring up his picture.”

  Cricket’s fingers shook as he clicked on the Images button and a cute shot of Bobby popped onto the screen.

  “Holy shit,” Leah murmured.

  Cricket quickly went to the history and started deleting his tracks. He was obviously shutting down the computer for good this time.

  “What are you doing? I wanted to read about it.”

  “No.” Cricket sliced his hand through the air. “That’s bullshit. Robin wouldn’t steal a kid. It’s probably some abusive family just trying to get Robin into trouble.”

  “Bobby wasn’t abused.” Leah frowned. “He doesn’t have a scar on him.”

  Cricket tensed and she instantly regretted her words. Cricket’s body was peppered with scars, nightmare reminders of what he’d suffered before Robin rescued him.

  So sure, Robin had done good there.

  But had he always done good?

  What if he’d taken Bobby mistakenly? What if he thought Bobby had needed rescuing when he really hadn’t?

  She slammed her hand down on the desk, stopping Cricket from turning off the screen. “Why are you so sure about everything Robin does?”

  Cricket slowly turned to look at her, obviously appalled by her doubts. “Why aren’t you? He found you terrified on the side of the road. You were practically starving to death. He rescued you. You owe him your life!”

  Cricket flicked off the screen and launched out of his seat, leaning over her in the darkness. She could only make out the outline of his face, but felt his breath as he whispered, “I won’t say anything to anyone about this. I don’t want you getting in trouble. But don’t do something stupid, Leah. We have a good life here. We’re fed, we’re clothed, we’re looked after. Robin loves us.” He sucked in a ragged breath, then pulled her into a hug. His hold was tight and unrelenting. “I don’t want you to disappear. I don’t want you to get kicked off the farm.”

  Leah quickly shushed him as his voice began to tremble.

  Rubbing slow circles between his shoulder blades, she kept up the movement until he went still. Finally relaxed, he pulled away from her, taking her hand and tugging her out of the bunker. “Let’s get back to bed before we get caught.”

  When they reached the bottom of the stairs, he pulled her into a quick embrace.

  She wanted to tell him that she’d let this whole thing go.

  But she couldn’t.

  She couldn’t promise him anything, because she’d been right about Bobby’s photo.

  She’d read that headline.

  Bobby hadn’t been rescued by Robin.

  He’d been taken.

  28

  Thursday, September 27th

  6:30am

  A soft buzzing pierced Kellan’s slumber, reaching through that floating numbness and pulling him into the present. As his system woke up for the day, his body began to register that something was different.

  His neck was at a slightly odd angle, and his body hurt from the awkward position he was in. There was a weight pressing down on his chest.

  But it felt good.

  His arms were wrapped around another body.

  A body that just let out a soft, contented moan.

  Kellan’s eyes pinged open, suddenly alert. He scanned his sur
roundings and quickly filled in the blanks.

  He was in Melina’s living room, on her couch. She was sleeping against him.

  And they were both clothed.

  A weird sense of relief washed over him. Not that he wouldn’t love to be naked with the stunning woman lying against him; it was just that he hadn’t been naked with any woman since Carrie. That was ten years. Ten long, dry years of protecting himself from potential heartache, of raised barriers and focusing on work. His body was a desert, and it’d been that way for so long that he was almost scared he’d forgotten how to do it.

  He let out a shaky breath before realizing that the soft buzzing was coming from the side table next to the couch.

  His phone.

  He reached behind him, not wanting to disturb Melina, and grappled to pick it up. He nearly dropped it in his rush. Melina stirred and started to move away from him, but he instinctively pulled her closer.

  She glanced up with a sleepy smile and nestled back against his chest as he finally answered his phone.

  “Hello,” he rasped, his first words of the morning feeling like hard work.

  “Kellan? Oh, honey, did I wake you? I’m terrible with my timing.”

  An instant smile spread across his face as he leaned his head back and relaxed. “Don’t worry about it, Mom. I needed to wake up anyway.” He glanced at his watch, still reeling from the fact that he’d spent the night with Melina.

  Damn, it felt so good waking up beside her that he didn’t think he’d ever be satisfied in his own house again.

  “I just thought I’d call you and see how things were going.” His mom’s voice was bright and direct, the way it always was. Lynn Marks was the strongest woman he knew. She’d held him up when he fell apart after Carrie left, and she wouldn’t let him give in when he wanted to quit on everything.

  If it wasn’t for her, Kellan didn’t know what would have become of him.

  She pushed him to stay on the force. She pulled him out from under his black clouds and helped him find focus and direction when his world was splintering.