“Well, shit.” Darby’s mind was racing a mile a minute. “What if he divorces me?”
Jack shook his head. “Same problem.”
“Then how do I get him out of my life?” she asked.
“I read in the newspaper that you were ROTC and a sharpshooter. Why’d they have you training search-and-rescue dogs?”
“Every member of my family has done military service,” she explained. “And I am a good shot. But in those days women weren’t placed in combat roles. Are you saying I should have killed him?”
“Better plan than this mess you’ve gotten yourself into.”
“Except then I’d have to explain to my daughter that I killed her father.”
“And that’s better than explaining to her why Daddy beats on Mommy?”
“Okay, so I’m back to how do I get myself out of this and keep Mia safe.”
“You don’t happen to have any witnesses to any of his battery, do you?”
Darby smiled for the first time in forever. “I don’t, but he does.”
“I don’t follow.”
“Sean had the whole house wired with cameras. He’s been taping everything that goes on.”
“Where are the tapes?”
She shrugged. “I have no idea. But based on a few things he’s said, he could watch them at work on his computer.”
“How did you manage to make it look like you killed the baby with cameras everywhere?”
“I destroyed them one by one.”
“Were they hardwired?”
“No, they had little antennas. About the size of a dime, maybe smaller.”
“Probably has the video stored off site. Have you seen a bill or an invoice for anything like that?”
“No, but he would have that sort of thing sent to the restaurant. So what’s the plan?” she asked.
“First we go to the cops and tell them the truth and then—”
“No!” Darby shook her head vehemently. “I won’t reveal Mia’s whereabouts until you can guarantee that she’ll be safe from him. Mia is my number one concern.” Darby wiped away a stray tear. “I want to trust you, Mr. Kavanaugh, but I’m running a little low on trust these days.”
“I’m not your husband, Darby. And please call me Jack. I think any man who hits a woman should be hung by his testicles.”
That coaxed a smile out of Darby. “Yes, you are the antithesis of Sean. Is there any way I can get out of this mess without putting Mia in danger?”
“Would you settle for supervised visitation?”
“Supervised by who?”
“The court appoints people. They’re trained and vigilant and if Sean so much as whispers anything inappropriate to the baby, they revoke his visitation.”
“How long would this supervision last?”
“Until your husband proves he’s no longer a threat.”
She shook her head. “Sean can really turn on the charm.”
“I don’t know. First, let’s get you out of here,” Jack said.
“I’m safer here,” Darby insisted. “Go see Peggy at my clinic. She has copies of all my keys, including keys to the restaurant. Go see if you can find the tapes or anything else that will make a judge understand why I did what I did.”
“Doesn’t the restaurant belong to Sean?”
She shook her head. “Technically, it belongs to me. The deed is in my name alone.”
“And the house?”
“Mine, too.”
“The cars?”
“All mine.”
“No wonder he wanted to have children with you.”
“Thank you for pointing that out.”
He reached out and patted her hand. It was quick, but then again so was the little skip in her heartbeat. “I’m sorry. But once they transfer you to Green Haven, you’ll be on a seventy-two-hour hold. Even if you produced Mia for the court, getting you out of there will be nearly impossible.”
“I can stand anything for three days.”
“Let’s hope so. And Darby”—he stood—“be honest with the therapists. Talk about Sean, but try to avoid discussing Mia because we can’t have you lying to the state’s shrink.”
“Okay.”
“How can I get in touch with Lyssa?”
“You can’t,” Darby said. “She’ll call you.”
“When?”
“When she gets settled.”
“When will that be?”
“I honestly don’t know. I didn’t want to know in case my plan didn’t work.”
“From now on do me a favor?”
“Yes?” She met his eyes.
He gathered up the executed trust papers. “No more plans. You suck at them.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Green Haven appeared to be anything but a haven. It was a stark two-story building five minutes from the jail. Darby was once again in shackles as she was led into the building. Her shackles were removed and she was led through a metal detector, then the deputy who had driven her over signed a form and left Darby in the care of a pretty Latino woman. She wore scrubs and looked more like a nurse than a jailer and that was comforting…
Until for the second time in about twenty-four hours Darby was forced to undergo another strip search. For a rather modest woman, it was a humiliating part of the check-in process. The nurse handed her a pair of green scrubs, white granny panties, and a sports bra. Once she changed, Nurse Garcia had her select a pair of shower shoes from a wall of cubbies just outside the strip-down room.
She was led into a smaller room with a table and two chairs. Garcia took one and motioned Darby to the other. They spent an hour going over a list of questions. Darby didn’t lie, but she did fudge a bit when asked about wanting to hurt others. She wanted to hurt Sean, but she figured she’d save that one for the shrink.
After the interview, Garcia got a handful of hospital bracelets, pulled a red one out of the batch, wrote on it with a sharpie, then had Darby hold out her left arm. “What does red mean?” Darby asked.
“The doctor will explain all that to you.”
“Is that my next stop?” she asked.
The nurse smiled. “Maybe tomorrow. Dr. Radcliff has already been here today.”
“So what do I do until then?”
“Attend sessions.”
“Sessions on what?”
“Drug and alcohol abuse, parenting, marriage and family issues, art therapy, group therapy. We have a full program here.”
“So I get to make macaroni necklaces until tomorrow?”
“No, you’ll meet with our staff therapist, but Dr. Radcliff is the court-appointed doc you have to meet with.”
“If he knew I was coming, why not wait?”
Garcia snorted. “Honey, he has a lucrative private practice. Only comes here when the court involves him in a case. He loves to testify.”
“Great.”
“C’mon, I’ll show you to your room.”
Darby followed the nurse, taking in her surroundings. There was a circular nurses’ station in the middle of a large common area, and there were dormlike rooms down hallways spaced out like the spokes of a wagon wheel from the central station. The place smelled of pine cleaner.
Garcia opened one door. “This is your room.” It was maybe seven by ten, with a cement rectangle topped by a two-inch pleather mattress pad in it. Darby started to step in but Garcia blocked her way. “You have to go to the main desk and get your assignments first.”
“Assignments?”
“What you’ll be doing between meals. This room is only for sleeping.”
“There’s no bathroom,” Darby noted.
“You can press the button by the door, but it may take a while for anyone to get here. We have a small staff overnight. If you’d be more comfortable, you can have an adult diaper.”
“So I’m locked in at night and locked out during the day?”
“Right. You missed lunch.”
“That’s okay.”
“Good, because we
don’t have a cafeteria. Dinner is at six.”
Darby went to the nurse’s station and was given a piece of paper. Her first assignment was to attend a drug and alcohol program. “I don’t have a problem,” Darby told the nurse.
“Fine. But you still gotta go.”
Darby looked at the rest of her “activities” and wondered why on earth she’d been sent to this place. Just about everything, save for her appointments with counselors or group therapies, was geared toward drug and alcohol aversion. It was going to be a long seventy-two hours. She didn’t want counseling. She wanted Mia back. Darby gave herself a little mental tongue-lashing. Here she was griping about her surroundings when she was really just trying to focus on anything other than Mia. About now would have been bath time. Mia loved splashing the water and Darby could practically close her eyes and smell the scent of baby shampoo. Darby’s heart constricted. Maybe Jack was right. Her plan was littered with flaws.
* * *
Jack kept his phone with him at all times, hoping beyond hope that Lyssa Chandler would call him sooner rather than later. He pulled into the circular drive at Darby’s house, got out and went to the front door just as the sun was setting. Using the keys he’d gotten from Peggy at Darby’s vet clinic after making sure Sean was at the restaurant, he let himself inside her spacious home. It was a far cry from the modest house he was renovating in Palm City. It was also the cleanest place he’d ever seen. Well, except for the baby’s room. The crib had been stripped and moved away from the wall.
He’d decided it was better to take a look around when he knew Sean would be at the restaurant. Hopefully he’d find something that could support Darby’s story, if he didn’t hear from Lyssa before Darby ended up locked up for good. As her attorney, he was able to visit her, but at Green Haven, they made doing so very difficult—mainly because they didn’t like anything that interrupted their strict schedule. Jack had represented a schizophrenic man a few years back and he’d learned then that getting into Green Haven outside of visiting hours could be difficult.
He felt a rumble of fury go through him as he thought about Darby in that place. For a rich woman, she was very down to earth. The more he learned about her, the more intrigued he became. She was a very attractive, down-to-earth woman. He gave himself a mental bitch slap. Nothing good could come out of lusting after a client. Especially when that client was chin deep in crisis. Even once he had proof that Darby had faked the whole thing, she’d probably be arrested for filing a false report, and about six other felonies and misdemeanors. He had to make things right before things went any further.
Having grown up in a house where domestic violence was the norm, Jack wondered if his attraction to Darcy was somehow linked to his difficult childhood. As much as he tried to chalk it up to that, he couldn’t get past the desire he felt for her. Even when she was wearing her jail garb. She’d managed to make that jumpsuit sexy and that took some doing. No, wanting Darcy had hit him like a brick. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d felt such a strong pull of desire for a woman. It wasn’t as if he lived like a saint. Far from it. He’d just never had this kind of reaction before.
In the hallway he stopped and picked up a framed wedding photograph. He’d never seen that smile on Darby’s face. Once he thought about it, he realized that wasn’t true. He’d seen that smile when she’d brought the baby to his office. She must have been crazy afraid to think up this nutty idea. Man, but Jack would enjoy about five minutes alone with Sean.
Swallowing his anger, he made his way through the house, checking for additional cameras or some hint as to how Sean was broadcasting to his office at the restaurant. Going from room to room, he hoped to find something out of the ordinary that she had missed.
He went into a guest room that appeared to be the catch-all room. There was a bed, but it was buried under a stroller box and some smaller boxes, and then on top of that were neat piles of men’s and women’s clothing. He found more men’s clothes hanging in the closet. Spreading the clothes apart, he noticed an attic access panel. He went and got one of the kitchen chairs, stood on it and pushed aside the wooden panel, then hoisted himself up. He was forced to crouch in the dimly lit space. This wasn’t going to work. He needed a flashlight.
He found one in the garage and went back to the side attic. With the flashlight in his mouth, he again hoisted himself into the small space. Much better. He had a bright view of the insulation, ventilation and other expected pipes and items. Then he saw the black box plugged into an exposed outlet affixed to one joist.
He went over and examined it. It had three lights on one side: two were solid, the third was blinking. He was no expert in electronics but if he had to guess, he’d bet the blinking light meant there was something wrong with the feed. He unplugged the box, deciding he’d drop it by a friend of his who knew everything there was to know about electronics. He checked his watch. Sean’s flailing restaurant closed in a half hour and he didn’t want to be caught in the house. Sean didn’t know about him yet and he wanted to keep it that way, at least for now. Hopefully Sean didn’t have any other cameras Darcy hadn’t found.
At least nothing damning until he had solid evidence of his violent nature to show the court. Hopefully it would be enough to keep a judge from coming down hard on Darby for wasting police and court time.
With the black box tucked under his arm, he left and headed to downtown Stuart. There was a three-block area on the waterfront popular for its shops and restaurants, and Jack parked his black Escalade nearby, then took the box and walked to the second-story apartment off Osceola Street.
Tony Altemonte—Big Tony to his friends—opened the door and welcomed Jack with a slap on the back. He was a giant of a man, six-six and close to four-hundred pounds. He was dressed in shorts and a button-down shirt, only the buttons weren’t buttoned and his massive belly and hairy chest hung out for all to see. “Haven’t seen you in forever.”
“Been busy,” Jack said.
“A man should never be too busy to play poker.”
Jack smiled. “Okay, I just got tired of giving you all my money.”
“Whatcha got there?” Big Tony asked, pointing at the black box.
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
Big Tony took the box over to what should have been the kitchen but had been reconfigured into a series of computer screens, CPUs, keyboards and a bunch of other electronic components Jack couldn’t name. Big Tony took a half-smoked cigar out of the ashtray and placed it in the corner of his mouth. Thankfully, he didn’t light it. Jack hated the smell, which was the real reason he’d pulled back from the weekly poker games. Big Tony and his friends were all cigar smokers and by the third hand, the air would be thick with choking smoke.
“Sit,” he told Jack as he reached into a box next to his seat. He pulled out some cables and plugged them into the machine. “What we have here is a Bluetooth DVR—Digital Video Recorder.”
“Does it have recordings on it?”
Tony took a look at a laptop he’d attached the other end of the cables to, punching a few keys on it and staring at the screen for a moment. “Full. About one-hundred-fifty hours.”
“Can I see what’s on it?”
“Not in my apartment,” Big Tony said with a chuckle. “I’ll put it on a portable hard drive. Just plug that into your TV.”
“Thanks,” Jack said.
“Thank me tomorrow,” he said. “It’ll take time to transfer the files.”
“Early tomorrow?” Jack pressed.
“Not before ten,” he said.
“Thanks again.”
Jack let himself out and then drove over to the Tilefish Grille. The place was dark save for the red haze from the illuminated exit signs. There were no cars in the parking lot, so he drove around the back and parked away from the security cameras. Grabbing a baseball cap from the back seat and pulling it low, he kept his head down as he went to the back door.
He tried three keys before he found the o
ne that fit the bolt. He opened the door and heard the unmistakable sound of an alarm beeping. He glanced around and found the keypad and entered the code Darby had given him: the date of their wedding anniversary. For some reason that annoyed Jack. And it wasn’t just because she was married. It was because she was married to a man like Sean. You have to be a special kind of asshole to hit a woman.
He walked through the spotlessly clean kitchen. The scent of food still hung in the air and Jack’s stomach growled. He hadn’t eaten in a while. Spotting the door marked OFFICE he used the keys to open that door as well.
It wasn’t a very big space, maybe ten by twelve, with pale blue paint on the walls and a tile floor that slanted slightly toward the drain in the center of the kitchen. Jack had worked at a few restaurants during his college years so he knew all about that drain. It was so the floor could be power washed. He’d been the grunt-level employee who’d done the washing.
There was a pegboard on one wall covered with labeled clipboards for various vendors, and one for scheduling. There was a U-shaped desk and an expensive executive chair. Beneath the desk was a safe. The top desk drawer was locked and Jack didn’t have a key for it. The same was true of the file cabinet. He was about to give up when he bumped the desk and Sean’s computer came out of hibernation mode.
Making himself comfortable, Jack began to click around the machine. He noticed a small envelope icon in the tray and clicked on it. Sean’s email opened. It was very revealing. Literally. In a folder titled “exhibits” he found at least a hundred emails. Each email contained an embedded photo. Many were all of one woman, even though you couldn’t see her face. The images ran the gamut from seductive poses to graphic porn. They dated back over a year. He could tell by the hips that the woman wasn’t Darby. Well, that and the red hair. There was a second set of emails, again with nudes, again with a redhead. Based on the date stamps, these were newer; he also based that conclusion on a mole near this woman’s right pelvic bone that hadn’t been in the first group of emails. Obviously Sean had a thing for redheads.
Other than a penchant for dirty emails, Sean’s emails were mostly about him holding back payments to various suppliers. Jack found a spreadsheet and it appeared the Tilefish Grille was deep in the hole. He also saw a pattern of large deposits. He’d bet the bank they were infusions of cash fresh from Darby’s accounts.
Exposed Page 10