Seeking Worthy Pursuits: A Dark Romantic Suspense Novel (Alace Sweets Book 2)

by MariaLisa deMora

  Dishes cleaned and pack reorganized, Owen pushed to his feet, not bothering to restrain the groan that slipped from his lips. He lifted the pack, briefly considered abandoning it, then yanked it up and shoved his arms through the straps with a series of painful movements. Head and side throbbing, he leaned back against a tree as he took a few experimental breaths.

  Yeah, telling Alace to activate another asset was the right way to go, given he couldn’t even put on a half-filled backpack without breaking a sweat. Didn’t mean that ember wasn’t still ablaze in his stomach.

  With a final rib-expanding inrush of air, he pushed away from the tree and started the slow process of climbing out of the ravine, heading up the opposite side, angling to where the trailhead and parking lot awaited.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Alace

  Following Owen’s progress on the satellite feed was worse than watching paint dry.

  Alace hung her head over the back of the chair, letting her neck roll slightly side to side with a tendon-popping stretch. Noises downstairs told her Eric was back in the kitchen, his go-to place since he’d declared he was home for the duration. Cases reassigned or postponed, it had only taken him half a day to sort out his schedule, but the intensity with which he listened to her brief updates told her how serious he was about this.

  Todd was still missing.

  Cameras near the suspect’s house had captured Mackie going and coming several times over the past day, none of the trips eliciting the same amount of suspicion as the original footage. If Alace didn’t know better, she’d believe the young woman was headed out to work or meet and greets with friends. When Mackie left and headed downtown, the deeper she moved, the harder it was to follow her, any necessary video path jumping from traffic cameras to security ones with bad angles, and eventually to those at ATMs and other sidewalk vendor positions. Poor lighting, sidelong images, and blurred backgrounds made it hard to even verify it was the right woman sometimes. Alace had other databases, of course. Those listing credit cards used for parking meters, plate recognition systems to identify the vehicle, loyalty cards for the coffee shops and diners Mackie frequented—but Alace liked to have the visuals, too.

  August had taken his time answering his messages, long enough that Alace finally tracked him down to find he was out of the country with his daughter for several weeks. Once she found that out, she’d erased all the details of the gig from his folder and wished him a good vacation. He deserved to be able to take time with family, and the longer Alace thought about the way Temple had taken Todd, the less likely she thought it was that he would be greatly injured.

  Still, they were coming to the end of day two, and without understanding the motive behind the kidnapping, it was impossible to have complete faith in her assessment.

  All the information they had said Temple only took and killed women, and each death involved a ritualistic torture not easily available in a home setting, especially not positioned as the house was in the middle of a family-filled subdivision. Owen would be out today, and Alace had arranged for a package to be placed in his car containing a new tablet to replace the one he’d reported damaged. Her network held assets for far more than the services her hunters specialized in, and as she’d organized the delivery, Alace had briefly toyed with the idea of setting up true surveillance on Temple’s house. The idea held merit, but the chances of a shadow being noticed were a consideration, and she eventually decided against it.

  A glance at the tracking screen measured her exasperation in millimeters of progress. Alace blew a steady stream of air through her nose and forced her mind away from the situation. Being tied to the bed or chair, figuratively if not literally, was compounding the frustration, and she was fighting against resenting the pregnancy.

  Something about the Temple girls had been bugging her, and Alace drew in and released another deep breath, then rolled her shoulders and logged into the darknet node where she’d planted a request yesterday, pleased to see a handful of responses.

  There’d been no reason other than her twisted desire to know exactly how the patriarch of the family had died. After reading what he’d done to Mackie and repeatedly watching the girl’s harrowing testimony in court, Alace had hoped he’d earned a grisly death. Curiosity often unraveled mysteries, and she’d followed a hunch, posting the request as a low-risk ask for her normal resources. Easy money for them, and a way to scratch her unsettled mind for her.

  Temple had been last in a short line of connected prisoners when an inmate traveling the other direction in a narrow corridor had shanked him, using a shiv made from hardened plastic. The official information available in the secured prison system had been skimpy, lacking detail. More a “this happened, ho hum, on to dinner” kind of report than an inquiry.

  What she had now was very different. Alace read through the conversation transcripts and skimmed the coroner’s report quickly. The hair rising on the back of her neck had her retracing her steps, and she pulled up one of the transcripts again. Comparing it to the report, she didn’t take long to pinpoint the discrepancy.

  The official record had his body cremated, the coroner’s report had him surrendered to family, and the transcript of the off-the-record conversation with a guard who’d been working that night had the body transferred to a nondescript van the same night he’d died, which wouldn’t have allowed time for even an autopsy.

  There was a folder labeled with a date, and inside she found three images. She’d seen Temple’s inmate photo before, hair still wet from the delousing shower he’d been subjected to slicked back and away from his face. Another was a picture of the man on the floor, bent double, with arms wrapped around his middle. There were hands reaching into the frame with keys, supposedly to release the chains connecting him to the line of men. The final image captured her attention, and Alace enlarged the photo repeatedly. It was of a white van backed up to a loading dock, doors wide open. Temple lay inside the van, neck twisted so his face was captured by the camera. Alace’s attention wasn’t on the body as she refocused the image on the screen, instead centering on the pale face of the person standing near the open doors, glancing over their shoulder. Female with dark hair, and while the image quality wasn’t good enough to have an unblurred look at the features captured in the photograph, Alace had an idea who it might be.

  She touched the screen, tapping gently with the tip of a nail, staring.

  Mackie or Maddy, she didn’t know, but one of the girls had been present when their grandfather’s body was retrieved from the prison the night he’d been killed.

  The body on the floor of the van caught her attention again and Alace stared, then flipped back to the image of the man curled on his side post-stabbing. The blood staining the man’s shirt was clearly visible on the image taken from what looked like a corridor security camera. As was his inmate number tag, affixed to his loose shirt high on the right front shoulder. The photograph of the body in the van showed a shirt without staining, and when she zoomed in on the identification tag, it showed a different number.

  Fingers clacking the keys, it was the work of moments to match that number to a different inmate. One who had conveniently also died of pneumonia while incarcerated, just a day before Temple had.

  Either the medical staff had redressed Temple in the wrong shirt, something that didn’t make sense at all, even given the unorthodox release of the body, or the right shirt wound up on the wrong body, one destined for the crematory furnace at the funeral home servicing the prison.

  “He’s not dead.” She flicked the screen with her fingernail again, tapping the woman’s face. “The question is, who are you? And how do you factor into what’s going on today?”

  Quick math gave her the timeframe, and another glance at her notes had her shaking her head. The old man would be nearing eighty if he were still alive. Unlikely. There had been no reports of him out in public since his reported death. Not even a whisper of a rumor about him.

  “Beloved.” S
he turned at Eric’s call from the doorway, taking in the adorable way his ruffled hair gave him a look of just-woken little boy. “I’ve made you some food.”

  She tipped her head at the stool and patted the edge of the desk. “Come here. I need to run something past you.”

  Tray deposited on the desk as she’d silently requested, he sat on the stool and stretched out his legs, hands reaching for her ankles. Captured limbs arranged in his lap to his satisfaction, he smiled at her crookedly. “Hit me.”

  She did, retracing her steps, skimming over the reasons why she’d looked deeper into the old man’s death, staying succinctly focused on what she’d found. Eric’s brows had shifted from low and drawn together to reaching towards his hairline by the time she finished.

  He shook his head. “So you think one of the girls arranged a complicated breakout for him? At what, fifteen? Sixteen? You’re saying one of the twins masterminded a jailbreak at that age? Alace, that just doesn’t compute.” His thumbs dug into the ball of her foot, and she winced at the sensations of pain and pleasure. “I’m not buying it.”

  “She’s right there.” Fingernail flicking the screen, she brought his gaze back to the image. “I’d bet money that’s one of the girls.”

  “Look at the height.” His hands fell away from her feet, and she frowned as he leaned closer. “Maddy’s not tall, and you said they’re identical, so Mackie’s petite, too. That woman”—he gestured to the screen—“is closer to taller-than-average than she is petite. See where her head measures against the hinges of the doors? Maddy wouldn’t come up to the bottom of those windows, and this woman could see inside if she wanted. I don’t know who it is, but that’s not one of the girls, honey.”

  Gaze fixed on his face, she let her mind drift back through the information surrounding the trial. The old man had been outed as a serial predator, not restricting his molestation to family but also taking advantage of neighborhood girls if the opportunity existed. Maddy and Mackie’s father had died several years before the trial, and the girls and their mother had lived only a few blocks away, evidenced by Maddy’s ability to run to his home when she found out the news. Their mother, married to the old man’s only son, hadn’t appeared in any photos so far, nothing in the coverage around the trial, and Alace now found that highly suspect.

  She pulled the keyboard closer, fingers once again tapping out a request to the county servers.

  The reason the woman wasn’t at the trial was she’d been ordered to stay away. She’d threatened to kill the old man, and rightfully so, given what he’d done to her daughter, but the courts had taken her threats seriously, barring her attendance. Alace exited that server and navigated to one in the state’s system, accessing the DMV database.

  An image from the woman’s driver license appeared on the screen, and Alace stared as Eric shifted around so he could see. Alace noted the license was expired, nearly a decade old. There were no newer records.

  “Damn, Maddy looks just like her mother.” He inched closer. “Woman’s the right height, too.”

  “Yep. After what he did to Mackie, if their Mom broke him out of jail—incapacitated or not—he probably didn’t last long.”

  Eric’s finger teased her bottom lip from between her teeth, and Alace shot him a small smile.

  “Sorry.” He didn’t like it when she chewed her lip, saving it from her unconscious torture frequently. “She’s a mom. I can get behind what I imagine she did to the old man after she got her hands on him, but how could she not have known what was going on?”

  “What?” The tilt of Eric’s head told her more than his frown did. He was entering what she called his scolding lawyer mode. “If the old man was good at threatening his victims, then how would she have known? Didn’t the prosecution make a big deal during the trial regarding the level of coercion and threats he’d taken with the girl? As someone who’s prosecuted these bastards, I know the fear they can instill in those they’ve victimized. Threatening to kill loved ones is a too frequent tactic, and as young as the girl was, it would be terribly effective. Especially since her father was already dead. The idea of losing her mother would silence her.”

  “But shouldn’t she have known?” Alace closed her eyes at the raw pain in her voice. There was no hope Eric would ignore it, and it wouldn’t be long until he figured out why it mattered.

  “You would have. You would have seen something, and started digging, and figured it out before anything happened at all. You—” He leaned closer and lifted to press his mouth to hers, the intensity of the kiss more potent for the setting. “—you can’t know what went on in that house to have the mother be blind to the pain her daughter suffered, and you can’t know she was. Maybe he was abusing her, too. Don’t judge yourself by the measuring stick of someone else.” His hand caressed her stomach, and breathing was suddenly hard, her throat tightening with the emotion that gentle touch evoked. “You are going to be the best little momma. My babies.”

  She drew him to her, fingers wrapped around the back of his neck as she lined their lips up for another kiss. “I love you.” He gave her that same shuddering breath in response that she’d become addicted to, and she smiled against his mouth as they kissed again. “Love you so much.”

  When Eric moved away, the skin around her mouth and lips burned, abraded by his unshaven whiskers. Alace loved the feeling, a way of accepting she was his, a claiming mark that she didn’t mind at all.

  “Beloved.” The vibrating word filled her ears and lifted her heart to fluttering heights.

  Then an idea hit her, and brain reengaged, she shoved back in her chair, creating distance between herself and Eric’s startled expression. She repeated his words. “Maybe he was abusing the mother, too.” The tiny furrow between his eyebrows was adorable, and she kissed a fingertip before touching him and smoothing it away. “I need to look into the father’s death.”

  Eric wordlessly bopped the end of her nose and scooted back, pulling her feet back into his lap. “Eat first, baby. Humor me.”

  Baby.

  Alace held her hands out to be helped from the chair.

  Fucking, fucking Eric.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Owen

  Muscles in his thighs burning, Owen pushed himself the final strides up and over the bank of the roadside ditch, crossing the narrow gravel road to reach the parking lot. His car was the only one occupying the lot, and he didn’t try to hold back the groan that escaped as he swung the backpack from his shoulder, carrying it in front of himself as he dug into a side pocket for the keys.

  With a twist of the wrist, he unlocked the driver door and slung the backpack across the console and into the passenger seat. Then he saw the package on the floor: a cellophane-wrapped box proclaiming itself the latest and greatest tablet.

  “Bingo.”

  This was why Alace was the boss. She had sources everywhere, and the woman could manufacture or source nearly anything.

  The new tablet wasn’t keyed for the normal network or his folder, so after connecting to the Wi-Fi, he logged into the email he used infrequently. Another soft “Bingo” fell from his lips when he saw a new message from an A. Divine. Divine. He laughed through his nose. So sweet. Inside looked to be a short missive from a dyslexic aunt, with starts and stops to the story being told, odd paragraph breaks and punctuation as if it had been done via voice-to-text translation. The message closed with a “family” recipe, and that’s where the real info was.

  He input the digits for the imaginary ingredients as an IPv6 number, isolating the eight groups of hexadecimal digits with colons, and ran it through a secure converter to identify where Alace expected him to log in to communicate.

  Once into the new network, he studied the folder selections. Alace was the queen of traps, paranoid to a level he completely respected. If he selected incorrectly, there were any number of consequences he could envision. Her bricking the tablet was the least of them, and he had been out of contact for too long as it was, given
the volatility of the situation.

  Available folders were named tr*glody7e, c*nfl4gration, and perf0r4ti*n. He sighed. “I’m neither a caveman, nor have I razed any cities lately. I’m going to go with door number three and hope this is a reference to our knife play.” Games, Alace? Really? He tapped the folder icon and watched the other two turn red and disappear, the selected destination pulsing green twice before the display changed.

  The new view had a copy of the shared document they’d been using, with new text at the end from Alace. It also had an application installer labeled simply: Click me.

  Owen propped the tablet against the steering wheel, head in hands as he roughly massaged his scalp with the fingertips of both hands. Running through the past few days in his head, he isolated what felt like the critical moments and reviewed them in detail. Finding the first cache, identifying the torture implements, debriefing with Alace about the intelligence each aspect showed in their subject. The adrenaline rush when he identified the active field. Remembering the moment when he saw the planter standing in the middle of the second clearing sent a flush of pleasure through him, an acknowledgement of his body that he’d enjoyed outsmarting the enemy. Always had, always would. Identifying Temple, the unfamiliar sense of being stalked, and the legitimate thrill of winning against her made his teeth clench to hold back a victory yell. Regardless of the fall and resulting injury, he’d made it out of the woods still well under the time it would have taken on-trail, and that was another win.

  The battery light on the tablet changed from green to yellow, indicating it needed to be charged. Typical for a device out of the box, and he pulled the cabling from the package. Shoving one end into the USB plug in the console, he connected the other end to the device. The battery indicator stayed yellow, not showing a charge. Duh.