Dark Storm

by Karen Harper

  Claire skimmed the other photos on these two pages, then flipped the page to look at others of the same woman. Yes, a distinct, powerful resemblance to Darcy. So that was why he’d been drawn to her?

  “So much like Darcy,” she whispered, then spoke louder. “Will, under the circumstances, under all this pressure, I was certain you had painted Darcy.”

  “No. If I had asked her, you and Steve would have known.”

  “Yes. That was Darcy. She shared most important things, so if she’d intended to leave Naples in any way, she would have told me.”

  “I was just blown away when I returned from several years living in Japan and saw her—I think you and Lexi might have been with her and Jilly that first day—at the library for story time. Darcy’s resemblance to Grandmother Vanessa is uncanny. You know, I have that very butterfly net Grandmother is holding in that photo and several others in the album. And I did plan to share all this with Darcy—someday.”

  He rose and went to a framed shadow box on the wall nearer the kitchen, lifted it off hooks and carried it to them. He removed the back of the box and the net. He shook it out and swirled it in the air.

  “She taught me, among other things, when she was widowed and came to live with us in Florida, that there is an art to making and using a net. First, the material must be soft as a spiderweb and at least that strong.”

  He looked up at them. His eyes seemed glazed. With emotion? He sounded almost poetic. She would have to admit he was telling the truth with all this proof, with his intensity—wasn’t he? Although he was looking at them, he seemed to be seeing someone somewhere else. And from the first day Darcy disappeared, he had always seemed genuinely distressed, even desperate, and she knew how that felt. Surely she’d been wrong to suspect this man of anything. That haunting novel about the butterfly collector had set her off, wasting time on Will when someone else must be at fault.

  When she and Nick said nothing, Will went on. “You need to make a swift sweep with the net to capture the butterfly. Get the net under your prey, then with a strong move, swing it up so as not to injure the plant it may be on or just leaving. To release it, just reverse,” he said with a flick of his wrist, “and none the worse, butterflies are free. Yet, there is a real art to it, you see.”

  Nick finally spoke. “Are those butterflies mounted on the wall ones you netted?”

  “Every last one here or there,” he told them with a nod. “I’m sure, given a choice, they would have preferred to live, but it is not only for my good but the good of all mankind that we catch, examine, preserve and write about them. And display them in all their captured beauty.”

  Handing the album back, Claire told him, “You know, just as if there were a swoop of someone’s huge net, Darcy is gone—but I hope not harmed. I hope she is only being held but then released.”

  “We’ll be sure she’s found,” Nick promised, and Will nodded.

  But how Nick had worded that terrified her more than anything that had happened so far. Before, Nick had always said, “We’ll find her.”

  * * *

  After Will served them iced tea, Nick and Claire finally got around to asking him their other questions. The tension in the air had lifted slightly now, Nick thought. Still on the settee with the long-gone Vanessa staring at them, he said, “We know Larry Ralston’s father is a prominent funeral director here and up and down this coast, but Detective Jensen mentioned his brother, Clint, claimed his body. There must be some kind of a family feud.”

  “Very strange,” Will said, “but then the family is a bit estranged. You know, Aaron Ralston does the let-us-comfort-you TV commercials for his funeral homes. He’s also quite well-known around town since he’s been here so long and his father was what they used to call an undertaker before him. His funeral home buried both my parents.”

  “My mother, too,” Nick said.

  “And mine,” Claire added.

  Will said to her, “I believe your mother—her name was Miranda, correct?—used to patronize the library extensively, brought you two little girls to story time.”

  “Yes, she was the reader to end all readers, sharing books aloud with us that we were sometimes too young to understand. Darcy always kidded about our childhood honorary English and American literature degrees from having an agoraphobic, bibliophile mother. Yes, she would go out to the library or, later, just send us with her list. And didn’t you drop books at the house once?”

  “I believe I did,” he said with a wistful little smile, yet his eyes were sad. “Yes, I remember.”

  Nick cleared his throat. “So anyway, you don’t really know Clinton Ralston?”

  Will shook his head and rattled his ice cubes in his empty, sweating glass. “I don’t really know the man per se, but I’ve observed him closely at two funerals where I’ve had butterfly releases. He must have known the deceased, because he certainly wasn’t there to help his father with the arrangements. I’ve seen and overheard some conversations he’s had at community events, conversations with strangers that seemed secretive and anxious who then more or less nodded and quickly disappeared. Call me too suspicious and interested in mystery and suspense novels, but from time to time I’ve thought he must be into something secretive or illegal. I’ve tried to look more into him, but haven’t gone so far as to follow him yet,” he said with a short laugh. “But he seems at times to be a mystery man.”

  “Maybe just an investor in his father’s funeral empire,” Claire put in, “but one who doesn’t want anything to do with morticians and death. Then why was he so intent on getting his brother’s body? Maybe, since Larry was a fisherman, he wanted to be buried at sea—anathema to their father and very bad public relations for the Ralston funeral empire—so Clint agreed to take care of that and even prepared a legal document in case their father balked.”

  “You did see the obit in the morning paper, didn’t you?” Will asked, getting up to go back into the kitchen. “I mean, there was all that further coverage of Darcy’s disappearance, so maybe you missed it,” he called back over his shoulder.

  He opened and folded the newspaper as he hurried back, extending it to them. “Only a memorial service announcement, not visiting hours per se or burial mentioned for Lawrence Ralston.” He summarized what they were reading with their heads bent together. “Even the place and time are not given here, but you have to get on his Captain Larry website for details. Sad. Quite a young man, I believe, though his age isn’t given, either. Someone on the library staff thought he was divorced with no children. At least there is no mention of the court trial he’s escaped regarding that dolphin, right, Counselor?”

  “Correct. So, two mysteries,” Nick said, putting his empty glass on a coffee table coaster. “I won’t get to defend him on whether he caught or killed a dolphin. Now, the question may be who killed him.”

  “But the earlier newspaper article implied that his death could be accidental.”

  “A text came in while you were making the tea and Claire was looking through the photo album,” Nick said. “The police techs that are combing his boat checked Larry’s phone that was lying on a seat in the stern. It contained an email of a brief suicide note sent only to his brother.”

  “Really?” Will said, wide-eyed. “I hope the police checked that phone to see if there were fingerprints or DNA on it that weren’t Larry’s.”

  “If that’s true, then he didn’t fall in but jumped,” Claire said, reaching out to grip Nick’s arm. “I know a suicide is especially terrible for you, sweetheart, but you may not be able to disprove this one.”

  Will said nothing but pulled his chair closer. It was almost as if the three of them, in mutual trust now, observed a moment of silence for the tragedy—and Claire again feared for Darcy’s life.

  “I don’t tell many people this, Will,” Nick said, his voice quiet, “but I think we’ve learned we can trust you. My father’s death was ruled a suicide when I was young—he had a gun in his hand, bullet to the brain. I’ve sin
ce founded a small group that helps people whose lives are impacted like that. Maybe the insurance company reneges on their insurance, or someone is blamed who shouldn’t be, or it was a staged suicide that was actually a murder. It took me years, a law degree and Claire’s help, but I proved my dad was killed and ultimately brought the murderer to justice—that is, he paid with his life.”

  “You don’t mean you killed him?” Will asked.

  “No. His own evil and the god of justice did that—actually, he drowned, so this Larry Ralston thing hits close to home even though all our efforts must go to finding Darcy. I know I for one won’t rest until we find her!”

  * * *

  Nick was about to finally drop off to sleep that night when Claire spoke from beside him. She’d already woken him up once earlier, saying, “It was really nice of Will to send those books he bought for Jilly home with us.”

  “Mmm. Very nice. He’s a strange guy.”

  “I mean, Lexi has that doll, but he’s the first person who has given us something for Jilly.”

  “Yeah. Glad you changed your mind about him.”

  “He had proof that woman was his grandmother. Just chance she looked like Darcy.”

  “Yeah. For sure,” he said, stifling a huge yawn.

  Now he was ready to drop off again, swimming in exhaustion.

  “Nick, we need to go to that Larry Ralston memorial. I read the invitation over twice. Out on the rocks at Doctors Pass, no less. Could that be a link to Lincoln Yost or is it just a coincidence—well, there I go again with that. And at sunset, when it will soon be dark and everyone will be way out on those rocks? They are dangerous enough in the daytime. If we stand far enough back, maybe no one will ID us. Or we could go in some sort of disguise.”

  Nick rolled onto his back and stared at the dark ceiling. “Claire, I don’t think Clint Ralston will want the people who found his brother’s body there.”

  “I don’t care! And that’s a reason to go a bit disguised. If not that, then we need to follow Clint when he leaves, at least find out where he goes, where he lives. Who is he really that he’s so mysterious?”

  “Sweetheart, you read Will wrong, so don’t go jumping to conclusions about Ralston just because he keeps his occupation private. Maybe he’s a big investor, maybe he’s undercover FBI, maybe he’s Mafia. I just mean, okay, I’ll think about that, but it seems too cloak and dagger—in other words, damned dangerous.”

  “But for Darcy, damned dangerous is nothing—or everything, I don’t know.”

  He heard her sniffle and start to cry. As tired as he was, he pulled her to him, turning her back toward him so that they were lying sideways and she was curled protectively against him. He kissed her shoulder and held her close until she quieted.

  “We’ll do it, but be careful,” he promised. “I think—I hope—Bronco’s got things locked down here if any of Clint’s subtle threats were real. But we cannot—cannot—rile him, give him or that Jedi watchdog an excuse to come after our family.”

  19

  Nick spent the next morning in court, trying to keep his mind on this client rather than on Darcy. More than most, this client, a nervous, elderly woman, was in dire need of representation and support. At each recess he called Claire. He still was not convinced it was smart to attend Larry Ralston’s memorial service at sunset tonight on the rocks at Doctors Pass.

  “Nick, if we don’t go, we might miss out on the chance to find Darcy,” she insisted, her voice level rising. “I know we have to update Ken Jensen about Will’s friendship with her—the portrait and all that—so how about I call him? Maybe he’ll have something new to share or at least not be so uptight about our investigating on our own.”

  “All right, but do not tell him we’re going to that memorial, especially disguised. Let him track down Clint Ralston’s source of income, background, all that. Besides, if Heck can’t turn up something online, then—”

  “We could follow Ralston when he leaves the service, at least learn where he lives.”

  “I don’t know about that. It’s really a long shot to be trying to chase down Clint Ralston or the rest of the Fly Safe board members.”

  “Right now, long shots are all we have,” she insisted, and the phone went dead.

  * * *

  Jace and Mitch sat together in the briefing with the rest of the 53rd Weather Reconnaissance Squadron at Keesler Air Force Base in Biloxi to get intel on the new threatening storm.

  Jace kept frowning at the moving, dark orange blob on the radar map that the Air Force lieutenant colonel who was in charge kept pointing at.

  “It’s a possibility we will send out more than one plane because this storm looks potentially quite dangerous,” the lieutenant colonel said. “One or two of you and your crews may be temporarily transferred to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa to get closer to the action.

  “And,” he added, frowning, “I know several of you live in areas which might be affected, but do not start panicking about trajectory, storm level, any of that. I know it’s tempting with family and friends possibly in harm’s way—property, too—but I must warn you not to make personal phone calls that might start early rumors or panic. The weather service will announce the name and coordinates of this disturbance to us and the public in due time.”

  “Disturbance,” Mitch muttered as they filed out. “That’s putting it mildly. Meanwhile, you know your nearest and dearest are not concentrating on some dark storm, but on finding their missing loved one.”

  “Yeah,” Jace said. Claire had been his loved one, and he’d had trouble getting past that, of letting go, especially when she and Nick first got together. And Lexi—he’d let down both of his girls, away from home so much as an international pilot. He’d been a real jerk when he first learned of Claire’s narcolepsy, but then she’d tried to hide it from him.

  “I said, you want me to go check the plane with you?” Mitch’s voice broke into his agonizing.

  “Roger that.”

  “We’re both gonna have to keep our minds on this flight if we go up—more than most,” Mitch said. “It’s personal this time, and we don’t want anyone at home to go MIA in the storm. I had a friend in Afghanistan who was declared MIA, never found his body, no parachute, no clues, just gone after he bailed out. Damn hurricanes can be like that. It leaves the family with so many questions.”

  Jace frowned and nodded as they headed for the hangar. Questions indeed. Darcy was MIA, too.

  * * *

  Claire had finally convinced Nick they should go to the beach memorial service for Captain Larry Ralston. They needed to keep their eyes open as to who was there, especially possible board members of Fly Safe, since it was the only decent lead they had as to who might have taken or hurt Darcy. If it had been some random, freak, spur-of-the-moment kidnapping or an act of passion or violence, Claire feared they’d never find her.

  She had talked about fifteen minutes to Detective Jensen, who had assured her again that they were still following leads. She’d explained what they had learned about Will Warren’s ties to Darcy—a cross-generational friendship—and had described the painting. She had, however, omitted telling him she’d first seen that by trespassing. At least they weren’t doing that tonight, though she had talked Nick into tailing Clint Ralston when he left the memorial service.

  But she had more secrecy planned: Nick had finally agreed, if they were going to the seaside service, to go, more or less, in disguise. She had pinned her giveaway crimson hair back and up under a baseball cap and she wore loose, neutral-looking clothes. Nick had totally dressed down and looked like a cross between a vagrant who’d been sleeping on the beach and a gardener from one of the nearby ritzy estates.

  “I just hope the way we look doesn’t draw attention to us instead of letting us blend in,” Claire admitted as they parked a block away and walked toward the shore. “I still think we should have tried to look like some of the eccentric romantics who hit the beach every sunset to drink toasts at
the end of another day.”

  She instantly wished she hadn’t said it like that at this end of the seventh day—one entire, endless week—that Darcy had been gone. It would be a bright, new day when they found her. If they found her. She could almost think that but not say it or believe it.

  Besides the ever-present fishermen and tourists or locals on the boulder-strewn breakwater, they saw a cluster of people farther out, near where Linc Yost and his students had been watching for dolphins and manatees. She pointed at a dolphin heading outward, its sleek gray body arching from the pink foam of waves lit by the setting sun, which shone in their eyes before being swallowed by clumps of dark clouds. It didn’t look like a peaceful sunset.

  “Can’t make out individuals at the gathering,” Nick said. “We’ll have to go closer, but not too close. Let’s try blending in with the fishermen instead of the mourners.”

  “But we have to be close enough to hear what Clint is saying. What are the odds their ‘funeral father’ will be here?”

  “Lousy,” Nick told her, and took her hand as they began to walk the boulders on the inlet side of the pass, opposite of the way they’d walked out before. The rocks on this side were not as wet or slippery as on the other side toward open water. An occasional boat or yacht motored toward the inland waterways, seeking their docking spots in the nearby backyards of mansions or pricey condos.

  Clint Ralston was easy to spot, standing a bit apart from the gathering of maybe twenty people. He had emerged from the small crowd, probably after greeting them. And of course Jedi Brown was easy to spot with his almost-white blond hair.

  “There’s Lincoln Yost and his wife,” Nick whispered.

  “I see them, but can’t pick out anybody else, at least not with the sun in our eyes. Look, they have some sort of lanterns. Maybe they’re going to do a release.”