Grateful, he took the steaming coffee all the while keeping his eyes on the black horizon. “It’s a clear night, but we’ve got a head wind picking up. It’ll take us longer than I thought.”
The man looked windblown and tired but exhilarated as if he were in the middle of a race, competing against the elements. Gone was the fear she’d seen in his eyes earlier at the house, replaced instead by a fierce concentration. “You like going fast.”
The intensity in his face softened into a smug grin. “Yeah. It’s an adrenaline rush to go at top speed. But I’m careful, Baylee. The boat’s equipped with GPS, a warning sensor, and radar. I won’t do anything stupid, especially at night to put us at risk. Radar shows it’s clear sailing all the way to Avalon.”
She smiled. “I didn’t think you would. It’s a pretty rough ride, though.”
“It is that. Tell me about where we’ll be staying.”
She told him about the old Spanish-style house built in the forties she remembered so well from childhood. The house backed up to the beach and looked out over the mountains. She described how far the harbor was from the house, and then went into a lengthy list of all the things they could do on the island. “I remember how the water used to be so clear you could see the fish swimming around. I hope it’s still like that. But there’s snorkeling, and diving, you can explore the caves in the area. You’ll have fun. It’ll be like a vacation.”
He listened with interest, noting her exuberance. She obviously had fond memories of the place. He hoped she could settle in and relax there, maybe put the Boyd bastard out of her mind for a while.
Because for him this trip was anything but a holiday.
Two and a half hours later, Dylan had them docking in Avalon a little after three in the morning. As soon as Dylan killed the engine, Baylee helped him with the lines, getting the boat moored. Rubbing his eyes, Dylan told her, “We’ll sleep on the boat. It’s too dark to unload all the supplies anyway. And we need to get some sleep. How did Sarah do on the trip? Did she get seasick?”
Amazed that he would even think to ask about Sarah at this time of night as tired as he was, her heart dissolved into mush. If he continued to melt her resolve with all these simple gestures she’d have no choice but to jump his bones. “She’s a good little sailor, but I kept her awake during the trip hoping she’d go back down as soon as we do.”
“Good thinking. Tell me more about the house. How far is it from where we are right now?”
“It’s just up the hill from Pebbly Beach. It won’t take long to get there. Unloading will be a problem, though. It always is.”
“I figured that. We’ll use the dinghy to transport everything back and forth. You know, Catalina is one place where I haven’t spent a whole lot of time. I came here some years back for the day and the place was so packed with tourists we left after only a few hours.” He saw no reason to mention the cute little redhead who’d accompanied him on the trip.
“Good. It’s nice to know there’s one place I can show you around that you haven’t already seen a dozen times before, someplace new where I can enjoy showing you the sights.”
He cupped her chin. “As long as I’m with you, Baylee, as long as I get to spend time around you and Sarah, the where doesn’t really matter.” He brought his arms around her and pulled her into his chest. His lips met hers in a fierce, long, hard kiss, one that would have to hold them both for a while since Kit and Sarah were below deck. He brushed several loose strands of hair off her face and abruptly let her go. “You need to get some sleep.”
“So do you.”
Once they got below deck, Dylan noticed that Baylee, Kit, and Sarah had already settled into the foreword cabin. He headed for the aft stateroom where he promptly shed his clothes and crawled into bed. Five minutes later, he was fast asleep.
In Malibu, Connor Boyd couldn’t sleep. Wide awake, he paced back and forth, unable to let go of the fact that Baylee had a baby. Could he be the kid’s father? It was too much of a coincidence that they’d been together a year ago last March. He wasn’t stupid. No matter what this Dylan Burke guy had said, he needed to find out more about the kid. Was it a boy or a girl? He wanted it to be a boy, a son. He could teach him everything just like his father had taught him.
When had the kid been born and where? Had she been pregnant when she left L.A.? That could be the reason why she’d disappeared. She wouldn’t have wanted him to know about the pregnancy. For close to eight months, he’d looked for her and had come up empty. Okay, so he wouldn’t admit that little tidbit to anyone that he’d actually spent a great deal of his time and money trying to track her down without success.
He would need to find out everything he could about this Burke guy. How long had the two of them been a couple? He shook his head. No, he refused to buy into the possibility the guy could be the baby’s father. The more he thought about it, the more he decided the baby belonged to him. And if it did, that changed things, considerably.
“Goddamn it, why didn’t you tell me, Baylee? Having a child could have turned things around for me. I can’t believe you’d keep to yourself. You bitch,” he uttered, as the black pain of a headache almost blinded him. At that, he hurled the glass he held in his hand against the wall, shattering the crystal into hundreds of pieces.
The next morning in Pacific Palisades, Connor sat behind the wheel of his Hummer parked outside Dylan Burke’s beach bungalow staring at an empty house. It appeared no one was home. No car in the driveway might mean Baylee and the baby had already taken off to parts unknown. Damn his contact at the DMV anyway. If the guy hadn’t taken yesterday off, he might have caught her before she left.
In the passenger seat next to him, Cade watched his older brother with avid interest. Usually cool as ice on Mt, McKinley, Connor sat unshaven, wearing the same clothes he’d worn the day before. The guy looked like he was coming unglued.
“Why this interest in Baylee all of a sudden? Come on, level with me. What’s going on? This is the personal problem you needed to take care of? What gives?”
“That baby you saw yesterday might be mine.”
That’s the last thing Cade expected him to say. His jaw visibly dropped. “You and Baylee. When?”
“Last March; the seventeenth to be exact, St. Patrick’s Day. Get hold of someone in Vital Statistics, will you? I don’t care if you have to dangle a shitload of money to get the information either. But I need to find out if Baylee Scott delivered a baby sometime last December.”
Cade nodded, ridiculously touched at the idea of having a niece or a nephew. “I’ll check November, too just in case it came early.”
Cade watched as Connor got out of the car and walked up to the front door of Burke’s house.
On the off chance that she’d just open the door, Connor rang the bell. When there was no answer he began to pound furiously on the wood. Angry, he took off around the cottage, looking through the windows, all the while wondering who had tipped them off. How had they known to run?
When he looked up and spotted a tall, attractive brunette wearing her wetsuit and carrying a surfboard heading out of the water, toward him, an idea formed. He automatically reached to straighten his tie and realized he wasn’t wearing one. As the woman got closer, he turned on the charm. “Hi. I’m looking for Dylan Burke. Do you know him? Are you a neighbor?”
The brunette thought the guy staring at her was tall, dark, and dreamy, so she nudged up her flirt quotient. “Sure, everyone in the neighborhood knows Dylan. You’re standing right in front of his house.”
Annoyed at the stupid bitch but trying not to drop the charming facade, his voice tightened when he said, “Right. Maybe you could tell me something; does Dylan have children, a baby, perhaps?”
“Dylan? Funny you should ask,” she said getting a huge kick out of the fact that she got to gossip about what she’d heard. “There’s a woman that’s been staying at his house for over a week now. Marilyn Harper, who lives across the street, told me she’s see
n them coming and going carrying a baby. And then over the Memorial weekend, Kendra saw the two of them eating out, and sure enough, Dylan told them the baby was his daughter.”
Connor flinched at that. So it was a girl. He hid his disappointment. Boy, girl, did it really make a difference now after the fact? Suddenly, his head pounded. He forced aside the black thoughts swirling inside trying to cloud his vision.
Coming back to himself, he prodded, “But you don’t believe it?”
“Actually, I don’t. I suppose it could be true, I mean the way Dylan is with women, he’s such a horn dog anything is possible. But let’s face it, a single guy like Dylan isn’t exactly the father type. He’s lived here for five years, and trust me I’ve never seen him with a kid. Until now. Although…” She paused for effect and leaned closer, “…like I said, I guess it could be true, I mean the guy’s a real player where women are concerned. And when you sleep around like that, well—it catches up with you eventually. If you know what I mean.”
“But had you ever seen the woman before a week ago? Did this Burke and the woman have a history together that you know of?”
“Well now, it’s hard to tell with Dylan. Could be she’s one of the women who visit him frequently and I just missed seeing her.”
“Thanks.” For nothing, Connor thought as he headed back to his car, disappointing the brunette. And then he realized that wasn’t true. He had a daughter. At that moment, he knew what he wanted. He wanted that baby. He’d find Baylee. He’d find the baby. Just then, his cell phone interrupted his thoughts. Caller ID told him it was good old Uncle Frank.
Connor could tell even over the phone that Frank was nervous. Something was wrong.
“Jankovic’s disappeared. He isn’t answering his cell phone.”
“What do you mean ‘disappeared’?” Connor asked, irritated, as the charming demeanor fell away for good, replaced by a heartless rage.
Unconvinced Jankovic was this professional hit man Frank had touted, he added, “He better not have disappeared with the money, Frank, without finishing the job, or it’s coming out of your pocket, understand? I’m not paying for another screw-up. You got that?”
Frank tried to placate his impatient nephew. “I’m sure that isn’t the case. Although I haven’t heard from him since he was supposed to drive out to San Madrid to take care of Boston and the Griffin woman. I’ve watched the news but there’s been no mention of an explosion out that way. I called the Book & Bean yesterday and a woman answered. So I know the place is still standing. I’m assuming it was Kit who picked up. Jankovic obviously didn’t follow through. Maybe something happened or for some reason he couldn’t get inside and had to abort the plan. I don’t know for certain.”
“Well for chrissakes find out. I thought this guy was supposed to be a goddamned professional.”
“He is. He comes highly recommended. I assure you, Connor, the man knows what he’s doing.”
It didn’t sound like that to Connor. “Well, get on it, man. Call me back. I want to know what’s going on. We’re paying this guy a fortune to get the job done. I want results, not excuses.”
“I’m on it; trust me to find out.”
“You’d better. If we can’t rely on this guy, we need to know about it now. You take care of it, Frank. I have problems of my own to deal with,” he chided as he climbed back into his Hummer, all the while snapping his fingers at Cade to hurry up and get back in the vehicle.
“What did you find out from the brunette?”
“It’s a girl. Now I just need to know when she was born. Get on it, Cade. I need details. I have a daughter.”
Across town at the East L.A. sheriff’s department, six-foot-four ex-cop, Jordan Donovan pulled his SUV into the parking lot anxious to spend his morning with the cold case detective, Ron Blake, who had finally agreed to sit down with him and listen to what he surmised happened to Pete and Mary Parker.
True, most of what he had to share was pure speculation, developed by people with no formal police or investigative training. But the group of people, led by his friend, Jake Boston, had come up with an impressive timeline of sorts that showed a solid set of facts connecting their prime suspects, Jessica Boyd and Alana Stevens, to the Parker murders. He had to hand it to them it wasn’t a bad first attempt at trying to solve a forty-year-old cold case.
As he walked into the substation, he thought about all the work he’d done for Jake Boston and Reese Brennan over the years. The two always managed to find him the most interesting cases. Throw in the fact that for two years he’d been trying to solve Claire Boston’s murder, a murder still unsolved and heading quickly toward its own dusty, cold case box, he wasn’t all that happy.
But just recently, Jake had asked him to take another look. He’d always felt bad about not being able to find Claire’s killer. Maybe now after letting it sit for two years, he could start with a fresh pair of eyes.
But over the course of the last few weeks, it wasn’t Claire’s murder that had occupied most of his waking thoughts. The Parker murders had intrigued him enough to sit down with Kit Griffin and listen while she described the double murder of an old couple—in detail from a dream.
Well, they didn’t call it La-La-Land for nothing, he supposed. The bizarre dream was only one reason his boss Reese had serious doubts and remained skeptical about the whole thing. From the beginning, Reese didn’t buy all the guesswork because really, that’s all it had been. Add in the fact that up to now, Jordan didn’t even know for sure how exactly the couple had died other than what the newspaper article Jake had dug up at the library had told them. Both of the Parkers had suffered gunshot wounds and stab wounds.
Hopefully this meeting would put an end to all the speculation.
After going over the timelines, Jordan had become convinced that the motive for the murders had definitely been the money and the land itself. And no one could dispute the fact that the bloodsucking lawyers at BBG&G and Alana had benefited the most by the couple’s deaths.
The timeline laid out all the specifics and more, including the fact that the moment the lawyers at BBG&G became aware that the Parkers’ only son had gone missing in Vietnam, they’d filed a codicil to the couple’s will making Jessica the sole trustee.
Reese had come up with that tidbit in old probate files.
Jordan intended to make sure he took full advantage of the meeting with Ron Blake. It was his job to make sure the cold case detective understood all the details pointing to his two prime suspects. As he walked up to the front desk, Jordan decided it would be a major victory if he could convince the detective that Alana Stevens and Jessica Boyd had at least a vested interest in the old couple’s death.
A uniformed deputy escorted Jordan into a small ten by ten-foot interview room where he waited for Blake to make an appearance. After about ten minutes, Jordan’s gung-ho resolve only grew stronger. Finally, the door flew open and a middle-aged man with brown hair walked in, eyed him carefully over a pair of reading glasses before offering his hand. “I’m Blake. So you’re the guy with the insane idea he has something that might solve a forty year old murder.”
“With that attitude, we may have a problem.”
“Don’t mind me I’m a natural cynic. Let’s cut to the chase. Show me what you got.”
Jordan opened his briefcase and took out a thick file folder, leafed through a stack of papers. Quickly, before he lost the guy, he went through the timeline showing the detective exactly how Jessica and Alana had the most to gain from the Parkers’ deaths.
But it wasn’t until he flipped open the briefcase again and took out the .357 the group had found in a mobile safe tucked away in Alana’s attic that Blake sat up and took notice. Jordan placed the heavy weapon down on the table, watched as the detective eyed it with interest.
“I guess there’s no point in playing hard to get. Let’s take a walk,” Blake offered as they left the interview room to head down a hallway into a much larger room, where a lone, beat-up, du
sty brown box already sat on a conference table. “After your phone call I took the liberty of pulling this out of the Evidence Room, on the off-chance you actually brought me something.”
Jordan stared at the carton. After forty years it had come down to a cardboard box. They stood around the table as he watched Blake dig through the carton, pulling out several pieces of paper.
Once Blake located the police report, they both went over the details, line by line. They soon learned that Mary Parker had died from a single gunshot wound to the head while Pete Parker had died from a single gunshot wound to the chest. According to the coroner, both had multiple stab wounds inflicted post mortem, after death.
Pictures from the crime scene revealed graffiti written on the walls of the couple’s bedroom. Looking at the pictures reminded Jordan about Kit Griffin’s psychic dream. At least that’s what he called it. She had been adamant from the start about the exact words written on the walls. Standing there looking at the photos of the crime scene, he saw that her description had been eerily right on the money. How had she known the exact words written on the walls in the victim’s blood, years before she’d ever been born? He didn’t know anything about psychics or their dreams, but he did know how to read a police report. It confirmed the bullets retrieved from both bodies of the victims were believed to be those from a .357.
Goose bumps formed on his arms.
Blake stared at Jordan. “Bingo. That’s significant.” He held up an evidence bag from the box. “We retrieved bullet fragments from the scene. I’ll send the gun off to the lab today. Put a rush on the ballistics.”
Later, as Jordan walked to his car, he couldn’t help feeling euphoric. Only a cop, or in his case, an ex-cop, knew how truly unusual it was to be able to solve a cold murder case, let alone one that had been sitting dormant for forty years, one that had killed a defenseless elderly couple in their beds.
He dug out his cell phone to give Reese and Jake an update.
Deeper Evil (The Evil Secrets Trilogy Book 2) Page 25