Edge of Darkness

by Karen Rose

  Trip huffed. “I knew about the leave,” he said gruffly. “But you came back, y’know? And you’re still here. Still on the job. Still doing for others. So that’s the important thing.”

  Having spoken their piece, they fell silent, the only sounds the stomping of their feet as they kept warm. Finally, the door opened and Mrs. Voss’s sister gestured them in.

  “I’m sorry you had to stand in the cold for so long.”

  “It’s quite all right. The last thing we want is to frighten anyone.” Adam smiled. “Our records show that you are Dianne Glenn. Is that correct?”

  The woman looked startled. “I have no criminal record.”

  “Property records, ma’am,” Trip clarified with a smile that seemed to put the woman at ease. “That’s all. Is your sister here?”

  “She’s getting dressed.” Dianne directed them to a sunken living room, decorated in modern, sleek lines. Which equaled fucking uncomfortable in Adam’s experience. “Please have a seat. Can I get you some coffee?”

  “Only if it’s no trouble,” Adam said. Dianne disappeared into the kitchen, while he and Trip chose two chairs that looked sturdy enough to hold them. Trip winced when the chair he’d chosen let out an ominous creak.

  “Did you break it?” The concerned voice came from a tiny girl who’d slipped down the stairs undetected. Her little face stared at them through the balusters, fascinated.

  Trip looked taken aback. “I don’t think so.”

  “Are you cops?” the girl asked.

  “Yes,” Adam told her. “Are you Penny?”

  Her face scrunched up in displeasure. “How did you know that?”

  A woman came down the stairs then, wearing a silk dress. Her jewelry was classy and understated, her face made up, but subtly so. “I’d like to know that, too. Go on back to bed, sweetheart. I’ll be up soon to tuck you back in.”

  “Do I have to say my prayers again?”

  The woman smiled at her daughter, but the smile was strained. “No, baby. I think God heard them just fine the first time.” She waited, staring up to the second floor until a door closed. Then she walked toward them, her gait runway-model smooth.

  He and Trip stood when she descended the two stairs into the living room. “I’m Detective Kimble. This is Agent Triplett.”

  “Yes, I heard. Please sit down.”

  They did, Trip’s chair creaking ominously once again. Mrs. Voss smiled wanly. “Don’t worry, Agent Triplett. It’s just a chair. If you break it, I’ll buy my sister another one and we’ll have a great story to tell someday.”

  Trip didn’t look terribly pleased with that, but he nodded anyway.

  Adam cleared his throat. “We’re here to talk to you about your husband, Mrs. Voss.”

  Her brows lifted. “What has he done?”

  “You don’t seem surprised,” Adam said.

  “I’m not. Now, anyway. My husband has . . . predilections that were unknown to me up until three months ago. I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d come to me before then.”

  “What kind of predilections, Mrs. Voss?” Trip asked.

  She looked away, a flush spreading across her face. “He cheated on me.”

  That is not a predilection, Adam thought. Not the way she’d said the word, as if it tasted foul. “Is that why you left him and took Penny with you?”

  Candace inclined her head in a single nod.

  Adam leaned forward, lowering his voice, conscious of the child upstairs. “With all due respect, ma’am, cheating on its own isn’t something that would make a visit from law enforcement unsurprising. Was there something specific that he did?” He caught the tightening of her jaw and his stomach gave a lurch. “Or perhaps who he did it with?”

  God. Please don’t let it be the little girl. Please.

  She gasped. “No. Not . . .” She leaned closer. “Not Penny. Thank God she was a little older than my six-year-old.”

  Adam steeled his spine. “How old, ma’am?”

  “Eighteen, or so the one I talked to claimed. I had my doubts. She looked twenty-five, but some of the others looked fifteen. They were college students, though, so . . .” She trailed off with a shrug.

  Adam drew a breath that was slightly easier. “All right. So you’re saying that your husband had an affair with a college student?”

  Her lips twisted bitterly. “If by ‘affair’”—she used air quotes—“you mean ‘orgy’ and by ‘college student’ you mean ‘prostitutes,’ then yes.”

  Okay. That might explain the blackmail, but the attempted murder of a restaurant full of people? No, that didn’t fit. And Adam still wondered how Penny fit into the equation. The child was in therapy. It might be simply because her parents had split up. He hoped so, but he didn’t think so. Were that the case, Broderick Voss wouldn’t be trying to intimidate Meredith away from treating his daughter.

  Unless . . . unless the daughter knew something and he thought she’d told Meredith. “How is your daughter handling the separation?”

  “Not terribly well.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why? Why are you asking questions about my daughter?”

  Adam shrugged slightly. “She’s a sweet-looking kid. I was hoping she didn’t know what her father had done.”

  Her eyes narrowed further to slits. “Bullshit,” she said flatly, startling him. For some reason he hadn’t expected her vocabulary to include that word. “What’s this got to do with my daughter?”

  Adam met Trip’s gaze, his own brows lifted, and the younger man nodded.

  Adam hoped he was not ruining Meredith’s career. “We’re going to tell you how we got to this point, okay? Because we need you to understand how we came to be here, both here in our investigation and here in your living room.”

  Candace leaned back in her chair. “All right,” she said slowly.

  “Have you seen the news today?”

  She shook her head. “No. I have made it a point not to watch the news. Why?”

  “There was a shooting in a restaurant on Fountain Square this afternoon. One man was killed, another wounded. An explosive device was disabled.”

  “What does this have to do with my husband?” Candace demanded. “And my child?”

  Adam held up his hand, hoping to calm her. “I promise I’ll tell you.” Everything but the hacked bank records. “The target of the attack was shot at, but not hit. I believe you know her. Dr. Meredith Fallon.”

  Candace’s hand flew to her mouth. “What? But . . . You think Broderick was responsible? He’s a pervert, but he’s not violent.”

  “Um, not true, Candy.” The sister came out of the kitchen, her arms folded tightly over her chest. “He’s hit you.”

  Candace flinched. “But . . . he wouldn’t shoot . . .”

  Dianne was angry. “Fallon told you to come here? She promised us confidentiality.”

  Adam held up his hand again. “That’s just it. She did not tell us to come here. That’s why I was leading you up to this moment. She wouldn’t tell us who had threatened her.”

  “She outright refused,” Trip added quietly, his voice a deep, soothing rumble. The two women seemed to settle. Hell, even Adam felt calmer.

  “Then why are you here?” Dianne demanded.

  “Wait,” Candace interrupted when Trip attempted to answer. “Are you saying Broderick threatened Dr. Fallon?”

  Trip held up a finger, wordlessly asking for their patience. “She would not tell us the names of any of the parents who’d threatened her because it violated her clients’ privacy,” he continued, “but she did tell us where she’d been.”

  “Dr. Fallon gave us a detailed account of her activities over the last three weeks,” Adam said. “We obtained footage from surveillance cameras and studied her movements.” He pulled the photographs from his pocket and unfolded them, handing them to Candace.


  Her sister stood behind her, viewing the photos over her shoulder.

  “Oh my God,” Candace whispered. “How long has this been going on?”

  “About three weeks,” Adam answered. “Your husband will show up and just smile at her. There is no overt threat, which is why she hasn’t reported it.”

  “That’s why the other two . . . ,” Dianne murmured, and Candace nodded numbly.

  “The other two what?” Trip prompted.

  “Penny saw two therapists before Dr. Fallon,” Candace murmured. “Both told us that they were cutting back their hours and would no longer have the available slots for Penny. Do you think he threatened them, too?”

  “If you give us their names,” Trip said, “we’ll ask them.”

  Candace nodded, still looking stunned. “Of course. Whatever will help.”

  “This still doesn’t answer why you were asking about Penny,” Dianne said.

  Trip’s smile was mildly apologetic. “We figured a child entered into this somehow, because Dr. Fallon’s clientele is exclusively pediatric and adolescent. We found photos of you, Mrs. Voss, with your husband and your daughter online with very little trouble.”

  “Because Broderick is a fucking attention whore,” Dianne muttered.

  “But . . .” Candace shook her head helplessly. “It doesn’t make sense that he’d have Dr. Fallon shot. Or that he’d kill a lot of other innocent people. And with a bomb?”

  Adam had to admit that was true, if only to himself. “Does he plan to go into politics?”

  Candace nodded. “That’s why he got so angry when I walked out.”

  Trip lowered his voice again. “Does he know that you know about the multiple prostitutes?”

  “No.” Candace shook her head firmly. “He believes that I believe it was ‘only an affair.’” Again she used air quotes. “I didn’t want to voice it aloud with him. He’d just find a way to wriggle out of it. Nothing is ever his fault. I decided to cut my losses and get out while I still could.”

  Adam studied her. “Do you believe he would have resorted to violence to stop you?”

  “He did,” Dianne insisted. She pulled her phone from her pocket, batting Candace’s hands away when she reached for it. “I’m going to show them. I wanted to report the fucking bastard three months ago. I took pictures the night Candy got here.” She handed her phone to Trip, whose chair was closer.

  Trip frowned, then passed the phone to Adam, who had to bite back a wince. Candace Voss sported a dark shiner in the photo, the bruise covering her eye and most of her cheek.

  “Were there any other injuries?” Adam managed to ask levelly.

  “No.” Candace looked away again. “Penny saw my face. I told her that I’d fallen down, but she didn’t believe me. She told me that she knew it was her daddy who’d done it. I couldn’t bear that she knew. That she was so certain. I was so ashamed that I let him hurt me like that. And scared he’d do it again. Or hurt Penny.”

  “Is that why she’s in therapy?” Trip asked gently.

  “No. Well, yes, that, too,” she amended. “Also because I found out about the party because Penny heard it going on and saw . . . something.”

  Adam couldn’t control his blink of shock. “He had prostitutes in your home with your daughter present?”

  Candace shrugged, her shoulders rigid. “He thought she was asleep.”

  “Fucker,” Dianne added under her breath.

  Adam fully agreed with that statement. Poor kid. “What exactly did she see?”

  “We’re not sure,” Dianne said. “She won’t talk about it, but she did tell Candy that there was a naked lady with pink hair in the bathroom when she got up to pee that night.”

  “Pink hair?” Adam asked.

  “Pink hair and ponytails.” Dianne shrugged. “That’s all we could get out of her.”

  “I was away for the evening,” Candace said, her feelings of guilt still apparent. “I’d gone to a bachelorette party and we were all staying the night so that we could have wine. I was stunned when I got home the next day. Penny said she’d asked her daddy who the lady was once she was gone, but Broderick wouldn’t wake up. He was in a drunken stupor.”

  And the mental picture of that was enough to banish any of Adam’s own need for a drink. For now, at least. One day at a time. One moment at a time.

  Adam took his notebook from his pocket. “When was this?”

  “September thirteenth,” Dianne said without hesitation. “Not a day I’ll ever forget.”

  Candace sighed. “Me, either. Nor will Penny. I grabbed her and ran from the house. Came straight here because—” Her voice cracked. “I didn’t know where else to go.”

  Dianne leaned over Candace’s chair to wrap her arms around her sister. “It’s okay. You are always welcome here. You know that. Whatever stupid things we argue about, I love you. Like a sister,” she added teasingly, but both women were close to tears.

  Trip cleared his throat. “You said that you talked to one of the prostitutes, who said she was eighteen,” he said, bringing the women back to the reason for the interview. “How did you know who to talk to and where to find her?”

  Candace’s lips curved in a mirthless smile. “After I brought Penny here, I went back to the house. My plan was to get our things, but as I was coming up to the gate, I saw a bunch of cars going in and realized he was having another party. So I pulled out of security camera range and waited. Just before dawn, three cars emerged. One of the drivers had pink hair. I followed them back to the college campus, but could only follow one of the three cars when they split up to park. I picked Pink Hair. I . . . well, I may have been a little threatening myself. I told the girl that I’d report her to the university police if she didn’t tell me what I wanted to know.”

  “Which was?” Adam prompted.

  “First, how old were they? Second, how much had he paid them? Third, had he used condoms? And fourth, were they disease free? She swore they were all over eighteen, all students. He’d been hosting a party with some friends and the girls were the ‘entertainment.’” More air quotes. “She said the men were all pretty high.” Her mouth twisted. “There had been drugs in my home. She swore they hadn’t had drugs the night before, but I didn’t believe her. My baby was exposed to that.” Her voice hoarsened, then broke. She blinked and tears ran down her cheeks.

  “How much had he paid them?” Adam asked quietly.

  “A thousand each for the night. He’s been a regular big-time spender since BuzzBoys went IPO. He was always a prick, but once he got really rich? It was hell. So I left.”

  “Did you get this young woman’s name?” Trip’s voice soothed once more.

  Candace laughed bitterly. “She said it was Kandy—with a ‘K.’ Kandy Kane.”

  “For God’s sake,” Dianne muttered.

  Again, Adam fully agreed. “Do you remember what kind of car she drove?”

  Candace’s lips curved, this time with satisfaction. “I’ll do you one better. I got photos of the license plates for all three hooker-mobiles. I can e-mail you the photos. Some are better quality than others.” Her satisfied smile faded. “My hands were shaking.”

  “When did he hit you?” Trip asked.

  “Later that morning. When I’d finished talking to the prostitute, I went back to the house to get our things, mine and Penny’s. It was almost dawn and all the cars were gone, so I figured the party was over. I was quiet, because he was drunk and wasted. Again. I just wanted to get our things before he woke up, because he could be vile when he was drunk.”

  Yeah. I know all about that. His own father had been that way. Adam was working so hard to ensure he never became like his father. “But he woke up?”

  Candace nodded. “I was loading the car when he caught me. He did that to my face.” She gestured at her sister’s phone. “He was hauling
back to hit me again, so I hit him. I just grabbed a bottle and hit him upside the head. He staggered enough for me to run. I got in the car and he was right behind me.” She shuddered out a breath, shaken. “I barely got the door closed and got out of there.”

  “It was a good thing I unloaded her car as soon as she got here,” her sister said, trembling with fury. “Because he had it taken away the next day. Towed right out of my driveway. Said it was his car and she wasn’t keeping it.”

  “But that was okay. Dianne’s leased a car for me.” Candace rubbed her forehead fitfully. “I’m going to have to find a new therapist for Penny. I can’t imagine Dr. Fallon will keep seeing her after this.”

  “I can’t imagine she’d turn Penny away,” Adam said firmly. “That’s not who she is. Have you considered filing charges against your husband?”

  Dianne arched her brows in an I-told-you-so look and Candace sighed.

  “Only a million times, but I’m afraid of him. And before you ask, I’ve also considered a restraining order, but that would be pointless. He’d just have one of his flunkies do his dirty work. I have consulted with a divorce attorney. We’re almost ready to file.”

  “And then?” Adam tempered his tone because she seemed to grow more fragile with every word she spoke.

  “I haven’t thought that far out,” she admitted. “I need to find a job first. But I’m afraid to leave the house without Dianne. I’ve been homeschooling Penny because I’m afraid to let her go to school.” She looked up, her expression bleak. “We’re trapped.”

  Adam leaned forward. “Okay, one thing at a time. Even if you feel a restraining order is pointless, you should still file one so that the situation can be documented.” And her old house was under surveillance, so if her husband attempted to leave, he’d be followed. But he wasn’t going to tell her that on the off chance that she wasn’t as innocent as she claimed. Broderick Voss likely knew he was being watched, but Adam didn’t want to spell it out in the event he was unaware. “We can’t provide full-time security, but I can ask for drive-bys. In the meantime, if he does send a flunky, do you have an alarm system?”