A Perfect Stranger

by Ryan, Jenna

  Since that someone was under no circumstances going to be Darcy, he got Val to drop him in the park so he could walk it off.

  He’d looked in on Matilda tonight. She was conscious, but ornery and disinclined to talk to the police. Darcy might have better luck. Persuading people to talk was her job. And from what he’d seen and read, she did that job very well.

  She did a lot of things well, actually. Topping the list right now was sex. With crisis management only slightly below it.

  Another small step down, but no less amazing to him, was her ability to harness her journalistic nature. She could easily have dug into his past. That she hadn’t spoke volumes about her character and far more about her heart than he was prepared to acknowledge.

  At the sound of scurrying footsteps, Marlowe let the ghost of a smile cross his lips.

  “Hey, Comet,” he greeted without turning. “Got something for me?”

  “Got a parched throat and nothing to wet it down at my flop.”

  The smile became a chuckle. “Will fifty help?”

  “You always was generous.” The little man fell into step beside him. “Okay, here’s the dope. Guy you lit out after tonight came into the club after you. Word is he hung at the bar the whole time till you flushed him out.”

  “Whose word?”

  Comet’s bearded mouth split into a nicotine-stained smile. “Lady I talked to. She says the guy never left the bar, just watched the three of you. Looked at the clock when the pretty lady got up, but didn’t follow her right away. By the time he did make a move in that direction, pretty lady was coming back out. Then she saw him, and you saw him and he took off, lickety-split.”

  Marlowe pulled five twenties from his pocket while he processed the information. “You did good tonight, Comet. Rates a bonus.”

  The little man stuffed the money into his shirt. “Just sniffed around some and watched after the pretty lady like you asked. Weren’t no hardship.” Comet eyeballed him from the side. “Saw her give you a mashed-up hat. Did it tell you anything?”

  “Yeah, it told me something. I’m not sure yet if it was something I wanted to hear.”

  DARCY WORKED ON HER laptop until she heard Marlowe come in. Shutting down, she stood, gave her hair a shake and strolled to the second-floor railing. With her forearms resting on the polished wood, she watched him reset the alarm.

  “I hope you’re not thinking about staying down there tonight, Mr. Investigator. My sofa’s nice, but it’s not meant to be slept on…if that’s your intention.” Pushing back, she started down the stairs. “Now if it turns out it is, let me say that I have a slightly more…provocative suggestion.” With her hair spilling over the side of her face, she set her tongue on her upper lip and in a single, smooth movement, let her robe drop to the floor.

  She kept coming, lowering her eyes to the front of his jeans and allowing a sparkle to swim up. “Now that,” she noted, “is a very promising sign.”

  On the second-to-last step, she arched a guileless brow. “Cat got your tongue, Marlowe? Or is it that there’s nothing you want to say? Only things—” she descended another step, took the rock-hard front of his jeans in her hands “—you want to do.” Replacing her hands with her hips, she shimmied against him, brought her mouth closer to his. “I don’t know about you, but I’m in the mood for a fire.”

  His mesmerizing eyes didn’t waver from hers. “Fires consume, Darcy. Can you handle that?”

  With his hands cradling her, she wrapped a single leg around him, kissed him long and deep. A brow went up as she drew back.

  “Enough of an answer for you, Marlowe?”

  “Not even close,” he said. Crushing his mouth to hers, he let the flames erupt.

  NO! HE WALKED IN circles.

  No! He karate-chopped the air.

  No! He pounded his fists on the wall.

  She was his. She would be his. He was done playacting.

  Feeble, that’s what he’d been. But no more. No show of mercy to the P.I. The slimeball was trying to steal his woman!

  Pow, pow. Two shots would take him down. The first was for pain. You think the Darcy doll can hurt you with her knee? Just wait until your balls meet my gun. Ooh, man, it’s gonna sting. He’d see to that…

  Right before bullet number two got him between the eyes.

  Mustn’t forget, though, Darcy was the goal. No victory in drilling the P.I. if he couldn’t carry out his plan for her.

  Gotta set priorities, he reminded himself. Stick to them…Shut up, he warned the yappy doctor voices in his head. Bunch of quacks. You can’t fix it if it ain’t broke, people. What? You think it’s broken? You think I’m broken? Man, are you dumb. Dumber than dumb. Why am I even talking to you? Go home to your pools and your Porsches, your martinis and your mistresses. I’ve got work to do.

  “Gonna get my woman at long, long last,” he promised out loud. “Gonna make her mine forever.”

  Grabbing a pen, he drew a heart around one of the photographs that adorned the wall in front of him.

  “Gonna love you to death, pretty Darcy doll.”

  SEX WITH MARLOWE WAS like a dream in the middle of her worst nightmare.

  They made love three times. They ordered pizza at 4:00 a.m. They talked until after six.

  He told her more than she expected to hear.

  He’d gone to Michigan State, had been a wide receiver from his sophomore year until graduation. He’d majored in criminology and political science.

  He’d had two serious relationships in his life. Neither had worked, but the second one had been the worst.

  Long story short, he’d been addicted to his career.

  Darcy wondered which one was the Lisa that Val had mentioned. Lucky for him, she’d given her word not to ask.

  As good things tended to, the night ended much too soon. With the dawn came a phone call from Val. Forensics had double-checked the decimated hat and come up with seventeen hair types and dozens of skin and saliva samples. Evidently, the club floors weren’t cleaned very often.

  Marlowe left to meet him in Center City.

  Feeling revved, Darcy considered going in to the magazine—until she realized that whatever needed doing could be done by e-mail.

  She zipped off the article Elaine had requested the previous day, added an outline for a fall feature and said she’d be back in the office tomorrow.

  She spent most of the morning up in her ninety-eight-degree attic, going through old storage boxes. She was on the third one and debating whether to continue or set fire to the room when a horn blasted rudely outside.

  “Lovely.” Dropping her head back, she watched dust particles dance in a slanting sunbeam. “Mohammad comes to the mountain.”

  Two minutes later, hands on hips and tapping an impatient foot, Elaine stood in the middle of the attic. “You call this doing research? If that’s the case, you can come over to my place tomorrow and do your research in my garage.”

  Not waiting for a response, she strode from door to window, raising angry puffs of dust as she went.

  Darcy waited. Watched. “Uh, Elaine?”

  “I fired him,” her boss snapped. She whipped her head around. “Did you hear me? I did what I had to do for the sake of the magazine. I did what any sane employer would do, and yet I feel guilty. Why is that, Darcy? Why?”

  “Well, I suppose—”

  “I caught him in the women’s washroom again. That’s two times in less than a week. He was hiding in one of the stalls with his cell phone. What was I supposed to do? Tell me, please, because I’m driving myself crazy here.”

  Darcy set aside a torn manila envelope. “You could insist he get help, go for counseling.”

  “He won’t do it.”

  “He will if he values his career. And he should. As far as I’m aware, this is the best job he’s had since he graduated from college.”

  “Trace hates doctors. Hates them,” Elaine emphasized.

  Hated doctors? That tidbit roused her curiosity. Th
e guy in the washroom last night said he hated doctors. “How do you know that?” Darcy asked.

  “Because he’s been to dozens of them. He’s been hospitalized twice. Intervention by his mother. I mean, come on, you had to figure, right? The guy’s a walking blob of angst, fetishes and major neuroses.”

  Momentarily sidetracked by a photo that had spilled from the envelope, Darcy brought her eyes and her mind back. “In other words, he’s totally screwed up.”

  “Nail on the head, kiddo. Artistically brilliant, but socially stunted.”

  Standing, Darcy worked a cramp from her calf. “Where is he now?”

  “I haven’t the foggiest.” Pausing by the window, her editor stared through the pane. “As a point of interest, did you know there’s a man skulking around outside?”

  “Really?” Darcy went to the window. “That’s John Hancock.” She watched him pass by on the far side of the street. “I see a vulture searching for a carcass.”

  “Not a friend of yours, I take it.”

  “Neighbor.”

  “What’s his line? Is he a burglar in training?”

  Darcy’s smile was distant. “Short-order cook, or so he says. He’s looking for work.”

  “Seems more like he’s looking for you. He’s gone past your place four times since I got here.”

  “Wonder how he feels about doctors,” Darcy murmured with a glance at the picture on the floor behind her.

  “Should I understand that question?”

  “I’m not sure I do.” She turned from the window. “But before this day’s over, I intend to.”

  SHE LOCATED MARLOWE at police headquarters. He was using Val’s computer and had disks and papers scattered everywhere.

  “One more item for your pile, Marlowe.” Bending over an empty corner of the desk, Darcy dangled the photo she’d discovered in her attic. “Red heart drawn around Shannon’s head as she walks through hotel lobby. No big deal, I thought back in the day. Except this morning, for the first time, I noticed a squiggle on the tip of the heart. It’s a match for the squiggle on the headstone he sent me, which, tit for tat, I didn’t notice until I saw this one.”

  Marlowe examined the photo. “This guy’s been watching you for a while, Darcy.”

  “Comforting thought, huh? I calculated the dates. Between my on-air job in Oregon and this photo, the time frame’s roughly two and a half years.”

  “What other gifts did you receive during that time?”

  “Roses, candy, some porcelain dolls, which I donated to a children’s charity. Various pieces of jewelry, also donated, and a handblown Italian glass sculpture.”

  “Of?”

  She fought to keep the shudder at bay. “A woman and a man intertwined and rising out of a waterfall. It’s interpretive, and at the time I thought, quite lovely.”

  “Do you still have it?”

  “Lovely,” she repeated, “but too delicate for my gypsy lifestyle. I gave it to my godmother. It’s in her curio cabinet in Switzerland.”

  “And you just remembered it now.”

  She met his stare across the desk. “Marlowe, I told you, people in the media receive gifts.” She breathed out, gave in. “I also told you one of my coworkers in Los Angeles had a stalker after her.”

  “Why am I sensing a but?”

  She sighed. “A possible but. Looking back, I’m not sure the stalker was after her. It could’ve been me.”

  “Because?”

  “Thing’s used to appear on her desk. Logically, we assumed they were meant for her. Except we switched desks after our first week together. What we didn’t bother to switch were the nameplates attached to them. And I do mean attached. They were screwed into the wood on the front. But no mail or files ever got mixed up because our coworkers knew she kept a big bowl of lavender potpourri next to her computer. Bowl on top, must be Emma’s desk. It’s called visual reference. Coworkers used it. I doubt a stalker would.”

  “But the gifts stopped coming, right?”

  A chill rippled through her. “Six months before she left. A year before the Maco trial and Shannon Hunt’s disappearance.”

  Still facing her across the desk, Marlowe took her hands and ran his thumbs lightly over her knuckles. “Let me get the time frame straight. There were approximately two and a half years of gifts and cards that could have been stalker-related, then a year of nothing.”

  “Yes. Nothing as well for the last three years. Then suddenly, Umer Lugo hired you to find me. The guy in the washroom last night mentioned doctors. It’s possible he was hospitalized for a time.”

  Marlowe brought her up with him as he stood. His hypnotic gold eyes stared into hers. “We’ll figure it out, Darcy. I’m running every name I can think of through the system.”

  She found she could still laugh. “Well, that’s a relief. Or would be if I had any faith at all in the system.”

  He touched her cheek. “It has its moments.”

  “That would be my cue to ask if you’ve found something.”

  A gleam appeared in his eyes. “Blydon ran the baseball-cap guy through California police and prison records and came up with the name Ivan Kazarov.”

  “Sorry, no lightbulbs. Does he have a background?”

  “He has an occupation.”

  “Which is?”

  Marlowe kept his eyes on her face while he kissed the palm of her hand. “He’s what’s known in cop circles as a hit man.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The story was getting better and better, Darcy thought later that day. Someone had sent a hit man after her. Not the most efficient one in the world, but a hired killer nonetheless.

  Ivan Kazarov had a record and a reputation. The rep was for murder, unfortunately never proven. The record involved a sloppily executed robbery for which he’d served four years in California State Prison.

  He’d been released two months ago. Perhaps through default, he’d turned to private investigation. At least he called it that. If he had clients, however, there was no list available since he worked out of a studio apartment in East L.A. and didn’t appear to keep records.

  As a favor to Blydon, the police agreed to search his home. It was late afternoon by the time he received word that they’d come up empty.

  For the remainder of the day, Marlowe alternated between his laptop and Val’s computer while Val and two sets of uniformed guards hung out at the hospital. Darcy stayed at the station, too, using her own laptop to source any and all media-related stories. Frustration set in when she hit her twenty-third wall.

  Barefoot, she did a long yoga stretch and endeavored to sort through the clutter of useless details she’d unearthed.

  “R.J. Wilkie liked bloodhounds, ghost towns and Seinfeld reruns,” she said while she worked her muscles. “He admired P.T. Barnum, Walt Disney and Indira Gandhi. Odd but interesting combination. His mother’s still alive. His father died from cancer six months before he disappeared. It makes me think motive for vanishing act, but doesn’t really connect to this situation.”

  Marlowe sat back, took a drink from Darcy’s water bottle. “Anything on Hickey’s son?”

  “Only that he’s thirty-three, has a plethora of personal problems and is totally camera-shy. There isn’t a single picture of him that I could find on record. There’s the one Val discovered, and others like it—of him in full stage makeup—so maybe with the right program he could be taken from character to man, but my computer doesn’t have that capability.”

  “Police computer does.”

  “Right. Your job, then.” Rotating her shoulder, she let the tension in her neck and spine flow away. “As far as Constantine Lyons is concerned, there’s not much. The family is private almost to a fault. Except for the eldest grandson whose auto-racing career is starting to hum after more than seven years of mediocre results. There is one thing, though. Constantine’s son is rumored to have a serious psychological disorder.”

  “Yeah, I got that, too.” Marlowe took another drink, offer
ed her the bottle when she returned to center. “Any idea what kind?”

  “Schizophrenia was mentioned more than once. Snippets of other stories suggest he’s spent more time being treated in London and Paris than he has piloting the board of Constantine’s corporation. He married a British restaurant heiress, managed to father three sons with her, brought his family back to California and was in the process of getting a divorce when his wife died. Vehicle crash on the Pacific Coast Highway. The son who was with her and survived is the one who chose auto racing as a career.”

  “Who was driving when she died?”

  “Consensus is it was her, although both of them were thrown from their seats. As for Constantine’s other two grandsons, that being the middle and the youngest, ages thirty-one and thirty respectively, the same rumor that dogs their father has also been applied to them. Mental-health issues. You might be able to go deeper there. The walls came fast and furious for me after the story about the son. Right now I’m feeling claustrophobic and cranky, which tells me I need a break.” Popping her sunglasses on her head, Darcy strapped on her high-heeled sandals and picked up her shoulder bag. “Val’s still at the hospital, right?”

  Marlowe leaned forward. “Do you have a plan I should know about?”

  “Working on it.” With a sassy smile, she pulled out her cell.

  Val answered on the first ring.

  “Has Kazarov regained consciousness?” she asked him.

  “Twice, but either he’s pretending not to hear me, or his brain took a harder hit than the X-rays suggest, because we’re getting squat from him. Far as I can see, there’s only one avenue of attack left to us, and unfortunately you’re there rather than here.”

  That surprised a laugh out of her. “You want me to talk to him?”

  “Why not? Maybe if he sees you as a flesh-and-blood person, he’ll feel a twinge of guilt. Combine that with the fact that he’s under arrest and facing God knows how many charges, and he might be willing to throw us a bone. A small one would do.”

  Reaching around the monitor, Darcy picked up Marlowe’s wrist and checked his watch. “It’s almost seven. I can be there in twenty minutes.”