The Marriage Profile

by Metsy Hingle

  “I’m sure your dad was happy with your mother,” Justin said, wanting to console Dylan as best he could. He knew from his own father’s affair with Hawk’s mother how complicated and unsettling it was to see one’s parents in a different light.

  “Oh, I know that,” Dylan replied. “It’s just there’s so many things about him that I never knew and should have known. Maybe if I had come back and tried to work things out with him sooner—”

  Justin clamped a hand on Dylan’s shoulder. “The important thing is that you did come back and you patched things up before he was killed.”

  “Yeah,” Dylan said. “I guess there’s some comfort in that.”

  Justin wished he could offer him something more, but already he could feel the clock ticking. “So what did you find?”

  “Well, I checked on my dad’s computer like you asked me to for any e-mail correspondence with this Joseph woman in London.”

  “And?” Justin asked, anxious for any lead that might conclusively link the woman in London to Haley Mercado.

  “And it looks like my dad didn’t believe in saving e-mail correspondence. Either that, or he didn’t trust leaving it on his computer. Except for some legal and business stuff, he deleted any personal messages he received.”

  “I always knew it was a long shot,” Justin told him.

  “Turns out it was a good hunch.”

  Justin jerked his attention from the box of files to Dylan. “What do you mean?”

  “There were several unopened e-mails to my dad from someone calling herself ‘ItalianGirl’ that were dated just after he was killed.”

  The moniker “ItalianGirl” definitely described Haley, Justin conceded. “And?”

  “And all of them asked if something had happened to him. Why he wasn’t answering her e-mails. The sender was obviously worried about him.”

  “Did you get a return address on the sender?” Justin asked.

  “Yeah, but it’s no good. I tried sending a message and it bounced back.”

  “Damn!” He had hoped that if this Joseph woman was Haley he’d be able to track her through an e-mail address.

  “But what I did manage to do was tap into my dad’s hard drive and restore the last message he sent the day he was killed.” Dylan removed a sheet of paper from inside his jacket pocket and handed it to Justin.

  Justin unfolded the paper, and sitting back down in his chair, he quickly scanned the note Carl Bridges had sent.

  My dear ItalianGirl,

  I’m worried about you. In your last message you sounded very lonely and sad. I know how hard this is for you and how anxious you are for this all to be over so that you can be with your baby again, but promise me you’ll be careful. I spoke with S.C. today and expressed my unhappiness at how long this is taking and how concerned I am for your safety. He assures me that they’re on top of the situation and that this nightmare will soon be over for you and your family. How I wish your mother was still alive to see that happen. She would be proud of you, as proud of you as I am.

  I saw your little girl today, and she appears to be doing fine. So please don’t worry about her. She’s in good hands. You just take care of yourself. I have to run. Dylan is going to attend the mystery gala at the Lone Star Country Club with me tonight and I need to make sure my tuxedo still fits. Would you believe I’m actually looking forward to going? But then I guess that’s because after all these years, I finally have my son back.

  Please, please be careful. I’ll be in touch soon.

  “You think it’s her? Haley Mercado?” Dylan asked.

  Justin looked across his desk at the other man. “Yeah, I do. And after reading this, I’m sure that Lena is Haley’s daughter. It all makes sense now,” Justin said as all the pieces of the puzzle fell into place. “Before Haley’s supposed death, she was engaged to Frank Del Brio.”

  “The mob guy you think was behind my father’s murder?”

  “One and the same. The rumor on the street was that Haley wasn’t happy about her engagement to Frank. Faking her death in that boating accident gave her a way out. But to pull it off, she would have needed help from someone who knew the ins and outs of the legal system. Someone who would not only help her, but whom she could trust to keep her secret.”

  “And my father fit both criteria,” Dylan supplied.

  Justin nodded. “Because of his affection for her mother, Haley would have felt she could trust him. And as a lawyer and a judge, your dad would have known what would be needed in the way of evidence to convince everyone that Haley was dead. He’d also have had the connections to get her out of the country and set her up with a new identity.”

  “I could buy it all except for the fact that you said Luke Callaghan and his friends were charged with Haley’s murder. I can’t see my dad going along with having innocent men facing a prison term for a murder that he knew hadn’t even been committed.”

  “My guess is that neither Haley nor your father counted on Del Brio bringing the murder charges against Luke and his friends. That’s probably why your father headed up their defense team. If they hadn’t been acquitted, he would have insisted that Haley come forward and admit that she was still alive.”

  Dylan shook his head. “It just all seems so surreal. I mean, I understand about this guy Del Brio’s mob connections. But come on, this isn’t 1930s Chicago where the mafia runs the city. Why go to such lengths just to break off an engagement?”

  “I know how it sounds. But Haley Mercado wouldn’t have felt she had any choice about marrying Del Brio—not if she wanted her father and brother to go on breathing.” The truth was he imagined she would have been desperate, and he couldn’t blame her. From what he remembered about Haley, she’d been a bright, talented, nice young woman—too nice and too bright for a thug like Del Brio. At Dylan’s skeptical look, Justin said, “You’ve spent the last fifteen years away from here and haven’t been back long enough to see Del Brio in action. Trust me, the guy’s a real piece of work. He’s ruthless and has a warped sense of his own importance. He wouldn’t think twice about threatening to kill her family unless Haley agreed to marry him.”

  “The man sounds like a psychopath.”

  “I think he is.” He’d heard too many tales of Del Brio’s cold-bloodedness to believe otherwise.

  “Then why haven’t you locked him up?” Dylan demanded.

  “Because psychopath or not, Del Brio’s no dummy. He gets someone else to do his dirty work—men like Alex Black. And he makes sure they can’t be tied to him. I’m more convinced now than ever that he’s the one who had your father killed. This—” he indicated the e-mail he held in his hand and the box of files “—this is the connection that I was missing. Del Brio already held a grudge against your father for getting Luke and his friends acquitted in Haley’s death. But if Del Brio somehow discovered that your father had helped Haley pull off this charade—”

  “He would also have figured that my dad knew where Haley was,” Dylan finished. “And he sent Black to find out where, only my dad wouldn’t give Haley up and Black killed him.”

  “That’s how I figure it went down.”

  Dylan gripped the arms of his chair and leaned forward. “So when are you going to pick up the slime bag? Because I intend to be there when you haul him in for my father’s murder.”

  “I wish it were that simple,” Justin told the other man.

  Dylan’s eyes narrowed, glinted dangerously. “It looks simple enough to me. You said yourself that Haley Mercado was the connection.”

  “She is,” Justin replied. He understood Dylan’s frustration, felt some frustration of his own. “Unfortunately, all I have is a theory and no hard evidence.”

  “What about the e-mails?”

  “It’s circumstantial at best. Nothing here leads back to Del Brio. What I need is Haley Mercado herself. She’s the key to all this. With her as a witness, I can prove Del Brio had motive and can nail him for your father’s murder. But I’ve got to find her befor
e Del Brio does.” Justin picked up Carl’s last e-mail again, stared at it. “I just wish I knew who this S.C. person was and what the situation is that they’re supposed to be on top of.”

  “Maybe it’s someone here in Mission Creek or in Del Brio’s organization?”

  “It’s possible. But at the moment no one comes to mind,” Justin admitted. “Maybe something in these old files will lead me to this S.C. or to Haley herself.”

  “And if it doesn’t?” Dylan countered.

  “Then start praying that we find that little girl soon. Because if Del Brio’s behind her kidnapping and knows that she belongs to Haley, he’ll use her to smoke Haley out. And once he has Haley, both she and her daughter are going to be in serious danger. I don’t see Del Brio letting either one of them live.”

  “Then we better find her,” Dylan told him, the light of battle in his eyes. “What can I do to help?”

  Justin shook his head. “I appreciate the offer, but you’ve already been a big help. Angela and I will take it from here.”

  “Angela?” Dylan said, and leaned back in his seat. “She the good-looking brunette with Ricky Mercado at the hospital dedication the other night? The one who’s supposed to be some kind of psychic?”

  Justin frowned, not sure which he objected to most—having Angela linked with Ricky or the skepticism in Dylan’s voice about Angela being psychic. “Angela’s a top profiler out of San Antonio who was brought in to help with the kidnapping case. She’s got an impressive track record when it comes to locating missing people. Whether it’s a psychic ability or just plain instinct, she’s damned good at what she does.”

  “Hey, I meant no offense,” Dylan told him. “I’m just surprised, that’s all. Not about the psychic thing, but because Maddie told me she was your ex-wife.”

  “She was…is my ex-wife,” Justin amended. “Anyway, the two of us make a good team.” And he realized it was the truth. He and Angela did make a good team, both personally and professionally.

  Dylan stood. “Then I’ll leave it to you to nail Del Brio. But if there’s anything I can do, and I mean anything at all, you let me know. I want that bastard to pay for killing my father.”

  “He will,” Justin promised, and shook the other man’s hand.

  Dylan nodded, and the look he gave Justin said he would hold him to it. “Then I guess I’ll see you tonight at the country club.”

  “Tonight?” Justin repeated.

  “At the fund-raiser for hurricane victims. Maddie told me you’re giving the opening remarks.”

  “Damn! I forgot about that,” Justin said. He looked at his watch, then swore again. It was late, much later than he’d realized. Where had the day gone? And what in the devil was Angela going to say about him never getting back to her as he’d promised?

  “Excuse me. I need to make a call.”

  “Go ahead,” Dylan said.

  Justin grabbed the telephone, and after locating the slip of paper with Angela’s number on it, he began to punch in the numbers.

  Dylan chuckled and headed for the door. “Why don’t you bring her with you tonight? I’d like to meet her.”

  But Justin barely heard Dylan and didn’t notice him leave because he was too busy listening to the phone in Angela’s condo ring. When it was picked up on the fourth ring, he felt a rush of relief. “Hey, it’s Justin—”

  “Hi, this is Angela. I’m unavailable to take your call. Leave a message and I’ll call you back.”

  Irritated and telling himself he had no right to be, Justin said, “It’s Justin. Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner. I’m at the office, and it looks like I’ll be stuck here for at least another hour. Give me a call when you get back.”

  Angela slowed her car down to a crawl as she tried to determine where she was. For the most part she’d had little trouble locating the places on her list. And since her visit to the county records office that morning, where she’d obtained a list of all horse ranches within a hundred-mile radius of Mission Creek, she’d already found and ruled out six of them. But it had been at least twenty minutes since she’d pulled off the main highway in search of the next place on the list, and it had been almost as long since she’d last seen another vehicle.

  Irritated with herself for getting lost, Angela turned off the radio, cutting off Faith Hill in the middle of her old hit “This Kiss.” She pulled onto the side of the road and immediately began rummaging through the items on the passenger seat in search of the map she’d purchased at the gas station. “Ah, here it is,” she murmured as she located the map. Smoothing it out with her fingers, she attempted to get her bearings.

  A few minutes later she located the turnoff she’d taken on the map. Using her index finger, she traced the line marking the main road she’d taken to this one and frowned. That was odd, she thought. Where was the little squiggly line branching out from this spot to identify the road just below her? she wondered. But after checking again, she realized that the strip of road jutting out to her right wasn’t listed on the map. Opening her door, she exited the car and walked a few yards along the shoulder of the roadway, seeking a better glimpse. Other than the fact that the road was narrow and curved and overgrown with brush, she saw little else. So she headed back to her vehicle.

  Once inside her car, Angela checked her watch and was surprised to discover it was already after six o’clock. Even though it was June and darkness didn’t set in until nearly eight o’clock most evenings, the sky had been overcast all day. Maybe she should just call it a day, go back to her condo and head out again in the morning. But thoughts of returning to her condo made her think of this morning and Justin. After he’d left her place, she’d waited nearly two hours for him to call and set up a time for them to meet and work out a strategy to locate the house in her sketches. And it had been two hours wasted when she could have been checking out the places on her list.

  Maybe he tried to call after you left.

  Maybe he had, she admitted, and retrieved her cell phone from her purse to check her machine for messages. But when she punched in the phone number for her condo, she got the annoying bleep that indicated no service was available in the area. Irritated, she tossed the phone onto the passenger seat and it landed beside the fluffy white lamb given to her by Josie Carson during her visit. Lena’s favorite toy, Angela recalled with a pang. Picking up the stuffed animal, she remembered last night when she’d relived the little girl’s moments of fear during the kidnapping. Her throat suddenly thick, her chest tight, Angela clutched the lamb to her and closed her eyes a moment. When she opened them again, her gaze fell onto the sketches on the neighboring seat. She picked up the one with the house and the winding road that led to it. Lifting her gaze, she stared in the direction of the road jutting off just ahead of her. From what she could see, that was a winding road.

  She thought of the impending darkness, the cell phone that didn’t work and the fact that no one knew where she was. The smart thing to do would be to go home and come back tomorrow with Justin.

  But suppose that road led to the ranch where little Lena’s being held?

  Remembering how frightened the baby had been, Angela put aside the stuffed animal and restarted her car.

  Fifteen minutes later dust swirled around her car like a cloud as she motored down the road. The sky had darkened considerably, giving the overgrown shrubbery and battered-looking trees an ominous appearance. But as she followed the next bend in the road, she spied a house approximately two hundred yards ahead. Pleased to at least see some sign of civilization, Angela continued forward when she hit another hole in the road and her car came to a sudden stop. The impact sent her lurching forward, then slamming back. Her head smacked the headrest so hard Angela was sure she heard her teeth rattle. Groaning, it took her a moment to clear the bells ringing in her head. And when she touched the area with her fingertips, she winced at the pain. She was going to have a doozy of a headache, she realized as she shoved the car into Park and shut off the engine befor
e climbing out to examine her tires. All she needed was to get a blowout here, she thought, suddenly aware of how isolated she was.

  Much to her relief, a quick check revealed the tire was okay—at least for the time being. But she had a sneaking suspicion that she was going to be in need of a new set of shocks really soon. Shoving back to her feet, she dusted her hands off and took a look around her.

  Maybe it was because it was getting dark, she told herself, but the place gave her the creeps. She glanced back in the direction she’d just traveled, noting there wasn’t a single road light of any kind to break the looming darkness. She’d spotted a discarded beer bottle and some cigarette butts as she’d driven along the road, but she hadn’t seen another vehicle of any type. Uneasiness skittered down Angela’s spine and she whipped around, looked over toward the house where she’d been headed. No lights burned in the distance, and she saw no sign of any movement whatsoever. Yet she had the oddest feeling that someone had been watching her.

  When something slithered in the underbrush nearby, Angela scrambled back into her car and restarted the engine. Probably just her imagination, she told herself as she carefully eased around the monster-size hole in the road and headed back the way she had come.

  “It’s all right now. She’s leaving,” the old woman said into the phone while she watched from behind the yellowing curtain inside the house as the car turned around and drove away.

  “Are you sure she didn’t see you?” Erica Clawson snapped at her mother in a harsh whisper. She’d been forced to keep her voice low so no one at the Lone Star Country club would hear her.

  “I don’t think so. I turned all the lights off just like you told me.”

  “What about the kid? She wasn’t bawling again, was she?”

  “No. Not at all. I was just about to give the little darling her bath, so she was playing with her plastic boat and waiting to get in the tub.”

  “All right. Well, I’ve got to go. You let me know if she comes back or if anyone else comes snooping around.”