When I Find You
A Trust No One Novel
DIXIE LEE BROWN
Contents
* * *
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
An Excerpt from All or Nothing
About the Author
By Dixie Lee Brown
An Excerpt from The Mad Earl’s Bride by Loretta Chase
An Excerpt from Wanted: Wife by Gwen Jones
An Excerpt from A Wedding in Valentine by Emma Cane
An Excerpt from Fling by Sara Fawkes, Cathryn Fox, and Lauren Hawkeye
Copyright
About the Publisher
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my friend Kate Carlyle,
whose friendship and encouragement are priceless.
Chapter One
* * *
THE SHARP CRACK of a gunshot echoed through the silence. Darcy jerked upright in bed, the troubled thoughts keeping her from sleep suddenly forgotten. Her breath caught in her throat as she froze, staring into the darkness, listening. She had to be wrong. It couldn’t be gunfire. The slamming of a cupboard door maybe or a car backfiring on the street at the end of the drive. That was all. She released her pent-up breath and forced herself to relax while easing the tension from her neck, her spine, her stomach . . . except, apparently there was no help for the ball of dread that knotted her stomach. She shook her head. Since when had she become so paranoid? Her imagination was really working overtime tonight.
The next shot shattered the rosy image she’d conjured and propelled her from the bed to the door, her hands braced against it as though she were strong enough to barricade herself from the evil that lurked outside.
She lost track of time. Seconds blurred into minutes as she waited. No voices. No doors opening or closing. Not even the creak of a floorboard. Nothing. She opened her door a crack and held her breath. The gunfire had come from downstairs, but the only sound now was the tick, tick, tick of the grandfather clock in the hallway outside her room. A ribbon of light revealed the top few steps leading to the lower level. Her heart drummed wildly in her ears, and she forced air into her lungs and let it out, fortifying herself against the light-headedness that made her legs weak and shaky.
She couldn’t stay here hiding. She had to do something—but what? Go downstairs? Johnny and she were the only ones in the house, at least the only ones who were supposed to be here. What if he was hurt? He might need help, but whoever fired those shots could still be down there. The police? It would take them forever to get here. She leaned her forehead against the cool wooden door, squeezed her eyes shut, and fought the indecision and terror that immobilized her.
Darcy had known there was something wrong this morning as she’d watched the two young boys she cared for follow their mother to the cab parked out front. Any other day, she’d have been helping them get ready for school. After they left, the threat still hung in the empty hallways and deserted grounds, and the silence that descended over the house tonight practically shouted a warning.
She’d bet anything her employer, Johnny Fontana, knew there was something wrong too. Why else would he have given the entire household staff a three-day weekend and sent his wife and sons to visit family in California? He’d wanted Darcy to leave today, too, and even insisted on paying her expenses to visit her parents in Oregon.
The thought of seeing her father filled her with dread, so she’d used a doctor’s appointment as an excuse to delay her departure. She couldn’t explain to Johnny how one sad smile from her father reawakened all the pain and guilt and reminded her in vivid detail why she’d left Oregon in the first place. She loved her father and missed her mother terribly, but there was too much left unsaid between them. Johnny wasn’t completely satisfied with the compromise she’d offered but eventually gave in, and Darcy had made arrangements to leave tomorrow afternoon to visit a friend from college.
Now, the stillness settled around her and a feeling of impending doom sucked the air from her lungs. A grimace twisted her lips. Clearly Johnny had a very good reason for insisting she go. Perhaps it wouldn’t have hurt to be a little more flexible.
She should have known something like this would happen when she decided to stay and work for Johnny, even after she learned who he was. What rational person takes a job as nanny to a gangster’s sons anyway? Her father didn’t have any trouble deciding the extent of her foolishness from clear across the country, and he didn’t hesitate to tell her what she should do. Pack her bags and get out. Was that why she stayed? To prove to her father she could take care of herself? Clearly not the wisest decision she’d ever made.
Her head snapped up. Voices floated to her ears as heavy footsteps ascended the stairs. She caught a few words—girl . . . take her out . . . upstairs—and her heartbeat picked up another notch.
Icy cords of fear tingled along her spine. She knew the man behind that voice. Reggie Allen. A week ago, he’d come to the house in the company of an older man. She’d never seen either of them before, but she wasn’t likely to forget them. Reggie’s lascivious perusal had filled her with cold dread. The older man’s graying hair sported a serious comb-over, and his soft, fleshy neck and face matched his rotund body. It was his eyes, though, that sent a chill racing up and down her spine. Evil was the word that came to mind when she looked in those eyes.
Later, one of the kitchen staff filled her in. The older man was Frank DeLuca, the head of a well-known crime family . . . and Johnny’s boss. When DeLuca left that day, Johnny stormed to his study and slammed the door. Reggie came alone each day after that, and with every visit, Johnny grew more anxious. That, and the presence of armed guards on the grounds, should have given Darcy a clue as to how serious the situation was. If only she hadn’t been so busy pretending none of it existed, she might have left this morning like Johnny wanted.
Reggie’s head and shoulders suddenly appeared at the top of the stairs, and she could have sworn he stared right at her through the narrow crack of the open door. She jerked back, closed it a little too hard, and swung around. Fear choked her as she struggled to control her breathing and slow her runaway heartbeat.
There was no more time. She had to get out.
Her gaze swept the room, stopping at her purse and the small bag she’d packed with enough clothes for the weekend. Buffeted by uncertainty and fear, she hesitated, unable to think beyond the terror that gnawed at her confidence. A shudder rocked her as she remembered the dark intensity of Reggie’s eyes and the scornful looks he’d reserved for her on his visits to the house. Did he come here tonight to hurt Johnny? It was unthinkable . . . but she wasn’t hanging around to find out what he would do next. After she was safely away, she’d call the police and send help for Johnny. She couldn’t worry about whether it would come too late.
A loose board creaked in the hallway, sending another dose of adrenaline pumping through her veins. Time was up.
She flew to the window and threw it ope
n, hoping to leave a false trail Reggie would follow. Then she grabbed her bags and crossed to the adjoining door that accessed the children’s room next to hers. She closed it silently behind her and picked her way around favorite toys and beanbag pillows until she stopped in front of the far wall. Nick and Eddy had shown her the secret passageway behind the bookshelf in their room one day when the three of them were playing hide-and-seek. She’d laughed because it was so James Bond. It didn’t seem quite so funny now.
Darcy stuffed down the panic as she searched in the dark for the release that would trip the lock and allow the bookshelf to swing out from the wall. On her tiptoes, her fingers swept the top shelf and finally found what she was looking for—a two-inch-thick, leather-bound copy of A Tale of Two Cities. She pulled the book out a half inch and the reluctant turn of the lock grated in the silent room. Expelling a sigh of relief, she moved the bookcase away from the wall enough to allow her to squeeze through the narrow opening.
As hurried footsteps signaled Reggie’s entrance from the hallway into her room on the other side of the adjoining door, she tossed her bags into the black chasm behind the bookshelves and slid through after them, then pulled the shelves back into place with a soft click. Her back pressed against the secret entrance, she froze and held her breath, listening as Reggie’s footsteps encroached on the children’s room, circled, and stopped just on the other side of the wall from her, then retreated until she couldn’t hear him anymore. She gulped air, rested her head against the wall for a few seconds, and prayed for the strength to keep going.
Darcy couldn’t see her bare feet in the darkness that engulfed the secret passageway. No matter how much time she gave her eyes to adjust, the inky blackness clung to her. The pungent smell of damp earth invaded her nostrils and images of freshly dug graves swirled in her mind. She spread her arms to gauge the width of the narrow corridor and relief coursed through her when she could touch both sides. Fear of the dark had never been an issue for her before, but the complete void unnerved her. She took a deep breath and swallowed hard against the dread that churned her stomach.
The day the boys had led her through these tunnels came back to her in surprising detail. She groped for her bag, pulled the strap over one shoulder, and slung her purse over the other. Closing her eyes again, she let her fingers trail along the rough walls and took her first tentative steps, using memories to guide her. The corridor ran along the back of the house for about twenty feet before a rickety set of steps descended to the basement level. It turned into a dirt tunnel at that point and angled east, away from the house for about two hundred yards, ending abruptly at a ladder leading to a trapdoor that opened into a thick grove of trees.
When she reached the top of the ladder, threw back the cover, and clambered from the hole, she drew in huge gasps of fresh air, and the cool night breeze dried the sweat that beaded on her face. For all she knew, Johnny Fontana could be dead, and she’d done nothing to help him. She couldn’t think about that right now. What was she going to do? Returning to the house was out of the question. Reggie would surely be looking for her. She was in way over her head and didn’t have the first clue how to get herself out. If Johnny was dead, she’d just lost everything—her boss, her job, her home and . . . oh my God . . . Nick and Eddy. Were they in danger too? She drew a deep breath and searched for calm somewhere in her frantic mind. It would do no good to panic. Now was the time to be smart and make the right choices, or she could easily end up dead too.
DARCY STARED OUT the window of the 737 at the layer of clouds below. The sting of tears burned her eyes. She had only vague memories of stumbling through the dark passageway, throwing on clothes outside the trapdoor in the woods beyond the house, and calling the Chicago Police Department to anonymously report a disturbance at 4220 North Magnolia Drive. Buying her ticket and boarding a plane for Oregon was a complete blur, but the image of Reggie Allen when he appeared at the top of those stairs and looked right at her, and the words she’d overheard him speak that sent her on the run, were etched into her memory.
There was no mention of Johnny in the morning paper she read while awaiting her plane’s departure, but she’d had a bad feeling. He wouldn’t have allowed Reggie to come after her if he’d been all right. At the very least, he was probably wounded. Her mind shied away from the idea that he might be dead. Nick and Eddy’s father simply couldn’t be dead.
What would Reggie have done to her if he’d found her? Was he still looking?
When Johnny asked her to leave for the weekend, he’d given her cash and instructed her not to use her credit cards for anything on her trip. She hadn’t thought much about it at the time. He was always very generous. Now she was painfully aware he’d been trying to protect her, just as he’d been doing since the first day she showed up on his doorstep.
The au pair agency was negligent in not telling her that the Fontana family was associated with the Mafia. Maybe they were afraid they’d never find anyone to fill the position if they disclosed that information, or maybe they were as clueless as she was. In any case, seven-year-old Eddy and nine-year-old Nick were great kids. Courteous, intelligent, mischievous. The boys won her heart almost immediately. Two weeks later she overheard one of the landscape crew mention the mob and the name Fontana in the same sentence. The revelation came just a little too late. Darcy couldn’t leave her job . . . leave those two boys. So she ignored the truth and avoided Johnny’s associates when they came to the house. For three years she’d been accepted as though she were part of the family. Not once had she been afraid . . . until now.
Darcy dismissed the idea of visiting her friend the minute she got to the ticket counter at O’Hare International. Her father was the one she needed now, even though she knew it would hurt facing him again. A retired chief of police with thirty years on the force, he’d know what to do.
She purchased her ticket with cash and wore ragged blue jeans, a dark brown corduroy jacket over a long-sleeved yellow shirt and a baseball cap pulled low over her eyes, her telltale shoulder-length red hair tucked out of sight. She was on the run with no idea what she was doing. How could she? In her darkest dreams she’d never imagined she’d be running for her life.
After she boarded the plane, she relaxed a little. Surely Reggie wouldn’t bother to follow her once she left Chicago. She’d be safe if she could only get home. For what must have been the hundredth time, she glanced around the cabin, unable to shake the feeling someone watched her.
The two seats beside her were unoccupied. A man sat in the aisle seat opposite her. The window seat beside him was empty. He was about her age, maybe a little older, dressed in jeans and a light blue polo shirt. His sun-streaked blond hair and tanned skin suggested he hailed from somewhere warm and tropical. If it was sun he was looking for, he’d be disappointed in Portland. An iPad balanced on his lap, and whatever he was studying kept his gaze glued to the screen.
After another furtive look around, Darcy turned back to the view from her window and her thoughts as the plane shuddered and rocked its way through a rough patch of turbulence.
“Son of a bitch!”
Darcy’s gaze flew to the man across the aisle as he latched on to the armrest of his seat with a white-knuckled grip. As soon as the plane evened out again, he glanced around the cabin, a sheepish expression on his face. He caught her watching him, even though she ducked her head and tried to hide under the brim of her hat.
His self-deprecating laugh pulled her gaze up again. “Sorry, but that scared the crap out of me, and you’re making me look like a wimp.”
She laughed. “I’m not a huge fan of flying either. That whole defying-gravity thing is hard to wrap my head around.”
He looked directly at her with dark brown eyes that searched hers intently. “Then why aren’t you a sweat-soaked basket case too?”
The thoughts foremost in her mind today apparently overruled any anxiety caused by a little turbulence, but she couldn’t explain that to him. She shrugged. “I g
uess I’m a little distracted today.”
“I tried that.” He pointed to his iPad. “Can’t say it worked all that well.”
Darcy smiled. The poor guy tensed again as the plane hit another bump.
In the next instant, a heavyset man in a brown suit shoved himself into the aisle seat of Darcy’s row. She gasped as she jumped to her feet, banged her head against the overhead bin, and scattered her magazine, purse, and cell phone on the floor beneath the seats. Reggie’s words invaded her mind—girl . . . take her out . . . upstairs. Pressed against the interior wall of the aircraft, there was nowhere to go and nothing to do but wait for his next move. Two painful breaths later, the man glanced at her with glazed eyes that barely focused, and his red, blotchy face told her the rest of the story. This guy represented a danger only to his liver. She had majorly overreacted.
The blond man across the aisle stood, his concerned gaze on her face. “I take it he’s not with you?”
She shook her head once, then gave a dismissive wave with one hand, hoping he hadn’t noticed the terror on her face or the way her pulse still hammered in her neck.
The blond man frowned and set his iPad on his seat, stepped into the aisle, and leaned toward the drunk. “Excuse me, sir. I think there’s been a mistake. Do you remember where you were sitting?”
“Huh?” The man tilted his head. “This isn’t my seat?” He glanced at Darcy, then did a double take. “No-sir-ee! I’d remember sitting by a hot babe like you.” He hoisted his bulk up, and the younger man stepped back to allow him into the aisle.
Darcy watched his progress toward the front of the plane and tried to force her breathing back to normal. Probably too much to hope that the blond man would go back to his reading and let her recover her composure in private. Sure enough, when she looked at him, he waited in the aisle, studying her.
“He startled me.” She avoided his eyes, dropped into her seat, and leaned over to pick up her things.
When I Find You: A Trust No One Novel Page 1