She paused in the center of the room, and her gaze shot from Andrew to Jackson and then finally landed on Gabriel. “They’re gone.” Her voice was a tortured whisper as her eyes became shiny with unshed tears. “When I got up this morning, I knew that something was horribly wrong.”
“And how did you know that?” Gabriel asked.
Her eyes darkened, and she twisted her ringless hands together. “You need to see the kitchen.” Once again she turned and walked out of the room. The three men exchanged curious glances and followed.
“This is the guest dining room,” she said as they entered a room with a table big enough to seat a dozen. A sideboard held an industrial-size coffee brewer, but no scent of coffee lingered in the air.
She paused at the door on the opposite side of the room, her eyes still shiny. “There,” she said and pointed into the room. It was obvious she had no intention of going inside.
As Gabriel swept past her, he caught a whiff of her scent, a clean floral fragrance he found instantly appealing, but the allure of her perfume immediately died as he walked into the kitchen and saw the table before him.
The small round wooden table on the far side of the roomy kitchen held the remnants of what appeared to be an evening snack. Three glasses of milk sat next to three small plates with cookies. Milk was missing from all of the glasses, and there was one cookie on one plate and two each on the other plates. A single chair was overturned on its back on the floor, as if the person seated in it had jumped up so quickly that it had flipped over.
“The back door looks like it’s unlocked,” Jackson said.
None of the three men had taken more than two steps into the room. “Has anyone been inside here besides you?”
She shook her head, her blond curls dancing with the movement. “No. We don’t have any guests right now, and I’ve made sure the other help have stayed out of the kitchen all day.”
Gabriel frowned. “Before we do anything more here, I’d like to see their bedrooms.”
“They live in the two-bedroom suite upstairs.”
“Are they the type of people to take an impromptu trip somewhere?” Gabriel asked as they all followed her up the wide staircase.
“Not at all. If they had planned anything, they would have let me know, and they would have never taken off in the middle of the night.” Her voice was laced with a simmering frantic worry. “Something bad happened last night. I just know it. Now they’re gone, and nobody has seen or heard from them all day.”
Gabriel had known the moment he had stepped into the kitchen that he wasn’t going to make it into his own bed tonight. Although his gut told him they’d just looked at a crime scene, he didn’t have enough information to fully embrace that as a certainty.
Upstairs there were guest rooms on either side of the hall. Gabriel paused at each doorway to look inside. The first was decorated in blue and white and held two double beds, a dresser, a small table and chairs next to the window.
The second held a king-size bed and was a study in lavender and lace, with the same type of furniture again. There appeared to be nothing amiss in either of the rooms.
“The guest rooms have their own baths, and there are three more rooms in the carriage house,” she said, flipping on lights, even though night wouldn’t encroach for a couple of hours yet.
“Where does this go?” Gabriel asked, referring to a closed door in the hallway.
“It leads to an old servant’s staircase that goes down to the basement and outside. Nobody uses it anymore, and the door is kept locked.”
Gabriel nodded, knowing before the night was over that the door would be unlocked and the basement thoroughly checked.
“These are Sam, Daniella and Macy’s rooms.” The door was already open, and Marlena paused in the hallway and gestured the men in.
The initial space was a large bedroom/sitting area. The king-size bed was neatly made with a black-and-white spread. At the foot of the bed was a settee in front of a wall-mounted flat-screen television. A set of bookshelves held games and books, and it was easy for Gabriel to recognize that this was the family getaway from a houseful of paying guests.
The bathroom was also neat and clean, with no indication that anyone had been there during the day. The smaller bedroom was an explosion of pink with a single bed covered with stuffed animals and dolls.
Gabriel returned to the main room and opened the closet doors as Jackson and Andrew checked the bathroom and Macy’s bedroom more carefully.
Gabriel noted a set of suitcases were shoved to the left of the closet, and there didn’t appear to be any clothing missing from hangers. He moved to the dresser, where two phones resided side by side. He couldn’t imagine the Connellys leaving without taking their cells with them. He picked up the phones and noticed that both were turned off, probably shut down for the night before their owners had gone to bed.
He then pulled out the top drawer of the dresser, dismayed to find Sam’s wallet and his gun. A check in the wallet let Gabriel know that his driver’s license, credit cards and bank card were all intact.
Gabriel’s heart stepped up its rhythm as he tried to imagine any reason a man would take off with his family without his wallet. And an FBI agent would never leave for any extended time without his gun. It just wouldn’t happen.
He turned to see Marlena still standing in the hallway. “You’d better set us up with rooms for a night or two. It looks like we’re going to be here a while. And don’t allow anyone into the kitchen. Right now that appears to be a crime scene.”
One hand shot to her mouth in obvious horror. “You have to find them.”
Gabriel nodded. “That’s the plan, and the first thing I need to do is ask you some questions.” Marlena Meyers might be pretty, and she appeared genuinely distraught, but he had to figure out if she was truly scared for the people who had been her bosses or a good actress who was somehow responsible for whatever had happened in that kitchen the night before.
* * *
OF THE THREE FBI agents, Gabriel Blankenship intimidated Marlena the most. Since the moment he’d met her, his blue eyes had remained dark and flat, his lips seemingly unable to curve into any semblance of a smile.
Within minutes it was established that agents Barkin and Revannaugh would share the blue room and Gabriel would take the lavender room. While the other two men went out to their car to bring in duffel bags and crime-scene kits, Gabriel gestured her into a chair in the common room downstairs and then pulled up one of the other chairs close enough so that their knees practically touched.
Marlena wanted to scream at him that he was wasting precious time, that he and his men should be out checking the woods, beating the bushes, knocking on doors in an attempt to find the missing family.... Her surrogate family.
From the pocket of the white shirt that stretched across impossibly broad shoulders, he pulled out a pen and a small pad. He was definitely a hunk, his black slacks fitting perfectly to his slender waist and long legs. He also wore a shoulder holster and gun that would constantly remind her he wasn’t a guest here but rather a man on a mission.
His black hair had just enough curl to entice a woman to run her fingers through it, but those eyes of his would stop any impulse a woman might have to touch him in any way.
Cold and with a glint of keen intelligence, his ice-blue eyes appeared to be those of a man who had seen too much, who trusted nobody and held not a hint of any kind of invitation.
“How long have you worked here as a manager?” he asked.
“For the past seventeen months or so. Before that I was living in Chicago, although I’m originally from Bachelor Moon. Daniella and I were best friends all through high school. I left here around the time she married Johnny Butler, and when I returned, I found out Johnny had been murdered and she had fallen in love with Sam.” She knew she
was rambling, giving him far more information than he’d asked for, but it was nerves. Whenever she was nervous and frightened, she talked too much.
“I was maid of honor at Sam and Daniella’s wedding, and for almost the past two years, the two of them and little Macy have been my family.” New tears burned at her eyes but she quickly blinked them away. “They took me and Cory in when we had nothing and no place else to go. They embraced us, and my friendship with Daniella picked up where it had left off.”
He stared at her mouth, and she wondered if he was somehow judging the words that fell out of it. Did he believe she’d had something to do with the family’s disappearance? Did he think she was lying to cover up some sort of heinous crime?
He turned his attention to the pad in his hand, made a couple of notes and then gazed up at her again. “Cory?”
“My brother. He just turned twenty, and he works as the gardener’s assistant here. My mother abandoned us when we were young, and my father... Well, he did the best he could, but I basically raised Cory. When I was twenty my father died, and I petitioned the courts to get custody of Cory, and he’s been with me ever since.” Again she realized she was talking too much and firmly chastised herself just to answer his questions as simply, as succinctly as possible.
“And where does Cory stay?”
“He has a small apartment built onto the back of the carriage house, but he’d never do anything to hurt Sam or Daniella, and he thinks of Macy as a little sister. He loves them as much as I do.”
“Who else works here?”
How she wished he’d just give her a hint of a smile, a tiny indication that he understood the panic that seared through her soul, that the fabric of her fragile world had come undone and she felt utterly lost.
She frowned and focused on his question. “The housekeeper is Pamela Winters. She lives in an apartment in town and only works two or three days a week, depending on the guest load. Then there’s John Jeffries. He’s the gardener and lives in a cottage down by the pond. John’s the only person who works here full-time besides me and Cory.”
“What about other part-time workers?”
She was aware of agents Barkin and Revannaugh returning to the kitchen, where she knew they’d be looking for further evidence to substantiate the possibility of foul play.
“Daniella does most of the cooking for the guests, but she occasionally has Marion Wells come in to take over the job for her. When we’re really busy, Valerie King comes in to help with the cleaning. But none of these people would have any reason to do anything bad to Sam and Daniella. We all love them, and Macy is the smartest, cutest little girl on the face of the earth.”
A sob caught in her throat and she quickly choked it down. “You shouldn’t be wasting your time sitting here and questioning me. You should be out there someplace looking for them,” she said passionately.
His blue eyes stared at her dispassionately, and she decided at that moment that she didn’t particularly like Special Agent Gabriel Blankenship. “I assume you live here on the premises. Where is your room?”
“Just off the kitchen.” She caught her lower lip to keep it from trembling.
He raised a dark eyebrow. “And when was the last time you heard or saw the family?”
“Last night around eight. They went upstairs and I went into my rooms.”
“I’d like to see your rooms.” He stood and looked at her expectantly.
She felt as if he viewed her as a suspect, and she didn’t like the feeling. She stood, her feet leaden as she thought about going through the kitchen to get to her rooms, the kitchen where she knew something bad had happened to people she loved.
She was acutely aware of him following behind her as she passed through the kitchen, where the two agents were fingerprinting the back door. They nodded to her as she went to the door that led to the suite of small rooms she had called home for almost two years. There was a sitting room, a bathroom and two small bedrooms, one where she slept, and one that she and Daniella had turned into a storage room.
The sitting room was relatively plain—a sofa, a rocking chair and a television. There were no knickknacks or trinkets to mark the space as hers. She’d traveled light through life, with her brother the only thing of importance to her.
Gabriel stepped into the room, and it instantly seemed to shrink in size. She became aware of his scent, a faint but pleasant woodsy cologne.
His blue eyes narrowed and a frown furrowed his brow as he took in the immediate surroundings. He glanced into the storage room and then stood in her bedroom doorway, his back a broad mountain in front of her.
Thank goodness there were no silk panties sneaking over the top of an open drawer, no lacy bra hanging from a doorknob. Marlena was definitely grateful at the moment that she was a neat freak.
He whirled around to gaze at her speculatively. “You were asleep right here, and you didn’t hear anything in the kitchen that caused you concern last night?” His deep voice was rife with disbelief.
“I get up at the crack of dawn, work hard during the day and I sleep hard at night. I’ve always been a deep, heavy sleeper, and unless somebody screamed, I probably wouldn’t have awakened.” She raised her chin a notch.
“So you don’t think anyone screamed.”
She hesitated a moment and then shook her head. “I can’t be positive, but I’m relatively sure that a scream would have pulled me from my sleep.”
He held her gaze, and she fought the impulse to squirm. It was as if his piercing blue eyes attempted to crawl inside her head, look into her soul, and she realized at that moment that she was his number-one suspect in whatever had happened to the family she loved.
Chapter Two
Gabriel woke at dawn, smothered in lavender sheets and a bedspread, pulled from an erotic dream involving himself and his number-one suspect.
Not a good way to start a new day, he thought as he got out of bed and padded into the adjoining bathroom. Minutes later he stood beneath a needle-hot shower spray, trying to burn out the memory of his unusually hot dream.
Marlena Meyer’s long silky legs had been entangled with his as they’d kissed and caressed each other. Her green eyes had glowed with a hunger that had made him want to satisfy her. Thankfully he had awakened at that moment.
It had been a short night of sleep. He’d insisted Marlena get her brother and John, the gardener, last night and get them to the house to be interviewed.
The interviews had lasted for several hours, and after a search of the basement and all other areas of the house, it had been around three o’clock in the morning when Gabriel had finally crawled into bed.
Andrew and Jackson had finished processing the kitchen. They’d found hundreds of fingerprints, probably mostly those of the family and the staff. Interestingly enough, the door and frame had apparently been wiped clean, as not a single print had been found there.
There was no question in his mind that the family had not gone willingly with whomever had walked through that back door. The real question was why had they been taken, and how had somebody managed to corral three people and take them away without Marlena in the next room hearing anything?
Other than the overturned chair, there were no signs of a struggle, no indication that anything violent had occurred in the kitchen.
Thank God he and his men had packed bags to be gone for a couple of days, for he had a feeling this wasn’t going to be an easy one to solve.
Although his gut told him the Connelly family was either in deep trouble or already dead; the evidence didn’t automatically point to a crime taking place. All they had at the moment was circumstantial evidence that something had happened to the family.
He needed to check the financial records, both the personal ones for the Connellys and those of the bed-and-breakfast. Although unusual, the Connelly
family wouldn’t be the first one to just up and walk away from their current life, leaving behind not only hundreds of questions but loved ones without any sense of closure.
The one thing that bothered Gabriel about this scenario was that he couldn’t imagine a former FBI agent walking away without his gun.
Gabriel stepped out of the shower, dried off and dressed in a fresh pair of slacks and another white shirt, and by that time he thought he smelled the faint scent of coffee drifting upstairs.
He checked his watch. It was just after six. Apparently Marlena had been telling him the truth when she’d told him she was up at the crack of dawn.
As he walked down the stairs toward the dining room, his thoughts were scattered on all the things that needed to be done in order to further investigate the disappearance. He carried his laptop, deciding that he’d work from the dining room rather than upstairs in the lavender room.
They had released the kitchen back to Marlena late last night, after they were sure that it had been checked from top to bottom for evidence. Photos had been taken, along with measurements and drawings, notes and impressions.
The coffee smell came from the dining room, and he spied the full pot on the sideboard, along with cups and saucers and all the accoutrements that anyone might need to doctor up a cup of java.
He placed his laptop on the table that had been set with plates and silverware for three and then bypassed the room and entered the kitchen, where Marlena stood with her back to him at the window. Apparently she didn’t hear him, and for a moment he said nothing to draw her attention as memories of his inappropriate dream drifted through his brain.
Again today she was dressed in a pair of shorts, denim ones that hugged her pert, shapely butt and showcased the length of her long legs.... Legs that he’d dreamed had been wrapped around his. An apple-green T-shirt topped the shorts, and he knew the color would make her eyes pop.
Harlequin Intrigue November 2013 - Bundle 2 of 2 Page 41