Safe Haven

by Lisa Mondello

  God, he wished he did. Kevin shook his head. “Her family doesn’t live around here. If she was scared…the office maybe? Maybe to her admin assistant’s place. She didn’t talk much of friends and didn’t really associate with any of the neighbors.”

  “I remember reading her profile. She moved around like a gypsy as a child. She’d be considered a flight risk.”

  He glared at Matt. “Captain, she’s the victim here.”

  Matt gave him a hard look. “I know better than anyone not to make hasty assumptions. I’m telling you how it will look. She needs to show herself, and tell what happened. Someone was viciously attacked in that house. We need to know who and why. Until we find Daria, we can’t get those answers.”

  *

  “I’m getting woozy,” George said as he pulled at the bandage on his arm. He’d been to the blood bank enough times in his adult life to know to drink some orange juice. A pint of blood was nothing for the body to live without. Desperation had turned him into a gambling man and he’d spilled a lot more than a pint at Daria’s house to make sure his plan would work.

  The man at the other end of the hotel room was silent as he toyed with the police scanner. George didn’t owe any debts to the man, despite his insistence to the contrary. He’d paid his debt. And paid dearly. As far as George was concerned, they were even. As soon as this nightmare was over, he’d be free.

  He glanced around the drab motel room, and took in the pungent stench of stale cigarette smoke covered up by ammonia and air freshener. No matter what they did to clean up the place, it was still a shithole. Not fit for a man like him. It still spoke of a life George didn’t want or deserve. How in the hell had he stooped this low?

  It was her fault. If Daria had been faithful to him and their vows, none of this would have happened. He could have told her the truth and they could have found a way to get this hoodlum off his back.

  “I’m going out?”

  “No! You can’t be seen,” George charged, bolting to his feet. “It will ruin everything. I haven’t slithered in the mud with you all these weeks just to have you screw it up because you’re a little restless.”

  “Restless, my ass. I need to get a few things to set the next phase in motion.”

  Without a word, the man was gone and George sunk back to the edge of the bed. He was exhausted. He’d taxed his body royally today. He needed sleep and nourishment.

  Walking to the brown paper bag stowed under the table, he reached inside and pulled out a bottle of orange juice. Sitting next to the brown bag was a white Styrofoam cooler with a bag of his own blood in it. It was a good thing his accomplice was able to lift one of the bags he had stored at the blood bank before they’d gone to Daria’s house. He would need it.

  The orange juice would do for now. When the bag of blood was ready, he’d replenish himself and then get some sleep if he could. With a little luck, he wouldn’t suffer from his insomnia tonight and he wouldn’t dream. But George knew no amount of luck was going to keep him from waking up to this nightmare.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Mist rose from the water in a cloud so thick Kevin could barely see ten feet in front of him. It was a long shot. He knew that. But he didn’t know where else he could look for Daria.

  He’d already been to Marla’s place, her office, and even his apartment. It was as if Daria had vanished into thin air.

  With quick steps he walked along the pier, listening for some sound of life above the lapping of waves against the well-oiled boards, the night sounds coming from the water, and his own heart beating furiously in his chest.

  The familiar path was one he could do blindfolded. This was his second home. A place he’d never taken another woman, except for Daria. As he walked along the boards to where Her Gypsy Heart was moored, he caught sight of a figure, petite and crouched over. Quickening his step as his heart hammered, he launched himself onto the deck of the boat and dropped to Daria’s side. Relief collided so violently with his fear, he thought he’d weep.

  “Oh, God, Kevin,” she said, her shoulders shuddering with the sob that escaped her lips. “Kevin!”

  He touched her face, her hair. She was real. And thank you, Lord, she was alive. Despite his every attempt to hold them back, tears stung his eyes and fell freely down his face.

  “It’s going to be okay,” he said, crushing her against him. Daria felt good in his arms. Her skin was cool to the touch and she was shaking. But she was soft and warm inside and he felt that heat, remembered that heat, and knew the words he spoke were true. It would be okay. Daria was alive. That’s all that mattered.

  “There was so much blood. I didn’t know what to do.” Her voice sounded far away, although her lips were so close to his ear.

  Her teeth chattered and he knew she was in shock. How could she not be after what she’d witnessed?

  “Did George come after you? Did he hurt you?”

  Daria shook her head and as she did, confusion flooded him.

  “What happened, Daria?”

  “That’s just it. I don’t know. I thought he’d killed you. I have no idea what happened. I thought you were dead.”

  Burying her face in her hands, she sobbed. Kevin wanted to weep with her, take that pain away and free her from whatever demon was hurting her. He crushed her against him and rocked with her while she cried, waiting until her tears subsided enough to find the truth. Buried somewhere in here was the truth that would free them. Without it, he didn’t want to think about the next step.

  Brushing her hair back from her cheeks, he stared at her face. She was haunted. Lord only knew what happened back at that house. But he was going to find out.

  “Just start at the beginning. Was George there when you got home?”

  “Yes— No!” she said quickly, her head shaking.

  “Which is it?”

  “No. When I pulled into the driveway, no one was there. I was going to make us dinner and I bought candles for the bathtub and flowers.” Fresh tears spilled from her eyes again.

  “It’s okay,” he said quietly, stroking her hair. “It’s okay.”

  He recalled seeing the flower petals broken into a million tiny pieces on the kitchen floor, submerged in the sticky blood that had been spilled and tracked through the house.

  And the candles. She hadn’t bought them for the dinner table. Instead, they’d been meant for the bathtub, she’d said. Kevin closed his eyes and tried not to think about how very different tonight would have turned out if he’d only been there before Daria.

  He would have been there. He could have stopped whatever had happened. But he wasn’t. He’d let his guard down and he’d…screwed up.

  “George came after,” she said, hiccupping a sob. “I saw the headlights and thought it was you. But when I turned around, it was George.”

  “Did he threaten you? Was he alone?”

  “He said I’d be sorry. I told him it was over and he… I was so scared at first but when he left—”

  “Wait a minute. You saw George leave?” She wasn’t making any sense. It certainly didn’t mesh with Mrs. Hildebrand or Mrs. Parsons’ account of what had gone down tonight. But then, there wasn’t anything about tonight that made sense.

  Daria nodded and lifted tear filled eyes to him. On her face was wet and dried blood streaked with long lines from her tears.

  “I told him it was over. He got mad and then he left.”

  Kevin closed his eyes for a minute, trying to understand. “When did he come back?”

  “He didn’t.”

  He shook his head. “No, Daria. He did. He came back to the house. It was his blood all over the hallway and the kitchen.”

  She lifted her eyes again and her mouth opened. She looked as if she was about to scream. She just shook her head.

  “He didn’t come back, Kevin. He left in his car. I saw him leave. And then I forgot about the wine and I ran to the store. I thought everything was ruined. All my plans. I thought the night was ruined
. Everything is ruined.” She buried her face against his shoulder and sobbed more.

  The wine bottle was shattered. Fragments of glass and wine was mixed with the blood at the scene.

  “What…what about the note?” he asked, almost sure he didn’t want to hear the answer.

  “What note?”

  “Your list. You crossed out ‘Getting rid of George’ from the list.”

  She looked at his face intently. “What are you saying? You think I did something to George?”

  “No,” he said quickly. The man in him knew without a doubt that Daria was the victim here. But the cop in him had a job to do. One that he wasn’t so sure he’d done very well where Daria’s safety was concerned.

  “Yes, you do. You think I hurt George. I didn’t. He never came back. At least, not while I was there.”

  George had a rare blood type Daria had told him. The initial results at the crime scene showed that same blood type as the blood at the scene. Providence wasn’t a big city. What were the odds that someone else had broken into the house without tripping the alarm? Slim, but not out of the realm of possibility.

  “The wine bottle was broken. Was someone there when you got back with the wine?”

  Wine they would be drinking right now as they sat in that deep claw footed tub together, he thought with utter dismay. He closed his eyes to the thought of how wonderful it would have been to have Daria’s naked body in his arms, feeling the warmth of her flesh as he ran soap over her skin. How wonderful the wine would taste against her lips and how right now, he could have forgotten every hunger for food if it meant making love to this incredible woman.

  She took several deep breaths before speaking. “I dropped the bottle of wine in the hallway when I turned on the light and saw the blood. I thought maybe someone had broken into the house. I was afraid. There was so much blood. And then I got scared. I thought that whoever did that was still there. I heard someone on the stairs, that creaking sound it makes when you step on the eighth step. But it was so dark. I couldn’t see anyone. And I was scared, so I ran.”

  “Why didn’t you call me?”

  “I thought you were hurt. And then I thought maybe you went to your apartment. I…”

  She was in shock, Kevin realized.

  “I went to your apartment but you weren’t there. So, I came here. I thought he’d killed you.”

  “The police never got the call from the alarm company.”

  Her eyes widened. “I forgot to turn the alarm back on when I went out for wine.”

  “It’s okay. What you wrote on the list about getting rid of George.”

  “It was nothing, Kevin,” she said quickly, shaking her head. “I know George and I are divorced. But tonight when I told George to leave it felt good. Like any residual feelings I may have still held for him, good and bad, were dead. That chapter in my life is over and he can’t hurt me anymore.”

  Something prickled in the back of his neck with her choice of words.

  “It’s not what you think. It couldn’t have been George’s blood. He was alive when I left to get the wine. That note on the list didn’t mean anything.”

  Maybe not to Daria. Maybe it did happen as she said and Kevin had no reason to doubt it was the truth. But it was incriminating all the same. That coupled with an eye-witness account stating she’d hoisted something onto her truck before racing away didn’t make things look very good for her. Now she was sitting here at the marina at high tide where anything that was dumped into the bay could be swept out to sea.

  Kevin’s mind raced. “He could have come back. Maybe he was surprised by someone who was trying to break into the house? Maybe it was him on the stairs waiting for you.”

  “I…I don’t know. I saw him drive away in his car, Kevin. I didn’t see the car when I came back with the wine.

  “I should have listened to you and left. I should have listened. I’m going to leave now. I can’t live with the fear that George is going to be stalking my every move. I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you.”

  Her eyes lifted to his and locked. In their depths he saw a war raging, something he felt in his heart.

  “I can’t do this to you anymore. I’ll leave, Kevin.”

  His heart shattered. “You can’t. It’s too late, Daria,” he said.

  “What do you mean? You said this was the only way.”

  “Things look bad right now. If you leave it’ll look even worse. Like you’re running from the truth.”

  She shook her head. “But I just told you the truth about what happened.”

  He stroked her hair. “We have to sort this all out and find George.” Or George’s body, he thought to himself. But Kevin wouldn’t tell Daria that. Not now. If a body, live or dead, didn’t surface within the next few hours, they’d deal with it.

  “Where did you park your truck?”

  Daria pointed toward the marina parking lot.

  “We’ll take my SUV to the station. Yours will probably be towed and checked there.”

  “For what?”

  “Blood.”

  Her bottom lip trembled and she looked down at her skirt. “I’ve got it all over me. I slipped on the puddle in the hallway when I saw it all. The only blood they’re going to find is from me.”

  His heart fell and he stifled a groan. That’s all the crime scene investigators would need, he thought with a heavy sigh.

  “We need to get to the station so we can sort all this out,” he said again, swallowing hard.

  She lifted a bloodstained hand to her face, stopped it mid-air and stared at it, shuddering.

  “Okay. But I need to clean up and change out of these clothes first. I can’t…stand all this blood on me.”

  Kevin looked at her directly, and tried not to feel the flood of emotion coursing through him. He tried to remember that he was a cop. And he tried to believe this woman he was holding, a woman who brought out every conceivable emotion in him, wasn’t part of the nightmare he’d witnessed. But she was and he had a job to do.

  “You can’t wash up, Daria. You can’t change your clothes. We have to go to the station just like this.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s evidence. Your clothes, and all the blood on you. It needs to be tested against the blood found at the scene.”

  Her expression was haunted, clouded, confused. “But I didn’t do anything.”

  “It’s going to be okay. I’m going to help you in every way I can. I promise you that. We’ll sort it all out and make some sense of it. Until then, we need to do things right.”

  Daria simply nodded. As if by saying that one thing made everything okay. Kevin knew it wouldn’t. They needed to find George Carlisle alive and well. If they didn’t, what they were going to need was a miracle. *

  Daria had gotten to change at the station, much to her relief. She’d never felt so violated in all her life.

  “What happens now?” she asked Kevin as she sat in front of the gray metal table of the interrogation room.

  Kevin stood on the other side of the room, leaning against the wall. He was so far away. “It’ll only be a little while longer,” he said in a low voice. “You’ll need to finish your statement.”

  Daria yawned. She was so exhausted. But even so, she knew the grim look on Kevin’s face meant things weren’t going well.

  “They’re not going to let me go are they?” Where she’d go, she didn’t know. Kevin had said her home was taped off with yellow police tape and no one would be allowed to go there until they’d gathered all the evidence they needed to give the DA.

  “No,” he said, looking at her. He walked the length of the room, pulled the chair on the other side of the table next to hers out and sat down beside her.

  Try as she may, she couldn’t keep her bottom lip from quivering. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Listen to me,” he said, taking her into his arms. For the past few hours Kevin had been in and out of the interrogation room. She suspected he’d g
o to that little room behind the mirrored wall where there were probably a handful of cops watching her and dissecting her every word and movement. “They haven’t charged you with anything.”

  “Yet.” She lifted her eyes to him. “They haven’t found George yet, have they?”

  Kevin shook his head.

  “And they don’t think they will?”

  “They’re looking.”

  She nodded. “I’m innocent, Kevin. You know that. But I don’t have what it takes to fight this.”

  “I know.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Close the door, will ya?” Matt said as Kevin walked into his office.

  He wasn’t sure if he wanted to hear what Matt had to say, but he wasn’t going to back away from this case.

  Charlotte Tate occupied the chair next to the empty one in front of the desk. Kevin dropped into the seat and said a quick hello.

  Kevin hadn’t seen Charlie much these last few weeks since she’d arrived in Providence. She hadn’t changed much. Her straight jet-black hair was cut a little shorter, her clothes a little more casual than they’d been the last time he’d seen her even though she was still FBI. Her decision to transfer back to Providence permanently to work as a profiler had been a shock, not only for him but for Tyler.

  With her working mostly in Virginia and Chicago all these years, it had been easy for Ty to forget what had happened nearly six years ago and the reason he was no longer on the force. Now that she was back in town for good, Tyler had become a little cranky. Even though he didn’t say a word, Kevin saw the questions. The memories were sitting right there every time he saw his friend. They had been this morning when he’d asked Ty to sell Her Gypsy Heart for him.

  But Ty was as stubborn as they came. He’d choke on his tongue before asking about Charlie.

  And Tyler’s name never once crossed Charlie’s lips in the short time she’d been in and out of the station.

  Matt glanced up at the two of them from the paperwork Kevin guessed had just come back from forensics.

  “It was his blood,” Matt said, his face grim. “Both at the house and on Daria. We’ve confirmed Daria’s statement that George Carlisle had a rare blood type and matched it against blood bank records. There aren’t a whole lot of people in the city who could have done this, although, believe me, even with evidence this distinct we haven’t closed the door on another intruder. We’re still checking it.”