by Jami Alden
Toni spared him a glance over her shoulder as she clicked through to T-Bone’s FacePlace page.
“That was my brother calling to remind me of another standing obligation.” He was reluctant to leave, and not only because he wanted to follow the trail to T-Bone and what he might know about Kara Kramer’s disappearance. He liked it here in Toni’s dark, sweltering apartment, working beside her.
“It’s cool,” she said without looking up. “I’ll let you know whatever I find out.” Her fingertip stroked idly over her mouse, as if she were fondling a patch of skin.
Okay, clearly he needed to get laid if watching Toni navigate cyberspace was enough to get him excited. He stood quickly. “I’ll be back in a few hours.”
Toni watched the retreat of his wide, muscled back with a combination of regret and relief. As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she was starting to crush on him. Not only was he hot, he was smarter than she’d first given him credit for. Not many people knew what EXIF data was, much less how it could be used for an investigation, but Ethan must do his homework.
And he had an odd knack for sensing when she was about to head down the dark road of fear and let anxiety override all logic. Using humor or short, pointed questions and remarks, he gently guided her back on track, keeping her from fixating on the worst-case scenario.
But she was grateful to see him go. The lustful undercurrents pulsing between them were far too distracting. Someone she cared about was missing, and she could barely concentrate because she couldn’t stop thinking about stripping Ethan Taggart naked. Better he was gone so she could really focus.
From T-Bone’s profile page she clicked on a link to T-Bone’s Treasure Chest.
Speaking of naked.
“Kara, what the hell have you gotten yourself into?”
Kara huddled on the thin pad and tried to figure out how long she’d been sitting here in the dark. A day? Two?
She had no idea. Her body shook with a combination of cold and fear. She sat with her knees curled up to her chin, her bound wrists looped over her legs in an attempt to hold in whatever body heat she had left.
Her eyes were wide open in spite of the dark, her ears tuned to every slight sound as she waited for the man to come back. Despite her grogginess from whatever drug was working through her, she hadn’t slept since the man left hours ago. After his brief greeting, all the more terrifying for how casual he’d sounded, he’d left and hadn’t come back.
Hazy details were starting to surface. She’d never made it to the party. She had a vague memory of a dark SUV, a rough hand on her arm.
And then the dark.
And then the man.
Who still hadn’t come back. Neither had anyone else.
Not to give her water, or food, or to take her to the bathroom or even give her a bucket to pee in. She’d been forced to scoot to the end of her rope and awkwardly push her pants down, trying not to lose her balance as she squatted in the dark with tears running down her face. She winced as she inhaled, the smell of her urine sharp in the damp, cold air.
Adding to her humiliation, she hadn’t been able to pull her pants back up with her hands tied, and they were stuck halfway down her butt.
She had a horrible, awful feeling she would be naked in front of the man soon enough.
He said he wanted cooperation. And though her brain tried to reject the idea, she knew with bone-tingling dread what his idea of cooperation would entail.
As she waited in darkness, panicky thoughts ricocheted through her brain. Why? Why her?
But she was afraid she knew damn well why.
This was all her fault, posing for the pictures. Talking herself into it, getting off on the idea of doing it behind her parents’ backs, her own secret life, proving—to herself anyway—that she wasn’t the perfect little girl everyone thought she was.
No one else was ever supposed to find out. Toby had promised.
But now someone—some scary-ass creep who kept girls in his basement—knew.
Her stomach cramped as a dozen scenarios, each one more horrifying than the last, raced through her mind.
The panic that had subsided as hours passed with no further contact exploded once again to the surface. “Please, help me, somebody help me,” she whispered, starting to cry. She closed her eyes, as though that could shut out the stifling dark, the stomach-churning fear. “Please, please, help me.” The whisper grew louder, turning into a high-pitched wail.
“Help me!” The wail became a scream, absorbed by the darkness. Some part of her knew no one would hear, but she couldn’t stop, the scream roaring from the deep pit of fear lodged in her gut.
Suddenly a door banged open and the room flooded with light. The brightness blinded her, piercing through her brain like a knife through her eyes. She huddled against the wall, desperately trying to blink the room into focus.
Her mouth opened, but this time her scream lodged in her throat as the large, blurred outline of a man came toward her.
The blade of a knife glittered in his hand; terror clawed at her chest as it came closer. But all he did was cut the rope securing her to the wall.
He jerked at the rope. Fresh pain erupted in the wounds of her wrists. Her elbow and shoulder joints protested as he yanked her to her feet.
What was going to happen to her? Where was he taking her? That and a thousand other questions skittered across her brain. But when she opened her mouth to ask, the fear switch flipped in her brain and another scream barreled its way up her throat, past her lips, as she staggered up a short flight of stairs.
The man was impervious to her fear, not sparing her so much as a look as he dragged her screaming, struggling form down a short hallway. Her scream gave way to harsh, panting breaths, coming so fast she was afraid she was going to pass out. In her hyperfearful state, odd details penetrated her consciousness. The wood paneling on the walls, the heavy furniture in the rooms she passed.
Through the windows she glimpsed the trunks of huge redwood trees, the kind that grew in the coastal mountains close to where she lived. They hadn’t taken her far.
Small comfort that was as the man jerked hard on the rope again and sent her stumbling to her knees. She fumbled to catch herself with her hands, missed, and smacked her chin on the hardwood floor. Blood flooded her mouth as her teeth pierced the tender flesh of her inner lip.
She started crying then, tears and snot pouring down her face as she was jerked once again to her feet and dragged the last few feet down the hall. She stumbled into a room, and the man who had come for her dropped the rope and left, slamming the door behind him.
A man sat at a huge mahogany desk, observing her. His hair was dark blond mixed with gray, slicked back from his forehead. He didn’t look like a psycho kidnapper. With his carefully combed hair and green polo shirt he looked like one of her dad’s golf buddies. Or someone who would show up at one of the dinner parties her mother was always hosting before her parents split, someone who would ask her lame questions like where she was applying to college and what subject she liked best.
He looked…normal.
The observation wasn’t at all comforting.
Deep-set, muddy green eyes raked her from head to toe, and his mouth stretched in a smile that made her legs shake and her blood chill.
“You’re even prettier than your pictures.”
He was the one who had first come to her in the dark. The one who wanted her cooperation. Sick dread knotted and pinched at her intestines, and she was afraid she was going to throw up, or worse. “My father,” she managed to grunt out. “My father has lots of money.” Her lips were numb, her tongue as thick as if she’d done five quick shots of Absolut. She licked her lips and tried again. “He’ll pay you. If you don’t hurt me he’ll pay you—”
He held up a hand, silencing her. “I know all about your father.” His voice was deep with a faint accent that sounded almost British but not quite. “And it is my hope, as it should be yours, that he will cooperate.
”
He rose from the desk and approached her, and Kara backpedaled until her knees hit something, a table. He caught her before she could fall, pulling her up, pulling her close until her nose was flooded with the cloying smell of aftershave and hair gel, until she could feel his faintly sour breath on her cheek.
His hand was soft and manicured against the skin of her forearm, but his grip was bruising as he easily subdued her exhausted struggles. He extracted a handkerchief from a pocket with his other hand and wiped her face in rough swipes.
“Yes, much prettier than the pictures you post for the world to see.”
Her skin crawled. “What pictures?” she asked. Maybe if she played dumb they’d think they had the wrong girl. How could he even know? Toby always blurred her face out, promised her no one would ever know it was her. Their little secret.
But she couldn’t trust Toby to keep his dick in his pants. Why should she trust him not to out her online?
The man brushed off her question, his hand trailing down her throat like a snake, coming to rest on the pendant that hung just below the hollow of her throat.
“You have a treasure,” he said, closing his fingers around the small silver charm. It was a stylized V, with three tiny diamonds, one at each end, one at the point. Laurie Friedland’s mother had given the charms to Kara and Laurie two years ago at homecoming.
Right after they’d established the V-Club on FacePlace.
Where Kara often posted pictures of herself along with her almost daily messages.
He hadn’t seen the other pictures. A faint flutter of relief started to unwind her nerves.
But her relief was short-lived as his fingers tightened on the pendant. She shrank from his reptilian gaze as it raked her up and down, lingering on her breasts and between her legs.
“This treasure you value so very much,” the man said. “Let’s hope your father values it as well.”
CHAPTER 5
D READ BUILT SLOWLY and steadily as Ethan drove to his father’s house. He wasn’t looking forward to hearing all about whatever crazy lead Dad was chasing this time. Tension and fatigue joined forces and started a dull throbbing at the base of his skull.
By the time he got to his father’s house fifteen minutes later, the tension had erupted into a full-blown headache, pounding in his temples with the rhythm of his heartbeat. His father still lived in the house Ethan had grown up in, a sprawling ranch-style home that sat on a full acre of land in the middle of wealthy Atherton.
But unlike the showpieces that lined the oak-studded street, the Taggart house showed its age. The paint on the trim was starting to chip, and as he walked up the driveway to the front door, Ethan noticed that the asphalt had buckled and cracked in several places. When Ethan was growing up, even one of these small defects would have driven his father insane. Though he’d given up his military career to pursue one in finance, Joe Taggart had still expected everything in his life to be spit-polished to a high shine. The lawn was always neatly mowed, the hedges precisely trimmed. The house got a new coat of paint every five years without fail, and he would never have allowed the oak tree roots to spread under the driveway until it became a cracked mess.
But that was before Joe’s wife had disappeared without a trace, and the father Ethan had always regarded with equal measures of love and awe had disappeared along with her.
Ethan had memories from when he was a little kid, before they moved to California. Memories of his parents laughing, his mother jumping into his father’s arms and kissing him passionately the moment Joe Taggart walked in the door. Then his father had retired from the army, which was supposed to mean more money, more stability, since they wouldn’t have to move every few years. Instead, Joe’s success in the investment banking world meant long hours in the office, weekends spent at work, and vacations canceled so deals could be closed.
Ethan didn’t know when his mom had checked out. He didn’t remember the first few years being so bad. His dad wasn’t around much, but he didn’t remember his mom hassling Joe about his long hours and frequent trips out of town.
But when his mother’s face swam into his memory, Ethan didn’t see a happy woman. Without her husband around to shower her with affection, she’d wilted like a flower in the desert, and even her three growing boys weren’t enough to make up for a husband who was never around.
If Joe noticed his wife’s increasing dissatisfaction with their marriage, he didn’t show it. He sure as shit didn’t do anything to fix it, still working just as hard if not harder. In the end, Anne Taggart had descended into a depression-induced fog of booze, pills, and who knew what else. She’d disappeared emotionally long before she’d disappeared physically.
Joe hadn’t meant to ignore her, Ethan knew. He’d been focused on his career, convinced he was doing the best for his family by making as much money as he could, as quickly as possible. He’d ignored her complaints, convinced she would thank him later for every day that she sat in her multimillion-dollar home, dressed in designer clothes from the most expensive boutiques. Unfortunately, Joe hadn’t recognized the depth of her unhappiness until it was too late. Anne had already left, without a backward look, leaving no clue as to where she’d gone.
Now, though Joe still did financial consulting on the side, his top priority was finding his wife. He’d spent the past eighteen years chasing every lead, no matter how far-fetched, no matter how unreliable the source. If he’d spent only one-tenth of the time with his wife when she was around as he did searching for her now, Ethan knew she never would have left. The irony wasn’t lost on Ethan. Only after she disappeared did Anne truly become the center of Joe’s life.
Ethan let himself in the front door, trying to stave off the wave of sorrow he felt every time he saw the house he grew up in. The inside wasn’t in any better shape than the outside. While it was kept clean by the housekeeper’s twice-weekly visits, the hardwood floor was scuffed and the upholstery on the furniture was worn. His father always kept the heavy drapes closed, giving the house a dark, suffocating feel even on a bright summer day like today. Upstairs, the bedrooms were the same as they’d been since Danny, Ethan, and Derek had left home. Danny had gone to West Point, followed two years later by Derek, while Ethan had opted for Annapolis and navy flight school.
And though he never went in there anymore, he knew his father kept the master bedroom exactly the same as it had been on the day their mother had disappeared. None of her clothing had been removed, none of the personal items she’d left behind in her hurry to disappear had been put away. As though any day now she was going to walk through the front door and start life right back where she’d left it.
On the front table was a pile of mail that no one had bothered to go through in what looked like weeks. Catalogs and bills were piled haphazardly, threatening to spill onto the floor. Ethan reached out to straighten it, freezing when he saw his mother’s name on the address label on a catalog.
He snatched it up and crumpled the thick paper in his fist, slamming it into a wastebasket as he stalked down the hall. He found his father and his older-by-six-minutes twin brother Derek in the dining room, looking at a map spread over the scratched surface of the cherrywood table.
“A woman matching her description was at the Champlung Hotel in Ubud,” Joe said, indicating the city in Central Bali with his forefinger.
Ethan and Derek exchanged a speaking look over their father’s head. Can you believe he’s doing this again? Derek’s look said. Another lead. Another dead end. Another chunk of change out of Dad’s bank account. Ethan didn’t have to utter a word to make himself understood.
Though they weren’t identical, they’d always had that weird twin bond. If anyone ever asked either of them about it point-blank they would have denied it, neither of them being big believers in any kind of sixth-sense, touchy-feely crap. Nevertheless, when Ethan’s plane had gone down over Afghanistan four years ago, Derek had contacted Ethan’s commanding officer to find out his brother’s sta
tus before the crash had even been reported.
But it didn’t take special twin juju to know what Derek was thinking as he listened to Joe.
“She was in Ubud last week, but she’s heading south to Sanur,” Joe said, as though her presence in Bali were a given.
Derek’s shoulders were slumped, his jaw pulled into grim lines. His light brown, close-cropped hair was sticking up on top where he’d run frustrated fingers through it.
Ethan was sure he looked the same, but he did his best to hide his exasperation. He’d learned a long time ago that it did no good to try to dissuade his father when he’d caught the scent, however elusive, of their missing mother. It did no good to tell him it was a waste of time, that someone was yet again scamming him for the reward money he put up. “So you really think she’s in Indonesia, Dad?” Ethan asked, not bothering to point out that the woman he remembered had had a deathly fear of bugs and had hated the humidity because of what it did to her hair. Unless she’d changed dramatically, Southeast Asia wouldn’t exactly be Anne Taggart’s scene.
Joe pulled a small notepad out of his breast pocket and squinted over the rims of his reading glasses. “Yes. My source said he saw a woman fitting her description just five days ago. So you can see why I have to move fast.”
“Dad, the picture you have is almost twenty years old,” Ethan said, struggling to keep the impatience from his tone.
In Joe’s head she was still a thirty-eight-year-old California blond, whose age and years of increasingly harder drinking had just begun to catch up with her.
Who knew if she looked remotely the same, or if she was even alive?
Didn’t matter to their father, though. Send him a blurry picture of an attractive blond over forty and he was off and running. Ethan had long ago stopped trying to talk him out if it.
Their older brother, Danny, had no such qualms about poking holes in their dad’s cockeyed theory. “This is fucking bullshit, Dad,” he said, slamming an empty pot into the sink and filling it with water. “Like every other bullshit lead you’ve followed for the past eighteen fucking years. She left us. She’s not coming back. She never wanted to be found. Move on.”