Mystery Bride

by Daniels, B. J.

  “I appreciate your concern,” Samantha said as she shut off the Bronco. “It’s one of the reasons I agreed to meet here at the mall. It’s public. And I have a plan.”

  She actually had a plan! That perked him up a little.

  It was obvious she still had feelings for Lucas. It shouldn’t have bothered Will. Shouldn’t have given him a pang of jealousy. Or made him dislike the guy all the more. Shouldn’t have—but did.

  “I have to meet someone in the food court.”

  She glanced at him and seemed to wait for him to say something. Was she wondering how much he’d overheard on the phone this morning? Obviously she didn’t want to talk about Cassie in front of the boy.

  “I thought we could all go in, and you and Zack could window-shop. That way I’ll be able to see you from the food court,” she said.

  He liked the idea of being able to keep an eye on her, as well. “You got it.” He turned to Zack for his okay. The boy was sitting up staring at the building through the snowy darkness, looking worried. “Hey, kid, I’ll bet Samantha will bring us a couple of corn dogs when she’s done.”

  Zack seemed to brighten a little. “With mustard and ketchup?”

  “Sure, and don’t worry, Will is going to be with you, and I won’t let either of you out of my sight.”

  Will carried Zack across the deserted lot to the mall entrance through air thick with snowflakes, Samantha pensive beside him.

  “When was the last time you saw her?” he asked quietly.

  She glanced over at him but didn’t ask whom he meant, no doubt realizing now that he’d overheard her phone conversation.

  “Almost six years. Not since she told me about her…wedding plans.”

  No wonder Samantha seemed a little nervous.

  He wondered if she had a gun in her purse. As much as he disliked the idea of her with a loaded weapon, he hoped she did. He just wanted her safe. Whatever it took.

  Once inside, he and Zack wandered toward the other end of the mall, while Samantha walked toward the smell of tacos and egg rolls and cinnamon buns and popcorn.

  But Will didn’t go far. He had no intention of letting Samantha or Zack out of his sight. “Let’s stop here for a moment,” he told the boy.

  The food court was small, only a half-dozen tables surrounded by a bunch of orange plastic chairs halfway down the mall. A couple sat at one of the tables, eating and talking. A woman with her two rowdy young children sat at another. He could hear the woman trying to get the kids to stop fighting and eat.

  A man sat alone at another table, sipping from a plastic cup. He seemed to watch Samantha approach, but Will knew that didn’t mean anything. Any red-blooded male would have to be blind not to notice a woman like her.

  “I used to have one of those—” Zack said. The boy was pointing at a bike in the store window.

  “Where is it now?”

  Zack shrugged. “It was red. I think I outgrew it. Dad was going to get me a bike. But we had to wait.”

  For a moment, Will thought the boy might go on. But it was obvious he felt he’d said enough. Wait for what? Will wondered. Had Lucas really been planning to skip the country? Was Samantha right about Lucas setting up Zack’s abduction? Then why hadn’t Lucas shown up in Wolf Point?

  “Well, I think it’s high time you had another bike,” Will heard himself say. “Once we get to Seattle—”

  “Really?” Zack’s eyes glittered with excitement. “A big one like that one?”

  “Absolutely.” What was he doing making promises like that? By tomorrow the boy might be taken away by the authorities, and Will might never see him again. The thought bothered him a lot more than he wanted it to. “Of course, we’ll have to find a place for you to ride it.”

  Zack ducked his head. “It’s okay if I don’t get it,” he said, as if he’d been promised things before and had already learned promises often weren’t kept.

  “Hey,” Will said, squatting in front of the boy and taking the thin shoulders in his hands. He waited for Zack’s gaze to meet his and saw the tears. “You will get one of those bikes. You have my word on it. And I don’t give my word lightly. You believe me?”

  Zack studied him for a moment, then nodded slowly.

  Will smiled. “Good. You just let me know what color.”

  The boy grinned, eyes bright. “Red. It has to be red.”

  Glancing down the mall, he saw Samantha go over to the taco joint and order something. He wondered what she was going to say about the bike. He hoped she didn’t see it as interfering. He’d done enough of that.

  She turned with a cup in her hands and moved to one of the tables to sit facing them. She looked a hell of a lot more relaxed than he felt right now.

  Only a few stragglers wandered the mall, still shopping. He wondered what Cassie looked like, and thought how hard it must be for Samantha to see her again after all these years.

  He disliked Cassie even without having met her. She’d abandoned her own child. And she’d hurt Sam and Zack. As he and Zack moved along the fronts of the stores, he swore he wouldn’t let Cassie—or Lucas, for that matter—get the chance to hurt Samantha or Zack again. Even if it meant staying a little longer in Seattle than he’d originally planned. As if anything he’d planned hadn’t gone completely awry since the moment he’d laid eyes on Samantha.

  SAM SIPPED the strong bitter coffee and studied the shoppers, watching for Cassie. The woman had been slim and blond in college. But for all Sam knew, Cassie could have changed her look entirely. In fact, she suspected her former roommate might be one of those women who was always impulsively dying her hair the hottest new wild color and changing her hair-style to suit her latest mood.

  So she kept Will and Zack in view as she searched the faces of the shoppers for a petite woman with a greedy look. Her own unflattering description of Cassie surprised her. Is that how she’d always felt about her? But the description fit. Cassie had come from money and lots of it. One of the first things she’d told Sam was that she had no intention of losing that money. All she had to do to keep getting her monthly checks from Daddy was to not get kicked out of school.

  When Cassie had gotten pregnant, she’d been afraid her father would disinherit her. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t noticed how devastated Samantha had been. She hadn’t seemed to care that she’d just stolen Sam’s happiness and a whole lot more.

  But while Cassie’s father had thrown a fit, he’d given his blessing, because, fortunately, Lucas came from a family with a good enough pedigree. He had probably been glad to let some other man take care of Cassie.

  So what had Cassie been doing since the divorce? Maybe more importantly, what was she doing back in Lucas’s and Zack’s lives?

  The large grandfather-style clock near the mall entrance gonged a few minutes before nine. Shopkeepers began to drag the barred doors closed, and a quiet uneasiness settled over the building.

  She glanced up at Zack and Will. They were standing in front of a sporting goods shop down the mall and seemed to be talking intently about something in the window. Will’s easy way with Zack never ceased to amaze her. She smiled to herself and shook her head. She wasn’t surprised how fond Zack seemed to be of the man.

  As she looked around, she saw that only a few shoppers were left, and those seemed to be heading for the exits. Even the woman a few tables away finally gave up trying to get her children to finish their fast-food meals. She chased after the children, toward the snowy darkness outside.

  Either Cassie had been here earlier and left, or she’d never shown at all. It made Sam all the more anxious. Why had Cassie agreed to meet her and then not waited? She couldn’t shake the memory of Will’s comment that she might be walking into a trap.

  She pulled out her cell phone and tried her office again, reminded of what Cassie had said about going to the office if they missed each other at the mall. The line was still busy. That was odd. Even if Cassie had gone there and caught Sam’s associate Andrew Berg still around
, that didn’t explain the line being busy for almost ten minutes now.

  Before the food court closed, she bought two corn dogs with packets of ketchup and mustard to go. Then she walked down to meet Zack and Will.

  The mall was officially closed, the shop doors barred, the cleaners beginning the task of getting the place ready for the next day. But still no Cassie.

  “I take it she didn’t show,” Will said, sounding relieved.

  “No. I need to stop by my office for a few minutes.” She turned her attention to Zack. “Did you find anything you wanted?”

  He shook his head and shot a look at Will as if they shared some secret. “Did you get us a corn dog?” he asked, noticing the paper sack in her hand.

  “Would I forget my two favorite men?” she joked, instantly regretting her choice of words. Don’t get too used to having Will around, she warned herself. He’s just signed on as far as Seattle, and he might come to his senses long before then.

  In the Bronco, Zack wolfed down his corn dog and eyed Will’s, still in the sack. She doubted Will was a corn-dog fan, and wondered if he had been saving it for the boy.

  “I’ll flip you for it,” Will said, seeing the boy’s interest. He pulled a quarter from his pocket. “Heads or tails?”

  Zack thought for a moment. “Heads.”

  Will flipped the coin, caught it in his hand and looked down at it, then at Zack. She could clearly see it was tails. “It’s heads,” he said, and handed a delighted Zack the other corn dog.

  She smiled over at Will, suddenly very glad she’d kissed him at the party and started the chain reaction that had him here with her tonight.

  Just think what could happen if you kissed him again like that.

  Perish the thought!

  Right.

  Just the thought of Will’s lips on hers sent a shudder through her.

  “Cold?” He reached over to turn up the heater.

  “Thanks,” she said as she pulled out of the parking lot. But she didn’t dare look at him for fear he’d see from her flushed cheeks to the heat at her center.

  MURPHY INVESTIGATIONS was in an old brick building that had been a fancy hotel in its time. It now looked out on the defunct open-pit mine with its gaping hole more than one mile wide and its inky bottom filled with water.

  Her building stood alone among the ghosts of other structures, only their crumbling foundations still remaining. The area had an abandoned feel to it, just as a lot of Butte’s old downtown area now did. Empty buildings stood on what had once been one of the richest hillsides in the world, next to what had been the largest city in Montana.

  But Butte, with its tough-guy persona, had always been home to Sam. It seemed to fit her like a pair of old jeans. It might not be pretty, but it was comfortable.

  She’d chosen her office location because of its privacy and cheap rent. Also, she didn’t like the modern office complexes down the mountainside. Her office opened out onto one of the original hotel balconies. For safety reasons, a stairway had been built down from the balcony as a fire escape. Probably a good idea, considering the condition of the building.

  As she parked in front, she saw that Andrew’s car wasn’t on the street. In fact, there were no other cars on the narrow street, as far as she could see.

  “Nice view,” Will said, looking at the lights of Butte through the snowfall.

  The mountain glowed with the lights from the original city, which trailed down the hillside, puddling in the valley where the “new” Butte had been sprouting up for years. Where the mall was.

  She glanced back at Zack. He’d fallen asleep again. It was way past his bedtime, and all the driving had worn him out.

  “I just need to run in for a minute,” she said to Will. He nodded. The message passed between them without words. He’d watch Zack and lock the doors behind her. “If you need me—”

  She knew she didn’t need to finish.

  Will nodded. “I’ll honk. Don’t worry, we’ll be fine.”

  “I won’t be long,” she promised. She left the Bronco running with the lights out but heater and wipers on. Still, she didn’t like leaving Will and Zack alone. Especially on a lonely street in the middle of a snowstorm with kidnappers still on the loose.

  The massive oak door of the building was locked, just as it should have been, which made her feel a little better. She used her key to get in—but stopped the moment she turned on the overhead light and stepped inside. There were wet tracks on the worn hardwood floor, as if someone had just been here. Or was still here.

  She advanced slowly, listening intently for any sound. The four-story building felt as empty as the mall had been just minutes before. But then, it was past nine. She walked down the hallway under the golden haze of the bare bulb, the old wood floor creaking under her step.

  Her office sat at the back of the building on the second floor. She pushed open the stairwell door, feeling the cold dense air rush around her. The wet tracks led up the stairs. She climbed to the second level and cautiously pushed open the door, noticing immediately that the tracks headed in the direction of her office. She slowed, reassured by the weight of the pistol against her ribs, but concerned by a sound she couldn’t place.

  She stopped, her pulse pounding, as she looked toward her office. It took her a moment to realize what she was hearing. And why she could hear it at all. Her office door was open. And the phone was off the hook, the awful steady beeping sound echoing down the hallway.

  She pulled the .357 from her shoulder holster and moved cautiously toward the open office door. As she reached it, she peered inside.

  The outer office had been ransacked just the way her house had been days earlier. As she stepped in, she picked up the phone from the floor with her gloved hand and put it back on the hook.

  The beeping stopped. Silence filled the office, as heavy as concrete.

  As she glanced into the adjoining room, she saw that it, too, had been ransacked. The desk light was on, casting a warm glow over the worn top of her oak desk.

  Carefully she began to step through the debris to her office, then stopped when something caught her attention. A splatter of dark brown spots on the wall. More on the pale wood of the floor. She swallowed, her heart hammering as she moved closer, her weapon ready.

  She spotted the shoe sole first, and for one horrible moment she thought it might be that of her associate, Andrew Berg. But in the glow from the desk lamp, she saw that the man sprawled dead on the floor behind her desk was much too short and thick to be Andrew.

  She turned away to squeeze her eyes closed, fighting back the small cry of mixed surprise and fear and revulsion. She wasn’t one of those women who got queasy at the sight of blood. But she knew she’d never get used to seeing violent death. Murder shook the foundation of her belief system, making her question if man really was inherently good. It was one of the reasons she’d become a private investigator and not a cop. She didn’t often stumble across dead bodies in her line of work, and she liked it that way.

  Right now, she wished she’d taken her Aunt Edie’s advice and become a dental assistant. Looking into people’s mouths couldn’t be any worse than this.

  She opened her eyes. Al, the short, “nice” kidnapper, had taken a couple of bullets up close and personal in the chest. He lay sprawled on the floor, his eyes open but sightless, two very distinct holes in the left breast pocket of his gold-colored down coat. He was dead. Very dead.

  Suddenly her heart took off at a trot. She noticed something odd. Tiny gosling feathers were stuck to the bloody coat and other feathers stirred restlessly as if there was a breeze in the room.

  Her eye caught a movement. She jerked the .357 up, her finger just a hairbreadth above the trigger. The ancient drapes over the window that opened to the balcony billowed out. Someone was behind the curtain! Her trigger finger cramped in those seconds before her mind processed what she was seeing. The window was open; it was only the breeze blowing the drapes.

  Reliev
ed, she stepped past Al to close the window, but as she came around the end of the desk, she saw something that froze her.

  Her heart pounded fiercely in her chest as she followed the line of the dead man’s arm. Using her sleeve to avoid leaving fingerprints, she carefully picked up the lamp and shone the light on the crude letters scrawled in dark brown blood on the side of the desk.

  The man Zack called Al had died writing the letters CA, the A trailing down to a squiggly line just above Al’s hand.

  An icy finger of fear ran up her spine. Ca—Cassie? Is that what he’d been trying to write? She felt cold soul-deep at the thought—

  The sound was faint but distinct. The soft creak of a floorboard. In that instant, she realized she wasn’t alone.

  She spun around, leading with the weapon, trailing with the lamp, but she wasn’t fast enough. Hands savagely twisted the gun from her hand and knocked the lamp away. It hit the wall, the bulb shattering in a burst of light.

  She got only a glimpse of her attacker before she felt the blow to her temple. She went down hard, landing on her side. Something cold pressed against her cheek, a wet spot on the rug where the snow had blown in from the open window. Pain radiated through her head. She tried to get up. But before she could move, she felt a needle plunge deep into her thigh. She let out a weak cry just before her mouth was covered with thick tape.

  The drug was fast-acting, but not so fast that she didn’t feel the heavy mildewed fabric of the huge bag as her body was stuffed into it and the drawstring pulled tight.

  Chapter Eight

  Through the falling snow, Will stared at the office entry where he’d seen Samantha disappear minutes ago. The wipers click-clacked back and forth, as hypnotizing as the snow but a lot louder.

  “Are you warm enough?” he asked Zack.

  No answer. He looked over his shoulder to see Zack still sound asleep in the back seat.

  Carefully, he reached over and shut off the engine, turned off the wipers. The night closed in. The snow fell in a silent cloak, making him feel all the more isolated. The lights of Butte seemed dimmed and distant.