If this was some kind of political move, she was going to have to quit the job on the spot. Then again, she couldn’t leave Lily alone and unsupervised with two such toxic people.
As she crested the top of the hill, she turned down the driveway that led to the Clarks’. The place was lit up with a collection of red and blue lights. The image made her stomach drop. In the evening shadows, the lights reflected off the snow and made it look like some sort of scene out of a murder documentary.
Murder.
No.
There was no way Lily could be dead.
Yet the scene made it clear that this situation was far more serious than what she had been hoping to find.
As she pulled up the driveway, her thoughts moved to the men who had been standing around in the living room like frat boys when she had been here earlier.
Was she here because of something they did? It wouldn’t have surprised her if things had escalated into a full-blown altercation with that kind of crowd. When there was a room full of self-important and power-hungry men drinking and smoking cigars, no doubt they would have been trying to one-up each other. They were probably playing at the hierarchy of asshats.
For now, she just needed to get the information she required and go to work in helping Lily. She couldn’t go down the road of what-ifs and hows. She was here to help, first and foremost. The rest of the professionals on-site could help her make sense of everything else. It was the reason they had teams. And, in her case, she not only had the crew that was already swarming around the house, but her family, as well.
Whatever the police couldn’t handle—or were limited in what they could legally do—her family and teams at STEALTH could step in and take care of. It was one of the best things about her job and family. She was always surrounded by badasses. In fact, some could have even said she was one, but if she was, it was because of her dog. If she had to pick the biggest badass in her family, the title would have to go to her sister, Kendra.
She parked, got out of her truck and walked to the back door to check on Daisy. Grant pulled in behind her, a sour expression on his face. As he exited his truck, the look on his face deepened. “Don’t you think you were driving a little fast?” From the tone of his voice, she would have thought he was kidding, but from his expression he was clearly annoyed.
“If Lily is in trouble, there’s no speed limit in the world that’s going to keep me from getting to her.” She gave Daisy a scratch behind the ears as the dog stared at her and attempted to make sense of everything that was happening.
“So, you do know this girl?” Grant asked. “I mean, I assumed you did...given the fact you ran away from me like your ass was on fire. But you could have at least let me give you the lay of the land before you tore out.”
She huffed. He wasn’t wrong. “Yes, I know Lily. I was hired as her guard by her family. I only left here a few hours ago.” She clicked Daisy’s lead onto her collar, readying her for whatever their next steps may be. “What’s happened to her?”
His sour, annoyed expression was quickly replaced with one of a pained empathy. “From what I was able to glean on the ride over, the mother and her child have gone missing. They initially believed the little girl may have slipped out of the house sometime after you left...but the scene’s—”
“Lily didn’t sneak out of the house,” she said, interrupting him. “Lily isn’t that kind of girl.” Her thoughts came in a mad dash.
“I know, but—”
“If anyone is at fault here, it isn’t Lily. Her parents are...” She glanced up at the front door of the house. The senator was nowhere to be seen. “They are not as attentive to Lily as parents should be. In fact, I’m surprised they didn’t have a nanny on staff. They should have.”
Catherine and Dean hadn’t been especially forthcoming with why they had hired Elle and her team to watch over Lily, but if they thought there was enough of a security threat that they needed to call in private VIP teams, then obviously there was something going on.
She should have pushed for more answers before taking this job. She should have gotten all the details. And yet, they had been vague. In a world of shadows, she hadn’t found it surprising at the time. Maybe it had been their hubris or hers, but as long as she was around, she hadn’t been overly concerned that anything bad would happen to Lily. But that had been on the condition that she was around. This had happened after her watch had ended. She should have been adamant about making sure that Lily had around-the-clock coverage. Or at least that they had boots on the ground outside the house.
She looked at Grant. He’d crossed his arms over his chest and was looking down at his feet, and she realized that she had once again spoken over him. When would she just start listening instead of pushing her way through life?
“Sorry. So, both Catherine and Lily are missing?” Elle asked, more focused on the child than the mother. At least Catherine could look out for herself.
He nodded. “No one knows where they went, but there was a sign of a struggle inside the residence. A table is broken and, from what the deputy on the inside said, there were shots fired within the house, and a gun registered to Catherine was found under a sofa. It was a .38 Special, and they believe it is the same caliber as that which left the holes in the walls.”
“So you believe Catherine was shooting at someone?”
Grant shrugged. “Hard to say how this played out as of now. We are pretty early on in our investigation. You know how these things have a way of distorting under first impressions.”
He spoke to her as though someone had filled him in on some key details of her life, but she couldn’t imagine who or when. She had always been insistent about keeping herself to herself, but then again, this was Montana.
“One of the neighbors said they saw you leaving the house this afternoon,” he continued. “It is believed you were one of the last people in or out of the house.”
“What? No. I wasn’t the last one here by any means. There were quite a few men in the living room, socializing with Mrs. Clark, when I left. But, wait...”
He didn’t call her here to help in the search. No. He’d called her here because she was one of their possible suspects.
“Am I a suspect in their disappearance?” she asked.
If she had been the lead working this case, she would have been her first stop, too. And it had been one hell of a play for Grant to bring her right to this place and put her on the spot, when, in fact, he was really questioning her. She had fallen for his game hook, line and sinker.
But she wasn’t afraid—she had nothing to hide.
“I didn’t say anything of the sort,” he said. “However, what time did you leave here?” Grant asked, careful to phrase his questions in a way that if she hadn’t been aware she was being interrogated, she wouldn’t have picked up on it.
“I left about thirty minutes before I met up with you.” She scowled. “I know what you’re thinking, but I’m telling you right now that if there was anything or any information I could give you about this little girl’s disappearance, I’d be the first to do it.”
Grant twitched. “You’re always two steps ahead, aren’t you?”
“I just live in this world, one of law enforcement and carefully constructed realities.”
He chuckled. “I do appreciate that we have the ability to speak the same language on this.” He seemed to relax, whatever suspicions he held about her momentarily falling to the wayside.
He was trying to play her again, to make her feel comfortable around him in an attempt to get more information. Little did he know, she was a master at that stupid game. However, it was odd and uncomfortable for her to be sitting on the receiving end.
“Do your guys know how long they’ve been missing? Who called this in?”
He leaned against the front of her truck. Daisy whined at her, and she stroked her head.
“Again, I don’t have all the details, but I think it was a neighbor who reported hearing gunshots.”
“Any blood?” She clicked off Daisy’s lead and closed the back door of the truck, leaving the dog safely tucked inside. “Did your guys look everywhere for Lily? That girl won’t just answer to anyone. If she’s hiding in there, she’s probably not going to come out for anyone other than someone she knows.” She took a step toward the house.
“Stop,” Grant said, putting his hands up to keep her from advancing. “I know what you are thinking, but you can’t just barge into that house and start yelling for Lily. This is potentially an active crime scene. Whatever we do, we have to be careful. We have to follow procedure, at least as much as we can.”
Her hands were balled into tight fists, almost like her body wanted to strike out and take down anything and anyone who stood between her and Lily’s safety—or lack thereof—even if that someone was the sergeant.
She tried to control her impulses to run into the house and flip open every cabinet and overturn every drawer in her search for Lily, but it was a struggle. Daisy whined from the back seat, and when Elle glanced over at her, Daisy barked.
I know. I screwed up, Daisy, she thought. I never should have left today. I knew something wasn’t right. I effing knew it.
Daisy’s nose pressed on the glass, and she whined again.
She should have trusted her gut and not left when she had seen the men in the house alone with Catherine. She should have taken Lily and gone somewhere...anywhere. And yet, she hadn’t listened to the little voice, and now her ward and her mother were missing.
She thought about Gavin de Becker’s The Gift of Fear. Like so many other self-help and self-defense–themed books, it spoke of a person’s intuition being their greatest weapon in their defense arsenal. There was nothing more effective to defer crime and injuries than to avoid situations that put a person at risk. Yet the only person who had avoided anything was Elle—she had wanted to avoid a confrontation with Catherine, and in the end...
Her boss was nowhere to be found.
One confrontation and she could have saved a woman and a child from disappearing.
Elle had avoided conflict and walked them straight into danger.
Maybe she needed to read that book again. Then again, she didn’t need a book to tell her to be afraid. She knew all too much about that on her own.
“Would you mind taking me through the house? I won’t touch anything, but if we are going to look for Lily, I’m going to need to know where we are going to have to start.” And whether or not she is still alive.
“Why don’t we leave Daisy for now? I want to do a quick walk-through and then, if you feel it necessary, we can have her do a sweep. Okay?” Grant asked, giving her a pinched, pleading look.
She opened the back door and clicked Daisy’s lead in place and then helped her step out of the back. “Dog goes. In a case like this, I can promise you that she is likely to pull more information than we ever could. Humans are always at the dumb end of the lead.”
Chapter Four
The house still smelled like it had when she left, a strange mix of whiskey, expensive women’s perfume and cigar smoke. Now, however, beneath the familiar odors was the distinct scent that came with the police—disinfectant, sweat, leather and gun powder.
She lifted her shirt, taking a quick sniff to see which world she smelled of after being in the training warehouse, but all she could smell was this morning’s shower, fresh air and Daisy.
Careful to slip under the tape, she walked into the foyer and glanced into the living room. The various law officers were in other parts of the house now, so the room was empty. “When I left, Catherine was here with a group of about eight men.” Daisy sat down beside her, leaning against her, her body tight and ready for action.
“Do you happen to know the identity of any of those men? Or what they were doing here?” Sergeant Anders asked.
She shook her head. “This family has a lot of foot traffic in and out of the place. It’s why I normally take Lily out of the house when she is under my care. It is easier to control the variables.”
“Are you saying that the type of people who came through this place weren’t who you would call reliable and safe?” he asked, reaching for his pocket like he wanted to take notes, but then he stopped and dropped his hands back down to his sides.
“It’s not that they were drugged-out meth heads, or people who you would look at and think they were dangerous—actually, far from it. These people weren’t the kind to keep themselves in bad company. Their lives were completely taken up by their image and the public’s opinion of that image. Especially right now, as the senator is up for reelection and is behind in the polls.”
She looked at the spot where she had last seen the stranger in khakis who had been smoking the cigar. Aside from the broken side table and three bullet holes in the wall to her right, nothing was out of place. If anything, it was too clean. Had someone staged this?
Grant bent over slightly and pointed toward the couch. “Right there, see the gun?” He pointed in the direction he was looking.
She crouched down. There, on the floor under the couch, was the .38 Special. She didn’t recognize the gun, but she hadn’t even been aware that Catherine owned a gun, let alone kept it at the ready.
“This room is ridiculously clean,” Grant said, standing up. “Do the Clarks hire a cleaning staff?”
The question seemed kind of out of place, but she assumed he must have been thinking the same about the lack of detritus and debris in what they had been told was the site of an altercation that may or may not have led to Lily and Catherine going missing.
“Yes, but they only come in once a week,” she said.
“Did Mrs. Clark always keep house in such a way?”
She stood up and chuckled. “Everything about the Clarks was always picture-perfect. I agree that this isn’t much to work with for investigators, but... Who knows?” She shrugged, trying to dispel some of her nerves. “This whole thing may not be as bad as we first assumed. Did your people try and call Catherine? Dean?”
Grant gave her a look that would have crumbled a lesser woman. “Yes, we tried to contact Catherine and Dean. Dean is unavailable. We have the Washington, DC, police department looking for him in order to notify him about what has happened. And Catherine’s phone was found in the backyard—its screen was cracked, but we have bagged it for evidence and our teams will see if they can pull any information.” He started to walk again, and she followed after, Daisy close at her heels.
“Were you and Mrs. Clark close?” Grant asked, looking over at her with a sidelong glance.
She shook her head as they made their way toward the back of the house. “Hardly. I’m nothing more than an employee. In fact, today she tried to give me a hundred-dollar tip. It was her way of reminding me that I’m nothing to Lily other than paid help—not a friend, not a parent and definitely not someone irreplaceable.”
Grant reached up and touched her shoulder, the motion far too real and sympathetic than she was prepared for. He didn’t need to say he was sorry; she could see it on him, and she didn’t like it.
“It’s okay. Sometimes it is good to be reminded to keep a little emotional distance from your work. And, regardless of how much I enjoyed Lily, I needed to keep in mind that the care of her was a job.” Yet, even talking about what the girl shouldn’t have meant to her made her ache with concern.
“Do you feel like you failed at that job?” he asked, almost as though he could read her truths on her features.
A lump formed in her throat, and she knew if she spoke, her voice would crack with pain. She simply shrugged.
“No matter what, Elle, you didn’t fail this girl. You did exactly what you were paid to do during your working hours.”
Had she? Her gaze moved to the
travertine floor and the beige-and-gray speckling of its glistening surface; in her few months here she had never noticed the way it flowed like water.
He sighed. “I can see you are just like me. When you’re off the clock, you struggle to leave the job at the doorstep. I know what that’s like. And I know what you’re likely struggling with. But you can’t do this to yourself.”
“My guilt will subside when I know that Lily is safe—and her mother.”
He opened his mouth and then shut it, but she knew what he was going to say...that they both needed to be prepared for any possible outcomes.
As they walked by the stairs, she pointed in the direction of the living quarters. “Do you want me to show you Lily’s room? Maybe there is something there.” Really, though, she was just hoping that as soon as she stepped into the room, Lily would come bounding out from inside her closet or from under her bed; she loved to play hide-and-seek.
Even as she considered it, she could feel in her gut that such a thing wasn’t going to happen. Lily wasn’t in this house. There were at least twenty different law enforcement personnel circulating through the residence, taking pictures and documenting the scene. Several were talking on their phones, and their voices mixed into an odd cacophony of stoic babble and garbled calls from dispatch on handsets.
He started up the stairs, and she stepped around him, leading him down the long white-carpeted hallway toward the girl’s bedroom. “I could never understand why anyone in their right mind would have carpet this color when they have children. Since I’ve been here, they’ve already had to replace the carpet in Lily’s bedroom once after she spilled a glass of grape juice—organic, of course.”
He smirked. “I can’t profess to understand or comprehend the thought processes of the extremely wealthy.”
“It’s wasteful.” As she spoke, she realized that she had completely unleashed all of the opinions and judgments she had been withholding. Yet, with the sergeant, it may not have been the wisest of choices.
K-9 Recovery Page 3