Desired in Darkness

by Heather Sunseri

  “What? Dammit! Find her. I’ll pick you up.”

  I hung up and went straight to my bedside table. Inside the top drawer was my holster and gun. I strapped it on. She might not want to talk to me, but I’d be damned if she was going to go off in anger, putting herself in danger because of a misunderstanding.

  Chapter 23

  Brooke

  I declined Declan’s call, then dialed the phone number on the back of the photo of Rhiana Callaway. Ty and I sat in his living room—me in an expensive Winston club chair and Ty on his and James’s navy blue velvet, tufted sofa. I put the call on speaker and set the phone on the coffee table between us.

  A woman answered. Dishes clanked in the background, and I heard people laughing. It sounded like she was in a loud restaurant or bar.

  “I’m looking for Rhiana Callaway,” I said.

  “What?” the woman yelled. “Hold on.” I heard some shuffling and movement, then the noise quieted. “Sorry, I’m at work.”

  “Is this Rhiana?” I asked.

  “Yes, it is. Who’s this?”

  “My name is Brooke Fairfax. I went to school with your brother.” And her, technically, but she and I hadn’t known each other all that well. She probably didn’t even remember me.

  “Okaaaay,” she said.

  “Have you seen Christopher recently?”

  “No. Why are you looking for him?”

  I looked at Ty. He motioned for me to continue, to keep her talking.

  “I’m going to be in the area, and I was looking up some of my old friends.”

  “What area is that?” she asked. This girl was no dummy, and she was clearly suspicious.

  “Virginia,” I said. “I’m working in the DC area the next few days.”

  “Well, if you were a friend of Christopher’s, you’d know that he hasn’t been in Virginia since he graduated from college.”

  I shrugged at Ty. “You’re right. I haven’t been a friend to him since our days in Charlottesville.” I grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled a note to Ty: She’s lying. I knew from Mike’s notes that Christopher had been living in Virginia as recently as a year ago, although Mike hadn’t made contact with him.

  There was silence on the other end of the line.

  “Rhiana? Are you still there?”

  She didn’t answer, but I could tell she hadn’t hung up.

  “I think your brother might be in trouble,” I said. “I was telling you the truth when I gave you my name. I’m investigating a man your brother and I both knew in college, and I’m afraid this man might be out to hurt your brother.”

  There was heavy breathing on the other end, then finally she spoke softly. “Christopher won’t come anywhere near me or the rest of our family. He says it’s too dangerous. He only calls once a month, and that’s just to make sure we’re okay. He says someone is after him. My parents think he’s mentally ill and paranoid. They say I shouldn’t let him near my baby.”

  “Do you know how to get ahold of your brother?”

  Silence.

  “Rhiana. I can help you,” I said softly. “Look, I’ll be in town Wednesday. Send me a message at The Jefferson if you’d like to talk.”

  “No. Meet me here, at the restaurant—Marcel’s on Pennsylvania. I work again Wednesday night.” The phone went silent. Rhiana had hung up.

  I looked at Ty. “Well, I was planning to go for Mike’s funeral. So I’ll meet Rhiana Wednesday night, and see if I can find Christopher.”

  “I can go with you,” Ty said. “I just need to get a sitter for the dogs.”

  Thurston and Lovie, Ty and James’s French bulldogs, perked up on their beds.

  “Listen to me, Ty. This could be a complete dead end. Would you have gone to Mike’s funeral otherwise?”

  “I wasn’t planning on it.”

  “Then you would be doing me a huge favor if you stayed here and kept an eye on this investigation into the KOHS shooting. There’s something strange going on here.”

  “I agree with you on that. Will you take Declan?”

  I took a drink of the red wine that Ty and I had been sipping on. How was I supposed to answer that question?

  “What happened tonight?” Ty asked. “Was it just a fight?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want to talk about it. I’ll see if Dimitri is up for a trip.” I was in full agreement with everyone that I shouldn’t be going anywhere alone; Romeo had become too unpredictable and dangerous.

  A knock sounded at Ty’s door. He and I exchanged a look.

  “Speak of one of the devils,” Ty said.

  I handed Ty my glass. “I’ll see you in the morning. I won’t fly back to DC until Wednesday morning.” I walked to the door, opened it, and greeted a very stressed-looking Declan.

  As Declan built a fire in the study fireplace, I curled up on the edge of the leather sofa, hugged a mug of hot tea, and stared at the flames.

  When he was finished, he turned to me. “I thought you had run again.”

  “Why would you think that?”

  He walked over and sat on the sofa beside me, careful not to overcrowd. “You’ve run before.”

  “Declan, when I told you I would marry you, that was me trusting you. I don’t know who Claire is, but I’m trusting that you’re going to tell me. If I don’t like what you say, then you and I will discuss what happens next. But I told you when we were in Georgetown that I wouldn’t run again without talking to you. And when I agreed to marry you…” I swirled the tea bag around my mug. “I’m not running.”

  I was very proud of how calm I sounded, when inside I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to know who that woman was and why she claimed I was wearing her ring. I knew in my heart that Declan wasn’t the type of person to give his heart to just anyone. That was why I loved him. For now, that love and trust was keeping me cemented beside him.

  “Were you once engaged to Claire?” I asked. “Did you give her the same ring you gave me?”

  “No,” he said forcefully. “I was never engaged to Claire. That ring has been inside a safe, in a home I inherited from my grandparents, waiting for the right person to come along. I have been waiting for you my entire adult life.”

  I felt a tight squeeze to my heart, and I resisted the urge to massage that spot on my chest. “Then who is Claire?”

  “Claire is a girl from my hometown. We dated when we were sixteen and seventeen.” Declan placed his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together. He bowed his head and wouldn’t even look at me. “When we were seventeen, I broke up with her, and a few days later, she came to me and told me she was pregnant.”

  I didn’t know what to say. “You have a child?”

  His face jerked up, and he turned to me. “No. It wasn’t mine.”

  “You knew that for sure?”

  “Oh, I knew. And she knew I knew. We were just kids. We never… went that far.”

  “Then why...” I kept my eyes on him. “Go on.”

  “I cared for Claire, the way many teenagers care for their childhood sweethearts, but I knew I was leaving home. The child wasn’t mine,” he repeated. “And I wasn’t in love with her. She had problems that I couldn’t fix. And I desperately needed to get out of the town where I’d grown up. And away from my controlling parents.”

  I scooted closer and slipped my hand into one of his. “What happened?”

  “Well, the pregnancy put her in a state. She told everyone, including her father, that I had gotten her pregnant and that we were getting married.”

  “What? Why would she do that?”

  “I’ll get to that.”

  I was rushing him. “I’m sorry.”

  He smiled at me, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “It’s okay. Once an interrogator, always an interrogator.” He nervously rubbed his thumb over a spot on my hand. “Her father came after me in a rage. Made a huge scene with a shotgun. Got my parents involved, of course. My father insisted that I marry Claire. But my grandparents stepped in. They vow
ed to take care of Claire instead.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Just like that.” Declan pressed his fingers against his eyes. He was tired. He faced me again. “You see, they knew the truth. I wasn’t responsible for the child, but they felt that they could help.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  “The baby was Darren’s.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Oh! Your girlfriend cheated on you with your brother?”

  Declan nodded. “My brother knew I was planning on leaving, and that I wasn’t in love with Claire. Not that I’m excusing what he did, but… we were kids. Darren was older than me, and was struggling to find direction in his life. If Claire’s father had discovered that Darren had gotten her pregnant, he might have killed him. At least, that’s what our teenage minds told us after they’d already come at me with a shotgun.”

  “What about your grandparents? Why didn’t they speak up and tell Claire’s parents the truth?”

  “They did. And Claire’s parents wanted her to get an abortion—to make it all go away. But Claire didn’t want that, so her parents kicked her out of their house. Told her she was on her own.”

  “Where were your parents during all of this?”

  “They had stopped speaking to both Darren and me.”

  “Have you spoken to them since?”

  Declan shook his head. This was obviously not a subject he liked to talk about.

  “So what happened?”

  He sighed. “A month later, Claire lost the baby. And shortly after that, my grandparents died, weeks apart.”

  I reached over and placed a hand on his cheek, forcing him to look at me. “I am so sorry.”

  “They left their farm to me—along with my grandmother’s ring, which seems like a strange part to include in this story, but you’ll see how it comes full circle. They left Darren a small sum of money in a trust, to be used to pay for university. It was also a clear message to stop relying on everyone to clean up his messes.”

  I set my tea on the side table, then walked over to stand in front of the fire.

  “This is when the story gets complicated,” Declan said. “Claire isn’t well, mentally.” He came up behind me and placed his hands on my shoulders, rubbing them as if I were cold. “She’s been seeing a psychiatrist in Ireland for years.”

  I turned to face him.

  “She had a complete breakdown after she lost the baby. She wouldn’t let her parents help her, and I felt partially responsible. I was young, and I didn’t know what to do. After my grandparents died, I continued to let her stay there, in their house, under the condition that she saw a doctor. It was hard at first, since we were broke, but I went off to London and got a job with someone running security for really wealthy people. That’s how I met Dimitri. He and I worked jobs together and were trained in intelligence, among other specialties. And then I paid my way through Oxford, getting experience on farms and working odd security jobs. I was on my way to making something of myself.”

  “And Claire?”

  Declan sighed. “Darren kept an eye on her, and I hired someone to keep up my grandparents’ house and farm. I just couldn’t go back there. I got updates from Darren, and as I started making money, I sent money to Claire through him.” He walked over to a beverage cart and poured himself a couple of fingers of bourbon. “I know that all sounds really cold, but…”

  “It doesn’t sound cold. From everything you’re telling me, Claire shouldn’t have been your problem. You dated her when you were kids. That didn’t make her your responsibility for life. Yet you worked hard to give her a chance.”

  “I tried. I still try. She still lives on my grandparents’ farm. She… runs it for me.” He tilted his head side to side. “With the help of a couple that still pops in week to week to make sure it’s kept up. She could never hold a real job in her condition, so…”

  “So you pay her to ‘run the farm.’”

  “Yes. But it does help me to have someone living in the house, keeping it from deteriorating. And she takes medication to control her delusions. I really thought she was doing better. But Darren said she lost it when she heard about our engagement.”

  I turned back to the fire again so that I could think. I knew Declan was just being generous. He could have been renting the farm to someone—a family—instead of paying someone to be a body in the house. “And why does she think the ring belongs to her?” I asked.

  “That’s part of the delusion. When she got pregnant, she wanted so badly for the child to be mine that she created a fantasy in her mind that we would be together forever. In her mind, she’s been in love with me since we were teenagers—and she thinks I’m in love with her. In the years since I left Ireland, she’s made up reasons why I’m not there. She tells people I’m traveling for business, or that she’s planning to meet me in Paris or London for a romantic rendezvous. Her doctors say she has periods of time when she’s completely lucid and understands reality, but then she slips right back into the fantasy. Anyway, she’s been around my family for so long, she’s always known about the ring my grandparents left me. And she’s always planned that it would be hers one day.”

  The logs in the fires shifted, sending sparks up through the flue. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “Say you’ll forgive me for not telling you all of this sooner.”

  I looked at him. “Why didn’t you?”

  “I should have. I regret not being honest about this part of my past when you have confided so much. I’m sorry. I’ve handled this badly.”

  “No. Well, yes, you should have been honest with me, but from what I’m hearing, you’ve handled Claire with extraordinary kindness.”

  “It’s Darren who’s done the most. I’m proud of him for stepping up. She didn’t ask for the mental breakdown, it just happened. And my grandparents made it easy for us to help her. So we have.” Declan shrugged like it was no big deal.

  I slid my arms around his waist and linked them around his back. “Is there anything you won’t do for someone? You give and give and give.”

  “There’s nothing I won’t do for you.” He crooked a finger under my chin. “Are we okay?”

  “I think so. This is a lot. Not at all what I was expecting when I came home today.”

  “I believe you were either expecting me to tell you that ‘Of course I will marry you tomorrow or whenever you want,’ or you were expecting me to tell you, ‘No, we’ll wait until spring like your mother wants us to.’”

  “I wasn’t expecting what I got, that’s for sure. It was a surprising end to a horrible day. I had a run-in with Romeo. He cornered me in the stairwell at the hospital.”

  “I heard that from Dimitri.”

  “I’m sorry. I was going to tell you. You were busy,” I chastised. “Anyway, with all the craziness, I just—I just wanted to run home and beg you to make me your wife immediately. I can’t think of a reason to wait until June. Can you?”

  Declan smiled. “I will wait for as long, or as short, as I have to, Miss Fairfax. But I will marry you.”

  “Good. But I think we both have some things to take care of before we can concentrate on a wedding.”

  Declan framed my face. “I promise to take care of my ‘thing’ as soon as possible.”

  “I’m working on my ‘thing’ as well. Which is why I have to head back to DC on Wednesday.”

  Declan tensed. “I’m coming. I’ll rearrange my schedule. Will Ty be going?”

  “No, I need him in Frankfort. And you need to stay here too.” Declan started to protest, but I cut him off. “Dimitri can go with me. You need to take care of Claire.”

  I knew he wanted to argue with me, but I could also tell that this situation with Claire was something he wanted to handle. “I’ll make sure Dimitri accompanies you then. You can take my plane.”

  “That sure beats commercial.” I attempted a smile.

  “You, my dear Brooke, will never sit in coach again.” He tapped my nose.r />
  I stared into his tired, bloodshot eyes. “You’re tired. Let’s go to bed.”

  “Okay. But first you have to tell me we’re okay.”

  “Yeah.” I smiled weakly. “We’re okay. Or at least we will be.”

  Chapter 24

  Brooke

  Special Agent Marshall was waiting for me when I arrived at my office the next morning. And of course I was late. I had slept so poorly the night before that I’d decided to stop and get a large coffee to go from Julep Hill on my way in.

  “Nice of you to show up for work, Director,” Erica said.

  Marti, who was typing at her desk, looked up at me and rolled her eyes behind Erica’s back. She slid her chair over to a stack of papers and handed them to me. “From the governor’s office.”

  “Thank you, Marti.” I gestured for Erica to enter my office, “Good morning, Special Agent Marshall. What can I do for you?”

  We stepped into my office, and Erica closed the door behind us. “What do you know about the drug scopolamine?”

  I set the papers on my desk, then took a long drink of my coffee, considering Erica’s question. “Why?” I knew plenty about scopolamine, and one of its derivatives. But I didn’t appreciate the special agent in charge of the Louisville FBI office coming into my office and giving me a hard time about running late.

  She angled her head, opened her mouth to say something, closed it, and then sighed. “I’m sorry how I greeted you when you got here. I should have called and told you I was on my way.”

  “That’s better.”

  “Scopolamine came up in a case my office is investigating. I know you’ve had experience with illegal substances in the past. Quantico sent me a report that said a substance found in the blood system of one of our suspects was ‘structurally similar’ to scopolamine. Do you know anything about it?”

  Why was she coming to me with this? She could research old files and find what I knew. Hell, she could get on the internet and find the information.