Taboo Daddy

by Crowne, K. C.

  But the moment I stepped outside my front door, everything changed again.

  Eric was standing on the sidewalk right outside my house.

  Eric.

  Fucking Eric.

  My vision went red around the edges, and suddenly I had his lapels in my hands, pulling him to me, shaking him hard. “Where is she!” I yelled. “Where the fuck is she?”

  “Where—where’s who, man?”

  “Where’s my daughter, you jittery fuck? Don’t tell me you came around here at seven in the morning on a Sunday because you were looking for money again. I know you had something to do with this!”

  “Noah, man, I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s going on with Tess?”

  I felt my hands tighten. How dare he say her name to me? How dare he loiter out here like he didn’t know what was going on. “Tell me where she is, or I swear to God I’ll break your face.”

  “Mr. Clark!”

  Hands were on my shoulders, pushing at me, corralling me. Tearing me away from Eric. He looked at me with fear in his eyes. My doorman wrapped his arm around my chest and held me still as I fought to throw him off, to get back to Eric, to shake the truth from him.

  “I don’t know what he’s talking about,” Eric said, and I noticed that there was a crowd beginning to form around us. “He’s insane. Lost it.” He pushed his way between two women and disappeared.

  I fought to go after him, but my doorman was still holding me back. He was a big guy, hired for his ability to physically restrain people from entering the building when they shouldn’t.

  But someone had been in my home last night.

  Someone had left that note and taken my little girl.

  The burst of rage I felt at that thought gave me the strength to shake my way loose. I pulled my phone out of my pocket, knowing that I needed a lifeline. I needed something.

  But Jenna had called the police, and they’d told her they couldn’t file a missing person’s report for twenty-four hours. Because she’d skipped school, they would assume she’d run off, as they’d told her, though they wouldn’t have that information unless I told them.

  Telling them about LM at this point also seemed like a bad idea. They’d contact me, tell me what I needed to do to get her back, and I’d do it. End of story.

  I returned to the living room, opened my laptop and the email, then sat and waited. My night would be a sleepless one.

  Chapter 28

  Noah

  The following morning, when I’d heard nothing from LM, I wrestled with the idea of giving the threatening note left in my house to the police. If this could be used as a clue, if it could help them find her…

  But what if I was being watched? What if the mob was waiting to see what I would do next? They wanted me to prove I was on their side. I couldn’t put that out of my mind. Nothing would establish me as more clearly not on their side than reporting them to the police.

  I felt like I was losing my mind. I hadn’t slept a wink. It killed me that Tess was in the hands of those people, that they might be hurting her.

  I had to do something.

  I picked up my phone and dialed the private investigator, Paul.

  “Still working on Robertson and Butler,” Paul said as a greeting. He was all business as always. “I haven’t found any conclusive patterns from either of them.”

  “Set that aside for a while,” I said. “I have something else I need you to work on.”

  “Alright, ”

  “My daughter. She’s been kidnapped.”

  A long pause. “Tell me everything,” he said. I heard a drawer open and the rattling of paper.

  I wished I felt free to confide in him about LM and Kepler and the threats that had been made against me. But how was he going to gather information if I didn’t give him something?

  What I really needed was a way to get in touch with them so I didn’t make a mistake, like telling the cops or Paul about LM.

  I told Paul everything I could. I told him how I’d woken up to find her missing. I told him about Eric’s weird behavior, and about Jenna’s apartment being broken into. I told him that Jenna suspected the son of one of her clients of the crime, but that I thought it was more likely that whoever had taken Tess was behind it. “This has all been about me,” I said. “Whoever is doing these things is trying to get to me.”

  “How can you be sure?” Paul’s question was all business. There was no challenge in it.

  “Because there’s no other reason to involve Tess,” I said. “She’s a child. If you’re not trying to provoke me, there’s no reason to go after her.”

  “Sometimes people target random children for kidnapping,” Paul pointed out. His voice was gentle.

  “That’s not what this is,” I said. “I’m sure of it. Just do a little digging, okay? I’m sure you’ll find something.”

  “All right,” Paul agreed. “I’ll see what I can turn up.”

  I hung up and went to my computer to see if there was a message from LM. Some kind of ransom, maybe. But there was nothing. Just the usual assortment of junk mail.

  I opened a new message and put LM’s address in the send-to field so I could send yet another email.

  Tell me what you want.

  I hit send and listened to the satisfying whoosh as the ocean of the internet swept my message away and toward its intended recipient. But I didn’t feel any better. I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to prove my loyalty by ruining someone’s life.

  Could I do that?

  To save Tess’s life? You’re damn right I could. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do.

  I sat at the computer for twenty minutes, waiting for a reply, but none came.

  * * *

  My head fogged and cleared. I imagined I could hear my daughter crying. It was the worst, most painful stretch of time I’d ever experienced, including the hours after I’d learned of my wife’s death.

  I took my phone into bed with me and opened my email inbox, refreshing over and over, waiting for a message from LM. Nothing came.

  The following morning, I was coming out of my skin. My computer dinged a message and I scrambled to open it.

  Raising red flags would be bad for you right now. Go to work, act normal, do what you’re told or your kid suffers.

  Moving around the city after having missed two nights of sleep was like being in a fugue state. I hailed a cab and managed to give the address of my office building, but I promptly lost track of time. The next thing I knew, we were pulling up in front of the tall black building where I worked. I got out of the car, tipped the driver, and made my way inside.

  It felt like people were staring at me as I made my way to my office. I hardly cared. It felt like ages since I’d last checked my email. There had to be a reply from LM now. In fact, when I sat down at my desk, I was certain I’d see a message.

  But there was nothing. My inbox was completely empty. There wasn’t even any junk mail, since I’d emptied it just before leaving my house.

  Why didn’t he get back to me? He must want something from me.

  I decided to get a cup of coffee. Maybe that would lift the fog around my brain a little bit, and I’d be able to carry on a more coherent conversation. Being alert might help me get a clear idea of what I needed to do to help my daughter. At any rate, it couldn’t hurt. And maybe if I stepped away from the computer, there would be a message from LM when I returned.

  This last idea was preposterous. I knew it was. But it felt as if it might be true all the same. I was allowing myself to succumb to madness. I needed to get it together. Tess needed me.

  I stepped out of my office and into the hall—and froze.

  Mr. Kepler and two of his associates were standing in the entryway.

  I saw red. It was all I could do to keep from launching myself across the office and slamming my fists into their faces. They knew where Tess was right now, I was sure of it. How dare they stand there in their natty business attire and look around
as if they were here for financial advice? How dare they make friendly small talk with my secretary? As insane as it seemed, I almost wished they had come in guns blazing. At least that would have freed me up to fight back.

  But I couldn’t fight. I had to keep myself in check. I had to wait and hear what they had to say. LM hadn’t emailed me back, but there was every chance Kepler was here to tell me what my next steps should be. If I just listen to him and do what he says, I’ll get her back, I told myself. I had to believe that.

  Kepler saw me and inclined his head slightly. He said something to my secretary and strode across the floor toward me, his two colleagues flanking him.

  I had a split second to decide what to do. Would I invite these abominable people into my office as if they were human beings, or would I force a confrontation out here in front of witnesses?

  In the end, I made the same decision I’d been making over and over since the emails from LM had begun. It was too risky to involve other people. The last thing I wanted was to make these people feel cornered. They might resort to rash actions. Tess could get hurt.

  I stepped back and opened the door of my office, about to show them in, and then I someone that made me feel as if I’d turned to stone.

  Eric had just stepped off the elevator.

  He was looking around as if expecting to see someone. And I knew—I just knew—that he was here with Kepler. They had arranged this. They had planned to meet here, to talk to me together.

  That son of a bitch had my daughter. He’d had her all along.

  I wasn’t aware of crossing the distance between us. I wasn’t aware of my hands seeking out his throat. I didn’t even have the chance to enjoy the few moments of physical contact, the moments when I had him in my grip and could transfer a fraction of the pain and anguish I’d been living through onto another person. Onto the person who deserved it. He was supposed to be my best friend, but he’d thrown in with the mob to destroy my life. I couldn’t understand why he would do it. Could his need for drugs really be that bad?

  Or maybe he’d never been my friend to begin with.

  At any rate, the next thing I was aware of was the feeling of arms around mine, pulling me back. The crisp blue uniforms of building security and the hard pressure of a wall against my back. I realized all at once that I’d lost track of sound, that my brain had whited out all noise, but now it cut back in and I heard screams of “You bastard! You fucking bastard!”

  A moment later I connected the screaming with the rasp in my throat and realized it was coming from me.

  Eric looked terrified. His eyes darted from me to the security officers holding me in place. A third officer took him by the arm and began moving him toward the elevator.

  “No!” I yelled. “Goddamn it! Leave him here!”

  They ignored me. I was raving like a lunatic. I wouldn’t be able to have a conversation with Eric if I couldn’t behave like a human being.

  The elevator began its descent as soon as the doors closed with Eric and the security guards inside. God knew whether I’d ever see him again.

  I turned around slowly. Kepler was still behind me. A smile had split his ugly face now, as if my meltdown had been supremely entertaining for him. He reached into his pocket.

  And pulled out a blue card.

  I recognized it as soon as I saw it. I didn’t even need to see the letters embossed on the front to know what I was looking at. “What is this?” I whispered. “What the hell is this?”

  Kepler winked. He strode past me, pausing only to slip the card into my breast pocket.

  “Wait!” I howled after him. “Where’s my daughter! You have to tell me what you want!” Everyone in the office was staring at me, but I didn’t care. “You can’t just leave me with nothing!”

  But apparently he could. He reached the elevator just as the door opened, as if on cue, and stepped inside. I shook the security guards off me and ran for the stairwell, but by the time I reached the bottom floor, he had disappeared. I rushed outside, looking in all directions. The city seemed to rush around me. I felt dizzy and disoriented. Kepler was gone.

  I pulled the card out of my pocket and looked at it. A name was written on the back. Charles Sterling. I knew who Sterling was. He ran a coworking space downtown and was the CEO of a tech marketing startup.

  “We’ll give you a name. Take them out. Eliminate their business.”

  This was the name, I realized. This was what they wanted. I was being ordered to bankrupt Charles Sterling.

  And if I did it, I would get my daughter back.

  There was no question in my mind. No hesitation. I had been shown the path to getting Tess back. I would do whatever they asked me to now.

  My phone rang.

  I fumbled for it. “Hello? Hello?”

  “Noah.” It was Paul.

  “You have something?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Tell me.”

  “It might not be anything. But a doorman from the building across the street from yours says he spotted a guy hanging around outside your condo the night your daughter went missing.”

  “A guy? What guy? What did he look like?” I fully expected a description of Eric.

  “Well, that’s the thing,” Paul said. “According to the doorman’s description, he looked a lot like the guy who was accused of breaking into Jenna Robertson’s apartment. Joshua Michaels.”

  Chapter 29

  Jenna

  It should have been a relief to be back in my own apartment, but after everything that had happened, relief was an emotion I couldn’t quite seem to access. I lay sprawled on my couch, having double- and triple-checked the locks on all my doors and windows. I felt confident that nobody could get in without breaking something—although, whoever had broken in before had shown pretty clearly that they didn’t mind breaking things.

  I’d paid for a service to come and clean the place up. I had enough on my mind without having to worry about stepping on pieces of broken glass for the next week. And because nothing had been stolen, everything was more or less back to normal. I should have felt right at home.

  But I couldn’t. I couldn’t relax.

  I had considered going to my grandmother’s apartment. It was mine now, after all. But I wasn’t going to live there full time. At some point I would have to face my fears and come back to my own place. No sense in putting it off.

  Days had passed since Tess had gone missing, and at this point I had to concede that Noah had probably been right: she’d been taken against her will. A girl her age couldn’t just wander around the city for this amount of time. No, somebody else was involved.

  I felt painfully guilty about my efforts to convince Noah that she’d just run away. I didn’t think she’d necessarily have been found by now if I hadn’t insisted she’d left of her own free will. But I knew that I’d made Noah feel as though nobody was in his corner. I’d been trying to help, trying to reassure him, but I’d inadvertently made him feel as though his fears were unfounded.

  On top of all of that, of course, I was just plain worried about Tess. Where could she be? Who would have taken such a sweet little girl, and for what reason? It had occurred to me that whoever had her probably didn’t know sign language, which meant she wouldn’t be able to communicate. That made the whole thing more horrifying somehow.

  I was itching to go out and explore the city, to look for her myself. There had to be something I could do. But New York was a big place. When I’d offered to search her favorite spots, Noah had been adamant that I stay home. That had been weird, actually. Why did he want me to stay home so badly?

  My thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the apartment door. I rolled off the couch and hurried to answer it. I couldn’t suppress a flutter of hope—maybe it was Noah. Maybe he’d come to tell me that Tess had been found.

  When I opened the door, I found two men I’d never seen before. They wore official looking grey suits and each held up a badge. Detectives? I’d assumed Noah
had spoken to the police, but we hadn’t spoken much. But that didn’t explain why there were here.

  “Jenna Robertson?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Detective MacReady,” he said, then gestured to his partner. “This is Detective Strauss. We need you to come with us down to the police station.”

  “What is this about?” I frowned.

  “We have a new lead on the break in you experienced a few days ago,” MacReady said. “We need you to come in and look at some photos. We also think the break in might be connected to the disappearance of Tess Clark.”

  “You have a lead on Tess?” I turned to get my shoes, which I’d taken off before sitting on the couch. “That’s great news. Have you spoken to her father?”

  The detectives glanced at each other. “Another detective is getting in touch with him,” Strauss said.

  “But you think the same person might be behind my break in and Tess’s kidnapping?” That definitely lent credit to Noah’s theory that Josh hadn’t had anything to do with it. What could he possibly want with Tess? But who would stand to gain by going after both Tess and me? What did we have in common?

  “We’ll get into it down at the station,” MacReady said. “It’s best we don’t discuss things here.”

  “Let me just grab my purse.” I snagged it from the counter. “Do I need anything else?”

  “No,” MacReady said. “The car’s waiting outside. Come this way, please.”

  I followed the detectives out of the building and into a white car parked on the street. They climbed into the front seat and I got into the back. I felt more excited and energized than I had in days. Would Tess be back home in her father’s arms before the day was over?

  I was so excited that I didn’t even register, at first, the fact that we were driving past the turn into the police station. When I realized what had happened, I assumed I’d made a mistake. This was New York, after all.