Taboo Daddy

by Crowne, K. C.

  “Where did you say we were going?” I asked, leaning up.

  “Quiet,” Strauss barked, his air of calm, suddenly gone.

  My stomach lurched as if I’d stood up too fast. “We passed the police station,” I managed.

  “I said be quiet,” Strauss said.

  Something was wrong. I should have known. I hadn’t even looked at those badges. This wasn’t a marked squad car. What was going on here? Even if I’d been mistaken about what police station we were going to, there was no reason for Strauss to speak to me the way he had.

  But they had to be real detectives. How else could they know about the break in at my apartment? How else could they know about Tess? I felt dizzy and confused.

  With as much force as I could muster, I ordered, “Tell me what’s going on.”

  Strauss turned around. His face had changed dramatically. He looked angry and frightening and not at all like the smiling, benevolent detective I’d seen outside my apartment door. “I told you to shut up!”

  “Tell her,” MacReady said. “No reason not to, now.”

  “We’re just supposed to get her, not tell her shit.”

  “Whatever,” MacReady said. “Listen, girl, if you want to know why you’re here, the answer is you have your boyfriend to blame. You want to know why your apartment was broken into? Ask him about that.”

  “And the little girl,” Strauss put in.

  “Yeah, that’s right, the little girl too. If Noah Clark had done as he was told, none of this would be happening.”

  I shivered as I realized the trouble I was in. “What did you tell him to do?”

  “That’s not your business.”

  “You made it my business when you broke into my home!”

  Strauss, with the speed of a bullwhip, slapped me across the face. The pain hit before I was even fully aware of what had happened. I gasped and my eyes filled with tears, but I refused to let them fall. I let the anger I was feeling fill me up, let it project outward at these two fake detectives. There was nothing Noah could have done, or refused to do, that would merit the actions they’d taken. They wanted me to blame him, but I wouldn’t.

  “I don’t care what he did,” I seethed. “I don’t care what he didn’t do. You’re the ones who kidnapped a child! You’re the ones who took her away from her father. And she didn’t do anything to deserve that. She’s just a little kid!”

  “Don’t make me fucking hit you again,” Strauss threatened.

  “No, just put her out,” MacReady told him.

  I gasped and looked at Strauss, a grotesque smile spreading on his face. I felt a sharp prick, then everything went black.

  * * *

  I woke up feeling like my skull had been split in two.

  The only thing that made it possible for me to open my eyes was the incredibly dim light of the room in which I found myself. I squinted, taking stock of my surroundings.

  The room was big and unfinished. I lay on damp concrete floor. The walls appeared to be made of some kind of aluminum siding. I saw a door at the far end of the room, so I struggled to my hands and knees, thinking to make my way over and try to get it open.

  A small hand grasped my wrist, scaring me, and I looked back.

  “Tess!”

  She was grimy and obviously tired, her hair ratty and knotted and her face tear-streaked, but she looked unhurt. Jenna, she signed. I pulled her into my arms, hugging her tightly, feeling as though I’d never let her go. Thank God. Thank God she was alive. Thank God they hadn’t done anything awful to her.

  You okay? I signed.

  Yes. She hesitated. No. Yes and no.

  I nodded and hugged her again. She must be terrified. She’d been trapped here for days with no one to talk to, no one who could so much as explain to her what was going on.

  I pointed to the door and mimed opening it. I didn’t know the signs to ask whether it was locked. Tess shook her head and mimed pulling unsuccessfully on a door that wouldn’t give. I nodded. So much for that idea.

  Communicating was going to be hard. The signs I had learned didn’t apply to this situation. They were all about the privileged life Tess usually led. Noah had told me that resorting to pantomime when I didn’t know a sign was considered impolite, but I thought under the circumstances an exception could be made. Still, we’d get farther if we stuck to real signs. I thought for a moment. You eat?

  She nodded. Eat two day. They fed her twice a day.

  Hit you?

  No.

  H-u-r-t? I had to spell that one out.

  She signed something back.

  What?

  S-c-a-r-e-d.

  Me same. I hugged her again and felt her sob against me. You and me okay, I said, trying to put on a brave face so she’d think I really believed it. P-o-l-i-c-e looking.

  Why? she signed. Why here?

  That was too complicated to even try to explain. Besides, I didn’t have much information to offer. I don’t know.

  Daddy?

  Daddy okay. Home. Looking for you.

  She nodded and wiped away her tears. I was stunned by her bravery. She was so young, and she’d been in this situation all alone for several days. If I’d been in her place, I would have broken down by now. But she was strong. I knew Noah would be proud to hear how well she’d handled herself.

  If we ever get out of this.

  No. I wouldn’t allow myself to think that way. I was the adult in this situation. I owed it to Tess to step up, to be brave for her. Now that I was here, she should be permitted to give in to her fear.

  I wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close. “Everything will be okay,” I whispered aloud, not even embarrassed that I was talking to myself. I just hoped that I was right and everything really would be okay. We could hold out for just a little while, long enough for Noah to track us down.

  Chapter 30

  Noah

  I went straight from the office back to my apartment, but Paul beat me there. He was waiting for me outside my building in an unremarkable dark blue sedan. I wouldn’t have noticed him at all if he hadn’t rolled down the window and called out to me.

  “Get in,” he ordered.

  “Where are we going?”

  “Get in the damn car, Clark.”

  I hurried around the car and climbed in, terror seizing me.

  “I don’t want anyone to see us talking,” he said, rolling up the window. “If you’ve got me watching the situation, who knows what the other side has going on.”

  Hearing him refer to the Mob as the other side gave me chills. It was the same sort of language they’d used themselves, asking me to prove what side I was on. I didn’t want any part of this, on either side. “Where are we going?” I asked again.

  “We’re going to talk to Josh Michaels,” he said, pulling away from the curb.

  “We’re just going to talk to him?”

  Paul glanced at me. “We don’t really have anything on him. Nobody saw him go into your building. He was just on your block, a place he’s at perfect liberty to be. The only crime he’s associated with right now is possibly breaking into your girlfriend’s apartment.”

  “Okay, so we’re going to talk to Josh Michaels. But what can we do, if we don’t have enough on him to involve the police?”

  “We can put the screws to him a bit,” Paul said. “Just seeing you might shock him into saying more than he means to. I’ll have a recording device on, and if we get him to confess anything, then you go to the cops.”

  “This seems like a sketchy plan.”

  “Do you have a better one?”

  “I’ve got nothing.”

  “We do my plan, then,” Paul said.

  We rode the rest of the way in silence, and I had plenty of time to think about what I might say. The truth was that, preponderance of evidence or not, I did believe that Josh Michaels was involved in both crimes. I deeply regretted trying to convince Jenna of his innocence. I had been blind not to think that there could be
a connection, that someone so clearly malevolent could be involved in an underground crime organization. And I’d ignored the biggest piece of evidence of all—the desk clerk in Jenna’s building had told her that the intruder had been the son of one of her clients. I had thought at the time that the woman must have been wrong, or that two different people had visited Jenna’s apartment that day.

  What if there had been only one invader? Joshua Michaels had tried to assault Jenna after she’d redesigned his home. He could have also broken into her apartment. And maybe he’d kidnapped Tess.

  What if he was behind everything?

  Paul pulled the car to a stop outside a distinguished apartment building. I started to get out.

  “No,” he said. “Wait.”

  “Wait? For what?”

  “He’s going to come out.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Paul raised an eyebrow. “PI, remember? I’ve been watching him. He goes to the coffee shop around the corner at this time every day.”

  “So we’re going to talk to him outside?” That seemed like a bad idea. “Won’t people see us?”

  “We want people to see us,” Paul said.

  “Why?”

  “Because he won’t do anything drastic or violent,” he replied. “We’ll be able to control the tone of the conversation by having it in public. Not to mention that if we go inside, we’re on his turf. We don’t know what he’s got in there. He might have a gun. We don’t want to mess with that.”

  I nodded. I had to admit, it made sense. I needed to give Paul a little more credit. This wasn’t his first rodeo, and he clearly knew how to handle a confrontation like the one we were about to have.

  And he was right about Josh’s schedule. We had only been waiting a few moments when a man in his early thirties emerged. He had thinning brown hair and a face like a rat. “That’s him,” Paul said. “Go.”

  I got out of the car, my heart pounding, and followed Paul up onto the pavement.

  “Joshua Michaels?” Paul said, stepping into Josh’s path.

  Josh looked from Paul to me. I waited, hoping to see a flash of recognition or fear, but he gave nothing away. “Yeah?”

  “We’re here to give you one chance,” Paul said. His voice was low and menacing, like nothing I’d ever heard from him before. “One chance to come clean with us before we go to the cops with everything we know. We can all still walk away from this.”

  “What the—who are you?” Josh asked.

  “You know who I am,” I said, stepping in close. Paul moved back a little, allowing me to take the lead. I wondered distantly whether he thought I had a better chance at spooking Josh into revealing something than he did, or if he was just giving me the opportunity to take out some of my anger. Either way, I was going to take advantage. I got in Josh’s face and backed him up against the wall of his building. He was a squirrelly little guy, and I could see the fear in his eyes. He was bigger than Jenna, and I could understand why she would have been intimidated by him. But he had nothing on me.

  “What do you want?” he asked, his voice almost a whine. “I don’t know who you are. I’ve never met you before in my life.”

  “Maybe you haven’t met me,” I agreed. “But you’ve met people I love, haven’t you?”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  Anger spiked through me, and I shoved him back against the brick of his building hard and heard his teeth clack together. “Tell me where she is, asshole! I know you were at my apartment the night she was kidnapped.”

  “Where who is? Man, I’ve never been to your apartment1 I don’t know who you are!”

  It was all I could do to keep from punching him, and that was an urge I wouldn’t be able to control much longer. “Tell me,” I said, “or you’ll regret it.”

  “Sixty-fourth street,” Paul interjected. “A couple of nights back. You were seen there.”

  “I...I have a guy there. A buyer. I was selling him weed, okay?”

  A door slammed. I glanced up. Standing on the concrete steps leading up to Josh’s apartment and looking down on the scene, absolute shock written on his face, was Eric.

  “Paul!” I yelled. “Grab him!”

  Paul leapt into action. It was only when he’d corralled Eric and had him pressed against the wall beside Josh that I remembered he knew who Eric was. He’d been watching him for me for weeks. Paul, more than anybody else, had reason to understand the doubts I’d been having about my best friend.

  “Why do you keep attacking me?” Eric asked, squirming.

  “Why do you keep showing up everywhere?”

  “I didn’t know you’d be here,” he pouted.

  That was actually a decent point, since I hadn’t known I’d be here myself until recently, but I wasn’t prepared to give in. “What are you doing with him?” I asked, giving Josh a shake.

  “Let me go,” Josh whined. I ignored him.

  “We have business, that’s all,” Eric said, looking anywhere but at me. “It’s got nothing to do with you, Noah.”

  “Is it something to do with this?” I fished the business card I’d gotten from Kepler out of my pocket and slapped it hard against the brick between Eric and Josh. My hand would hurt later from the force of that slap, I thought, but so much rage and adrenaline was coursing through me right now I couldn’t even feel it.

  “Hey—where did you get that?” Josh asked, frowning.

  “What do you mean, where did I get it? Your boss gave it to me!”

  “Man, what boss? I don’t have a job,” he defended. “That card belongs to my dad.”

  It was as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over me. The flame of my rage was quenched, and in its place, disorientation sprang up. “Your dad?”

  “Liam Michaels,” he said. “His initials are on it, right?”

  Liam Michaels.

  LM.

  Eric was looking from Josh to me, his face a study in confusion. “What’s going on? Why do you have Josh’s dad’s business card? He’s not a good dude, Noah. You shouldn’t be getting involved with him.”

  “Hey,” Josh said.

  Eric shrugged. “Just the truth, man. I’m not letting my buddy go into business with someone who’s going to screw him over.”

  “How is he your buddy when he’s got you up against a wall like this? He doesn’t seem to like you at all.”

  “You had his card,” I interrupted, holding the blue card in Eric’s face. “It was in your pocket when you came into my office that day and you claimed not to know anything about it. Now you’re telling me he’s not a good guy. Are you working with him?”

  “No,” Eric said. “Definitely not.”

  “Then what? Why’d you have the card?”

  Eric sighed. “Josh gave it to me,” he said. “He’d written his phone number on it. Did you notice that?”

  “No,” I admitted, flipping the card over.

  “Well, he did,” Eric said. “He handed me the card because it was what he had, and he wanted to give me his number. It had nothing to do with his father.”

  “Why was he giving you his number?” I tightened my hands on Josh’s collar. I still didn’t trust a word out of this guy’s mouth.

  “It’s personal,” Eric hedged.

  “Make it un-personal.”

  He closed his eyes. “I was looking for money, all right? I was trying to get a loan.”

  “So you could buy more drugs.”

  “Not just drugs.” He looked up at me imploringly. “I need money to live, Noah. I told you, my access to my trust funds was cut off.”

  “Which happened because you’re high all the time, and if you cleaned yourself up you could get it back. Right?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “So you wanted to borrow money because you wanted to keep the party going. You hit me up but got nothing, and you were also trying to get money from your buddy Josh. Is that about the size of it?”

  Eric nodded reluctantly.

>   “And you lied to me and told me the card had been given to you by a stranger on the street. Why?”

  “I was embarrassed,” he admitted. “Wouldn’t you be?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I would be embarrassed. You should be embarrassed.”

  “I know,” he replied, looking down. “I’m sorry, man, I am.”

  “Don’t apologize to me. You need to get your act together.” It was a relief to know that my best friend wasn’t involved in the kidnapping of my daughter. I hadn’t realized how much that betrayal had been weighing on me until now, when it was alleviated. But the fact that Eric had made such a mess of his life that I had confused him for a member of the Mob was frightening.

  “Let him go,” I said to Paul, who complied.

  “What about me?” Josh asked.

  “You’re going to tell me where I can find your father,” I said.

  “Man, I don’t know—”

  I slammed him so hard against the wall that his teeth rattled. “That man kidnapped my daughter,” I said through clenched teeth. “Now I’ve got his son in my hands. Do you really think there’s anything I won’t do to get her back?”

  “Okay,” Josh said, looking frightened. “Okay. I know an address where he might be. Let me go and I’ll write it down for you.”

  “No, you tell my friend and he’ll write it down.”

  Paul wrote the address Josh rattled off to us in a little notepad. Only then did I release him. “I know where you live,” I told him, my finger in his face. “Remember that. I can always find you again.”

  “I never did anything to you,” he said. “I don’t know what my father has his hands in, but it wasn’t me. I swear.”

  He’d tried to hurt Jenna before any of this had started. That alone was enough to make me want to break his nose. But I didn’t have the time for that luxury. “Come on,” I said to Paul, heading back to the car. “We’ll go there now.”

  “We’ve got enough to involve the cops at this point,” Paul said.

  “Okay,” I agreed. There couldn’t possibly be a safer place to make this call than from inside a PI’s car. “I’ll call them. You drive.”