Trapped (Private Justice Book #2): A Novel (30 page)

Insulated mug poised halfway to his mouth, Dev watched the police car pull up to the curb and stop in front of the house next to Hamilton’s.

Interesting. During all his hours of surveillance, he’d seen a few cops drive by—but none had ever stopped.

He took a sip of coffee and watched the car.

Two minutes later, the officer got out and started up the walkway toward the front door of Hamilton’s neighbor.

Dev straightened in his seat, grabbed his night-vision binoculars, and fitted them to his eyes. With the tiny front yards in Soulard, he had no problem keeping the officer in sight as the man made the short trek to the door and rang the bell.

Almost at once, a tall, broad-shouldered college-age kid answered. After talking for less than a minute, the officer disappeared inside with him.

Dev lowered the binoculars. It was possible a police visit to Hamilton’s neighbor didn’t have any bearing on his case, but it was a peculiar coincidence.

Too peculiar.

Something relevant to his investigation was going on. He could feel it in his bones.

Fifteen minutes later, the officer emerged. Instead of returning to his car, however, he detoured toward Hamilton’s house, went up the walkway, and rang his bell.

Just as Dev prepared to put the binoculars to use again, he caught a movement in the upper window, out of sight of the officer. A thin, very faint band of light appeared for a moment, as if someone had cracked the blinds. Then it was gone.

The officer waited a full minute, but when no one answered he descended the steps and walked back to his car.

Frowning, Dev set the binoculars on the seat and tapped a finger on the wheel. He knew how this was going to play out. The officer would make a note of the call and code it a dead end.

But perhaps he could offer some additional information that would pique the man’s interest—and pick up some info for himself as well.

Turning up the collar of his jacket, Dev untangled himself from the electric blanket and pulled a cap over his hair. If Hamilton decided to peek out the window again, he preferred to remain anonymous, and the auburn hair would be a dead giveaway.

After flipping off the dome light, he dug his PI license out of his wallet and palmed it. Then he swept the windows in Hamilton’s house to verify the man wasn’t watching, opened the door, and hustled down the street, crossing at the corner.

As he approached the police car from the front, he kept his hands at his sides. In this neighborhood, at this hour, it wouldn’t hurt to let the officer know he wasn’t holding a weapon.

On the other hand, the man didn’t need to know about the compact Sig Sauer in the concealed holster on his belt. The officer cracked his window as he approached. The fortysomething guy had the look of a seasoned street cop. That was a plus. “Can I help you?”

“Possibly. I’m James Devlin with Phoenix Inc., a private investigation firm. We’ve had this house under surveillance for the past week.” He indicated Hamilton’s place and handed the officer his license through the window.

“Phoenix . . . that’s Cal Burke’s outfit, isn’t it?”

“You know Cal?”

“Our paths crossed a few times while he was a street cop with County, before his detective days. Good guy. Are you the ATF partner or the Secret Service partner?”

“ATF. I see our reputation has preceded us.”

“Word gets around. Most of the PIs we tangle with aren’t in your league.” The officer slid out of the car and returned the license as he introduced himself. “Ken Larson. So what’s going on here?” He gestured to the house.

“I’m hoping you can offer
me
some insights. Here’s what I know.” Dev gave the man a rapid briefing on the case. “And FYI, while you were ringing the bell, someone was checking you out through the blinds on the second floor.”

The man raised an eyebrow, then shrugged. “Unfortunately, we can’t force people to answer the door.”

“I know. I’ve been in your shoes. What can you tell me about your call here tonight?”

“One of the college kids next door said a woman rushed out of Hamilton’s back door while he was taking some trash to the dumpster. She told him she was visiting Hamilton for the evening and fell asleep while they were watching a movie.”

Dev frowned. “That can’t be. I’ve been watching the house all night. No one went in or out the front door, and no young woman has been in any of the cars that entered or exited the alley.”

“She says Hamilton told her to park on the next street because there’d been some vandalism to cars in front of his house.”

“Is that true?”

“Not that I know of. Anyway, she claims that when she woke up she saw drops of blood on the kitchen floor and a bloody handprint, plus heard odd noises in the basement. The college kid said there was also a stain on the back of Hamilton’s shirt that looked like blood. Hamilton told them it was from a nosebleed.”

Dev’s pulse spiked. This was getting weirder and weirder. “You don’t get blood on the back of your shirt from a nosebleed.”

“That occurred to me too.” The man folded his arms. “Here’s
another interesting tidbit. The woman whose statement I just took is the same one you mentioned in your case recap. Faith Bradley.”

His adrenaline surged as he processed that unexpected piece of news. “She’d have to have been really rattled to bolt during a long-coveted date.”

“Rattled would be an apt way to describe her condition.”

Dev blew out a breath, a cloud of vapor forming in front of his face, obscuring his view for a moment. “So what’s your take?”

The man leaned back against the side of the car. “I’m not sure what to make of it. We’ve had several complaints in the past few months about the occupants of that house.” He gestured toward the two-story brick next to Hamilton’s, where Faith had taken refuge. “Loud parties. Disorderly conduct. Beer cans littering the alley. You name it. They all seemed sober tonight, though. To be honest, I was planning to code it as a dead end, but now that we’ve talked, I’ll swing by a couple more times during my shift. I can also try ringing the bell again tomorrow night, earlier in my shift. Maybe he’ll answer then.”

“Tomorrow’s a long time away if there’s fresh blood in the house.”

“
If
being the operative word. When I pressed, neither the girl or the kid could confirm that the stain on the back of Hamilton’s shirt was blood. It was too dark in the alley. So the blood in the house could have been from a nosebleed. As for the noises in the basement . . . the girl admitted they could have come from a radio or DVD.”

Dev surveyed Hamilton’s house. “I might buy that if I didn’t already suspect this guy was up to his neck in trouble.”

“You said the background check you did was clean.” The officer lifted his hands, palms up. “I can’t arrest a law-abiding citizen or demand entry based on a hunch.”

“I know that.”

A car drove by, wheels crunching on the remnants of ice in the street, and Dev moved closer to the police car as a brutal blast of cold air whipped past.

“I’ll tell you what.” The officer gave the passing car a practiced sweep, then refocused on him. “I’ll put in a call to my supervisor while I continue my patrol. She might want to get one of the detectives to pay a visit to your guy at his place of business tomorrow. Maybe talk to a few of the neighbors at a more reasonable hour.”

It wasn’t enough. Dev knew that deep in his gut. But he also knew the officer’s hands were tied. Police were constrained both by staffing levels and red tape.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to deal with either of those problems anymore.

“Whatever you can do would be helpful. We might talk to some neighbors too.”

As the officer’s radio sprang to life, he handed over a card. “I assume you’ll be here for a while?”

“All night.” Dev took the card and gestured to the Explorer parked around the corner.

“If anything looks suspicious, call it in. Or call me on my cell. Number’s on the card. I won’t be far away.”

“Thanks.”

As the officer slid back into the car and Dev started to turn away, he glanced up at the second floor . . . just in time to once again catch a thin, faint bar of light before the window went dark.

Hamilton was still keeping tabs on them.

The man was spooked. Why else would he be watching the activity on the street? Why else would he have refused to answer the door for the police?

If there had, indeed, been blood on the floor and on the door frame, however, it was gone by now. Hamilton had had plenty of time to clean it up. But if the nosebleed story was a lie, as Dev suspected, the source of that blood was still inside.

And that person needed help.

Dev continued down the street and hung a right at the corner—away from his vehicle. Once he was out of sight of Hamilton’s window, he crossed to the other side, staying in the shadows. He’d
give it ten minutes, then skulk his way back to the Explorer and slip inside as unobtrusively as possible.

In the meantime, he pulled his cell off his belt. Given Faith’s report and Hamilton’s circumspect spying from the second-floor window, the daycare manager was getting nervous about whatever he had to hide. And nervous people made mistakes.

If he made one tonight, Dev didn’t intend to miss it. But he needed more eyes on Hamilton’s house—and he wanted backup in place.

It was time to call for reinforcements.

T
he cop was finally leaving.

And the other guy had disappeared too—whoever he was.

Mark let the slat in the blinds drop back into place, backed away from his bedroom window, and began to pace.

So there’d been a few glitches in his plan. Faith should have slept longer. And he hadn’t expected Laura to bleed all over his kitchen floor or attack him in the basement.

But none of that was the end of the world. For all he knew, the police hadn’t believed a word anyone next door had said. The college kids were known troublemakers, and Faith was still trying to shake off the effects of the sleeping drugs. The cop might have taken one look at her, figured she was tipsy, and dismissed the story. After all, he’d done nothing more than ring the doorbell.

And now he was gone.

Mark’s hands began to itch, and he detoured to the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and lathered up. The blood in the kitchen had been cleaned up, and he’d cut up the stained shirt for disposal in the trash—all except for the bloodstained section, which he’d drop into one of the soiled-diaper bins at the daycare center tomorrow. No one would ever see it again.

Drying his hands on the towel, he walked back to the front window and peeked through the blinds again. Everything appeared quiet. No cops. No strangers. No activity.

He let out a long, slow breath.

All he had to do was act normal for the next few days. Go about his usual routine. The PIs would stop looking for Darcy as soon as the payments from Laura dried up. Even when they found out she was missing, why would they care? They didn’t do investigations out of the goodness of their hearts. Sure, they might wonder about her, but they’d move on to the next paying job. And suppose they did mention to the police that she’d been their client? There was no hard evidence to link him to her—or her sister. Nor would there be. Everything else he had planned for them would take place inside the constitutionally protected privacy of his house.

There was no need to worry.

A sudden, heavy weariness settled over him, and he checked the time. Groaned. Five-thirty was going to come way too fast, and six hours of sleep wasn’t nearly enough. However, he’d get less than that if he tried to deal with the two spitfires in the basement tonight. Better to let them go hungry for a few days. The weaker they became, the easier they’d be to finish off.

He did have to take a shower, though. Otherwise he’d never get to sleep. But he’d only give himself five minutes instead of his usual ten to fifteen.

Flexing a slat in the blinds, he took one more look outside. The street remained deserted—its typical condition at eleven-thirty on a weeknight. Still, there was no harm in confirming that once more, after he was clean. But cops were busy. They weren’t going to waste time on some cockeyed story from documented troublemakers. He wouldn’t be surprised if the officer had already forgotten about the encounter.

Mark crossed toward the bathroom, flipping on another light in the bedroom as he passed to dispel the shadows lurking in the corners. The soft illumination from the lamp on the nightstand wasn’t cutting it tonight.

A relaxing hot shower, one more scan of the street, and then he’d call it a night.

The excitement for this day was over.

As Dev’s BlackBerry began to vibrate, he pulled it out of the holster . . . and expelled a frustrated breath. Connor—not Laura. He needed to talk to his partner, but why hadn’t Laura returned the message he’d left after the shorter-than-expected Costa Rica conference call? Why had her phone rolled to voice mail every time he’d tried to call her since? Had she forgotten to press end after their last call and fallen asleep? His mom did that a lot.

He hoped the explanation was that simple—but he was beginning to get uneasy.

Putting the phone to his ear, he kept his attention focused on Hamilton’s house. “Where were you when I called fifteen minutes ago?”

A moment of silence ticked by. “Not that it’s any of your business, but I was taking a shower.” As usual, Connor sounded wide- awake and chipper despite the late hour.

“At eleven-thirty at night? Do you ever sleep?”

“On occasion.”

“Well, tonight’s not going to be one of them.”

Another beat of silence. “Something going on down there?”

“Maybe.” The windows in the Explorer began to fog up, and he flipped on the small fan while he brought Connor up to speed on the events of the evening. “Also, based on the bright lights on the second floor, Hamilton’s still roaming around. That’s out of pattern. The man gets up at the crack of dawn, so he’s an early-to-bed type. My gut tells me things are close to breaking here, and I want another set of eyes positioned to see down the alley toward the back of the house while I watch the front.”

“I’ll be there in thirty.”

That was it. No questions. No complaints. No doubting his partner’s instincts. Just “I’ll be there.”

But that was how Phoenix worked. That was
why
it worked. They trusted each other. Period.

Partners didn’t come any finer than Connor and Cal.

He changed the angle of the fan on the front window as the glass started to fog up on the right. “Thanks.”

“You bringing Cal into this?”

Dev hesitated. That hadn’t been part of his plan . . . but the more he thought about Laura’s MIA status, the more worried he became.

“I know it’s late, but I might ask him to run by Laura’s place. I left her a message almost two hours ago and she never returned it. She’s not answering her home phone, and her cell’s rolling to voice mail immediately.”

“Maybe she’s on the line.”

“At eleven-thirty at night? For two hours?”

“Could be a family emergency.”

“She doesn’t have any family except Darcy.”

“In that case, it might not hurt to check out her house.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. I’ll look for you in thirty.” He ended the call, then tapped in Cal’s speed dial number. Unlike Connor, his other colleague would be asleep. But he wouldn’t complain about the request, either. They all respected each other’s instincts too much.

At the same time, this might be a wild goose chase. Laura could very well be safe in her bed, sound asleep. He hoped she was. But any ribbing Cal might dole out tomorrow about hormones short-circuiting brain cells would be endurable as long as she was okay.

Yet as he stared at the bright light shining around the edges of the blinds in Hamilton’s upstairs window, as he pulled up the collar of his coat to keep the numbing chill in the SUV at bay, as he filled Cal in on the situation and made his request, he couldn’t shake the unsettling feeling that something was amiss at Laura’s.

Laura adjusted the blanket she’d draped over Darcy and smoothed the hair back from her sister’s forehead. Despite the small amount of bleeding from her abdominal wound, her skin felt cool and clammy, and her eyes were becoming glazed.

Shock was setting in.

And shock could be deadly.

Fighting down yet another wave of panic, Laura drew a shaky breath. At least she’d come up with a plan. The odds weren’t great it would work, but it was better than sitting around waiting for Hamilton to come back and finish them off.

She crawled to the side of the room and climbed to her feet, steadying herself with a hand against the wall as the floor shifted. She could tell the wound had started to bleed again beneath the bandage on her thigh. But there was nothing to be done about that. She had to keep moving or her plan would fizzle.

Once the dizziness passed, she crossed to the door. The punctures on her arms were beginning to crust over, but she picked away the dried blood from one until it began to ooze again. After dipping her finger in, she smeared the blood over the peephole in a thick layer.

If Hamilton wanted to see what they were up to now, he’d have to come in.

But she hoped he didn’t—not for at least several hours. Best case, he’d gone to bed and relegated the disposition of the two females in his basement until tomorrow. That would give her time to get everything set up.

Once the peephole was covered, she mustered her strength and moved the microwave from the top of the small refrigerator to the floor, ignoring the ache in her sprained wrist. Then she unplugged the fridge, tugged it into the center of the room and climbed on top, praying her balance wouldn’t fail her. When she felt steady enough to stand, she began pushing up the tiles in the drop ceiling.

Under the third one, she found what she was looking for. Concentrating on remaining upright, she shifted the tile aside to expose the full length of ductwork.

After climbing down, she maneuvered the refrigerator in front of the door.

“Laura?” Darcy turned her head. “What are you doing?”

“Working on a plan to get us out of here. Do you think you’re up to helping?”

“I’ll try.”

“I’ve got a few things to do first. You rest for a while. Once I have everything ready, I’ll tell you all about it and explain what I need you to do. You don’t even have to move from the floor, okay?”

“’Kay.” Her eyelids drifted shut again.

Please, God, let her stay conscious long enough for me to pull this off! I can’t do it without her.

Fighting back panic, Laura fisted her hands. She was
not
going to cave. Not. Going. To. Cave. If she did, Hamilton would win without a fight. She had to keep working on her plan, had to keep believing there was a chance it could succeed.

Despite the insidious doubts undermining her composure, she crossed to the bed and began stripping off the blanket. Every movement brought a fresh wave of pain, and it was slow going. But at last she managed to tug it free.

After putting the blanket beside the refrigerator, she limped back to the bed and pulled off the top sheet. Then she sat on the edge of the mattress, and with the plastic saw-toothed knife she’d scavenged from a drawer in the desk, she worked it against the fabric to create a slit. Once she made several parallel cuts, the fabric should rip into strips without too much difficulty. Tied together, they’d work well for her purposes.

She hoped.

As she labored over the slits, she checked her watch. Just past midnight. Surely Hamilton would have come back down by now if he’d intended to kill them tonight. That must mean he’d gone to bed, as she’d hoped. Dev had told her he was always in his room by ten and rose before dawn. That should buy her a few hours.

But he wasn’t going to sleep until dawn on this new day. She planned to rudely awaken him long before that—as soon as everything was in place.

And if all went well, in a handful of hours, she and Darcy would be free.

“I’m not liking what I’m seeing here.”

As Cal dispensed with a greeting and cut to the chase in a sober tone, Dev gripped the steering wheel and braced himself. “What did you find?”

“Signs of a hasty departure. There were lights on in the house when I arrived, so I went up to ring the bell and found the door cracked open. I invited myself in. Your client wasn’t there, but I did find her phone on the couch. It was still on. The coat closet door was open. The blow-dryer on the bathroom counter looks as if it had been in use and suddenly set down. Neither bed has been slept in.”