Loe raamatut: «Lost but not Forgotten»

Gillian dropped her jacket on the floor

She sank to the bed, trying not to think about the long-term consequences of what she had in mind. Eyes steadily on his, she raised her arms.

She might have wanted him to say something. But the snick of the light switch plunging the room into darkness was all she got from Mitch Valetti.

His silence would have bothered her if he hadn’t undressed her with such reverence and touched her so tenderly that a lack of words didn’t matter. Tonight it was enough to know they were safe. To know that Mitch was one of the good guys. To know she was powerless to change how she felt about him and equally powerless to change their circumstances.

Mitch represented the very best of the good guys in Gillian’s estimation. If this short week was all the time she would be granted to love him, then so be it.

And if, by some miracle, she was already carrying his child…she would deem it a gift.

Dear Reader,

In writing The Baby Cop (July 2001 Superromance), I found Ethan Knight’s partner, Mitch Valetti, to be a character worthy of his own story. In the first book, Ethan and Regan were married in Mitch’s hospital room while he recovered from multiple bullet wounds. His love interest, Amy Knight, had begun seriously dating someone else and later eloped with her newest love. Few writers would be able to walk away and leave a nice guy hurting in body and heart the way Mitch hurt. Especially if that man indicates by word and deed that he would like to have a family of his own. So I promptly went in search of the perfect partner for Mitch, and found a woman who has lost the most important thing in her life—a baby. Gillian Noelle McGrath (or sometimes Gillian Stevens, her alias) is also on the run from a difficult situation. What better lap to land in than that of an ex-cop who hasn’t quite let go of his profession?

I hope you enjoy reading about Mitch and Gillian’s rocky path to love!

Roz Denny Fox

Readers can contact me by post or e-mail. My mailing address is P.O. Box 17480-101, Tucson, Arizona 85731, and you can reach me by e-mail at: rdfox@worldnet.att.net.

Lost But Not Forgotten
Roz Denny Fox

www.millsandboon.co.uk

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

“YOUR HUSBAND got himself into trouble, Mrs. McGrath. Dirty as sin, and big from the sound of it.”

The woman glanced uneasily around the empty precinct parking lot before letting her gaze settle on the kindly old cop Daryl had instructed her to meet in Flagstaff, Arizona. Fall was definitely in the air. Leaves from the cottonwoods skipped across the asphalt in the brisk wind. She pulled her jacket tighter. “Daryl and I…were divorced, Sergeant Malone,” she blurted. “Now he’s dead.” Her voice thinned. She raked a nervous hand through pale-blond hair that brushed her collar each time she moved. Tears welled in her pleading blue eyes. “I’m trying to say I don’t understand any of this.”

“Neither do I. But I watched Daryl grow up. I’d stake my life on him being a straight arrow, Noelle.”

“Shouldn’t you call me Gillian? Gillian Stevens is the name on the driver’s license and Mississippi car registration Daryl insisted I use…even though we live in New Orleans. Oh, nothing makes sense. How—why did he phony up a social security card and driver’s license?” She blotted away tears and braced her hip against the car Malone had just finished searching.

The portly cop, who’d been a second dad to her ex-husband, shook his gray head. “Daryl was scared, I can tell you that. His one e-mail to me is proof. I only wish I’d had the chance to explain I’m two weeks away from retirement. This is the type of case for a young cop. On the other hand, missy, you’ve gotta be careful who you trust. A money-laundering operation the size of the one Daryl hinted at isn’t anything to mess with.”

“There must be some mistake. Daryl wouldn’t—” The prediction falling from her lips was cut short by squealing tires. Breaking off, she straightened. A sinking sun struck the windshield of a car bearing down on them. Splintered rays blinded Gillian.

Malone moved fast for an old man. Hooking a beefy arm around her waist, he spun her out of the path of the onrushing vehicle even as it clipped him hard.

She felt the impact separate their two bodies, and gazed in horror as the policeman flew up and was dragged twenty yards or so by a wildly careening blue car. She scrambled to the curb, not daring to breathe. Finally Malone was dislodged, and Gillian ran to where he lay crumpled on the pavement.

“Help!” she shouted at two uniformed cops who’d been heading up the steps into the station. They had either heard the blue car’s acceleration, or had seen the hit-and-run, and were already in motion.

Gillian’s limbs shook so violently she didn’t know how she’d managed to keep from fainting. Clearly Malone’s left arm and leg had suffered fractures. Blood trickled from his nose and mouth. “It was them,” she whispered. “The men who’ve been following me. I thought I lost them in El Paso.”

Malone had great difficulty breathing, yet he wheezed out instructions. “Get…the hell…out of here. Now. Go south. Hide.”

“No! I can’t. You need help.” Clutching his hand in both of hers, she kept shaking her head.

He coughed raspily. Gillian cried out again to the two cops darting between parked cars. Both had drawn their weapons, but they seemed bent on chasing after the blue car instead of assisting Malone.

“Don’t be a damn fool,” Patrick choked out. “Run, but watch your step.”

His hand went limp in hers. Gillian laid her ear against his chest. She wasn’t sure whether the rattle she heard was good news or bad.

Stay or run? Torn, she made a split-second decision that he, being a cop, knew best. It was a miracle her shaking legs actually carried her back to her car. After executing a wobbly U-turn, Gillian did her best to blend with the parked cars until she worked her way to the opposite side of the police station and merged with street traffic.

Less than a mile from the precinct, she came to a clover leaf and followed signs directing her south on the interstate. She spotted the blue car on an overpass. At least, it looked like the vehicle used in the attempt on her life. She would be dead if not for Malone’s bravery. The thought gave her chills.

Gillian fought the panic threatening to overwhelm her. Daylight was fading. Oncoming cars had begun to turn on their lights. She checked her rearview mirror for the umpteenth time before she realized it was impossible to tell the color of the cars spread out behind her. Sweat ran down her spine, welding her T-shirt to her vinyl seat cushion. She drove aimlessly, constantly peering over her shoulder.

Minutes ticked into a quarter hour, then to half an hour. Odd things registered. For instance, how flat the land was and how long it took for the sun to actually set. And it was warmer here than it’d been in Flagstaff.

Dusk gradually deepened, but she still didn’t know where to hide. Fearful of being overtaken, she eventually left the interstate. So did several other cars. The blue car—she felt it drawing closer. After driving miles on the perimeter road, she saw a graveled road angling off to the south. Blindly, she turned. A series of bumps and pings made her flinch as gravel struck the car’s under-carriage. Her headlights illuminated a split-rail fence lining both sides.

The road’s condition required her to reduce her speed. She prayed that this obscure byway led to a small Western town, where she could find an innocuous, run-down motel. She needed to grab a nap and think out her next steps.

Provided they didn’t catch her first.

Of all the things crowding her mind, she suddenly remembered one—that today was her thirtieth birthday. What a way to spend it. Using an assumed name, running from thugs she didn’t know, for reasons not fully clear. Reasons involving her ex-husband’s CPA firm.

One thing that was clear—the thugs wanted her dead. They’d already killed Daryl. Suddenly. Violently. And then poor Officer Malone…

A stab of raw fear chased goose bumps along Gillian’s skin underneath the sweat. She didn’t want to die! The discovery itself surprised her. For the last ten months, she hadn’t cared one way or the other.

Once again her eyes strayed to the rearview mirror. There was blackness in her wake. She rolled her shoulders, wishing her mind would be still, wishing she could focus on her dilemma. Had she managed to elude the blue car? If so, good. Except…where was she? This road stretched into nothingness. “You were stupid, stupid, stupid not to stay on a better-marked highway,” she muttered to herself.

Bam! The car fishtailed all over the bumpy road.

Gillian screamed. At first she thought she’d been shot at and she lost her grip on the steering wheel. When she reassessed the situation, jamming her foot on the brake, the car stopped inches from the fence. The way it lurched told her she’d blown a front tire. That was a relief, and yet it wasn’t.

Here she sat in the middle of God-knew-where. The landscape had gradually begun to change. What was desert had evolved into brush and trees along the fence. The minute she stepped from the car, she’d be vulnerable, a target for anyone hidden in among those trees. Dropping her forehead to the steering wheel, Gillian listened to her hammering heart.

She couldn’t drive on a flat. Nor could she sit there all night hoping for a white knight to ride up and save her.

Slowly, with shaking hands, she switched off the engine. Leaving only her parking lights on, she slid from the car on unsteady legs and quietly opened the trunk, using the penlight attached to her keychain for illumination. All the while, she prayed for a decent spare tire. Not for the first time since she’d been drawn into this insane ordeal did she long for the safe world she’d left behind. This was a nightmare. “Oh, Daryl, what did you get us into?”

She dug through the trunk and took out a satchel filled with emergency supplies—a lantern, a first-aid kit, bottled water and a box of granola bars. Some of her panic faded as she removed the two suitcases Daryl had packed for her. Even in haste, his attention to detail was reassuring.

Except now he was dead.

Refusing to allow useless tears, Gillian muscled out the spare tire. She tripped and almost fell over the smaller of the two suitcases. Scooting it aside, she retrieved the jack and the tire iron. Thankfully, her father—rest his soul—had taught her to change a tire years ago. She hoped the skill came back easily.

Never one to procrastinate, Gillian bent right to the task. She’d just finished tightening the last lug when she felt, more than heard, a low rumble—a vibration in the gravel road under her feet. Glancing in both directions, she saw car lights on high beam coming toward her, along the section of roadway she’d already traveled. Gray shapes danced eerily along the fence row. Gillian’s pulse leaped wildly.

“Oh, no,” she sobbed. “They’ve found me!”

Her hands slick from sweat as well as grease, Gillian struggled to shove the blown tire into its rightful place in the wheel well. She’d have to stop at the next service station and get it fixed; the way things were going, she’d probably need it again. It landed crooked, hiked higher on one side so she couldn’t put back the carpet. There seemed to be far less room in the once spacious trunk.

Fear made her clumsy. She was all thumbs trying to force the large suitcase in beside the satchel. At last, the case slid inside. Dousing her penlight, she slammed the trunk lid closed.

The oncoming lights grew larger, like an angry cat’s eyes piercing the black night. Gillian fought the bile rising in her throat. She jumped into her car. Her hand shook so hard it took three tries to fit the key into the ignition. The approaching headlights were mere yards away when finally her engine caught and the car shot forward.

At the last minute, Gillian remembered her parking lights. She knew it was reckless to travel an unknown road without proper illumination. But the thought of what would happen if the thugs caught her drove her to do unwise things.

Without warning, the lane narrowed further. Too late, Gillian realized this must be someone’s private drive. Maybe it led to a farmhouse, and she could throw herself on the owner’s mercy.

And ask them to phone the police? “OhGodOhGodOhGod!” If Officer Malone had died, she had, in effect, fled the scene of a hit-and-run murder.

The lane came to an abrupt end. Or rather, it became a keyhole-shaped area in front of a single-story ranch house. A house devoid of light.

Frantic, Gillian braked and let the car idle. “Think,” she commanded. “What to do?” Massaging her temples, she willed her terror to subside. She dared not go back the way she’d come.

Her gaze swept the moonlit landscape. Her addled brain registered a barn and scattered outbuildings. Both the house and barn were flanked by pastures. Off to her left, about a mile as the crow flies, ghostly car lights bobbed, passing one another. This ranch apparently sat between the perimeter road she’d left and another highway that paralleled the mountains. All that stood between her and escape was a spindly fence and a few acres of raw desert.

Closing her eyes, she gunned the motor and smashed through the rails. Restoring her headlights, she prayed there was nothing on the flat expanse of land that would blow another tire. Bumping across the uneven ground, Gillian tried to keep an eye on the headlights rounding the bend of the lane she’d left. As she drew even, the other car seemed to slow down. Once again her heart climbed into her throat. She couldn’t bear to look. What if they’d recognized her? Pressing hard on the gas, Gillian focused on escape.

MITCH VALETTI, former Desert City, Arizona detective, cruised along the private lane leading to his ranch. It’d been three months since he’d driven this route. Three endless months he’d spent recovering from bullet wounds at the home of his best friend and former partner, Ethan Knight. Mitch felt he shouldn’t have intruded as long as he had. Ethan and Regan were newlyweds. They already had their hands full caring for the quadruplets Ethan had rescued from an abusive home. The bastard who’d knocked those defenseless babies around was also responsible for firing three slugs into Mitch. Three slugs that had caused nerve damage in his leg and left him with a limp.

That wasn’t why he’d stuck around longer than he should have, all the while allowing a neighbor to care for his stock. It had just seemed easier than coming home, facing a life that was in shambles.

His odd melancholy tonight had little to do with his injury—which wasn’t his first. He’d survived being knifed in the stomach a few years back when he’d gone in alone on a domestic dispute call. His staying at Ethan’s wasn’t connected to the doc’s news that he’d be left with a permanent disability. Mitch had dealt with that early on. Almost immediately after waking from the extensive surgery, he’d made up his mind to resign from the force. To expand his horse herd. Although he’d told Ethan he might take a few private investigative jobs on the side. Just until his ranch stood on its own.

When Ethan and Regan tied the knot in his hospital room, Mitch thought his own future looked, if not bright, okay. He owned and leased enough land to raise horses, had a serviceable home and loyal friends—including a woman he was pretty crazy about. Amy Knight, Ethan’s youngest sister.

Hell, he knew Amy didn’t feel the same about him. She flaunted the fact that she’d been dating Desert City’s prissy-faced, wonder-boy district attorney. Deep down, though, Mitch had assumed Amy would come to her senses. She hadn’t. Instead, she’d eloped with the jerk D.A. while Mitch was recovering. He’d never admit to anyone on the force how much Amy’s defection hurt. Especially not to Ethan. To Ethan and their fellow cops, Mitch represented the consummate swinging bachelor. In truth, Amy’s marriage had ripped the heart out of him. For the first time in his thirty-five years, Mitch questioned life’s purpose.

Oh, he knew his friends had seen a change in him and were worried about his moodiness. Because of that the Knights had insisted he stay on, and he’d hung around several weeks beyond when he probably should’ve bid the newlyweds farewell. Ethan had gone back to work right away, and Regan’s at-home social work private practice was taking off. The quads, two boys and two girls, cute little tykes, would probably miss him the most. Already he missed them. Darn, but those rascals had gotten under his skin. Wouldn’t the cops who gathered at Flo’s Café to eat and shoot the breeze get a walloping laugh if they ever found out he envied them their families?

Mitch snorted inelegantly and contemplated how that image contrasted with his life. Man, maybe he should’ve stopped at Flo’s before coming home tonight. Guys and gals from the precinct tended to hang out there between shifts. He probably just needed to get back in the swing of things.

The very thought lifted his spirits. “Shoot, how can a man feel down when he’s lucky enough to be behind the steering wheel of a sweet baby-blue fully restored ’68 Corvette?” Grinning foolishly, Mitch caressed the steering wheel. He nearly missed the flash of his headlights off metal ahead.

Chrome. Damned if there wasn’t a car without running lights parked in his lane. He’d worked too many drug busts to shrug off the significance of a car traveling without lights after dark. And this one was moving. Mitch could hear the sound of the other car’s engine, too. It was plain the driver didn’t have a hankering to stick around.

Mitch’s headlights barely pierced the swirl of dust kicked up by the fast-departing car. Mitch tried to make out its type, but as he peered out his windshield, he plunged into a curve in the lane.

Pressing on his gas pedal, Mitch was determined to read the license plate before the car reached his turnaround and came back at him with lights on bright. Only reactions long-honed by his police training saved him from plowing into something sitting in the road—a small suitcase. He braked and swerved.

Once he’d squealed to a stop, Mitch sat there a moment, sweat beading on his brow, his teeth clamped tight to stave off the pain he’d brought to his bad leg. Fighting off a wave of dizziness, he backed the hell up fast and scrambled to locate his cell phone.

Cursing, he watched the other car disappear and decided to relinquish the chase. Instead, he punched in the number of the precinct’s bomb squad. Why else would someone drop a suitcase on a private rural road at night? Especially as the drop coincided with an ex-cop’s arrival… If Mitch didn’t know for certain that the crazy who’d shot him was locked up tight, he might think Tony DeSalvo had come back to finish the job.

DeSalvo wasn’t the only creep he’d ticked off in his career, though. Just the latest. Tony was still safely put away—Mitch verified that first. He had no clue who’d left him a hot calling card, but he would damn sure find out as soon as the sucker discovered this road dead-ended.

“What the hell?” Mitch saw headlights bobbing across his west pasture. He slid out of the Vette, wincing at the stabbing pain in his left leg. Hands on hips, he watched the fleeing car slow midway in its run to intercept the 181 cutoff. Probably waiting to see him blown to smithereens.

“Sorry to disappoint you,” he muttered darkly as the distant vehicle sped up again. He ought to notify the county sheriff, whose territory was intersected by Highway 181, but Mitch knew they couldn’t respond in time. The perpetrator could turn north and lose himself in Tucson’s winter-visitor traffic, or turn south and cross the border into Mexico at Agua Prieta. Either way, they’d shake a tail. So rather than give futile chase, he’d be better off seeing if his old department’s bomb squad could lift any prints from the suitcase. It shouldn’t be hard with the new computer system to cross-match prints to any of the bad guys he’d helped put away during his six years on the force.

It took fifteen minutes for his former co-workers to show up. Mack Rich and Pete Haslett wore gear that made them look as if they were headed to the moon. They seemed particularly eerie in the hazy spotlights they trained on the item in the lane.

“Wow, cowboy,” quipped a third member of the team. “You really know how to throw a homecoming. Since it could get hotter than your standard college bon-fire around here, I suggest you move that classic car before it gets torched, ruining your day and mine.”

Mitch, long used to being tagged “the Italian cowboy” by his comrades at the station, complied without taking issue with their friendly taunts.

“No audible ticking,” shouted the dough boy closest to the suitcase. “Could be she’s set to explode the minute anyone lifts her. Let’s give the case a shot with the X-ray camera to see the setup inside.” He turned to Mitch. “You said you saw a car drop the suitcase and leave the scene? Did you get a plate and a make?”

Mitch stood well back from the others while they readied a boom attached to a portable X-ray unit in the bomb van. “I saw a car,” he said with a grimace. “It was already in motion. I swerved to avoid the bag and missed getting details. I figured something was fishy. The car ran without lights and didn’t turn around at my ranch where the road ends. The driver took out across the field. Had to have torn out a section of my fence.”

“Doesn’t sound good, buddy. On the other hand, the X ray doesn’t show any wiring in the case. One metal object, and it’s not in the center as I’d expect to see with a bomb device. See, it’s off to the right. Looks like some kind of…vase.”

“A vase?” Mitch’s breath whooshed out in disgust. “Damn, who would’ve believed that? Sorry I called you out on a wild-goose chase. Shall I go ahead and open it?”

“Not yet.” Pete dragged him away. “Mack will pick it up with a grapple, drop it in a padded container and I’ll douse it with cryogenic foam. A layer of supercold compound will freeze any components if they’re assembled in that pretty little bottle just to throw us off,” he added by way of explanation. “The vase could be made of lead.”

Mitch nodded. He leaned against his car to ease the pain radiating from his left hip while he watched the process unfold.

“Now!” one of the squad members called. “Pop the lock and see what we have. You want the honor, Valetti?”

“Sure.” Mitch limped forward and accepted the tool they handed him to pick the lock. The suitcase lid sprang open, revealing a stiff quilt. The officers’ flashlights glinted off ice crystals beaded on appliqués of yellow ducks, pink cats, green elephants and blue dogs. A frilly, tiny pink dress and bonnet lay folded neatly next to the quilt. Tucked in one corner was a silver bottle with an ornate stopper.

“It’s an urn,” murmured Lori Peck, the only female member of team.

“What?” Mitch raised his eyes and squinted at her through the ring of bright floodlights.

“Ashes,” she said more clearly, as if the men were dense. “What we’ve attacked and put through the wringer is nothing more than a suitcase filled with somebody’s memories.”

Mitch knelt, ignoring what it cost him in added pain. “Sad memories,” he said, hesitantly using the tongs he’d been handed to lift the urn.

Light from Pete’s torch reflected off a raised teddy bear on one side of the vessel.

Mitch felt his heart lurch. “It says Our Beloved Katie,” he whispered, his voice unsteady. “Below that is a single date, 11-18-00.” He set the silver vase almost reverently back on the quilt. Rising awkwardly, he cleared his throat. “A baby girl. She must have died at birth.” Mitch fought against his heart turning inside out over a kid he’d never even known.

“Odd thing to leave sitting in the middle of a country road,” Mack said. Turning away, he began to stow their gear.

The female cop retrieved an evidence bag from the front of the truck. After donning plastic gloves, she started to close the suitcase and slide it into the bag.

“Hey, what are you doing?” Mitch demanded.

“Bagging the evidence,” she returned shortly. “It’s creepy. A crime that goes beyond malicious mischief.”

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head vigorously. “What crime has been committed? Whoever packed that case cared about these things. I’m not going to let you toss them into the evidence room like so much garbage.”

Mack shot out a hand and gripped Mitch’s arm. “You said the car took off like a bat out of hell, no lights. Granted, that’s not a criminal act in itself. But you’ve got to admit it’s suspicious.”

“Did you ever think the owner meant for someone to find this stuff? What if baby Katie’s mother is being dragged around in that car against her will?”

“You mean, like kidnapped?” Lori asked.

“Maybe. I don’t know. I’ll grant you it sounds off the wall.” Mitch brushed a thumb back and forth over his lower lip. “All I know is these are…they aren’t… Hell, it’s clear Katie is somebody’s baby.”

“Well, duh!” was Pete’s helpful response.

Ignoring him, Mitch didn’t budge. “Leave the case, please. I’ve got time to look into this. I’ll do my level best to find out who left it here and why.”

His friends from the force glanced from one to the other until at last all had shrugged. Lori shoved a clipboard with an evidence release form into Mitch’s hands. “Sign for it here. If the chief has a problem with this after we file our report, he’ll let you know.”

Pete tried again to dissuade Mitch. “If it was me, Valetti, I’d forget the whole deal. What kind of person carries stuff like this around in a suitcase?”

“Somebody off their rocker,” Mack supplied.

“Or someone in big trouble.” Mitch scrawled his name on the form. “I’ll place an ad in tomorrow’s paper. I had my phone turned off, but I’ve got my cellular. That’s probably the most I’ll have to do to solve this mystery.”

The others just shook their heads. After telling Mitch not to be a stranger around the station, they said goodbye and backed out to the perimeter highway.

Mitch stowed the suitcase in his trunk. When he arrived home, he saw he’d been right about the section of fence being knocked down. Clearly someone had seen his car coming down the road, panicked and hightailed it off his property.

As he unlocked the front door, juggling his odd collection of objects, he worried that maybe Pete was right. Maybe he should hand the suitcase over as evidence and forget the whole thing.

But when he set the small valise on his coffee table and examined its heart-stopping contents, the haunting connection he’d felt earlier only grew stronger. Placing the urn on his mantel, he gazed at it for a long time. In the end, he renewed his vow to find its owner.

Before retiring, Mitch sat and chewed on the end of a pencil while he composed an ad to run in the local paper. Tomorrow was Thursday. He’d run it through Sunday, he decided, and when he shed his clothing and climbed into bed, his life again seemed to have purpose.

GILLIAN DROVE onto the asphalt highway with a bump and thump. She turned south without hesitation. An hour later, faced with showing false ID to cross the border, or hunting up a passable motel in the dusty border town on U.S. soil, she chose to stop short of Mexico. She had to hold on to some scruples.

Seeking the least accessible motel, she rented an end unit, the one farthest from the cobbled motel entry. It was a relief to find the room clean. Hidden parking in the rear was a big plus. The rent, cheaper by the week, fit her budget, too. It occurred to Gillian as she went out to get her bags that she’d already begun to think like a fugitive.

In a week she ought to be able to alter her appearance enough to fool the men chasing her. She’d have to dump this car. With luck, she might be able to sell it to a private party and buy another in a different town. That’s what crooks in movies did.

Tonight she was too exhausted to plan beyond that. The money Daryl had left in the glove box along with her phony ID wouldn’t last forever. Eventually she’d have to find a job. She’d face that ordeal later—if she made it through the week she’d paid for in advance.

Gillian refused to dwell on the fact she was probably a wanted person in New Orleans and Flagstaff. Before she ditched this car, she’d go over it inch by inch, searching every nook and cranny again. Daryl had e-mailed Patrick Malone, saying that when Gillian arrived she’d have in her possession a key. To open what, Daryl hadn’t said. He hinted that he’d hidden a notebook with enough lethal information to expose a huge money-laundering operation. He also indicated to Malone that he suspected they were on to him. Daryl had promised to contact Patrick later via a different source. He’d never had the opportunity.

She and Malone had failed to turn up a key. Now Daryl was dead, and probably Patrick, too. She would be next if she didn’t unearth what Daryl had put in safekeeping. Gillian knew him too well to think he’d forgotten to put the key in her belongings. But where? Could it be so small it’d fallen out in the police parking lot and they’d missed it?

Her brain numb, Gillian pawed through the car’s trunk looking for the smaller of her two cases. Had it slipped behind the tire? “It’s not here!” she cried. “Where is it?” In spite of the late hour, and her questionable surroundings, Gillian removed everything from the trunk. The small case wasn’t there.