Read THE MISSING (L.A.P.D. Special Investigations Book 4) Online
Authors: LINDA STYLE
THE GUY WAS LATE. Luke ordered a cola and decided to give him ten more minutes, hoping he had a legitimate excuse. He had no other leads on a hired hand for his dad, but he wasn’t going to hire a slacker either.
When the man didn’t show, Luke paid the waitress and got up to leave. As he walked to his car, his cell rang. He fished it from the pocket of his leather jacket and glanced at the number. Not one he recognized. “Coltrane,” he said.
Nothing. “This is Luke.” Then a crackling sound and the dial tone. Dammit. He hit a couple of buttons. No call back number, but his phone was working fine. Maybe the call was cut off on the other end. Maybe it was the guy saying he’d be late. Or maybe it was Jules. He punched in his dad’s number.
No answer. His nerves tightened as an awful awareness dawned on him. He’d left the ranch while the Hancock woman was there, not thinking that Jules would be on her own when their visitor went home. A cold shiver ran up his spine. Shit! Shit, shit, shit.
He jumped into the car, caught his jacket on the corner of the door as he sat, ripped it loose and started the engine. He slammed the accelerator to the floor and hauled ass down the highway, his heart hammering triple time. If something happened to Jules—dammit! How could he be so stupid.
All he’d wanted to do was get away from Stella Hancock. He’d reacted on emotion. He never did that. For once in his life, he hoped the neighbor hadn’t left and they were simply talking and hadn’t heard the phone. Or maybe Jules was in the bathroom.
But whatever scenario he came up with didn’t ease his mind and when he barreled up the road to the house, dust and dirt spiraling behind him, his heart clanged against his chest so hard he thought his ribs might break. He’d barely set foot from his vehicle before Jules met him outside. “Back so soon?” she asked. “Did you hire him?”
His stomach did a belly flop. His gaze darted. She was alone. Relief swamped him. And she was just standing there with no idea her life could’ve been in danger because of him. He sucked in some air. “No. He didn’t show.” The words came out sharper than he wanted.
“Really? You think something happened?”
She hurried alongside as he stormed toward the house.
“It doesn’t matter if something happened. He showed his character by not bothering to call.” Irresponsible people annoyed the hell out of him.
“Is something else wrong?”
“No—” he tried to soften his voice “—nothing else is wrong.” Except that he’d been rookie stupid and if something had happened to her… He slammed open the door.
“Do you have any other leads on someone to hire?”
“I put the word out with some local people, and I hung a notice at the Circle K. And there’s the ad in the paper. We’ll see what comes up.”
As they walked inside together, Luke half expected Abe to greet them, then realized he wasn’t there. They were alone. “I need something cold to drink. How about you?”
“I made some lemonade.”
“Fine.”
Luke watched Julianna as she went to the fridge and then poured two glasses of lemonade. He liked to watch her. She moved with an easy grace that he found sexy as hell.
But what he thought one way or the other didn’t matter. How he felt about her didn’t matter. He couldn’t let any of it matter. “I’d like to see those e-mail messages again.”
“Why? You know what they say.”
“Yeah, but I had some ideas. I thought of a way to find out where they came from.”
“I tried that already. The messages are scrambled somehow. I even asked a friend who’s a computer geek and he said to forget it.”
“I know an expert.”
“Someone here?”
He shook his head. “No, Rico. Remember?”
“But he’s in Los Angeles.”
“Go ahead. Pull them up. Then I’ll call him and see if he can help us do a search.”
Luke followed Jules into her bedroom. The laptop was on the unmade bed, and as she sat and turned on the machine to pull up her e-mail, he stood opposite her, staying his distance. Just being close to her made him aware of how good they’d once been together. He couldn’t guarantee what might happen if he got any closer.
He watched as she clicked on the keys, then used the mouse. The soft light from the screen illuminated her pale, beautiful face, but hid the intensity she carried inside. He knew what she was thinking, her brain ticking off the moments until he left. And that only made her more desirable. Why the hell did he always want what he couldn’t have?
He sat on the end of the mattress, still keeping his distance. Her unique scent rose from the bedding like an aphrodisiac, like opium, sucking him in. He wanted to pull her down between the sheets with him, bury his head in her silky hair…bury himself inside…
“Oh, God,” she whispered. Her face went white.
He jumped up and came around behind her. “What?”
She didn’t speak and simply waved at the computer.
He looked down to see a new message on the screen.
“I know where you are.”
“YEAH,” A SLEEPY VOICE answered when Luke made the call to Rico.
“Sorry to wake you, buddy, but I need your help.”
“Luke? Where are you?”
“I’m still in New Mexico. I’ve got a favor to ask. A couple favors as a matter of fact.”
“Shoot.”
Luke could always count on Rico and Jordan, LAPD’s finest detectives and the best friends anyone could have. No matter where, when or how difficult the task might be, they were there. “I need your computer expertise. I have some e-mail messages and I need to find out where they originated.”
“You have a computer with you?”
He cleared his throat. “It’s not mine. But I need to track the messages to find out who sent them.”
“Did you click on Reply?”
“Click on Reply,” Luke directed Julianna.
“I did. The reply address is garbage.”
“Doesn’t work. What else?”
“Nothing that I can do from here. If I had the computer I might be able to figure it out. There’s always a way.”
Luke thought for a minute. “That’s not possible. At least not right this minute.” He shoved a hand through his hair, his frustration rising. “There has to be a way to do this.”
“Sounds important,” Rico said.
“Yeah. It is.” Luke quickly explained the threatening e-mails, and that Jules’s life might be in danger.
There was a long pause on the line before Rico asked, “Can you express mail it to me?”
“That’s a thought. I can do it tomorrow morning.”
“You said two things.”
“Yeah.”
“What’s going on?” Rico sounded more awake now.
“Renata Willis. Seven years old. Abducted and murdered fifteen years ago.”
“That’s an old case. Really old.”
Before either Luke or Rico worked in the RHD. “I understand there were no viable leads and the case went cold.”
“You got a lead on it now?”
“Not exactly. I asked Jordan to pull the old file.”
“You think the e-mail is connected to the case?”
“Maybe. Keep that in mind when you’re working on it.”
Clicking off, he braced for Jules’ response. “Rico thinks he can find out where the messages came from but he needs the computer.”
She shook her head. “
I
need my computer. I can’t finish my work without it.”
“Would that be the worst thing in the world?”
Silence. “If you want to track down this guy, you’ll have to do without your computer for a while.”
“I have a deadline to meet.”
“What’s more important, a deadline or your life?”
“It’s just an e-mail. It doesn’t mean he really wants to hurt me and it doesn’t mean he really knows where I am. He probably thinks I’m still in San Francisco. For all we know he’s just a crank who gets his kicks scaring people.”
“But we don’t know any of that and we won’t know until we find out who this creep is. We have to assume he means what he says. So, save your stuff on a flash drive or in a drop box you can access later and we’ll get you another laptop.”
Lines formed around her mouth, the way they always did when she dug in her feet over something. She closed the lid on the laptop.
Scrubbing a hand over his chin, Luke stood, paced, then stopped in front of her. “I have a better idea. Pack your things.”
“What—”
“We’re going to L.A.”
“L.A.? But…what about your father?”
“I’ll call the doc and find out how long he’s going to be there. If we leave early in the morning, we’ll be in L.A. in a couple hours and on a plane back by evening.”
“I—I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know? You do want to know who this sicko is, don’t you?”
She nodded. “But if the police already refused to do anything, what good will going to L.A. do?”
“We’ll take the laptop to Rico. Then I can check the Willis file myself.”
“So, you go then. I’ll stay here in case anything comes up with your father.”
“I’m not leaving you here alone. Your only other options are to get another computer so we can send this one to Rico, or to quit writing the story.”
She gave him a look that could’ve wilted steel.
“That’s what I thought. So, we’ll leave first thing in the morning. You can write on the plane and won’t lose a minute of writing time.”
~~~
LUKE FULLY BELIEVED whoever was threatening her meant business. Otherwise he’d leave her here and go to L.A. alone. He’d never had any qualms about doing that. Ever.
Feeling a chill, she rubbed her arms. It wasn’t like she’d never wondered how serious the guy really was. She’d wondered more times than she wanted to admit, but like always, she talked herself down. She was overreacting because of the past. It had taken her forever to get to that place, and she wasn’t about to go back.
After losing Mikey, every noise, every look from a stranger had seemed threatening, every person she passed seemed sinister in some way, and she’d spent her days in a perpetual state of suspicion and fear.
Finally, she’d had to seek more grief counseling to help her crawl from the abyss of sorrow that almost destroyed her.
Now, no matter how much she protested against herself, no matter how logical she was about it, she couldn’t escape the dark feeling of dread hanging over her. Was the threat as real as Luke thought it was? Or was Luke making her paranoid? Making her relapse.
“You okay?”
“Yes. Fine.” Looking down, she rubbed her arms again.
“It’s okay to be scared, you know. I’m scared every day when I go out on the streets.”
She raised her head at his admission. Luke scared? “I—I didn’t think it bothered me, but tonight it feels…eerie. We’re so far away from everything.”
He reached out, lifted the laptop off the bed and set it on the night table. Then he sat next to her and slipped an arm around her. “I’ll stay here with you tonight.”
It was a bad idea, but an offer she couldn’t refuse. It wasn’t like she’d never slept with him before, and tonight, she needed to feel the physical warmth of another human being. She needed to draw on his strength. To be close to someone who cared about her.
Despite their divorce, she believed he did care, if for no other reason than their history together. The fact that they’d had a child. She leaned into him, resting her head on his shoulder.
Still holding her, he leaned against the pillow, his face nestled in her hair. She felt his chest lift when he drew in a long, deep breath, then he stroked her head. “Go to sleep now,” he whispered. “We’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”
MORNING CAME too soon, and after a drive to Albuquerque and the short flight to Los Angeles, they were in a rental car speeding down the freeway to Rico Santini’s house in Anaheim.
A wave of apprehension swept through Julianna. She’d last seen Rico not long before she and Luke had separated and it hadn’t been pleasant. Heat reached her cheeks just thinking about it. She’d found Luke and his friends at Bernie’s and she’d gone inside and stood there shrieking at them like a banshee, telling them that sitting around watching football wasn’t going to help find her son. She’d said some horrible things, including that they were to blame for not finding Michael. God. She’d totally lost it.
Apparently, Luke sensed her nervousness and took her hand. “It’ll be fine,” he said.
“The last time I saw Rico, I was so horrible to him…to all of you.”
“Don’t worry, guys get over things like that. They know you were emotionally stressed. I was, too.”
She inhaled. “I don’t know how you can handle what you do all the time. I’d be a wreck.”
“That’s why you’re not a cop,” he said, apparently making light to diffuse her nervousness. “Hey, come to think of it, I used to know a good remedy for stress.”
Julianna couldn’t help smiling. Whenever things got too bad, they’d wind up in bed. And he was right. It was the best stress-buster around.
But even good sex hadn’t been able to save their marriage—or mend their broken hearts.
“Here we are,” Luke said, pulling into the driveway of a small cottage that sat back from the tree-lined street.
She’d been to Rico’s home many times before and felt a twinge of nostalgia. Rico had always liked big barbecues and coming from a large Italian restaurant family, he knew how to cook and did it well. All the fun times, long gone. Her gaze wandered over the fresh cut grass, the hibiscus plants near the door. Red, she remembered. The flowers were red.
She sighed letting the familiar wash over her. She missed doing things with their friends, she realized. Missed being a couple.
“I can’t believe Rico, the quintessential playboy, is married now. It’s so…unlikely.”
“Yeah, I couldn’t believe it either. They adopted a little boy that Macy had in her charge as a ward of the court and voilà, instant family. Billy’s great, too.”
She couldn’t help but wonder if Billy reminded Luke of Mikey…if every time he saw a child that age, the pain swept back, again and again.
Luke smiled, then reached across her lap to open the car door on her side. “Life is full of surprises.”
That it was. Julianna climbed out and hoisted the strap of her laptop case over her shoulder. “Do you think Rico can do it?”
“Rico’s brain is a computer. If anyone can do it, he can.”
“Do you think it’ll take very long?”
“No clue. But you know me and computers. Two left hands.”
Rico opened the door almost as they reached it. “Yo, buddy,” Rico said, doing one of those handshake hug things that guys do. “Hi, Julianna.” He reached over and gave her a quick hug too. “Really great to see you again. Come in.”
As they went inside, Julianna noticed the house seemed warmer, homier than before.
“Macy’s made a few decorating changes around here.”
“It looks wonderful. She has a designer’s touch.”
“Where’s Macy now?” Luke asked.
“She’s at work and Billy’s at school. I’ve got to leave shortly, too. Just had a call from the boss.”
“Do you have any idea how long this will take?” Julianna asked.
Rico shrugged. “Could take an hour or a couple days. I won’t know until I get into it.”
“She’s worried about a deadline on a story.”
“No problem. Follow me.” Rico led them down the hall to one of the bedrooms that he used as his office. Three computers were lined up across the oak desk that took up most of the room. “Here,” Rico said, picking up a laptop from one of the bookshelves. “Download what you need and use this one.” He handed her the laptop. “I never use it.”
“Oh, I couldn’t—”
“Yes, you can. Take it with you. Really.”
“Geez, Rico. What do you do with all these computers?” Luke waved a hand at the lineup. Technology wasn’t Luke’s thing. Not that he’d admit anyway. She had suspicions that he was savvier than he let on. He had to be just to use the police systems.
“One belongs to Macy.”
“So, when will you be able to work on mine?”
“Later tonight. I’ll give you a call when I get back and let you know if I need any information.”
“I’ll be at the station later to take a look at the Willis case,” Luke said.
“Where are you headed now?”
Luke avoided looking at Julianna when he answered, “My place. You can get me there or on my cell.”
~~~
WHEN IN THE CAR and on the 405 toward Venice, Julianna was as silent as a stone, the tension in the air palpable. Luke knew she might rebel at going to the home they’d shared, a place where memories were embedded in every room, in every knickknack and piece of furniture. “We have to go somewhere,” he said. “We might as well be comfortable.”
After that, he couldn’t think of anything to say that might assuage her fears. He’d had his own misgivings about staying in the house after the divorce. It had been the place where they’d shared their dreams and fantasies—and the place where they’d lost Michael.
Yet for Luke, the house was comforting. It had been their home. Where they’d lived as a family. And every day since then, he sensed Julianna and Michael’s presence there. For him, that was a good thing. She obviously didn’t feel the same. She’d been intent on leaving. Intent on putting him and their life together behind her.
“It’s apparent we’re not going to get out of L.A. until tomorrow, and this is the safest place I know. If someone is trying to find you, he’s not going to look for you at your ex-husband’s house. But…if you’re uncomfortable with going there, we can check into a hotel.”
When she looked at him, her eyes were dark and unreadable. “No, it’s okay.”
Okay. Why wasn’t he convinced? Still, there wasn’t any point in pushing the question. Take her at her word and move on. They rode in silence, and deep in thought, he jumped a little when on the way past the beach, Julianna said, “Can we stop at the pier?”
“Uh, yeah. Sure.” He made a sharp turn and pulled into the public lot. Even though it was early fall, tourists still showed up in droves, most of them to gawk at the unusual, visit the funky shops, get a quick diagnoses for medicinal weed, and be entertained by the jugglers, dancers and musicians. It took a couple circles around to find a parking spot.
For Luke, the uniqueness of Venice Beach was what made it appealing. Jules used to feel the same way, and he hoped that was why she wanted to stop. When they got out of the car, she didn’t say a word, but simply stood with her eyes closed, inhaling the salty sea air.
A cool breeze ruffled her hair, blowing it back from her face. “It’s…revitalizing,” she said, then started walking toward the sand.
Luke followed. “Do you want my jacket?”
“No, thanks. I need a jolt of fresh air.”
They walked leisurely over the hard-packed sand, then she stopped at the water’s edge and kneeled down to pick up something embedded there. “A sand dollar,” she said, then looked up at him, wistfulness in her eyes. “I—I came here a lot with Michael so he could play on the beach.”
“He loved the water.” Luke had been teaching Mikey to use a boogie board and Jules had had a fit, thinking her little boy was going to get hurt or washed away.
“On the way here I didn’t think I could do this. I thought all the reminders would make me fall apart.”
“And now?”
She turned away, but not before he saw, her eyes well with tears. “I—I don’t know. It’s…almost like I can feel him here. Like the wind is Mikey, wrapping his arms around me.”
Luke swallowed hard, put his arm around her and they slowly walked back to the car. No words were necessary. They both knew what they’d lost.