Gone Missing Read online

  “I’ll carry this outside to knock off the dust,” Clay said. He hefted the box, which clinked as if there were china plates inside.

  On the landing of the stairs was a narrow window that looked out to the street in front, and he happened to glance out. Or maybe it was the movement out front that caught his eye. Either way, he paused.

  Met and G had just exited a black sedan. G reached into his jacket and pulled out a gun.

  * * *

  Joslyn was following Clay down the stairs when she saw him look out the window and freeze. And just that intent expression on his face made her entire body tense.

  Suddenly he was shoving the dusty box into her arms. “Call the police. No matter what happens, don’t come out of the house until the police arrive, do you hear me?” And then he launched himself down the rest of the stairs and out the front door.

  “What’s going on?” Mariella asked.

  “Call the police, right now,” Joslyn said. She rushed to the window and looked out, and at first she couldn’t see anything. She shifted the box so she could lean closer to the window and look down.

  Met and G were in the process of sneaking around the side of the house when Clay hurled himself at G.

  Joslyn set the box down on the landing and pulled her firearm from her flashbang holster. Mariella, who was on her cell phone with the 9-1-1 operator, stared at her with wide eyes. She stuttered as she gave the address of the house.

  Joslyn ran downstairs and locked the front door. She ran into the empty living room, where she could look out the window to the side and front yards.

  Clay rolled around on the grass with G, struggling to gain control of a gun. Joslyn’s heart thudded against the base of her throat. But Met...where was Met? He wasn’t in the strip of grass that ran along the side of the house. She peered out the window and saw that the gate that separated the front from the backyard was cracked open.

  Joslyn raced to the back door of the house. Was it locked? She guessed so—after all, this was LA. She arrived in the kitchen in time to see the doorknob jiggle. The knob was locked, but the deadbolt wasn’t. She slammed her weight against the door and threw the deadbolt. Then she rolled out of the way, to the wall on the side of the door.

  She was just in time. Met shot a round through the door where she’d been standing only a split second before. Through the doorway into the hallway, she saw someone duck into the living room at the same time she heard a woman’s squeal.

  Met began throwing his weight against the back door.

  Joslyn grabbed the heavy oak breakfast table and tipped it on its end with a thud that made the floor shake. She dragged it so that the top faced the back door and her back was to the hallway.

  Behind her, she saw Mariella peek out from behind the doorframe of the living room.

  “Are you all right?” Joslyn whispered.

  Mariella nodded.

  “Where’s Anna?”

  “In her room.”

  “Get into the second floor bathroom and lock the door,” Joslyn told her. “Then both of you get into the tub.” She’d used the bathroom there a couple times in the past, and knew the heavy porcelain would protect them from any stray bullets.

  Mariella darted across the hallway and pounded up the stairs.

  “I know you’re in there, Joslyn,” Met said through the door. His voice was oily, confident. “We have Clay. Give yourself up and we won’t hurt him.”

  She only had to stall them until the police arrived. But what if they killed Clay before that happened?

  But if she left the house, they’d take both her and Clay. They might hurt Mariella and Anna, too.

  Then Clay’s voice sounded from behind the back door, “She’s not in there. I came alone.”

  “I know you’re lying,” Met said calmly to Clay.

  Then Clay’s voice shot out in a cry of pain.

  Joslyn’s hands tightened around her weapon. She forced herself to breathe, to relax. She had to stay calm, stay focused.

  “Joslyn, come out or we’ll send Clay here to his step-daddy in little pieces.”

  What? Did that mean they weren’t working for Martin?

  Clay must have realized that, too, because he gave a low laugh. “He’s not going to care about me. Your boss doesn’t have all his facts right.”

  Moving quietly and staying low, Joslyn crept from behind the table until she was behind the sink. She slowly rose until she could see outside the window that hung right over the sink.

  G held Clay’s arms behind his back. There were fresh cuts on Clay’s face, and his hair was a wild blond mess around his head. Clay’s left shoulder was hitched a little higher than the other, and she wondered if he’d reinjured his broken arm in its cast.

  Met was hissing something to G, obviously displeased about something. Maybe they had expected to take them by surprise, which wouldn’t have allowed Joslyn and the others time to call the police or barricade themselves inside the house. Thanks to Clay, they hadn’t been blindsided.

  Met’s face was red. He pointed his gun directly at Clay’s bent head, and Joslyn couldn’t breathe.

  Met shouted, “Joslyn, you come out right now, or I swear I’ll—”

  Suddenly Clay snapped his head backward and clocked G full in the face. The man grunted and Clay pulled free.

  Met’s gun went off.

  Joslyn’s heart went into overdrive. She gripped her weapon, ready to fire out the window at them, but then realized there was no blood. Clay had staggered backward but was still standing. Met had missed.

  Clay slammed his right elbow at G’s face, but the man blocked it with his arm and countered with a fist to Clay’s side. He grunted, but recovered quickly and twisted full around to tackle G to the ground. They rolled in the grass and weeds of the backyard while Met aimed his gun at the two of them, looking for a shot.

  Then she heard the wail of sirens.

  Met swore, then started running toward the side gate. “G, come on!”

  G managed to get to his feet, but Clay clung to his legs. G kicked out at Clay, who released him. Then the man ran after Met.

  Joslyn unlocked the back door and headed outside cautiously, her weapon at the ready, but the backyard was empty except for Clay. She ran to where he lay on the ground.

  “Are you all right? Your arm...”

  “I’m fine.” He was breathing heavily. He winced a little as he sat up.

  The sirens were deafening, now, and they stopped right outside the front of the house. Had they managed to catch Met and G or had the thugs gotten away?

  Armed police officers came into the backyard through the side gate, shouting orders she couldn’t quite understand. Too late, she wondered if she ought to have reholstered her firearm. She laid the gun down on the ground and put her arms up.

  “Did you see the two men who were running away?” she said. “One had curly hair, the other one had short, brown hair and was taller...”

  “Hey!” Clay shouted.

  An officer yanked her arms behind her back. She heard the clink of handcuffs just before cold steel bit into her wrists.

  TEN

  They were wasting time. Joslyn jerked angrily at her handcuffs. Fiona was out there running from dangerous men like Met and G, and Joslyn was still sitting on the front porch with her hands cuffed behind her back.

  Anna and Mariella had told the officers what had happened, several times, in fact. Sometimes talking both at the same time, which didn’t help matters. The officers had been about to let Joslyn go when they ran Clay’s ID and saw his record. Unsure what to do about his “associate,” they’d left Joslyn in cuffs.

  Thankfully, Clay had called Liam as soon as he could, but even when he did that, one of the officers had demanded to know who he was calling.

/>   “Her boss,” Clay said brusquely, and the officer frowned and moved away.

  Clay had been on the phone almost constantly for the past hour, but she couldn’t make out who he was talking to. That might be because there was at least one policeman near her at all times.

  Then one of the officers in charge got a phone call. His voice became crisper, more deferential. “Yes, sir...no, sir...”

  Finally he disconnected the call and approached her, a thundercloud expression on his face. And then he unlocked her handcuffs. “You’re free to go,” he muttered.

  Her shoulders were sore from being restrained for so long, and she rubbed them. “Could I please have my ID and my conceal-and-carry license?”

  The lawman grudgingly handed them to her, and then she added, “And my firearm?”

  He hesitated.

  Clay was suddenly there, his cell phone in his hand, although he wasn’t talking into it. “Is she being arrested? Charged with anything?”

  “No.”

  “Then give her back her firearm.”

  The officer handed her the gun. Clay helped her to her feet and they went back into the house.

  In the foyer, Clay handed her the phone. “Here. It’s Detective Carter.”

  That’s who he had been talking to? Joslyn took the cell phone. “Hello?”

  “Joslyn, are you all right?” Detective Carter’s gravelly voice was music to her ears.

  She had to fight an unexpected tightness in her throat. “I’m fine. Are you the one who called that officer?”

  “No, that was a friend of mine.” There was humor in his voice. “I called in a favor.”

  “I’m sorry you had to do that for me.”

  “You’re worth it.”

  She wiped away a tear. “Thanks.”

  “I’ll see you later.”

  She disconnected the call and handed it back to Clay.

  He took it, then folded her in his arms.

  It felt wonderful. He was solid, warm, comforting. She smelled stalwart cedar, uplifting citrus and calming musk. She could relax, rely on his strength, let his presence chase away the stress and humiliation of the past hour.

  She leaned back, but kept her hand on his chest. Without looking at him, she said, “Thank you.”

  His hand covered hers on his chest and squeezed. “You’re worth it.”

  She tried to remember all the reasons she couldn’t let herself get closer to him, all the ways he reminded her of Tomas, but it was useless. All she knew was the comfort of his hand holding hers, the steadiness of his heartbeat under her fingers.

  She had to focus on Fiona.

  She stepped away from him.

  Even if there wasn’t all this crazy danger surrounding him, she couldn’t consider anything deeper with Clay. He wasn’t a Christian, he lived in Illinois. He was strong, powerful, confident.

  She was too afraid.

  She hadn’t made right choices before, and she’d lost everything. Her father, her home. Her baby.

  She was rebuilding her life and she wouldn’t risk it. Not again.

  Joslyn moved into the living room, where Anna and Mariella were sitting and talking.

  “They finally let you go,” Anna said. “I just made more coffee. You want something to eat, too?”

  “I’m fine, thanks,” Joslyn said. “I’m so sorry about all this.”

  “It’s not your fault,” Mariella said. “I wish they’d caught those goons.”

  “Who were they?” Anna asked.

  “We don’t know,” Clay said from behind Joslyn. His voice was neutral, normal-sounding. “But we saw them in Phoenix, too.”

  “They’re after you because of Fiona?” Mariella asked.

  “We just don’t know. That’s why we’re trying to find out everything we can about Fiona before she moved to Phoenix.”

  Mariella nodded toward the coffee table. “We put the box there for you.”

  “Would you mind looking through it with us?” Joslyn asked. “There might be some things you can tell us about the stuff inside.”

  “Sure.” Anna leaped to her feet.

  The largest thing in the box was a spun glass ornament in shades of red, blue, orange and yellow. When Mariella held it up, the light shone through and cast the colors upon the walls.

  “Oooh,” Anna said.

  “I know that,” Clay said. “It’s from an artisan’s shop in Lake Tahoe. Fiona loved looking in there whenever we went to Tahoe on vacation.”

  “I can see why,” Mariella said, turning the ornament in her hands.

  There were a few framed photographs. One was of Fiona holding up a huge largemouth bass.

  “That’s from a houseboating trip we took. Whoever caught the smallest bass had to cook for a month,” Anna said, snickering. “Chuck bragged the most and lost.”

  Another photo was of Fiona and Joslyn in evening dresses in front of the Zeddmore Museum of Art. “I had forgotten about this,” Joslyn said. “Fiona got exclusive tickets to the opening for a new exhibit of Japanese art, so I went with her.”

  Another photo, this one in a faded Mickey Mouse frame, was of Fiona as a young girl with another little girl, the two of them wearing identical Mickey Mouse T-shirts and Goofy hats. A teenaged Clay was behind them, flanked by two older women, and looking bored. One of the women looked exactly like Clay and Fiona.

  “Is that your mom?” Joslyn asked him.

  He nodded. “We had season passes to Disneyland and went at least once a month. We got to know a lot of other season pass holders like Hannah and Amelia.” He pointed to the other woman and the little girl.

  There were also a bunch of paperback books in the box, all best-selling romances. They looked fairly new and most had price stickers on the back from the store where Fiona had bought them.

  “She has a thing about cracks on the spine,” Mariella said. “It never looks like she reads her books. The only way you can tell is if the pages aren’t quite tight enough to be brand-new.”

  There was also a beautiful seashell, which looked as if it had come out of the ocean because it wasn’t lacquered or polished.

  “Did Fiona do any deep-sea diving?” Joslyn asked.

  Mariella and Anna shrugged. “Not as far as I know,” Mariella said.

  There was also a ratty pair of house slippers, made out of woven bamboo strips for the footbed and stuffed cotton fabric tubes for straps.

  “She wore those in the house all the time,” Anna said.

  “I remember,” Joslyn said. “I didn’t think about it before, but they look Japanese, don’t they?”

  “Yeah, they look like my grandma’s house slippers,” Mariella said. “I’m a quarter Japanese.”

  “She didn’t have those in Chicago,” Clay said.

  “Did she have this in Chicago?” Joslyn held up a Chicago Cubs sweatshirt that was brand-new—it even still had the tags on the label. “I thought she was a die-hard Dodgers fan.”

  “Yup.” Clay grinned. “I bought it for her just to annoy her.”

  They had gone through the entire contents of the box. Joslyn looked down at all the items on the table, but couldn’t see how any of it pointed to what Fiona had been up to while she was Los Angeles, apart from her schoolwork.

  “Do you know if she did anything outside of school?” Joslyn asked Anna and Mariella. “Something without you guys or her other friends?”

  Mariella tilted her head as she thought. “Sometimes she’d go to art museums by herself. Actually, she might have gone by herself more often in the months before she moved away.”

  “She didn’t always tell us where she went,” Anna said. “We usually assumed she was at school or a museum.”

  “Or getting candy,” Mariella said with
a smile.

  Joslyn looked over each item. “She didn’t go to Disneyland?”

  “Maybe once or twice, but it was usually with us or other friends,” Anna said.

  Joslyn fingered the shell. “How about on any vacations?”

  “No...” Anna said slowly. “But she did go on a short trip once. I happened to wake up and see her leaving the house with a small roller bag and a messenger bag over her shoulder.”

  Joslyn hadn’t known about this. “Do you remember when this was?”

  “I don’t remember exactly, it’s been so long...summertime, maybe?”

  Probably during the short summer break in between semesters for their degree program.

  Anna continued, “She didn’t say where, but she mentioned it was a trip with her dad. She was only gone a couple days.”

  “She went on another trip with her dad,” Mariella said. “It was winter sometime, and it was only for a couple days, like over the weekend. I only found out about it because she was having car problems and she needed a ride to the airport.”

  Joslyn hadn’t known anything about Fiona taking trips with Martin, but then again, he was her father and he had the money to be able to take her on a vacation anytime he wanted.

  “So with four of you in the house,” Clay said, “would you notice if she were gone a couple days at a time? Could she have taken more than just those two trips?”

  “Yeah, she could have,” Anna said. “Our schedules were completely different. Sometimes we’d go for days without seeing each other.”

  Joslyn felt they’d discovered something important. What were these trips Fiona had taken with Martin? Had she gone on more than one of them? Where had she gone—and why?

  “What was she wearing when she left on those trips?” she asked Anna and Mariella,

  “A summer dress,” Mariella said.

  Anna said, “Jeans and a jacket.”

  “She could have been wearing those things because of the weather here, or it could be because of the weather where she was going,” Joslyn said thoughtfully. “It’s hard to know.”

  “Martin’s the key,” Clay said. “When those two thugs mentioned Martin, they obviously didn’t know him. I’m guessing they’re not working for him. Maybe the reason she’s gone has to do with these trips Martin took with her. So he might be protecting her after all.”