Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
Peter walked into the mansion, every fiber on edge.
He pulled in a deep breath, detecting lavender, furniture polish and the faint ghost of expensive cologne.
He crossed a foyer larger than his living room, scanning the opulence around him, looking for anything out of place, anything that may give a clue to what he wanted to know.
Nothing however, told him Reggie had been there.
“Detective Thomas?”
A tiny woman appeared through a massive, white marble archway to his left, her petite, grey-suited frame positively dwarfed by the excess around her.
She crossed the floor between the arch and Peter in long, confident strides, the sound of her sensible heels a drum tattoo in the silent house.
She drew closer, and Peter made out a smattering of freckles across a pixie-like nose under light brown eyes completely free of make-up.
Beside him, Yolanda gave a most inaudible snort.
“Dressed by Wal-Mart,” he heard his partner snarl under her breath, German accent thicker than normal.
Peter glared at her and she curled her lip at him.
“Detective Thomas?”
He turned back to the tiny woman and for the first time noticed the Glock in its holster beside her left breast.
You’re slipping. Vischka’s more under your skin that you realise.
“Yeah, I’m Thomas.” He held out his hand. “You’re Huddart?”
Detective Huddart nodded, shaking his hand. “Please, call me Jackie.”
Behind him, he heard Yolanda growl. Low and soft.
Jackie Huddart raised her eyebrows, studying his partner with obvious indifference before seemingly dismissing her altogether. “Did you know your sister was missing, Detective?”
Peter’s chest grew tight. Yes he did. And what had he’d been doing? Fantasizing about a femme fatale like a bad Hollywood gumshoe.
Huddart nodded her head again, obviously not needing an answer. “She’s left you a message upstairs.” Without pausing to see if he followed, she turned and climbed the large staircase dominating the foyer, tiny frame moving up each step with fluid, compact grace.
A hand fell on Peter’s shoulder, followed by Yolanda’s warm breath on his ear. Unreadable blue eyes held his. “Well?”
The contact got his feet moving. In what seemed like three giant steps he stood beside Huddart in a luxurious bathroom twice the size of his own bedroom, towering over her and staring at a message written in some sort of black marker on the wall-to-wall mirror over the sunken bathtub.
He swallowed, throat tight and mouth dry.
Det. 45217
Heading Nth
Not hurt
Rex?
Peter read the message again.
“Do you know who Rex is?”
Peter traced the hastily written words on the mirror, recognizing Reggie’s relaxed penmanship. “My sister’s pet lizard,” he answered Huddart. “If anyone called my Area Command and mentioned Rex, Command would know immediately Reggie was somehow involved.”
“Ahh, that explains how Sydney City Dispatch knew the message was from your sister then.” Huddart nodded. “The question mark threw us. We thought it may have been code for something.”
He gave her a quick glance. “Do you know when it was written?”
The petite detective shook her head. “The neighbors across the road contacted us fifty minutes ago. They saw the owner’s XKR Jaguar exit the garage, driven by a male, between the ages of 35 and 40, black hair, Caucasian.
They were a little bit suspicious because the owner is bald, in his sixties and apparently in New York. ”
The click of six-inch heels on tile announced Yolanda’s arrival. As did the musky scent of her perfume invading Peter’s breath. He turned to her, body wanting to respond to her enigmatic presence. He controlled it. But with far greater effort than it should have required.
A cool, blue unreadable gaze flicked over him before she focused her attention on the mirror. “Kohl?” she asked, although it sounded more like a statement.
Huddart nodded. “Looks that way.”
Peter read the message again. Not hurt.
What did Not hurt mean? Reggie was okay?
A willing part of the whole thing? Was he missing something?
And what did the mention of her lizard mean?
Was she trying to tell him something, or just thinking about everyone else—including the bloody reptile—before herself again? “Do we have a track on the Jag yet?”
“Not yet. Area Command is still trying to contact the owner. He’s proving a little tricky to track down.
The car has a GPS based security system but we need the access PIN.
” A shadow of sorrow crossed Huddart’s otherwise detached expression.
“It shouldn’t be long.” She paused. “Do you know who has your sister?”
Peter’s chest clamped tight. The Irishman? McCoy? He shook his head. “No.”
He turned to see Yolanda’s reaction to his answer.
And found the doorway behind him empty.
“Do you know why someone would abduct her?”
Huddart’s question snapped his attention away from his partner’s unexpected absence. “She’s trodden on some powerful people’s toes.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, stare fixed on Reggie’s message.
Not hurt.
Heading Nth.
“Such as?”
Peter huffed out a sigh. “Anyone who conducts animal testing knows who my sister is. She’s had more than one cosmetic company CEO in—”
Huddart’s cell phone burst into life and, pulling it from her jacket, she held up a pointed finger to Peter: “One moment.”
Chest heavy, nerves strung, he left the petite detective to her call and exited the bathroom, heading back toward the stairs.
Reggie had trodden on some powerful people’s toes.
When it came to animals, she didn’t hold her tongue.
She’d had more than one so-called professional animal breeder stripped of their license, had more than one animal shelter employee sacked for cruelty and that was in her day job.
What she did in the wee hours of the mornings, in the dark, cold rooms of the city’s science labs and cosmetic factories had caused many a powerful businessman or politician to scream for her arrest. Or blood.
They had no proof it was her releasing their test subjects, but they had their suspicions, fed in part by Reggie’s extremely verbose opposition to their actions.
The list of people whom she’d annoyed was long and illustrious, but abduct her?
Storming along the corridor, he dragged his fingers through his hair.
McCoy.
O’Connell.
The two names echoed in his head. Did one of them have her?
Did both? He clenched his fists. The Forensic boys had phoned through the urine results as he drove to the mansion, reporting the samples as indeterminate, possibly animal.
Which meant sweet fuck-all in helping him find Reggie.
Locating the Jag was paramount. As soon as the McMahon Highway Patrol located the Jag he’d—
“I do not care.” Yolanda’s low growl from the bottom of the staircase cut the thought dead and he frowned at her tense back. “Just do your fucking job,” she continued into the shiny black cell phone rammed to her ear, “Or I will rip your fucking balls off.”
“Who was that?”
His partner started, snapping the cell shut and shoving it into her hip pocket. She spun about, staring up at him. “My landscape gardener.” Without giving him any time to respond, she crossed the foyer in long strides, disappearing through the archway.
Gritting his teeth, Peter descended the stairs and followed her into an expansive, sparsely furnished room, the urge to strangle her almost as powerful as the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless.
“He fucked her here.”
Yolanda’s blunt statement froze his blood and he stared at her. “Who?”
“The man who has your sister.” She pointed to the cushion-covered chaise she stood beside. “He fucked her here.”
Peter studied the piece of furniture, noting numerous, tiny slashes in the tumbled cushions, frenzied gashes in the material that looked made by a small, wildly-wielded blade. Cold fury roared through him and an image of Reggie struggling to be free exploded into his head. “How do you know?”
“Can’t you smell it?”
He pulled a deep breath, but all he detected on the air was Yolanda.
“Their sex stinks the place. His sweat…” She leant forward, plucking something almost invisible from one of the torn cushions. Holding it up, she studied him over her pinched fingers, eyebrows raised. “Your sister’s?”
He focused on what she held, a single strand of long, chocolate-brown hair. At some stage, Reggie’s head had been pressed to the chaise.
Why?
Rape?
His gut twisted at the word. His heartbeat tripled.
Yolanda watched him, the closed expression she sometimes wore back on her face. “We will find her, Peter.” She placed her free hand on his shoulder, stepped forward so her thighs brushed his. A soft, almost sad smile curved her lips. “Trust me.”
Peter looked at her. Felt the warmth of her hand radiate through the icy rage consuming him.
Indeterminate.
Trust me.
Not hurt.
Do your job.
Fuck. What the hell was going on?
“Detective Thomas?”
Jackie Huddart’s voice sounded above him and he blinked, turning from Yolanda’s hypnotic blue gaze. “Yes?”
Huddart looked down at him from the top stair, conspicuously ignoring Yolanda’s less than professional contact. “Command has located the stolen Jag, Detective. A unit’s on its way.”
Something scratchy pricked at Declan’s neck.
He opened his eyes—slowly—staring up into the dim shadows of a barn roof.
Dusty cobwebs laced the beams, crisscrossed the framework in such plenitude the scattered gardening equipment hanging from the rafters almost seemed choked by the silken threads. He frowned. Where was he?
He moved slightly, waiting for an onslaught of agony in his side. Nothing. Just the scratchy prickling on the back of his neck and a strange, not entirely unpleasant numbness in his limbs. He rolled his head to the side. Hay. Lots of hay.
Why didn’t you smell it, Dec?