When Night Falls (2 page)

Surprisingly, he obeyed.

Jess tucked the .38 in her waistband. Her heart rate revved up another notch. She drew a deep breath, the cold air stinging her lungs, then pressed on tiptoes and lifted her gloved hands to the soft, well-worn sleeves of his leather jacket.

He stiffened at her touch, as though she were the lighting bolt, not him.

The reaction surprised her, but she ignored it, patting from his wide shoulders down the length of his arms, then along his sides to where the jacket ended and his slacks began. Before going any lower, she shifted her hands and ran one up the length of his back, the other along his stomach and chest.

As she suspected, she found nothing but hard muscle and angry male.

Jess frowned. The harsh north wind battered her, but inside her leather coat, she felt as toasty as though she’d just stepped onto the equator. The night air seemed to thicken, and she grimly realized she’d chased armed and dangerous suspects down darkened alleys without feeling this winded.

Biting back an oath, she put her palms to Armstrong’s hips and worked her way down the soft fabric of his slacks. His legs were long and thick, obviously the product of rigorous conditioning.

The thought jarred her. She’d patted down more suspects than she could remember. It was routine, part of the job. Male, female, young, old, it didn’t matter. Never had the bodies she touched caused her pulse to surge. Never had her palms started to sweat. Never had she thought about the body beneath the clothes. What all that hard muscle would look like—

“What the hell is going on here?” A startled male voice came from somewhere behind her.

Armstrong jerked beneath Jess’s touch and pivoted toward her partner, leaving Jess on one knee, awkwardly facing his groin. She abruptly stood and turned toward a scowling Detective Kirby Long.

“Armstrong hassling you?” he asked.

“It’s a long story,” Jess answered. “I thought you were right behind me.”

Kirby frowned. “Caught the lights wrong.”

It was just as well. Had he been on the scene, Armstrong would be sporting cuffs right now. Her hard-line partner would have gladly let the man smash the window and commit a crime.

“This is the boyfriend’s house,” she told Kirby. “Armstrong thought she might be here.”

He nodded. “Wouldn’t be the first time a girl chose the thrill of a lover boy over Daddy’s curfew—”

“I’ll flush up with Armstrong.” She cut him off. “You go check around back, see if you can tell if anyone’s home.”

Kirby’s eyes took on a cautious glow. “You sure you don’t want me to flush up with Armstrong?”

She knew what he was really asking. Was she okay? Did she feel threatened? Had Armstrong finally crossed the line?

After three years of partnership, Kirby still acted like she was a delicate flower someone could step on.

“I’ve got it covered,” she told him.

He hesitated before heading around the house, glancing at Jess one last time before turning the corner.

“Why didn’t you tell him?”

She swung around to find Armstrong watching her with eyes as hard and dark as cobalt marble. “Tell him what?”

“How you found me. What you and I both know to be true, that if you hadn’t been here, I would have smashed that window and been inside? Something tells me he would have watched and waited, then pounced.”

“Half the force would have.” The lingering resentment ran that deep.

“Then why didn’t you? And why not tell your partner?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.”

An unsettling current ran through her. The whisper-fine blade of compassion made as much sense as taking a water gun to a three-alarm fire.

“Maybe I was protecting you,” she said, more for shock value than anything else. “Maybe I know my partner. Or maybe I’d like to put this incident behind us and get on with discussing your daughter. Believe what you like.”

The words hung between them. She thought he would make some sarcastic retort, but he didn’t. He watched her a moment, then looked toward the grimy window.

Jess welcomed a blast of brisk wind against her face. After an unbearably long, hot, dry summer, winter had hit Dallas with a vengeance. Extremes, Jess thought. The very definition of William Armstrong. Poverty and fortune, disgrace and celebrity. Famine. Feast.

“There’s no sign of anyone inside,” Kirby said several minutes later. “No car, either.”

Armstrong strode to another window and peered inside. “He could be hiding her in there.”

“He could be,” Kirby acknowledged, “but I don’t think he is. Neighbor says Braxton left shortly before ten. Said the guy is in a band and they had a gig or something.”

“We’ll send a black-and-white,” Jess added. “When Braxton arrives, they’ll let us know and we can talk
to
him.” She knew her answer wouldn’t please Armstrong, but at this point nothing indicated the need for a search warrant. Everything they knew so far suggested his daughter had left home of her own free will.

“I’d like to head back to your house now,” she said, “ask a few more questions, look around.”

He nodded. “You think she’ll be there?”

It wouldn’t surprise Jess. Teenagers were notorious for putting their parents through the wringer, sometimes intentionally, sometimes without even realizing they were doing it. “We can hope.” She gestured toward the street. “Come on.”

Kirby waited until Armstrong was several steps in front of them before lowering his voice. “I’ll ride with him.”

“Your car is here,” she replied.

Her partner glanced toward the street, where William Armstrong slid a key into his car door. “The man got away with murder once, Jess. I’m not letting him get away from me, too.”

The wind whipped up, cutting through the leather of her long coat. “Where would he go?” she asked, fighting a shiver. “His daughter is missing.” Despite Armstrong’s shady past, she’d seen real worry in his eyes. They had to treat this case separately and objectively. “I’ll lead the way, Armstrong can follow me, and you can follow him.”

Kirby caught up with her. “What’s the matter? Don’t trust me alone with moneybags?”

Not for a heartbeat. Kirby hadn’t been on the force seventeen years before, but Armstrong’s brush with the law was the stuff legends were made of.
Bad
legends. “McKnight sent us for a reason. Police brutality wasn’t it.”

Surprisingly, Kirby let her comment go. Several minutes later, their little caravan left the run-down Dallas neighborhood and headed north, toward the exclusive subdivision Armstrong called home. If his daughter wasn’t there, the next few days promised to be a minefield of trouble.

Seventeen years was long enough for the shadow of a high-publicity investigation to fade, but not vanish altogether. A young mother’s mysterious disappearance. No trail left behind, no trace ever found. Armstrong claimed his girlfriend ran
off,
but her father, a state congressman and hunting buddy of the lead detective, cried foul. The police had investigated, but with no body, not even a mountain of circumstantial evidence could prove he’d committed a crime.

Jess merged her car with traffic and floored the accelerator. The air coming out of the heater finally warmed, but the chill deep inside her remained.

After all this time, suspicion lingered. Nobody had forgotten the way the press had shredded the department over Heather Manning’s disappearance. They didn’t understand how a nineteen-year-old nobody could outsmart the entire police department. To this day, accusations of ineptitude and shoddy police work lingered.

Unless Armstrong could miraculously provide proof of his innocence, his name would forever be mentioned with those suspended in that hazy place between guilt and innocence. High-profile cases never completely dissipated.

Innocent until proven guilty sounded well and good, but most cops couldn’t let go that easily.

Lead detective turned chief of police, her father certainly hadn’t. He’d gone to his grave believing William Armstrong guilty of the perfect crime, one he’d walked away from scot-free.

* * *

The low rumble of a car engine snagged Liam’s attention. In a heartbeat he was at the window across his study and fixated on headlights cutting through the darkness. Emily—

The car drove right on by.

He exhaled a ragged breath. He wanted to believe his daughter would stroll through the door any minute, laughing, full of light and energy. He wanted her to smile and melt his heart, just like she always did. He wanted the chill in his blood to go away.

It didn’t. It couldn’t. Not even the blazing sun could warm frozen tundra.

“Mr. Armstrong, did you hear me?”

Liam pivoted toward the smoky voice and found Detective Jessica Clark watching him with those intelligent, inquisitive eyes of hers. She’d shed her gloves and coat, revealing the tailored silk pantsuit beneath. A strand of curly auburn hair against a well-defined cheekbone lent her a softness he knew better than to trust.

“I heard you,” he said.

“And?”

“And nothing. I’ve told you all I know. It’s after four in the morning. No one has seen my daughter since I left for Chicago yesterday morning at six. She didn’t show up at school. Her friends haven’t heard from her. But for some crazy reason, you don’t seem willing to believe she’s in trouble.”

“Mr. Armstrong, we need to consider all the possibilities. Teenagers turn up missing every day. Rarely is something sinister involved. Is there anywhere else your daughter might be?”

“Like with her mother?” Detective Long added from across the room.

Liam didn’t flinch, didn’t let himself react. “Emily wouldn’t know her mother if the woman walked up to her on the street.”

“Could that happen?” Long prodded. The man looked entirely too sure of himself, his dark hair neat and tidy, his sports coat and pressed slacks more suave than professional. The hard lines of his expression said he wasn’t here for fun and games. A hint of cruelty lurked in his eyes.

“Would it be a flesh-and-blood woman walking up to Emily, or a ghost?”

That was the heart of the matter, Liam knew, the disappearance of Emily’s mother. No one believed she’d left of her own volition, leaving nineteen-year-old Liam to raise an infant daughter. No one believed a spoiled coed would simply walk away, leaving all her clothes, her jewelry, her favorite albums, even her car, right where they belonged. Tests studied for, but not taken. Classes unfinished. A package still on order.

No one believed a mother would abandon her child.

Heather’s father, a blustery former state congressman, still preferred to hold Liam responsible. It was easier for Carson Manning to cry foul than to look in the mirror.

The higher Liam’s star had climbed, the deeper the resentment had grown. Carson had used his influence with the police department to keep the waters muddy—he had practically turned it into a sport. For seventeen years, the boys in blue had hassled Liam every chance they got. For going one mile over the speed limit. For a rolling stop
in
a residential area. For a burned-out taillight.

Now they had him just where they wanted him.

On his knees.

“I have no idea where Heather Manning is,” he told the closed-minded detective, not even trying to convince him.

The jackal narrowed his eyes. “That’s not what Chief Clark believed.”

Liam started to tell him where he could go but went very still instead. Vague familiarity sharpened into a nasty suspicion.
Clark.
The most determined, dangerous of all Liam’s persecutors. The man who let his friendship with Carson Manning blind him to anything Liam could say.

All the hope he’d momentarily heaved Detective Jessica Clark’s way, all the trust she’d skillfully built, shattered into shards of ice.

The realization hit Liam hard. Rarely did he miss something so obvious. Adrenaline shot through him. His heart pounded. He gazed into her fascinating amber eyes, but saw only the eyes of the man who’d done his best to nail Liam to the wall.

“Son of a bitch,” he growled. “You’re the daughter.”

Chapter 2

«
^
»

D
etective Jessica Clark smiled like a barracuda. “Pardon?”

“Wallace Clark. You’re his daughter.”

“You’re damn straight she is,” Detective Long answered.

She lifted her chin, an odd glitter in her eyes. “I take it you remember my father.”

Liam swore under his breath and reached for her hands. He took them in his, noting the coolness of her smooth flesh, and slid the sleeve from her wrist.

“You can’t touch her like that!” Long barked.

“What are you doing?” she demanded.

He offered a cutting smile. “Looking for those infamous kid gloves, of course.”

She snatched back her hands and glared at him. “Now who’s playing games?”

Liam wondered what her angle was, what game her father had taught her to play. He’d hoped Wallace Clark’s passing would usher in a new era. He’d hoped the past would be dead and buried right along with the bullheaded chief of police.

Now he realized the fallacy of that hope.

“I’ve heard about you,” he told the man’s daughter. “The department’s golden girl. Smooth as silk, tough as nails. Daddy’s little girl straight down to the core. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it, Detective Clark? To keep me in line, keep me quiet. To pacify the big bad wolf.”

She squared her shoulders, the defiant effect ruined by that strand of curvy auburn hair, now flirting with her lips.

“I’m here because your daughter is missing,” she said with perfect diction, “and you claim to want her back. If you can tear yourself out of the past, I’d like to see her room now.”

She turned and strode from the study.

Liam watched her go. Frustration burned through him. The commander hadn’t taken him seriously. Instead of sending over his best men, McKnight offered up a hothead and a debutante. Wallace Clark’s daughter. Another slap in the face. It was like ordering aged whiskey but receiving a cheap beer and a goblet of lush red wine instead. Whereas one left a bad taste in his mouth, the other was deceptively benign, leaving him dangerously thirsty.

Swearing under his breath, he left the study and took the stairs two at a time.

* * *

A sprawling loft opened before Jess. A game room, she quickly surmised, with an old-fashioned jukebox, a pinball machine, a battered pool table, even what looked to be antique sports pennants. The massive big-screen TV and cushy sofas represented the only hints of the twenty-first century.

Two long hallways ran off from the room. All the doors stood closed. Jess had no idea which room belonged to Emily Armstrong but had no intention of waiting for the father. He’d already given her permission to look around. She didn’t need him breathing down her neck.

Her job pertained to the daughter, the innocent, not the tall, isolated man with the hard eyes and angry words.

Looking for kid gloves, of course.
The taunt matched her step for step. She should be used to the reaction, the snickers behind her back, the insinuations that she was more of a figurehead than a real cop.

Still,
the jab burned. She’d made detective on her own merit. She wasn’t her father’s puppet, his clone, his anything. Just his daughter.

She stopped at the first door she came to. An odd jolt went through her, no doubt the result of endless hours of training about caution and closed doors. But she was in a posh residential home. Nothing sinister lurked on the other side.

“I don’t think you want to go in there.”

The overly confident masculine voice revved through her. She turned toward it, found William Armstrong towering behind her. His tailored gray slacks and black button-down shirt should have made him look civilized, but putting fleece on a wolf didn’t make the animal a sheep. The expensive clothes were wrinkled, as though being so close to Armstrong could exhaust even fabric.

He seemed taller up here where the ceilings weren’t so high. She hated the fact she had to look up to see his face, hated the odd vulnerability it sent stabbing through her. But even more, she hated the shadows lurking in his gaze. The pain. She didn’t want to see either, knew better than to notice the man behind the case, certainly not the bereaved father.

Facts and theories, clues—they were her stock-in-trade. Every cop knew emotional involvement equaled a surefire formula for disaster.

“What’s the matter?” she asked, tearing an insolent page from his book. “Got a skeleton
in
there you don’t want me to see?”

“No, just my big, unmade bed.”

She released the knob as though it was a hot coal, not cool glass. She didn’t want to see William Armstrong’s bed. Didn’t want
to
think about him in the context of rumpled sheets and carelessly tossed pillows. That made him too real.

Too much of a man.

“I need to see your daughter’s room.” While she checked out the interior, Kirby would look over the perimeter.

“Then follow me.” Armstrong turned and led her across the plush carpet and through the game room to the second hall.

Jess wanted to ascribe some cold motivation to the fact the father separated his room from the daughter but found she couldn’t.

He stopped beside the second door on the right. “Here you go.”

Another tingle of anticipation zipped through her, but she squelched it and entered the room, flicking on the overhead light. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but that didn’t stop her surprise upon seeing the teenage girl’s room. The freshness of it, she supposed. The innocence. William Armstrong commanded such a forbidding presence, she’d expected equal gloom from his child.

But the daughter’s room was like a breath of fresh air, an intriguing combination of little girl and young woman.

The subtle aroma of jasmine invited her in. All the typical accoutrements greeted her, the bed, the nightstand, the dressers, the stereo. But the abundance of color lent them a vividness Jess hadn’t expected.

A smile worked its way free, an instant liking for the teenage girl. Then a blade of worry cut in, reminding Jess why she was here, what she had to do.

“Seen enough?” Armstrong asked. “Ready to call it a night?”

“Is that what you want?” She turned to find him practically guarding the doorway, the hard lines of his face muted by whiskers. “That would be easier, wouldn’t it? You could hang the department out to dry like you so clearly want to. But your daughter would still be missing, wouldn’t she?”

His expression darkened. “Don’t talk to me about what I want.”

“Then don’t make idiotic assessments about how I do my job.” She turned to the heart of the surprisingly neat room before he could comment further. His fear was easy to see and one hundred percent human, but for some reason, the man chose combativeness over cooperation. Jess wanted to feel anger and resentment but instead found herself fighting an unwanted twinge of compassion.

What was it about strong men that made them isolate themselves from those in the best position to help?

Since the question had no answer, Jess focused on Emily’s room, noting the tray of perfume on the dresser, the cluster of picture frames. She moved in for a closer look, ignored the sharp impact of seeing Emily and her father in every single picture. The photos chronicled the girl’s childhood, from pigtails to party dresses. They featured Armstrong, as well, beaming a razor-sharp smile of love and pride.

The sight added to the growing number of surprises.

Jess hated surprises.

But William Armstrong ranked right up there with the worst of them. Meeting the man in the flesh was like opening a door and expecting to find a small dark closet but discovering a whole new world instead. A world of uncertainty and danger, but intrigue, as well.

She’d been so intent on Armstrong’s name, his identity, his past, she hadn’t thought about the father whose only child was missing. But she should have. She, Jessica Clark, daughter of former police chief Wallace Clark, should have.

Crows, after all, always came home to roost.

She remembered being an impressionable sixteen-year-old, listening to her father rant about Armstrong. She remembered hearing about the infant daughter. But now, seventeen years later, she had a hard time seeing this rugged-looking thirty-six-year-old man as the father of a teenage daughter. A child he clearly loved. If Jess ended up proving the girl had left of her own volition, Jess feared she’d break the man’s heart.

The thought gave her pause, surprised her even more. She had no business thinking about William Armstrong and broken hearts.

The violent man about to break into Adam Braxton’s house, that’s who she needed to remember, not the way he’d practically run across his study when a car engine rumbled somewhere down the street. She needed to forget the crazy little stutter step her pulse had done, the ravaged look in his dark blue eyes. And above all else, she needed to forget the feel of his rigid body beneath her steady hands.

“So is this how you like to spend your nights, Detective?”

She spun toward him, biting back a laugh. It was one of those rare frigid nights in Dallas that made a woman dream of snuggling against a lover’s warm body and feeling strong arms hold her tight. Instead, Jess faced a man many believed guilty of murder, and it was her job to determine if his little girl had been kidnapped or if she’d simply walked out on him.

Oh, yeah. This was
exactly
how she liked to spend her nights.

“Look, Mr. Armstrong. I know you’ve had trouble with law-enforcement officials over the years, but turning everything into a battle won’t bring your daughter home any faster. I’m not the enemy. I’m here to help. That’s my job.”

“You want me to believe Wallace Clark’s daughter takes the protect-and-serve oath seriously? To trust you with my daughter’s life? Your father wanted nothing more than to see me rot in jail.”

“I’m not my father,” she said, “and I don’t really care what you believe. I care about your daughter, the young girl who should be tucked in this bed right now. I care about getting her home safe and sound. You can be an obstacle in my path, or you can help me. The choice is all yours.”

A curious light glinted in his eyes. “Are you always so tough at four in the morning?”

“How I am when I’m usually in bed is really none of your business.” Enjoying the moment of shock on his face, she crossed to the adjacent bathroom.

A quick survey revealed no makeup, no hairbrush or dryer, no curling iron. Jess frowned. While kidnappers weren’t renowned for taking time to pack, young girls didn’t often leave home without their styling accessories.

In the bedroom, Jess made a similar discovery at Emily’s dresser. Most of the drawers were empty.

She turned toward Armstrong. “From the looks of this room, your daughter could be on fall break.” Or somewhere on the streets, intending to never see her father again. “Her clothes are gone, her makeup, everything a teenager needs for a trip.”

He glanced toward the center of the room. “The bed is made.”

Jess followed his gaze and found the comforter sporting an underwater ocean scene pulled tightly over the mattress. “Is that unusual?”

“She never makes it unless I’m standing here in a staring contest. The fact she did so now has to mean she was trying to tell me something. She wanted me to know something wasn’t right.”

The theory sounded far-fetched, but Jess made a habit of discarding nothing. “Maybe she made the bed as a last favor to you.”

Armstrong winced. “You really are your father’s daughter, aren’t you?”

“Pardon?”

“You go for the low blow, just like he did. Must run in the blood.”

An unprecedented splinter of guilt cut through her. Cruelty wasn’t her style. “Just considering all possibilities.”

In Emily’s closet, the pattern continued. Pink hangers dangled without clothes. No shoes lay scattered about. She turned toward the doorway, but Armstrong no longer stood there. Instead he sat on his daughter’s bed, staring at a tattered stuffed donkey in his big hands.

The sight hit Jess like a swift punch to the stomach. Seeing this darkly dangerous man in this fresh-and-innocent room, the way he clutched the battered, patchwork donkey, spoke to her on a level she didn’t understand. Didn’t like.

Sure as hell didn’t trust.

Too easily, the woman in her responded to the man’s anguish. She had the crazy desire to join him on the bed and put her arm around his wide shoulders, to assure him everything would be okay.

But the cop in her held her rooted in place. The notorious William Armstrong didn’t need comfort from her. And she had none to give.

“I won this for Emmie
at
the state fair when she was six,” he said. “I can still picture the excitement in her eyes.”

Jess smiled faintly. “I bet she was an adorable little girl.”

“From the day she was born, she’s been the light of my life.”

The pain in his voice, his eyes, nicked at the shield of indifference that kept Jess strong. “The father-daughter relationship is special,” she found herself saying. “Most little girls grow up thinking their father can conquer the world.”