When Night Falls (3 page)

She certainly had. Sometimes, it was still hard to believe her father was gone. She’d thought him too tough even for cancer.

Armstrong’s smile turned brittle. “Emmie thought I hung the moon.”

“For her, I’m sure you did.”

He stared at the tattered animal
in
his big hands. “I just wish she never had to learn the truth.”

Jess moved closer. “And what truth is that?”

He looked up from the stuffed donkey. His expression was remote. “That I’m a man, not the hero she once believed me to be. That I’ve made mistakes. That I have regrets.”

The admission stopped Jess cold. With painful intimacy, she knew the land mines growing up the daughter of a prominent father introduced to a young girl’s life. “You’ve done a good job keeping her out of the spotlight,” she commented. Despite Armstrong’s notoriety, she’d rarely heard mention of the child.

“She’s an innocent. I don’t want her to suffer because of my mistakes.”

“You think that’s why she’s missing? Because of your mistakes?”

What little light there’d been in his gaze vanished. He clenched his eyes shut for a heartbeat, then turned to gently place the donkey on a pillow. It was almost as though he was tucking the stuffed animal in bed. Then he stood and looked down at Jess, long and hard.

“My daughter didn’t run away.”

“I didn’t say she did.”

“Not with words.”

She stepped back from the bed, realizing she’d let herself get too close. “The investigation is wide-open right now, Mr. Armstrong.”

“It’s Liam.”

“I prefer to keep—”

He stepped closer. “Don’t lecture me about protocol, Jessica.”

She tilted her head to avoid staring at the chest hair curling in the open V of his black dress shirt. He did it on purpose, she knew. Stood within her personal space.

The man was a master at leveraging his advantages. But she knew how to play the game. She knew how to handle men like Armstrong, like her father, powerful, driven men with no time for anyone or anything but their agenda.

And again, she felt an odd kinship with a seventeen-year-old girl she’d never met.

“We both know you were sent here to appease me,” Armstrong said silkily. “Fine. I’ll overlook who your father was, what your motives are, so long as you find my daughter.”

Jess slid her hands into the pockets of her suit jacket. They’d become oddly damp. “What does that have to do with using your first name?” she asked coolly. “We’re working on a case together, not having tea.”

“I want you on my side, but it’s hard to believe you’re there if you keep calling me Mr. Armstrong. Only the IRS uses that.”

The urge to laugh didn’t sit well. “I see.”

The blue of his eyes hardened into cobalt. “If you were sent here to appease me, Detective Jessica Clark, do it. Call me Liam.”

Her heart strummed harder, sending heat to every nerve ending. Standing in teenage Emily’s room, that was exactly how Jess felt. Years of training and experience melted away, leaving her feeling like a freshman alone with the school bad boy, worried her parents would come charging in, hoping they wouldn’t.

And she hated it. She’d hated it sixteen years before, hated it even more now.

“Liam.” She didn’t know why, but she stuck out her hand.

He took it in his, curling his long fingers around hers. His grip was warm and strong, not crushing like so many others she’d encountered. “Find my daughter, Jessica. Don’t make me sorry I trusted you.”

The words sent an unwanted jolt through her. So did the feel of his palm pressed to hers, the heat of his fingers encasing her flesh and bone. “That’s my job.”

And she intended to do it, no matter what this man did to her in the process.

Because of Emily, she reasoned. The missing girl who reminded Jessica entirely too much of herself.

* * *

Liam watched the enigmatic detective head down the dimly lit walkway. After the way she’d outlined her strategy, he wanted to believe she was eager to get started finding Emily, but he suspected her brisk departure had to do with the father, not the daughter.

He couldn’t say he blamed her. He’d pushed hard, determined to discover if her mettle was as strong as she conveyed. He needed to know who he was dealing with.

An odd tightening in his gut warned him the lady detective possessed all the traits her gutsy demeanor promised. Intelligence and confidence, conviction. She didn’t back down when most people did. She stepped forward when most people ran.

Her ill-tempered partner strutted to his car, while she slid into hers, the streetlight giving Liam one last glimpse of those stunningly long legs. The engine roared to life, headlights cut through the darkness, and just like that, Wallace Clark’s daughter vanished into the bitter early morning.

“What do you think?” Liam asked the sad-eyed Labrador retriever sitting obediently by his side. He rested his hand on her head. “Will Wally’s daughter come through for us? Or will she be like all the others?”

Molly gazed at him. Not even she had escaped Emily’s fashion fetish. The black dog wore a light brown bandanna with orange and red maple leaves embroidered on it. Emmie had selected the fall-themed scarf from her collection just a few nights before.

The sight of it tied around Molly’s neck, the memory of his daughter securing the cloth there, sliced at Liam like a knife to the heart. Needing to do something, anything to help find his daughter, Liam crossed to his desk and grabbed the phone.

“I’m all over it,” Vega St. Clair said moments later. The private investigator was one of the most renowned in the southwest. “We’ll find the son of a bitch who took your daughter. We’ll get her back.”

The first few rays of optimism pushed through Liam. “There’s one more thing, someone else I need you to look into.”

“Shoot.”

“Detective Jessica Clark. Daughter of former chief Wallace Clark.” Liam picked up a picture of Emily and Molly, remembering how the detective had studied it just a few minutes before. There’d been something curious in her heavy-lidded, intelligent eyes, a sliver of sorrow, a shadow of regret. A flash of familiarity.

She was the key. Any hope of the cops finding his daughter rested squarely on Detective Jessica Clark’s shoulders.

“I want to know how she did in the academy, how fast she made detective, what her track record is. I want to know what makes her tick, what makes her hurt.”

St. Clair laughed. “Looking for a little insurance?”

Liam appreciated minds that worked as fast, as strategically, as his. “A puzzle can’t be put together until all the pieces are identified.”

And if he wasn’t careful, the beauty with the badge could easily shift from being a piece of the solution to the heart of the problem.

Chapter 3

«
^
»

”
T
hat man belongs behind bars,” Carson Manning barked. “Isn’t it obvious he’s a menace to society?”

Jess put down the heavy-duty coffee she’d picked up on the way to the station. Operating on less than an hour’s sleep, she held her frustration with Emily’s grandfather in check. She’d known the quick-tempered man all her life, still remembered those brisk fall weekends when he and her father had taken off in search of deer. She’d hated it then, hated the memory now.

The former state congressman had been waiting when she arrived ten minutes earlier. They sat in one of the small interviewing rooms while she attempted to keep him calm enough to take his statement. “Mr. Manning—”

“I warned Judge Donovan that man had no business raising a daughter. I told your father something like this would happen.”

She frowned. Loss and death changed people, she knew. Twisted them. Turned them inside out. Carson Manning hadn’t been an easy man to begin with. “Something like what?”

The older man surged out of the small wooden chair like an oil well gushing out of control. “I tried to get custody of Emily. After what that bastard did to my Heather—”

“He was never charged with a crime,” Jess reminded, standing. There hadn’t even been a body, just a mountain of circumstantial evidence—brand-new clothes still in the closet, suitcases under the bed, a hair appointment for the following day, never kept. Money in the bank, never withdrawn. Credit cards never used again. A history of loud arguments.

A baby left alone, hungry and crying.

“That doesn’t mean he isn’t keeping secrets, Jessie, only that he’s smarter than the cops are.”

Smarter than a lot of people, Jess knew, based on the money he’d made writing and selling code for Internet companies. He’d amassed a fortune seemingly overnight, much to the chagrin of her father and Carson Manning.

“Heather was a happy, loving girl,” he went on. “A bit of a free spirit, but with a good heart. We always thought she’d marry the boy next door. Heather went to college and forgot all about poor Kale the second she met Armstrong. He used her. Knocked her up. Then got rid of her.”

Jess found herself glad Kirby had yet to arrive—the last thing her father’s protégé needed was more ammunition for his intense suspicion of William Armstrong. She already worried about his ability to investigate the case objectively.

Of course, that could be said for half the force.

“I’m sorry about your daughter, sir, but there’s nothing to suggest William Armstrong was involved in his own daughter’s disappearance. He wasn’t even in town at the time.”

“A man with his money doesn’t have to be in town.”

Jess reached for her coffee, trying
to
reconcile the man Manning described with the father she’d seen clutching a tattered stuffed donkey in his big hands. What must it be like, she wondered, to live with so much hatred directed at you?

“By all accounts Armstrong dotes on his daughter. Why would he want her gone?”

“Who knows what goes on in that man’s mind? Maybe she was cramping his style. Maybe he just got fed up with her, the fact she wasn’t daddy’s little girl anymore. Now that she’s older, she doesn’t always do what her father wants.”

“So you think he got rid of her?” Jess asked incredulously. She’d encountered equally heinous crimes, but Carson Manning’s allegations sickened her in a way she didn’t understand.

His eyes took on a fevered glow. “It’s called a pattern. Jessie. A pattern your father would have seen. If you can’t see it, I’ll find someone who will.”

* * *

Liam slammed his fist against hard leather. The punching bag swooshed back, swung forward for another jab. He pounded the abused surface, sending the hundred-pound mass of high-impact foam swaying violently. Right then left, right then left. Over and over, harder each time.

The exertion sent jolts of satisfaction spearing through him.

Sweat poured down his face, ran down his chest. He blinked it from his eyes but kept right on punching. The impact cleared his focus, reinforcing the fact he was awake and not living in some nightmare.

Damn, but he wished that seeing his daughter’s smile again was as simple as waking up.

On a low oath he stepped back and kicked up his right leg, the bottom of his foot slamming into the heavy bag. His trainer would curse him for not bothering with shoes, but Liam wasn’t seeking comfort. He needed to take the edge off before he trusted himself around others.

Heaving in another breath, he kept fighting.

Liam was a man accustomed to making things happen. If an obstacle blocked his path, he moved it. Sometimes negotiation worked. On those rare occasions when it didn’t, he employed more severe tactics. Whatever it took to produce the desired outcome.

“Damn it,” he said, then landed another vicious blow to the innocent punching bag. Rather than leather, he envisioned the person responsible for taking his daughter.

“Oh, Liam, honey, don’t hurt yourself.”

The feathery voice took him by surprise. He stepped back from the swinging bag and turned to find Marlena Dane posed in the training-room doorway. As always, she was dressed to the nines, her bottle-blond hair and bright blue suit a stark contrast to his mood. His housekeeper must have let her in.

“What are you doing here?”

Her smile was tentative. “How can you even ask me that?”

“Easily.” He grabbed a white towel and scrubbed it over his face. Other than Emily, the only person he cared to see was the enigmatic detective who’d promised to find his daughter. Certainly not his former lover.

The click of stiletto heels against ceramic tile warned of her approach. He slung back the towel and draped it around his shoulders. “This isn’t a good time, Marlena.”

“There never is with you, William. When are you going to admit you’re not indestructible and let someone help?”

“Unless you know where to find Emmie, there’s nothing you can do.”

Marlena made a breathy clucking noise and stopped mere inches from him. “I suppose that’s why you’re down here punishing yourself? Look
at
you.” She surveyed the length of his body, from his bare chest where sweat still glistened to his shorts, then his feet. “If ever there was a man who needed someone, Liam, it’s you.” She moved in for the kill. “Why don’t you—”

“Stop.”

“You don’t have to be alone,” she said, resting a hand on his forearm. “I’d like to be there for you.”

He knew what kind of comfort Marlena had in mind, what she
always
had in mind. And it sickened him. “This isn’t about me,” he said flatly.

Something hot and hurt flashed in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Liam. I’m sorry this had to happen.”

The memory of coming home to find the house dark and quiet erupted. “It didn’t
have
to happen, damn it. Someone took my daughter, and I wasn’t here to stop them.”

“William, you have a company to run. You can’t be with her every second.”

“She’s my daughter. She comes first.”

“But she’s also a big girl. You know how independent she is. You can’t keep her locked away from the rest of the world.”

The rage he’d been trying to control bucked up against threadbare confines. “She didn’t run away, damn it.”

“Of course, she didn’t,” Marlena backpedaled. “I was just saying you shouldn’t feel guilty for leaving her alone. This isn’t your fault. You had no way of knowing she needed you.”

The passive-aggressive jab scored a direct hit. “Marlena, I told you now wasn’t a good time. Don’t make me say it again.”

“You just won’t admit it, will you?” she whispered, lifting a hand to his face. “Won’t admit you’re human, that you need other people.”

“How I live is my business.” Even if many didn’t call it living at all. A beautiful woman stood inches from his body, her hand stroked his cheek, her soft green eyes made promises most men would find irresistible.

He felt nothing.

“Liam, let me—”

“Don’t you get it, Marlena? You can’t. No one can.” Because inside, in that place where promises lived and the future seduced, he felt nothing.

She stepped closer, angling her mouth toward his.

“Excuse me.”

The urgent words echoed through the quiet room. Liam swung around to find Detective Jessica Clark standing just inside the door. Like the night before she wore a pantsuit, this one tailored. The light beige fabric showed off her curves in way too much detail, emphasized the length of her long legs. Her thick auburn hair was pulled into a twist, a few stray squiggles drawing Liam’s attention to her face.

The expression he found there kicked his heart into overdrive. Her mouth was hard and grim, her whiskey eyes flat. “My, God.” He could barely breathe. “Emily—”

Liam released Marlena and all but ran to Jessica. “Have you found her? Is she all right?”

“I’m sorry—”

He reached for her. “What? What is it?”

She stepped back, raising a hand as if to ward off an attack. “I don’t have news on your daughter. That’s not why I’m here.”

Adrenaline swirled away like rainwater down a storm drain. An intense relief that the detective wasn’t here to deliver devastating news battled with the knowledge Emily was still out there. That she could be hurt.

He pushed the thought aside, refused to go down that path.

How long had statuesque Detective Jessica Clark been standing silently in the doorway? Why hadn’t she announced herself?

The answers took on a disproportionate importance. Over the years he’d learned to launch his own attack before someone could beat him to the punch. He’d learned to answer queries with cutting questions of his own. He’d learned success came from going for the jugular.

“What are you doing here?” he asked. “Shouldn’t you be out looking for Emily?”

Jess resisted the urge to narrow her eyes. First Carson Manning, now William Armstrong. She didn’t need either man telling her how to do her job.

“Well, that answers that question,” she said, scanning the well-appointed weight room. The housekeeper had yielded to Jess’s badge, but she hadn’t given any indication that Liam wasn’t alone. Just what had she walked in on? she wondered. A lover’s quarrel?

“What question?” Liam asked.

She offered a cool smile, not about to yield
to
his domineering tactics. “After last night, I was curious to see if you’d be more cordial without the cover of darkness to hide behind.” With her father’s trademark shrug, she added, “Guess not.”

His eyes went a little wild. “My daughter is missing, and you’re worried about manners?”

Before Jess could respond to the dangerously soft question, Liam snatched her hand and drew it to his mouth, keeping his gaze on hers as he brushed his lips across her knuckles. “Is this better, detective?”

Shock streaked through her. She noticed how fine-boned her pale hand looked engulfed in his, the hard line of his mouth, then the challenge in his cobalt eyes. The anger. The pain.

The breath whooshed right out of her. “Mr. Armstrong—”

“For God’s sake,” the woman in the peacock-blue suit interrupted. She slipped between them and grabbed Armstrong’s wrist. “Pushing me away, I can understand, but the cops? Do you want Emmie back, or not?”

Armstrong went very still. The change came over him like a wild animal shot with a stun gun. One moment he was alive and fighting, in the next he completely shut down.

Fascinated, Jess pulled her hand from his. “Maybe we should start over,” she suggested. She realized Armstrong had no reason to trust her, especially after her flippant comment about manners. “I’m not here to antagonize you.”

For a moment, he said nothing. Did nothing. Then slowly his eyes met hers, and Jess sucked in a sharp breath. She’d never seen so much turmoil in a man’s gaze, not even in the eyes of the newlywed husband whose wife was found strangled near the airport.

“I’m sorry.” He shocked her by saying it. He imparted a charged stare at the woman in the blue suit, then looked at Jess. “You’ll understand if I’m a little leery of your type. You know what they say about wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

Yes, she did. Entirely too well. Instinctively, she glanced at her tailored suit and said a silent thanks she wasn’t wearing wool. Then she glanced at Armstrong, who was hardly wearing more than a sheen of perspiration.

Her pulse did an unwanted little stutter step as she took in yet another dimension of this complicated man. The man her father believed guilty of murder. The man whose hard body she’d run her hands over last night. His broad shoulders, narrow waist and long powerful legs were the stuff of the classic male physique. Jess saw plenty of those around the station. But his chest… My God, she thought. Broad and well-muscled, it sported a thick spattering of dark hair tapering down to his ratty gray gym shorts.

Her mouth went as dry as West Texas.

“Detective Long is checking airports and bus stations,” she said matter-of-factly, trying to focus on the case, not on the barely dressed man. But again she wondered about the woman watching them with speculative eyes. “I spoke with Carson Manning this morning and—”