Trapped (Private Justice Book #2): A Novel Read online

  Star was invited too? That put a better spin on things. Safety in numbers and all that. And it would be so much better than this place.

  Torn, Darcy chewed on her lower lip. Maybe Mark was simply being a good Samaritan. He volunteered in a homeless shelter, after all. You had to be a kind, decent person to do that, didn’t you? Plus, he was offering a home-cooked meal and a private room with a shower.

  Her resolve to say no wavered.

  Apparently sensing her indecision, Mark pulled out a card, jotted a phone number on the back, and handed it to her. “I’ll tell you what. Take this and give me a call later if you decide to accept. I’m sure someone will loan you a cell phone. I have a four-wheel drive, and I don’t mind picking you both up. That’s my work card, so you can see I’m gainfully employed. And FYI, I had to have a background check to work both here”—he gestured around the shelter—“and here.” He tapped the card.

  Darcy read the rectangular piece of cardboard. Mark was the supervisor at the daycare facility where he worked, and there were initials after his name. She had no idea what CCP or NAC stood for, but acronyms like that meant he had some smarts. Her dad had been proud of the CPA on his business card. He’d always said those kinds of credentials added a certain prestige and legitimacy.

  Tempted but wary, she tucked the card in her coat. “I’ll think about it, okay?”

  “Sure.”

  “Mark! Can you give me a hand with this table?”

  With a wave, he acknowledged the older man who’d summoned him. “I’ll be there in a sec.” Then he turned back to her. “I’m not working here tonight, so if you decide to pass on my offer, I wish you luck.” He stuck his hand out.

  Darcy took it, searching his eyes. She saw nothing but sincerity in their depths. “Thanks. And thanks for talking to me these past two nights.”

  “I’m glad I was here for you. It’s tough to be on your own.” He gave her fingers one more squeeze and released them. “See you around.” With a mock salute, he zigzagged through the cots in the direction of the waiting volunteer.

  On the far side of the room, Star raised a hand and motioned her over. Darcy moved toward the exit, scanning the shelter. She didn’t want to spend another night—or two—here. Mark was right. She didn’t belong in a place like this, and he’d offered her an out. Better yet, he’d offered both of them an out.

  She could imagine what her father would say if he knew she was thinking about accepting the man’s invitation, and Laura would blow a gasket. Her mom, on the other hand, would get it. Not that she’d approve, but with her treat-life-like-an-adventure attitude, she’d understand Darcy’s point of view. Still . . . even she might think this was foolish.

  But Star had been around. She’d talked a bit to Mark too, and so far, all her advice and suggestions had been sound. As Darcy joined her at the door, she fingered the card—and made a decision.

  Once they found a warm place to hunker down for a few hours, she’d get her new friend’s take on his invitation.

  And she’d trust her judgment.

  Marcia and Daniel Chapman.

  The corners of Dev’s mouth lifted. What would he do without phone validator and the crisscross directory?

  Contact information in hand for Brianna’s parents, he picked up his desk phone and tapped in their home number.

  As it rang, he swiveled in his chair. For once the weatherpeople appeared to have been right. In the half hour since Laura Griffith had left, the snow had intensified. Large flakes swirled outside the window, reducing visibility to a few yards. If this kept up, he’d have to hail a dogsled to get home—or camp out at the office. Given that the refrigerator in the break room held only six cans of soda and two pieces of curled-up pizza that had been in there for more than a week, however, the latter was not an appealing prospect.

  When a woman’s voice greeted him on the other end of the line, he swung back to face his desk. “Mrs. Chapman?”

  “Yes.”

  He introduced himself, gave her a brief recap of the situation, and concluded with his request. “Since the two girls are best friends, it’s likely Darcy confided in Brianna. Your daughter didn’t offer my client any information, but perhaps you’ll have better luck. While you’re at it, you might want to remind her that contributing to the delinquency of a minor is against the law.”

  “Of course, my husband and I will help in any way we can. I’ll talk to Brianna as soon as she gets home from school. You said you were with a company called Phoenix?”

  “Yes. You can check out our website.” He gave her the URL. “And if you’d like to verify our involvement, let me give you my client’s number as well as the one for my cell phone.” He slid Laura’s contact sheet in front of him and recited her information. “We’re in the midst of a blizzard here in St. Louis, which means Darcy may still be in town. If so, time is critical.”

  “I understand. I’ll call you as soon as I speak with Brianna.”

  After ending the conversation with a thank-you, Dev dropped the phone back in its cradle and picked up the slip of paper with the names and work schedules of the two Greyhound ticket agents who’d been on duty Friday night. The manager of the facility had been helpful a few weeks ago with another missing person case, and with the relationship legwork already done, the man had been happy to pass on the information . . . though he hadn’t been willing to divulge home phone numbers.

  But that’s what telephone directories were for.

  Dev pulled up the white pages on his computer and began his search. There was only one listing for the first agent’s unusual last name, and within thirty seconds he had the phone number. The second name turned up three possibilities. Not ideal, but better than if the guy’s name had been John Smith.

  He started with the first agent. She was pleasant enough, and sympathetic, but had no recollection of anyone fitting Darcy’s description on Friday night, and no memory of a girl with a butterfly tattoo.

  One down, one to go.

  The first two numbers for the second agent were dead ends, but he hit pay dirt with the third.

  “Yes, you’ve got the right guy. And I do remember that little lady.” Dev pegged the speaker at once as a friendly, older gent who was eager to help. Excellent. “I noticed the tattoo when she hoisted her backpack. Sixteen, you say? Could have fooled me. I thought she was twenty-one, twenty-two. She seemed nervous, and I wondered if she might be running away from a boyfriend.”

  “No. From a sister who’s very worried about her. It’s the typical teen stuff, plus house rules were too strict.”

  “I hear you. I’ve got a grandson who thinks that way too. Up till now, though, he’s stuck it out at home, praise the Lord. It’s a tough world out there, and we see our share of down-and-outers at the station. A lot of them look ripe for trouble—either starting it or falling into it.”

  “We’re hoping to find this girl before either happens.” Dev picked up his pen. “Do you happen to remember her destination?”

  “Sure do. Chicago. It stuck in my mind, because my cousin lives there and this girl reminded me of his daughter.”

  So it wasn’t New York, as Laura had suspected. Who did Darcy know in the Windy City? He jotted that question on his tablet.

  “Did you notice what she did after the trip was canceled?”

  “Yeah. She hung around for a long time. I kind of kept an eye on her, because she seemed out of place. For a while, she curled up on a seat, like she was trying to catch a few winks. As I was leaving after my shift, I saw her talking to a girl with a guitar. They were both still there when I came back the next day, but a couple of hours later I did a walk-through to pass out some coffee to the folks who were stranded, and both of them were gone.”

  “This would have been what time?”

  “Around seven o’clock Saturday night.”

  “And the buses haven’t started running again, according to your manager.”

  “Nope. Talk is they might be able to get a few through b
y tomorrow night, but I’m not holding my breath. This storm is a doozy.”

  Dev doodled a spiral on the pad of paper. The good news was that Darcy most likely hadn’t left town yet.

  The bad news was they had no idea where she’d gone to wait out the storm.

  “Can you describe the girl with the guitar?” He doubted that was going to help him much, but it was always better to have too much information than too little.

  “I didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to her. Tall, thin, long black hair. Her kind comes through all the time. The drifters, I call them. They have this rootless look. I can’t describe it, but I’ve seen it often enough to recognize it.”

  So had Dev.

  “Do you have any guesses where the two of them might have gone?” The question was a long shot, and he was preparing to thank the man and hang up even as he asked it.

  But the agent surprised him.

  “I can’t say for sure, because I didn’t see them leave. The little gal you’re after didn’t take the discount coupon for the hotel we offered, but there are numbers for a homeless shelter or two on our bulletin board. Plus, in bad weather those places sometimes send out teams looking for people who need a warm place to sleep. Mostly the teams go down around Hopeville—that’s an encampment on the Mississippi, down by Laclede’s Landing—or check under the bridges and in the parks, but once in a while they come by the station. I’ve talked to them a few times. Good people, by and large, doing good work. Living the gospel better than most of us. I did see those two young women talking to them.”

  Dev rotated his pen end-to-end. Was it possible Darcy had gone to a shelter? Not on her own, perhaps . . . but if she’d hooked up with a veteran of the streets? Possible.

  It was also better than some of the other alternatives she could have chosen.

  “That’s very helpful. I’ll look into that possibility. In case you think of anything else, let me give you my number.” He recited it, and the man repeated it back at his request.

  “I hope you find that little lady. A girl like her could get into a lot of trouble on the street.”

  No kidding.

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Once he ended the call, Dev wasted no time pulling up the list of homeless shelters in the St. Louis area, concentrating on those that actively recruited in cold weather. If the station agent’s suggestion paid off, this might turn out to be a far easier assignment than he’d expected.

  Especially if the bad weather continued and Darcy stayed put.

  “I can’t believe how much food people waste.” Star slid into the Burger King booth with the items she’d retrieved from the trash can near the door. “We have a feast.”

  As Darcy watched, Star set her bounty on the table: two mini blueberry biscuits, half of a sausage muffin with prominent teeth marks, a cardboard pocket containing three hash brown rounds, a French toast stick, a bite-sized cinnamon roll, and the top half of a croissant.

  Darcy shrank back in disgust. No way was she going to eat other people’s garbage.

  “I can see you haven’t been on the street long.” Star proceeded to cut off the tooth-marked end of the muffin with a plastic knife. “Once you get hungry enough, you’ll lose your delicate sensibilities.”

  “I had a doughnut at the shelter.”

  Star gave a derisive snort. “You think that food’s any better? Most of the stuff at those places is donated ’cause it’s out-of-date or going bad. Trust me—this is a lot fresher.” She gestured toward her impromptu buffet with one hand and popped a hash brown round in her mouth with the other.

  Fresher, maybe, but far less sanitary.

  She hoped.

  Chowing down on another hash brown, Star returned to the topic Darcy had raised before her new friend’s scavenging expedition. “This Mark guy is right about the security check. I’ve stayed in enough of those places to find out how they work. If he passed it, he’s probably safe. But he’s taking a big chance. I don’t think the volunteers are supposed to get involved with shelter customers.”

  “They aren’t. He kind of implied it was against the rules and asked me not to say anything to anyone.” The aroma of the sausage was setting off a rumble in her stomach, and she eased away to remove the temptation. The sandwich she’d had last night had been light on meat and heavy on bread, and the hard doughnut this morning hadn’t filled the hole in her stomach. She might have to break down and spend a couple of bucks on a burger.

  Star pushed a blueberry biscuit toward her. “Never been touched.”

  “No thanks.” She wasn’t going to eat food from a trash can.

  Shrugging, Star picked it up and took a bite. “Suit yourself. There’s always more where this came from if you change your mind. Now back to Mark. Let’s see the card he gave you.”

  Darcy dug it out of her purse and handed it to the other girl.

  After wiping her hands on a paper napkin, Star picked it up. “Looks legit. We could always call directory assistance and see if the number’s for real. Then we could call and make sure this really is his extension.”

  “We don’t have a phone.”

  “I bet there’s one at the quick shop we passed on our way here. Do you have any change?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay. Let me finish my food and we’ll see if he checks out.” She folded the top of the croissant in half and took a big bite.

  “What if he does?”

  Star licked her fingers. “I say we go for it. If he’d just asked you, I’d be worried. There are a lot of perverts out there, and you can’t be too careful—even with guys who seem on the up-and-up.” A shadow crossed her eyes, and Darcy had a feeling her new friend was speaking from experience. “But if he’s willing to have me tag along, I doubt he’s up to no good—especially if he really does work at this daycare place. And we already know he’s a regular volunteer at the shelter, which is a plus. Those places might not be too picky about their clients, but they screen their workers pretty thoroughly. I talked to him quite a bit too, and he seemed okay. The typical do-gooder type.”

  She finished off her eclectic meal in a few more bites, downed it with water from the discarded cup she’d rinsed out in the ladies’ room, and wiped her mouth with a napkin. “Let’s roll.”

  As Star slid from the booth, Darcy scooted to the edge of her seat and stood too. Outside the windows, the snow continued to fall, covering the world with a pristine cloak of white that hid the garbage in the gutters and masked the decay of the rundown buildings in this seedy part of town. But the sordid reality remained underneath.

  Things would be better in Chicago, though.

  They had to be.

  Head bent against the wind, bare fingers tucked deep in the pockets of her coat, Darcy followed Star into the storm and down the deserted street. No one else had braved the onslaught, either on foot or in vehicle. It felt as if they were alone in the world.

  But that was nothing new. She’d felt like this ever since her dad died, even when surrounded by people and activity. And it had been worse at Laura’s. They had zilch in common, and her half sister’s quiet, predictable life was boring, boring, boring.

  Life with Mom, on the other hand, had been one grand adventure.

  If only she hadn’t died.

  Tears blurred her vision as she trudged along. She didn’t belong anywhere anymore. Mom was gone. Dad was gone. Laura would be happy to return to her placid, teen-free existence.

  That was why Chicago was such a smart idea. A fresh start without a bunch of stupid rules would give her just the boost she needed.

  However, with those plans delayed, she needed to focus on conserving her money and waiting out this storm.

  But if Mark Hamilton checked out and Star gave the thumbs-up, she might be doing it in a place that was a whole lot safer and more comfortable than a homeless shelter.

  3

  Arms folded tight against her chest, Laura watched the relentless snow batter the window. The last remnants o
f light had faded long ago, leaving gloom in their wake.

  Where could Darcy be?

  Was she warm and safe . . . or cold and at risk?

  Had she taken any chances that had put her in danger?

  Apparently James Devlin hadn’t yet found the answer to any of those questions. In the eight hours that had passed since her visit to the Phoenix offices, he’d called only once—to pass on the surprising news that Darcy was headed to Chicago, not New York. As far as she knew, her half sister had no contacts there, but at his request she’d searched Darcy’s room again, looking for anything remotely tied to that city. All to no avail. If there were more clues to be found, they’d eluded her.

  So unless her PI had discovered some new information since his call, she wasn’t much closer to finding Darcy than she’d been Friday night.

  She turned away from the gathering darkness, rubbing her arms to generate some warmth. She needed to eat, hungry or not. The small container of yogurt she’d downed at noon to quiet the protests of her stomach wasn’t going to hold her through the evening.

  Making her way toward the kitchen of her small bungalow, she switched on every lamp she passed, hoping the light would dispel the shadows and brighten her outlook.

  She only got half her wish. The light vanquished only the shadows in the room.

  With a sigh, she inventoried the refrigerator. She could nuke the leftover Chinese takeout from last night, but would her unsettled stomach accept such a heavy meal? Iffy. Best to go with a safer option.

  As she opened the cabinet and started to pull out a can of chicken noodle soup from a shelf above her head, the phone on the counter beside her gave a sudden, sharp trill. She jerked, losing her grip on the soup. Before she could grab it, the can pitched over the edge of the shelf, ricocheted off her chin, and plummeted to the floor.

  Laura ignored both the rolling can and the throbbing pain along her jawline as she grabbed for the phone.

  Please let it be James Devlin with good news! Or better yet, let it be Darcy, saying she’s had a change of heart.