Gemini Men: Caught Part 2

Toni frowned. She'd last heard from Kara a couple of weeks ago, and she hadn't mentioned moving out. Then again, Kara hadn't mentioned the boyfriend, either.

Jerry shook his head and shrugged. "I didn't know about the boyfriend, either," he snapped.

"His name is Sean, I think," Manuela offered. "And he drives a white car. That's all I know."

"Do you think he took her?" Marcy asked in a thin voice.

Officer Hayes shook his head. "More likely they met for a date. Honestly, folks, I know you're worried, but there's a good chance she'll turn up on her own." He flipped his notepad shut and nodded to his partner.

Toni's shoulders tensed under the thin fabric of her T-shirt as she remembered another girl, another missing girl no one took seriously. Until it was too late.

She forced the morbid thoughts from her mind. Kara was nothing like Toni's younger sister, Mich.e.l.le, Toni reminded herself. Unlike Mich.e.l.le, Kara was a good kid, for all that she might have started acting out. Toni's sister had practically had "bad kid" tattooed on her forehead. When Mich.e.l.le had gone missing, no one, not even Toni, had questioned the idea that she'd run away. After all, she'd done it before, and she had always come back, whenever she got sick of her boyfriend or needed money.

Until that last time, when she didn't come back.

"That's it?" Marcy asked, pulling Toni's attention away from her morbid memories. "You're going to do nothing while we sit around and wait for her to come home?"

He held up a placating hand. "Ma'am, that's not what I said. But situations like this tend to resolve on their own. For now, we'll file a report and open an investigation." He took down a description, a list of Kara's closest friends, and requested a recent photo.

All very standard operating procedure, Toni thought, as the knot of anxiety in her stomach grew. She knew the police would do what they could, but without any sign of foul play, they weren't likely to put a whole lot of resources into the search. Still, the police promised to follow up with Laurie and the girls from the volleyball team. Manuela retrieved a recent picture of Kara, and the officers left, promising to provide an update as soon as they had any additional information.

Jerry wheeled on Marcy as soon as the police followed Manuela out of the kitchen. "This is your fault," he said, raising an accusing finger. "You never want to discipline her, never want to do anything to p.i.s.s her off. Who's the parent here, anyway?" His face was purple, and a vein appeared in his forehead, throbbing with such force Toni was afraid he was going to have an aneurysm.

"Not you!" Marcy raged right back. "How dare you make accusations, as though you know what's going on in this house or with your children. Since the divorce, you've hardly spent any time with them. It's all been up to me."

"Yeah, and you're doing such a great job Kara moved out and now she's sneaking out at all hours to meet some idiot."

Toni's head began to pound, and suddenly she was sixteen again, and she and her little sister sat on the couch, staring straight ahead at the TV, pretending indifference to the barbs slinging back and forth between their parents. She wanted scream at them that this was not the time or the place to go twenty rounds of "who is the worse parent," but she held her tongue.

I should never have answered Marcy's call this morning, she thought, then immediately felt like a jerk. She'd promised Kara she could count on her, and she meant it, even if it meant putting up with her parents. Toni straightened to her full height and stepped between Marcy and Jerry. "Look, you can work all this out in your next family therapy session, but right now we need to focus on finding out where Kara is and making sure she's safe."

Marcy looked appropriately shamefaced, while Jerry had to get in the last word. "I don't need you to tell me to be worried about my daughter."

"Good," she snapped back. "Because you should be." She turned and caught Ethan's gaze. His mouth was quirked up in a s.e.xy half smile and there was a glint of open admiration in his eyes. Toni cursed her pale complexion as she felt telltale heat bloom in her cheeks for a second time.

Her skin p.r.i.c.kled with awareness and she was overcome with the need to escape from the vitriol spilling from Jerry's and Marcy's pores. And from the walking testosterone bomb that was Ethan Taggart.

"I'm going to go look around her room," Toni said abruptly. She ignored Jerry's protests as she asked Manuela for directions, feeling the heat of Ethan's gaze on her retreating back.

Toni marveled at the over-the-top opulence of Kramer's house as her sneakers squeaked on the marble steps of the ma.s.sive staircase. She was used to working with wealthy clients-women like Marcy accounted for the majority of her income-but Kramer's house, with its vaulted ceilings, marble floors, and handmade rugs that probably cost more than her car was beyond anything she'd ever seen firsthand.

But the blatant display of wealth gave the place the vibe of a museum, not a happy home. Growing up, watching her mom struggle, Toni always thought that if they had more money, they would be happy. But in the brief time she'd worked as a private investigator, she'd learned that people could be unhappy no matter how much money they had. Immense wealth couldn't buy perfect children or faithful husbands-in fact, it often made things worse. Recently, Toni had started to feel like she was operating in a toxic cloud, like she had picked up the scent of rot pervading these seemingly perfect lives and now couldn't get it out of her nostrils.

Now, after an ugly divorce rife with infidelity and hidden a.s.sets, the Kramer family was being sucked deeper into the cesspool.

She followed the hallway to the door Manuela had indicated. She pushed it open. Jesus, this is bigger than my apartment. Not that Kara's room in Marcy's townhouse was exactly a dump, but this was ridiculous. In addition to a queen-size four-poster bed, the room was s.p.a.cious enough for a sitting area complete with a small couch and a low coffee table. Mounted on the wall was a forty-inch LCD television with a satellite-TV hookup and DVR. Pushed up against the wall was a mini fridge, and a small espresso machine sat on top.

Kara practically had her own efficiency apartment. Completely tricked out so she wouldn't need to leave her room for days if she didn't want to. Toni scanned the room for her prey.

"Find anything interesting?"

The voice was so close she felt his breath across her neck. She spun around and found her nose b.u.t.ting up against a hard wall of chest. For a moment she stood there, her face buried in the open throat of his b.u.t.ton-front shirt, inhaling the intoxicating scents of fresh aftershave, laundry soap, and warm, musky man skin.

Okay, the guy might be an arrogant a.s.shole, but the mere smell of him was enough to curl her toes inside her sneakers.

She took a hasty step back before she did something stupid like flick her tongue out for a taste. This guy was so far out of her league it wasn't even funny.

"What do you want?" she asked, hoping her imperious tone and matching expression would mask the fact that her insides were fluttering madly at the heat radiating off him.

"Just wondering where you'd hurried off to." His oh-so-charming smile was cracking around the corners.

Good. Her manufactured hostility was working.

"I wanted to see if I could find her computer."

"Why?" He looked genuinely confused.

"How else were you planning on tracking her down?"

He looked at her as though she were an idiot. "Canva.s.sing the neighborhood, calling her friends. You know, basic investigation stuff."

She shook her head impatiently. What, was he an idiot? "Kara spends a lot of time online."

"Right. The online virgin support group. I'm sure they'll be a lot of help finding her boyfriend."

Toni sucked in her cheeks and bit the inside of her lip. "That's probably just the tip of the iceberg, Ace. And finding out who she's talking to online will get me a lot further than talking to neighbors who probably don't even know her name."

Ethan smirked. "Just because you spend all your time on Lord of the Rings message boards doesn't mean Kara does. Talking to real live friends will be a lot more useful than worrying about what Web pages she visited."

She shot him a look of disdain. "Lord of the Rings is so 2005." These days, Toni spent more of her time on gaming sites, but she wasn't about to correct Ethan.

He did a leisurely tour of the room, pausing to pick up a framed picture off Kara's desk. Toni tried not to stare at him but couldn't seem to stop herself. The man had hit the genetic jackpot, that was for sure. Taking advantage of his distraction, she studied him more closely, trying to pick out some imperfection that would remind her that he was a mere mortal, just like her.

He'd missed a spot shaving, she noticed with a tug of satisfaction. And the strong line of his nose skewed slightly to the left. That and the b.u.mp on the bridge told her he'd broken it at least once and hadn't bothered to get it fixed.

Somehow that made him even hotter.

There were dark smudges under his heavily lashed eyes, as though he hadn't gotten much sleep.

Not that she should talk, since thanks to her recent late stakeouts, the only thing keeping her from looking like an Ultimate Fighting Champ contender was her industrial-strength concealer. Her gaze strayed back to the little patch of stubble, next to his right ear. It would rasp against her fingertips if she touched it, contrasting with the peachy softness of his earlobe.

There was something on his earlobe, she noticed, frowning. Almost like a smudge of blood, but as she moved to take a closer look, she realized it was too pink to be blood. Almost like- "Is that lipstick?"

He looked up, his left eyebrow arching up his forehead.

"On your ear," Toni clarified.

He pinched his left earlobe between his thumb and forefinger. "Maybe." His tone was casual, but Toni could see the dark stain smudging across his tanned cheeks.

"Other one." Toni said, folding her arms across her chest.

He rubbed at the other earlobe with his fingers. "Did I get it?"

The dark pink smudge was still there. "Your girlfriend must wear that extended wear stuff," she said, wincing at how snide that sounded.

"Not my girlfriend," he said.

All the more reason to kill the attraction that was sucking her in like a tractor beam. She so did not need to get hung up on a man who spent long nights getting smudged with long-wearing lipstick by women who were not his girlfriend.

"Boyfriend?" She brushed past him and continued her circuit of the room.

He shot her a droll look. "So where is it?"

So he'd noticed that minor detail, too. Kara's MacBook was nowhere to be seen. "Not where I thought it would be."

"Oh, so you can admit you were wrong."

Toni tipped her chin up to glare at him. He was standing way too close for her comfort. He seemed to loom over her, the sheer size and force of him threatening to overwhelm her.

Not that she felt threatened, exactly, but while she was only a few inches shy of him in height, he had at least eighty pounds on her, all of it rock-solid muscle. And the way he held his body in an almost predatory manner hinted at a dangerous core under his charming facade.

She wasn't about to let him see that she noticed. "What is that supposed to mean?"

His eyes narrowed and his nostrils flared as he glared down at her. "Just that you seem like the type who would think she's right most of the time."

He inched so close she was afraid he'd feel the hard points of her nipples poking through her shirt. G.o.d, she was desperate. Kara's immense room shrank in size as Ethan's huge frame seemed to suck up all the s.p.a.ce. "That's because I am," she quipped. Without waiting for his reply, she brushed past him and headed back to the kitchen, sure that she heard Ethan chuckling. She could hear Jerry and Marcy sniping at each other all the way from the stairs.

"Maybe if you weren't so busy nailing that adolescent who works for you, you might have noticed she was gone."

"I can't find Kara's computer," Toni said, raising her voice to be heard over Marcy's shrill commentary on Jerry's choice of bed partners.

"And if you weren't drinking yourself to sleep every night, Kara would have stayed with you," Jerry retorted before turning his attention to Toni. "What do you need with her computer? I don't want you taking anything from this house." He punctuated his words with a mean look aimed at Marcy.

Toni bit back her temper. "I was hoping to get a look at her recent e-mails, chat logs, stuff like that. Since she's not answering her phone, it's our best way to find out if she made plans to meet someone last night." She took off her gla.s.ses and pinched the bridge of her nose as fatigue washed over her. She'd been on that stakeout until almost three a.m. and had barely clocked four hours of sleep before Marcy called. She wasn't in any shape to fight Jerry Kramer every step of the way.

Time for a different approach. She turned to Marcy. "Speaking of her phone, did you sign her up for the chaperone service I recommended?"

Marcy looked at her blankly, and Toni had a bad feeling that that conversation had been sucked into the boozy haze Marcy lived in these days.

"My phone," Toni explained, "Remember how I told you it has a GPS unit embedded inside. As long as my phone is turned on, my location can be tracked." She turned to Ethan and Jerry. "I recommend that all my clients with kids sign them up. Makes situations like this much easier to resolve."

"I completely forgot," Marcy said, thin shoulders collapsing.

"It's okay," Toni said tightly. Of course this couldn't be that easy. "It doesn't work if her phone is off, anyway."

Marcy's face crumpled into sobs. "I'm sorry," she gasped, burying her face in her hands. "I should have been on her more, but she was always telling me to leave her alone. I thought I was giving her what she wanted by giving her s.p.a.ce."

It was a familiar refrain, one Toni had heard too many times. Parents who cared more about being their kids' best friends than acting as authority figures. That's why they hired Toni to snoop on them, because they couldn't figure out how to just sit down and talk with their children. It was frustrating to watch, but Toni took satisfaction in the knowledge that in some cases she'd saved kids from potentially dangerous situations.

Despite her frustration with both of Kara's parents, she felt a wave of sympathy when she took in Marcy's haggard appearance. When Marcy had first hired Toni over a year ago to find out if Jerry was sleeping around and hiding his a.s.sets, she'd been the epitome of the well-preserved, affluent housewife. Now, after a bitter divorce, lines of grief and stress were etched into her face. Her formerly trim body now bordered on emaciated, and she stood with her arms wrapped around herself like she was trying to keep herself from flying apart. Yes, Marcy could be a pain in the a.s.s, but Toni knew firsthand how scared she must be.

"I promise I'll find her," Toni said, as Ethan pulled Jerry aside.

Marcy sniffled and wiped her eyes with fingers that shook. She shot a look at Jerry and Ethan, who had moved to the opposite side of the kitchen. Ethan's dark head was c.o.c.ked down to listen as Jerry spoke in a voice too low for Toni to hear.

Marcy's mouth tightened into a flat line. "I want you to keep an eye on him."

"Jerry?" Toni asked. Jesus, it had been a year since they separated. Well past time for Marcy to let it go already. But she strove for tact when she said, "Don't you think it's more important for me to focus on Kara than to spy on your ex-husband?"

"Not him," she snapped. "Ethan. I want you to find out everything he knows, as soon as he knows it."

Great. She wanted to get away from Ethan Taggart and forget the way one look was enough to send her libido into overdrive. Now she was supposed to follow him around and somehow get him to divulge any information he collected.

"I don't think that's necessary."

Marcy's tears suddenly dried. Gone was the grief-stricken mother. In her place was the bitter, vindictive ex-spouse who was never far from the surface. "I don't trust Jerry. He keeps things from me, always has. He wasn't even going to call me this morning to tell me my daughter was missing."

Toni held up a quieting hand. "I'll do my best. But right now I need to start following up on what we know so far."

She checked her phone for the dozenth time as she walked to the front door. It was still on, set to vibrate. She hadn't missed a reply to the text she sent Kara after Marcy first called her. Wherever Kara was, she wasn't answering her messages yet.

Heavy footsteps approached. She didn't have to turn around to know it was Ethan. She recognized him from the way every skin cell suddenly went on high alert.

"I know you're worried," Ethan said, reaching out to rub her bare upper arm. She knew it was a calculated move, but it didn't stop her from feeling like sparks were shooting through her fingertips. "But we both know the truth. She's out with her boyfriend, and she'll be home as soon as the hangover wears off." Though the words were cavalier, the sympathy riding his tone was sincere. And she couldn't fault his logic.

But she couldn't escape the sick feeling in her gut that told her it wasn't that simple.

Kara Kramer awoke to suffocating darkness. Fear wrapped her chest in its steely grip, making breathing almost impossible. She blinked her eyes hard, praying the room would come into focus, but she saw nothing but black.

This is a bad dream, she tried to tell herself, struggling to recall the last few hours, searching her panic-riddled brain for some clue as to where she was. Her brain throbbed against her skull and her mouth was dry. Had she pa.s.sed out after too much vodka? She'd been planning to go to a party with Toby. She remembered that much. But she couldn't remember making it there.

Had someone slipped something in her drink? It had happened before, and like now, she'd woken up with no idea where she was and no memory of how she'd gotten there.

It had been horrible, terrifying, but right now, it would be a welcome explanation. She feared that the reality was much, much worse.

Gooseflesh p.r.i.c.kled on her arms, left bare by the flimsy cami she'd donned earlier in the evening. Wherever she was, it was cold. Too cold, considering how hot it had been lately. And musty. It smelled like the crawl s.p.a.ce under her dad's house. Swallowing convulsively, she tried to wrap her arms around herself to coax warmth back into her icy skin, only to discover that her wrists were tied.

A spike of adrenaline crashed through her, and sweat bloomed on her skin in spite of the chill air. She scrambled to her knees and surged to her feet, running though she couldn't see even an inch in front of her.

She barely got two steps before she was jerked off her feet by a line of rope securing her bound wrists to the wall. Her knees. .h.i.t the hard floor with bruising force and her startled cry broke the dead silence of the room.

Sobbing now, she yanked against the rope. The cord binding her wrists bit into the tender flesh, dug against delicate bones. Warm liquid trickled down her arm and she knew she was bleeding. Defeated, she lay on the floor, struggling not to throw up as the throbbing in her head threatened to split her skull.

After several moments, Kara struggled back to her feet and followed the line of rope to where it secured her to the wall. She fumbled at the knot with clumsy, cold fingers.

"You can't escape, so you may as well stop trying."

Kara's whole body jerked as she searched frantically, futilely, for the source of the low, raspy voice.