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Kojak stood there hovering over her. He wasn’t laughing, as he had earlier, when he’d pulled her over. He was getting set to interrogate her and she wasn’t sure if she could stand up to it. Her legs felt like they were about to buckle under her from fatigue and her eye started to water from the constant throbbing.

Beck came to her rescue and stood behind her. She felt the warmth of his hand on her back and leaned back into him, thankful for the strength he provided.

“And you,” Kojak pushed out his chin towards Beck, “the waiter said he overheard the two of you in a heated conversation at the table when she arrived. What was that all about?”

“I didn’t like the wine,” Markie said with a dry smile.

“You think this is funny?”

“Hey, Montana,” his partner called out. Montana, who Markie had been referring to as Kojak, turned away to respond to his partner.

Montana turned his attention back to her and said, “I could bring you in, you know. You were reported driving a stolen car earlier.”

“Which was deemed to be false. You can arrest me if you like and I’d tell you the same thing at the station that I’m telling you now. You’ll just be wasting your time and mine.”

They had a staring contest to see which one would back down first and she probably would have fallen over if Beck wasn’t behind her holding her up.

“Better put some ice on that eye,” Montana said and marched off to talk to his partner.

The pickup may have missed her, but she felt like something had run over her. She pulled away from Beck and headed toward her SUV. She was about to cross the street when he called after her.

Markie stopped and hung her head, not trusting herself to turn around. She swallowed hard and waited for Beck to catch up to her. She slowly turned around to face him.

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”

He was all touchy feely again. The back of his hand swept along her jaw slowly and instead of pulling away as she should have, she stood there under the streetlight and laid her head on his shoulder. Just this once she thought…just this once. She allowed him to hold her as she listened to the soothing rhythm of his heartbeat while his hand gently caressed her back.

Just this once, she would give in and lean on someone and not be afraid that they would walk away. And she did. Forgetting about the chaos around her, she slipped her arms around his waist and held on. He was warm, strong and just what she needed.

“Do you want me to take you home?”

His voice shattered the delicate balance of peace she found in his arms and she stiffened. The world around her was once again alive with the reality of what had just happened and the destruction it had caused. Smoke from a damaged car curled into the air, a woman crying pinned under debris, blue and white lights flashing…chaos. And she was at the center of it.

“No. I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said when his hand tilted her chin upwards and she met his eyes.

When Markie got home half an hour later, she was still hurting. Every muscle in her body ached. After a long hot shower, she took two ibuprofens and climbed into bed.

For the first time in a long while she wished she had someone lying next to her, holding her, telling her everything would be okay and that Sydney was all right. Beck came to mind and she closed her eyes, remembering how it felt when he held her. With that thought, she fell asleep.

•  •  •

Exhausted and wired, Beck punched in the security code to enter his condo. All he could think about was Marklynn as he entered the kitchen, opened the refrigerator and grabbed a bottle of water.

Beck wondered if she’d gotten home okay. He actually entertained the idea of calling her but decided against it. It didn’t seem like she relied on anyone and would probably interpret his concern as an intrusion.

She could have been killed and that didn’t sit well with him at all. There were many unanswered questions regarding the security breach that plagued him at his company. His team was working around the clock to find answers.

Tonight more questions surfaced. Like, did the attempt on Marklynn’s life have anything to do with what was going on at his company? And if it did, why was she targeted? How was Sydney involved? Was she working with the hackers?

Opening the water bottle, he looked beyond the stone countertop towards the living room. The large white sectional sofa spanned two walls. Behind the sofa were wall-to-wall arched windows with a view that stretched across the city.

Two Greek columns marked the entrance of the dining area and stood proud from floor to ceiling. A large glass table with eight white leather high back chairs sat beneath a two-tier white chandelier. And strand-woven bamboo in a deep brown, almost chocolate, covered the floor.

If it weren’t for his stepmother the condo would still be void of furniture and accessories. After the divorce he had rented for a few years then finally bought the condo last year. The only piece of furniture he had invested in was a bed. His stepmother had taken charge and decorated, footing the bill for everything. He had been too busy working at the time to notice that her decorating style was not necessarily his but it grew on him, even the Greek columns.

The flashing red light on the phone caught his attention and he remembered he hadn’t called Malcolm back. Malcolm had called while he was at the restaurant. He’d been about to return the call when he’d seen the pickup racing towards Marklynn.

Leaving the water behind and picking up the cordless off the kitchen counter, he dialed Malcolm’s number on the way to his office. The office, which also doubled as a den, was huge and uncluttered. A large mahogany desk sat in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, an oversized leather chair in front of it. There were a couple of lounge chairs and a painting that hung on the wall over the fireplace.

The painting, the only picture in the room, looked like someone had taken a brush and flashed the paint off of it onto the canvas in a rainbow of colors. It was a gift from his stepmother on his last birthday. It was entitled, “
Confusion
,” and he had to agree with the artist there.

“Hello?”

It was a woman’s voice aroused from sleep that answered the phone. He apologized for waking her, hung up and dialed Malcolm’s again paying careful attention to the number. It was Malcolm who answered then.

“It’s Beck.”

“Did you call before and hang up?”

“Yes. I thought I had the wrong number. Tell your lady I’m sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. Give me a minute,” Malcolm said. Beck heard a female voice in the background and what sounded like a door closing.

“It happened again,” Malcolm sighed into the phone. “The fire alarm malfunctioned or something. I don’t know the full details yet.”

“When?” Beck’s pulse raced.

“A little after nine. I tried calling you.”

Beck dropped into the leather chair beside the fireplace and ran his hand roughly over his face. “Which house?”

“The Franklin’s.”

Beck remembered them well. The husband was an investment banker and the wife was a plastic surgeon. They owned an estate in Jamaica Plains. The eight-bedroom house overlooked the Jamaica Pond, a circular pond surrounded by a beautiful path.

Beck was there for the installation of the security system two months ago. He tested the system the day it was installed. A month later another series of testing was completed and the security system was fine. The fire alarm worked.

“There’s nothing left of the house,” Malcolm said.

“Was anyone hurt?” Beck asked and was silently praying that there would be no fatalities. He couldn’t live with that.

“No, they were on vacation. This is not like the others, Beck. We were dealing with breaks-in before. Now this. Whoever is responsible is stepping up the game.”

Beck was thinking the same thing but he refrained from voicing it. This was a personal attack. What if the Franklin’s had been home? Whoever was sabotaging his company wasn’t going to stop until someone got killed.

“There’s speculation it could be faulty wiring as a result of the alarm system,” Malcolm said with hesitation in his voice.

“By whom? That’s not possible.”

“You and I know that, but we’ll have to wait until the investigation is completed. If they’re correct this may lead to charges.”

“If they’re correct?
Who are they?”

“The fire marshal’s office.”

This can’t be happening. Beck didn’t realize he was pacing the floor or had gotten up out of the chair until he was in front of the sliding door.

Charges? What would happen to Beck Security Systems? Would he lose everything? He had made it back financially from his divorce and liked where he lived. His company had recovered and—

“I’ve scheduled a meeting with Peta Ann and Mona,” Malcolm said cutting into his thoughts.

Peta Ann was the Director of Communications, and Mona was the company lawyer Beck hired last year.

“Mona feels we should discuss how we’re going to address the fall out from this. Peta Ann is worried about the financial impact. How are we going to get out from under this?”

“I don’t know.” Beck wasn’t thinking about damage control. All he could think of was why? Why was this happening? Who would do this? “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

“One more thing, I emailed you a file on Sydney Brooks. That’s her real name by the way. Victoria Kelly is her grandmother’s name.”

Once he ended the call with Malcolm, he reared back and hurled the phone at the stone fireplace. It shattered into little black pieces that littered the bamboo floor. What was he going to do now?

He thought of Marklynn, the only person he believed could help him but may not because she thought he had something to do with Sydney’s disappearance. He needed help. The question on the table now was would she help him?

•  •  •

Markie laid in bed staring at the ceiling. Day three of Sydney’s disappearance and the responsibility of finding Sydney rested heavily upon her. She turned her head towards the digital clock when it alarmed again for the third time at 9:45.

She would not make it into the office for her meeting with Beck. What had she told Beck 10:00 a.m.? The alarm had gone off two hours ago and she’d hit the snooze button repeatedly trying to buy some more time. Hitting the snooze button was not something she routinely did, but this morning she couldn’t get out of bed.

With two attempts on her life, it was nothing short of a miracle that she had walked away from both incidents without being seriously hurt. This morning she was sore from head to toe. She felt as though someone had used her body as a punching bag.

Last night Beck had said he would talk to her about Sydney and what he knew. Being sore wasn’t going to stop her. Slow her down yes, but certainly not stop her from meeting with Beck.

First, she needed to call Cate to tell her she’d be late. After that was done, she called Nan to let her know she hadn’t found Sydney yet, but she had a lead. Big mistake.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” That’s how Nan answered the phone.

“We don’t know that,” Markie said watching the ceiling fan’s circular motion. Sometime between when she’d gotten home last night and an early morning trip to the bathroom, the air conditioner had stopped working.

“Well, I do.”

“Nan, it’s too—

“You’re hurt.”

“I’m fine.”

“No, you’re not.”

Before Nan started up, Markie said, “I have a meeting with someone this morning that may know something about Sydney’s disappearance. Once I know more, I’ll call you.”

“Who?”

Markie pushed herself up in the bed, ignoring the pain shooting through her body and switched the phone to her other ear. She was going to get up then changed her mind wanting to finish the call with her grandmother.

“You don’t know him.”

There was a dead silence on the other end of the line. Markie knew what was coming next and braced herself for it.

“I had a dream last night that you were hurt,” Nan said. “In it I saw a man but I couldn’t see his face. You’re not to fear him. He’ll help you but not in the way you think.”

Childhood memories flooded back, of Nan walking over to the phone and waiting. Then a few moments later it would ring.

Nan would tell the neighbors things. Sometimes it brought her praises like when she’d found Ms. Fisher’s missing six-year old daughter. Or disappointment, when she’d told Mrs. James her missing husband was dead. Mrs. James hadn’t believed her until the body had been found.

Markie didn’t want to believe that Nan had gifts as her grandmother called them. She accepted these
gifts
as luck. Plain and simple luck.

“Why is your dream relevant and how is this going to help me find Sydney?”

She wasn’t in the mood to hear about Nan’s dreams, the man in it or her premonitions this morning.

“It breaks my heart to see how far the two of you have drifted apart.” Sadness marred her voice.

“That’s Sydney’s doing,” Markie said not liking the path the conversation was heading down. It was the ‘defend Sydney path.’

“Maybe, but you’re sisters. Sydney is not as strong as you. She never recovered from your parent’s death.”

She’d heard that argument more times than she cared for and had always kept quiet. It was one excuse after another with Sydney. She couldn’t go to school because she was sick. Real reason—She hadn’t studied for her chemistry test. When she’d gotten arrested for fraud, it was her boyfriend’s fault. It was always someone else’s fault. This morning she couldn’t hold her tongue. All the years of resentment bubbled to the surface. It was time Sydney grew up and Nan to stop making excuses for her.

“I survived, Nan. When Jared called off our wedding I got through it. I walked away from my job as a cop and I got through that, too.”

“By throwing yourself into your work and shutting people out,” Nan said. “When I die it’ll just be you and Syd left. If we have to carry her until she finds her footing then so be it. She’s your sister.”

Silence.

“Now, about this man…”

Markie didn’t want to hear about the mysterious man because she knew it was Beck. The fact that she kept dreaming about him was starting to get on her nerves.