See How She Dies (6 page)

“But the boy—” Sophia whispered.

“He'll live,” Rudy snarled, casting a dark look toward Zach before eyeing the hooker again. “Unless you want to explain what you're doing up here with the half-dead son of Witt Danvers, you'll move your sweet little ass out of here.”

Don't leave
, Zach tried to say, but the words wouldn't form over his thick tongue. He watched three sets of feet, her small, bare ones, the others in black work boots—moving in slow motion away from him. Footsteps scuffled on the shag carpet. Blood seeped from his body to the floor. He tried to lift his head.

“Bastard!” He saw the shoe, felt a hard kick in the groin and curled into a ball. Bile sprayed up the back of his throat. “Stay put, Danvers! You'll live longer.”

A tide of black swirled around his eyes, though he willed himself to stay conscious. He saw the door to room 307 open, then close, and he gave in to the warm, dark void that swallowed him.

 

Katherine's feet ached, her head throbbed, and her eyes burned from cigarette smoke. The celebration had been a success and Witt, if he hadn't been surprised, had put on a good show of acting astounded at his wife's carefully planned party.

Seated on one of the chairs near the empty stage, she ignored the litter on the floor and took off one of her spiked heels to rub the bottom of her foot.

Soon dawn would be streaking the eastern sky, and still a few guests lingered, talking, laughing, refusing to call it a night.

“Come on upstairs,” Kat suggested to her husband as she slipped her toes into her shoe again. “London will be up before we know it.” She stood and stretched, aware that after hours on her feet, her hair tangled, her makeup all but gone, she was still beautiful and sexy. She caught more than one male gaze lingering on the swell of her bosom.

Witt, having consumed champagne for hours, yawned and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He was heavy, this big bear of a man, and she staggered under the combination of his sagging weight and too many glasses of champagne.

Hours before, while she was getting ready for the party, she'd dressed with care and planned to seduce her husband, no matter how much work it was, but now she was tired, her feet ached, her head pounded, and she wasn't interested in anything but falling into the huge bed in their suite and sleeping for at least a million hours.

She helped Witt into the elevator. For a few hours the guests, dressed in their finest clothes and jewelry, had forgotten about anything other than celebrating Witt Danvers's sixty years.

With a groan, the elevator car moved upward, only to shudder to a stop on the seventh floor. “Come on, birthday boy,” she said, still supporting him as they reached their suite with its panoramic view of the river. She didn't much care about the view as she unlocked the door, snapped on the lights, and helped him to the king-size bed that had already been turned down by the maid. Witt fell across the silk sheets like a heavy sack of potatoes.

“Come here,” he said thickly, reaching for his wife as she pulled the draperies shut.

Katherine giggled. “Want me?”

“Always,” he assured her. “I love you, Katherine. Thanks.”

Tears stung the back of her eyes as the drapes snapped shut. She did care about him. “I love you, too, honey.”

“I wish I could…I mean…”

“Shh. It doesn't matter,” she said, and meant it at that moment. Sex was important, but it wasn't as valuable as love. Kat could find sex anywhere, but she'd learned long ago how stingy people were with love. Leaning over, she rumpled his hair playfully and placed a kiss on his cheek. “I'll be back in a minute. I just want to check on London.”

“Me, too,” he said, his foggy eyes clearing a bit as he thought of his little girl.

Kat sighed. As much as she adored London, a tiny part of her was jealous of the attention Witt lavished upon his youngest daughter—their only child. As Witt pushed himself upright in the bed, Kat cracked open the connecting door, allowing a thin shaft of light from their suite to pierce into the room occupied by London and her nanny.

At first she thought her tired eyes were playing tricks on her, that she'd drunk too much champagne and her cloudy mind wasn't focusing, but as she stepped into the smaller room, her heart began to hammer, thunder in her ears. She fumbled for the switch. Suddenly the room was flooded with light.

Both beds were empty; neither had been mussed. The sheets were turned down and two mints sat untouched on the pillows.

Katherine's throat constricted in a mind-numbing fear. “London?” she said weakly.

Sagging against the door frame, Kat glanced at the closet standing open, and noticed that there was nothing inside—no clothes, no bags, no shoes, as there had been earlier. There wasn't a trace of London or Ginny.

Dear God, please let this be a horrible mistake
. She stepped into the room and felt a chill as cold as November.
Don't panic!
London was here. She had to be. But something was wrong and a black fear started crawling up her spine, clutching at her heart.

“Witt?” she called, surprised at the calm in her voice. After all, this was probably just a mistake. The nanny moved London to another room—to make sure that Witt and Katherine had the privacy they needed. “Witt!”

“Whaaaa?” Witt weaved to the doorway and propped a shoulder against the frame. “What's going on?” he asked thickly and Kat knew a moment of absolute desolation—as if her soul had been stripped from her.

“Call security! There's something wrong here—London and Ginny are gone. Probably in another room, but call the security guards and the manager just in case.” Her mind, always so cool and dependable, was running away with her to horrible nightmares concerning her child, but she tried her best to stay calm and reasonable. There was just a mixup. That was all. No reason to become hysterical, not yet. Then why were her knees knocking?
Oh, God, please don't let anything happen to my baby!

Witt strode into the room, knocked over the lamp and swore. Suddenly comprehending that his daughter was truly missing, he began tearing the dresser and bed apart, as if he could find his precious child or some evidence of her in the room.

“Leave it alone! For the police!” Kat threw herself at him. “Just call the damned security!”

“She's not gone,” Witt said, suddenly stone-cold sober. “She can't be. She's in this hotel. In the wrong room.” He opened the door and bellowed into the hallway, “Jason! Zach! For Christ's sake get in here!” Turning to Katherine, he said, “Well find her. And that damned nanny. And when I do, I swear I'll strangle Ginny Slade for this little prank!”

Witt's words were bold, but his face grew ashen and Katherine knew the cold, jabbing fear that she might never see her daughter alive again. Guilt and fear took hold of her. She loved London, she did. With all her heart. All the times she'd been jealous of her little girl because of the attention she received from her father flitted through her mind and she wondered, vaguely, if she were being punished. She didn't believe in God, but…Oh, please, please, let her be safe! She ran back to her room and with shaking fingers dialed the main desk. Before the clerk could answer, she said, “This is Katherine Danvers. Send up security. Room 714. And call the police. London's missing!”

Witt loosened the top two buttons of his collar and stared out the window to the city he'd loved, the town he'd trusted. The streetlights, skyscrapers, and traffic looked the same as they had on any predawn Sunday morning, but now the town seemed sinister and menacing. Portland, his home, had turned on him.

He saw his reflection in the plate glass, ghostly and faint over the eastern skyline. His face was ravaged and drawn, his eyes haunted, his shoulders slumped. He looked ninety rather than sixty.

Whoever had taken his baby would pay, but a dark fear tore at his mind. What if they were never found?

He wouldn't think such gloomy thoughts. Of course she'd be found. Of course she'd be fine. She was London Danvers, for Christ's sake. That part bothered him as much as the loss—that someone would dare defy him, someone who knew how to wound him until he was bled dry.

He reached for his wife's pack of Virginia Slims and lit up, hoping that sucking in smoke and inhaling nicotine would help. It didn't.

Turning back to the suite, he saw the faces of his family, tired and drawn, with dark circles and eyes dark with fear. Everyone was accounted for except London. And Zach.

A loud knock jarred through Witt's head. “Police, Danvers! What the hell's going on?”

Jason opened the door and admitted Jack Logan, who only a few hours before had been downstairs at the party. Jack, an honest cop before he'd met Witt, was now firmly trapped in Witt's gold-lined pockets. Four officers were with Detective Sergeant Logan.

“We got a call that London was kidnapped,” Jack said, eyeing the group, taking a mental tally and coming up not one, but two Danverses short.

“Looks that way.” He stubbed out the damned cigarette in a cut-glass tray, then showed the police London's room.

“Jesus, Mary, Joseph,” Logan muttered under his breath. The room was photographed, dusted, and gone over with the proverbial fine-tooth comb; then Logan returned to Witt's suite, where he, along with another officer, Sergeant Trent, began his interrogations.

Questions were fired at each of the family members, sometimes together, sometimes individually. Logan trusted no one.

While the officers were still scribbling on their pads, Logan demanded a list of the people who had attended the party. He wanted names and phone numbers of the guests, the staff, as well as the band members, florists, and wait staff. Who were the delivery men? With what agency did Katherine book the entertainment? What about the baker and the ice sculptor? Were there any reporters or photographers present?

Who was Ginny Slade? Where did she come from? Did she have any family? What were her references?

What was her relationship with Zach?

“She has none!” Katherine said emphatically, her cool confidence shattered. Eyes rimmed with streaking mascara, she glared at the detective sergeant. “Zach isn't involved in—”

“He's missing, isn't he?” Logan countered, his lips thinning thoughtfully. “You call that a coincidence?”

“For Christ's sake, he's only seventeen. How could he be behind something like this? He was probably kidnapped as well,” Witt interjected, and Logan sent him a harsh look that silently called him a fool.

“That boy's been in and out of trouble since he was twelve, Witt. Face it. I've had to cover his ass more times than I can count.”

“Nothing like this,” Witt said quietly, though deep inside he felt a gut-wrenching fear that Logan was right. Zach had a chip on his shoulder the size of Nevada and he'd never gotten along with anyone in the family—even London, though the precocious child had hung on his every word. “You know who you've got to arrest, Logan. Polidori is behind this one.”

“You don't know that.”

“Like hell!” Witt growled, suddenly snapping. The tension in the room was getting to him and he felt as if his nerves were strung as tight as winch cables.

Logan, still staring at Witt as if he were a buffoon, ran a gnarled hand through his snow-white hair. Logan's face was lined and ruddy, weather-beaten by the winds that had blown incessantly down the Columbia River Gorge while he pounded a beat on the east side for ten years. Tiny lines webbed beneath the skin of his nose, adding a reddish tone created by a lifelong love affair with Irish whiskey. A no-nonsense man, Logan seldom threw any punches. It had taken years for Witt to get the goods on the man, make him bend the rules a bit, and take a simple bribe. Logan had fought him, but when push came to shove and Logan had needed help with his drug-dependent daughter, Risa, Witt had gotten the girl quietly into a private clinic and made sure that the story hadn't found its way to the news stations or been printed in any of the local papers.

Logan had been a trusted friend and ally ever since. But he still spoke his mind. “If you ask me, Zach knows what happened to your little girl, Witt.” The detective glanced at Kat, who had turned a paler shade of white and looked as if she might faint. “Any reason why he'd want to harm her—?”

Katherine let out a whimper. “He's just a boy…”

“—or at least scare the bejesus out of the both of you?”

“No!” An uneasy feeling tightened in Witt's guts. He and Zach had never gotten along. They'd been oil and water for years, and the fact that Zach didn't seem to have one Danvers characteristic made Witt suspicious of the boy. There had always been rumors…ugly rumors suggesting that Zach wasn't his son. Then there was the problem with Kat…Witt had seen her dancing with her stepson, leading him on, whispering in his ear only to shut him down. Maybe out of vengeance…Hell, no! Zach was the only one of his older children who seemed to like London. And he was seventeen, for crying out loud. Seventeen!

“It's been known to happen,” Logan was insisting. “One kid gets jealous of another—”

“No way. Zach's probably up to his butt in trouble, but he didn't take London.”

“Think about it,” Logan suggested, then started ordering some of his men to talk to everyone remotely associated with the Danvers family. Other officers were told to interrogate everyone staying at the hotel, then asked to check the records and contact guests who had stayed in the hotel for the last three months.

While each family member was interrogated a second and third time, the detective sergeant kept track of the investigation via walkie-talkie. His men were situated throughout the building and checking every available space in the hotel as well as working the grounds and spreading through the city, reporting anything remotely suspicious on the streets.

Informants were contacted, and anyone with an arrest record for kidnapping was in for a shock, though Logan suspected that this case was different. This wasn't the work of penny-ante crooks—this was different and deadly.

Logan was a practical man, a cop who had fought his way through the ranks to make detective sergeant. He hadn't earned his position because of his education or his sophistication; he'd built his reputation by the simple fact that he always got the job done. Over the course of his twenty-odd years with the force, he'd been called a mule, a terrier, and a self-centered bastard, but the bottom line was that he got results. Crusty and cantankerous, with four-letter words being the essence of his vocabulary, he'd devoted his life to cleaning up the filthy streets of Portland.

He called 'em as he saw 'em and in his book, Zachary Danvers was a bad seed. Maybe not even Witt's son. Rumor had it that Zach was sired by Anthony Polidori, and though Logan didn't give much credit to most of the gossip he heard, he did believe that where there was smoke there was fire. He'd caught more than one slippery criminal on the anonymous tip, the “gossip” of the streets. So maybe the grudge between Zach and Witt was stronger than the old man wanted to admit. Maybe Zach hated the man who had raised him. Considering the feud between the Polidori and Danvers families, anything was possible.

The sooner Zach was located, Logan was convinced, the sooner he'd find London, and when he did, his score with Witt Danvers would be even. Members of the family, swathed in hotel robes, hair mussed, smoking cigarettes, sat in the chairs and whispered quietly, hoping not to set off Katherine, who, arms wrapped around her middle, stared sightlessly out the window, a neglected Virginia Slim dangling from her fingers.

Trisha chewed at the corner of one fingernail. Jason paced from the window to a small table and back again. Nelson was wide-eyed and nervous, as if he was on speed, Witt thought with distaste. Everyone was there except London, her nanny Ginny, and Zach.

Witt stared at the bleary-eyed faces of his children and prayed to God that little London was safe, just misplaced. He hoped that the child, upon being hauled away from the party, had protested by “running away” to some hidden corner of the hotel and that Ginny, the idiot of a nanny, rather than lose face and admit that she'd lost his most precious possession, was tearing the hotel apart, searching for her missing charge. But he knew in his heart that he was wasting his time on empty hope. London was gone. Abducted and kidnapped and probably worse. His back teeth ground together in frustration as he wondered where she was—if she was still alive. He couldn't let his mind wander too far along that dark path, or he'd lose every bit of his sanity.

The police, except for Jack Logan, left the room.

Kat ran the fingers of one hand through her rumpled hair and glanced sightlessly at her husband. With effort she stubbed out her cigarette. “I think we should do something.”

“Logan's got his men searching the building. He's going over the guest list. He'll question anyone who was in the hotel.”

“That's not good enough!” she said with a deadly calm that belied her ravaged emotions. “My baby's gone, Witt.
Our
baby. Gone! Disappeared!” Blinking back tears, she walked to her purse, pulled out her gold cigarette case, and fumbled with the catch. She lit up again and wrapped one arm around herself, as if warding off a chill.

“What do you want me to do?” He felt so damned helpless and he hated the feeling. He was always in command, the man in charge…

“Use your influence, for God's sake. You're the richest man in this city, so you shouldn't sit around here waiting for the police to fumble all over themselves. Do
something
, Witt. I don't care who you have to bribe or threaten. Call in the goddamned FBI! Just find my daughter!” Her hands shook as she took another drag on her cigarette.

“They've already called the feds—in case she's been taken over state lines. And I'll do anything I can to find London, you know that. Believe me, I'm trying.”

“Well, try harder!” She squashed out her half-smoked Virginia Slim in a glass tray. “She might be with Zach,” she said, not for the first time, though at one point she'd defended the boy. She'd been the first to suggest that Zachary was involved, then changed her mind as if the thought were too distasteful. “Maybe Zach's got her somewhere and this is just a prank…” She must've noticed the skeptical expression on his face. “Well, he's involved, then. You know him, Witt, always in trouble…walking on the wrong side of the law…like his father.”

Stung, Witt held his tongue. The crack about Zach's paternity struck home, but he didn't call her on it. He'd never believed, never let himself think for one minute, that Zach had been sired by Polidori. A bitter taste filled his mouth at the very thought. It was possible, but, no, he wouldn't believe that the boy he'd considered his second son for all these years wasn't his. But he wasn't going to argue the point with Kat. There was no reasoning with her now and he had to keep a clam head, no matter what else.

Nelson, his youngest son, looked scared. Witt had never much cared for the boy; at fourteen he was still a scrawny kid who seemed to take after him, but always reminded Witt of his first wife, Eunice. There was something about Nelson that was…odd. Unsettling. “Why didn't you tell me Zach didn't come upstairs?” he asked the boy, and Nelson swallowed hard, avoiding his father's eyes. “You were supposed to be sharing a room.”

“Dunno.”

“Where is he?”

“Dunno.”

Witt let out a sigh and stared at Nelson with an intensity that had made loggers with inch-thick hides squirm. “You know where he is.”

“No!”

“But you know something,” Witt prodded, sensing that the boy was holding back. Hell, what a bunch of headstrong kids he was raising.

“I, uh, saw him leave the party,” Nelson admitted sullenly, looking as if he thought he was Benedict Arnold, for Christ's sake!

Witt didn't move. “Leave? When?”

Katherine walked over to Nelson. “It must have been after Witt cut the cake, because I saw him earlier.”

Nelson nodded mutely.

So Kat had kept her eye on Zach. “Was London with him?” Witt demanded, already knowing the answer.

Nelson shook his head furiously, his long blond hair brushing the back of his shoulders. “He left alone, didn't want to be bothered.”

“Why didn't you tell us this earlier?” Katherine seemed tense enough to slap the boy.

“I didn't want to get him in trouble.”