David Kent - The Triangle Conspiracy

“My apartment,” Daryn said. “Could you take me there?”

“You mean the one you lived in as Kat Hall?”

“I suppose I’m Kat again. And I have nowhere else to go.”

Faith looked at her for a long moment. “I’ll drop you off a couple of blocks from there. Close enough?”

“Of course. I understand.”

Faith turned off all the lights and locked the house. The evening was cool and clear. It was the first time Daryn had been outside in nearly a week. She stood for a moment and breathed in the air. A grackle called from one of the nearby trees.

Faith appeared to shudder.

Daryn smiled in the dark.

They got in the Miata. “He’ll kill me, you know,” Daryn said as Faith started the car.

Faith was silent. She pulled the car out of the driveway and pointed it south. She didn’t speak to Daryn for the entire trip.

MARGARET HOLZBAUER HADN’T BEEN SLEEPINGwell, ever since poor Katherine was kidnapped.

She knew the police weren’t necessarily calling it a kidnapping, just a standard missing persons case, but Holzbauer knew. She’d known it the same way she knew what was happening when her Jewish neighbors began disappearing sixty-five years ago in Munich. She’d known they were dead, and she’d known that her beloved Deutschland was in the grip of a madman, and that she and Ernst and their babies would have to leave.

These days Ernst sat watching television, trying to read the lips of the news reporters and the actors. He caught a few words now and then, but the old fool missed almost everything. Refused to wear his hearing aids because they were for “old people.”

We are old, you fool! She’d shouted at him.

What? He said back.

So she walked the floor, watching the windows. A police car came by now and then to check on things, and sometimes reporters still showed up. She always talked to them, anything to keep alive the search for the poor girl. It was a little past nine o’clock and it had been fifteen minutes since she’d last looked outside. She raised the curtains, and her heart almost stopped.

Katherine walked into the parking lot from the direction of the street. She was alone, her clothes were dirty…she had nothing but the clothes on her back.

“Ernst!” she shouted. “She’s back!”

“What?” her husband bellowed.

She ignored him, grabbed the phone, and called 911.

The door to her apartment had been repaired, and Daryn had to wonder for a moment if they’d put a new lock on it. But no, her key still worked. She let herself in and walked down the hall to where it opened onto the small living room. Things didn’t look much amiss. There was still a tiny bloodstain on the TV from where Sean Kelly had shot one of the guys who broke in.

She sat on the couch, closed her eyes, and waited.

She didn’t have to wait long. She knew she could count on Mrs. Holzbauer, and within ten minutes the cops were at her door. There were two uniformed officers, a detective, and Mrs. Holzbauer, ever-present, hovering in the background.

The detective introduced himself as Rob Cain. He was a handsome man, very alert, wearing a white ribbon on his wine-colored shirt. Daryn felt a deep stirring, and resisted the urge to reach for his crotch.

“Ms. Hall,” he said. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine, thank you.” She smiled.

“May I ask where you’ve been the last two weeks?”

“I had to go away.”

“Did that going away have anything to do with the two men who broke into your apartment?”

Daryn looked at him but said nothing.

“Did you leave voluntarily?” he asked.

“Yes,” Daryn said.

Cain seemed to think for a moment. “Did you return voluntarily?”

“Yes.”

“You understand that you’ve been listed as a missing person?”

Daryn crossed her legs at the knee, just wanting the police to be gone. She knew this was necessary, but she had other things to do, other tasks yet to perform. “I’m sorry for any inconvenience I’ve caused anyone.”

Cain tapped a legal pad against his knee. “Inconvenience.” He leaned forward. “Ms. Hall, where were you?”

Daryn folded her hands in her lap. “I was pretty shaken up when those men broke in here. I needed some time away.”

“Have you ever heard the name Franklin Sanborn?”

“I don’t think so. Why?”

Cain acted as if he hadn’t heard her. “Did you falsify your references on your rental application for this apartment?”

“Detective, am I under suspicion of something? If so, please tell me now so I can contact a lawyer.”

“What do you think I might suspect you of?” Cain asked.

“You tell me.”

“What about those references?”

“I paid cash in advance for my lease. The apartment manager didn’t seem to mind. Maybe you should check with him.”

“I have,” Cain said. “Are you running from someone, Ms. Hall?”

If only you knew, Daryn thought. She made herself fidget on the couch. “Yes.”

“An abusive husband or boyfriend, maybe?”

Daryn closed her eyes. “Yes.”

“Franklin Sanborn.”

Daryn nodded, eyes still closed.

“From Indiana,” Cain said, looking at his notes.

“Yes. He’s a professor.” She opened her eyes and looked directly at Cain. “But it’s all right now. He won’t bother me anymore. He understands now.”

Cain met her gaze, then slowly dropped his eyes. He was really a very good-looking man.

“Your neighbor was very worried about you,” he said. He waved toward Margaret Holzbauer, who stood near the doorway.

“I’m sorry,” Daryn said.

Cain was quiet for a long moment. “You’re back safe, and that’s the important thing.” He stood up and handed her a card. “If you think of anything we might need to know, please call me.”

“Anything you might need to know? Like what, Detective Cain?”

“You tell me.”

They exchanged wary smiles. “I can’t think of anything,” Daryn said. “But I’ll keep your card.”

Cain nodded to her, beckoned to the two uniforms, and they left the apartment. Mrs. Holzbauer stayed for a few minutes, fluttering over her. Daryn talked to her mindlessly, not remembering what she’d said only seconds after saying it. It was shortly after ten before the old woman left and Daryn was alone. She breathed out quietly and sat motionless on the couch. Her head was pounding.

Rob Cain had been at his ten-year-old son’s baseball game at Woodson Park in south Oklahoma City when dispatch called him. Dylan wasn’t a particularly athletic kid, but he loved the game of baseball, and Cain was proud to bursting that the boy kept trying, regardless of what he did on the field during the games.

He called his wife’s cell. “Game over?” he said.

“Yep,” she said. “Nearly half an hour ago.”

“Damn,” Cain said. “Sorry.”

He pictured his wife’s shrug. She was the wife of a detective, after all.

“Was it her?” his wife asked. “The missing girl.”

“It was.”

“She’s okay?”

“Physically she’s fine. She’s also lying to me through her teeth.”

“What?”

“Never mind. It may be a while before I get home.”

After he hung up, he headed toward his office downtown. Inside the Detective Division of the Oklahoma City Police Department, he found his desk and started sifting through piles of paper. After a moment he had the phone number he wanted. He didn’t look at the time before he called.

“Scott Hendler,” said a voice a moment later.

“Scott, it’s Rob Cain,” he said. “Sorry to call so late. But I think you and I need to talk.”

Daryn sat in silence for a few minutes, then took her cell and made a call.