trained Megan to defend herself and, while Darcy was away, to defend Charlie. She didn’t have a single doubt that Meg would protect her boy with her life, and it made leaving a lot easier.
Darcy sipped the coffee, watching Charlie and the six puppies again. She couldn’t imagine life without him, and she had to make his world safer.
Megan came back, dressed and eating another doughnut. The woman was rail thin no matter how much she stuffed in her mouth. It was maddening.
“Ahh, now there’s a grin.” Meg pointed with the half-eaten doughnut. “Since Rainy’s death, I didn’t think I’d see that again.”
Darcy turned to her, pushing her hair off her face. “Me, either.” It was hard to believe the funeral had been nearly two weeks ago.
Her brows knit as she freshened her coffee, the night Rainy died rolling back.
“I’m calling on the Cassandra promise,” Rainy had said on the phone. They’d made the pact as teens, that when one of them called for help they would come, no questions asked. “Meet at the Christine Evans bungalow.” Christine was the principal of Athena Academy, and her bungalow was on school grounds. Darcy had bought tickets to Phoenix, Arizona, the nearest city, immediately.
Rainy had insisted on secrecy. That alone told them something was up. Alex, Kayla and Josie were there before Darcy had arrived with a sleepy Charlie. Christine hadn’t known what Rainy wanted to talk to them about and only mentioned searching the school records.
Exactly why Rainy wanted to meet with them at the principal’s house they never learned. She was killed in an accident just an hour before the appointed time. Darcy swallowed, holding back new tears. Car crash my fanny, she thought, growing angry again.
None of the Cassandras believed the doctor’s report that Rainy had fallen asleep at the wheel and crashed.
Alex, a forensic scientist with the FBI, had observed Rainy’s autopsy. Alex had discovered that the appendectomy Rainy had supposedly had during her first year at Athena had been a fake. She’d also noticed severe scarring on Rainy’s ovaries.
Rainy’s husband, Marshall Carrington, had revealed that he and Rainy had been trying for years to have a baby. Recently Rainy had begun fertility treatments. Her doctor had told them Rainy had scarring on her ovaries that would make it hard for her to conceive. The doctor had thought it the result of a natural physical problem. The Cassandras now suspected, as Rainy must have, that her eggs had been harvested when she was only a girl and the scarring was a result of that monstrous crime.
Automatically her gaze swung to Charlie rolling around on the grass with another little boy and six fat black puppies. She could almost feel her heart break for Rainy. Charlie was her whole world and she understood her friend’s need for a baby.
But it was depraved that someone would violate a twelve-year-old girl for her eggs. And the Cassandras were certain that someone had taken the eggs for a reason. God, with the technology, it could be any number of options and experiments. The thought turned Darcy’s stomach.
Rainy’s doctor had also left town suddenly, and Alex and Kayla’s efforts to find out her whereabouts had so far come to nothing. And what about Kayla fainting while on Athena grounds just before the funeral?
Darcy made a mental note to call Kayla sometime today to see if she’d learned something more. The one thought repeating in her mind was, if someone had fertilized Rainy’s harvested eggs, in-vitro or perhaps via a surrogate, then there was a real possibility that Rainy had a child out there somewhere.
Darcy’s skin chilled. If Rainy found out and had been killed to keep it quiet, then it was murder. The questions the Cassandras had to answer were who had harvested the eggs and why.
Oh, Rainy, she mourned, covering her mouth and fighting fresh tears. You knew, didn’t you?
Before you died, you knew.
Her throat tightened, and suddenly, Darcy pitched her coffee and stepped off the back porch. Kicking off her shoes, she called to Charlie and plopped down in the grass. The puppies hopped all over her and she lay flat, letting them lick their fill.
But it was Charlie’s sweet giggles that melted the pain in her heart.
The Chop Shop was humming, with four stylists hard at work and more clients waiting to be pampered. The atmosphere in the fifties garage-style salon, complete with cheesecake posters and retro fittings, invited fun and drew a wide variety of clients.
The doors on the stylists’ work stations were old car doors, cut to fit, the handles authentic. The chairs were comfy car seats upholstered in electric blue. Even her appointment desk was the chopped-off front end of a Cadillac, complete with windshield. The walls were high gloss with four-foot-wide tear stripes in hot pink, electric blue and neon green between wide paths of black, toned down by the black-and-white checkerboard floor. Neon signs with the shop’s name hung outside and in the front window.
Darcy had put her mark on everything, from the black work aprons with the shop’s name emblazoned in hot pink to the play area for Charlie and her customers’ kids. Yet she longed for the day when she could add her real name to the proprietress sign tacked near the front door.
She passed the picture of the previous owner, Crystal Hart, smiling, knowing Crystal would approve of the new look and name. Darcy loved the salon because Crystal had taken her in, given her a job and kept her secrets. The older woman had been more interested in helping her with Charlie than doing hair and to Charlie, she’d been more of a grandmother than Darcy’s own mother. Which wasn’t hard, she thought, sectioning off a client’s wet hair for a cut. Delores Allen had her nose deep in a fifth of scotch by noon every day. Darcy shook off thoughts of her mother and started cutting.
For less than two short years, Darcy had been graced with Crystal’s wisdom and kindness. Then Crystal had been diagnosed with cancer. When her health declined, Darcy took over the business for her. Crystal’s dying wish had been for Darcy and Charlie never to have to hide behind an alias again.
Darcy was determined to get her life out of this holding pattern.
Around her, blow-dryers whined and the strong scents of tint and bleach permeated the air. Fifties music played in the shampoo area in the back of the salon while the television entertained the clients in the front.
She trimmed her client’s hair, not paying attention to anything but the cut. Charlie was corralled in his play area with another customer’s child, coloring.
Her client spoke up. “Oh, there’s that thriller movie that’s coming out. I want to see it. Ben Collier is to-die-for cute.”
Darcy barely glanced up at the TV as the entertainment segment came on. She kept trimming hair. When she glanced up again, she saw the Steele Productions Presents logo and her heart slammed in her chest.
Maurice.
There was a brief theatrical trailer for the action-spy thriller before the commentator said, “Critics are calling the high-budget film Dead Game the action thriller of the year. Ben Collier delivers a surprisingly stellar performance that some say will make him the next box-office king. The film combines a tremendous script, daredevil action and breathtaking locations. The film world is breathlessly awaiting this release because recent Pegasus-backed films involving Ben Collier and executive producer Maurice Steele haven’t had the expected box-office draw in recent years. Sources
