THE RUNNER

In a city of almost a million people, it should have been easy to hide. Moving on foot, through Robert Hawk’s gated neighborhood, had been her first challenge. She’d jogged along the treeline, when the first police car had turned down Robert’s street. The sight of it had caused her to trip, her shoe snagging on the dirt as she had ducked down and in between two trees. The car had continued on, followed by three more sedans and an armored van.

She’d watched them pass, her alarm turning into confusing. Were they looking for her? The group of blue and whites took a left and turned down Robert’s street. Maybe they were coming for him. If they showed up … if he had killed Dario …

She had shifted her weight from foot to foot, looking back in the direction of the house, then forward, toward the exit. Then, she had continued to run.

Now, huddled over a book in a crowded Barnes and Noble off Rampart, she worked through every minute of that night. Using the master key Hawk had given her to gain access to Bell Hartley’s suite. Waiting in the closet. The tall brunette walking in. Could it have been Gwen?

No. She’d watched her too many times. Memorized every expression she carried, the gracious way she dipped her head, how she navigated easily in heels, each moment fluid and graceful. She’d spent hours in her room, practicing, striving for the seductive yet classy gait that Gwen so effortlessly pulled off.

This woman … well, she’d been in tennis shoes. Claudia struggled to remember the last time she’d seen Gwen in anything other than heels. Once, on her way to the plane, heading for the ranch. She’d worn tennis shoes then—but she’d been carrying coffee and wearing a long coat, aviators covering half her face. To compare her gait with the woman from the room…

She closed her eyes tightly, her mind bombarded with images. The woman—Bell—slumping to the floor, her hair a mess of gore and brains. Bell. It had to be Bell. The awkward sprawl of her limbs. A twitch of her leg. Blood, a pool of it spreading.

She’d seen death before. First as a terrified observer, starving and handcuffed, on the hard concrete floor of a cell. Then, as Robert Hawk’s right hand.

But causing death had been a different experience, one that had given her such a dizzying sense of power, of self-pride, of accomplishment. She’d stood over that body and anticipated Robert’s reaction, had anticipated sitting across from Gwen and bonding with her.

All those thoughts, those possibilities… she had taken them from herself. Taken Robert’s daughter away from him. Left them both alone.

He would be… her mind stalled. Furious was not strong enough of a word. There was no word for the pain that he would feel. The fury. The reaction. She could feel a twist of all of it in herself, the self-hatred that burned through her chest.

Had she actually killed Gwen?

She dropped her head back and, in the middle of the crowded store, screamed.

DARIO

Dario rubbed his wrists and scowled at the man. “You were a bit rough with the cuffs.”

“Hey. Had to make it look authentic.” The detective, one of the few clean cops in the department, and one who’d known Dario since his first year in Vegas, leaned forward. “I’ve got a cell in solitary confinement for you. You want out for a night, you let me know. But I can’t have that pretty mug being photographed while you’re supposed to be locked up. So be smart and camp out in there as long as you can.”

He pushed the open folder across the desk. “This is what we got so far. Eight missing girls. They’ve disappeared over twenty years, so it hasn’t been very high on our radar. I swear, he waits until we’re in the middle of a management turnover to take them.”

Dario looked at the first page, the girl smiling out from a photo at the upper corner. He recognized the setting. It was an employment photo, the sort The Majestic’s HR department took on a new hire’s first day, the casino’s uniform still stiff, the makeup subdued, the image printed on a shiny card with a barcode and access stamp.

He flipped to the second set of clipped pages. This one was a blonde. Another employee photo, from one of their smaller casinos, Jahar.

Both girls had favored each other. Both pretty. Both young. Both beautiful. Both… just like Bell. The thought made him queasy. He looked back at the photo, sensing a more probable connection. Both girls looked like younger versions of Gwen. And just like Gwen, they were dead. He voiced his thoughts, and the detective shifted in his desk chair.

“Well, now. We don’t know that they’re dead.”

Dario lifted his head, breaking eye contact with the third woman’s photo. “Excuse me?”

“That one right there?” The man leaned forward, his finger moving to and tapping on another beautiful young girl’s photo. “That’s Claudia Vorherz. She disappeared two years ago. We thought, her family thought, hell—everybody thought she was a goner, just like the rest of them. Same MO to the tee.”

He started to check off the items on his short, thick fingers.

“Hawk casino employee.”

“Single.”

“No family close by.”

“Disappeared without any cell phone usage, credit card spending, or packed bags.”

The suspense was painful. Dario gave a curt nod. “And?”

“And … then she showed up eight months ago. Alive, fit as a fucking fiddle, not a scratch on her—at least, not anywhere her mother could see.”

This hadn’t hit the news. He pinned the man with a hard look. “And why the fuck have you not shared this with me before?”

Each girl that went missing had produced massive media coverage, police investigations, the questioning of employees … and each one had been hell on Gwen. With each disappearance, she’d spent weeks in alcohol and medication-fueled depressions, the downturns only cured by time and—eventually—trips to the ranch. Solo trips that brought her back with flushed cheeks, glowing skin, and peace in her eyes.

If she had known that one of the missing girls had survived, had been fine… he fought the urge to flip over the detective’s desk in frustration.

The man leaned back as if sensing the possibility and spread his hands in surrender. “We didn’t want to lose momentum. With the girls spread so far apart, we were already having trouble keeping the media—and our chief—focused on finding their abductor. Or killer. Or whatever this guy is.”

“This guy? It’s Robert Hawk. No question.”

“Well, yes. That’s what we suspect.”

Dario growled underneath his breath. The man responsible was Hawk. There wasn’t a doubt in his mind of that. But he could understand the police department’s reluctance to put that label on him. After all, he was one of the most powerful men in Vegas. A close friend of the governor and a major contributor to his re-election fund. Hell, Hawk had sponsored the police department’s Christmas dinner this year, in addition to his generous annual scholarship program for law enforcement children.

“But suspicions aren’t enough to get a warrant. We need something concrete on him. You know that.”

Yes, Dario had known that. It was why he’d spent the last five years secretly helping. He’d worked with the detective to set up office phone taps, had fed them information about Hawk’s schedule, his habits, his real estate holdings and shell corporations. He’d given them a hundred clues, and they hadn’t found jack shit tying Hawk to the missing girls.

“You’ve got the recording from today.” While the wire crudely taped to his chest had been as easy to find as a crack whore behind Jerry’s Nugget, the real transmitter, a bug the size of a piece of popcorn, had gone undetected. It was still right where he’d left it, behind the Getty bust.

“The recording implicates him on Gwen, not these girls.” The man gestured to the row of photos.

“Then arrest him for Gwen. Now.” He needed Hawk locked up. Precious time was ticking by, considering Bell was at risk every day that Robert Hawk walked free. The moment Hawk had learned she was still alive… she’d been back in danger. It was a necessity he hated, but one that was inevitable. Gwen’s death was a secret with a very short shelf-life, especially with the number of moles in this department.

“Be patient, Dario. We’ll arrest him. But we have to be smart about it or you know what’ll happen. We’ll bring him in, question him, and then his lawyers will pick apart every line of that tape until it looks like a kindergartener’s lunch plate. They’ll have him out on bail and he won’t make another mistake, not in the months before a trial.”

He was right. It was why the plan was to tail Hawk and wiretap his home and cell phone. Let him blow up about Gwen and lead them to the man he’d hired to kill her. If there was anything Dario knew, it was that Robert Hawk did not allow a misstep to go unpunished. And the death of his only daughter? He would bring the wrath of God down on that individual.

Dario took a pained breath, his heart still raw at the realization that Gwen was dead. Gone. Forever. His Gwen. She’d never smile at him over coffee. Would never know that Claudia Vorherz was safe. Would never slip her hand into his and affectionately squeeze his palm.

Dario stared down at the third girl and struggled to maintain his composure. Claudia. “So, what did she say? This one?”

The man shrugged. “We couldn’t get to her in time. She showed up at her mom’s house on Christmas Day, as if everything was hunky-dory. Brought her a present, as if seeing her wasn’t enough. Stayed there four hours, didn’t tell her dick about where she’d been for nearly a year and a half, then crawled out a window and left.”

“Why’d she crawl out a window? Why didn’t she just walk out the door?”

“My guess? She didn’t want to answer any questions about when she’d see her again.”

Dario looked at the page, his eyes skimming over the details of her disappearance. The detective was right. Everything about her fit the profile, down to the sunny smile on the brunette’s photo. A smile that made him think again of Bell. A pull of longing snuck past his grief. Earlier, after she’d laid down to sleep, Laurent had called. The small details of her day had made him yearn for the humid air of the swamp, the tiny shack that Laurent owned, the taste of gumbo and fried gator tail. He’d have loved to show her that life, to tell her stories of his youth, and laugh over her reactions. Another opportunity missed, stolen from their progression as a normal couple.

Dario looked back down at the file and tried to retrace his thoughts. “How long ago was that? And no one’s seen her since?”

“About six months ago. And yep, no one’s seen her since. It really let the air out of our investigation. Hell, maybe all of them are runaways.”

They weren’t. Dario could feel it in his bones, knew the potential in Hawk’s evil, had seen the evidence of it—just one day ago—in Gwen’s blood. He turned to the next girl’s photo.

“Now that one’s interesting. She was a Miss America finalist before she moved to Vegas and started waiting tables. Left work one night and never showed up at her apartment. Her car disappeared, just like the others. I swear, one day we’re going to find a garage full of them.”

“You need to search Hawk’s property. The house, the grounds. There’s evidence there.”

“Like I said, be patient.” He cocked one brow at Dario. “We’ve got to see where he leads us. Just give us a few days. We need just a little more if we’re going to put him away and actually keep him there.”

Dario lowered his head to his hands and squeezed his temples. He thought back.

Meeting Hawk and Gwen in Biloxi.

The date with Gwen, the night when Jenny killed herself, where Gwen’s eyes had darted to the exits, and she seemed positively terrified.

Hawk’s job offer. Gwen’s confession, her plea, her need to be rescued.

He’d always been a sucker for a damsel in distress. She had needed someone, and he had all but tripped over himself to save her from her father.

But he hadn’t, had he? In the end, despite their thirteen years together, despite all of his promises, he’d failed her. Even worse, he’d sparked the event that had led to her death.

Dario sat back with a frustrated exhale. “If the recording isn’t enough to keep him locked up on Gwen’s death, then arrest him on something else. Fuck, he’s bribed half of the city. Don’t you have anything on that? Or on tax evasion? Or…”

His mind grasped wildly, trying to find something, some way that—in all the time he’d known the man—he had slipped up. But Robert Hawk was smart. He paid the right people. Covered his tracks well and was always just on the right side of legitimate, always a little more interested in money over violence.

Money. The word stuck in his mind, and he mulled over it, lifting his head to see the detective shake a sugar packet into his coffee mug and sloshing the contents around. “With Gwen deceased, do you have the authority to access her financials?”

The man hesitated, the coffee cup almost to his lips, then nodded. “Sure. With her death being a murder, we can look through her financials to research her life, try and find someone with a motive.” He fixed his eyes on Dario. “Though, I gotta say, financially speaking, there’s not a better person than you, in terms of profiting from her death.”

Dario said nothing, his focus shifting through the accounts that Gwen had access to. “She’s on some of Hawk’s private accounts. Use that access to dig up anything you can. And the business accounts as well. Bribes, tax evasion, there’s got to be something in those accounts.”

“You realize that Gwen’s on your accounts, too. Opening this can of worms … it may come back to bite you.”

Dario shrugged off the threat. At this point, a bite was the least of his worries. They needed to drown Robert Hawk. Cut him off at the knees, handcuff him for every crime he’d ever committed, and hold him accountable for the monster he was.

And the sooner all of that happened, the sooner Bell would be safe.