A Daughter's Perfect Secret

Each second that ticked by without finding his son was another second closer to losing him forever.

However, at Darcy’s look of disappointment, he said, “But I think there’s enough food to scrounge up something decent, at least for tonight. Do you cook?”

“Not really,” she admitted. “My mom always did the cooking. Her love language was food. When I was sick, she’d make fresh chicken noodle. To even suggest something from a can was an insult. She would’ve made my school lunches for me until I graduated if I hadn’t put my foot down.”

Rafe heard a hint of sadness in the deprecating laugh but he didn’t press even though he was curious. It was best to keep the lines drawn to avoid emotional entanglements. To know too much was an invitation to want more.

Like tangled sheets and rumpled clothing.

Dear Reader,

I’ve always wanted to participate in a continuity project, so when I was asked to be one of the five authors for the “Perfect” romantic suspense project, I was nearly giddy with excitement. What a joyful experience, collaborating with such talented authors. I learned a lot about myself as a writer, and about working as a team on what is usually a solitary endeavor.

If you’re following the series (you don’t want to miss any of these amazing connected stories!) you’re in for a thrilling adventure. This book, the third in the series, follows Dr Rafe Black straight into the heart of a twisted cult as he searches undercover for his missing son. He’s playing a dangerous game, pretending to be a Devotee, but he isn’t alone. Darcy Craven is searching for answers and she won’t let anything stop her—not even when her life is threatened.

I love characters who are driven by an internal force and push forward in spite of the obstacles in their way. It was a treat to delve into the scary world of a cult master. I hope you enjoy my vision of Perfect, Wyoming and all the players in this most dangerous and thrilling game!

Hearing from readers is a special joy. Please feel free to drop me a line via e-mail through my website at www.kimberlyvanmeter.com or through snail mail at Kimberly Van Meter, PO BOX 2210, Oakdale, CA 95361, USA.

Kimberly

KIMBERLY VAN METER wrote her first book at sixteen and finally achieved publication in December 2006. She writes for Mills & Boon® Cherish™ and Mills & Boon® Intrigue. She and her husband of seventeen years have three children, three cats and always a houseful of friends, family and fun.

A Daughter’s

Perfect Secret

Kimberly Van Meter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Chapter 1

Three months ago …

Rafe Black couldn’t still his fingers. A pile of tiny bits of shredded paper from his straw wrapper betrayed his nerves as he checked his watch one last time.

Abby was officially one hour late.

“Another tea?” The waitress, young, fresh-faced and clearly trying to earn a good tip, smiled in earnest until she saw the mess on his table. “You got something on your mind?” she asked, gesturing to the paper pile.

He didn’t want to be rude, but his thoughts were narrowed to a point and there wasn’t much room for chitchat. “No more tea,” he said, sending the hint he wasn’t up for sharing but then added to soften the brush-off, “Thank you, though.”

The waitress nodded and scooped up his pile with a small smile. “Just holler if you do.”

He rubbed his forehead, massaging the tension pulling on his brows and bunching the muscles in his neck. Where was Abby? They’d agreed to meet here, at this grubby diner about forty miles outside of Cold Plains, Wyoming, following a hurried and frantic phone call from Abby after she’d dropped a bomb on him.

If Abby were to be believed, she’d given birth to his son only months earlier, and now they were both in danger.

Had she been lying? His gut told him no. He’d heard the fear in her voice. Felt the terror even from across the telephone line. Which was why, when she’d sent him a photograph of the boy—a damn spitting image of him with his dark hair and eyes and Abby’s cupid-bow mouth—and begged him to wire $10,000 to a Western Union in Laramie, he hadn’t hesitated. He simply went to his savings account, made the withdrawal and then persuaded Abby to meet him here—today.

The money had been picked up, but Abby was conspicuously absent. He’d be a liar if he didn’t admit to some misgivings. Had she taken the money and split? Maybe.

The fact of the matter was, and this was a bit of an embarrassment, he didn’t know Abby well. Only well enough to father a child after a torrid one-night stand that’d been completely out of character for him.

Damn. He pulled the photograph from his wallet and stared at the child’s image. Had he been played? A cynic would say, wholeheartedly, yes. But he recognized his own features on that child’s face, and he couldn’t walk away. Even if Abby hadn’t called, terrified and sobbing, he wouldn’t have been able to walk away. That went against everything he believed in, stood for. And so, here he sat, like a chump, waiting for a woman who had plainly stood him up.

He flagged the waitress, tossing a ten-dollar bill on the table. Her eyes lit up at the generous tip, but then she bit her lip as if pinged by conscience. “That’s too much of a tip for just an ice tea,” she admitted.

He pushed the bill toward her but handed her a business card, too. “I need a favor,” he said, hating that he had no idea what had happened to Abby and his son.

She pocketed the ten and accepted the card, her expression wary. “Sure. What can I do for you?” She glanced at the card, reading, “Rafe Black, M.D. A doctor, huh?”

“Yes,” he answered with a brief smile. “I was waiting for a friend. Her name is Abby Michaels and she has a three-month-old baby boy. If she happens to show up, please give her my card. It’s very important that I talk to her. Can you do that for me?”

She nodded. “Sure. Is she okay?”

“I hope so,” he said. God, he hoped so. He rose. “Thank you. I appreciate your help.”

“No problem,” she said. “I hope your friend is okay.”

He answered with a smile as tight as the grip on his heart and walked out of the diner, but in his gut, he knew something was terribly wrong.

It wasn’t long before he discovered he’d been right.

Abby Michaels was dead. Rafe pushed his fingers through his hair, that damnable tremble returning to his hands, betraying everything he was doing to remain calm and in control. He should’ve stayed, should’ve reported her missing. Maybe they might’ve found her before … He suppressed a racking shudder and tried to focus on the here and now, but it wasn’t as if he had any experience with this sort of thing and there was so much at stake. He straightened and leaned forward, dread and anxiety twisting his gut in knots.

“And how did you find out about the victim’s death?” the stone-faced detective Victor Reynolds asked, looking up from his paperwork, staring a hole into Rafe.

“I caught something on the news about five murdered women, and Abby was one of them. I was shocked,” he said, but shock was too mild of a word for what he was feeling. More like reeling from a nightmare that he couldn’t escape. After the news report, it’d taken him a full minute to fully comprehend the enormity of the situation. Abby was dead; what about his son? “I knew she was in some kind of trouble but I had no idea it was this bad. Listen, there’s something else, she had a child. Was she alone when she was found? The news report didn’t say.”

“No.” Reynolds’s gaze narrowed sharply. “What child?”

“She called me earlier in the week, saying she’d had my child, a son she named Devin,” he admitted, the grit in his eye burning from the lack of sleep. He’d driven straight through from Colorado Springs to this little hole-in-the-wall place outside of Laramie, where Abby’s body had been found earlier that day. He’d shortened the nearly four-hour drive into three; it was a damn miracle he’d arrived alive. “She told me to meet her at this little diner, some greasy-spoon place about forty miles south from here,” he said. “But she never showed. I should’ve known something went wrong.”

“How well did you know the victim?”

“Not well,” he said, embarrassed by his admission. He wasn’t the kind to sleep around, but he’d met Abby while away at a medical conference in the hotel bar. One thing had led to another and before he’d known it, they’d stumbled to his room for drunken sex. Not his finest hour, for sure, and one he hadn’t planned to ever repeat. “We had a one-night stand a little over a year ago. I hadn’t seen or heard from her since, until she called saying she was in some kind of danger and needed money.”

“And you sent it to her?”

He nodded. “Ten thousand.”

At that, Detective Reynolds paused, speculation in his flat, squinty eyes. “Ten large, eh? That’s a lot of money to send to a virtual stranger.”

“She wasn’t out to scam me. I heard the fear in her voice. She was terrified.”

“Some women are good actresses,” Reynolds said with a subtle shrug. “You believed it was your kid before a paternity test?”

“Yes,” he said, growing angry at the detective’s implication that Abby had duped him for some reason. This was starting to feel like less of a good idea as he sat across the table from the detective. “Let’s get to the point. There’s a woman dead, and her child is missing. Are you going to put out an Amber Alert or am I going to have to go up the ladder for some results?”

“Cool your jets, hotshot,” Reynolds said, his tone hard. “Of course we’ll issue an Amber Alert but let me tell you what I’m seeing…. Motive.”

“Motive?” Rafe stared, unable to fathom what the hell the detective was getting at. “What kind of motive?”

Reynolds leaned back in his chair, his gaze never leaving Rafe, watching his every move as if Rafe was some kind of deranged killer who might jump for his throat at any minute. “Maybe you’re pissed that she duped you for a kid that wasn’t yours? Ten large is a lot of money. But then, I hear doctors make good money. Better than cops, that’s for sure.”

Rafe ignored that. “He’s my son. I don’t need a paternity test to confirm what I see with my eyes—that he looks just like me. And what kind of killer drives four hours to the police station to help identify the body and then leaves a DNA sample?” he asked in disgust. “You need to look into the last place Abby was before she was killed. The news report said the one thing the murdered women had in common was this place called Cold Plains.”

Reynolds grunted. “Nice place. Ever been there?”

“No.” He bit back his irritation at the man. “Does the name Samuel Grayson mean anything to you?”

“Should it?”

“I don’t know,” Rafe said, frustration getting the best of him. “But Abby … she was running from this Cold Plains…. I did some looking around, and I guess this Samuel guy runs the town. Maybe you ought to ask around, do some actual investigative work,” he muttered under his breath.

“I don’t tell you how to be a doctor—how about you zip your lip when it comes to police work?” Reynolds growled, bristling at the insult. But he relented, as if realizing Rafe’s suggestion had merit, and said, “I know a guy in Cold Plains, Bo Fargo. He’ll know if there’s something hinky going down in his town. I’ll make some inquiries,” he said then slid a card across the table. “We’ll be in touch. If a child turns up and he matches your DNA profile, we’ll call. In the meantime, don’t do anything rash like leave the country.”

It was everything Rafe could do to keep a civil tongue. He’d get no satisfaction from the local law enforcement; that much was abundantly clear. They were too busy eyeing him for the crime rather than chasing down any real leads. Abby had been shot, execution style, in the back of the head, and then her body had been dumped in a wooded area. If a hunter hadn’t come across her body, likely the wildlife would’ve taken care of any evidence left behind. If he wanted answers, he’d have to find them himself.

He was going to Cold Plains.

Ah hell, a voice in his head said, worrying about the everyday details of his life—his practice and his patients, mostly—but all he had to do was pull that picture and stare into those baby eyes and know none of that mattered until that boy was safe. Tears stung his eyes and he blinked them away, focusing to a narrow point out of necessity. If he allowed himself to slip into the fear that ate away at his control, he’d lose whatever edge he might have that could help him find his son.

Who are you kidding? You’re not a cop, man, the voice intruded again. Leave it to the professionals.

Professionals like Detective Reynolds with his cold eyes and ignorant small-town disposition? Not a chance. He was a smart man, capable of figuring a few things out on his own. He wished he’d known more about Abby. Why hadn’t he tried to find her after that night? They’d had good chemistry. Her soft laugh had been like a warm caress. Or maybe he’d just been really drunk. No, that couldn’t have been it entirely. Abby had had something special. The only reason he hadn’t pursued her after that night was because of his single-minded career focus. Well, that, and the discomfort of having to tell people that they’d met in a bar and hooked up after tequila shots. He scrubbed his face, pushing away the sting of guilt. Now wasn’t the time for that—he’d have plenty of time to twist with remorse after his son was found. If he was found. No, don’t think like that. He would find him. That was a promise.

Until then, he had to be ruthless with himself.

And everyone he came into contact with. All that mattered was his son.

Chapter 2

Present day …

Darcy Craven’s stare drifted over the familiar items of her childhood, standing in her mother’s—scratch that, as of two days ago, adoptive mother’s—living room, and she wondered how such a big secret had been kept from her.

She was not the biological daughter of Louise Craven but rather the daughter of a woman Darcy had never known existed until today. If she weren’t cracking in two from grief over Louise’s death, she would’ve thought she was numb inside. But no, there was a pulsing raw wound inside that gushed each time her heart beat. She’d been lied to, but worse was that her mother had been forced to give her up because she’d been in danger.

She couldn’t muster an ounce of anger against Louise, but she wished she had more answers than what she’d been left with.

“I never wanted you to find out, but you need to know,” Louise had rasped from her bed, the cancer eating her from the inside out, stealing her breath along with her strength.

“Shhh,” Darcy had urged, distressed over how Louise was exerting herself when the doctor had plainly told her to rest. “Whatever it is, it’s fine,” she said, trying to soothe her. She checked the morphine drip. Louise was dying; there was no coming back from that ledge now that the cancer had metastasized from her pancreas. All they could do was offer her comfort, which was why she was home instead of the hospital, and Darcy wanted to make sure that her mother died in peace. “You need to rest.”

“Darcy, honey, I’m dying. We both know that,” Louise said, her shoulders shuddering on a cough. “But before I go I have to tell you something that I’ve been carrying around since the day you came into my life.”

At that Darcy stilled, a knot settling in her stomach even as she tried to logically explain away the feeling. The doctors had warned her that the high-octane narcotics could cause erratic behavior. “What are you talking about?” she asked. “In the overall scheme of things, I’m sure it’s not as big as you think it is.”

“Darcy, listen, damn it.”

Her mother never cursed. “What’s wrong?” Darcy asked, settling to meet her mother’s stare.

A single tear oozed out from the corner of Louise’s eye, and she appeared to sag into the mattress a little farther, but she rallied with a brief show of strength as she clasped Darcy’s hand. “There’s a picture in my jewelry box,” she started, and Darcy shook her head.

“Mom, I’ve been in your jewelry box a thousand times. There’s no picture,” she said.

“There’s a false bottom. Open it and bring it to me.”

Darcy gaped. A false bottom? That unsettled feeling returned with a vengeance. Her mother was not the sort to hide things in secret. She’d been a PTA mom, for crying out loud. She’d baked cupcakes and cookies for bake sales and had volunteered on the safety patrol. She wasn’t the kind of woman who harbored secrets. Yet, here she was, knocking on the bottom drawer to find, yes indeed, it had a false bottom. She gave a gentle tug and the top popped up, revealing a single photograph, aged and yellowed, of a beautiful woman. She flipped it over, but there was nothing written on the back. She returned to her mother. “Is this it?” she asked quizzically, handing the photo to Louise.

Her mother took the photo and stared, her eyes filling. She passed a shaky hand over the image of the smiling young woman, and she closed her eyes, as if seeing the photo brought back painful memories.

“Who is she?” Darcy asked. What was going on? Wasn’t there enough tragedy in the Craven household without the added burden of some secret that she was fairly certain she didn’t want to know? She maintained a façade of calm, but inside she felt nauseous.

“Your biological mother,” Louise answered, that single admission kicking the bottom out from Darcy’s world as if the only mother she’d ever known dying from cancer wasn’t a big enough blow. “I’m sorry … you were never supposed to find out this way but there’s power in knowledge, and my darling sweet girl, you’re going to need all the power you can muster to stand up to that man.”

“What man?” Darcy asked hollowly, her bewilderment giving way to shock. “What are you talking about? You’re my mother. I don’t even look like her. This is crazy talk—”

“There isn’t a lot of time,” Louise cut in, yet was stopped short as a racking cough stole the air from her lungs. Darcy helped her drink some water, but it was several moments before Louise could speak again. Darcy’s thoughts were spun out on a surreal setting. Surely this was happening to someone else, not her.

“Darcy, your mother was a good friend of mine even though I was a bit older than she was. Her name was Catherine. She got pregnant at seventeen and entrusted you with me when she had to run. At first I thought she would return, but as the years went on, I realized she wasn’t coming back. I raised you as my own, and I couldn’t love you more than if I gave birth to you myself.” Louise’s weak grip on Darcy’s hand tightened and Darcy knew her mother wouldn’t lie. Still, it was a lot to take in and, frankly, Darcy was not above wanting to shut it all out and forget she’d ever heard it. “There’s more,” Louise said, the urgency returning to her voice. “Your mother was involved with a very dangerous man. And he’s only gotten more influential as time has passed. You might’ve heard of him. His name is Samuel Grayson.”

Darcy startled, the name jumping out at her from a recent news story on rising cult leaders. “That’s the man who’s running that town outside Laramie? The one who claims he’s found the secret to running a perfect society? He’s a nut,” she said, horrified.

Louise agreed with a weak nod. “The very same. He’s got a whole town of followers now, and there’s no stopping him when he’s got something in his sights. And I’m afraid for you.”

“Why? Does he even know about me?”

“I don’t know,” Louise admitted, a shudder wheezing from her frail chest. “But I couldn’t let you face the future without knowing. There’s a possibility … that he may have done something to Catherine.”

“How do you know?”

“I haven’t heard from her in a long time, years, actually.”

Darcy swallowed. “You … had contact with her?”

“Not truly, honey. A postcard here and there. Just something to let me know she was all right. I never had an address or a phone number. She was scared that if she was too close to you, he’d find you. She loved you so much, she wanted to make sure you were always safe. But the last postcard came years ago. I’m afraid something happened to her, and the only person who would’ve had reason to hurt her was Samuel Grayson. You have to promise me you’ll stay away from that man. He’s evil.”

Darcy nodded. At that moment she’d have agreed to anything to ease the torment in her mother’s eyes. That was two days ago. And her mother was gone. She was alone.

Something toxic burned in Darcy’s chest—a combustible mixture that was equal parts rage and grief with a healthy dose of insatiable need to know the truth about her mother—and she knew she’d lied to Louise.

She had to know where her mother was, had to know if she was safe and she had to know what part Samuel Grayson played in this whole twisted drama that had somehow attached itself to her formerly happy life.

Darcy wanted answers—and nothing was going to stop her.

She shifted in her coach-class airplane seat, wishing she’d had the extra money to spring for at least the business class to accommodate her long legs, but pushed her discomfort aside to take in every detail of her birth mother, Catherine. Even though the picture was more than twenty-two years old, Darcy could tell her mother had been beautiful. If only she’d inherited her fine bone structure, she lamented privately. The only physical attribute she seemed to have been gifted with of her mother’s was her blue eyes. She lightly traced a finger down the curve of her mother’s cheek, wondering what she’d been thinking when the picture was taken. How had Catherine gotten mixed up with someone like Samuel Grayson? Darcy had unearthed a few news articles on the man. On the surface, he seemed legit, but the cultlike following creeped her out. According to the news clippings, Cold Plains was his utopia. Except everyone knew a utopia was an illusion, so how did Samuel keep everyone happy and playing along? It smacked of an M. Night Shyamalan movie. Where was the freaky twist?

Darcy closed her eyes and tried not to let the grief that hovered on the edges of her sanity creep in. She couldn’t lose focus. Any semblance of a normal life had shattered when Louise had dropped her bombshell. And, if the truth were known, chasing after answers kept her from acknowledging her bone-deep grief over Louise’s death. It was too soon, too quick. They’d had no time to prepare. The cancer had moved in quickly, without mercy. Before they’d known it, Louise had been given a death sentence. In spite of her closed eyes, a trail of moisture leaked from them, and she wiped it away on her sleeve.