Chained Guilt (Hidden Guilt (Detective Series) Book 1) (26 page)

Later, after a pleasant dinner, she and David headed back to her house. She could hardly wait. The speaker was on, and she fully intended to make the most of it. “I do have a question for you,” David said as Stacy hung her sweater in the entryway closet. “What exactly are your plans regarding kids? You said you wanted more at some point?”

He sounded reluctant and she caught on.

“Not right away, David,” she said, smiling sweetly. “I think every girl wants a kid or two of her own, but I’m years away from that. Let me get it right with the two we have first.”

He smiled at her response. She could see the relief oozing out of him. Stacy had no intention of telling him she’d been off her pills for weeks in anticipation of getting pregnant as quickly as possible.

“Don’t just stand there,” she said with a coy smile. “You’re coming in, right? You don’t have to ask to come in, David. Besides, I have something for you.”

She reached out her hand and led him through the kitchen toward the back bedroom, located right over Miranda’s head.
Better acoustics in this room
, she thought. She felt a twinge of alarm when she realized she had forgotten to place a kettle on the stove, as per her earlier excuse. He apparently didn’t notice, which was just fine with her.

              She made sure she was extra loud and exuberant during their lovemaking, imagining Miranda just below them, weeping her stupid little eyes out.

51

I relaxed in my tub, filled nearly to the brim with hot-as-I-could-stand-it water. My knees and back ached. I wasn’t the twenty-something-year-old man I once was, and after moving Stacy’s belongings over to the house all day, I felt my age. We had already said good night to the girls. I opened my eyes and smiled as Stacy came into the bathroom and closed the door.

“There’s my superman,” she said, eyeing me. “You tired, honey?”

“Yeah.” I chuckled. “Guess I ain’t as young as I used to be.”

My thoughts caught on the word
superman.
That’s what Miranda used to call me.

“Okay, well since you’re tired . . .”

She untied the belt of her bathrobe and allowed it to slip off her shoulders. She wore nothing underneath it.

“Well I’m not
that
old or tired, ma’am,” I said. I pulled my knees to my chest as she stepped into the tub.

Later, as we lay in bed, I flipped through the channels on the TV. Stacy had fallen asleep in my arms. My channel-flipping stopped at channel 31, the one Miranda worked for before she disappeared. My heart skipped a beat when I realized the station was airing a telethon created in Miranda’s name to fund resources for families of kidnapping victims. How ironic to see it on the air tonight—the first night I brought another woman to live in my home and made love to her in the bed I once shared with Miranda.  I clicked off the TV, closed my eyes, and grieved silently.

**

The bedroom door burst open and I awakened instantly. The sunlight shone through the curtains, casting the room in a warm glow as Karen rushed in, jumped into the bed, and hurled herself into my arms.

“Daddy! Daddy, wake up!”

“Good morning, sugarplum!” I laughed as I kissed her forehead.

“What the hell is going on?” Stacy moaned, burying her head under her pillow.

“Oh, Stacy, don’t mind Karen,” I said, nudging her. “You’ll have to get used to this. She does it every morning.”

“Whatever happened to knocking before you came into someone’s room?” Stacy muttered.

Karen looked at me and shrugged. I smiled at her.

“Come on, honey. It’s going to take Stacy a while to get used to your very special morning greeting.” I winked at her. “You know she’s been alone forever.”

I set Karen on the floor and shooed her out of the room so I could dress. Stacy remained motionless and silent, head still buried under her pillow. I chuckled as I left the room and went downstairs to fix the girls’ breakfast.

“Hilary!” I called upstairs. “Come on down.”

Karen giggled as Stacy staggered into the kitchen, bathrobe tightly belted around her waist.

“Well, look what the cat drug in,” I said, smiling at her.

“Where’s the coffee?”

I gestured toward the counter while Stacy eyed Karen.

“You have way too much energy in the morning, little girl.” She poured herself a cup of coffee. “I’ll pour you a bowl of cereal. What kind do you like?” she asked, opening the cupboards in search of cereal.

“Captain Crunch,” Karen said. “I’m the only one who’ll eat it. Dad and Hilary both hate it.”

“Yeah, she can have that crap,” Hilary added as she entered the kitchen, collapsed into a chair, and eyed her little sister with a disgusted scowl.

“No crap, young lady. Say stuff, if anything,” Stacy said. “Women don’t use the word
crap
.”

Before Hilary could reply, I turned to her with a grin, though I hoped I wouldn’t be playing referee all the time. “Yeah, I don’t like that crap—I mean, stuff—either.” I winked at Hilary.

“So Karen is the only Captain Crunch eater in the house? I’ll eat it too, Karen, but I prefer Cinnamon Toast Crunch,” Stacy said.

She turned to me. “David, I know I said I would take the girls to school, but I have the worst headache known to man. Would it be too much trouble if you took them?”

“Not a problem at all. Why don’t you go up and rest before your shift at the hospital starts?” 

I gave her a kiss, rounded up Karen’s gear, and we were off.

Stacy smiled. With the house finally to herself, she ran through her to-do list. There was a pregnancy test to take and some hidden cameras to install—the ones she’d purchased from the firearms store a few days before. She would also take the opportunity to contaminate Karen’s Captain Crunch, now that she knew she was the only one who ate it. This would be easier than she’d thought—much easier.

She had stolen a bottle of Baclofen from the hospital. It wouldn’t take long for the drug to affect Karen’s little body. The Baclofen would make her disoriented and dizzy at first. Then she’d begin forgetting things. It might even kill her over time since she was so young. Even better, no one would know what was making her sick. Let’s see if Miss No Feelings Miranda would react to her precious little brat getting sick . . . deathly sick.

But first things first. Stacy installed the hidden cameras and tested them using the laptop she kept in David’s bedroom. Then she pillaged Hilary’s room looking for anything that would prove valuable. She found what she was looking for in a small notebook stuffed in the back of her desk. She copied down a few passwords for her computer.

Finally, she headed into the bedroom with the pregnancy kit. She stuffed the box and wrappings into her purse to dispose of later. Then she sat on the toilet and peed on the stick.

“Oh my God!” she gasped.  She had done it! She was pregnant.

She couldn’t believe her luck. She took care of business, dressed, and then pulled out her cell phone, unable to erase the grin that curved her lips. She’d previously rigged her answering machine to the speaker down in the basement so Miranda could hear incoming messages. All she had to do was press a code on her phone and the message would record on the machine, preventing the need to drive over every time she wanted to inform her prisoner of important news. This was the first time she’d actually used it. She punched in the number and waited for the beep.

“Hello, Miranda. I hope you weren’t sleeping, dear. Just wanted to give you the good news. I’m officially moved in. Yay for me! And even better news . . . I’m pregnant! I just found out this morning. Such news is too good not to share, don’t you think? I hope your day turns out as good as mine will be! Toodles!”

52

“Rodney, stop it,” Hilary said, laughing.

“Why do you always tell me to stop? You know you don’t really mean it.”

“I do mean it. What if my dad comes home early or something? Or she comes home early?”

After many weeks of nagging, Rodney had finally convinced Hilary weed wasn’t a drug. The two had begun smoking together, and Rodney was trying to take their sexual relationship to the next level at the same time.

“We really shouldn’t be doing this at my house,” she said. “What about the smell? We’re gonna get caught, and then I won’t be able to see you.”

“Don’t worry about that. I got some stuff that’ll get rid of the smell.”

He climbed off the bed and gestured toward her dad’s bedroom.

“Your new mommy keep a laptop in there, by any chance?” he asked.

Hilary nodded. “Why?”

“I want to show you something.”

Rodney was always trying to prove he was the ultimate computer hacker and could get into anything. As usual, he was out to prove it again.

Hilary sighed. “Rodney, that’s my dad’s room,” she protested as he crossed the hallway and entered the master bedroom. “What are you doing?” she hissed. “Get outta there!”

“Don’t worry,” he said as he surveyed the room.  He found Stacy’s laptop on the desk in the far corner, flipped open the lid, and pressed the power button. “Just watch the window for me. I’m going to log into her laptop and see what I can find. I’m sure there’s something juicy on there. Maybe she has naked pics on it or something.”

“Hey, asshole, that’s my dad’s girlfriend. We are so gonna get busted. Hurry up!”

“Sorry, but she’s still hot.”

“Whatever.” Hilary shrugged, stepping toward the window. “You want to look at naked pictures of an older woman, go for it. Just hurry.”

Within a matter of seconds, he had bypassed the password lock and busily tapped the keys, working his way through her files.

“What the heck are you looking for anyway?” Hilary asked, still watching out the window.

“I told you—naked pics. Everybody does it nowadays.”

A few moments went by as Rodney opened file after file looking for a hidden gem.

“Hey, what school did your dad go to? Texas Tech, right?”

“Yeah why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s nothing, but I’m finding a lot of files named Texas Tech on here.  I thought Stacy went to some nursing school on the East Coast.” He frowned. “Why should information about Texas Tech be in here?”

“Maybe my dad put some files on there. I don’t know, Rodney, maybe— Oh crap! I see her car turning the corner. Stacy’s coming!”

“Are you sure? I thought she—”

“Yes, I’m sure!” Hilary said, hurrying away from the window. “Get the hell outta there. C’mon! Shut it down. She’s pulling in the driveway.”

Rodney frantically closed the files he’d been scanning and shut the computer down. They made it to the safety of Hilary’s room just as the front door slammed. Rodney rushed to the window and opened it, hoping to rid the room of the stale, sweet smell lingering in the air.

“I hope I closed everything down properly,” Rodney muttered.

“What the hell, Rodney? What do you mean?” Hilary asked, eyes wide.

“I mean, you scared the shit out of me, and I don’t know if I closed everything out.”

“Hilary, you here, hon?” Stacy called up the staircase.

“Oh shit! She’s coming up! Go stall her or something,” Rodney said, fanning the air toward the window.

“That your master plan for getting rid of the smell? Open a window?”

“Just go stall her!”

“Hey there, Stacy,” Hilary hollered as she stepped into the hallway. She closed the door to her room just as Stacy reached the top step.

“You here alone?”

“Uh . . . no, Rodney’s here. That okay?” Hilary tried hard not to sound defensive.

“Yeah, sure.” Stacy shrugged. “What are you guys up to?”

“Nothing much, just hanging out.”

“I bet,” Stacy snickered. She glanced at Hilary’s closed door, sniffed the air once, and headed for the master bedroom. She closed the bedroom door firmly behind her.

As soon as Stacy was out of sight, Hilary flipped her off.