LITMIR.BIZ

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made her. She owed him.

      And she was going to pay.

      No one left him. No one smeared his reputation.

      She’d evaded him for nearly three years, but now he had a trail. Weak, but still—it was a start. He reached for the phone, dialing, knowing exactly who owed him a favor and how to use them.

      Chapter 3

      M egan Pinchon’s front door sprang open and Darcy couldn’t get out of the Jeep fast enough as her little dark-haired boy came racing across the lawn in his Scooby Doo pajamas.

      “Mommy!” He leaped at her and she caught him, crushing his body to hers, and her eyes teared as he pecked her face with kisses and made her laugh. Oh, she loved him so much. She’d been gone only overnight but it seemed much too long.

      “I missed you, Mommy,” he said, cupping her face and squishing it.

      “I missed you, too, baby. I love you.”

      “Me, too. We’re having doughnuts!”

      She pushed back the urge to say that wasn’t a healthy breakfast. “I’ve been dreaming of having doughnuts and I’m starving.”

      Megan was on the doorstep, smiling, wrapping her robe a bit tighter around her thin frame.

      Darcy walked with Charlie in her arms and met her gaze. “Thanks, Meg. I love you for this.”

      “I know you do, honey. Come on in.”

      “Yeah, come on, Mom, you gotta see the puppies.”

      Darcy looked at Megan. “Puppies?”

      “They’re the neighbor boys’. Six of them.”

      Darcy gave her a “don’t even think about pawning one off on me” look as she put Charlie down. She couldn’t have a pet in a beauty salon, and since Charlie was in the salon in his play area during the day, that wasn’t happening. She walked a thin line with the state board of cosmetology because while her schooling and initial license were real, the license posted in the salon was a forgery for Piper Daniels.

      In the kitchen, Megan pushed a mug of coffee into her hand. “Everything okay? You look—I don’t know. Different.”

      A good cry did that sometimes, Darcy thought, but hoped it was her new determination to break free of Maurice that showed. “I got some good sleep, I guess.”

      Megan wasn’t fooled, but didn’t push it. “Well relax, your first appointment isn’t till ten this morning.”

      Darcy was watching Charlie roll around with puppies. She turned to look at Megan. “How’d you manage that for a Saturday morning?”

      Megan grinned. “I have my gifts.”

      Darcy smiled as Meg went to dress for work, feeling fortunate just then.

      Megan Pinchon was the only person she trusted with her son. Megan had been the common-law wife of an abusive husband and was the first woman Darcy had helped. By accident. Megan had been trying to climb out the bathroom window of a fast-food restaurant to get away, and Darcy had switched clothes with her and helped her escape. She’d given her a job as her receptionist and a place to live till she could support herself. They’d done some healing together and Megan had been a huge help with Charlie. She was also the only person in Comanche, Nevada, who knew that Piper Daniels was really Darcy Allen Steele.

      She’d 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.

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