toward the office and heard what sounded like a scuffle, but before she could react in any way, the door opened and out walked a woman dressed to the nines. She pointed a gun at Darcy.
Part of Darcy was convinced that she was imagining the bizarre scene she found herself in. Her gaze moved behind the woman to see Charles Michaels out cold on the floor, and immediately she feared the worst. Her first instinct was to run, but the woman looked out of control, her hands shaking as she held the gun on Darcy. Darcy feared if she startled the woman, sheer terror would make her squeeze the trigger.
She asked, afraid to hear the answer, “Is he dead?”
“No.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Just knocked him in the head.”
She sounded awfully calm for someone who had just rendered a man unconscious and was now holding a gun on a complete stranger. Darcy’s fear kicked up a notch and her words were tainted with it when she asked, “Who are you?”
“Oh, sorry. Hi, I’m Vivian. His wife.”
She looked like a PTA mom, so why the hell did she have a gun?
“You do know that you have a gun on me, right?”
“Yeah, sorry. Dreadful things, aren’t they?”
“Why don’t you put it down?”
“Not sure who I can trust.”
“Maybe you should start from the beginning?” Darcy suggested.
“Good idea. Heidi . . . Do you know Heidi?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Heidi got pregnant with his child.”
“And she started blackmailing you,” Darcy offered.
Surprise covered Vivian’s face. “Yes. For almost two years we were being held hostage by her greed. I wanted to get out from under her control, but I didn’t know how to make her stop. And then one day I get approached by someone who offers me a solution.”
Sarcasm dripped from Darcy’s words. “Let me guess. Kidnap a baby?”
“Exactly. Looking back on it now, it was beyond stupid of me to agree to such a plan, but I wasn’t thinking clearly: fear and my own greed clouded my judgment.”
“It was Jonathan Carmichael who approached you, wasn’t it?”
Darcy didn’t miss the look of suspicion on Vivian’s face. “How do you know that?”
“It was my baby he took.”
“Oh my God. I wanted to return him to you, but I was afraid I would go to jail. I didn’t understand why he did it, but he took great joy in separating you from your baby. He never intended to take Heidi’s baby; he lied to me and made me his accomplice and then threatened me to keep my silence about the kidnapping or he’d leak it to the press, which would have destroyed Charles’s political career.” Tears filled Vivian’s eyes. “I tried not to think of you and how what we’d done had changed all of your lives. I’m so sorry.”
Darcy wasn’t about to absolve the woman. Instead she asked, “How is Heidi tied to this?”
“I think it was Jonathan who told Heidi of the botched kidnapping, but I don’t think it was to keep me in line. I had the sense he was distracting her. My guess is that she was getting close to finding out something he didn’t want discovered, so he set me up and gave Heidi more leverage over Charles and me.”
Well, that was certainly true. Heidi must have learned about Jonathan and Elizabeth and somehow put it together that Jonathan was her murderer.
Vivian continued, “The night Heidi died I went to see her. I called her and demanded a meeting. We fought. I didn’t mean to kill her. I wanted to kill her, but I didn’t think I’d hit her hard enough, and then I heard on the news that she was dead. I panicked; I mean, Charles was trying to run for the senate and here I’m plotting kidnappings and getting myself caught up in a murder. I thought about turning myself in, but then that would still have reflected poorly on Charles. And that’s when he called me.”
“Who called you?”
“I don’t know. He said he’d clean up my mess, but it was going to cost me. Ten thousand a month. I mean, I don’t have that kind of money and I couldn’t take that amount from our account without Charles knowing about it.”
“So you told Charles everything,” Darcy finished.
“Heidi had been to Charles’s office a few times to taunt him about my indiscretions, including my botched kidnapping attempt, but I shared with him my part in her murder. He’s been trying to make it right ever since. Months of fixing what took me