by N. J. Croft
“Thank you,” he said, flexing his arm. “You’re good at this.”
“Amazing what you can learn from the internet. Do you want something to eat?”
“No. I just want to crash.”
“Okay. I’ll leave you to it, then.” She picked up her bag from the floor. “I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Sleep well, Star.”
She hesitated. “Yeah. You, too.”
As the door closed behind her, he sagged back against the mattress and closed his eyes. He wasn’t completely recovered from the blood loss, and it had been a long day. He was asleep in seconds.
Chapter Fourteen
Noah tapped on the door.
No response.
He’d woken up feeling much better, his head clear, his shoulder aching but no flash of pain as he moved. He was on the mend. Now he wanted to get out there and find some answers.
Was she even in there?
The realization hit hard and fast—there was a good chance that Eve had been snatched from her hotel room. In this very hotel. He and Star were booked under their aliases, so it was unlikely anyone would know they were here. All the same, maybe they weren’t taking their personal safety seriously enough. They needed to be more careful.
He knocked on the door, harder this time. A muffled sound came from inside, then footsteps heading to the door, the scrape of a chair being moved, something being knocked over. He tensed, but then the door opened.
She had clearly just woken and was blinking up at him, dressed in a black sleeveless T-shirt that reached to mid-thigh and what looked like nothing else, the long length of her legs bare. He was sure he could see her nipples through the thin material. Judging by his body’s reaction, he was definitely feeling better. Forcing his gaze upward to her face, he grinned. “Good morning.”
“My God, you look chirpy,” she muttered.
“You don’t.”
She scowled but stepped aside and waved him in.
“You’re not a morning person, then?” He stepped into the room then stopped. “What the hell happened in here?”
Her brows drew together. “Nothing.”
It looked like her bag had exploded. The clothes she had worn last night were strewn on the floor outside the bathroom. One of the upright wooden chairs was on its side by the door. He turned to her and raised a brow.
She shrugged. “I didn’t want anyone to come and kidnap and torture me,” she said, then her eyes widened. “Sorry, that was a little insensitive. Eve was your wife, and I’m sure you don’t want to think about her being…” She trailed off. “Anyway, I was lying in bed last night and suddenly it occurred to me that—”
“There was a good chance she was taken from here.”
“Yeah.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Sit down for a minute, and I’ll go get dressed and we can get some breakfast. I need coffee.” She headed for the bathroom, gathering up her discarded clothes as she went, dragging her bag with her.
He sank down onto the edge of the unmade bed. There was a map of the city on the bedside table—presumably she’d picked it up from the lobby last night. She’d written some notes on the back.
Translators
Taxi companies
Hotels
She’d circled three places: the hotel, the city center, and one more that looked to be close to their current location.
The bathroom door opened, and Star emerged, dressed in her usual black and ready to go. He stood up as she grabbed a small bag from the table and handed her the map. “You’ve been working,” he said.
“I wasn’t ready to sleep last night. I had a look around the area.”
“Do you think it’s wise wandering around on your own in the middle of the night?”
Annoyance flashed across her face but was quickly gone. “Probably not,” she admitted. “In hindsight, maybe we should be a little more careful. But that only crossed my mind when I was lying in bed afterward.”
“Where did you go?”
“I’ll tell you over breakfast.” She headed out the door, and he followed. “Let’s go down to reception first and see if they can organize us a translator.”
A different woman was at the reception desk, a tall blonde. Noah repeated the story about Eve’s death, and they ascertained that yes, she remembered Eve when she’d booked into the hotel.
“How about when she checked out?” he asked.
“Her business colleague paid her bill the next morning.”
Noah cast a sideways glance at Star. It would corroborate the idea that she had actually been taken from the hotel. “How do you know he was her business colleague?”
“Because that’s what he told me.”
“Do you have a name?”
“No. He paid in cash, so there’s no credit card receipt. I remember—there are not many people pay in cash these days.”
No, only people who didn’t want you to know who they were. “So you never saw my sister leave?”
“No. I’m sorry.”
He forced a smile. It was only what he’d been expecting. “Thank you for your help. One more thing—can you organize a translator for us?”
“For the day?”
He wasn’t sure. They’d know more later. “Definitely the day. Starting as soon as possible. Maybe longer.”
“No problem. I’ll contact the company straight away.”
The restaurant was on the first floor. They were the only people in there at the moment, though it was still early. They sat at a table by the window, and he ordered coffee for both of them.
“So tell me,” he said.
“I went to the post office. It’s only a ten minutes’ walk away. I thought maybe—if Eve was feeling so worried—she might have stashed the image someplace safe after she picked it up, but there was nowhere between there and here that I could see.”
“You had a busy night.”
“Well, someone has to do something. Half the team was asleep. Anyway, I realized she might have taken it to one of the other hotels, probably one of the big names she would recognize—people like the familiar, especially when they’re scared. Except they’re all a good half hour walk away, so I was thinking she probably took a taxi. We need to talk to the taxi companies and see if anyone remembers her. Likely they won’t speak English, so we need some help there.”
“Translator, taxis, hotels,” he said.
“Exactly.”
He was impressed.
Their food came, and they ate in silence. Ordered more coffee. Outside, the sky was a clear blue, everything seemed peaceful, but he couldn’t shift the sense of unease.
He really wanted a gun but didn’t think the hotel would be able to provide one of those. Maybe the translator might know of somewhere. If not, he’d contact Tom. Clayton Industries likely had connections in the city.
And maybe from now on, he and Star should share a room. He didn’t like to think of her as vulnerable. That’s not how she came across. She was tough, but tough wouldn’t do much good if the other person was armed. “No more going off on your own,” he said, putting his cup down.
“Okay,” she replied, and he frowned.
“That was easy.”
“I’d sort of forgotten for a minute why we’re actually here. Someone killed Eve. And they’ve already tried to kill me once. And a few days ago, someone almost killed you. And last night…”
“Last night…?”
“I just kept getting this feeling that someone was watching me. I brushed it off as paranoia, then I thought of Eve doing the same and then…”
He pushed back his chair. “Come on, let’s go see what we can find out. Put an end to this and we can go home.”
But he realized that, in a weird sort of way, he was enjoying himself. He’d been shut down since Eve’s death, just c
oping with the children and all the changes in his life. Now he felt alive again.
Their plan was to try the local taxi companies first and see if anyone remembered picking up Eve that night. If they came up blank, then they would go around the big hotels and see if she had rented a safety deposit box. Presumably, that would mean she would have had to rent a room as well; they were unlikely to rent the boxes to anyone off the street.
They got lucky with the second taxi company they talked to. One of the drivers remembered Eve.
Stefan, their translator, was a young man who looked to be in his early twenties. He was a student of languages at Moscow University but was working during the vacation. He was a tall, good-looking boy who’d taken a liking to Star, which was inexplicably irritating. He also seemed too clean-cut to have gun-selling contacts, which was a pity.
“He says he remembers her because she was pretty and not Russian,” Stefan translated.
“Where did he drop her off?”
He listened while the question was asked and answered. “He isn’t allowed to give out that information.”
Noah pulled some money out of his pocket, the bribe Stefan had suggested would be needed. And apparently, dollars, rather than rubles, were always appreciated.
The money was handed over, and the driver spoke some more. Noah picked up the name Marriott in the jumble of words. Looked like they had a hotel.
“You were right,” he said to Star. They were sitting in the back of a taxi, Stefan in the front next to the driver who had driven Eve to the Marriott that night. They were chatting in Russian, and he let the words flow over him.
“We still don’t know if she left anything,” Star said.
“We will soon.”
The taxi dropped them off in front of the hotel. It was a big modern building right in the city center. It looked like any other Marriott anywhere in the world. He could understand how Eve might find the anonymity comforting.
He handed over his dollars, this time straight away, and Star asked about Eve. Stefan wasn’t needed—the young man at the reception desk spoke perfect English. Noah wouldn’t have thought this was a big tourist destination, but after speaking to the staff at two hotels, obviously they were used to dealing with foreigners.
As he tapped into the computer system, a frown formed between his eyebrows. “Yes, there was an Eve Blakeley booked in here that night. There’s a flag next to her name.”
“What does that mean?”
He tapped some more. “The bill wasn’t paid, and there’s a note from the cleaning staff that it looked like the room wasn’t slept in—they would have been asked because of the unpaid bill.”
“My sister was killed in an accident the following day,” Noah said. “That would explain the unpaid bill.”
The man’s eyes widened. “Oh. I am so sorry for your loss, sir.”
“Don’t be. And I’ll clear the bill myself. Right now, I’m trying to find out if my sister rented a safe deposit box here, and if so, what happened to the contents.”
“Let me check for you, sir.”
As the man disappeared through a door behind the desk, Noah waited, curbing his impatience. He had an idea the man was checking with someone, probably the hotel manager, as to what he should do in the circumstances—he suspected it was hardly a common occurrence. Finally, the man came back, accompanied by another, older man in a dark suit. “It appears your sister did have a box with us, and the contents were not collected. But I’m afraid that without the proper authorization, we can’t release those contents to you.”
“And what is the proper authorization?”
“Identification and a copy of your sister’s death certificate will be sufficient.”
Crap.
He would have to get Eve’s solicitor to fax a copy of the death certificate to him at the hotel. He considered trying another bribe then decided against it—the man was giving off the wrong vibes, and it shouldn’t be hard to get a copy of the certificate. “Thank you. You’ve been very helpful. I’ll be back as soon as I have the documents.”
“We could come back later and break into the place,” Star suggested as they headed for the exit.
He wasn’t sure whether she was serious or not, and for a moment, he considered the idea. But it was no easy job to get into a safe deposit box, hence the word “safe.” Plus they had no clue which box was Eve’s, and they’d have to open them all. It was probably easier to get the necessary paperwork.
“Let’s go get lunch and make some calls. Get things moving.”
Stefan was hovering on the steps to the hotel, waiting for them to come out. Noah headed over. “We don’t need you for a few hours. We’ll pay you for the full day, of course. And we’ll need you tomorrow as well if that works?” That should hopefully give them time to get a copy of the death certificate.
“No problem,” Stefan replied.
“Okay, meet us back at the hotel, say, four o’clock?”
“I’ll be there.”
As he turned to go, Noah called him back. He stepped closer. “Do you know of anyone who can sell me a pistol?”
Stefan pursed his lips. “I might.”
“Well, decide and let me know when you come back.”
Stefan nodded and walked away, hands shoved in his pockets. He could go to the authorities, but why would he? And besides, he had no proof of anything. It was a calculated risk, and the odds were in their favor. And Noah would feel safer with a weapon.
They had lunch in a small restaurant in the center of town, sitting on the terrace under the shade of an umbrella. Noah had never been one for vacations, but he imagined this was what it was like. Well, with a few minor differences, such as no one wanting him dead.
He made his phone call, and the solicitor promised to fax a copy of the death certificate to the hotel. There was nothing else they could do right now until they got into the box and found whatever Eve had hidden there. So they might as well relax and enjoy the sunshine.
Tomorrow morning, they planned to rent a car and visit the site of the plane crash. There would likely be little to see, but he still wanted to go. Then afterward, he hoped to talk to the detective who had investigated the accident. He’d already requested an interview.
Star was drinking cold white wine. He was sticking to water. He wanted his wits about him—so far he hadn’t picked up anyone following them, but he needed to stay alert. She swirled the wine in her glass, took a sip, and licked her lips, then peered at him from beneath her lashes. Heat flashed through him, settling low down in his belly. Inconvenient. Or did it have to be?
For a moment, he wondered whether she was doing it on purpose. But he figured if she wanted him, she would come right out and tell him. She didn’t seem one for subterfuge. Which meant her actions were natural. A subconscious urge to draw him closer?
It had been a long time for him. His life wasn’t conducive to relationships, even if he had wanted one. Plus, the last three months in the States had been spent undercover, and since then, he’d hardly felt inclined.
Now, his mind and body turned to sex.
It wasn’t as though they were actually working together, so there were no rules constraining his behavior. All the same, it would complicate some things. And make others easier. He’d already decided they were sharing a room from now on, and he wasn’t sure how she would take to that idea. While she had presumably slept in the same room as him in London, he’d been injured back then. She’d no doubt seen him as a patient and not a man.
Now he was pretty sure she saw him as a man.
“Where did you grow up?” he asked, suddenly curious about her. He knew next to nothing about her background.
“In London. Actually, not far from your apartment. My mom was a doctor, half-Japanese, and my dad was a software developer. He was where I got my computer nerdiness from.”
&nb
sp; “What happened to them?”
“They were in a car accident when I was nineteen. A drunk driver coming the other way. They were both killed instantly.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So was I. They didn’t deserve that. They were good people. What about you?”
For a moment, he wasn’t sure what she was asking. Then he had the urge to ask why she wanted to know. Which was stupid. This was what people did—they asked about each other. “I grew up in Chicago. My dad was a lawyer, and my mom stayed at home and looked after us.”
“Us? You have brothers and sisters.”
He really didn’t want to talk about this, but without being rude or telling an outright lie, he wasn’t sure what else he could do. “I had a brother, Ben. He was a couple of years younger than me. He was born with a congenital heart defect, and he died when I was ten. The doctors had told my parents he could die at any time, so we were lucky to have the time we had with him.”
Her hand crept out and rested over his on the table. She squeezed. “I’m sorry.”
“So was I.” He echoed her words. “He didn’t deserve it. He was the best.”
“It must have been hard on your parents.”
“It nearly broke my mother. He’d been her favorite. She was a church goer, and I think all along, despite what the doctors told her, she believed that there would somehow be a miracle and God would save him.”
It should have been you.
The words echoed in his head. He’d never forgotten them.
“They still live in Chicago. We’re not close.” That was an understatement. He hadn’t spoken to his mother in…a long time. The truth was he had never forgiven her for those words. She’d fallen apart after Ben had died, taken to drinking. She’d been drunk when she said them. Didn’t they say that the truth came out when you were drunk? He couldn’t blame her for thinking them. Ben had been so good. He had taken after their mother, blonde and delicate. Noah looked like his dad, dark and big. But he could blame her, and did, for speaking her thoughts out loud, and once said, they couldn’t be taken back. He’d been a mess at the time, ten years old, and he’d just lost the brother he loved. He’d needed his Mom, and she’d rejected him in the worst way possible.