by Sarah Andre
He stepped onto the running board and all but threw himself into the cab. In the rearview mirror the cameraman continued to film the pickup all the way out of the lot, while Annie talked animatedly into the mic. She turned once, pointing at the truck, and he caught her wide, future Emmy-winning smile.
He fishtailed onto the highway, exhaustion eating him to his core. Fumbling for the cellphone in his pocket, he brought it to his ear. “You still there?”
“What were you thinking?”
“What was my other option—bolt like a sissy?”
“Even if you win the case, you’re totally off the team.”
“Thanks for the news flash. But that’s the least of my worries. I gotta find a way back in there.”
“Wha…are you on crack?”
“I’m going back for Jesselynn…I mean Jordan. She’s my ticket out of this mess.”
“How do you figure?”
“I heard from her boss, the PI, while driving here. He claims she has compelling evidence against Vannini, and I intend to find out what it is. I’ll bring her back to the cabin when she’s released.”
Leo paused. “Does this mean I can help too?”
Every cell in his body screamed no. The word shaped itself on his lips. His brother could not find out about the blackout.
“Hold on,” Leo said, “someone’s on the other line.”
Lock waited in the silence of the truck cab. The other blackout, years ago, and its fallout still haunted him. The damage to his relationship with Leo was irreparable, even though he’d apologized so many times. Even though his brother had taken his sorry ass in ten months ago. For Leo to know that another drunken suppression probably resulted in eleven stab wounds was more than he could bear.
He gripped the phone tighter. No way was Leo helping Jordan. Let him find out right along with the rest of the nation sometime next week when the cops from that morning took the stand and relayed Lock’s hungover admission that he had no memory after he’d been Mirandized. The only way he could deal was if his back faced his gasping family and the courtroom gawkers. Even Lock and Load wasn’t brave enough to make eye contact.
Please let Jordan perform a miracle and find some shred of evidence that he was incapable of killing Tiff. Save him from his rottenness.
His brother clicked back. “Your coach called Mom and Dad after he saw you on the news. They gave him this number, and I gave him my cell phone, so he’s about to call. I…I couldn’t lie and tell him you didn’t have a phone.”
“You never could lie,” Lock said softly. “Why start now?”
Chapter Eleven
Jesselynn’s father cornered her at the end of the hallway, his belt doubled up around his fist, his face purple with rage. Paralyzed, she slid to the floor, anticipating the blow. Somewhere, Mom pleaded, same as always, to stop or she’d call the police.
Her father’s attention shifted, his beady eyes gleamed. His justice would be meted out on Mom instead—just as Mom intended. Jesselynn screamed a warning, but suddenly found herself running down a Franklin Memorial hallway. He was closing in, calling out her name sharply, cleverly disguised as Lock’s honeyed tenor. The end of the hallway loomed ahead. Trapped once again, she wanted to shriek in terror.
Jordan flinched awake. A spasm of pain ripped through her ribs; her dad must’ve sucker-punched her. She emitted a guttural moan, flailing at the ghost of her past, but her father captured her wrist in an iron grip.
“Don’t move. You’re tangled in your IV.”
She froze. That wasn’t her father’s voice. Relief gradually slowed her heartbeat. She braved a peek through her lashes. Lock crouched at the edge of the cot, his shaggy blond head bent, concentrating on the little plastic tubing snagged around her wrist.
“It’s you,” she breathed. He came back. Overhead, a tired voice paged a doctor to a room stat.
Lock looped the tubing clockwise once more, and a pinch in her vein eased. He sat back on his haunches, her wrist still captive in his large, callused palm. It felt reassuring. Protective.
“That was some nightmare.” Eyes like liquid silver perused her in the dim light. God help her if she’d shouted out in her sleep. She’d learned long ago to hide behind a mask, to appear as perfectly normal as everyone else.
Her features instinctively settled into a neutral expression now. “It was only a dream.”
“About what?”
“I was…falling.”
“I’d have caught you.” A faint smile ghosted across his face, and an indescribable warmth spread through her. With a gentle squeeze, he let her wrist go.
She struggled to sit up on the flimsy cot, and his arm encircled her, hauling her upright as he sat next to her. Maybe it was him smelling of fresh air and fearlessness or the remnants of the chilling dream, but she leaned into that strength, closing her eyes again. His breath flowed warm on her temple, and the tiniest of contented sighs escaped her.
“You’re so damn hot when you’re like this,” he murmured.
She glanced up sleepily. “Huh?”
“All soft and quiet and not trying to conquer the world.”
He seemed to be waiting for a reaction, but she was dumbstruck.
“Yeah,” he whispered. “Like that.”
Slanting his head, he hesitated for a fraction of a second. Perhaps waiting for her to resist. Or call him his brother’s name. Instead her breath hitched in glorious anticipation.
The arm encircling her drew her closer with ragdoll ease. Soft lips, still cool from outdoors brushed hers in a feather-light kiss. Then another… Just enough for her to feel the languid pressure and taste a hint of peppermint.
He eased away, and her euphoria went into free fall.
“Sorry,” he murmured, his grin sheepish. “Even at my worst, I’ve never come on to a fevered patient.”
She exhaled softly. What a charming apology—and he looked so awkward. Once again, the last two reactions she ever expected from a notorious playboy. She wanted to assure him it was okay. Lean in and kiss him this time, only much longer. She absorbed the undercurrent of heat still simmering in that smoky gaze, daring herself. A simple kiss… What would it hurt?
In the blink of an eye, reality conked her on the head. What would it hurt? Her derailed mission was back on track, but access to him and his secrets was clearly a limited-time offer. Besides, Starr News wanted facts about the murder, not how sweetly Lock Roane kissed.
“I—I’d like my phone back,” she blurted.
As if she’d physically slapped him, shock registered in his face a split second before his expression shut down. His arm slid off her shoulders.
She dropped her gaze, unable to hide the overwhelming guilt. She was about to ruin him. The real Lock Roane. The man who came back for her. Who held her after a nightmare and apologized for a tender kiss.
This genuine guy he hid so carefully from the world left her breathlessly giddy. It would be so easy to fall for him. So dangerously easy. But she needed to focus all her energy on digging up his secrets, on writing the story and protecting her mother. Besides, her tabloid goal was sleazy enough without delving into anything deeper with him, physically or emotionally. The photo in her cell phone took priority over all else.
“Let me remind you,” he said quietly, “that your phone is dead. There’s no one you can call or text that you’ve found me.”
“Please just give it back,” she said without looking up.
Tense moments passed before she heard the metallic slide of a zipper, fingers scratching nylon, and suddenly the cell, warm from his body heat, lay in her lap. She clenched the small rectangle almost sighing with relief.
“Thank you. What time is it?”
“Two-thirty.”
The doctor was overhead-paged again, the droning words indecipherable. Dim light filtering from the hallway made it difficult to see outside, but it seemed to have stopped snowing, and a quarter moon blazed behind swiftly moving clouds.
Jordan stared
at the crescent, hypersensitive to his solid presence beside her. Every nerve ending still sparked at that kiss, and it took all her willpower not to touch her lips in wonder. Stop it! She dug furiously through her muddled mind for another question. “How did it go downstairs?”
“Totally dope.”
“Did you avoid the media?”
“What do you know about Roberto Vannini?”
She swiveled her head back, instantly pinned under his intense scrutiny. Her brows furrowed. “What?”
“It took me a while to recognize you, Jordan. You wrote that SI article about steroid use. You mentioned Vannini right alongside me, but he was cleared. Tell me why again.”
She swallowed her astonishment. Instead of being blisteringly ugly at the media discovery, and her lying about that profession too, he appeared studiously interested. Where on earth was Lock and Load?
“Well,” she said cautiously, “there was a nasty rumor about performance enhancers on the Italian team a few years ago. Nothing was ever proven. Roberto was one of the members ordered for random testing.”
“But he tested positive for steroids, right?”
“He tested positive for trace nandrolone, so FIS absolved him.”
“Why?”
“Because at the time, science couldn’t distinguish between the steroid and a tainted dietary supplement. The International Ski Federation had nothing to stand on. I’m surprised you didn’t memorize the paragraph about your nemesis.”
A moment passed. He gazed at her intently. Like he was peering into the depths of her flawed soul, scouting, judging. She wanted to squirm under the scrutiny but held eye contact right back. He blinked first.
“Your PI boss. What’s his name?”
“Jefferson Maguire.”
“He said you think Vannini killed Tiffany because she found proof of his doping.”
Holy Smokes. Jordan pretended to study him back as she processed his words. She’d never given Vannini a second thought. After the shocking phone call from her father, paroled fifteen years too soon, she’d dropped everything for one goal: find the idiot skier who threw his life away in a drunken argument.
Even after Lock rescued her and she began to doubt the guilt of someone so gentle and gallant, she’d never once stopped to wonder: who had killed Tiffany?
Shame oozed through her at her selfish focus and yet…God bless Jefferson. He’d accomplished what she’d failed to do these last two days: bluff a reason for Lock to want her around.
“It’s just a theory,” she said slowly, grasping for seconds. “I need all the information you can give me on their relationship. When they met, how long they dated and…what happened that last night.”
He inhaled like he was about to bungee jump off a bridge. The hesitation was long enough for her to fear he’d changed his mind.
“They must’ve met that week in Milan.”
“But what happened between you and Tiffany when you realized this?”
“It has no bearing on Vannini and his steroid use.”
She licked her lips. His focus immediately dropped to her mouth, and she stopped on instinct, swallowing hard. If he kissed her again, she was a goner.
“I saw the YouTube video, Lock. I know you struggled with her, and then she left the bar with Vannini. And the entire world knows you followed them out and almost beat him senseless. But before anyone came over and split the two of you up, you alone heard their exchange. What were their emotions? Describe their body language. What exactly happened second by second before you landed that first punch?”
His expression morphed into one of intense concentration, eyes sweeping the floor but far away in his memories. She clenched her hands together, crushing the dead cell phone.
“He had her up against a green Volvo,” he murmured hesitantly. “I didn’t hear what he said, but she struggled a little. Looked afraid. She said ‘I won’t tell.’ Then they saw me, and she shut up.”
“‘I won’t tell’?”
He nodded. “Actually she said it twice.”
“That was the exact phrase?”
“Yeah. As in, she wouldn’t tell me about their affair.”
In the last two days, she’d learned his real personality was neither stupid nor narcissistic, so his answer slackened her jaw.
He frowned. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“That doesn’t make sense, Lock. If the hatred between you and Roberto was mutual and longstanding, which I know it was, then why would he want her to keep a secret that would devastate you?”
“I…I hadn’t thought of that.”
“Her ‘I won’t tell’ means something else. Did you tell your lawyer all this?”
He looked pained. “Not that three-second scene. It didn’t seem important, because I thought they were talking about me, not steroids.”
“It could change your entire case.”
It was his turn to look dumbstruck. “How can we prove this?”
She had no idea. But he was talking, and these last two minutes held more information than the last two days. More importantly, Lock had obviously succeeded in handing out juice boxes without running into that newscaster. This man sure didn’t look like a guy freshly kicked off the US Ski Team.
Her mission prevailed, thank Christ. She needed to get back to her rental car and find the cell phone charger. She needed to keep Lock talking. This was brilliant! Using her skills as an investigative assistant to help Lock had a dual purpose: gleaning information to save her mother and helping him find the killer. Why hadn’t she thought of this the second her memory returned? What a waste of two days!
Turbocharged with purpose, she whipped off her blanket. “Get me out of here. We have a lot of work to do.”
He stood, nodding toward her ankle. “What did Clutch say?”
“It’s a bad sprain.” She swung her leg to the floor and showed him the soft black encasement resembling a ski boot. “Weight-bearing as tolerated. And I have a bruised rib. Only way to heal it is to lay low.”
“What about this?” He fingered the IV bag.
“Dehydration.” She glanced up at the almost empty bag. “He said that was undoubtedly the reason for the fever. I won’t need another one, I’m feeling much better. Now hurry, go get Clutch.”
He paused. “Listen. As much as I appreciate your help, I’m not the kinda guy you boss around.”
“I’m not bossing you around. I’m asking you to go get Clutch. Quick like a bunny.”
His expression soured. “All right, but after he takes out the IV, I’m carrying you.”
“I just told you I can walk.”
“We have to go down a steep back staircase and out a side exit. Soundlessly. And quick like a bunny.”
She opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She actually looked forward to legitimately curling into those rock-solid arms again.
He cocked an eyebrow, waiting for her protest.
“Okay,” she said in mock exasperation. “Now go find Clutch!”
As his footsteps faded down the hall, she rubbed her cell phone like it held a magic genie. As soon as she recharged it, she’d text the photo to Starr News with wire transfer instructions. With luck, they’d pay a partial deposit, which might delay her father’s threat. And by tonight she’d have enough information out of Lock to write an explosive tabloid article. The extra reward money would go toward hiring a criminal defense lawyer to help her fight her past, because there was no doubt in her mind her father would run through the two hundred thousand and demand more. She couldn’t go through this all-consuming fear again.
As for Lock, if he received a life sentence, then being kicked off the team was the least of his worries. But if he unknowingly held information that pointed to someone else, surely the USSA wouldn’t expel him for an article exonerating him, right?
So why couldn’t she shake this ominous dread?
Chapter Twelve
“She still asleep?”
Lock glanced toward the sof
a and nodded. Leo struggled down the last of the stairs, heading into the kitchen. Having nothing better to do, Lock picked up his half-empty coffee cup and followed.
By all rights, he should be in the middle of an exhausted sleep too, but the renewed sense of purpose coursed through him like six double espressos. He’d been hard pressed not to wake Jordan once they finally reached the cabin. She’d fallen into a deep sleep on the ride home, probably the sample meds Clutch gave her on the way out. When she didn’t even stir on the snowy hike up the hill, Lock hadn’t the heart to disturb her.
“What time did you guys finally get back last night?”
Lock glanced at his watch. “Three hours ago.”
“How’s she doing?”
Lock relayed Clutch’s diagnoses and pointed to the pills on the counter.
“What happened with Coach Black?”
“What we expected.”
Leo paused in the midst of pouring his coffee. “You told him you saved a woman in a blizzard and took her to the hospital?”
Lock nodded.
“And you were caught on camera by accident?”
“What do you think, butthead?”
“And he expelled you anyway?”
Lock shrugged, careful to keep his expression blank. His elation at Jordan assisting in his defense deflated as reality seeped back in like sludge water. “It wasn’t his decision. He told me the day of the arraignment it was out of his hands. The Ski Association laid down the law to him.”
“Fuck USSA.”
“They’ve been gunning for me for years.” Lock grinned without humor. “I’m a blight on their image.”
“Coach knows you aren’t the prick the media portrays. He could’ve done something.”