by Sarah Andre
On the drive home, Jordan paid him back mercilessly for his earlier snooping about her father by asking all about their parents and childhood. If she chose not to be honest about her past, he was damned if he’d cough up any information about his, but Leo immediately blurted out the most boneheaded stunts Lock had thought up as a kid. Maybe this was passive-aggressive retribution for the way their discussion ended. He only half-listened to his brother’s animated stories. At seven years old, rappelling out the second story window, only the rope slipped steadily up his body the further he descended until, with six feet to go, it was around his neck. At eight years old, when he jumped off the roof with cardboard-box wings.
Great. Nothing like having to read about that foolishness in a glossy magazine.
“What on earth were you thinking?” she asked, turning to him.
“I was thinking that stuff worked out all right for cartoon characters every afternoon.”
She threw back her head and laughed. Her usual stern intensity morphed into absolute jaw-dropping beauty. He almost drove off the road.
“Good thing Leo put mattresses down,” he managed, exhaustion disappearing with the thudding of his heart.
“It didn’t help much,” his brother said. “He still ended up with a broken collar bone.”
“Where were your parents during all these escapades?”
Lock shrugged, still barely able to watch the road. “Our parents both worked, and our babysitter watched soaps.”
“And our local ER eventually reserved a bed just for Lock.”
He didn’t defend himself. The more he dug in his heels, the more prominently featured this would be in her article. He even remembered a better story, what the hell, why fight it? Soon, he and Leo had her crying with laughter, a throaty melody, and she looked…stunning. Spectacular. God, he found it hard to breathe. Harder still not to reach for her, only this time he would kiss her. Long and hard.
His attention was drawn to another peal of laughter as Leo described a particularly stupid Halloween trick, and Lock caught himself smiling. It felt so damn good to remember those times, remember the carefree kid he used to be.
The media had stolen that from him, distorting his words one too many times until he’d created the Lock and Load mask to survive. A persona sponsors preferred and women like Tiff craved.
And now he glimpsed Jordan without the bossy, professional mask. Her light-hearted personality was intoxicating. His insides quivered, and for the life of him he couldn’t remember ever reacting like this. If she were laughing and nude, he’d understand his body signals.
All too soon he navigated the station wagon up the slippery driveway. As if on cue, the three sobered up.
Lock ignored the heaviness settling onto him. He should be relieved they were searching for any clue to prove he wasn’t a cold-blooded murderer. Except now he was stuck with Leo’s “helpful” presence, which came with silent accusation that thundered like an F-16 flyover. Which only fed his own anxiety. That PI boss was right. He needed “crafty,” big time.
“I’ll need a few minutes alone in Leo’s office,” Jordan said, as he shifted into park. “I have an urgent text to get out.”
He caught sight of her cell phone tucked tightly in her palm, and yep, the vibrant woman who’d stirred his blood all the way home had morphed right back into a razor-toothed shark.
Chapter Seventeen
Damn! The picture was a loss. Completely blurry. Oh, she knew it was Lock and those were pretzel bags he’d shoved in his pockets, but to anyone else, it would look like shadowy impressionism. If the tabloid still held their contest, she was back to square one. She’d have to risk snapping another picture. A zing of panic shot through her. If Lock caught her, it would be awfully hard to explain why she needed a photo of him for his defense.
She tapped her message icon. Since the accident, seventeen Private ID voicemails from her bastard father, nine from Jefferson, and one from Rebecca.
Jordan called her back first.
“How’s Mom?” she asked, as soon as she heard the familiar voice.
“She’s totally fine. Holy shit, girl, Jefferson told me where you are.”
“Can you believe it? I’m in a cabin with him and his brother right now.”
“Well, guess what?” Rebecca’s breath hitched. “The quarter mil is still up for grabs.”
Jordan waited for exhilaration or relief. All she felt was a sense of heaviness. Despite the silly Lock and Load act alone in the car, the rest of the trip revealed deeper layers in this unique guy. Yes, she’d write the article, but frankly, the thought of betraying his secrets to the nation…
But her mother’s safety…“I’m convinced he’s innocent, Rebecca. Maybe I can write it from that angle and still collect the money.”
“Innocent? He’s a narcissistic ass-wipe.”
“That’s Lock and Load. Lock is smart and funny and self-deprecating.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “And crazy, crazy hot.”
“Oh my God, you’re falling for him.”
“I am not. I’m just saying there’s so much more to him that he purposefully hides from America. Why would he act like such an ass when he isn’t? Who does that?”
“Do not get involved, Jordan. All the evidence proves he’s a violent criminal. Just write the article and split.”
A moment of silence went by. The heaviness inside grew.
Rebecca tsk’d in disgust. “He seduced you, right? Tell me you resisted a little.”
“It’s nothing like that,” she sputtered, her cheeks burning. “It’s just…There’s this weird connection between us.”
“Well, stop thinking about weird connections, and think about what Jefferson will do to us when your father tells him about your past.”
Jordan bit her lip. The only reason she’d successfully eluded the authorities was due to Rebecca crafting new identities and false backgrounds for her and her mom. Who better than a highly experienced private investigator? Which was totally unethical and illegal. Jordan needed to remember that. Even though she felt alone in this horror show of her father’s threats, she wouldn’t be the only one going down for a crime if Starr News didn’t get the photograph and article.
Sure, Jefferson might use questionable means to obtain investigative information, but in his heart, he was a proud, upstanding ex-cop from Boston. Finding out he’d hired a fugitive based on his partner’s carefully constructed background would cause irreparable damage to all three relationships.
“Let me put it to you this way,” Rebecca said sharply. “Picture your father already here in Boston, beating on the front door, hollering for your mom. Now picture your mom’s reaction.”
Jordan stiffened at the mental picture, her resolve instantly iron-tight. “I’ll fix everything and be home by Monday. I promise.” Sorry, Lock.
“Good.”
“Is Mom acting differently without me there?”
“She notices you’re gone, but time doesn’t seem to have any meaning. You could’ve been gone minutes or years. I try to distract her. Oh, Jefferson just came in,” she said in cheerful warning. “Walking over. Trying to grab the phone. Guess he wants to talk to you.” Her good-byes were muffled as the phone was clearly snatched from her hand.
“Kitchen sink’s dripping,” he explained without a greeting. “Becc’s promised me homemade lasagna if I came over and fixed it.”
She smiled and closed her eyes. God, she missed her life and her goofy friends. “It’s Thursday night, Jefferson. She makes you lasagna every Thursday night.”
“Damn, I’ve been hustled again. How’s it going over there?”
She inhaled deeply and let the day’s information rush out. The insurmountable evidence against Lock, his blackout, Tiffany’s coke addiction, the money he loaned her to pay off her dealer. “There could be multiple men who had a motive,” she concluded. “Vannini, the dealer, the dealer’s goons. I don’t think Lock’s jealousy is a factor. In fact, some of the stuff he sa
ys—their relationship was clearly on its last leg.”
“I can email her phone records. Don’t know if it’ll help.”
“Actually, email them to Leo, and I’ll show him our database for Reverse Number Lookups.” She skimmed the overly organized desk, found his stack of business cards, and read off his cryptic email address. Was he such an introvert he couldn’t go by his-name-at-hostsite-dot-com?
“Anything else I can do from here?” Jefferson asked, and she heard a beer cap clink on the counter.
“Is there any way to bootleg a copy of that YouTube video? It’s a long shot, but maybe something on it will jog Lock’s memory.”
“I started on it after you brought it up on your drive out. It’s a trickier hack job than I thought, but I’m almost there. And I came across a site I think you should check out. Hottest-Babe-On-Earth-dot-com. See if skier boy thinks those pictures are legit.”
“Legit?”
“I ran Tiffany through our facial recognition program, just for kicks. Maybe someone would show up in the background of her pictures enough times to be suspicious. Instead I came up with this site. What bothers me about it is that I’d never have come across it by typing her name into search engines. No tags, no identifying data. The webmaster is flying under the radar, creating a site made up solely of pictures of her without identifying her. I think it’s something we oughta follow up on.”
“What’s wrong with a site filled with her pictures?”
“Go look. See if Roane thinks it’s a stalker thing or she’s just an exhibitionist.”
Jordan ended the call, plugged in her laptop, and brought up the website, but the sheer volume of thumbnail pictures was a task for later.
She returned to the living room where Lock knelt on the hearth, rebuilding the fire. For the second time that day, she paused, struck at the stunning sight of that denim-clad ass. Instinctively her fingers curled around the cell. Oh to snap a picture of that angle for herself. Because by tonight she’d send Starr News proof, and these oddly romantic days with Lock would end forever.
…
Out of the corner of his eye, Lock saw her sit in the club chair and reach for her pad. Inwardly he braced himself as he wandered to the sofa and slumped in it. He stretched his arms along the back cushions, and thumped his boots on the coffee table. Thankfully, Leo was making dinner so this session would only be the two of them.
“What’s next, reporter lady?”
She clicked her pen. “Let’s take it from: you gave her money for cocaine so she wouldn’t whore herself out.”
He sucked in a breath. Jesus, this chick was a human switchblade. He lowered his arms and crossed them tightly across his chest. “Is there a question in there?”
“How much.”
“Ten.”
Those vivid blue eyes pierced him. “Thousand?”
He nodded, suddenly thirsty for beer.
“How expensive is cocaine?”
“I don’t know, Jordan. And I didn’t investigate how in arrears she was. I didn’t check her math or ask for a receipt or draw up a loan. I gave it to her, all right?”
By the studious look on her face, she chose to ignore his outburst. “You’re saying there’s no need to look into the possibility that her dealer sent his gorillas around that night to collect?”
If only it was that easy. “My lawyer’s PI checked. The dealer was out of the country the night she died, his posse is alibi’d up.”
“Who else has your PI team cleared?”
“Her cousin, Marcy. All the neighbors on her street. Vannini.” He scowled. What if he received a life sentence for a murder Vannini committed? Christ, someone kill him now.
Jordan scribbled something, and he focused instead on the river of hair spilling over her shoulders, the sheen glistening blue-black in the firelight. A few hours ago he’d been in the car, slipping his fingers through those satiny strands.
She glanced up, and he blinked to attention.
“What details did your PI uncover about Vannini?”
“Slept with some chick named Jennifer Johnson. I know my lawyer deposed her.”
“Were you at the deposition?”
“God, no.” He barked out a laugh. “Parker? Letting me anywhere near the prosecution’s witnesses?”
She waved her hand in an impatient flutter, like she realized that was a stupid question. “It’s just that Vannini claims he drove out of the Avalanche parking lot with her.”
“I didn’t notice, I was too”—he searched for a low-key word—“upset. But my lawyer told me their alibis cover each other. All night.”
“From the time he walked out of the bar with Tiffany, to the fight with you a minute later, there was no time for him to pick up some other woman.”
“Obviously you haven’t heard of his rep.”
Her eyebrow arched. “Enlighten me.”
“He can bag a woman faster than he can race. And he’s indiscriminant, he’ll do anybody. Word on the circuit is he’s a sex addict.”
Jordan’s cell phone vibrated on the cocktail table. He read the screen clearly from where he sat. Caller ID: Private. An expression flashed across her face, too fast for him to catch.
“Go ahead and answer it,” he said. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“No!” She rubbed a hand across her mouth like she wanted to take that shout back. “I mean…it’s no one important. Go on.”
He focused on the dancing phone with interest. “I was done answering. It’s your turn to ask another question. Jesselynn.”
She scraped her hair back and scanned her notes, her usual irritability at being called Jesselynn suspiciously absent. Who was she avoiding? He watched her closely until the phone went silent but got nothing from her expression. He was damn glad they weren’t in the middle of a poker game.
She cleared her throat. “Did Tiffany know Vannini was in the bar? Is that why she kept trying to wrench free of you?”
The question startled him. Tiffany had been so mad. It seemed inconceivable someone so drunk could have been acting. “I don’t think so.”
He tried to process the possibility as she doodled. But then she bit her bottom lip, and his dick reacted just as it had in the car. He swiveled to stare at the fire. Christ, she was helping him prove to himself that he wasn’t a killer, and this is what his body focused on? It was getting to the point that if she was in the room, he’d have to wear a blindfold.
He ran through last year’s stats until he got himself under control, then pushed to his feet, irritated and thirsty. “I need a beer. Want anything?”
“She needs to drink water,” Leo called from the kitchen, and Jordan grudgingly nodded, tapping her cell phone screen.
“Let’s talk to Marcy tonight,” she said without looking up. “She’s gotta know more about Vannini and that whole grandmother issue. Do you have her number?”
“Yep.”
He rounded the sofa, annoyed that he wasn’t thinking about Marcy or Vannini or how hard Jordan was working to save his ass. Nope. He obsessed about her bottom lip and a blindfold. Something flashed. He glanced back, and Jordan slanted her phone so the chrome glinted in the firelight.
“Just checking messages,” she said brightly. Too brightly. But then that Private caller had gone to voicemail. Maybe he’d read her wrong, and it was a caller she couldn’t wait to hear from.
Chapter Eighteen
Jordan’s heart rate amped up, her skin tingled, and her brain went on high alert as she concocted the lie she’d tell Marcy. Probably the same kind of adrenalin Lock had racing. I’m an Olympic gold medalist in lying.
A brisk voice answered her call on the second ring.
“Hi, Marcy,” Jordan said, gliding straight into her southern accent. “My name is Sue Watson, and I’ve been contracted by John and Isabella van der Kellen to write their daughter’s biography.” Peripherally she saw Lock’s jaw drop. “Obviously,” she continued smoothly, “you’re the first person John recommended interviewing.
”
“My grandmother would never authorize that.” Marcy hung up.
Wow. Jordan pursed her lips, studying the phone.
“That’s gotta be a new van der Kellen record,” Lock murmured. “I should’ve mentioned Marcy’s highly suspicious of snooping reporters.”
At his unsympathetic grin, Jordan let the phone slide out of her hands and plop on the cocktail table. This’d be harder than she thought. Exactly how much power did this old woman wield over her middle-aged son’s decisions? “Tell me more about the grandmother.”
He swigged his beer, and she watched his throat muscles work the liquid down. “She’s a Grade A ice queen. I only met her three times, but she made me want to piss myself.”
Lock and Load? Afraid of someone? She searched his face, but he appeared frank and unembarrassed.
“Describe what you mean by Ice Queen.”
“She’s got a face like a doll. Like she’s never laughed once in her life.”
“That’s called Botox, dude.”
“No, I don’t mean wrinkles, even though there are none. I mean she has one expression, and it’s no expression, you know? She communicates everything with those frosty eyes. If you watched the other family members, they all seemed normal, talking to each other and stuff, but every one of them kept an eye out for the slightest sign from her to stop or sit or go talk to her. It was creepy.”
“Was Tiffany intimidated?”
“More like on best behavior. But then it was real obvious she was Carlotta’s favorite.”
Jordan had read about the indulgence Mrs. van der Kellen reserved for Tiffany. “What did Carlotta think about you?”
“She never spoke to me. Not once in those three times. And when Tiffany introduced me twice, Carlotta looked right through me. No smile of welcome, no frown that her beloved granddaughter was dating a guy like me, just…nothing.” He folded his arms, lips tightening.
She observed the body language, amazed. “And you cared what someone thought of you?”
“No,” he said. “Next question.”
She smothered a smile. Each layer she uncovered surprised her that much more. “You mentioned Marcy has a job. Isn’t she an heiress too?”