by Sarah Andre
“He didn’t answer his hotel phone. We called less than five minutes after the hit and run.”
She waited in the silence, knowing Jefferson mentally shuffled through the facts with the precision of a Vegas blackjack dealer.
“I think it’s time to involve the police,” he finally said.
“What’s option two?”
“Jordan, if Vannini murdered Tiffany and ran down Jennifer, there’s no reason for him to suddenly grow a conscience and stop there. Especially if he saw her speaking to you three.”
“Okay,” she conceded. Like she and Lock would show up at the station spouting off this theory. The only witness to Tiffany and Roberto’s parking lot skirmish was unconscious.
“I also sent you a zip file with Tiffany’s personal emails,” Jefferson said. “I didn’t have time to read many.”
“Thank you for all this.”
“Now let’s talk about you needing all that money.”
She stared at the table, lips tight. And if’n I find out you told a soul about this here call, missy, I’ll make it my dyin’ duty to kill you and your momma.
“Tell me the truth, Jordan,” he said quietly.
Truth. From the time she could speak, she’d learned that telling the truth was neither smart nor safe. In this instance, the truth would result in devastation. Rebecca could kiss her career good-bye. And Jordan’s father would move heaven and earth to kill them. Her mother’s safety meant hiding behind another lie, and instinct formed a perfectly viable one now.
But she felt Lock’s eyes on her and heard Jefferson’s calm breathing over the phone. Every pore on her body perspired, and fear choked her silent. She couldn’t lie to the two most important men in her life anymore, and yet she couldn’t risk telling the truth.
“How about just answering yes or no?” Jefferson suggested. “Does it have something to do with your father?”
She swallowed spastically. “Yes,” she whispered. Her breath caught.
“Does he want the quarter mil?”
“Two hundred thousand.” Her voice was a croak. “Or he’ll take Mom.”
“Why did he call now after all these years?”
“He was just released from prison.” Out of the corner of her eye Lock jerked in surprise.
“And he’s extorting money from you?” Jefferson asked in disbelief.
“If I don’t pay by Monday, he’s calling the cops on me and taking Mom.” Taking Mom! The tears gushed freely this time. The humiliation of telling the truth, of failing to get the money, of sacrificing her mother because of the mistakes she’d made this week. She was finally and truly not in control of anything, and she hated it.
Lock pushed his chair back, rounded the table, hoisted her up, and took her seat. In seconds she was on his lap, pressed into the warm, airy strength of him. His powerful arms wrapped around her tightly, and one hand snaked up to brush away her tears.
“So where do things stand with Starr News?” Jefferson’s baritone rumbled in her ear. “I saw the tabloid picture.”
She tore her attention away from riding the smooth ripple of thigh muscles as Lock shifted in the chair. “They didn’t pay,” she answered. “The editor in chief called after I left Vannini’s room and said the rules specifically said proof and an interview.” She looked into the warm gray eyes inches from her own. “I debased my own profession taking that picture, and the more I’ve gotten to know Lock, the more I dreaded writing the article. Grebe’s an unethical shit, and I couldn’t bring myself to hurt Lock any more than I already have.” His embrace tightened, and exhausted as she was, a sense of safety spread through her. “So I told him to fuck off,” she ended huskily. He raised her free hand and pressed it to his lips.
“Where does that leave you with your father’s demands?”
“I won’t get the money in time, and he’s threatened to kill Mom and me if I tell anyone about all this. Rebecca’s called Alabama to report his threats. But he’s coming, Jefferson, I can feel it.”
“Have you told him you don’t intend to pay?”
“No. He left a bunch of voicemails, but I haven’t listened to any of them.”
Jefferson exhaled heavily. “Okay. Here’s the plan. I’ll go wait for your father on Monday. Your mom is safe, okay? I don’t want you to focus on that one more second. You go straight to the Aspen police and let them deal with Vannini.”
“Jefferson—”
“Or option two is you’re fired.”
…
Jordan pressed end and heaved a long sigh. She looked strung out, like she was running on fumes, and Lock decided to take control.
“Leo called from the ER,” he said quietly. “Prissy has a broken collar bone but is conscious and expected to be all right. When the cops saw Leo’s bloody nose, they made him go get checked out thoroughly. Evidently it’s so busy he hasn’t been seen yet, but whenever he’s done, he’ll head to the police station for questioning.”
She nodded.
“And the general manager just called and gave us his private suite upstairs. There’s room for all of us. He’s a good guy and amazingly still believes in me.”
She nodded, smothering a yawn, and gazed at the whiskey glass in front of her, then his empty chair across the table. “What am I doing in your lap?”
“You looked like you needed a little TLC.”
“Well, thanks, but I’m fine. You can let me up.”
“Naw.” He tightened his grip. “I better hang on to you, just in case.”
“In case what?”
“You get the vapors or something.”
A faint smile appeared. “Vapors,” she mumbled. But she didn’t move to get up, and that was something.
She scrolled through her phone list. “Let’s see if Vannini’s in his room yet.”
He stilled her hand. “Nuh uh. We’re done for tonight. Let’s go get some rest.”
“We can’t let this opportunity pass us by.”
“Jordan, it’s late. He’s either drunk, or you’ll be interrupting him with a woman. Either way he’ll make you pay.”
She bit her lip, and his gut tightened.
“What happened with him this afternoon?” Please don’t lie.
“Nothing, Lock. What if he’s upstai—”
“He isn’t leaving,” he interrupted, stung that she still wouldn’t tell him. “He traded in training for the World Cup to make sure I never see freedom. You can talk to him tomorrow.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
The general manager’s suite was breathtakingly luxurious. Soft contemporary furnishings in shades of cream and tan gave the great room a spacious feel, and the place was ready and welcoming, with lights turned low and a romantic fire burning behind a thick glass screen.
Jordan collapsed on one of the large sofas while Lock rummaged through kitchen cabinets. Ice clinked, and then he was beside her, holding out more whiskey.
“No thanks,” she said, yawning.
“Sip it this time. It’ll make all the difference.”
She grudgingly accepted the glass, allowing the tiniest drop to pass over her lips. The liquid still burned down her throat but in a rich, warm way. A second, larger sip eased the tension along her shoulders. Or maybe it was because Lock sat so close.
“You’re right, it’s delicious,” she murmured and was rewarded with one of those dazzling smiles that worked way better than whiskey. For a second she thought he might lean over and kiss her, and her breath caught.
He captured her hand instead.
“Jordan.” He squeezed her fingers. “You obviously need money. I only caught part of the conver—”
“Thank you, but no,” she said quickly, squeezing back. “I got myself into this mess when I shot my father and ran. I’ll figure a way out. At least Jefferson will be there on Monday to protect my mother. I have time to think now. I haven’t stopped to do that since that first phone call.”
“Don’t take his shit. Stand up to him.”
An in
ner dread shuddered through her. “I have to consider my mom’s long-term safety before I do anything.”
“Let me help. Hell, I owe you for getting us this far into solving the murder. Just tell me what to do. Pay him? Kick his ass?”
She smiled. “You saved my life four days ago, Lock. I think we’re even.”
Her voice came out husky, probably the whiskey, but his eyes turned dark, and his lids lowered to half-mast. They were alone in a huge, luxurious suite. Tingles shivered through her. What would it be like to do more than kiss Lock? She exhaled a fluttery little breath. She’d only be in his life two more days tops. Please let him try once more.
A moment passed. He glanced away, blinking the lust from his features, and rose abruptly. Hiding her disappointment, she sipped whiskey, watching him fiddle with the fire poker. The silence lengthened, and she memorized every detail of the man who had stolen her heart: his confidence and strength of character, the power behind all those sculpted muscles, that insanely handsome profile. This was the perfect image to recall for a future article. Oh hell, who was she kidding? For when he was no longer a daily fixture in her life, like sunshine or oxygen.
“Does Leo know where we are?” she asked.
“No. I was still working on getting a room when he called. He’ll call again when he’s through.”
The firelight should have softened his face. Instead it highlighted the granite planes and that hard, hard jaw, shadowed by the night’s growth. He returned the poker to its hook and swung around, eyes haunted.
“What’s wrong?” she murmured.
“Just thinking about Leo.”
“What about him?”
“Smashing his nose when I tackled him.” He shook his head, gazing at the half-circle of marble surrounding the fireplace. “I don’t know what my problem is.”
His guilt seemed awfully dramatic, and she studied him closely. “There is no problem, Lock. You saved his life.”
“I’ve been a tool all these months. I shut him out and tried to deal with my case alone. But he came through with the symptoms for that roofie angle. Now he’s handling the aftermath of Prissy’s accident while we get to relax.”
“Why didn’t you let him help you months ago?”
He shrugged, and his face closed down.
She reflected again on their confusing relationship and how both brothers denied it. Surely in this intimate atmosphere he’d open up. “Were you two ever close?”
He stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Best friends as kids.”
“What happened?”
“It’s not important now.”
She smiled and patted the sofa. “Take a load off.”
After a slight hesitation, he came over and sat with a weary grunt. “You’re still bossing me around, I see.”
“You know I’m gonna keep after you, so just cut to the chase. What happened to make you go from best friends to estranged?”
He swallowed a great gulp of whiskey like it was water. She was seriously impressed.
After several false starts, he blurted out, “Before I say anything, you should know he was supposed to be born first.”
Well, that’s an odd beginning. “Yeah, I know. Leo told me right before you took me to the hospital. You kicked until you came out first, and he was breach.”
“He told you?” His eyebrows puckered. “See, I knew he hadn’t forgiven me.”
“For what? Wiggling around as a fetus? You’re joking, right?”
He concentrated on the amber depths in his glass. “When we were nine, we overheard our parents discussing some new medical research. Evidently there’s a high correlation between CP and the second twin. First one’s fine, but if the other kid has complications coming out, the lack of oxygen causes parts of the brain that coordinate muscles to die.”
Understanding dawned, causing her heart to wrench. “So you kicked and—”
“Came out first.” He slumped back. “And Leo was breach. I’m the one who should be disabled, Jo.”
“That’s a bit dramatic. Even if he went first, it doesn’t mean you’d be breach and in oxygen distress.”
He swirled the liquid in the snifter without commenting. After a while he said, “We never talked about what we overheard. We still haven’t. But a few days afterward, I was so eaten with guilt I took him sledding. Did you ever ride on those silver discs?”
She shook her head. “But I know about them. They go way faster than sleds.”
“Especially with cooking oil sprayed on the bottom.”
So even at nine he was stupid fast. She wanted to comb her fingers through his shaggy hair. Ease the pain glinting in his eyes. “What happened?” she asked instead.
“At dusk when most of the skiers were done, we took the lift to the top. But when Leo saw the steep slope, he got all squirrely. We got in a big argument. The chairlift didn’t take people back down, and I couldn’t leave him stranded up there with his disability. But I sure as hell wasn’t walking down when I had this joyride.”
Jordan braced herself with another burning sip.
“So the argument got outta hand, and I…kinda snapped. I tackled him and dragged him onto that damn disc, restrained him in front of me, and pushed off.” His mouth tightened. “We flew, Jordan. I never sledded so fast in my life. And he screamed and screamed like his life was ending. I still hear it in my nightmares.” He massaged his forehead and poured the rest of his drink down his throat. Setting the snifter on the cocktail table, he slumped back on the sofa cushion. She gripped his hand, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“We got about halfway down, really ripping it by this time and skidded around a bend. Right in front of us the slope forked sharply. I didn’t have enough time to react.” His lips tightened. “We slammed into the trees.”
“Oh my God.”
“To this day I don’t know how we weren’t killed.” He rubbed his whiskers. “I walked away without a scratch, and he broke his right arm in two places. Crippled left leg, broken right arm. Both my fault.” He glanced over, his eyes squinted in agony. “And the worst part? The really worst part? He never told on me. Just stoically let my parents think it was his boneheaded idea as well. He can’t lie, so he just shut up when they questioned him. Kept silent even when he was grounded.”
The fire crackled and hissed. She knew words of comfort were not what he wanted. Words of forgiveness weren’t hers to give. But to assume responsibility for something he did as a fetus still seemed ridiculous.
“That ended our hanging out together, and then my skiing took me away from home a lot. Whenever I returned, we had less in common than ever. I turned into a celebrity, and he turned to books and medicine and eventually all that solitary living. I rarely went to family functions. I’d see his limp and know the shitty cards he’d been dealt were all because of me. I really tried to stay in my alter ego around him, but he’s always been able to see through Lock and Load. Like you, come to think of it.”
His grin was forced-casual, and the palm she held felt damp. Unburdening his history brought no relief to his face, and it slowly dawned on her.
“There’s something else isn’t there?”
They sat quietly holding hands, him lost in thought and her waiting for another layer to unfurl.
He found a half-loose thread sewn into the seam of his jeans and picked at it. “The summer we were twenty, he tried to reach out to me. Invited me to a party his girlfriend was throwing at her parents’ summer home in Vail.” He shrugged. “I went. I had friends nearby, so I knew I could bail if the party was lame.”
He swallowed tightly, spying his empty snifter. When he glanced at hers, she promptly handed it over, and he glugged the rest with the intensity of a desert survivor.
She took the glass gently from his hand. “Go on.”
Instead he picked at the thread another full minute. “I ended up getting so drunk at the party I blacked out. They tell me I smashed stuff, threw someone in the pool, tried
to make out with Leo’s girl… Acted like a fucking ass.”
The thread finally snapped off his jeans, and he curled it between his fingers.
“Instead of being mad, typical Leo tried to take care of me, get me away from the house. Evidently I argued, and a lot of stuff came up that I’d held in for years. Poor guy stood there surrounded by this huge crowd and listened to every last shitty word. Then he still tried to get me out of there. Physically, Jordan. My small twin attempted to physically remove me from his girlfriend’s house.”
He looked at her like he was waiting for her to laugh or something. Sadly, after knowing them almost a week, she could picture both men in these static roles. Lock screwing up. Leo fixing everything.
“I shook him off, and he followed me out front. I got on my Harley, and he tried like hell to get my keys. A friend of mine told me the next day that I shoved him so hard he fell backwards. Before he could get up I kick-started the damn bike, drove in a tight circle, and tried to run him over.”
Her breath froze. The hand she held felt sopping wet now, and the haunted look in his eyes squeezed her heart.
“I tried to kill him, Jo. My twin. And I don’t remember a fucking thing.”
“What—what happened when you sobered up?”
“When I heard what I did, I went back and tried to apologize. I promised him with my hand to God that I would never, ever get that drunk again. It’s damn scary knowing you can unleash so much rottenness and not remember any of it.”
Her throat tightened with tears for these two brothers, who clearly loved each other but couldn’t figure out how to like each other. She swallowed the lump down. “Did he forgive you?”
He shrugged. “You know Leo. He accepted my stupid words, but we both knew there was no relationship left. We couldn’t be friends or brothers. All I ever did was hurt him. It’s as if there’s something inside me that’s gunning to kill him off.”
“Oh, Lock.”
He shook his head fractionally and kept going. “So years passed. We barely spoke. Once in a while when I got into trouble I’d call him. He was always there for me, but would leave right afterwards, like he could barely tolerate me.” He grinned and shrugged, the carelessness of both actions tinged with Lock and Load bravado. “And that was life. Until last May.” His harsh chuckle held no humor. “Try living for ten months with a guy you know intensely dislikes you, Jo. Every waking moment you want to claw the guilt off you, every struggling step he takes stabs you. And no matter what, keep this second blackout a fucking secret.” He squeezed her hand hard for a second. “It’s been hell for both of us, but to protect myself I’ve treated him like an absolute shit. Surprise!”