TENDER DECEIT (Mystery Romance): The TENDER Series ~ Book 1

by H. Y. Hanna

  Toran’s gaze fell on the computer on David Fisher’s desk. Brain over brawn, he thought, as he hurried over to the desk and switched the computer on. The welcome screen greeted him, with a cursor blinking over the password entry. Toran sat back. Damn. He thought for a moment. He had done an article on password selection a few years ago—it was actually frightening how stupid most people’s password choices were, with the most common ones being people’s own first names, variations of the word “password”, or even sequential keyboard patterns like “abc123”. But he doubted David Fisher had been so naïve or careless. No, Leah’s father would have selected a much more obscure password.

  Leah’s father…

  Toran’s gaze settled on a framed photo at the edge of the desk, just beside the lamp. It was Leah at fourteen, looking over her shoulder and smiling shyly at the camera. Leah. Toran turned thoughtfully back to the keyboard. David Fisher would never use his daughter’s direct name—that was too easy—but perhaps there were other connections… His fingers hovered over the keyboard. Leah was a Hebrew name… it had Biblical connections. She was the first wife of Jacob, sister of Rachel… Toran tried “Jacob”, then “Rachel”, then “first wife”. Nothing. He paused, his mind going back to the meaning of Leah. It had different meanings, such as “weary” and “grieved”, but he doubted those were the meanings people wanted to remember when they named their baby daughter. Then he remembered another meaning for Leah: “gazelle”. He typed that in. Again, nothing.

  Toran sighed and sat back in the chair, running a hand through his hair in frustration. His eyes drifted around the room, roving over the bookcases, the Ming vase, the statue of a Tang porcelain horse in a glass display case, and a large, gilt frame on the wall above the horse. Toran narrowed his eyes. The frame seemed to contain a faded, old piece of parchment paper covered with writing. He got up and crossed the room to look at it. It looked like Hebrew script, he realised. An antique Hebrew manuscript.

  Hebrew. And Leah was a Hebrew name.

  Toran turned around eagerly. What was “gazelle” in Hebrew? He glanced across at the bookcases and noticed several large, hardback volumes lining the top shelf. Mentally crossing his fingers, Toran stepped over to the shelf and ran his eyes over the titles. Oxford English Dictionary, Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, Black’s Law Dictionary, The Times Concise Atlas of the World… and then the thing he was looking for. An English-Hebrew dictionary. He slid it out and opened it, hoping desperately that the entries might have phonetic Romanised translations. They did. Quickly he looked up “gazelle” and found the Hebrew word in English: “ayalah”.

  Toran slid the book back into the bookcase and went back to the desk. This had to work. Otherwise he was out of guesses. He typed in “ayalah” and hit “ENTER”. There was a soft whirring and then the welcome screen faded away to show the desktop. Toran blew a soft sigh of relief. He was in.

  Quickly, he brought up the internet browser and navigated to a local food delivery site. Scrolling through, he found an eatery promising “food to your door within 15 minutes of ordering”. He selected multiple items from the menu, making the order a large one. Then he clicked on “Cash on delivery” and pressed the “Submit” button.

  Toran glanced at his watch, then made his way over to the study door again and carefully cracked it open. Now it was a waiting game.

  CHAPTER 17

  Twelve minutes. Ten minutes. Eight minutes. Five minutes. Three minutes. Two minutes. The front doorbell rang right on time. From the kitchen came a loud curse, followed by the sound of a chair being scraped back. Toran stood tense, his eye to the crack, his hand on the study door handle, as a figure came out of the kitchen and hesitated in the hallway. The doorbell rang again, insistently. The man swore again, then went slowly towards the front of the house. Toran heard the front door open.

  “Your takeaway, sir.”

  “I didn’t order no takeaway.”

  “Here is the receipt with the order, sir. It’s eight-four dollars, fifty. Cash on delivery.”

  “What the f—? I said I didn’t order any takeaway!”

  “Sir, it was all done online. We have the records, with the order to be delivered to this address. Any orders over fifty-dollars must be paid for—no cancellation or refunds.”

  “I’m tellin’ you, there must be some mistake…”

  Toran was out of the study in a flash and across the hallway, diving into the kitchen. He saw Leah slumped in a chair by the breakfast bar. He rushed over and shook her. Her head lolled back and her eyes barely opened.

  “Leah! Leah!” he said, shaking her harder.

  She gave a sigh and seemed to awaken slightly. Her eyes opened wide for a moment and he saw terror in them, before she recognised him.

  “Toran,” she whispered.

  He tried to lift her into his arms, but she stiffened and started to fight him. Her eyes were wild now and didn’t seem to see him. He saw her open her mouth to scream and he quickly released her.

  Clasping her hand in his own, Toran spoke urgently. “Leah, listen to me. I need you to focus. You need to get up and come with me, do you understand? But keep very quiet.”

  She sighed again and sagged to the side. He caught her just before she slumped over. Damn. He paused to listen. They were still arguing at the front door, but he didn’t know for how much longer.

  Gently, Toran ran his fingers up along the side of Leah’s neck to the base of her skull. He found the acupressure point there and pressed hard. Her eyelids fluttered open. He put his mouth close to her ear.

  “Leah? Listen to me. You’re in danger. You need to get up and come with me.”

  This time, the words seemed to get through. He helped her to her feet and supported her as they moved to the kitchen doorway. He paused as they stepped into the hall. The arguing had stopped. He heard a few murmured words, then the sound of the front door slamming. The man was coming back.

  Toran turned and hustled Leah across the hallway, into the study. Shutting the door behind them, he started to pull her across the room, but she resisted. She was looking about her in a daze, her eyes wide with fear.

  “Leah!” he hissed. “Come on!”

  Still she resisted his pulling. He considered picking her up again, but hesitated. If she screamed now, their escape would be lost. Through the study door, he could hear the sound of footsteps coming back down the hallway. Any minute now, the man would walk into the kitchen and find Leah missing.

  He gave her hand another tug. “Leah. Please. You need to come with me.”

  Her eyes fixed on his and, for a moment, Toran thought she was going to faint again, then she blinked and started moving forwards. They had just got to the glass door when Toran heard a bellow from the kitchen.

  He yanked the door open and pushed Leah outside. She stumbled and would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her. Supporting her limp body, he pushed their way through the dense foliage. When they got to the side gate, he paused and listened. There were sounds in the house—doors being slammed open, footsteps hurrying, loud cursing. Would the man go out the back to look in the garden or come out the front door? There was no time to hesitate. He had to decide. Toran picked Leah up in his arms and stepped out of the side gate, onto the street.

  The front door swung open. The man froze as he saw them, then he came rushing forwards with a yell. Toran swung Leah down and laid her on the ground, then turned to face the man. He dodged a swing and returned with an uppercut, twisting his body and jamming his elbow into the man’s ribs at the same time. Speed had always been his advantage, even as a boy. You didn’t need to be the Incredible Hulk if you could move like lightning. Before the man had recovered from his first blow, Toran had brought the side of his hand up to the man’s neck and delivered a swift strike. The man crumpled to the ground.

  Toran hurried back to Leah. She seemed to be rousing. That was good. They would call less attention to themselves if he didn’t need to carry her into a taxi. She stood up slowly, with his
help, and looked around in a daze.

  “Come on, lean on me. We just need to walk a little bit further and then we can get in a taxi and you can rest,” he urged her gently. Carefully avoiding the body slumped on the ground, he guided her past the villa and down the street, to the taxi stand on the corner.

  Leah seemed slightly more awake by the time the taxi dropped them off outside the boutique hotel in Chinatown, although she was still shaky as Toran helped her from the taxi. He saw her eyes widen with alarm and confusion as they started to walk into the door of the small hotel.

  “Can’t… go back… my hotel… not safe!”

  “This isn’t your hotel, Leah,” he assured her. “You’re right, we can’t go back to your place. We’ll have to stay here for the night. This is a different hotel.”

  “People… see… you…” she mumbled, trying to pull back.

  “It’s okay,” he soothed, putting a gentle hand under her elbow. “This place belongs to a friend. It’s not open to the public yet—my friend is still renovating it—so there’ll be no one else staying here except us. And Dieter,” he added, seeing the tall man with the piercing blue eyes come forwards to greet them as they entered the tiny lobby.

  Toran had met Dieter when researching one of his previous articles and they had instantly hit it off. A mercurial figure, Dieter was one of those who had come out to Singapore while backpacking in his early twenties and somehow never left. Intelligent, creative, and not afraid to take “the road less travelled”, Dieter had a knack for finding the latest trend and milking it for all it was worth. Then when he got bored with the business, he would sell it off for a very nice profit. Several of the most popular bars and cafés around Singapore, as well as some of the trendiest stores, had Dieter’s signature on them.

  His latest project was a boutique hotel in the heart of Chinatown, where many of the more discerning tourists were starting to look for accommodation that provided more than the slick but bland service of the five-star institutions on Orchard Road. “Luxury, but with heart and character” was the line that Dieter sold and he had already successfully applied this formula with a boutique hotel in neighbouring Little India. The Blue Orchid was going to be the version in Chinatown—a tiny place with sumptuous suites decorated to look like the opium dens of Shanghai in the 1920s. Dieter was just putting in the finishing touches before the grand opening next month.

  When he had escaped from the yacht and needed a place to go, Toran had instinctively felt that the Irish-German entrepreneur was someone he could trust. Perhaps it was his creative bent, but Dieter had a strong “live and let live” attitude to life and a habit of not asking too many questions. He had accepted Toran’s brief explanation with hardly any sign of surprise and calmly offered Toran the hotel as a place to stay in anonymity for as long as he needed. Now, he eyed Leah with mild curiosity, but said nothing other than, “If you need extra towels, they’re in that linen cupboard at the end of the hallway.”

  “Thanks.” Toran gave Dieter a grateful look, then gently guided Leah towards the old-fashioned lift that looked like a wrought-iron bird cage.

  They went up slowly in a rhythmic, creaking grind and arrived on the top floor with a jolt that bounced the cage up and down. Toran slid open the metal bar doors of the lift and led Leah down the narrow hallway to a door at the end.

  “Welcome to my den,” he said with a wry smile as he led her inside.

  CHAPTER 18

  Dieter had very generously let Toran use one of the penthouse suites, with a sweeping view over the rooftops of Chinatown. The bed was a king, set up high on a dais, and made up with a mountain of silk pillows embroidered with Chinese phoenixes and dragons. The room was decorated in notes of black, red, and gold, with dark ebony furniture and silk drapes. A large bamboo screen along one wall cleverly concealed the doorway to the bathroom.

  Leah walked unsteadily over to the bed and sat down on the edge. She still looked confused, her eyes wandering aimlessly around the room.

  “Lie back,” said Toran softly. “You’ll feel better after you’ve had a sleep.”

  Leah shifted restlessly and plucked at her clothes. “I-I need to wash. I feel unclean. He… he touched me—”

  “He touched you?” Toran felt a roaring in his ears.

  “No… not like that,” said Leah, shaking her head vehemently. “Just… when he grabbed me. He had his hands on me. They were… I can still smell the sour sweat…” She shuddered. “I want to wash it off.”

  Toran looked at her doubtfully. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to have a shower, Leah. They’ve drugged you with something—I’m guessing you were injected with something like flunitrazepam, the date rape drug—and you’re going to be feeling the effects for a while. It probably wouldn’t be safe for you to stand in a slippery bath under a hot shower.”

  “I’ve got to wash,” Leah insisted, pulling fitfully at her clothes again.

  Toran sighed. “Okay, how about you wash your face and maybe just use a damp towel to wipe yourself over for now? You can shower properly in the morning.”

  Leah nodded and he showed her to the bathroom with its clawfoot bath and black marble sink. Watching the way she kept plucking at her clothes, he pulled a clean T-shirt from his wardrobe and handed it to her before she shut the door.

  Prowling restlessly around the room, Toran went over the events of the night in his head. Warne’s men had mentioned data on a USB stick—was that the evidence that David Fisher had been hiding? Had Leah found it yesterday? But why had she gone alone instead of waiting to go together with him? He sighed in frustration. He had a hundred questions he wanted to ask her, but he knew it would have to wait. She was in no condition to answer questions tonight.

  The sound of running water had stopped. A moment later, Toran heard the door to the bathroom opening. Glancing up, he said, “Are you feeling hungry? Because I can—”

  He stopped. She had come around the side of the bamboo screen and was standing there shyly, wearing nothing except the T-shirt he had given her. It was big for her, falling to mid-thigh, and barely hinted at the curves underneath, but Toran felt his mouth go dry.

  “I couldn’t bear to put my clothes back on,” she said, tugging the hem of the T-shirt downwards. “I’m sorry, this isn’t very—”

  “It’s… it’s fine.” Toran swallowed, hard. “You can get into bed, if you like, and cover up with the blankets.”

  She walked over to the bed, pulled back the covers, and climbed in. Toran tried not to watch, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off her as she moved, the T-shirt tightening and moulding itself to her body, the hem sliding up to reveal the long length of her bare legs. He took a deep breath and tried to calm his suddenly racing heart. It was embarrassing. He was acting like a fourteen-year-old boy seeing a naked woman for the first time.

  He cleared his throat. “Would you like something to eat… or drink?”

  Leah shook her head. Her body was propped back against the silk cushions, slack and relaxed in a way that wasn’t quite normal. It was the flunitrazepam still in her system, thought Toran. She turned her head and looked at him and he caught his breath at something in her eyes.

  “Toran… I don’t want to be alone.”

  “I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be right here in the room.”

  “Can… can you hold me?”

  He swallowed again and moved slowly across the room, turning down the lights as he did so. Kicking off his shoes, he lay down on the bed next to her, putting one arm around her and drawing her close. She nestled into the crook of his arm, her head tucked under his chin. He heard her sigh. Slowly, he tried to make himself relax, to force his mind away from the thought of that soft, pliant body pressed against his.

  “This feels nice.” Her voice was slightly slurred.

  “Shh,” he said. “Go to sleep.”

  She stirred slightly. “I’m not sleepy.” Her hand strayed across his chest and she started drawing circles with her fingertips. Ev
en through the fabric of his shirt, Toran felt her touch like hot needles burning his skin. His muscles bunched tighter and tighter as her fingers crept across his chest.

  “Stop that,” he said sharply, grabbing hold of her hand.

  She giggled softly, drunkenly. “Don’t you like it?”

  He tried to push her gently away, but she rolled up suddenly onto her elbows. Her eyes searched his in the dark.

  “Toran… I want you to kiss me.”

  He drew his breath in sharply. “Leah—”

  “Like you did outside the Raffles. Like that. Hard and desperate.” Her voice was breathless.

  “Leah…” Toran felt as if he couldn’t breathe. “I don’t think—”

  She put a hesitant hand on his chest. “Don’t… don’t you want me?”

  With a groan, Toran pulled her into his arms and brought his lips crushing down on hers. He kissed her hungrily, urgently, and she responded with a passion that surprised him. Her arms crept around his neck, pulling him closer to her, and she arched her body against his, moving it in a way that made him groan even more.

  Somehow, his shirt had come off and then his trousers and he shuddered as Leah slid her hands across the skin of his bare back, her nails digging in slightly. The blankets had been pushed down and Leah’s T-shirt had ridden up her hips, exposing her long legs. Toran slid his hand downwards, skimming over her thigh, revelling in the silken feel of her skin. Then he found the hem of her T-shirt and slid his hand underneath, caressing the curve of her waist as his fingers travelled slowly upwards. His thumb brushed the soft curve of her breast and she gasped. Leah whimpered softly and arched even closer.