by Parker, Ali
Making notes and grabbing the arm of another officer who was taking pictures to point out a few things to him, it took Harrison only a few minutes before he was back with me.
His eyes were gray as steel and constantly seemed to be taking in everyone and everything around us, while never breaking eye contact with me. It was remarkable but stressful to have that kind of attention on me.
Did he think I could’ve had something to do with this?
He tugged his hand through his short blond hair and scowled at a reporter who was inching her way past a cone. She retreated immediately.
Taking a shaky breath, I started telling him all about Jannie. I was only getting to the part where she threatened me in her office when tires squealed to a halt at the perimeter the police set out.
Officer Harrison and I both turned, but before I saw who had arrived, I heard him. “Who’s in charge here?”
Jance’s voice boomed over everyone else’s, causing a hush to fall over the crowd, the reporters, and the police alike when they realized who’s presence they were now in. I could’ve sworn I saw even Officer Harrison swallowing before striding forward with his hand extended. “Mr. Williams, I’m officer Harrison. I’m in charge for now.”
“Officer?” Jance bit out, ignoring the man’s hand. “Where are the detectives? The people who will find my son?”
“They’re on their way, sir. There was—”
“I don’t give a damn what there was, just get them here,” he ordered like the entire NYPD was his to command. No one argued with him. “Someone tell me what happened here. And get me a goddamn coffee.”
I wasn’t sure who was supposed to get the coffee, but I was happy to fade into the background now that he was here. Several of the police officers exchanged long looks, then one fresh-faced one scurried away. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out he was the rookie among them and had been silently sent on a coffee run.
I idly wondered if that was part of his official duties. I didn’t think so, but people seemed to bend over backward when Jance was involved. He started a rapid-fire conversation with Officer Harrison while I backed up, planning to sit my ass down on the sidewalk and wait until someone needed me again. I couldn’t bring myself to go back upstairs and wait in my apartment like Tiana had done.
I needed to be down here. I needed to know as soon as they knew anything new. Watching them work at least gave me something to concentrate on other than the terror gnawing at my soul over what Jeremiah might be going through at this very minute.
She wouldn’t hurt him? Would she? A tremble ran through me when my eyes cut to his banged-up car. If Jannie was behind this, she somehow orchestrated an accident. That wasn’t the actions of someone who wouldn’t hurt Jeremiah.
A fresh wave of tears rose in my throat, about to spill from my eyes when I felt a gentle hand on my shoulder. “How are you holding up, Steph?”
When I looked up, it was into the pale blue eyes of Neil Colman. His thick, black-rimmed glasses were slightly askew, and his usually immaculate hair was messy. I smiled up at one of my favorite people at Williams Inc., blinking away the tears. “I’m okay, I think. You?”
“This is one hell of a shock,” he said. Dressed in khakis with a button-up shirt that matched his eyes and a knitted, sleeveless pullover he didn’t look like the kind of guy who makes himself at home on the sidewalk, but he did.
A sure sign that the guy was not thinking clearly. Neil was the person I knew who had his shit together the best. Like big time, next level having his shit together. And even he was looking disheveled and just a little wild.
Freckles dusting his nose and cheeks, he had that boy-next-door look that instantly made me like him when I met him. He also happened to have a great sense of humor, and according to Jeremiah, could be a lot of fun when he let his hair down. I hadn’t had the pleasure of experiencing it for myself yet.
Neil kicked a piece of gravel and shook his head. “Who would take Jer? I mean I love the guy, but he’s twenty-six and a pain in the ass if he has to do something against his will. If it’s for ransom, wouldn’t it have been easier to take a kid? I just don’t get it.”
“I don’t think it’s for ransom,” I said. He lifted his eyes to mine, squinting as he raised his brows questioningly. “I think it was Jannie.”
His eyes flew wide open. “Secretary Jannie?”
“Ex-secretary,” I corrected him. I didn’t know why, but it felt important to do it.
Neil flashed me a small smile, then stared off in the distance for a minute before he started nodding his head. “I believe you when you say Jannie’s behind this. It makes sense. She really has gone off the rails, hasn’t she?”
“She has.” Jeremiah told him some of what Jannie had gotten up to with the two of us, but not everything. I quickly filled in the blanks, answering his questions as they came up.
So invested in my conversation with Neil, I didn’t notice Jance walk up until it was too late. His shiny shoes entered my field of vision where I was staring at the concrete while talking to Neil. His voice was a snarled demand when he spoke again.
“Tell me you don’t believe this.”
Neil looked up at Jance, frowning. “Don’t believe what?”
“That Jeremiah’s ex-secretary is responsible for this. It’s preposterous,” he said, small bits of spit leaving his mouth in his anger.
Officer Harrison came up behind him. “It’s only one of the theories we’re—”
“It’s a waste of your time,” Jance said, his voice as sharp as a whip cracking. “There’s no way a woman has kidnapped my fully grown son.”
“She might’ve had help, sir,” Officer Harrison tried again, but Jance cut him off.
He sought out my gaze, keeping me rooted in place by the venom in his. “This is your opinion, isn’t it? You’re the reason they’re going to chase their tails going after a girl.”
“With all due respect, sir,” I started, not mentioning that the respect due to him was little if any. “Jannie is crazy. She’s threatened us before. You know about the photographs and how she followed us.”
“Taking pictures doesn’t equate to kidnapping him,” he said, narrowing his eyes on mine. “She’s a woman, she—”
I couldn’t keep it in any longer. The way he was looking at me had my blood boiling, and on top of how stressed I already was about Jeremiah, my fuse wasn’t going to last much longer. “She’s a woman who’s obsessed with him.”
Jance scoffed. “Obsessed with Jeremiah? I don’t think so, sweetheart. You should stick to your day job. You’re no detective. In fact, perhaps you shouldn’t stick to your day job either. He shouldn’t have been anywhere near your apartment in the first place.”
My eyebrows jumped to my hair. Was he saying it was my fault Jeremiah was missing? I was about to object when he carried on. “In all likelihood, Jeremiah was driving drunk, and he’s just being a Class-A idiot as usual. He’ll come around in a few days after he’s slept it off.”
I was so stunned that even with as much extra weight as I was carrying around, you would’ve been able to knock me off my feet using nothing more than a feather. “Excuse me?”
Jance turned his terrifying gaze on me again, but this time I didn’t fear it. I welcomed it. I felt the fuse inside me being lit, felt the spark reach the end.
“Your son is missing, and you’re trying to blame him for it? Or me?” The fuse ran out, and I practically felt my top get blown off by the intensity of the emotions being set free. “You’re a cruel person and a terrible father. He could be in real trouble. He probably is in very real danger, and you don’t even care. What if he doesn’t crawl out of a hole in a few days? If he hasn’t gone on a bender? Because I can promise you that’s not what this is. He’s been working his ass off for you for years. All he wants is your approval, and you’re incapable of giving it. Instead, this is the way you treat him. It’s despicable.”
Jance didn’t even flinch as I hurled my pent-u
p emotions at him. His eyes were cold as ice and his face contorted into something awful. “Jeremiah is too immature to receive my approval. If and when he grows the fuck up, he might get it. Not that it’s any of your business.”
I gritted my teeth, wondering how a man as callous as this could’ve had a son as warm and fun-loving and compassionate as Jeremiah. “He’s not immature. He’s just not Jack. There’s a very big difference between those things.”
Jance opened and closed his mouth a few times, but nothing came out. Too livid to speak, he marched off. Officer Harrison hurried after him, a duty I didn’t envy him for.
Having let out the fire and rage burning a hole in my soul, I felt empty suddenly. Left with nothing but fear and devastation. Jeremiah was missing, and his own father didn’t seem to be concerned about the fact he was gone or the damage to his car.
My shoulders sagged, and tears pricked the backs of my eyes. Didn’t Jance understand? Jeremiah could be hurt, wherever he was. With a car as damaged as his, there was no telling what kinds of injuries he might’ve sustained in the accident. And then there were the hours he’d already been alone with Jannie and whoever she might have helping her.
The possibilities of what she could be doing to him were endless. And his own fucking father thought he was sleeping off a bad hangover. He deserved so much better than that. He needed the people who cared about him to be out looking for him. It wasn’t that hard to understand, was it?
Chapter 50
JEREMIAH
Jannie’s heels clacked against the floors in the hallway outside, the sound coming to a stop outside the hotel room door. I braced myself for her to come in. To confront her.
I couldn’t see her when she entered, but I heard the door open and close and her feet padding across the carpeted room. She cooed when she reached me. “Look who’s awake. How’s the head feeling?”
“Fucking terrible,” I said through gritted teeth. I considered ignoring her, but I remembered one of the tips I learned from my nanny was to build a rapport with your kidnapper, to remind them you were human.
Given I’d fucked her brains out on the bed just a few feet away from where she now had me tied up, it was safe to say we used to have a rapport and she knew just how human I was. It couldn’t hurt to remind her though.
She came to a standstill behind me, running one of her taloned fingernails across the back of my neck. “Poor baby. Let me get you something for that.”
“How about you just untie me and let me get to a doctor? I might have a concussion.” There was no way she was doing it, but I wanted to test her reaction.
She giggled softly, still moving around behind me. I could hear her open something, probably the fridge, and close it again. Whatever she had gone to fetch crinkled a little as she carried it to me.
“Silly.” She said it warmly like she was talking to a baby. “I’ve already checked you for a concussion, you don’t have one.”
I felt her coming up behind me again, but she didn’t touch me. She walked past me, and for the first time, I could see her properly.
Turning her back for a moment, she switched off the television. When she was done, she came to sit in front of me and crossed her legs, then leaned over to press an ice pack to the side of my head.
It stung like a bitch, but I didn’t make a sound. Gritting my teeth, I tried to focus on what she had said. “How do you know I don’t have one?”
“I looked up the symptoms and checked you for them, of course.” She blinked so innocently like she couldn’t comprehend at all why I would ask her something like that. She kept the ice pack to my head and looked lovingly into my eyes.
“The ice will help. Just give it a minute. It’s quite a knock you took.” She said all this like she was Florence fucking Nightingale taking care of my injuries instead of being the psycho who caused them.
She was fucking crazy. Absolutely batshit. She was way past going off the deep end. She was sitting at the bottom as the reigning queen. “Remind me, Jannie. How did I take this knock?”
Glancing at the window, she shrugged. “The accident. I didn’t mean for you to get hit so hard.”
The woman sitting in front of me was almost like a stranger who bore a vague resemblance to my onetime secretary. Even her voice was off.
When she worked for me, she was almost aggressive in her approach. Confident. Her voice was loud, and she made you hear it. Now it was thin, careful. Jesus, what happened to her?
I couldn’t remember seeing her less than perfectly put together for one day, but her golden waves were messy now. They looked tangled and hung past her shoulders lifelessly.
I recognized the red dress she wore. It was the same one she’d been wearing the night of the retreat when we hooked up. It used to hug her non-existent curves, but it looked like a sack on her now.
Gentling my voice, I tried another approach. “I know you didn’t mean for me to get hurt, but I did. We should go to a doctor. Get you checked out too.”
Her nostrils flared, telling me the Jannie I knew was still in there somewhere when she snapped at me. “We’re not going to a doctor, Jeremiah. Get that through your injured skull.”
“What’s going on here Jannie? Why are we here?” I dropped the act, letting some of my anger and frustration bleed through.
She crossed her arms and sat back, letting the ice pack fall to the floor. “I’m sorry about driving into you. I know you adore that car, but it was necessary.”
“Necessary for what?” My patience was wearing thin. Feeling helpless, tied up and at her mercy wasn’t helping the situation any.
Head jerking back at my tone, anger flashed in her eyes. “I just didn’t know of any other way to get you away from that new secretary of yours. That girl clings to you like she’s been glued to your side. I know you don’t like clingy girls. I had to get you away from her, so I took the only opening I could find.”
“You could’ve just called me if you wanted to talk.” I wouldn’t have answered, and I suspected Jannie knew as much, but she didn’t really seem to be listening to me anyway.
“She ruined everything, that Stephanie.” She continued as if I hadn’t spoken at all. “I tried talking to her. I warned her.”
When you broke into my office and threatened her. The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I held them back. Arguing with her wasn’t going to get me anywhere. “What did she ruin, Jannie? You were already fired before I ever met Stephanie.”
She wound her hands together, twisting a ring on her index finger. “I know, but she’s the reason why we couldn’t be together after. We could’ve been so great together, Jer. We were great together. I wish you would see that.”
“We were never together,” I said, then reminded myself that getting into an argument was counterproductive. “Is that why I’m here? So we can be together?”
A cold chill traveled down my spine. If that was where Jannie’s head was at, how long was she intending on keeping me here? And how had she gotten me in here in the first place?
The room looked and smelled like it’d been closed for a while, but it was still a hotel.
Off the beaten path and quaint, I knew it had plenty of regular visitors and often catered to companies hosting retreats at one of the many places nearby if there wasn’t enough accommodation.
Jannie nodded without saying anything, staring at a spot behind my shoulder. I turned my head to see what she was looking at, but I couldn’t turn it far enough. I knew the layout of this hotel. Jannie couldn’t know, but she wasn’t the only girl I’d been here with.
The rooms were spacious, but they weren’t exactly miles away from each other. If I called for help, surely someone would hear me.
“I wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t have to, Jeremiah,” Jannie said. “I thought bringing you here would remind you, but I can see it hasn’t.”
“I don’t need reminding,” I said, trying to work on a plan to get out of there. It had to be possible. Someone must’ve
seen her coming in with an unconscious man. Alarm bells must’ve been raised at that sight. “How did you get me in here?”
Surprise flared in her eyes at my abrupt change of topic. “What do you mean?”
“How the hell did you manage to get my limp body into the hotel?” If only she would tell me, I might get the first fucking clue on how I was going to get out. If someone already suspected something was off about her, perhaps they would be lingering outside in the hallway or would send housekeeping to check on us.
Jannie frowned. “You weren’t unconscious. Your body wasn’t limp. I didn’t hit you that hard.”
What the fuck…? If she hadn’t hit me that hard, and I wasn’t unconscious, then what the hell had happened? The pounding in my head turned up a notch at all the unanswered questions swirling around inside it. “How did you get me in here Jannie? And into this chair?”
Vague memories of the night we were together played in my mind. She was so easy to handle. She had to have weighed half of what I did even then, and she’d lost weight since. Something wasn’t adding up.
“You weren’t unconscious, but you were delirious. You followed me without putting up a fight,” she said.
“How is that possible?” I didn’t remember a single second of any of it. And not putting up a fight didn’t sound like me at all.
Jannie lifted her thin shoulder in a shrug. “Head injuries, I guess. I’ve read they can cause people to do all kinds of things.”
“No shit,” I muttered. This was bad, bad news. If I followed her into the hotel like a drunken puppy, that was all anyone would think. That I was a drunk guy going to a gorgeous girl’s room. As happened in hotels all the damn time.
No alarm bells raised, no one suspicious and hovering around outside. What made it worse was that this was the kind of place where the administration knew the guests valued their privacy—for whatever reason. A romantic getaway or a forbidden workplace tryst, they got it all.
The other rooms weren’t miles away, sure. But would anyone hear me? And even if they did, would they come to check out what was happening?