Love Inspired Suspense May 2015 - Box Set 1 of 2: Trail of EvidenceGone MissingLethal Exposure

by Lynette Eason

  “I’m taking us out of town,” Darius called out, making a turn off the freeway. “Hold on for a wild ride, folks.”

  With her eyes squeezed tightly shut, Rebecca couldn’t see the continued flashes of lightning, but she could hear the eruptions of thunder crackling in the sky above. The rain hammered down on the roof of the car, and the wheels splashed through deep puddles that had gathered on the sides of the road. Without the ability to see their projected path, she was being jarred by the quick movements of the car. She leaned heavily against the door to give herself better balance, but her head bounced off the glass as they hit the curb, and Jack pulled her farther toward him. Her head ended up pressed against his torso and she didn’t dare move again, so she remained there, gripping the fabric of his T-shirt tightly. It seemed there would be no respite from the menace that was pursuing her with all its might. Not today. She twisted her head a little to look outside for a clue to their location, but she saw only dark clouds whipping past the window and streams of rainwater forking across the glass in all directions.

  When the car hit a pothole on the road, both Rebecca and Jack bounced up so high that their heads hit the ceiling.

  “Make a stop, Chief,” Jack shouted. “This is too dangerous.” He pointed to a turn leading into a business district. “This place looks quiet.” Darius took a left down a one-way street. The tailing car followed.

  “Stop now,” yelled Jack, pushing Rebecca away and opening the door, ready to jump out.

  Darius slowed the car to a crawl and, even before the tires had stopped moving, Jack jumped from the car with his gun raised.

  Rebecca clasped her hands together and prayed for his life.

  *

  “Get out of the car,” Jack yelled through the sheets of rain soaking him to his skin. He was standing in the middle of the road with his gun trained on the driver sitting motionless behind the wheel. In just a few seconds, Darius joined him.

  The door of the car opened with tiny, slow movements. “Nice and steady,” Jack called as he saw a black shoe emerge and plant itself on the ground. “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  The driver stepped out of the vehicle and stood in front of them with his hands raised.

  “I’m…I’m a reporter from the Liberty News,” the man stammered. “I was asked to follow you and report your movements.”

  Jack didn’t lower his gun. “By who?”

  “My editor, Simon Orwell.”

  Jack looked the man up and down: neatly combed hair, shirt and tie, polished shoes. He certainly didn’t look like he belonged in the criminal underworld.

  Jack glanced over at Darius. “What do you think, Chief? Do you believe him?”

  Darius took a few moments to answer. He was staring at the man with an expression of wide-eyed surprise.

  “Do you know this guy?” Jack asked. “You look like you’ve seen him before.”

  Darius quickly shook his head. “No, I don’t know him, but I sure want to find out.”

  Jack turned back to the man. “What does Simon want to know?” he demanded.

  The guy shook his head vigorously, sending droplets of water flying through the air like a dog shaking its fur. “He said you’re the key to a big story, but he didn’t give me details.” He splayed his fingers held up high. “I promise, I don’t know.”

  The rain slowed to a light patter, and Jack called behind him to Rebecca, still safely inside Darius’s car. “Hey Bec, do you know this guy?”

  She tentatively stepped out of the car and narrowed her eyes in concentration. “Yeah, I know him.” She addressed the man. “It’s Peter, right? You’re a new journalist with the Liberty News.”

  Peter managed to raise a smile and summoned the confidence to gently lower his arms a little. “That’s correct, Mrs. Grey. My name is Peter Allen. I started a couple of weeks ago.”

  Darius went to Peter’s side and frisked him for weapons. “Sorry,” he said, “but your boss has sent you on a wild goose chase. There’s no story here.” He glanced over to Jack. “We thought you were a carjacker.”

  “I apologize,” Peter said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you. I guess I’m not cut out for secret surveillance.”

  “No, you’re not,” Jack replied. “It’s almost like you wanted to get caught. I hope you don’t mind if we escort you back to the Liberty News to check your story.” He gestured to Darius’s car. “We’ll give you a ride. There are a few questions I’d like to ask Simon Orwell.”

  *

  Simon Orwell squirmed uncomfortably in his black leather chair. He was seated behind a huge mahogany desk, gleaming cherry red from regular polishing. He clasped his hands over his ample belly, smiling tensely at the three figures seated before him. Jack had enjoyed seeing the horrified look on Simon’s face as he, Rebecca and Darius entered the newsroom with Peter lagging sheepishly behind. They had caused a ripple of excitement through the staff, who had already heard about their lead photographer’s escape from a car explosion that morning. As numerous pairs of eyes looked him up and down, Jack remembered that he still wore Darius’s ill-fitting shirt over his blackened jeans and had blood matting his hair on the back of his head. Both he and Rebecca looked as though they were emerging from a war zone. In a way, it was true—someone had engaged them in battle.

  “Let’s cut to the chase, Simon,” Jack said. “You had us followed today. Why?”

  Simon rose from his chair and stood by the window overlooking the streets of Blountstown. The Liberty News building was the only high-rise in the town and had views in every direction for miles around. Jack often felt that Simon treated it like his own castle, where he was the king.

  “You’re hiding something from me,” Simon replied, addressing Rebecca rather than Jack. “And I wanted to find out all the details.”

  Rebecca looked directly at him. “You took the photographs from my desk, didn’t you?”

  Simon affected a look of surprise. “Why would I do that?”

  “Don’t play games, Simon,” Rebecca said, her eyes taking on a steely quality. “Someone has already broken into my house, trapped me in an elevator and caused Jack’s car to explode. It seems that somebody desperately wants my photographs of the Al Faw Palace, but if they can’t get the photos, they’ll scare me into submission instead. If you know anything about what’s going on, you tell me right now or I’ll walk out that door and never come back.”

  The three men in the room were momentarily stunned into silence. Jack had never seen Rebecca behave so fiercely before, and he was quietly impressed by the way she held her ground. By the look of it, so was Simon.

  “I apologize for the elevator,” her editor said, looking at the floor. “I just wanted to keep you in the building for a little longer while I arranged for someone to tail you. It was obvious that you and Jack were trying to cover something up.” He paused. “And I’m guessing it has something to do with the sale of stolen art treasures from the Al Faw Palace in Iraq.”

  Rebecca exhaled loudly. “So you did steal the pictures?”

  “I prefer to use the term ‘borrowed’ instead,” he said. “I heard you talking on the phone with the Regency auction house in New York yesterday morning. It was pretty clear you were accusing them of selling stolen art from Iraq and you had the photographs to prove it.”

  “I wasn’t accusing them of anything,” Rebecca protested. “I simply wanted to know how they came by the pieces. Nobody would listen to my concerns.”

  “When you locked up the photographs in your desk, I decided to take a look at them after you left for the day, and I realized that this could be a huge story for the Liberty News and my other regional papers.” Simon ran his hands through the air on an imaginary headline: “Stolen Iraqi Treasures Auctioned in New York.” He beamed widely. “My papers would be world famous. It could propel me into major-league news, and I could focus on international stories instead of small-town gossip.”

  Jack bristled with dislike for this arrogant man. In
the midst of all the danger, Simon’s only goal was glorifying his media empire. He didn’t seem concerned for Rebecca’s safety at all.

  “So your main focus is to scoop a big headline for the paper?” Jack asked, disbelieving that even Simon could be that callous. “Are you sure there isn’t another reason you want to keep these photographs all to yourself?”

  Simon folded his arms. “What are you implying, Conrad?”

  “You were in Iraq at the same time as Rebecca. You worked together, am I right?”

  “Yes,” Simon replied. “I was at the Al Faw Palace with Rebecca. She took pictures while I conducted soldier interviews.”

  On hearing these words, Darius seemed to spring to life. “So you were part of the small group of people who went inside the palace before it was cleared and the artworks disappeared?”

  Simon narrowed his eyes. “Yes.”

  Darius stood up. “And I’m guessing you would’ve had an opportunity to remove any of the items without being seen.”

  Simon raised his voice. “No. As a journalist, I was never left alone for reasons of safety. I was assigned to a platoon of marines who never let me out of their sight.”

  Darius rubbed his chin. “It’s unlikely that this is a one-man job. You could easily have recruited assistance from young soldiers looking to make a fast buck. War changes people’s moral codes, and they sometimes can be persuaded to do things they wouldn’t normally dream of doing back home.”

  Simon shook his head forcefully. “No,” he said. “That’s not what happened.”

  “Enough!” Rebecca’s voice punched through the air, silencing both Darius and Simon in an instant. “Instead of accusing each other, why don’t we have the photographs analyzed by an expert, as the police suggested, to see if they match the items being auctioned? If we are, in fact, dealing with the looting of war treasures, then this matter needs to be handed over to the military to investigate.”

  “Agreed,” Darius said, eyeballing Simon. “Mr. Orwell, we’d appreciate you handing the photographs back.”

  Simon hesitated momentarily, obviously unwilling to give up his prize. “Very well,” he said, sitting at his desk and pressing the intercom button on his phone. “Claire, could you bring in the Al Faw file from my locked cabinet?” He looked up at the three faces staring at him. “Whatever the outcome of your investigation, I would very much like to be the first to know.”

  Jack rolled his eyes. “You don’t give up, do you, Simon?”

  A light knock rapped on the door, and Simon’s secretary, Claire, walked into the room. “Here’s the file you asked for, sir.”

  Jack saw the young, redheaded woman give Darius a shy smile, and the chief’s color rose in response as he caught her eye. Was Darius flirting? The chief had never married, and Jack had assumed it was because he preferred his own company, but maybe there was a romantic persona hidden behind the hard exterior after all. But at almost fifty years of age, Darius was showing an interest in a woman far too young for him.

  Claire handed Simon a black plastic file folder and swiftly left, avoiding Darius’s eyes and closing the door behind her. Simon opened the file and reached inside.

  “I don’t believe it,” he said, his fingers scrabbling inside. “They’re gone.” To emphasize his point, he tipped the file upside down and shook it. “They were here. I put them inside myself, and they were locked in a cabinet.”

  “Who has access to the cabinet?” Jack asked.

  “Just me and my secretary,” he said.

  Darius crossed his arms. “All of this seems very convenient, Mr. Orwell. First, you steal the photographs—”

  Simon cut him off. “I didn’t steal them. I borrowed them. I always intended to return them to Rebecca.”

  Darius ignored the protest and continued. “And second, you then claim the photographs have inexplicably gone missing when you are asked to hand them back.”

  “They have gone missing,” Simon emphasized, shaking his head.

  Jack then noticed Rebecca had leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes, rubbing her temples. He left Darius and Simon bickering and went to her side, bending down to speak quietly into her ear. “Are you okay?”

  She opened her eyes. “I was just wondering how on earth we’re going to deal with this situation if we can’t even speak nicely to one another.”

  Jack nodded in agreement. “Your minivan is still in the parking lot outside, isn’t it?”

  Rebecca reached into the pocket of her jeans. “The keys are here.”

  He smiled and held out his hand. “Then let’s go.”

  While Darius and Simon continued to wage a war of words with one another, Jack and Rebecca laced their fingers together and slipped away unnoticed.

  *

  Rebecca watched Jack pack a bag with some basics: just enough to last a few days. He had showered and changed out of Darius’s small T-shirt and was now wearing a hooded sweatshirt over cargo shorts. Occasionally he lifted his hand to his head and gingerly touched the wound on his scalp. The swelling on his face looked a little better, but she was worried.

  “Hey,” she said from a chair in the corner of his bedroom. “You don’t look so good. Did you eat today?”

  He squeezed the bag tightly shut and used his knee to steady it while he pulled the zipper.

  “I’m not hungry,” he said, brushing her concern aside. “We should get going before dark. Darius sent me a voice mail to say he’s checking into the motel on Main Street. He’ll meet us at home later.”

  A flutter erupted in her chest to hear him talk of home. That one little word was laden with feelings of comfort and security, and she wondered if Jack shared those emotions with her. Her house was somewhere he spent a great deal of time, but she had never heard him call it home before.

  As they walked down the stairs together, she looked around at his bare walls in the open living room and kitchen. “Jack,” she said, “this place looks barely lived in.”

  “I hardly ever spend any time here,” he said, walking to a safe embedded in a stone wall by the front door. “I’m either at the car dealership or…” He stopped.

  She finished his sentence. “Or with me and the children.”

  He pulled out some money and a spare handgun from the safe, pocketing them carefully. “Yeah.”

  She sighed. “I’m so sorry. I never noticed how much time we were taking up.” She dropped her voice. “I’ve been so selfish.”

  “Don’t ever say that,” he said gently. “You’re the least selfish person I know.” He put his bag down and walked over to her. “The decision to spend so much time with you over the last eighteen months was mine.”

  She bit her lip. “Well, that’s not entirely true, is it?”

  He stepped back. “What do you mean?”

  “Ian had a lot to do with it, didn’t he?”

  Jack ran his hand down his face and went to sit on the sofa. “I’d be lying if I denied Ian was the reason I retired from the SEALs and came to live in Bristol, but since joining the community here, I’ve come to love it. It’s my home, and you’re part of my life.”

  “That’s just it,” she said, sitting next to him. “I should be only part of your life.”

  He stood up again, showing frustration. “Has this got anything to do with what you were saying when we were leaving the hospital? Are you asking me to back off?”

  She pushed her hair back from her face. “No…I mean yes.” She stood to face him. “You’re still a young man, Jack. You should be going out socializing, having dates.”

  “Dates?” he repeated. “You mean like taking a woman out to dinner?”

  She laughed. “Yeah, if you like.”

  He looked a little confused. “Rebecca, are you asking me out on a date?”

  She quickly shook her head. “No, that’s not what I’m saying.” She gazed up at the ceiling, annoyed with herself for not being able to express her feelings. “I don’t want you to look at this situation as a reason to sto
p everything and take care of me again.” She looked him full in the face. “You already did that once.”

  He didn’t seem to have any problems expressing his feelings in response. “And I’d do it a million times over again.”

  She stared at him with intense eyes. “Why?”

  He chewed on his lip. He looked as though he was struggling to find the right words. “Because I want to.”

  She smiled wryly and dropped her eyes to the floor. “You’re very good at evading a question, you know that?”

  He hoisted his bag onto his shoulder. “I don’t mean to be vague, but I’m trying to be honest,” he said, holding the front door open for her to walk out into the sunshine that had followed the storm. “I’ve never lied to you.” He walked close by her side down the path to her car. “And I don’t want to start now.”

  Jack checked around and underneath the vehicle before opening the minivan door for Rebecca to sit in the passenger side. She reached her fingers into his and slipped her car keys from his grasp.

  “Let me drive us home,” she said. “You have a head injury.”

  “What about your hand?” he asked.

  She wiggled her fingers. “It’s sore but totally fine.”

  “Okay,” he said, glancing down the street each way. “I’ll be your eyes and ears along the way.”

  As she drove, Rebecca felt Jack’s uneasiness radiate from him. She wanted to get home quickly to make another call to Sarah Grey, Ian’s mom, and arrange for Emily and Charlotte to stay with her for the week. She had called Sarah’s cell phone earlier, only for her voice to be drowned out by the frenzied sounds of a theme park that Sarah and the girls were visiting. Rebecca had longed to be with her daughters, enjoying the happy day instead of worrying about their safety. Once she had made the final arrangements for them to stay away for the foreseeable future, she would start searching for the negatives of the photographs that Simon had lost.

  Rebecca felt fortunate to have a woman like Sarah in her life, especially as she had lost her own mother to cancer several years previously, and she silently gave thanks for her blessings. Though she had been through a dark time, the Lord had supplied her with the best possible supporters, none more perfect than Jack. It would pain her to let him go, but it was unfair to keep him beholden to a promise he had made eighteen months ago. He was so true to his word that he would never leave her side, so this meant the decision fell to her. And she needed to be stronger than ever to walk away.