A Matter of Time 03 - 04 (Volume 2) (MM)

by Mary Calmes

  It must have made sense. What crazy person reports to a hostage situation?

  Grabbed roughly, I was jerked from the elevator and walked through a maze of men in black until we reached a barricade of parked cars. There were lights all pointing toward the opposite end of the parking level, where I could see a car with both the front and back tires flat and a broken-out driver's side window. The front end was smashed into a bearing pole.

  "Lieutenant."

  There was another man dressed up like Darth Vader's stunt double, two men in black suits, and two more in jeans—

  one in a turtleneck sweater, the other in a shirt and tie.

  "Who're you?" the one in the sweater barked at me.

  "I was told by Special Agent Calhoun to come talk to Caleb Reid."

  "Bullshit," he said flatly. "Agent Calhoun called us, Mr. Harcourt." He looked over my shoulder at one of the SWAT guys. "Take him back out to the street and put him in a car until this is over."

  But I was further than I'd thought I'd be. When I turned to go, I did the swivel move that I perfected during freeze tag when I was eight. Go right, spin back left, and bolt. And it worked like it always did and I made it to the side of the car before I was grabbed hard from the back, my coat firmly in someone's grasp. Not that it mattered, as I had loosened it on the way down the elevator. It slid easily off my shoulders as I flew out ten feet from behind the parked car into the glare of the spotlights.

  "Mr. Harcourt, get your ass back here!"

  "Dane!" I heard Caleb scream.

  "No," I yelled back, hands up as I walked toward the crash. "It's me."

  "Jory?" The voice had gone instantly from crazed to calm.

  He sounded like he normally did.

  I nodded, but realized quickly that he couldn't see it.

  "Yeah! You wanna let Carmen go and I'll come sit with you?"

  "Okay," he called back, like I had asked him if he wanted a hamburger or something. Just a nothing decision, not the life-and-death one that it was. I put down my hands and ran toward where the car was as Carmen's head popped up.

  I waved her to me as I ran. "C'mon—run!"

  The women in the Greene family were phenomenal. She did exactly what I said without any Hollywood theatrics. She just moved.

  "Run to the cars at the other end," I shouted at her as she started to slow the closer she got to me. "Don't stop, just run!"

  She flew by me and I sprinted toward Caleb, who was crouching behind the car, the barrel of a gun pointed at me. I stopped when I reached him, standing over him, staring down.

  "Sit down," he ordered, grabbing my wrist and yanking me down beside him.

  I sat beside him, shoulder to shoulder, my back against the side of the car, the cold, concrete ground instantly chilling me through my jeans, the muzzle of the gun shoved into my ribs.

  "I'm cold," I mumbled, shivering, leaning next to him.

  "Jesus."

  I turned to look at his profile. "What?"

  He shook his head. "You know and you're still not scared.

  Jesus Christ, Jory."

  And I remembered suddenly the way his face had looked when I was kidnapped in front of him. How terrified and helpless. He had liked me from that moment. Had cared about me from that moment. He would never hurt me, it wasn't in him. "Caleb."

  "What?"

  But there was someone else who didn't like me. Someone he knew wanted me dead. And my brain had finally figured it out. "On the phone that time... when you called me when I got back... do you know what you said?"

  "What are you...." He trailed off. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  I nodded. I knew it hadn't been Caleb on my new phone after I'd been kidnapped. It wasn't Caleb who wanted to kiss me when I was cold. "I didn't think so."

  His eyes suddenly got huge. "Wait—no—you're wrong."

  But I wasn't, and because I was about a second ahead of him, I grabbed the muzzle of the gun and shoved it out, away from me, so that when it went off, the bullet hit the wall a few feet from us. I was more agile and wearing fewer clothes, so I was able to twist and fall on top of him before he could get his feet under him. He fell back and I rammed his face into the side of the car, and then the back of his head down onto the concrete. His eyes rolled back and he went still. I heard the yelling and the pounding feet and then there were hands all over me as I was lifted up and away. Caleb's gun was kicked to the wall, well out of his reach had he been conscious enough to even try for it. I was yanked around hard, and was suddenly face-to-face with Agent Calhoun.

  "I'm going to throw you in jail for a very long time, Mr. Harcourt."

  "Fine—whatever, listen to me," I rasped out because I was breathless. "I got a call when I got home from being kidnapped, but it wasn't from Caleb."

  He glared at me. "I have no idea what you're—"

  "Whoever called said they wanted to kiss me when I was cold."

  "Again, I have no idea what you're—"

  "Caleb would never say that—he's covering."

  "Covering for who? What are you talking about?"

  "He knew, I don't know when... probably not until just recently, but since he found out, he's been putting himself between us... protecting me." I finished quickly.

  "You're not making any sense."

  "I'm sure he covered up or pretended like it wasn't happening, maybe hoped... but Caleb's not like this—he's just not. He doesn't have it in him to kill, I know he doesn't, but she does."

  "I'm not following you at all."

  "It's his mother... it's Susan Reid. She's the one he's protecting... she's the only one he would go to jail for. I promise you—she's the guilty one."

  "Do you even know what you're talk—"

  "It makes sense. Susan thinks that I'm the thing that keeps her from getting close to Dane, but Caleb knows I'm not the problem. It's him—it's Dane. He's never gonna forgive her for giving him away."

  "I'm not—"

  "Don't you see—it's everything. It's the media, and her idea, her belief about what was gonna happen. I think she thought that just because she gave him away, later on, down the road, he would forgive and forget. She could bring him back into the fold and everything would be okay. Maybe she clung to that delusion her whole life, and then, faced with his coldness and at the same time his warmth with me and Aja...

  I dunno. I think somewhere along the way she just snapped."

  "But that doesn't explain—"

  "It had to be her and Greg. I mean, I heard people struggling that day in the shed. She and Greg must've got into it and then she shot him."

  "Why would she kidnap her own son?"

  "She didn't kidnap him. He was there to talk to me, to keep an eye on me. He was in on the kidnapping, but not the murders."

  He was staring a hole through my head. "I'm not saying I believe you, and you're definitely going to jail for obstruction, but I will look into—"

  "Wasn't she coming to talk to Caleb, along with the negotiator?"

  "Yeah, but—"

  "Can we find out where she is, 'cause I don't want her anywhere near Dane."

  He gestured for the SWAT guys to follow him, which they did, carrying me, hands under my arms, as my feet left the ground. I was forcibly shoved into the squad car and made to sit. They didn't cuff me, which was nice, so I could get my phone out and call Dane.

  "I'm gonna kill you myself!" he roared at me instead of saying hello.

  "Wait, listen.... Caleb was only an accomplice, Dane.

  Susan's the one who killed all those guys and Greg Fain.

  She's the murderer, not Caleb."

  "What are you talking about?"

  "I'll tell you when I get outta here, but promise me—swear on my life that you won't go anywhere with her and you won't be alone with her."

  "Jory, I—"

  "Please... please. I know you think I'm crazy, but I'm really not. Please, Dane. Please don't go anywhere with her."

  "God, you sound frantic."


  And I realized how frenzied I must have sounded. "Please,"

  I begged him again.

  "Fine, whatever you want, just get back here now."

  "I dunno, I think Agent Calhoun wants to put me in jail."

  "What?"

  "That's what he said," I said. "He's really mad."

  "We're all mad, Jory, you're an idiot!"

  Which was probably true. I couldn't really defend myself.

  "Where's Agent Calhoun?"

  "He's yelling at people."

  "Where are you now?"

  "In the back of a police car."

  "Jory, I'm going to—"

  Muffled noises and then came the familiar yelling.

  "You are never-ever leaving the house again when this is over, do you understand me? You will be a shut-in for the rest of your life! I hope you're fuckin' happy!"

  I smiled into the phone. In the midst of everything, Sam was livid with me because I had put myself in danger. "Hi, Sam."

  "Jory, goddamnit!" he thundered, his voice firing out of my phone. "I want you back here right... fucking... now... do you hear me?"

  "I wish you were better."

  "What?"

  "I need... you better."

  There was a long pause. "If you ever stayed here even for a minute, you'd know that I'm being released day after tomorrow. Two weeks in the hospital is enough. I get to come home."

  "You do?"

  He grunted, but it was his smug, self-satisfied grunt that sent a current of need right through me. "Yes, I do. You sound pleased."

  I couldn't even speak.

  "Good, now maybe you will come back here and sit and not move until I tell you to."

  "Yes."

  "Hang up and I will call Agent Calhoun."

  "Okay, I'll see you soon and—"

  "But—"

  "I promise I won't let Dane or Aja leave here until you get back."

  My breath came out in a rush. "Okay."

  "I'm going to strangle you—you get that, right?"

  "I get that."

  "You know, I have a theory that because your brain is so small you can't hold more than one thought in your head at a time. That's why you do such stupid shit all the time, 'cause when the new stuff is in there you forget everything else."

  I had to laugh because he sounded so serious.

  "I'm going to beat you when I get my hands on you."

  "I know." I sighed. "I can't wait."

  He growled before he hung up and I let out a deep breath and closed my eyes. Everything was going to be all right.

  Chapter Eleven

  Nothing ever turns out the way you plan. Case in point: I thought Sam could get Agent Calhoun to let me go. No such luck. He was good and mad, and as far as I knew, had refused to even take a call from my boyfriend. So I got to go somewhere I had hoped to avoid for the rest of my life.

  As I sat there in the large but crowded holding cell at the county jail, I had nothing to do but think and that was always dangerous for me. Caleb was going to go to prison for a very long time if I didn't figure out a way to save him. His mother was a sociopath or a psychopath, I wasn't sure which one applied, and since no one but me really believed in his innocence, it fell to me to pull Caleb out of the hole he was in by digging up the truth about her. When I got out, I had to figure out the truth about Susan Reid. I needed to get to Dallas and take a look at her life. When I was free. If I got free...

  "Hey, pretty boy," someone called out to me. "What'd you do?"

  "Nothing," a voice answered before I could say anything.

  I had never considered myself vain, but I had thought that the guy was talking to me. Since I was in jail however, I was kind of glad not to be getting any attention. True to his word, Agent Calhoun had locked me up. I had no idea how long his anger would take to dissipate.

  "C'mere."

  I turned and looked at the guy who was talking—big guy, muscular but with a beer gut, he had to be at least six-five when standing. Now he sat between two other guys and motioned across from him. The kid had not moved. He shook his head no.

  "I said, c'mere."

  "No," he said quickly and I could tell he was terrified. He glanced around the room, his eyes searching everywhere until he caught my eye. I stared back and I saw him take a breath.

  Instantly, he was up and moving, darting down the line of ten men seated along the wall until he was standing in front of me. I looked up into his face, smiling.

  "Excuse me," I said to the guy on my left. "Could you slide down just a little?"

  The stranger grunted but he moved, making a spot for my new friend to fill.

  "Hi," he said breathily, absorbing my face with his eyes.

  "I'm Carrington Adams, who're you?"

  "Jory Harcourt." I held out my hand. "Nice to meet you."

  He tried to smile as he shook my hand. "What are you in here for, Jory?"

  "Obstruction of justice—you?"

  His brows furrowed. "That doesn't sound too bad?"

  "It is and it isn't. You didn't tell me what you did."

  "Solicitation."

  My eyebrows raised and he let out a shaky breath.

  "It ain't me, Jory. I just needed to eat and... I went to this party this guy told me to go to and I was just supposed to hang out and drink and talk and... and I got drunk so fast and then I must've passed out and...." His eyes crinkled up like he was in pain. "I just wanna go home."

  "And that's where?"

  "North Carolina."

  I nodded. "Are you okay?"

  He just looked at me.

  "Hey, pretty boy!"

  We both looked toward the back of the room, where the guy that had called him before was. There were five men clustered around him, ready to form a barricade or a wall.

  Either way, it was dangerous and just plain stupid to go back there.

  "Get your ass back here, kid," he threatened Carrington.

  "Now."

  There were catcalls and whistles before the loud, lewd comments began. Apparently the plan was for Carrington to be on his knees for the rest of the night.

  He put his head back, let it clunk against the wall behind him.

  "It's okay," I told him, "you're not going."

  He rolled his head on the wall to look at me. "You're gonna help me?"

  "Yep." I smiled at him, turning to look at the guy in the back. "Hey, asshole!"

  He glared at me.

  "You know Rego James?"

  His eyes widened and the others went still, no longer threatening Carrington, all their focus on me.

  "'Cause he won't like you touching his boy."

  There was lots of whispering, debate I couldn't really hear.

  Finally the question was spoken. "He tricks for James?"

  "Yep," I said matter-of-factly, "so you better put your dick back in your pants unless you wanna eat it."

  No one said another word.

  "Jory," Carrington said, leaning close to me, his lips against my ear. "Who's Rego whoever?"

  "Don't worry about it. Do you have a plan to get home?"

  "Never mind that—do you trick for this guy James?"

  "No." I shook my head. "Tell me your plan, hurry up."

  "Okay, my mom got me a plane ticket. I just gotta get to the airport."

  "You don't need to get your stuff first?"

  "It's just clothes, Jory, who cares? I just wanna get the hell outta here."

  "Sure, don't worry. We're getting out."

  "How?"

  "You'll see." I took a breath before turning toward the front of the cell, where a uniformed policeman had suddenly appeared. "It's all about the name you drop and who's listening."

  "What are you talking about?"

  Did nobody but me watch TV?

  "Jory?"

  The officer was standing silently on the outside of the locked cell, staring in at me. I tipped my head at him in greeting.

  "C'mere.' He crooked his finger at me.


  I moved fast to the bars that separated prisoners from policemen. When I was close enough, he reached through and yanked me close to him. Our faces were inches apart as he looked into my eyes.

  "That kid works for Rego James?" he asked me, his voice low so only I could hear him.

  "Both of us," I said quickly, putting it on. "I was supposed to be along to watch over him, ya know, but we got busted.

  Will you call Rego?"

  He nodded, looking me over. "What's your name?"

  "Jory."

  "Okay," he said, shoving me back hard.

  I went back to sitting next to Carrington.

  "Jory, what was all that about?"

  "Nothing, just follow my lead, okay? Don't even for a second lose track of me, all right?"

  He took a breath and nodded. "Seriously, you ever get to Waynesville, North Carolina,—that's where I'm from, where my home is—my folks'll let you move in."

  "We're not out yet," I reminded him.

  And I felt his hand on my knee. "I got faith in ya."

  That was one of us.

  It didn't take long. The officer came and called for us fifteen minutes later. We didn't go out the way we came in. I was given my watch, phone, and wallet back before Carrington and I were led out of the holding cell and through a maze of passageways. Our heads were both lowered so no one could identify us and we walked silently behind the officer, through empty offices and down stairwells. Carrington never left my side as we passed desks of people that ignored us, until a final door opened and we wound up standing outside in an empty alley with the officer. Instantly, we were bathed in a yellow glow as a car rolled toward us, headlights on. When it stopped beside us, we both saw it was a black limousine. The driver's side window rolled down and a hand held out an envelope. The officer took it, turned, and left, disappearing back into the building. When the window rose with an electronic whir, the door opened at the same time. A large man got out and opened the side door for us. He stood and waited, holding it ajar, silent in the cold, dark alley.

  I got in the car and Carrington followed me. The door clicked shut behind us as my eyes found Rego James sitting on the black leather seat. He was reclined across from an older man, with a younger man seated beside him. Two young men, both with long black hair and blue eyes, flanked Rego on either side. Carrington and I took seats next to the door as the driver pulled out into traffic.