Wendy came back up with her laptop and put it on the coffee table to browse movies. “What do you want to watch tonight?”
“That regency romance you were telling me about?” Roxie asked, too tired to really trawl through every movie or series that Wendy might suggest.
“Oh, you’re going to love that one! I hope my battery lasts long enough.” Wendy smiled over at Roxie on her comfy white couch and pressed play.
“It’ll be fine for an episode or two.” Roxie knew since they’d watched enough movies on Wendy’s laptop for her to know how long the charge would last by now.
Wendy never complained about Roxie’s thing with electricity, she just accepted it and tried to accommodate her however she could. Roxie appreciated friends like that and often treated her for coffee, food, and other gifts she’d find along the way.
“Pizza’s here.” Roxie jumped up when the doorbell sounded and paid the guy for the huge box of Chicago-style pizza with banana peppers and pepperoni sprinkled liberally on top.
Roxie grabbed some napkins from the bar in the kitchen and brought the box over to the couch. It was time for good food and relaxing, something she hadn’t really done since she saw that guy who looked amazingly like Lincoln. She’d all but talked herself out of believing it was really him by that time. What would he be doing in Myrtle Beach anyway? He lived in New York; he’d go to some beach up there if he wanted sun. Or Florida, California maybe, anywhere but South Carolina, wouldn’t he?
The series started as she and Wendy shared pizza and Roxie let her focus turn to the very handsome man on screen who reminded her of someone, but she couldn’t remember who. She decided it didn’t matter after a while and had another slice of pizza, fully engrossed in the show.
2
Lincoln
The sound of Lincoln Young’s capable fingers tapping at the keyboard filled his office as he typed an email to Kai, one of his best friends, about a boat party they were co-hosting soon. Behind him, New York City was on wondrous display, ten stories below. Afternoon sunlight glinted off towers of glass and metal to make the world sparkle. It was a scene he often looked out at in wonder, but he was trying to concentrate on this email and listen out for one of his personal assistants. She’d gone out to get some office supplies that he needed. Well, he called it office supplies, it was actually information she’d gone to retrieve.
He heard the outer door to his office open and saw Tanya walked over the carpeted floor to stand in his doorway. He looked up to see her with a broad smile waving the file she’d brought back with her. “I’m back, Mr. Young.”
“I see that,” he replied politely, but added a wicked grin. Tanya was his personal assistant on Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday. Monica, his other PA worked on the other days. It was Tuesday so Tanya was there, smiling back with a grin that matched his own for wickedness.
His voice carried the hint of an accent, a gift from his mother who had grown up in Surrey, England. She was the child of a Chinese mother and a white father, and though she was the reason he didn’t believe in romantic love, he adored her. It was that slight accent, and his good looks, that made poor Tanya giggle far too often.
She was beautiful, he’d give her that, and flirted up a storm, but she was his employee. That made her off-limits completely, whether she liked it or not.
“My source says the police have enough evidence to charge Nathan with the fire at Elmo’s and they’re on their way to arrest him now.” Tanya went on as she brought over a file to Lincoln’s huge antique mahogany desk. “This is from the PI up here. Do you want the information about the fire?”
“Please.” He replied, thinking again of the beautiful, black-haired girl he’d seen at the Thompson gala he’d attended the night before. It had been a quick trip down and a run back up this morning on a commercial flight, but he didn’t mind. He had a feeling he knew who that unforgettably beautiful exotic dancer was, and if it was true, his decade-old search might just be over.
“It seems Nathan was paid to set the fire. The PI found evidence that he received a large deposit in his bank account just before the fire. Not enough that it had to be reported to the authorities, but enough to raise some eyebrows.” Tanya slid a file a little further along his desk, making sure to allow him a glimpse into her deeply-cut white silk blouse. He wasn’t paying attention to her however, he was looking to make sure the file didn’t mark his desk. She’d said more than once that he should get rid of the old behemoth, but he liked the memories of power the old desk exuded.
Lincoln leaned back in his chair now that the email was sent and gave Tanya his undivided attention. “That’s good news.”
“It is, he deserves to be behind bars.” Tanya was a capable woman in more ways than one and often worked as security for Lincoln and on his more private concerns, including the matter they now discussed. A matter his friends Emily Thompson and her husband Dylan James had asked him to look into. “From what Mr. Moore, the PI you hired, tells me, Nathan has a huge gambling problem and an even bigger amount of debt. A little coke habit as well, means he’s desperate for money. Mr. Moore suspects that he was paid to burn down Elmo’s to pay off some of that debt he owes.”
“I see,” Lincoln repeated and nodded. “Yes, that would make sense. Why else would he burn down a strip club?”
“Well, it could have been some old biddy with her panties in a wad over sin and vice, you know?” Tanya smirked at him as she leaned against the desk, the picture of a strong confident woman in her white blouse and black pencil skirt. You’d never suspect she had to go to a dialysis center to keep her in that picture of health. As did Monica, his other PA. They went to the same center, which was where they’d met. “Old biddies don’t make a habit of burning down strip clubs, though.”
“No, they don’t,” Lincoln responded, reaching for the file she’d placed on his desk.
Lincoln’s business was financial technology, but for now, his past was his main concern. This lead might take him one step closer to finding the girl that got away, a beautiful memory he just couldn’t forget named Chloe Abshire. If he hadn’t found her already that is.
“I’ll brief Monica on what we’ve learned so far. Is there anything else before I get back to work?”
“No, just keep a tab on that PI and let me know if he finds out anything else. And if there’s any news on Chloe Abshire, you tell me first before you do anything else.”
“Will do, Mr. Young.” She replied, irking him that she still insisted on calling him that rather than using his first name.
“Thanks, Tanya, this is good work.”
“My pleasure.” She waltzed off to the outer office and closed the door behind her, knowing he’d want to go over the file from the PI in peace. She was as capable of fielding his phone calls and snail mail as she was at playing the sleuth and knew Lincoln’s moods well by now. He wanted a look at that file, and he didn’t want her in the office while he did it. She had the grace to get out of his way.
Lincoln opened the file, filled with copies of reports, pictures, and a few other pieces of paper. There on top was a picture of Chloe, her last school photo, from back when she was eighteen, with those bright blue eyes full of hope and her sweetly innocent smile. His fingers brushed at the smile and his own brown eyes narrowed in concentration.
She’d been a beautiful young woman whom life had kicked far too hard, far too early. And she’d run away to escape it all, from men that terrified her, and parents that may or may not have abandoned her. Lincoln had never believed that to be true, and he didn’t think Chloe had honestly believed it either. But maybe she had.
His thoughts flitted back to the past, to the day that led to his stepfather searching for her for the next decade. There’d been a fire, her parents had died in that fire, and he’d been the one with Chloe in his car. He’d brought her back home after she’d spent the evening with his baby sister, only to find the house ablaze and people scrambling around. Those people had included two m
en Chloe seemed to recognize, men that had threatened her father, from what she’d told him.
A late-night escape from the fire and those assholes that had spooked Chloe ended with them together alone in a hotel. He’d comforted her in the only way she seemed to want, the only way she could accept, in bed. He’d gone out the next morning to find some breakfast while she was asleep, only to come back and find her gone. He searched for her all day. He’d continued to search, in one way or another, since that day.
His stepfather and Chloe’s parents had been good friends, and his half-sister June spent just as much time at Chloe’s house as Chloe had spent at theirs. The older man knew things that Chloe needed to know, such as he’d bought her parents’ house just before the fire and was the executor of her parents’ wills. That wasn’t the only reason his stepfather started to search for Chloe. Mr. Bennet was also like an uncle to Chloe, and he’d told Lincoln that he cared about the girl as if he were a real uncle to her.
Though Lincoln’s mother had divorced his sister’s father, Mr. Bennet had kept up his search for Chloe. Lincoln had remained on good terms with the man and been a part of his stepfather’s search for Chloe ever since. They were getting somewhere now, somewhere that could finally lead him to the girl that haunted his dreams to this day.
“I’m going to head out, Mr. Young,” Tanya called from the outer office and Lincoln tried not to cringe. Did she call him that just to get a rise out of him, he wondered?
“Have a good evening, Tanya, I’ll see you Thursday.” He waved as she turned to leave, anxious to get back to the file and what he might learn there.
Another picture in the file showed a still from security footage, some that must have been backed up on a server elsewhere since the house burned to the ground. Lincoln’s eyes narrowed as he studied the picture. He knew the Abshire’s house as well as he knew his stepfather’s, and it was clear the men in the picture were breaking into the house via the back door. The time stamp showed it to be late on the night of the fire. Before the fire, in fact. Lincoln took a deep breath, his suspicions confirmed at last, and carried on through the file.
The autopsy results for Chloe’s parents were in the file and there were no signs of violence. The autopsy actually said they died of smoke inhalation and not the fire at all. They’d been found in a bedroom that had barely been touched by the fire, despite the fierce blaze. If Chloe had known that back then, that her parents hadn’t committed suicide, hadn’t died in painful agony either, would it have eased some of the guilt he’d seen on her face before she went to sleep in his arms that night?
She’d felt guilty over leaving them, had even said she felt guilty, but she’d been terrified of those men talking to the police. Would knowing that her parents were innocent of any wrongdoing have changed her mind? There’d been rumors that her dad owed the mob a lot of money, but Lincoln’s own stepfather said that couldn’t be true. The family wasn’t amongst the richest in the nation but their bank account wasn’t all that shabby when it came down to it. So that shit Chloe had overheard with her dad must have been about something else.
Lincoln scratched at his jaw, realized he needed to shave again, and dismissed the thought. He always needed to shave, or so it seemed. He went through the rest of the file and found more documents supporting the theory that the Abshires weren’t in debt up to their eyeballs, but nothing more about Chloe.
The only other items in the file were copies of the life insurance policies her parents had and a report from that same company that had been searching for Chloe since that night. The coroner had ruled the Abshires’ deaths an accident, though the pictures proved that wrong, and so Chloe was the beneficiary of that money. So many people were looking for that girl - woman now, he reminded himself - but none had been able to find her.
Lincoln sighed, sat back in his chair, and closed his eyes. His left hand came up to pinch the bridge of his nose. He’d forgotten to take his allergy medicine that morning and he was getting a sinus headache. At least, that’s what he told himself. It wasn’t a tension headache at all.
With another sigh, Lincoln got up and walked over to the window to stare out at the city below. The sun was going down and the city was in flames. At least, it looked that way from where he stood. Dark oranges and reds gleamed off thousands of windows as the sun sank lower in the sky. It was a beautiful sunset, the kind he liked to watch in the park, though he rarely got the chance to sit in the park. He had no dog to walk, and he had a treadmill at home to run on. And when he wanted to swim, he could always go to the indoor pool that was part of the gym facilities in his apartment building. It didn’t matter if he couldn’t spend time in the park, he’d decided long ago, this was one of the best views in the city to watch the sun set and rise.
He had the penthouse apartment of the apartment building and they’d clear the pool out if he wanted them to, just to please him. It was the kind of ingratiating attitude that got on his nerves. He didn’t want people to be nice to him just because he had money. He expected quality care from the management at the building because of the money he’d paid for the penthouse, but he didn’t want to be kowtowed to either.
Which kind of contradicted itself, he decided with a smirk. Oh well. He needed to go home and get changed. He was on a flight this evening to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. It was quaint down there, full of fun smiling people, even during Bike Week, and he loved the atmosphere on the boardwalk. People in the south were much nicer than people in New York and he loved hearing the drawling accent of the natives down there. But more importantly, that woman with the black hair who had Chloe’s face was down there. Her eyebrows were shaped differently now, and that black hair was a shock, but he’d seen her eyes and it hit him in the gut that she was Chloe.
He’d gone back to the dressing rooms as soon as he could get through the crowd milling around the stage, but she’d left. Emily told him the woman was named Roxie, but he had a feeling that was an alias. His eyes had locked with hers and he’d seen a flitting moment of recognition in those dazzling blue depths.
Lincoln rode the elevator down to where his driver waited in the parking garage below the building and slipped into the car, his briefcase in hand. He didn’t want to think much more about that file right now. He just wanted to relax before the flight that might bring him a little closer to the beauty who’d left him all those years ago.
“I’ll be back around six in the morning tomorrow, Jeff,” Lincoln said to his driver as the man came over to close Lincoln’s door. “I’ll need a lift to work.”
“Of course, Mr. Young.” The older man with a shock of white and gray hair that could never be tamed, no matter which haircut, or hat, he wore, said with a happy smile on his face. “You be careful on that plane, sir, and I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I will and you take care, Jeff. Enjoy the rest of your day.” Lincoln waved and pulled the handle up on his rolling suitcase. He was dressed in a single-breasted, worsted wool, navy blue Brioni suit with a black shirt beneath it. He knew it would be warmer in South Carolina, but he liked looking the part of a rich businessman.
He didn’t want to make this mad dash down to South Carolina but his good friends, Emily Thompson and her husband, Dylan James, might know more about this Roxie woman and he wanted to discuss it with them in person, maybe even find out where he could see her at work again since Emily said she was good friends with the woman.
He closed his eyes as the commercial jet’s engines started, quite happy in his seat in first class. He could buy his own plane but didn’t really see the point when he rarely flew anywhere. As the plane slowly crawled up the runway, he let his eyes close and took a deep breath. Soon he’d be landing in warmer temperatures and hopefully getting some answers. He might as well catch some rest while he could but before he dozed off a thought occurred to him. Would Chloe thank him for telling her the truth or would she just be pissed that he’d blown her cover? He’d think about it more, later.
3
Roxie recognized some elements of the building she was in but for some reason, smoke clouded everything. She walked forward, ready to find out where she was and why there was smoke when something tugged at her hand.
Emily.
“Emily, where are we? What’s going on?” Roxie asked, but her questions were punctuated by the thick smoke that filled her lungs.
“I don’t know, Roxie. Help me?” Emily had changed since Roxie first met her, she’d become strong, capable, and confident. The Emily in front of her now was the old Emily, full of false bravado, trying to pretend to the world that she was tougher than people thought she was.
Roxie felt the weight of Emily’s plea as though it were a true weight around her shoulders, but she clasped her friend’s hand tighter before she forged ahead. “Let’s find a way out.”
People started to rush by, their familiar faces told her this was Elmo’s. They were in Elmo’s.
It became clear where the smoke was coming from when Roxie saw flames rush up a wall. Roxie tried to push Emily away from the flaming wall just as a group of people rushed past.
“Emily!” Roxie cried, trying to hold onto her friend’s hand, but the rush of people wouldn’t let her stop to grab at the other woman. She screamed her friend’s name as the building began to crumble around her.
Roxie moved, trying to get to the edge of the crowd until she was finally against a wall.
Fear ate at her, told her to run for the clear air to be found at the exit, but she stayed in the building. Emily was in there; she couldn’t let Emily die. Not like her parents had.
“Emily!” Roxie screamed as she moved along the wall now in flames, heat scorching her skin as much as the hot smoke scorched her lungs. Roxie held her hands out as the smoke became thicker, trying to feel for the woman, but she couldn’t find her.
Dancing With Lies (Barre To Bar Book 1) Page 5