by K. M. Scott
As I scanned page after page of information about him, I didn’t learn anything about the man but only about the image he portrayed. There were awards for his business and him personally for how skillful a businessman he was, and there were plenty of facts about all he’d achieved, but nothing really about who he was other than that.
It made sense to me that Hailey was interested in this guy. Of course, it wasn’t love, but anyone with that much money would be of interest to Hailey. What didn’t make sense to me was Dalton Spear’s interest in her. If he was dying of cancer, what was the point of keeping a hot young wife around?
Nearly twenty pages into my search, I read on an obscure anti-Spear Industries site that he was married once before but his wife died in a fire in Wisconsin on a business trip. The author of the site believed her death had been murder instead of an accident, and Spear had won a ten million dollar judgment against the hotel chain where they’d been staying. It sounded like typical conspiracy theorist ramblings, but it made me dislike Dalton Spear even more.
After losing his wife, he seemed to have focused on his work and nothing else, except for the myriad of charitable organizations he proudly supported and splashed everywhere on his website. There was no information on how he and Hailey met. If I knew her, she’d cleverly found a way to worm her way into his heart. Other than that, he was just some guy who lived in Texas.
That’s why I found his name ringing a bell for me so odd. If he’d been a New York bigwig, maybe I would have heard his name in passing, but a Texas businessman wasn’t usually what average New Yorkers like me were interested in.
But the more I looked at that picture, the surer I was that I’d heard of Dalton Spear before. The problem was the more I sat there wracking my brain for an answer, the more frustrated I got.
Something about him rang a bell and it wasn’t from some paper I’d seen at a newsstand. Then again, how could I truly know it wasn’t? Living in New York City meant seeing thousands of people all the time, not to mention the ones you only heard about from others. Hearing his name or seeing something about him in print or on TV wasn’t impossible. I just didn’t know. It was like the feeling of knowing the name of a song and having it on the tip of your tongue but not being able to recall it.
“Find anything else on him?” Gage asked as he leaned over the couch, startling me.
“Why are you up already? You keep getting no sleep and we’re both going to be crazy before long.”
Even though he’d only gotten about an hour’s sleep, he looked more rested than he had in days. Taking a seat next to me, he smiled and shook his head.
“I’m good. A few more naps like that one and I’ll be all caught up. So what did you find?”
“He enjoys eating at Mandon’s Steakhouse and has a house in Hawaii that’s estimated to be worth about five million. And neither of these facts help us in any way at all.”
I wanted to have more information about the man, but everything I’d found so far truly did revolve around his work, which was probably how he became one of the richest men in the country. It just seemed so strange to me that there was hardly any information about his personal life in the ocean that was the internet.
“Daryl must be right. He said the guy must have a team of people working around the clock to keep his image just as he wanted it to look. It’s all about PR and perception.”
“One of the few personal bits of information I could find is that he was devastated when his mother died. After attending the funeral, he was out of work for a full week, which was a lot for him apparently.”
It was a small anecdote about him but it served to humanize him slightly in my eyes.
Gage seemed to think to himself quietly before nodding. “Yeah, I can understand that. Moms are special.” I could tell in that moment he was thinking about his own mother and a look of fear crossed his face.
“Don’t worry, Gage. I’m sure your mother’s fine. If anything had happened, you would’ve gotten a call.”
I hoped I was right. The idea of this craziness being responsible for any pain in Gage’s mother’s life made my stomach knot. It had been bad enough that I couldn’t truly be myself around her. I wanted everyone in Gage’s life to approve of me, not because I needed it but because I knew it would make him happy.
But if what Justin had said about Denise was true, I just hoped he and Hailey hadn’t done anything to Gage’s family to squeeze some information out of them about where we were.
He nodded and glanced down at his phone instinctually to see if any calls had come in. “I’m sure my family’s fine. My mother’s tough. If Hailey or Justin showed up looking for us, they’d likely find out how tough all of them are,” he said with a smile.
We sat silently on the couch as the thought of Hailey facing the barrel of Mr. Varo’s shotgun made me smile. Gage lifted my hand to his lips to kiss it and quietly said, “I’m sorry all of this happened, Jordan. If only I hadn’t left because of those letters.”
“Gage, please, it’s not your fault. It’s fine. Well, it isn’t, but things could be a lot worse. We’re safe and save for a sore throat, I’m fine.”
It wasn’t a lie. Sure, all that had happened was the stuff of nightmares, but I had a man I loved by my side and the best friends in the world I could rely on.
Gage looked at me as his eyes filled with sadness and furrowed his brow. “Jordan…I just think about everything and…”
“Don’t. No regrets for us. Everything happens for a reason, so now all we have to do is find that reason. I don’t blame you for any of this, so don’t go blaming yourself.”
Just as the last word left my mouth, Gage’s phone rang. Looking down at the screen, I saw it was Daryl.
“Daryl, twice in one day?” Gage answered as he put the phone to his ear.
Even without the phone on speaker, I heard him say, “Are you with Jordan?”
“I am. She’s right here next to me. Let me put you on speakerphone.”
“Hi, Daryl. Long time no speak. How’s my favorite mountain man?”
I liked Daryl, for the most part. Other than the bushy, unkempt red beard and the way he seemed to lack even a hint of tact, he was a decent guy who knew how to find out dirt on people like nobody else I’d ever heard of. At the moment, I hoped he’d done just that and could finally tell us what the hell was going on with Hailey that had put a bullseye on my back.
“Same shit, different day. How are you two holding up there on your mini-vacation to The Big Easy?”
Gage rolled his eyes at Daryl’s comment. “Did you call us just to bust our chops or do you have something new to tell us?”
“Testy. You’d think after spending time alone with your favorite lady you’d be a little happier there, Gage. Well, along those lines, I’m about to make your day much better.”
The excitement in his voice was palpable, and Gage and I sat up straight and looked at one another as we eagerly waited for what he’d say next.
“Gage, did you tell Jordan anything about what we talked about earlier?” Daryl asked, clearly hoping to skip some of the previous details.
“Not everything. Jordan, Daryl told me that there was something about a child of Dalton Spear’s being born and given up for adoption. Daryl said it was a little boy born to a woman in Vermont and that he was going to talk to her after we were done talking.”
I looked at Gage confused. “Okay, so what does that have to do with us?”
“We know something now. Well, sort of something,” Daryl interrupted.
Gage sighed. “I swear to God he never says anything without giving it this ridiculous build up.”
“Hey man, I’m just the delivery man. Don’t blame me for your impatience,” Daryl responded, faking actual offense.
“Okay, okay. Just get on with it. What did that woman say when you went to speak to her?” Gage asked. We were both on the edge of our seats waiting for whatever it was that Daryl wanted to reveal.
“I went to talk to
her, but she changed her mind at the last minute and wouldn’t answer anything I asked. She stonewalled me.”
“So, where does that leave us?” I asked, tired of knowing nothing about what was happening to us.
“I’m getting there. Give me a second. No wonder you two get along so well. You’re as impatient as your boyfriend there. So I, being the dedicated guy I am, went to the local courthouse to do some digging and guess what I found out?”
“So what did you find?” I asked, my patience at its end. Daryl wanted to make this dramatic, but he failed to realize for Gage and me, life had already been dramatic enough. We wanted answers, not some daytime drama.
“Nothing at first. That was what struck me as odd. The government is pretty meticulous when it comes to babies being born and adopted. So I hotfooted myself up to Vermont. Bennington to be exact, and unfortunately, the agency that handled the baby’s adoption is no more. Thankfully, though, Bennington is a county seat, so I was able to look up some information at the courthouse.”
Gage and I looked at each other in utter confusion. What was Daryl going on about? Nothing he’d said made sense or explained what the hell was going on with Hailey, Justin, and Dalton Spear.
“Daryl, what are you talking about?” I finally said quietly. “This whole thing has been so bizarre, as I’m sure you can understand, so I’m finding all of this a little hard to follow. Why should we care about this baby?”
“Because it was fathered by Dalton Spear. One of two children fathered by him, by the way.”
Gage leaned in toward the phone with a look terror in his eyes. “You said this child was a boy, right? A boy who was given up for adoption twenty-some years ago, right?”
“Yep, but the records in Vermont said something entirely different than what I thought. The more I dug, the more I realized my source had gotten—”
A loud bang came from the front door, and Gage leaped to his feet. His eyes wide and alert, he said, “Daryl, we’re going to have to do this another time.”
He grabbed the phone to end the call and handed it to me. “If you hear anything other than me telling you it’s okay, I want you to dial 911.”
I nodded, but then a thought occurred to me. “But Gage, I’m still wanted by the police. I can’t call 911!”
For a moment, he stared at me in silence. Finally, he said, “Call 911 and then go out the back to get to the car and drive like a bat out of hell if you don’t hear me tell you everything’s okay. Do you understand, Jordan? Don’t wait for me!”
Gage ran toward the front door before I could beg him not to leave. I sat frozen on the couch, paralyzed by the fear that Hailey had finally caught up with me, and worse, that Gage might get hurt taking both her and Justin on. I knew what he said was right, but I couldn’t let him do it all on his own.
A noise like I’d never heard before in my life made my blood run cold, like the sound of a pipe hitting someone’s head, and I waited desperately to hear Gage tell me he was okay. To yell out that he got one of them.
But all I heard were the muffled sounds of voices talking and then the slamming of the front door closing. Terrified, I waited with the cell phone clutched tightly in my hand, and then I saw two men rushing toward me.
I screamed, but it was no use. That noise I’d heard was Gage being attacked. Before I could dial 911, a hand covered my mouth and everything went black.
Chapter Eighteen
Gage
I opened my eyes and instantly a sharp pain shot across the back of my skull. Wincing, I lowered my head and closed my eyes to avoid the bright fluorescent light shining in my eyes. I tried to move my arms, but I was chained to a pipe with less than six inches leeway.
Where was I? The last thing I could remember was pushing against the front door to keep a man trying to break in from succeeding.
I swiveled my head left and right to see if Jordan was with me now, but I saw nothing but an empty room in what appeared to be some kind of warehouse. Had he gotten to her? Where was Jordan now?
A sinking feeling settled into my heart. I hadn’t done the one thing I promised her and now she was God knows where all alone.
I had failed. All those times I’d sworn to Jordan that I would do anything to keep her safe, and in the end, it hadn’t mattered because I didn’t. Who had I been kidding, whisking her all around the country and pretending to be the big hero? I’d had one job, to protect Jordan, and as she’d feared, I failed. If I was lucky, my captors would kill me quickly so I wouldn’t have to know that for long.
All my past failures marched through my mind, playing out in full color as my guilt took over. I hadn’t done my job as the man she loved and now she was likely dead, just like Tiffany.
No. I wouldn’t let myself go there. It wasn’t happening again. It couldn’t be happening again. I couldn’t handle that a second time.
I shook my head in anger and kicked out towards the wall to my right, but there was nothing to distract me from the memory of that day rushing back into my head. Try as I might, it overtook me and I closed my eyes, slumping on the floor in shame as the past played out in full Technicolor.
She came down the stairs the same way she had practiced for days—slowly, like royalty posing for her fans.
Her dress was white with lace and she hadn’t stopped talking about it for days before the party. “Does it make me look like Grace Kelly?” she asked on one of her practice descents down the stairs. “I saw a whole thing about her as a movie star first and then the Princess of Monaco on TV last week. I think it does,” she said, twirling around in the dining room as Gregory looked on like the proud father he was.
“Don’t tell anyone, but I think even Grace Kelly would have been jealous of you in that dress Tiffany,” he answered with a smile.
I watched her walking down the stairs as the entire room looked on. She was everyone’s favorite and always the highlight of every party Gregory gave. It had never mattered that she wasn’t even an adult. Often guests would end up talking to her more than her father, a fact he was more than pleased to accept.
The mayor’s wife leaned in between him and me and whispered, “She’s amazing, Gregory. You must be so proud.”
His eyes never left Tiffany as he nodded and smiled. “She’s my greatest accomplishment.”
It was a bold statement. Gregory had the golden touch and seemed to find success everywhere he went, but he meant what he said. On more than one occasion we had stayed up talking and the conversation always turned to how glad he was that Tiffany was growing into a woman her mother would have been proud of had the car accident not taken her years before. For all that he’d achieved in the business world, being Tiffany’s father was what he was most proud of.
While her father may have had eyes only for Tiffany, her gaze traveled from him to me and she smiled wide. I nodded in acknowledgement. Any more would have been inappropriate.
Crossing the room to greet her father with a hug, she kissed him on the cheek as the mayor’s wife cooed, “You’re a vision my dear!”
Always polite and knowing her role, Tiffany blushed and thanked her before telling her how she adored the woman’s dress.
Turning toward me at his side, Gregory asked, “Everything going smoothly? None of the others gave you a hard time did they?”
He was referring to putting me in charge of the extra security detail he’d hired for the evening, a fact that made me swell with pride.
“Of course. No problems. I have Johansen here on Tiffany and the rest are stationed where they should be. I’ll be on you tonight, like always.”
In truth, the men he had hired were a stellar bunch and clearly came from good leadership. None of them had mouthed off in an attempt to prove themselves.
“I wouldn’t want anyone else for the job, and I’ll be sure to plant myself near the food so you can actually enjoy yourself tonight, Gage,” he said with a playful wink. Gregory knew I wasn’t one for socializing and had once observed that I always put myself neare
st to the food and had made it a habit ever since.
“As long as you’re safe, I’ll be fine.”
If only I had known how wrong I would be.
“Tiffany tells me there’s some cheese plate I can’t miss. You know how she is with those kinds of things,” he joked as I scanned the room for any potential danger spots.
“Gage, hey Gage?” My walky-talky buzzed with the voice of Cooper, the man I had put on the front door.
“Excuse me, sir,” I said to Gregory before responding into the speaker. “What do you have for me, Cooper? Everything good up there?”
By all accounts it should have been. The front door was one of the easier jobs since there was a list he had to follow. However, it was one of the first lines of defense, so it was still an important job.
“I think so, but I’ve got some people up here who say they’re here with the food service company but they forgot their badges. I’m going to need you to clear them. I don’t have the clearance to do so.”
“Did you talk to whoever is in charge of the food service?”
“I did. He says they’re good, but protocol states you need to come up here and check them out,” Cooper said.
By the book. I liked that. Rules existed for a reason, and it was good that Cooper was following them.
“I know what the protocol says. I’ll be there in a minute. Just hold tight and tell them to wait.”
I looked back at Gregory to explain, but he spoke before I could get a chance to. “This is why you’re a leader, Gage, and why I can rely on you. Hurry back, though. I think the mayor’s wife is going to try to coerce me into dancing, and the last thing we need is a repeat of the Christmas party.”
“Tiffany would never forgive either of us. She was mortified.”
“And for good reason! I have many talents, but dancing isn’t one of them. Her mother knew that,” Gregory joked, as I remembered his jerking limbs and total lack of rhythm that night.