The Leah Ryan Thrillers Box Set: Three Chiller Thrillers (Repo Chick Blues #1, Finding Chloe #2, Dirty Business #3) (Leah Ryan Thrillers Box Set, Books 1-3)

by Tracy Sharp

  I stared at him.

  “You got that?” He said again, his words cracking a little.

  I nodded.

  “Say it.”

  “I got that.”

  “You promise?”

  I hesitated, taken aback by the ferocity of his emotion. “I promise. I won’t leave you.”

  “Okay, then.”

  I dropped my gaze. Ran my fingers through my hair and scratched my scalp. The skin on my scalp felt as if it were crawling with tiny bugs.

  “God. This is so awful.”

  “What do you need?” He moved his huge hands over my arms, rubbing them.

  “I need to feel something other than what I’m feeling. I need some other kind of sensory stimulation.”

  Our eyes met and for a brief moment I knew that we were thinking the same thing. But if we made love, although I knew it would be phenomenal, it would be the end of our relationship as we knew it. Our friendship, which was the only good and pure thing I’d ever really known, would change, and I’d risk losing him. A part of me would close off to him and I didn’t want that to ever happen.

  “We can’t,” I whispered.

  “I know,” he said.

  “I want to.” I took in a ragged breath. “Really, really badly. You don’t know how badly.” I let out a crazy little laugh.

  “Oh, I do. Because I feel the same way.” A sexy, lopsided grin lit his face.

  “But we can’t because…it would change us, Jack. And…I love you.”

  He looked down, face flushed. “I know, Leah. I love you, too.”

  “And I don’t want to be addicted to you and have to recover from you. And have to stay away from you. You know?”

  “Yeah. That would suck.”

  “You can’t be my new supply.”

  He nodded once. “Right. So what do you need? Besides sex? How can I make it better?”

  I thought for a moment. I shook my head. “I don’t know.”

  “A hot shower?”

  I gave a weak laugh. “I’ll try it.”

  “Okay. Come on.”

  “Jack.”

  “Yeah,” he said as he helped me up.

  “You’d better stay down here right now. Okay?”

  He looked at me, realization dawning on him.

  “I’m going to be naked up there.”

  “Right.” He sat on the couch and patted Pango’s head. “I’ll wait down here.”

  “Wise choice.”

  We gave each other shy grins as I turned and headed up the stairs. We’d broken some kind of barrier that had kept us from sleeping together before. Now it would be more difficult to resist.

  But the pain inside of me was subsiding, because I was feeling a little high on the fact that Jack loved me. That I loved him. And we’d said it. Even if it was just as friends.

  Yes. Just as friends, I told myself as I shut the bathroom door behind me and turned on the water.

  * * *

  I wasn’t in the shower long before a knock jarred me from my thoughts.

  “Kicks,” Jack’s voice held that edge. The one that told me that something was very wrong.

  “Yeah?” I called, squeezing my eyes shut against the soap that had run down my forehead and into my eyes.

  “You need to hurry it up. Bad shit.”

  “Is there any other kind?” I rinsed my face and pulled the shower door back a couple of inches. “Just come in here. I can’t hear you that good.”

  He hesitated, then opened the door and stepped in, closing the door behind him so that I wouldn’t catch a chill, and leaned against the sink. He kept his head down as he spoke. “Just got a call from Elena. They found out about what became of Jamie’s son. It isn’t good.”

  I sighed, rested my forehead against the water beaded glass of the shower door. “Tell me.”

  “He’s dead, Leah. He fell out of a fourth story window when he was two.”

  The news blew through the center of me and I had trouble catching my breath. “Oh, no.”

  “Yeah. Jamie didn’t take the news well. Elena thinks she might try to hurt herself. When they discovered the news, Jamie took off in her car, crying. Elena doesn’t know where she is.”

  “She may just need some time to herself,” I said, hoping this was the case, but not quite buying it myself.

  “She might, but Elena said she didn’t look good. She wasn’t looking really lucid.”

  “Great.” I sighed. “Okay, let me rinse my hair and I’ll be out in a minute.”

  Jack nodded. “Alright. I’ll be downstairs.”

  “Okay.”

  His eyes flicked up to me, and then back down as he moved to leave. I couldn’t help grinning a little. This new thing between us was nice. Even with a new shit storm all around us, it gave me energy. Lifted my spirits.

  Yeah. I was getting my groove back.

  Good thing, too. Because I was going to need it.

  * * *

  “Where did Elena think Jamie might be headed?” I asked Jack as I pulled on my riding boots. It was cold as hell outside, but it would have to be a very bad storm indeed for me to not wear my riding boots. I had four pair of them, two black, one tan, and one brown, and I loved them. I still mourned the pair I’d lost as a result of my scuffle with Gabriel. Those babies had been new.

  “As far as she knows, she has a brother, Michael Holland, who lives, oddly enough, in Philly. Older brother.”

  “Could she be going to see him?”

  Jack shrugged. “It’s worth a try. We could try calling him.”

  We found Michael Holland in the white pages online, and Jack dialed the number provided under his name and address.

  I took Pango outside because I had a feeling we’d be hitting the road again soon. “I’m sorry, sweety,” I said to her. “I promise I’ll spend more time with you when this craziness is over.”

  She smiled at me and licked my hand, then headed off to the bushes to do her thing. I looked up at the sky, clear, midnight blue, stars winking down at the earth. It helped me to think how insignificant I actually was under the enormity of the universe, how all my mistakes meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. How when I was gone, none of it would matter.

  Any marks I left would be scuffed over. No longer noticeable, if they ever really had been at all.

  * * *

  “Jamie’s on her way to Michael’s place. She’ll be okay.” Jack held the door open for me and helped me take my coat off.

  “Thanks,” I said. “So there’s no mad rush to get back to Philly?”

  “No. But she does want to talk to Adrian. I think we should be in the vicinity when she does.”

  “Just so happens, we want to talk to Adrian too.”

  “Right.”

  I swayed a little where I stood.

  “Whoa. Sit down, Kicks.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. “Just need to get my bearings.”

  “You’re bone tired. You need a good night’s sleep.”

  “Yeah. I do.”

  “So get upstairs and get one. We’ll resume ass kicking tomorrow.”

  I ran my hands over my face. My eyes felt so heavy. “Okay. I’m going.”

  “I’ll be down here if you need me.”

  “Take Jesse’s room. He wouldn’t mind.” My brother had moved out the previous year, but I kept his room for him for when he visited.

  Jack shrugged. “I might. I’m going to stay up for a bit.”

  That meant he was nervous and was going to keep watch. I don’t know why I ever thought I needed a Rottweiler with Jack around. But I loved them. I had loved Buddy helplessly and I loved Pango the same way.

  “Okay, my friend. I’ll see you in the a.m.”

  With that I dragged my tired, aching body up the stairs, Pango close behind, and crawled under the covers with my clothes still on.

  I had very little time to ruminate about anything before blessed sleep took me for a precious few hours.

  * * *

&nbs
p; The sky was dark as low clouds loomed over us. Still I needed my sunglasses. The glare off the snow, even on this grim day, was too much for my head. I’d slept pretty well, but was still exhausted. I felt like I’d need another full twelve hours of sleep before I was recouped. But even with the full twelve hours, the raw scratchiness in my throat and the pressure in my sinuses was telling me that I was getting really sick. And although my body was telling me that I needed rest, I wasn’t going to get it. So I hunkered down low in the seat and looked, sleepy-eyed, out the window.

  “You should’ve stayed home,” Jack said, glancing at me. “You don’t look so hot.”

  “Well, thank you, Jack. That makes me feel ever so much better.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I pushed out a long breath. “Yeah. But we’re not done yet. I can’t just lie around, blowing my nose and watching the tube.”

  He chuckled. “You couldn’t do that unless both your legs were broken and you were forced to. Who are you kidding?”

  “I’ll be fine. It’s just the start of a cold.”

  “We’ll stop and get you some juice at the next rest area.”

  “Like that’s going to make a difference. Quit mothering me, Jack. I’m fine.”

  “Yeah, yeah. We’ll see how fine you are when you’re shouting incoherently, delirious with fever.”

  “Then I’ll just sound like you.”

  “Ha. Ha.” He gave me a sideways look.

  “So what was your feeling when you met with Dr. Clemmons?”

  He pursed his lips. “I don’t think he did it, Kicks. I really don’t.”

  “Okay.”

  “He’s genuinely distraught over the fact that she’s missing. I think at first he really thought she’d taken off with another man. Now, with the discovery of another body, he’s really shaken.”

  I looked at him, through a haze of dull, throbbing sinus pain. “You know all the cues of somebody who is lying,” I said. We both did. Jack had taught them to me. Taught me to pay attention. People usually say more with body language than they ever do with their voices. “If you say he isn’t responsible for her disappearance, then he isn’t. But who is?”

  Jack ran his tongue along the inside of his lower lip. Something he does when he’s trying to figure something out. “I want to speak to this medical assistant of his. Vicky something.”

  “Sounds good. When we get back.”

  “I can do it, Leah. You need to rest.”

  “I’ll rest now. I’ll be fine.”

  He shook his head. “Jesus, you’re stubborn, you know ?”

  “That is part of the reason you love me, Jack.”

  He gave me a crooked grin and I thought a slight blush colored his cheeks for a second. “One of the reasons. But you drive me crazy.”

  “You wouldn’t have it any other way.” I felt my own cheeks grow warmer. But then, I was sick. So it could’ve just been the bug I’d caught making me feverish.

  I closed my eyes and dozed the rest of the way. When the car stopped, my head was killing me.

  “Jesus Christ. I can barely see right now. This headache is brutal.”

  “Just wait here. I’ll go talk to the brother.”

  I kept my eyes closed. I heard the click as Jack turned on the power locks.

  I wanted to protest but I knew he was right. I wouldn’t be much good right now. This had to be what migraine headaches felt like. I’d never had one before, but I could definitely sympathize with anyone who suffered with them now.

  I had no drugs to take. I’d sell my soul right then and there for aspirin. A nice, hard bat to the head to knock me the hell out would be good. Anything to make the pain go away.

  A knock on the window almost made me jump out of my skin.

  I squinted against the bright day to see Hailey Jacobs standing outside the truck, giving me a little wave. She looked around her, her eyes shifting this way and that.

  I reached over to the key, turning it in the ignition just a click to be able to get power to turn the window down.

  “Hailey? What are you doing here?” I was in no shape for lucid conversation, but I really wanted to know. Her being outside this truck at this moment, in Philly, didn’t make sense to me, except that she must have information for us.

  She leaned down, her face just outside the open window. “I need to talk to you.”

  I opened the door for her. “Jump in.”

  “Actually, can you come to my car? I don’t feel comfortable here.”

  I frowned. “Why not?”

  “I just need you to come to my car. Please.”

  I looked back to see her indigo Lexus parked down the street. She had tinted windows. Maybe she didn’t want to be seen.

  I pushed out a breath. I really wasn’t in the mood for these reindeer games. But, whatever. “Okay.”

  Closing my eyes for a moment to get my bearings, I tried to will the pain away as I opened the door and climbed out of the truck.

  She’d stepped back, and her hands tucked into the pockets of her long, cashmere coat.

  She stood back, as if she wanted me to go first. This seemed a little odd to me, but because of the blinding headache, I couldn’t put my finger on why. As we approached her car, I caught her reflection, walking behind me, in the passenger window. Her face was taut as she continued looking around us, her eyes wide and slightly wild looking as she stayed behind me.

  I saw my brows furrow in the reflection. Something was definitely not right here.

  My hackles went up, and as I turned to confront her I saw her hand lift from her pocket, gripping a gun.

  What the hell?

  “You’re kidding me, right?” I said. I really wasn’t in the mood for this shit.

  “Does it look like I’m kidding?” She was all jacked up. I could almost see her nerves jumping under her skin.

  I sighed. “What? You’re in with Adrian?”

  Her gaze twitched this way and that. Nervous as a cat. “Look, I’m the one with the gun here. Just get in the car.”

  I laughed, and the pain seemed to bloom larger behind my eyes. “Oh, Hailey, Hailey, Hailey. I’ve been held at gunpoint by pros. What are you going to do? Shoot me in the street? Judging from the way you’re holding that gun, I wouldn’t guess that you’re an Ace shot. So I don’t think you’ll get me in the head unless it’s by accident.”

  Her hand shook as she tried to aim the gun at me.

  “So my guess is that you’ll hit me in the arm or leg, after which time I’ll come after you, knock it out of your hand and kick your skinny ass. And this will all make the media, by the by. I’m sure you’ll look cute on the news when your country club friends see what you’ve been up to. Especially, when they see you being hauled away in cuffs.”

  She blinked.

  “Yeah,” I said, smiling. “Pretty image. I can’t wait.”

  She shifted from one foot to the other. “Just get in the car.”

  “Hell, no. I won’t get in the car.” I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against her car door, getting comfortable. “So who is it? Adrian’s husband? Have you been doing the horizontal bop with him?”

  She watched me, face panicked.

  “I sure hope he’s worth it, sweetheart. Hope you had a really good time, because you’re going to spend a lot of time being big Cindy’s bitch behind bars. At”

  Jack came out of the house, spotted us, and drew his .45, moving swiftly and quietly toward us.

  “So was that all bullshit? The story about Adrian taking your baby? Did you borrow that story from some poor girl who actually experienced it?”

  “No,” she said. “It was true.”

  “Revenge? Get her back by stealing her husband?”

  She shook her head, tears running over her cheeks. Her hand shook as she kept the gun somewhat trained on me. “He pursued me. Took care of me…after what she did.”

  I barked out a laugh. “Hailey, he was a part of it. Don’t you know that?”
>
  She was openly weeping now, little cough-like sounds coming from her, shaking her shoulders. “But he fell in love with me. Said we could start a life together.”

  “But that never happened, did it?” I watched her, feeling only slightly sad for her. “Hailey, you know there are others, don’t you? He was with another woman just last night. Jack and I saw them.”

  I saw pain in her eyes, and he shoulders slumped. Yes, she did know.

  “So what are you doing?” I asked her. “Why are you willing to go to prison for him?”

  Jack came up behind her and pressed the barrel of his gun to her back. “Same reason all those women fell for Gabriel’s horseshit.”

  I knew Jack was right. Looking at the ruined, pathetic woman in front of me, it was obvious that she wanted to keep believing in Adrian’s husband because she’d invested so much of herself in him. She had no identity without him, and was still grasping at the dream. The carrot he dangled in front of her.

  She didn’t want to admit that she’d given up her baby to the black market, when she might’ve had a fighting chance of getting him back and into a legitimate adoptive home. Might have. But she had never even tried.

  I shuddered to think what else she might’ve done for him. What other deeds.

  “Don’t you want to get him back for what he’s done to you all these years, Hailey?” I asked her.

  She looked down at the ground, seemed to consider it, as if the thought had never entered her mind. Finally she nodded, swiping at fresh tears with her free hand. “Yeah. I do.”

  “Then help us,” I said. “And we’ll help you. For real. No bullshit.”

  She lowered her gun, the fight gone out of her. “Why should I believe you?”

  “Because, lady.” Jack reached around and took her gun. “You’ve got no other choice.”

  * * *

  After a short stop at a drugstore for painkillers, which I popped four of and swallowed down with the tar-like coffee they sold, we found a hole in the wall place that had a pub-like atmosphere. Despite the pain, I was hungry, and something about having a gun pointed at me had done something to dull the agony some. It must have been the adrenaline pumping through my veins.