ROMANCE: Badass Boss (Billionaire Alpha Bad Boy Romance) (Western Mail Order Bride Calendar Contemporary)

by Susan Fleming

  “Untie me,” hissed Linda, keeping her voice down. “Quick. Untie me.”

  There was a faint light near the man in the woods. It was a soft glow. Lori realized that, of all things, their kidnapper was checking his phone.

  “Now,” Linda urged. “While he’s not looking. Untie me.”

  Lori’s mind was still reeling, trying to process what was happening. She did as she was asked, though. Lori untied her sister. She held up her hands for Linda to return the favor. Free from the bungee that had bound them, Linda took off. Lori really should have seen that coming.

  “Wait!” Lori begged, without really thinking it through.

  The man in the woods looked up from his phone. He saw Linda fleeing and took off after her. Lori squealed and ducked down to avoid being trampled. It was only then that she realized, without her sister tied to the tree, there was nothing anchoring her there. She still had her hands tied, but their ends just dangled.

  Lori ran for it.

  It wasn’t until the second time she tripped, that Lori heard the screaming. The man in the woods had caught up with Linda. It wasn’t until the third time she tripped that she took the time to free her own hands. After that it was back to running and running and running… Until she heard a car…

  Chapter 4

  No Family, No Friends

  “Geez,” Vince said, turning on his blinker. “Your sister sounds like a bitch.” Vince realized what he had just said. “God, sorry. Really bad timing, huh? Sorry. I’m not great with… people.”

  Lori shook her head. She had her gaze turned to the car window, her eyes scanning the side of the road. “It’s fine,” she said. “She was… A bitch, I mean. My sister was a bitch.”

  “But she was still your sister.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you even sure she’s dead?” Vince hadn’t heard any conclusive evidence that she was. He was beginning to just suspect Lori hoped she was dead.

  “You didn’t hear the way she screamed.” Lori turned away from the car window and closed her eyes. She looked miserable, as if hearing the sound in her head all over again. “I’ve never heard someone scream like that before. And the way it just cut off. There was this wet gurgling sound like… like…”

  “I get it,” Vince said quickly. He found the main road. “Do you know where the nearest police station is?”

  Lori knew the area pretty well. She gave him instructions. Now that her adrenaline had stopped flowing and she had gotten some sleep, she seemed like a new girl. Tearful, quiet, reluctant to do what had to be done. When Vince parked, she just sat in the passenger seat.

  “We should probably get a move on,” Vince said, giving her an awkward nudge. “We… ya know… Have a killer out there to catch and all.”

  After some additional prodding, Lori went inside. There was more for Vince to do than he had anticipated. He had to give statements to multiple people. He had to sit around in a waiting room, where it was demanded he turn his phone off. Vince tried explaining to them the business risks he was taking if he turned his phone off, but they didn’t seem to care. In the end, he sat there, arms crossed, casting the occasional forlorn look at the deactivated cell phone resting on his knee.

  He’d never seen it turned off. It looked… wrong.

  When he finally got to leave the police station, it was to lead the police to where he had first come across Lori. After that, he got to stand around while they searched. He wasn’t sure why they kept him around but, after much loitering, they escorted him back to his car.

  Vince turned his phone back on as soon as he was able. He had, roughly, twenty missed calls. Fantastic. He started the arduous process of calling them all back as he drove to the cabin only to realize he didn’t get service out here anyway. So, instead of driving back to the cabin, he drove around, aimlessly, searching for a sweet spot in which to get signal.

  He ended up finding one back near the police. He was in the process of returning the first call when he glimpsed the ambulance. They were loading someone into it, someone covered in a sheet. Vince only made one more call after that. He got in touch with his assistant and told him he needed a few days to himself.

  Suddenly, his finances didn’t seem so pressing an issue. Vince drove back to the cabin. Much like the coffee supply, the cabinets were stocked with some canned nonperishables. That was a relief. There were no take out places within a reasonable distance and, apparently, Vince was hardly self sufficient without them.

  Night was closing in again. Vince was trying to sort out how to heat up a can of soup in his darkening cabin when he heard a distant roar and lights flickered to life.

  “What the hell?” Vince made his way to the door in time for it to open.

  Lori stepped inside. “You have a generator. I was too freaked out to notice last night. What’s your excuse?”

  “What, uh… What do you do with a generator?”

  “I guess, that’s a pretty good excuse. Can I come in?”

  “You already have.” Vince motioned her into the living room anyway. “Have a seat.” He didn’t want to be too short with her. He’d be more annoyed with most people, just barging in like this. Lori, though… Lori was having a pretty bad day. “What can I do for you?”

  Lori took a seat on the sofa. She looked up at Vince, her gray eyes red-rimmed. “You can let me stay the night.”

  Vince stared at her. He wasn’t sure what he had expected. “Don’t you have… I don’t know… Family or someone you need to be with at a time like this?”

  Lori shook her head. “Linda was it. Our parents… our parents aren’t really in the picture. They haven’t been in the picture for a long time. Linda was… she was all I had.”

  “Don’t you have any coworkers… friends… something?”

  Lori shook her head, slowly. “Not really. Linda kind of had a tendency to ruin my relationships with people. I’ve got people in my life, but they’re really torn up about her right now, and… I feel weird. It’s awkward. I don’t feel like I’m as sad about this as I should be. Does that make sense?”

  Vince sighed. “Yeah, I guess it makes sense.” And, really, there was no reason why she couldn’t stay. If anything, the company would be nice. He already couldn’t stand how quiet it was out here. “I guess you can stay. It’s fine.”

  “Wanna give me the grand tour?”

  “Honestly, I’ve spent about as much time in this place as you have now.”

  Lori raised her eyebrows at that. “You know, you’ve gotten the crash course on me these last twenty four hours. Maybe I could stand to learn a little more about you?”

  “Give me a hand with this delicious dinner of canned soup here and I’ll regale you with the tale.”

  Chapter 5

  The Unhappy Past

  Vincent grew up well under the poverty line. His parents weren’t particularly ambitious people. He was the youngest of three. His birth had been an accident. By then, his parents had had their fill of making an effort in the parenting department.

  They fed Vincent, they clothed him, on Christmas and his birthday, they gave him an inexpensive gift or two. They didn’t do much besides that, but they did enough to keep social services off their back. That was about the best you could say for Vince’s parents. They did the bare minimum.

  Vincent wasn’t very close to his brothers either. The age gap was too large for them to spend much time together but too small for his brothers to feel terribly protective of him. Instead, they would take him along on outings and either tease or ditch him in the process.

  All in all, Vincent’s childhood was pretty uneventful. He grew up knowing that he wanted a better life for himself. A better life meant money, so that was Vincent’s aim.

  Vincent started working for money at the age of eight. At first, he just mowed lawns. He did chores around the neighborhood that no one else wanted to do. The neighbors thought it was cute and endearing, in reality Vincent was saving his pennies. All of them.

  Unf
ortunately, his parents had a tendency to “borrow” his earnings when they got too substantial. Vincent learned how to hide his profits. When he got his first honest to goodness job at a fast food place, he learned how to put just enough aside so that his parents wouldn’t demand more from him. When Vincent turned 18, that was all over.

  He started calling himself Vince. He went into stocks and real estate and answered not a single call from his family after that. They could fend for themselves, for all he cared.

  One of his brothers OD’d on drugs, another got in with a bad crowd. Vince let it roll off his back. He only wished to move forward now. Concerning himself with his family would be a step in the wrong direction. As far as he was concerned, he owed them nothing.

  Chapter 6

  Investigation

  “You’re kind of an asshole,” said Lori, seated at the table across from him.

  Vince shrugged and stared down at his soup. Maybe he was, but being an asshole had served him pretty well so far.

  “That’s your business,” Lori added, quickly. “And it seems to have worked out pretty well for you in the long run, huh? Maybe I would have been happier had I left my sister behind and gotten on with my own life. Probably would have.”

  “Sometimes you just have to know when to move on.”

  “That’s the truth… So, I’m thinking of going out in the woods in minute to look at the murder site.”

  Vince nearly choked on his soup. “What? Why?!”

  “Because I don’t like the way the police were going about it,” Lori said, simply. “They didn’t look in the right places for long enough. They didn’t question the right people.”

  “And who are the right people?”

  “Our coworkers.” Lori gave him a look like that should have been obvious. “She slept with a ton of guys.”

  “Good for her.”

  Lori snorted at that. “Some of them she stole from me…”

  “Well, maybe they were guys you were better off without if she could come along and just ‘steal’ them from you.”

  “That’s beside the point!” Lori snapped.

  “Then what is the point?”

  “Well, some of them were bound to get jealous, right? That’s a common motivator for murder.”

  “I’m sure the police are investigating that angle.”

  “But they won’t let me help!” Lori slid back her chair and stood. “I just… I just want to look for myself and maybe ask a few questions. Is that so much to ask?”

  “It, uh, might be illegal… We can’t just wander into a crime scene.”

  “I’m going either way,” Lori announced. “You can come with me or just stay here. Up to you.”

  “I could stay here and call the cops,” Vince muttered. “That would be the right thing for me to do.”

  Lori had seemed sure of herself until just then. Her face fell. She sat back down and gave him a downright pathetic look.

  “Please? I need this. If I can’t feel sad enough, I at least want to try and find out what happened to her - What happened to both of us.”

  Vince had never been one to really play by the rules - especially not if his own colorful past legally questionable stock trading was any indicator. Besides, ever since nearly running this girl over with his car, he felt oddly responsible for her. “Fine,” he sighed. “But if we see any police tape, we’re not climbing over it… And if we run into any actual police, we’re going to listen to them. Deal?”

  “Deal.” Lori stood and headed for the door.

  “We’re going now?” Vince sighed and went to the kitchen to retrieve a flashlight.

  Chapter 7

  The Crime Scene

  It was pitch black out. It hadn’t seemed so bad when they were driving. Vince had pulled off the road near the spot where he first saw Lori. The police had already gone. As they walked into the woods, that’s when things got exceptionally dark.

  There wasn’t much to see outside of the cones of light from Vince and Lori’s flashlights. Minimal light coming down through the branches only cast unnerving shadows. Sticks and leaves snapped and crackled beneath their feet. Similar sounds came from deeper in the woods. It could have been animals or even another person. Whatever it was, it set them both on edge.

  Vince wished the redneck he’d bought the place from had been kind enough to leave a gun behind. That, of course, had been too much to hope for. Though, it was probably for the best. Vince had never used a gun in his life.

  “Do you even know which way?” Vince asked.

  “Sort of,” Lori said, going on the defensive a bit. “Just worry about which direction we came from, all right?”

  Vince was already trying very hard to. He had no intention of getting lost in these woods… Though, it seemed like a distinct possibility.

  Something howled. Lori stumbled back toward Vince and grabbed him by the arm. “Sorry,” she whispered without letting go.

  “It’s fine,” he whispered back. He was trying to act tough, but he was probably even more out of his element than she was. Her clinging to him actually made him feel marginally safer. At least it was unlikely that there was a killer still in these woods. (Unlikely but not impossible.) That was a very small comfort.

  It took a while. Vince was trying to think of a good way to broach the subject of heading back when they stumbled upon it.

  “Here,” said Lori, bending down to pick something up. She showed it to Vince. A piece of stretchy cord. “It’s just up there.”

  “Shouldn’t we leave that for the police?” Vince asked, indicating the cord she was carrying with her as she marched forward, up a slight incline. He was ignored. With a deep sigh, he hurried after her.

  “This is it,” said Lori.

  There wasn’t much to see. Vince wasn’t sure how Lori could tell this place from literally any other spot in the woods.

  “That’s where we were tied up,” she said, pointing to a large tree. She pointed to some adjacent trees next. “And that’s where he was standing.”

  “Didn’t the police already search this place?”

  “Apparently, they didn’t do a very good job.” Lori waved the bungee cord at him and continued on.

  “This is a terrible idea,” said Vince, mostly to himself. He considered going back, but there really was no going back at this point. He followed her.

  Lori was on her knees, going through dead leaves and other assorted underbrush. She had her flashlight in her mouth and wore a determined look on her face.

  “What are you hoping to find?” Vince asked, watching her.

  “Somfin’” she said, voice muffled around her flashlight. “A clue.”

  “This isn’t Scooby Do, you know?” Vince started at her a few moments longer. Finally, he went down to his knees as well. He started moving things around and searching, if only for appearances. He didn’t think they would find anything, but maybe it would make her feel better if they tried.

  They didn’t find anything else. They’d looked for what had to have been two hours when Lori finally sat back on her heels and dropped the flashlight to one side. “Damn it,” she said, sounding miserable.

  “Hey, we still found that,” Vince said, indicating the bungee cord. “We can show that to the police. Maybe it’ll help them.”

  “It won’t.” Lori flopped onto her back in the dirt. Her red hair fanned out behind her. She looked wild then, like some kind of unhappy forest spirit. She was beautiful. Vince hadn’t given it much thought what with the circumstances that had brought them together, but she was. “They won’t find anything. The case will go cold. Whoever killed my sister will get away with murder.”

  “You don’t know that,” Vince offered, though it sounded entirely likely to him - needlessly pessimistic, but probable.

  “I’m pretty sure that’s what’s going to happen though,” Lori said, staring up at the starry sky beyond the tree canopy.

  Vince studied her, really studied her for a moment. “I take it the po
lice have let you down before?”

  Lori gave a barely perceptible nod. “My parents died when I was fifteen,” she said.

  “They were murdered?” asked Vince.

  Lori shrugged. “The police didn’t think so.”

  “But you know different…”

  “There was a house fire,” said Lori. “My sister started it. I know because I saw her.”

  “Jesus.” Vince flopped down beside Lori. He turned his head to watch her. “You told them that?”

  “Of course I told them! They just didn’t believe me.” She closed her eyes. “There was no evidence, and my sister was so upset with me for accusing her. Everyone acted like I was crazy. Honestly, I started doubting myself for a while there… But I know what I saw. I know she started that fire.”