Naked Truth

by Tami Lund

  “Where is she?”

  “Where’s the jewelry? I’m supposed to collect a necklace with a cross pendant made of diamonds. It better be the real thing, too,” he warned, although his bravado was clearly shaky.

  “You aren’t getting the goddamned necklace until you tell me where the hell Kennedy is.”

  “I don’t know,” Jerry admitted. “I’m supposed to collect the necklace, and then call and let her know. She’s going to tell me where to meet her, and then she’s going to pay me.”

  “What about Kennedy?” Jack asked. His blood was suddenly running cold in his veins. Jerry clearly only cared about his payment, and Maloney cared only about the necklace. So where did that leave her prisoner?

  “I don’t know,” Jerry insisted. “Look, if I don’t call soon, she might hurt Kennedy. You don’t want that, do you? But if I get the necklace and call, then probably she’ll just let your girlfriend go.”

  Probably. Jack doubted it.

  “Do you even care if Kennedy lives or dies?” If this sorry excuse for a husband cared at all about her, why had he stayed away for the past three years?

  Jerry’s shoulders hunched. “Sure I do. I mean, Kennedy’s pretty cool. At least, she used to be. But I need the money, man. I have debts. I owe some people, and they aren’t very nice. This little job is going to get me back on track. I … I won’t have to fear for my life anymore.”

  Until the next loan shark came along. He’d read the information he’d dug up on Kennedy and her errant husband, as much as it hurt to do so. He knew Jerry Coster had a giant gambling problem, that he was always a half step away from going under, or, worse, losing a limb or possibly his life to one of the shady loan sharks who preyed on idiots like him. How the hell Kennedy had hooked up with someone like Coster, Jack would never know.

  Unable to resist, he asked the question out loud.

  “Hey,” Jerry protested. “I can be charming when I want to be.”

  Jack could be charming, too. His charm had landed him in the back of a limo with Kennedy, had given him the most amazing sex with the sweetest, most wonderful woman. Did she regret letting him lure her into bed with him? Did she fear that if she stayed there, things would turn out like they had with Jerry?

  “Did she know about the gambling?”

  Jerry didn’t even need to answer. Jack could see it on his face.

  “You lied to her,” he guessed.

  “I never lied,” Jerry insisted. “I was clean when we met, when we dated. I didn’t start gambling again until after we were married.”

  “And?”

  “And then I just never told her about it.”

  “You cheated on her. That’s lying.”

  “I never cheated on Kennedy.” Jerry shook his head, spraying water everywhere. “Dude, you’ve obviously slept with her. Would you cheat on her?”

  Jack punched him. On principle.

  The lying bastard rubbed his jaw, glaring at Jack through the pouring rain. “What the hell was that for?”

  He ignored the question. “Why the hell does everyone think you cheated on her?”

  “No idea.”

  The only person who knew that answer was Kennedy. Who was currently being held prisoner by a woman who liked to carve people up with a knife.

  Jack twisted his hand into Jerry’s coat, and the man made a strangled noise as he was forced up to his tiptoes when Jack pulled him close to look him in the eye.

  “You’re going to help me save her, asshole. If you don’t, I will personally feed you to your goddamned loan sharks. Am I clear?”

  “Crystal.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The sound of a ringing phone jerked Kennedy from a light doze. She blinked her bleary eyes and watched as her captor answered.

  “Took you long enough,” the older woman snapped. “I was about to abort the mission.”

  She listened for a moment and pursed her lips, clearly not pleased with whatever the person on the other end was saying.

  “Do you have Shannon’s necklace?” After a slight pause, her demeanor obviously relaxed, telling Kennedy that yes, the accomplice had been successful.

  That meant Jack had been willing to give up some supposed treasure for Kennedy’s safety after all. That thought ought to have given her hope, but Jack was an FBI agent. He was just doing his job. She refused to allow herself to believe that he’d done it for her, because he cared, and not because she was just another hostage.

  It was easy, actually, to think that way, after the way he’d stormed out of her bedroom and her life when she’d admitted that Jerry wasn’t her ex after all. That hurt, but she didn’t have time to dwell on it; not right now. The more pressing problem was her own mortality.

  The FBI was clearly willing to negotiate for her life, but she was afraid to believe that her crazed captor intended to let her go.

  Kennedy listened to the woman rattle off a meeting place that was northwest of New Orleans proper. Was that their current location? If so, it was a long way from her home and from downtown. The likelihood of Jack figuring out where she was being held was slim. Her situation was becoming grimmer by the minute.

  The woman disconnected the call and seemingly absently began stroking Kennedy’s hair. Kennedy flinched, and her captor paused, hand positioned next to her head. “What’s wrong, Shannon?”

  Kennedy mumbled around the gag, tried to tell the woman she was not Shannon, but the words were unintelligible.

  “We’re almost there, Shannon. We’ll have your favorite necklace back in just a little while. Then we can go home and prepare for baby’s arrival. I do hope it’s a girl. I really want a granddaughter.”

  Kennedy stared at the now quietly humming woman. A lullaby. Her daughter was pregnant, she was hoping for a girl…

  The hospital! She’d gone with the sweet-looking, elderly woman because she’d looked familiar, which really made no sense because Kennedy had never met anyone connected to Jack, other than his FBI partner. But she’d been blindsided by the urgent need to help him and the woman’s seemingly sincerity.

  Who was this woman? How did she know where Kennedy lived, where she worked? How did she know Kennedy was involved with Jack? It wasn’t like they’d made some announcement to the world that they were a couple. Mostly because, well, they weren’t.

  The humming abruptly stopped and her captor grabbed a fistful of Kennedy’s hair, pulling her head back so that Kennedy was forced to look up into a face suddenly contorted with rage.

  “He had better bring Shannon’s necklace,” she snarled, her eyes wide and wild. “If he doesn’t…”

  A knife appeared in front of Kennedy’s face, a long, thin boning knife. Kennedy stared as comprehension hit her so hard, her stomach roiled and she was half-afraid she would be sick.

  The Stripper Killer. That’s what the media had dubbed the person who had been steadily killing off male strippers. Jack’s case. The person he was after stood right here, in a motel room, with a knife in her hand, making very clear threats to Kennedy’s life. She sputtered and blinked rapidly, fighting to keep tears at bay. She didn’t want to die.

  As if there was a switch in her brain, the Stripper Killer changed gears. She dropped the knife to her side and released Kennedy’s hair so that she could stroke it again. “Don’t worry, Shannon, sweetheart,” she crooned. “We’ll head home soon.”

  Kennedy watched as the woman began bustling around the motel room, packing clothing and toiletry items into a tan bag with wheels and a pullout handle. “We aren’t going to come back here afterward. We’ll go ahead and get on the road. When we get too tired to drive any longer, we’ll stop at a motel.”

  She carefully wrapped the weapon into a towel, and then slid it into a pocket in the rain slicker that hung on a chair near the door. Finally, the woman zipped her suitcase closed and straightened. She rolled the suitcase toward the door, her entire demeanor as cheerful as if she and her pregnant daughter were simply wrapping up a mini-vacation, ab
out to head home.

  The woman was unconditionally, absolutely, and utterly insane. And she had Kennedy strapped to a chair in a no-name motel room, with a gag in her mouth. Even the near-bankruptcy thanks to her two-bit loser ex-husband didn’t feel as bleak as her current situation.

  When her captor wheeled her luggage out of the motel room, Kennedy began thrashing around, trying to escape her confinement.

  She didn’t want to die.

  • • •

  “What do we have?”

  Jack stood over the poor tech’s shoulder, probably scaring the crap out of the guy, but he didn’t give a damn. This kid, who looked like he was all of twenty years old at the most, was supposedly the best tracer in the whole damn state. If anyone could figure out the physical location of a cell phone with precious little time in which to work, it was Terrance Patterson.

  “Jack, let him breathe,” Cullen said, as he clapped a hand onto Jack’s shoulder and pulled him away. “He’ll work a hell of a lot faster if you step off and give him some space.”

  Terrance wasn’t even full-fledged FBI yet—merely an intern working toward a criminal justice major at the University of Texas. If he came through with Kennedy’s location, Jack would personally ensure he had a job when he graduated. Anywhere in the entire damn country. Just as long as Kennedy was safe.

  “It … it’s okay,” Terrance stuttered. “I don’t mind. I … I know this is an important case.”

  He looked up at Jack and quickly averted his eyes from whatever he saw there. Probably desperation tinged with frustration and a little bit of fear. Jack was fighting back the fear with every ounce of willpower he possessed, though. She had to be safe. She had to be.

  “Got it!” Terrance suddenly leapt from his seat and turned around, his arm held high, as if he were waiting for a high five. Neither Cullen nor Jack gave it to him, but one of the other agents in the room did.

  “What? What do you have?” Jack demanded as he leaned over the back of the chair Terrance just vacated and tried to decipher what was on the computer screen.

  The kid started babbling about satellites and speed and maps and directions, and Jack cut him off, not caring or needing the lesson on how information technology worked.

  “Just tell me where the hell she is,” he growled.

  Terrance cleared his throat and sat back down in his chair. “Our suspect made the call from a motel in LaPlace,” he said, naming a small town located northwest of the city.

  “Give me the address,” Jack demanded, his phone already in his hand, GPS pulled up on the screen.

  Terrance rattled off the information from his computer screen, and Jack grabbed Jerry’s arm. Jerry had been sulking, hunched over in a chair in a corner, required to be in the room but not allowed to play any sort of active role in the situation.

  “Let’s move,” Jack said, dragging the douchebag out of the chair and striding from the room.

  Cullen chased after him. “Hey, wait up,” he called out reaching for Jack’s arm.

  “No time,” Jack said, shaking off Cullen’s grip.

  But his partner refused to let go, and he finally pulled Jack to a stop. Jerry stumbled and grabbed the wall to keep himself upright.

  “You need to chill,” Cullen commanded. “Blowing off the rules, charging in like you’re the fucking Lone Ranger, is going to get Kennedy killed.”

  “We don’t have time to wait for the government to get its shit together,” Jack said. “What if they move? What if she hurts Kennedy?”

  “I’m reasonably certain she isn’t going to do anything to Kennedy until she has the necklace in her hands.” He glanced at Jerry, like that loser could give them a confirmation.

  Jerry nodded vigorously. “He’s right,” he said. “That lady’s crazy. She’s obsessed over that necklace.”

  “So let’s think this through,” Cullen said. “Let’s do this the right way, so that Kennedy can go home with you tonight, okay?”

  “Let’s do this right so that she can go home,” Jack amended his partner’s comment. The chances that she’d go home with him were slim to no-fucking-way, not after the way he’d flipped out and stormed out of her house the day before. And even if she did, if she found it in her heart to forgive him for being an ass, what the hell could he offer? He was ten times lousy at relationships—obviously. She deserved so much more than some horny playboy who didn’t know the first thing about making her happy.

  “When did you become such a pansy? Since when did you stop fighting for what you want?”

  He gave Cullen a bewildered look. “What the hell are you talking about? You’re the one who just hip-checked me, remember?”

  “I’m talking about Kennedy and the fact that you’re obviously in love with the woman. So why do you keep insisting you aren’t?”

  Frustration and anger boiled over, and Jack released Jerry to shove his partner up against the wall in the utilitarian, empty hallway. It was nearly two in the morning, and the FBI building was experiencing a rare moment of near quiet. The only activity was in the room they’d left a few minutes prior.

  “It doesn’t fucking matter,” Jack snarled. “What the hell can I give her?” He gave Cullen one last shove, and then released him and continued striding down the hall.

  “If all you’re doing with her is screwing around, then fine, I get it,” Cullen called after him. Jack’s steps faltered for a moment, but then he kept walking.

  “But I don’t think that’s what you’re doing. I think she’s the one, and you’re pissed off that the whole thing isn’t perfect, like you want it to be.”

  Jack slowed and finally stopped, and then turned around to glare at his partner. “What are you trying to say?”

  Cullen strode closer, talking as he walked. “Love isn’t perfect, Jack. It takes work. A lot of damn work. But the payoff is worth it; trust me. So you have a couple hurdles to overcome here.” His glance slid to Jerry, who stood behind them, pretending not to listen to the conversation. “You’ll overcome them, if you both want to.”

  Silence hung in the air for several heartbeats. Then he muttered, “I have no idea what she wants. We’ve never talked about it.” He squeezed his fists, gritted his teeth, and forced himself to admit that his partner was probably right.

  Cullen rolled his eyes heavenward. “So, can we quit with the chick-flick bullshit now and go save her?”

  Jack grabbed Jerry’s arm and dragged him down the hall to the room they’d just left. “You got it,” he assured his partner, while he snapped at the roomful of agents to get their asses in gear.

  It was time to save his woman.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Despite what the crazy woman said about taking her on a trip after retrieving Shannon’s favorite necklace, Kennedy was quite convinced that her death was imminent if she did not figure out a way to escape—sooner rather than later. The old lady was insane. It was like two people were living in her head, and one of them didn’t care one way or the other if Kennedy lived or died.

  Reality: She was being held prisoner by a mentally unstable woman who was known to have killed at least a dozen men who were probably twice her size and strength. Fantasy: Jack would come bursting through the motel room door any moment to rescue her.

  Time to make a plan.

  Her window of opportunity, she determined, would be very small. The woman would have to untie the bindings in order to move Kennedy from the motel room to the car. It would not be necessary to take off the gag, so screaming for help was out of the question. Kennedy would have to make a run for it. It was her only option.

  “Time to go, Shannon,” her captor said when she stepped back into the motel room and closed the door. She clapped her hands and smiled what might have been a warm, friendly smile, if Kennedy hadn’t known she was certifiably insane. “We should take a bathroom break first.”

  Hopefully, there was a window in the bathroom.

  There wasn’t. Not only that, but the woman had only untied her l
egs, which made using the bathroom exceedingly difficult. Escaping was going to be near impossible. Still, she had to try. She was convinced her other option was death.

  She needed to get away so she could talk to Jack. Just one more time. She needed to set the record straight about her divorce, or lack thereof. She wanted him to know, to understand, that she’d simply been naïve and shell-shocked over the demise of her marriage.

  She needed to explain all of this to Jack, so that he understood she loved him, not Jerry. That she wanted to be with him, not Jerry. Even if he did not reciprocate her feelings, it was suddenly exceedingly important to her that Jack know that she’d fallen in love with him.

  He was the perfect man. Had it only been six weeks ago that she and Sabrina had discussed this very subject? Six weeks ago she hadn’t believed the perfect man existed. Now she was afraid she would never see him again.

  Her opportunity for escape came only a short time later.

  It was raining. A steady downpour. At least there wasn’t lightning. When she made her run for it, hopefully the rain and darkness would make it difficult for her captor to chase after her. The woman was at least twenty years older than she, maybe more. Surely she could outrun a retiree.

  “All set?”

  Kennedy glared at the cheerful woman as she stepped away from the sink, her bound hands dripping water because she could not reach the towel. Her shoulders ached from being bound for the last several hours. She tried to roll out the kinks, but it was impossible. The binding was too tight.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” the woman admonished, her tone still indicating that she currently believed Kennedy to be Shannon. As creepy as it was, Kennedy supposed that was a good thing. She was less likely to be slashed with the hidden knife if the woman believed her to be her pregnant daughter.

  Kennedy turned her head away. Her captor wrapped her hand around Kennedy’s upper arm and walked toward the door. She wore the rain slicker, the one Kennedy knew contained a knife. Kennedy wore only a pair of yoga pants, a t-shirt, and the Crocs she usually wore to work.