In the foyer, Wren and Jay regrouped.
“I’m so mad at them,” Jay argued. “Who are those people in there? When did they get so close-minded? Usually, they give our ideas at least a little bit of thought but now, all of a sudden, they want to be straight-aces.”
Both of their heads suddenly popped up at the mentioning of the word “ace.”
“Nana,” they said in unison. They were out the door in record time and on their way down to the senior center where their grandmother Ruth spent most of her afternoons playing poker. As soon as she spotted the two of them walking through the door, she smiled and began to collect her things, ignoring cries from the people at the table arguing that her royal flush was suspiciously devoid of a few face cards.
“My son sent you to pick me up?” She asked, hooking her arm through Wren’s and planting a kiss on Jay’s cheek.
“No, but we need to talk to you Nana,” Wren told her. “It’s about Larke.”
A serious expression replaced the smile on her face. “What’s wrong?”
They took a seat at a picnic table on the front lawn of the community center.
“Nana,” Wren began, “we don’t really know what we’re looking for, but Jay and I just can’t stop thinking that Larke is still alive. And please, before you say we’re crazy, just hear us out.”
The old woman remained silent but tapped Wren lightly on the wrist to let her know that she was listening. They proceeded to explain their theory to their grandmother, ignoring once again how crazy everything sounded. Ruth kept her hand at the base of her throat and nodded occasionally, saying nothing until Wren had uttered her final word. Then, she paused and looked between the two of them.
“Well,” she began, folding her hands in front of her on the tabletop, “a fella that I used to date has a grandson that works for the police department. I can get him to pass the information along to his grandson who might be able to help us out.”
Jay pumped his fist in excitement and tears welled up in Wren’s eyes as she threw her arms around her grandmother. She didn’t know if any of this would make any difference, but it was a much better feeling than wallowing in misery.
“One more thing,” Jay added. “Mom and Dad didn’t go for this so—”
“I won’t say a word to them,” she reassured.
She then slung her purse over her shoulder and hooked elbows with Wren once again as they walked to the car. If there was one thing that she knew about her grandchildren, it was that they always had their heads on straight. Even if nothing came of their amateur investigation, she wasn’t going to turn her back on them when they needed her the most.
As they slid into the car, Jay’s eyebrows shot up. “Wait, Nana, did you say a ‘fella that you used to date?’”
She confidently nodded. “Yes sir. Just because I’m old, doesn’t mean I’m not hot stuff.”
Jay playfully rolled his eyes and Wren finally had a real laugh for the first time in what seemed like an eternity.
*****
Edward Jarvis extended his thighs only to end up rubbing against another silkier pair on the bed next to him. On his right, a dark bouquet of hair was strewn across his chest and stomach while to his left, the naked body of an alabaster, curvaceous redhead was pressed into his side. Although he knew that it had been uncharacteristically messy of him to indulge in women so soon after his escape, the prospect of never having another woman for the rest of his life had nearly sent him off the edge.
The minute that he was secured in Aspen, he had the two women brought over to the palatial cabin that he was staying in. They were both undergraduate students from the University of Michigan and the redhead studied engineering while the brunette was pre-med. The redhead was also a senator’s daughter and had been using Daddy’s money to treat herself and her best friend—who happened to be the daughter of a Hall of Fame football player—to a private birthday weekend retreat. Surprisingly, neither of them had a clue who he was and he could only attribute that to their being so detached from the real world, that the only news they cared about was whether their bank accounts would be replenished.
They’d both been delectable and losing himself in their warm flesh had felt as though he hadn’t experienced pleasure in ages. But now it was morning, and he was annoyed by them. They were two spoiled girls, princesses as they’d called themselves, who’d probably never known a minute’s worth of struggle in their entire lives. People like that, women especially, made him sick to his stomach. They would never know what it was like to come from defecating in a metal pail because advanced plumbing was nonexistent where you lived, to having homes all across the globe, powerful friends in high places, and even more power than those very friends possessed. Without that kind of struggle, they could never be powerful and without any power, they would always be beneath him. He had no time for people that were made for him to walk on.
He used an open palm to shove the dark-haired beauty off his midsection before sliding off of the bed. Someone would be up in a few minutes anyhow to retrieve them and take them back to wherever they were found.
He sneered as he watched them curl towards each other on the silken duvet cover. They would probably have no recollection of what had happened the night before, and it disgusted him at how easy it had been to persuade them to get drunk and take unlabeled pills from a complete stranger. The redhead had even complained that it was the first time she’d truly ever lived, and he’d found it piteous that something so trite as an intoxicated one-night stand was her notion of an epitomic life. He’d accomplished too much not to enjoy all of the rewards that life had granted him, however those rewards did not and were never going to come in the form of recreational drug use no different from what he disseminated on the streets.
He slipped into a clean pair of boxer shorts and padded across heated floors to the eastern wing of the immense cabin. As much as he’d enjoyed himself the night before, one major issue still plagued him: he couldn’t orgasm. It had started in the middle of the trial when he’d first had doubts about getting an acquittal. Even with all the confidence that he’d oozed on the outside, he never failed to acknowledge that he was one defense attorney slipup away from a guilty conviction. That threat to his freedom had been enough to allow his body to disobey him.
Interestingly enough, even though he’d been in the throes of sexual dysfunction, all of his blood would pool to his groin whenever that smug female prosecutor, Larke Tapley, opened her mouth. Yes, he’d loathed her during the entire trial and had wanted to shove the pencil she would rhythmically tap on the table straight through her chest, but the other half of him was titillated by her. On numerous occasions, as she’d stood in front of the witness stand, she would turn and meet his gaze in a challenging deadlock. And, to his surprise, he never saw any fear. She’d remained calm and refined. She hadn’t even stirred when one of his lower-level constituents had threatened to wait for her in the shadows outside her townhouse. Instead, she’d walked into the courtroom the following day, hips snug in a black pencil skirt and pumps putting a fuller curve to her already round bottom. It had irked him that she’d looked so well put-together—her clothes were delicately ironed, outfit intricately matched detail for detail, and her hair looked as though she hadn’t even given a second thought about being threatened. Like she’d felt as though she had some kind of power over him.
It was that sense of power that had set his loins ablaze. For the first time in his life, he’d found someone that he couldn’t control.
He’d spent most of his days conjuring images in his head of her naked body strapped to a mattress, and her arms pinned above her head as he forced her to take him. As he claimed her, he would take back whatever power she’d tried to rob from him, unsatisfied until he watched tears stain her cheeks and hear her beg for her life. Hear her tell him that he could do whatever he wanted to her.
Eddie made his way to a heated pool room towards the back of the cabin. As expected, he found exactly who he’d b
een looking for at one edge of the pool with a blonde in his lap, and a cigar in his mouth.
“Edward,” the man greeted, waving him over. “How was your night?”
Eddie squatted at the edge of the pool and gave the blonde a quick glimpse before settling his eyes on the man. “Good.”
“I knew it,” the man’s voice triumphantly rang out. “I knew those two would suit you perfectly. Ebony and Ivory.” He motioned around the room. “You like the place?”
Eddie took a quick look around. “It’s nice.”
The man laughed, his green eyes twinkling. “I told you that I’d take care of you.”
Eddie didn’t respond.
“Dr. Lindholm is on his way out to see us,” the man continued, slightly unsettled by Eddie’s silence. “He’s opening up another practice. This one will be in Louisiana. He said that the people there still have ‘residual trauma’ from Katrina, so it will be a prime location for distribution.”
Eddie stood and walked over to a bar that lined the adjacent wall, pulled out a bottle of seltzer water, and emptied it into one of the few clean glasses that he could find. Next to one of the glasses was a half empty orange pill bottle, and he shook his head in distaste. He would never understand the weak man’s fascination with substances that could take him from being at the top of his career, to the lowest rung on the societal ladder. Although the older gentleman constantly claimed that he didn’t have an addiction, he was never more than twenty feet away from an opiate. United States Attorney Robert Dillinger, was just another junkie.
“When is he coming?” Eddie asked, taking a long sip of water.
“A couple of days,” Robert answered. “Take a few days to enjoy your newfound freedom. Put your feet up. Have some drinks. Order up some more women. Mi casa es su casa.”
Eddie found that he was unnerved by the phrase “newfound freedom.” As far as he was concerned, his freedom had never been fully revoked, so it irked him that the old piece of shit thought that he’d done him some sort of favor by letting him shack up in his cabin. All he needed was a few days and he would no longer need to rely upon anyone’s patronage.
“Call me when doc gets here,” he shot back. He tilted the glass and drained its contents before walking back to the room where the girls had already been ushered out, and the room cleaned.
Sitting at an antique wooden desk along the west wall, he quickly penned a letter explaining his current situation and for operations to continue in Jamaica until further notice. He addressed it to a Clarence Garvey that lived in Jamaica, and the return address to a Ms. Carol Garvey that lived in Largo, MD.
He then pressed a buzzer along the wall and the Dillinger’s Congolese nanny, Irina, entered. Robert never went anywhere without her unless his wife specifically requested her services. He claimed that he’d “rescued” her from Central Africa during a publicity trip there and had used the threat of her former life as a way to keep her firmly under his thumb. However, because she was willing to put with being a servant to the pretentious politician and his family for the sake of her own well-being, Eddie respected her.
He placed the letter in an envelope and handed it to her. “Mail this for me?” he requested. She was the only person in the house that he would ask for anything.
She looked down at the envelope, back up at him, then studied his face before pulling the envelope out of his hand between her index and middle finger. Then, still without a word, she left the room.
He watched her leave before turning to admire the antique desk, one of the simple life pleasures in which he loved to indulge. He loved one-of-a-kind, rare and expensive finds. Cars, furniture, art, it didn’t matter. The only thing that mattered was that it was unique, interesting, and lavish.
An uncontrollable scowl spread across his face as his mind went to Larke once again. She’d tried to take all of this from him, his livelihood and independence, and he wanted her to understand exactly how upset he was about that.
He ran a fingernail over his bottom lip as he stared out the window at Aspen’s snow-capped mountains. The one thing he knew for certain was that if Gano couldn’t get the job done, he would take matters into his own hands. And he was pretty sure that Larke would definitely not want it to resort to that.
Chapter Nine
Doug walked into his office with a large mug of black coffee in his hand. In the leather recliner across the room, Tandi and Alisha were fast asleep, the book that Alisha had been reading to their daughter still perched on her lap. He walked over, brushed kisses over both their cheeks, and then flopped down in front of his computer. Wiggling the mouse, he cheered when the screen flipped on and displayed exactly what he’d been looking for: the private contact information for FBI Agent Lawrence Campbell.
Right before Desmond and Larke had boarded their flight, he’d called to go over the next step in their plan. Desmond had already been aware that the size of their circle of trust had significantly decreased when Doug told him about the notification he’d received from the US Attorney’s office, demanding for Larke’s homicide to be handed over to them. The only problem with that was, they’d made the request even before the phony story broke on the news about her dying in the bungalow fire. Someone in the office knew more than they should, and since he and Desmond had already concluded that Jarvis’ connections were most likely in high, influential places, at that point, Doug knew that not even his contacts in the FBI would be able to help them.
However, there was still a hand that they hadn’t played: Lawrence Campbell. Although there was no indication that Lawrence had ever had contact with his daughters since they were never mentioned in any of the information Doug found on the agent, Taina had at least tried to reach out to him. If Lawrence didn’t know that he had two children out in the world that had grown up without him, it would just have to be their job to tell him.
The only thing he had left to do was set up a private meeting between Larke, Desmond, and Lawrence, and all Larke and Desmond had to do was show up at the apartment where he’d be setting up the meeting.
“Dougie, you’re still at it?” Alisha asked, stretching her arms above her head with a yawn. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“Sure did,” he answered with a smile. “Could you do me a favor?”
She carefully rose to avoid waking the five-year old sprawled across the cushion, tossed a throw over her small body, and then walked over to Doug’s desk.
“Of course, babe. What do you need?”
“I need to get a message to that girl Taina’s father,” Doug explained. “All we’ll need is a few moments of his time. I’m going to make a call from this phone to the agency in Miami. Tell him that your name is Twila Bailey. If that doesn’t ring a bell for him, tell him that your mother’s name is Corina Bailey.”
Doug wrote down an address on a piece of paper then turned it towards her. “Once he agrees, like I know he will, give him this address and tell him to meet you there after you get off work tomorrow at six pm. Try to make it seem like you’ve been dying to meet him—”
“And that I’ve been looking for my father forever, but this is the first solid lead I’ve had,” Alisha finished.
“Exactly,” Doug affirmed as he picked up the phone. “Do you think you can do it?”
“Come on, Dougie,” she took the receiver from his hand, “I did improv for seven years, remember? This will be a walk in the park.”
Doug smiled and gave her a playful pat on the bottom. “And that’s why I love you.”
A message popped up on the computer screen and when Doug opened it, he grabbed a handful of his hair. “Scratch that, babe,” he recanted.
“What’s wrong?”
“They’re announcing Larke’s ‘murder’ this afternoon on the news.”
“But isn’t that a good thing? It’ll leave the case open longer.”
Doug shook his head. “It’s not a good thing if they’re saying that the man who killed her is her estranged husband, Desmond
Harding.”
Alisha put a hand over her mouth. “But they have no proof.”
“They can make their own proof.” Doug reclined in his chair. “But don’t worry. We can still do this. All we need to do is tell Agent Campbell that we have information that Desmond will be in the Miami area tomorrow. Same meeting time. Same meeting place.”
Her hand hovered over the phone. “But won’t he show up with police?”
“He will. But all we’ll need is for him to see Larke alive and well to prove that the entire story is a farce. Hopefully, after that, with the information we have on Taina and Twila, we can get him in our corner.”
*****
Desmond still hadn’t answered Larke’s question about how Doug had managed to get a picture of her that she’d vaguely remembered taking a few Halloweens ago. Had she known Doug and had also forgotten him? If that was the case, exactly how much of her memory was missing?
She’d planned to interrogate him while they were on the plane, but as the adrenaline rush abated from their run through the woods, she’d fallen into a coma like slumber and didn’t wake until Desmond stroked her cheek and announced that they’d arrived at Miami International.
Getting through the airport hadn’t been as complicated as she’d assumed it would be since she and Desmond had actually looked nearly identical to their fake passports. However, she’d still been virtually submerged in nervous sweat by the time they reached the luggage carousel. Thankfully, no one at the terminal seemed to notice.
Although she’d gone through the Miami airport many times in her life, this time was much different. There was no sense of freedom. Anyone who looked at her while they were on the phone, in her mind, was placing a call to the authorities. Any uniformed person, police or security guard, within ten feet of her was preparing to arrest her. She felt more like an enemy of the state instead of the innocent woman that everyone thought was killed in an unfortunate incident.
In Love and Rescue: When love is the perfect rescue... Page 14