“How do you know all that?”
“I did a little research on the computer last night.”
Jace smiled.
“You’re pretty smart for a girl.”
Cassandra threw a French fry at him.
“Jerk!”
They laughed together, but soon the laughter turned to silence, and when it seemed to become uncomfortable, Cassandra spoke up.
“Um, maybe I should give Kelly a call and see how she’s doing.”
“Yeah, and if the squirt is done checking her end of the marina, tell her to drive over here and we’ll move up the coast and look some more.”
***
When Cassandra’s call came, Kelly had just finished eating her own lunch outside and was carrying a tray with her empty wrappers and soda cup to a garbage can.
Instead of taking the time to dump the trash first, she fumbled her phone out of her pocket. As she was bringing it up to answer, the tray slipped, and when she reflexively went to grab it, the trash atop it tumbled into the garbage can along with her phone.
“Oh no...”
Kelly sat the tray on the stack piled atop the lid of the garbage can and reached in for her phone, what her hand found instead was something wet and sticky.
“Eeew,”
She wiped the remnants of a chocolate shake off on her shorts and tried again.
This time she felt the phone, but when she tried to pull it up, it slipped down farther into the can.
“Goddamnit,”
The phone was a cheap throwaway that she was using just for the job, but it irked her that she lost it by being careless and she also needed to know what that call was, and whether or not she was needed somewhere.
Determined to retrieve it, she unloaded the stack of trays, removed the top, and leaned over until her hand could almost touch the bottom.
Where did it go?
“Hey.”
The voice startled her, as it came from directly behind.
Kelly pulled herself from out of the can and turned around. Standing before her was a man with long blond hair tied back in a ponytail, and when he smiled, his teeth were brilliant.
“You don’t have to eat out of the garbage, come hang down on my boat with me and my friends and we’ll feed you.”
Kelly sent the man a shy smile.
“Thanks, but can I bring my friends along? They’re out looking for food too,”
“The more the merrier,” the man said, and Kelly was surprised at how much he matched the sketch that Cole had made of him.
“What’s your name?” Kelly said.
The man hesitated for only an instant, and then beamed the smile again.
“I’m Chip, call me Chip,”
Kelly smiled back, they had been looking for Sonny/Junior, and in the end, he found them.
CHAPTER 21
The first thing Angie Ward became aware of as she regained consciousness was the sun beating down on her back, next, she felt the gentle swaying of the boat, smelled the salt water, and after opening her eyes, she became aware of the deck beneath her.
When she lifted her head, she saw that she was on a sailboat, realized that it had twin motors, but that the motors weren’t running and the sails were down. There was just the gentle lapping of the water.
It was her habit to sleep in the nude, and nude she still was, but for the life of her, she couldn’t figure out how she got on the damn boat in the first place.
It wasn’t until she turned her head and saw the man watching her from the bow of the boat that she remembered.
She had been taken.
“What’s going on?”
“Boone. Where can I find him?”
“What?”
“Boone.”
Fear gripped her heart even as anger filled her mind. Boone saw this coming, knew that there was a chance, however slight, that someone else would come along looking for revenge, or more likely, for the money they’d stolen.
Well shit, it wasn’t the first time she’d been caught running a con, and it wouldn’t be the last. Angie stifled the anger, pushed down the fear, and began assessing the man before her.
This one is a yummy specimen, but look at those eyes. I don’t think I like those eyes.
“Boone.” the man said again, and Angie got to her feet and smiled, because despite the look in those eyes, the man was just a man, and even a man like Boone wanted her.
Angie gestured at herself.
“You could have at least grabbed my robe.”
“Tell me where I can find Boone.”
“You wanted me naked for a reason, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
Angie smiled and moved closer to the man.
“I bet I can guess what that reason is.”
“If you could, you wouldn’t be smiling.”
Her grin faltered at those words, but was soon back with greater wattage, and Angie wrapped her arms around the man’s waist.
“This seems like a good size boat, is there a bed below?”
“There is.”
“Take me there, and later, I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
“You’ll tell me now. Boone, where can I find him?”
Angie raised her head to kiss him.
“Oh baby, we can talk later.”
When she felt the hand brush against her breasts she thought she had him, but when that same hand gripped her throat much the way Boone had done the night before, she knew she was in trouble.
The man stood, still holding her by the neck and dangled her at arm’s length, before releasing her to sprawl atop the deck.
Angie came down hard on her right knee and looked up at him with venom in her eyes.
“You fucking asshole, that hurt!”
“Tell me where to find Boone. Tell me now, or things get worse.”
Angie bit back the anger once more and continued to work with the only thing that had never failed her, her sex appeal.
She pulled herself into a sitting position, with her knees bent before her, knowing that it gave the man a perfect view of the area between her legs.
She gazed up at the man with a little girl pout on her face, and spoke in a voice that matched it.
“Why do you have to be so mean? I just wanted to make you happy, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to make you happy.”
The man’s eyes never left her face.
“Boone.”
Angie licked her lips.
“I want you so much.”
The man sighed as he continued to stare.
“Would you like to know the reason you’re naked?”
She opened her mouth to utter yet another invitation for sex, but curiosity got the better of her.
“Why?”
“Because it will fit perfectly with the pile of clothes and empty vodka bottle left on the beach. The police will assume that you went there in despair over something, stripped naked, and walked into the surf, of course, the typed suicide note I left in your motel room will cinch it.”
Angie said nothing; instead, she took a good look at her surroundings.
She realized that she was in a boat of course, but until that moment, she hadn’t taken note of just how far out into the ocean they were. There was no land to be seen, or even other boats, just water, and although she was a good swimmer, she doubted she could make it to shore, wherever that was.
She swallowed a hard lump of fear as she felt her heart rate double in an instant.
The man smiled.
“Boone.”
“Can’t you say anything else, damn it?”
“Where is he?”
“You won’t kill me. Why would you kill me? Is this really about that old fuck Herbert Dyer? First Johnny, and now you, what the hell is so important about that old fart.”
“He wants his money back.”
Angie released a sigh of relief.
“Oh, okay, take us back and I’ll get you the money.”
“You have that
much?”
“I do.”
“That will make your next of kin very happy.”
“Hey, don’t kid like that. Dyer wants his money back and I’ll give it to you, no problem, right?”
“Wrong.”
“But why?”
“Dyer wants his money back. I want Boone.”
Angie looked into the man’s intense eyes and saw not a trace of warmth, but she had one more card to play.
She axed the sex kitten pose, and instead, hugged herself as if she were freezing, and while it took longer than usual to muster them, tears welled up and slid down her cheeks in great dollops of misery, as she gazed up at the man with a face filled with fear.
“If I told you where he was... he’d kill me, or worse, he can do worse.”
The man broke eye contact and stared down at the deck.
Angie let the briefest of smiles cross her lips before pouring it on even more, as her shoulders shook, and the wet sound of sobbing filled the air.
The man waved her towards him.
“Come here.”
Angie stood, and it took effort not to smile. He would take her in his arms to comfort her, and once he felt her nakedness so close to him, so ripe, so available, he’d be lost.
She went to him, and he brushed away her tears with the back of his hand and stared into her eyes.
“Boone!”
She lunged at him, her hands bent into claws, intending to gouge out his eyes, but once again, the hand closed around her throat, lifted her up, and dropped her.
However, this time, only water awaited her.
She had been so busy gasping for a breath within the vise-like grip choking her that when she hit the water, she breathed some in, and surfaced in a sputtering fit of coughing. When the spasms subsided, she found that the boat had drifted twenty feet away, and that the man sat near the twin outboard motors
“Boone,” the man said. “Boone.”
Angie swam for the boat as fast as she could, but the motors roared to life and the boat moved away. The next time the man spoke, he had to shout to be heard.
“Boone!”
“I don’t know where he is goddamn you.”
“Then die,” the man said, and the boat sped away.
CHAPTER 22
Cassandra was becoming worried about Kelly when she spotted her walking down the pier beside a man who appeared to be Sonny.
“Son of a bitch, she found him,” Jace said.
Cassandra took his hand.
“Remember, we’re supposed to be a couple,”
“In that case,” Jace said, as he let go of her hand and wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
When Cassandra felt a thrill past through her from the closeness, she silently chastised herself for acting like a schoolgirl.
When Kelly was thirty feet away, she increased her pace, and ran up to them with a skipping motion, such as an excited young girl might do.
Jace was impressed. Kelly looking young was one thing, but Kelly had the mannerisms and facial expressions of a teen girl down pat. She was suddenly a little girl in the budding body of a woman. Lawson had chosen well, if the guy walking up to them was a molester of teens, he’d be more than likely to attack Kelly, and once he did, he’d seal his fate.
“Cassie, Jace, I made a new friend. This is Chip, and Chip says he has a big boat we can hang out at.”
Cassandra sent Chip a huge grin.
“Really?”
“Absolutely,” Chip said. “Me and a couple of friends of mine just tied up down on the far end of the pier. We got food, booze, everything, and we were hoping to find some people to party with.”
Jace laughed.
“Where do I sign up?”
Chip stared at him, and Jace knew he was taking inventory. Jace was in shape, well trained, and deadly in the use of a variety of weapons, but he was young, not massively muscled, and so he seldom intimidated anyone by his appearance alone.
When Chip finished his assessment, Jace knew he had taken him for just another young drifter without a clue.
With Cassandra, the eyes lingered longer, for while she didn’t come off as young as Kelly did, she would still go unnoticed in a group of high school seniors. Jace saw just a glint of interest flash through Chip’s eyes before he once again placed them on Kelly.
They walked with Chip to his boat, which was tied up in a slip Kelly had checked earlier and found empty. Had she not stopped for lunch and lost her phone, they might not have checked the area again for days.
They strode along two abreast, with Jace and Cassandra following Chip and Kelly. Jace and Cassandra held hands as they walked together, while Kelly bounced along at Chip’s side and asked him questions about his boat.
When he mentioned that his friends were named Noah and Grace, any doubts that they had found the right man disappeared.
When they reached the boat, Jace and Cassandra both opened their mouths in surprise. They had expected a big boat, but they hadn’t expected it to be new, shiny, and worth more than most homes.
The boat was a 46-foot Sense, a luxury craft. Whoever “Chip/Sonny/Junior really was, he had money.
Noah and Grace were up top polishing the chrome and both flashed predatory smiles when they caught sight of Kelly.
Autumn and Cole had both described Grace as beautiful, but Jace thought she was exotic as well. When they were introduced by Chip, Grace greeted him with a kiss on the cheek, while Noah moved up close to Cassandra.
Noah was young, but several years older than Grace and looked to be close to twenty-five. He was two inches taller than Jace, and carried about twenty more pounds of muscle.
When they prepared for the mission on the plane ride down, Jace, Cassandra, and Kelly, reluctantly decided to leave their weapons behind,
They assumed that at some point their purses, and Jace’s backpack might be searched, and if a gun were discovered, it would not only be used against them, but might also raise suspicion and cause Chip to flee.
Besides, they expected to be spending most of their time in swimwear, which gave them no place to hide a gun.
They left Grace and Noah to their work and Chip showed them below decks for a tour.
The word spacious leapt into Jace’s mind. He had been on several boats over the years and they always seemed cramped to him, but not this one. There were two cabins and surprisingly, two bathrooms.
The main cabin had a queen-size bed. That was Chip’s space, while the other cabin was used by Noah and Grace.
As they stood in the huge galley, Chip told the three of them that they could crash wherever they could find the space. The bench seats in the galley looked thick with padding, and there was more room up top.
Noah and Grace came down declaring that they had finished polishing the brass work and were ready to party, and then disappeared into a bathroom together to shower.
They followed Chip back up on deck and talked, giving him their fake histories as runaways and saying that they had come across Kelly just a week ago and the three of them had been hanging together ever since.
Kelly shed real tears as she told about her physically abusive stepfather, and Jace wondered if any of the story was true.
Grace and Noah reappeared looking fresh and brought out liquor and beer, while they both popped green colored pills in their mouths.
Jace couldn’t help but stare at Grace, as the white bikini she wore had about as much material as a handkerchief and her mocha-colored skin glistened with lotion.
As the others sat in chairs, Kelly sat atop the deck in front of them and smiled and laughed at Chip’s jokes.
Playing the girlfriend, Cassandra was leaning back in Jace’s arms, and marveling how right it felt to be held by him.
When Grace asked them how they met, they gave their prearranged fictitious account, and afterwards, smiled and kissed.
As the others moved on to a different subject, Cassandra tilted her head back, locked eyes with Jace, and whispered.
“Hell yeah,”
“It could use some practice though,”
Jace frowned at that, and turned his attention back on the others.
Cassandra did so as well, even remarking about something that Noah said, but as she did so, she was replaying the kiss over in her mind, while looking forward to the next one.
CHAPTER 23
After leaving Angie alone in the water, he headed the boat eastward for half an hour, before turning back to find her.
When he checked the coordinates, he saw that she had moved only a short distance from where he’d thrown her in.
This told him that she wasn’t taking him seriously. Had she been in genuine fear for her life, she would have chosen a direction and swam with all she had, instead, she had treaded water and waited for his return.
She still believed that dying was something that other people did, not her. She was the young, blonde femme fatale who had been admired for her beauty since birth and had used her substantial physical charms to walk through life on her own terms, while wreaking havoc and playing games for money, and likely, just for the hell of it.
When she pushed Jack Beck overboard, it meant less to her than brushing a crumb off a table.
The men she seduced and fleeced weren’t real to her, they were just others, objects, only she was real, and the world was her world.
Angie smiled up at him as he neared her.
“I knew you wouldn’t leave me here, now stop playing and throw me a line.”
“Boone. Where can I find him?”
“Stop playing games, I’m getting tired, and besides, I told you, I don’t know where he is.”
He stared at her for several seconds before restarting the engines and taking off again, as her pleading cries for help grew fainter.
She needed more time.
He went back to the same position he had been before, and after shutting down the engines, he reached into a cooler and removed his lunch. After eating, he used the satellite phone he had aboard to call the house and speak with Jessica.
“How is it going?”
“About as I expected.”
The TAKEN! Series - Books 13-16 (Taken! Box Set Book 4) Page 41