by Rebecca Deel
He retrieved the tray and nodded toward the door, indicating she should go out ahead of him. “The restroom, of course.”
The meal in her stomach threatened to make an appearance. Another peep show, this time with Skyscraper joining the audience. She lifted her head, tilted her chin at what she hoped was a defiant angle. She had to stay healthy if she stood any chance of escaping these Neanderthals. She could handle it. No choice if she had a shot of returning to Brenna alive. Had Jon missed her?
Her eyes watered as she stepped out of the room. Ape man lounged against the wall, waiting, watching. Dana passed him without comment and walked down the hallway to the bathroom. She heard his footsteps echoing behind her.
She reached the bathroom, flipped on the light and walked inside, locked her jaw against begging again for them to leave her in there alone. Her cheeks burned. If Ape man and his companion got a thrill out of watching, she guessed she’d make their afternoon.
“Leave the door unlocked.” The door closed behind her with a soft snick.
She steeled herself for the leering gazes and lascivious grins and turned. She was alone. Her jaw dropped. Grateful, almost in tears, Dana hurried and completed her business in privacy for the first time in days.
The door opened as she dried her hands. Skyscraper indicated she should follow him. He gripped her arm and led her back to the room. “Lie down, Miss Cole.”
He didn’t say that, did he? “Excuse me?”
“Lie down. Now.”
His eyes chilled her. Whatever warmth she noticed earlier had now been replaced by a coldness that seeped into her bones. Had she been handed off to Skyscraper for his entertainment? “What if I refuse?” How lame was that? She couldn’t think of anything stronger than that?
He laughed, the sound unpleasant to her ears. “You’ll get hurt, Miss Cole. I’ll force you to comply.” An unpleasant grin curved his mouth. “I’m sure Reggie is more than willing to help if I need him. I don’t, but he’s been begging to get his hands on you. Refuse my request and I might walk away and let him have you.” The grin disappeared. “Choose. Now.”
What happened to no one being allowed to touch her? Dana fisted her hands. Could she find a way to hurt him? Sure, but she better make it good the first time. No second chances with this guy. If she couldn’t knock him out, Skyscraper might kill her for refusing him. Her resolve stiffened her spine. So be it. At least she would go down fighting.
Impatient, Skyscraper shoved her toward the cot. Dana steadied herself on the edge of the cot and sat. His eyes narrowed. “Last chance, Miss Cole. I will hurt you and enjoy every minute of it. There are many lessons in pain I can teach you.”
Dana looked around, desperate for anything to use as a weapon, but the Neanderthals had made sure nothing left in this room could be used against them. Not that she had much chance against two men this size, but she would give it all she had before Skyscraper or Ape man knocked her out or killed her.
Skyscraper reached into his pocket and pulled out a hypodermic needle. Dana’s eyes widened. She drew back as far as she could. “No.” She hated needles and she didn’t know what was in that hypo but it couldn’t be good. Every time she woke up after the drugs wore off, her brain felt like it was wrapped in three inches of cotton.
He slid his other hand into another pocket and hauled out a picture. “Look.”
She refused. Skyscraper grasped her hair in a painful grip and forced her head around. “Look at her, Miss Cole. Recognize this woman?”
Eyes watering from the pain, Dana glanced at the picture and froze. Brenna. She raised her gaze to the ice-blue eyes. “Leave her alone. She’s no good to you. She doesn’t know anything.”
“Maybe you told her about your activities. She can get me what I want.”
She shook her head. “I haven’t seen her in months. Please. Leave her alone.” Her gaze absorbed her sister’s smiling image. She recognized the publicity shot from the back of Brenna’s latest book. Tears welled in her eyes. Would she ever see her sister again?
“If you fight me, Miss Cole, I will kill you and take your sister as a replacement. Her fate is in your hands.”
Tears trickled down her cheeks. She couldn’t let these monsters at Brenna. She didn’t live in the real world. She buried herself in her books, lived through the characters who came to life on the page.
Dana bit down on her lower lip and sighed. She offered Skyscraper her arm without any comment or resistance. He uncapped the needle and plunged it into her muscle. She winced. Within minutes, her terror began to fade. Her brain slowed to snail speed. As her vision faded to black, Skyscraper laid her back on the cot.
CHAPTER FOUR
Eli shut the door on Tim’s cursing and returned to Dana’s apartment.
He found Brenna standing in the middle of her sister’s bedroom with her hands planted on her hips, frowning. “What is it? Find something?”
“Nothing is missing. All her clothes are on the hangers except for what she was wearing the day she disappeared.”
Eli eyed the closet. “You sure?”
“See for yourself.”
He moved closer and examined the contents of her closet. Skirts, blouses, dresses and pants all hung together in order of color and type. Only two empty hangers remained in the closet. From the looks of it, Dana was wearing a shirt and pants when she disappeared. “She was wearing a blue shirt and black pants?”
“That’s what it looks like to me. Knowing my sister, she was probably wearing black flats as well.”
Eli turned to stare at Brenna. “How can you tell that?”
Brenna nodded to the shoe rack hanging on the back of the closet. “Dana doesn’t wear heels. She says they hurt her feet.”
Sure enough, all the million pairs of shoes in different colors in the rack were flats. Obsessive, but practical. “What about her suitcases? Maybe she took jeans and t-shirts if she went on vacation.”
“If Dana went on vacation, she headed to a nudist camp. I already checked in her dresser. Nothing is missing in there either.” Brenna closed the closet door. “Did you learn anything from Tim that might help us?”
“He’s very territorial about Dana.”
Brenna frowned. “But he was only a neighbor, a friend. Dana told me he wanted to change their relationship to something more, but she turned him down, told him she didn’t feel that way about him.”
Any man or just Tim? For Jon’s sake, Eli hoped Dana’s negative feelings about men stopped at Tim’s door. “Wonder if she convinced Tim.” If she didn’t, maybe the bar manager took exception to her turning him down. Maybe he wanted to make her pay for the rejection.
“Dana didn’t mention problems with him after their talk.”
“When was this conversation with lover boy?”
“About a month ago, right around the time my latest book hit the shelves.”
Book? Dana hadn’t mentioned her sister was a writer. “What’s the title? Is it something I might have read?”
Brenna smiled. “Doubt it. The book is a Medieval romance, not something you’d notice at the bookstore unless you shop in the romance section.”
“Can’t say that’s on my reading list these days. I might pick up some copies for my mother and sisters.”
“If you want, I’ll sign them for you.”
“Great.” Eli followed Brenna back to the kitchen. He gathered the postcards and slid them into his pocket. “I think we’re finished here. I’ll go back to the office and show these to Jon. Maybe he can dig something up on the computer from these cards. He’s a top flight technogeek. I’ll call you if we get anything useful.”
“Forget it, Eli.” Brenna grabbed her bag and laptop. “You work for me, even if your rate of pay is about half a cent an hour. Where you go, I go.”
“Within reason, Brenna. If Jon or I feel the situation is too dangerous for you, you stay home or at the office. Deal?”
“We’re wasting time, super sleuth. Let’s go.”
; Eli rolled his eyes. “Smooth, Mason, real smooth. I’ll let that slide, for now. Don’t make me regret it.”
Jon’s fingers flew over the keyboard. The computer beeped at him, elicited a scowl from Jon. “Come on, you can do it, baby.”
A slamming door from the reception area clued him in to the return of his partner.
“Jon?”
“Yeah.” He coaxed the screen to change with a few more keystrokes. A satisfied grin curved his mouth. Oh, yeah. That’s what he wanted to see. Screen after screen of financial records flooded the working space. Jon saved the information in Sartelli’s file for later study and turned as Eli strode into the office with Brenna Mason two steps behind.
Eli slid colorful cards across his otherwise clean desk. “Take a look at these. Dana’s neighbor says she’s been sending one to him every day.”
He stiffened. Postcards. Jon scanned the picture on the front of each card. Ships, bikini babes, ocean scenes with the proverbial palm tree. If Dana had been sending one a day, he counted that she’d been gone for ten days. Maybe that was why she hadn’t returned his phone calls. He hoped that was the case. He should have followed up before this. She never ignored his phone calls. Same on his side, too. Not about to admit his heart skipped a beat whenever her name appeared on his cell screen. “Could have picked these up anywhere.”
“Neighbor Tim says she’s on a cruise to the Bahamas. Think you can find her?”
“She’s not on a ship,” Brenna said. “I told you that.”
Eli swiveled to face their client. “I remember, Brenna. But we have to prove she didn’t board a ship like Tim claims. To do that, we need to check the passenger manifests aboard the cruise ships headed to that area and check the hotel guest registry. Maybe Tim got the venue wrong. Maybe Dana flew.”
Brenna snorted. “With what money? She couldn’t even pay the rent on her own with the salary Sartelli paid her.”
Jaw clenched, Jon swung around and faced his computer screen again. With a few keystrokes, he tapped into his favorite search engine and called up the cruise lines that sailed in the waters of the Caribbean. Yeah, so he had random facts floating around in his head. He’d booked tickets for his mother and her best friend a few years back. The information stuck.
He sifted through the postcards, reading the inscriptions on the back of each. “This isn’t Dana’s handwriting.” His gut clenched. That didn’t bode well for his beautiful friend. He hoped he was wrong.
Eli frowned. “How did you know that? Brenna had to tell me that bit of information. Thought I finally picked up info you didn’t know first.”
Jon shrugged. “It’s not important.” He wasn’t going to tell either of them about the notes they had been sending to each other. Ever since Dana had agreed to be an informant for Eli, Jon had made it a point to stay in touch with the sad-eyed beauty. The pretense was to keep an eye on her. Sartelli was dangerous and Jon didn’t intend for an innocent woman to become a victim of their investigation. “How do you know she didn’t take a cruise, Miss Mason?”
Brenna placed her bag and laptop computer on the floor. “It’s Brenna. Dana was afraid of water. There is absolutely no way she would ever take a cruise.”
Jon tilted back in his chair, his elbows on the arms of his chair. “But someone wants us to think she did. Why?”
“Someone wants us to think she’s out of town.” Eli dropped into a chair in front of Jon’s desk. “He or she has gone to a lot of trouble to convince us Dana’s on vacation.”
“Doesn’t take much time to drop postcards in the mail,” Jon said.
“But check out the postmarks. They are all from Miami.”
“So he or she paid someone to drop these in the mail.”
Brenna looked from Jon to Eli and back again. “What does that mean?”
“Like you, I doubt very much that Dana is in the Bahamas or on a cruise ship in the Caribbean.” Jon rubbed his chin, bristles scratching his fingers. He’d forgotten to shave again. “She’s probably still in the Nashville area. For now.”
Brenna paled. “You think they will move her?”
Or worse. Jon hoped whoever had Dana hadn’t already killed her. He’d been trying to get in touch with her for days. He knew something was wrong. He should have physically checked on her before now. A ball of ice formed in his stomach. He didn’t want to lose her before he had a chance to know her as he’d dreamed.
Eli glanced at their client. “They have to, Brenna. If she’s still alive.”
Brenna dropped into the other chair. “No. I refuse to believe she’s dead. They’ve gone to a lot of trouble for this ruse. Why do all this to kill her?”
“Cover their tracks.” Jon swung back around to his computer. He clicked on the first cruise line and, using some back doors, hacked into the passenger manifests for the three ships sailing in or near the Bahamas. No Dana Cole listed on any of the ships.
He repeated the process for the next two cruise lines listed. Jon’s heart sped up on the sixth try. Fun Living Cruise line had a cruise liner the size of the Queen Mary sailing for Trinidad. Their passenger manifest listed Dana Cole in a single occupancy cabin. “Found her or who someone wants us to think is Dana.”
Eli and Brenna came around the desk and peered over his shoulder. “Can you tell if she’s on the boat or if someone is posing as her?”
Jon raised an eyebrow at his partner. “Give me a few minutes and I’ll get you a picture of her as she boarded the boat.”
“How?’ Brenna asked.
“Security camera.” Jon typed in a few more commands and a stream of video flowed on his screen.
Eli moved closer. “What’s that? Boarding?”
“Yeah.” Jon moved the mouse and clicked, speeding up the video stream. Passengers boarded the cruise liner at a lot faster clip than they did in real time. He checked the list of passengers’ boarding time against the video time. “Dana should be coming into view at 9:42 a.m., about two minutes from now.”
They all watched passengers stream by until the boarding time read 9:42. A woman stepped into view and handed the attendant her boarding pass which was scanned. Jon froze the screen and blew up the image. He already knew from the woman’s body language that it wasn’t Dana.
“Who is that?” Brenna’s voice revealed her fear.
“The woman who is sailing under Dana Cole’s name.”
“Is she still on the boat?” Eli asked.
Jon’s fingers danced over the keyboard again. He scrolled through information so fast it appeared a large blur. One of the nice benefits of having a photographic memory. He tapped into the real time security cameras and ran through the different images. One view of the passengers on the deck near the pool caught his attention. “Right there. Second lounge chair to the left of the pool.”
The buxom blond lay in full sun in a skimpy bikini, her face recognizable in the security camera.
“So she’s still on the boat.” Eli tilted his head. “We need to find out who this woman is, Jon. Can you email her picture to Fortress?”
“No problem.”
Brenna looked up from the image. “Fortress?”
“It’s a security firm run by friends of ours,” Jon said. “We contract with them for special jobs. They have connections and better equipment than we do.” His lips curled. “My boss is a cheapskate. We don’t have the best tech stuff.”
“Keep it up, partner, and I’ll have to cut your salary in half so we can afford all the toys you want.” Eli grinned at him.
“Right.” Jon turned his head and eyed Eli. “Half of nothing is still nothing and last time I checked the gadgets we need don’t come free.”
“I’ll use my charm and sharp wit. Maybe the Zoo Crew will feel sorry for us and toss a few goodies our way.”
“Dream on, Eli. Brent Maddox doesn’t think you’re as charming as you think yourself.”
“You wound me, man.”
Jon checked the payment records for Fake Dana. “She paid with a Di
scover Card.”
“Another indication Dana didn’t buy this vacation.” Brenna tapped the credit card information showing on the screen. “My sister doesn’t have any credit cards that I know of.”
“She might have gotten one without your knowledge, Brenna,” Jon murmured. “She is an adult and almost anybody can get a credit card, including dead people and dogs. People change.”
“Maybe. I don’t believe my sister has changed so much that she’s keeping these kinds of secrets.”
A few strokes of the key and a click of the mouse brought up Dana’s financial records. A quick scan revealed that she favored Publix grocery store and a local bookstore along with entries from Exxon, McDonald’s and Belk. All purchases were made with a Visa debit card.
Brenna gasped. “How did you pull that information up? Isn’t that illegal?”
Jon’s hands hovered over the keyboard. “Do you want me to stop?” He would stop while she remained in sight, but as soon as Brenna Mason left, all bets were off. He intended to locate Dana by any means necessary, legal or not.
She remained silent a moment, sighed. “No.”
He nodded and went back to work tracing Dana’s financial trail. The last entry was Thursday, two weeks ago. She paid for dinner at Red Lobster at 9:05 and the trail went cold from there. Jon analyzed her purchase pattern. Dana never went more than three days without some kind of entry.
“What do you know, Jon?” Eli asked.
“Dana’s last purchase was at Red Lobster on Thursday two weeks ago. No cash advances. No credit cards.” He glanced at Eli. “She dropped off the map with very little cash.” Jon gritted his teeth. He had a horrible suspicion Dana was in trouble.
“What do we do now?” Brenna leaned back against the desk and ran her hands through her hair.
Eli checked his watch. Seven o’clock in the evening. “Not much we can do tonight, Brenna. The place to start tomorrow is Sartelli Construction. Right now, everybody’s gone home for the night.” He glanced at Jon. “You up for a little surveillance?”