The Complete Langley Park Series (Books 1-5)

by Krista Sandor

  They opted to forgo the shackles and sex toys, but they did take advantage of the mirrors. And when they’d taken a moment to look around the cottage, they’d found those suckers were everywhere.

  She’d never thought of herself as a voyeur, but watching Sam thrust and pump into her was mesmerizing. It was almost too much to take, seeing him manipulate her body, watching him guide her up and down his hard shaft as she held on to the stripper pole. The erotic quality. The desire to give in to their most wanton needs and watch him lose control, his fingers pressing into her flesh as he found his release, made her body ache for more.

  “Hello, wife,” he whispered, pulling her in closer.

  “Husband.” The word tasted as sweet as sugar and sunshine.

  He turned her body, and her back rested against his broad chest. His hand skimmed her stomach then moved lower to cup her sex. He made warm, lazy strokes against her sweet spot. She grew wet, her body tingling with anticipation as his hard length pressed past her entrance.

  Under the covers, there were no mirrors. This sex was different. Before, their bodies had been keyed up, starving for contact, like an addict needing another hit. But now, as he moved inside her in a slow, sensual rhythm, this lovemaking spoke of rainy days and warm baths. It was the hidden, comfortable place where you found perfect peace.

  The scratch of his scruff sent shivers down her spine as he kissed her neck. His breath grew heated against her skin. She swiveled her hips, rising higher and higher, his cock filling her, stretching her in slow, measured strokes as his hand worked her, knowing just the rhythm she needed to find release. In a tangle of sighs and moans, they came together in the darkness. Two bodies always meant to be one.

  “You’re making this hard,” she breathed.

  “I’ll show you hard.” He kissed the sensitive skin behind her ear.

  “No,” she laughed on a sigh. “You’re making it hard for me to get out of bed.”

  “Why would you need to get out of bed?” he asked, his hand cradling her breast, his thumb rubbing gentle circles over her tight nipple.

  “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

  He stilled. “What’s going on, Z?”

  She tensed in his arms. “I wanted to take a look around…outside.”

  “Did you want to try and get a look at the detention facility?”

  She nodded. “The boundary isn’t far from where we are. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “You were going to sneak out and leave me here?”

  She turned in his arms. “Am I the most insensitive wife? At least I’m not leaving you for that glass dildo.”

  He chuckled. “No, you’re not insensitive, and I’m positive I can make you come faster than that hunk of glass. So, I’m not too worried about you running off.”

  She pressed a kiss to his cheek. “True.”

  He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Z, you’re caring and driven. I’ve always loved that about you. But here’s the thing. We’re a team. You don’t need to sneak out into the night alone. We do this together.”

  “You wouldn’t mind running around in a field, hiding in the shadows at two in the morning just to get a look at a girls’ juvenile detention facility?”

  He stroked her cheek. “I sang nineties a cappella pop then married you in my underwear. I think we’ve established that there’s not much I wouldn’t do for you.”

  She came up onto her knees and flicked on the lamp. Bathed in the warm light, Sam’s hair glowed in shades of red and dark auburn. She ran a finger down his cheek and was just about to get out of bed when her gaze fell to his forearm. “Are those all Z’s?”

  He sat up and traced a few with his index finger. “Yeah.”

  “How did I not notice this?” she said, twisting his arm then froze. “Are they for me?”

  “Everything’s for you, Zoe. After Kara died, I moved around a lot. But I always made sure to get inked to take a piece of wherever I was with me. A few months after her death, I was out walking the streets in Calgary when a girl went past me wearing combat boots like you used to wear. I found the closest tattoo parlor and asked to have a Z and a boot incorporated into the design. I was so damn lonely. I missed you so much.”

  “That is my boot,” she said, taking a closer look.

  “I saw you everywhere. It was my way of keeping you with me even though I couldn’t have you.”

  This man.

  She’d thought it had been so easy for him to keep her at arm’s length. It turns out, she’d been tattooed all over him for over a decade.

  She blinked back tears and cupped his cheek. “Are you going to get one for our wedding?”

  “Of course! I was thinking our rings and maybe a snake twisted through them.”

  She gasped. “No snakes, Sam! I mean it.”

  He smiled. “All right, my intrepid reporter, no snakes. Now, what’s on the agenda for tonight?”

  She reached down and picked up her fleece jacket and dug inside the pocket. “This.” She held out a piece of paper. “It’s a basic sketch of the farm and the detention center. We’re here. The satellite picture I got off the internet shows a couple of smaller buildings and what I think might be a greenhouse.”

  Sam nodded. “We hiked around quite a bit today. There’s a pretty big greenhouse and a few smaller buildings. The trails don’t make a lot of sense though. I know this is supposed to be a working farm, but maybe it’s all for show.”

  “Why do you say that?” she asked.

  He leaned in and looked at the paper. “I don’t know a lot about farming, but the sunflowers and the corn looked pretty picked over.”

  “Bugs? Birds?” she offered. She knew as much about farming as she did astrophysics.

  “I don’t know. And for this time of year, you’d think it would be harvested by now.”

  “Could it all be for the ambiance of a farmhouse retreat?”

  He nodded. “Sure, I mean, look at all the corn mazes you can do in Kansas. That all seems to be for show. I don’t think they harvest any of that corn—at least, not for people to eat.”

  She tapped her chin. “The facility on the Virginia border was near a farm, too. I didn’t pay much attention to it back then though.”

  He crossed his arms. “I’m guessing these detention facilities are probably pretty remote. You know how people get. Nobody wants a prison next to their kid’s school even if it is for teens.”

  “Yeah, that makes sense, and they can boost the economy of small towns. That’s what also got me in trouble back when I was at Zipline Media. Congressmen don’t like talk of shutting down an easy moneymaker for their constituents.”

  “Easy moneymaker?” he asked.

  “Yeah, they can charge a fortune to lock kids up. They’re privately operated, so they barely have to report anything. And it’s big business. The top contractors can rake in millions a year in salary.”

  Sam frowned. “That sounds like a recipe for disaster.”

  “It is. If I want to make a real change and help these girls, I need to be smart this time.”

  “What do you want to do tonight?”

  The excitement of an investigation buzzed through her. “I want to get a look at the fence dividing the properties. I want to see if we can look inside the building.”

  “Aren’t we too far away?”

  “We’ll be up on higher ground—not by much—but I thought it might give us a better shot at looking in.”

  “Okay, sounds like a plan,” he said, reaching for their clothes when the twisted ring of paper fell from her yoga pants. “What’s this, Z?” he asked, holding it out.

  She took the paper and gently untwisted it. “I don’t know. I found it today. It reminded me of a bracelet. Look, somebody wrote LANEY.”

  “Where do you think it came from? Someone at the retreat?”

  “No, I don’t think so. It’s eight grand a person to come here. I doubt any woman who attends this kind of high-end shindig wears jewelry made out of
toilet paper.”

  Sam’s eyes went wide. “Eight thousand dollars?”

  “Yeah, finding your marital juju isn’t cheap.”

  “Did KPR pay for this?”

  “No, I used some of the money my grandparents left me years ago when they passed.”

  “Zoe!”

  “Sam, this is important to me.”

  He took her hands. “I know. I get it. I was just surprised. Bud and Harmony are raking it in.”

  She nodded. A beat passed before she met his gaze. “Something is going on at this detention center, Sam. I feel it in my gut.”

  He squeezed her hands. “Then one way or another, we’re going to figure it out.”

  “Thank you, Sam. Thank you for getting me. Thank you for not telling me I’m crazy or on some wild-goose chase.”

  That easy smile stretched across his lips. “Z, I love you. I’m your husband. Whatever battle you’re fighting, it’s my battle, too.”

  They dressed and took one last look at the map when she pulled her phone out of the other pocket of the fleece.

  “I thought we had to turn in our phones?”

  “That was just a burner phone. I added a few apps to it to make it look like I used it, but I wanted to have my phone with me in case I needed to document something. I told you, Sam, I need to get real evidence if I want people to believe me—especially after what happened when I was with Zipline Media. If I screw this up again, I’m just some quack reporter with a personal vendetta against these places. I look like the bad guy.”

  “Understood. Let’s go.”

  She opened the door, and a rush of cool air and the eerie sound of the breeze rustling through the fields met them in a veil of darkness. A sliver of moon provided a dim source of light, but she’d forgotten how dark it could get in the middle of nowhere. A creature rustled past them on the path, something limp hanging from its jaw, and she froze.

  Sam reached for her hand. “It’s just a fox. He’s more interested in that squirrel than you.”

  She squeezed his hand. “I’ve got the flashlight on my phone. I could turn it on, but I didn’t want to draw any attention to us.”

  “That’s smart,” he said, angling his watch toward the moonlight. “But if we want to keep heading east, we’ll need to cut through this sunflower field.”

  “Do you have a compass on that thing?”

  “Yeah, when I’m not running Park Tavern, I’m a man of mystery and espionage. The compass comes in handy,” he said, his teasing tone easing her mind as he led her between the tall stalks.

  She’d never liked sunflowers, and there wasn’t anything much creepier than the wilting plant at night. Like heads too heavy for their necks to support, the flowers bent over like row upon row of dying candy canes. They walked in silence, the crunch of their feet on the earth a haunting soundtrack to an already spooky place.

  “How far do you think we need to go?” he asked after they’d been walking a good fifteen minutes.

  “A mile. Maybe a little more.”

  “We should be getting close then,” he said, holding a large, drooping stalk out of the way when a mechanical humming sound caught her attention.

  “What is that?” she asked.

  Sam shook his head. “An alarm?”

  “Could we have tripped something? Maybe an alarm to keep animals out of the fields?”

  “It’s coming from ahead of us.”

  She took a few steps forward. “From the detention facility?”

  “I think so.”

  They continued, the sound growing louder.

  “STOP!” called a voice in the distance.

  They crouched down, and Sam drew her in close.

  He peered between the stocks. “I don’t think that’s meant for us.”

  “Come on! We’ve got to be close to the fence,” she whispered, edging forward.

  “I see her! I see her!” came another deep male voice.

  “Grab her!”

  In the darkness, tight heaving sobs weaved with shaky breaths grew closer.

  Zoe increased her pace, nearly running toward the sound.

  Whoever was out there was trying to escape.

  “No, please, no!” came a weak, winded cry.

  Zoe moved to lunge forward, but Sam grabbed her by the waist and pulled her between the stalks. “Zoe, stay back!”

  They’d made it to the fence—a wiry monstrosity with barbed wire laid out in long spirals along the top.

  The situation unfolded before them as two flashlights bobbed not far from a teen, running in her bare feet. The girl looked back and forth in wild movements as if she was expecting part of the fence to disappear. Within seconds, guards descended on her, knocking her to the ground. As she fell, she threw something over the fence, but the guards didn’t seem to notice. One laughed as the other used a taser on the teen. Her body went rigid as the sickening crack of electricity buzzed the air.

  Zoe lunged forward but, again, Sam held her back. “We can’t help her, Z. They’ll think we were in on her escape attempt.”

  She gritted her teeth. Dammit, he was right. But she wanted to tear those asshole guards apart with her bare hands. Two full-grown men armed with tasers against a slight, barefoot teen. What kind of monster got off hurting children? But just as the question passed through her mind, she knew the answer. Plenty of men got their kicks this way. Her job was to be smarter than these knob jockeys and make them pay. She took out her phone and switched on the recorder. She’d missed the taser, but she’d get what she could.

  The girl twisted on the ground as one of the guards pulled her up. For a split second, the teen looked through the fence and met Zoe’s gaze in the darkness.

  Zoe put her hand up and mouthed, “It’s okay.” She couldn’t think of what else to say in that tiny slice of time before the guards dragged her away.

  “Jesus, Sam,” she breathed, leaning into him in the darkness.

  “I know. Should we call the police?”

  She shook her head. “What would we tell them? A girl tried to escape, and the guards stopped her?” She paused. “But I did see her throw something.”

  “I saw that, too. A baggie? Do you think it could be drugs?”

  She released a slow breath, trying to calm her nerves. “I don’t know. Let’s try to find whatever it was.”

  They moved slowly, hands patting the dirt. She’d nearly told Sam they’d come back at daybreak when her hand brushed over plastic.

  “I’ve got it,” she whispered, coming to her feet.

  “What’s inside?”

  She opened the bag. “A rock,” she answered, running her finger over the smooth, cool surface.

  “That’s it?”

  She stared at it. “Yeah.”

  “What the hell? Why would the poor kid throw a rock over the fence?” he asked.

  “Feel around. Maybe something else fell out. There must be more.”

  She dropped to her knees with Sam doing the same a few feet away, but they couldn’t find anything.

  Sam came to his feet. “Let’s take it back to the cabin. Maybe something is written on the bag that we can’t see in the dark. We can always come back in the morning, Z,” he said, offering her his hand.

  She pulled out her phone. “No, I need to see it now.”

  Sam looked around. “Let’s get a little farther from the fence. We don’t want to take any chances.”

  Adrenaline still pumping through her veins, she released a slow breath and nodded. They walked until they reached the edge of the field and the tiny cottage came into view.

  Sam looked around. “Okay, we should be far enough away.”

  Zoe tapped her phone, and the screen came to life. She squinted as her eyes adjusted to the light then gasped.

  “What is it, Z?”

  “Hold this.” She handed him the baggie.

  “Z, tell me!”

  Zoe held the stone under the light. “It can’t be.”

  “It can’t be what?
Z, you’re freaking me out here.”

  She angled the stone into the light for him to see. “Look, there are numbers written in pencil along the surface.”

  Sam’s gaze danced between her and the stone. “Okay, but why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?”

  “These numbers.”

  “What about them?” he asked.

  “It’s a phone number.”

  “How do you know that, Z?”

  Her pulse kicked up as the hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention. “I know this number.”

  He touched the stone. “What is it?”

  She met his gaze. “It’s the main phone line for Kansas Public Radio.”

  16

  Sam shook his head and glanced down at the glass dildo. They’d made it to the last day of the retreat and, Jesus, look how far they’d come in only a couple of days! From two people hanging on to a taxed friendship by a thread, to loving husband and wife.

  Zoe Stein was his wife.

  While this seemed almost unreal, he could barely remember what life was like before he had her next to him in bed, cuddled in close, his wife drifting off to sleep in his arms.

  She placed a bag of toiletries into her suitcase. “What is it?”

  He held up the giant glass dildo. “We don’t want to forget this.”

  Zoe zipped her suitcase and smiled. “Not everyone gets married holding a giant, glass penis. A tradition I’m sure we’ll be passing down for generations. Here, hand it to me. I’ve got some room for it in my purse slash Mary Poppins bag of wonders.”

  They’d completed the Intimacy Now retreat, and it was time to leave. After their night in the cottage witnessing the attempted escape from the detention facility, they’d done their best to get back to that spot in the field. But between couples Twister and other equally bizarre intimacy building activities, it wasn’t easy to find a reason to leave the group.

  Luckily, they had found one opportunity to get close to the fence during the day. Yesterday, Zoe had professed her need to connect with her husband alone amidst the sunflowers, and it actually worked. Bud and Harmony had allowed them to skip the spirit animal seminar, and they’d spent a few hours scouring the field in hopes of finding something else. Something that could explain why the phone number for KPR had been written on a rock thrown by a girl locked inside a juvenile detention center.