by Lisa Gillis
“Momma, what are we having for supper?”
“Supper is a good idea. C’mon.” He nodded his chin to June and shot a smile to Zoë. “Let’s see if there is pizza in the freezer.”
Mariss didn’t even roll her eyes at pizza. Zombie-like, still carrying Zoë, she trailed behind him and June.
Possibly it was hitting her that their son was grown. And if their grown son wanted to whore for a few days, he had a right to do so without his mother ragging on him.
Still, Jack intended to make damn sure the junior understood some things. The main being as long as he was still living under their roof, he had certain obligations. As his thoughts replayed, he shuddered. Had he really just mentally come off with the ‘as long as you’re still living under my roof’ lecture?
His phone beeped with an email as he put the pizzas into the oven. Seeing it was from J.J., he figured something crazy had happened, such as Jack Junior had dropped his phone in the ocean and had now powered up his tablet.
Mariss had herded the girls down the hall to get them into dry clothes. So he read the message alone. And when the words blurred the screen, he caught himself with a hip on the countertop before rereading.
“Jack?”
At the sound of her voice, he realized he’d zoned out for more than a few minutes.
“What is it? J.J. called? She crossed the kitchen in record time, her gaze bouncing from his white knuckled clench on his cell to his face. “What’s going on!”
Reluctantly he relinquished the phone, using his thumb to turn the display on as he did so. Turning away, he stared outside at the way the evening sun refracted off the placid pool water and steeled himself for her reaction.
The signature of Tristan minus the middle name Jack, instead of J.J. or Jack Junior, silently validated the words of the message.
SENDER: [email protected]
SUBJECT: None
Mom and Dad
I love you both and I’m going to miss you. But I need a break. Not the kind of break the Destin house will fix. A real break to figure out where Tristan Loren son of Jack and Marissa Loren, grandson of Matt and Jules Loren ends and Tristan Loren me begins. I took some cash from the secret safe and will pay it back. PLEASE don’t worry. I promise to stay in touch.
Love, your son, Tristan
Chapter 4
Best Offers
FOR SALE 2,500 OBO
1998 Honda Shadow
850-910-5005 Tommy
“It rides smooth.” I tug the helmet from my head and fork my fingers through my hair in case it’s sticking up.
“Yeah. Vance pipes. Give it a power increase and make it Florida legal.”
I nod and try not to stare blankly. I understand he’s speaking of emissions control. But beyond that, my knowledge of motorcycles is of the dirt bikes my dad and I ride on the track behind our house. Street bikes are a whole different creature. Crossing my arms over my chest, I tap a finger on my chin while studying the older model motorcycle. “Will it make a road trip?”
“She may be old, but she’s like new. Barely driven. Just to the store up the road and back when we’re here on vacation.”
“Will you take $2,000 for her?”
Rubbing his knuckles over a scruffy gray beard, the man eyes me, and then the motorcycle, and then me again. “2,500 is a steal.”
“But your sign says ‘Or Best Offer.’”
“You really don’t know what you’re looking at, do you?”
Deciding it’s time to stop bluffing, I let my hands fall to my sides and blow a breath out. “I’ve got a dirt bike. But I don’t know much about street bikes. I’m just looking for an inexpensive ride. But I can tell this one is something special.”
“It’s special all right. This model is getting hard to find. Because of the style. Really different from others around the same time. She’ll be a classic one day.”
“Yeah. It’s a beauty.” Even I can see that. Twenty five hundred would leave me with less than a thousand remaining for a cross-country trip and starting my new life. But time is of the essence. My crazy mother is probably in the air right now. “2,200?” I up my offer, knowing its likely still an insult. But his sign, as I pointed out, does say best offer. And the three hundred dollar difference between the asking and the offer is that much longer I eat and don’t live under a bridge if I haven’t found a way of earning more money before it comes to that.
“What kind of road trip?”
“There’s a girl—”
“That’s what I thought. Handsome young lad like yourself. It’s always a girl. All right. Show me the money.”
I pay him and he explains some more about the bike and then asks, “You got a jacket, son?”
Dumfounded at the question, I glance at the summer sky. He shakes his head as if to say, ‘Damn youngsters’ and tells me to wait. When he returns, he has a jacket, which he rolls up and attaches to a rack on the back of the motorcycle. He also hands over a pair of gloves and the helmet.
“Happy trails, kid.”
Chapter 5
Safety Net
“How much money does he have?” Marissa breathed the words on a despondent breath as she lay curled into a ball on the bed. The ocean gusts whipped the curtains around as the breeze blew through one open door and out the other.
“Four or five thousand.” Jack sank down to sit next to her and squeezed her hand. She didn’t miss the glance passing between him and her father-in-law. Instinctively, she knew what it meant. J.J. probably hadn’t even taken that much. They were likely trying to reassure her he would be fine wherever he was.
Jack’s father had flown them down to the Destin beach house. The plane had touched down shortly after midnight. His mother had come along too and was looking after the girls. Neither Jack nor Marissa wanted to be separated from their other two children while their firstborn was missing. Jewelstone, the family recording studio had been left in the capable hands of one of their trusted producers.
Matt Loren replaced the stone, hiding the safe from sight, and closed the door as he came inside the bedroom. The safe was built into the outside wall away from the ocean side.
She had no idea why the Loren’s kept money here. Maybe in case they became caught up in a hurricane evacuation? She didn’t care right now. The ways of the rich and famous were still a mystery to her even after being married into the family for almost fifteen years.
Closing her eyes, she sent a prayer to the dark heavens beyond and clutched Jack’s hand like a lifeline. Not finding J.J. here at the family vacation house had taken her by surprise even with the cryptic email. When phone calls to their son continued to go unanswered, she could tell that Jack, who was continually trying to calm her with the mantra “he’s eighteen now”, began to worry. Still, a piece of her had been sure they’d find him here in bed, sound asleep, with a dead cell phone nearby.
“He knows he can’t do this—that it’s not safe for him.” Sitting up, she looked to Jack and her father-in-law.
“He’s fine, Mariss. He’ll show up in a few days, listen to us yell at him, and tell us he’s sorry. And then later, we’ll hear him telling Dusty it was worth the grief.”
Hugging her arms to her, she stood. After a moment, she moved to the french doors and pushed against the wind until they latched.
Turning back to Jack, she asked, “That’s really your take on this? That’s how you see it going down?”
Jack’s eyes shifted to his father who sent him a reassuring look before quietly slipping from the room. “Mariss, I know you’re worried. I’m worried too.
“How worried are you? Because if you’re going to feed me a bunch of bullshit platitudes and then sneak outside and call James, fine! I’ll shut up and leave you alone so you don’t waste any time and energy on me that needs to be spent on finding our son now! But if you seriously believe every stupid thing you’re saying—that we should just wait for him to call us or come home then…” Then I don’t know you, she wanted to screa
m but clamped her mouth closed and brought a hand to her aching throat.
“I’ve already called James.” Jack stood, but he made no move toward her. “He’s getting the account information we need to look up J.J.’s cell phone correspondence. If he did run off with some girl, or some other friends he met, then we can track him through his phone.” Now he moved to the glass and stared beyond into the dark with her. “Honey, I of all people know it’s not the same for him out there as it is the average kid.”
Jack’s childhood had been similar to J.J.’s only more so. Paranoia and bodyguards. Tracking chips in jewelry or clothing. Panic rooms and panic buttons in the family home.
“And I know with J.J., there’s extra to consider…”
What Jack didn’t say was front and foremost in her mind. The weirdo who had abducted her and threatened J.J. twelve years ago was now out on parole.
Her stalker turned kidnapper gave them no reason since his incarceration to believe he would carry out any of his earlier threats. However, just by existing, he was a reminder of how unpredictable and ugly the world could be. How meaningful the most un-meaningful of social connections could be.
“Mariss? It’s going to be okay.”
In that moment, she understood. He wasn’t saying it repeatedly to placate her. He was saying it to hear it himself.
Nodding, she stepped to him and dropped her forehead to his shoulder. Curling her arms to his waist, she whispered, “Yeah. It’s going to be okay.”
They checked on the girls, said their good nights to Jack’s parents, and wound up sitting on the top terrace, staring toward the dark ocean. Jack had rummaged up a pack of God-knows-how-old cigarettes from somewhere in the house. They chain-smoked them, sharing each one while huddled beneath a shared blanket. She couldn’t help wondering if her son had done this same thing in this same spot with the mystery girl.
“Do you think the breakup with Gabbi drove him to this?”
“No. Mariss, my honey. Life drove him to this. Everyone handles problems differently. This is how he’s handling his at this point in time.”
“That’s what I’m asking.” Annoyed because he’d simply turned her words vague instead of specific, seemingly just to disagree, she snapped at him. “If Gabbi is one of those problems?” She knew her son talked with Jack sometimes about girls, and usually she tried not to betray the trust he had in his dad by badgering Jack for details.
“Why do you want to pin this on Gabbi?” His tone seemed almost amused, and the inflection had her double scrutinizing the reasoning behind her thoughts as well as his reasons for being amused.
“I don’t know.” She blew out a dejected breath and angrily fiddled with her knotted hair when one strand pulled painfully against the weight of the rest. After working it loose, she reached for the cigarette.
Taking a long drag, she tried to remember the last time she’d smoked. At one time during her early years with Jack, weed had been a nightly ritual. A relaxing smoke right before bed. The rock star life. But she only found herself with a regular cigarette in her hand during an emotional crisis. And those times, she smoked alone, outside on the patio of their Dallas home.
When her brain was clear of mediocre diversions, it grappled with the larger than life truth she didn’t want to see, much less admit. “I smother him, don’t I?”
It was a reluctant whisper of guilt, and she thought the words were carried off by the wind until Jack’s arms pulled a little tighter on their blanket cocoon. “You’re a mother. It’s your job to smother.”
And it was his job to tell her when she went overboard with her mothering. They’d always paired as a good balance when it came to parenting. It made for a lot of fights. She and Jack had some screaming brawls over the kids. But what always came about was a compromise of sorts, which worked for whatever occasion.
The stars twinkled above, and unseen in the darkness the ocean swells crashed to the sand. She closed her eyes, possibly dozing for a half hour or so. The flick of the lighter roused her. Automatically, she reached for the cigarette after she felt the expansion of his chest when he inhaled and his arm dropped. Wordlessly, he handed it over.
“Did you ever do anything like this? Just take off like J.J.?” She put the filter to her lips.
“No. Meg was the rebel. She ran away once.”
At this, her spine straightened in excitement. “Maybe he’s at Meg’s! With Braxton!”
“I already called Meg. She’s going to grill Brax.” His answer was robotic, weary, almost defeated.
Only twelve hours had passed since they’d discovered him gone. Depending on his mode of transportation, she could hold out hope that he would show up at Jack’s sister’s house. But deep down, she knew he wouldn’t.
The first thing they’d seen upon entering this vacation house had been his bracelet on the table. She had immediately panicked anew to know J.J. couldn’t even be located with the emergency tracker tucked inside the jewelry. If he had been determined enough to leave that behind, he wouldn’t be going to Meg’s where he would be easily found.
It was heard of in their circles of parents who implanted the trackers in their children as a filling in a tooth, or slightly beneath the skin on the back of an arm. High profile parents who lived in fear of their children being kidnapped for ransom or political reasons.
After her own abduction, she and Jack had been paranoid enough to check into and discuss the feasibility of this sort of safety when it came to J.J., who at the time had been their only child. Even with advanced technology these days, the maximum battery life on the chips was a few years, creating a need for them to be changed out. Also, the implants were linked to cancer in lab studies. So of course, they hadn’t done it. As the years went by, and she grew used to the life, she looked back and felt almost silly for considering it.
Now, ridiculous or not, at least she would know where her child was.
He’s eighteen, Mariss. Eighteen. Only a few years younger than she and Jack had been when they met. And she hadn’t seen Matt or Jules inside that tour bus! Sooner or later, she was going to have to let him go enough to live his own life.
“Do you think we should just let him be? I mean, after we find him and know he’s safe? Just let him do his own thing?” It killed her to force out the words. Now that her initial panic was over—now that it had sunk in that J.J. had left, instead of J.J. was gone—she’d come full circle. She wholeheartedly trusted Jack to make the best decision.
“I don’t know, honey. Let’s find him first. Then figure the rest out.”
Chapter 6
Those V Words
VACANCY
“I’m just gonna pay cash.”
“Still, I need a driver’s license and credit card.”
I prop my elbows on the reception bar, and when I do, the action brings me closer to the red-hot babe working the night shift and currently giving me a hard time. The motel sign reflects in the window in a distracting way, but I maintain friendly eye contact while considering how best to proceed to get my way.
“I like your necklace.” I eye the dragon’s eye jewelry and purposefully let my eyes drift lower for a second. As if I can’t resist. She’s easy on the eyes, so the action is effortless. Until now, I’d kept my eyes above her chin out of politeness.
Meeting her gaze again, I shoot a ‘Storm Smile.’ That’s what my mom calls it. She always has some secret smile of her own when she says it, so I ask no questions when she does.
“Couldn’t you make an exception? I’m just going to sleep and leave early in the morning.”
“We have to have ID for our records.” Her attention roams beyond me, to the window, and when she can’t look me in the eye, I know she’s caving.
“But I just told you my name.” I flash another Storm Smile.
“Well… You’re not a criminal on the run, right?”
“Do I look like a criminal?” When she shakes her head, returning my smile, I let my arms fall while straightening to my fu
ll height. “Besides, if I were a criminal, I’d have broken into the room instead of checking in.”
“They’re not easy to break into,” she counters.
“Not for the average person. But if I were a criminal, I’d have the tools of the trade.”
As we carry on this silly conversation, she’s swiping the room card. After a last clack of fingernails against the keyboard on her desktop, she proffers the plastic with a smile and a flush.
“Enjoy your stay, Rusty. It was nice meeting you.”
Chapter 7
Hackers and Shackers
They were walking the beach at sunrise when James phoned. Releasing Mariss’ hand, Jack pulled the phone from his pocket and eagerly accepted the call. “Tell me something good, James.”
“I wish I could, Jack.” His friend and former bodyguard’s tone was apologetic. “Tristan’s phone isn’t on. So there’s no way to locate it. I got into your phone records. Tristan’s number hasn’t been used since yesterday at two p.m. There are a dozen incoming texts in queue. Last text delivered was routed through a tower a few miles from you. It’s from the number you gave me for Dusty.” James read, “Your Mom is seriously pissed. The last active call, incoming, forty-six minutes, from a number billed to Avery McKennon—routed through the same tower.”
When James paused, Jack looked to Mariss. “Avery McKennon? Do you know that name?”
“No. Why? Is that the girl?”
“It would possibly be a parent or guardian,” James intercepted, listening through the phone. “My guy ran a quick check. The age is forty-two. The number itself has a voicemail greeting which sounds a lot younger. That would be your girl. Brittany, the voicemail says. Working on the theory that she’s with him, I traced that phone.” James sighed. “The location is less than a mile from you now.”
“She’s still here?” Mariss halted her steps, and Jack also came to a stop.