All the Way (16 page)

Chapter 18

Jake made his way back to Charlotte under the elaborate ruse of investigating the Charlotte school system. Like a lot of systems in the country, there was much turmoil about its running, but it was in a particular mess. The voucher system was set to begin, and local opposition groups were still fighting it in court. A swarm of entry-level reporters had come to town to cover it, but a few national papers were on it too. He slipped into town quietly but wasn't foolish enough to think eyes weren't on him—or soon would be.

Returning was dangerous, but he'd been out of touch with Adriano for too long. If they didn't make contact by the tenth day, Adriano would activate their long-standing contingency plan and go deep underground. The last time this had happened, it had taken Jake over a month to ferret him out of hiding.

Things were coming together on the case, but there was still more to find out. Jake had found a gang member with ties to the gang Grazicky had associated with while in prison. The man was interpreting the combination of symbols and letters now. Jake had hoped for an immediate response, but the gangs frequently changed their code to keep the police confused, and Grazicky's coding was from long ago. It would take a little time to have it deciphered.

Skye was set to reopen soon. Grazicky's lawyers had finally won their case, and the police were being forced to vacate the premises and let him get back to work. Any evidence they hadn't found yet would be lost.

Before making contact with Adriano, Jake moved into a hotel and closely observed his surroundings. He made friends with the kitchen staff and housekeepers but avoided becoming familiar to the front desk. If anyone came asking, he'd be too nondescript for the front house workers to remember. The people working the kitchen always knew who was who in the hotel, and the maids knew who had money to throw around. They also had passkeys to every room, which might come in handy.

After visiting the kitchen via a back hallway, Jake ordered his dinner and left the hotel. He took a quick walk around the theater district of Uptown Charlotte, looking for anything—or anyone—out of place while he waited for his meal to be cooked. He missed his wife and little girl immensely, but Adriano needed him in Charlotte. The vigorous walk did very little to shake the need to hold his wife tight and to make love to her. He headed back to the hotel, anxious to call his family. He'd been very careful when contacting them. He only used pay phones—when he could find an operational one. Otherwise he purchased disposable cells, kept the calls short, and discarded the phone during his evening walk.

“Shoot!”

Jake stopped outside the revolving door of his hotel. A pretty woman wearing a cherry red leather skirt and jacket with a drop-dead figure struggled with a bag of groceries beside her Lexus.

“Shoot.” She looked around. Catching his eye, she smiled. “Can you help me? Please?”

Jake melted at her lopsided smile and southern twang. His misplaced lust told him he needed to get home to his wife sooner rather than later. He tucked his hotel room key into his pants pocket and went to help the woman in distress. “Let me take your bag.”

“No, I have it. Take my keys.” She angled her body so Jake could see the key ring dangling from her fingers. “If you open the back door, I can put these groceries inside.”

He aimed the keyless remote at the trunk. “Wouldn't you rather put them in the trunk? This is a gorgeous car. You don't want to chance messing up the leather seats.”

“No. The trunk is already full.” Her mouth curled up into a radiant, innocent smile. “I have one vice—shopping.”

He punched the button, setting off a chirping sound and unlocking the car. He opened the door and turned to relieve the woman of her load. He stooped down to place the groceries on the seat. A big, bulky man wearing a skullcap gripped a gun in his beefy hand. He pressed the barrel to Jake's forehead. “Invite us up to your room.”

 

 

Blistering pain ricocheted through Jake's skull when he opened his eyes. He blinked, trying desperately to recover his memory. He'd been knocked out plenty of times in the past, and each time it became harder to recover. For the first time in his career, he wondered if he was too old to keep doing this. He turned his head and was greeted with more pain. His vision cleared enough to see he was in a hospital and Mr. Conners was sitting next to his bedside.

Mr. Conners righted the dark brown Dobbs covering his silver hair. Cautiously, he leaned closer. “My God, Jake.”

“It looks worse than it is.” Jake tried to laugh, but the skin tears near his mouth made him flinch.

“The doctor says you're lucky you got away with only a broken arm. It took twenty stitches to sew up the cuts on your face.”

Jake's hand went up, finding evidence of Mr. Conners's claim.

“With all the lumps and bruises, they want to keep you for a while and do more tests. You look like a beaten ripe tomato.”

“Don't forget my wounded ego.”

Mr. Conners pulled his chair closer.

“Don't take this to my wife,” Jake insisted. “No use worrying her. I'll explain everything when I get home.”

Mr. Conners nodded. Looking at the jagged scars on Jake's face and the bruises covering the rest of his body, Conners knew his star reporter was lucky to be alive. “It's time to call Adriano in. We almost lost you. I don't want to chance getting Adriano killed.”

Adriano. There was something about Adriano he was supposed to remember . . . and it was important.

“How do we call him in?” Mr. Conners asked.

Jake opened his mouth to respond, the answer clinging to the edge of his memory. “I don't know.”

Mr. Conners gripped his Dobbs but remained calm. “You remember anything?”

Jake thought before answering. “Coming to Charlotte. Ordering dinner and going for a walk.”

“You don't know who did this?” There was alarm in Mr. Conners's voice now. If Jake couldn't identify his attackers, they could get next to him without any warning. “I'm ending this right now. It's time we tell the authorities where Vaughn is hiding. As soon as you remember, I'm going to the police and putting an end to this. I never should have gone along with this crazy scheme anyway. I don't know why I let you boys talk me into half of what I do.”

Jake shook his head in protest. “Mr. Conners—”

“I'm calling rank on this, Jake. I want the FBI, CIA, National Guard, and the local police notified. Hell, I want the Boy Scouts present and accounted for. Grazicky is desperate. There's no telling what else he's planned.”

“If you're going to play it that way, you have to call the media. The only way to assure their safety is with the media there—camera lights blazing. Grazicky would never try anything on live television.”

Mr. Conners considered the idea. He wanted to bring Adriano in safely, and at the same time he didn't want to forfeit his exclusive. Knowing what he did about the case, he couldn't demand that Adriano abandon Payton Vaughn. Adriano would never do it; he was tenacious when it came to getting a story. Grazicky would never chance giving the police more witnesses by trying something in front of news cameras. When Conners thought about it, there really wasn't any other way. “I'll make the phone calls. When you remember how to call Adriano back in.”

Jake grabbed his side. He felt like his kidney was ready to burst. “I must look awful, because I feel like crap.”

“I hate to push you, Jake, but I need you to remember everything that happened.”

“Tell me what you know. Maybe I can piece it together.” His eyes fluttered from the pain. “And then I want the biggest pain shot available in this place—doubled.”

Mr. Conners was worried about pressing Jake, but he knew Jake wouldn't rest until his partner was out of immediate danger. “A young kid from the kitchen stumbled into it all. You had ordered dinner, but never came back for it. After a while, he brought it up to your room. Before he knocked on the door, he heard noises. He got scared and went for help. Instead of activating the button to call security, the boy was so afraid he accidentally set off the fire alarms. Security started sweeping the floors, getting visitors outside. The sirens and commotion must have been enough to run your attackers off.”

“Security found me?”

“Yes. They reported seeing a big guy leave the room with a woman just before they entered. The woman was a real looker. Security described her as a nasty fantasy in red leather.”

“Were you able to get my things from the hotel?”

Mr. Conners went to the tiny closet and retrieved Jake's belongings. “Only what you hadn't unpacked.” He pulled up the tray table and placed the suitcase on it.

Jake opened it and began rooting around inside. Nothing jogged his memory. He wished he were at home, cuddled with his wife, allowing her to nurse him back to health. He dug into the secret compartment of the bag, fishing for the photo of his wife and daughter he kept hidden there.

“Where's the satellite phone?” Jake asked, his memory humming to life.

The man had forced Jake at gunpoint back to his hotel room. The sultry woman with him had been the more vicious of the two. After tying him up, she'd beaten him mercilessly when he refused to answer her questions. The big man was forced to pull her away. They believed he was the reporter who helped Payton get away in the SUV. Jake went along, admitting to being at the Adam's Mark and giving Payton a ride to the travel plaza in South Carolina. They kept beating him, until eventually Jake had become delirious with pain and fatigue.

“You remember something,” Mr. Conners said, standing next to the bed.

“The pain was unbearable,” he offered, ashamed he wasn't as hard as Adriano, able to endure the most treacherous of circumstances. “Adriano takes the risks. I piece the mysteries together.”

“What do you remember?”

“I told them about the tobacco farm.”

 

 

Adriano kicked off his shoes and threw his jacket over the chair. Payton looked up from where she was sitting on the floor, reading one of Lila's home magazines. She had been occupying his mind all day. She offered him a private smile that solidified his purpose. Capturing her with the intensity of his gaze, he opened the first three buttons of his shirt. Seduction was in his eyes, more meaningful emotions in his heart. He grabbed his camera and changed film and lenses before placing it on the bed. With purposeful determination, his strides carried him over to Payton, and he lifted her, settling her down on the bed.

“Lie down.”

Enjoying his seductive game, she did as he asked. She watched every beguiling, enticing, magnetic, and inviting movement of his rippled body, soaking in his charm, memorizing it for the long days ahead.

He moved around the bed, posing her. He placed her legs together, arms at her sides. He used a long finger to deepen the dip of her neckline. He fluffed her skirt, accentuating the shapeliness of her legs. He left her this way while he hunted for the one radio station that played without static so far away from the closest tower signal.

Moving to the jazzy tunes, he snapped pictures of Payton sexily draped across the bed. Her eyes remained locked on Adriano, watching as he circled the bed. A playful tune filled the room, and she flashed her smile to the speed of his camera shutter. Only in front of Adriano did she feel uninhibitedly sexy and beautiful. She relaxed into her next pose. Shimmied when the shutter whirled double-time, and bade Adriano to come closer with the arching of her brow.

He discarded his shirt by the time the music slowed, providing the pace at which he would make love to her. Still snapping pictures, he removed one of her shoes and tossed it over his shoulder. The other followed. He pulled away the socks one leg at a time. Never had plain white cotton been sexier.

In a raspy voice, he told her, “Roll over.”

His fingers singed her skin as he lowered the zipper of her skirt. The camera continued to whirl. With one hand, he helped her squirm out of her skirt and panties. She felt him moving over her, snapping a series of pictures from head to foot, lingering at her behind.

“Roll over again,” Adriano demanded. She complied, and her shirt soon lay in a puddle on the floor.

Shielding her bare breasts with her palms, she asked, “Who will see these pictures?”

“They're for my eyes only,” he answered from behind the clicking camera. He removed his pants before climbing onto the bed with her.

He captured every inch of her body on film. He took photos of the soles of her feet, ankles, calves, and knees. He zoomed in on her butterfly-painted thigh, snapping multiple shots. He twisted to shoot the other. He kneeled between her legs as he centered the beauty of her face in the viewing eye.

“You are perfect.” He aimed at the silky skin of her shoulder. “Move your hands away.”

“No one will see these?”

He focused on her breasts. “Only me. I promise you.”

Tentatively, she lowered her hands to her side. He inhaled, as if seeing her naked for the first time. He licked his bottom lip in anticipation and sent the camera into a maddening buzz. He flicked his tongue over one exposed nipple and then the other, quickly snapping pictures as they sprang to life. Moving in tight, he captured the concave of her abdomen and the indentation of her hips. He swirled his tongue around her navel before taking its picture.

She closed her eyes as his demandingly firm, velvety-soft touch parted her thighs. He lowered his head to inhale her scent before taking the first snapshot. The noises of the camera slowed as he concentrated on collecting the perfect remembrance of the place providing him so much satisfaction. He caressed her into full bloom, making her arch from the bed. Whiz. Click. Snap. Churn. His finger swirled, probed, delved, and she writhed in stark pleasure.