If Tomorrow Never Comes (16 page)

           
Masterfully flipping the switch to
his mind that reversed all pleasurable sensations, Jake reminded himself that
when he got Scorpio, she'd leave, she had to, and he'd let her.
 
Besides, he wanted her to go.
 
There was no reason for her to stay.
 
He'd never trust her, or any woman.
 
He’d never fall in love again either, but
right this second, physically, God, how he wanted her, desperately wanted her.

           
Facts rallied what if something went
wrong, and she didn't survive.
 
No, he
screamed inwardly trying to abort such perilous reflections.
 
She was too young, too innocent, and too damn
beautiful, he’d be to blame for implicating her, a cataclysm no woman
deserved.
  
Just a few more days, that's all,
and then he'd send her away before the worst happened, before he was tempted to
beg her to stay.

           
Still measuring her toes, Jordan
mumbled, “I was looking for something for breakfast.”
    
        

           
The
growling anger Jake was accustomed to calling upon whenever befuddled came to
his rescue.
 
“You don't have to worry
about me, Jordan.
 
I rarely eat,” he
snapped.

           
Gold eyes reached their target and
before she could halt her scalding lecture, words came boiling out, “You
should,” her words just as clipped.

           
Angry with himself for the obscene
amount of alcohol he'd consumed that had transformed into the worst hangover
ever, he sputtered, “Don't push me.
 
I've
been on my own a long time.
 
I do as I
please when I please, that will never change.
 
No one has ever taken care of me, no one ever will.
 
I don't expect it nor do I want it.
 
Do I make myself clear?”
 

           
Jordan did not speak, could not
speak, words seized her features turning expressions into a boulder tossed
toward him threatening to crush his banging head.
 
Countenances that were saying, back off,
mister, and get to hell out of my life.
 

           
The next move he made, the next word
he spoke could be his Waterloo for Jake was frantically trying to fight a major
portion of him that wanted to carry her off to the bedroom and remain there for
a year.
 
Yet, he knew sampling the
tiniest portion of her would mean never letting go. “I'll leave some money with
Margaret to order some groceries and have them delivered.
 
I'll be back, at ten, tonight.
 
Be dressed and ready.”
 

           
Spinning around, he measured the
floor with giant steps toward the door.
 
There, he'd done it.
 
He was safe
now as long as he kept advancing in the opposite direction.
 
If he hurried, the darts' her eyes were shooting
would not meet their target.
 

           
Jake was gone before Jordan could
remove the knife slicing through her ribs and puncturing her heart.

CHAPTER 16

           
A hush fell over the office.
 
Eye's filled with astonishment trailed the
intruder.
 
A stranger passed Billy's
desk, leaving him dubious as to whether or not to stand.
 
There was something familiar in the man's
long stride, his bearing, the blonde hair tied back dangling between shoulder
blades, the cigarette spewing smoke that said it was Morgan.
 
Having never seen Jake so well groomed caught
Billy off guard.

           
Sounds of casters on chairs rolling
on the tiled floor along with mumbling turned Jake.
 
Eyebrow raised, his austere look was
sufficient intimidation to return everyone to work, and reposition Billy into
his chair.

           
Solemnly entering his office,
closing and locking the door, Jake tugged the cord to the blinds to block the
view of onlookers from the outer office.
  
Settled at his desk, unlocking a drawer he retrieved an envelope filled
with information and photos collected over the past few weeks.

           
Wearing a disguise, he trailed and
recorded every move of all known couriers delivering packages to Jordan as well
as everyone assigned to his team.
 
Spread
before him documented proof of, places frequented, their friend's, and
acquaintances.
 
Leaving no stone
unturned, Jake dug into each man's past, their, childhood, old girl friend's,
schools, church's, military records' looking for anything the least bit suspicious.
 
Spreading the data before him now littering
the entire desk, like a blind person seeing the sunrise for the first time, it
occurred to him the information would not have been possible without Jordan's
help.
 

           
In a few weeks, he'd accomplished
more than he had in two years thanks to a young girl who ran away at sixteen
and put her life in jeopardy by delivering drugs.
 
The money earned not intended for buying
dope, to get off the streets, or to provide food or insure a better life.
 
Jake’s badge had procured answers from an
unwilling courier that set him on his haunches. A dull ache leaving his heart
became a shooting pain joining the multitude of others in his skull as he
pondered the reasons Jordan jeopardized her life.
 
Never in a million years did he suspect the
money helped support a shelter for run-a-way teens that Jordan was living the
way she wanted to, the way she had to, the only way she could survive each day.

           
Picking up a glossy, colored,
photograph that stuck out from all the others, for the hundredth time he
reviewed the attached missing person's report filed six years ago.
 
The young girl, dressed and groomed to appear
much older, was the most striking young woman he'd ever laid eyes' on, her
hair, well beyond her shoulders, thick, and wavy, her complexion flawless, her
mouth capable of tempting a saint, with bewitching tiger-eyes.

           
Unable to look any longer, the photo
slipping through tired fingers fell to his lap.
 
Closing his eyes, Jake's head came sharply against the back of the
chair.
 
His prisoner made one huge mistake
by revealing her real name.
 
Enlisting
the help of experts who owed him the thousand pieces that made up Jordan’s
puzzle were together.
 
Now that the
picture was crystal clear, God, how he wished he'd allowed the past to stay
buried.
  

           
The death of Jordan's mother was
considered suspicious when a day after she'd contacted an agency for battered
women she reportedly took an overdose of drugs.
 
Despite records of her visit that divulged she feared for her life and
that of her young daughter due to the lack of conclusive evidence, the case was
closed
 
and Jordan was returned to her
father’s custody.
 

           
Over a period of years, hospital
records revealed treating a Jordan Montgomery for questionable cuts, burns,
bruises, and fractures.
 
Although there
were no irrefutable tests permitted by her father, doctors' suspected sexual
molestation, a theory that lead Jake's investigators to X-rated photos and
videos of Jordan as the primary subject.
 
Feeling like the slime of the earth for probing, Jake couldn't bring
himself to view them.
 
Vowing he never
would, he sealed the information in an envelope placed in a drawer kept
securely locked until he could destroy them.
 

           
Lids' flicking open allowed green
eyes' to find a key that lie on top of the information.
 
Yesterday, he secured a safety deposit box
containing a first class airline voucher and fifty thousand dollars, all the
money he had left somehow knowing that one day it would have a purpose.
 
Someone had earned and deserved every
dime.
 
It was worth that and more to get
Scorpio, to settle a feud that had gone on too long.

           
As though a ricocheting bullet, and
as painful, Jake's deliberations returned to Jordan's scarlet past.
 
Again, he wondered how such a young girl
garnered the guts to flee from a beastly father.
 
Memories of their past encounters brought a
twitch of a smile to the corner of his mouth, one that faded the moment his
glance found and scanned the missing person's report her father filed.

           
Frank Montgomery was an unemployed
no-good alcoholic with a lengthy list of arrests for pornography, drugs, and
prostitution.
 
It was fitting that he
died of a brutal knife attack in his apartment during an orgy.
 
His demise had saved Jake from hunting him
down, and making him pay for what he’d done
to Jordan.

           
In that instant, the guilt over his
confrontation with Jordan the previous night pried apart his ribs.
 
He was to blame.
 
Knowing the hurting side of pain, he should
have understood when people are most troubled they crawl within themselves
where they become something they are not.
 
That day he had received the details of Jordan's past.
 
Disgusted with himself for snooping,
nauseated by the world and the people in it who harmed and defiled innocent
children, he drank and drank.
 
Coming home
to discover Jordan's efforts, the goodness that remained inside a human
stripped of everything since a small child; he despised himself for meddling,
for knowing, for the sexual fantasies she provided in his dreams.
 

           
Regardless of the hell he went through
as a youngster, it was not a level even close to what Jordan survived and yet
she went on with her life, maybe not headed in the right direction, but she
didn't give up, not as he did.
 
She was
doing the very best she knew how and if it was the last thing he did, he’d make
up to her for all the bad of the world.

           
Lowering the report to his lap, head
draped in shame, eyelids sealed, he shuddered at the possibility the horror
would never be over for Jordan.
 
God, how
could a father condemn his child to a life of hell, of distrusting and hating
men, a life without love, or someone to care and provide for her, a home, and
children?
 

           
Never before did he want to scream
his anger and frustrations.
 
The worst
part of knowing was he could never tell her, or anyone.
 
They were dark secrets that would become his
private hell.
 
On her own, Jordan had
become a proud, stubborn, self-sufficient person.
 
If she ever suspected he knew her past, he'd
never see her again.
 
Right now the
wringing of his heart, the emptiness in the pit of his stomach told him he’d
never survive.
 
Adding to his suffering,
he was no better than her father was, he’d used her by drawing her into a mess
that could cost her the life she deserved to live in any manner she chose.
 

           
Determination raised his head,
straightened his shoulders, one way, or another, he was going to get her out of
this mess alive.
 
At least when she
walked away, and he knew she would; maybe, just maybe he'd get to see her, if
only from a distance.

           
Feeling the need for urgent
remedies, he reassured himself it would be over soon.
 
Plans for a raid, certain to make Chicago
tabloids, were almost complete.
 
The
problem was, to insure its success Jordan had to make one more delivery before
giving her the freedom he understood she needed.
  
Right now, suspicions as to why the thought
of her leaving felt like a ton pressing on his chest became a pain he could not
bear.

           
Not for one minute did Billy like
being left out of what he knew Jake was planning.
 
Something was going down, something big; it
filled the air all around Jake.
 
Just as
he accumulated enough nerve to reach Jake's office, McMaster’s the head of the
agency, halted him.