The Laughing Assassin [Assassin's Diary] (Siren Publishing Classic) (29 page)

His next thought? Damn, his father had to have requisitioned the agents before he even asked Jonah for the okay. Dad had to be digging into his business for a while, weeks or months. There was no way that even halfway-briefed agents could have arrived so quickly, and that could only mean they were issued out even before he and Jaden left the island for the auction in the first place. If nothing else, his father was too nosy for his own good.

* * * *

After three hours, Jonah was tired, and his debriefing had burned most of the daylight left. A task force was established to locate the women sold during the last auction with the exception of Oxendine. The crown Jewel would have to be reclaimed with a special mission and team of two only dedicated to her retrieval. They had a basic plan of attack for the next sale, but it was still raw and incomplete. The data was too convoluted to make any sense, and the encryptions used were nearly impossible to break. He would leave perfecting his plans for tomorrow. With luck, he could entice Jaden into having a one-on-one think tank and bouncing ideas off of each other.

In bed. But that would be best saved for another day. One where he was in slightly better health might not be too much to ask. Hell, after the blood loss, he would consider an erection a nearly impossible boon from the heavens.

But when he returned to the cottage house, he didn’t hear anything at all. There were no ambient noises, no TV, no cooking smells, nothing to greet or welcome him back. Their home was silent, and the air carried the weight of a funeral tomb. Where was Jaden? When he reached the bedroom, there was no sign of her. There wasn’t even a stray sock or single bottle of hair product, and he knew she was gone.

A closer look at the room revealed a single scrap piece of paper atop the pillows. It was hastily scripted, the print tiny and perfect, just like her. The only clue as to where the sheet came from was a pre-printed number at the square corner, and he realized she ripped the paper out of a book. Which book was the question, and his gut told him that the tome the paper came from was just as important as the message itself.

But the note held little clue as to her whereabouts.

The front side of the delicate paper read,
I want you to think about what you really want

And the back side of the scrap?
Hope it doesn’t take you 98 days to find me this time

He made one phone call. It was to Jaden’s sat phone, a converted Apple device.

“Jaden, this is far from amusing.” It was infuriating, she was exasperating, and he had never been so hard in his life.

“This is your one phone call, and that’s what you open with? Guess that’s that, then.” He knew what she was saying, that after the call ended, the phone was going to be destroyed to nullify the possibility of triangulation.

“Jaden, so help me, if you don’t come back to this compound I’ll—” What could he do to the one of the most dangerous women in the world? What punishment would be enough?

“Don’t say things you’ll regret, Jonah,” Jaden said. Her voice was a mere whisper. He didn’t plan on saying anything but the truth, like it or not.

“You know I’m going to find you, right?” She better know that much about him at least.

He could hear the smile in her voice before she even spoke. “As a matter of fact, I’m counting on it.”

Jonah chuckled. Why wasn’t he surprised at that?

“You minx. When I get my hands on you, I’m going to—” Devour you until there isn’t an original thought left within you save mine, he thought.

“What? Fuck my brains out? I’m counting on that, too...” That was good. At least she knew what to expect. But even then her voice was husky, and he grew even closer to busting the seams of his shorts. “But I think you need to find the Jewels first.”

She hung up the phone before he could reply. Jonah crumpled the paper shred of note in his one working fist and made a vow to thin air.
I’m going find you, and I’m going fuck the fight out of you, maybe spank you senseless. And when I’m done, you will belong to me. For good this time, Jaden.

Run, Jaden, Run

When Jonah left, Jaden was lost in a sea of her own thoughts.
Jonah loves me? Like picket fence and two point five kids love?
Jaden clasped her head in her hands. He could take care of himself, just the same way she could. But if she was going to be in love and have the happily ever after that came with the territory, then she wanted it all. Normalcy. It was strange, but she wanted her life filled with nine-to-five days and sleeping in the same bed with her mate each night.

Not to mention, his parents are so-o-oo against it.

She wanted in-laws that would love to have her as an addition to the family. With the way that his mother reacted, Jaden could imagine the use of thousand-thread-count white sheets in the woman’s future. But it was highly unlikely that the matriarch of the Whitmore family would disgrace herself by sullying the good fabric with clumsy homemade eye holes or poor stitchery.

Mrs. Whitmore would probably have a couture designer custom make me robes out of Pratesi sheets. And why does that matter so much? I’ve never cared about what someone thought of me, save sensei, until now.

What is wrong with you? Since when are you willing to live a cardboard existence in middle-class suburbia with a man?

The melee of thoughts forced her to grab everything and pack quickly. Her ingrained habit of rolling the clothes was left behind as she tossed everything into the case. Jaden lied to herself and pretended that she wasn’t in a hurry, but she knew the reality. She had no idea of where she would go, and even as she filled her luggage she was a loss of where to hide for a few days.

The first place he would check was the bakery, and that automatically was crossed from the short list. Jaden tried to think on where she could go.
It shouldn’t be that hard. You have as much money as you need. Just throw a dart at a map or something.
She did have a few debit cards under the faux accounts with her stashed funds. One of those would easily fund her hasty getaway.

If Jonah came back before she left, then so be it. She wasn’t trying to avoid a confrontation.

Wasn’t she?

It didn’t matter. Too much had happened in the last two days, more than she wanted to think about.

There were several more coats of blood on her hands. A few bombs had gone off, and not just the ones at the slaver’s house. She had almost lost him, almost watched Jonah die. Jaden loved him, but she couldn’t deal with the idea of being head over heels for a man that had a more than an average chance to be KIA. The idea of not knowing if he was dead or alive from day to day was more than she could stand.

For right now, she just wanted to get her head on straight. Loving Jonah was not the easiest idea to grow accustomed to, and she wasn’t running away.

Yes you are.
Her conscious beat her.

No, I’m not. If he doesn’t find me, I’ll come back. Just not for ninety-eight days is all.

Yeah, you’re a chicken shit, Jaden. Even if you can’t admit it to the man you love, then at least be honest with yourself.

She ignored the wounds her thoughts generated. Instead she glanced over at the library shelf rimming the chair rail trim, and the first book to catch her eye was not entirely flush with the others. Jaden tugged the volume from the shelf in an attempt to reposition it and caught sight of the title.

Inspiration hit. She ripped the page from a book and wrote Jonah a message. If he was smart enough to find her when she didn’t want to be found, then he should be able to locate her much easier with a little help.

The trip off the island wasn’t hard to manage. Jaden stood at the side of the road and waited for the local taxi. The taxis in Jamaica were mostly unregulated, and only a few companies were given credence by the government. But for the most part, a buck fifty American was all that was needed to ride in a local’s car to destination unknown.

The local taxi wasn’t one that Jaden would recommend to another person. Riding with strangers was unsafe for most, but not her. With the thoughts plaguing her and the action she’d seen, anyone foolish enough to mess with her was going to regret it for much longer than she would. And at this point she could only promise five minutes of remorse.

Jaden walked into Montego Bay as herself. But she boarded the flight as someone else.

She made a hop from Jamaica to Miami first, under the Susan Jennings alias. There were accounts she had under that name and a valid US passport. That was the second and final clue she would give Jonah for free. Any other opportunities he got would be due to the fact that he made them.

After she exited the plane, she made a few purchases in the airport shops before she turned on her phone, and the device immediately rang.

It was him.

“Jaden, this is far from amusing.” He was infuriating, and she had never been so hot below the collar before.

She listened absently as he bandied threats about. He’d do what?
There’s nothing he can do to me right now, but I will have to pay the piper his due once Jonah finds me
.

He told her he was going to find her. But she knew that already. One
of the best parts of the cat-and-mouse game between them was his tenacity.

Jaden hung up the phone and popped the battery out. She broke the small phone by “accidentally” dropping it facedown onto the concrete then compounded her mistake by stepping on the fallen device. She picked it up, removed the sim card, and cracked that in half as well.

She knew that he had her flight back out timed well. He must have guessed that to go anywhere international, she would most likely be sent back to the US, and Miami was the closest major hub. But it didn’t matter, as the Jennings identity would have told him that much with the passenger logs. It wouldn’t do for her to be run to ground yet. Jaden had just left, and though she anticipated the capture, that wasn’t to be so soon. It was evening on the east coast, and she didn’t have time to take a shower before she caught the connection to Zurich.

That wasn’t her final destination, but a stop she would make along the way and for only two hours. It wasn’t even enough time to leave the airport and see much more than parking lot. Then she hopped onto the last flight, the one that would take her where she needed to be.

When she had a moment to herself finally ensconced in her luxury suite on the first day in Venice, and the second day since she had left Jonah, Jaden wondered if he had even located the book she’d taken the paper for her note out of yet. But she wasn’t even sure if they had been apart for two days or three with the time changes.

On the seventh day, Jaden rode the gondola for the millionth time to the market. She had gotten used to the men, as Italian males seemed to like her a lot. Anytime she was outside she heard the word, “Bella!” more than a few times. But as she couldn’t care less to meet another man, she ignored the greetings as she perused the wares available in the open-air shopping. There were many a ripe fruit that called her name in the stalls along with some woven scarves that she was sure would appeal to Kris.

When she was back in the room, she called in an order for room service and took a shower. As she left the bath she heard the phone ring in her suite.

She picked up the phone. “Hello?”

“So this is where you decided to hide, huh?” Jonah asked. She was fairly certain he would be in Venice within the next week or so. Or rather, she hoped he would be, if her games hadn’t irritated the fuck out of him already.

“Yeah, something like that.”

“From the looks of it, exactly like that.”

There was a knock at the door, and she used the second to put on her robe. “Just a minute!” She called out to the person delivering her food, as that was who she assumed was at the door. “Hold on, Jonah.”

She sat the bedside phone down and tightened the belt to her robe. When Jaden pulled at the heavy wooden door, there was Jonah, who hung up the phone at his ear and slid it into his pocket. He looked tired. But even with his obvious exhaustion, he was a sight for sore eyes. His cheeks were hollow, and she knew that between healing, the search for her, and the briefing of agents, Jonah was probably lucky to get more than handful of hours of rest each night.

She didn’t have room to talk, as the last night of real sleep had been over a week ago. It seemed those days were so much longer, but all she had been away from Jonah was a single week. Seven days that she spent missing Jonah, on the second day she wished that he was with her on the first gondola ride she had taken. The third day she wished she could have shared the bottle of wine she had purchased after arriving. For every last one of those short days, Jonah was on her mind.

Everything she saw, Jaden wanted to share with Jonah. She really wanted to call him, but she refused to. And here he was, ahead of schedule. He walked inside of her room as if he wanted to get closer to her. And he would have, but for the simple fact that every step he took forward, she took one to match backward.

“Are you going to invite me in?” He arched an eyebrow as if the hairs were capable of serving as the punctuation to the question he’d just asked.