The Yearning (15 page)

He fired it up. The screen flickered a bright blue, went black with the software’s logo, and turned blue again with the login. Shit, he’d forgotten about that. He tried her name as the password. Nothing. Violet’s. Zip. Lily’s. Nada. Damn. It must be something simple. Few people thought up complicated names or letters and numbers they couldn’t remember. He recalled how Ben and her sisters always called her Jas. He tried it. Didn’t work. He modified it to read Jazz, a play on the sound. Still nothing. He forced himself to think and finally keyed in JasVioletLil—the names the sisters always used. Bingo. The computer responded. Grinning, Mike waited for her icons to come up. Only one did, a folder titled Desiree.

His stare turned into an annoyed frown. Surely, she had a browser on this. Explorer came pre-installed on computers. He went into her programs. The browser was there, just as it should be. He went further into her system. No ISP. She had built-in wireless and a provider but no access? She hadn’t activated it? Or hadn’t paid the bill? Or had shut it off?

He turned the computer over, looking for an answer. Two minutes later, he came up empty and hung his head.

No access. Jasmine had thought of everything to keep him here, not realizing his continued imprisonment meant her certain death.

Breakfast ingredients crowded the kitchen counter. Outside, sparrows made a racket, chirping in the damp trees. Moisture accumulated in the corners of the windows, fogging the glass slightly.

Stepping beneath a ceiling vent and the air-conditioning, Violet tapped the spatula against her thigh as she regarded the chopped onions and shredded potatoes for hash browns, eggs, ham, thick-sliced bacon, cheddar cheese, packaged biscuit mix and numerous spices. She nodded, confident she hadn’t missed anything. “What kind of eggs do you think I should make for Mike?”

“Are you serious?” Lily pushed cinnamon cake into her mouth and talked around it. “You’re worried about whether he wants scrambled or fried?”

Violet ignored the flip comment and the thought behind it—Lily thought she was a doormat, born to please. No way. Violet didn’t allow herself to be steamrolled. She’d held her own with the few guys she’d dated. Four, to be exact. Like Jasmine before the curse, she’d never been a guy magnet. Nor did she believe she had to always come out swinging like their baby sister who still wasn’t certain whether she preferred women or men or both in her bed. God, their mother would have been appalled at Lily’s anything-goes lifestyle. “Jas said to take good care of him.” Violet turned on the gas beneath the skillet, bending at the waist to watch and adjust the flame. “She likes him.”

“Get a clue, Violet. That’s the curse talking, not Jas.”

“No, it’s not. Did you see her face? Did you listen to her voice? Jas genuinely thinks he’s a nice guy.” Violet straightened and looked at Lily. “So do I.” She’d seen Mike’s fear for Jasmine, not of her. He was also spot-on gorgeous in a rugged, formidable way.

Lily ate the last of the cake and dropped the empty plate on the counter. Violet frowned at its clatter.

“You think he’s a nice guy?” Lily repeated. “Sounds as if you want him as much as Jas seems to. Maybe more.”

“We’re not you, Lil. There won’t be any threesomes, okay? I simply think he’s nice. And attractive.”

Lily leaned against the counter, her features surprised or mystified. “You like his looks too?”

What normal woman wouldn’t? Violet draped ribbons of bacon in the warmed skilled. They sizzled on contact. “I like how he treats Jas.” Her head turned to Lily. “He’s good for her, I can feel it.”

“Then let’s make certain he stays right where he is. Ben should be in the room when they’re together. Otherwise, magnificent Mike might talk Jas into taking off the cuffs or giving him his cell phone or making a call to the cops herself.”

“I agree.” Ben padded into the kitchen, laying the gun on the table. Wan light glinted off the barrel.

Violet suppressed a shiver at it and the thought of Ben watching her sister and Mike in bed.

“I don’t think Violet’s on board with the plan,” Lily said.

She hedged. “We’ll talk to Jas when she wakes up. See how she’s feeling. What she’s thinking. Then we can decide about Ben staying in the room.” She heard shame in her voice and tried to clear it away. “Do you guys think Mike meant it when he said he’d help Jas?”

“How’d you know about that?” Ben asked.

Lily answered. “How do you think? When you pushed us out of the room, we stayed in the hall and listened to what was going on.”

“At least until they…” Violet shook her head, unwilling to say it. “We moved away when he stopped talking about helping her.”

“He won’t,” Lily said. “He just wants us to unlock the cuffs so he can slug Ben and split. And if he can’t do that, he might be waiting for his moment to be alone with Jas so he can grab her by the throat and force us to let him go.”

“Is that what you think?” Violet asked Ben.

He shrugged.

She lowered the flame on the popping bacon, moving it with the spatula so it wouldn’t burn. “You like him, don’t you, Ben?”

His attention whipped from the pistol to her. “What? No.” He stepped back.

Lily teased. “I think he does. He’s blushing.”

He growled, “My face is red because it’s sticky and hot in here, all right? Why in the hell is the oven on?”

He did like Mike, a kind of hero worship he’d have for an older brother. Violet heard it in his rant. She saw a faint flash of it in his eyes. “I’m making biscuits.”

“For majestic Mike,” Lily added.

Ben’s neck flushed scarlet.

Violet returned to her cooking. “We should consider using whatever help he can offer. He has ties with the government. That woman he talked about would be able to find Desiree faster than we could. And we can use a disposable cell phone like he said. There would be no way his friend could find out he was here.”

Lily rolled her eyes. Ben averted his gaze.

“We can’t keep him forever,” Violet said, realizing the implications of what they’d done, what Jasmine had tried to warn them about.

“We’ll keep him as long as we need to,” Lily argued.

Violet wanted to counter, but knew her sister and Ben wouldn’t listen. If this continued another day without a resolution, she didn’t want to consider what might happen to Jasmine. Each hour she grew weaker. Somehow, Violet had to change their minds or go to Mike on her own and get him to help. Holding back a sigh, she asked, “Which one of you wants to go back upstairs and ask him how he likes his eggs?”

Lily pulled out Jasmine’s chair and sat. “Not me.”

“That’s right,” Violet said. “You have to stay here and make him another cinnamon cake.” She interrupted Lily’s whining, “Ben, please ask Mike what kind of eggs he wants. And leave the gun down here. The man is handcuffed to Jasmine’s bed. There is no way he can hurt you.”

Ben’s hand fell away from the weapon. Without comment, he strode out of the room.

Deep in thought, Mike frowned at the door creaking. It appeared his time alone had ended. He dropped his cuffed hand on the mattress. The metal felt faintly warm, either from his intense concentration or because he kept touching it.

Ben looked around the jamb cautiously, as he might when peering into a pit bull’s cage.

Mike spoke first. “Is Jasmine all right?”

Nodding, he stepped into the room. “She’s sleeping.”

“How many hours does she get each night?”

“Four, if she’s lucky.”

“I can help,” Mike said again. “Let me call my friend.”

Ben shifted from foot to foot. He jammed his hands into his back pockets. “Violet wants to know how you like your eggs.”

“Screw the eggs. Jasmine needs help.” He leaned forward. “Do you want to be responsible for what happens if I can’t call my friend?”

He matched Mike’s frown. “I don’t want anything happening to Jas if you bring the cops here and they throw her into a mental ward because they don’t know what the fuck is really going on. How do I know you’re being straight with us?”

“It’s just a call, Ben. Look,” Mike added quickly, not wanting to push too hard, “if you don’t want me to make a call, then at least let me send an email to Erica.”

The boy’s gaze cut to the laptop. “You’ve tried already, haven’t you?”

Ben’s deduction impressed and bummed Mike. Apparently, the younger man wasn’t as naïve as he acted. “Only to help Jasmine. How long can she continue like this? Get me a computer with Internet access. If you want, you can send the email. I’ll give you my friend’s address. I’ll tell you what to write. You can edit it.”

“So you can bring the cops here?”

“No.” His growl stabbed through the relative quiet. “If you edit the damn message and send it, how in the hell would that bring the cops here?”

Ben pulled out his right hand and held it up. As he talked, he uncurled his fingers, ticking off his answers. “IP addresses can be traced back to the user’s computer. You might be talking in code to your friend. Maybe you two have a system worked out where you use certain words to say you’re in danger. Locate this person might mean one thing to me and I’m in trouble, help me, to her.”

Good God. This kid watched too many CSI programs. “Then let’s go back to my first request for a disposable cell. That can’t be traced even if my friend and I use code.”

“What’s her full name?”

Annoyed, Mike threw up his hands. The cuffed one flew back, banging his knuckles into the nightstand. His nostrils flattened with the pain. Shit. “Why in the fuck do you need her full name?”

“I want to research her on the Internet before I do anything. Maybe she’s not a Fed. Maybe she’s one of your former witnesses, a Mafia princess or a hit man who owes you a favor.”

Mike hissed, “Are you serious?”

Ben’s eyes narrowed, making him look a few months older. “What is your friend’s name?”

Jesus. “Erica Marie Vega.”

“Birth date?”

“I don’t know. She was born sometime in May.”

“What’s your full name?”

He planned to research him too? That would waste hours or days they could be using to find Desiree. “Michael Micco Stearn. It’s on my driver’s license, which I’m certain someone here has already read. All my info’s in my wallet. Go through it and learn.”

“I plan to.” He went to the door, stopped and looked back. “I forgot. How do you want your eggs?”

“In a fucking restaurant.”

Ben arched one blond brow. “Sorry, man. Not today. Will over easy do?”

Mike looked at the cuff, concentrating on it, rather than answering.

Jasmine’s eyes opened. Filmy sunlight filtered through the curtains, creating wavy shadows on the ceiling and walls.

She followed the dark splotches to pictures of Lily in grade school, high school, college. In the photos, the girl’s hair went from her natural light brown to bright red, inky blank, chestnut with gold streaks, platinum blonde and back again.

Jasmine smiled at those happier times and lowered her lids, greedy for a few more minutes of rest. How long had she slept? Ten minutes? Fifteen? Seemed like more. The dull pain in her limbs was gone. Her temples didn’t pound with her nearly constant headache.

The bed frame creaked as she rolled to the side, noticing what she hadn’t before. Lily’s antique clock wasn’t ticking. Had someone removed it, thinking its loud sounds might disturb her? Probably. She curled up in a fetal position to slip back into darkness. The movement set off a small alarm in the back of her brain. Her heart skipped several beats. Her mind warned—it’s returning. Muscles tensed, she tried to push the yearning away, aware it was hopeless.

She had to go to Mike. More importantly, she wanted to.

Violet entered the bedroom, followed closely by Lily and Ben.

The three Mousketeers, Mike thought wryly.

“Hi.” Violet gave him a timid smile and placed the tray on the bed.

It held two plates covered with metal tops, hiding yet another surprise. He glanced at the silverware: a spoon and a fork, no knife. If he bent one of the fork’s tines, would it open the damned lock? Maybe. Why hadn’t he thought of that earlier?

“Here.” Lily set a bottle of Heineken on the nightstand and shoved it in his direction. The bottle bumped a figurine. Its bottom wiggled on the wood.

“We also have Corona,” Violet offered, “if you like it better.”

He wanted to be angry with her, with all of them, but wasn’t able to manage it. A horror they couldn’t have conceived had taken over their days. His words rode out on a sigh. “How’s Jasmine?”

“Hungry.”

Mike’s head swiveled to the doorway, the same as everyone else.

Jasmine stood framed in the jamb, her freshly washed hair and complexion glowing, the circles beneath her eyes hidden by makeup. She wore lingerie long on glamour, short on fabric. Her breasts nearly spilled out of the black strapless bra, a confection of lace, satin, sequins. The panties or thong, he couldn’t tell which from this angle, was made of the same fabrics and embellishment, barely covering her pussy. In place of the diamond navel jewelry, she wore a gold pendant in the shape of falling leaves. Earrings of the same design dangled from her earlobes.

Ben blurted, “Where’d she get that?”

“My room,” Lily muttered. “I didn’t hear her showering. She must have done it while we allowed our guest to have his shower.”

“That bra and thong are yours?” Ben sounded astonished.

Violet elbowed him. “Jas, you okay?”

Ambivalence clouded her expression. Mike watched her look from the others to him. She smiled shyly even as her attire and posture flaunted her near nudity. “I was able to sleep for a few minutes.”

“Way more than that,” Lily said. “It’s one in the afternoon.”

A breathtaking smile radiated across Jasmine’s glorious mouth. Mike had rarely witnessed such surprise and joy. Lily might as well have said the curse was in remission. He could see it wasn’t. Behind Jasmine’s quiet reserve the yearning continued to build, flaring intermittently in her eyes.

Violet crossed the room to the closet and pulled out a dark green robe. “Come downstairs, Jas. I’ll make you lunch.”

“She can have mine,” Mike said. He offered Jasmine his hand. “Join me.”