by Elle James
She frowned. “Surely, that could wait.”
Again, he shook his head, his hard cock nudging her entrance. “Nope. I’m out of the condoms I had in my wallet, and your bride is having a meltdown.”
“Sweet Jesus.” She inhaled deeply and released the breath. “Out of condoms. It’s a travesty.”
“Yes, indeed. And all the more reason to get up, get dressed and wake our groom.” He rolled out of the bed, smacked her bottom and grinned. “Get up.”
Casey pulled the sheet up over her head. “I can’t even bask in the afterglow?”
He yanked the sheet down. “Not when your bride is panicking.”
Casey’s lips twisted. “You’re right. Damn you.”
Already, Jacob was pulling on his jeans and slipping his feet into his shoes. “I’ll go down the hall and check on the groom.” He winked. “Maybe Hawk has a spare condom.”
“Good point.” A glimmer of hope made her smile. “I’ll just wait here.” She pointed to the key card he’d left on the nightstand. “Take his key in case he’s still passed out.”
Jacob grabbed the card and disappeared through the door.
After a few seconds, Casey couldn’t just lay there waiting for him to return. She got up, found a Denver Bronco’s T-shirt and pulled it over her head. It hung almost down to her knees. She propped open the door to the room with the night latch and stepped across the hallway to Hawk’s room.
About that time, Jacob emerged, his eyes wide, his brow creased in a frown. “He’s not here.”
“What do you mean, he’s not here? Where would he be?” Casey pushed past him. Once inside they room, internal alarm bells went off. The comforter was on the floor, Hawk’s suitcase had been dumped, the contents strewn throughout the room, and the nightstand lamp lay in the middle of the floor. “What the hell happened here?”
“I don’t know.” Jacob shoved a hand through his hair. “He’s not here.” He held up a cellphone. “I found his cellphone on the floor, and his wedding tuxedo and shoes are missing.”
“Would he have taken his suit to the church already?”
“Without his cellphone?” Jacob held up the device. “He never leaves a room in a mess. And his cellphone goes with him everywhere. The man is OCD.”
Casey looked around the room. “Do you think he was kidnapped?”
“Who would kidnap him?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s been in Montana. Has he made anyone mad out there, that you know of?” Crossing to the doorway, she examined the frame. “It doesn’t appear that the door was forced open.”
“I know Hawk,” Jacob said. “He wouldn’t have left with someone without a fight.”
Casey waved at the mess in the room. “Thus, the state of the room. But who would take him?” She shook her head. “There has to be a better explanation.” She stepped out into the hallway and spied a security camera at the end near the stairwell. “Let’s talk to security. Maybe they have footage of what happened in this hallway last night.”
Jacob tipped his head toward her T-shirt. “Maybe you should get some more clothes on before we do.”
“You don’t happen to have a pair of shorts or sweats I can borrow, do you?” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Just until I can get to my car and my own things.”
“I have some shorts.” He led the way back to his room and rummaged through a duffle bag until he found gym shorts.
Casey took them into the bathroom, closed the door and slipped them on, drawing the string tight to keep them from falling off. One glance in the mirror made her grimace. The heavy makeup from the night before had smeared and her hair was a wild mess around her face. With a washcloth and soap, she scrubbed off the makeup and finger-combed her hair until it wasn’t a wild mess. “It will have to do for now.”
When Casey emerged, Jacob had dressed in shoes and a T-shirt and had combed his hair.
Feeling extremely underdressed, wearing a T-shirt she’d knotted at the waist, the gym shorts and her platform heels, Casey headed for the door, her chin held high. Fake it until you feel it, she always said. So, she faked confidence she wasn’t feeling.
Jacob followed her into the elevator, and they went down to the ground floor.
“Check with their security. See if we can get in to see the camera footage,” Casey said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
She left him at the desk in the lobby. The clerk frowned at her as she hurried out the door. Casey couldn’t help the judgmental looks, but she could get her own clothes and feel more prepared to face the day. After digging a brush, a pair of jeans, a soft, rib-knit pink sweater, panties that were more than a thong and sensible flats out of the rear of her vehicle, she climbed into the back seat, hunkered low and dressed in under three minutes, thankful for the tinted windows and empty parking lot. She pulled back her hair into a neat ponytail and secured it with an elastic band at the nape of her neck.
When she climbed out of the back seat, she felt a lot more like herself and not the stripper, Candy. Tossing the platform shoes into the back, she rolled the shirt and shorts into a tight ball and entered the hotel.
Jacob was nowhere to be seen. “Excuse me,” she said to the woman who’d given her that judgmental look. “There was a man standing here a few minutes ago. I presume he was asking about video footage. Could you tell me where he went?”
The woman’s gaze raked over her from head to toe. She frowned briefly then jerked her head toward the door behind the desk. “He’s in there. Says his friend is missing.”
“Yes, he is. Do you mind if I join him?” Casey asked.
“Go ahead. Night shift didn’t report any issues. I don’t know why you think you need to see surveillance videos.”
“The missing man is supposed to be at the rehearsal this afternoon. His bride is worried about him,” Casey explained as she walked around the desk to the door behind the woman. Mention of the bride reminded her that she hadn’t called Kalea to give her an update. What would she say to calm the bride?
Hell, nothing she could say would calm Kalea. They didn’t know where Hawk was, and by the look of his room, he hadn’t left it willingly.
As long as Kalea wasn’t calling, demanding to know where Hawk was, she’d let that sleeping dog lie. She needed time to find the missing groom.
Jacob hovered over a young male hotel worker as they scrolled through the video footage for the past seven hours.
“Anything?” Casey stood beside Jacob.
“We just got to the right camera and started through the images from the approximate time we left him around eleven o’clock last night,” Jacob said to her. He touched the young man’s shoulder. “Can you increase the speed?”
“Sure.” The hotel worker clicked the fast-forward arrow, and the video zoomed through an hour, then another. For the most part, the hallway was empty, with a couple arriving after midnight and nothing for the next couple hours. Then a blur of movement emerged in the corner of the video. A man wearing a black ski mask appeared, and he held something up to the lens of the camera. A moment later, the image went dark.
Casey’s heart skipped several beats.
The hotel worker gasped. “He sprayed the camera with black paint.” He fast-forwarded through the rest of the footage. All four hours were dark. “Now, why didn’t I notice this on the monitors this morning?” He glanced up at the two monitors in front of him. Each had and array of images from different locations across the property. The far left corner square was dark. The hotel worker cursed. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice.”
“Sometimes, we see what we want to see,” Jacob said.
“Yeah, but that’s pretty important.” He shook his head as he studied the remaining video squares.
Casey leaned over his shoulder, her heart sinking into the pit of her belly.
Jacob leaned in and did the same. “All the rest are intact and projecting images.”
“Yes, they are.” The clerk brought up the early morning record
ings from another location in the hotel. “The next image is taken from the lobby.” He played the four hours in triple-time. Nothing out of the ordinary jumped out.
Jacob dropped into a seat beside the clerk. “Is there a back door used by the service personnel?”
The man nodded and clicked on the keys, bringing up another video of what appeared to be a service elevator. He forwarded quickly to the time just after the man blacked out the camera lens on the floor where Hawk’s room was located. Two men dressed in coveralls, with hats pulled down low over their faces, rolled a laundry cart between them out the back door. A light shined over the loading dock. They pushed the cart into the back of a service van and closed the door.
The clerk stopped the video. “That’s not our usual laundry service,” he said. “We have our own washers and dryers. The only laundry we send out is our draperies.” His brow furrowed as he squinted at the image. “And we wouldn’t have had anyone here at three in the morning. I’m surprised the door alarms didn’t alert us.” He let the video continue.
The two men moved around to the front of the truck and climbed in.
“Stop,” Jacob said.
The clerk hit the pause button.
Jacob leaned closer. “Can you print that image?”
“Sure.” The clerk hit the command to print and a sheet of paper slid out of the printer beside him. He lifted it, looked down at the page, and then handed it to Jacob.
“I think we can get a license plate number off this,” he said.
Casey looked over his shoulder. “It’s really blurry.” Her eyes narrowed. “And it doesn’t look like one of ours. It looks like a Mexican plate.”
“All the more reason to get on this quickly.” He nodded toward the clerk. “We need to call the police. I think our groom has been kidnapped. And if it is a Mexican plate, we need to hurry before they get him across the border.”
“If they left here at three in the morning,” the clerk frowned, “they could already be across the border.”
Casey sank into a chair beside the hotel clerk. “Holy cow. Who would have done this?” Her eyes widened. “How am I going to tell Kalea?” She shook her head, her jaw hardening. “I’m not going to tell her. At least, not until we have a better handle on what’s going on. Hell, I’d rather not tell her at all, if we don’t have to. Which means, we have to get him back. Soon. He’s getting married in less than thirty-six hours!”
Chapter 5
Jacob placed his hands on her shoulders. “What are you talking about? This is a crime scene. We’re not qualified to launch our own investigation. We need to get the police involved to run this license plate and locate the owners of that delivery van.”
“Those plates are Mexican. The police aren’t going to be able to run them to find who owns that truck. They don’t have access to the Mexican vehicle registration system.”
“No, but there has to be someone who does.” As if on cue, a cellphone rang.
Casey glanced down at hers. “Not mine.”
Jacob pulled his cellphone from his right pocket and frowned. “Not mine.”
The hotel clerk shook his head. “Not mine.”
Another ring reminded Jacob of Hawk’s phone in his other pocket. As he dug it out, he muttered. “If it’s Kalea, what do I tell her?”
“Nothing,” Casey said. “We’re going to get Hawk back.”
Jacob glanced at the caller ID on Hawk’s phone and breathed a sigh. “It’s his boss, Hank Patterson.” He slid his finger across the screen. “Hank, Jacob Fowler.”
“Rooster? That you?” Hank asked.
“Yes, sir,” Jacob said.
“Where’s Hawk?” Hank asked. “Is he getting ready for the big event?”
“No, sir.” Jacob’s gaze met Casey’s. “We have an issue. You might be able to help us.”
“Okay. Sounds serious. Give me a sitrep,” Hank commanded, all business now.
“Hawk is missing. We think he’s been kidnapped by Mexican nationals.”
“Damn,” Hank said. “And here I was calling to get directions to the wedding venue.” Hank paused. “Tell me everything you know so far. Have you called the police?”
“Not yet.”
“As soon as you hang up with me, call them,” Hank said.
“Will do.”
“Now, give it to me,” Hank said and let Jacob tell him about leaving Hawk in his room and the men coming at three in the morning to cart him away.
“We can’t be certain they took Hawk in the laundry cart, but there weren’t any more videos of anyone leaving the hotel between the time we left him in his room and this morning when we discovered he was missing.”
“He’s been in Hawaii for the past couple of months. I don’t recall him being sideways with anyone over there. Does he have any enemies in San Diego that you can recall?”
Jacob couldn’t think of anyone. “Not that I’m aware of. We’ve only been in town for a day. The bachelor party was last night. He had hoped you would make it.”
“I couldn’t get a flight out soon enough. I’m in San Diego now. Where do you want to meet?”
“Come to the hotel for now.” Jacob gave him the address. “I have an image of the back of the van that took him. It has a Mexican license plate on it.”
“Shoot that my way in a text. I’ll get Swede, my computer guy, on it right away.”
“Swede’s working for you?” Jacob remembered the tall blond SEAL from when they’d worked together on some of his first missions.
“You bet he is. Brotherhood Protectors would be nothing without him,” Hank said. “He’s amazing with the computer and has some contacts in places you don’t want to know about.”
“Good. Maybe he can tell us who owns the van. I’m sure the California police don’t have access to the Mexican DMV.”
“No, they don’t,” Hank said. “Look, let me get this to Swede. Get the police working on what they can do. I’ll be there in less than twenty minutes.”
“Will do. Out here.”
“Out here,” Hank echoed.
Jacob ended the call. “Hank’s on his way.”
“Hank’s Hawk’s boss?” Casey asked.
Jacob nodded. “Hopefully, he can help.”
The hotel clerk rose from his chair. “You ready for me to call 911?”
“Yes,” Jacob said.
The clerk left the back office for the front desk and his manager.
They could hear him as he placed the call to 911.
It wouldn’t take long for the police to arrive.
Casey paced in the small room behind the hotel’s front desk. “Who would have done this? Kalea didn’t say anything about old enemies. From what I got from her, he helped solve some problems she had in Hawaii. But they put that issue to bed.” She stopped in front of Jacob. “Did anything happen at the bachelor party before I arrived? Was there an argument? Did Hawk get into it with another patron?”
Jacob’s brow dipped. “He was there to celebrate his upcoming wedding. No one else was with us on the back patio.” His eyes widened. He looked up at Casey. “Camila.”
Casey’s eyes narrowed. “Camila?”
“His stalker.”
“Stalker?” Casey shook her head. “What stalker?”
“He had a one-night stand with her.”
“What?” Casey’s jaw tightened. “Last night?”
“No. No.” Jacob’s lips twisted. “Before he left San Diego to go to work for Hank. Before he met Kalea. He slept with this woman, Camila. They dated twice. She thought that was enough to make them an item.”
“Hawk dumped her?” Casey asked.
“Yes. Apparently, she didn’t take it well.”
“How so?”
“She didn’t consider it final. In Camila’s mind, she came to McP’s last night to rescue him from a wedding that shouldn’t happen.”
Casey pushed a hand through her hair. “Do you think she had something to do with Hawk’s kidnapping?”
&nbs
p; “She’s a woman. Those guys who wheeled the cart out were big and burly. Definitely not Camila.”
“But she could have hired those men to take him.” Casey resumed her pacing. “What’s Camila’s full name. We need to tell the police about her.”
Jacob shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“What do you mean, you don’t know?”
“I mean, Hawk only called her by her first name. He never told me a last name.”
“How the hell are we supposed to find her, if we don’t have her full name? We’re in southern California.” Casey flung her hands in the air. “There could be hundreds of Camilas.”
“Maybe Hank’s computer guy can help us narrow down the search.”
Casey glanced at her watch. “Thirty-five hours, forty-nine minutes and counting. We have to find Hawk.”
“You’re telling me? I promised I’d have him to the church on time.” Jacob scrubbed his hand down his face, feeling the bristles of a day’s beard growth. “Kalea will skin me alive.”
“And me.” Casey buried her face in her hands. “She’s my best friend. I talked her into having the wedding here. She wanted to have a simple ceremony in front of a Justice of the Peace and be done with it.” Casey leaned back her head. “This is all my fault.”
Jacob gripped her arms. “Did you kidnap Hawk?”
She looked up into his eyes. “No.”
“Exactly.”
“Yeah, but if I hadn’t been so preoccupied last night with making everything perfect, I might have seen what was happening with this Camila woman.”
Jacob frowned. “You weren’t even supposed to be there. For that matter, why were you the stripper in the cake?”
Casey’s lips pressed into a thin line. “My stripper called and cancelled, just as the delivery men unloaded the cake.” She shrugged. “When your help doesn’t show, you do what has to be done.”
“That’s taking your business a little too seriously.”
She glared at him. “No one was supposed to know it was me.” She poked a finger into his chest. “And as far as everyone else goes, they better not ever know.”
Jacob held up a hand. “I’m not going to tell a soul.” His lips twitched and spread across his face. “It’ll be our secret.”
