by Dale Mayer
Just then a sound came from the other bedroom. Lorelei bolted to her feet and raced in. Both men froze as they listened to the girls’ conversation. Then realizing that the child’s cry was followed by laughter, they both calmed down.
Jax looked over at Griffin. “You’re getting in too deep.”
Griffin stopped stirring the scrambled eggs in the pan. He looked over at his friend and said, “Maybe.”
“Did you think about that?”
“No,” he said, “I didn’t. Not sure I can either.”
“Meaning?”
“I think it’s already too late. I’ve met a lot of women in my time, but I can’t say too many have affected me like this.”
“Just stay objective,” Jax said.
“I will be,” he said. “I have to admit that I’m operating under a new set of parameters. I’ve never had anybody I cared about to this extent.”
“I know,” Jax said. “I guess that’s why I’m bringing it up. We want to make sure that decisions are still made for the right reasons.”
“I’m always a pro. You know that,” he said. He turned off the burner and quickly dished up the scrambled eggs into a serving bowl, then he called out, “Lorelei and Amelia Rose, breakfast.”
He finished setting the table, holding off looking in the girls’ direction as they came toward him because he knew, like Jax had seen, Griffin’s gaze would go first to Lorelei, if only for the chance to see her again. And how sad was that? He lifted his gaze to see her warm brown eyes staring at him and a grin at the corner of her lips.
“She slept well,” Lorelei announced. “She says two heroes are looking after us, so there’s no reason for her to have any nightmares.”
Amelia Rose bounced forward and threw her arms around Griffin and gave him a big hug. Then she walked over to the table where Jax sat and hugged him from behind. Jax chuckled, turned around, picked her up, and stood with her in his arms, then tossed her once. She let out a shriek.
Lorelei looked at him in amazement. “How can you even lift her?” she asked enviously. “I don’t have that kind of strength.”
“You don’t need it either,” Griffin said as he motioned at the table. “Sit down. Let’s get eating.”
Obediently she sat on the chair beside him, just like how he would have sat beside her. They were almost like homing pigeons, instinctively seeking each other out in the darkness. And he knew just how bad he really did have it. Amelia Rose, on the other hand, was more than happy to sit beside Jax, even pulling her chair closer toward him.
“Did you get any sleep, Jax?” She chattered away as she dug in, scooping up eggs with a serving spoon but then snagging up bacon with her fingers. Lorelei immediately chided her for her fingers, but she just grinned up at her. “Jax uses his fingers,” she said.
And Jax deliberately reached across, used his fingers, and snagged more bacon.
Lorelei groaned. “You two are incorrigible.”
But Griffin, not to be outdone, using his fingers, chose two pieces for himself but also two for her and dropped those in her plate. He raised an eyebrow and said, “One does what one must …”
She gave him a special smile that hit him hard. He dropped his gaze to his plate, confused, irritated, and frustrated at the timing. When he raised his gaze again, Jax looked at him with a warning in his gaze. Griffin gave a brief nod and tucked into his food. Objectivity was everything in this game.
And, in games like this, making a mistake was fatal.
Chapter 9
Something had definitely changed between her and Griffin. Lorelei wanted to spend time in a corner with a cup of tea and really delve into what was going on, but there was no time. As soon as they finished eating, the men had bounced up, cleaned up the kitchen, and packed up the rest of food into a large Ziploc bag, which she didn’t quite understand, until she realized that it was all leaving with them. She raced back to her room, quickly made the bed, and checked that there were no obvious signs of anybody having been here. Then she went to Amelia Rose’s room and did the same.
With the bags packed and sitting at the front door, Griffin made a final tour through the apartment and opened the front door that led to the hallway. Jax was out first, checking that the coast was clear. And then he nodded toward Griffin. Jax grabbed half their luggage and had his duffel on his back and motioned for Lorelei and Amelia Rose to follow Griffin, who carried the rest of their luggage. He headed forward and hit the button on the elevator, Jax behind them all. As soon as they all stepped in, instead of going down, they went up.
Lorelei’s eyebrows went up too. She frowned at him, but Griffin gave a small shake of his head, and she understood it wasn’t the time to ask questions. This was the time to go with the flow if she wanted to get her and Amelia Rose out of here safely. With her heart hammering against her ribs, she hung on to Amelia Rose, not giving the girl a chance to back away from her.
Amelia Rose looked at her and whispered, “It’ll be okay, Lorelei.”
She was probably hurting the child’s hand with her panicked grip, so she gentled her hold. Lorelei gave a small chuckle and said, “I hope so.”
“It’s all good,” Amelia Rose said. “These guys will look after us just fine.” And her tone was so confident that Lorelei was amazed. Was that the innocence of a child who hadn’t seen quite enough of the world to understand just how ugly the underbelly could be? Yet she’d seen Nurse killed. So maybe it was about trusting in these heroes.
When they got to the floor they wanted, after they had bypassed all the others, Jax quickly moved to another elevator and motioned them inside. Without question, the four piled in with all their luggage, and he hit another button. When the elevator doors opened this time, they found a small entranceway with glass doors in front.
They were on the roof.
Lorelei gasped as Griffin opened the glass door and stepped outside, getting them to move quickly. Apparently they were on a schedule. They followed her out, and she would have asked a question but couldn’t be heard as a helicopter flew overhead and suddenly landed in front of them. She looked at Griffin, and he nodded, grabbed her arm, and said in a low voice against her ear, “Hang on to Amelia Rose.”
Jax was already ahead of them. He spoke with the pilot and opened the back door, tossing up luggage. He called over to them, “Come on.”
They quickly raced forward, with Griffin showing them how to duck below the rotors. Then he picked up Lorelei and lifted her into the chopper and did the same with Amelia Rose. Jax stowed their luggage safely, belting it in. Once inside, both men climbed up, and they went to town, locking down harnesses on both girls. They took seats across from them, even while the pilot lifted the helicopter. The doors were off, and she got a bird’s-eye view of the city as they soared high above.
The pilot flew for about forty minutes and then landed at what looked like a yacht club. He set the helicopter down, and, without another word, the men got off, helping the girls and taking the luggage with them. There, they strode toward the end of a single long dock. They moved quickly and efficiently, not running, but Lorelei and Amelia Rose had to run to keep up. Lorelei was afraid that that in itself would cause attention. But, when she got to the end, a speedboat, and a big one at that, sat nearby.
Surprised—yet nothing really surprised her anymore—she hopped in, accepted the life jackets that they were both given, put hers on, and then helped buckling up Amelia Rose. The girl was well on her way to getting it buckled herself when they were off again.
Lorelei had no clue where they were going, but apparently it was important that they get there fast. The speedboat was noisy, too noisy to talk and be heard. The wind was brutal too. Even behind the windshield, it wasn’t enough to stop the cold wind from biting each of them. Even though the temperature and the sun were hot, that wind-shear factor was something else. But they came up against another large yacht and were quickly disembarked onto the new vessel. Finally, when the speedboat left, she turned and looked
up at Griffin. “I get the need for speed but that thing is dangerous to anybody’s hearing.”
He nodded but didn’t say a word about the remark but instead said, “Now we’ll stay here on deck for another short trip.”
She smiled at him while he pulled out a laptop. She saw he had a satellite feed link that appeared to be directly overhead. “Is that us?”
“Now we wait,” he said with a nod.
She smiled and nodded, but the yacht was quite a ways offshore. She didn’t have a clue where they would go. That speedboat had taken a tremendous amount of energy from her. They’d been on it for just long enough for her to completely lose her orientation. She sat down with Amelia Rose beside her.
“How long are we waiting?” Amelia Rose asked.
“A while.”
Amelia Rose piped up and asked more questions. She wanted to know how big the yacht was, how fast it could go, whose it was, and could they go to one of the rooms on it. Jax answered each and every one of her questions patiently and calmly, with as much information as he could.
And, for the last part, he said, “No, you can’t.”
She looked up at him and pouted. “My dad has a yacht,” she announced.
“I’m sure he does,” Jax said with a smile. “But this is one of those mega-yachts. I doubt his is this big, although it could be.”
She shrugged. “I never get to go on it. Maybe it’s bigger?”
“Maybe that’s what we should do next time,” Lorelei said. “Maybe you can get your dad to go on the yacht with us.”
“Maybe,” she said doubtfully. “I think he leases it.”
Lorelei didn’t know how long they would wait. It seemed like they were expecting another ride immediately, but that didn’t happen, and the yacht stormed ahead at a decent rate. She frowned, but, when wondering if they would get a cup of coffee or at least some water, a trolley was pushed down to the far corner.
Jax retrieved it and brought it forward. “Oh, nice, anything anybody could want,” he announced. And, sure enough, there was a pot of tea and a pot of coffee, sandwiches, and little extras, like cheese and fruit. She grabbed two plates, took a selection, passing one plate to Amelia Rose and sat back down where she had been, so she could stare out at the ocean. And to sit close to Griffin.
“I have no idea how you made all this happen,” she said, “but thank you.”
“It’s what we do,” Griffin said.
“Well, maybe,” she said, “but I wonder just how much you do versus how much your team does.”
“True enough,” he said with a chuckle. “You don’t do any of this without a team behind you.”
She nodded. “Not to mention money.”
“Most people aren’t paid for their part in this,” he said.
In light of their kidnapping for a multimillion-dollar ransom, Lorelei was happy to hear that. “I can’t even imagine where we’re going from here,” she said. “At least for the moment, it’s peaceful. It’s quiet, and I don’t really feel like we’re in any danger.”
“And you could be wrong about that,” Griffin said. “Not only do we have the normal problems but this particular area is well-known for pirates too.”
She stiffened and stared at him in shock. “What?”
He nodded. “The good news is, armed security is on board just for that event.”
“But that’s ridiculous,” Lorelei said, glancing around nervously. “It’s like we’re at the end of the ocean.”
“It is what it is,” he said with a nonchalance that surprised her.
“Surely we aren’t getting blasé about pirates now, are we?”
“I’m more concerned about the men who kidnapped you two. Let’s make sure that we get you home safe and sound with nobody even knowing that you made it there.”
“You know we could have gone by private jet, right?”
“We could have,” he said cheerfully. “But, as long as you’re undercover and out of the way, you have no idea where we are and what we’re doing. And neither do the kidnappers.”
And just when she thought it was time for a nap, by the position of the afternoon sun, Griffin stood, gathered all the dishes, put it on the tray, motioned to Jax, and said, “It’s time.”
In a small voice, Lorelei asked, “Time for what?” She hated to admit it, but she was damn afraid that he would pull out scuba gear or something equally dangerous. She’d never been much of a water person, and this was getting scarier and a whole lot more dangerous than she’d first thought it would be.
He looked at her with a grin on his face and said, “You’ll see.”
And, beside her, something—small—came up out of the water. A round object, until the rest of it broke through. They were coming alongside a submarine. She bolted to her feet and stared in shock. “Oh, my God,” she croaked.
“Just like Jax told you. Underwater.”
The transfer was made as quietly and as efficiently as possible. And the two girls were now safely in one bunk in a spare cabin on the supply deck. They had been led here by one seaman who made no conversation and neither did he expect any. Griffin noted the four bunks for the four of them. He settled into his lower bunk, placed his laptop underneath his bunk, with Jax already settled up above in the top bunk, and said, “We’ll take a nap.”
“A nap?” Amelia Rose asked. “Didn’t you sleep last night?”
His lips quirked. “I did, indeed,” he said, “but I have to be ready for whatever comes. So right now, it’s an opportunity to grab some shut-eye.” And he closed his eyes but couldn’t sleep. It was also time for him to let his mind wander and to get all the information he had in his head organized and reorganized.
Besides the initial checks into Gerard, his previous wives, Lorelei, Nurse, and even Amelia Rose, they had further backgrounds on both sons, on the current wife, and on the brother and his family, but absolutely nothing pointed a finger at any one person. They were still working on the family connections.
Griffin had a suspicion it was all connected to the brother, but he had no proof. Just a question about a man who worked at his brother’s company knowing it would never be fully his. Also the brother could be involved with yet another family member, but that led to the big question of, why partner up? Or was it to have the connections to pull this off? One had an idea but couldn’t do it alone. Hence the need for the second party.
If so, then they must share the ransom money. That often didn’t go well. Unless one partner wanted something much different than the other.
They’d done a deep search on Gerard’s business holdings but had found nothing criminal or underhanded. And nothing involving Thailand, other than two of Gerard’s companies were buying satellite time and looking at overhauling their global communication systems.
No, this felt like it was much closer than a business-related retaliation, even though that played into this, what with the security guard for the big arms dealer in Thailand being the original kidnapper. Yet they had not found a link between the original kidnapper and someone in Gerard’s family. And yet, this was all about family. Griffin knew it in his gut. He had seen takeovers within a family happen before. A lot of times, the younger generation didn’t want to wait for the older generation to retire. It usually had fatal consequences for the elder generation.
Gerard though, in this case, was hardly senile or even elderly. But, if his sons were looking for more power, more money, and more status, this would definitely be one way to get it. Both sons were married and, according to the details, have been for several years. No children yet in either marriage. And then there was Gerard’s wife.
Griffin felt they were missing something. They were missing somebody.
On that note, he rolled over and looked at Lorelei. “Can you make me a list of everybody in the household?”
“Don’t you have that already?” she asked without looking at him.
“I have an official one,” he said, “but I want an unofficial one from an insider.”<
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She looked over, puzzled.
He nodded. “So include boyfriends, girlfriends, delivery people, and anybody who you see on a regular basis at the house.”
Understanding lit her chocolate-colored gaze. She nodded, reached into her bag on the floor for the personal notebook that she always kept with her, and started writing. As he watched, she had already written down more names than he expected. “Also write down in what capacity you know them as,” he said. He dropped back onto his pillow, linked his fingers, and placed them under his head, while he continued to think about all the information swirling around in his thoughts.
He knew that Gerard didn’t want to think it was anybody in the family, but Griffin was pretty sure Gerard was wrong. He rolled over, looked at Lorelei again, and said, “Add anything you know about his brother’s family.”
“He’s married, has two sons of his own, and was there with Gerard right from the beginning. I’m sure you have intel on all these people,” she said in exasperation, “so what difference does it make what I write down?”
He smiled. “Because you see things. You see things differently.” And he rolled back over again.
He could hear her snort, but then Amelia Rose said, “He’s right, you know? You do see things differently. Any time I get upset or get into an argument with Mom, you always point out another perspective to help me adjust.”
“Well then, you help me with this list,” Lorelei said. “Who do we see in the house all the time? Because you know that you and I are both invisible.”
“That’s true,” Amelia Rose said. “But we also work on that.”
Griffin sat up and looked at her. “What do you mean by that?”
She shrugged. “We work hard to not be seen a lot of the time.”
“And why is that?”
“Because, if I go out, I get in trouble,” she said with a conspiratorial grin to Lorelei. “My dad likes to think that I’m super smart because I spend hours and hours working on my books. But the thing is, I’m super smart because Lorelei teaches it to me, and I get it fast and easily. So then we have lots of free time, but I’m not allowed lots of free time.” She rolled her eyes. “They want me to always work on something else. But I want to have fun too.”
