“He has skills,” she said and he bobbed his head in agreement. “Skills that I need him to use to help me.”
Instead of the pity the cab driver laid on her, this guy was incredulous, but not in a sympathetic way. He seemed to be getting more annoyed by the second. “You don’t have a fucking clue what you’re inviting into your life if you talk to him. You know they say his only goal in life is to break every law there is. Do you know why they call him Exile?” She shook her head. He came closer. “Because they say he has no nationality, no country. He doesn’t come from anywhere. He has no parents. No family. And he sure as hell has no friends. They say he was spawned by the devil, some say he isn’t even human.”
“A fairytale,” she said, recognizing exaggeration when she heard it.
“Maybe,” he said. “But I can tell you he’s wanted in every state, by every major agency across the world, and Interpol couldn’t track him. He’s impossible to hold. Evidence disappears. Information vanishes… People die… He doesn’t exist.”
“Yet he’s sitting in that bar right now,” she said, nodding past him.
He shrugged. “Maybe. We’ve been out here talking for a few minutes; he could be out of the country already.”
“I’m not law enforcement. I don’t care about what he’s done or where he’s wanted. All I want is help.”
“He won’t help you. He’s not for hire.”
“I heard he likes a challenge,” she said. “And that he has an interest in the Black Jewel.”
This time when he scowled at her, Rora read ignorance; he didn’t know what she was talking about. She didn’t expect him to, she hadn’t heard of the Black Jewel before she started this journey. Rora still didn’t even know what it was.
The door opened, hitting her associate in the back. Anger made him tense as he spun, but when a guy in jeans and a leather jacket came out of the bar, her new acquaintance relaxed.
“Strike, you out?” he asked.
“Sure am, Buddy,” Strike said, glancing at her. Buddy lifted a fist, Strike bumped it with his. “Little vanilla for you, isn’t she?”
“You want her?” Buddy asked.
Her mouth fell open.
“You paid for the privilege?” Strike asked.
Rora inhaled her shock, but they carried on discussing her like she was deaf.
“Not yet, but I might be able to make a deal. I know what she wants.”
Strike’s chest expanded. “They all want the same thing. The last fucking shred of our dignity.” He turned up the collar of his jacket, scanned her figure one more time and then went the same way the other guys had gone, down the perpendicular alley. But he wasn’t done. Without slowing or turning, Strike called out to them. “Let her in, Bud.”
She smiled, feeling triumphant, figuring that guy was the owner or manager or someone who had authority at Last Resort.
Buddy twisted and stepped back, hooking a finger into a hole at the top of the door she hadn’t seen. It was a good thing he was here to open it for her because she’d never have reached that notch herself. No wonder they had a no woman policy and every guy in there was so tall, the only way in was to reach that tiny groove, all the way up there.
This time because she knew what to expect, she didn’t let the place shock her. Rora also didn’t spend any time loitering on the stairs. Hurrying down them, she ignored the music and the smell and the patrons and went straight to the table in the corner.
The bubble of her optimism that had been infused with adrenaline and hope, burst in one devastating moment. There was no one at the table, it was empty. No one sat on either of the two seats fixed against the corner wall. There was no computer. No drink. No sign anyone had ever been there. Had she imagined the computer? The red light? The shadow seated in the corner?
A small rectangle, paler than the rest of the tabletop, drew her closer. What was that? Peering at it, she tilted her head and leaned down to inspect it. Except… Rora gasped when she recognized her own face on her driver’s license!
In a panic, she dug her hand into her pocket to tug out her wallet. She’d known better than to carry a purse tonight, thinking she’d hold onto her possessions if she kept them on her person. Apparently, even that hadn’t been a guarantee because when she opened her wallet, sure enough, there was an empty slot where her driver’s license usually fitted.
How had he done that?
Grabbing it off the table, she scrutinized it, but saw no notes or clues he may have wanted to pass to her. It was the same as it always had been with a nick in one corner and a glue smudge in the other.
It was her driver’s license.
How the hell did he get it? And why would he want it?
“That you?”
Slapping the card to her chest, Rora peeked up to see Buddy looming over her shoulder. “He stole from me.”
Buddy stuck out his bottom lip and nodded again. “I heard he does that.”
And if he took that, what else did he steal? Searching her wallet, nothing else appeared to be stolen. She had her phone in her other pocket and inside the case was…
Rora gasped. “Oh no.”
two
Her hotel room was ransacked.
Rora had done her best to keep her cool when she went to the front desk to ask for a new keycard. Turned out that a lot of people lost them, so it wasn’t a big deal for them to create a new one.
She’d been chewing her lip as the elevator ascended to her floor and walked at twice her usual pace to get to her room. But as soon as she opened the door, she knew he’d been there.
Damn it.
The closet and bathroom doors were open, her clothes had been dumped on the floor, her cosmetics upended, even her shampoo bottle was in the tub. Rora discovered all that before she even went into the body of the room where she found even more mess.
The bed had been trashed, pillows were slashed, the sheets were torn… she’d have to pay for all that. Her drawers had been emptied, everything she’d brought was scattered across the floor and bed like confetti thrown at a wedding, landing any which way in any random place. It felt frivolous. Even if he was looking for something specific, he didn’t need to make this much mess.
Sinking onto the end of the bed, her hands fell between her knees. What was she going to do now? She couldn’t go to the cops and report this because if she ever wanted this Exile guy to help her, she couldn’t incriminate him. Except if he’d heard she was looking for him, he might not go back to the Last Resort.
She’d lost her last hope.
Benjamin had been missing for six months. Every second was one more that he was imprisoned, possibly being tortured. Rora had promised to find him, and that’s what she’d planned to do. But there was only one man with the skills to track down her friend and superior, and she’d just lost her only lead on him.
The first thing she’d have to do was tidy up.
Forcing herself off the bed, she began to pick up clothes. With her underwear bunched between her inner elbow and her torso, she went to open the drawer of the dresser that the TV was on. Before she even touched the handle, the TV flicked on, making her gasp and drop her bundle of panties to the floor.
The white noise faded up and a picture came onto the screen, one she recognized as her personal desktop. The wallpaper, the folders and icons, all of it was identical. How did…
The cursor moved and she turned around, trying to figure out how this was happening. Rora was stunned to see her laptop there on the corner table, exactly where she’d left it earlier, apparently untouched.
“Miss. Maguire,” a deep digitized voice echoed through the TV speakers, making her gasp again. “You made a mistake tonight.”
The cursor on the screen moved and started to open folders, data was being deleted, one bit at a time. All her research information on Exile was the first to go. Everything she’d gathered about Benjamin disappeared too.
“No,” she whispered, her fingers curling over her mouth.
“Your friend Benjamin is dead. You can’t help him,” the digitized voice said. “You’re right, I might have been able to do something about it. If I’d wanted to help him, I’d have done it. I didn’t. You’re going to forget everything you heard about me. Forget about Benjamin Gallagher. And you’re going to keep your pretty little vanilla snout out of matters that don’t concern you.”
Vanilla? Why would… No! She’d heard that word once tonight already, but it couldn’t be! It couldn’t be that the man who’d left Last Resort while she was talking to Buddy was…
He was going through her pictures now, maybe deleting them, maybe just viewing them; he lingered longer over some than others. “Is this live?” she murmured to herself, looking around for a camera, and finding nothing.
Darting over to the computer, she opened it and tried to turn it on, but it stuck on the welcome screen and wouldn’t load.
“A woman with your history should know better. Watching your family slaughtered by your own brother, that’s got to mess a person up. How do you get over something like that? By screwing your revered and talented boss I guess.”
Whether or not she’d slept with Benjamin was her business, not his. But how did he know about her family and why would he bring that up? Fury clenched her teeth. This guy thought he knew everything.
Stealing her driver’s license must have given him what he needed to track her down. A guy with his computing skills would be able to check government records kept on her, and the media coverage about her family. He’d know everything about her in a flash.
“Now we’ve dealt with the past, let’s move to the future…”
The future? Leaving her laptop stuck on its welcome screen, Rora turned, creeping back toward the television that showed him accessing her bank accounts.
“What the hell…” she hissed.
“Looks like we have something in common,” the digitized voice said while the cursor moved over the figure on the screen stating her bank balance.
She’d inherited her family’s money, their life insurance policies, and a hefty settlement figure for wrongful death after her brother was convicted. In short, she had never had to worry about paying bills.
But she didn’t understand, what did they have in common? Was he saying she was rich and he was too? Except, without moving the cursor, he did something that caused her balance to change. One digit at a time, the amount began to decrease, slowly at first, then faster and faster, until…
“Oh my god,” she said when it flashed at zero.
“That’s your trust,” the digitized voice said. “Let’s see your checking…”
“No,” she breathed.
But her other account came up on the screen and the same thing happened, the balance dropped all the way to zero.
“No,” he said. “I’m not a monster…” The figure rose until it stopped at a thousand dollars. “Treat yourself.”
“Bastard,” Rora said.
The digitized voice came back, this time much heavier and more sinister than before. “Crossing my radar was the stupidest thing you’ve ever done,” he growled. “Every cent you make from now on, you’ll make for me. I own you, Miss. Maguire. All of it. All of you. It’s mine.” Snarling at the screen, she really wished she had something to hit… like his face. “Unless…”
“Unless?” she said. “I’m not your puppet!”
“If you can answer one simple question, I’ll return every cent… might even erase those parking tickets of yours too.”
“A question?”
She didn’t get it and didn’t think he could hear her. None of this made sense. She’d wanted him to help her and now he was asking her questions?
“What’s the point?” he asked.
The television went off, at the same second the laptop sang out its tune to tell her it was on, causing her to spin around.
The TV came back on, and began racing through channels, hanging on one for a few seconds before moving onto the next. The AC turned on full and the fixed hotel hairdryer began to blow out air too. Every one of the lights flashed on and off in a haphazard rhythm, and music blasted from her laptop at the same time the ceiling fan started.
Something light hit her on the chest, but she ignored it to cover her ears against the noise of every electrical thing in the room taking on a life of its own. Rora dropped to a crouch with her hands over her ears, prepared to ride it out.
Just as she was overwhelmed enough that she might scream, the din stopped as suddenly as it had begun.
Breathing into the silence, her own heartbeat couldn’t keep up with the demand of her panting. Gradually, hoping it was over for good, she let her eyes open, still poised, expecting something else to happen. When it didn’t, she relaxed and noticed a rectangle on the floor.
Grabbing it up, she saw it was a driver’s license, but it wasn’t hers. It was…
“Where did you get this?” Rora asked, slapping Benjamin’s driver’s license down on the same Last Resort table she’d found hers on the previous day.
The man seated in the corner blinked, his eyes going from the laptop in front of him up to hers. He didn’t lift his chin, only glared up at her. His unimpressed anger infuriated her.
“Miss. Maguire,” he said, his voice somehow sounding distorted even now.
Maybe it was the music, or the smoke in this depraved place, it didn’t matter, all she wanted were answers. “This isn’t funny, Strike, Exile, whatever the hell your name is. Answer my question!”
“Are you here to answer mine?”
“The point? I don’t know what the goddamn point is, ok?”
His sinister glare returned to his computer, his fingers moving fast over the keys. “Then we’re done,” he said.
“No, you can’t just dismiss me. You can’t give me this,” she said, slamming a finger onto Benjamin’s license. “And then just dismiss me.” But his fingers didn’t slow, and he didn’t look at her again. “If I knew the answer, I would tell you the answer. Not because of the money, I don’t give a damn about the money, keep it. I planned to offer it to you anyway. I’d give every cent willingly if you’d just help me find Benjamin. Where is he?”
“Dead,” he said in a flat syllable, his typing never slowing.
“No,” she said. “No, I don’t accept that. He’s not dead!”
“How do you know?” he grumbled.
“Because he told me!”
His fingers stopped, poised on the keys, and slowly his attention ascended to hers. He waited a breath before he spoke. “Well, fuck,” he said. “He’s in communication with you.”
“No, he’s not,” she said, cursing her mouth for talking before she’d considered her words.
“How the fuck did he do that?” he asked himself rather than her. “He’s better than I gave him credit for.”
“Benjamin’s the best,” she said, proud in her resolution.
“Oh,” he said, easing away from his laptop to look up at her.
A sense of doubt and amusement had flavored his tone; he was good at conveying a lot in just a single syllable.
“What he is doesn’t matter. What matters is where he is.”
“The Black Jewel has him,” he said. “Just like you told Buddy.”
Confused, Rora chewed her lip. “I thought he had the Black Jewel.”
“No one has the Black Jewel,” he said, going back to his keyboard. “Trust me. I know.”
Still chewing on her lip, Rora was looking at nothing but the space above his head, desperately searching for clarity. “What is it? What is the Black Jewel? A drug? A location? A riddle?”
“How are you not dead yet?” he asked, snapping her focus back to him. “Seriously, you’ve been on his trail for six months?” She nodded. “How are you not dead yet?”
“I have money, had money… and a kind of unthreatening thing going for me.”
“I’ll say,” he said, working on his laptop. “Do yourself a favor, forget Gallagher.”
; Slapping a hand onto the top of the laptop, she closed it, almost trapping his fingers in the process. “No,” she said, incensed that he could be so casual about telling her to give up.
Clenching his teeth, he bared them, still focused on where the screen had been. “I’ve snapped men’s necks for less.”
“Good thing I’m not a man,” she said, keeping her hand flat on his computer. “Listen, Mr. Exile, I have travelled across the country and back again looking for the only man who ever gave a damn about me. He was taken, against his will, and I am going to find him, whether you help me or not.”
“Not,” he said, grabbing the laptop and sliding it out from under her hand.
He stood up and rounded the table to start for the door. Rora hurried to keep up, but it was difficult; he was over six feet with long legs, and people moved for him, like they could sense him coming. But his dark aura was enough to push people from his path. She on the other hand was invisible; no one gave a damn if they got in her way.
One man didn’t get out of the way fast enough, or he stumbled, either way, he interrupted Strike’s flow and it was enough to make Strike grab his wrist. Still with the laptop in his other hand, he twisted the guy’s hand causing him to turn away and call out in excruciating pain.
With little effort, Strike lifted the guy’s twisted arm, forced him forward to thump his face into the wall, and bent the arm to such an ungodly angle that the crack of bones snapping echoed even over the sound of the music.
The guy dropped onto his knees when Strike let him go. Strike didn’t even blink, just stepped over the cowering guy who was cradling his arm and continued on his path to the door.
No one else got in his way. No one questioned what he’d done. That guy had been standing with five other guys, all built bigger than Strike, but not one of them pursued him.
It wasn’t until he’d ascended the stairs and opened the door that she got with the program and started to run across the room. Swerving around the carnage Strike had caused, Rora got up the stairs and caught the door just before it closed.
Hide & Seek Page 2
