They were supposed to install it early that morning, which could have been any moment Singapore time. He listened to music as SIB did her job, and thought about what happened the night before they left. On the list of things he regretted, that was near the top with asking Vince to kiss Ari.
“Show me Sam Clark,” Jordan said again, and SIB took several minutes before she found him. She had to activate the webcam on his laptop. He was in his office, but he wasn’t working. He watched news footage of Arianna’s case on the big TV behind his desk, and he masturbated as he watched video of her.
“Great,” he said out loud. “The guy I pick for Arianna is a freaking stalker.”
He heard something he didn’t often hear. Someone knocked on his door. “Shut off monitors,” he said quickly, and the monitors went black. He opened the door to find Selena Davies on the other side. “Hello, Ms. Davies,” he said as he stood in the doorway.
“Hello, Jordan. May I come in?” She asked it in her most alluring tone.
“Of course,” he said as he stepped aside. “How can I help you?”
“I just came for a friendly chat,” she sighed. “May I call you Jordan, by the way?”
“Of course,” he said with a nod. “Would you like a drink, Ms. Davies?” He asked as he pointed toward a mini fridge in the corner.
“No, thank you, Jordan,” she said with a smile. “And please, call me Selena.” She dressed to tantalize him. She wore an emerald green dress with a deep V neckline that hugged every one of her curves. He couldn’t help but stare. “When I heard about your new assignment I wanted to come see you. I was fascinated.”
“It is a new project the Department of Homeland Security is developing,” he said, and began to explain.
“That’s not what I’m interested in,” she said with a pretty pink pout. Selena placed one perfectly manicured hand on his forearm. Everything about her was perfect, from her makeup to her blonde hair to her body. She looked like she’d just stepped off the cover of a magazine. Ari was just as pretty, but she was real. She didn’t have a need for all the other stuff. “I was wondering about you.”
“Me?” Jordan asked. As he stared at her hand she began to lightly rub it back and forth. “I know we haven’t been formally introduced, really, but I feel like I got to know you through Arianna.” That was a half truth. Arianna never mentioned him, but she did learn a lot about him through the case. And when she saw him at the mall with Vince her heart fluttered. Sometimes she liked them inexperienced. They were easier to break. “And I was wondering who was taking care of you while they are gone?”
“I take care of myself,” he insisted. His arm broke out in goose bumps from her touch. “I take care of them too.”
“I thought so,” she grinned at him. “I bet you’re very caring. Do they appreciate that about you?” She wondered as she took a step closer. He frowned as he thought about how he’d tried to take care of Ari, and how wrong it went. “How about we go to dinner and talk about it,” she wondered.
He looked at the blank monitors, and shrugged. “Okay,” he nodded, and escorted her out of the room. SIB alerted several minutes after he left the room to activity at the hut. The monitors came on, and the images of Arianna being carried out of the cabin by two Asian men could be seen.
Vince returned to the hut to find Arianna gone. Maybe she got tired of waiting for him and went for food, he mused. He sat down under the palm tree again, but he was too tired to stay there long. He made his way to the bedroom and climbed into the bed. Surely Arianna would wake him when she got back. He’d done a lot of thinking on his walk, and none of it was good. They would talk after she woke him up, he thought as he pulled the curtain around the bed.
He awoke to the sound of the ocean lapping at the pristine white beach outside. It sounded like heaven. He reached out automatically for Ari, or Jordan, but neither was there. He grinned and stretched, and opened his eyes. Then he realized he wasn’t at home. He was in Singapore with Arianna. “Ari,” he called out, but she didn’t answer. He stepped outside the netting and walked into the sitting room. “Princess,” he said louder. She didn’t answer. He opened the door, hoping to find her outside on the beach. He didn’t see her. But the sun was high in the sky. He’d slept for five, maybe six hours. Where had she gone?
He walked back into the bedroom to use the restroom, and realized her suitcases were gone. “Fuck,” he swore loudly, and grabbed his phone to call Jordan.
Jordan didn’t know how it happened. One minute he was at dinner with Selena Davies, and she mentioned she’d heard nice things about his house and wanted to see it. The next thing he knew they were in the king bed, and she was undressing him. He’d wanted her to do it, after their talk at dinner. She reminded him over and over that Ari and Vince were on a romantic island. The beach, the nightlife; and of course they were having sex. And they were doing all of it without him.
He didn’t feel bad about having sex with her until she was on top of him, and she was lowering herself onto him. And then he realized that he would much rather have Arianna instead of her, even if that meant having Vince and Sam and whoever else she wanted. Thankfully he’d insisted on wearing a condom, and she just happened to have some in her purse. At least she came prepared.
He wanted to tell her to stop, but he was already inside her, and it felt really good. He closed his eyes, balled his fists, and tried to think of Ari until he came. And then she fell onto him, just as Sam had fallen onto Arianna. The difference was Sam really seemed to enjoy what he did with Arianna. He narrated his enjoyment very well. Selena didn’t seem to enjoy it as well, and Jordan knew he didn’t. She kept asking him, “Do you like it?” And he couldn’t answer yes, so he didn’t answer. He didn’t like it. He liked what he and Ari and Vince did much more. And why was he still thinking of Vince sexually.
They’d fallen asleep that way, and at one am his phone rang. “Hello,” Jordan said groggily. Vince knew he rarely slept that early at night, unless…
“Who is it, baby,” Vince heard a voice say, and he stiffened. He knew that voice. It was Selena. That didn’t take long, Vince thought. He wondered if they’d been having sex for a while. He wondered if that was what was behind Jordan not wanting Vince any longer, and why Vince ordered up Sam for Arianna.
“Are you fucking Selena Davies,” Vince growled.
“Just, um…” Jordan stammered. “Yes,” he finally said, and crawled out of the bed quickly and made his way to his room and locked the door. “Just this once and I have no idea how it happened.”
“There seems to be a lot of that going around.” Vince couldn’t hide his disdain. “But this time you were fucking Selena Davies while Arianna was being kidnapped.”
“WHAT?” Jordan screamed. “Arianna has been what?”
“She’s gone, Jordan! I lay down to take a nap and when I woke up she was gone and her bags were too!” Vince screamed back.
“Maybe she’s…” Jordan couldn’t finish. She wouldn’t leave Singapore and not tell Vince or Jordan. That wasn’t a possibility. “You were supposed to be watching her.”
“I took a fucking nap!” Vince yelled. “You were supposed to be watching us, not fucking around!”
“It was just once,” he said as he started to dress. When he finished he made his way toward their shared bedroom. “You need to leave, now,” Jordan ordered her.
“But you drove me here,” she whined. And she stared at him, completely dressed, and knew something was wrong.
“I’ll drive you home, just get dressed now,” Jordan yelled. “I’ll call you when I get to the office,” he said as he shoved his phone in his pocket.
Vince began to swear, and didn’t stop until he’d looked at every inch of the hut, then stepped outside to look for tracks in the sand. He didn’t see any, but what he did see was a camera attached to their palm tree, and pointed at the front door. Somehow he knew that Jordan was behind it. He would just have to wait until he called back. He realized then that he was
starving, and headed toward the hotel’s main building. He would find out who in town could install a camera like that, and hopefully where he could get some food.
“Jordan, what’s wrong?” Selena asked for the twentieth time since they left the house five minutes ago. “Is it Vince?” She wondered. Jordan turned toward her and realized this wasn’t about him at all, it was about Vince. She’d slept with Vince before, and she wanted him back. She tried to use Jordan to get to him. She slept with Jordan to make Vince jealous, perhaps. Or maybe she seduced Jordan to break the trio up.
Hadn’t he already decided to do that? Didn’t he tell Vince on the evening before they left that he didn’t want to be a trio anymore? Why did he do that? Why did he try to break it off on the day before they left? Maybe that was weighing on Vince’s mind. Maybe that was why he’d taken a nap. Maybe the stress caused him to take his eyes off Ari for a moment…
“Is it Arianna,” Selena continued. Why wouldn’t she just shut up?
“Arianna’s gone. Vince doesn’t know what happened to her,” Jordan finally admitted. “Please stop asking.”
Selena thought it was horrible, for a split second. And then she thought, with Ari gone, maybe she could take her place. She stared out the window and thought of what it would be like to live with Vince and Jordan, super-kinky and super-geeky.
Jordan dropped her off unceremoniously. He didn’t even open the door for her. It didn’t matter; she was already making plans in her head for his future. “I had a good time tonight,” she lied. “I hope I get to see you again.”
“Okay,” Jordan said. She got out of the electric car and he headed toward his office. When he arrived the monitors were all on. He knew he’d left them off. “SIB, how are you tonight?”
“All of my systems are adequate, Jordan,” SIB answered.
“Has anyone been here?” He asked SIB.
“No, Jordan, no one has been here,” the polite voice answered.
“SIB, I want you to pull up the video from Arianna and Vince’s hut,” he ordered. He immediately saw Vince pacing in front of the small beach house. Then someone approached him, an American man. He handed Vince a duffle bag. Vince pointed at the camera, and the America glanced at it. “Hi Vince,” Jordan said aloud, although he knew Vince couldn’t hear him. They continued to speak for several moments, then they shook hands and the American left.
“SIB, rewind to the beginning of the feed for this camera,” Jordan ordered. He saw a hand in front of the lens, and then it moved. Jordan could see Arianna being carried by one Asian man, and another carried her bags. This was not a random kidnapping. They wouldn’t walk in the hut, grab only her bags, and walk out with them if she hadn’t been targeted. They wore gloves, so Vince probably wouldn’t find any fingerprints. And there was one scene where both of the kidnappers could be seen as more than a profile shot. They turned toward the man on the ladder in front of the palm tree, but apparently didn’t notice the camera. After that they were gone.
“SIB, back up four seconds,” Jordan ordered. As soon as the picture that he wanted came up he cried out, “Stop!”
“SIB, we have our kidnappers,” Jordan stated. “Now we just have to find them. Call Vince,” he stated, and his phone immediately dialed Vince’s number.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Vince yelled as he answered the phone.
“I had to drive Selena home. I couldn’t just leave her at our house,” Jordan answered.
Vince seethed. “I’m headed to the company that installed the camera. Maybe the installer saw something.”
“I have the kidnappers’ pictures,” Jordan replied. “Who was the American you spoke to?” Vince should have been creeped out, but in this case he didn’t mind that his actions were being monitored.
“The FBI agent; he brought me guns.” Vince informed him. “Maybe the installer saw someone he recognized.”
“Go ahead and try it,” Jordan shrugged. “SIB, search every international data base for these two men. And find where they are right now.”
“Yes, Jordan,” the computer responded, and brought up two screens that showed each kidnapper on one half, and the possible government issued ID on the other half. Then SIB pulled up video cameras around the hut.
“Rewind until you find the car the kidnappers are in,” Jordan ordered.
“I’m here, so I will call you with any information,” Vince stated.
“I’ll call you when I find something” Jordan agreed.
“Jordan, one other thing,” Vince began. “Remember when I asked you to keep an eye on Damien Tremblay and you said you were?”
Jordan balled his hands into fists at his side. He knew what Vince meant. Damien Tremblay was Vince’s main suspect. Jordan should have seen something like this coming. Jordan was the one who put both his mother and father in jail. Jordan had his mother killed, but no one could know that. Damien Tremblay probably still blamed Jordan for her death. And Damien Tremblay now had control of his parents’ fortune. They were one of the wealthiest families in politics. Margo Tremblay’s father was the only heir to an oil empire, and Jean-Claude Tremblay’s father was one of the richest publishers in Canada. He definitely had the means to plan something like this. But did he have the motive? Probably, Jordan realized.
“Yes, I remember,” Jordan answered.
“Did you do it?”
“Not really,” Jordan admitted.
“Do it now,” Vince stated calmly as he hung up the phone.
“SIB, comb through every phone record you have for Damien Tremblay. Connect him to the kidnappers, to Singapore, or any Asian country,” Jordan ordered. “And then find Damien Tremblay.”
Chapter Five
Arianna awoke to the sounds of the sea as if they were right outside her door. She felt hazy, like she’d had too much wine. And then she thought of the talkative Sam Clark and the night she spent with him after too much wine. She smirked at the memory.
She reached out for Vince, or Jordan. But she couldn’t move her hands. Her eyes popped open and she looked around.
She was in a grass hut; a real grass hut, not like the one she and Vince checked in to in Singapore. Was she still in Singapore? She lay on a grass mat, under a mosquito net, on the sand floor. A small lizard climbed up the grass wall not five feet from her. A bucket, she didn’t want to think of what it was for, sat not far from the lizard. And her hands were cuffed and chained to a bamboo pole buried in the middle of the floor.
Where in the hell was she?
A bottle of water was left for her beside the mat, thankfully. She was thirsty. It was hard to open with her hands cuffed, but finally she got it. An older woman entered the hut and stared at Arianna. She took in her clothes, her sandals, and her messy dark hair, tanned skin, and bright blue eyes. She said something, several times, in a language Ari couldn’t identify.
“I don’t understand,” Ari said twice. Then the woman took a bag off her shoulder and carried it to her. “Thank you,” Ari said with a nod. She opened the bag and screamed when she saw what looked like a hairy red bug.
The older woman said something Ari didn’t understand, but she said it in a soothing voice. The woman’s skin was dark like Ari’s but wrinkled and weathered. Her eyes were slanted but not pointed. Her hair was graying at the temples. And her ears were pierced with circular metal discs creating holes Ari could see through.
She looked at Ari warily and bent down beside her. She opened the bag and pulled out the bug-looking thing and held it in her palm. Then she opened the skin and revealed something that looked like a white grape. She brought it to her mouth several times, then handed it to Ari.
Ari brought it to her mouth and took a bite. It was firm and tasted a bit tart, but she ate it. She was starving. The older lady smiled at her, and Ari smiled back. She nodded and searched in the bag again and pulled out a piece of dried looking meat. It smelled like salty fish. Arianna wasn’t crazy about fish but she ate it too, and then another fruit that was red and bumpy.
It tasted like the other fruit, although sweeter. Ari nodded.
The woman left the hut and came back several minutes later with another bottle of water and a bowl of soup. Inside were vegetables that Ari thought were snow peas and leeks and peppers, and lots of noodles. It tasted good and slightly spicy. The woman came back for the bag and the bowl.
“Thank you,” Ari said. “I’m Arianna.” The woman nodded, and smiled. Ari pointed at herself and repeated, “Arianna.”
“Arianna,” she said with a nod. And then she spoke for several moments in her own language, and smiled as she left again. Ari could see the sun was bright outside the door, and sand and sky, and she could hear waves as if they were right beside the ocean. That didn’t help her to figure out where she was. She could be anywhere.
Ari finally used the bucket, out of necessity only. She stood up and paced across the sand. She couldn’t reach the door, and the bamboo shutters only opened from the outside. She didn’t want to think, but her mind went back to her conversation with Vince. Was he right? Did she favor Jordan? Probably, she realized. He was the one who needed her support. Vince was so strong, so sure of himself.
She hated herself for thinking that way. She knew what Vince had lived through. She knew how he’d been hurt. But she also felt, like Jordan, that he’d gone through so many women and men in his adult life that maybe he didn’t know how to love. But that was unfair; because he never did anything to make her think he didn’t love her. And the way he reacted to the Sam Clark debacle… He’d been jealous. He didn’t want her to be with anyone else. Perhaps he didn’t want her to be with Jordan, either, but still he shared her. She wished she could talk to him or Jordan.
She stared at the cuffs on her wrist. Why wasn’t she freaking out? Why was she sitting there calmly thinking about Jordan and Vince while she was chained to a pole in a grass hut? So she started screaming. She screamed “Help!” until her voice was raw. And then she realized why she hadn’t screamed to begin with. No one was going to help her. The older woman who brought her food didn’t even look twice at her handcuffs.
The Executioner 2: Love, Lies, and Revenge (The Executioner Series) Page 5
