by Beverly Long
He started counting. She was back in twenty-three seconds. “Follow me, please,” she said.
Sonya Tribee was sitting behind her desk and a short, middle-aged white woman sat in one of the chairs in front of the desk. He took the chair next to her.
“Mr. Morgan,” Sonya said, her voice pleasant, “this is Annie Slip. She works in guest services, usually taking room service orders. I have been explaining to Annie that it is critically important that we obtain information on the woman in this photo, who we believe was impersonating a hotel associate. The safety of our guests and all our associates is at stake.”
Annie said nothing.
The hell with that. Royce leaned a couple inches in her direction. When he spoke, he kept his voice low. “Ms. Slip, the woman in this photo slipped an envelope under the doorway of suite 1402. In that envelope was a correspondence that the authorities are construing as a death threat. If something were to happen to the occupant of suite 1402, and you know something about this woman, then you face the very real possibility of being considered an accessory to murder. And if you don’t cooperate immediately, you can rest assured that I will do everything in my power to make sure that happens.” He was going to make sure nothing bad happened to Jules, but his intent was not to paint a pretty picture. He wanted to scare the hell out of her.
Annie Slip’s lower lip was trembling. “I don’t know anything,” she whispered.
She wasn’t going to break. Damn it.
He’d been separated from Jules for five minutes and as far as he was concerned, that was five minutes too long.
He stared at the woman. “When you get a chance to do the right thing, you should take it.”
And then he started running back to Jules.
* * *
Royce had been gone for just a minute when the event planner’s cell phone buzzed. She picked it up and frowned. “That’s odd,” she said, still looking down.
Wayne looked at JC, a question in his eyes.
The events manager looked up. “I’m sorry, but I need to step out. I just got a code on my phone that every available resource needs to report to the lobby.”
That didn’t sound good. “Should we be nervous?” JC asked, thinking immediately that there might be some significant threat.
The woman must have understood. “Crazy, right—terrorism is the first thing we think of. But there’s a different code for that.” She smiled. “This might be as simple as all the leaders need to throw available resources at a specific issue. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
She’d been gone for less than a minute when the door opened again. In walked another hotel employee pushing a cart. As she advanced from the rear of the room, JC got a tingle up her spine.
It was...oh, God, it was the woman with the coarse hair who’d slipped the letter under her door. The woman that the hotel said was impersonating one of their associates.
They needed to get out, get out now.
“Hello, JC,” the woman said. “Hello, Wayne.”
JC felt as if her legs were jelly. This woman knew not just her, but Wayne, too. She glanced at her friend and his face had turned to stone and his breathing was shallow.
JC looked closer at the woman. Discounted the coarse hair that, at close range, was obviously a wig. She felt exactly the same thing that she’d felt when she’d seen the video of this woman outside her door. She’d seen the woman before. There was something familiar about her but she just couldn’t pin it down.
“What can we help you with?” she asked, trying to keep her voice warm. Something was very wrong here.
The woman ignored her, instead smiled at her phone. “So convenient to have the hotel codes, don’t you think. But now, we don’t have much time, Wayne.”
Why was she acting like she knew both of them?
The woman reached under the towel that was on her cart and pulled out a gun. Pointed it at JC. “Here’s what’s going to happen. Wayne, you’re going to sit in that chair and JC is going to tie up your wrists and ankles.”
JC edged a step back. This woman was crazy.
“Stop that, JC. I’ll shoot you here if I have to.” Again she reached under the towel and pulled out a roll of duct tape. “Get busy and I’ll reward your efforts. You can see your sister. Yes, that’s right, Charity.”
How did this woman know about Charity? JC realized quickly it didn’t matter. She turned to Wayne. Together, they could overpower the woman. “Wayne,” she said.
“Shut up,” the woman yelled. “Sit down, Wayne.”
The man did.
JC’s brain was rapidly clicking through options. “I want to talk to her. If you’ve got Charity, I want to talk to her before I do anything.” She needed to stall long enough for Royce to return to the ballroom. Plus, every crime show she’d ever watched on television always said to ask for proof of life.
The woman pushed a button on her cell. The phone was answered. “Put the girl on the phone,” she said, then handed it to JC, who looked at the number but didn’t recognize it.
“Hello,” she heard.
Oh, God. “Charity?” she said.
“JC, help me. Please help me.”
Her words faded at the end as she was likely pulled away from the phone. The woman snatched her own phone back. She spoke into it. “Stay on the line. If she tries anything funny on our way out of the hotel and I’m not here, kill the girl.” She looked at JC. “Start wrapping. You’ve got one minute before I shoot you. And then I call my friend and tell them to shoot Charity.”
Her hands were shaking but she moved as quickly as she could. Two revolutions of tape around his wrists, two around his ankles. “Now wrap him to the chair,” the woman said.
She did it.
“Over his mouth. I know it will hurt when they take it off,” she said, irrationally sounding concerned, “but it really is necessary. And you know, I always do what’s necessary.”
Chapter 22
Royce threw open the door of the ballroom and ran inside. There, in a chair, was Wayne.
No Jules.
He ripped the tape off the man’s mouth. “Where’s Jules?”
“A woman, somebody who works for the hotel, took her. I tried to stop her, I did. But she had a gun. Said that she’d kill both of us.”
God, no. He wanted to pound the man’s face, to tell him that he should have taken the damn bullet to keep Jules safe. Instead, he pulled his pocket knife from his pocket and sliced through the duct tape on Wayne’s wrists and ankles. “What else did the woman say?”
“Nothing. That was it.”
“Did...Jules say anything?”
Wayne shook his head. “It all happened so fast. I’m so sorry, Royce.”
Stay focused. Ask the right questions. Think. Hard to do when his head was about to explode. It didn’t make sense. One woman. Even if she’d had a gun, there had been two of them. Jules would have known that her greatest risk came from leaving the hotel with someone.
“Describe the woman,” he said.
“She was just a woman, you know. White. Middle-aged. It all happened so fast,” he added, repeating his earlier comment.
It didn’t matter. They’d be able to pick her up on hotel video. “What door did they leave from?”
“That one.”
Royce took off running. On the way back to Sonya Tribee’s office, he called Detective Mannis and filled him in. When he arrived, he didn’t stop to speak to the receptionist. He burst into the manager’s office. She was at her desk.
“Jules Cambridge was just abducted from the ballroom of this hotel, taken out the west door, by the same woman who slipped the envelope under her door, in the same hotel uniform.”
To her credit, Sonya didn’t ask any questions. Simply put her hands on her keyboa
rd and started pulling the surveillance video.
“I need hallways on that floor and activity at every door. Everything for the last five minutes.”
As she hit the keys, he thought of options. It took just minutes for Sonya to isolate the video that he needed. There they were. Jules and the woman. Leaving the hotel. Jules in front, the woman close behind her. Her arm was extended, with a towel over it.
There was no doubt that she was holding a gun on Jules. She had a cell phone in her other hand.
Jules was smart. Even with a gun on her, he’d expect that she’d somehow tried to avoid being taken. But the woman had her under control.
He was willing to bet his last nickel that it had something to do with the cell phone that she had in her other hand.
He shouldn’t have left her, not even for a minute. He’d been crazy to think that she’d be safe with Wayne.
This was his fault. He’d been so focused on the news he’d gotten about Cole Hager that he’d closed his mind to other possibilities.
And he was going to have to admit that when he called Joel Cambridge and told him that his daughter was missing.
“I want to talk to that woman again,” he said. “To Annie Slip.”
Sonya looked at him, her eyes sad. “We’ve talked to her twice...”
“I don’t care,” he roared. “She knows something. Get her back up here.”
Sonya picked up the phone. Spoke quietly. Put the receiver down. “She’s already left the building. Guess she got the hell out of here after our conversation. Anyway, her supervisor is calling her and telling her to come back. I’m not sure how long it will take.”
Likely enough time for him to go see Barry Wood. The man deserved to know what was going on.
“Send me a text when she’s back,” he said. This time he was getting the truth.
* * *
JC recognized the man who was driving the car. He was one of the ones who had approached Charity at the pool and taken her.
The woman had pushed her into the back seat of a small red SUV. Nobody had said a word. They had driven down the strip for about a mile and then taken a right, heading out of town. They were making no effort to keep her from seeing where she was going.
That meant just one thing. They intended to kill her. She thought of Royce and the guilt he’d feel for having failed her. It would kill him. A sob escaped.
“Stop whining. This is your fault,” the woman said. “You just couldn’t leave well enough alone.”
What the hell was she talking about?
“And that little sister of yours. Every bit as much trouble. And her friend, she’s got a mouth on her. I’ll be glad to be rid of the bunch of you.”
She had to think, had to figure this out. “How do you know that Charity is my sister?”
“I’ve known since before she was born.” The woman shook her head. “That was before I realized that if you wanted something done, you might as well just take care of it yourself.”
“They have you on video, you know,” JC said. “A very clear picture of you slipping the envelope under my door.”
The woman laughed. “I know all about their stupid technology. Have been hearing about it for years, how they use it rather than have supervisors on the floor, doing some actual work. But that’s why I wore the wig and the makeup and this god-awful fat suit.” She pulled up her shirt and JC could see it. “If I gained this much weight in real life, I would kill myself.” She laughed as if she was really funny.
This was a sick, sick woman.
She wasn’t going to be able to reason with her. She was simply going to have to figure out a way to get herself and Charity, and by the sounds of it, Lou, too, away from there.
They drove until they were well into the desert, where the houses were literally miles apart. She tried to keep track of the time and the turns in her head, regretting that she’d stopped wearing a watch years ago in favor of seeing the time on her phone. She thought they’d been in the car for about forty-five minutes. It had been a right, right, left and a right. But now the ride seemed over. They were pulling into the gravel driveway of a small house in general disrepair. The paint, which might have been a mint green, was faded from the hot sun and there were sections of shingles on the roof that were missing.
“Welcome to my little retirement home,” the woman said. Then she giggled before she clamped her hand around JC’s arm and pulled her from the car. Then it was into the house, which was dark and stuffy. The woman put her hand on JC’s back, shoving her down the short hallway.
“This is your room,” she said, stopping in front of the last doorway. She reached in front of JC to open the door.
Charity. Her friend Lou. Both girls were sitting on the floor, on opposite sides of the small room. They were staring at the door.
Charity had been crying. Streaks ran down her dirty face.
There was no furniture in the room, not one stick. Just a dirty, matted gray carpet.
She saw the ropes dangling from big metal hooks that had been drilled into the wall, close to the ceiling. Realized that the other end of the rope was tied around each girl’s ankle, effectively securing them in place. They could sit or stand but not do much else. Their wrists were secured with duct tape in front of their bodies.
“All ready to join the party?” the woman asked, her voice cheerful.
That was when JC saw the third hook.
The man who had been driving had followed them down the hall. Now he had a gun in his right hand.
“Shoot her if she tries anything,” the woman said, tightening her grip on JC’s arm. She started to drag her across the room.
“I have to use the bathroom,” she said. Anything to buy time, buy opportunity.
The woman shook her head. “You’re going to have to hold it. It won’t be long. Striker is out with his tractor, digging your hole right now. Once he gets back, Shane and I will be rid of the three of you forever.”
“You won’t get away with this,” JC said.
The woman looked surprised. “Of course I will. The only one who knows anything for sure is Wayne. And he’s kept his mouth shut before. He can certainly do it again.”
* * *
Royce knocked on the Woods’ door. Barry Wood opened it.
“Royce?” he said. “I wasn’t expecting...” The man stopped. “Oh, no. Something has happened.”
“Jules has been taken,” Royce said, his tongue feeling too big for his mouth. Hateful, ugly words.
He heard a gasp and looked up to see Barry’s wife at the edge of the room. He remembered seeing her at the panel presentation although she hadn’t stayed around afterward.
“I’m Eileen Wood,” she said.
“Royce Morgan,” he said.
“I know who you are. I knew about you eight years ago.”
Jules had never mentioned that. But this was not the time to be wandering down memory lane.
“What happened?” Barry asked. His complexion had gone gray.
He told them about leaving Jules in the room with Wayne Isman, about returning to find Wayne bound and gagged.
When he was done, he saw a look pass between the Woods. A look he didn’t understand but it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. “What?” he demanded.
“Tell him,” Eileen said. “We need to tell him. This is Juliana we’re talking about.”
“If you know anything—”
“Understand that Wayne Isman and I are not friends,” Barry said, interrupting him. “At best, we have remained acquaintances throughout the years. Our paths have crossed professionally for probably twenty years, given that we were both executives at drug companies. For several years, we were both employed by Geneseel.”
“That’s when Jules worked at Geneseel.”
“Yes,” Barry said.
“You got her the job there,” Royce said.
Barry shook his head. “I did not. In fact, I didn’t even know that she’d applied or been hired until after she’d started.”
That didn’t make sense. When he’d met Jules, she was always working and had confided in him that she’d always felt that she had to work harder than everyone else because Barry had helped her get a job. “Jules thought you did,” he said.
“It was Wayne,” Eileen said, moving farther into the room.
Another look passed between Barry and Eileen. Barry started rubbing his hands together.
“Tell him, Barry,” Eileen said, her voice hard. “Tell him the truth.”
“He’s my friend,” Barry said.
“You said you and Isman were barely acquaintances,” Royce accused. Which one was it?
“Not him,” Eileen dismissed, tears in her eyes.
Barry shook his head. “Joel Cambridge. He’s been my friend since we were kids.”
“JC got her job at Geneseel because of Wayne Isman,” Eileen said. “Her father probably told her it was Barry.”
“Why would he do that?”
Barry put his palms flat on his knees and cleared his throat. “Because Joel Cambridge and Wayne Isman have been lovers for almost thirty years.”
* * *
It felt as if his damn head was filled with wool. Wayne Isman and Joel Cambridge. He quite frankly didn’t give two hoots about anybody’s sexual preferences, but he did care that there were big secrets here.
Because sometimes people got quite crazy with their need to protect secrets.
“Who knows this?” he demanded.
Barry shrugged. “I believe it is very closely held information. Joel got drunk one night, shortly after their relationship started, and he told me. I told Eileen but neither of us ever told another living soul. Professionally, neither of them are out.”
“Personally then? Family?” Royce asked.
“JC does not know. I’m confident of that,” Eileen said. “And I don’t think her mother ever knew. I wanted to tell her. But Barry asked me not to. Said we had to stay out of it. In deference to him, I held my tongue. I believe if she had known, she would have told me. She certainly told me other important things that were in this same vein.”
