by D. R. Graham
She was killing me, and she knew it. I swallowed hard to maintain composure. “Tell me what it is, and I’ll trust you.”
Thankfully, she swung her leg over and hopped off the couch. “I’ll tell you in approximately twenty minutes.”
Still laid out on my back trying to recover from her moves, I said, “It better not be a prank because you know I’ll get you back even if it means having Tim take me down.”
“It’s not a prank.” She pulled both my hands to make me stand. “Go have a shower and get dressed in the clothes that are on your bed.”
She pressed her hands into my back and forced me to walk to my bedroom. A black suit, white dress shirt, and black tie were laid out. “Are we going out for your birthday?”
“Sort of.”
“I don’t like wearing suits.”
“Please.” She fluttered her eyelashes. “For me.”
“Fine, but only because it’s your birthday.”
She jumped up and down and clapped. “Yay. I can’t wait.” She shoved me into my room, then darted into her own room and closed the door.
Twenty minutes later, I stood in the living room trying to get my tie to hang properly. She stepped out of her room in a charcoal grey gown that flowed down to the floor. Her hair was rolled up, her lips were shiny, and her cheeks were rosy.
“Wow.”
She smiled from the compliment and stood on her tiptoes to re-tie my tie for me. “Mmm. You smell good,” she said and bit her bottom lip. I stared at her mouth for a while before I shifted my gaze up to her eyes. “Time to go.” She reached down and tugged at my hand to drag me out into the hall.
Aaron and Stan smiled at us as if they knew what her plan was, and they stayed at their posts on either side of the door as she led me down the hall. We entered the elevator, but instead of going down to the lobby, we went up to the rooftop dining solarium. It had about twenty tables, but nobody was there. One of the tables was set for dinner, and the candles were lit. She looked up at the stars above the glass-paneled ceiling and whispered, “Does it feel romantic?”
I nodded, and a pang of guilt struck me because she shouldn’t have had to organize it. “It’s your birthday. Shouldn’t I be planning something romantic on a rooftop for you?”
Her cheeks turned red. “I, um, that’s sweet.” Her hand inched down the sleeve of my jacket, then her fingers wrapped around mine. “It would have been helpful if you could have at least planned the menu.”
“Did you choose the entrees?”
She snorted. “No. Don’t be ridiculous. You’d still be waiting a week from now if I didn’t let the chef decide.” She led me across the rooftop, and our intertwined hands swung between us.
When we reached the table, I lunged forward and pulled the chair out for her. Her eyebrows raised, and she grinned at my attempt to be chivalrous. A waiter arrived with champagne and appetizers. Lincoln didn’t drink or eat. She seemed nervous.
“What’s wrong?” I asked and popped an escargot into my mouth.
“Um.” She fidgeted with the linen napkin and glanced at me for a second before she focused on the flickering flame of the candle. “I really like you, as I’m sure you can tell, and I was kind of hoping that maybe you would be interested in a relationship that consisted of more than just snuggling on the couch and goodnight kisses.” She met my gaze. “Not that I don’t like those things, because I do. It’s just that I want to take it to the next level.” She pressed her lips together tensely as if she regretted saying it.
I choked slightly as the snail got caught in my throat. When I didn’t respond immediately, her eyes filled up with tears. Every cell in my body wanted to tell her that I undeniably wanted to be all in with her. I couldn’t. It was painful to force the words out of my mouth, but I finally said, “We can’t, Jailbait.”
She tucked her chin to hide her tears, shot up out of her chair, and ran for the elevator.
I knew if I ran after, I would end up kissing her. Then I would end up taking her back to the room where I would end up telling her exactly how I felt. Then we would take the relationship to the next level, and there would be no going back. I swallowed down the emotion in my throat and watched as the elevator doors closed behind her.
The waiter showed up with two salads and tilted his head questioningly as if to ask if she was coming back. I’d lost my appetite, so I told him to cancel everything before I walked out of the solarium. I stood at the edge of the roof and looked over at the lights of Oslo below. I felt like a complete asshole, but complicating things more was the last thing either one of us needed.
I hung out in the freezing Norwegian wind until I couldn’t stand it anymore. Then I took the elevator down to the penthouse floor. My plan was to tell Lincoln that I shared her feelings, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to be a couple until after the tour was over. I knew that the probability of us dating after the tour was almost zero, but I hoped it would make her feel better to know I wasn’t rejecting her.
Aaron and Stan were still on guard outside the suite. They both frowned. “Where’s Lincoln?” Aaron asked.
“Didn’t she come back to the room?” I swung the door open. It was dark inside. Aaron and Stan followed me in. I turned on all the lights and checked the bedrooms. After checking her bathroom, I called her phone. It rang to voicemail. In case she was dodging me, I asked Stan to call her. She didn’t answer him, either. I shouted at Aaron, “Call Hal!” Then I called Mug. “Where are you?”
“At a restaurant down the street,” Mug said.
“Shit.”
Alerted by the tone of my voice, he said, “We’ll be right there.”
Chapter Sixteen
As I stood staring at Lincoln’s empty bathroom, my heart pounded so fast it didn’t seem like there was any space between beats.
Stan stepped into the doorway. “Tim went out for dinner because he thought you had it under control, but he’ll be here as soon as he can. Hal’s on his way up.”
“The last time I saw her was on the rooftop in the solarium. Stan, check the stairwells. Aaron, go down and check the hotel surveillance cameras—look at the ones from the rooftop first.”
As they took off, Hal showed up sweaty and out of breath. He leaned on the wall gasping. “God damn it, Cain! What part of don’t let her out of your sight did you not understand?” He shouted a bunch of other stuff, but I tuned it out. I already felt angrier with myself than he could ever be, so yelling at me had zero impact.
When he ran out of breath, I said, “We need to contact the local police.”
“We can’t call the police. It will get leaked and become a media circus.”
“We have no choice, Hal. We have to find her. You don’t understand what these guys are capable of.”
“What do you mean? What guys?”
I inhaled and glanced at Mug and Kaz who had showed up at the open suite door.
Hal flinched with alarm when he noticed them. They weren’t wearing their colors, but they still looked like bad-assed criminals even without their vests on. Hal’s expression transitioned into panicked confusion when I invited them in. “What guys?” Hal asked again.
“The type of guys who would kidnap a celebrity,” I answered. “This is Mike and Alvin. They’ve been helping us with security.”
“Why the hell wasn’t I notified?” Hal sat down on the couch and coughed. “Could you get me some water, please? I’m not feeling well.”
I searched through the bar for a bottle of water.
Stan returned, breathing heavily. “The elevators and stairwells are clear. There’s a helicopter landing pad on the roof. It’s possible someone could have accessed the building that way. There are cameras up there, so surveillance would have caught everything. I’ll call Aaron to see if they’ve found anything on the tape.”
“I would have heard a chopper. She had to have gone down in the elevator.”
Kaz grabbed a handful of grapes from the concierge basket, not fazed at all by the
fact that Lincoln was missing. He seemed to be daydreaming, but then he said, “Someone could have been riding on top of the elevator and come through the maintenance hatch. I’ll check it out.” He grabbed a bar of chocolate and a bag of mixed nuts before leaving.
I exhaled and forced myself to think objectively.
Stan nodded as he listened to something through his ear piece. “Okay. Aaron’s reviewing all of the tape from the lobby to confirm whether she got off there.”
“It’s possible she just went out on her own to get something to eat or see the sights,” Mug said.
Stan, Hal, and I all shook our heads to reject that theory. “She doesn’t go out without me,” I said. “Plus, she’s wearing a ball gown. She might be on the fourteenth floor. Let’s split up and check all the crew rooms.”
Hal attempted to stand and join us, but he ended up hunched over the arm of the couch struggling to breathe. His face was the color of the beet juice my grandma drank every morning.
“Hal.” I lunged toward him and loosened his tie. “Stan, call the ambulance.”
Stan picked up the room phone and spoke to someone at the front desk. Hal grabbed his arm and winced as if he’d been shot. He moaned and slumped over onto the seat cushion. I rolled him over and slid him down until he was lying on the floor. The summer I worked for the city, they made us take CPR training, but when Hal’s eyes rolled back and something foamy came out of his mouth, I couldn’t remember anything.
Mug shoved me to the side to check Hal’s pulse. Based on how Mug searched across the surface of Hal’s neck and then his wrist, he couldn’t find his pulse. He started chest compressions.
It felt like an eternity passed before the doors to the hotel room burst open and two paramedics rushed in. One of them put an oxygen mask on Hal while Mug continued compressions on his chest. The second paramedic set up the defibrillator, positioned himself across from Mug, and told him to move back.
Kaz came back and stood in the doorway with a blank expression as he took in the scene. He watched the paramedics and talked to me at the same time. “There is a hatch in the roof of the elevator, but the lighting grid needs to be removed to access it. It hasn’t been touched.”
Stan added an update that he’d received via his ear piece. “Aaron said she didn’t get off in the lobby, so she is either still in the hotel somewhere, or she got off on a different floor and took the stairs down to the lobby.”
We all moved out of the way of the paramedics as they hoisted Hal onto the stretcher. “Kaz, check the lobby and street shops. Stan, stay here in case she comes back. Mug, come with me.” I let the paramedics get out the door and roll Hal to the elevator, then I ran out of the room and took the stairs down one flight to the fourteenth floor. Mug followed, but he wasn’t in a panic like I was. I started at one end and knocked on each door. Once the crew realized I was looking for Lincoln, they started helping me check each room.
Katee opened the fourth door I knocked on. She smiled. “Hey, Cain. What’s up?”
“Have you seen Lincoln?”
“No. I talked to her on the phone to let her know that the dress had arrived. I thought you guys were having dinner together.”
“It got interrupted. I need to find her. Will you help me?”
“Sure. What’s wrong?”
“Nobody knows where she is.”
“Hal doesn’t know?”
“No, and he just had a heart attack because she’s missing.”
She waved her hand dismissively. “He always gets so worked up. He’ll calm down when we find her.”
“No, I mean Hal literally had a fucking heart attack. The paramedics took him to the hospital.”
“Oh my God.” She stepped out into the hallway and saw the other crew members helping me search the rooms. “You’re not joking?”
“No.” I moved down the hall and knocked on the next door. “Sara, have you seen Lincoln?”
“Not since earlier today.”
I lunged across the hall and knocked on the next door. Jill answered, and she curled her lip as if I was the last person in the world she wanted to see at her door. “Hello, Cain. You look handsome. Too bad you were a jerk and ruined the special birthday dinner.”
“You talked to Lincoln?”
“Yeah.”
“Is she here?”
“Why? Do you really think she wants to see you right now?”
“Is Lincoln here or not?”
She opened the door wider and stepped to the side. Lincoln was lying on her stomach on the bed. I nearly fell down in relief. She looked at me but didn’t say anything.
“Why haven’t you been answering your phone?”
She sat up and patted her dress in an exaggerated way. “No pockets.”
I stepped into the room. “We thought you were missing.”
“Well, I’m not.” The rims of her eyes were red, and her makeup had run from crying.
“You have to tell me where you’re going. I thought something bad happened to you.”
“Yeah, well, I’m fine. I’ve been here the entire time. You can go.” She glared at me in what was an attempt to be hostile, but the sadness behind her eyes weakened the desired impact. Her expression transitioned into confusion when she noticed Katee crying in the hall behind me. Her gaze switched back and forth between us, then she frowned. “What’s going on? You guys are acting weird.”
I opened my mouth to tell her about Hal, but I couldn’t make the words come out.
She examined my expression and after a few seconds, she blinked and her eyebrows angled together. “Is it my mom?”
I shook my head and wished I didn’t have to tell her.
“My dad?”
I shook my head again, and Katee cried harder.
She studied Katee, and I could see the moment when her brain clicked. “No,” she muttered. Her eyes got watery. “No,” she repeated more emphatically. I stepped in to hug her, but she pushed past me and darted into the hall. “No.” She ran full speed to a room at the other end. I chased after her and caught up as she pounded on the door and screamed, “Hal! Hal!” I hugged her and pulled her away from the door. She flailed her arms and legs trying to get free. “Let me go! I want to see him.” She screamed and clawed at my arms trying to make me let her go into Hal’s room.
“He’s not in there.”
She struggled with me. “Where is he? I want to see him.”
“They took him to the hospital.”
She punched me in the shoulder. “Why?”
“He had a heart attack.”
“No!” She collapsed and fell to her knees. “No,” she wailed. I crouched down and held her. She repeatedly punched my shoulder in frustration, but it got weaker each time until she was just leaning her hand on me. “No.” She started bawling the way Huck did on the night of the murder.
Every single person on the crew stood in the hall watching us and whispered to each other that Hal had a heart attack. I scooped Lincoln up and carried her to the elevator. She clung to my neck and kept crying. I wanted to tell her that he was going to be okay, but I wasn’t sure he was going to be.
When I got back to the suite, Lincoln still clung to my neck. Stan took his phone out, ready to call Tim. “Where’d you find her?”
“She was hanging out with Jill on the fourteenth floor.” I carried her to her bedroom and tucked her under the sheets.
My phone rang with a blocked number. I answered because I assumed it was someone on the security team, but it wasn’t. It was Digger. He grumbled, “We’ve got a problem, kid.”
My heart pounded, not just because of the way he said it, but from the sheer fact that he called me directly without going through Cisco. When Digger handled business himself, it meant the situation was critically serious.
“What’s wrong?”
He was quiet for a long time except for what sounded like him shifting in a leather chair. Finally, he said, “They got Huck.”
Chapter Seventeen
&
nbsp; Digger’s words They got Huck bounced around inside my head like pebbles in a can. A horrible crushing feeling clamped down on my body. I dropped the phone on the bed next to Lincoln.
She sat up. “Cain, what’s wrong? Is it about Hal?”
I couldn’t speak. I just shook my head and gasped for breath.
She picked up my phone and pressed it to her ear. Digger obviously said something, because she said, “Yes… No, Lincoln… Okay… Okay, I’ll tell him… Okay. Bye.” She hung up and hugged me tightly.
“How did they get her?” I was finally able to ask.
“They went inside her school during a class break and took her. He said he doesn’t want Huck to get hurt, so he has someone tailing the car at a distance right now. They’ve called the police.”
I shook my head again.
She squeezed her arms around me, and her lips touched my neck softly before she said, “They’ll get her back.”
“I’m such an idiot. That’s why he didn’t do anything to me or you when he had the chance—Huck was always his target. He knew I would stay here if I thought you were the target.” I broke away from her hug, stood, and crossed the hall to my room. She followed and stood in the doorway as I changed out of the dress clothes into jeans and a T-shirt.
“Where are you going?”
I put my jacket on and stuffed my phone in my pocket without answering.
“You won’t be able to get home in time. Even if you could, there’s nothing you’d be able to do to help her. Let the police handle it.”
“I’m not going home. I’m going after him.”
“But.” She shook her head, confused. “He’s there. I don’t understand.”
“He’s not there. I can guarantee he’s where I am, watching me.”
She stared directly in my eyes and said, “No.”
“Stay with Stan and Aaron. They’ll take you to see Hal.”
“No. I’m not letting you go find him by yourself. It’s too dangerous.”
