by Jordan Dane
“That’s okay.” He leaned toward her, closing the gap she’d made. “We haven’t known each other very long, but time doesn’t always play a part in how close you can feel to another human being. In hard times, you get to know who your friends are. What I’m trying to say is, if you ever want to talk…I’d listen.”
“Thanks, Payton.” She smiled and clasped his hand again. “I appreciate that.”
Something in her gut told her that placing trust in Payton would not be a mistake. And he’d been right about knowing who your friends were during hard times. Her friendship with Sam had endured over the years. But why had she opened up to him? Perhaps, in her heart, she knew it was time for the healing to start. If she would ever wrestle her life back, it had to begin with a first step. And Payton might be hers.
He was a good listener, and she had a feeling she might eventually get an opportunity to test those listening skills. If she was right about Nikki—that the girl was still alive and in the hands of the Russian—she might need to confide how she’d found the will to endure her own ordeal. And she prayed Nikki could dig deep and do whatever it took to survive.
Now, after what she’d said to Payton about Nikki, she realized there had been a change in her way of thinking.
She’d allowed Alexa to take over, which made sense. Alexa seemed to have the resources to handle the international magnitude of Globe Harvest and not be hampered by the rules of fair play. Her trust in Alexa had surprised her, but her unflinching need to find Nikki—one girl—had taken on an equally surprising urgency.
But when she thought about it, it made sense. Kids make mistakes, but an error in judgment should not be a life’s sentence. Nikki was an innocent kid who had come into the crosshairs of ruthless and cruel men. If Nikki wasn’t to blame, then was her story so different? If Nikki could be forgiven, she had to admit that she could too.
For the first time, the weight she’d been carrying on her shoulders all these years started to budge. And it felt…good. Damned good.
“I could sure use some coffee.” She crooked her lip into a smile. “Maybe something quick to eat. I’ve got to call Seth to tell him about Alexa.” Jess rose off the bed, but stopped short when she heard her cell phone ring. Reaching for it on the dresser, she said, “That’s probably him now. The boy has a way of reading my mind.”
She answered the call, “Beckett here.”
“Just wanted you to know that your contribution netted us fifteen more hot spots.” The woman didn’t identify herself, but she recognized Alexa’s voice. “Can’t tell you when this is going down, but I wanted you to know. Thanks to you, we’ve improved our chances at shutting down this target for good.”
“I didn’t really expect you to call, but…thanks for the bone.” Before she’d finished, the call went dead.
Alexa had spoken her mind. No frills. No ticker tape parade. She had to satisfy herself with the subtext of the cryptic message.
“Was that Seth?” Payton asked when she shut down her phone.
“No. Alexa,” she replied with a grimace. “She’s a woman of few words, but I think she may have given us just enough information for Seth to work his magic.”
The woman had identified fifteen locations from the pages she’d given her. Now she’d have something more for Seth to work on. And that was all the ticker tape parade she’d need. Just because Alexa had what she wanted, that didn’t mean Nikki would be found. Payton’s niece was a needle in the proverbial haystack. And any attempt she and Payton made to find her would be at even worse odds. Still, she had to try. Rolling over and giving up wasn’t an option.
“Come on, Payton. We may not have the resources behind us like Alexa, but I’ve got a feeling we’re back in the hunt for Nikki. And Seth is gonna show us the way.”
For his sake, she sounded more confident than she felt. Seth would be a long shot, at best. And she had no idea how to find Nikki, but doing anything was better than sitting around waiting for a call from Alexa that might never come.
The odds were definitely stacked against them, but she knew what it felt like to be an underdog. The way she figured it, a woman with nothing to lose should never be counted out.
CHAPTER 26
Peninsula Hotel
Downtown Chicago
Morning
“So tell me…” Payton said as he watched her punch the elevator button heading for Seth Harper’s suite. “What do you pay this summer intern of yours? If he can afford this place, you gotta pay pretty good. Where do I apply?”
“Sorry, the last time I put money on a quarterback, I got burned on the bet. You cost me money, as I recall.” She crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes at him as the elevator moved. “Believe it or not, this girl’s got standards.”
“Well, sorry I didn’t come through for you. If I had known you back then and knew you had money on me, I might’ve tried harder to win.” He grinned, looking like his old cocky self, back in the day.
“Oh, you won, Archer.” She raised an eyebrow. “I was betting against you at the time.”
The elevator doors opened and mercifully saved her from an explanation, but the grimace on Payton’s face had been priceless.
Down the hall, Seth Harper’s suite door had a DO NOT DISTURB sign on the knob. After she knocked, her well-worn employee and friend greeted her.
The tall and lanky kid looked like he’d been up half the night and just crawled out of bed. His large dark eyes had shadows, the inherent sadness in them intensified from his lack of sleep. Gone were his upscale “hotel” clothes, replaced by his usual Jerry Springer tee and worn jeans. Room service dishes made it apparent he hadn’t left his room in a while. And once again, Harper looked as if he was living temporary, only taking up a small portion of the suite with his meager belongings.
The kid was a real puzzle. One day she’d wrestle him in her grip and work him like a Rubik’s cube to figure out his story, but not today.
She pulled Seth aside, out of earshot, while Payton stepped into the main living room. “You look like a DUI booking photo. Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m…okay. I know you may find this hard to believe, but not everything is rosy in Harperworld twenty-four/seven. Lately I’m not exactly riding the rails of the happy train, but I’ll figure it out…soon. No worries.”
She didn’t buy his answer. But before she could quiz him further, he changed the subject and headed for the living room, raising his voice loud enough for Payton to hear.
“I’ve been trying to decipher the random numbers on this report of yours, but I’ve got nothing so far. When you called this morning, you mentioned you had a visitor last night. Catch me up, okay?”
The living room had maps strewn over the sofas and chairs, turning a part of the space into a jumbled mess. And in the study, with his laptop cranked up and room service dishes set aside, the desktop looked cluttered too. No wonder Harper didn’t want maid service.
She gave him the short version of her story, unsure what he would need to know for his analysis of the document, versus what he’d want to know as a player.
“Okay, so tell me exactly what Alexa said about these numbers again,” Seth pressed.
“She said that some numbers were jumbled up on purpose, to throw us off. She implied that if anyone unauthorized got their hands on the documents—like us—they’d need a decoder ring to make sense of it. Apparently she had her super powers in high gear, because she figured it out. Or maybe she just knows more about these jerks than we do. But she told me that the numbers were coordinates to where Globe Harvest had some of their operations. Something like that.”
Jess chewed the inside of her lip as she replayed Alexa’s words in her head, then added more.
“She said that each location was compartmentalized and that it was important to hit them all at once in order to shut them down permanently, otherwise they’d spread the word, evacuate, then crop up somewhere else. That’s why I thought she should get copies to our pages. If she’s
got the resources to do this, it’s our best chance at shutting these bastards down. We could never pull off something on this scale.”
“But she called them coordinates. I mean, she used that word, right?” Seth persisted.
“Yeah, she did. I’m sure of it.” She nodded. “And she said that on the pages she got from me, there were fifteen locations. I figured that if we back into that number, we might figure out the arrangement and decode the hodgepodge.”
“Yeah, I think I know where you’re heading with that. But if she used the word ‘coordinates,’ we might have a better shot at cracking this report format. Give me a minute.”
Clearly, Seth had other things on his mind. He looked frazzled, like he had one foot in the room with them and the other in some alternative universe where only genius types had membership cards. He disappeared into the study but emerged again, pointing a finger at her.
“Oh, and if you’re hungry, order room service. We might be here awhile.” He turned to head back the way he’d come, but changed his mind. “And order plenty of coffee. I think we’re gonna need it.”
“The guy needs food and caffeine to think.” She shrugged. “Who am I to argue?”
After room service arrived, she and Payton ate while Seth worked in the study. Harper had embraced his alone time and refused to stop, but he did take the food and drink she offered. That left her and Payton killing time in the other room while Seth worked.
She used the time by contacting Sam to do a background check on the mysterious Alexa Marlowe, but wasn’t surprised when her friend came up empty. Chasing someone like Alexa would be like trying to grab smoke. Sam did pass along to Payton the information that they hadn’t found a body at the destroyed factory yet. For him, her update was a mix of good and bad news. Good that Nikki wasn’t a confirmed casualty, but bad that his niece was still in the far-reaching tentacles of Globe Harvest.
After Sam’s update, Jess’s mood grew more somber. She and Payton speculated on their next moves in the search for Nikki, but mostly they split their attention between the discussion at hand and the guy in the next room, slaving over his high-tech laptop.
“I’ve been thinking about this,” Payton muttered under his breath to her. “We don’t have much. If what Alexa said was right, Nikki was transported out of Chicago and we’ve got no place to look. Even if we hit all these locations at once, like she said, that still doesn’t mean we’ll find her, does it?”
Payton had indeed been thinking. And he’d come up with the same conclusions she had.
“But I’m not willing to throw in the towel, Payton. Are you?” When he didn’t reply and only stared at her, she continued, “You see, this is what I was saying about hope.” She leaned closer and grabbed his hand as they sat on the sofa. “Now, Sam said they hadn’t found a body in the rubble, right? So far, that supports what Alexa said about your niece being shipped out. If she’s still alive, then we’ve got a chance at finding her. That’s all I care about. And if that kid in there”—she pointed toward the other room—“can find one shred of a direction, I’m willing to take that next step. What about you?”
“Yeah, I’m with you…coach.” He crooked his lips into a half smile. “Thanks for the pep talk. I needed that.”
Jess watched Seth from the living room and caught glimpses of his face in the blue haze of his computer monitor. And she heard the sounds of his quick fingers on the keyboard. The kid was completely engrossed in what he was doing. He had gulped down the java and devoured his scrambled eggs and toast as if he hadn’t tasted them at all. She could have served Fear Factor food—worms al dente, beef brains sashimi, or mystery contents from the dreaded Blender of Fear—and he might not have noticed.
In a short amount of time, Harper had endeared himself to her and become a part of her inner circle. And without flinching, she believed in his ability to pull a rabbit out of his bag of tricks. Strange as he was, he’d become a friend. She only wished she knew more about him.
Finally, after nearly two hours, the kid yelled, “I think I’ve got it. The pattern.”
She heard the smile in Harper’s voice, and his excitement was contagious. Payton followed her into the study.
“Here—look at this.” He pointed to a column of numbers on his monitor. “Like Alexa said, they jumbled the format, but once you told me she used the word ‘coordinates’ to describe the locations, it got me thinking. Longitude and latitude.”
He grinned up at her until he realized she needed more to catch the wave of his enthusiasm.
“Once I figured out the pattern of how to arrange the variables, I started pulling numbers off the list and compiling them into viable longitudes and latitudes. It wasn’t hard from there.”
“If you say so.” She grimaced and shrugged to Payton, who looked just as lost. “Geography was never my thing. If I had to sum up my questions, I’d say, what the hell are you talking about?”
Seth grinned and took a breath, searching for a way to explain what he’d found.
“Any location on Earth is described by two numbers—its longitude and its latitude. If a pilot or a ship’s captain want to specify a position on a map, they would use these numbers as coordinates.” He stopped and corrected his explanation. “Actually, it’s more accurate to say there are two angles, measured in degrees, ‘minutes of arc’ and ‘seconds of arc.’”
“That’s not what I meant, genius boy,” she said. “Let’s try a less accurate way to describe it. Can you dumb it down a hair? What’s the bottom line?”
“If the world were a transparent globe, the lines of constant longitude, or meridians, would extend from the North Pole to the South Pole like segments of a peeled orange. And latitude is the radius of this transparent globe at its center, broken down by its northern and southern halves in degrees from the equator. Bottom line is that every location on the planet can be in the crosshairs of longitude and latitude to give a coordinate for a specific location.”
“So by finding these coordinates, Alexa thinks she has an idea of where Globe Harvest has some of their operations?” she asked.
Seth nodded. “Yep, but here’s the strange thing. Alexa told you that she’d located fifteen Globe Harvest operations. On our report, I found seventeen coordinates.”
“Do you think she missed some?” Payton asked.
Jess was very much aware of Payton looking over her shoulder. Her skin tingled with the heat of his intimacy. And the smell of his skin was intoxicating. She swallowed and took a deep breath, feeling her cheeks flush with warmth when memories of last night filled her mind.
“No, I don’t.” Seth’s reply reluctantly pulled her back into the present. “Someone with the resources to figure out this report didn’t just miss a couple. I think she ruled some out, but for what reason, I don’t know. To figure that one out, we’re gonna have to locate each of these places on a map and see if something hits us.”
“What, like a two by four?” When both men stared at her, she shrugged. “Sorry. Sarcasm is one of my skill sets. So what now…we’re gonna stick pins in a map and count to seventeen?”
“You’ve got it,” Harper said.
He reached into his desk and pulled out a plastic box of multicolored pushpins, not exactly standard issue with every hotel room. Seth hadn’t been caught flatfooted by this latest news of coordinates; the maps strewn in the living room should have been her first clue.
“You look like you were expecting this, Harper…unless pushpins are part of the deluxe package here at the Peninsula. ’Cause I’m telling ya, you can’t get nifty office supplies at just any old five-star hotel. You gotta have real clout to score pins of this quality.”
“Can’t a guy conjure a little magic without you spoiling all the fun with how it’s done?” Harper sat back in his desk chair and swiveled, looking up at her with a big sheepish grin on his face. “You think those pushpins are hot, you should check out my stapler collection.”
“You need some fresh air, Harper. Being cooped
up in this hotel room has seriously warped your perspective on reality.” She shook her head. “Let’s get to work.”
It didn’t go unnoticed that Seth had never answered her about the pins. He joked it off as usual. Normally she would have pursued him with questions until she got a reasonable explanation on why Harper was Harper, but she’d grown to accept a certain element of mystery surrounding the kid. For now, she’d accept his idiosyncrasies and be grateful for his help.
Seth coached them through another explanation of how longitude and latitude worked, then pinned his largest world map to a wall in the study, and they stuck pushpins into the coordinates he gave them. By the time they were done, they stood back and looked at their creation, having no greater insight.
“Okay, so we have colored pins on a map. I’m not seeing much that stands out except that one up there.” She pointed to a blue pin in the middle of the Bering Sea. “You think Globe Harvest went on a three-hour tour with Gilligan and went down with the boat?”
Seth narrowed his eyes. “I can see why Alexa might dismiss that coordinate. Obviously someone made a mistake when they entered the code. It could happen. So that leaves us with one more to figure out. What about these others…you see any that stand out?”
Payton walked closer to the map, focusing at first on the blue pin in the Bering Sea. He then shifted his attention to the other locales.
“Well, if I was looking downfield for somewhere to unload the football, I’d be looking for an open man…someone isolated,” he began, almost muttering to himself. “But I’ve got a feeling that wouldn’t be the case here.”
With a furrowed brow, Harper gave her a quick look, but kept his mouth shut. Genius boy clearly didn’t speak jock.
“Go on, Payton,” she said. “What are you thinking?”
“Globe Harvest hides in plain sight. Maybe they think they’re too smart to get caught. I mean, they did that here in Chicago, operating right under the nose of the cops. These guys are savvy and they know how to fold up shop. But a location too remote might draw unwanted attention if it doesn’t have good cover for their comings and goings. Being isolated might work against them. Does that make sense?”
