Trust No One

by Velvet Vaughn

  He certainly couldn’t sleep naked with Kendall in the bed across from him. Tossing the pair with "Tight End" and "Mr. Big" back inside, he removed the towel and stepped into the other pair, sliding them into place.

  Squirting shaving cream in his hand, he lathered his face. He was on the last swipe when a loud scream pierced the room. The blade nicked into his skin and he cursed. Tossing the razor to the sink, he grabbed a cloth to wipe his face, palmed his Glock and darted into the room. His eyes canvassed the area, looking for any threats. Kendall was sitting straight up in bed, her eyes locked in a gruesome nightmare. He eased to the mattress and wrapped his arms around her, murmuring comforting words. Small sounds of terror escaped her throat, breaking his heart. Then she started fighting him.

  "Shh, it’s okay, it’s just a bad dream." He grabbed her flailing arms. "Wake up, Kendall. You're safe now."

  She blinked rapidly and then focused that baby blue gaze on him. "Dorian?" she whispered.

  "It’s me, honey, you were just having a bad dream."

  With a muffled sob, she threw herself into his arms. His eyes crossed when she slammed against his injured shoulder, but he bit back the painful moan that worked its way up his throat. Stroking her hair, he crooned softly to her until she stopped shaking.

  #

  Kendall absolutely hated feeling vulnerable. She didn’t like depending on anyone but herself. She'd learned early in her career that if she were to be taken seriously, she needed to be strong, work hard and trust no one.

  Dorian’s chest was warm, solid, and, she just noticed, naked. He smelled like soap and male and she inhaled deeply. A light dusting of dark hair covered his chest. His stomach was rock solid, ridged and tempting. Her fingers moved of their own volition, tracing the ridges. The material of his boxer shorts jerked and his hand shot out, stopping her perusal.

  Pulling back, she peered at his face and gasped. "You’re bleeding." Yanking her hand free, she touched his cheek.

  "Just a scratch," he groused.

  She met his brown eyes. "It was my fault, wasn’t it?"

  "It’s nothing," he asserted, mopping a cloth across the wound. "You should try to get some rest." He started to slide out of the bed.

  Kendall clutched his wrist desperately. "Please don’t go," she blurted, startling herself as much as him. "I know we don’t know each other very well," she rushed to explain, "but I trust you, and I don’t trust many people. I’m exhausted, but afraid to close my eyes again. I feel safe with you here…if you could just stay with me until I fall asleep?"

  He studied her for a moment, his brows dipped in concern. Just when she thought he was going to refuse, he nudged her thigh. "Scoot over."

  Kendall moved to the middle of the bed and rested on her side, her back to Dorian. He wrapped his strong, muscular arm around her and pulled her close. She'd never felt so safe, so secure in her entire life. Finally, after the nightmare of the last few hours, she drifted off into a deep, dark, dreamless slumber.

  #

  "Did you take care of the problem this time?"

  "The girl wasn’t in the room."

  "What? I thought you said you traced her there and the manager confirmed a man and woman rented the room."

  "I’m telling you, I checked it out. She wasn’t there, didn’t look like she had ever been there. No suitcases, personal items, blood, nothing."

  "Where the hell is she?"

  "I’m following the signal now. She’s headed west out of town."

  "Find her and eliminate her."

  Chapter Six

  Constance Hofstra smiled primly at the woman offering support in the disappearance of her daughter-in-law. With practiced ease, she ushered the woman to the vestibule and out the door, hollering for Bernard as soon as the lock clicked in place.

  The butler appeared as if by magic. "Ma’am?"

  "Martini, dry, two olives."

  "Yes, ma’am." Bernard hurried away to do her bidding, wisely making no comment about the time of day.

  Constance collapsed on the velvet damask sofa and kicked off her shoes. She was trying very hard to put up a brave front to the public. Aaron didn’t deserve what had happened to him. He was her baby, her precious child. She would do anything for him—anything. If that meant being strong in the wake of his personal tragedy, then that's what she would do.

  Bernard delivered a crystal glass filled with just the right mixture of gin and vermouth, two salty green olives resting on the bottom, soaking up the alcohol. She took a sip, nodded and Bernard disappeared. Closing her eyes, she let the cool liquid burn a comforting path down her throat.

  It was no secret that she'd never approved of Pamela. Aaron was much too good for her. She was practically a stripper, for goodness sake. She called herself a former exotic dancer. Like there was a difference. No, Pamela was not the right choice for Aaron. He needed a strong woman who would stand by his side through thick and thin. A woman who could step into the role of first lady with confidence, elegance and intelligence. She should have an outstanding sense of fashion like Jackie O. Pamela's tastes ran more towards low-class leisure wear. She shopped at discount chains and department stores. Constance shuddered. The girl would not have made a good first lady at all.

  When the bell rang again, Constance almost hefted the glass at the door and yelled for the person to go away. With a disgusted sigh, she tossed back the drink and shoved the empty glass behind a crystal vase. It wouldn't do for the mother of the future president to be imbibing a dirty martini at not quite eleven in the morning.

  Bernard appeared. "Governor Denton to see you, Mrs. Hofstra."

  Constance sighed. Governor Denton was Aaron's running mate. He would be the future Vice President of the United States. She wanted to refuse to see him, just crawl into her martini glass and forget everything. But she couldn't do that. Aaron needed her.

  "Let him in, Bernard."

  #

  Dorian was going to die. There was no way he would be getting any rest with the current state of his lower body. He had to shift his pelvis every time Kendall tried to snuggle against him, lest she discover how her nearness affected him. He was painfully aware that he was mostly naked, only a scant amount of clothing separating their bodies.

  His head told him it was a bad, bad idea. Sex and the job—oil and water. They didn’t mix. He of all people should know. How many times did he have to stick his hand in the fire before realizing the damn flames burned? His body however, it had other designs. She was so freaking hot, so incredibly gorgeous it almost hurt to look at her. He could literally stare at her for hours. When she snuggled her heart-shaped ass against him, he barely managed to stifle a groan. He wanted to hold her hips in place and thrust. Sweat beaded on his forehead. He needed to remove himself from the temptation but she was sleeping so soundly he didn’t want to wake her. He stayed for a couple of hours, enjoying the soft womanly feeling of her in his arms. He needed to get up, contact Alex, check the contents of Kendall’s friend’s cell and suck down a gallon of coffee, not necessarily in that order.

  When Kendall wiggled against him again, he pictured Blair, the primary from his last case. His body instantly cooled. With his hormones under control, he surprisingly managed to doze. When he woke a few hours later, he eased his arm out from under her and rolled out of bed. Lifting his good arm overhead, he stretched. He spun around at the outburst of amused laughter.

  "Objects under boxers are larger than they appear?" she read in mock seriousness.

  He could feel his cheeks heating. "My sister's idea of a joke," he muttered. "You don’t have to get up yet."

  Kendall shook her head and tossed the cover back, wide awake. "My body is programmed for about six hours sleep." She stood and stretched, the t-shirt clinging to the round globes of her breasts.

  Dorian groaned and spun around, focusing on starting the coffee maker. "Blair, Blair, Blair," he chanted in his head. He grabbed a pair of jeans from the duffle and slid them on, hiding the ridiculously emba
rrassing underwear. Pulling a sweatshirt over his head, he said, "The motel offers a free continental breakfast, but seeing as how it is early afternoon, I'll have to run to the convenience store down the street while you shower."

  He waited until Kendall closed the door before he stepped outside and called the office to check in. Instead of going through the switchboard, he dialed Maggie Addison directly. Maggie was the go-to girl for anything you needed at COBRA. She ran the office with brisk efficiency. She was the glue that held everyone together. He knew she'd been training and wanted to get out into the field, but he didn't know how the office would survive without her. He thought that was the reason Luke and Logan were dragging their feet about moving her into the field. Her two older brothers were agents and former SEALs. With the same genes, she would be an amazing agent.

  "Hey Mags, what's up?"

  "It's about time you checked in, Demarchis," she scolded. "I heard you took fire. Are you okay? You shouldn't even be back in the field yet."

  He sometimes wondered if Maggie was a witch. She knew everything that happened, sometimes it seemed before it even happened.

  "It was nothing," he assured her. "Didn't even break a sweat."

  "What about your shoulder. It's hurting, isn't it?"

  He held the phone out and looked at it. How did she know? The woman was freaky. "Just a twinge. It's almost good as new."

  She "hrumped."

  "Anything happening I need to be aware of?"

  After she filled him in on details of other cases, he hung up, promising to check in regularly. Next he texted Alex, asking him to meet at a coffee shop across the street in an hour. Alex responded with, "I want answers."

  Sliding the phone in a pocket, he jogged to the convenience store and picked up an assortment of snacks. When he returned, Kendall was out of the shower, a towel wrapped around her head turban-style. The television droned in the background. Unwrapping the towel, she dragged a comb through her long wet hair. It seemed so intimate, sensual he couldn't look away. He took two steps forward, prepared to rip the comb out of her hand and finish the task himself, before he reined in his impulse. Turning away, he dropped a box filled with fruit and pastries on the table. "What are you watching?"

  "CNN…they're replaying Senator Hofstra’s press conference."

  "Hofstra. He the one whose pregnant wife disappeared?"

  "Yeah," she confirmed. "His sorrow seems genuine, but there’s something a little off about him."

  He smirked. "He’s a politician, that’s a given."

  Kendall grinned at him. "He’s my big interview."

  Dorian's brows lifted. "Oh yeah? Interviewing the grieving widower."

  "He’s not grieving yet, nor a widower," she chastised. "Right now he’s just a worried husband and father-to-be."

  He narrowed his eyes. "You can't be thinking this could have a positive ending, are you?"

  "Hey, I’m an optimist…or I was." She frowned.

  "The wife's been gone how long now? And no ransom demands?"

  "I know it doesn’t sound good," she agreed. Her attention was drawn back to the screen as Hofstra pleaded for the safe return of his beloved wife, sobbing openly in front of the cameras. It was hard not to feel sorry for the guy. For goodness sake, his nose was running like a faucet on national television. She made notes for her interview on the small pad she found in the dresser drawer.

  Grabbing the handle of his laptop case, Dorian carried it to the unused bed as he finished off an apple. After tossing the core, he plugged the computer into the wall socket and padded to the coffee pot, holding it aloft. "Coffee?"

  "No, thanks. I try not to drink too much caffeine."

  "There’s orange juice in the box if you're interested."

  Settling the mug on the bedside table, he powered on the laptop and checked the TV as he waited for it to boot up. The news had moved on to a story about wildfires in California. When his log-in screen appeared, he entered his code and clicked on the file with the information from Kendall’s friend’s phone. Peter wrote a program that allowed him to view the contents in text form. There were several incoming and out-going calls, many the same numbers. He'd compile a list of the people she'd contacted prior to her death.

  He scrolled through the rest of the contents, pausing at the photo file. There was only one, so he clicked to open it. The snap was of four girls, arms wrapped around each other, matching grins splitting their faces. All four were breathtaking, but it was Kendall that drew his eyes. Even wearing a cap and chunky glasses, there was something about her that pulled him in, made it hard for him to look away. He easily picked Stefani out of the group. Her smile wasn’t as bright as the others and it looked forced.

  There were no other photos, no voice mails. It had to be something about her phone log that the killers were after. Scrolling back to the incoming and outgoing calls, he made a list of numbers and began checking the names.

  "What are you doing?" Kendall asked, looking over his shoulder.

  "We need to see who Stefani called the last few days before she died."

  "That’s my cell number." Kendall pointed to the last call on the list. The time stamp indicated it was placed right around the time she arrived at the hotel. "She must've tried to call, not knowing I was coming. Which reminds me, I need to charge my phone. Maybe she left a message." She dug her phone and charger out of her bag and plugged it into the wall socket.

  "There are a few calls to this number, and about a dozen from the same incoming. There are several calls both ways to these two. Let's check this one first." He opened a reverse phone directory and typed it in. "Unlisted."

  Kendall’s shoulders slumped in defeat. "How will we find out who it is?"

  "I have ways." He wagged his eyebrows. She rolled her eyes but she was smiling. He opened a second program, keyed in the number and grinned triumphantly when a name and address popped up. "Rick Fleming."

  "His name sounds familiar, but I can't place it."

  "I'll see if I can dig up some info on him. Let's check the other ones." He punched in digits and they both stared in shock when the results popped up. "Let me try the other number."

  Different number, same result: Senator Hofstra's office.

  #

  Ron Daulton jogged up the steps to Senator Hofstra's mansion, his partner Cory Beaumont trailing in his wake. As a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, his job was to find Senator Hofstra's pregnant wife—dead or alive. He didn't voice his thoughts aloud, but he was pretty sure they were looking at the first scenario.

  It'd been six days already and they were no closer to discovering what happened to Mrs. Hofstra than they were on day one. No clues, no ransom, no leads. She simply disappeared from the face of the earth.

  Though she'd been reported missing on Monday to the public, the last time the senator saw her was on Saturday evening. He contacted authorities Sunday when she failed to show at their home and a manhunt was launched. The FBI was called in immediately since the missing was the wife of a high-profile political figure. They'd already interviewed the senator several times and although his story never changed, he had no information that would provide a clue as to what happened to his wife. She had no enemies and she was loved by everyone who met her, at least according to her husband. That wasn't the vibe Ron got from the mother-in-law. Thinly veiled hostility rolled off the woman in waves. Her mouth said all the right words, but her body language said something completely different.

  Daulton popped a Tums into his mouth before ringing the doorbell. His ulcer was acting up, acid burning a hole in his stomach. He dreaded talking to the senator again, especially if his pit-bull of a mother was around. She mollycoddled the man so much, Ron was surprised he'd ever been elected to such a prestigious post.

  The butler answered the door and ushered them inside. They were expected. He'd received an urgent call from the senator's campaign manager requesting their immediate presence. Ron hoped it meant a break in the case. He nodde
d to the two Secret Service officers who currently provided around-the-clock protection for the senator until they could locate his wife. The butler rapped on a closed door and opened it when instructed. He stood aside so Ron and Cory could enter.

  The senator was seated behind a glass and chrome desk, his expression sorrowful and defeated. His campaign manager, Byron Wilks, stood behind him. Arrogant son of a bitch. His press secretary Gray Posten was seated on a sofa. Governor Carson Denton, Hofstra's running mate, was at the sideboard pouring a drink of some kind. Kinda early if you asked him, but then, no one ever did. Pit-bull, aka Constance Hofstra, the senator's mother, stood beside her son on one side, delicately dabbing a tissue under her nose. A woman on his other side rested a protective hand on his shoulder. Vivian Mathison.

  "Senator," Ron greeted as Cory closed the door behind them. The senator looked up with a dazed look.

  "Agents," Wilks responded. "Please, have a seat."

  Ron chose to stand, as did Cory. "Your message said it was urgent, Senator," he prompted when the man resumed his far-off stare.

  Vivian swiped a paper off the desk and thrust it at him. "Someone sent this."

  Having spent twenty years in law enforcement, Ron donned a latex glove before accepting the paper from her hands. Not that it mattered now, the paper was wrinkled and torn. Every person in the room had probably touched it at some point. There was a slim-to-none chance of pulling any viable prints.

  Slipping on his glasses, he read the note. It appeared to be test results. He scanned until he came upon the line that summed up the findings and his eye snapped up to the senator. "Is this legit?"

  "Absolutely not," Pit-bull answered.

  "Who would send it then?"

  "Someone trying to hurt Aaron," Wilks offered.

  "What does it say?" Cory asked.