Caress Part Three (Arcadia Book 3)

by Litton, Josie

  I left the folded note on the small table beside the front door. It was getting on for 6:30 a.m. Lucas could wake at any moment. As wrenching as the thought was, I had to go.

  The temptation to steal just one more look at him while he still slept was all but irresistible. But I knew what would happen if I did. It would take very little to turn me into a sobbing, crumbling mess.

  Rather than risk that, I hoisted my small bag over my shoulder and forced myself to walk to the door. With every step I took, my anguish worsened.

  Was I making a terrible mistake? Should I just tell Lucas about my father? But if I did, what was the likely outcome?

  My father hated Lucas; he’d made that more than clear. In his madness, he blamed him for everything. I had no doubt that he would take any chance to exact revenge.

  The image of the large men with guns flashed through my mind. That was enough to steel my resolve. I stepped into the foyer and pushed the button for the elevator.

  Just as I did, the cell phone my father had given me rang.

  My hand shook as I answered it. “Yes?”

  “Are you ready?” His voice sounded strained.

  I was sure that mine did the same. “Yes.”

  “Good. Downstairs, five minutes.”

  The elevator doors slid open. Feeling as though I was no longer in control of my own body, I stepped inside.

  The ride to the ground floor took seconds and felt like an eternity. I was surprised to see that George was on duty. He smiled when he saw me.

  “Good morning, Miss Emma. You’re up early.”

  “So are you,” I said automatically.

  “The night man’s down with the flu,” he said with a shrug. “Looks like it’s starting early this year.”

  I nodded, knowing that I should say something more, try to seem normal. But the effort was beyond me.

  Moments later, a large black SUV pulled up in front of the building. One of the men I recognized from the day before got out. Seeing me in the lobby, he opened the rear door and stood waiting.

  “I have to go,” I said. My voice sounded high and far away. I felt as though I was back on the nightmare roller coaster, about to hurtle into a chasm from which there could be no escape.

  George frowned. “Is everything all right, Miss Emma?”

  My gaze flicked from the man waiting outside to George. Apprehension moved through me. If the doorman sensed how afraid I was, he might do or say something that could endanger him.

  Forcing a tight smile, I said, “Everything’s fine, George. Have a great day.”

  I turned away quickly but not before seeing his frown as he opened the lobby door for me. Outside, the morning air was cool and damp, already hinting at the autumn to come. I shivered slightly as I walked the few steps to the SUV.

  As I reached it, the large man in the dark suit held out his hand.

  “Your bag,” he said when I looked at him uncertainly.

  With a growing sense of dread, I gave it to him. He pawed through the contents quickly until he came to the music box. That caught his attention, if only for a moment. With a nod, he closed the bag and handed it back to me.

  “I need both your cell phones,” he said.

  This was it. Once I handed the phones over and got into the car, I would be cut off from any hope of help and committed to going with my father. Instinctively, I hesitated. Everything that I truly wanted was in the apartment high above, the life, the future that I yearned for. Only the thought of Lucas and what would happen to him if my father remained at large stopped me from backing out.

  Drawing on all my courage, I surrendered the phones and stepped into the SUV.

  As the door shut behind me, I looked out the tinted window. George’s face was still wreathed with concern. His features and the entrance to the Arcadia itself both blurred behind the rush of my tears.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Lucas

  My hand, reaching out across the bed, encountered emptiness. Eyes still closed, I patted the covers until I couldn’t avoid the truth any longer.

  Emma wasn’t there.

  Her absence hit like a shot of adrenaline. I jack knifed up and looked around.

  The bedroom was wreathed in shadows, faint light filtering through the drawn curtains. It was just barely morning. Where the hell was she?

  Bathroom? Kitchen? Sipping coffee on the terrace?

  I could only hope but the minute I reached the living room, I knew. The apartment had an empty, hollow vibe. If Emma was there, I’d have sensed her. A hint of her scent, a rustle of movement, something would have alerted me.

  Instead, there was only ominous silence.

  Shit.

  I’d done my damndest not to fall asleep. When I finally did, she was secure in my arms, her body soft and pliant against mine. I’d drifted off thinking that the way she’d surrendered to me, what she’d allowed, signaled a breakthrough.

  She trusted me, I knew she did. At least physically. The rest would come. Right?

  In the cold, hard light of day, I had to do a rapid reassessment.

  As determined as I’d been to take her apart, break down her barriers, and make her open up to me, I couldn’t evade the sense that I’d been…what? Not bested, no way I’d accept that. But definitely well matched.

  At the worst, we’d played to a tie so why did I have the sense that I’d lost?

  I tried to tell myself that I was overreacting. She’d just gone out to run an errant; she’d be back any minute. But even as I grasped at that, I knew it was wrong.

  After what we’d shared, she should hardly have been able to lift her head off the pillow, much less slip out of bed at the crack of dawn and disappear. Whatever was behind her absence, it had to be serious.

  Back in the bedroom, I pulled on clothes, grabbed my cell and tried calling Emma. No answer, of course. Fine, I’d do it the hard way.

  I was on my way out the door of the apartment when I saw the note propped up on the table nearby. My hand shook as I grabbed it and flipped it open.

  Lucas,

  We were always temporary.

  The words leaped out at me. My stomach clenched into a knot so big and hard that it kept me from breathing. I almost couldn’t bring myself to read the rest.

  Damn her! And damn myself for such a fool to believe that she had feelings beyond the pleasure we gave each other. Obviously, I’d been dead wrong.

  Furious as much at myself as at her, I crumbled the note in my fist. I’d never cared for any woman remotely as I did for Emma. For sure, I’d never opened up to anyone the way I had to her. And this was the result?

  Pain made me almost double over. I would have if not for the small part of my brain that refused to be overwhelmed by the sense of betrayal and loss. It kept yelling that this wasn’t Emma, not the woman I knew. That woman was kind, brave, and far too honorable to take the coward’s way out and sneak off without leaving anything except a few words that amounted to a kick in the balls.

  Slowly, I smoothed out the note and studied it. I couldn’t be sure, and maybe I was just seeing that I wanted to, but the small blotch down toward the bottom looked like it could have been made by a tear.

  Oh, fuck! While I was busy feeling sorry for myself, Emma was trying to do something she no doubt thought was right and necessary but which was probably only going to land her in a shit pile of trouble.

  And I had no idea how to stop her.

  There had been times before in my life when I’d been scared but nothing came close to this. Not even when my father died and I was faced with losing everything he had built simply because ruthless men thought I wasn’t strong enough to hold onto it. This was completely different. The feeling of helplessness that swept over me was nothing less than nauseating.

  Rather than give into it, I acted.

  I was out of the apartment and in the elevator before I could do much more than draw a breath. The moment I reached the lobby, I moved fast.

  I recognized the doorman
on duty, a nice guy, the kind who didn’t miss much but didn’t go around yapping about it either. He frowned when he saw me coming. I couldn’t blame him. If I looked half as wild and out-of-control as I felt, I wasn’t a pretty sight.

  Searching my memory, I fetched up a name.

  “You’re George, right?” I asked. “I’m Lucas Phelps. I’m staying in the tower apartment. A young woman has also been staying there, Emma Whittaker. Did you see her leave this morning?”

  He didn’t answer right away. I got the impression he was sizing me up, deciding whether or not to break the Doorman’s Sacred Oath of Silence. I thought about dragging out my wallet but I hesitated. Something about George made me suspect that wouldn’t go down well.

  Finally, he must have decided that I wasn’t a crazed stalker because he nodded and said, “Miss Whittaker came down about twenty minutes ago. A black SUV picked her up. There were two guys in it, both looked like hired muscle. One of them searched her bag before she got into the vehicle.”

  From the way he said this--calm but tense--I realized that he was worried about Emma. Maybe even glad to have someone to tell who might be able to help.

  But all I could really think of was that this was even worse than I’d feared. The muscle eliminated any possibility that her father wasn’t involved. Who else would have that kind of resources? Or feel the need for them?

  I’d sensed that John Whittaker was behind Emma’s obvious anxiousness and concern. Why hadn’t I pressed her on it? Hell, why hadn’t I left her safely locked up in the bedroom while I took care of the bastard myself?

  Every ounce of self-control that I possessed went into resisting the firestorm of fear and self-recrimination that threatened to engulf me.

  Gritting my teeth, I asked, “Did you see which way they went?”

  George nodded. “Three blocks north, then they turned west.” He shrugged a little apologetically and added, “My eyes aren’t as good as they used to be but I got a partial plate.”

  When this was all over, I was going to find a way to thank George. Maybe buy him a nice little island somewhere.

  He told me what he had--New York license starting X42C. As he did, I yanked out my phone to call Feeney.

  I was about to push the button when I hesitated for a moment. What if I brought down the Feds on Emma and it turned out that she really was in league with her father? She could go to prison.

  As soon as the thought occurred to me, I dismissed it. Whatever Emma was doing, she wasn’t remotely a criminal. At worst, she was acting out of a misguided sense of loyalty to a man who deserved none.

  Whatever the consequences of that turned out to be, we’d deal with them together.

  Provided that she was willing to still have anything to do with me.

  Shoving down that fear, I punched the phone. Feeney answered on the first ring. Without bothering to identify myself--he’d have Caller IDed my number anyway--I blurted, “I need your help.”

  Quickly, I filled him in on what had happened. Before I finished, I could hear him moving around, pulling on clothes.

  “You must know someone here in New York who can put together resources fast and figure out where Emma’s gone,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Feeney replied. “Me. I came up yesterday after we talked. If there really is any chance that Whittaker has returned to the city, I wanted to be on the scene.”

  The vise-like grip on my chest eased a little. I took a breath and said, “Okay, good. The doorman says they went north a couple of blocks, then west. There must be traffic cams along that route. Can you get access to them?”

  “Sure, but you have to know that direction would take them to the Henry Hudson Parkway. From there, it’s a straight shot out of the city. They could be heading anywhere. We’ll need to organize resources from different jurisdictions. That’s going to take time.”

  “What about the license plate?”

  “Running it as we speak,” Feeney said. He sounded calm and highly focused. “The vehicle is registered to a private security company…” His voice trailed off as he studied whatever he’d just discovered.

  “That’s interesting,” he murmured.

  I tensed. In my experience, ‘interesting’ never meant anything good. It was just a polite way of saying that something looked dubious, if not flat out illegal.

  “What did you find?” I demanded.

  “The company is flagged for possible ties to the Albanian mob,” Feeney said. “Nothing that we’ve been able to make stick. But it looks as though they’ve carved out a profitable niche for themselves providing high-end muscle that doesn’t ask too many questions.”

  “Whittaker must have hired them for protection,” I said.

  “That would be my bet,” he replied. “And maybe not just while he’s here in the city. Someone’s been helping him stay off the radar these past three years. If he’s running out of money, the way we think he is, he has to be desperate to keep them from turning him in for the reward.”

  The feeling of dread that had awakened in me the moment I realized that Emma was gone crystallized into the rock hard certainty that she was in danger.

  I didn’t trust her bastard of a father to give a rat’s ass about her welfare. Whittaker had abandoned her once and he’d do so again in a heartbeat. I wouldn’t even draw the line at him doing worse if he thought for a second that she was a liability to him.

  Feeney must have guessed what I was thinking because he said, “Sit tight. This is no time to go off on your own. I’m getting people on this. You’ve got to let us take care of it.”

  On some level, I knew that he was right. But when it came down to it, there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that I was going to stand around twiddling my thumbs while Emma was confronting god-only-knew-what.

  If she and the Albanian goons were on the parkway, there was nothing I could do except pray that Feeney and his pals could find them. But what if they’d gone somewhere else?

  “What was it you said,” I asked, “back when you told me how Whittaker faked his death? You thought he might have gotten out through the marina that’s near here?”

  “Yeah,” Feeney said cautiously. “The Seventy-Ninth Street Boat Basin. But he’d be smart not to try the same escape route again. Going north out of the city takes him toward no fewer than half-a-dozen private airports. He’d have a lot more options that way.”

  I didn’t disagree but I also couldn’t shake the conviction that Whittaker had to be running scared. Frightened people don’t make the best decisions. Given the situation that he was in, he might very well opt for what he already knew worked.

  Or at least I had to pray that was the case.

  “I’m heading over to the marina,” I said.

  “Fuck, no!” Feeney yelled. “You’re a civilian. If Whittaker and the Albanians are there, you’ll be walking into a ton of trouble.”

  “Let me worry about that,” I said.

  He was still cursing when I clicked off the phone and stuck it back in my pocket. The distance from the Arcadia to the Boat Basin was a little over a mile. I could have snagged a cab but that would have meant dealing with red lights and traffic.

  Instead, I took off running harder and faster than I’d ever done in my life.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Emma

  The SUV pulled up at the far end of the marina. Several dozen boats were docked beside the ramshackle wooden piers. Most bobbed empty on the water but a few were occupied by ‘liveaboards’ who made the boat basin their year-round home. Even so, at this early hour, few people were to be seen. The loudest sounds came from the squawk of sea gulls overhead and the hum of traffic on the nearby parkway.

  Beyond the marina was the dark green swathe of the Hudson River with the New Jersey waterfront on the other side. The memory of how that same view had looked from high atop the Arcadia made my throat tighten.

  Was Lucas awake yet? Had he found my note? I couldn’t bear to think of his reaction to it but I couldn�
�t avoid doing so either. He would be hurt and angry. How long would it take him to put my disappearance together with the fact that my father was still alive? What would his reaction be?

  He might just wash his hands of me in disgust. But there was also a possibility that he could reach out to his friend at the F.B.I. At the thought that Lucas might still find a way to put himself at risk, a pressing sense of urgency welled up in me.

  As I got out of the vehicle, my legs shook and I felt more than a little nauseous. Forcing myself to assume an expression that I hoped was appropriate for the spoiled daughter of a world-class criminal, I turned to the man at my side.

  “Where is my father?” I demanded.

  He pointed to a sleek white motor-yacht moored nearby. The boat looked large enough to be ocean-going but not so oversized as to attract unwanted attention. The lettering on its stern read The Circe. Below that was the name of its home port: Grand Cayman.

  An enchantress who turned greedy men into swine, from an island known as a haven for financial manipulators. What could be more apt?

  If Lucas was right, my father had escaped through the marina after faking his death in such spectacular fashion. While police were still arriving at the scene of his supposed suicide, he had boarded a boat and slipped out to sea.

  I wondered if it had been on a boat like the one in front of me, and if he had returned the same way.

  If so, he was taking a chance that the pattern of his movements could be detected.

  Before that could happen, we had to go.

  Just as I stepped onto the gleaming teak deck, my father emerged from below. In that first unguarded moment, he looked shrewd and calculating. But at the sight of me, the mask slipped back into place. He transformed into a confident, relaxed man who was also a loving father. The ease with which he did that made my skin crawl.

  “Emma, my dear girl,” he said. “No trouble getting here, I hope?”

  If that was a reference to contact I might have had with Lucas before leaving the apartment, I wanted to disabuse him of any such notion at once.