Jessie Slaymaker's Rules of Engagement (The Jessie Slaymaker Series Book 2)

by Iles, Jo

  ‘You’ll see soon enough,’ Charlie replied, clearly enjoying her anxiety as he took a step towards her.

  ‘Can I at least change my shoes first?’ Jessie asked, looking down at her impractical work stilettos, trying to think of anything that might buy her more time. ‘I’d be quicker and no doubt annoy you less if I could walk properly,’ she added when she sensed his hesitation.

  ‘Very well. But hurry up,’ he conceded, seeing her point. Silently, Jessie went over to her wardrobe and pulled out her rather unused running shoes. She carried them over to the sofa, where she proceeded to slip off her heels and tie up her trainers as slowly as she dared. But Charlie had lost interest in watching her like a hawk, and was now nosing around in the kitchen drawers.

  ‘You got anything to eat?’ he asked casually, as though he were just a friend who’d popped round for a chat and wasn’t threatening her in the slightest.

  ‘There’s some chocolate cake in the fridge, at the bottom,’ Jessie replied, remembering his penchant for all things sweet from back in the days when she used to work for him.

  As Charlie bent to extract his snack, Jessie came up behind him quietly, raised her work shoe high above her hair, and brought it down, stiletto spike first. It landed with a thwack in what she hoped was somewhere in the vicinity of Charlie’s jugular.

  ‘Aghhhh!’ he screamed. He lost his balance and fell to the floor. After a momentary shocked pause, the adrenaline kicked in, and Jessie gave him a kick in the kidney for good measure. Then she scooped up her bag and legged it out the door and down the stairs as fast as she could. Not daring to stop and look behind her, to see if he was chasing her, she hitched up her hemline and ran as fast as she could, weaving left and right down the side streets of her neighbourhood, making a mental note to sort some form of gym membership out once and for all when all of this was over. At some point during her run, it started to rain that incessant Hong Kong rain, and soaked her through to the skin in minutes.

  When she felt she was far enough away from her flat and surrounded by enough people, all now shielding her with their brightly coloured menagerie of umbrellas, she allowed herself a few glances back, trying to pick out a bearded Charlie Davenport bearing down on her, possibly with a trail of blood trickling down his shirt from a neck wound. She saw no sign of him, but she kept moving at a brisk walk anyway.

  Remembering why she’d wanted her handbag, she pulled out her work phone as she continued on her zigzag path, aided by the higgledy-piggledy streets. It had been a stroke of luck that Charlie had been such an amateur back at her flat and not thought to confiscate her work phone as well. He of all people should have known that work phones were, and had been, standard issue at the bank for years.

  First she called Rachel, leaving a breathy and garbled message on her boss’s voicemail when she didn’t answer, to say that Charlie Davenport was after her and that he and Sonia Shum were after Jack’s company and that she was heading for the police station to follow up with PC Cheung.

  Next she tried calling Jack, but that, too, went to voicemail.

  ‘Where the hell is everybody?’ she wailed in frustration as she mounted the steps of the same police station she’d visited previously to report the initial threatening note. Breathless, soaking wet, and running low on steam and high on shock, she practically fell through the doors.

  ***

  PC Cheung took Jessie’s statement patiently while she bumbled through recent events and sipped sweet tea, wearing an itchy blanket. He didn’t seem all that alarmed at her attempted kidnapping, considering Charlie hadn’t actually touched her, let alone harmed a hair on her head with physical force. He’d widened his eyes at her when she’d admitted she’d stabbed him with her shoe to get away, and for a moment Jessie thought she was going to be in trouble for assault.

  ‘But what about the fact that he was in my flat, waiting for me? When he shouldn’t have been,’ Jessie pointed out. ‘Surely breaking and entering is still a crime? He must have picked the lock or something. And there’s still the notes. He more or less admitted to sending me the notes.’

  ‘We have his description on file, and will put out an APB for him to be brought in for questioning. In the meantime, I will send an officer to your flat to view the scene. Do you have any idea where he would have taken you?’

  ‘No. I didn’t hang around long enough to find out,’ Jessie replied, realising she wasn’t able to give the police a lot to go on.

  ‘Do you have anyone you can stay with tonight?’ he asked.

  ‘My boyfriend is in Shanghai today,’ Jessie replied glumly.

  ‘Maybe a friend you can stay with?’ he suggested kindly.

  ‘I’m new here,’ she said, even more downheartedly.

  ‘Well, just to be safe, I would advise you to check in to a hotel for a few days, until we have any concrete leads,’ PC Cheung said solemnly.

  Chapter 43

  Taking PC Cheung’s advice, Jessie booked into a nearby hotel, in Central. As she lay on the bed in a fluffy white dressing gown, she waited for her phone to ring. She was expecting callbacks from Jack, the police, and possibly Rachel. The police called first to say that they’d been to her flat and had found nothing untoward there, other than a shoe lying randomly in the middle of the floor. At least there wasn’t a dead body lying there, Jessie silently congratulated herself. Clearly, Charlie wasn’t dead, but that meant he could still be looking for her. The police gave her instructions to contact them should she have any further sightings of him, to which she’d wanted to point out that probably wouldn’t be possible if he kidnapped her and took her phone.

  As time ticked by, one thing was worrying Jessie more than the whereabouts of Charlie Davenport: why the hell hadn’t Jack called her back? Surely he must have picked up one of her messages, or at least noticed the dozens of missed calls from her? Unable to wait any longer, and with worry starting to build inside her, she decided to do something proactive.

  It was a long shot, but she did it anyway.

  She pulled up a number on her phone and pressed the call button.

  ‘Cicely Davenport,’ the voice answered in her crisp, well-to-do accent.

  ‘Mrs Davenport. It’s Jessie Slaymaker. How are you?’

  ‘Jessie, how nice to hear from you. How are you getting on, dear?’

  ‘Well, not so good. Jack went to Shanghai this morning, and I haven’t been able to get hold of him. You haven’t spoken to him at all, have you?’

  ‘No, Jessie. I’m afraid I haven’t. Have you two had a falling out?’ she asked. She was always quick to get to the bottom of things.

  ‘No. Nothing like that. He said he went to check on something with his company, and now Charlie is here in Hong Kong.’

  ‘Charlie? My Charlie? In Hong Kong?’ Cicely asked, clearly surprised. ‘Well, you can tell that waste of space from me that it would be nice of him once in a while to actually return one of his mother’s numerous messages and give her the common courtesy of calling her back,’ she added angrily.

  ‘I think Charlie is up to something with Sonia Shum. Something illegal,’ Jessie explained tentatively.

  ‘Not again,’ Cicely said as though she weren’t entirely surprised. ‘I can’t stand that woman, as you well know,’ she added with undisguised disdain. Then she sighed. ‘I’m sure it can’t be all that bad. Charlie is not such a terrible person deep down. He was never like this as a child, you know. A bit of a troublemaker from time to time, but mostly harmless.’

  ‘Mrs Davenport, will you ask Jack to contact me on my work number if he does get in touch with you?’ Jessie asked, choosing not to argue with Cicely Davenport’s opinion of her son.

  ‘Of course, dear. And if you see Charlie again, ask him to phone his mother, won’t you? Oh, and do feel free to bop that nasty Sonia on the nose from me,’ she added with a chuckle.

  ‘Will do,’ Jessie replied, and opened up the internet browser on her phone to follow up her next lead.

  Next, she
tracked down the telephone number for Jack’s Shanghai office. Castigating herself for not having called earlier, Jessie waited for the call to connect, fully expecting it to be another answering machine or to just ring off. It was after nine and she considered there was a low likelihood of anyone still being in the office that late. Jessie was therefore surprised when a female voice answered after only the fourth ring.

  ‘Hi there, my name’s Jessie Slaymaker. I’m Jack Davenport’s girlfriend and I wanted to see if he was there,’ Jessie said, introducing herself in one long continuous breath. There was a pause, and Jessie couldn’t tell if it was due to a delay on the line, or if maybe the woman hadn’t understood her English.

  ‘Miss Slaymaker. I am Yu Lan. Jack was here this afternoon, but he got a phone call,’ she said very carefully in precise English, clearly trying to enunciate all the words. ‘He then left in a hurry to go back to Hong Kong. Did he not arrive?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Jessie replied, an audible wobble in her voice. ‘Did he say anything else?’

  ‘Only that he had to be on the next flight and then he used foul language at not having charged his phone. That is all I know, and he hasn’t contacted me since.’

  ‘Did you hear who he was on the phone with? Did it sound like a man or a woman?’ Jessie asked, trying to pull out even the tiniest detail.

  ‘A man, I think,’ she answered.

  Jessie thanked Yu Lan and left her contact details, along with instructions to get in touch if she heard from Jack again. As soon as she’d hung up, her phone rang—an unrecognised number. Maybe he’d got another phone.

  ‘Jack!’ Jessie answered hopefully.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint,’ came Tom’s familiar voice. ‘It’s only me.’

  ‘Tom,’ Jessie said, not even trying to hide the disappointment from her voice.

  ‘Thank Christ I’ve gotten hold of you. I’ve been trying your other number all day and couldn’t reach you. I’ve only just remembered you have this number as well. Are you okay? When you hung up on me earlier I got worried as you sounded odd, so I called Jack.’

  ‘You spoke to Jack?’ Jessie said, clutching her bathrobe at the neck.

  ‘Yes. Right after I spoke to you. He said he was in Shanghai and would head back to you. Jessie, what’s going on?’ Tom asked, seriously.

  ‘Charlie Davenport came to kidnap me, but then I hit him with my shoe and ran away and now I think they’ve kidnapped Jack instead. I can’t get hold of him. It’s like he’s just disappeared,’ Jessie rambled, unable to hold it together any longer as a big gulp escaped her.

  ‘Shit!’ Tom exclaimed, before he unleashed a torrent of questions. ‘Please tell me you went to the police? Where are you now? Are you safe?’

  ‘I’m safe. I’m in a hotel. The police can’t do much. They said they’ll try and bring Charlie in for questioning for breaking and entering and threatening behaviour. But at the moment it’s just my word to go on that any of this even happened. Tom, I think I need to call the police and report Jack as missing. I need to do something. I feel like such a coward just hiding here in the hotel. I should be out looking for him.’

  ‘Jessie, listen to me: call the police and tell them about Jack, but you need to take care of yourself and stay hidden. You don’t have a clue what Charlie might do to you next time. Don’t go out looking for Jack on your own. I’ll use my contacts and see if I can find his flight details. Make sure he got on a plane and isn’t still in Shanghai somewhere.’

  ‘Thanks, Tom,’ Jessie said wearily. Although she still didn’t have a clue what was going on, she didn’t feel quite so alone in the world.

  ‘Keep your phone on, but in the meantime, I know it’s hard, but you should try and get some rest,’ he instructed.

  ‘Will do,’ Jessie replied obediently. ‘But promise me you’ll call me if you find out anything.’

  ‘Of course,’ he said before ending the call.

  Jessie immediately called the police and gave them her case number and tried to attach a missing person’s report in Jack’s name to the same file. Yet despite her practically begging the police officer at the other end of the line to listen to her, they would not be persuaded to lodge anything official yet. Jessie was informed that apparently nothing could be done, seeing as Jack was a grown adult, and he hadn’t even been missing for half of the required twenty-four hours deemed necessary before a report could formally be filed.

  Although she never thought she would, somehow, eventually, Jessie managed to fall asleep. She was woken by a thumping on her hotel room door, a sound that paralysed her with fear. Her first thought was that Charlie must have discovered her whereabouts, and she frantically searched the room for some sort of weapon to use on him.

  ‘Jessie, open up! It’s Rachel Horton,’ came her boss’s voice. Amongst all the craziness of the previous day, and with the realisation that Jack was missing, Jessie had forgotten all about the fact that she’d called Rachel, too. Jessie suddenly remembered that Rachel had called for Jack to be followed. Maybe she’d even had her followed as well, thinking she would lead them to Jack.

  ‘Have you found him?’ Jessie shouted as she ran to the door and flung it open.

  Rachel strutted past her and into the hotel room, and Jessie’s eyes went wide. Her boss, forensic accountant Rachel Horton, was wearing what looked like a black, rubber, all-in-one body suit, and wouldn’t have looked out of place as a Batman sidekick.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Jessie muttered as she took in the vision before her. Even clad in rubber, Rachel looked to be about the most put-together woman in the world, with her flawless makeup and a perfect high ponytail.

  ‘We haven’t found him. But we know they have him,’ Rachel answered directly. ‘We followed him back from Shanghai. He was picked up in a car by an as-yet-unidentified male.’

  ‘Where is he now?’ Jessie asked as she started to pick up her clothes, her intention to go to him obvious.

  ‘We don’t want you going in there, Jessie. Let us do our job. We’ll get him back.’

  ‘What are you waiting for? They could be doing anything to him,’ Jessie reasoned.

  ‘At the moment, they don’t know we know anything about them. And we need to keep it that way until we have the relevant paperwork to issue warrants for their arrests and launch a more thorough investigation.’

  ‘What? He’s being held against his will? Isn’t that enough? The police wouldn’t allow this.’

  ‘The police are working with us, and our combined task force has jurisdiction in this case.’

  ‘This is bullshit!’ Jessie shouted at her. ‘Rachel, where is he? They’ll be expecting me to come after him. If you don’t help me, then I’ll just find Charlie, and he’ll lead me to Jack eventually.’

  Rachel looked at her with what Jessie thought to be pity.

  ‘Please, Rachel,’ Jessie pleaded. ‘Please don’t let them hold him for a second longer than necessary. He’s done nothing wrong.’

  Rachel paused for a moment, clearly considering whether or not to divulge this information. At last she said quietly, ‘They have him at the bar.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jessie replied tartly as she marched towards the bathroom to get dressed.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Rachel called through the closed door.

  Jessie paused whilst she thought about that for a moment.

  ‘I’ll figure something out,’ she replied lamely, and threw open the door. She didn’t exactly look like a stereotypical rescuer in her tight pencil skirt and trainers, but she would have to do.

  ‘I have a better idea, if you’ll just hear me out,’ Rachel said.

  Chapter 44

  Jack woke up with a cracking headache and a metallic taste in his mouth. It didn’t take him long to realise that he was tied with his hands behind his back to a chair, or that he could barely flex his shoulders, let alone move a muscle. As he swallowed back the taste of blood and the initial panic of not being able to move, he tried to focus on his su
rroundings despite the pain in his head.

  As his eyes struggled to focus in the dim light thrown off by the overhead bulb, he concluded that he was in some kind of basement. There was something familiar about where he was, as he noticed a pile of boxes and drink crates. Then it hit him why this place seemed so familiar: he was being held against his will in the basement of his own bar. Something in Jack’s brain just couldn’t fathom that. Surely it was too obvious. What kind of idiots had brought him here? It was either incredibly stupid or incredibly clever to have him hidden in plain sight.

  He thought back to how he got here. The last thing he remembered was arriving back at Hong Kong airport and getting in a taxi. The traffic had been bad in town, and he’d opted to get out of the taxi early and walk the rest of the way to Jessie’s flat. And that’s where his memories seemed to just stop. Try as he might, he couldn’t remember anything between that point and coming to just now. The time between was simply filled with a hollow empty blackness.

  ‘Jessie!’ he exclaimed to the room.

  His earlier panic resurfaced as he wondered what had happened to her. She was the reason why he’d raced back to Hong Kong. Tom had called him to say that he had a feeling Jessie was in some kind of trouble. So he’d called and called her phone, but she never picked up. In the end he resorted to leaving her a message to let her know he was coming back for her before his phone died. Even so, there was a part of him that wondered if Tom was just being melodramatic and she was actually right as rain and just unable to get to her phone. He’d hoped so anyway.

  But now he realised that someone else must have been in possession of Jessie’s phone, had heard his message, and had used that information to come after him. Did that mean that whoever was holding him captive, had Jessie as well?

  As that thought filtered through Jack’s still hazy mind, he subconsciously began struggling against his restraints in a feeble attempt to free himself. He could barely move at all, though, and achieved nothing that could be classified as progress, other than the fact that he’d managed to rub his wrists painfully raw.