by Matt Lincoln
Huge in Japan
What Happens in Vegas book 2
Matt Lincoln
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
2. Charlie
3. Junior
4. Charlie
5. Fiona
6. Charlie
7. Junior
8. Charlie
9. Junior
10. Fiona
11. Charlie
12. Charlie
13. Fiona
14. Charlie
15. Junior
16. Naomi
17. Charlie
18. Junior
19. Naomi
20. Fiona
21. Charlie
22. Junior
23. Fiona
24. Charlie
25. Junior
26. Fiona
27. Naomi
28. Junior
29. Charlie
30. Fiona
31. Charlie
32. Charlie
33. Junior
34. Fiona
35. Charlie
36. Charlie
37. Junior
38. Fiona
39. Charlie
Epilogue
Author’s Note
Prologue
I flinched as a snowball hit me square in the face.
“Haha, I got you, grandpa!” Ellie squealed as I wiped the snow off my face.
“Oh, yeah?” I called in response. “Well, just wait until I catch you!” She shrieked with laughter as I began to chase her around the parking lot in front of the motel. If I really tried, I might have been able to catch her. The cold was making my knees hurt, though, and it was much more fun to let her win, anyway.
“I’ll save you, Ellie!” her twin brother Byron called as he pelted me with snowballs from behind.
“A sneak attack?” I yelled as I turned around to chase him instead. “That’s a dirty move!” Byron stuck his tongue out at me before sprinting away.
“Hey, goblin one and goblin two,” my adoptive niece, Amber, called from the front entrance to the motel. “Don’t you think you should come inside and give your grandpa Charlie a break? He looks like he’s about to collapse.”
“What?” I gasped. “This is nothing. I can go all day.”
I said that, but my legs were aching, and I was struggling to catch my breath. I just wasn’t as young as I once was, and I couldn’t keep up with the twins the way I used to be able to with Amber’s oldest son, Little Charlie. His real name was just Charlie, of course, but growing up, we’d started referring to him as “the little Charlie” in order to differentiate between the two of us, and the nickname had stuck.
“I have cookies,” Amber sang from the open doorway, and that was all she needed to say to change the twins’ minds. They quickly took off toward the motel. I followed behind them at a slower pace, giving my legs a chance to recover after spending an hour chasing the two kindergartners around in the snow.
“Thanks for saving me,” I said to Amber as I walked into the lobby of the motel. I’d closed it down the day before Amber had arrived with the kids. It was unlikely anyone would show up anyway, but I wanted to make sure they’d have free rein of the place over the New Year weekend.
“No problem,” Amber laughed. “You looked like you were hanging on by a thread.”
“Watch your sass,” I scolded as I fell back into the overstuffed armchair in front of the fire. “I’m not as washed up as you think I am.” Amber put her hands up in a show of surrender.
“Not saying you were,” she shrugged innocently. “But it’s okay to admit that you just want to take a nap by the fire, Uncle Charlie. Thank you for playing with them, though. They were so excited when we told them we were coming up to spend New Year’s here.”
“I’m happy to hear that,” I smiled. “I just wish Little Charlie was as excited.”
“He’s definitely in that moody teenager phase,” Amber smirked. “He’s still holed up in his room, staring at his phone. I’ll try to get him to hang out with us for the marshmallow roast. He used to love that.”
“I remember,” I sighed. I used to go camping and fishing with Little Charlie and Amber’s husband, Liam. The older he’d gotten, though, the less interested he’d been.
“I’m glad the twins were so easily swayed by cookies,” Amber chuckled as she nodded toward the window. “The snow’s starting to come down harder.”
“The sun will be setting soon, too,” I noted. “It gets dark fast up here.”
“I hope Liam gets here soon,” Amber fretted, craning her neck to look out at the road as if he’d suddenly come driving up.
“He’ll be here,” I reassured her. Liam was a lawyer and was working hard to wrap up a case. Amber had brought the kids up ahead of him with plans for him to join us as soon as he’d finished. “Now, how about you help me carry all the s’more stuff in here from the kitchen? I had some good chocolate shipped up here from the lower forty-eight. Better than any of the stuff we’ve got up here in Alaska.”
“More sugar,” Amber smiled. “It will thrill the twins.”
Two hours later, the sky outside was black. Byron and Ellie’s faces were covered in bits of chocolate and marshmallow, and they were slowly falling asleep on the floor. They’d gathered all the blankets and pillows from every room of the motel and had set up camp on the floor in front of the fireplace.
Little Charlie had agreed to join us to roast marshmallows but had retreated to the long couch at the end of the room and was currently scrolling through his phone.
“It’s already so dark outside,” Amber said, wringing her hands. “I’m worried the snow will affect his visibility. Why isn’t he here yet?”
“Hey, don’t fret,” I patted her arm soothingly. “He’s a good driver. Better than me, for sure.”
“You drive like a maniac, Uncle Charlie,” Amber dismissed. “That doesn’t mean anything.”
“If anything was wrong, he’d call you,” I assured her. I glanced over at the twins. Their eyes were closed, and they seemed to have finally fallen asleep. “How about I tell you a story? It’ll help take your mind off things.”
“A story?” Amber asked. “What kind of story?”
“About my old days as a federal agent,” I answered.
“You were a federal agent?” Little Charlie called from the couch. It was shocking how much deeper his voice had gotten. It seemed like just yesterday that I’d been rocking him to sleep.
“I was,” I answered, unable to keep the pride out of my voice. “For an international investigation agency.”
“No way,” Little Charlie scoffed skeptically.
“It’s true,” his mom called. “Come on, come sit with me and listen to the story.” She patted the spot on the blanket beside her. Little Charlie rolled his eyes before standing up and walking over to where Amber was sitting cross-legged next to the twins.
“So, what’s the story about?” he asked.
I thought about what story I should tell them. Little Charlie had just turned sixteen, so he was probably old enough to hear most of them by now. My eyes drifted around the room as I thought about which case to tell them about until they came to rest on a large, bright pink stuffed animal that Ellie was clutching in her sleep. I recognized that toy.
“Do you remember how you got that unicorn?” I asked Amber as I nodded toward the stuffed animal.
“Oh, yeah, I think I do,” Amber murmured. “You gave it to me. It was Christmas time, right? I remember playing with it in the snow the day you gave it to me.”
“It was actually a few months after Christmas,” I corrected. “It was snowing because Harry’s house was in the mountains.”
“Oh right,” she smiled. “So, what does
it have to do with your days as a federal agent?”
“I bought it while I was on assignment in Japan,” I answered.
“Really?” she asked as she looked back at the unicorn. “Oh, that’s right. You used to bring me something from every place you traveled to.”
“I did,” I nodded. “And I almost died on the mission.” Amber and Little Charlie’s eyes both went wide, and it was eerie how similar they looked when they both had that expression.
“What? How?” Little Charlie asked.
“Well, it all began with a lead about a woman found murdered in Chicago…”
1
Laura looked around the cabin of the plane for the third or fourth time in the past half hour. She’d lost count by now, so she couldn’t be sure. She glanced at the screen on the back of the seat in front of her. The clock in the corner indicated that only twenty minutes had passed since she’d woken up, although it felt like much longer. She’d dreamed that she was still back there in that tiny dark room. Ever since she’d woken up from her impromptu nap, she’d been glancing nervously around the cabin as if one of the other passengers would suddenly stand up and try to take her away. She knew it was illogical, but after months of being trapped, she still couldn’t believe she had actually managed to escape. She worried that any minute she’d wake up from a dream still chained up in a dingy building in downtown Tokyo.
She sat up straight as she took a look around the cabin again. The few other people in the business class area seemed to be asleep, and even the flight attendants appeared to be elsewhere for the moment. Laura leaned back in her seat as she felt her heart rhythm slow. She thought back through everything she had done as she made her way through the airport, trying to remember if she’d made any mistakes or done anything to call attention to herself.
Every step of the way had been nerve-wracking. First, she’d worried that they would stop her at the front desk where she’d purchased the ticket. A last-minute, same-day international flight turned out to be extremely expensive, and Laura had worried there wouldn’t be enough money on the card or that something in the system would flag it as stolen. The thought of the owner of the card finding out where she was caused her to break out in a cold sweat, and she took a deep breath to calm herself.
She couldn’t make it obvious that she was nervous. Someone might misinterpret the reason why and apprehend her. Luckily, though, the purchase went through. No one seemed suspicious, and no one asked any questions. Laura did her best to keep her pace slow and inconspicuous as she moved through the airport toward the security clearance. Now that the ticket was really in her hands, she wanted nothing more than to sprint into the plane, away from this airport and this country.
She got in line for security behind a pair of young women about her age. They were discussing what they’d done during their vacation, and hearing their conversation made something unpleasant stir in Laura. She thought about how easily their positions could have been reversed, with Laura reminiscing about her adventures in Japan while they fled the country with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Laura felt a twinge of anger at the unfairness of it all, but stifled it. She wouldn’t wish what had happened to her on anyone.
She moved through the line quietly. She didn’t actually have any luggage, so getting through should be simple. All she had to do was get through this, and she’d be that much closer to getting home. Laura caught the security agent’s eye as she got to the front, and for a moment, she was gripped with a powerful desire to tell him everything. Maybe she could trust him, and he’d be able to help her. She couldn’t get the words past her throat, though. They seemed to stick there, choking her until her eyes began to water.
She looked away before the man could see her, hoping no one else had noticed her behavior. A careful glance around revealed that everyone seemed too concerned with their own affairs to pay her any attention. She sighed shakily with relief.
A few minutes later, she walked through the x-ray scanner and into the terminal. For the first time since she had left the run-down building back in Shinjuku, she allowed herself a moment to relax, collapsing into a bench outside the ladies’ room a few feet away. She looked around at all the people rushing through the terminal, hurrying to get to their flights or shopping at the airport stores. Restaurants and shops lined either side of the hallway, and all around Laura, there was movement and noise. Laura told herself that this was good. Everyone was too absorbed in their own business to notice her. No one was following her. She was safe.
That peace hadn’t lasted long, though. There was still about an hour until her flight would start boarding, and with every minute that passed, Laura’s anxiety grew. She moved quickly through the terminal, glancing down at the ticket over and over to be sure she was heading in the right direction. Now that she was this far, she didn’t want to risk missing her flight.
As soon as she reached her gate, she settled into a chair by the window, far away from everyone else. She tapped her foot nervously, worried that at any moment, the owner of the credit card would realize she had stolen it and come looking for her. The longer she sat there outside the gate, the more time she spent thinking up ways this could end in disaster. She didn’t want to leave, though. The thought of the plane taking off and leaving her there while she was off getting something to eat or taking a walk to settle her nerves terrified her. Plus, it would probably be prudent not to use the card anymore or draw any attention to herself. It was agonizing, but it would be better to just sit here quietly until it was time to board.
Laura glanced out the large windows along the side of the terminal. Beyond the planes in the hangar, she could see the Tokyo skyline. Just the thought of it filled her with dread, and she wiped her eyes quickly as she felt them fill with tears.
Once boarding for her flight began, she looked down at her ticket to see what boarding group she was in. To her surprise, she discovered that she had unintentionally purchased a business class ticket. That explained why it was so expensive, then. Laura laughed quietly to herself. A small part of her felt a thrill of satisfaction knowing she’d made such a large dent in that man’s credit card. She tried to focus on that small triumph rather than on the growing fear over what might happen to her if they found her.
She settled into her seat quickly once she was on board, glad that this part of the plane was mostly empty. She jumped when a flight attendant came by and offered her a drink, and she had to remind herself that not everyone was in on it. She still couldn’t bring herself to trust anyone, though. Twice, she had begged for help from the authorities, and both times, it had horrified her to discover that they were both in league with the people who had held her captive. If she couldn’t trust the police, then who could she trust?
She politely declined the drink and leaned toward the window, hoping that everyone would leave her alone if she just pretended to sleep.
Laura awoke with a jolt sometime later, and she looked around the room frantically. The cabin was so dark that at first, she couldn’t tell where she was, and for an instant, she was sure she was still back in the tiny room where they’d held her against her will. Then she remembered how she’d escaped that place. She’d made it to the airport and used her captor’s stolen credit card to buy a ticket home.
She hadn’t meant to fall asleep, and she felt nervous at having put herself in such a vulnerable position. She couldn’t help it, though. She could still feel the lingering effects of whatever drugs they’d been pumping into her, and even the smallest actions left her feeling exhausted. In fact, she actually felt worse now than she had before falling asleep. Her head was throbbing, and her vision seemed to swim every time she moved her head too quickly. She wondered vaguely if she was going through withdrawal. It wouldn’t surprise her. It had been at least six months since they’d kidnapped her, but she’d stopped counting the days at some point, so she couldn’t be sure exactly how long it had been. After spending so long being drugged on a daily basis, it wasn’t a surpr
ise that her body was experiencing withdrawal symptoms.
Laura turned back to the screen and began to flip through the available movies. She picked something at random and tried to watch, but she couldn’t focus. Her mind kept drifting back to everything that had happened. Some things she could hardly remember at all. She’d been so drugged at the time that all her memories seemed shrouded in a thick haze. Other things she remembered in stark, intense detail. She turned the movie off and switched to a matching game. She still couldn’t shut the thoughts out completely, but the repetitive, simple actions of the game helped to distract her.
Six hours later, Laura was buzzing with nervous energy as the plane landed in Chicago. She couldn’t believe she had actually made it. She wanted to jump for joy and break down in tears all at once. She got off the plane as quickly as she could. She just had to make it through customs, and she’d be free. She would be able to go home, where she’d be safe.
Even though it was only one in the morning, the customs desk was still busy. Laura fidgeted as she waited in line for over an hour, and each second that passed only made her more desperate to get home. There was a small voice in the back of her head that reminded her that she probably didn’t have an apartment anymore. She hadn’t paid rent in months, so she’d likely be arriving at someone else’s home. She silenced the voice. No matter how much she knew it was illogical, she couldn’t help but fixate on the idea that if she just managed to get back home, then it would make her escape real. Until she was back in her apartment in downtown Chicago, she’d always be afraid that at any moment, someone would be coming out of the shadows to grab her.
