Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Two
Kate’s steps were muffled by the thick carpet of the grand staircase as she climbed to the second floor, doing her best to follow Juliette’s directions. Which wasn’t easy in a house like Hempstead Manor, even sober. When she got to the door in question and tugged at the handle, it held firm. It was locked, which she should have expected given Juliette’s need to pick the lock last night. Still, she’d done her fair share of research on lockpicking for the Loretta books, and if Juliette could get it open, she should be able to as well.
“What are you doing?” Jake asked directly behind her.
“Jesus Christ at a church bazaar!” Kate said, spinning around and pressing a hand over her heart.
“What are you doing, Kate?” Jake prompted again, his crossed arms making beautifully defined lines along his forearms and biceps that Kate absolutely refused to acknowledge, despite being unable to look anywhere else.
“I told you, nothing to concern you,” Kate said, trying her best to look casual.
Jake took another step closer, his gaze narrowing as he closed the space between them until they were standing chest to chest. Kate tilted her head to meet his gaze, taking a deeper breath than her lungs needed so she could catch the faint scent of sea salt that always lingered on him. He’d been so mad at her earlier, and some of that heat still radiated off him, singeing her skin. When he leaned forward, lowering his voice so that it was more vibration than sound, it rumbled through her like a peal of thunder.
“You’re going to snoop in Serena’s room. Don’t try to deny it. You’re a terrible liar.”
“And what’s it to you if I do?” Kate huffed. “You heard Juliette. Serena has a fake identity, she was ranting about Kennedy poisoning Spencer and Simon against her, and she made some cryptic comment about something happening at midnight. Which is when I found Kennedy’s body! If she’s our poisoner, maybe I’ll find the missing champagne glass stashed in her room.”
He let out a little sigh, his breath bright and citrusy from the mimosa. “You’re going to get caught.”
“What do you care? I thought I was a complete waste of your time.”
Jake gave her a look. “That’s not what I said.”
“That’s what I remember hearing.”
Jake grunted in frustration, running a hand through his wavy hair and somehow making it even wavier and sexier than before, which felt like a personal attack to Kate just then. “Then I’m going with you.”
“What? Why?”
“Because the last time I left you to your own devices, you got caught with a dead body!”
“In my defense, she’s not actually dead,” Kate said.
Jake gave a soft groan of annoyance. “That’s not the defense you think it is.”
Kate crossed her arms, needing Jake to understand without really understanding herself why. “I found Kennedy’s necklace stuffed into the lining of my suitcase earlier today, which was exactly how the killer got caught in Loretta book three.”
Jake’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “You have Kennedy’s necklace?”
“Not anymore,” Kate said, shaking her head. “I snuck into her room and put it with her wedding dress. But someone is trying to make it look like I tried to kill Kennedy.”
Jake ran his hands through his hair again. “Let me help. If nothing else, I can try to keep you from getting us both in more trouble.”
“I will let you help me,” Kate said imperiously, “if you happen to have a paperclip or a bobby pin on you.”
“Why would I have either one of those things?” Jake asked.
“Fine, something small and pointy?”
Jake regarded her for a moment longer, but eventually he relented and pulled a wallet out of his back pocket, flipping it open and pulling a slim object out of the folds.
“I want to be on the record again as saying this is a bad idea,” Jake said, holding out the object. “But, this ought to do the trick.”
Kate looked at it in confusion. “What is that?”
“A toothpick,” Jake said, motioning for her to take it.
But Kate just kept staring. “Why do you have a toothpick?”
“For emergencies, obviously,” he said.
“What kind of toothpick-related emergencies are you having?”
“You’d be surprised. Now, do you want to try it or should we just keep discussing it here in the hall until someone comes round to catch us?”
“Fair point,” Kate said, taking the toothpick and crouching before the door handle. “But I want to hear more about these toothpick emergencies later.”
Kate felt around with the toothpick until she found something she could push in. The lock clicked, the door handle turning freely. It creaked as she pushed it open, and she tried to time it to a low roll of thunder to hide the sound.
“What are we looking for?” Jake asked as she crept in.
“Evidence,” Kate said, pressing the door closed.
“Of course,” Jake whispered, voice dripping with sarcasm. “Evidence, I should have known.”
“Anything suspicious,” Kate whispered, throwing him an annoyed look. The room was pretty small, just a bed-and-dresser set with a smaller door on the back wall. “Something linking her to Kennedy’s poisoning, preferably.”
“A glass bottle with a skull and crossbones. Got it.”
“Just look over there, on the opposite side of the room from me,” Kate muttered, half because she was annoyed and half because his skin smelled so warm and inviting.
The bed was full size at most, the covers still neatly tucked under the mattress. Wherever Serena had slept last night, it wasn’t in here. Still, her suitcase was on a rack in the corner, the contents spilling out like a vintage dress shop gone mad, as well as a glass of water and a prescription bottle on the nightstand that unfortunately seemed to be filled with ordinary sleeping pills. No rosary peas in sight.
Jake seemed to be coming up similarly empty-handed, giving Kate a shrug from the opposite side of the room, when the door handle gave a warning creak. Someone was coming.
“Hide!” Kate hissed, stumbling across the room toward the door on the opposite wall, grabbing Jake by the arm and dragging him along. The room door swung wide open just as they slipped inside what seemed to be a closet.
“… heartless bastards wouldn’t know a decent cause if it slapped them in the face,” came Serena’s distinctive voice, breathy and self-important. “If only the others had shown up, we’d have given them a real show. Cowards.”
“We did nearly capsize twice trying to get out here,” came another voice, reedy and pinched. One of Spencer’s more literary authors whose name Kate could never remember. But he’d been among the protesting authors.
“You made it here in one piece, didn’t you?” Serena said. “Meanwhile, I was the one waiting out in the rain past midnight, miserable and sopping wet, holding out the signal so you knew where to land. I was the real martyr in all of this.”
“Still, staging our protest on a private island during a wedding with a press ban probably wasn’t our best idea, was it?”
“Don’t be shortsighted,” Serena snapped. Her voice had drawn closer to their hiding spot, and Kate desperately pushed through what she hoped to all the gods in all the various religions was just a wall of clothes. “This is only phase one. The little chippy needed to know we could get to her anytime, anyplace, no matter how secluded she thinks she is. We won’t be ignored! I’ve already contacted every major news outlet in Seattle, we’ll be on the six o’clock news by Monday, mark my words. They’ll hear our lion’s roar, and they won’t be able to deny our contracts then.”
Kate pressed on until she hit what felt like the back wall. There were other things in there, things that tugged at her shirt and scratched along her legs, things that made her want to yelp in terror. It was only Jake’s solid presence behind her that kept her from screaming out.
A light flicked on from the far side of the closet door, stretching searching fingers toward her as it swung open. Kate bit down on her lip hard enough that the pain cut through the panic, grabbing Jake’s hand and pressing into the deepest corner of the closet. There was something heavy and solid on the floor blocking her way, and as she pushed it out of the way, a breath of stale air puffed in her face. The closet door had opened wide enough now, light spilling in at uneven angles, that she could see a small opening had appeared. A secret passage.
“Simon will have no choice but to give in to all our demands,” said Serena, whispering her final savage words. “I’ll do what I have to to make sure of it.”
Kate pressed into the tiny space between the walls, the air so thick with dust it settled in her lungs like a brick. Jake wedged in after her just as the counterweight in the closet tipped back into place, sealing the door shut. The space was so narrow they could both barely fit, and as Kate felt along in either direction it was clear the space didn’t go anywhere. Except now, they had no way to get back out with the secret door shut.
Serena’s voice was muffled and distant now, drawing away even as Kate felt the walls of their tiny hiding space pressing in, the exposed beams and the smell of rotting wood hanging in the air and smothering her. She did her best to hold all her feelings in her body, but the panic expanded like a balloon, threatening to pop.
Loretta kicked at the wall with her heavy-soled boot, grunting in frustration. “I should have figured a Prohibition house would have hidden compartments.”
“We’re stuck, Loretta,” came Blake’s voice, warm and close and the slightest bit panicked. Loretta would have found it cute, the way his accent sharpened with concern, if she weren’t too busy trying to find them a way out. “What are we going to do?”
“If there’s a way in, there has to be a way out,” Loretta murmured, feeling all along the wall. “We just need to find it.”
Kate could barely put her arms out with Jake wedged in the space, much less feel her way around for a secret latch or hidden release. Of course Loretta wouldn’t panic, but Kate Valentine didn’t have the luxury of knowing her author would rescue her from the worst danger. Meanwhile, the panic had spread into her lungs, the pressure building intolerably, and she let out one tiny squeak.
“Kate,” Jake whispered, his body wedged against hers.
“Is this a bad time to remember I’m claustrophobic?” Kate huffed. “Because I am. Very claustrophobic. I’m going to scream.”
“You can’t.”
“No, I know. I know I can’t. But I’m going to scream a little bit. One tiny scream.”
“Kate,” Jake said, his voice desperate. Something thumped against the wall on the other side, the sound going off like a shot in their tiny hiding space. The squeak Kate let out was twice as squeaky.
“I can’t hold it in!” Kate said. “I’m sorry.”
She could feel Jake holding the breath in his chest, mentally weighing something. He shifted against her, reminding her how much physical contact they were in. The space was suddenly overheated and stifling.
“Kate?” Jake said, more breath than word, his body bent over her.
“What?” she replied, the scream lodged in her throat, clawing its way up her body.
“Are you sober?”
“More than I’d like to be right now,” she muttered. “That’s kind of a rude question, isn’t it? What does that have to do with… Oh. Ohhhhhhh.”
When I kiss you, it will be for you and me. And you’ll be stone-cold sober.
His hand brushed her cheek, found its way into her hair. “May I?”
“Oh god yes,” she begged.
His lips grazed hers but she was too impatient, pressing into the kiss with her full body, shoving him back against the false wall. It wasn’t a particularly smart move, considering how they’d ended up in that hidey-hole in the first place, but she didn’t care if they came tumbling out and someone put an axe in her skull at that particular moment. Because she was stone-cold sober and Jake was finally kissing her.
And holy shit was he kissing her. He grabbed her thighs and lifted her up, wrapping them around his waist as he gently pushed her back against the opposite wall, bracing her on a cross beam that put her mouth on a level with his. His tongue was rough against hers, his breath hot as he panted against her lips. His stubble had grown in over the last twenty-four hours, rough and scraping against her mouth as he shifted from her upper lip to her lower lip, pulling it between his teeth. He pressed his groin into hers, the friction dragging groans out of both of them. Kate was pure liquid need, pouring into her center, all of it begging for more contact, more tongue, more friction, more Jake. He rubbed against her again and her eyes rolled back, her head dropping against the wall with a thud.
“Jake,” she panted as his lips made their way down her throat to her collarbone.
“Mmm?” he said, sliding his hands up under the hem of her shirt and splaying them out along her rib cage.
Only in the dark could she be this bold. “I want you inside me.”
Jake shuddered, grinding against her, his teeth tracing lines along her shoulder. “Don’t tempt me, Kate.”
It was hard enough, putting together words when Jake’s lips were working their way lower. But his hands joined the assault, sliding up under the line of her bra, one thumb grazing her nipple. A jolt shot right down to her lower half, making her gasp.
“Jake, please . Please, god, please.”
“Mmmm, I like when you call me that,” Jake said, grinning against the hollow of her neck. He brought his index finger and thumb together, rolling her nipple.
She thrust one hand into his curls as his mouth and his hand met in the middle, the rough slide of his tongue over her breast sending warning prickles down her thighs. With her other hand she reached up blindly to steady herself, her legs already trembling from the effort of staying braced against the wall. She found a wooden beam and grabbed it for dear life. But the beam shifted in her hand, creaking downward, and the next thing she knew there was a cold rush of air and she was tossed out into another room.
She yelped in surprise as she hit the plush carpeted floor, the impact jolting all the sexiness out of her. Jake had fallen to his knees, still inside the hiding space, his pupils contracting quickly. It was the only part of him that was contracting, the line of his erection thick and obvious against the leg of his jeans. He looked at her in surprise, his hair pulled in every direction by her fingers, his chest rising and falling quickly. His gaze darted down, and she realized one breast was still exposed.
“Oh god,” she groaned, quickly tucking it back in. It was one thing to give in to every filthy thought she’d had about Jake when they were trapped in the dark; it was another thing entirely to look him in the eye in the broad—albeit wan—light of day. She wasn’t even sure what room they were in, if they were alone, or how they were going to get out. She glanced around, looking anywhere but at Jake, trying to get her bearings.
“Where are we?” she panted, still sprawled out on the carpet, not yet trusting her thighs to support her. All she could see from her disadvantage point was about a thousand potted plants throughout the room. “An indoor jungle?”
“Looks like nobody’s here,” Jake said, standing up and heading toward her with intent. “Which means we won’t be disturbed.”
“Wait, wait,” Kate said, scooting backward into a plant. “We should talk—”
But the weight of the plant was top-heavy, and as she reached up to steady the pot, the tree itself came crashing down on her, raining leaves everywhere. She cried out in surprise, pushing the tree away on instinct, the branches surprisingly soft and heavy. The weight rolled off, a face turning up toward the ceiling, contorted in terror, sightless eyes like glass marbles.
It wasn’t a tree. It was a body.