Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
The incessant sound of a phone ringing dragged Casey out of a deep, deep sleep. She reached over to her nightstand for her cell phone only to touch warm skin and hard muscle.
What the ? —
She blinked and opened her eyes, staring up at a ceiling she didn’t recognize. Where was she?
The phone rang again, the bed shifted beside her and a deep voice answered, “Fowler.”
Digging her way out of the fog of slumber, Casey looked to her right at the naked back of a solid, tanned male.
“Casey?” A female voice came from the cell phone. “Who is this? Where’s Casey?”
Casey shot to a sitting position and reached for the device. “Give that to me,” she demanded.
Jacob handed her the phone and flopped back down on the pillow.
“This is Casey,” she said.
“Casey, where are you?” Kalea wailed. “Why aren’t you with me? I can’t get hold of Hawk. He’s not answering his cell phone. And who was the man who answered your phone?”
Casey pushed the hair out of her face, pulled the sheet up to cover her naked breasts and focused on the question she had the best chance of answering. “Take a deep breath, Kalea. What do you mean Hawk isn’t answering his phone? He could be in the shower.”
“I called an hour ago,” she said. “I thought the same thing, so I gave him time to shower and then called a few minutes ago. The call went straight to his voice mail.”
Casey’s pulse leaped. “Are you all right?”
“No. I’m a little freaked out.” Kalea paused, inhaled and let her breath out loud enough for Casey to hear. “This is a big step, and I needed to talk to Hawk. We should have gone to a JP instead of doing this wedding.”
“Breathe, Kalea,” Casey said. “I’ll check on him. You know everything that needs to be done today. It’s all set up. All you have to do is relax at the spa. The facial and massage will make everything better. I’ll let you know what’s going on. Have a Bellini; the fixings are in the refrigerator along with finger food to keep you from passing out.”
Kalea sighed. “Thank you. I needed a voice of reason. And when you find Hawk, tell him to call me. And after that, you can tell me who the guy is that answered your phone. I want all the details.”
“I’ll talk to you soon,” Casey said, avoiding that particular conversation. She ended the call and looked down at Jacob. Her first urge was to toss the sheet aside and run down the hallway to check on the groom. Being completely naked, she wasn’t comfortable moving about the room in the presence of a man she’d known for less than twenty-four hours, even if they’d made love all night long and into the early hours of the morning. “ You’re the best man. Your groom is AWOL and not answering his phone. Go. Check on him.”
“He’s a grown-ass man. I’m sure he’s fine.” Jacob reached out and tugged a strand of Casey’s hair. “Meanwhile, we have the whole morning.” His hand slid down her back and around to encircle her hip, dragging her backward to lie beside him.
She kissed the side of his neck, not wanting to move from the bed. When Jacob cupped her breast in his palm, her core ignited. “We need to check on Hawk.”
“We will.” His lips found the hollow at the base of her neck and moved lower, over her collarbone to capture a peaked nipple between his teeth. “In a minute.”
Casey arched her back, wanting him to take more.
While his mouth teased her breast, his hand slipped over her belly and down to the tuft of hair over her sex.
She parted her legs and covered his hand with hers, urging him lower.
He obliged, dipping a finger into the slick entrance to her channel.
Casey moaned and lifted her hips to his gentle strokes.
His fingers slipped upward into her folds and swirled around the little knot of highly sensitive flesh, packed with all the right nerves to set her on fire.
She closed her eyes, and her breath hitched in her throat. “Yes,” she gasped. “There.”
He played with her for another minute. Then he lifted his hand.
“Wait,” she said, her eyes opening.
Jacob leaned up on his elbow. “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not done yet.” To prove his point, he rolled on top of her and kissed his way from one breast to the other, then downward until he came to the juncture of her thighs.
Parting her folds, he thumbed her clit, dipped into her wetness and thumbed her again.
Casey forgot how to breathe, absolutely sure she couldn’t until he touched her there again.
He bent and flicked her with his tongue.
She sucked in a gasp.
Another flick sent her skyrocketing out of the stratosphere. Tingling turned to spasms as she rocked her hips to the rhythm of his tongue stroking her there. She climaxed, crying out his name, “Jacob!”
As she floated back to earth, he climbed up her body and captured her mouth in a crushing kiss.
Casey wrapped her arms around him and parted her legs, eager to have him inside her. “Your turn.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “We have a groom to locate.”
She frowned. “Surely, that could wait.”
Again, he shook his head, his hard cock nudging her entrance. “Nope. I’m out of the condoms I had in my wallet, and your bride is having a meltdown.”
“Sweet Jesus.” She inhaled deeply and released the breath. “Out of condoms. It’s a travesty.”
“Yes, indeed. And all the more reason to get up, get dressed and wake our groom.” He rolled out of the bed, smacked her bottom and grinned. “Get up.”
Casey pulled the sheet up over her head. “I can’t even bask in the afterglow?”
He yanked the sheet down. “Not when your bride is panicking.”
Casey’s lips twisted. “You’re right. Damn you.”
Already, Jacob was pulling on his jeans and slipping his feet into his shoes. “I’ll go down the hall and check on the groom.” He winked. “Maybe Hawk has a spare condom.”
“Good point.” A glimmer of hope made her smile. “I’ll just wait here.” She pointed to the key card he’d left on the nightstand. “Take his key in case he’s still passed out.”
Jacob grabbed the card and disappeared through the door.
After a few seconds, Casey couldn’t just lay there waiting for him to return. She got up, found a Denver Bronco T-shirt and pulled it over her head. It hung almost down to her knees. She propped open the door to the room with the night latch and stepped across the hallway to Hawk’s room.
About that time, Jacob emerged, his eyes wide, his brow creased in a frown. “He’s not here.”
“What do you mean he’s not here? Where would he be?” Casey pushed past him. Once inside the room, internal alarm bells went off. The comforter was on the floor, Hawk’s suitcase had been dumped, the contents strewn throughout the room, and the nightstand lamp lay in the middle of the floor. “What the hell happened here?”
“I don’t know.” Jacob shoved a hand through his hair. “He’s not here.” He held up a cell phone. “I found his cell phone on the floor, and his wedding tuxedo and shoes are missing.”
“Would he have taken his suit to the church already?”
“Without his cell phone?” Jacob held up the device. “He never leaves a room in a mess. And his cell phone goes with him everywhere. The man is OCD.”
Casey looked around the room. “Do you think he was kidnapped?”
“Who would kidnap him?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s been in Montana. Has he made anyone mad out there that you know of?” Crossing to the doorway, she examined the frame. “It doesn’t appear that the door was forced open.”
“I know Hawk,” Jacob said. “He wouldn’t have left with someone without a fight.”
Casey waved at the mess in the room. “Thus, the state of the room. But who would take him?” She shook her head. “There has to be a better explanation.” She stepped out into the hallway and spied a security camera at the end near the stairwell. “Let’s talk to security. Maybe they have footage of what happened in this hallway last night.”
Jacob tipped his head toward her T-shirt. “Maybe you should get some more clothes on before we do.”
“You don’t happen to have a pair of shorts or sweats I can borrow, do you?” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Just until I can get to my car and my own things.”
“I have some shorts.” He led the way back to his room and rummaged through a duffle bag until he found gym shorts.
Casey took them into the bathroom, closed the door and slipped them on, drawing the string tight to keep them from falling off. One glance in the mirror made her grimace. The heavy makeup from the night before had smeared and her hair was a wild mess around her face. With a washcloth and soap, she scrubbed off the makeup and finger-combed her hair until it wasn’t a wild mess. “It will have to do for now.”
When Casey emerged, Jacob had dressed in shoes and a T-shirt and had combed his hair.
Feeling extremely underdressed, wearing a T-shirt she’d knotted at the waist, the gym shorts and her platform heels, Casey headed for the door, her chin held high. Fake it until you feel it, she always said. So, she faked the confidence she wasn’t feeling.
Jacob followed her into the elevator, and they went down to the ground floor.
“Check with their security. See if we can get in to see the camera footage,” Casey said. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
She left him at the desk in the lobby. The clerk frowned at her as she hurried out the door. Casey couldn’t help the judgmental looks, but she could get her own clothes and feel more prepared to face the day. After digging out a brush, a pair of jeans, a soft, rib-knit pink sweater, panties that were more than a thong and sensible flats out of the rear of her vehicle, she climbed into the back seat, hunkered low and dressed in under three minutes, thankful for the tinted windows and empty parking lot. She pulled back her hair into a neat ponytail and secured it with an elastic band at the nape of her neck.
When she climbed out of the back seat, she felt a lot more like herself and not the stripper, Candy. Tossing the platform shoes into the back, she rolled the shirt and shorts into a tight ball and entered the hotel.
Jacob was nowhere to be seen. “Excuse me,” she said to the woman who’d given her that judgmental look. “There was a man standing here a few minutes ago. I presume he was asking about video footage. Could you tell me where he went?”
The woman’s gaze raked over her from head to toe. She frowned briefly, then jerked her head toward the door behind the desk. “He’s in there. Says his friend is missing.”
“Yes, he is. Do you mind if I join him?” Casey asked.
“Go ahead. The night shift didn’t report any issues. I don’t know why you think you need to see surveillance videos.”
“The missing man is supposed to be at the rehearsal this afternoon. His bride is worried about him,” Casey explained as she walked around the desk to the door behind the woman. The mention of the bride reminded her that she hadn’t called Kalea to give her an update. What would she say to calm the bride?
Hell, nothing she could say would calm Kalea. They didn’t know where Hawk was, and by the look of his room, he hadn’t left it willingly.
As long as Kalea wasn’t calling, demanding to know where Hawk was, she’d let that sleeping dog lie. She needed time to find the missing groom.
Jacob hovered over a young male hotel worker as they scrolled through the video footage for the past seven hours.
“Anything?” Casey stood beside Jacob.
“We just got to the right camera and started through the images from the approximate time we left him around eleven o’clock last night,” Jacob said to her. He touched the young man’s shoulder. “Can you increase the speed?”
“Sure.” The hotel worker clicked the fast-forward arrow, and the video zoomed through an hour, then another. For the most part, the hallway was empty, with a couple arriving after midnight and nothing for the next couple of hours. Then, a blur of movement emerged in the corner of the video. A man wearing a black ski mask appeared, and he held something up to the camera's lens. A moment later, the image went dark.
Casey’s heart skipped several beats.
The hotel worker gasped. “He sprayed the camera with black paint.” He fast-forwarded through the rest of the footage. All four hours were dark. “Now, why didn’t I notice this on the monitors this morning?” He glanced up at the two monitors in front of him. Each had an array of images from different locations across the property. The far left corner square was dark. The hotel worker cursed. “I can’t believe I didn’t notice.”
“Sometimes, we see what we want to see,” Jacob said.
“Yeah, but that’s pretty important.” He shook his head as he studied the remaining video squares.
Casey leaned over his shoulder, her heart sinking into the pit of her belly.
Jacob leaned in and did the same. “All the rest are intact and projecting images.”
“Yes, they are.” The clerk brought up the early morning recordings from another location in the hotel. “The next image is taken from the lobby.” He played the four hours in triple-time. Nothing out of the ordinary jumped out.
Jacob dropped into a seat beside the clerk. “Is there a back door used by the service personnel?”
The man nodded and clicked on the keys, bringing up another video of what appeared to be a service elevator. He forwarded quickly to the time just after the man blacked out the camera lens on the floor where Hawk’s room was located. Two men dressed in coveralls, with hats pulled down low over their faces, rolled a laundry cart between them out the back door. A light shone over the loading dock. They pushed the cart into the back of a service van and closed the door.
The clerk stopped the video. “That’s not our usual laundry service,” he said. “We have our own washers and dryers. The only laundry we send out is our draperies.” His brow furrowed as he squinted at the image. “And we wouldn’t have had anyone here at three in the morning. I’m surprised the door alarms didn’t alert us.” He let the video continue.
The two men moved around to the front of the truck and climbed in.
“Stop,” Jacob said.
The clerk hit the pause button.
Jacob leaned closer. “Can you print that image?”
“Sure.” The clerk hit the command to print, and a sheet of paper slid out of the printer beside him. He lifted it, looked down at the page then handed it to Jacob.
“I think we can get a license plate number off this,” he said.
Casey looked over his shoulder. “It’s really blurry.” Her eyes narrowed.
“Hawk’s people might be able to sharpen the image,” Jacob snapped a picture of the printout with his cell phone. “Hank Patterson, his boss in Montana, has a computer guy who could chase this down.” He scrolled through the contacts on his cell phone and punched one, sending the photographed image and a message. A moment later, his cell phone pinged with a response. “Hank’s guy, Swede, is on it. He’ll get back to us as soon as he has a match.”
Casey nodded toward the clerk. “Call the police. I think our friend has been kidnapped. We need them to conduct a search of the island for that vehicle.”
“If they left here at three in the morning,” the clerk frowned, “they could already be anywhere. Even off this island. They could be on a boat, any other island or on a plane to who knows where.”
Casey sank into a chair beside the hotel clerk. “Holy cow. Who would have done this?” Her eyes widened. “How am I going to tell Kalea?” She shook her head, her jaw hardening. “I’m not going to tell her. At least, not until we have a better handle on what’s going on. Hell, I’d rather not tell her at all if we don’t have to. Which means we have to get him back. Soon. He’s getting married in less than thirty-six hours. We have to find him.”