Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
To Do:
- Plan another date night. Maybe a series?
- Meeting with Mindy to narrow down applicants
“See you later?” Luke grabbed Claire around the waist and pulled her in tight.
Her toes curled, and warmth spread between her legs. She snuggled deeper. His clean linen scent mingled with the coffee wafting in from the kitchen. He pulled back, but she gripped tighter. His calm, steady presence was the glue that was holding her together. As soon as he left, she would have no choice but to confront her new reality.
How was she going to rebuild? Since coming to Los Angeles, she had been threatened, fired, and arrested . This whole trip had been a giant mistake. Thankfully, Brad hadn’t posted anything nasty on the internet yet. Maybe he would forget? Or wait until after the proposal?
The proposal she had given months of her life to. Planning, dream-boarding, calling, scheduling, emailing, bending over backward, and catering to every whim. Seventy-hour work weeks. Missed dinners with Luke and friends. And now it was all for nothing.
“Hey.” Luke put a hand on her cheek. His eyes locked onto hers, stormy and gray today. He pressed a kiss to the tender spot on her wrist where heavy duty BDSM handcuffs had bound her to the headboard the night before. “Everything’s going to be okay.”
She exhaled a long, slow breath. “Things can only get better, right?”
A grim smile formed. “I love you. Don’t leave the house, okay? Not unless Charlie or Bri is with you. And keep the security system armed.” He gestured to the new keypad on the wall.
Claire nodded, but her insides twisted. Today was Brad’s meeting with the ranch. Going there to spy on him was a stupid, dangerous idea. What would she gain from it other than more unbridled rage? It was stupid to chase after lost dreams, but she could at least do more research on ESA. The sleepwalking, the sabotage—none of it would stop until they were brought to their knees.
“I love you.” She tugged Luke close once more and kissed him. Their tongues danced, heat rushed to her face, and she had half a mind to pull him back upstairs.
“You’re killing me. I gotta go. Bye.” There was regret in his eyes as he kissed her on the cheek and left.
She twisted the sash of her robe in her hands as he hustled down the front steps. The sun slanted across the yard and illuminated him in a golden glow. His chest muscles rippled as he opened his car door. Butterflies danced in her belly. God, he was gorgeous. He waved and shot her a half-smile as he reversed out of the driveway.
In his absence, the house was too quiet. Mindy had left in a cab earlier, bound for the airport. Rosie sat at attention at the backdoor, fixated on the squirrel that was trying to climb the bird feeder. Winston was next to her even though he couldn’t see anything.
Taking one final glance at the front door, Claire hustled into the kitchen and pulled out a paper map of Hollywood Mindy had picked up during a star tour. She spread it open on the kitchen table and dragged her laptop over. An email appeared from Mindy with a breakdown of five potential Los Angeles clients. Her flight must have had Wi-Fi.
Claire’s hand hovered over the mouse. They needed to pick some new couples, figure out next steps. But ESA was sabotaging her at every turn. What if they moved on to targeting her clients? Anyone she associated with could be in danger. She minimized the email and opened her web browser.
A dozen tabs stood open, each leading to a different news article. A handful of women had gone missing in Los Angeles County over the course of the last six months. Was it ESA, or was it some other lowlife? Maybe if she visited the locations where they disappeared, she could spot something that would lead her to them. It was probably crazy, but she had to start somewhere.
She glanced down at her list of names and typed them one by one into the search bar. As she read through social media accounts and, in some cases, Wikipedia pages, their lives unfolded before her. Several of the women seemed like classic ESA victims. A couple of executives, a winner of the Great American Barbecue, even a state senator.
A chill ran down her spine. All these high-profile women, and there was barely a blip on the news. Every single day women were at risk. Sitting by and letting these assholes continue to run amok was not an option. She had to do something.
She parsed the articles until she found the last known locations of the victims. Robin Turbot, the CEO of a chain of local health food stores, had disappeared from her gym on Hollywood Boulevard. She marked the location with a red X and perused the next article. Kyla Rivers, the owner of the Los Angeles Sparks, had gone to the bathroom at a club on Santa Monica Boulevard and never returned. Trebek Open Space had been the site of the disappearance of Letisha Humboldt, a tech CEO.
They were all over the place—Hollywood, Laurel Canyon, Universal City. She marked a dozen spots and stared at the map.
Were the places significant? Why hadn’t any of the women been found? Where was ESA operating from? There were so many questions. Someone very important had to be at the top. But Los Angeles was full of important people.
On a whim, Claire took a pencil and drew lines between the sites of the disappearances. At least half of the lines intersected over the Hollywood Hills. Her stomach clenched. Was this where ESA’s hideout was? She was no expert on LA, but she was fairly certain that the Hills were littered with celebrities and influential people. She couldn’t explain it, but something in her gut told her there were answers there.
She slammed her laptop shut, then immediately reopened it and calculated the distance between the Hills and the ranch. Twenty or thirty minutes. Not that she was going to do anything about it. Brad deserved to fail on his own. There were higher stakes.
She crossed the room and twitched the curtain aside. Luke was long gone, and the black Porsche was just sitting there. He would be furious if she left, especially after he just forbade her from doing exactly that. But the mystery beckoned. Until ESA was brought down, nothing and no one was safe. It was time to act.
An hour later, Claire crawled through the winding streets of the Hollywood Hills. With any luck, she would look like any other touristy rubbernecker trying to catch a glimpse of George Clooney taking out his recycling.
Her phone beeped, and she jumped. Her heart hammered in her chest. Had Luke discovered that she left the house?
But no, it was only Mindy following up on her email.
“Sorry. ESA research. Video chat this afternoon?” she dictated to her car. The message was sent, and Mindy confirmed.
She passed yet another gated driveway leading to a mega mansion. Ugh. She was wasting so much time. She should have researched who lived in the Hills, which residents had a history of misogyny. It was probably a long list, but better than going in blind. The only thing she was catching was severe home envy.
Frustration grew as she crawled the streets. Gates and sun-drenched, Tuscan-inspired houses flanked her on each side, but there was no way of telling if anyone beyond those gates was in ESA. What was she expecting to stumble across? A giant penis fountain in the front yard? A basement full of female CEOs?
Her phone beeped again. She pulled over and put on her hazard lights. This time it was an alert from her calendar—she needed to leave now if she was going to spy on Brad and his assistant at the ranch. Her hands hesitated on the wheel. Luke was already going to be upset if he found out that she left the house to go amateur sleuthing. But he would be furious if he found out she risked her safety to spy on a former client.
And yet, she had to know. Was her vision going to be destroyed, or was his receptionist secretly an event planning wizard? It was bound to be a disaster. And then what if he wanted Claire to come back? Her fingers twitched on the wheel. She counted the clicking of the flashers until she got to thirty. There was only one answer. She was going to that ranch.
Thirty harrowing minutes of honking horns and BMWs refusing to use their turn signals later, she rolled into the parking lot and kicked up a cloud of dust. There was Brad’s obnoxious Ferrari parked as close as he could get to the front of the lot. She glanced around, but the rest of the lot was empty.
Claire slid on a pair of tennis shoes and locked the car behind her. She would only watch for a few minutes—just long enough to make sure everything was falling apart without her—and then she would head straight home and pick the dogs up from daycare. Maybe she’d even make Luke a guilt dinner. He loved her stepdad’s empanadas.
Gravel crunched behind her. She whirled around and immediately plunged her hand into her purse as her heart hammered in her throat. A stun gun nestled in her hand, she scanned the parking lot. What had she heard? Was it a human? ESA?
A mama deer and two fawns stepped out from behind her car. Their doe eyes stared blankly at her. Claire blew out a long, slow breath. Apparently East Coast and West Coast deer both enjoyed popping up at the worst possible time. Electrified venison was not on the menu this evening. She sheathed her stun gun and began the quarter-mile hike to the ranch.
Brad’s voice hit her like nails on a chalkboard as she slunk up the hill. She darted off the path and hid behind a bush. Concealed by shrubbery, she peered through the branches.
Brad’s assistant, who had added rainbow bangs since Claire had last seen her, clutched a clipboard.
“What do you mean you didn’t bring the pictures?” He stared down at her.
“I thought you wanted to wait until we got the ivory frames in—you said the off-white wasn’t right.”
Ha. So Brad was still micromanaging every minute aspect of the project. For once, it was nice that it wasn’t her problem.
He wiped a hand over his face and stared up at the midday sun. “Goldie, how do you expect me to visualize everything if we don’t bring the necessary materials? I expect better from you.”
Goldie straightened up. “Mr. Windsor, I’m not an event planner. This is not in my job description.” She pointed at a horse who was taking a dump.
“It’s called ‘all other duties as needed,’ kiddo,” he said grimly. “I know you can do it. You do a great job with my schedule.”
“Whatever. I’ll put it on the list. What else?”
Claire listened for another twenty minutes while Brad’s requests grew increasingly absurd. A sheen of sweat had appeared over Goldie’s brow. The first item on her To Do list was obtaining a new saddle for Karen. There was no way they’d get it done in time. Brad was going to have to buy the existing one from Happily Ever Afters. Ha.
Her watch beeped. Shit. It was time to head home so she could beat Luke back. After one last look at the stressed-out receptionist, she slunk back around the corner and stole down the hill. Her heart was lighter than it had been since she had been fired. A breeze lifted the ends of her hair as she half-skipped down the narrow gravel road. It was a beautiful, sunny day. For once, someone who had wronged her was facing the consequences of their actions. It wouldn’t be long before Brad realized Goldie couldn’t cut it. He would probably call at any minute. Maybe she should turn her phone on silent, make him sweat for a few hours.
“See?” she said to a chipmunk that darted across the path. “I went on a whole outing by myself and didn’t get abducted.” ESA had better things to do than mess with her in the middle of the day on a Thursday. Most of them were probably either frat boys or grown-up frat boys who were now chronically constipated middle managers with nine-to-five jobs. They couldn’t keep tabs on her all the time. There was no reason for Luke to forbid her from going out alone.
Luke’s protectiveness had once been hot. Lately it was just irritating. She stretched her arms out at her sides and lifted her face to the sunshine. God, it was good to be free. No overbearing boyfriend probing every corner, no FBI dad checking her flip-flops for tracking devices. Even though LA traffic was unbearable, she was grateful for the crush of people that allowed her to be, for once, anonymous.
Something on the dirt road caught her foot, and she nearly fell ass-over-end to the parking lot.
“Son of a bitch.” She kicked a rock and sent it flying into a thicket of trees. Somewhere in the dense clump of vegetation, a twig snapped.
Her sneakers halted on the dusty trail. Was it her imagination, or did a shadow just dart behind that tree? Goosebumps spread up and down her arms. She expelled a long, slow breath, but nothing stopped her galloping heartbeat.
Would they really try the same thing twice? Another abduction attempt at the ranch? There was no way. They wouldn’t even know she was here unless they had followed her all day. She was being paranoid.
Her eyes probed the space between the trees. The branches swayed, but they could have been moving for any number of reasons. A light breeze, a small earthquake. Maybe a really energetic group rain dance.
She resumed her walk and slid her sunglasses down onto her nose, peering fervently out of the corner of her eye on her way to the car. The keys clinked as she withdrew them from the cavern of her purse and threaded them through her knuckles.
There wasn’t any sign of movement from the thicket. She was almost to the car. Even if there was someone hiding back there, they wouldn’t be able to stop her once she got to her vehicle. She quickened her pace and breathed a sigh of relief when she touched the warm metal of her door handle. The leather seats burned her legs as she slid into the driver’s seat and buckled her seatbelt.
Shit. She hadn’t checked the undercarriage. Jack would be furious. But he didn’t have to know. She turned the car on and threw it into reverse. Whatever may or may not have been hiding in the trees was about to eat her dust.
As she reversed out of her parking spot, she cocked her head. Was the car suddenly leaning? And what was that sound? She shifted into drive. Thump thump thump . The speed of the thumping increased.
Son of a bitch . Of all the times to get a flat. Was it a coincidence, or was it ESA?
She threw the car into park. Casting a cursory glance around the still empty parking lot, she stepped out of the car. Yep, there it was. A huge nail protruded from her now flat tire.
A strangled yell escaped her throat as she kicked it. She needed to get back to Luke’s for what was sure to be a sound lashing. Now she was going to have to rely on the memory of the one time Roy had showed her how to change a tire when she was a shiny-faced sixteen-year-old.
“I can do this. I went to college,” Claire said as she opened the trunk. If she could ace her sociology final, she could absolutely change a tire. She pulled up the floormat. Where there should have been a tire, there was a crumpled energy drink can. What the hell, Luke? Now what?
Something moved behind her. She whirled around, grabbing the nearest object—a travel umbrella. What was that? Her shoulders tensed and her heart thudded in her ears. It had sounded like pebbles crunching underfoot.
“Who’s there?” she called out, gruffer than usual. Her voice sounded unfamiliar to her own ears. One hand slid into her purse, and she searched past a spare dog leash, pack of sticky notes, and a dozen assorted pens until her fingers rested on the stun gun.
“If you’re after money, you’re going to be sorely disappointed,” she called out to the empty parking lot. There was silence. She shut the useless trunk and put her back to the car.
“If you’re in ESA, I’ll be able to hear you coming because of your tiny, tiny balls clanging together like a Newton’s Cradle.” She took a step to the side. The vaguely threatening tree line was still, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that there were eyes on her. All she had to do was get in the car and lock the door. Then she could call AAA. Or maybe she should run back to the ranch?
She took another step to the side and pivoted. Maybe it was all her imagination. But something inside was screaming at her to call the police.
Her phone was halfway out of her bag when she almost collided with a man leaning against her driver’s side door.