Chapter Eight
Spiker tried his hardest to discredit Vanka’s assessment. He peppered Roxana with questions like a cop might do on a television show, forcing her to recount mundane details about her social and work life, neighbors and enemies or lack thereof, and her brother.
They knew more about Hagan and his work than she did, and her running list of questions grew each time Spiker and Vanka seemed to find an answer. Still, the two couldn’t agree.
Spiker insisted that she was playing stupid, while Vanka clung to the claim that Jason had used Roxana as an unknowing information siphon.
If their argument hadn’t been about the very fabric of her life, Roxana would’ve enjoyed watching their hot-and-cold dynamic.
If Spiker and Vanka fucked like they fought, both would walk away with bruises, refusing to admit their satisfaction.
“Get your head out of your ass, Spiker.” Vanka inspected her manicure. “The woman’s teeter-tottering between heartbroken and homicidal.”
“For God’s sake, woman, it’s an act.” Spiker huffed and gestured toward Roxana as if she were evidence on display. “She’s not crying. Hasn’t crapped her pants.”
“She can hear you,” Roxana muttered under her breath.
“Because you’re such a scary man,” Vanka tacked on, rolling her eyes. “Sooner you realize I’m right, the sooner we can go our separate ways.”
Vanka and Spiker reached for their phones at the same moment. Roxana mentally crossed her fingers that they’d received a text message from their office that read, whoops, there’s been a mistake.
Whatever the text said, it shifted their mood.
Spiker and Vanka moved across the room and whispered.
They kept an eye on her, but without their complete attention for the first time in hours, Roxana could think without psychos breathing down her back.
She recalled the conversation with her brother and relived his hesitation, the way he questioned their work and happiness, and ran through Spiker and Vanka’s determination to connect Hagan and Jason.
Was she the only person who was in the dark…
? If so, Jason wasn’t the only one she wanted to kill.
What would’ve happened if Jason had been home? Anxiety pummeled Roxana’s chest. What would happen when Vanka convinced Spiker to leave? Her feet bounced in her Converse. Would they shoot her if she jumped the couch and made a break for the door?
Roxana lifted her hand like the shy kid in school. “Can I ask a question?”
They waited as if their silence was permission.
Her thoughts crashed together. “Are you going to kill me?” There were better ways to inquire, but hell if her rising nerves cared if she offended her intruders’ sensibilities. “I vote no.”
The corners of Vanka’s lips twitched.
Spiker rolled his bottom lip into his mouth. “I don’t think we have to kill you.”
“Awesome.” Roxana let go of her breath, and for good measure, she tacked on, “Thank you.”
“It’d be too messy, anyway,” Vanka added.
“Excellent point.”
Spiker cursed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Bet you kept Jason on his toes.”
“I can see why he chose her,” Vanka agreed. “You have a good backbone to boot.”
“Thanks…” Roxana wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the qualification list and took advantage of their semi-friendly banter. “I have another question.”
“Shoot,” Spiker said.
His word choice left something to be desired, but now wasn’t the best time to show off her copywriting skills. “Can we just call Jason? I promise,”—she crossed her heart—“I won’t breathe a word of our day together after you leave.”
Spiker and Vanka stared as if Roxana had suggested black magic. Had they not considered something so boringly basic?
Lines creased Spiker’s forehead. “A phone call?”
“Maybe I should’ve suggested that a couple hours ago.”
Vanka lifted her chin. “Call.”
“You have my phone,” Roxana pointed out.
Spiker handed Vanka the phone. She laid it on the coffee table and sat next to Roxana. “Call him.”
Roxana glanced between the two. “Are you going to say hello, or do I just start talking and see what happens?”
“He won’t answer.” Spiker shook his head. “He’s long gone.”
Roxana’s stomach tightened. “He’ll answer.”
She dialed Jason without a clue how to broach the conversation. Hi there. Don’t get upset, but your co-workers are here with guns and a super interesting list of questions… That wasn’t going to go over well for anyone.
“Speaker phone,” Spiker chimed as she pressed the phone to her ear.
“Should’ve known.” Roxana feigned an apologetic smile and switched the call to speakerphone.
Jason didn’t answer.
“Is this when I say I told you so?” Spiker smirked.
Vanka picked an invisible piece of lint from her thigh. “Exceedingly mature of you.”
Roxana crossed her arms. “He’ll call back.”
Their exchange of looks was interrupted by Jason’s incoming call.
“Sometimes it takes a few minutes,” Roxana managed.
“Takes the high road,” Vanka pointed out. “When she easily could’ve volleyed ‘I told you so’ back down your throat.”
Roxana ignored them and imagined Jason hunkered in the dank backroom of a conglomerate’s corporate headquarters, surrounded by row after row of metal filing cabinets. Jason wasn’t long gone. He only needed a minute to call back. She accepted the call via speakerphone.
“Babe,” Jason said, calm and cool, as if it were any old day. “Sorry about that. I had to get to a better place to take the call.”
The steadiness he could provide was almost too much for her heart to handle.
Other than Spiker and Vanka, all was right in her world again.
Jason was at work, paging through old paperwork under yellowing fluorescent lights.
He’d explained how boring his job could be, but he liked the quiet detail work.
She immediately understood that his job wouldn’t kill him or anyone she loved and wholeheartedly approved. “Hi.”
Background noise garbled. “Everything okay?”
Ha… “Where are you?”
“Walmart.” Jason paused. “Babe?”
Roxana swallowed hard. “My anxiety’s off the charts today.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
An unfamiliar edge had grown in his voice.
Roxana refused to look away from his image on the phone.
She had to believe that Spiker and Vanka would realize they’d made a mistake and leave, and Roxana would spend the rest of the day drinking wine until both Jason and the cops arrived. “Two of your co-workers are here.”
An extra beat of silence hung. “Who?”
“Spiker,” she offered, “who I’d met before, and Vanka.”
“We’re on speaker?”
“Yup.” A thorny knot scratched down her throat. “They’ve been here a while.”
His brief pause seemed like hours.
“Jason? Are you still there?”
“I’m here, sweetie.”
Sweetie made her spine stiffen. He’d used that nickname only once and never made the mistake again. Roxana glared at her phone and vividly recalled explaining that she wasn’t a piece of candy. He had laughed and told her she was a babe. The nickname had stuck until today.
“You’re still at home with Spiker and Vanka?”
Roxana rolled her shoulders and ignored his slip. “Yeah.”
“Just take it easy,” he said before changing his tone. “Spiker, if you need to have a conversation with me, you have it with me. Let her walk out the front door. I give you my word that she won’t say a word to anyone.”
“Can’t do it,” Spiker said. “We’ve got orders.”
“Fuck your orders,” Jason growled. “Buck has a problem with me. That’s his problem. Not yours. Not HQ’s.”
Spiker crossed his arms. “Doesn’t work like that, and you know it.”
Jason cursed under his breath.
She could’ve sworn he’d said something about a ‘drunk son of a bitch’ before a car door shut. Had he even made it to Tulsa? “Jason—”
“Listen, sweetie.”
Irritation popped under her skin. It would be piss poor timing to fight with her fiancé, but he needed to stop with the saccharine nicknames. “Don’t—”
“I hear you, Roxana, and I’ll explain everything later.”
Bile sloshed in her stomach. The man you call Jason Green ricocheted in her thoughts. “You could explain to your co-workers that they’re delusional.”
“I will explain everything later,” Jason repeated. “I promise.”
She wanted to protest or demand what there was to explain. She wanted her man to call his co-workers fools. The back and forth between Jason and Spiker had only exacerbated her confusion. Numbly, she nodded and pressed her fingers into her temples.
“She’s in good hands,” Spiker snickered.
“Stay away from her,” Jason growled. “You don’t have to let her go until I get there, but stay the fuck away.”
“I gotta tell you, man,” Spiker said. “She’s entertaining.”
“She’s—”
“All right,” Roxana snapped, angered at the way they bantered as though the hostage negotiations were as regular as small talk about the weather. “She can hear you both.”
“I’m curious,” Spiker ventured. “Is she that great of an actress, or are you that much of a dick?”
“Shut up,” Jason warned.
That wasn’t the answer Roxana needed Jason to give. She didn’t need to wait for his explanation to understand there was a side of her fiancé that she didn’t know.
“We could wrap this whole thing up over the phone,” Spiker pressed. A threatening twinkle danced in his eyes. “Buck wants to know everything. Start talking—”
“I am warning you,” Jason rumbled.
“I’m not an actress,” she whispered, then realized her whisper had been louder than she intended. A rogue tear slipped down her cheek.
She didn’t care.
The man she had planned to spend her life with had lied. About what? She didn’t know. But what did details matter when the stakes questioned who he was and the basis of their relationship?
Spiker clapped. “Give this woman an Emmy.”
“Shut up, Spiker.” Vanka’s suspicious gaze jumped from Spiker to Roxana to the cell phone. “Jason, where do you want her?”
“The basement,” Jason answered. “No windows. One door.”
Roxana jerked back to the conversation. “No.”
Jason ignored her. “Check it out, and you’ll agree I’m cooperating. All right?”
“No.” Icy cold dread scraped down her shoulders. “I’m not going into the basement.”
“Sweetie, listen to me. This is important—”