Chapter 2 – Emma
CHAPTER 2
EMMA
F igures… My core ached as I lay in the dark with disappointment pooling between my thighs. For the first time in years, I decided to let loose and hook up with a guy instead of getting all relationship-ey––and he turned out to be a spy for my dumb brother.
Jax and I needed to have a serious conversation about boundaries. I huffed, rolling onto my side and slamming my head deeper into my pillow. There was a time when we talked to each other about anything and everything. I've always looked up to him because he was so much older, stronger, and self-assured than me. Still, ever since he went into the Navy, it's like he doesn't have the emotional bandwidth to be a freaking human being anymore, much less a decent big brother to me.
I can't count how often I tried to reconnect with him. Every time I flew to see him, something cut our visit short. Jelana might be willing to put up with his secrets and obsessive need to put himself in one dangerous situation after another, but not me.
Nope… No, thank you. That insanity was the opposite of what I wanted in my life. As much as I love Jax, you have to accept that some people just can't make time for you at some point.
I'd been leaving him voicemails for days asking him for help finding Estelle, but all he could manage to do was send one of his buddies to try and drag me back to Puerto Rico. He probably figured that since my client is the Prime Minister's wife that there's something more behind her disappearance than her fragile mental health, as if that wouldn't be reason enough to want to disappear.
I tossed and turned for hours, thinking about the drop-dead gorgeous SEAL in my living room. It felt like I was going to bed hungry, and I knew precisely who kept my well-deserved dinner from me.
If I wasn't so pissed that he played me like a damn fool, I might have wanted to finish what we started. But he's on my brother's TAPS team. I'll no doubt see him again at some point, and none of my brother's friends need to know what I'm like in bed.
After resorting to my breathing exercises, four seconds in, four seconds out, I finally fell asleep. When I woke up, I half expected him to be gone.
Instead, I found him shirtless, peering out my curtains. The blankets I'd tossed onto the sofa hadn't been touched. Every muscle in his back was toned and corded, and I sulked as I headed into the kitchen.
"Morning." At least there was a fresh pot of coffee. "Have you been up all night?"
"There's a tan Oldsmobile across the street with two guys in the front seat."
"Okay?" I grabbed an apple and bit into it, holding it in my mouth as I opened a loaf of bread.
"That same car was behind the cab on the way here from the club last night. It's doubly weird because it's an Oldsmobile...in St. Lucia. They'd be less conspicuous in an ice cream truck."
"It's a small island, Captain." I put a slice of bread into the toaster. "Maybe they're staying somewhere close by."
"They haven't gotten out of the car for the last three hours." He grabbed his shirt and pulled it on. "I know surveillance when I see it."
"I'm sure you do," I said with no small level of sarcasm in my tone. "Look, maybe their wives kicked them out of the hotel room for getting drunk and ordering porn on the pay-per-view. Two men in a car doesn't equal conspiracy."
"They're waiting for me to leave." His expression remained serious. "You said something about a client that went missing?"
I paused mid-bite of my apple before chewing it slowly.
I nodded, covering my mouth and swallowing my food. "Good to know I'm not being ignored completely."
"Emma, this is important." Nathan pulled out his cell phone and started texting. "Did she say anything strange before she disappeared?"
"If she did, I wouldn't be able to tell you." I walked over to the curtains and looked outside, spotting the car he was talking about. It was at least a hundred yards up the street, and I had to squint to make out the faces of the men inside.
Three hours is a long time to park in a residential area… If Nathan was right about them tailing us here, that seemed a little suspicious.
"Uh…" I shook off a sudden twinge of paranoia. "A few months ago, she might have teamed up with a French reporter to expose a judge who had taken a payout from a shady defense attorney. She'd taken it up as a personal quest to speak out against corruption in Saint Lucia's court system."
"And you didn't think that might have something to do with her disappearance?" His tone reeked of judgment.
"She's severely depressed." I repressed the venom in my voice. "Her marriage is failing, and the man she loves is completely disinterested in working on it but insists they stay together because it helps his public image."
"And who's her husband?"
"Unless you plan on helping me find her, I'm bound by doctor-patient confidentiality."
Nathan's jaw flexed as he clenched his teeth.
I groaned. "All right, I admit, saying everything out loud sounds like something is going on there, but ninety-nine point nine-nine percent of the time, when things fall apart, people are much more dangerous to themselves than others will ever be."
"That might be your experience, but that point zero-zero-one percent still accounts for something." Nathan picked up the coffee mug from the end table and drank. "You're letting your personal bias cloud your judgment."
"Don't quote statistical philosophy to me– I know that shit like the back of my hand." I stared daggers at him.
He came close to me. So close I could smell the earthy notes of cypress and moss in his cologne.
"I know you're smart," he whispered. "Look out that window again and tell me the probability that those guys aren't waiting for me to leave so they can make a move on you."
Playing to my ego… Nice tactic. I let out a heavy sigh and peeked out the window again just as something glinted behind the dark windshield… Are those binoculars?
"Holy shit." I hopped back. "Do you really think something happened to Estelle?"
"I think we need to get you off this island and have the team check things out when they get back to home base."
"I don't know…" I muttered, taking one last look. The man in the passenger's side leaned to dig something out of the back seat and I spotted the holstered weapon on his hip. "Oh my God!"
I cupped my hands over my mouth.
"What?" He rushed forward to look through the crack. "What did you see?"
"Hypothetically…" I wrung my hands. " If I go with you back to Puerto Rico, will you give me your word that you'll get your TAPS team to find Estelle?"
"Seriously, Emma? You do realize you're negotiating with your own life?"
I made a face akin to a scared puppy at him. He sighed, giving in to my superior negotiation skills.
"Fine! Jesus. I'll do everything I can for your friend, but we need to go right now."
"She's not a friend." My voice cracked. "She's a client."
"I'll talk to Smitty as soon as we get back." He cupped my face in his hands, and I felt all my defenses buckle under the weight of his gaze. "He's our logistics guy. Can we please go?"
Those eyes were like a drug.
"Yeah." I shook off the haze of his smell. "I'll uh… I'll go pack."
"Pack?" He curled his top lip up. "Can't you just throw some jeans on and grab your purse?"
"I just need a couple things." I jogged into the bedroom.
"Fuck me…" He grumbled. "If you're going back there for your favorite curling iron, I'm gonna take off and just tell Jax they got to your first."
"Very funny, Mr. patriotic hero man!" I yelled as I scrambled to brush my teeth, grab my makeup essentials, and two changes of clothes, shoving everything into my suitcase. I pulled on some slacks and a pair of sensible flats. Even though heels always made me feel like the baddest bitch in the room, on the off- chance that we needed to run, I wasn't going to be the girl in the horror flick that breaks her ankle and dies in the first twenty seconds of the movie.
An aggressive knock on the door almost made me jump out of my skin. By the time I got to the living room, Nathan had drawn a gun and positioned himself just around the corner of the kitchen.
"Police!" A man's voice called through the door. "Open up."
Shit… My eyes widened. That might explain the gun and possibly the reason they were surveilling my house.
I stepped toward the door, but Nathan shook his head, mouthing, They're not cops.
My stomach twisted into a knot as I wondered who this strange, gun-wielding man in my house really was. What if these guys were cops, and Nathan was the one they were looking for? What if he was some kind of serial killer who talks women into leaving on his plane, and they're never seen or heard from again?
I put my hands up and moved slowly toward the door, half expecting him to point the gun at me. But he just shook his head, silently pleading with me to step back. Looking through the peephole, I eyed the men at my door. On the right was a scruffy man, stocky with a salt and pepper mustache and thinning brown hair. His partner looked like a toy soldier with bulging muscles, bleach-blonde hair, and dark shades.
They could be cops…
"Miss Jackson?" The stocky man pounded on the door with a meaty fist. "Police. Open up, please."
"Could you show me a badge?" I said through the door.
"Uh, yeah." He rubbed his neck and looked back over his shoulder. "I actually left it back at my car. We just needed to ask you a couple quick questions and we'll be out of your hair?"
Nathan had given up trying to convince me not to open the door but remained crouched around the corner, gun at the ready. A police shootout in my living room was not on my top ten list of things I wanted to do that day.
Wait a second… I blinked, looking back through the peephole. The buff blonde man stepped back and glanced around as if looking for another way in.
"What about your partner?" I asked. "Does he have his badge… or did he leave his in the car too?"
The two men exchanged a glance, and the balding man jerked his head toward the door. Blondie nodded and stepped forward, slamming his shoulder against the door, which shuddered under his weight. I yelped, taking a step back as he kicked it.
"I'm calling the cops!" I ran to grab my cell phone off my nightstand just as I heard the front door splinter apart behind me.