Chapter 5
Chapter Five
King
The caravan no longer stretches before us as I take the final exit for the night. My passenger’s frequent need for the lavatory put us miles behind everyone else. Jim waits for no man . . . or woman. After the third stop, the others continued on without us.
I steal glances when I can. Why? I couldn’t say. I’m only torturing myself with each glimpse of her red hair and glistening green eyes.
Josie Rogers is the most beautiful creature I’ve ever laid eyes on, but my eyes are the only part of my body I’ll allow to enjoy her. She was pretty as a fresh twenty-something, but time has matured her in ways I find almost undeniable.
But deny her I will, no matter what she throws at me.
“If you grip the steering wheel any tighter, it’s liable to pop right off,” she says.
I loosen my hold, and my knuckles return to a normal color.
“Is there any more water?” she asks. “I’m thirsty.”
“I tossed the remaining bottles in the bin. If I’m forced to walk you again, I’ll scream.”
“Walk me?” She scoffs. “I’m not a fucking dog.”
“You whine to be let out. You smell. You throw your ass around like a bitch in heat.” I shrug. “If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck?”
When I first saw that it was her, I had a moment of insanity where I thought we might get to relive those wild months we spent together. She quickly told me where I could shove that fantasy, and now I’m keen to hurt her feelings right back. I don’t care that it’s petty.
“Aw, I see what this is. Someone’s jealous that I asked to ride with Blayne again.”
Jealous is a strong word. I’m more irritated by her request than anything else, and not for the reason she believes. It’s not that I don’t want anyone else to have her. It’s just that . . .
I don’t want anyone else to have her.
Blast.
“I liked you better when you were underwater,” I mutter.
The CB radio crackles to life. Jim insisted we install these damn things, and there was no arguing with him.
“Air Force Fun to RV There Yet, over,” Jim says.
With a groan, I raise the radio to my mouth. “I’m not using the idiotic call signs, Jim.”
The speaker crackles again. “Air Force Fun to RV There Yet. Over!”
Josie snatches the mic from my hand and holds the button. “RV There Yet to Air Force Fun. We copy. Captain Cocksure hasn’t pulled the stick out of his ass yet. We’re working on it. Over.”
Laughter crackles over the speaker, followed by, “Captain Cocksure? Oh, that’s good!”
The sneaky little redhead pulled him aside during the first stop, and they’ve been regular chums ever since.
She’s worked out some deal with him, I’m sure, which means I’ve lost any chance to be rid of her for this trip.
I’m so glad they’ve made friends and are having such a jolly time at my expense, though.
“Set your GPS for Wiseman Mall. The girls want to take your little captive on a shopping spree before the trip begins,” Jim says.
Bloody hell. Shopping? Who goes on a road trip to go shopping?
I pull my phone from my pocket and call Jim, but he doesn’t answer. I try again, and it goes to voicemail after the first ring.
“Is someone trying to say something?” Jim asks over the radio. “It sure sounds like King has something to say.”
I snatch the radio from Josie’s hand. “I’m not taking her to the blasted mall, Jim. Not happening.”
“Who said that?” Jim asks. “Without the call sign, I don’t know with whom I’m speaking.”
“RV There Yet to Air Force Fun. Fuck. You.” I clamp the mic back into its holder and turn the volume down until Jim’s crackling voice disappears. I glance at Josie, who picks her nails and grins to herself like the fox who just raided the henhouse. “You’re quite pleased with yourself, aren’t you?”
“Indeed,” she says, mocking my accent. “But let’s remember that it wasn’t my idea to get kidnapped for a vacation. It isn’t my fault I have no clothes.”
I’ve a right mind to drive her to the nearest estate sale and let her have her pick from Grandmother Eustace’s things. Let’s see how cunning her smirk is when she’s strapped on a pair of shoulder pads circa 1987.
But I don’t. I simply adjust our heading and aim the RV toward the mall.
I need to pick up a few things myself. After all, I can’t prove Josie right; she wasn’t so far off when she accused me of only packing formal attire.
I never considered how silly it may look to crouch around a campfire in a monkey suit, and now that I have, I don’t want to give her the satisfaction.
Lazy city streets grow more congested the closer we come to town. The summer sun hangs low in the sky by the time we pull up to the large complex. It isn’t hard to find our group.
Massive vehicles fill the back half of Macy’s parking lot like some sort of redneck Donner Party. Sinners mill about, chatting just outside. As we pull closer, we’re greeted by waves and smiles.
Josie smiles and waves back.
I die a little inside. She isn’t supposed to make friends. These are my people.
“Remember the rules,” I say. “If you force me to come looking for you, it won’t be pretty.”
“Don’t be an idiot. I begged to go on this trip. Why in the hell would I run off? That’s what you do, not me.” She heads for the back of the RV, tossing out her jab and offering no chance for me to swing back.
And damn it, the blow lands.
If she believes I left her all those years ago for my benefit alone, she couldn’t be more incorrect.
It was meant to help her. Once I was gone, her life was supposed to go back to normal.
I expected her to attend community college and settle down.
I expected the murderous months we spent together to heal that broken part of her enough that she could limp across the finish line and start her life anew.
Then again, she seems to have done well for herself. She hasn’t abandoned the lifestyle as I hoped she would. In fact, she’s embraced it in ways I never wanted. She seems happier, though, and maybe that’s part of the reason I didn’t want to drag her along on this road trip.
My memories are of a young woman entranced by a newly discovered, hidden world.
I may not have popped her cherry in the sexual sense, but I was there when she first plunged a blade into a victim.
I held back her hair the first time she left her breakfast—and her morals—on someone’s kitchen floor.
And when I realized she enjoyed it a little too much—and maybe that I enjoyed her a little too much—I left before the change in her could become permanent.
Or so I thought.
Once I departed from her, I never looked back. It would have been too tempting to look her up, so I didn’t. But as Jim explained it, she continued her bloody path, and she’s carved a name for herself in the annals of serial-killer history.
I should be proud. I should feel like Dr. Frankenstein as his creation rose from the gurney in spite of all impossibility.
Instead, a heavy weight sinks like a stone in my innards.
“Come on, Captain Cocksure,” Josie calls from the back. “It’s time to go shopping!”
“Right behind you, my beauty.”
“Ugh, don’t call me that.” She opens the door and exits the RV, and I enjoy the sway of her hips as I follow her.
“Will you stop calling me Captain Cocksure?”
“No.”
“Then I’m afraid we’ve reached an impasse, my beauty.” I close the door behind me, but I can’t lock up without the special device Jim gave me. The factory locks don’t work.
I grumble and climb back into the RV. When I return, Blayne is already sauntering closer. Like a hound on a trail, his Roman nose is aimed right for Josie.
I lock the camper and push past the two of them, heading straight for Jim as they stop to chat. Eve and Cat are close behind him, and Kindra is headed their way as well.
The gaggle of women can handle her for this side quest, and if she wants to drag Blayne along like a love-starved teenage boy, she can be my guest. It won’t get him anywhere.
I’ll be sure of that.
“What sort of deal did you strike?” I ask Jim when I reach him standing outside his tour bus.
“You don’t even bother to ask how the trip has been so far. How rude.” Jim dusts the front of his dustless suit jacket. “She agreed to give me the sloth’s location at the end of the journey if I allowed her to stick around for the road trip. And take her shopping on my dime. That’s all.”
“So not even the sloth. Just its location?” My eyebrow rises.
“Details, details.” His hands flutter. “I’m working on it.”
I pull the RV keys from my pocket and force them into his hand. “I’ll have a driver pick me up and take me to the airport. Gary can take over my rig. It’s been fun, Jim.”
He grips my arm before I can walk away. “You can’t be serious. This has been years in the making!”
“Lower your blasted voice,” I whisper, looking around to be sure no one heard him. “The hunt for Daddy Carter has been years in the making, not the Josie sideshow. The moment they stop believing that is the moment I really will walk away.”
“So you were just bluffing, eh?” Mischief gleams in his eyes. “No plans to abandon the trip?”
“No, it isn’t a bluff. You’ll leave this parking lot with one less person, so make a choice.”
Jim stomps his feet. “This isn’t fair. I want that sloth!”
“And I want a conclusion to this nightmare,” I nearly shout. I close my eyes and take a deep breath.
“Can’t you just deal with a little wrench in the works?”
“A wrench?” I motion behind me. “This is more like throwing a toaster into my bathtub, Jim. You’re killing me in horrific ways.”
Jim looks past me and offers a solemn nod. “Yes, I can see how that would get under your skin.”
I turn in time to see Josie brushing Blayne’s curls off his forehead. The curl doesn’t budge. She gives him a flirty smile, and he returns it.
Jim isn’t so far off, though. I want her far away from me so that I’m safe from her, but I want her far from Blayne too. I can think of a particular cliff in Dover that I’d love to show him.
“Did you still need to stop by CVS for yeast-infection cream?” I yell toward the budding love scene. “It might help with all that unladylike scratching!”
The girls take a step away from her, and I turn back to Jim.
“On second thought, maybe it won’t be so bad after all. We’ll likely kill each other within the next ten miles, but hey, the sloth, right?” I start toward the mall.
Jim hurries to keep up with me. “Come on, King. It won’t be so bad. We have our first event tomorrow, and I’m sure she’ll fit right in.”
Yes. That’s what I’m afraid of. That she’ll fit in so well that I won’t ever excise her from our little group again. I’ll be forced to watch her make the rounds and fuck every member of our band of merry men. Maybe the women too. Who knows what she’s picked up a penchant for in five years.
For my sanity, that cannot happen. I can’t have her, but I can’t watch someone else have her, either.
As I reach the mall doors, I turn to go inside. Josie and the girls bring up the rear of the group, with Blayne slithering behind them like a snake. He watches her with a longing in his eyes that is all too familiar.
Keep dreaming, lover boy. This one’s off-limits.
To everyone.
Three hours later, the men sit around the food court like soldiers returned from war.
Bags drape from their arms, and most of us wear a thousand-yard stare as we dissociate from the misery that is a shopping trip.
Only Jim and Bennett seem unbothered as they discuss their findings.
As it turned out, I wasn’t the only bloke who needed a few odds and ends.
I’m happy to spot Blayne among the men as well. Though I can’t be certain how long he followed the hens around, they eventually left him behind, which is all I could ask for. So long as he isn’t sniffing around Josie.
Speak of the she-devil, she appears in a cloud of laughter and shopping bags.
Two mall staffers hurry behind the women, each of them pushing a silver cart loaded to the gills with paisley fabrics, designer labels, and glitter.
Judging by the way Jim’s face goes a ghastly shade of pale, he wasn’t aware of Josie’s proclivities toward the finer things.
“I got the girls a few things too,” Josie says as she passes a credit card back to Jim. It’s a wonder the damn thing isn’t smoking. “Hope you don’t mind.”
Cat, Eve, and Quinn pull their treasures from the trolley. I’m not surprised to see that Kindra and Frankie didn’t partake. I’m also not surprised that Josie was their ringleader.
“Still feel like that sloth is worth it, old man?” I raise an eyebrow toward Josie, who’s already skipping out of the mall with her entourage close behind her. “We could leave her here. She’ll find her way home. She’s very resourceful.”
The other men stand to leave the mall, so I do as well, but Jim clamps his hand over mine. He nods for the others to go, but I take a seat. He clearly has something he wants to say.
Once the others are out of earshot, Jim pulls his chair closer to mine. “King, before we drive another mile, you and I need to have a serious chat. This trip was orchestrated for the Carter children’s benefit. If you plan to squander what I’ve—”
I pin him with a glare.
“If you plan to squander what we have worked so hard to put together, I think it’s best we tell everyone the truth right now and be done with it.”
“You’re the one obsessing over a sloth,” I mutter, but I look away from him. Because damn it, he’s right.
“I’m not saying this as another of my empty threats,” he adds. “If this is too much for you, we will turn this car around and go home. But seriously, as your friend, I’m asking you to try.”
“No,” I say, keeping my tone soft for his sensitive soul. “You’re asking me to torture myself. You’ve placed a seven-layer chocolate cake in front of a diabetic.”
“I’ve placed a seven-layer chocolate cake in front of a man who has self-diagnosed himself as diabetic. If you would merely try the cake, you’d see for yourself.”
“I’ve tried the cake. I know it’s everything a man dreams of at night, but it’s every man’s downfall as well.” I shake my head. “It’s no use, I’m afraid. This is the one time when your schemes have failed.”
“Would you like to bet on it?”
Damn him. I want to walk away right now, but he’s just invoked the demon within me.
“What sort of wager?”
“My lakefront property in Florida for your cottage in Ireland.” He grins and leans forward.
“I gave that to Frankie and Maverick as a wedding gift.”
“The estate in Surrey?”
“That’s Ezra and Kindra’s wedding gift. If they keep marrying at this rate, I’ll have no property left to wager.”
“All the more reason to make sure you win, then.”
“And when I win, what do I get?” I ask.
Jim shrugs. “I’ll give up on the sloth, and we’ll leave Josie at the next stop.”
I hold my hand across the table. “You’re on. What’s the task?”
“Grab a fork and a napkin.” Jim grins and slides his hand into mine. “Before sunset tomorrow, you must try the cake.”