His to Take (Wicked Lovers 9)

He shrugged. “I’m at the mercy of this hotel since I didn’t want to leave you for more than a minute.”

Bailey sighed. He was right. The choices sucked from a nutrition standpoint, but she wouldn’t starve. “Fine. So you’re using the map to try to figure out where Viktor took me as a kid?”

He nodded. “Do you remember any landmark you visited on that trip? If so, I should be able to at least pinpoint whether he drove you north, south, east, or west. Right now, I’ve got nothing.”

“Can you give me a minute alone? Your Peeping Tom impression is distracting me.”

“Because you don’t want me to look at you?” He scoffed. He knew better.

“No. Because I don’t want to jump on you before breakfast. I’ll get sidetracked and we’ll never figure out where to go next.”

“Fair enough.” He nodded her way, grinning. “I’ll get some coffee and muffins together for you so they’ll be ready when you’re out of the shower. Don’t keep me waiting too long or I’ll have my wicked way with you again, Geneva Convention be damned.”

Bailey shook her head and laughed. “Go. You crazy man.”

Joaquin left reluctantly, and she finished her shower, threw on some clothes, then brushed her teeth. With a towel wrapped around her wet hair and her skin scrubbed clean, she felt relatively human again.

As soon as she stepped out of the bathroom, he handed her the prefab breakfast he’d thrown together. “Here you go.”

“At least I know you don’t mean to starve me for answers.” But the muffin sure looked as if it had been mass-produced out of recycled paper products. She might grumble, but she appreciated him trying. Giving him a hard time was simply fun.

“So . . . anything yet?” she asked him, nodding at the map on the bed.

“Nothing. I won’t be able to do much until I get a sense of which direction Viktor traveled when you all packed up and left this town. I need to figure it out quickly. Checkout time is at eleven.”

“We’ve got time, right? It can’t be that late.” Bailey looked toward his nightstand and found the clock. “Ten fifteen? I slept that long?”

“Yep. I guess that means I wore you out.” He looked damn proud of himself.

She swatted his arm. “You’re impossible . . . but maybe you did.”

“Then my day is complete. Well, except the part where I’m supposed to save you from the bad guys. I’m still working on that.”

“I appreciate it.” She sobered and sipped at her coffee, trying not to choke. “Oh, that is shit.”

“Sorry.”

Bailey shrugged. “Not your fault. Can I see that map?”

Forcing another sip of coffee down, she picked at the muffin as Joaquin rearranged the map so she could get a better view. But nothing registered with her. She couldn’t recall seeing any sign that said they’d left one state or entered another. There seemed to be a big, black hole in her recollections of that trip.

“If I had to guess, Viktor drove north. The Great Lakes would give you lots of possibilities for docks and signs by water. But he might have taken you east to see some sights. There are quite a few lakes along the way if he did that, too. Did you go to D.C. maybe?”

She shook her head. “No. Every place he took us seemed off the beaten path. There weren’t many people. None of the places even seemed as if they got a lot of campers. I don’t remember seeing a lot of amenities for them. Then again, I was five, so maybe I just wasn’t looking.”

Joaquin took her shoulders in hand. “I need something to follow. There’s no way we can drive around aimlessly until we find something that looks familiar. That’s a fucking needle in a haystack. Anything you can give me would be helpful.”

She looked at the map again, but all the little lines representing the highways and roads just blended together for her. Frustrated at herself, she sighed. “Maybe I should . . . This will sound crazy to you, but if you can find me a place I might be able to spread out and dance, that might help. It focuses my mind and centers me.”

“Dance?” He blinked.

Yeah, she’d known that would sound nuts to someone who didn’t spend their life en pointe. It was tough to explain the way she could let her thoughts just flow as her movements did. Sometimes, when she focused too much on something, nothing happened. But releasing the tension and clearing her head seemed to make her unconscious mind work in her favor. It couldn’t hurt to try now.

“Please.”

“All right. I think I saw a place when I was downstairs. Let’s pack up and head out. I’ll even try to find you some protein once we blow this joint.”

Bailey sidled up to him and wrapped her arms around the strong column of his neck. Heat flared in his eyes again. Would he ever stop looking at her that way? Gosh, she hoped not.

“That would be perfect. Thanks.”

Without a word, they gathered up their stuff and packed it all back in Joaquin’s backpack. He opened the door and scanned the parking lot in both directions. It must have been empty because he motioned her out. Sure enough, she didn’t see anyone in sight.

Joaquin guided her to a hallway beside the front desk. A variety of meeting rooms shot off from the main walkway on both the left and the right. Some doors had been shut. Voices rose from behind them. Signs in little brass frames standing nearby proclaimed those rooms to be in use.

Joaquin continued leading her farther down until they came to a ballroom. He yanked the door open. It stood perfectly empty except for some tables on their sides, a few stacks of chairs, and a pile of white linens.

“I saw an electronic sign in the lobby earlier. Some sales group is having an awards dinner here tonight, but it doesn’t start until six thirty.”

“They’ll start setting up long before then, but we’ll be gone. Can you leave me alone for a few minutes?” Already, she was looking forward to the moment she could turn on her music and become one with it, clear her thoughts and just be.

“No.” His denial was immediate and whiplike. “We have no idea who else might be here. I’m not leaving you alone, especially if you’re about to put yourself into a state where you’re not really paying attention to your surroundings.”

“I doubt anyone will think to look for me here,” she argued.

“Maybe not, but I’m not willing to take that chance.” He shrugged. “Your choice. Either you dance while I’m in the room or you don’t dance at all.”

Bailey frowned. She knew he’d seen her before. Dancing wasn’t generally a private activity. She did it for audiences. But connecting with her thoughts and using her movement to let go of every pretense and simply breathe? She never willingly did that in front of anyone.

Still, did she have a choice? And didn’t he have a point?

“All right. Can I have my phone? My music is on there.”

“If you promise to ignore the twelve voicemails.”

She blinked as if he’d gone crazy. “Twelve?”

“I’m pretty sure they’re all from Blane, except one from a number that’s not in your contacts. That one I’m still tracking down, but coming up empty so far.”

She blew out a breath. “Fine. But Blane has to be freaking out by now.”

“Blane will live. In fact, he’s more likely to live if he knows nothing of your whereabouts.”

Joaquin had another good point, damn him.

Bailey held out her hand. “All right. I won’t listen to any of the voicemails or try to return the calls.”

“I’ll be watching.” He smiled tightly as he slid the mobile into her palm.

“You’re being like an overprotective older brother. I’m not Kata.”

He shot her a sidelong glance. “If you think I’ve behaved like your brother lately, then I need to strip you down and fuck you again because apparently you’ve already forgotten.”

She’d never forget. “No, I haven’t.”

“Good to hear.” He winked.

&n

bsp; Their camaraderie relaxed her, and when she curled her fingers around her phone, another notch of tension eased inside her. She flipped through the screens, noting the almost full battery. “You’ve been charging it?”

“Just in case anyone interesting calls.”

Bailey didn’t love that he’d invaded her privacy, but she understood that he’d done it to try to catch the murderous crazies after her. So she held her tongue and started her music. One of her favorite instrumental tunes had always been a great warm-up song, so as the opening notes filtered through the air, she began stretching and moving, bringing her body back to life. She thanked goodness that Callie had given her stretchy clothes she could be free in.

That song flowed into the next. She lamented the absence of her toe shoes, but she could do plenty without them. So when her muscles felt loose and the music started calling to her soul, she slipped into the vast, empty middle of the room. Industrial carpet wasn’t her favorite surface to dance on, and when she found a few dozen wooden parquet floor tiles meshed together with a brass border to resemble a dance floor, she ran, leapt, and executed a jeté onto the hard surface. She immediately stepped into a series of pirouettes . . . and then let the music overtake her body and mind.

One song bled into the next. She tried to open her mind without focusing on the fact that Joaquin watched her. But she could almost feel his fascination emanating from across the room. It bolstered her. For the first time, she felt beautiful and feminine dancing, sort of like a little girl living her fairy-tale castle dreams.

She remembered the times Viktor would let her take over Mikhail’s fort with Annika and play. She and her sister would be princesses locked away in a tower. Her biological father would pretend to ride to her rescue. Then he would tickle her. They would all giggle.

The “vacation” he’d taken them on shortly before the murders hadn’t been fun at all. No laughing or tickling or levity. She remembered her parents arguing the night before Viktor had taken her to the lake. They’d been to see a big outdoor field earlier that day. But not just a field. There had also been a museum. She frowned, trying to bring the memory into focus.

Another song began. She performed an arabesque, then brought her leg in front of her body in a slow développé. The museum . . . it depicted a time when photography had been very new. Lots of grainy black-and-white photos of dead bodies lying in fields. They’d worn uniforms of different colors and—

“Gettysburg!” she shouted over the music, then flipped it off, shoving the phone into her front pocket as she ran toward him. “We visited Gettysburg.”

Chapter Seventeen

LIKE the battlefield?” Joaquin asked.

“Yes.” She explained her memories to him, and as she did, the pictures in her head became much clearer. “We left the battlefield in the early afternoon. I remember my siblings were hungry for lunch, and Viktor was frustrated with everyone wanting to leave before he’d seen every inch of the place.”

“Civil War buff?”

She shrugged. “I don’t think so. He seemed more interested in the grounds than the exhibits.”

“Like he was looking for a place to bury his research?”

“It’s possible. But why on federal land?”

“Maybe because if he could get it buried there, he thought it would be safer. Again, we’ll never know. But you think he abandoned the plan?”

Bailey nodded. “He was in a fit, but he relented. We grabbed some fast-food burgers and kept driving. We didn’t stop for a couple of hours.”

“Before the sun set?” When she shrugged, he rephrased his question. “Do you remember from what side of the car you could see the sun?”

Bailey tried to picture that drive. It was hard when so many memories from that time in her life flooded in, both simultaneous and incomplete. “We spent so many days in the car during that trip, I don’t know for sure if I’m remembering the right leg. But I don’t think Viktor was wearing his sunglasses. And the backseat seemed hotter than normal, like the sun was beating down on us.”

Joaquin grabbed the map from his backpack and knelt, spreading it out. He pointed to a spot. “Here. So from southern Pennsylvania, you traveled east? Do you remember how long you were in the car?”

She shook her head. Her hazy memory was so frustrating. Latching on to the bits she recalled was of life-and-death importance. Yet she didn’t really know the details Joaquin needed.

She wrinkled her brow, deep in concentration. “I think I remember my parents snapping at one another because they arrived at the campsite as dark was falling. My birth mother complained they’d have just an hour or two to set up, and that wasn’t enough time.”

“So . . . some place less than three hours east from Gettysburg. Some place near a lake. Shit,” he cursed. “I don’t think this map is as detailed as I need.” He tossed the paper map aside and pulled up another map on his mobile. “The screen on my phone is awfully small. A computer would be really fucking helpful about now.”

“Why not call someone who can help you?” she suggested. “Sean or Hunter. Even Kata.”

Joaquin paused. “I usually work alone, but . . . yeah. Good point.” He flipped through his recent calls, punched a button, then engaged his speakerphone. Within seconds, a male voice picked up on the other line. “You okay there? Kata is worried about you.”

Hunter. Bailey smiled to herself. The former SEAL would definitely get quick answers.

“Fine. Tired and in need of decent food but otherwise alive. I don’t think anyone is following us, but I’ll keep looking.” Joaquin filled his brother-in-law in on everything Bailey had remembered at the house and again this morning. “So I need a lake in eastern Pennsylvania or the tip of northern Maryland. Can you rattle off a few? I’m also looking for anything that might have a fence painted green near a park around the lake.”

“That’s going to be hard to find,” Hunter commented. “Let me look at some travel sites and maps online.”

A few minutes passed in relative silence. Anxiety ate away at Bailey’s belly. What if they couldn’t find Viktor’s research? What if they dead-ended here because she couldn’t remember anything more?

“Got a few possibilities for you here, though I don’t know if any have a green fence. That will take more digging. The most likely suspects seem to be Memorial Lake, Locust Lake, Crystal Lake, Lake Pocono. If you’re just looking for a body of water, don’t forget the Susquehanna River, the North East River, the Delaware River. Damn, there’s so fucking many of them. Still looking . . . Lake Beltzville, Lake Harmony, Lake—”

“That’s it!” Bailey insisted, her heart in her throat as a jolt of recognition rattled down her spine. “It’s coming back now. We arrived at the campground just before evening. Remember I said that my parents argued? My brother quipped something to us kids like ‘So much for Lake Harmony.’”

“That would fit,” Hunter confirmed. “The drive from Gettysburg would be less than three hours. Let me see if I can find anything about a green fence.”

“Tell you what,” Joaquin said. “You look. Bailey and I have to leave here. It’s past checkout time and I don’t want to stay in one place for too long and give anyone an easy way to find us. We’ll hop in the car and head for Lake Harmony. If you come up with anything else or can figure out exactly which part of the lake that fence might be in, call me. Hopefully, we can put some of this mystery to bed soon.”

Hunter agreed, and the men rang off. Joaquin turned to Bailey with a determined look on his face. “Let’s go. I have a gut feeling we’re getting closer.”

Bailey did, too. But she didn’t necessarily like it. The nagging fear that had been plaguing her for too long swelled in her throat until she nearly choked. But what choice did she have?

“All right.” She blew out a breath. “First, where’s that protein you promised?”

He nodded. “I saw a twenty-four-hour pancake place on our way in. Will eggs do?”

>   Eggs sounded perfect. “Absolutely.”

Less than two minutes later, they were gone. Bailey noticed the man she’d seen yesterday still wearing his hoodie. Today, he hung out in the lobby as they passed, engrossed in his morning paper. If he wasn’t here to follow her or spy on the cheating wife she’d witnessed, what had brought him here? Could be anything. After all, people with their own business and lives filled this hotel.