Dirtiest Secret (SIN 1)

"Give me a second," Liam said with unmistakable irritation.

He clicked the call to mute, leaving Dallas frustrated but not concerned. Most likely Antonio was reporting in. Or maybe Noah and Quince had learned something about Ortega's compound. Whatever it was, Liam would handle it. Quickly. Efficiently.

Dallas stepped back inside, paying no attention to the women still on the bed. Instead, he moved the other direction, crossing to the polished mahogany bookcase, one shelf of which doubled as a bar. He put down the phone as he poured himself a fresh glass of scotch, then forced himself to not give in to the voice in his head that was telling him that this was it. That the chase was almost over.

He closed his eyes and let the scattered memories of the last seventeen years roll over him.

They'd been close to finding the Jailer before. Five times, actually. It had taken years, but they'd managed to track the other five kidnappers, and each time, Dallas had hoped that he would get a solid lead on the son of a bitch who'd masterminded his kidnapping.

But each lead had proved useless. Two had died before the team even identified them, one of cancer and the other during a prison fight. Another shot himself in the head rather than let himself get captured. The other two had been hired by the cancer victim, and neither one knew a damn thing about the Jailer or the Woman. They'd provided a few tidbits of intel about their three dead co-conspirators, but so far that intel had led nowhere. And they'd known nothing about the sixth.

Now it looked like Deliverance had a real shot at finding number six. But Dallas knew only too well that it could all go wrong. And if this lead crapped out, too, then the odds of finding out who had taken him and Jane dwindled to almost zero.

Fuck.

Dallas slammed back the scotch, then pressed his palms against the warm wood as he leaned forward, his head down as he let the whiskey burn through him. But there wasn't enough alcohol in the world to burn out his memories. Or his regrets.

He sighed as he straightened, his gaze going automatically to one of the books on the shelf, just at eye level. Its white dust jacket was scuffed at the top and bottom of the spine, the result of being taken from and returned to the shelf almost daily.

He pulled it out now and looked at the cover. A yellow school bus. Crime scene tape. The title spray-painted like graffiti across the bus--The Price of Ransom.

And the author's name larger than life along the bottom: Jane Martin.

He and Jane rarely saw each other alone anymore. For the last four months, she'd been living in LA, so their lack of contact made sense. But even when they were both in the same city, there were no dinners, no quick jaunts to lunch, and very few calls and texts. They still had a common circle, sure, but their encounters weren't frequent--or satisfying.

Ever since the kidnapping, they'd kept their distance from each other. Emotionally and physically. He missed her--he missed her so damn much--but he also knew this was the best way. The only way.

Apart, they were safe.

Together, they were combustible.

But that didn't mean he didn't see her, didn't keep tabs on where she was and what she was doing. And didn't he pull out this very book almost daily, turn it over in his hand, and trace his fingertips over her author photo? Didn't he turn on the television and watch the morning shows on which she was so often a guest, especially now that The Price of Ransom was the talk of Hollywood?

The story was perfect for a book, and for a movie. Five third-graders kidnapped in their school bus. Missing over a month, and then almost killed when a rescue attempt by a group of incompetent mercenaries went horribly wrong.

And no one suspected that the author was a kidnapping victim herself. That the empathy with which she wrote was utterly genuine.

Not one interviewer asked if the project was personal to Jane. If it was catharsis. If it was therapy.

But it was, of course.

Dallas understood that, even if nobody else did.

He understood something else, too. He knew Jane's face too well not to see it. The slightest tightening in her cheek when a reporter would talk about how, ultimately, the kids were ransomed.

How they got their happy ending.

Just thinking about it made Dallas want to laugh almost as much as it made him want to cry.

The kids had survived, sure.

So had Dallas and Jane.

But that didn't make for a happy ending. Dallas knew that. Jane knew it.

And he was sure those tortured little kids knew it, too.

He started to reach once more for the scotch, and then purposefully pulled his hand away. The night had turned interesting, and he wanted a clear head, no matter how tempting it might be to wash away his thoughts of Jane.