He found a mug in the cabinet and checked the water for the hundredth time.
Still not boiling.
He looked at the boxes of tea lined up on the counter. Seven. Earl Grey, Black Cherry, Lemon Mint, Chamomile, green tea, black tea, white tea… Who needed seven different kinds of tea? A dull ache throbbed between his eyes, so he closed them and snatched a box blind.
Lemon mint. Whatever. The water still wasn’t boiling. “Work with me here,” he told the pot, which finally began to bubble, and he decided he should probably bring her something to eat, too, since she’d lost a little weight. So he shoved a few pieces of bread into the toaster.
Look at him, all domestic.
When he finally had the tea and toast ready, he made his way back up the stairs, eyeing the rooms as he went because the silence suddenly got to him. It was a big silence. A you’re-screwed sort of silence, and his spidey sense quivered.
Then he stepped into Maddie’s bedroom. Maddie’s empty bedroom, and the doubt became something bigger. One quick look out the window told him the truth. Maddie’s Jeep was gone, and so was the rental car.
She’d ditched him; they both had.
And didn’t that just top off his damn day. Suddenly he hoped that they were triplets, or quadruplets, or better yet, quints. Because being had by only two women seemed just too ridiculous.
Maddie’s purse was gone. It’d been sitting on her dresser, a black and silver number with lots of buckles and pockets. Next to it had been her cell phone, also gone. For shits and giggles, he pulled out his own cell and called hers, not surprised in the least when it went straight to voice mail.
Goddamnit.
With no compunction at all, he opened a dresser drawer, looking for clues to where she might have gone, but he ended up staring down at the pile of silky stuff. Hooking a satiny black number on his finger, he lifted it up. Panties barely the size of his palm.
He tossed the thing back into the drawer, then frowned at something else there, a box, and he nudged aside some more silk to expose…bullets.
And this time when his heart kicked, it kicked hard enough to nearly crack a rib.
She’d had a gun in here as well, a gun that was now gone. He was chewing on that when Shayne called him.
“Lost her, huh?”
“How do you know?”
“Because she’s on her way here.”
“What?” Brody took off running for the door. “What’s she doing there?”
“Sneaking away from you apparently.”
“Fuck. Tell me she’s going there to work and not to get on a plane.”
“Sorry, no can do.”
“Let me guess.” He stopped outside his car, slapping his pockets for his keys. “She wants a plane?”
“Give the man a prize. She called ahead. How did you know?”
His keys weren’t in his pockets. He was not a man who lost his damn keys ever. “Just stop her.”
“Yeah, I’m on that. What’s going on, Brody?”
“Hell if I know, except that she has a sister. A twin sister. And she’s in trouble.”
“She’s never mentioned a twin sister.”
Where the hell were his keys? “Trust me, Leena is alive and well. At least at the moment. But she’s involved in something, and they’re both in way over their head. They had a threatening phone call from someone they knew.”
“Maddie went to Dani for help.” Shayne sounded as unhappy as Brody felt that Maddie hadn’t trusted them. “She asked her for a flight under an assumed name. She wanted to keep it secret. Why the hell would she need to keep anything secret from us?”
Brody had a couple of ideas, but none that appealed. “Is Dani planning on stalling her?”
“Yes, and if she finds out I’m a narc, I’m never going to get to have sex again.”
This from the man who only a year ago, would have gotten hives at the thought of having sex with the same woman for the rest of his life. “Just stall her when she gets there.” Brody shoved his phone back in his pocket and stared at the car he was locked out of.
He had no idea what was going on, but it was more than that. Maddie hadn’t trusted him. It was unbelievable to him that she hadn’t. She’d kissed him like he’d been better than air. She’d let him strip her, let him make her goddamn tea, but she hadn’t trusted him with this, and on top of that, she’d stolen his keys, and that sucked.
Chapter 11
Maddie walked through the lobby at Sky High. She needed a direct flight to New Orleans, pronto, because if Leena got too far ahead of her, if she said her good-bye to Ben and vanished, Maddie might never catch up with her.
There was no better way to get a direct flight than through her world.
It was a risk coming here, definitely, but as she’d personally made sure, the place specialized in making customers happy. As a customer, she needed a flight out like yesterday, and only speed would make her happy.
But she had to get out of here before Brody showed up. She wondered if he’d tried calling her. It was likely.
More than likely.
But as she’d discovered on the drive down the mountain, Leena had grabbed Maddie’s cell phone.
Which meant Maddie had Leena’s. She’d used it to call her own cell, trying to get Leena to no avail. Leena had turned it off.
So Maddie had called ahead to Sky High, specifically to Dani, and now she walked through the lobby, soaking up the place that had been her home away from home, knowing that it very well might be the last time she set her eyes on the place.
The building was new, all steel and glass, with a wall of windows looking out on to the tarmac lined with millions of dollars worth of planes. Beyond that lay an incredible view of the LA skyline.
Hard to remember that only a year ago, all of Sky High had been housed in a single leased hangar with borrowed planes and boatloads of debt.
But the three guys, her three guys, had built this place from sweat and guts and sheer determination. Now they ran a luxury jet service to the stinking rich, and she was a part of it.
Or she had been.
That was the thing about burning bridges. And she’d burned a big one when she’d left Brody in the mountains with his keys in her pocket.
Even having lifted his keys, she knew she had a limited amount of time before he figured out a way to get here and went all Neanderthal on her. So she left the lobby for the tarmac, waiting for her plane. She was financially stable, thanks to a great paycheck, but even with that paycheck, she wasn’t in a position to afford a charter flight. With Dani’s help, she’d shamelessly used her employee status to deeply discount the flight.
Once the plane was rolled out, she could board, and since she would do so under an assumed name, Brody would never know. She wondered how many times he’d called. Was he worried or just plain pissed off? God, she wished it didn’t have to be this way, that things had turned out differently, but she didn’t have time for regrets.
Too bad her heart didn’t seem to get the message.
When her sister’s phone vibrated, she jumped on it, expecting it to be Leena, but she was about as wrong as she could get.
It was Rick.
Good to know you came to your senses about protecting Maddie. We’ll expect you on the island at 9:00 a.m. tomorrow morning to do the job.
Oh, God. Did that mean…no. Leena hadn’t gone to New Orleans. Somehow, some way, she’d spoken to Rick and was headed to the island.
To protect Maddie.
“No. No, no, no, no…” As quickly as she could make her fingers move, she hit send, entered her own number, and typed in, DON’T DO IT!
But Leena wasn’t exactly on a roll of listening to Maddie, was she? Which meant she needed to stop Leena from getting to Stone Cay.
Where was her plane? Just as she thought it, two linemen finally came out of hangar two, towing the Learjet she’d ordered, but before she could board, Shayne exited the lobby.
Crap.
He strode down the tarmac toward her in his easygoing, long-limbed gait, looking for all the world like any one of the wealthy, sophisticated clients they served on a daily basis.