Beneath the Burn (57 page)

In the next breath, he was there, hands on her face, kissing her until it was just him and her and the relief of her words. He laid a wet one on her lips, his smile somersaulting through her. “I love you, too. Be right back.”

She settled into the lounger, grinning like a girl. She sighed. A girl floating in a dream.

Punk Rock Girl
blared from her phone. The vibration bounced it on the side table, startling her.

Unknown Caller.
Weird. She tapped
Decline
and stared at it.

The guitar beats kicked off again.
Unknown Caller.
Jay? Maybe it was a celebrity thing to block the number. The obsessive fool never called her because he never left her side. Of course, he was calling her now. She pressed
Accept
. “Hello?”

“Ignore my call again and you won’t like the outcome.”

His voice stripped away the deterring fence line, the patrolling guards, and the security of surveillance cameras.
Yes, Sir
shot to her throat and stuck there, along with a barrage of violent objections.

“Walk to the northeast corner of the veranda where I can see you better.”

A chill snaked through her body. Was he nearby? Had he planted cameras? Darkness strangled her heart, raising goose pimples down her spine.

Fuck him. He couldn’t hurt her. She was safe here.

“Don’t make me wait, beautiful girl.”

Where was northeast? The urgency to find Jay powered her to stand. She moved toward the corner of the wing, remaining in the line of shadows and placing the pool area in view. The surface of the water was still, the patio vacant of life. The living room and kitchen beyond were equally empty. Jay must’ve gone to the wine cellar. Where was Nathan? Her stomach rolled. He didn’t guard her when she was in Jay’s wing.

“Very good. Now remove that hideous shirt.”

Fuck. Shit. Shit. How was he seeing her in the dark? No way was she going to run across the well-lit pool area. She spun back toward Jay’s room, slamming her knee into a chair, slipped through the door, and locked it behind her. “How’d you get this number?”

The desire to hang up was overwhelming, but somehow hearing his voice gave her a sense of traction, as if keeping him with her prevented him from sneaking up on her.

She ran to the bedside table and hit buttons on the console until the curtains hummed, covering the windows and doors. A relieved breath slipped past her lips.

“That was a mistake, Charlee. You’ll be punished severely for it.”

The curtains shifted, reopened. She flinched and recovered by hitting the buttons. Nothing. The damn thing wasn’t working.

Vulnerability crept into her bones. She backed toward the interior door. “I hate you for everything you’ve done to me. Most of all, I hate you for taking all those lives.” Heart punching against her ribs, she bolted out of the bedroom and raced down the hall. “How many have you killed? My father, your guard, his niece…Noah.”

“I haven’t killed anyone.”

Fucking liar. He excelled at distortion, built an enterprise with his forked tongue.

She burst through the double doors and into the corridor. Where was everyone? Oh God. What if he was there? What if the Craigs—

“Ah, there you are. Take off that shirt. Now.”

She glanced down.
The Burn
emblazoned in red flames across her chest. Her pulse raced.

If Roy were on the property, he wouldn’t have been on the phone. She turned in a circle, followed the angles of the soaring ceiling. There. A corner-mounted camera.

“Yes, Charlee. I have eyes everywhere. Come home.”

Her knees buckled. She turned back toward Tony’s door, the nearest room, tried the handle. Locked. She pounded her fist.

“Mr. Winslow and Ms. Tony are in the control room trying to recover the faulty security system.”

The security system was down? Chills ran through her, and sweat beaded on her face. She pressed her back against the wall, cringing at the storage room door and the shadows in the bends and nooks of the suddenly too-long corridor. “If you cared about me at all, you’d let me live my life.”
Keep him talking. Find Jay, Nathan, someone.

“I’m so very disappointed you’re fucking him, Charlee. You belong to me. I don’t like what I saw outside his bedroom. You will be punished for that, as will he.”

A crash barreled through the phone. Oh God. She hoped he was alone. His fury never missed its mark when there was a living punching bag nearby.

She crept along the wall toward the basement doorway which would take her to the wine cellar and the control room. She reached it just before the living room and a black hole yawned from below. Where was the light switch? She fumbled along the wall, searching, and brushed her hand over it. Nothing. She flicked it again and again. The darkness below held still.

The living room lights blinked out. The kitchen and hallway followed, plunging her into blackness. She gripped the phone and tried to slow her breathing. Goddamned fucking Nathan. Why had she let him take her gun? “Where are you?”

“Right here, beautiful girl. I can see your lovely tits heaving. I’m still waiting for that shirt to be removed. Every act of disobedience is a strike against your friends.”

Her eyes darted over the ceiling and locked on a solid red light.

“That’s right. Lucky for us, the cameras have infrared illuminators.”

Lucky for her, that confirmed he wasn’t in the house. Unless he was fucking with her. She eased into the stairway. Were there cameras there? Fuck, she should’ve paid attention. This was the price she paid for letting her guard down.

The estate was so damn automated. The lighting, communications, and surveillance controls must’ve been tied together. “How are you controlling the automation system?”

“RAT. Remote Administration Tool. A nasty, covert piece of software delivered by way of a spear phish. Someone there ignorantly clicked on an e-mail attachment and let my tool drop in. That overpaid security team can look for it, but they’ll be chasing ghosts. It would take electronic forensics to find the barest remnant of it, but I’m not holding my breath.” He chuckled. “Though it appears you are. Breathe, Charlee.”

How long had he been watching them? Her heartbeat roared in her ears and her fingers followed the wall as she tapped one foot in front of the other down the stairs.

“You asked the wrong question.” The sick purr in his voice must’ve meant they’d come to point of his game.

She reached the bend in the stairs. Halfway there. What was the question? She’d asked how he was doing it. “
Why
are you doing this?”

“Good girl. To demonstrate that you’re not beyond my reach. Your punishments can be delivered anywhere, anytime. Accept my job offer immediately and a certain amount of leniency will be considered.”

If he could break through their security, something was keeping him from just coming in and taking her. Maybe the band’s spotlight really was protecting her. If Roy kidnapped her again, Nathan and the band could hold a press conference, expose him, demand he open up the penthouse for inspection. Their fame alone could wrap him up in allegations, hurt his business, and sever his business connections. Would Roy chance that?

Yeah. He could shut down the gossip with a flick of one of his innovative switches.

“I’m waiting, Charlee, and my patience…well, you understand the limits of my patience. Intimately.”

The last word slithered over her like cold fingers in the dark. She brushed it off. He was boasting his almighty power and attempting to control her with fear. “Fuck you.”

Silence. On the phone. In the endless black suffocating her. She inched forward, straining her eyes uselessly and waving a hand in front of her.

Her fingers bumped a shirt, a solid chest beneath. She screeched.

“Charlee?”

The lights flashed on, blinding and confusing, accompanied by the blare of a bazillion alarms.

Jay stared down at her, the skin around his eyes tight and tinged pink. His arms came around her, and the tension bunching her muscles released in shuddering waves.

His mouth moved, but she couldn’t hear him over the alarms. She slumped against him and looked down at her phone. No live calls. The call log showed on the screen, and the last call was listed eight hours earlier from Nathan’s phone. No unknown callers.
Chasing ghosts.

The sirens silenced, but the ring lingered in her ears.

“Are you okay?” His hands moved over her, his gaze searching her face. “I was in the wine cellar. The door locked. I couldn’t get out.”

Automated door locks. She had a sudden dislike for all things electronic. She handed him her phone, anxious to be rid of it. “Roy called.” Her voice quivered, choked. “He’s hacked your automation system.”

74

Five days later, Charlee rested her head against the window, the glass cool against her brow. The activity swarming around the tour buses filled her view from the rear of Vanderschoot’s warehouse loft. The bodyguard had moved the entire household—the band, her, Nathan, Faye, and the ten-man security team—into his two-thousand-square-foot building the night Roy hacked into the estate.

Locating Roy’s RAT proved unsuccessful, so the home automation system had to be dropped offline. Every piece of software and some hardware would need to be replaced. This included HVAC, lighting, shading, security, intercoms, and all personal devices such as laptops, tablets, iPods, and cell phones. Anything with a Wi-Fi connection to the internal network was at risk of infection.

Charlee knew she wore her guilt in dark rings around her eyes, but she tried not to let it dampen her mood and that of the others. On a bright note, the days confined in the warehouse with the band and their personnel had brought her further into their fold. They slept on cots, shared a single bathroom, and no one complained. Jay reminded her they would be living in tighter quarters for the next sixteen weeks.

Nathan and Tony utilized the time surveying tour routes, coordinating watch schedules, and interviewing bodyguards. Once they hit the road, every member of the band would have two personal guards shadowing his every move outside the bus. The interview process was specific and time-consuming, leveraging all of their references to avoid new hires planted by Roy.

The band spent the days practicing their set list. Charlee inked several tats for Rio and Wil and some of the men on the security team. At night, they played a lot of cards. She hoped the easy camaraderie carried over when they climbed aboard the buses.

“Never thought I’d say this.” Nathan braced his forearms on the window sill beside her. “I’m ready to board that bus.”

Apparently after five days in a one-room warehouse, he didn’t share her team spirit.

Outside, roadies and security staff flurried around two sleeper buses. Four Suburbans parked at angles in the rear lot, shoring the buses and creating a barricade against traffic.

At the edge of the perimeter, armed guards held back a crowd of onlookers. Through the duration of the tour, the protective team of twenty would stagger their sleep schedules, utilizing bunks on the second bus with the roadies and Faye, and escort the buses with a moving formation of Suburbans.

What a cavalry they would make. That was the point. Roy wouldn’t risk a physical attack while they were in the blinding spotlight of public attention.

“So you’re ready to get the show on the road?” She bumped her shoulder into his. “Because sixteen weeks on a bus will be better than five days in a warehouse?”

He smirked. “There are curtains on the bunks.”

Ah. He missed his private Tony time. The notion filled her head with images of Jay moving over her in a tiny bunk. A thrill squirmed through her. “Curtains?”

He smiled, huge and full of teeth, prompting them both into a spontaneous burst of laughter. She jabbed him in the ribs.

Across the parking lot, Jay leaned against one of the buses, arms crossed, and head nodding as a tall, lean woman jabbered with animated expressions and hand gestures. A breeze caught wisps of her waist-length blond hair, lifting it around her. She blew it out of her face and looked up at Jay, smiling.

“Who is that?” Wow, she sounded bitchy.
Get a grip
.