Intimate (28 page)

“Well they're not from me, the note's not mine, and I can't find Kaz. Do you have any idea where she is?”

“She took a cab to the launch,” Mandy said. “She was really upset.” She glanced at her sister. “We haven't heard from her since.”

Cursing, he ran his hands through his hair. “Look, there's a very good chance that she's been kidnapped.”

Mandy made a whimpering sound and covered her mouth. Lola cursed.

“Someone has been sending me anonymous text messages, bringing up shit that happened a long time ago. I hadn't said anything to Kaz because there didn't seem to be any reason to frighten her. I thought it was just someone out of my past trying to freak me out, but now I think he followed us to Healdsburg. I think it was the same guy who tried to hit us when we were there. Do you have any idea what kind of car the guy who shot at her was driving?”

Mandy glanced at Lola and said, “It was a black car with four doors. Eddy, the kid who works with me, thought it was an old BMW, but I don't know for sure.”

“Shit.” He bowed his head. “Same guy. It has to be the same guy.”

He felt Lola staring at him. He raised his head, forced himself to meet her steady glare.

Finally, she said, “Then where the hell is she?”

“I don't know.” He felt as if his legs might give out and sat down hard on one of the kitchen chairs. “She threw these in my face in the hotel lobby, turned around, and was gone before I had any idea what was going on. I've tried to call her, but she didn't answer. Her phone went straight to voice mail.”

Mandy nodded. “That makes sense. She always sets it that way when she's going to a shoot or an event. So it won't bother anyone.”

Lola shot a quick glance at Mandy. “Where's her tablet? Doesn't she have that app on it that'll find a lost phone?”

“She does.” Mandy took off toward Kaz's room with Jake and Lola right behind her. She grabbed the slim digital tablet off the bedside table, waited a moment while it booted up, and then punched in the password. Once she was in, she entered another password and tapped the icon on the opening screen. A map of the Bay Area came up. A moment later, a little green light blinked on the freeway, just north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Mandy said, “What's she doing there?”

Lola muttered a curse. “I have no frickin' idea.”

Jake stared at the image for a moment, his mind spinning in useless circles. Why in the hell would she be headed north, unless she was going back to Healdsburg, maybe Dry Creek Valley? There was no other destination that made any sense. None at all.

Except, whoever had taken those pictures had been there, in the same vineyard, when he and Kaz were making love. If he'd been the one driving the black BMW, the one who fired two shots at Kaz this morning, then … “Fuck! I know where she is, where he's taking her.”

“What?” Mandy grabbed his arm. “Where who's taking her?”

“She told you about the guy in the BMW who almost hit us, right? We both thought he was watching us at one point in Healdsburg, but we weren't sure. We had no reason to suspect anyone was after either of us then, but his car matches what little description you've got of the one from this morning, when the guy shot at Kaz. I think he's got her. I don't know who he is or why he's after her, but I think he's trying to get back at me for something. It's got to be him. Give me the password—I want to take this so I can use the app and follow them. We need each other's phone numbers, in case you hear anything. Or when I find her.”

When, not if. Kaz was out there, in trouble. He was sure of it. Just as certain it was his fault—someone wanted to hurt Kaz because of him.

Lola grabbed his arm. “Shouldn't we call the police?”

Frustrated, Jake raked his fingers through his hair and shook his head. “And tell them what? We think someone's after her but we have no idea who it is? We think she might have been kidnapped, but she was really pissed off at me and could just as easily have been mad enough to leave town? That her phone is headed north, but we're not sure she's got it? I don't want to waste the time trying to convince them. I'm going after her now. But if there's someone you can think of who might be able to help, then call them.”

“José Macias,” Lola said. “He's responded twice now, and he knows us and Kaz. Mandy? Do you still have his card?”

“Let me get this first,” Jake said. Mandy took his phone and typed in their numbers. He grabbed one of his business cards and set it on the bedside table. “Call me if you hear from her.”

Lola nodded. “And you'd damned well better call us.” She glanced at Mandy. “The password for the tablet is
manilow
, all lowercase. It's the same for the app.”

His head filled with the songs they'd sung together that first night on the drive to Healdsburg. He had to find her. Raising his head, he said, “Why am I not surprised? Thank you.” Then he grabbed the tablet and raced back to his SUV. It was almost seven. She'd been gone for at least forty-five minutes, and Jake had never been more terrified in his life.

*   *   *

A cramp in her left arm dragged Kaz back to consciousness. She was still on the floor in the backseat of a car with her face pressed against the back of the driver's seat. Someone had thrown a musty smelling blanket over her, hiding her from view. If it was the same man who'd grabbed her, she was positive she was in the black car from this morning.

Maybe the BMW from Healdsburg? It made sense—if any of this made sense.

There couldn't possibly be more than one person out there who wanted her dead. But who? And why? Her hands and feet were tied together with what felt like those plastic cable ties the police sometimes used as handcuffs. She tugged, but the ties didn't give at all. Her jaw and the side of her face hurt like hell. He must have hit her a couple more times after she'd passed out.

Her left arm felt numb, but she was all twisted up on the floor between the front and rear seats. Slowly, she stretched out her legs, pressed her linked feet against the door, and got enough leverage to roll until she was lying on her back with her knees bent. As tall as she was, the guy had folded her up like a damned pretzel to fit her back here. With the blanket over her face, she couldn't see anything.

Kaz figured she should be terrified, but for whatever reason, she wasn't. She was pissed off more than anything. Frustrated because she didn't know why she'd been targeted.

Or why Jake had done what he'd done. Her stomach rolled at the thought of those horrible pictures, at the terrible betrayal, at Jake's broken promise.

The car slowed, sped up, slowed again. From the sounds, she figured they must be on a freeway, but she had no idea where, what direction they were going, how long they'd been traveling. The driver hadn't said a word.

She wasn't sure she wanted him to know she was awake.

Her thoughts took her back to Jake, to those horrible, horrible pictures of her. How could he? Her eyes burned as she thought of him, walking across the lobby in the hotel with that deceptively innocent, welcoming smile on his face.

Didn't he realize how much he'd hurt her?

Not if he didn't know anything about the pictures.

The thought slipped into her mind like a shard of ice—along with another image. Before they'd left Sonoma County, he'd shown her some of the photos he'd taken, brought them up for her on his laptop. They were beautiful—sensual without being at all trashy.

The pictures in that envelope were ugly, like something you'd see in a cheap tabloid. Out of focus, and grainy, not like Jake's work at all.

Not Jake's?

She hadn't looked at all of them, but she was almost positive they'd been taken in the vineyard. She wished she'd paid closer attention, but lying here on the floor now, trapped between the back and front seats with her hands tied behind her, she had nothing to do but think.

It didn't take long for her to become absolutely certain those weren't Jake's pictures.

Whoever was driving—what appeared in that one quick glance as she was shoved in through the back door to be a black BMW—was the same man who'd tried to run them down. The same one who'd taken shots at her this morning. Maybe even the guy who'd tried to push her in front of the train.

Could he have hired that kid with the stolen pickup?

It was too screwed up to make sense, too great a coincidence to ignore. But she wasn't ready to confront him. Not yet. She still had way too much to think about.

*   *   *

“Think, Lowell!” Jake pounded on the steering wheel, caught once again in stop-and-go traffic. He'd gotten through San Rafael faster than expected, but now he was sitting at almost a dead stop north of Novato. He glanced at the digital tablet on the seat beside him, tapped the screen, and refreshed the image.

“Shit.” The app showed them almost to Santa Rosa. A space opened up in the lane to his right, and he shot into it. A short time later he saw the lights of an accident up ahead—a pickup truck had spun out in the commuter lane and hit the concrete barrier blocking northbound from southbound traffic. The diamond lane, designated for vehicles with multiple passengers, was wide open beyond the wreck.

As soon as he got past the crumpled truck, Jake cut across the lane to his left and slipped into the diamond lane. He hit the gas, and the Escalade surged forward. Hopefully, the cops would be too tied up with the wreck to pay attention to one lone passenger in the big SUV. Passing slower traffic on his right, Jake prayed to whatever gods might be listening to let him get to Kaz in time.

*   *   *

The worst part was her inability to judge time. How long had she been back here, stuffed between the seats with her head covered? It seemed darker than when she'd first regained consciousness. She didn't know if there'd still been a little daylight left when she'd come to. She'd left Jake in the lobby around six, well before the sun had set. It was definitely dark now.

Where the hell was she? And why? Enough. It was time to find out what the hell was going on. “Hey! Who are you? Where are you taking me? What the hell's going on?”

“Shut up. You want to stay alive a little bit longer, bitch, you'll keep your mouth shut.”

That wasn't the response she wanted. Kaz shut her mouth and thought about Jake. Did he know she'd been taken? If he'd looked at the pictures, he'd know they weren't his.

She should have known, damn it. Should have paid attention.

Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
How many times had she and her dad repeated those horrible words after Jilly died?

Why hadn't she looked at those pictures more carefully, thought about what she was doing before she'd confronted Jake? She'd totally screwed up the jewelry launch, and he was going to be so pissed. And Marcus Reed, the man behind the whole thing … what was he going to think if his model went off and got herself killed?

No. She wasn't going there. She refused to end up dead. Somehow she'd get away, and with any luck, Jake would be looking for her. Someone had to be looking.

“That goddamned RJ Cameron. Smart-ass son of a bitch. Gonna make him pay. Gonna take someone he loves. Show him what it feels like.”

The man's voice—but who was he talking to? She'd thought he was alone, but …

“Some star he turned out to be. Winning all those races at the Olympics, making all that money. Thought he could get away with it, but I'll show him.”

Was he talking to himself? The car had slowed until it was barely crawling along, so they must be in heavy traffic, but none of this made sense. She didn't know any Olympians, and the name RJ Cameron didn't ring a bell. Did this guy think Jake was RJ Cameron?

He was still muttering. She took a chance and asked him. “Who's RJ Cameron? What did he do?”

The muttering ended. Kaz held her breath. Was he going to answer her? If she could get him talking, maybe she could find out where they were going, what he was planning. While she lay there with her arms cramping and her head and jaw aching, she slipped her shoes off, tried to find her purse with her toes. Her cell phone was in it, but she had no idea where the purse had ended up. She leaned to one side, felt for any sharp edge with the tips of her fingers.

There. Under the driver's seat, part of the track for adjusting the seat. She started rubbing the tie holding her wrists together, back and forth over the bare metal.

The guy still hadn't said a word. The blast of a car horn sounded really close by, and the one she was in jerked forward. The driver cursed, a steady litany of profanity, as someone else honked, and they skidded to a stop. Another horn blared, to the right this time. The car she was in moved forward, slower but at least steady. For now.

Had her question thrown him off that much?

“So. He hasn't even told you who he is, eh? You're good enough to screw, but not enough to hear the truth. Ha! Sounds like him. Lying bastard.”

Obviously, she'd gotten to him. He was breathing hard, as if he'd been running. Maybe she'd just made him really mad. That fit. He sounded mad—the insane kind of mad—and didn't that make for an interesting evening.

She kept her voice smooth, a little haughty, and said, “I don't know what you're talking about.” She wasn't about to give him the gratification of knowing she was scared spitless.

Of course, he probably already knew that. Kaz twisted her head back and forth and felt the blanket begin to slide away from her face. Each movement sent pains shooting through her jaw and down her neck, but if she could just get rid of this damned blanket, maybe she'd see something familiar, anything that would give her a clue where she might be.

The blanket fell away from the left side of her face, but even with just one eye, she could tell they were passing through an urban area, if the amount of light meant anything. She concentrated on searching for her purse. The blanket had moved as far as it was going to.