Runaway Model (22 page)

"I won't end in prison. Although you might."

"Fuck you. If you hurt Stoney, I probably will. But me satisfaction is you'll be fucking dead."

"Are you threatening me?" Nigel laughed out loud. He sounded genuinely amused.

"Fuck you." The Americans said the overuse of profanity was evidence of a small vocabulary. Maybe they were right. Kyle had no idea what to say.

"There's some very neat evidence to implicate you in the disappearance of Stoney Rockland. I believe some of his security staff is in possession of that evidence."

Kyle couldn't be hearing this. He actually stepped back a pace or two, almost broke into a run.

"Fuck me, mate. There can't be evidence of something that isn't true."

"Are you sure? Are you really sure?" Nigel smiled. "Everyone knows you two had an affair. But not everyone knows how angry you were when Stoney discarded you."

This time Kyle couldn't run away.

"There was no affair. I put a stop to it before it could get started."

"That's not what they say on the internet."

Fuck the internet. Kyle had never regretted his time in the Stoney Rockland fandom. Never regretted the stories he'd spun to create an aura of mystique around his StoneysSecret blog.

It seemed like harmless fun at the time.

Now he realized what it might look like to unsympathetic eyes.

What it might look like to the kind of kangaroo court that would soon be trying Michel for manslaughter.

Nigel had never sounded so full of himself. "Oh, you're going to want to be very, very nice to me."

"Please. You can't hurt Stoney. I'll do anything if you just let him go."

"No way I'm letting him go just yet. He's my bargaining chip, isn't he? But I want you to think about what 'anything' might mean. You're going to come home to England, Kyle. You're going to come home to me."

"I can't."

"It's a lot to swallow. I know. I'll give you some time to think about it."

For the first time ever, Roman Nigel was the one to run away.

And Kyle was the one to dart after him screaming, "Wait!"

Kyle could run fast. He could surely run faster than a man pushing forty.

But somehow there was a tangle of street kids around him. And somehow Nigel was around a corner and gone.

Kyle had no idea if Nigel had a bolthole nearby or if he'd kept on running. Or if he'd ducked down into the subway. Or stepped into a cab.

The man could already be anywhere.

FM. Fucking magic.

A stitch burned in his side. Kyle pulled up short, gasping for air. It was no use running any more.

"Hey, mate." He walked back a few steps. Kyle never gave kids even the most casual tap on the arm. A gay illegal alien who worked as a model? It wasn't worth the risk of being accused of touching somebody the wrong way.

But he was Vegas enough to know how to get a street kid's attention. He pulled a twenty out of his pocket.

A boy stopped. Nine years old, maybe ten. Dark eyes with glints of gold that couldn't look away from paper money. Had Kyle once looked that hungry?

"Did someone ask you to block me? Did he pay you?"

The boy snatched the bill. "We don't know his name, mister."

"He was English. Like me?"

"Yes, mate." The boy giggled. He seemed to find the word "mate" absolutely hilarious.

It wasn't worth twenty dollars to confirm what Kyle already knew. But the money wasn't important.

"Did you see which way he went?"

"Maybe."

"Will you show me?"

"Maybe."

Or maybe he'd just lead Kyle in circles to get more money out of his pocket. Kyle was wasting time.

Better call Marshall Daniels.

Kyle felt for his mobile.

It was gone. Fuck! Kyle never felt a thing. Magician? Maybe the perv had been an out-and-out pickpocket himself. Kyle had never been the least bit curious about Nigel's past. Now he did wonder. The man was a little too good for a schoolteacher.

There was probably some sloppy-soppy story in Nigel's background. Maybe he'd even been a runaway boy himself. Fuck him. Kyle didn't care.

The only thing he cared about was Stoney's safety.

It was possible the street kids had stolen the phone. But Kyle doubted it. He had a low opinion of American thieves. In a gun culture, you didn't need to develop the light touch of a gifted pickpocket. Kyle might not have been able to stop them, but he would have known the minute the kids grabbed the mobile.

Roman Nigel had Kyle's phone. No two ways about it.

Kyle didn't know Daniels' number. The mobile kept track of all that.

Chance had it somewhere. He could ring Chance and ask...

But no.

He didn't have Chance's number either.

He could ask anyone on the street anywhere along the way to ring the police. In fact, there was a police officer mounted on a fine chestnut horse with a lovely black mane right over there. All he had to do was walk up and start talking.

But what could he tell them really? And if they looked too hard at Kyle himself, if they noticed he was an illegal, he could very well find himself on the first plane back to Manchester.

He didn't have time for that. Stoney didn't have time for it.

Full dark now.

In two nights Stoney was expected on stage in front of twenty thousand screaming fans.

Kyle walked over to the agency's building. The stitch in his side eased a little. His fast-paced steps helped loosen tight muscles.

But his blood still burned in his veins. That fucker. Kyle always knew Roman Nigel was a dangerous man. Even when he couldn't prove it, even when he couldn't quite point to anything wrong, he'd always felt it in his gut.

There was nothing normal about the staring, about the stalking, about the careful way he always seemed to know exactly what he could get away with.

Thank every god in the sky that Chance was behind his desk. "Kyle. What a delightful surprise. Your appearance on the runway today was an absolute triumph. I just got off the phone. Irika herself would like you to escort her to the PomoRetro Gala."

Irika's publicist had probably told her to stop appearing in public with her aggressively muscular girlfriend. But Kyle didn't have time to wonder if he'd be paid for his appearance at the gala—or if he'd be expected to settle for free drinks and the publicity that came with being a supermodel's arm candy.

"Do you still have Marshall Daniels' number?"

"Marshall Daniels? Stoney Rockland's Marshall Daniels?" Chance wasn't the world's most sensitive human being. Only now did he really take a look at Kyle. "Hey. What's wrong, baby?"

"I got mugged."

"They got your phone? Fuck!" Chance could think of nothing worse. Then he did. "Oh baby. But at least they didn't touch that beautiful face."

"They got more than that. I think they've got Stoney Rockland."

"Fuck!"

Chance handed over his mobile. Kyle gave him a look, and the agent belatedly retreated to the outer office. Kyle didn't bother to kid himself. The door was open, and Chance was guaranteed to be straining his ears to hear every word.

But there wasn't much to hear. Evidently Marshall Daniels wasn't taking calls from Chance Lanconi. The phone rolled over to voicemail.

"Fuck!" Kyle said. "Fuck! Wait, that isn't the message—Marshall, this is Kyle Marchane. Call me back at this number as soon as possible. Roman Nigel just told me face-to-face that he has Stoney."

But the phone was talking over him. Belatedly Kyle registered the robot coolly informing him the voicemail box was full. "Please hang up and call back later."

"FUCK!"

Still clutching the phone, Kyle leaned over Chance's desktop.

"Hey, that's confidential agency files in there, fuck me!" Chance was waving his hands as he ran back into the office.

"I'm not looking at your fucking files, Chance. Is this thing on the internet?"

Chance didn't have to answer. Kyle could see for himself that it was. Google spat out a list of phone numbers for Bryce Yourself Petroleum.

He hated to go crawling back to the oilman. It was going to be awkward. But Bryce had a private army complete with air transport. He'd seen it for himself.

Who else could he call at a time like this?

"Can I speak to Bryce Auburn, please? Tell him it's Kyle Marchane. Tell him it's an emergency."

Chance stood flat-footed in his own office. "You're involved with Bryce Auburn?" Great. Kyle wouldn't have expected him to recognize the name of a petroleum CEO. He must have seen the photo spread of fashionable young oil executives that ran in
GQ
magazine a couple of months ago.

Some fucking gatekeeper of a receptionist gave Kyle the brush-off. Kyle tried another number. And then another. He left messages everywhere. No one was putting him through to Bryce. Why would they? He was a nobody in Bryce's high-priced world. Even Irika herself would be a nobody there.

"What the fuck is going on?" Chance asked. "Has everybody lost their fucking mind?"

Kyle stopped tapping in numbers. He dropped the phone and slumped deep into Chance's ergonomic office chair, his face in his long hands. His pinky still felt naked without Stoney's ring.

There was the stutter of a snippet from Lady Gaga's "Paparazzi." Chance's mobile.

Both Chance and Kyle reached for it in the same moment. Chance got there first.

"Yeah?"

A whisper. Chance tapped the speakerphone setting. Now Kyle could listen too.

"...is a Kyle Marchane there trying to contact Bryce Auburn?"

"Yeah. Hang on. He's right here."

"Who's this?" Kyle asked. "I need to speak to Bryce."

"I'm a friend of Bryce's. An adviser. Arnold Geurne. I'll decide whether or not you need to speak to him."

Fuck. What had Kyle really expected?

"This was a mistake. Forget I called."

"Do you want money?"

"I can get me own money, mate."

"What do you want with Bryce?"

"I need his soldiers. A very bad person has taken a good friend of mine."

"I know they have a different way of doing things in England, Kyle, but here in America we have these people called police officers. The New York Police Department is a fairly well-known example of the type. If somebody has abducted one of your friends, I strongly suggest you inform them."

"I can't."

"Yes, you can. You just don't want to take the chance of ICE deporting your happy ass back across the pond."

So this Arnold knew exactly who Kyle was. But he didn't have time to feel shame. "It's more than that. Stoney's in real danger here, mate. I can't just leave him in the hands of that freak." Too late he realized maybe he shouldn't have revealed Stoney's name. Even his first name.

Chance bumped Kyle's elbow. The fuck? The agent was hunching himself over the desktop like a vulture so he could type into Notepad++ from a standing position. Kyle supposed he'd be reading this story in Chance's memoirs one day. That is, if he lived long enough to read Chance's memoirs.

"Stoney? Somebody's taken Stoney Rockland?" It was Bryce's voice. He'd been there listening all along.

Kyle didn't know quite how to feel about that.

"It's the man who attacked me at the concert. He doesn't give a fuck about Stoney. It's me he's after. It's always been me."

"What do you need, Kyle?"

"You have an army. Soldiers. A chopper. A jet. Guns. Lots of guns."

Bryce and his assistant were utterly silent. Even Chance kept quiet.

Kyle's plan sounded small and pitiful when he said it out loud. But what other plan did he have? "I won't take a chance of Stoney getting hurt in the crossfire. So I'll pretend to cooperate. I'll give myself up to Nigel in exchange for Stoney. When he's free, your people go in and rescue me."

More silence. It was easy to believe they'd hung up.

"I'm saying please." Kyle tried not to remember the last time he'd said "please" to Bryce. "You're the only person I know who has the resources to do this."

"You do know that you're asking me to conduct a paramilitary assault on American soil."

"In the city of New York, actually." Kyle wouldn't sugarcoat it. There wasn't any point.

"NYPD has some of the most highly trained SWAT teams in the world." Arnold Geurne again.

Kyle knew he couldn't sway Bryce's assistant. He didn't really know who Geurne was. He had no image of him in his mind. But the ice in the man's voice said he wouldn't be charmed by the likes of a hysterical male model.

He had to focus on making his case to Bryce himself. The man had a soft heart. He must. He'd come running so fast the first time Kyle was in trouble...

"Please." This time he didn't much mind if the word brought back echoes of certain private encounters. "I'm begging you, Bryce. You know I can't call NYPD for this. Would they even listen to me? Would they even believe me until it's too late? Stoney's people already think I'm the bad guy. They know about—"

Kyle stopped for a moment. He couldn't tell them about Michel.

"Even if they did believe me, they'd call in a professional hostage negotiator to make all the decisions. They'd never let me make the switch. They only do that on the telly. In real life, they never let a civilian go into a hostage situation."

Arnold: "That's because you accomplish nothing except to give the freak another hostage."

"I have to try it me own way. My own way. Because if they go charging in with guns while Stoney's still in there—"

A moment of silence. Anyone who watched the news knew that hostages got killed in SWAT assaults all the time.

"You can't be serious." This Arnold Geurne kept doing all the talking for Bryce. "You can't possibly believe that Bryce Yourself Petroleum is going to involve itself in your complicated love life. You can't ask us to bring in good men to carry out an armed raid in a state with some of the most restrictive gun control laws in the nation."

"I know what an important man Bryce is. I know that. I never meant to intrude on his life. I never meant to call you again. Bryce, I never would have done that to you."

That awful silence. It went on and on.