Trusting Gibson (Last Score Book 2) (38 page)

“Okay, darlin’, let’s do this.”  He opened the door for us to pass. When I saw Johnny and Jerry both at the car as well, it gave me some reassurance that if Kace tried anything these guys would all have my back this time.

CHAPTER 34 - CHASING SHADOWS

Chloe

Fastening the buckle of my seat, Gibson pulled the strap to check it was secure, like I was a child. Reaching around, he fastened his own then took my hand. Immediately, his thumb grazed over mine and he looked at me concerned. “You stay with Jerry and Lois every single minute you got it, Chloe? You go to the John, Jerry goes as well, do you hear me?”

The gravity of the situation we were heading toward could be heard in the tone of his voice. Delivering his order I was being told what he expected. It wasn’t a request. The speed of his words gave away his own anxiety, and the way he looked at me made me offer him reassurance that I would listen and do what he said, and not what whatever came to mind the moment I came face to face with Kace. If anything came to mind.

Reality began to bite the nearer we got and I questioned whether I was strong enough to face him again. Months of painful memories seeing Gibson’s worried face and how helpless he looked trying to reach me. The way his hand rose to touch me only for his fingers to crumple closed and he’d stuff it in his pocket, instead of doing what came naturally to all couples still in the fledgling stages of their relationship.

One good thing to come out of Kace’s warped stunt was that Gibson and I knew the strength of our love for each other, because I had been able to overcome the fearful feelings about men and tried not process only negative thoughts like I had before. Dragging the rational side of my reasoning back to the fore was easier for having Gibson by my side. He had offered me protection and even though he was the last guy on earth I had thought I could trust. I did.

Gibson was quiet during the flight and once in a while his hand gripped mine tightly; which at times felt a tad aggressive, and if I had to hazard a guess, he was trying to deal with his own feelings about breathing the same air as Kace. Johnny and Emma were sitting up at the back of the plane pouring over a map, while Lois and Jerry discussed something on Jerry’s laptop but the sound of their low voices was lost with the hum of the plane and the earbuds I was wearing.

I’d been doing great until I heard the three dings on the cabin bell, to signal our decent. We’d been in the air less than four hours.  As soon as we hit 10,000ft I began to feel sick. Nerves were getting the better of me and Gibson was so attuned to me he wasn’t slow to notice.

“Fuck, Chloe. I knew I should have left you back in Colorado. I’m getting Jerry and Lois to take you to Syd’s place when we’re on the ground.”

“No, Gibson. I don’t want that. I
really
don’t want that. As much as this frightens me, I need to see this through. I need to see that Kace can’t hurt me anymore. If everyone else takes control of that without me, I’ll still look over my shoulder every time I’m alone. Trust me…I need to see this to the end.”

Gibson looked at me with frustration, his jaw ticked twice then his concerned eyes flicked over to look at Lois and Jerry, who had stopped what they were doing to listen to the conversation between Gibson and me. When he looked back at me his worried eyes softened and a silent understanding seemed to pass between us. Licking his lips, Gibson leaned forward, closing the space between us and kissed me softly on my closed mouth. “Isn’t that my line?” Furrowing my brow I wasn’t sure what I’d said.

“Trust me? You sure pick your moments to pull that one out of the hat, darlin’.”

Giving me a soft smile, Gibson was trying to reduce the tension in me with distraction. Chewing the inside of my cheek I didn’t try to hide how maybe seeing Kace was making me feel, but I was determined it had to be done. “I got you, darlin’, I’m never going to let anything bad happen to you again.” Inclining his head in Lois and Jerry’s direction he looked back at me. “They’ve got you. Kace comes anywhere near you he’s a dead man.”

“Where is he?” My voice sounded shaky—weak. Gibson closed his eyes for a second then turned to face me. Releasing his grip on my hand he interlaced his fingers on one hand with mine again.

“Okay, there’s some stuff I need to tell you. Stuff you don’t know, stuff that Jerry and the team of private investigators have been working on. They were getting nowhere using all the usual channels to trace him.

“We didn’t want to go public because we didn’t want more media attention drawn to you, so Syd was trying to draw him out with an offer of work. The search he put out was for a specific type of sound engineer, one so specific with experience that matched Kace’s credentials exactly. The package he was offering was too appealing to a guy like Kace.

“We knew he had been in New York already, and we think he turned your apartment over shortly after the story of us broke in the media. We can’t prove anything with that…he left no prints. Sorry we didn’t tell you about that Chloe, but you were a mess at that point.”

I scowled and it was obvious to Gibson that I didn’t like what I’d heard. Leaning over, Gibson tucked my hair behind my left ear and cupped my face in his hand. “Sorry, darlin’, are you sure you want to hear this?”

Biting my lip I hesitated for a moment then nodded again, “Yeah I need to know what’s been going on, I have loads of questions but I know this isn’t the time.” My heart was banging hard and rapidly in my chest that no one had told me any of this at the time. I was trying to deal with the deception and everyone keeping information about my life from me, but it wasn’t the time to let those feelings get the better of me.

Drawing in a deep breath Gibson exhaled and raked his hand through his hair then began talking again.  “So there was the New York connection, then he disappeared…fell off the face of the earth. Charlotte was liaising with the police and Jerry came out to speak to a couple of the detectives to give them the details about Kace and the possible connection.

“When Kace took you in Seattle that was premeditated. He had acquired a hotel staff uniform so he could move freely in the building and no one would bat an eyelid. The fact he left you after five days indicates he never intended to keep you somewhere permanent, or something happened that he had to move and it was too risky to take you as well. Or the sick bastard wanted to mind fuck all of us, as well as you. He must have known we’d be looking for you.”

At that point in his conversation, the plane touched down. Gibson was distracted for a moment before he turned back to me and sighed again, then tried to speed up what he was telling me before we transferred to the car.

“Anyway, the reason it’s taken so long to find him is he cleared his bank account out and didn’t use any of the usual monetary and identity tools. So no credit cards, no hired cars, no social security number and no bank withdrawals. He was faceless for months working with cash.”

Puzzled I flexed my fingers against Gibson’s. “So how did you find him? Smirking and looking smug he said, “Syd.” I didn’t understand what he meant. I knew Syd ran a record company they used to be with. I remember when they first started the guy used to do press conferences about M3rCy.

“Remember the job I told you about? Well Syd put the ad out on the websites and Music magazines, and Kacey-boy answered it. He’s running out of money and needs work. Our private investigators had some tech guy figure some shit on the website to track his IP. He was clever but fell down on something that fucking basic. The IP pinpoints him to the address of a Hotel on the upper East side near your apartment, Chloe.”

I froze when I heard how close Kace had stayed to where my home was. If I had left Gibson at any time and returned home alone, the thought that Kace pounced at any time, like he had in the hotel, sent shivers down my spine.

“How do you know he’ll still be there?” Suddenly, my urgency of getting to Kace was as strong as Gibson’s had been back at his cabin.

“We’ve got him covered, darlin’, don’t worry about that. The PI’s that have been tracking him are eyeballing him as we speak. We have the two detectives working on your case already there, and the manager has been tipped to call for backup if he tries to leave the building.”

Jerry turned his laptop around for me to see and interjected on our conversation. “He’s in his room right now watching porn on his laptop. Been watching for just over seven minutes.” Jerry smirked and shrugged his shoulders. “PI’s technical guy did something…”

The cabin door opened and Gibson unclipped my belt then his. Still clutching my hand he pulled me up to stand. “I love you, Chloe. We’re gonna put this baby to bed and get on with our lives together.”

Giving Gibson a slow nervous smile I nodded and reached up and kiss him tenderly. “Thank, God. I can’t wait.”

Gibson gave it a squeeze. “Let’s go.”

It was raining hard when we left the aircraft, the grey sky heavy with thick dark clouds and the wind driving the icy rain diagonally at us. It was a miserable sight, after the beautiful winter scenes of Colorado. Gibson opened the door for me to slide into the back seat of a white SUV with blacked out windows, then slid along the seat beside me.

Johnny and Emma took the front seats. Emma was driving and Johnny became the passenger after piloting the flight. Jerry and Lois were in the car behind us. Gibson raked his hand through his hair, ruffling it to shake out the excess water, while I gathered my thoughts.

Johnny rang Gibson on his phone and I thought that was quite funny, considering they were only feet away from each other. Then I realized that Gibson was concentrating intensely to what Johnny was telling him, and was making sure that I couldn’t hear because the radio was on. The music was interrupting my concentration. I could hear Johnny talking but wasn’t able to make out what he was saying.

We pulled down an alleyway and I was getting used to passing through hotel kitchens with surprised chefs and kitchen staff staring wide eyed at my boyfriend coming and going like it was the most natural thing in the world for him. But today was different, my heart was in my mouth with fear and it had nothing to do with Gibson or his work.

Johnny and Emma left the kitchen while Jerry and Lois stayed with us. A girl in a set of chef’s whites with a blue checked neckerchief came over and asked Gibson to sign her apron. Gibson’s jaw ticked. This was not the time for someone to interrupt, but I couldn’t believe how cool he was. He asked her name, signing quickly and handed it back, just as Johnny pushed the door open.

“Clear. Left- elevator door 50ft. Emma in situ. Gibson grabbed my hand and with the others close behind us, we walked quickly to the elevator, Gibson had his head bowed down to avoid recognition. Stepping inside, he waited for the doors to close then looked Johnny square in the eye. “Shoot.”

“Same floor—opposite doors, room number eleven forty one. Exit left first. Detective Mulligan is waiting at the door.” Johnny was already swiping his phone and Jerry was scrolling on his, while Lois was looking on. Emma was standing in front of us waiting for our pending arrival on the floor.

When the elevator glided to a halt and the doors opened, Emma held her hand behind her for us to wait, stepping out she looked in both directions, “Clear.”

On entering the hotel room a guy of about thirty was waiting by the door and Gibson slapped his back. “Good job. I owe you. Brief me. Chloe, this is Detective Mulligan by the way.”

Staring at me, he looked at Gibson and shook his head, giving Gibson an angry scowl.

“No way! Bad idea.”

“Trust me, I know, but she’s here. Just tell me what’s going on, where is he?”

Mulligan heaved a sigh of resignation, “First, this has to be by the book once he’s in the room. Any stupid moves will go in his favor. You are not to touch him, understand?”

“You have my word. My instinct is to beat the shit out of him, but for Chloe’s sake I won’t. That would only take me down to his level. But—make no mistake I want that fucker to suffer for what he did to my girl and locking him away is about all we have. So I won’t do anything to fuck that up.”

“Do this right and we’ll have him for a long time. You have to wear the wire so we have it on tape. Chloe as well. Although I wouldn’t even have
her
anywhere near this hotel with him in it if she were mine, given what he’s already done to her.”

Gibson gave him a dark solemn look, his dark, worried eyes darting to me then back to the detective. “Well she isn’t yours—she’s
mine
. Chloe is my world but I got her, dude. She wants to stay—she stays. This has been a long time coming for her.”

Gibson squeezed my hand in reassurance and the detective rubbed his finger under his collar in annoyance before protesting further about sticking his neck out to do this. Gibson was in no mood for the uncooperative tone he was setting and managed him in pretty much the same way as he did his band. Gibson’s power of persuasion was no match for the arguments that Mulligan put up and after a couple more minutes, he started to brief us on what had been happening.

“O’Neill is in the bar drinking with two women, but the last thing we want is him picking someone up and bringing her upstairs.” Emma stepped forward taking her gun out of the back of her pants and placed it on the table.

“I’ll bring him up.”

The detective quickly swiped it from the table opened the barrel and emptied the bullets from it. Waving it at Gibson, he asked, “You don’t happen to have one of these on you, do you?”

Nodding at Johnny and Jerry, he replied, “No I don’t have a fucking gun, these guys are my protection.”

Gibson then nodded at Johnny to have Emma covered by Jerry, and just before they left the room, Gibson said, “This is Emma, Chloe’s security. She’ll do a good job.”

Ten minutes later, once we knew that Kace was busy with Emma, we transferred across the hallway to Kace’s room and were sitting nervously waiting for news of what was happening in the bar. Johnny had hung back because he was usually always with Gibson, and was the more recognizable of his two body guards. If Kace had been watching us, the chances were he’d have spotted Johnny previously.