False front, p.19
False Front, page 19
“True.”
“I’m calling Harris.”
“You sure?”
“I want to send a message. Whoever this guy is, he’s not going after a little girl anymore.”
“Our back-up plan needs a back-up plan?”
“Move the pieces around the chessboard, Twitch. Let’s look at every scenario.”
“On it. The Bishop will protect the queen.”
Nathan threw a balled-up piece of paper at the back of Twitch’s head and they got to work.
Counterintuitively, the hotel was quiet on a Saturday night. Summer weekends in the city were subdued, as most of the elite took their parties to the Hamptons. Emily looked out-of-place in her now grimy workout ensemble, but it was a hotel after all. People showed up in all manner of dress. The bitchy queen behind the desk, wearing a name tag that read ‘David’ and a fake smile, gave her an unabashed sweep with his disapproving glance and arched a brow. On any other day, Emily could have had this guy with his tail between his legs, but she was out of gas. She cleared her throat. “I . . . um, I need to get to the conference rooms.” It never even occurred to her that she would have trouble getting past a fucking doorman.
“I see. And what sort of conference were you planning on attending?”
It was then she felt a warm palm on the small of her back. “David, she’s with me.”
Nathan had booked the hotel’s most elaborate suite. He didn’t keep a room here, like at The Gotham and one or two other boutique hotels around the city, but they knew who he was and the discretion he demanded. Everybody did.
David had the good grace to look thoroughly chastened as he stood. “Of course, Mr. Bishop. Can I send anything up?” Nathan’s gaze never wavered from the now obsequious receptionist, but his hand trembled against Emily’s back. “Two cheeseburgers, fries, milkshakes. From Shake Shack. Is the bar stocked?”
“Yes, sir, fully.”
“Good. That’s all.”
Nathan strolled down the hall with Emily in tow as if this were just another night, but his radar was up. The small, nearly undetectable, earpiece was the only indication that things weren’t as they seemed. Nathan walked slowly but with purpose toward the elevator and swiped his card for penthouse access. The gleaming brass doors swished open, and they walked inside like any chic Manhattan couple heading to their luxury accommodations after a grueling day of shopping and pedicures—minus the dirty clothes, bleeding feet, and stitches. Nathan seemed to need a moment to compose himself; his jaw was locked, and his hands were trembling. He glanced at the security camera in the ceiling and clocked the floor numbers as they lit and extinguished. He probably hated the kill box of an elevator as much as she did. At the top floor, they moved quickly down the hall.
“Nathan.”
“In a moment. Let’s get you secure.”
“I found their tracker. I removed it.”
“You did?”
“At Caroline’s yoga studio. I sent it off with another member. I imagine it’s at a West Village townhouse by now.”
He shot her a look of pure lust.
“That turns you on?”
“Add it to an ever-growing list.”
At the far end of the hall, a service elevator sounded its arrival. Nathan didn’t tense so she didn’t either. The doors groaned apart and two suited men stepped out. Nathan extended his hand.
“Harris, good to see you, man. Thanks for this.” The whiskey-eyed man’s lips quirked.
“Hey, I’ll babysit you in a penthouse any day, North. Beats the hell out of Chiang Mai.”
Nathan grunted in agreement and extended his hand to the smaller, at six feet, Middle Eastern man.
“Assam, good to see you.”
“Just once could you give me a call when you’re trolling for trim at a club? Does it always have to be this shit?” Assam gave him a toothpaste commercial smile.
Nathan shifted awkwardly, and Emily stuck her head out from behind him. “He’s done trolling for the night.”
“Oh shit . . . shoot. Sorry.” Assam extended his hand while Harris chuckled and added, “Fifteen languages and six dialects, and he still puts his foot in it. You must be Emily. I’m Harris Mann. And this smooth talker is Assam Brudi.”
“Yes, Emily. Hi.”
“Also, the reason my trolling days are over.”
Assam gripped her hand with both of his. “I can see why.”
Twitch and the guys leapt to their feet, greeting Emily and nodding their admiration.
“Hooyah! Emily. It’s good to see you safe.” Tox turned to Nathan. “Her dad’s been looped in. He’s headed down shortly.”
Harris headed straight for the food. “Emily, coffee? Nosh?”
Nathan turned his back to the group greeting them and headed for the nearest guest room with Emily in tow. “Go get yourselves some dinner.”
Tox eyed the side table, piled high with sandwiches and snacks. Twitch jerked her head towards the door. Harris grabbed two go-cups of coffee, handed one to Assam, and the four of them headed out.
Nathan had no sooner kicked the door shut with his foot than he took Emily’s face gently between his rough palms and kissed her like she was the air he needed to breathe. He led her into the small but elegantly appointed hotel bathroom, started the shower, and proceeded to peel her out of the yoga clothes. Emily went to work on his belt. In record time, they were entwined under the steady flow of water. Emily kissed his neck, bit his shoulder, and ground against him with an urgency that expressed her fear and vulnerability more clearly than words ever could.
“The foreplay will have to wait. I need you inside me now.” She beat him to the punch with her words.
“You read my mind.”
With that, Nathan hoisted her up as she wrapped her legs around his waist and plunged into her. He was moving harder than he meant to, faster than he meant to, but the primal need to mate had taken over. Thrust and retreat, over and over, as he held her ass in both hands and attacked her breasts with his mouth. Emily tightened around him and came with an explosive cry. He joined her a stroke later, spilled into her in what felt like an endless stream. They stood silently for a moment, still connected, the water beating down.
“You okay?”
“Never better.” She smiled against his lips.
Nathan set her on her jellied legs and reached for the shampoo. He skimmed his hands down her arms and sides, stopping at the bandage on her arm.
“They removed a small tracker implant in my shoulder. The cut on my arm must have been an injury they stitched. My dad? Have you talked to him?”
“He’s on his way.”
“Good.”
They finished the shower and entered the bedroom in thick white hotel robes. Nathan pulled Emily onto the bed and held her against his chest.
“Talk to me.”
“I’m fine. That was nothing. My trainer in Georgia once hogtied me in a tree and left me to escape it. Strapped in a hospital bed is child’s play.”
Nathan didn’t speak. He just waited calmly. Emily nuzzled Nathan’s breastbone. They both let out a long-pained sigh, and Nathan wrapped her more tightly in his arms. Emily broke the silence.
“It’s harder when you love someone. They didn’t just take me; they took me from you. Emotion steals focus, but it was impossible to put all that stuff in a box in my mind and just do what I was trained to do.”
“Unpack that box, Em. You’ve spent too long stuffing down your feelings. Emotions can cloud your judgment, but they can also drive you, give you strength.”
“I was scared. I just wanted to get to you.”
“I was on my way. You beat me to the punch.”
She looked up at him with a grin, “Your girlfriend is a ninja.”
“That may be the hottest thing I’ve ever heard.”
After another, slower round of lovemaking, he stood and pulled Emily with him. “Come on. I’ve got some sweats in the closet. After we debrief, I plan on keeping you safe and sound at home with nothing but food and showers and sex and sleep for the next week.”
Emily’s eyes widened. “That’s exactly what I imagined when I was running away. Only you were in a superhero costume.”
“Please tell me it was combat stuff.”
“Nope—tights, cape, the whole deal.”
“Well, I needed to calm my hard-on down. That did it.”
“You won’t wear a spandex Captain America onesie for me?”
“Emily, for you I would wear nothing but a fig leaf and swing from a vine.”
“Mmm.”
“And there goes my hard-on again. Come on. Get changed so we can get back to the good stuff.”
Two weeks passed filled with dead ends and misinformation. Emily had described in detail every moment of the abduction—the men in the van, the facility, the guards, the doctor. She had also told them everything she could recall of her childhood kidnapping—the trip to the ice cream shop, the man with the mermaid tattoos who had taken her from the nanny, the house in Baltimore, the evil man with the hand tattoo and the smooth voice. The facility where Emily had recently been held had been vacated. The new landscaping crew that had been hired by the property management company knew nothing. The one maid they had managed to track down was just as helpful. The maids assumed the men were the new owners, and they wanted to keep the easy job, so they cleaned quickly and thoroughly and didn’t ask questions. There were hundreds of scattered fingerprints; if any of them belonged to the perps, it would take months to sort them.
Nathan was attached to Emily like a burr. While that was great in the bedroom—and the kitchen and the dining room, and on the balcony and in the shower, and on the desk in Nathan’s office, and once in Central Park—it was agitating in her daily life. While pulling away from him made her feel like a piece of iron leaving a magnetic field, she was a woman used to being alone. Nathan knew that he couldn’t be by her side every moment of the day, and she was oddly thankful for the work crisis that divided his attention.
Emily had also gotten to know the people in Nathan’s life. Alex had been transferred, thankfully. Her call to Nathan had spared her from a worse fate. Chat was her favorite, although the guy almost never spoke. Emily had immediately picked up on an intuition that bordered on psychic. She enjoyed wheedling him into reluctant conversations. If it was possible, Tox was even harder to talk to, not because he was reticent, but because he was always eating. His six-foot, five-inch, 280-pound frame needed constant refueling. And when he wasn’t eating, he was drinking, or fucking. Emily wondered if he slept. The dark circles under his eyes and the haunted look hidden behind a carefree mask gave her the answer.
Twitch, on the other hand, was like a fairy. She seemed so comfortable in her own skin and genuinely happy. She hunted down the worst kinds of people and saw so much horror, yet she had an unquenchable optimism that came with knowing she was doing her part. As far as Emily could see, nothing ruffled her. Ren was the most puzzling of the group. He really did seem to know everything about everything. He’d start off an explanation with a qualifier like, “Well, cuneiform isn’t my area of expertise but . . .” or “I’m not well versed in neuroscience but . . .” then proceed to deliver a professorial-level response to whatever question had been posed. Emily was vexed by the breadth of his knowledge, always trying to stump him with random trivia, from the B-side of rock albums to obscure world geography. Ren always seemed to have the answer. Emily loved her new life so far. She was getting to know people, a novel concept in her world, and she had the very good fortune to be surrounded by some very interesting friends.
Caroline’s trip to LA had been extended and she was uncharacteristically vague as to the reason. Emily didn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, though, and simply enjoyed her infrequent alone time in the apartment. Her state-of-the-art security had been deemed “adequate” by Nathan, but JT did note the lurking Bishop Security SUV that seemed to appear whenever Emily was in residence.
She continued to work on “The Bishop Chronicles,” although she was fairly certain no self-respecting news publication would run a series of articles about a controversial businessman written by the woman who was in love with him. Nevertheless, she persevered. As was her wont, Emily used her focus on Nathan to prevent her own self-reflection. Farrell had waited a decent amount of time since her “outing,” three weeks, no doubt waiting for the more aggressive hyenas to tire the lion out. When he called her into his office, he was solicitous and relaxed—relaxed like an Olympic swimmer on the starting block. Emily put him out of his misery immediately.
“My name is Emily Webster, and when I was eight, I was abducted.”
Farrell stood, walked around his desk, and hugged her. He hugged her for the story she was about to give him. He hugged her for the ordeal she had survived. But most of all, he hugged her because deep down, Farrell had sensed a well of discontent in Emma Porter. A feeling he seemed to understand. Emily was not a hugger, but she hugged Farrell that day for a good long time.
They hammered out the details and agreed that her colleague Calliope Garland would conduct the interview. Emily didn’t know Calliope well, because she didn’t know anyone well, but what she knew she liked. The daughter of a Greek poet and novelist, hence her given name, and a Swiss banker, Calliope had moved to New York to, in her words, “find some normalcy.” If that weren’t an indication of the craziness of her life, Emily didn’t know what was. They had their first meeting at a nail salon on Elizabeth Street. Emily thought it was an odd choice, but Calliope insisted that getting a pedicure, with the added twenty-minute massage, was exactly what they both needed. With her ebony hair and ice-blue eyes, Calliope was easy to spot, and for an hour they sat side by side in the big cushioned chairs and talked. When they emerged, both with sky blue toes, Emily was surprised to see Tox standing outside, holding the leash of the scariest looking Rottweiler she had ever seen.
“Ladies,” Tox nodded as the dog strained the leash.
“Um, Tox?” Emily pointed to the eighty pounds of fur and teeth.
“This,” Tox sighed heavily, “is Fraidy.”
“Fraidy?” Calliope queried.
“Fraidy,” Tox confirmed.
“Oh, and this is Tox. Tox, Calliope Garland.”
“Pleasure.” Tox tipped his Yankees cap.
“Can you tighten your hold on that beast?”
“Relax, Emily. Fraidy is short for Fraidy Cat. A buddy of mine got her for security at a warehouse he owns in Jersey. Kids were graffitiing the corrugated metal walls. He thought a Rottweiler would take care of the problem. Turns out she’s so friendly the kids breaking in graffitied her too. My buddy came into work the next day and she was all pink and red, wagging her little stub like she thought she looked great.”
Emily smiled and held out her hand. Fraidy’s entire backside started shaking side to side. Calliope laughed and rubbed behind her ears.
“I need to find her a home. Frank, that’s my buddy, he was going to take her to a shelter. I told him I’d take her, but I’m gone all the time.”
“Aw, Tox, you’re a softy.”
“Only with dogs. Humans, not so much.”
“I’ll take her.”
Emily and Tox looked over to see Calliope was still petting the dog.
“My place is big and empty. I live near a small park. My schedule is pretty consistent, and she clearly loves me.”
“She loves everybody. Don’t you want to think it over?” And with Tox’s comment and tug on her leash, Fraidy did the first aggressive thing she had ever done; she turned to Tox and growled. “When should I drop her off?” Tox asked flatly.
“I’ll take her now. I’m headed home. I think I can request an Uber that will take dogs.” Calliope took the leash and was already fiddling with her phone and walking toward a two-way cross street to make it easier for the car to find her, with Fraidy trotting along beside her. And just like that, Fraidy had a home. Tox looked at Emily.
“That was easy.”
“When you know, you know.”
“What’s her deal?”
“No idea. What’s your deal?”
Tox didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I live nearby, and Fraidy needed a walk, so I told Nathan I’d see you back to your place.”
“Sounds simple enough.”
“It was until about ten minutes ago. Nathan texted to bring you, and my ass, but that’s neither here nor there, to his office. There’ve been some developments.
Miguel followed Dario into the richly appointed study, the image of the dangling, bleeding man still fresh in his mind. Nevertheless, he was calm and impassive; he hadn’t made it this far in the organization by letting shit rattle him. Miguel had never been in this room before, and as he looked around, he stifled a chuckle, imagining a scene from a mob movie. Dario was a small man, but his quiet confidence and the height of the custom desk chair picked up the slack as he seated himself behind the Edwardian walnut desk. He interlaced his fingers on the surface and looked at Miguel with an unreadable expression. Miguel stood equally impassive and waited.
“You show a lot of potential.”
“Thank you, senõr.”
“A lot of my muscle, their brains are in their biceps, you know?”
Miguel nodded.
“But you, you think.”
Another nod.
Dario mirrored the nod, as though satisfied with what he saw, and withdrew a small case from beneath his desk. He opened it, the lid blocking the view of its contents from Miguel. Dario withdrew a pair of loose-fitting gauzy gloves from the box, and then what appeared to be a book. He held it up for Miguel to see. It was housed in an opaque covering, but Miguel could still make out the cover.
“Ulysses.”
“First edition,” Dario confirmed. “I bought it ten years ago. Paid seventy-three thousand.”
Miguel arched a brow.
“I can only imagine what it’s worth now. Well, that’s not true. I know exactly what it’s worth.” He chuckled. Dario replaced the book and withdrew another, a frail copy of The Grapes of Wrath. He replaced it and withdrew a leather journal. Dario handled it as if it were the Centenary Diamond or an unstable isotope; perhaps it was both.
