Showdown at Shadow Junction

Chapter Four

Jade forced herself from the throes of the terrifying nightmare and opened her eyes. The room was shadowed. Unfamiliar. Cluttered. Pungent odors of stale cigarette smoke, beer and spicy food made her stomach roll.

The nightmare returned in full force. The vertigo. The loud voices. The gun. Needles poked into her arm.

For a second she thought she might be dead. But death didn’t include pain and she had a killer headache along with a punishing thirst and need to rinse a sickening metallic taste from her mouth.

Kicking off the dingy sheet, she shuddered as she slid her feet to the floor. Her feet were bare, but she was still wearing the red cocktail dress she’d worn last night. One strap was broken. Dried blood painted a weird-shaped stain down the front of it. Apparently the blood wasn’t hers, but it likely attributed to the disgusting odor.

She looked up as a door creaked open.

“Good. You’re awake. Maybe now you’ll start talking sense.”

She turned and stared into the face of Reggie Lassiter. Relief surged through her. If she was with Reggie, she must be safe.

She looked around the room again, recognizing nothing but sure she wasn’t in a hospital. “Where are we?”

“We’re outside the city, just before the falling-off place on the edge of nowhere.”

“Why? What happened?”

“You don’t remember?”

“Not much. I was in Quaid’s hotel suite. He was showing me the necklace that would highlight his showing. I got sick. The rest is confusing.”

“You must remember something.”

“There were voices, men I don’t know. And you. You were there. I remember that. You must know what happened.”

“From what I hear, that necklace must be a nice little bauble. It would make a sweet nest egg, or so I hear.”

The sarcasm scratched along her raw nerves. She studied Reggie. Unlike her, he was dressed neatly in jeans and a blue sport shirt, hair combed, freshly shaved. He looked like the competent police officer she’d worked with before, but he definitely didn’t sound like that man.

“What’s going on? Where’s Quaid,” she demanded.

Reggie smirked as if she’d made a bad joke. “Quaid is gone to a better place and I’m not talking about Barcelona.”

“Not dead. Tell me you don’t mean he’s dead.”

“Afraid so.”

“How? Who killed him?”

“Doesn’t really matter. You’re the one you should be worried about now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Because if you don’t tell me where you and Quaid hid that necklace in the next five minutes, you’ll be joining your phony Spanish jewelry god.”

Impulsively, her hand flew to her neck. It was bare, as she should have known it would be. “You think I took the necklace?”

“I know you didn’t take it. You left with me, sweetheart. The necklace is not on your body and it wasn’t on Quaid’s. But it was around your pretty little neck before I arrived on the scene.”

“Were you spying on Quaid? Was his suite bugged?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Then how do you know I tried on the necklace?”

“You were wearing it when room service delivered Quaid’s champagne.”

The costly necklace was missing and Reggie had brought her here to search and intimidate her as if she were a common criminal. “Is this how the police work now? Threats? Intimidation? False accusations?”

“Not threats, Jade. Promises. The clock is ticking. Unless you want to pay your lover Quaid a surprise visit, you’d best start talking.”

Reality finally seeped through the brain fog. Whatever had happened last night, Reggie was in on it, possibly the mastermind, though there had been others.

“A dirty cop. You disappoint me, Reggie. I expected so much more of you.”

“No, like you, I’m just after what I can get in the world, only I don’t have your looks to sleep my way into wealth.”

Ire rose in her throat. She struggled to keep control. This was no time to go off half-cocked. She had a lot more to worry about now than defending her morals.

“The last I remember, the necklace was still around my neck. If anyone took it, it had to be you or one of your partners in crime.”

“Wrong answer.”

Jade stared into Reggie’s eyes and shuddered at the icy threat she saw reflected in them. The lines of his face were drawn into sharp angles. His muscles clenched.

He pulled a pistol from his shoulder holster and pointed it at her head. “Either the necklace or a bullet, Jade. Now.”

Her blood ran cold. He was not merely threatening. He meant to kill her if she didn’t tell him how or where to find the missing jewelry. A location she couldn’t possibly reveal since she had no idea where it was.

There had to be a way out of this. She just had to find it. Quick. She put her fingers to her temples. “I can’t think clearly. It’s all the drugs you pumped into me. I need time for my mind to clear.”

“Then I guess you’d better get used to your surroundings. I can’t sit around and make chitchat all day. I have to get back on the job.”

“Playing the role of good cop?”

“Yeah. All those years of bit roles in bad TV shows before joining the force are finally paying off. The chief gave me a new assignment this morning—to find the sexy event planner who killed Quaid Vaquero and disappeared with his multimillion-dollar masterpiece.”

So Reggie had not only killed Quaid but found a way to blame it on her. And once he got his hands on the necklace he’d kill her, too. He was way too smart to leave any loose ends to foul up his scheme.

Even if she convinced him she didn’t know the whereabouts of the necklace, he’d kill her.

“If you know I was wearing the necklace, the champagne delivery must have been part of your scheme,” she said, buying time.

“Absolutely. A nice touch, don’t you think? A little Rohypnol for you and Quaid to make our encounter so much more pleasant for everyone. Also convenient that you were so enthralled with Quaid that you didn’t notice the drug being slipped into your newly uncorked bottle of bubbly.”

“You cops do think of everything.”

Which would make outsmarting him difficult. She looked around the room again, this time searching for anything she could use as a weapon or an escape route.

There was only one door, the one Reggie had entered through and closed behind him so that she couldn’t see past this one room. The two small windows on the other side of the bed were shuttered, no doubt nailed shut from the outside.

The clutter in the room consisted of piles of old magazines and newspapers, stacks of cardboard boxes that had been secured with heavy tape, several fishing rods, an empty cigarette pack and an open box of shotgun shells. No sign of a shotgun.

Her black evening handbag was on a marred pine table, its few contents scattered around it, including her wallet. Her stilettos were on the floor. Used just right, they could put an eye out, though she couldn’t imagine them being a match for Reggie’s ready pistol.

Inches of dust had accumulated on everything. Brown stains spread over the ceiling where water had leaked through.

“Where are we?” Jade asked.

“My late father’s fishing camp. It was about all he left me and my brother.”

“In New York?”

“Yes, but miles from the city. Feel free to scream for help. No one will hear you.”

“I suppose your brother, Mack, is in on this, too.”

“Nope. Mack is a stickler for rules. Doesn’t even get parking tickets. Always was Dad’s favorite. Still is Mom’s.”

“I wonder why.”

Mack Lassiter owned and operated the security company that Ruth Stevens, Jade’s boss at Effacy Corporate Event Planning, always insisted they use. At least it was nice to know Mack was honest, even if his moonlighting brother was evil to the core.

Mack would surely know about the fishing cabin. Only there was no reason he’d come looking for her, no reason for him to suspect his cop brother was involved in Quaid’s murder or in her disappearance.

For all Jade knew, the other men in the hotel room last night were also cops, possibly even working the security detail with Reggie.

If she managed to escape, did she dare call the police for protection or would that just guarantee that Reggie would be the first to reach her?

“What am I supposed to do for a bathroom?” she asked.

“There’s an outhouse. You’ll have to watch for spiders, rats and yellow jackets. They’ve pretty much taken over the place. And be on the lookout for roaches inside the pages of the old catalog that serves as tissue.”

Her stomach retched. Still she straightened her dress as best she could, wishing she’d worn something that buttoned to the neck—not that she owned any dresses like that.

“Bring it on,” she said, going for fake bravado. She could do without the outhouse, but she did need to see what was outside this room and to search for an escape route.

“Actually, we have indoor plumbing these days,” Reggie admitted. “But I don’t advise drinking or even washing your mouth out with it. Pipes are rusted.”

He walked over to the door and opened it, then motioned for her to lead the way. “Almost forgot,” he taunted, just as she reached the door. “I have a bracelet for you, though not nearly as becoming as the earrings your Spanish lover gave you.”

So he knew about not only the necklace but the earrings as well, information she hadn’t had until minutes before the champagne arrived.

Reggie obviously had an accomplice on the inside. But who? The only employee Quaid had brought to the States was Javier Aranda, a longtime friend who had come two weeks before Quaid’s arrival to check out the hotel where Quaid had reservations and to meet with Ruth and Jade. Javier had left to fly back to Barcelona a few days after Quaid’s arrival.

Reggie slipped the handcuffs around her wrist and locked them. “That way,” he said, shoving her past him.

The bathroom was down a short, narrow hallway. Just past that she glimpsed a large square room with a range, a refrigerator and a dinette set, all old and worn enough that they’d feel at home in the Smithsonian.

Reggie shoved her again, this time into the bathroom. “The door stays open a crack,” he said. He took out his gun and waved it around threateningly before stepping away and leaving her alone.

He wasn’t taking any chances with her escaping, but he wasn’t going to shoot her, not as long as he thought she knew the location of the costly necklace. That was the one thing in her favor.

Inhibited by the cuffs, she struggled to get her panties down and take care of business. As she pulled them up again, Reggie’s words came back to haunt her. He’d searched her for the necklace, and that obviously involved more than just patting her down.

There was no mirror, so she pulled up her dress and examined her body as best she could. No bruises around her thighs, breasts or abdomen, though there was a nasty one on her left arm. No bite marks around her nipples. No pain inside her that would indicate rape.

Thankfully, Reggie was apparently too obsessed with finding the necklace to concern himself with anything else. As bad as things were, they could have been worse. She’d hold on to that and take it as a good omen.

A quick look around the bathroom revealed nothing but soap, a damp hand towel on a hook and a dead cockroach.

No blades. No scissors. No bottles or mirrors she could break into a shard of jagged glass. She lingered at the stained sink, letting the lukewarm water splash over her hands as she soaped them repeatedly. Slowly a plan began to form in her mind. Risky, but it beat certain death by a mile.

She shook her hands to dry them rather than use the dirty towel. Fear gnawed at her stomach like claws, but she refused to give in to it. She clenched her teeth and forced a steady breath as she prepared to face Reggie with her lies.

He kicked open the bathroom door, sending it slamming against the bathroom wall. “You’ve stalled long enough, Jade.” He peppered the demand with a stream of four-letter words.

Reggie handed her a bottle of water as she stepped out of the bathroom. She took it before he changed his mind. She drank half the bottle before he shoved her back toward the room that had become her prison.

Once inside, he kicked the door shut again.

“Where’s the necklace, Jade?”

She sighed as if she’d lost the battle of wits. “How about a deal?”

“You don’t have a bargaining tool.”

“If you kill me without a deal, you have no necklace. And I can assure you that you won’t find it on your own.”

“What’s the deal?” he asked.

“I’ll go back to the hotel with you and show you where to find the necklace. We sell it on the black market as a team and I get half the profits.”

He smirked as he pretended to be considering her offer. He’d agree, of course. Nothing to lose since even if she gave him the necklace, he’d kill her—unless she found a way to escape first. Her life literally depended on that.

“Once I have the necklace in hand, then we talk money. But you don’t go with me. You’re a killer on the run, remember? You tell me where to find the necklace. If it’s not where you say it is, I kill you. Couldn’t be much simpler than that.”

“I go with you or no deal,” she countered.

“How big a fool do you think I am? If someone spots us at that hotel together, we’ll both be arrested.”

“If you want the necklace, you do it my way.” Her chances for escape would be much better in the city. “Get me the appropriate clothes and shoes and a wig. I’ll go in disguise. If someone from the hotel sees me, they’ll assume I’m a fellow detective.”

“Do you really think I’d trust you to go back to the scene of the crime and not alert someone what was going on?”

“You will if you want the necklace that you’ve already killed for. Fifty-fifty, partner.”

Reggie clenched his fist and looked as if he might be about to plant it in her face. Instead, he spit out a stream of curses.

“A dark-colored wig and not the cheapest one you can find,” Jade specified. “They scream fake. Pants and shirt, size six. Shoes, size seven. Something comfortable.” That she could run in. “And a toothbrush and toothpaste so that my foul-smelling breath doesn’t stink up the lobby.”

“You won’t be in the lobby.”

But he didn’t say she wouldn’t be going to the hotel. This could work.

“I’ll think about it,” he said. “But if you double-cross me...” He pulled his gun again and let it do the rest of his talking for him.

She didn’t need the reminder. She’d come up with a plan to buy time and perhaps get back into the city. Now she needed a plan to stay alive.

“I’ll be back soon,” Reggie said. “In the meantime, think about your poor dead Spanish lover and know if you make one wrong move, you’ll be joining him at the morgue.”

“Quaid wasn’t my lover.”

“Why not? Weren’t you good enough for him?”

Reggie opened the bedroom door, then looked back at her with a stupid smirk on his face. “Oops, almost forgot. I shouldn’t leave you locked up this way.” He took out a key, loosened the cuff on her left wrist and then dragged her back to the bed.

This time the bastard fastened one link around the iron headboard before relocking the cuffs.

He laughed as he swaggered to the door. “Enjoy yourself, darling. I’ll be back in an hour or two.”

* * *

FURY ERUPTED AND Jade stamped her foot so hard the old floorboards groaned. Enough energy wasted on useless rage, she decided quickly. Handcuffs and heavy iron bedstead notwithstanding, she was alone for an extended period of time. This might be her best—or only— opportunity to come out of this alive.

If something happened to Reggie while he was gone, and she couldn’t unlock the handcuffs, she could die of thirst out here or be bitten by spiders or stinging scorpions. Who knew what crept around this place?

She forced the creepy thoughts aside. She had to think rationally.

Fortunately, she was not totally without skills. Ex-stepfather number four had been a Los Angeles Special Crimes Unit detective. He’d taught her a thing or two about self-defense and handcuffs.

Most handcuffs could be unlocked without a key. At least that was true a few years back. He’d shown her how one night when they were watching Law and Order together. He’d loved crime shows. Watching them let him point out all the inconsistencies between TV investigations and real ones.

He’d used a hairpin, but something else might work. If she could get close enough to reach the table where the contents of her sequined handbag had been dumped, she might find a suitable substitute.

She tugged hard. The bed didn’t budge. She needed something to provide some leverage. She pushed her right foot hard against the wall and tugged again. This time the bed frame scooted at least an inch.

That was a start, but she’d have to move it at least three feet to reach the table. She tugged again. More movement.

After what seemed an eternity of working to the accompaniment of thunder rumbling ominously in the background, she stopped to catch her breath and give her aching back a rest.

When she dropped to the bed, she glimpsed the tip of what looked like a knife blade. She jumped off the bed and got down onto the dirty floor on her hands and knees for a better look.

Sure enough, there was some kind of knife under the bed. Not a kitchen knife but the kind used in hunting or fishing. Ex-stepfather number two had done both.

She went back to tugging on the bed. A few more inches and she was able to reach the knife.

Heart pounding, she picked it up and examined it. The blade was rusted and dust bunnies had cuddled up to it and the handle. Still, it might work.

She dropped back to the bed and tried to remember exactly how number four had taught her to pick the lock. Holding the edge of the faded sheet, she managed to swipe the point of the blade across it.

She had to work with her hands at a weird angle as she poked at the keyhole with the knife. The attempt was useless. The blade was too wide and thick to fit into the hole.

She needed something with a much smaller tip yet strong enough to push down on the part of the lock that made contact with the thingamajig.

Exasperated but no less determined, she laid the knife on the bed and went back to tugging the heavy bed frame across the wooden floor. When she finally reached the table and examined the scattered contents of her handbag, her frustration swelled. She saw absolutely nothing that might work.

Unwilling to give up, she reached into the sequined clutch and ran her fingers along the inside of the thin interior pocket and the folds in the lining at the bottom of the bag. The thumb of her left hand slid along what felt like a paper clip.

Tears wet her eyes and she pulled it out. This had to work. She had to make it work.

Jade had done this years ago with a hairpin. If she could do it then, she could surely do it now that her life was riding on success. She opened the clip as she’d been shown, bending it into an L-shape.

Once in place, she turned gently. Nothing moved except the paper clip.

She tried again, just the way number four had shown her, push and turn. This time her fingers slipped from the paper clip and it fell to the floor and bounced under the table.

Her nerves were frayed to the point of breaking. But she couldn’t give up.

Down on her knees again, she spotted and retrieved the paper clip. This time she sat down on the bed and tried to calm her anxiety to the point her hands weren’t trembling.

Nice and easy. Fit the end of the paper clip into the lock and firmly turn.

She squealed when the handcuffs clicked open. No worry. No one was around to hear.

Free from bondage. Jade’s spirits rebounded, reviving her energy and her brain. She raked the items into her open handbag, picked up her shoes by the narrow straps and rushed to the door.

It was locked tight.

The bastard.

Grim determination took hold. She’d get out of here if she had to dig the door lock off with the dull knife. And then she’d probably find that he’d fit some kind of brace across the door to make sure she couldn’t open it.

Think positive. Pray.

She did both as she went back for the paper clip. She looped the handbag’s wristband and the shoes straps around the doorknob to free her hands as she worked on the lock.

A huge clap of thunder rattled the windows. A few seconds later, the lights went out, leaving the room in pitch-darkness. Even the weather was contriving against her. If she dropped the paper clip now, she might never find it.

The next clap of thunder sounded as if it was going to tear the house apart.

Jade took a deep breath. She had to do this. She had to get out of here. Using her fingers as a guide, she worked to fit the clip back into the lock. Her grip was tight and sure as she turned it in the lock.