Always Devoted (11 page)

He rose to his feet once more.  "I've got to go.  Try to get some sleep.  I don't know how long this will take."

She hardly had time to catch her breath before he was out the door.  A few minutes later she heard the suite door close behind him.

She pulled Linc's pillow to her, cuddled into it, remembering everything about their love-making.

Just where did they go from here?

#

Following the directions Jake had given him, Linc parked, jogged quickly down a side street and took a right onto an alley.  Fifty feet up the alley, he encountered a six foot high fence.  His focus wasn't as sharp as it should be.  His mind was back in his hotel suite, on the floor in front of the fireplace with Emma... in his bed with Emma...finding sublime satisfaction with Emma.  He was truly rattled, not only from having sex with her but from their conversation afterward.  He had to get his head on straight and get it on straight now or what he was about to do would be a fiasco.

The fence gave patrons of the Red Door club privacy as they exited the back entrance for a smoke.  Somehow Jake had talked his way into the club and kept an eye on Levine who'd been dancing, drinking and smoking weed.  They'd learned from his
Branches
page that he was a grad student who liked to party on weekends.  Jake had told Linc he wouldn't be able to have a decent conversation with Levine inside the club.  The music was too loud, the crowd thick enough for everyone to be bumping into each other.  The good news was that Levine seemed to be there alone and hadn't hooked up with anyone.  He'd gone out for a smoke before.

Out back, Jake figured Linc could corner Levine even if there were patrons sitting at other picnic tables, drinking and talking.  Security was loose.  There were bouncers inside the club but not out back.  Once Linc had exited his suite, he and Jake had texted for updates and plans.

Now here he was, scaling a fence, hoping like hell the weights and jogging he'd kept up over the years paid off.

Linc landed on the other side of the fence under cover of a palm, balanced on the balls of his feet.  In the shadows he made his way around the perimeter until he spotted Levine at one of the tables, a drink in front of him, a cigarette in his hand.  Linc didn't know if Jake was outside yet or still inside.  He set his phone on vibrate.  Whether Jake was covering him or not, now was the time to move.

It was easy to pretend he'd been inside the club.  There were a few other picnic tables occupied by groups of twenty-somethings who were either sloshed or stoned because they didn't pay any attention to him or even seemed to notice him.  As he crossed to Levine's table and stopped behind him, he spotted Jake exit the back door.

"Mind if I join you?" he asked Levine from behind him.

Levine glanced at Linc over his shoulder, seeming unfazed one way or the other.  "I won't be here much longer," Levine said.  "It doesn't matter to me."

"Hot date with a missing girl?" Linc asked.

That got Levine's attention.  Under the glow of the back door's spotlight, Linc could see the man's pupils were slightly dilated.  He'd been more likely than not smoking something other than a Marlboro.

When Levine started to rise, Linc clamped a hand on his shoulder.  "I want to talk to you."

Levine glanced toward the back entrance, maybe thinking about calling security.  But he saw Jake standing there and must have recognized him.  Linc gave Jake a thumps-up sign and Jake returned it.

"Who are you?" Levine croaked.

"It doesn't matter.  What matters is that I intend to find out what happened to Paige Trent."

"I don't know anything," the man said desperately, trying to stand again.

But Linc had at least three inches on him, twenty pounds and a hell of a lot of workouts.  "I want a play by play.  How do you know Paige?  And you're not going anywhere until I find out everything you know.  My friend and I will make sure of that."

Levine reached into his pocket.  But Linc was quicker.  He snatched the man's phone.  "There's no cause for alarm here unless you have something to hide."

"I'm not hiding anything," Levine muttered weakly.

"Good."  He released the guy's shoulder then straddled the bench beside him.  "Then we can have a civil conversation, and both of us can walk away without any broken bones or bruises."  Linc had never played this tough guy act before, but now seemed to be the time. 

Tim Levine's gaze had dropped to his drink.  He appeared to think if he didn't look at Linc or Jake, they'd both go away.  That wasn't going to happen.

"Paige's sister Emma is worried sick about her."

"Emma?" Levine asked as if he knew who she was.

Linc considered himself a good judge of character if not a great one.  Levine, with his spiked hair and glasses, didn't look as if he'd ever attempted anything criminal or ever could.  So Linc decided to appeal to Levine's conscience and see what happened.

"Emma's not eating or sleeping.  She passed out the other night.  Becky misses Paige, too.  So I need to know what you know so she can be found.  Emma thinks she's lying in a ditch somewhere or worse yet being tortured by a psychopath.  Do you know any psychopaths?"

"I can't say anything," Levine practically moaned.  "I promised."

"Promised who?"

When he didn't respond, Linc said, "I'm not going anywhere.  Neither is Jake.  If we don't pull useful information out of you tonight, we'll keep trying.  We might even bring the San Diego police in on it since you obviously know something."

"I got a call from a detective in L.A.," Levine hurried to say.  "He asked me all kinds of questions.  But I told him I didn't know anything."

"He was probably so busy with homicides, he believed you.  But I'm not busy with anything else.  I'm on this until I get answers...until Emma gets answers."

Maybe Levine's drunken or pot-induced state wasn't so severe that he blocked out the intensity and purpose in Linc's voice.  He seemed to finally understand Linc's determination...because he put his elbows on the table and dropped his head into his hands.  "I told Paige this was never going to work.  I told her she was making the wrong decisions.  I told her hiding out wouldn't solve anything.  But she said she didn't know what else to do.  She couldn't keep facing Emma—"

A chill ran up Linc's spine—a different kind of chill than he'd experienced thinking about what might have happened to Paige.  He didn't have Gillian's skills but he suspected something about this whole scenario was going to hurt Emma deeply.

"Start at the beginning."

Levine took another drag on his cigarette.  His hand shook as he laid it on the table, the ember glowing in the dim light.

"You met Paige on
Branches
," Linc prompted.

Levine could obviously hear in Linc's sure tone no reason to deny it.  "Yes."

"You were both interested in the same kind of music and the new band Commuter X.  Emma knew Paige's password for
Branches
.  It was easy to get into her page.  Not so easy to go through hundreds of posts to find you.  But it wasn't rocket science either."

Linc let the dusky night, the hush broken by revelers at a nearby table, weigh down on Levine.

"I liked Paige," he finally admitted.

"And she liked you."

"Yes, she did," he said with a sigh.

Linc got the distinct impression it wasn't easy for Levine to get dates.  Either he was too introverted in everyday life or just lacked social skills.  Either way,
Branches
had made it easier to hook up.

"So you took your friendship offline."

"We had some long phone conversations.  I was under the impression the cops found my number in her phone records."

"But you told them...?"

"I told them it didn't work out.  People meet online.  But when they go offline, they usually don't actually connect."

"So then what?"

"Paige confided in me with what was going on with her."

"And just what was going on with her?"

Linc almost felt sorry for the guy when he looked positively defeated and started stammering and explaining it all.

#

When Linc returned to his hotel suite, he found his bedroom empty.  No surprise there.  Emma had returned to her room.  That made a statement.

But he had to speak with her.  He had to tell her what he'd discovered.  He had a feeling she was going to hate him afterward.  He wasn't sure the best way to handle this.  Tell her everything he found out?  Or lead her to the answers and let fate take its course.

After glancing at Emma's room, Linc went to the wet bar in the living room and checked out the bottles standing there.  He poured himself two fingers of the best scotch.  He downed it quickly, letting it burn away misgivings and regrets.  Confusion remained...and turmoil...and vivid memories of his body joined to Emma's.  The unsettling certainty assaulted him that he was perched on the precipice of change, not exactly knowing what that change was going to entail.

Emma's door was slightly ajar.  He guessed she'd left it that way so she could confront him when he returned.

With the trip and the stress, the highs and lows of what they'd done must have exhausted her.  She was sound asleep.  She didn't even stir when he rapped on the door.

The overhead hall light sent some light into the depths of the room...enough that he could see her sleeping on her side, her hands tucked under her chin, her hair sweeping across her pillow.  He could just let her sleep until morning, but he guessed she'd resent him for acting as if what he'd learned hadn't meant that much...that
she
hadn't meant that much.

He crossed to the side of the bed where she lay sleeping and switched on the bedside lamp.  "Emma?"

His voice must have done it.  She came instantly awake.  After she levered herself up on her elbow, she punched her pillow behind her.  Sitting against the headboard, she practically pulled the sheet up to her chin.  She felt as if she had to cover herself now?

His heart sank as he thought about the destruction he was about to rain down on her.  On them both.  Because what he had to say would forever affect her relationship with her sister.

"I have news."  He sat on the edge of the bed and gazed into her big brown eyes that carried fear and worry in their depths.

"Paige is alive and well," he explained quickly.  "She ran away."

Emma shook her head as if to clear it.  Her smile was huge as she heard the words that her sister was alive and well.  Then the rest of his sentence sunk in.  "Why did she run away?  Where is she?"

"She's here in San Diego."

The words must have sent adrenaline racing through Emma because she began to scramble off the bed as if she was going to go see Paige right now.

He caught her arm and held her in place.  "Wait!"

"I'm not going to wait to see her.  Why is she here?  Because of Tim Levine?  Is she living with him?  Why would she hide that from me?  Why would she let me think she was...dead?"  Emma sounded horrified, though, her intention was still the same—go to Paige as soon as she could.

"Paige has a couple of jobs.  Apparently she's using a fake ID that Levine got her on the streets."

Emma mulled that over for an instant.  "Has she done something criminal?  Robbed a convenience store?  What did he get her into?"

"No.  Nothing criminal," Linc assured her quickly.  "Unless staging her disappearance could be considered criminal.  But I doubt it."

"I don't understand why she would stage this whole thing.  She wanted me to worry?  Oh, Linc.  Something's wrong.  This isn't Paige.  She never wants to cause anyone any hurt or harm."

"That's why she ran away."

"Tell me," Emma demanded, seeing that he'd been leading up to this all along.

"Paige is working two jobs.  Levine has a friend with an elderly mother.  She needed someone to stay with her mother at night to make sure she doesn't wander off—early Alzheimer's.  The family is paying Paige under the table.  That's where she is now.  I don't think it would be a good idea to barge in there.  She's also writing research papers for kids at the college.  That's apparently big business.  Of course, all of that is under the table, too.  That's why there hasn't been a trace of her."

"I still don't understand why she would do this."

Linc could hear the hurt in Emma's voice.  Even worse, he knew that was going to magnify monumentally either tonight or tomorrow when she found out the truth.

"I can tell you why she did it.  Or you can wait to hear it from Paige.  She's renting a studio apartment near the college.  It's a sublease so her name isn't on any records.  If we're there tomorrow morning when she returns home, she'll stop running when she sees you."

"You can't expect me to wait without knowing everything.  Sure, I'd rather hear the reasons from Paige.  But I can't wait any longer, Linc.  I need to know what she's into and why she ran from me."

There was only one way to say this and that was to say it.  "Paige ran away because she slept with your husband.  She couldn't face her guilt any longer."

Emma's face drained of all color.