Temptation, The Complete Serial Series 1-4 (The Temptation Serial Series) (5 page)

This was the worst idea in the history of bad ideas. Morgan almost never flew, and she was horrendous when she did.
And
she complained about my driving. She even broke out in hives! “Morg, I can go by myself. I’m a big girl.”

“No!” she shrieked before composing herself. “No, I’m totally fine. I just hate airplanes, and wind and wings and clouds and heights. It’s fine. I’m fine. Really, I’m fine. Totally fine.”

The fact that she’d said the word
fine
five times in a row in a voice that resembled Alvin the Chipmunk meant she was anything but. I patted her back as the stewardess asked us to fasten our safety belts. Morgan put her tray in the upright position and grabbed all of the reading material from the pocket of the seatback in front of her, scanning it intently as the woman explained how the breathing apparatuses worked and how we could use our seat cushions as floatation devices. Morgan clutched her chest and began to hyperventilate. I handed her the barf bag and told her to breathe into it.

Slipping two Dramamine pills into a small bottle of water, I made her drink the whole thing. Hey, don’t judge. I’m a great friend. I even wiped the drool off her mouth mid-flight.

***

The Big Apple was enormous. Teeming with people, cars, light and sound, it was a dancer’s wet dream. I was in heaven. Not only did Shane get us a suite in Times Square, he also sprang for tickets to see a Broadway show, a private tour company to show us around the city, a private boat to take us to Liberty Island, made dinner reservations for two nights, and called to check on Morgan every half hour.

That boy was a mess without her, and she missed him, too. When they weren’t Face-timing, they were texting. When texting wasn’t enough, they were calling.

We were walking down the steps from the Museum of Natural History when I turned to Morgan. “Babe, I’ve got this. I’ll hang out in the city for a week or two while the cops figure everything out. Go home to him.”

She shook her head defiantly; that spark present. “No way. I would never leave you like this. Besides, I need you for my shoot and we start shooting tomorrow. We have to rent a car and take a little trip to get to one of the sites, though.”

“Where is the site?”

“Not too far. It’s within driving distance. No planes.” She smiled a too-bright smile. I bet she was glad about that, but the fact that she was being all cryptic creeped me out. She was normally an open book. I squinted at her, but she ignored me and started prattling on about the street vendors and the boulders in Central Park.

***

New York was a fantastic experience and I was grateful to Shane for it, although I’d find a way to repay him and Morgan for the trip. They wouldn’t accept money outright, so I had to get creative. No one was paying my way, and money often ruined friendships. Morgan tucked herself into the driver’s seat of the rented Corolla and buckled her safety belt, nodding for me to do the same. “I can drive if you want,” I offered.

“No!” She cleared her throat and I attempted not to take offense. “No, I’m good. Maybe you can take a turn later or something.” Smiling brightly, she shifted into drive and we took off into the early morning sunlight that bathed the city. “It’s a long drive, so yeah, I’ll need a break. Later.”

“Later,” I echoed.

She smiled and quickly nodded.

“Where are we going, anyway, and where’s the fire? I thought we were scheduled to be in New York a few more days?”

I didn’t miss the way her eyes darted nervously toward me and then back to the road. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just want to get started on the project!” Her tone was an octave too high.

“Listen up, kid. And yes, I can call you that because I’ll be thirty in less than twenty-four hours. I know when you’re lying. And you, Morgan Justice, are lying to me right now.”

She stiffened her arms and sucked in a deep breath. “Well, there was a slight complication, but Shane is all over it. Riley’s helping out now, and we’re going to figure everything out. There’s no need to worry.”

“What complication?” I asked, turning my legs toward her.

Morgan tucked her dark hair back behind her ear and smiled for a second. “So, I went out to get coffee and bagels yesterday and when I came back, there was something waiting outside the door.”

“A severed head?” I laughed.

She shook her head. “A note and some sort of coin with a weird symbol on it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Shane said not to scare you. You’ve been so out of sorts, Brook, and I didn’t want you to know
he
’d found you.”

And
he
had.
He
had found us both. Tears clogged my throat. It was one thing for this son of a bitch to threaten me, but it was entirely another for him to threaten Morgan. “What did the note say?” I asked cautiously.

She glanced toward me. “It was different; definitely angry and more unstable, I’d say. I think he was mad that you left Vegas.”

I’d shown her the other notes so she would know what was going on in case something happened to me. Hell, I’d given her copies, just in case.

“His tone was…frightening. It’s like he sees you as a possession, Brooklyn. Not as a person.”

It took me a few minutes to process things, but after I thought about it all, I looked at my best friend. “I want a few things, Sin. I want the letter and coin, and then after your shoot, I want you to take me somewhere
he
can’t find us. Then I want you to go home.”

She began to protest about leaving, but I stopped her. “You need to go home. Just make sure he can’t find me. We’ll find somewhere small, in the middle of nowhere. Then, you leave. And give me your phone.”

“But I need to call Shane . . .”

Holding out my hand, I waited. She finally gave it up and I found mine in the bottom of my purse. Pushing the button on the console, I waited until the window was down and chucked them both into rush-hour traffic, earning honks and curses from the drivers beside us.

Good riddance, New York
. My namesake sucked. It was such a huge city, but
he
found me there anyway. I had to change tactics. Smaller, no name town. Somewhere everyone knew everyone else, where little old biddies sat on their porches and gossiped until the sun went down, and would make sure they knew if any outsider encroached on their turf. Bigger wasn’t always better, after all.

Dressed as a maintenance worker, I watched from down the hallway as Morgan lifted the rose, the coin, and the note that I’d sealed. The coin belonged to my late father, a prominent attorney in the city of Las Vegas. He gave it to me the day I graduated from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, earning my Bachelor’s Degree in Criminal Justice. He thought I was going to law school, just like him, and that I was following in his footsteps. But I didn’t want to be like him. He thought Mother was ignorant of his affairs, but she knew of every woman he took into his bed, or on his desk, or in his car. And she grew bitter and tired of confronting him with his behavior, only to have the fact that she would be left penniless thrown into her face. Mother had grown up in poverty and had no intention of returning there. I couldn’t blame her for that.

When Peter began seeing Kate behind Brooklyn’s back I thought of revealing it to her, but thought better of it. I didn’t want her to resent me. I wanted her to cling to me.

She had never cheated on a man she dated. Brooklyn was virtuous, though she was temptation incarnate. She was my sweet paradox.

Morgan’s hands shook, rattling the paper, as she read the note I’d left for her friend. And mine trembled, wanting to strangle her for invading our privacy.

She’d better give Brooklyn the gifts. Brooklyn had angered me. I only meant to visit her at Shane’s house, but his alarm sounded and I was afraid the behemoth might shoot me. Instead of inviting me in, they closed me out. They called the police for help, as though I were some sort of criminal.

And then she ran. And she didn’t just run across the city or state, she hopped on a plane and flew across the entire damn country. Didn’t she know how I felt about her? That I would keep her safe? Treasure her? Didn’t she know I loved her more than my own life?

I had my father to thank for Brooklyn. Without his ties to prominent people and favors owed, I wouldn’t have gotten the job, wouldn’t have been put on the case, and wouldn’t have met Brooklyn. Now I couldn’t let anything jeopardize our relationship. This was fate.

So I followed her. And I would keep following her until she saw for herself.

I would never let her go.

***

From my hotel room, which was just a floor above Brooklyn and Morgan’s, my fingers slid over the keys of the computer. I’d installed a program to track Brooklyn’s phone and saw that she was in New York, but was moving at a rapid clip.

She was in a car on the freeway. At rush hour. Didn’t she know how dangerous that was? I watched the blip across the screen until the blip beeped twice and disappeared. She was gone.

I rushed out the door, down the back staircase and down the seventeen flights of stairs to the ground floor. My shaking legs carried me to the front of the building where a line of cabs was parked, waiting for their next customer. It would be me. I had to find her, to make sure she was okay.

Morgan might have known that losing the phones was necessary, but she still alternated between pouting and giving me the stink eye until we found a small convenience store that sold pre-paid cells. When Shane answered her call, he wasn’t exactly amused either. But in the end, he agreed that we did the right thing. She had a way of making him see the logic in almost anything. Morgan was his calm. I wondered if I would ever find mine.