Caught by the Chief of Staff (A Presidential Affair Book 2) Page 17

  “He won’t let me go,” I admit and decide that sticking as close to the truth as possible can’t hurt. “He’s angry with me for keeping his daughter from him, and now he won’t let me go home.”

  “An interesting predicament for sure,” he says, and then I hear two loud booms in the distance. “I guess you should figure something out.”

  “Take me,” I say before I can think it through. “Take me instead. But let my daughter go.”

  “I’ll think about it,” the voice lies to me, and we both know it. They have no intention of letting her go. I can only hope she hasn’t been harmed yet while I was playing Rick’s deadly games. “I guess you’ll have to find us first.” And then he hangs up.

  “No!” I shout but then look around. I can’t afford to have anyone hear me and stop me from going and getting my daughter.

  I know where she is.

  The realization hits me like a ton of bricks, making me gasp. She’s been close the whole time. The whole fucking time my daughter has been no more than three blocks away. I know, because the two loud booms are very familiar. They are the same noise as the double backfire of Amber’s old minivan whenever she parks. In fact, I’m willing to bet it’s the exact same sound, because the kidnappers are keeping Rachel somewhere close to Amber’s house.

  She had mentioned before when I felt like I couldn’t live right next door to Rick that her neighbors had moved out and were looking for tenants, but when I finally asked about it in a moment of weakness, she said it was already taken. I don’t want to call her and put her in danger. That’s not fair to Amber, her daughter Becky, or her husband Aaron. I would never do that to her or to anyone.

  I can’t tell the group where I’m going. I don’t trust them—not anymore. But I feel like I have to leave some kind of clue as to where I’m going. A note? Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t like not being able to talk to them. I used to be just fine on my own, and damn Rick for making me trust him. He made me fall back in love with him… if I ever even stopped loving him in the first place.

  This is so stupid.

  I look around the room. He literally keeps nothing in here. There’s nothing but an industrial-sized box of condoms in the nightstand drawer along with some power cables. There’s nothing I could use to leave a note in the bathroom either. Where is a pen and a pad of paper when you need one? Doesn’t everybody have like seven hundred free notepads from realtors? I swear in my house I have them coming out of my ears!

  That’s it! My house! I need to get to my house, and I can leave a note and grab my keys and drive to Amber and Aaron’s neighborhood.

  I toss back the covers and climb out of bed. This morning, I threw on leggings with a floral print all over them and a black V-neck T-shirt over a pink tank top. I like the comfy layered look. It hides my love handles. So now, I just need a pair of sneakers and a jacket. I slide my feet into a pair of Converse and grab my denim jacket.

  Now, to escape next door.

  Quietly, I turn the lock on the door and slowly twist the knob. I hold my breath, terrified to make a noise and be found. I tiptoe down the stairs. I pause at the bottom of the stairs just before they open up into the kitchen. I wait and listen. And then I peek my head around the corner. The room is empty.

  I scurry into the kitchen and hear voices coming from the living room at the front of the house.

  I have to move quickly.

  “We should have heard from them by now,” Rick says, and I can hear the frustration in his voice.

  “We will,” Captain Black says. “You have to let the plan work.”

  They have a plan. That’s just fucking great. It would have been nice if they told me about the plan, since it involved me and my daughter. I don’t stay to find out what they’re talking about. I walk straight to the kitchen door that leads out into the side yard where the trashcans are stored. Rick’s house is a mirror image of my own, so I know I can walk around to my garage from there.

  The deadbolt sounds like a gunshot in my ears when I flip the lock open, and I freeze, hoping no one heard anything. I open the door and step out, shutting it quietly behind me, breathing a sigh of relief. I’ve made it this far, so there’s no going back now.

  I skirt my overhead garage door down to the far side where there is a digital keypad to open the door with a code. Thank God Rick insisted on digital locks being installed all over both houses so that we would be safe.

  Spoiler alert: we weren’t safe anyway, but I will be able to get my car and leave. And that’s exactly what I do.

  Once the overhead door is high enough I can get underneath it, I do and head straight for the door into my house. I race to the kitchen and grab a notepad from a realtor named Remy, and I pen a quick note to Rick.

  Rick,

  I know where Rachel is. She’s being kept in a house over by Amber’s house. They called me, and I heard her car in the background. I think I can get them to exchange her for me. I knew you would try to stop me, so I didn’t tell you, but if something happens, I need you to make sure our daughter is safe. Give her a beautiful life.

  -Cara

  I leave the note stuck to the pad of paper and the pen with it on the kitchen counter of the island. I can only hope Rick will see it. Rachel knows where Becky’s house is. If I can get her out, I’ll send her to Amber and have her call Rick.

  And then I realize I left my phone upstairs, on the bedside table in Rick’s master bedroom. I close my eyes as my frustration with myself mounts higher and higher. How could I have been so careless? I can’t risk going back, so I’m going to have to leave without it and hope for the best.

  I grab my keys off the hook by the door to the garage and head out. I beep the locks and climb in as fast as I can. I buckle my seat belt and look over my shoulder like I’m some kind of bank robber on the run. It takes me three tries to get the key in the ignition, because my hands are shaking so badly, but as soon as I do, I turn the key.

  I back out of my driveway and head out to get my kid back. I can’t believe I finally got the break I needed so badly. Here’s hoping I can find her and get her out.

  The drive to Amber and Aaron’s neighborhood is a short one; it’s really only a few blocks away. I park a few houses down on a side street and try to catch my breath.

  Am I making a huge mistake?

  I should have told Rick the minute I got off the phone with the kidnapper and realized I knew where she was being held. I should have trusted him, and I didn’t. But then again, he didn’t trust me either.

  Regret burns in my belly, and I’m just about to turn the car back on and drive back to Rick’s. I need to confess everything I did wrong. I can only hope Rick forgives me.

  But you know what they say about hope? You can shit in one hand and hope in the other and see which fills up faster. That old saying rings through my head as there is a knock on my window. I roll it down to Amber’s smiling face.

  “Hey, girl,” she says. “What are you doing here?”

  I don’t know how to answer here. I don’t feel like I can say the truth. But at the same time, I might need her help. Still, I feel out the situation and do what comes naturally to me. I lie.

  “I just needed to go for a drive and get some fresh air.”

  “Why don’t you come in for a cup of coffee?” she suggests, and I know I need to get rid of her. I need to find Rachel and get her out of here.

  “Oh no, thank you,” I say with a smile. “I’m heading out now.”

  “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” she says.

  And that’s when she lifts her hand.

  A hand that’s holding a small gun, which is aimed at me.

  “I think I’ll take that cup of coffee after all,” I say, my eyes on the gun.

  “That’s what I thought you’d say.”

  She pulls open the door to my car, and I unbuckle my seatbelt and step out of the car. I walk side by side with Amber, her gun digging into the side of my ribs.

  “Why, Amber?�
�� I ask. “I thought we were friends.”

  “We are,” she says, and I can hear her voice waiver. This is not of her doing. “She’s said she’d kill Aaron if I didn’t help her.”

  “I’m so sorry this happened to you, Amber,” I tell her with all the feeling I can put into it. Her family would be safe if she’d never met me.

  “I’m so sorry this happened to you too, Cara.”

  “I know, honey.”

  “Now get into the house.”

  The door swings shut behind us, and Ashley Jeffries steps around the corner with another gun pointed at me.

  “Surprise, bitch.” She laughs just before clubbing me over the head, and as the pain blossoms out from the back of my skull, everything goes black.

  “New Bromance Blossoms: President’s Aide-de-Camp Hangs Out Off Duty with POTUS and Chief of Staff”

  Chapter 23

  She’s gone.

  Rick

  “Did you hear that?” Ryan asks, and I’m still not sure I can trust him, even though Jake says he’s as solid as a brick. I didn’t vet him, so I don’t know.

  “Hear what?” I look toward him, and he’s looking toward the kitchen. He appears to be relaxed; maybe his interest is a little piqued.

  “It sounded like the door opened,” he says, reaching for his gun that’s tucked into the back of his jeans. To anyone looking in from the outside, we’re just a bunch of friends gathered to watch some ball game and eat junk food, but even though we’re laughing and casually dressed, we’re ready—and armed. “I’m just going to go check that out.”

  “Sure,” I say before picking up my soda can and taking a sip.

  I hate the pretense. All of this bullshit bugs me, but I know it’s necessary. I just wish I could have read Cara in. I know she’s up there right now, crying in my bed, the bed I made love to her in last night and this morning, and she’s thinking I don’t give a fuck about her. But that couldn’t be further from the truth. Last night, Jake and I laid the groundwork to smoke out the perpetrators by placing a big fat target on my back.

  I would do anything to make sure Cara and Rachel are safe and that they stay that way, even if it costs me my own life. So I came back home and made love to my wife one more time, knowing that today may be my last, but afterward, even if everything went to shit, she’d have our baby in her arms again.

  Fuck, what I wouldn’t give to get to watch my baby grow in her belly. I can only hope that everything goes to plan and, by the end of the day, we’ll have our girl back and can finally get on with our lives. But you know what they say about hope.

  “Hey, Rick?” Black calls out from the back of the house, and the way he says my name has the hairs standing on the back of my neck.

  “Yeah?” I say in my chair in case anyone is watching. But inside, I’m dying to prowl my house. Something is wrong with my stronghold, the place I’ve built to protect my family. The next words he speaks sends ice shooting through my veins.

  “The side door is unlocked.”

  I don’t say anything. I just get up from my chair and take the stairs two at a time. I know something is wrong before I ever get to the end of the hallway, because I can see that the bedroom door, which was previously shut and locked when I tried to get to Cara, is now standing ajar.

  I push it open and see the bed is unmade. Cara laid down like I suspected. Did she cry over me and the way I treated her this afternoon? I scan the room and see that her engagement band is in the colorful bowl she put all of her jewelry. I know she was wearing it this morning when I woke her with my hand on her pussy, and I know she was wearing it when she walked downstairs to the see kitchen full of people this afternoon, because I always look for it. Now, it sits in the mills with the earrings I had given her just last night. I joked about the earring in front of our friends, but I could tell she knew the real meaning went deeper. And now she’s left them all behind. She’s left me behind.

  Maybe she’s in the bathroom or in the closet. I move through the master suite to look, but even before I open doors, I know she’s not here. I call down the stairs the words I never wanted to say, ones I said nine years ago when I was deployed and she left me over the phone.

  “She’s gone!”

  I don’t hear a verbal reply, but I do hear a variety of footsteps pound up the stairs and fill the door of my bedroom. I don’t want to look at them and admit I fucked up and it could cost me my family.

  “What was that?” Jake says as Wes and Ryan prowl the room, no doubt looking for something.

  “She’s gone.”

  I don’t know what to do. I drop down to sit on the edge of the bed and hold my head in my hands. I’m always sure of myself during a mission, but right now, I’m struggling. I fucked up. I demanded Cara’s trust and gave her none of my own in return. I was just trying to protect her, and now it may be too late.

  “What do I do now?”

  “We find her,” Wes says.

  “She’s gone, man. She left me.”

  “Did you let me take that shit when Grace walked out?” Jake growls.

  “No.”

  “So are we going to take this lying down?” he asks.

  “No,” I say. “But how do we find her? I don’t even know where to start.”

  “I think I do,” Ryan says from the far side of the bed. He’s holding up her phone in his hand. “They called her about twenty minutes ago.”

  “Fuck,” I bite out.

  “That’s a twenty-minute lead,” Wes states. “That’s not too bad.”

  “And Black said he heard something in the kitchen,” Jake reminds me. “And the side door was open.”

  “Where does the kitchen side door lead to?” Black asks.

  I stand up. He’s right. I have to follow her trail. Everyone follows me downstairs and into the kitchen. We go through the side door and out to where my trashcans are stored, but I have a feeling….

  I turn the corner, and lo and behold, her garage door is open. I walk through the garage, not bothering to see if anyone is following me. Cara’s car is gone. She would have had to go inside to grab her keys. I made sure those were not included in her belongings when I moved her into my house with me. I didn’t want her to be able to run until I convinced her we were real.

  I take a chance and walk into her house and look around. It looks like she didn’t make it very far into the house. The living room and stairs still look as if they’ve been untouched since the last time I was here.

  “Hey, Rick?” Jake calls out.

  “What’s that?”

  “You might wanna come have a look at this,” he says, and I follow his voice into the kitchen where sitting on the counter is a freebie notepad. It drives me crazy that Cara keeps all those shoved in a drawer. But this one is different. On the pad, in her messy handwriting, is a note telling me what she should have said to my face.

  “Fuck, fuck!” I bite out and run my hands through my hair. It’s a sign of my agitation that I’ve never been able to get rid of.

  She knows where Rachel is, and she went to get her on her own. I know where the house is. I’ve dropped Rachel off at Becky’s enough times, and now I have to go get my girls and hope to God I’m not fucking late.

  I race back through the house and into my own to grab the keys to my SUV. I check the magazine in my gun and re-holster it behind my back.

  What I don’t do is notice Ryan Black’s absence from the group. I would regret that later.

  I exit through the door to the garage at the back of the house, much the same way Cara escaped her house, and I head down the road. Rachel’s friend Becky and her family don’t live too far from where Cara and I do. It’s ten minutes at best. I only hope it’s not too late.

  When I drive down a side street, I notice Cara’s vehicle. It’s a piece of shit sedan, and when this is all over, I’ll buy her the car she deserves. I’ll take care of her and Rachel for the rest of my life, and I won’t take no for an answer. Just don’t let me be too late.

/>   I don’t even bother to hide I’m here. I walk right up the front porch and knock on the door. No one answers, and I knock again.

  I hear a scream from somewhere in the back of the house, maybe a basement that’s not sealed inside, and I kick the door in. I pull my gun from the back of my jeans and hold it loose at my side while I make my way through the house.

  I think I’ve found where the scream came from. There’s a door that sits ajar at the back just like my bedroom door had. I raise my gun and take off at a run, and then I hear a sickening crack that can only mean one thing.

  “Second Chance Romance: Chief of Staff and Ex are OFF THE MARKET”

  Chapter 24

  Just run

  Cara

  Thirty minutes earlier…

  “Mommy! Mommy, you have to wake up.”

  I hear Rachel cry as she shakes me, and I force my eyes open. My head is pounding, and I feel like I’m going to throw up. Thank God I haven’t eaten anything today or I’m sure I would’ve. But even though I feel absolutely terrible, I realize my daughter is here.

  “Rachel!” I cry as I push myself to sit up. I’ve finally found her, and nothing could stop me from pulling her into my arms.

  “Mommy, I was so scared!” she cries. “They said you wouldn’t come, but you did.”

  “I did, my sunshine girl,” I say softly as I brush her hair away from her face. “I told you I would always find you no matter how long it took me. I would never stop looking for you.”

  And that’s true. Even when Rick and I were pretending like everything was fine, we were still looking for her. She was never forgotten. I look around the room where my daughter has been held for the better part of a week, and I want to scream. There’s nothing terrible about the room. It’s plain with a small window. There’s an old daybed against the far wall and a small metal card table and chairs where she’s clearly been getting her meals and coloring. There’s a door that leads to a bathroom off to the right. But that’s not what has me so upset.