"Sorry. AJ, Aric James Monaghan. They called him Sarge because he was a Senior Master Sergeant, career air force.

"Called? Was?"

Gabe sighed. "He died on Thanksgiving."

"Where is she?"

"They don't know. She flew to Portland for the funeral. Jackson told them she wasn't coming home right away. Apparently she needed time alone."

"Jackson?"

"Sorry. You're never going to believe this ... Jude is alive too. They live in the townhouse next to AJ's. She's a consultant for Lascivio. Have you heard of that?"

"No."

"s.e.x toys. She sells s.e.xy toys and he teaches piano lessons." Gabe laughed. "And that's not the best part. Jessica and Jude Day are now Jackson and Jillian Knight. Jack and Jill."

Luke closed his eyes and shook his head.

"Do you want me to stay and talk to Jude ... Jackson?"

"No. I mean ... f.u.c.k! I don't know. Who'd you say you were?"

"An old friend of Jessica's or Jillian's."

"I'm sure the neighbor lady will tell Jude someone was asking about them, which could cause them to disappear again. But he's not the most stable guy and he could snap your neck so fast you'd never see it coming."

"He knows me, he's not going to kill me."

"Something tells me he would to keep his sister safe."

Jessica had a conscience. He never got the chance to make a definitive a.s.sessment of Jude's stability.

"You're not helping. What am I supposed to do?"

Luke flopped back on the couch and stared at the shadows on the ceiling. "G.o.d, I didn't think this through enough and I'm ... I've had too much to drink."

Gabe chuckled. "How about I leave a burner phone with your burner phone number on it by their front door. He probably won't be back until tomorrow anyway. He's at Ryn's."

"And Ryn is?"

"His girlfriend."

"Try again. Jude doesn't do the girlfriend thing."

"Well this Jackson guy apparently does. Greta said she's older by ten years and autterly adorable.'"

"Now, do you want to know more about aJillian' and AJ or shall I wait until you're completely drunk?"

The chances of Luke ever being drunk enough to handle hearing about Jessica with some other guy? Nil.

"Leave the phone and my number then get your a.s.s home to Kelly before we both get caught."

"I'll get a flight out tomorrow."

"Thanks, Gabe."

"Luke?"

"Yeah?"

"We'll find her."

He nodded to himself then pressed End.

Chapter Thirteen.

Knight Hunger.

Jillian awoke with her stomach churning. Time vanished, leaving her lost for any sense of how long she'd been in the dungeon-for sure longer than she'd been with Claire. If she made it out alive, the house would be permanently leveled. No one would ever suffer in that bas.e.m.e.nt again.

"I'm going to break your nose with this steel pipe, but not until we have an audience."

Only part of Jillian's body had feeling after sitting in the same spot for ... days? The parts that still registered life, throbbed with a dull ache: shoulder, head, back. Her groggy eyes shifted to her captor in her chair, black and blue face, nose taped, and a three-foot steel pipe resting in her hands. The maggots multiplied in the bowl of dog food. The stench roiled her stomach even more.

"What's your name?"

Psycho b.i.t.c.h laughed. "Does it matter?"

Heavy eyelids blinked with lethargy. "No. It doesn't."

"So you don't care who I am and what I know?"

The ugly b.i.t.c.h wasn't worth the effort for Jillian to open her eyes again, so she rolled her head against the wall from side to side. "You're a psycho b.i.t.c.h and you don't know s.h.i.t. f.u.c.king h.e.l.l!"

Ice water drenched her body, sending her heart into her throat and making it impossible to breathe.

"Look at me when I'm talking to you."

She had Jillian's attention-a death glare to both her wretched face and the empty five-gallon bucket in her hands. Pure rage burned off the chilling effects of psycho b.i.t.c.h's favorite form of torture.

"So what's wrong with you? Why can't you keep your husband from f.u.c.king other women? You have to take too many breaks during s.e.x to suck on your inhaler? You don't give good head? Or is it just that you're ugly as f.u.c.k from the inside out and there's just no cure for that?"

Taking a seat again, she looked over at her inhaler. Jillian grinned. She'd rattled her, but taking a puff of it would make her feel weak. Jillian sensed her conflict. Instead, she twisted the lid off her bottled water and took a long swig, buying time to calm her nerves before sharing what would surely be a revealing comeback.

"When Luke joins us, are you going to give him the play-by-play of how you f.u.c.ked Sargent Monaghan?" She laughed, delighting in the illusion of the upper hand. "Of course you are ... or I'm going to use him as target practice." She tapped her foot against the bow propped up against the leg of the table.

Luke would always be her Achilles' heel, and her captor knew it. Knox had his usual hissy fit when Jessica insisted Luke be "guarded." They were an hour from being married, an hour from Luke earning the right to know everything about G.A.I.L., everything about Jessica. Like most men, Knox couldn't keep his d.i.c.k in his pants and the minute he forced it into the a.s.s of his comrade's daughter, he surrendered to a life of granting Jessica's every wish or dying at the hands of her father or brother. Knox knew he was lucky to still be alive.

"You won't hurt Luke."

She rolled her eyes. "What makes you so sure?"

"Because you shot an arrow in my arm, but you refuse to look at it. I broke your nose and all I get in return is a bucket of cold water. But most disturbing is the claim that I f.u.c.ked your husband and yet I'm still alive." Jillian grinned. "Tell me ... after I f.u.c.ked him, what scars did I leave ... because I always leave my mark."

She stood so fast the chair flew backward. Jillian waited for the confession of a pierced lip, clawed back, or bite marks on a shoulder. But she never imagined the words that her captor spoke just seconds before grabbing her inhaler and fleeing for the stairs.

"A broken nose, two missing teeth, three fractured ribs, and a punctured lung."

Chapter Fourteen.

Ryn slept on her stomach, sheets kicked off, bare a.s.s beckoning Jackson back to bed. The piano lesson gig got in the way of him following his compa.s.s that morning, which coincidently pointed north and had him adjusting himself several times while getting dressed. He made a mental note to remind her that sleeping naked on her stomach was forbidden ... unless she lifted the a.n.a.l s.e.x ban.

"I have to go," he whispered in her ear then pressed his lips to the back of her neck.

Her shoulders jerked up. "That tickles," she said in a groggy voice.

"If you don't hide this, it will be mine." He palmed her a.s.s.

Ryn flipped over, blond waves of hair matted to her face, and grabbed the sheet, pulling it up to her chest. "Hot flashes. I get them occasionally. Doesn't help when I'm in bed with a guy whose body temperature is abnormally high all the time."

Jackson smirked. "You think I'm hot. Nice." He pulled his shirt on slower than necessary. For the first time in his life he wanted a woman to ogle his body. Seemed only fair since he worshiped hers in search of redemption, salvation, and eternity.

"You realize all those tattoos are going to look hideous when you get older and your skin starts to sag from losing its elasticity and muscle atrophy."

Twisting his lips, he tilted his head to the side, hands shoved in his jean's pockets. "Hmm ... but you'll still love me right?"

She shrugged. "Depends. I might have to trade you in for a newer model."

"So basically someone young enough to be your grandchild?"

Her jaw dropped on a quick inhale a split second before she launched a pillow at his head. "I was going to offer to drive you home, but after that comment you can huff it through the snow, buddy."

He tossed the pillow back to her then sat on the edge of the bed to pull on his socks. "You shouldn't be driving in this weather anyway."

She giggled. "This weather? What? A couple inches of snow that's been plowed from the streets? Not that I'll need it but my Rav is 4-wheel drive. Well ... I may need it to get out of my driveway through the solid foot of ice melt."

He narrowed his eyes and grabbed her knee, squeezing it until she squealed and begged through a string of mercy apologies.

"Enough!" she squirmed out of his grip, breathless and beaming with a smile bright enough to melt all the snow in Omaha that day.

"Is this how it's going to be? For the rest of our lives are you going to critique my domestic skills? Mocking them?"

Her smiled faded a fraction. Then she bit her lips together as if she needed to suppress her response.

"What?"

She shook her head. "Nothing. Well, it's just I like when you say that, and yet is scares me to death at the same time."

He leaned over and buried his face in her neck, tasting the most addictive skin imaginable. She threaded her fingers through his hair. Her body arched into his, calling "come hither."

"It's you and me, babe. Deal with it," he mumbled.

"I'd rather you deal with me." She freed a leg from the confines of the sheets and wrapped it around his waist to pull him closer.

"I have to go." He laughed, grabbing her leg to remove it from his waist.

"Mr. Knight, are you telling me no?" She yanked his hair until he looked at her.

He squinted, looking at her clock, then sucked in a breath through his teeth. "I'm afraid so." After dropping a quick kiss on her lips and then one on the tip of her nose, he pulled away and sighed. "I'm going to quit my job after today. Then you can tie me to your bed for eternity. Deal?"

"It's a mattress on a simple frame. There's nothing to tie you to."

He walked to the door and grabbed the handle. "I'll buy you a new bed."

"How are you going to do that if you quit your job?"

Jackson opened the door, lifting a single shoulder. "I'll dig up a coffee can or something ingenious like that." He winked and shut the door behind him.

"I love you!" Ryn yelled.

He paused at the top of the stairs. The distant echo of her words brought back the flash of a memory from his childhood-his mother yelling downstairs "I love you" to her twins before they left for school. He still hated what she did. He hated his father for living a lie. He hated his sister's circ.u.mstances that prevented him from ever telling her.

The entire Day family had to die so the man, who fell for the woman on the other side of the bedroom door, could find the ability to love again. And he did ... Jackson loved Ryn.

"I love you too, hot pants!"

Light flurries swirled in the breeze as Jackson made his way home. He inwardly grimaced at his overreaction to the first snow. He should have ventured out of San Francisco more in the winter months.

Stan waved from Greta's driveway. He wore some sort of coveralls and expertly wielded a snow shovel. The guy was seventy and worked circles around men in their twenties.