Cobra (Blue Angel Security Book 1), page 20
“He’s not that bad and besides, I can call the shop and tell them what to set aside for you. That way all you have to do is pick it up.”
“Really? Any idea what I should get her?”
“Yes, Liam, I already picked it out. I think she’d love one of those digital picture frames. With everyone just snapping and uploading pictures these days, it makes more sense.”
“She’ll love it. See, that’s why we have to bring you along anytime we go shopping for our mothers. We’re helpless without you, Jaycee,” Clayton says from the backseat.
“Okay, saps, thank you for the compliment. I think. Can we stop and get a brain freeze before we head home?”
“That we can do. Then it’s time for us to get you home. You have a hot date with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Delicious.”
After grabbing our frozen treats, we began to make our way home. That is until we drive by an upscale dress boutique and I requested we stop. If Whiskey and I are going out tonight, which we most definitely are, I want to knock his socks off. I’d kill the man with my bare hands if he canceled on me. I’m too excited to wait one more day.
With Liam and Clayton in tow I stroll into the cute boutique looking for the perfect LBD. I know I want it skin tight. I’m hoping my thongs that promise to not show any lines are actually telling the truth and aren’t just a gimmick to get women to buy their products. Almost immediately the young lady behind the counter, whose name is Sheri directed me to the little black dress section. Laughing, she told me this section by far is most women’s favorite area in the shop. Looking at all the designs, I could easily see why. She had everything from short, sassy, and sexy to long and elegant.
Tonight, I’m shooting for something along the lines of short and sexy, but not too revealing. I’m not sure if I’m ready to cross that line with Whiskey, and not just because this is our first official date. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve been tap dancing around each other for months now. It doesn’t matter that this is our first date. I just wasn’t sure after the morning I had, if tonight is the right night to erase all of our boundaries. I want that night to be perfect, to be amazing. I want it to be a night neither one of us would ever forget.
Finding the perfect dress, I smile broadly over at Liam and Clayton. Holding it out in front of me, I can imagine the intense reaction Whiskey will have seeing me in this little number tonight.
“Too much?” I ask while still holding the gem in front of me. “I’m not even sure where he’s taking me. Maybe I’m expecting too much from tonight. He might have dinner planned for us with a bike ride after. He never said whether it was dressy or casual.”
“Go try the dress on, and then you can text him on the way to your house to see what his plan is for tonight. Either way, that dress is so going home with you. I bet you’ll be stunning in it.”
“Fine, I’ll try it on and yes, if it fits, I’m buying it because I agree the dress is stunning.”
“No, Jaycee. You misunderstood. You could be wearing a brown paper bag and you’d still be gorgeous, and that man of yours knows it.”
After admiring the dress for far too long we finally leave the boutique with my gorgeous dress and matching heels. This day has been unreal. Lots of uncertainties have filled my hours, but at last we are heading home. As I climb into Liam’s truck, my phone pings with an incoming text. Smiling from ear to ear I know who it is even before I open it, thanks to giving him his own special alert sounds.
“Superman? You really gave him that soundtrack for his notification sound?” Liam shakes his head. “Remind me to thank you Clayton for not giving me something that horrible.”
“It’s not horrible, and it’s his ringtone, too!”
“Do I even want to know how he earned those tones?”
“Nope.” I say while beaming and quickly open Whiskey’s message.
Whiskey: Thinking of you. Can’t wait for tonight. Reservations for eight.
“Judging from your smile I take it he’s not canceling your date?” Liam teases me.
“No, he’s not canceling. He says he has reservations for eight.”
“Well then, I guess it’s a good thing you bought the dress and heels for tonight,” Clayton mocks me from the back seat. “It doesn’t hurt that he gave you almost three hours to get ready. Lord knows it takes you women forever to get ready to go anywhere.”
“We’re all not as bad as Kylee,” I turn around facing Clayton, laughing with him.
“Yeah, well, you are. And you know it.”
“Maybe,” I begrudgingly admit as we pull into my driveway.
“Okay, Jaycee, do you want us to walk you in or just drop you off? We both know how much you’re looking forward to your date with Mr. Tall, Dark, and Delicious. We can watch you walk in from the truck, if that’s what you want.”
“You don’t need to watch me enter. I’m sure if someone managed to get past my security, Nyx would’ve busted out of his kennel by now. And besides, you told me yourself, Liam, that it would be virtually impossible to bypass my new security system,” I sass him, knowing damn well he isn’t going anywhere until I’m safely in my home.
“Yeah, right, you know the deal. I’m not going anywhere until you’re inside your house.”
“Fine,” I pretend to be angry with him while climbing out of the front seat. Clayton walks around to the passenger door and kisses my forehead. “Be careful tonight. Have fun.”
As I walk to my door, I feel as if I’m walking on clouds. Happier than I’ve been in years, my eyes shine with a lightness I thought I had lost long ago. Subconsciously, I look across the street, knowing the man responsible for my newfound happiness isn’t home. I catch myself wondering what Whiskey’s idea of a man dressing up will be. Images flash through my mind like an unedited movie reel, as I bounce on my heel, becoming more excited than the minute before.
Stepping onto the bottom stair of my porch, my heart catapults onto the cement. I cling to the railing for support, and I walk the three steps up my porch, never taking my eyes from the envelope leaning against my door. At the last step I drape my dress over the railing and slowly approach the envelope that promises to completely obliterate the safety net I’ve been living in for years.
Tears begin to fall as I clutch it tightly, hearing Liam and Clayton come racing up my porch steps. With tear tracks beginning to cover the plain package, Liam looks at me, totally confused and fearful of what may be happening. Clayton already taking on the persona of another role, kindly looks over at me.
“Sweetheart, who is J.C.? And what’s this got to do with you?” Terrified, I look at my best friends, knowing that after today everything will change. Will they decide, like many others have before them, that I’m not worth the risk?
As the tears continue to pour down my face, I tightly clutch the envelope as fear ricochets through me, begging for a release. Mustering up the minuscule thread of strength and courage I have left, I set free the words that have kept me imprisoned for years.
“J.C. is me.”
The impact from saying that one sentence is enough to drop me to my knees. Until you have lived with the constant fear that I have, you really have no idea of how traumatizing those few words are. That name has been my safety shield for seven years, and now someone has somehow bypassed all the security measures in place and is standing at the edge of my fortress ready to attack.
“Sweetheart,” Clayton approaches me as the magnitude of uncertainty fills my mind. Somehow I manage to stand up and stumble forward as I shakily enter the code to my alarm, when I feel the envelope fall from my hands, spilling its contents. Staring up at me is an image I never wanted to remember, let alone see. In a trance-like state, I roughly sit down and pick up the image I’ll never be able to forget now. Laying on my parents’ bedroom floor is me, covered in blood. Blankly, I fixate on that picture, soulless eyes gaze back at me as I continue to ignore everything and everyone around me.
Vaguely, I hear Liam call my name. With no strength left to care about anyone or anything, I continue holding that picture, as if somehow all the answers I’ve been searching for lie within it. Clayton sits next to me and holds my free hand, yet I still don’t respond to him.
“Liam, call Whiskey, this is bad. I think this is why Blue Angels were brought in. She needs Cobra.”
Numb with fear, I sit and pray for the noise in my mind to just go away. Liam sandwiches me between them as he rifles through my purse looking for my phone. Quickly changing the phone over to speaker, Whiskey’s voice fills the space between us.
“Miss me yet, Tiger? he laughs, not yet realizing how much is going to change in a matter of seconds.
“Cobra, this is Liam,” I distantly hear him say. “She needs you in a bad way.”
“Talk to me Liam. What happened and where is she?”
“She’s sitting on her porch with me and Clayton. She won’t talk to us or acknowledge we’re here. Someone sent her a package of pictures, addressed to the initials J.C.. She freaked out, dropped the envelope. Cobra, the envelope contains pictures of her covered in blood along with two other people we don’t recognize.”
“Fuck. Don’t move her. I’ll be right there.”
23
COBRA
After Jackal’s interrogation over me and Jaycee I was too amped up to even entertain the idea of going home quite yet. I want tonight to be absolutely perfect and with the current mindset I am in, that would be the last thing that would happen. It’d be a complete disaster from the word go. If I don’t find a way to release some of this energy, the only thing that’ll happen tonight will be the death of our almost, but not quite, relationship. I imagine having your boyfriend jump at every noise, every movement around you instead of paying attention to you, wouldn’t bode well for me.
Taking two steps at a time, I head downstairs to the basement to our agency’s gym and begin to workout. At least down here I can run, jump, and beat the hell out of a punching bag until the storm raging within me is content. No one is down here judging me for breaking one of our boss’s major rules. Sorry, Gannon. Actually, no I’m not. He knew she was a knockout, he should’ve expected at least one of us to want to break that damn rule.
About an hour later, I pick up my cell phone anticipating at least one text from Jaycee, but to my disappointment there isn’t even a single hi, or I miss you. I shake my head in disbelief at my inner thoughts. Just under a month ago, I was debating on whether we should even give our growing attraction to each other a try, and now here I am being upset because she didn’t text me while she was out enjoying spending time with her friends. What a schmuck I am. Figuring I might as well own my schmuckness, I text Jaycee.
Me: Thinking of you. Can’t wait for tonight. Reservations for eight.
Tiger: Me too. Plans for tonight? Dressy or casual?
Me: Dressy.
Tiger: Perfect! I can’t wait for you see my LBD…
Smiling at her response, I tuck my phone back into my gym bag that I always keep here at the warehouse and head for the showers. A quick glance at the phone shows me there is plenty of time before our date. There’s a mountain of paperwork waiting upstairs in my office for me, so I decide to use a bit of my time to catch up. All I need is an hour for a quick shave and to change my clothes for our date.
Before I’ve even had the chance to clear one set of notes from my ever-growing inbox, my phone rings with an incoming call from Jaycee. Smiling ear to ear I pick up the phone expecting it to be my Tiger. Hoping I’m not the only one missing the other I fully intend on teasing her when I realize it’s Liam on the other end. Getting the barest of details from him I get up, rushing from my office to Shadow’s. Barging in I shout, “He’s made contact. We need to leave now.”
Jackal alarmed at hearing my brusque tone quickly rushes to Shadow’s office. “I’m coming too, now tell us what’s happened. Start with this morning, don’t leave a thing out,” he demands.
“I’m not sure about all the details, Jackal. All I know is the guy she was supposed to meet this morning was a no show. After that, she made plans to spend the day with Liam. They were supposed to go into the city for some shopping and lunch before our date tonight,” I tell them as we head downstairs to the garage. “I texted her about an hour ago and everything was fine. Then a few seconds ago Liam called me from Jaycee’s phone, telling me she found an envelope on her porch. Jackal, it has pictures of her at the crime scene. Not sure if they’re copies he somehow managed to get a hold, of or, if these were personally taken by the assailants themselves.”
“What do you mean?” Shadow startles looking at me, “She didn’t actually get pictures of her parents—?”
“From my understanding, Shadow, yes, that’s exactly what she has. She saw pictures of herself laying in a pool of blood. Now she’s nearly catatonic and according to Liam is just holding that damn picture staring straight ahead.”
“Fuck!” Jackal exclaims, “Come on, Shadow, you’re with me. Cobra, we’ll meet you there.” I don’t even respond to Jackal, I just climb into my SUV and take off. My girl needs me.
Breaking every speed limit between BA’s and Jaycee’s home, I arrive in about half the time it should’ve taken me. My tires squeal as I pop the curb at Jaycee’s, bolting to her porch. She’s exactly how Liam said she’d be.
Blank eyes stare straight ahead, and like he said, she hasn’t even noticed I’m racing toward her. She’s still clutching the picture in her hands, as I kneel in front of her and slowly try to take it from her. “Tiger, let me help. Give me the picture, please.”
With no response from her, I try to remove it from her hands when she tightens her hold on it. “That’s me… me… me…” she chants over and over.
“I know, Tiger,” I respond, but she still stares out into the unknown as if she’s in another world all together.
“Has anyone gone in the house? Has Nyx barked at all?” I ask Liam and Clayton.
“We haven’t heard a peep from Nyx, and no, we haven’t gone in. We figured with her current state, the last thing we should do is move or leave her. Besides, if there’s anything out of place in that house, we didn’t want to chance compromising anything,” Clays says.
“Thank you, both of you. You did everything you should have done. Shadow and Jackal should be arriving anytime. When they do, I’ll need for you two to—”
“We’re not leaving Cobra,” Clayton growls at me.
“I wasn’t going to ask you to leave, either of you. But can you move aside and let us do what we do best? Shadow will go in and check for any disturbances while Jackal runs the perimeter check.”
“And you?” Liam angrily questions me.
“Me. I’m staying right where I’m at. Holding my girl’s hand, or whatever part of her she’ll let me until she comes back to us,” I say as Jackal’s truck pulls into Jaycee’s driveway.
“Talk to me, Cobra.” Jackal demands running across the yard.
“No change from what we discussed at the house. She still hasn’t responded to anything or anyone. No one has gone into the house.”
“Okay, so who has codes to get into her home?”
“We do, as does my sister,” Clayton tells Jackal.
“So do I,” I add to his growing list.
“So does that mean she has three or four additional codes besides the one that she uses?”
“Three,” I answer. “She told me last night as she gave me my own personal code that Clayton and Liam share a code, and Kylee has her own as well.”
“Okay, so let’s go inside and see if whoever sent those,” he points to the pictures lying beside Jaycee, “left anything else for her to find. Where’s her dog?”
“We locked him in his kennel this morning after breakfast. He’s unpredictable if left unattended. Sometimes he’s really good and sometimes, well, he’s an adorable little devil. Last time we left him alone for any length of time, Jaycee came home and found a dozen rolls of toilet paper strewed all over her house. Then there were the countless pillows that were all destroyed by the little devil.”
Chuckling, Shadow looks over at me, “I thought she said your buddy Colby had him trained.”
“He is, but Colby informed her it wasn’t his fault that Nyx destroyed all that froo-froo shit. That dog was raised in a man’s home, not one covered in damn lavender scented toilet paper and all the pillows a pup could destroy.”
Jackal smirks at me, “Well, okay. So, Nyx is locked up because he tends to be temperamental when Jaycee leaves. That’s doable. At least now when we go in, we know we shouldn’t have to deal with an angry, hostile dog. Getting back on track boys, Liam and Clayton do you mind helping us out?”
“What do you need from us, Jackal?”
“Liam, I’d like for you to go with Shadow and check out the inside of Jaycee’s home. And Clayton, if you wouldn’t mind, can you help me check the perimeter? It’ll give Cobra a chance to see if being alone with Jaycee will make a difference in her responding to us.”
“Okay, let’s do this,” Liam jumps to his feet. “Cobra, are you going to pick her up and move her, or just slide her down a bit?”
“I’m going to take your spot. I’ll slide her into my arms once I’m down.”
Swapping places with Liam, I do exactly that while he and Shadow disarm her home. I watch as they open the door and go on alert as I hear gasps come from inside. “Cobra, as much as you don’t want to, you need to let Liam hold Jaycee. You need to be in here, probably Jackal too.” I hear Shadow inform me just as Liam steps back outside.
“Give me a second. I’m going to get Jackal for you all.”
