Black Jack: A nail biting, hair-raising thriller (Jack Ryder Book 4) (27 page)

T
hey’re not going
to let her go. She knows they won’t. Holly is terrified as she runs through the park. The sound of the waves is behind her. A once so calming sound now brings utter terror to her. She is wet. Her shirt is dripping, her shoes making a slobbering sound as she runs across the parking lot towards the playground.

Run, run! Don’t look back. Don’t stop or they’ll get you!

She can hear their voices behind her. It’s hard to run when your feet are tied together. They’re faster than she is, even though they are just walking.

“Oh, Holly,” one of them yells. “Hoooollllyyy!”

Holly pants, trying to push herself forward. She wants desperately to move faster, but the rope tied around her feet blocks them and she falls flat on her face onto the asphalt. Holly screams loudly as her nose scratches across the ground.

Get up! Get up and run. You can’t let them get you.

She can hear them laughing behind her.

You can make it, Holly. Just get to A1A right in front of you. Only about a hundred feet left. There are cars on the road. They’ll see you. Someone will see you and help you.

She tries to scream, but she has no air in her lungs. She is exhausted from swimming with her legs tied together. Luckily, her arms got free when she jumped in the water. They have pulled off her pants. Cut them open with a knife and pulled them off. Before they stabbed her in the shoulder. It hurts when she runs. Blood has soaked her white shirt. She is naked from the stomach down, except for her shoes and socks. Holly is in so much pain and can hardly move. Yet, she fights to get closer to the road.

A car drives by. Then another one. She can see them in the distance, yet her vision is getting foggier. She can’t lose consciousness now.

You’ve got to keep fighting. You’ve got to get out of here! Don’t give up, Holly. Whatever you do, just don’t give up.

Their footsteps are approaching from behind. Holly is groaning and fighting to get a few more steps in.

So close now. So close.

“Hurry up,” she hears them yell. “She’s getting away!”

Holly is so close now she can smell the cars’ exhaust. All she needs to do is get onto the road, then stop a car. That’s all she needs to do to get out of there alive. And she is so close now.

“Stop her, goddammit,” a voice yells.

Holly fights to run. She moves her feet faster than she feels is humanly possible. She is getting there. She is getting there. She can hear them start to run now. They are yelling to each other.

“Shoot her, dammit.”

Holly gasps, thinking about the spear gun. She’s the one who taught them how to shoot it. She knows they won’t hesitate to use it to stop her. She knows how they think. She knows this is what they do. She knows this is a kick for them, a drug.

She knows, because she is one of them.

“Stop the bitch!” someone yells, and she hears the sound of the gun going off. She knows this sound so well, having been spearfishing all her life and practiced using the gun on land with her father. He taught her everything about spearfishing, starting when she was no more than four years old. He even taught her to hold her breath underwater for a very long time.

“Scuba diving is for tourists. Real fishers free dive,” she hears his voice say, the second the spear whistles through the air.

It hits Holly in the leg and she tumbles to the ground. Holly falls to the pavement next to A1A with a scream. She hears giggles and voices behind her. But she can also hear something else. While she drags herself across the pavement, she can hear the sound of sirens.

“Shit!” the voices behind her say.

“We gotta get out of here.”

“RUN!”

B
lake Mills is enjoying
his coffee at Starbucks. He enjoys it especially today. He is sipping it while looking at his own painting that they have just put up on display inside the shop. He has been trying to convince the owner of the local Starbucks in Cocoa Beach for ages to put up some of his art on display, and finally Ray agreed to let him hang up one of his turtle paintings. Just for a short period, to see how it goes.

It is Blake’s personal favorite painting and he hopes it will attract some business his way. As a small artist in a small town, it is hard to make a living, even though Blake offers paintings by order, so anyone can get one any way they want it and can be sure it will fit their house or condo. It isn’t exactly the way the life of an artist is supposed to be, but it is the only way to do it if he wants to eat.

Blake decides to make it a day of celebration and buys an extra coffee and a piece of cake to eat as well. He takes a bite and enjoys the taste.

“Looking good,” a voice says behind him. He turns in his chair and looks into the eyes of Olivia.

Olivia Hartman. The love of his life.

Blake smiles to himself. “You came,” he whispers and looks around. Being married, Olivia has to be careful whom she is seen with in this town.

“Can I sit?” she asks, holding her own coffee in her hand.

Blake pulls out a chair for her and she sits next to him. Blake feels a big thrill run through his body. He loves being with Olivia and has never had the pleasure of doing so in public. They usually meet up at his studio and have sex between his paintings on the floor or up against the wall. He has never been to her place on Patrick Air Force Base, where she lives with her husband, a general in the army. Blake is terrified of him and a little of her as well, but that is part of what makes it so wonderfully exciting. At the age of twenty-three, Blake isn’t ready to settle down with anyone, and he isn’t sure he is ever going to be. It isn’t his style. He likes the carefree life, and being an artist he can’t exactly provide for a family anyway. Having children will only force him to forget his dreams and get a
real job.
It would no doubt please his father, but Blake doesn’t want a real job. He doesn’t want the house on the water or the two to three children. He isn’t cut out for it, and his many girlfriends in the past never understood that. All of them thought they could change him, that they were the one who could make him realize that he wanted it all. But he really didn’t. And he still doesn’t.

“It looks really great,” Olivia says and sips her coffee. She is wearing multiple finger rings and bracelets, as always. She is delicate, yet strong. Used to be a fighter pilot in the army. Blake thought that was so cool. Today, she no longer works, not since she married the general.

She and Blake had met at the Officer’s Club across the street from the base. He was there with a girl he had met at Grills in Cape Canaveral, who worked on base doing some contracting or something boring like that; she had invited him to a party. It was by far the most boring affair until he met Olivia on the porch standing with a beer in her hand overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. She was slightly tipsy and they exchanged pleasantries for a few minutes before she turned and looked at him with that mischievous smile of hers. Then she asked him if he wanted to have some fun.

“Always,” he replied.

They walked to the beach and into the dunes, where they enjoyed the best sex of Blake’s life.

Now it has become a drug to him. He needs his fix. He needs her.

“Congrats,” she says.

“Thanks. Now I just hope someone will grab one of the business cards I’ve put on the counter and call me to order a painting. I could use the money. I only had one order last month.”

“They will,” she says, laughing. “Don’t you worry about that.” She leans over and whispers through those pouty lips of hers. “Now let’s go back to your place and celebrate.”

“Is that an order?” he asks, laughing.

“Is that an order,
ma’am
,” she corrects him. “And, yes, it is.”

B
eing with Olivia is exhilarating
. It fills him with the most wonderful sensation in his body because Blake has never met anyone like her, who can make him crazy for her. Not like this. But at the same time, it is also absolutely petrifying because she is married to General Hartman, who will have Blake killed if he ever finds out. There is no doubt about it in Blake’s mind.

Yet, he keeps sleeping with her. Even though he keeps telling himself it is a bad idea, that he has to stop, that it is only a matter of time before he will get himself in some deep shit trouble. Blake knows it is bad to be with her. He knows it will get him in trouble eventually, but still, he can’t help himself. He has to have her. He has to taste her again and again. No matter the cost.

Their lips meet inside Blake’s studio as soon as they walk in. Blake closes his eyes and drinks from her. He doesn’t care that the door behind him is left open. Nothing else matters right now.

“I thought you couldn’t get out today,” he says, panting, when her lips leave his. “Isn’t the general on base?”

“He is,” she mumbles between more kisses.

It has been two weeks since they were together last. Two weeks of constantly dreaming and longing for her. They communicate via Snapchat. It is untraceable, as far as Blake knows. Blake wrote a message to her a few days ago, telling her about the painting being put up in Starbucks, knowing that she probably couldn’t come and see it. He even sent a picture of the painting. It is also her favorite. She messaged him back a photo of her sad face telling him she didn’t think she could get out, since her husband was home. Usually, she only dares to meet with Blake when her husband is travelling. Even then, they have to be extremely careful. General Hartman has many friends in Cocoa Beach and his soldiers are seen everywhere.

“I told him I was seeing a friend today. It’s not like it’s a lie. I don’t care anymore if he finds out about us. I’m sick of being just the general’s wife. I want a life of my own.”

Blake takes off his T-shirt and her hands land on his chest. He rips off her shirt and several buttons fall to the floor. She closes her eyes and moans at his touches. His hands cup her breasts and soon her bra lands on the wooden floor. He grabs her hair and pulls her head back while kissing her neck. His heart is pumping in his chest just from the smell of her skin.

“You can’t,” he whispers between breaths. “You can’t let him know about us. He’ll kill the both of us.”

Olivia lets out a gasp as Blake reaches up under her skirt and places a hand in her panties, and then rips them off. He pushes her up against a table, then lifts her up, leans over her naked torso and puts his mouth to her breasts. He closes his eyes and takes in her smell, drinking the juices of her body, then pulls his shorts down and gently slides inside of her with a deep moan. She puts her legs around his neck, partly strangling him when she comes in pulsing movements back and forth, her body arching.

“Oh, Blake…oh, Blake …”

The sensation is burning inside of him and he is ready to explode. Olivia is moaning and moving rapidly. His movements are urgent now, the intensity building. He is about to burst, when suddenly she screams loudly and pushes him away. Blake falls to the floor with a thud.

“What the…?”

Blake soon realizes why Olivia is screaming and feels the blood rush from his face. A set of eyes is staring down at him.

The eyes of Detective Chris Fisher.

“Blake Mills, you’re under arrest,” the voice belonging to the eyes says.

“
I
’m sorry
, Mary, there’s nothing I can do.”

I stare at my boss, Chief Editor, Markus Fergusson. He is leaning back in his leather chair in his office on the twenty-eighth floor of the Times-Tower on the west side of mid-town. Behind him, the view is spectacular, but I hardly notice anymore. After five years working there, you simply stop being baffled. However, I am actually baffled at this moment. But not because of the view. Because of what is being said.

“So, you’re firing me, is that it?” I ask, while my blood is boiling in my veins. What the hell is this?

“We’re letting you go, yes.”

“You can’t do that, Markus, come on. Just because of this?”

He leans over his desk and gives me that look that I have come to know so well in my five years as a reporter for
The New York Times
.

“Yes.”

“I don’t get it,” I say. “I’m being fired for writing the paper’s most read article in the past five years?”

Markus sighs. “Don’t put up a fight, will you? Just accept it. You violated the rules, sweetheart.”

Don’t you sweetheart me, you pig!

“I don’t make the rules, Mary. The big guys upstairs make the decisions and it says here that we have to let you go for
violating the normal editing process.
”

I squint my eyes. I can’t believe this. “I did what?”

“You printed the story without having a second set of eyes on it first. The article offended some people, and, well…”

He pauses. I scoff. He is such a sell-out. Just because my article didn’t sit well with some people, some influential people, he is letting me go? They want to fire me for some rule bullshit?

“Brian saw it,” I say. “He read it and approved it.”

“The rules say
two
editors,” he says. “On a story like this, this controversial, you need two editors to approve it, not just one.”

“That’s BS and you know it, goddammit, Markus. I never even heard about this rule. What about Brian?”

“We’re letting him go as well.”

“You can’t do that! The man just had another kid.”

Markus shrugs. “That’s not really my problem, is it? Brian knew better. He’s been with us for fifteen years.”

“It was late, Markus. We had less than five minutes to deadline. There was no time to get another approval. If we’d waited for another editor, the story wouldn’t have run, and you wouldn’t have sold a record number of newspapers that day. The article went viral online. All over the world. Everyone was talking about it. And this is how you thank me?”

I rise from the chair and grab my leather jacket. “Well, suit yourself. It’s your loss. I don’t need you or this paper.”

I leave, slamming the door, but it doesn’t make me feel as good as I thought it would. I pack my things in that little brown box that they always do in the movies and grab it under my arm before I leave in the elevator. On the bottom floor, I hand in my ID card to the guard in the lobby and Johnson looks at me with his mouth turned downwards.

“We’ll miss you, Miss Mary,” he says.

“I’ll miss you too, Johnson,” I say, and walk out the glass doors, into the streets of New York without a clue as to what I am going to do. Living in Manhattan isn’t cheap. Living in Manhattan with a nine-year old son, as a single mom isn’t cheap at all. The cost for a private school alone is over the roof.

I whistle for a cab, and before I finally get one, it starts to rain, and I get soaked. I have him drive me back to my apartment and I let myself inside. Snowflake, my white Goldendoodle is waiting on the other side of the door, jumping me when I enter. He licks me in my face and whimpers from having missed me since I left just this morning. I sit down on my knees and pet him till he calms down. I can’t help smiling when I am with him. I can’t feel sad for long when he’s around. It’s simply not possible. He looks at me with those deep brown eyes.

“We’ll be alright, won’t we, Snowflake? I’m sure we will. We don’t need them, no we don’t.”