Chapter 14

 

It felt all too familiar, meeting in a hotel room, talking about a woman being held hostage, planning a rescue.

“Anybody else got déjà vu?” Elle said, echoing Joe’s thoughts.

“It’s one in the morning.” Callum helped himself to coffee. “I’m knackered. Can we get this show on the road?” He looked over at Joe. “Want to update us?”

Joe turned his attention to Julia, who was curled into a ball in the armchair over at the window. As far away as she could get from everyone else without leaving the room. She was busy scanning notes on her iPad, but Joe suspected it was purely to avoid looking anyone in the eye. She hadn’t looked at him since she’d come back into the room. Thanks to Ryan’s big mouth, they’d taken a step backwards. He should have punched him twice. Joe didn’t give a damn who Julia’s family were. There was something seriously wrong with their relationship if she thought he would.

“Joe?” Callum prompted, clearly losing what little patience he had in reserve.

Joe couldn’t take his eyes off Julia. Every instinct he had, told him he’d stumbled onto her reason for retreating. He knew it, the same way he knew she belonged to him, on a cellular level. She thought they were comparing her to her famous family and finding her short. He’d bet anything she thought they considered her crazy for giving up her talents to work in an office. Couldn’t she see that the talents and skills she used at Benson Security were important too? She was thinking less of herself again, and he wouldn’t have it.

Joe turned to Callum just as he opened his mouth to shout. Joe could tell he was going to yell, because his face had turned red.

“I think Julia should update everyone. She’s the one with the best overview.”

“What?” came a horrified squeak from the corner.

Joe caught Patricia’s eye as he turned back to Julia. Patricia beamed at him, and he knew he was on the right track.

“Jules,” Joe called across the room. “Fill everybody in, will you?”

Part of him hated himself for making her the centre of attention when he knew she loathed it. But she could do this. She was the best person to do this. No detail got past her quick brain; no logical reasoning escaped it. The more he thought about it, the more he realised her skills were sorely underutilised, because everyone treated her as the scared rabbit she professed to be. But she was stronger than that. He was sure of it.

“I-I-I…” She looked like she was about to start hyperventilating.

Joe pushed himself off the sofa and sauntered towards her. He held a hand out to her. “You’ve got this,” he said in a low voice, meant only for her.

Wide, panic-stricken eyes met his. Joe let her see his confidence in her. He let her see that he absolutely believed she could do this and do it better than anyone in the room.

Come on, come on… He wasn’t sure if he was praying or trying to communicate with her by telepathy.

“Do you need a data projector?” Elle called across the room. “Because I bought one of those mini laser cube things on the internet, and it’s brilliant. We can connect it to your iPad and project onto the wall. Wait until you see the clarity of the images. And it can get so big. I love it. When I’m working alone in the office, I project my work all over the walls. It feels like I’m actually inside the programming. You’ve got to try it, Julia. It’s super cool.” She was practically bouncing on the spot as she gushed about her new tech.

Joe hid a smile. Bless Elle’s geeky little heart.

“Looks like you’re all set,” he told Julia.

Elle came over with a tiny cube in the palm of her hand. “Gimme your iPad. I’ll set it up. This is going to be brilliant.” She didn’t wait for a reply as she plucked it from Julia’s hand. A second later, her fingers were flying over the screen. “Ry,” she called to the man who was currently eating his way through Bolivia’s food reserves, “how about we call for popcorn?”

“No popcorn,” Callum growled as Elle handed Julia’s iPad back to her. “This isn’t a bloody movie screening; it’s a meeting.”

“In a hotel,” Elle pointed out. “In the middle of the night. In South America. There could be popcorn.”

“Julia,” Callum snapped, but without his usual sting. “Get on with it. I want to go to bed.”

With wide eyes and a look of confusion, Julia put her hand in Joe’s. He could have fist-pumped the air with victory, but he didn’t. He held Julia’s hand as they watched the rest of the team rearrange the furniture to face the wall Elle had picked for Julia’s presentation.

“I don’t have anything prepared,” Julia whispered up at him.

Knowing Julia, even if she’d had a month’s notice, she’d still think she wasn’t prepared. “Use your notes to illustrate what you want to say. If you don’t need to show anything, put a photo of Elle on the wall. It’ll keep her happy.”

She almost smiled at that. Almost, but not quite.

“I’ll get the lights,” Patricia called as she headed for the switch by the door. “We should have popcorn. When we watch anything in Libby’s cinema, we always have popcorn.”

“Your parents have their own cinema?” Ryan’s eyebrows shot right up his head, and Joe swore he’d smack them back down if the next words out his mouth were to invite himself over.

The room went dark, except for one small lamp over by the bedroom door.

“I’ll stand back here and talk.” Julia used the same tone she always used right before she ran.

“Do you need to stand?” Joe asked casually.

“No.” She looked at him nervously.

“I have a better idea.”

She squealed when he picked her up, making Patricia laugh. Joe settled into the opposite end of the sofa from Ryan and shifted Julia until he was comfortable with her in his lap. Then he clamped an arm around her waist to make sure she stayed there.

“I can’t give an update in your lap!” She sounded so horrified that it took everything Joe had not to laugh.

“Start now!” Callum shouted. “I don’t care where you are. Bloody talk.”

Joe cocked an eyebrow at her. “You heard the boss.”

Stunned, but cornered, Julia broke eye contact to stare at her iPad. There was silence in the room, and for a minute, Joe thought she wouldn’t be able to do it. But then she cleared her throat and touched the screen, and a neat list appeared on the wall.

“See?” Elle pointed at the projection. “Isn’t it fantastic?”

Joe nudged Julia, and she frowned at him.

He leaned in to brush his lips against her ear. “Talk, or I kiss you. What would you rather have happen in a room full of people watching you?”

He felt her go tense, and she pursed her lips as she glared at him.

“You know I would,” he told her.

Her eyes went wide. She cleared her throat again and looked down at her iPad. “This is what we know so far,” she said softly, but loud enough for everyone to hear.

Joe settled in to listen, feeling inordinately proud of the woman in his lap. Julia Collins may have thought herself a coward. Joe knew she was anything but.

 

 

“It all comes back to the missing mummy,” Julia said as Joe stroked her back.

She sat up straight, trying to silently tell him to stop it. She thought she felt him chuckle.

She tapped her iPad. “This is Carlos Esteban. He runs one of the more notorious cartels in Peru. His main business is drugs, but that doesn’t stop him from getting involved in other areas—prostitution, gunrunning, kidnap for ransom. He also runs quite a large legitimate empire, mainly real estate. And he has Alice.” The screen changed to a shot of Patricia and Alice laughing together. “Alice is Gran’s best friend.”

“Hey, that’s Alice Bridges,” Ryan said around a mouthful of food. “She’s a documentary film producer. Do you know anyone who isn’t famous?”

“Me.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Ryan said.

“How do you know this stuff?” Elle said. “Do you spend all your free time watching TV?”

“You lot are just jealous because I figured out Julia’s secret before you. Admit it. I have mad skills.”

Callum leaned over and smacked Ryan on the back of his head. “Son, you need to learn to keep your mouth shut.”

“Son? You’re, what? Twelve years older than me.”

“I’m talking about maturity.”

“Oh, okay, in that case, I can’t argue.” Ryan settled back in his seat.

“Anyway,” Julia said as loudly as her courage would allow, “Gran and Alice were after a mummy, but it was stolen and sold to a middleman, who then sold it on. If we’re to get Alice back, we need the mummy.”

“Who has it now?” Callum said.

“I’m working on finding that out.” Elle pointed at the stolen laptop, which was hooked up to her state-of-the-art machine. “Tracing as we speak.”

“We did find out that the buyer is local,” Ed said from where he was sitting beside Patricia. A little too closely beside her, Julia noticed.

“Which means the mummy is still in Bolivia.” Joe’s arm tightened around Julia as he spoke.

“We hope so.” Julia fought to ignore his touch and concentrate on business. All the while knowing that, at some point, she would have to deal with the trauma of conducting a meeting from Joe’s lap. “All we know for sure is that we have two days to find it and trade it for Alice.”

There was a heavy silence.

“Couldn’t you lot use your ninja skills and break her out without trading the mummy?” Patricia sounded hopeful.

“Not enough people,” Callum said. “Carlos’ compound is fortified and manned by an army. It would be a suicide mission.”

“Why do they want the mummy anyway?” Elle asked.

“It’s wearing a treasure map that leads to Incan gold,” Ed said.

Elle’s eyes lit up in the reflected light from the projection. “That is so cool.”

Callum seemed to groan, but it was so quiet that Julia wasn’t sure if she’d imagined it.

“There’s another complication,” Joe said, and Julia felt his voice vibrate throughout her body. “Seems Grandma is the only one who can read the map. It’s written in some Incan code.”

“Hey.” Patricia threw a cushion at his head. It hit Julia instead. “I’m not your grandma.”

“Not yet,” Joe mumbled, his hand resting on Julia’s knee.

Not yet. What did that mean? There was only one possible answer, and it sucked the air out of Julia’s lungs.

Danger! Danger! Run! Abort!

“Breathe,” the devil whispered against her ear as he stroked her back. “It was a joke.”

She wasn’t so sure. It didn’t feel like a joke.

“Esteban isn’t going to take the mummy without taking Patricia too.” Callum rubbed his jaw. He did look weary, reminding Julia that the team had travelled halfway around the world to help them. “He doesn’t want a swap. He wants it all.”

“I figured he’s probably tailing us,” Joe said. “That’s what I would do. Follow Patricia to the mummy; take it and the woman. Then off Alice. Everything tied up with a neat bow.”

Julia turned and smacked his chest. “You can’t talk about Alice like that.”

“Sorry, baby.” He captured the hand that had smacked him and pressed a kiss to the palm. Julia sucked in a shaky breath.

The silence in the room was deafening as everyone watched their interaction with fascination. Julia fought the urge to burrow into Joe and hide until the attention focused elsewhere.

“I agree. Esteban has no intention of trading Alice,” Callum said with absolute confidence.

The weight of his words pressed down on Julia’s heart. She looked at her gran and saw her eyes turn glassy with tears.

“They’ll trade her for me,” Patricia said firmly.

“No!” Julia jumped off Joe’s lap. “You can’t do that. It’s a death sentence. As soon as Carlos is finished with you, he’ll kill you.”

“But he won’t do it until he has the treasure. It will give you time to get me out.”

“Come here.” Joe grabbed her wrist and jerked her back into his lap. “No one’s trading Patricia to the psychopath.”

“I don’t know,” Ryan said. “It sounds like a good plan to me.”

That earned him another smack from Callum. At this rate, Ryan would have brain damage by the time they got back to the UK.

“That’s because you haven’t heard Julia’s plan.” Joe rubbed the inside of her wrist. “Tell them.”

Plan? Was the man insane? She didn’t have a plan. She didn’t have anything. Most days she didn’t have the will to get out of bed, let alone solve a mess like this.

“Julia?” Callum’s voice brought her eyes around to him. “What’s the plan?”

“Joe?” she whispered.

“I saw it in your notes,” he whispered back.

Julia’s eyes went to her iPad and she flicked through the notes she’d made. Page after page of them, all neatly organised.

Ryan whistled as the pages appeared on the screen. “That is seriously impressive, Julia.”

Her heart stuttered when she hit the page Joe was talking about. “This is the plan.”

The team were quiet as they read her detailed notes.

“It could work.” Ryan sounded impressed.

“It will work,” Joe said. “If we find the treasure first, Esteban will lose interest in Patricia, and that eliminates her from the threat of kidnapping. Which only leaves Alice to worry about, and we can trade the gold for her safe return.”

“I like this idea,” Ed said. “I’d be much happier if we had the treasure instead of letting Esteban get his hands on it. Gives us more options. Plus,” he grinned, “maybe we can skim something off the haul to make this worth our while.”

Patricia frowned at him. “There will be no skimming. That treasure belongs in a museum.” She looked at Joe. “I can see the merits of this plan, but what if Esteban kills Alice once he realises we have the treasure?”

“He won’t,” Julia said. “Otherwise we go public with the find and he gets nothing.” At least, that was the theory. Julia’s hands began to tremble as the consequences of her being wrong sank in. She was taking such a huge risk with Alice’s life. “Everything I’ve read about him suggests he’ll take the deal. It also suggests that he will probably try to kill all of us once the trade has been made. He doesn’t like losing, and he’ll see letting Alice go as a loss. Even after we get her back safely, we’ll all still be at risk. I haven’t thought of a solution for that part yet.”

“That’s because that part is our part.” Joe looked over at Callum. “We know what to do, don’t we?”

“Aye,” Callum said. “Elle, get me a name for our buyer. I’m going to bed.” He stood, and Julia realised he must have been wearing his prosthetics for far too long. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was in pain. She felt guilty, having put him through this.

“He must be in pain,” Julia whispered.

“He’s a big guy. He can look after himself. It was his choice to come here,” Joe told her as Callum strode from the room. Thanks to Patricia hiring the team and covering their expenses, they’d booked another suite on the same floor.

As soon as the meeting broke up, Julia scrambled off Joe’s knee.

“Where you going?” Joe said as he hooked her hand.

“Bed. It’s been a long day.” She kept her eyes on the floor.

“You’re sharing my room tonight.”

Julia jerked her hand out of his and looked him in the eye. “No.” Didn’t he realise that things couldn’t work between them? Didn’t Ryan’s revelations make him see how flawed she was?

She’d been foolish to hope, even for a minute, that she could give in to the pull she felt towards Joe. But she couldn’t let it happen. She couldn’t bear to look at him one day and see the disappointment he felt over her in his eyes. To feel his disgust when she didn’t fit him. His anger when she failed to live up to his expectations. It would happen. It always happened.

“I’m going to bed.” She turned from him and headed towards the room she shared with her gran.

When Julia looked over her shoulder, she saw his eyes on her and could almost hear his voice in her head.

You can run, but you can’t hide.

He was about to learn that she was very good at both. She’d had a lifetime of practice.