hung up the phone, ignoring the shouts and profanity from the one person she considered her friend.
Jessie didn’t know what was going on, but she wouldn’t bring Byron into this. Not yet. It definitely wasn’t the right time to tell the San Antonio police, either. She didn’t believe they could stop what Jake McClendon and his hired help had already put into motion. They couldn’t save her. She was on somebody’s hit list, and all the cops in the state of Texas probably couldn’t stop it.
Jessie pulled the black Spurs cap lower on her forehead and started toward the motel. Such as it was. She had been able to retrieve some money—the cash from a locker she’d rented at a bowling alley. But staying at a more comfortable place might put the wrong people back on her trail. That’s why she’d chosen the downtown area, and not the north side where the kidnappers had originally found her. Maybe, just maybe, the change of location would help keep her alive.
The accommodations didn’t matter much to her, anyway, and they were temporary. In three days she would have to leave San Antonio. No doubt about it. Staying would be a mistake, and she’d made too many of those already.
One of the biggest mistakes had been going to Jake McClendon’s hotel. Now that she’d shaken off some of the effects of the fatigue and adrenaline, she wondered what had possessed her to do something that incredibly stupid. Breaking into a suite in one of the ritziest hotels on the San Antonio Riverwalk. Holding a gun on a man like him. And with all those risks, she hadn’t accomplished a darn thing—something she should have realized in advance.
What had she expected him to do? Admit to everything? Yeah, right.
Instead, she should have spent that time trying to figure out why all of this had happened to her. Of course, two days of thinking about it hadn’t produced any answers—but eventually something had to make sense. The surrogate pregnancy plot was still her first bet, if she could just figure out why McClendon had changed his mind and decided to kill her, instead.
She checked for the small dot of lipstick on the doorknob of her motel room. Still there, and in the same spot, to indicate the knob hadn’t been touched. It was an inexpensive way to detect intruders, but it wasn’t the only thing she’d added. The small door alarm she had purchased from a discount store hadn’t been tripped. Once inside, she closed the door and quickly reset the alarm.
Jessie turned on the lights and set the groceries on the foot-wide counter of the kitchenette. In this case, the kitchenette consisted of a broken microwave oven, a small fridge, and a counter with a warped top.
Home, sweet home.
A dump, actually. It was a lot like the places she’d lived as a kid. The once-white paint on the walls was now dingy yellow. Shag carpet. A shade of green no one made anymore, or wanted. The shag had been pressed flat and had probably been that way for at least two decades.
She laid her purse aside and took the things from the plastic sack. Some grapes. A small carton of milk. And a box of sugary corn flakes—the only thing in the bunch that she actually wanted to eat. The rest was so she could have some semblance of a balanced meal.
Jessie handled the last item in the bag as if it were a bomb that might explode in her hands. A home pregnancy test. She eyed it and the food again. She didn’t know which she dreaded more.
She read through the instructions for the test and peered at the small vial that was enclosed for a urine sample.
“You’ve got to be kidding,” she mumbled.
It wasn’t exactly the size of receptacle that would make collecting a specimen easy, but she went into the bathroom and made do. When she came back out, she slipped the vial in its little plastic stand and placed it on the scarred night table. She set the timer on her watch for ten minutes. And waited to see if a little blue circle would form in the bottom of the tube.
The first minute crawled by.
Jessie refused to think beyond this test. First, she had to get the results. She’d go from there. Go where exactly, she didn’t know. She was sure there were rules to this game, but she didn’t know them. Heck, she didn’t even know the name of the game.
“Don’t scream,” the voice warned.
She didn’t, because her throat snapped shut. She knew that voice, knew who it was without looking behind her. Jake McClendon.
Jessie instinctively scrambled toward her purse, but it wasn’t on the table where she had left it. Frantically, she looked around. It was gone.
Dangling her purse on his finger, he stepped out from behind the closet door. In his other hand, he had her gun, the one she’d just bought the day before.
“You must have a whole arsenal of these things stashed away,” he calmly remarked, making sure she saw that the gun was now unloaded.
She wished for an arsenal, though it probably wouldn’t have done any good. He no doubt would have found others, as well. The man had the instincts of a cop, even if he didn’t look like one. No tux today, but he wore fashionably tailored navy slacks. Expensive, certainly. And so was the shirt that was almost the same lapis blue as his eyes.
He tossed the gun and purse onto the bed and tipped his head to the vial. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to see the results, too.”
“Actually, I do mind.”
“Tough. I’m staying.”
That didn’t come as a surprise to her. “How did you find me?” Even more important questions were, How much did he know? Did he know who she was? And what did he plan to do with her? He might just decide to kill her on the spot.
“When you left my hotel room without saying goodbye, I sent out my security people to follow you. I’ve had them watching you for the past two days, but I decided it was probably time we had a little talk.”
Resources. The man had resources and money. Jessie had underestimated just how quickly he would be able to use those two things to locate her. “You didn’t trip the alarm.”
“No. The lipstick on the doorknob was a nice touch, though. Most people go for a strand of hair or a piece of thread. Not you. But then, from what I’ve learned about you, you don’t do things the usual way.”
Jessie put some starch in her posture. She would need all the composure she could marshal to get through this. And maybe even then, she wouldn’t be able to talk him out of killing her.
“You can just get out.”
“I don’t think so. You started all of this when you came to me, remember?”
“A mistake. Now get out.”
“Or what? You’ll call the cops, huh?” He sat on the edge of the bed, the rusty springs creaking under his weight. “I think the cops are the last people you want to call. Tell me what you meant by all that junk you spouted in my hotel room. Why did you think I was trying to kill you?”
Jessie considered lying. Maybe she could convince him she was schizophrenic or something. Instead, she decided to say nothing. She eased into the cracked vinyl padded chair across from him.
“What? Cat got your tongue?” he asked. “Or do you think I’ll just go away if you don’t talk
