Deadlock
by Cherrie Lynn
Copyright © 2019 by Cherrie Lynn. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.
Chapter One
I’m going to kill my sister.
Lindsey Morris gritted her teeth into a smile for the photo her jolly aunt Martha snapped, the silent threat in her head becoming more of a inevitable truth with each passing moment. God knows, it wasn’t unlike Lana to flake out on her, but their parents’ fortieth anniversary party was something the two of them had been planning for months. All for Lana to leave Lindsey holding the bag. Again.
Relieved from picture duty at last, she left her parents and hustled across the banquet hall in her towering heels to check on the champagne, dodging cousins and uncles and aunts. She hadn’t seen some of them in years. If a certain twin sister hadn’t left her running this entire show, she might have had time to stop and catch up with each of them.
It all had come together nicely, though. Her parents were beaming in front of a life-size poster of one of their wedding pictures, forty years having done nothing to dim their happiness and love for each other. Lindsey snapped a picture of her own before slipping out the door to dial Lana. As expected, her sister’s voicemail greeting chirped in her ear.
“Hello?” A long pause ensued, during which Lindsey’s blood pressure spiked. “Gotcha! Sorry, you don’t get to talk to me right now. If you want to talk to me later, better make it good.”
Lindsey waited for the tone. “I don’t want to talk to you. I want to strangle you. Dammit, Lana, I cannot believe you’ve done this to me. Where are you?”
Actually, she thought as she disconnected, she could believe it. She should have anticipated it. Lana had been screwing her over since middle school. But every time her twin sister promised to do better, Lindsey wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. To trust her with even the most mundane of tasks. One of these days, she would learn.
Kicking off her heels, she leaned back against the wall, sighing at the relief of a moment alone and wiggling her toes in the bliss of their newfound freedom. Thankfully, her tendency to break out in hives while facing a roomful of people hadn’t reared its ugly head yet—hell, maybe her fury at Lana was giving her the needed diversion from her asocial quirks. It was something, at least.
Whatever. She didn’t need Lana. Today was about their parents, and if her sister couldn’t be bothered to celebrate their special day with them, then they all knew where they stood in her life. As if they didn’t already. Frowning, Lindsey lifted one foot and began massaging away the ache in her sole.
“Lindsey Morris?”
“Yes?” she asked absently, intent on that one cramping spot she couldn’t quite work out. But then she lifted her head and her foot dropped to the floor, cramp forgotten.
Whoever this guy was…he wasn’t a party goer. She hadn’t seem him inside, and he definitely hadn’t been with any of the planners she’d dealt with. Tall, dark, not exactly handsome but…arresting. And something about the way he stared at her bare feet made an uneasy flush rise in her cheeks as if he were staring at her tits or something. Quickly, she stuffed her feet back into her shoes, grimacing as they were contorted back into the torturous shapes.
“Can I help you?” She staggered and hopped on one foot to catch her balance, but he didn’t make any move toward her, seemingly content to watch her awkward dance as if he couldn’t be bothered to intervene if she tottered over and cracked her skull on the floor. He waited with one eyebrow arched until she finally straightened and cleared her throat and hoped to salvage some shred of dignity about this situation.
His dark eyes were steady on hers when he said, “Your sister is in trouble.”
“You’re damn right she is. When I find her, I’m going to choke her until she expires.”
He didn’t smile. Didn’t look away—in fact, he’d begun to stare in a kind of wonder she’d grown accustomed to over the years. If he knew her twin sister, then he was seeing how uncanny the resemblance between them was. But then his chiseled jaw tightened beneath its coating of dark stubble, and Lindsey felt an unpleasant flutter in the pit of her stomach, a niggling sickness beginning to yawn, spreading its way up into her chest.
Whatever he was about to say next was something she knew that she didn’t want to hear. “What kind of trouble?” she asked, hearing the tremor in her voice even as she tried to convince herself and that dread roiling in her stomach that it was only Lana’s usual bullshit.
The man drew a breath and cast a sweeping glance around. “I don’t want to talk here,” he said. “I shouldn’t even be here.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m…an associate.”
Sure. Lana had plenty of “associates.” Poor bastard probably had no idea what he’d gotten himself into. “Well, look…I’m kind of in the middle of something. This is my parents’ party and she was supposed to be here to help me—but I guess you know that, huh?” She cocked her head at him. “You knew where to find me. But I can’t just leave. And, well, I don’t know you.”
“Call me Griffin.”
“Yeah, fine, Griffin, but—”
“Lindsey, I’m afraid she’s in danger. Real danger. When was the last time you talked to her?”
“Thursday.” Today was Saturday.
“Thursday,” he muttered gruffly to himself, and she could see the calculations going on behind his eyes. Whatever conclusion he came to, he didn’t let her in on it. Lifting his gaze back to hers, he asked, “Early? Late?”
Lindsey’s brows drew together. “Late Thursday. And then I tried to call her Friday night, and all day today, but couldn’t get her.” As he began to look more concerned, and more contemplative, she felt a nudge of sympathy for him. “Look, you seem like you care, and that’s nice, but I have to tell you… she’s probably skipped town for the weekend. If I know Lena—and I promise you I do—she’s in Vegas or New York right now. She’ll show up around Wednesday acting like everything should be normal, wondering why everyone is pissed at her. That’s how she is.”
Griffin was shaking his head even as she spoke. “You don’t know her like you think you do.”
Really? She’d shared a womb with the girl. She considered herself the leading expert on all things Lena, ahead of even their parents. “I need to get back in there,” she told him icily, attempting to go around him. He stepped in her path, but refrained from touching her. Good thing, because she was ready to start screaming.
“Lindsey, please. Go to her apartment. Look around. Will you at least do that?”
“You know her so well, why can’t you?”
He seemed to deflate right in front of her. “I don’t have a key.”
“Neither do I. Excuse me.”
“You can get one.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
He swept an arm downward, indicating the entire length of her body. “You look exactly like her. Go to her super and tell him you locked yourself out.”
“There’s more to becoming Lena than looking like her.”
“I doubt the act needs to be perfect to pull it off.”
Lindsey wasn’t so sure about that. Lena was…well, Lena. Extroverted. Confident. Flaky as hell, but when she walked in a room, she commanded attention, controlled the space, captured every eye. Her laugh was always loudest, her jokes always the bawdiest. While Lindsey could barely toddle on high heels and preferred blending in. They looked remarkably alike, yes. But rarely since middle school had anyone who knew them mistaken one for the other.
Then again, how well could the superintendent of Lena’s building really know her? Unless she was screwing him or something, which of course wasn’t out of the realm of possibility.
“This is crazy,” she muttered, crossing her arms and glancing away. “This is nothing that hasn’t happened before.”
“I’m afraid you’re wrong. All I’m asking is you check it out. Before it’s too late.”
“Jesus, why me? Why not call the cops or something?”
“Because she trusts you, and involving the cops is the last thing I want to do.”
She trusts you. Lindsey wished she could say she felt the same. And who was this guy? Again, she swept a cautious glance over him. He was someone who could blend into the shadows himself, if he wanted. If anything nefarious was indeed going on, how did she know he wasn’t in on it, and this wasn’t some set up or trap? So many terrible things Lena could have gotten mixed up in. Human trafficking, drug deals…
“Lindsey. She wanted to be here for this. She was looking forward to it. She wouldn’t have missed it.” He drew a deep breath. “I was supposed to come with her.”
“Are you her boyfriend?”
He chuckled grimly. “I wouldn’t go that far.”
Lena had mentioned nothing about a guy lately, boyfriend or otherwise, and she was usually loose-lipped about even her most casual sexual conquests. Lindsey’s wariness factor notched up a bit, and she injected all the steel she could muster into her voice. “She hasn’t talked about you. At all. That isn’t like her. I appreciate your concern, but I’m sure this is Lena being Lena. Now you’ll have to excuse me.”
When she saw defeat settle in his expression at last, she brushed around him and left him standing in the hallway. Music and gaiety greeted her as she reentered the banquet hall, pasting a smile on her face. She danced with her dad, laughed with her mom, posed for more pictures. No one mentioned Lena’s absence at all.
They all knew her too.
Hours passed before she could get away to the blissful solitude of her apartment, a glass of red wine, and a Simpsons marathon. Only then, as she idly watched Bart’s cartoon antics play out on the screen, did she let herself think about her strange encounter. Of Griffin’s dark, worried expression. Whoever he was, he’d seemed to believe what he was saying, that there was real danger.
Then her glass was empty, and she poured another, staring at the way the light from the TV played hypnotically through the crimson depths as she swirled the liquid in her glass. Lena in trouble was nothing new, as she’d been thinking over and over. Ever since high school, on through college and even after, she’d been getting herself or someone else into shit she couldn’t always talk her way out of.
She trusts you.
Those words ate into her, her fingers tightening on her wine glass. Lindsey hadn’t trusted Lena since college. That had been the final straw. She was still her sister, and Lindsey still loved her as such. Gossip sessions, shopping trips, friendship…those areas were all fine. But real trust… no, that ship had sailed years ago, when Lena had pulled what was probably her cruelest stunt of all, at least that Lindsey knew of. The thought of all the skeletons that could lurk hidden in her twin’s closet was enough to give her cold chills.
What did she do now? What if this Griffin guy was right? What if something bad was happening, or would happen if no one acted now?
Their parents would never get over it. That was the only truth right now. And if Lindsey had been warned and done nothing, she might never get over it either.
When Lena showed up sometime next week happy and laughing about whatever excitement she’d just had, well, no harm done.
Lindsey set down her wine glass and went to raid the depths of her closet, searching for the few insanely skimpy items her sister had talked her into buying in anticipation of wild nights that had never come.
Finding the superintendent’s apartment was easier than painstakingly recreating Lena’s look had been—all it took was an investigative internet search. That she could handle. Makeup and hair artistry, not so much. Lindsey had stabbed herself in the eye no less than three times trying to get the perfectly winged liner her twin always wore. The big, loose, effortless curls Lena sported took a hell of a lot of effort. And the slinky sequined top showed way more skin that she was comfortable baring, but if she showed up not looking like she was coming home from a nightclub on a Saturday night, people would probably wonder what the hell was wrong with her.
Though Griffin was probably right and no one would really question it. She didn’t feel like taking the chance of getting caught in a lie.
It had been disconcerting to stare into the mirror and see her sister looking back at her. She felt unnatural and even more awkward than usual. As she knocked on the super’s door, her knees were quaking, her palms sweating. She rubbed them on her skin-tight destructed jeans. Get yourself together, for shit’s sake. Lena never fidgets.
As soon as the door opened, revealing a tall, middle-aged man with sandy blond hair and sharp brown eyes, she did her best to slip into Lena’s animated mannerisms, giving a blinding smile and flipping her hair behind her shoulder. “Hey, sorry if I woke you.” She wouldn’t apologize, either, dammit. Drawing a deep breath, she pushed on, rolling her eyes self-deprecatingly. “I locked my dumb ass out of my apartment. Can I get you to let me back in?”
The super leaned against the door jamb and grinned with a familiarity that made Lindsey’s stomach plummet as he crossed his arms. Oh shit. “Whatcha gonna give me if I do?”
So it was like that. She wasn’t prepared for this. Mouth suddenly dry, she licked her thickly glossed lips, then figured that was probably the wrong move to make. “Come on, dude, it’s been a really shitty night.”
“I can make it better for you.”
Had this moved beyond flirtation? Would reciprocating be promising something Lena wasn’t willing to give? Would being a bitch be ruining something she was already involved in? Lindsey had absolutely no idea. This was another guy her sister had never mentioned, and she didn’t want to spend the next hour fighting off unwanted advances, so she decided to err on the side of bitchy. “Just let me in my place, okay?”
“All right, all right. Jesus. We’re touchy tonight.” He turned and was gone a few seconds while Lindsey took several deep breaths to calm her racing heart, casting a glance around the hall. Then he was back, key in hand, mouth turned down in a scowl. She must have genuinely hurt his feelings. It was something she would most likely have to explain to her twin when Lena showed back up. Dammit. Apparently, some harm could be done in a few minutes of innocent deception.
She stared warily at her companion’s back as he led the way to the elevator, hoping she’d deterred him from any further talk that might give her up. Her luck held out. And when he unlocked her door and stalked back toward the elevator without a word, she breathed a deep sigh of relief as she locked the door behind him and flipped on the nearby light switch.
Her breath caught in her throat and her heart stuttered, momentarily choking her.
Lena’s apartment was trashed.
Only one bulb remained in the overhead light kit, but it was enough to illuminate the chaos around her. Lindsey brought a shaking hand to her mouth as her eyes tried to make sense of the destruction, of Lena’s overturned furniture, slashed couch cushions, scattered knickknacks, broken picture frames. Terror froze her thoughts in its icy clutches, and she surged blindly forward. “Lena? Lena. Are you here?”
Only silence greeted her, terrible and absolute, then suddenly broken by the crunch of glass under her feet.
She bent down to lift the remnants of a picture frame that had once held a photo of the two of them. Lindsey owned the exact same frame, holding the exact same photograph. Summer memories, the frame read, along with a cute beach scene in one corner: a chair in the sand, a bucket, an umbrella. But the picture it should be holding was gone. Lindsey cast a glance around the immediate area and didn’t see it. The fine hairs prickled at the nape of her neck. Whoever had come here, whoever had done this—would they be looking for her next?
Somewhere in the back of her mind, Lindsey knew she shouldn’t mess with anything; she should call the police. Her mind kept shouting instructions at her, but they couldn’t break through the shell of numb panic.
There could still be the chance that Lena was here, collapsed, hurt… She wouldn’t let herself think beyond that. The picture frame clattered to the floor, forgotten for the moment. Lindsey charged through the apartment, flipping on lights, calling her sister’s name, only to be greeted by more of that unending silence that seemed to have its own pulse around her.
Maybe it was only her heart racing in her ears. Think, think. Lena’s mattress was askance in the bedroom. All the drawers were rummaged through. Her clothes hung half off the hangers, and a jumble of sequins and silks and lace littered the closet floor. But the designer purses were all intact. So was all her jewelry, even the most expensive pieces. Someone had been looking for something specific, and whatever it was, it wasn’t for monetary gain.
But Lena definitely was not here.
She didn’t know whether to be relieved or not. Her sister wasn’t here, hurt or worse, but she could be somewhere else in the same state. Or she could be partying out of town, the victim of an unfortunate break-in. Lindsey had no way of knowing, but all she did know was that she had to call the police now. There was nothing she could do here on her own.
She was lifting her cell phone to dial when it buzzed to life in her hand, the contact showing Unknown. Ordinarily, she never answered those calls, but this time, she couldn’t get the device to her ear fast enough. “Hello? Lena?”
Nothing answered her. No mechanical voice, no telemarketer spiel.
“Who is this? Lena?” And then she fell silent, holding her breath, listening, a chill lifting the fine hairs at her nape. Breathing, slow and deep, whispered through the connection.
“I want you to listen very carefully,” a deep, distorted voice said, and Lindsey swallowed hard around the invisible hand gripping her throat. It was every horror movie she’d ever seen, coming to life all at once. The walls began to press in closely, the chaotic shadows seeming to hide sinister things all around her.
“Yes,” she whispered. “I’m listening.”
“Your sister is with us.”
“Who are you?”
“You don’t get to ask questions.”
Lindsey snapped her teeth together so fast the person on the other end probably heard the click. Let them talk, her brain scolded her.
“I know the first idea that went through your mind was to call the police,” the voice said. Oddly, it was hard to tell if it was male or female. Something out of a nightmare. “Don’t,” it finished in a warning tone that sucked out what little breath remained in her lungs.
“Okay,” she said, stammering—and even though every shadow around her felt full of eyes, it was at that moment that she realized she was truly being watched. They knew she was here. They’d known when to call. She cast a wild glance around, seeking the source of the creeping, crawling feeling at the back of her neck, but found nothing. “I’ll do whatever you want. Please don’t hurt my sister.”
“Sit down at her desk.”
It was one thing that hadn’t been disturbed, the screensaver casting a dull erratic glow from Lena’s desk in the corner of the living room. Lindsey moved toward it and righted the chair before she sat.
“You really do look just like her.”
She glanced up, eyes widening as she noticed the webcam light was on. Whoever this was, they were watching her through Lena’s computer. Her fingers tightened on her phone, which shook against her ear. They were watching. They could see her, but she couldn’t see them. “What do you want,” she whispered, unable to look away from that pinprick of white light, held captive by it.
A sigh. “Right now, I want you to write down what I’m about to tell you.”
“Okay…okay.” Lindsey’s fingers scrambled for a notepad and a pen. “Go ahead.”
“First I’m going to give you a name. And you’re going to find them for me.”
“For what?”
“All in good time.”
“And I’m supposed to tell this person…”
“Nothing, yet. But locate him.”
Maybe they wanted this Griffin guy. He’d seemed a little shady. Or maybe this was the Griffin guy. What if he had approached her to set her up? “Fine, okay. I don’t know why I have to be the one to do this. You’re gonna learn; I don’t know Lena’s people. I never have. So I want to get my sister back but I’m not going to be the best person to look for—”
The voice said a name, dropping it like a rock in the middle of her turbulent sea of argument.
Lindsey’s gaze snapped up from the notepad, staring dead into the webcam. “What the hell do I need to find him for?”
Chapter Two
Jace Adams realized the barest strip of sunlight was peeking around his blackout curtains. He leaned back in his chair and pushed his fingertips into his burning eyes, then glanced at the clock. Jesus, he’d been at it seven hours and his brain felt like a fucking wad of cooking dough. Hell, he was losing his touch if he was already wiped out. As he stood and stretched, his muscles pulled taut and protested the movements, joints creaking and popping. If he kept neglecting his gym time, he was gonna get fucking out of shape, and that wouldn’t do. His body needed to be as well-oiled a machine as his mind.
Barechested, he strolled over to the window and lifted the edge of the curtain, wincing as the sunrise hit him dead in the face. Denver was waking up, dark buildings silhouetted against a sky blazing red and orange. It was waking up, and he was winding down, but maybe he still had the stamina for a run and a shower before he crashed. Clear his foggy head.
He rode down the elevator with Hannah, who worked at SmarTech, and greeted Jen as he exited, who worked at Encorp. Both of them had been trying to fuck him since they moved in. But he and the rest of the guys in the Nest hadn’t rented to them to get into their pants. They’d rented to them—and many others in the building who worked in the tech industry—because they needed to piggyback on their IPs.
But they didn’t need to know that. So he flirted mercilessly and beat a hasty exit into the cool Colorado morning.
Always good to keep them hoping.
The brisk air and the pumping blood quickly restored his clarity, and soon he was in an easy, familiar rhythm. So many times in life, running had been his only outlet—well, running and computers, though sometimes only one had been available to him. One had helped him escape, the other had helped him connect. Neither had been easy. Not in the foster homes. Maybe even less so in the Air Force.
But it was too beautiful a morning to dwell on it. The birds were frolicking, the traffic was cheerfully homicidal, and he had a long stretch of sleep ahead that would surely recharge all his batteries. Jace focused on the rap blaring through his earbuds, on his breathing, on the beat of his Nikes on the sidewalk. Despite the crispness outside, he was soon shining with sweat. He was about to turn a corner to head back around the block when a face in the crowd outside a coffee shop stopped him dead in his tracks, panting lightly as he squinted.
As soon as he’d glimpsed her, though, she was gone, swallowed up by the steady stream of pedestrians. Surely that had been a trick of the light…but even if it hadn’t been, even if it was her, what the fuck did it matter? He damn sure didn’t need his day ruined by being reminded of her.
Too late. He hadn’t seen her in years, but he could recreate that face out of the mists of his memory as if he had talked to her yesterday.
He could say that woman had ruined his life; it damn sure felt like it at the time. But now, with the benefit of hindsight, he knew that wasn’t necessarily true. She’d only set him on a different path. A vastly different path, sometimes a shitty one—during the darker, scarier moments he could definitely curse her name for denying him the cushy lifestyle he’d always envisioned for himself. But he wouldn’t be who he was today without her and what she’d done. He supposed in some twisted fucking way, he should thank her.
Nah. She’d fucked him over, plain and simple, regardless of the outcome. The memory of the betrayal scratched at a sore spot in his heart, and his run back to the hi-rise was at a faster clip, the blood pounding in his ears more forcefully than it had before. Somewhere, Christmas music was playing.
Good luck going to sleep now, with visions of Lena Morris dancing in his fucking head.
The knock on the door was timid, but it roused him nonetheless. Due to circumstances stretching back as far as he could remember, he was a light sleeper. A pin drop outside the door might have him on his feet even before his eyes opened.
This time, though, he grumbled a curse as he hauled his dead ass out of bed and trudged to the door, banging his toe on a table leg in the process. So when he snatched open the door, he was prepared to unleash a tirade on the unsuspecting person, but the words died in his throat.
For exactly .02 of a second.
It was her.
“Fuck me sideways,” he growled, rubbing furiously at his messy hair. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
Lena’s eyes widened and her jaw worked soundlessly for a few seconds. She looked…different. Softer. Her hair was loose and lustrous, honey-blonde, and her green eyes shone with an innocence he did not remember at all. Then again, it had been what, seven years? Eight? Maybe bitterness had twisted her image into something sinister in his head. Didn’t matter. She was probably still a deceitful bitch.
“J-Jace? Jace Adams?” As her dismayed gaze swept down the length of his body, he only then realized he was stark-ass naked. Whatthefuckever. She snatched her gaze back up so fast she might have sprained her eyeballs, her breath coming faster.
“At least do me the courtesy of remembering my fucking name,” he snarled at her.
“I re-remember. I said it, didn’t I?”
He scoffed. And waited. Whatever reason she had for showing up at his door after all this time, it had to be good.
“Um, I don’t really know where to start,” she began haltingly, “but could you maybe…put some pants on?”
“What for? This is my place, and trust me, honey, you ain’t staying.”
“Please, I need you to hear me out. And I think you’re mistaking me for—”
“I don’t need to hear shit. What I really don’t need to hear is that you’ve found Jesus or some shit like that and you’re coming to ask my forgiveness for past sins. Because you can shove sorry straight up your ass.”
She took a step back, her features stricken with shock. “But I didn’t—”
“Hang on.” He slammed the door in her face and stood there for a moment, a thin haze of red covering his vision. The balls on this woman. There was a discarded pair of jeans by his bed; he stalked to his room and shoved his legs into them before snatching a shirt from his closet, hardly believing this was reality.
MIT. Gone. Because of her. Years of dreaming. Years of work. Years of suffering. Flushed away, and he honestly didn’t even know why. Maybe today he would learn. Maybe she would tell him why she’d done it. No matter how pissed off he was, he deserved the explanation, didn’t he? But he didn’t have to make it easy on her.
He carried a little blame in the situation, after all. If he hadn’t been thinking with his nineteen-year-old dick, he would have told her no, and maybe living in a mansion somewhere right now, king of a dynasty.
But there was nothing filthier than a rat. And Lena Morris was the filthiest rat of all.
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