I am the bait.
I know I’m safe and we’re setting a trap and everything is under control, but I’m still nervous. And as our plane starts its descent toward JFK, I take another look at the text conversation on Dallas’s phone:
Dallas: You there?
Adele: For you? Always.
Dallas: Need to ask a favor.
Adele: Whatever you need.
Dallas: Jane and I flying back from LA today. It will be crazy with the press after that piece about our kidnapping. I want her out of the limelight.
Adele: I agree, but what can I do?
Dallas: Meet us at the airport? I can take a cab home, but I was thinking you could take her to your house? The press won’t look for her there, and she can rest and regroup while this dies down. Just a day or two. Would be a huge help.
Adele: Of course! You two are like my family. Send flight details and I’ll be there.
Dallas did, of course. And now the plan is that he and I go back to New York as usual, get our luggage, head outside, and then when she pulls up to supposedly give me a ride, the team will swoop in and grab her.
It’s risky in such a public place, but the guys have it planned out in such a way that, if everything goes right, Adele will be unconscious in seconds and Tony will drive her vehicle away right under everyone’s noses.
Considering covert operations isn’t my thing, I’m simply going to trust them. And cross my fingers very, very tightly.
Mostly, though, I’m going to leave the Adele side to the guys, because I know that I’m going to be mostly preoccupied with the crush of reporters and cameras.
And it turns out I’m right.
The madness begins the moment we hit baggage claim at JFK. Reporters with cameras and microphones get in our faces, trail us as we walk, and shout out everything from compliments to insults, all with the hopes of making us look in their direction so that they can get that perfect shot to sell to the tabloids or go viral on Instagram.
Before—in the pre-disinherited days—we’d have been met by one of the Sykes conglomerate’s security guards who double as drivers. Usually someone big and burly who would keep the press away. Better yet, we would have flown in on one of the family’s private jets and avoided the cameras altogether.
To be fair, in the past, I wouldn’t have attracted much attention, if any. Wealth and a household name was hardly enough to maintain tabloid interest in me, and I usually flew under the radar unless I had a book out or lunch with a celebrity who really was Twitter worthy.
Dallas, of course, has always been a tabloid favorite, but he’d manufactured that persona and encouraged it.
We get our minimal luggage, and I hold tight to Dallas’s hand as we keep our heads down and our sunglasses on. As if UV protection is sufficient to allow us to hide in plain sight.
The crowd is rowdy, shifting from simply photographing us to shouting insults, screaming that we’re sinners, that it’s Dallas’s fault that poor dog is dead.
“You’ll burn in hell!”
“Whore!”
“Dallas! Dallas! Do you think religious zealots sacrificed that dog?”
“Jane, give us a smile for the camera.”
I don’t look—I keep my eyes focused on the floor—but when I hear the wail, I can’t help but turn my head just quick enough to see a woman tumble to the ground, taking a reed-thin man with a camera down with her.
“Bitch!” the man yells as two burly security guards rush to pull him away before his fist smashes into her face.
They’ve completely drawn the focus away from us, and for that much at least I’m grateful. Even so, an unwelcome surge of panic rushes through me, and I just want Adele to pull up so that we can get this over with. But she doesn’t. And doesn’t.
And thirty minutes later she hasn’t answered Dallas’s texts or shown up.
“Any sign of her?” Dallas asks, talking with Liam on his phone. I lean close so that I can hear what they’re saying.
“Nothing. Maybe she—wait. Noah found her. Patching him in.”
“Got her,” Noah says.
“Where? This terminal.”
“Across the goddamn Atlantic. She hopped a plane to London late yesterday. She must have gotten wind of the fact that we were scoping out her house.”
“And she just answered my texts from the goddamn UK.”
“There’s more,” Noah says. “Get this, her seat mate was a guy named Christopher Brown. He’s from Queens. And he owns a white cargo van.”
“They’re running,” I say.
“Looks like it,” Dallas says, and then to Liam and Noah, “I’m getting Jane home. We need to talk to our parents today, but you guys find out everything you can about Brown and see if you can track the two of them in the UK. Give me a few hours and I’ll check back in.”
I’m tense in the taxi home, not sure if it’s good or bad that Adele is gone. I’m happy to have her in another country, but I’d rather have her behind bars. And on top of that, I’m guessing that the press is going to be just as crazy at our apartment, and I’m really not in the mood to deal.
But when we pull up in front of my building, I don’t see any signs of paparazzi. I say a silent thank-you to the media gods who are, for once, protecting instead of pelting us with bolts of lightning.
My relief, however, is short lived, because the moment we step into the building, I see Bill waiting in the lobby. Bobby, one of the doormen, stands beside him, managing to look both official and embarrassed.
“Why are you here?” I ask, but it’s Bobby who answers.
“He wanted to wait in your apartment, but that just wouldn’t do. Not without a search warrant. Even being your ex-husband, Ms. Martin, I couldn’t just let him in your apartment.”
“No,” I say slowly, dread growing inside me. “You couldn’t.” I focus on Bill, who’s standing now. And, I notice, his attention is on Dallas, not me.
“What’s going on?” I pray my voice sounds normal.
He shifts his gaze to me, then lifts an eyebrow. “What’s going on? Apparently a hell of a lot more than you bothered to tell me when we were married.”
My stomach twists as I realize that he learned about both my kidnapping and what happened between Dallas and me in that cell from the tabloids. “Bill, I’m so, so sorry. We—we should talk.”
“No,” he says harshly, then turns back to face Dallas. “You’re the one I need to talk with right now.”
