Carla Cassidy - Interrogating the Bride

All she wanted to do was get back to her little apartment in Kansas City. She’d never go off on a trip with a man again unless they were married. In fact, she might never date again, she had so badly misjudged Jason Worthington.

“I’m really flying back to Kansas City,” he replied. He turned his head and looked at her for the first time. His eyes were a startling pale blue and narrowed in cool unfriendliness. “Now you want to tell me who you are and why you were hiding out in the plane? And I’m not even going to ask why you’re wearing a wedding gown.”

A flush rose to her cheeks. “My name is Caylee Warren. Three days ago I flew down here with Jason to be his guest for a weeklong vacation.”

“So how did you get into the back of the plane?”

“I really don’t think that’s any of your business,” she replied. The last thing she wanted was to tell anyone how foolish she’d been. And God, she’d been foolish going off with a man she barely knew.

“Did you marry him or were you playing some kind of fantasy game? You know, doctor and nurse, cheerleader and quarterback, bride and groom.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffed, once again a flare of heat warming her cheeks.

“Hey, I’m not the one dressed like a wedding cake topper and hiding in the back of a plane,” he replied.

“No, you would be the one stealing a plane,” she retorted.

“Not stealing, recovering,” he replied. “And if you’re going to sit there, buckle in.” It was a command rather than a request.

She did as he said, buckling the seatbelt around her. “I told you my name, now why don’t you tell me yours.”

“Micah Stone.”

Micah Stone. She rolled the name around in her head. It suited him. Hard and solid.

It had taken them a little over three hours to fly from Kansas City to the small island of Fortuna, so she was stuck with Mr. Micah Stone for at least the next couple of hours.

She stared out the plane window where the darkness was profound. It was impossible to see landmarks or anything of interest. She couldn’t believe she’d gotten herself into such a mess. She’d acted uncharacteristically impulsive with crushing results.

Micah was obviously a man who didn’t care much for conversation. The silence stretched between them, thick and uncomfortable, until finally she couldn’t stand it any longer.

“This is what you do for a living? Take back things from unsuspecting saps who haven’t paid their bills?”

“Jason Worthington isn’t exactly an unsuspecting sap,” he replied. “He’s worth a fortune, but he’s not above the law that governs normal people. If you don’t pay your bills you lose your toys.”

“Jason Worthington is a psychotic creep,” she blurted out and then bit her lower lip to stop herself from saying anything more.

Micah cast her a glance that told her he thought it was possible she was one of the toys Jason had bought and paid for. She stiffened her back, deciding she didn’t much like Micah Stone.

What she wanted to do was explain the events that had brought her here, the craziness that had resulted in her hiding in the back of a plane clad in a wedding dress. But Micah Stone deserved no explanation for her behavior.

Once again a tense silence descended between them. She tucked a strand of her long, dark hair behind her ear and cast him a surreptitious look.

He had massive shoulders, and even though he was seated, she could tell his legs were long and lean. Physically he was the type of man who had always made her heart beat just a little faster. But she sensed something dark inside him that told her she didn’t want to get to know him any better than what the circumstances warranted.

But she needed something from him, so when he glanced at her with those cool, pale blue eyes, she offered him a friendly smile. “I was wondering if maybe you could do me a favor when we get back to Kansas City?”

“What’s that?” he asked, although his tone let her know he didn’t particularly like the idea of doing her any favors.

“I don’t know where you’re dropping off this plane, but would it be possible for you to drive me to my apartment on the north side of town? I don’t have my purse with my ID or any money, so taking a cab is out of the question.”

“Before I agree to do anything you have to tell me how you ended up in here—dressed like you are— without your purse or anything else.” Those arctic eyes of his gazed at her curiously.

Caylee frowned. She wanted to tell him again that it was really none of his business, but she also needed a ride home. The last thing she wanted to do was call any of her family members and confess her stupidity to them.

“I met Jason about a month ago at the jewelry store I own, Rings and Things. It’s in the Oakridge Mall. Ever been there?” It was a stupid question. He didn’t look like a man who spent much time in a mall. “Anyway, he seemed charming and bright and when he asked me out, I didn’t see any reason not to go. So we’d been seeing each other for the last month, and then he suggested this trip to Fortuna. He told me his family had a place here and that I’d have my own suite of rooms.”

She realized she was rambling. She always chattered too much when she was nervous and it suddenly struck her that she had no idea what kind of man Micah Stone was, had no idea if she’d escaped from one psycho into the arms of another.

“Go on,” he said curtly.

He didn’t look like a psycho. But then Jason hadn’t looked like one either, and that man was positively certifiable. She sighed, realizing she really didn’t have any other choice but to trust the man in the pilot’s seat.

“Anyway, we got there and things were okay, even though I started noticing things about him that bugged me. By the next day I realized he wasn’t anyone I wanted to be with, but I figured I’d finish the trip and once we got back to Kansas City I wouldn’t date him anymore. Then tonight he brought me this dress and insisted that I try it on. Then he started talking about how we’d be married as soon as possible and he’d never let me leave his side. That was when I knew I had to get out of there.”

She paused a minute, remembering the glint of madness that had shone from Jason’s eyes. She’d never been so afraid in her life.

“Anyway, when I went into the bathroom to change out of this dress, I snuck out the window and ran,” she continued. “I hid in the plane because I overheard Jason telling his pilot to fly back to Kansas City first thing in the morning and pick up some personal items Jason wanted from his house. I figured I could hide out and be back home before Jason realized I was gone from Fortuna.”

She waited for him to say something, to say anything but he remained silent. He probably thought she was all kinds of a fool to go on a weeklong holiday with a man she didn’t know well.

“So, are you going to give me a ride home when we get to town or are you going to force me to call one of my relatives and let them know how utterly stupid I’ve been?” she finally asked.

“I’ll drive you home,” he said and those were the last words he spoke to her for the duration of the flight.

Caylee spent the time staring out at the night sky and wondering how she’d been such a bad judge of character. Jason had seemed so nice, so normal during the six dates they’d had before going to Fortuna.

Of course, she’d been out of the dating game for years before she’d met him. Since taking the helm of the jewelry business five years ago, she’d been focused solely on the shop with no time for socializing.

She glanced back at Micah. God, the man was a hunk. Jason had been handsome in a boyish, charming kind of way, but there was nothing boyish about Micah Stone.

The dark clothes he wore only enhanced an aura of hardness, of danger. He looked like a man who could handle anything life threw at him. But just because she liked the way he looked didn’t mean she’d like him as a man. In fact, she’d only been in his presence a couple of hours, had only exchanged a few sentences with him, but already she had a feeling that she didn’t like him.

But at the moment she needed him. Once he got her safely to her apartment, then she could put him and this entire fiasco behind her.

A sense of relief filled her as the plane descended quickly and she looked down and saw the lights playing on the Missouri River. She assumed he was landing at the downtown airport rather than Kansas City International Airport, which was to the north of the city. The downtown airport with its shorter runways and close proximity to the river better suited small planes for landing and taking off.

They had just touched down and taxied into a hangar when she heard the distinctive ring of a cell phone. Micah cut the plane engine, reached into his pocket and pulled out the phone.

“Yeah. Just landed and hit the hangar,” he said into the phone. He listened for a minute, then cast a narrowed glance toward Caylee. “I picked up a passenger along the way. I’ll explain later.”

He listened some more, and even though she wouldn’t have thought it possible, his features tightened, appeared to grow more lean and dangerous as he stared at her.

“Yes, I understand. Okay. See you in half an hour.” He hung up the phone, his gaze still intent on Caylee. “Jason Worthington was found stabbed to death in his family home on Fortuna Island an hour ago. The police are looking for you for questioning.” Micah’s pale eyes narrowed to slits. “You want to tell me what really happened there tonight or should I just drive you directly to the nearest police station?”

Micah had to hand it to her, she was either the best actress he’d ever seen or she was genuinely stunned by his words. Her green eyes stared into his as if seeking a punch line to a very bad joke.

“Jason is dead? Murdered?” Her voice was little more than a faint whisper as her face turned as white as the wedding gown she wore. “But that’s impossible. He was fine when I left the house.”

“That was my partner Luke on the phone. The details coming out of Fortuna are sketchy at the moment, but he thinks it’s a good idea if I go underground for a couple of days until we see how this thing shakes down.” She stared at him as if he were speaking a foreign language. “Did you kill him?”

His question obviously cut through the fog that had momentarily gripped her. She straightened her back and lifted her chin, her eyes burning overly bright. “I certainly did not.” She released a small gasp and shook her head so vehemently her long, dark hair flew around her face. “I just wanted to get away from him. I just wanted to go home. I certainly didn’t want him dead.”

He unbuckled his seat belt. “We need to get out of here. Luke left his car for me. I’m supposed to meet him and Troy at a safe house our company owns.”

He opened the plane door but she grabbed him by the arm, her face still a sickly pallor. “But, what about me? What am I supposed to do?”

Micah had no idea if she was guilty as sin or as innocent as she appeared, but he definitely knew the worst place they could be at the moment was in the plane that had disappeared from Jason Worthington’s place on the night he’d been murdered.

“I’m going to meet my partners,” he said. “As far as I’m concerned you have two choices,” he said, a bit reluctantly. “You can either come with me or I can drop you at your apartment where I imagine you’ll be visited by some of the men in blue within the hour.”