Decode (Luke Series, #7) Read online

  “Stay!” Lucas shouts at her.

  I turn to look at Brina and she’s sitting on the sofa on the other side of the sitting room with Rhianne in her lap. They’re engaged in a conversation, but I’m certain Brina is paying close attention to us.

  “We’re fine for now. Thank you,” I insist to Violet.

  “But,” she whispers as her eyes burn into me. “We need to talk.”

  My heart pumps wildly as I see the plea in her eyes. She knows we can’t talk about this here. We’re 30,000 feet in the air. Maybe she thinks this is the only place we can talk about it where I’ll have nowhere to go to escape. I won’t deny that I’m a hard man to get alone when we’re on solid ground.

  “Later,” I whisper.

  “Talk later!” Lucas shouts.

  “Talk about what?” Brina asks as she approaches us with Rhianne balanced on her hip.

  “Daddy said to talk later,” Lucas says and I want to kick myself—or Violet—for being so inconspicuous.

  “Talk about what later?” Brina continues as she sits Rhianne down on the sofa next to Lucas’s head.

  “Nothing. I was just telling Violet that we’ll talk about the schedule later. Right now it’s fort-building time. Right, buddy?”

  “Right!” Lucas slides off the sofa and grabs the blankets to start building.

  Brina appears skeptical of this explanation. She can always smell bullshit from miles away. I just hope this trip doesn’t become more trouble than vacation.

  Chapter Three

  Brina

  By the time we’re checked into our suite at Claridge’s at four in the morning, I’m thoroughly annoyed with Luke. I don’t think Luke would ever cheat on me, but I’m getting a sick feeling that he’s holding something back.

  Violet takes the kids to their room to get them changed and into bed while Luke and I change so we can get a few hours sleep before he has to wake up and go to his first meeting in Covent Garden. As I watch him undress on the other side of the king sized bed, the voice of insecurity in my head keeps telling me to talk to him or at least give him something to think about while he’s in all those meetings later today. But the voice of reason wins. He needs his rest.

  As soon as we lie down, I hit the button for the lights and we’re plunged into a cold darkness that penetrates through the blankets and sheets. I’ll have to adjust the thermostat in here tomorrow. I pull the covers up to my nose and curl up on my side. Luke scoots closer to me until his warm, solid chest is pressed against my back. He rubs my arm gently as he lays a soft kiss on my bare shoulder.

  “Are you okay?” he whispers, and a slow warmth spreads through me as my muscles relax.

  “Yes.”

  “Good night, sweetheart.”

  I turn over so I can face him and, through the darkness, I can barely glimpse the curves of his cheekbones and lips. But I can see that look; the look I’ve come to know only as the look of love.

  “I love you,” I whisper.

  He lays a soft kiss on my lips. “I love you most.”

  When I wake, the room is dark and quiet. It takes a moment for me to remember where I am. I turn over and the empty space where Luke lay last night taunts me. I grab my phone off the nightstand and I’m appalled to find that it’s 12:42 p.m. local time.

  I hop out of bed and quickly pull on my robe so I can go to the living room to see if the kids are awake. I find Violet and the kids in the dining room eating what looks like a light lunch.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Maxwell,” Violet says without looking up from the plate where she’s busy picking the stems off a bunch of red grapes for Rhianne.

  “Why didn’t anyone wake me? We have so many things to do today.”

  “Lu—Mr. Maxwell said not to disturb you, that you needed your rest.”

  Taking a deep breath, I try not to make a catty remark about her almost calling Luke by his first name. I kiss both the kids on the tops of their heads and wish them a good afternoon before I leave to get showered and dressed as quickly as I can.

  Luke’s final meeting ends at two p.m. We were supposed to finish our sightseeing by then so he could join us downstairs for afternoon tea. Rhianne has been dying to do this ever since I bought her a tea set. She was beyond excited when I told her Daddy would be joining us for tea. Now we’ll have to put off the sightseeing until tomorrow and Lucas will be upset.

  Luke will also be disappointed. We had plans to go over my speech for tomorrow’s charity dinner. He wants me to discuss Maxwell Computers’ new Give Love website.

  The Give Love Foundation is something we both envisioned to help boost individual donations for any non-profit organization that meets the minimum requirements. Consumers can trade in old computers and electronics from any manufacture and those devices are then refurbished by Maxwell Computers and donated to schools, veterans, and low-income households. But the biggest potential comes from the Give Love app and plugin. People can download the app or plugin so that a certain percentage of every purchase they make goes to the charity of their choice.

  Just like Blaze revolutionized the way people interact with every device in their homes, we think this will revolutionize the way people spend their money. We just need a lot more corporate support.

  Maybe we can squeeze in a quick trip to the London Eye today before we have to be back for afternoon tea at three.

  I shower and dress as quickly as I can, leaving my hair loose and purposely messy so I can hide behind my hair if I suspect someone has recognized me. For this same reason, I don’t bother putting on a whole lot of makeup. It’s a little annoying to have to constantly think about this sort of stuff when I want to go out and do normal things, like sightseeing. I don’t really do it for myself; I do it for the kids. Luke and I have managed to keep them out of the spotlight and that’s the way we’d like to keep it. If no one recognizes me, then we’ll be anonymous; just your average group of American tourists.

  I ask the hired car to drop us off on Belvedere so we can stroll through the Jubilee Gardens. As soon as we exit the car, the August heat presses in on me. I hoist Rhianne into my arms as Violet takes Lucas’s hand. Her hair is pulled away from her face in two braids that meet at the back of her head, while the rest of her hair falls in perfect waves down her back. She’s dressed in jeans and a soft blue T-shirt today—maybe she’s beginning to understand Luke better than I had anticipated.

  The bodyguard Luke hired for us exits the vehicle behind ours once we’ve gotten at least ten meters from the car. Luke knows I don’t want the bodyguard too close so the children don’t feel they have a reason to be frightened.

  I once took Lucas to the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle when he was four years old. The bodyguard stayed close to us, on my orders, and Lucas—always being a bit precocious—asked if he was there to protect us. It dawned on me at that moment that if my four-year-old child already understood the purpose of the bodyguard, that he would always see this fear of being recognized and harassed as being normal. From that day on, I decided that my children would never see their bodyguards. They would be normal. Or, as normal as they can be.

  “I love London,” I whisper as we walk along the curved stone pathways toward the London Eye. “I don’t care if it’s a glorified Ferris wheel.”

  “Mommy, I’m hungry,” Rhianne says as she twists the front of my T-shirt in her chubby fingers.

  “Baby, you just ate lunch. We’re going to have tea with Daddy in an hour. Aren’t you excited?”

  She smiles and nods vigorously as I switch her over to my other hip when my arm gets tired. We make it to the Thames boardwalk where I turn around to see Lucas’s reaction to seeing the London Eye up close. Lucas and Violet are gone.

  Chapter Four

  Brina

  My vision gets blurry as the adrenaline surges through my veins. Without thinking, the first thing I do is scream Lucas’s name. At least a hundred people in the vicinity turn toward the sound of my cry and I don’t care. I want to put Rhianne down so
I can race through the green fields of Jubilee Gardens, but I can’t. I set her down on the stone path and grab her hand tightly. The frightened look on her face breaks my heart.

  “Baby, you have to run with Mommy. Can you do that?” I ask as I kneel before her and dig my hand into the back pocket of my jeans to retrieve my cell phone.

  I hit the power button, but nothing happens. No, no, no, no! I forgot to charge my phone when we went to sleep this morning. Luke told me I would regret not using the solar-charging cell phone case.

  “Mommy, is Brother lost?”

  The innocent anguish in Rhianne’s three-year-old face, skin so delicate and flushed pink with the summer heat, is what brings me back to the present moment. Lucas is with Violet. They probably wandered off when Lucas saw something interesting. I don’t see Ian, our bodyguard, anywhere. He must be with them. They’re safe. They have to be safe.

  “No, baby, Lucas is with Violet. He’s not lost. We just have to find a phone to call them because Mommy’s phone’s not working. Can you walk while we look for a phone?”

  She nods, but she still looks worried. I pull her into my arms and squeeze her until she giggles. I release her and the smile on her face is like a beacon, guiding me back from a moment of near panic.

  I stand and take her hand as we walk through the crowds back toward Belvedere to look for a payphone. I consider asking a stranger to borrow their cell phone, but the last thing I need is to be held up by someone who recognizes me. Part of being married to Luke means being in the public eye. I always speak at his conferences. I even starred in a promotional video with him a few years ago where the two of us are dancing to a bouncy indie pop tune. At the end of the video, it’s revealed Luke is actually on the opposite side of the ocean and we’re both using Maxwell Computers’ as-yet-released holographic calling app Be, for “be there, anytime, anyplace.”

  I wish Luke could be here right now.

  My eyes scan the fields of grass in the gardens as we walk along the path. I try not to yank Rhianne too hard as I drag her this way and that way at the slightest whim of my instincts. Finally, we reach Belvedere with no sign of them and my heart plummets. I want to break down, but I can’t do that in front of my baby girl.

  I scoop Rhianne up into my arms and set off toward Chicheley Street. I contemplate asking the constable guarding the gates to Chicheley if I can borrow his cell phone, but I decide against it. He’ll want details and I don’t need a massive search initiated when Lucas is with his nanny and bodyguard.

  I continue down Chicheley and decide to turn in under the purple awning for the Premier Inn—a building that looks like it’s been around a couple of centuries. The lobby is dimly lit and two clerks, a young man and woman, wearing purple polo shirts are chatting behind a beech wood check-in counter.

  “May I help you?” the young man asks as I approach, his eyebrows perked up and his British accent smooth as his chestnut skin.

  “Yes, I hope you can help. I was separated from my nanny and she has my son. I need to call her, but my mobile phone just died. I don’t see any phone booths around here. Would you mind terribly if I used your desk phone?”

  He looks to girl standing next to him with her blonde hair pulled into a messy bun. She’s obviously younger than he is, but she must be his superior. She eyes me with suspicion and I want to reach over the counter and shake her. I’m not asking for a free hotel room. I just want to make a damn phone call.

  “All right,” she relents. “But be quick.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  I sit Rhianne on the counter and take the cordless handset from the girl: Beth, as it says on her name tag. I quickly dial the country code followed by Violet’s number. The phone rings four times before her voicemail greeting comes on.

  You’ve reached Violet. Sorry I can’t take your call. I must be doing something fun without you. Leave a message!

  God, I hate her voicemail greeting. I dial Luke’s number, but the call goes straight to voicemail. He must still be in his meeting. I don’t know Ian’s phone number. Luke programmed it into my phone, but I never programmed it into my brain.

  I’m lost.

  “Where could they have gone? They were right behind me,” I whisper aloud and Beth and her coworker, Terry, are at a loss for words. “Why isn’t she answering her phone?”

  Suddenly, I’m furious. As soon as we get home, Violet is fired!

  “Should we call the police?” Beth asks as she wrestles the phone from my grip. “You did say your child was missing.”

  I can’t help but feel as if this all has to do with Violet’s crush on Luke. What if she planned to be separated from me so she could find a way to get Luke alone?

  That’s ridiculous.

  “Madam?” Beth insists.

  “Please give me a moment,” I reply as I slide Rhianne off the counter and into my arms.

  I’m torn between going back to the gardens to search for Lucas and Violet or hopping into a cab to find Luke. The driver who dropped us off at the gardens won’t be back to pick us up until after he’s retrieved Luke from the Kema offices in Covent Garden.

  That’s it! Maybe Violet and Lucas took a cab back to the Kema office.

  “I have to go,” I declare as I race out of the lobby with Rhianne bouncing on my hip.

  Bounding down the steps of the inn, I immediately spot a taxi slowing down on my right. I sprint toward the street and the cab stops right in front of the inn. The driver exits and assists the passengers—a young Asian couple—with their bags.

  “Where are you off to?” he asks, smiling as he holds the door open for me.

  I set Rhianne down inside the cab and motion for her to scoot down so I can follow. “Kema on Tavistock,” I reply as he slams the car door shut behind me.

  Chapter Five

  Luke

  Stepping out of the Hudson House, I immediately check my voicemail and text messages. I have a text message from Violet that confuses me. She’s on her way to the Hudson House with Lucas and Ian. That’s odd. I was supposed to pick them up at Jubilee Gardens. And why aren’t Brina and Rhianne with her?

  I immediately call Brina, but the call goes straight to voicemail. I follow with a call to Violet and she picks up on the first ring.

  “Luke. Our cab just pulled up in front of the building,” she declares.

  “Where’s Brina?” I ask as I cross the lobby.

  “We got separated in Jubilee Gardens. Lucas took off to play on the little wooden things they have for the kids. I had a heck of a time wrangling him. By the time we made it to the Eye, Brina was gone.”

  “Fuck,” I whisper. “Why isn’t Brina answering her phone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  I step out the front door of Hudson House. Lucas is pouting on the sidewalk and Violet is standing behind him with her arm locked around his shoulders, presumably to keep him from running off again. I tuck my phone into my pocket and try not to look too annoyed.

  “You should have waited for Brina at the park. She would have found you eventually.”

  “We looked for her at the park and on the boardwalk, but she was gone,” Violet replies defensively.

  “It’s almost 2:30. Let’s hope she went back to the hotel.”

  There’s no way I’m going to miss tea with Rhianne. If Brina got separated, I know that’s where she’ll go. She knows how much this means to my girl.

  The driver is already waiting for us in front of Hudson House. He opens the door for us to get into the backseat and I wait for Violet and Lucas to enter first. When I slide in, Violet gives me a look and I know what she’s thinking.

  “Not here,” I say quickly before she can bring it up in front of Lucas.

  Violet leans over Lucas to buckle his seatbelt and her hand repeatedly grazes my hip as she attempts to get the clip into the buckle. Finally, I take the seatbelt from her and stick it in myself.

  “Take us to the hotel. Quick. We have a three o’clock,” I bark at the driver
in frustration.

  Chapter Six

  Brina

  I don’t have a very good sense of direction, especially not when I’m in a different country, but something tells me we should have arrived at the Kema offices by now. And I don’t think we’re in Covent Garden. Of course, I’ve only been to Covent Garden once, over two years ago, for a show. I’ve been dying to come back to London to see Singing In the Rain on the West End, but Luke said we wouldn’t have time to see it during this trip. This trip is becoming more and more disappointing.

  The cab begins to slow as we come upon the corner of Park Lane and Oxford Street. This doesn’t look right.

  “Here we are,” the driver declares and Rhianne attempts to jump off the seat, but her seatbelt confines her.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  “This is the Marriott. Is this not the correct destination?”

  “No,” I reply quickly. “No, not at all. I said Kema on Tavistock.”

  “Oh, dear. I apologize. I thought you said, ‘Take me to the Marriott.’”

  I groan with frustration and instantly feel guilty when I glance at the rearview mirror and see the apologetic look on the driver’s face. “It’s all right. Can you please take me to the Kema offices in Covent Garden. I don’t know the address.”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know what Kema is. I’ll have to call in to dispatch. It will be just a moment.”

  I fall back into my seat and close my eyes as I realize we are going to be late for afternoon tea.

  “Mommy, are you tired?”

  I open my eyes and Rhianne’s looking up at me with those big, brown eyes Luke loves to kiss when he puts her down to sleep at night. I smile at her and lean over to lay a kiss on her forehead.

  “No, baby. I’m not tired. I’m going to try to get us back to the hotel in time for afternoon tea, but we might be a little late.”