Page 46 of Jacking Jill
Benson’s chuckle came through the phone. “Hell, that’s the best succession plan I’ve ever heard. I like this guy Romeo. And that bit about personal narratives and private myths is solid psychoanalysis, Counselor.” He chuckled again. “Though some of us make those narratives external, make those legends public, pull those myths out of the privacy of our own minds so the people around us can share in our greatness. Am I right, Team?”
Laughter and groans from the Darkwater war-room crackled through the phone. Jill raised both eyebrows. Jack grinned and shook his head.
Benson’s voice came through again, all-business now. “All right, Kay. Maybe we can do business, now that I know you want something from us. Incentives are everything, just like you so wisely explained.” He waited a breath. “I still need more from you, though. Especially since you’re going to get what you want from us—after all, Romeo Carmine was a dead man even before you called me. He ordered a hit on my guy Jack, and that’s a death sentence in my book. But Romeo is a side-effect, just a pit-stop on the road to Diego Vargas. Romeo isn’t the real target, and although we’ll get to him eventually, I’m not letting anyone take him down until we have a plan to bring Diego back out of the shadows. Look, Kay, you need to—”
Benson stopped abruptly, went silent for a moment, then started saying something to Nancy and Paige, all of them speaking in hushed tones. Jill couldn’t make out the words, but she sensed the excitement in Benson’s tone, like he was actually enjoying this, like it really was a game to this mysterious ex-CIA man.
Then suddenly she realized that Benson wasn’t the only one enjoying this.
Jill was too.
It startled her to admit it, maybe even mortified her. After all, her once-best-friend Nina hated her, a mafia boss was out to kill her, her car was wrecked, her clothes were torn, her phone and wallet had been stolen by a manipulative lawyer who seemed perfectly content to play both sides, wheel-and-deal her way to some endgame that wasn’t completely clear to Jill, perhaps not to anyone except Kay Steffen herself.
“Look, Benson, I’ve told you all I know,” came Kay’s voice now. She sounded distracted, and Jill could hear a car engine start in the background, like perhaps Kay was calling from her car in the Carmine Mansion’s parking lot. “I need to go. Romeo catches me talking to you guys and I’m dead before I hang up.”
“A minute ago I’d have said I don’t give a shit, Counselor,” Benson said slowly, like he was focused on something else. In the background Jill could still hear Paige and Nancy, their voices low but urgent, like something was up. “But in light of some very interesting information that my team has just chanced upon, perhaps there is a way to bring Diego out of the shadows sooner rather than later. You might be more useful than you know, Counselor.” He chuckled. “We’ll call you back, Kay. Go ahead and end the call, Jill. Good work.”
Jill was startled when Benson called her name, complimenting her like she was part of the team, part of the group, part of this story. She blinked and smiled, then tapped the phone screen and ended the call—a call she’d started by snatching the phone off Benson’s desk and scampering down the hall of this strange building hidden in the woods of Virginia!
And now Jill almost fainted as the facts hit her like a barrage of bullets.
Had she seriously just moderated a negotiation with a crooked lawyer to broker a deal to murder a mafia boss and flush out a South American thug who’d tried to assassinate a U.S. Presidential candidate?
Sure. Why not.
It made about as much sense as anything else today, right?
Jill slumped against the wall, blinking in dizzy confusion as the room began to spin. Then she felt Jack’s arm slide around her shoulders, and now he was gathering her into his warm body and stroking her hair and kissing her forehead and comforting her, cradling her, whispering soft words that soothed her even though she couldn’t understand what he was saying because she was drifting in and out of consciousness.
“You’re amazing, Jill,” he whispered into her hair as she nuzzled into the crook of his shoulder and inhaled his warm masculine aroma. “Resilient, strong, and completely incredible. Twelve hours ago you thought you were being carjacked by a murderer. Instead of freezing up, you fought for your life.” He smiled as he held her. “You almost ran me over back then, but now you’ve totally floored me, Jill. I am so impressed with how you’ve held it together today, sweetheart. I couldn’t have asked for a better partner on this mission. You had my back, Jill. You were coming to the hotel to warn me that Kay and Romeo were onto me. Yeah, you had my back, and I’m going to have yours. Nobody’s going to hurt you on my watch. And my watch is never going to end. My duty to protect you is going to last forever, Jill. Benson was right—Romeo Carmine is just a speed-bump in the road to our forever. You hear me? Jill? Hey, Jill?”
Jill looked up woozily, but she couldn’t see his face clearly. The day’s exhaustion had finally caught up with her, and her vision was going in and out. She moved her lips to speak, but she couldn’t hear the sound of her own voice.
Instead she heard Benson’s voice crackle through the phone on the carpet beside her.
“Get some rest, you two,” he was saying. “It’s the middle of the night, and nothing’s going to happen until tomorrow. There are sleeping quarters below ground level in the south wing.”
“Roger that,” said Jack stiffly. “I’ll put Jill to bed and then join the team in the war-room.”
“Negative,” said Benson. “You get some rest too, Jack. We’re good up here. Paige and Nancy found something on Kay that might help us bring this thing to a close, but we need some time to dig deeper.”
Jill thought she heard some stifled laughter in the background, but she couldn’t be certain of anything right now. It was like her body had finally understood that it was safe for the time being.
Perhaps safe forever.
“You’re safe, Jill,” came Jack’s whisper, and Jill felt herself being lifted into his arms for the second time today. She felt her body instinctively snuggle into him as he carried her effortlessly from the room, down the long hallway, around a bend and down a tunnel, finally stepping into a gleaming elevator whose doors closed with a gentle sigh.
The elevator began to descend, and Jill was puzzled when she felt her ears pop like the pressure had changed.
“How far underground does this building go?” she murmured when the elevator finally bumped to a stop and the doors slid open with that quiet hissing sound, like steam escaping from vents in the earth. “Where are you taking me?”
“Actually, I don’t know.” Jack stepped out of the elevator and stopped, turning left and right with Jill in his arms as he looked around. “This underground section with the sleeping quarters is all new to me. Hopefully they haven’t furnished all the rooms yet. If we’re in luck, there’ll only be one bed ready for use.”
“Oh, right, like the plot for your favorite porno movie.” Jill snickered against his chest as he carried her down the hall, which smelled like fresh carpet and new paint, the clean air infused with the woodsy aroma of cedar or pine, like they were somewhere beneath the Virginia forest, amongst the ancient roots of gigantic old trees which had been there for centuries, had their own sense of space and time, understood the vast seasons of the universe’s epochs, were whispering those secrets to Jill as Jack carried her deeper into their burrow down the Darkwater rabbit-hole.
Jack chuckled, the sound of his laughter sending vibrations of mirth through Jill’s wonderfully relaxed limbs that were draped over Jack like they were both part of the ancient root systems of this cosmic forest, intertwined and interlocked, tied together by fate, drawn together by destiny.
“Let’s try this room,” Jack muttered, stopping outside a closed door. Jill heard him push it open with his boot. “Perfect.”