BOOK: Charming Deception by Carol Ann Kauffman

Setting the Stage:

In this excerpt from Charming Deception, Samantha and her husband have been  kidnapped and a strange man demands she decode a secret message and then encode the answer. 

Werner takes the paper from me, reads it, writes an answer, and hands it back to me. I quickly encode it and hand it back. He types it into his laptop and we wait. Soon it beeps a notification.

“Message received and acknowledged,” he smiles at me. “Good work, Samantha Blake.”

“Now may I please see my husband?” Werner motions me to the hallway with his gun. We walk down the hall.

“Here,” he stops at a door. “He’s in here.” Werner opens the door. Jaks is tied in a chair, lower lip bleeding, right cheek bruised. Definitely roughed up. 

“Jaks!” I scream. I glance out the window as I run to him. I straddle him and sit on his lap in the chair and put pressure on his lip wound with some tissues I find in my pocket. He says nothing, but his warm brown eyes caress me lovingly. And there was something else in his eyes I couldn’t quite read.  Something sad, maybe? Shame?  

“Werner, may I have a private moment alone with my husband, please?”

“What?” laughs Werner. “You’ve got to be joking. No. Absolutely not. No.”

“What do you think we’re going to do? Jump out the damn window? You want my continued cooperation, don’t you? I have no problem helping you. You could’ve just asked me instead of playing ambush at the drugstore. Give me a few minutes alone with my husband.”

“Five minutes, Mrs. Blake. And we will be standing right here outside the door.” Werner closes the door. I kiss this beautiful man in front of me, reach behind him and untie him.

“Are you okay, honey?” he softly whispers to me and I just want to hold him in my arms and rock him. He’s been smacked around, his lip is bleeding, and yet he wants to know if I’m okay.  

“Come on,” I whisper and lead him to the window.

“What are you up to?” he whispers. “What are we going to do?”

“Jump.”

“No, Sam. NO! This is crazy. We’ll break our legs. And then, they’ll drag us back into the warehouse, beat the shit out of us, and kill us.” 

I grab his hand and jump, pulling him down with me. We landed on the awning below and slide down to the edge, jumping to the sidewalk. 

“Samantha, have you lost your mind? And how did you even know there was an awning?”

“Run. I’ve been here before. There’s a great little vintage clothing shop up here on the left.” I take off running, cross the street, and duck into a small shop. Jaks follows me.

“We need help. Clothes. Disguise.”

“Cops?”

“No. Abusive ex-husband. The bastard just won’t leave me alone. And if he catches us, he’ll kill him, and he’s a very good man,” I say, nodding toward Jakson.

“In here,” says the sympathetic older woman who ushers us into a back room. She eyes Samantha. “Size ten?” 

I nod and the woman disappears. In a few minutes, she comes back with a big white shirt and black leggings for me and a long auburn wig, stretchy flats, and a big handbag.

“Now, you, you tall drink of water,” she eyes Jakson up and down, “you’re going to be a problem.”

I go into the dressing room to change. Jaks follows me in.

“Do you have a credit card on you?” He nods and pulls it out to show me.

“Good. Give it to her. And I mean GIVE.” 

He nods. “Got it.”

The woman comes back in with a long coat, baseball cap, sunglasses, and a Beatles tee shirt.

“This is the best I could come up with.”

“Thank you,” says Jakson, handing her his credit card. “We can’t use it anymore. Use it. Buy yourself something really nice from us, as a little thank you for helping us. We truly appreciate your help.” Jakson slides into a fitting room and emerges looking very retro-cool.

“Here,” the woman jams some cash into Jakson’s hand. “Lunch money. Take good care of her. And good luck to you two.” 

Jaks takes my hand as we leave the shop and walk down the street.

“Sam, what the hell are we doing? Those men are animals. They’ll kill us.”

“Who are they, Jaks?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yes, you do. You know them. They called you by name. Now tell me, who are they?”

“What did they ask you to do?”

“Break a code. Decode a message. And then encode their answer.”

“And you did it?”

“Yes”

“What did it say?”

“Asia. Something about Asia, I didn’t understand it. Who are they, Jaks?”

“Very bad people, Sam. Thugs. Murderers. International terrorists.”

“How do you know them?”

“I’m an international mediator. I have to sit down with this kind of scum all the time and try to resolve issues that they would rather not have resolved. But, Sam, honey, I have to tell you something. Something bad, even worse than international murdering thugs. Something I should have told you as soon as we got home. I wanted to tell you before, but I didn’t know how you’d react. 

"Remember that I love you more than anything in the world, this world, and all worlds. Please don’t be angry with me, or think that I don’t truly love you with my whole heart and soul, because I do. Samantha, I’m not who you think I am. I’m your Jaks, and I always will be your Jaks, but, honey, I’m…” 

A shiny doorway of silvery, opaque semi-liquid opens up on the brick wall as we walk by. Hands, many hands, ten maybe, reach out of the silvery doorway and grab me, pulling me inside.

“Jaks!” I scream and struggle to get free of all those hands grabbing at me.

“No! Sam!” Jakson holds on to my hand as long as he could. “Sam, hold on to me. Don’t let go. Samantha! No!” 

But I am pulled inside, away from him. I see his hand reach into the shimmering semi-liquid for a moment, groping around for me as I am being pulled farther and farther away from him.  

As I watch, the silvery liquid solidifies into… a mirror. 

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