Page 17 of Easton’s Claim

Austen snorted. “Whatever. They’re ridiculous. Inseparable. I swear I don’t know who’s more in love with Wyatt, me or the dog.”

Wyatt shrugged, his lips quirking. “What can I say, I’m just a loveable guy.”

“Yeah you are,” Austen said, and stepped over to plant a kiss on his lips. “Big softie.”

Wyatt grimaced. “Not in front of everyone,” he complained.

“Oh please, like it’s any kind of secret to the rest of us,” Piper said. Grinning, she kissed the brown spot on the top of Grits’s head and set him down. The dog immediately went across the room to greet Charlie, then Easton.

“Any more pieces from your grandma here?” Easton asked Piper as he scratched Grits on the chest and lifted his chin to avoid the lizard-like tongue trying to lick him.

“Just a couple of prints that I now have to get reframed, and a jewelry box.” She pushed to her feet. “There’s nothing hidden in it. I emptied everything out of the furniture and packed it all in boxes before I put it in storage.”

Was worth taking another look, just to make sure she hadn’t missed something. When it came to searching for hidden contraband, Easton was an expert. He did it on pretty much every mission his team went on. “Can I see the box?”

“Sure.” She led him into her bedroom and picked up the art deco jewelry box that had been dumped onto the floor. The air in here smelled faintly of her perfume. “All my jewelry is still here,” she said, gathering up the earrings and necklaces strewn on the carpet. “It’s weird. Greg and whoever attacked him couldn’t be that hard up for money if he didn’t take any of this, right?”

Just means whatever they’re after is worth a whole lot more than your jewelry.“They weren’t after jewelry.” Her face fell and he changed the subject. “We should go down to your storage locker later and have a look at what you’ve got in there. After that we can check out the stuff in the shed at my dad’s place. I’ll help you.”

“Okay.” She continued gathering up her things from the floor. Jewelry, sexy lace bras and panties he’d fantasize about seeing her in from now on, and other odds and ends from the dresser. He picked up whatever he found and placed it on the bed for her to sort back into the drawers. Piper was obsessed about organization.

A few minutes in, her phone chimed. The insurance company, or maybe the cops? Easton only paid partial attention to her as he continued cleaning up the items on the floor but when she gasped he tensed and jerked his gaze to her.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, her face full of horror, one hand flying up to cover her mouth.

Oh, shit, what now?“What is it?” he asked, stepping close to her.

Face so pale the freckles stood out on her nose, she handed over the phone without a word. Anger punched through him when he saw what the caller had sent. An image of Greg, bound to a chair with his hands secured behind him, face badly beaten. And below it, a chilling message.

Give us what we want or he’ll die a slow, painful death.

Chapter Six

“He was doing so well this time. Every time I spoke to him on the phone this past month, it was like talking to the old Greg. I really thought he was going to make it, that he would finally kick the addiction,” Bea said with a sad little sniffle.

Piper rubbed at her forehead and sighed. Her ex-mother-in-law was in Paris right now with her husband and trying to deal with her son being held prisoner and possibly tortured while the police scrambled for leads. “Even if he was, the lifestyle wouldn’t ever let him go,” she said as gently as she could. They’d had this same conversation so many times before. “He’s made too many enemies and burned too many bridges.” Including every single one leading back to her.

A soft sob filled the line. “But he’s been clean for nearly three months, the longest stretch ever. If he can kick the addiction, then he should be able to get his life back.”

Bea spoke as a mother who loved her only child with everything in her. She couldn’t accept that her precious baby boy was lost to her forever. Piper had no such illusions. He had to hit rock bottom before he made a change, and he had towantto change. Piper wasn’t sure he’d ever get there.

“I’m so sorry, Bea. The police are doing everything they can to find him.” It had definitely been Greg’s blood on her kitchen floor though. The hardest part had been telling Bea that the police had no idea who had taken him, or why. Though it had to be drug related.

“I can’t believe this has happened. He was doing so well… I just feel sick, knowing what he’s going through and that there’s nothing we can do to help him, even when we get home.”

“I know.” Her relationship with her ex-in-laws had been strained since she’d left Greg, but they still loved her and in her own way, she loved them too. After all, Piper had worked her ass off for them for years, for nothing.

Shortly after she and Greg had gotten engaged, she’d left her teaching job to dive in and help out full time with all their charities, organizing galas and working on various boards of trustees. While she regretted leaving her job for her husband, she didn’t regret the experience she’d gained from working with charitable foundations.

When she’d left Greg, she’d quit all that and turned to real estate to make money. His parents had been hurt, but they’d understood her decision. She needed distance from them and their world every bit as much as she did from Greg. Until the other day, she’d been well on her way to getting her life back and rediscovering who Piper Greenlee truly was.

“And whatever he was looking for—you’ll keep searching for it, right? If you can find it, then maybe whoever kidnapped him will release him. Or maybe they’ll ask for a ransom. We’ll pay whatever they want if they’ll let him go.”

Piper hesitated before responding. Bea was an incredibly intelligent woman, so her comment had to be borne of desperation. She knew from Greg how ruthless the drug underworld was, and that the chances of Greg surviving this were pretty much nil, whether Piper found the missing item or not.

In the end, she simply didn’t have the heart to extinguish that tiny flame of hope for her. She and Easton had already checked all her grandmother’s furniture with the cops and found nothing, but it wouldn’t hurt to look again. “I’ll keep looking,” she promised. Maybe they’d missed something. Even if she had nothing but contempt for Greg’s behavior and what he’d put her through, she still didn’t want to see him die and couldn’t stand to see him suffer the way he was. If she could save his life, she would.

“Thank you,” Bea breathed. “I guess this is partly our fault, isn’t it? You were right. We loved him too much, tried to protect him when we shouldn’t have. And now we have to live with that.”

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