I could do this. I had to do this. I’d promised myself that I would dedicate my life to making the world a better place, just as my fellow soldiers had been trying to do when, one by one, they each lost their lives. I had to keep that promise, to honor their sacrifice.
I could do this.
***
I couldn’t do this!
“He’s going to have access to this apartment through that door?”
Akker nodded, turning to face me. “We anticipate that if you draw the right kind of attention, the bad guys will watch for a while, try to ascertain what kind of trouble might follow after they convince you to join their… whatever excuse they’re using.”
“Did they follow the Porter kid?”
“Yes.”
Max moved up behind Akker, so handsome that it almost hurt to look at him. “Cheryl did a little research with her team. They talked to the kid’s friends and it turns out they’ve been going to these raves for months without his parents knowing. And he’s been hanging out with these people, older men who took an interest in him almost right away. His friends thought it was innocent enough, until he disappeared. But we think these guys scoped him out and did their research, trying to decide if his parents would raise a manhunt should he disappear. I guess they decided they wouldn’t.”
“They like kids who don’t have much family,” Akker explained. “Kids whose disappearances wouldn’t cause a lot of attention to come down on the parties and connect the whole thing to these people.”
“But the Porters reported it.”
“Yeah. Two days after it happened,” Max said. “Kid was probably a half a world away by then.”
“The Porters were having marital problems,” Akker explained. “Dad was seeing another woman, so he wasn’t around a lot, and Mom was drinking. This kid’s disappearance seems to have brought them together again.”
“The boy’s friends tell Cheryl that?”
“No. The parents were quite frank about everything. Ox has that way with people.”
I nodded. I knew that. I wouldn’t be here if Ox didn’t have a way with me.
I left the small bedroom of the exceedingly small apartment, taking only half a dozen steps to cross the living room and enter the miniscule kitchen. There was barely enough room to open the fridge without hitting the opposite counter. It reminded me of the apartments in my father’s assisted-living facility, but at least there he had a community room to go hang out in.
“So, I live here and Max lives in the apartment next door with that little opening in the bedroom closet to allow him free access.”
“Yes,” Akker said, crossing his arms over his chest again as he watched me pace the small space.
“I need to be able to get to you quickly if anything happens,” Max said. “You know, the knight to the rescue and all that.”
“I won’t need rescuing, thank you.”
“And the place is wired for sound and video,” Akker reminded me. “I wouldn’t walk around naked or anything.”
“Don’t worry. Not going to happen.”
“The video feeds will go to a computer Max will have next door and to the investigative department back at Caballo. If anyone comes near the front door or breaks into this apartment, we’ll know instantly.”
“But we don’t expect that will happen,” Max informed me. “Most of the disappearances have taken place at the raves and clubs. Only three took place at the victims’ homes.”
I ran the palm of my hand over the top of my head, trying to fight off the sense of claustrophobia that was bearing down on me. “What about when I’m at the raves?”
“I’ll be there,” Max assured me. “We’ll have a camera on you and I’ll be right outside, watching.”
“Somehow that doesn’t make me feel any safer.”
“Thought you could take care of yourself.”
I glared at him, refusing to jump to his bait. The last thing I wanted to do was get into a battle of words with Max in front of Akker, lest he go to Ox and encourage him to do good on his threat to fire me. I needed this job.
“Are we good?”
I glanced at Akker. “We’re good.”
“Great. Skylar will deliver your new wardrobe within the hour. You will dress as instructed anytime you leave the apartment, even if it’s just to walk down to the corner store. And make sure you do that from time to time. We don’t want anyone watching the place to think you’re antisocial and incapable of entertaining their clients. The whole point is to draw these people out, make them come after you. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“Can’t wait to see you in a dress,” Max said with something of a smirk.
“Asshole!”
Akker shook his head as he turned toward the door. “I predict the two of you will either kill each other or become the best of friends by the end of this case.” He glanced back at us just in time to find us sticking our tongues out at each other like a couple of children. “Let’s make sure it’s the latter, not the former.”
He was gone with a slam of the door. I turned away from Max and walked to the one saving grace about this apartment, the tall windows at the back of the room that let in lots of light. I stood close to the panes of glass, looking down on the city five stories below us. It never failed to amaze me how the world goes on no matter what was happening in my life. It seemed like the world should end every time mine felt as though it was on the verge of doing so.
“It’s not so bad,” Max said, moving up behind me. “You could have Oliver on the other side of that wall.”
I didn’t respond, didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. But he had a point. Oliver and I… we didn’t really get along. I was with Caballo a month before the car accident that had sent him to prison. We’d rubbed each other wrong the moment we met. Now that he was back… I tried to avoid him as much as possible.
I brushed my hand over the top of my head, a nervous habit I couldn’t seem to break. I thought about Aaron, the promises I’d made to him once upon a time. I just had to keep focused and remind myself why I was doing this. That was what was important.
“I’ll be next door if you need me.”
I turned to watch him slip into the bedroom. That unnerved me, the access through the bedroom. All privacy was out the window. Then again, I’d done six years in the United States Army, most of it overseas. I’d lived with men sleeping on cots not a foot on either side of me. It was just something about Max being the one on the other side of that wall that bothered me.
It had been a hell of a day. The idea of having a nice drink to calm my nerves crossed my mind, then doubled back and stopped to squat in the middle of every thought my overtaxed mind could generate. But I’d promised Aaron. I wasn’t going to go down that rocky road again.
Chapter 3
Max
All I could say about babysitting James was that it was a damn boring assignment! For three days, she’d lounged on the couch, reading magazines. Twice she went down to the corner store for snacks and more magazines, but that was it. Granted, the parties didn’t tend to happen on week days, but they could have found something for her to do!
And she didn’t even offer her snacks to me.
Unable to stave off the boredom anymore, I pushed my way through the hidden door in the back of the closet and found myself in a jungle of dresses. This huge closet and she chose to hang everything right in front of the hidden door! What a bitch!
I let myself into the bedroom and crossed to the living room, throwing myself down on the couch opposite her before she even knew I was in the place.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, leaning over to rescue the pile of magazines that had slipped off the couch as I’d sat down.
“I’m bored.”
“Poor baby. What am I supposed to do? Throw you a party?”
“You could put on a little show, model some of those nice dresses from the closet.”
She gave me a dirty look before hiding her fac
e behind another magazine.
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for tonight? Didn’t Skylar call and give you the address of the rave?”
“We can’t show up until it’s well under way. That’s hours from now.”
“Most women use that kind of time to get ready.”
She glanced at me from over the top of the magazine. “Why? All I have to do is shrug into one of those stupid dresses and slap on a little lip gloss.”
“Don’t you want to shower, put on that scented lotion stuff all women use? Curl your hair or something?”
She reached up and touched the short strands of hair on top of her head. “Not much here to curl.”
“No kidding. I don’t understand why women cut their hair so short. Isn’t it a woman’s job to grow out her hair and cultivate it so that she looks hot when she dresses up?”
“You’re a chauvinistic pig!”
“I’m not saying you aren’t equal to me. I’m just saying that a woman should look better than me while doing the same job.”
She sat up and tossed her magazine at me, hitting me on the side of the head with flying pages. I rolled it up and tossed it back at her as she stood, hitting her on the small of the back.
“I like my hair short. It’s easier to take care of.”
“Have you ever had long hair?”
She rolled her shoulders. “Not really.”
“What do you mean, not really?”
She glanced over her shoulder at me. “I was raised by a single father. He found it easier to care for when it was short, too.”
“Then you have no idea what it would look like if you grew it out.”
“Does that surprise you?” She bent over to look through the narrow refrigerator, her dark slacks tightening over her round ass. “Not all women are meant to be the ideal feminine type.”
I was too distracted by that nice ass to respond. She straightened again, tossing me a water bottle without comment. I managed to catch it, twisting the top and drinking deep of the cold liquid, needing cold to get my thoughts under control.
“What’s the plan for tonight, anyway?” she asked, taking a seat on the coffee table in front of the couch.
She was wearing a soft, gray blouse that she’d buttoned nearly to the top, but it was formfitting and the pressure of her breasts against the material made gaps near the buttons whenever she leaned forward, like she was doing right now. She was a petite woman, the kind who could look more like a prepubescent boy than a grown woman. But James looked nothing like a prepubescent boy no matter how hard she tried. She had curves on her curves, a feminine swell in all the right places. I’d known quite a few women in my time, but I’d never seen one with quite the body as this one. And that face… what with her gorgeous jade-colored eyes and that deep, dark-red hair, with the pale skin of a porcelain doll, she could have easily been a supermodel if she’d tried.
Beautiful women made me nervous. This woman made me careless.
“What plan?”
“At the club. Where are you going to be? Will you be close enough to help me out if I get into a bad spot?”
“I’ll be right outside.”
“Outside? What good does that do me?”
“You’ll have a camera on you, remember?”
“I remember that part. But I’m the one who has to go into that place and pretend to be some sort of party girl—and you want me to go in alone? What kind of party girl goes out alone?”
I frowned. She had a point.
“I can call Skylar and see if she’d be willing to go undercover with you.”
“Skylar? She’s not an operative and she doesn’t look sixteen!”
“No one else is available, Princess. We got a bunch of cases all at once this week. Everyone has a job; everyone’s busy.”
“Then what do I do?” She stood up and drank a healthy swig from her water bottle. “Do I stand at the bar and wait for someone to notice me, or do I push my way into a group and force them to notice? I don’t know how to do this sort of thing!”
She really was nervous. I got up and went to her, trying to calm her with my presence, but when she turned and shot me a dirty look, I could see that my presence only annoyed her.
“Look, all you have to do is walk in there with confidence. Confidence will get you ninety percent of the way there. Smile a lot, talk to anyone who seems willing to talk to you, dance with anyone who asks. Do what comes naturally.”
“What comes naturally?” She snorted. “I grew up with a cop for a father who thought quality time should consist of a trip to the gun range. Then I went to Afghanistan where I held my own with a group of testosterone-driven soldiers who thought it was funny to burp the alphabet and fart Mary had a Little Lamb.”
I bit back a smile, imagining her in that atmosphere. I could see it, too. James was… hell, if she didn’t have perfect tits, she would have always been just one of the guys.
“Have you ever had a boyfriend? Do you remember what it was like to flirt with him?”
Her face reddened a little. “I’ve had boyfriends. But I didn’t… it wasn’t like that. We just got to know each other, you know?”
“How?”
She shrugged, lifting that water bottle to her lips again. When she’d swallowed and taken a second to think, she shrugged again. “One guy was on the high school track team with me. He just kissed me one day. That was it. We were together after that.”
A cloud drifted over her expression for a moment, a dark memory she didn’t share with me.
“This other guy…we were in Afghanistan together and we were assigned to this patrol. A couple of weeks into it, we were stranded when we got cut off from our unit. We just… we had to rely on each other, you know? We kept each other alive and that led to…” She shook her head. “I don’t see how this helps!”
She had this habit of running her hand over the top of her head. Whenever I was with her, I grew self-conscious of my own hair, my fingers just itching to comb through it. I buried my hands in my front jean pockets, rocking back on my heels to keep from doing it.
“You smile,” I said simply, trying not to think of James in an army uniform, getting close to some other guy in a uniform. “You tilt your head just slightly and make your lips soft and sort of pouty. You make him feel flattered by everything that comes out of your mouth, make everyone in the room want to either be you or be with you.”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“It’s not something you do, James.”
I let my eyes move over her, allowed myself to really admire her in a way I hadn’t done since the first time we’d met. I loved women. My best friend in high school had been a beautiful, sexy woman. She still was, even with three kids tugging at her apron strings. I’d had plenty of women flirt with me and I’d flirted with my fair share. But describing it to a woman who made me think of things I’d never wanted so desperately before was almost impossible.
She finished her water bottle and tossed it into the recycle bin by the front door. Just watching her walk there and back made me glad my hands were in my front pockets.
“It’s in the way you walk, in the way you talk.” I rocked on my heels again. “You make your voice slightly breathy, like you’re constantly thinking about what it would be like to get athletic with the man you’re talking to. And you sway your hips just enough to show him that you have great flexibility in every inch of your—”
I stopped myself because I was about to say something I shouldn’t.
“I don’t walk right?”
I groaned. “You walk perfect for a person who isn’t trying to catch anyone’s attention. But in this situation, you want to be able to draw everyone’s eyes to you with just a movement, with just a step or two.”
She sat heavy on the edge of the coffee table again. “I don’t think I can do it. I told Ox, but he insisted it had to be me.”
“I’ll be right outside. If you need help, just signal me and I’ll figure something out
.”
“Signal you? How?”
I thought about it for a second, then jumped to my feet and raced back to my apartment. When I returned, I held out a small box to her that looked very much like a jeweler’s ring box.
“Earpieces?”
“Sure. That way you can talk to me and I can talk to you!”
She opened the box and nodded slowly. “That might work.”
“I know it will.”
She actually smiled. But then she jumped to her feet and shoved against my chest.
“Get out. And turn off the damn cameras for twenty minutes. I have to get dressed!”
***
I drove her to the address Skylar had texted me, pulling over to the side of the road about a quarter-mile from the actual location. Cars were parked everywhere in this seemingly abandoned section of town, the only clue there was life out here. Inside the vehicle, we couldn’t hear or smell anything, but I assumed the moment we opened the doors we would be inundated by heavy bass and the mixed smells of a hundred teens’ colognes and perfumes applied a little too heavily, not to mention the burning weed that would probably be wafting through the air toward us.
“Did you put the camera on?”
“Yeah,” James said, staring out the window as nervous as a man waiting for a prostate exam.
She had a long trench coat over whichever dress she’d chosen to wear tonight. Her hair was basically the same, maybe a little taller in the front, but she had on a nice layer of makeup that highlighted her eyes and gave her full lips just that much more lusciousness. She was beautiful before, but the makeup was like taking a beautiful black-and-white film and colorizing it. Still the same, still a great show, but better.
“You need to make sure it’s on, so I can test it.”
I grabbed my smartphone and opened the app that Cheryl had created that connected the camera to the phone. She moved her jacket to one side and touched the top edge of it near her left breast. I glanced over, but she had the jacket moved back up before I could catch sight of anything.
Caballo Security Box Set Page 64
