by Jami Alden
But even more frightening than the threat of confinement was the deep-seated fear that whoever had killed James was coming after Caroline next.
He feigned a look of regret. “I wish I could help you, I really do. But our client list is pretty full. I can recommend some other firms—”
“I think they’re after me too, Danny.”
For a second hope flared as she thought she saw something like concern flicker in his eyes. “Right. The notes you received. The ones the cops think you wrote yourself.”
The hope disappeared like a wisp of smoke, leaving behind an ache like she’d been kicked in the gut. Did he really believe she would lie about something like that? She willed herself not to care, intent on getting him to agree to help her. “I’ll make it worth your while.”
“You can’t pay me enough to take your case.”
“I’m not talking about money.”
He did another head to toe scan, this time letting his eyes linger at the tops of her thighs and on her breasts. To her horror she could feel heat collecting between her legs and her nipples harden against the front of her chest.
He finally moved his gaze to her face and gave her another shake of his head. “No offense, Carrie, but been there, done that, and it doesn’t look like it’s improved much with age.”
“That wasn’t what I was talking about, but trust you to go straight for the gutter. I have information you might be able to use.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“Information that connects your mother to my husband.”
He froze, every cell on alert like a predator ready to pounce. “What, exactly, did you find?”
“Oh no,” she shook her head, faking bravado. “Not until we have a deal.”
He grabbed her arm, moving so fast his hand was little more than a blur as it reached out. “Don’t fuck with me, Caroline. What did you find?”
“Help me clear my name.”
His grip tightened, hovering on the edge of pain. “So you’ve become a blackmailer as well as a gold digger? Nice.”
She swallowed hard, not about to let him see how much that hurt. “I’m bargaining. There’s a big difference. You help me, I help you.”
“If you have evidence you should turn it over to the police.”
“I don’t know if you’ve been following the news, but the police and I aren’t exactly on speaking terms these days. I’d rather we handle this ourselves.”
His fingers flexed, then loosened one by one. He took a step back and slipped his hands in his trouser pockets. His suit jacket flipped back, revealing a mile-wide chest tapering down to a lean waist and hips. “Thanks, but no thanks. If my mom had a connection to your husband, I’m sure I’ll find it on my own.”
Panic set in, along with desperation as she realized how badly she’d tipped her hand. “You really think you can find it, when for eighteen years you never found anything that linked her to James?”
“That’s because we didn’t know where to look. Now thanks to you, we do. Nice seeing you again, Caroline.”
This time he was the one who strode away without a backward glance, his casual dismissal his final fuck you.
“I thought you said we were going to get something to eat,” Kaylee Edwards said. Hunger scraped at her belly. She hadn’t had anything to eat since the afternoon before, when she’d managed to scrape together enough change to buy a taco.
“I told you I had to run an errand first,” Ericka, who was in the driver’s seat, had to almost yell to be heard over the ancient Ford’s rumbling exhaust system.
Kaylee tried to calm the sense of dread that rose up, mixing with the hunger as she watched miles go by with nothing but grass covered hills spotted with oak trees. They were more than two hours out of Sacramento, had left interstate 80 forty-five minutes ago, and Ericka’s errand was out in the middle of fucking nowhere.
Kaylee rubbed at her temples, trying to ease the throb that came from going too long without food and kept her mouth shut. Ericka had offered her a safe place to stay and an introduction to her manager, and Kaylee wasn’t about to mess this up.
It was the break Kaylee had been hoping for when she spent the last of her money on a bus ticket to get her away from Wichita nearly two weeks ago. The night before she left, she’d woken up with her twenty-four-year-old loser of a stepbrother on top of her, one hand over her mouth, his dick out as he tried to shove her boxers down her legs. The scream he’d let out when Kaylee sank her teeth into his palm brought her stepfather running.
But instead of beating the crap out of Jimmy, Don had gone on a drunken tirade about what a slutty cock tease Kaylee was, and how she’d only gotten exactly what she’d been asking for.
Her mother said nothing, as usual.
Kaylee knew better than to go to the police for help. Until she was eighteen in a year and a half, she’d be put in foster care, or worse, a group home, and no way in hell was she going through that again.
Everyone was always telling her how pretty she was, with her waist length blond hair and blue eyes. She’d figured if she could just get to Los Angeles she’d be set. Once she got there, she figured, even if no one wanted to offer her an acting or a modeling job, at least she could find work as a waitress. Then maybe a producer or director would discover her, just like Natalie Portman had been discovered by a modeling scout at a pizza parlor.
But it hadn’t exactly worked out that way. Kaylee only had enough money to get herself as far as Sacramento, and she had spent the last several days begging change, trying to avoid cops, and other panhandlers who thought she was trying to move in on their turf.
She was ready to admit defeat and call her mom to beg for bus fare back home when she met Ericka. Kaylee was sitting on a park bench next to her beat up duffel bag when Ericka plopped herself down next to her. Unshowered and in the same clothes she’d worn for three days straight, Kaylee squirmed self-consciously next to the woman who was skinny and beautiful enough to be on the cover of a magazine.
She’d introduced herself as Ericka and struck up a conversation. In the course of about ten minutes, Kaylee knew that Ericka had moved there two years ago from Portland, was half Korean, and worked as a model. “You know, you’re really pretty,” Ericka said, studying Kaylee with dark eyes that tilted exotically at the corners. “I don’t know if you’d be interested, but I can introduce you to my manager. He’s always on the lookout for new talent.”
Kaylee’s jaw nearly hit the concrete. Could she seriously see through the days of street grime enough to think Kaylee had any kind of potential? She couldn’t do anything more than nod and mutter, “That would be great,” as her heart pounded and her mind raced with the thought that this could be it!
Kaylee had heard stories about people posing as photographers to take dirty pictures of girls, but Ericka looked legit, and she was a woman, and she seemed really nice. She’d even offered Kaylee a place to sleep and shower once she learned how Kaylee had spent the last several nights.
When Kaylee woke up that morning, Ericka had barely given her time to pee before she said they had to go. They were going out for breakfast, she said as soon as she did an errand.
Now it was almost noon, and there wasn’t so much as another car around, much less a place to grab breakfast. Ericka slowed down a little and did a quick sweep behind her, almost like she was worried about being followed. A battered mailbox listed to the right of a cracked asphalt driveway that was lined with trees. Ericka followed the long drive and pulled up in front of a wood frame house.
Kaylee would have been impressed by the sheer size, but the white paint was peeling in sheets and the front porch was propped up on one end by cinder blocks. The drive continued past the house and seemed to get swallowed up by the brush and trees.
Ericka got out of the car and motioned Kaylee to do the same. The dread Kaylee had tried to quash as the miles passed returned in full force. Ericka hadn’t said much on the drive, and Kaylee worried that she regretted offer
ing to help Kaylee out. Now she looked back at Kaylee with an expression so cold it reminded Kaylee of the snakes that sometimes slithered out of her mother’s garden.
Telling herself she was imagining things she followed Ericka up the crumbling front steps. Instead of knocking Ericka whipped out her phone.
“I’m here,” she said to whoever answered.
Kaylee heard the sound of several bolts sliding free and a slither of unease traveled down her spine. Why did they need that many locks out here in the middle of nowhere, where there was no one around to steal your stuff?
The door opened and she followed Ericka inside. A man opened the door, his stocky frame back lit by the light spilling from the hallway behind him. He had a gun tucked into the front of his pants and three teardrops tattooed under his left eye.
Kaylee remembered reading somewhere that the tear tattoos were worn by gangbangers to show how many people they’d killed. Her throat went dry as the man looked her over with dark, hooded eyes. Ericka better finish up her errand fast, because this place was creeping her out.
The guy motioned for Ericka to follow him inside, and Ericka grabbed Kaylee’s arm to make sure she followed. The inside of the house wasn’t much better than the outside. The wood floor of the entryway was scarred with deep gouges and scratches. Faded wallpaper flaked from the plaster. Kaylee half expected a bat to come flapping down the staircase.
The muffled sobbing coming from somewhere upstairs didn’t do anything to reassure her.
The guy walked halfway down a hallway and knocked on a closed door. A muffled voice said something in Spanish.
The door opened and Kaylee saw two other gangster looking types sitting on chairs across from a battered wooden desk. A man sat behind the desk. Unlike the other guys, he wore a slick looking suit and didn’t have any visible ink. His dark hair was slicked back from a dark, angular face, and he regarded Kaylee with a cold yellow stare that made her skin crawl.
“Very nice,” the man said in faintly accented English. “We can always use more blonds.”
“How old is she?”
“Tell him how old you are,” Ericka snapped.
“Sixteen and a half,” she stuttered, panic rising as she felt the mens’ eyes crawling over her skin. What had Ericka gotten her into?
The man shot Ericka a look. “The older ones do better.”
Better? Better at what? Kaylee’s stomach started to sink. The creepy vibe was getting out of control.
“I want my bonus this time,” Ericka snapped.
The man’s lips tightened, his eyes narrowing behind hooded lids. “We need to check her out first.”
“Why do you need to check me out?” Kaylee asked, though she was pretty sure she knew why.
Ericka shook her head and flashed her a look and in that instant Kaylee knew she’d been duped. She started for the door, but only got two steps before two of the guys grabbed Kaylee by the arms. Her heart tried to beat through her ribcage as she thrashed to get away, but in a few minutes Ericka had stripped her to her bra and panties.
She stood frozen, as the man walked a slow circle around her, coldly assessing her like she was a car he was thinking of buying.
“Good,” was all the man said. Then he called out in rapid Spanish. A woman appeared dressed in nurse’s scrubs, and before Kaylee could react she felt a sharp stab and burn in the muscle of her upper arm. The men released her, and though deep down she knew it was futile, she made a staggering run for the door. She grabbed the doorknob as her legs noodled under her and she slid to the floor in a heap.
“We’ll check her out, make sure everything’s okay to go, and you’ll get the rest in a week,” she heard the man say.
Her vision tunneled but she held on to consciousness long enough to see her “friend” accept a fat wad of bills.
Kaylee didn’t know how long she’d been out when the sound of crying finally woke her. Her eyelids felt like anvils as she dragged them open. The room was nearly dark. The only source of light was a strip of daylight shining weakly through the gap where the curtains didn’t quite meet over a window. It was several seconds before she could fully focus on the huddled form quietly sobbing on the bed across from her.
Her stomach soured and her heart thudded as the details of the day slowly slipped into place. Ericka, offering her a shower and a place to stay. Ericka, offering to set Kaylee up with her manager. Ericka, driving her out to the middle of bumfuck nowhere and selling her to some creep.
“Where am I?”
The only answer was more sobs, and Kaylee pried her head off the pillow to look around. Her head throbbed, making her squint as she took in the small, sparsely furnished room. She was on the bottom of a set of bunk beds, lying on top of a scratchy blanket. The room had two more sets of bunk beds, but only one other bed was occupied. A small form huddled on the top bunk across the room. The source of the sobbing.
The girl was curled up into a ball, her face hidden, and Kaylee could see nothing but a dark, scraggly ponytail hanging down her back.
“Hey, you,” she yelled and threw her pillow at the girl in case there was any mistaking who she was talking to. “Where are we?”
The girl started and lifted her tear-stained face. She was Asian, her narrow eyes nearly swollen shut, her round face blotchy and wet.
“What the hell is going on here?” Kaylee snapped.
The girl started bawling all over again, babbling in some language Kaylee couldn’t understand.
“English?” Kaylee tried. “You speak English?”
“No good,” the girl said. “Me Thailand.” She moved her hand in an up and down motion that Kaylee finally got was supposed to be a boat. “I come here, work. Tell me, good job, much money to have.” Then her mouth trembled and she said, “Me here. Many men. Many men.” She wrapped her arms around her waist and started to sob again.
Kaylee had a pretty good idea what they had planned for her, and she swallowed back a surge of nausea as panic swelled in her chest. She wasn’t a virgin, not by a long shot, but that didn’t mean she wanted to give it up for sweaty old men so desperate they needed to pay for it.
“Where are we?” she asked the girl, not really surprised when her only answer was more sobbing.
She needed to think. There had to be a way out of there, even if her Thai roommate hadn’t found it yet. She sat up, pausing when it felt like her brain smacked into the side of her skull, and took stock of herself.
Oh, God, had the creepy guy raped her while she was out?
Tears stung her eyes as she took careful stock of all of her sexual parts. When she and her best friend Kristin were freshmen in high school, they’d gone to a senior party. Kristin had gotten so drunk she’d passed out, and when she’d woken up her pants were gone and she hurt between her legs.
Kaylee hadn’t understood why she was so upset. If she couldn’t remember it, it was like it never even happened. Nothing to freak out about.
Now as she tugged her shirt and bra aside and tried to focus to see if she was sore between her legs, Kaylee wished she’d been a little nicer to Kristin. No wonder she took her off as a faceplace friend.
There was nothing. No marks. No come stains. And it had been awhile so she was pretty sure she would be sore if she’d had sex.
Kaylee shuffled to the door and tried the knob. The door didn’t budge. There was a shiny round knob with a flat surface, almost like where a deadbolt would be but there was no keyhole.
Right. Because if there was a keyhole someone might be able to pick a lock.
The Thai girl’s sobs raked down Kaylee’s spine, pulling at the skin of her neck and shoulders until Kaylee wanted to scream. She moved across the room to the single small window and pulled back the curtains. It didn’t matter that the window was locked and painted shut. There was no way she or anyone would be able to squeeze past the bars covering the glass from the outside.
Fear clutched her chest, choking her, making her thoughts swim as she tried to shake off th
e effects of the drug. She dropped to the floor and looked under the beds, scoured every corner for something, anything that might be used for a weapon.
The creepy guy might not have raped her while she was drugged, but Kaylee knew it was only a matter of time. If she didn’t get out of there, she would be sold, used up, as good as dead.
CHAPTER 3
“So are you going to help her?” Derek asked as they waited for the paper targets to make their way back on the line. He snapped another ammo clip into his Sig Sauer 45.
“Did someone from Alyssa’s Hollywood crowd slip you some dope? No fucking way.” Danny yanked the target off the line and held it to the light, slipping his glasses down under his chin for a better look, then moved around to Derek’s side of the particle board partition to look over Derek’s shoulder. Derek’s target showed only two big holes. One in the center of the outline’s forehead, one in the center of its chest. He’d neatly divided his shots between the two kill zones and hadn’t missed a single one by so much as a millimeter.
Showoff. There was a good reason Derek had become a sniper for the Seventy-fifth Regiment of Army Rangers.
Danny’s shots, in contrast, were all over the fucking place, as scattered as his brain had been ever since Caroline Palomares—no Medford—had dropped in on his mother’s memorial service and dropped a great big nuke all over his day.
“And that’s why you’ve spent the past two days digging up everything you can find about James Medford’s murder?”
Danny didn’t answer right away. As far as his brothers knew, Caroline had made a surprise appearance to pay her respects to the dead and try to hire him to help her find the “real” killer. He hadn’t told anyone—not even his brothers—what Caroline had said about finding evidence linking her dead husband to his dead mom. He told himself it was because he didn’t want to give anyone false hope or waste their time chasing false leads—Christ knew they’d done enough of that for the past eighteen years. He didn’t want to get anyone else involved until he had something solid.
