Dangerous

by Sharon Green

  Riss joined Tain in waiting for the welcoming-home scene to be over, Riss's smile showing that she, like Tain, understood that the scene wasn't an act. Rich or not, these were decent people, and it made Tain feel good that she'd been able to help them. Vicky's father finally stepped back to let his wife help Vicky into the house, their other two children also helping, and then he came over to Tain and Riss to smile at them.

  "Thank you," Mr. Aldridge said without bothering to wipe away his own tears. "If there's ever anything you ladies want or need, all you have to do is ask. If I'm capable of providing it, the thing is yours."

  "We've already gotten our reward, Mr. Aldridge," Riss said, beating Tain to the words by a heartbeat. "There aren't enough loving families around these days, so being able to see one - and help them - makes up for a lot of the ugliness we see elsewhere. Right, Tain?"

  "Absolutely," Tain agreed, showing the same smile Riss did. "The police will be in touch for a formal statement tomorrow, Mr. Aldridge, and then everyone can get on with prosecuting the animal who savaged your daughter. We dropped him off before bringing Vicky home."

  "You got him as well," Aldridge said, and suddenly there was nothing left of the mild and loving father. "Don't worry, ladies, Vicky is strong enough to give the authorities whatever they need to put that … animal away in a cage for a very long time. We'll be there to love and support our daughter, so she'll have no trouble doing everything she has to. And again - If you ladies ever need a favor, you'd better know who to come to for it."

  He looked carefully at Tain and Riss for a long moment, and then he turned and hurried back inside his house where the others had already gone.

  "He really means that," Riss observed before turning to Tain. "Okay, partner, this part of our job is over. How about that talk now?"

  "Let's go to that IHOP not far from the highway, the one we passed coming here," Tain suggested. "I have a story to tell, and I want lots of coffee available while I tell it."

  Riss had no objections, of course, so they got back in their cars and drove to the IHOP. Once they were settled at a table with cups in front of them and food ordered, Tain told Riss part of the story of her assignment on Oliven. Not everything had to be mentioned, but the outline alone was enough to tell Riss what she needed to know.

  "So that's what the slime used on Vicky," Riss said, her expression under the heavy makeup looking disturbed. "A slave drug that no one seems able to resist. Does that have anything to do with what you told her back at the party?"

  "I told her not to take orders from anyone but me," Tain supplied with a nod. "I would have told her not to take anyone's orders at all, which would have actually freed her even without using the antidote, but I wanted to make sure she wasn't 'suggested' into dropping the charges against Mitch. If they ever turn him loose he'll do the same thing to some other unsuspecting girl."

  "He was shouting something about having been assaulted when the cop dragged him into the station," Riss said with an amused smile. "I can't wait until he finds out that you could have killed him and charges still would not have been filed against you. So what did he come up with while the cuffs were on? Anything we can use?"

  "Nothing but the name and location of his supplier for the drug," Tain said with a smile, then leaned back to let the waitress put food in front of her. Once the woman was gone again, Tain continued, "As soon as we finish eating, I'm going to pay an unofficial visit to that supplier. If you'd like to come along you'll be welcome."

  "An unofficial visit," Riss echoed, ignoring her own food in favor of staring at Tain. "Why unofficial? Isn't it a better idea to get departmental approval before moving on the supplier? If we don't, we can't go on record with anything he happens to tell us."

  "Riss, think about it," Tain said after swallowing the bite she'd taken from her patty melt. "Not only haven't we been told about the availability of this drug, but you said yourself that all the important assignments have been given to the new people. If we report what we learned before we move on the information, what are the chances that we'll be taken off the case and others assigned to it? Assuming, of course, that anyone at all is assigned."

  "I don't like that picture, but I can't argue with it," Riss said after a moment, a frown creasing her brow. "We should know all about a drug like this, but there hasn't even been a whisper that it's out there. If I were young and new and innocent I might think the lack was just a coincidence, but I'm old and cynical instead and I don't believe in coincidences. Are you thinking that Margate is somehow involved?"

  "Margate is head of our department, so how can she not be involved?" Tain countered. "No one else would have the power to suppress this kind of information, and no one else has the power to assign the experienced agents to jobs that would keep them from finding out about the drug on their own. When it comes to having a boss you can count on, I seem to be batting a thousand."

  "We'll have to do more than just pay a visit to a supplier," Riss said, finally picking up her own patty melt. "Once we have more concrete information, we'll have to find someone to talk to who isn't likely to be part of this … joint venture. If that's what it is."

  "You know, that could very well be what it is," Tain said, suddenly getting a piece of the larger picture. "If our own department was the only one being diverted, the word would get out through a different source. And you're right about our needing to find someone to talk to. As soon as we finish visiting, we'll have to take a good look around."

  Riss made a sound of agreement, and that was the end of their conversation for a time while they finished their food. Right now they had little more than a hunch to offer as proof, but hopefully later would be another story…

  Chapter Nineteen

  Tain parked her car about a mile away from the address Mitch had given her, joining Riss in her car for the rest of the ride. If it turned out that they had to leave suddenly, having to mess with two cars would have been a bad idea.

  "We still look Goth enough to pass for customers," Riss said as soon as Tain was beside her and she'd started to drive again. "The only problem might be that it's men alone who buy the drug right now. If that's true then we'll probably have trouble no matter what we look like."

  "If this supplier is protected and he knows it, he might have decided to opt for minimal muscle," Tain put in. "Muscle has to be paid for, after all, and wasting money makes no sense if you aren't going to need the help. If my guess turns out to be wrong try not to kill the supplier himself, at least until we have the information we need."

  "That's what I like about working with you, Tain," Riss said with a grin. "It's never necessary for me to explain the practical side of life. That looks like the place up ahead."

  Tain had already seen the old-fashioned two-story house that looked no different from its fairly close neighbors. Her major worry had been that the supplier was also into selling other kinds of drugs, which would have meant that he'd have lots of muscle even if he considered himself protected in the matter of the slave drug. But the ordinary little house had only a single man sitting on the steps smoking, an activity that would have any nosy neighbors nodding with understanding as to why he was outside instead of in.

  When Riss pulled over to the curb in front of the house and turned the car off, the man on the steps watched her and Tain get out and head in his direction in a casual way. The expression on the lookout's tanned face showed faint suspicion, so Tain decided to play it safe.

  "Hi," she said to the man as she and Riss strolled up to where he sat. "Mitch said that if we came here and mentioned his name we'd find a really good time and it wouldn't even cost us much. Is this the right place?"

  "Sure it is, girls," the man responded with a sudden grin as he stood, obviously certain he now knew what was going on. "Mitch is a good customer, and any friend of his is a friend of ours. I'll walk you to the door, and once you're inside all you have to do is tell them what you just told me. Come on."

  He turned to climb the steps he
'd been sitting on, and after exchanging a glance with Riss, Tain followed right behind him. Riss had smiled and nodded once, which meant that Tain's partner knew exactly what to do. Once the lookout had passed them inside Riss would touch the man's hand in thanks - or so the man would think until he fell unconscious. The knockout drops would soak through his skin and put him down in only a couple of minutes, but Riss and Tain were protected from the drops. Even if Riss accidentally touched herself or Tain with the same hand, nothing of the same would happen to either of them.

  Rather than just opening the door, the lookout knocked twice. Someone else must have been standing just inside because the door opened at once.

  "Mitch said we'd find a good time if we came here," Tain repeated to this second man when the lookout nodded to her. "He also said it wouldn't cost a whole lot."

  "We're new in town, so we're giving out free samples to first-time customers," the inside man said at once with the same kind of grin the lookout had shown. "Come on in, girls, and once you sample our product you can tell us if you like it."

  The man stepped back to open the door more widely, and Tain smiled at him before taking the invitation and walking inside. Riss murmured something before following after Tain, which meant the lookout was being taken care of. It's never smart to leave an enemy behind your back, but if that enemy is too unconscious to do any harm…

  The front door led into a narrow hall, one that held a single chair near the door and nothing else. The chair was obviously for the use of the door guard, and a few steps ahead were archways to the left and right.

  "Just let me close the door, girls, and then I'll introduce you to the boss," the door guard said, already doing the door-closing. "I can see that you're a couple of friendly girls, so the boss will enjoy meeting you. Okay, that's done, and now … we can … "

  Riss caught the man as he collapsed, and Tain moved closer to them to help Riss put the door guard in his chair. The lookout also had to be unconscious by now, but the chance of anyone noticing and calling the police or an ambulance was small. It was well past midnight by now, and all the other houses in the neighborhood had been dark.

  Once the door guard was taken care of, Tain led the way toward the two archways. The one to the right led to a small dining room that held nothing but a table and chairs, but the archway to the left was a small living room and had three men in it. Tain looked around openly, and when one of the men in the living room noticed her he pushed away the naked girl who knelt by his feet and stood up.

  "Who the hell are you?" he demanded as Tain and Riss walked into the room. "How did you get in here?"

  "Those guys at the door let us in," Tain answered as Riss smiled and stroked the arm of a second man who had hurried over to her. "Mitch said we'd find a good time if we came here, and it looks like he was telling the truth. The guy inside the door said we could get free samples…?"

  "Free samples, sure," the man said, his anger disappearing even more quickly than it had come. "We'll be glad to give you free samples, and I'll definitely remember to thank Mitch. George, why don't you go and get the - "

  The man's words broke off when the first heavy Riss had touched collapsed to the floor, a moment later the second following suit. Both men had approached Riss, the second probably because of the way she'd caressed the first. The second had also gotten his caress, so there was only one left for Tain to smile at.

  "If you have any more muscle in the house, tell me now," Tain said as the last man stared at the gun Riss had produced. "I don't want you dead, but if someone jumps out at us it could happen anyway."

  "I'm not telling you shit," the man spat, his face twisted into an ugly mask of hatred. "If it's a big score you expected to make here, too bad, bitch. Those of us who sell this product are protected, so you won't be getting anything out of this play but dead. If you leave right now I'll just take my mad out on Mitch, and all you two will have to do to survive is change your names. Go on, get out of here!"

  "That's not going to happen," Tain said as she took out her own gun. "Put him down, Riss, and then we can take a look around this place."

  Riss grinned and walked toward the man, and even though he tried to back up she still managed to touch his arm. Less than a minute later he collapsed back to where he'd been sitting on the couch, and Tain was able to give her attention to the girl who still knelt on the floor next to the couch. There were two other naked girls as well, near the chairs the other men had been sitting in, and it came as no surprise that none of the girls had moved or said a word.

  "Okay, girls, this is an order," Tain said, knowing all three were able to hear her. "From now on you're not to take orders from anyone but me, and all orders you've been given before this one are canceled. But first tell me if there are any more men - or women - in this house."

  The two girls at the chairs had immediately started to cry, but the one by the couch looked up with pain in her eyes. She was a pretty blonde, or would have been pretty without the bruises on her face.

  "Besides these three lice, there are two more by the door," the girl said with a small amount of difficulty. "As far as girls go, the two owned by the guys at the door are in one of the back bedrooms. Beyond that there's no one else in the house, and I'm going to lie down on this carpeting until my knees stop feeling like they're about to explode and then I'm going to have hysterics like those two."

  She nodded toward the two crying girls before lying down the way she'd said she would, and Tain admired her courage. The woman had obviously been badly treated by the man who held her captive, but she hadn't let herself fall victim to terror. Which wasn't easy, not easy at all…

  "Thank you," Tain said to the blonde. "My friend and I are going to take a look around the house now, and I'd like you three to stay right here until we get back. You don't also happen to know where they keep the drug, do you?"

  "It's somewhere upstairs, but I have the feeling it isn't just lying around," the blonde supplied from where she lay stretched out on the carpeting. "Whenever one of these lice went up for some of it, they were longer getting back than a minute or two."

  "Thank you again," Tain said, exchanging a glance with Riss. "We'll be right back."

  Once they were out of the living room and on their way to checking out the rest of the downstairs rooms, Riss made a sound of amusement.

  "Yes, we'll definitely have to see about recruiting that one," Riss said, referring to the glance they'd exchanged a minute earlier. "She has the right attitude, and we both know that that's one thing you can't be trained for."

  Tain nodded her agreement, but most of her attention was on where they went. She and Riss checked all the rooms downstairs, finding nothing but two more girls asleep on the carpeting of a room toward the back. There was no real reason to wake those girls yet so they went upstairs, but the blonde had been right - twice.

  They found no one living, but they also found that the room containing the drug supply had been rigged. They spent a few minutes defusing the explosive device that was set to go off if the wrong people entered the room, and then Tain looked at the boxes containing the drug.

  "There's enough of the drug here to last through quite a few sales, but the amount isn't telling me what I want it to," Tain said with annoyance. "If whoever's behind this has set up their own manufacturing facility, they could be keeping the project small. Or they could be importing the drug from Oliven, and there's only so much the slavers there can supply. Chances are the … lice downstairs won't know which possibility is the truth."

  "Going with logic won't help much either," Riss agreed as she pulled out a box from half way down one of the stacks. "Depending on the slavers on Oliven kind of limits their options if the slavers get lazy or greedy, but they would save a lot of money and would have no need to share the manufacturing secret with anyone in a position to go into business for himself. There would also be no chance that someone would stumble across their set-up and stop production."

  "On the other hand
, if they were able to hide the set-up well enough they could forget about the slavers," Tain continued with the guesswork. "Then they could produce only as much of the drug as they needed, and their workers would be slaves themselves. It looks like the only way we'll find out for certain is by locating the big boss and asking."

  "So let's do the first asking the easy way," Riss said, gesturing with the box she held. "We still have a few hours left until daylight, and it would be a shame to waste them. Not to mention that certain people deserve a bit of payback."

  "I do like the way you think," Tain said with all the amused satisfaction she felt. "Let's get it done."

  The two went back downstairs, woke the sleeping girls and freed them, got them somewhat calmed down, then led them to the living room and left them there. The blonde was sitting up and massaging her legs, while the other two girls had stopped crying and seemed to be trying to pull themselves together.

  Dragging in the still-unconscious lookout took only a minute, and once the door was closed again Tain and Riss worked on him first. The antidote to the knockout drops brought the man around, but he was groggy enough not to know what was really going on.

  "Here, drink this, it'll make you feel better," Riss said to the man, bringing one of the small vials of the slave drug to his lips. The man swallowed the contents automatically, and after that was forced to obey when he was told to drink from a second vial. Even more confusion settled on the man then, confusion Tain quickly took advantage of.

  "From now on you won't do anything that you aren't told to do by someone female," Tain said softly. "Do you understand?"

  When the man nodded his agreement, Tain and Riss went on to do the same thing with the inner door guard. After both men were awake and under control, it was then the turn of the rest of the muscle in the living room. The five girls stared at the men, four of the girls showing their fear, the fifth, her anger, but by the time all of the hired men were under control all the girls had calmed down. They watched carefully as the last of the men, the boss of the house, was given the same treatment, and then it was time to ask some questions.