And about that time the rumors regarding a white slave ring operating somewhere in the general vicinity, “recruiting” new faces or, more aptly, new bodies, began to circulate.
The moment she heard, a cold chill had gone down her spine. And she knew, knew this was the direction she had to go in.
Further investigation on her part pointed to the trail working its way down to the southern portion of the state. She had no jurisdiction outside San Francisco and she knew she’d be strictly on her own.
But since nothing in the world was more important to her than Janie, Tiana did what she had to do. She requested a leave of absence and took off that very day, following the only lead she had—a confidential informant who owed her a favor since it was her work in the lab that had eventually cleared the man of some pretty nasty charges. The informant told her that Wayne was mixed up with the traffickers.
When she was a kid, Tiana had prayed feverishly, seeking the help of a higher power. She had prayed that her mother would come back to take them away, out of her father’s reach. She also prayed nightly that her father would change, suddenly regret the way he had treated them and do his best to make it up to her and her sister. Finally, all but devoid of hope, she still prayed that someone, anyone, would come to their rescue.
But their mother had never returned to take them with her, their father had continued to mistreat and abuse them—especially her—until the day he died and no one ever came to rescue them.
A week after their father was killed, Tiana turned eighteen and she was the one who rescued Janie. She was the one who stood up and did what had to be done, taking care of herself and her sister. And, since none of her prayers were ever answered, she concluded that there was no one listening. So she gave up praying.
She still didn’t pray.
Faced with the huge challenge of tracking down her sister and bringing her home, Tiana saw no reason to go back to something that had only failed her time and time again. In this big, wide world, Tiana had discovered that the only person she could rely on with any sort of certainty was herself.
So be it.
She just had to gather her inner fortitude and her strength together. She intended to do whatever had to be done to find her sister. And if, along the way, she ran into Wayne, she felt confident that she could be forgiven for pummeling the worthless piece of garbage into the ground for having kidnapped Janie.
Tiana was convinced that was what had happened. He’d drugged Janie and kidnapped her. There was no other reason why Janie hadn’t gotten in contact with her in two weeks. Always before, no matter what kind of an argument they’d had, she and Janie had never gone for more than a few days without getting in contact with each other. Neither one of them had ever held any sort of a long-term grudge, although this campus Romeo had definitely thrown a wrench into the works and caused an upsetting schism to form between them.
But this went beyond even that. Something was definitely wrong.
She could feel it way down deep in her bones.
“If anything bad has happened to Janie,” Tiana promised the missing Wayne between clenched teeth as she packed a few essential things, then threw the single suitcase into her car, “I am going to fillet you and make you wish you were never born.”
Voicing the threat aloud didn’t make her feel immeasurably better.
But it helped.
Chapter 2
Tiana held her breath as she walked up to the motel door. The faded, peeling gray door was in desperate need of a fresh coat of paint and number 13’s 3 was hanging upside down, held only partially in place by a nail precariously inserted at the bottom.
The thought occurred to Tiana that the barely attached 3 might be an omen of some sort.
She dismissed the thought. Behind this door—hopefully—was the only lead she had to help her find her sister. By calling in every favor she’d had, she’d managed to get Wayne’s credit card activity traced. The cocky dimwit had used his card to pay for his motel room, allowing her to trace him to this run-down twenty-unit motel.
With any luck, Janie was here, too. Tiana wasn’t going to leave without the girl.
And if this lowlife had hurt Janie in any way, she would make sure he regretted it. Her sister was still a minor despite the fact that she was in her first year in college. Wayne was not. It was ultimately all the ammunition Tiana needed to have him put away.
Damn it, Janie, you’re the smart one in this family. You’re supposed to have more brains than this, running off with a loser. What were you thinking? Tiana silently demanded.
The next second, the direction of her thoughts did a one-eighty and anger turned to foreboding. Please be all right, Janie. Please. I’ll forgive this stupid lapse in judgment, just please be all right.
Glancing around to see if anyone was watching—this unit faced the rear parking lot, which was at present devoid of any activity—she took out the small precision tools she needed to help her gain entry into the room. The last thing she intended to do was knock, alerting Wayne so that he’d wind up fleeing through the back window, dragging Janie in his wake.
But as Tiana inserted the thin metal tool into the keyhole, the door moved back.
It wasn’t locked.
Tiana caught her lower lip between her teeth. She was either lucky—or something was very, very wrong.
It had been a while since she’d considered herself lucky.
Bracing herself, Tiana drew out her service weapon from its holster beneath her jacket. Her breath backing up in her lungs, she pushed the door open with her fingertips, moving it a painfully slow inch at a time.
The instant she saw Wayne spread out on the bed, she moved quickly, crossing from the entrance to the bed in less than a quarter of a heartbeat.
“Hands up, ‘college boy’!” she ordered, aiming her weapon straight at him.
Wayne continued to lie exactly where he was, not flinching, not moving.
Nothing.
That was when the dirty bedspread lying beneath him finally registered with her brain. The bedspread was soaked with his blood. Tiana realized that he wasn’t just staring into oblivion; his wide-open eyes no longer saw anything at all.
A wave of panic-fueled anger seized her.
“Oh, God, no, no, no. You can’t be dead, you worthless piece of trash, do you hear me? You can’t be dead!” she cried. “You have to tell me where Janie is!”
Wayne was her only connection, her only way of finding Janie. Biting off a curse, she pressed her fingers against his neck, searching for some sign of his pulse, faint or otherwise.
There was none.
Only blood that smeared against the plastic of the gloves she’d thought to put on before she’d entered—a habit from her day job where she’d learned to be very, very cautious about leaving crime scenes undisturbed.
This was surreal. It couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t!
Dazed, unable to process any thoughts, Tiana stared at the dead man for a full moment, trying to pull herself together.
Now what do I do? her mind demanded. This waste of human skin was her only lead and he was dead.
Not only that, but he now represented a serious complication. What was she supposed to do with him?
She needed to call this in, but she couldn’t very well stand around, waiting for them to arrive. She was going to have to make it an anonymous call to get them over here. Otherwise, there’d be too much to explain to them, and she didn’t have time for that. All along, as she drove here, she’d been fighting an ever-increasing feeling of urgency. She just couldn’t shake the feeling that she had to find Janie before it was too late.
There was this very real fear eating away at her that if she didn’t find her sister soon, she never would. Victims caught up in the stranglehold of sex traffickers could vanish in a
n instant.
Yet she couldn’t just leave this body here like this. It went against everything she was ever trained to do.
A compromise was in order. Since Wayne was already dead, Tiana decided that she’d call the police once she was well clear of here. From a pay phone—if she could locate one—so the call couldn’t be traced back to her. She didn’t have time for lengthy explanations or interrogations.
Returning her weapon to its holster beneath her jacket, she looked one last time at the person who had caused her so much grief. There was no pity, no sympathy for a life cut short. She felt nothing other than frustration. It occurred to her that she would have felt worse about any roadkill she encountered.
Crossing to the door, she threw it open, intending to run.
Only to find herself smack up against what would have been a solid brick wall had it not moved back even as it grabbed her by the shoulders.
Heart pounding as she tried to get herself together, Tiana simultaneously shook off the hold on her shoulders and pulled out her weapon for a second time in five minutes.
“Who the hell are you?” she demanded, anger usurping the fear she felt.
“Someone with a gun pointed at him,” Brennan remarked, his hands partially raised out of respect for the weapon aimed at his chest.
He found himself looking even more intently at the petite redhead with wide blue eyes. But, despite her stature—was she even five two without those sexy-looking black stilts she was passing off as shoes?—she gave the impression of strength. Not the kind of outer strength that could easily lift heavy objects but the kind of inner strength that was able to move mountains.
Brennan had the impression that this redheaded powerhouse was a force to be reckoned with. And he found himself rather looking forward to that encounter.
Trained to make quick judgments, he swiftly took in the room, assessing what he saw. Sent only with the instruction to “tie up any loose ends” as a way of proving himself, he realized that he’d apparently walked into the middle of something unsavory.
“Mind pointing that somewhere else? You can point it at him,” he suggested, nodding at the body on the bed, “since you seem to have already killed him.”
The suggestion as well as his assumption took Tiana by surprise. “You think I shot him?” Pausing to review the scene, she knew how it appeared. She needed to do some quick explaining—if this man actually believed what he’d just said.
“Why not?” he asked rhetorically. “You’re the one with the gun.” As he spoke, he slowly lowered his hands, watching her intently as he did so for some sign that she’d shoot if he dropped them completely. “A woman can pull a trigger just as easily as a man—and then there’re those neat gloves you’re wearing—” he nodded at her hands “—so you don’t leave any fingerprints. Looks like you’ve got all the bases covered.” He cocked his head, as if daring her to prove his theory wrong.
“I’m cautious,” Tiana countered, referring to the plastic gloves. “But he was already dead when I came in. I found him this way,” she emphasized pointedly.
“And just how did you come to ‘find’ him in the first place?”
Tiana couldn’t tell if the man she was talking to was a cop or part of the organization she suddenly realized she needed to track down. What she did know was that he was a lot bigger than she was and she had a feeling that he was pretty quick, as well. She might have a shot at outrunning him, but then what?
If he was part of the organization that dealt in sex trafficking, he might be her best shot at finding Janie. That meant making nice with him.
How nice?
Not that, she couldn’t help thinking, being “nice” to this man would exactly be a miserable hardship, strictly speaking.
There was no doubt about the fact that the man was good-looking. Not the kind of good-looking that might be noticed peripherally in passing, but the kind of tall, dark and handsome good-looking that brought you to a jarring halt no matter what you were doing and had you staring, absolutely mesmerized by deep blue eyes that seemed to look into the most private corners of your soul.
Her mind scrambled for a plausible story. A kernel of an idea came to her. Utilizing it, she made up the rest of it as she went along.
“I have a phobia about catching something I shouldn’t. These are just a precaution.” She held up one hand as an illustration of her point. “I also like staying under the police’s radar.”
“Why’s that?”
Her eyes on his, she carefully holstered her gun. It was a gesture of good faith—one she hoped she wouldn’t regret.
“You a cop?” she asked.
Brennan laughed.
“Do I look like a cop?” he challenged, amusement highlighting a rather rugged face.
Tiana studied the stranger for a moment. He was tall, dark-haired and broad-shouldered, not to mention rather impressively dressed in a gray suit that undoubtedly set him back a bit. They were making bad guys better looking these days.
“You’ve got the jaw for it,” she quipped.
“But not the taste,” he pointed out. “Mine’s expensive,” he explained. “A cop’s salary wouldn’t begin to pay for one of my suits.” The corners of his mouth curved. “Okay, I showed you mine. You show me yours.”
She realized he was alluding to being part of the organization. Here went nothing. “I’m new in town and looking for fresh talent.”
“Him?” Brennan asked, a skeptical frown taking over his face.
Tiana laughed harshly. “Hardly. I came to talk to him because I’d heard that he was tied in to recruiting young girls.”
The handsome stranger with the good bone structure raised an eyebrow. “You like girls?”
He was baiting her on purpose, she thought. Tiana kept her cool. “My clients do.”
The raised eyebrow went up farther. “You’re a madam.”
She could hear the skepticism in his voice. This was her first hurdle and she needed to make a believer out of this man. If she didn’t, she had a feeling that her foray into this dark world to extract Janie was doomed to failure right from the start.
“Yes, I am,” she informed him haughtily. “Something wrong with that?”
“Hey, not mine to judge.” He raised his hands as if to push the entire concept away. “But you are kind of dressed understated for a madam, aren’t you?” he pointed out.
What was someone with her obvious good looks doing in a field like this? She looked too classy to be what she claimed to be. He could see her in a professional capacity—a legitimate professional capacity, not someone who dealt in flesh peddling.
But it took all kinds, he thought.
“I don’t like to stand out when I’m out among civilians,” Tiana told him.
He let his eyes travel over the length of her and could see her trying not to look away.
“Well, if you don’t want to stand out, maybe you should be wearing a bag or a sack over your head, because your looks make you a standout in any circle,” Brennan told her.
Tiana stared at him, stunned. “Are you flirting with me?” she asked incredulously.
He spread his hands wide in innocence. “Just stating it like it is.”
“In other words, you’re flirting with me,” she concluded. She noted the lopsided smile gracing his lips. Undoubtedly the undoing of a lot of women and it made him feel he could just reach out and have anyone he wanted.
Think again, she warned him silently. She didn’t trust men, especially good-looking ones. Her father had once been exceptionally good-looking, not to mention a charmer.
“You can save your breath,” she told him out loud. “I am much too rich for your blood.”
He laughed softly. “How do you know what I can afford? Maybe I’ve got a bulging...billfold,” he concluded suggestive
ly.
Her eyes narrowed. “It doesn’t matter what you’ve got in your billfold. You can’t afford me,” she told him confidently.
He knew this was all about how successful he was at role-playing and posing. He needed to keep his mind on the game. That was what the chief was counting on, and he didn’t want to disappoint the man the first time out.
All that taken into consideration, he admitted to himself that the woman in front of him made him itch. Itch a lot.
In a place he couldn’t afford to scratch.
It was way too risky to do anything but banter with this low-key madam.
“You’re piquing my interest,” he finally told her.
“Well, you’re boring mine.”
“Sorry to hear that,” he acknowledged. “I’ll try harder next time.”
“What makes you think there’s going to be a next time?” she asked, sneering.
“Oh, lady, there’s going to be a next time,” he promised her. One way or another, he added silently, intrigued despite the situation. “Count on it.”
Tiana narrowed her eyes. “You’re part of the organization?”
He smiled, enjoying this game, even if the circumstances didn’t quite call for it. Keeping her in suspense. “I might be.”
“You either are or you’re not,” she said impatiently, her nerves just about at the end of their frayed life expectancy.
“What’s it worth to you if I am?” he asked her, his eyes drifting over the length of her again.
She pushed ahead. “I’ll pay top dollar for every girl I take off your hands—but they have to be in prime condition. No bruises, no scars, no signs of abuse. And teeth,” she added. “They have to have teeth,” she underscored. Tiana was doing her best to describe Janie the way she looked the last time she’d seen her. Hopefully, nothing of consequence had changed.
“Picky,” he said.
“Thorough,” she countered.
“That, too,” he agreed. “Also very cool.”
Her suspicions were immediately raised. “What do you mean?”
Cavanaugh Undercover Page 3
