Into The Night

by Janelle Denison

  “ We did good.” She couldn’t have accomplished any of what she had without him by her side, and she’d like to think that she’d been a necessary component to helping him get Angela out of Sloane’s estate, too. “You and I make a good team.” The words spilled out before she realized the double meaning to them.

  “Yeah, we do,” Nathan replied huskily as he brushed his thumb along her jaw and his fingers caressed the side of her neck in a tender, romantic touch. “In more ways than one.”

  He was referring to the two of them-not professionally, but intimately. Beyond the case and working together to rescue the two girls, to the deeper feelings that had developed between them. Feelings she’d desperately tried to keep contained to physical attraction alone, but somehow, someway, they’d evolved into something far more real that scared the hell out of her and threatened everything she’d worked so hard to achieve.

  Her heart beat faster in her chest, and an overwhelming sense of vulnerability swamped her. Over the past few weeks with Nathan, from the moment they’d met at the speed-dating event, he’d become her greatest weakness. Sexually, she couldn’t get enough of him. But it was the underlying emotions he evoked that struck fear into her heart, because she didn’t trust her ability to fall in love and not lose her sense of self all over again.

  She took a step back from him, her stiff body language speaking volumes. Knowing it was best that she kept their conversation focused on the case, and off them, she thought about the young girl in the other room. “Thank you for letting me take Holly.”

  “I don’t think you would have given me a choice.” His smile was a little sad, as if he realized she was pulling away from him, retreating from everything they’d shared. And that there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it.

  “Probably not.” She swallowed hard. The hurt she saw in his eyes was much more difficult to bear than she realized. “I’m happy to hear Sloane will get his comeuppance. Knowing that is like icing on the cake.”

  “Nicole… are you okay?” His voice was soft and worried, like no other man’s had ever been before.

  No, she wasn’t okay. She was a wreck, inside and out. She could feel pieces of her heart splintering, and wondered how long the ache in her chest would last. “I’m just tired.”

  His jaw clenched, and he pushed his hands into his pants pockets, as if that would keep him from reaching out and touching her again, which would undoubtedly be her undoing.

  “You and I need to talk,” he said.

  Not here and not now. She just couldn’t handle what was bound to be a painful discussion after the day, and evening, she’d had. She was mentally exhausted, and too emotionally raw.

  “I need to be with Holly right now.” It was the truth and an excuse, all in one.

  To her immense relief, he let her go without a reply, but it was the unspoken emotions lingering in his gaze that told her she’d only been granted a brief reprieve.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Throughout the night, Nicole sat next to Holly’s bed, curled up in the comfortable chair Caleb had brought in for her to use while she watched over the young girl she felt responsible for. Nicole was exhausted and drained, yet a deep, restful sleep eluded her. There was too much going on in her mind-her worry for Holly, thoughts of Sloane’s impending arrest, and the disappointment in Nathan’s eyes as she’d walked away from him earlier.

  The latter still haunted her, in ways she’d never anticipated.

  As the hours slowly passed, Holly tossed and turned in her bed, moaning and whimpering as her own dreams, and possibly nightmares, plagued her. The few times she did wake up Nicole made her drink gulps of cool water to help flush the alcohol and drugs out of her system, though Nicole had a strong feeling the young girl was going to feel like crap come morning. By then, the narcotics would have worn off and Holly would be forced to deal in the real world with nothing to dull her anxiety, emotional pain, and the reality of her situation.

  She heard Caleb’s and Nathan’s voices drifting in from the other room, along with an occasional comment from Valerie, and knew they were discussing details of the case, gathering information on Holly, and getting in touch with all the pertinent agencies to take Sloane down.

  By dawn, Nicole’s heavy eyelids drooped and she snuggled into the blanket wrapped around her and nodded off. When she woke up half an hour later, she found Holly awake, curled up on her side, her vacant gaze staring at the wall behind Nicole. The girl’s makeup was smeared, showing her pale complexion, and her hair was a disheveled mess around her face. She looked so empty and alone, and much older than her fifteen years. Her innocence and childhood were gone, stolen by a man who had no regard for the lives he destroyed in his quest for his own sick pleasures.

  Nicole sat up in her chair so she was closer to the side of the bed. Holly didn’t even acknowledge that she was there, though she knew the girl was well aware of her presence. Most likely, she was still pissed off at Nicole for taking her away from Sloane.

  “How are you feeling?” Nicole asked softly.

  Holly didn’t respond, clearly ignoring her.

  Sighing, but by no means defeated, Nicole tried again. “Would you like some breakfast? I can make you some eggs or toast.” Eventually the girl would need to put something in her stomach-other than drugs and alcohol.

  “I don’t want anything from you,” Holly finally said, her voice flat and spiritless. “Just go away.”

  Okay, she was talking. At least that was a start. “Do you remember where you are?” Nicole asked, unsure what the girl recalled from last night. “That I took you away from Preston’s estate and brought you somewhere safe?”

  Her gaze finally met Nicole’s, a spark of renewed animosity flashing in her eyes as last night’s events came back to her. “You had no right to take me!”

  “We did have the right to take you,” Nicole said gently, trying to keep the girl calm. “You’re only fifteen, Holly. You’re an underage runaway who was kidnapped and taken to Preston’s place in Summerlin.”

  Holly’s brows snapped into a frown. “Who told you that?”

  So, she didn’t remember her conversation with Valerie. “Last night, you talked to one of the other women who is here. You told her you ran away from home a year ago, when you were fourteen, and that Gwen brought you to Vegas from California.”

  “I wouldn’t tell anyone that!” she said, her tone panicked. “I’m eighteen and I want to be with Preston.”

  Both Sloane and Gwen had done an excellent job in brainwashing the young girl. “What Preston did, what Gwen did, was against the law.” Wanting to offer Holly comfort, Nicole reached out to grab the girl’s hand.

  Holly yanked her arm away, sat up in bed, and glared at Nicole. “I don’t care. I’ll do anything to be with Preston, to make him happy. He’ll find me and he’ll come for me. I know he will!”

  “He’s not coming for you,” Nicole said, not wanting Holly to be under any illusions. “As soon as your parents are located, you’ll be reunited with them, and they’ll take you back home.”

  Holly shook her head wildly, and tears brimmed in her eyes. “I don’t want to go back. My mother doesn’t want me. She’s never wanted me.”

  It didn’t escape Nicole’s notice that Holly only mentioned the one parent, and it seemed like the relationship hadn’t been a good one. It was hard to imagine that a mother would discard a child so easily, and she wondered if Holly’s perception of what it had been like at home was somehow skewed after her time with Sloane.

  “Why do you think your mother doesn’t want you?” Nicole asked. Her own parents would have come for her in a heartbeat, just as Angela’s had.

  Tears ran down the girl’s cheek as memories of her past seemed to overwhelm her. “My mother was always too busy with her boyfriend of the week, and most of them were creeps. She left me alone all the time while she and whatever guy she was dating went out and partied. Sometimes, she didn’t even come home until the morning. I wanted to li
ve with my dad, but my mom wouldn’t let me.”

  “Where’s your dad?” Nicole asked, curious to know why her father hadn’t been a direct part of her life.

  “He’s in the army,” she said, and swiped away the wet tears from her face. “He’s stationed in Germany. I miss him so much.”

  Oh, hell. It sounded as though Holly’s home life had been a heart-wrenchingly dysfunctional one. Most likely she’d rebelled in various ways in the hope of getting just a fraction of the attention her mother gave to her boyfriends. When her attempts hadn’t worked, she’d decided to run away. And then Sloane had come along and had given her what she craved the most-attention, affection, and gifts to make her feel loved.

  “I want Preston.” Holly lay back down on the bed, facing away from Nicole this time. “He loves me, I know he does,” she said, and Nicole knew Holly believed her own words.

  “If Preston loved you, why was he asking you to be with other men?” Nicole asked, hoping the question would break through the girl’s stubborn mind-set. It was the same question she’d asked herself over and over, while fighting an internal struggle over Mark’s request to sleep with another man.

  Holly stiffened. “Go away,” she said, choosing not to answer, probably because there was no justification for what Sloane had done to her. “I want to be alone.”

  There was so much more Nicole could say to Holly to point out all of Sloane’s immoral flaws, but in the girl’s current mental state, Preston was her hero, the man who’d taken her in and had given her nice things and a false sense of security and love. Never mind that he’d also exploited her and had already started passing her around to other men. Nicole had no doubt that he would have eventually sold her off to his Russian connections for an even worse life, with no chance of ever going home again.

  There was no reasoning with Holly in her current frame of mind, and it would be a waste of Nicole’s breath to continue trying. The girl required the kind of professional help that Nicole wasn’t equipped to provide, and she’d talk to Caleb to make sure she received some kind of counseling to heal her damaged emotions.

  But in the meantime, she wanted to be sure the girl had someone to talk to if she needed support. She looked through the nightstand and found a pen and a notepad, then jotted down her name and her cell phone number. She ripped off the piece of paper, came around the bed and tucked it beneath Holly’s hand, then gently touched her hair, wishing there was some easy way to make all this go away for Holly. Unfortunately, there was nothing simple or easy about what the girl had been through.

  Holly didn’t move or acknowledge her touch or the note she’d given her. “If you ever need someone to talk to, that’s my cell number. You can call me anytime .”

  Again, Holly didn’t respond, but neither did she crumple up her phone number and toss it aside, which Nicole took as a positive sign.

  The longer she stared at Holly, the more Nicole saw a part of herself in the young girl. From the very beginning, she’d been drawn to Holly, the need to protect her strong because she knew what the girl was going through.

  All too well, Nicole understood the pain of Holly’s situation-of once being Sloane’s “it” girl, of being asked to do unmentionable things with other men, then being cast off for someone younger and prettier. Mark Reeves had been older and charming-a man who knew all the right words to make a girl’s heart beat faster. Yet beneath all that charisma had been a selfish, egotistical player who had no qualms about using his female students for his own sexual gratification.

  She’d fallen in love with Mark quickly and completely, and had been willing to do anything to make him happy, to make sure he loved her, and only her. To the point that she’d done degrading, humiliating things because she’d been just as obsessed with Mark as Holly was with Preston. Her entire world had revolved around her professor, to the exclusion of everything else.

  A shiver rippled down her spine, and the chill of a deep-seated fear touched her heart. After Mark, she’d deliberately spent years in casual relationships, keeping her emotions out of the equation while embracing her independence and working toward building her career as a journalist. She’d learned the difficult lesson that giving any man control over her emotions was the most painful, self-destructive thing she’d ever done.

  She’d only known Nathan a few weeks, yet already she couldn’t get enough of him. Her strong feelings for him were crossing all those emotional boundaries she’d set for herself, the ones she’d erected to protect her heart and everything else that was important to her.

  An onslaught of doubts swept through her, forcing her to question whether her emotions toward Nathan were even real, or if he was nothing more than an obsession, a result of their close proximity over the past few weeks. Was she about to repeat the pattern of her past and risk losing her identity as a journalist and as a woman? And what price would she pay to love Nathan, knowing he could walk away at any given moment?

  She feared the answer.

  Oh, God . She pressed her fingers to her lips as she looked down at Holly, a clear-cut reminder of what giving her heart and soul to someone could reduce her to. And that’s when Nicole knew she just didn’t have it in her to take that risk with Nathan, because she’d never be able to survive the heartbreak of losing him.

  Nicole had to make a choice, and she knew which one it had to be. She couldn’t lose focus as a woman or as a reporter, not when she was on the cusp of something huge with her career. She was about to get the big breakout story on Sloane after all, and she was confident that the exclusive would open up myriad opportunities for her. The kind that would require dedication and commitment to her job. She needed to remain true to herself this time, making the choice to leave before it was made for her. Or before she did something stupid in the name of love.

  It was time to end things between them. She knew saying good-bye was going to hurt, that she would miss so many things about Nathan. But she knew it was much easier to shut the door on someone else than have it shut on her. Their story was done. It was time for her to move on and heal.

  A soft knock on the door startled Nicole out of her troubling thoughts, and she glanced from Holly to Valerie, who stood just inside the bedroom.

  “I heard you two talking in here a while ago and thought I’d give you a break,” the other woman said, her gaze compassionate. Then, in a lower voice, she said, “Nathan is waiting to talk to you in the other room.”

  “Thanks,” Nicole said, even though she had no intention of having a long, drawn-out conversation with Nathan about them.

  Nathan wanted to talk, but for her, there was nothing left to discuss.

  * * *

  Nathan glanced up from the information he and Caleb were reviewing on his laptop as Nicole entered the living room. He was quick to notice she avoided eye contact with him-not that he was surprised. Everything about her body language told him that sometime in the past six hours she’d spent by Holly’s bedside, she’d erected emotional barriers and was already closing herself off to him… and anything between them beyond this case.

  Last night, she’d changed from her jester costume to a large T-shirt and a pair of drawstring shorts Caleb had given her to wear. She’d scrubbed her face clean, and except for the dark circles beneath her eyes, she appeared like a young girl herself. She also looked worn out, and he knew her exhaustion was both emotional and physical.

  For now, he’d let business take precedence.

  She stood across the room from where Nathan and Caleb were sitting on the sofa. “I found out from Holly that her mother and father aren’t together, and she lived with her mother before running away.”

  “We know,” Nathan said. “We have a full background report on her. She’s listed as a runaway, and she’s only fifteen years old, which helps us finally nail Sloane. We contacted her mother about an hour ago to let her know we have Holly.”

  A troubled look passed across Nicole’s features. “How did her mother react?”

  “Sh
e was shocked and happy her daughter was alive and okay.” A normal response in Nathan’s opinion. “Why?”

  She ran her fingers through her hair and sighed. “Because the two of them didn’t have a great relationship. According to Holly, her mother spent more time with her various boyfriends than with her.”

  Nathan sensed where Nicole was heading with her comments, and knew he had to get her to start cutting those emotional ties to Holly, despite whatever the girl’s family relationships had been. “Her mother is on her way from California to pick her up. She should be here in a few hours.” He said softly, “You need to let it go, Nicole.”

  The concern in her eyes shone bright. “I just don’t want to take her out of one bad situation and place her in another. She might be better off with her father, even though he’s stationed in Germany.”

  “It’s not our choice to make,” Caleb cut in, not bothering to temper the bluntness of his words. For him, this was a cut-and-dried situation, and while Nathan knew that deep inside Caleb was sympathetic, his boss handled all his cases objectively.

  “I’ll be taking Holly to The Onyx with me. Valerie will stay with her until her mother arrives,” Caleb continued, making it clear this was the end of Nicole’s involvement with the girl. “We’ll probably hold Holly at the hotel for a few days so the FBI can talk to her and everything gets straightened out. Then she’ll be released to her mother’s custody.”

  “Okay,” Nicole said, though the stunned look on her face told Nathan she wasn’t dealing well with the brusque way Caleb was handling the situation. She was having difficulty separating herself from Holly and accepting that her part in the case was done.

  Caleb stood and crossed the room to Nicole, extending his hand to shake hers. “I want to thank you for your help,” he said, the sentiment genuine. “We appreciate everything you’ve done to help get Angela back to her parents, and we’ll handle everything else from here.”

  Nathan winced inwardly. Caleb’s words sounded like a cool dismissal. But Nathan knew how his boss operated and he was treating Nicole, and the success of the mission, in a professional manner. In Caleb’s mind, he’d already moved on to the investigative part of the case and the feds’ involvement to take down Sloane.