Secrets of the Dead

by Kylie Brant

“This.” She gestured to her face. “I look like the wrath of God. If God got as irritated as I do by frizzy hair and a banged up face.”

  He leaned a shoulder against the doorjamb. When had he unbuttoned his shirt? Because her gaze wanted to linger on that wall of muscled chest with its neat pattern of hair, she forced her eyes back to the mirror again. Winced.

  “I think God might cut you a little slack, given the day you’ve had.” His eyes met hers in the mirror. “You’d be wise to do the same. The cuts will heal. And the curls…” His mouth quirked. “They’re actually sort of cute when they do that spiral thing.”

  Cute. She couldn’t prevent an eye roll. All that was missing was a pat on the head and a lollypop.

  “Great. What’s next, the inevitable Shirley Temple joke?” She’d heard it ever since she could remember. And the child star had been a grown woman Eve’s entire life.

  His brow furrowed. “Who? You mean that little kid in the old movies? You look young, but not that young. No one would mistake you for a kid, Evie.”

  There was heat in his eyes, a sudden flare of it. And that quickly her ire dissipated. She was tired. Surely she was misinterpreting the look in his eyes. The note in his voice when he called her Evie.

  “The cut on your forehead bled the worst.” His jaw went tight. “Seems like they always do. You had blood in your hair. Pouring down your face. I thought you’d been grazed by a bullet. Or worse.” She watched, frozen, as he reached out to touch the shoulder of her tank. There was a quarter-sized bloodstain there, which meant that the blood had soaked through her sweaters. She hadn’t noticed. Just like she hadn’t noticed until now that the holster tank was body hugging tight.

  Eve swallowed. “I think…there were a few spots where I got nicked in my scalp. They cleaned them out with antiseptic. They probably bled…the most.” The intensity in his gaze made it difficult to think. She had the oddest urge to raise her hand, to stroke his shadowed jaw. To press her mouth to its hair-roughened surface before moving her lips to his.

  There were reasons—good ones—why the idea was unwise. But they seemed difficult to summon. Possibly because her thoughts had scattered. His face lowered to hers. Without conscious volition she took a step closer.

  The distant sound of a voice had her jumping as though she’d been scalded. Uncomprehendingly her gaze met his. The desire she saw there had everything inside her going molten.

  Then he looked past her, to where the receiver sat on the counter. “We’ve got audio.”

  She turned to grab the ear buds, fumbling to put them in place. It took a moment for her to make sense of what she was hearing. “Shuang is on the phone. Speaking Malay.” She listened intently for a minute. “She’s trying to convince someone named Umar to help arrange contact with Rizqi bin Osman.” Eve broke off, focused on the conversation a while longer. “He must have refused, because she’s hung up and she’s furious. Throwing things, from the sound of it and muttering some very imaginative curses in Chinese.”

  Declan looked as mystified as she felt. “Why would she be so desperate to speak to the man who had enslaved her up until seven years ago?”

  “Maybe Brina was wrong. Maybe Shuang isn’t the owner of the hotel.”

  She didn’t even complete the thought before he was shaking his head. “You think she’s working for him? Again, why would she? And if she were, why would she have to arrange contact through a third party?”

  Shuang’s tantrum seemed to have subsided. It sounded as if she were typing at her keyboard. “We might discover those answers tonight.”

  He cleared his throat. Didn’t meet her gaze. “No telling how soon Stillions will call. I’ll take the shower after you.”

  “Right.” She could be as studiedly nonchalant as he was. More so. She turned to rummage in the cupboard for a towel. Clutched it tightly as she gestured to the door. “I’ll just… get started.”

  “Yeah.” He still wasn’t looking at her. “Okay.”

  It helped, a smidgeon, that he appeared as discomfited as she. “If you could….” She made a shooing motion. “Go.”

  The word seemed to jolt him into action. Silently he turned and went through the door, easing it shut behind him. She propped her free hand on the counter, the strength streaming from her limbs. That was twice the listening device had interrupted them, and the irony wasn’t lost on her. Hopefully Shuang would be in custody in a matter of hours. And when she was, Eve would have to figure out a way to resist Declan Gallagher on her own.

  It would help, she thought as she moved to turn on the shower, if she could recall why it seemed so important that she continue to do so.

  _______

  “The cameras were returned to their normal position around noon today, so if anyone suspected that they weren’t working properly, they’d believe the problem had taken care of itself hours ago.” Declan covered his whisper mic with his hand when he spoke, to avoid having his words broadcast to the tactical team in place outside the hotel.

  Eve, Cal Stillions and ICE agent Fred Turpen huddled in the backseat of Stillion’s vehicle, peering at the screen of Declan’s laptop which showed all eighteen cameras. The men were clad in flak jackets emblazoned with their agency name, worn over Kevlar vests. They were equipped with mics, as well. It had been made very clear to Declan that Stillions hadn’t been kidding about his limited role. Although he wore a mobile laptop harness so he could easily carry the open computer, he had strict orders to remain in the vehicle with Eve, providing the team members with intelligence regarding any activity shown on the cameras. If Declan chafed under the restrictions, he consoled himself that any role at all was better than sitting in the apartment wondering what the hell was happening.

  Declan tapped on the camera for floor fifteen, bringing it to a full screen view. It showed an empty hallway for several moments. Then the elevator doors opened and Harris stepped out with a slight dark haired woman wearing a very short tight red dress and stilt like heels. He gave her a small push and they headed toward the end of the hallway.

  “Brina told Eve that one of the men guarded them all night, so there may be another in room 1501 or 1502.” He checked the time on the computer. Just after one AM. “No way to know whether some of them may still be a customer’s room, but with the electronic bracelets they wear, I’m guessing the prostitution activity takes place on the premises.”

  “We’ve got the cards.” Turpen spoke for the first time, his palm covering his mic. “If they aren’t all accounted for in the two rooms, we’ll go looking for them.”

  “But what of the guard is armed?” Worry sounded in Eve’s voice. “It could easily turn into a hostage situation.”

  “We’ve done this before, Ms. Larrison,” Stillions reassured her. “We’ve got precautions in place.”

  Declan sent her a quick glance in the shadowy interior of the car. Declan knew she was astute enough to realize that as well planned as these operations were, something unexpected could always crop up, sending the op haywire.

  It was a multi-agency operation. DCPD was providing the tactical team and both FBI and ICE were on scene. But from what he could tell, it was Stillions at the controls.

  “Breach in five.” The disembodied voice from the sergeant in the command unit down the street sounded through the mic. Without another word, the two agents got out of the car and disappeared into the night.

  Declan brought up the image for the front desk. There was only one attendant working and he was staring intently at something on his phone. The lobby was deserted. He knew from what he’d seen minutes earlier on the other images that officers were already in place outside the other exits. Declan had run off the blueprints of the property that Raiker had provided them when they started this assignment. No one would be escaping the hotel.

  Eve angled closer for a better view of the computer. “You’d have to have nerves of steel to d
o this for a living,” she muttered. He zoomed in on the image of floor fifteen again. “Adult male seen leaving room 1501,” he said quietly into the mic. “Probably leaving at least one guard inside the room.” Harris was walking quickly down the hall and disappeared into an open elevator. He reverted to the screen showing the multiple camera views. The other images for the guest floors showed empty hallways.

  Her slight gasp beside him warned Declan. He glanced up and saw a long stream of officers in riot gear running up to the front entrance. He could make out Stillions’ lanky form at the rear at the men entered the facility. Returning his gaze to the laptop he saw that several men splintered off and ran toward the front desk, surrounding the man on duty. “You have an elderly gentleman on floor six with an ice bucket in his hand heading east down the hallway,” he said quietly into the mic.

  “Entrance secured,” came a voice.

  “Adult male seen leaving fifteenth floor has entered a room on floor eight, south side of the hall,” Declan reported. Malsovic’s room was on the eighth floor, and he wondered now if all of Shuang’s men had rooms close together. “Likelihood of at least four armed accomplices on floor eight.”

  “Floor eight, 821, 822, 823. Floor seven, 701. Floor fifteen, 1501, 1502,” came a voice. Declan figured they’d gotten the needed information from the attendant at the front desk.

  “Floor one clear,” another voice sounded.

  There wasn’t a camera on the main floor that wasn’t near an exit so Declan had no way of monitoring the team’s movements except for the snippets that came through the mic. Time seemed to slow. Stretch interminably. “Floor six is clear again,” he said as the older man re-entered his room with the ice bucket. Another minute passed.

  A door opened on floor seven. And Declan knew who he’d see coming out of the room. “Armed woman in the hallway of seventh floor. Heading to the elevator.”

  “Shuang,” Eve breathed.

  Adrenaline was spiking, but he kept his voice calm as he marked the woman’s progress on the camera. “Armed woman entered elevator on floor seven.” An officer was supposed to have dismantled the elevator operation, Declan knew. If he’d been successful, Shuang wouldn’t get far.

  A moment later she reentered the hallway. “Armed woman left elevator and back in floor seven hallway,” he said. He watched her progress for another second before her intentions became clear. “Armed woman positioned near stairway on floor seven.”

  Simultaneously he heard, “Prepare for entry.”

  “Do not enter floor seven.” It took effort to keep his voice calm as he tracked Shuang’s movements. “Shooter on floor seven.”

  There was a burst of activity on some of the cameras. SWAT officers poured out of the stairwell onto the eighth and fifteenth floors floor and swarmed toward the predetermined rooms, parting for the two tactical officers holding a battering ram. Once one door was breached, the duo would take on another, while other officers raced into the room, weapons ready.

  “Shooter on floor seven nearing the stairwell.” Team members in riot gear were coming out of one of the rooms on the eighth floor to join their teammates who had breached the other two rooms. He could hear screams through his mic and Declan knew they came from the awakened women in rooms 1501 and 1502.

  “Armed woman on seventh floor four steps from stairwell door.” Declan monitored Shuang’s movements closely. “Weapon in right hand. Reaching for door with left in three…two…one.” The scene exploded a moment later and a tactical officer carrying an armored shield burst through the door, slamming into the woman, knocking her off balance. He was joined by several other officers and one of them tackled Shuang, knocking the weapon from her hand and restraining her while another performed a body search.

  The eighth floor camera showed the policemen herding two handcuffed men from two rooms next to each other. Harris and Amin. The one on the fifteenth showed a subdued and restrained Taufik flanked by two tactical team members, while others tried to the contain the stream of women coming from the two rooms. All wore shapeless cotton gowns and were barefoot. Each had a thick black bracelet encircling one ankle. In the milling crowd it was impossible to count to see if twenty-nine women were accounted for.

  “They won’t have coats,” Eve whispered.

  Without switching his focus from the laptop, Declan reached out link his fingers with Eve’s. With all the activity in the past few minutes, her concern remained with the women. He knew without looking at her that her gaze would be searching the image shown on the fifteenth floor camera, looking for Brina.

  It was with no small measure of satisfaction that he watched Shuang hauled to her feet, arms bound behind her and hustled through the stairwell she’d been attempting to access. Since English wasn’t the woman’s first language, there was a good chance Eve would be involved in the woman’s interrogation. And that, he thought grimly, was a scene he was going to insist on watching. He couldn’t wait to see her face when she realized that they were still alive, and that she’d been duped by the two of them. Given the tantrum they’d heard on the receiver earlier this evening, she wasn’t going to take the news calmly.

  “Do you have a visual on Malsovic or Zupan?” Stillions’ voice sounded on the mic.

  Declan felt Eve’s hand squeeze his. “Negative. No image for the past couple of hours.” They’d been stationed here before the raid started at least that long.

  “We’ll start clearing the floors one at a time. But chances are, they aren’t on the premises.”

  “Eve saw the two of them leave the hotel this morning, but I saw Malsovic this afternoon.”

  “We’ll keep looking.”

  “If they don’t find him…” Eve murmured.

  “I know.” Declan’s voice was grim. As long as one of the players in Royce Raiker’s abduction attempt was on the loose, the boy was still in danger.

  In contrast to the quick eruption of activity when the raid had been in progress, the next hour crawled by. He relayed the details that came from the whisper mic to Eve. They watched Shuang, Amin, Taufik and Harris get hustled away in police cars that had arrived on scene. Shortly afterwards a chartered bus pulled up close to the front entrance. “The women are being brought to the elevators on the fifteenth floor,” he told her. Before he knew what she was up to, she pulled her hand from his and opened the door. “Stay here.”

  But she was already gone. And Declan knew exactly where she was headed. Swearing, he opened the opposite door, balancing the harnessed laptop with his free hand and he jogged after her. He caught up with her as he rounded the bus, in time to see her get corralled by an officer charged with securing the perimeter.

  “Translator at entrance,” he said into the mic. “Needs clearance.”

  “Clear Eve Lassiter,” Stillions’ voice sounded. As Declan neared her he saw her show the officer her ID. The man nodded and handed it back to her before moving away.

  The temperature was in the single digits, and a sharp wind cut through the coats that had seemed too warm while they waited in the vehicle. Pretty soon, the women began filing out of the hotel, wearing thick white socks on their feet, but still clad in only the nightdresses they’d worn earlier. Some were weeping, while a few wore an expression of shock. Others clutched each other, speaking rapidly in a foreign tongue.

  Declan followed when Eve broke away to approach the cluster of women coming out the hotel doors. “Brina!”

  One of the females detached herself from the group and walked rapidly toward Eve who hugged her. “You will be all right. I promise.”

  Brina gave her a quick squeeze and then stepped back. “I did not believe.” She paid Declan no mind. Her focus was on Eve. “You said there would be help…but I could not let myself hope. Thank you. For all of us, but most of all for Dajana.”

  Eve’s expression softened. “You were the one who helped your friend, by being brave enough to
speak with me. You stood up for her, when no one else would.” When two officers walked toward them she said quickly, “I will see you soon. Now you must go.” She stepped back and the woman continued to the bus.

  Declan went to her side, slipping an arm around her waist. He could feel her shivering, but he couldn’t coax her into the vehicle until the last of the twenty-nine women had climbed into the vehicle and it had lumbered away in the first few miles toward freedom.

  _______

  “I should be exhausted. And I am, physically. But mentally…”

  Declan helped Eve slip her coat off and draped it carelessly over the back of a chair. He followed it with his own. “Tough to turn your mind off after a scene like that.”

  “So many sad stories.” And it was the tales the women had told, rather than the rescue operation preceding the interviews that would keep her awake. “Three of the women had been sold to Malsovic by family members and were terrified that if they returned home the same thing would reoccur.” Those had perhaps been the most heartbreaking interviews to conduct. With one hand balancing herself on the couch, Eve pulled her boots off. “Several feared their family finding out how they had been victimized, and the shame that revelation would cause. Many told similar stories to the one Brina had revealed, and feared returning home to their family without the wages promised them by Malsovic to offset the money paid for the ‘opportunity’ he promised in America.” And one, Buppha, had vehemently denied she’d been victimized at all. The trauma of prolonged psychological, sexual and physical abuse the women had suffered would take years to overcome.

  He sat on the couch and toed off his shoes. “You’re the reason those women won’t spend the rest of their lives as slaves. Try to concentrate on that.”

  Eve shook her head, propping a hip on the arm of the couch next to him. “They owe their thanks to Brina. And when I find myself overwhelmed with their heartrending stories, remembering the interview with Xie Shuang will cheer me.”

  His face lightened. “I watched the live feed of all the interviews on a TV in the next room. The look on her face when you walked into the interview room was worth paying money to see.”