Let it be her, Jack prayed. Let her still be here and not in the trunk of some car half way to Macon. He reached the car before Maxwell. He swung the fireplace poker he’d grabbed on his way out the door and smashed it against one of the side windows. He heard Maxwell panting beside him as he pulled back to swing again. The second hit broke a chunk of glass out big enough for Jack to get his hand in and unlock the door. He staggered backward while Maxwell jerked open both doors.
Mia lay on her side wrapped in a stained mattress pad from the shoulders down. Jack pulled her into his arms and put his face near hers.
He heard Maxwell barking into his collar communicator to send an ambulance to the address. He turned to look at Jack, his face ashen and drawn.
“She’s alive,” Jack said, his voice shaking for the first time all night.
18
Mia opened one eye. Jack stood at the end of her hospital bed, frowning.
“Oh, shit,” she said. Her throat felt like sandpaper. Sandpaper that was on fire.
“You can say that again.”
She struggled to sit up and he walked to the bed and pulled her forward and repositioned the pillow, then held a glass of water with a straw in it. Her eyes never left his as she drank.
“What happened?” she croaked, as he set the glass back down.
“You did it,” Jack said. His eyes searched her face as if he were looking for more answers than she was. “You brought down the sex slave ring. All the girls are safe. The pimp is behind bars. And we know who murdered José.”
“Was it the pimp? Was it Jamie?”
Jack sat on the bed. “He says it was the other guy.”
“That’s what they all say,” Mia said, leaning back into her pillows. Her head ached and it was hard to think clearly. “I missed the big take down.”
“Oh, you were there.”
She glanced down at her hospital gown and felt a wave of nausea creep up her throat. “From the beginning,” she said.
“Are you sure?”
She let out a long sigh. “I can’t roll my eyes at you, Jack without vomiting so please just tell me what happened.” She looked at him suddenly as if a part of her mind had cleared. “How did you know where I was?”
“Your nurse friend gave me an address where his brother was—”
“Ben helped you find me?”
“I’m not sure he really meant to. He sent me to the opposite part of town. Sounds like he spends his time trying to protect his brother while undoing some of the damage the guy’s done. Pretty impossible balancing act.”
“Then how did you end up on Memorial Drive?”
“When I looked on Google Maps for the address he gave me, I saw Memorial Drive. It jumped off the screen at me. Then the stupid riddle made sense.”
She shook her head in confusion.
Jack explained. “Liz called and told me about the message Taneka left for you.”
“Whoa. Good work, Sherlock.”
“Yeah, sometimes I do put all the pieces together. Once I knew what you were probably up to and where, I drove down Memorial Drive and eventually saw all the cars parked on the side street.”
“How did you know I was there?”
He shrugged. “I figured if it’s a broken down, danger-infested crack house packed with every manner of low-life and derelict, you couldn’t be far away. Besides. I saw your car.”
“Funny man.” She waited for another wave of nausea to fade away and noticed that Jack was waiting and watching. “So who killed José?” she asked. “If it wasn’t Jamie?”
“Danvers copped to driving the pick-up truck the night José was killed—”
“Danvers?” she asked.
“That’s my brother’s last name,” a voice said from the door way. Mia turned her head painfully to see Ben, dressed in blue scrubs, standing in her room.
“Ben,” she said, fighting down her building panic at seeing his face. She watched him nod to Jack and then looked at her, his face a visage of worry and care.
“How you doing?” he said, softly, reaching for her hand.
Mia pulled her hand away, noticing for the first time that she had an IV in it. “I’m sorry,” she said, not looking at him. “You just look so much like him…”
“I know,” he said sadly.
“I’m sorry for misjudging you,” she said, forcing herself to look at him. The minute she saw his face again, she felt the tension relax in her shoulders.
They may be identical but he was not his brother.
“I can’t say I’m used to it,” Ben said. “But I’m real familiar with the feeling.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Ben turned to Jack. “You were telling Mia about Jamie’s situation?”
Jack moved to the other side of the bed and took Mia’s hand. She squeezed his fingers.
“Danvers admitted he was there that night but he said Hernandez was the one who killed José’s and set fire to my house.”
“Is he…trying to work out a plea?” Mia glanced at Ben. “Sorry,” she said. “But I really want him to pay for what he’s done.”
Ben’s face was a solemn mask of acceptance and pain. He nodded.
Jack spoke. “He flipped on Zack Dinsmore and Joe Don. The FBI took both of them into custody early this morning.”
“Yay, team,” Mia said quietly. “But Jamie’s off the hook?”
“Not entirely.” Jack looked at Ben and grimaced. “He said Ben here, who he referred to as that pussy, sorry, man, was uninvolved, and that Joe-Don told Hernandez to get out of Georgia.”
“But somebody killed him instead,” Mia said.
Jack shrugged. “They’re still working that out.” He rubbed his face with both hands and Mia realized he must be exhausted.
“He said he heard that Joe Don killed an FBI agent working undercover,” he said tiredly.
“Oh, Jack! Are they talking about Trey?” Mia’s head began to spin and she grabbed the bed side rail.
“I don’t know,” Jack said. “We haven’t found his body yet and nobody’s confessing to it at the moment. Joe Don did say enough to lead the feds to two four-bedroom ranch houses in Cumming where forty undocumented aliens were living in filth and squalor.”
“The poultry farm workers,” Mia said. “What will happen to them?”
“They’ll make special provisions for them if they still want to stay here after this.”
“The girls?”
“They’re not talking. They’re all scared shitless.”
“I can get Maria to talk,” Mia said, closing her eyes against the nausea. “When do I get out of here?”
“As soon as you feel up to it.”
“Just let me throw up a few times first,” she said, trying to smile, “and then I’ll be ready to go. Where’s my mom?”
“She was here when they brought you in,” Jack said. “Maxwell sent her home for some sleep.”
“So my attacker killed José,” Mia said, trying to get it clear in her befuddled mind. “The murderer was Hernandez.”
“It appears so.”
“Have you talked to Maria?”
Mia watched Jack take in a long breath as if preparing for battle or at the very least to deal with an extremely difficult client. “Mia, it’s not her,” he said gently. “The Maria we rescued last night has no brother. José or otherwise.”
Mia felt like she’d been slapped. No! It has to be her! “Are you sure?” she whispered, her voice shaking.
“I’m sure. But, darlin’ this Maria needed our help too. This Maria will have a chance at a real life because of what you did.”
She nodded, forcing herself to swallow her disappointment. I failed after all.
The quiet in the room was only distrubed by the constant hum of the various patient monitoring equipment. She looked at Ben. “What did Jamie inject me with?”
“A sedative,” he said, tightly. “And no, he didn’t get it from me.”
“I’m sorry, again, Ben,” she sai
d. “It must be hell to always be on the hook for things your brother does.”
“You have no idea.”
Jack cleared his throat and gave her hand a squeeze. “I’m going downstairs for a coffee,” he said. “I’ll be back in fifteen to wheel you out the front door.”
She saw him give Ben a meaningful glance that seemed to read: here’s your chance, don’t blow it.
As soon as he was gone, Ben sat on the edge of her bed. “It’s me who should apologize, not you,” he said. “I’m always trying to protect Jamie. It’s second nature for me to try to stand between him and whatever God-awful shit he’s done. And I know he deserves the consequences of his actions…”
“But he’s your brother. I understand.”
“I don’t suppose there’s any way…after all you’ve been through at the hands of my brother that you could possibly…in any world view even consider…”
“Yeah, Ben,” she said, closing her eyes and leaning back into her pillow. “Let’s start over.”
*****
Jess watched Bill from the living room window as he came up the front walkway. A big man, he walked with a stoop from years of trying to accommodate everyone shorter than himself.
He looked tired. Like Jack and herself, he’d been up all night. But unlike herself, he hadn’t taken time to come home for a nap to recharge.
She smiled and knew that’s where she came in.
But first, there needed to be a little reckoning.
She opened the front door and he stepped across the threshold and into her arms. He lifted her off her feet and carried her to the foyer. She felt his weariness and his pleasure at being home. On his jacket she smelled the wood smoke from the fire of one of her neighbors burning leaves, and a slight hint of petrol from the city from where he’d just come.
He nuzzled her neck and set her on her feet. “You okay, Jess?” he mumbled into her hair.
He would ask about her first. He knew how upsetting the last fifteen hours had been for her. If he was her rock, who was his? She pulled back to study his face.
“Let’s talk, Bill,” she said. “I made coffee.”
He nodded as if he had known this moment was coming. She thought she saw his shoulders sag inside his jacket.
There’s no need for that, my love, she thought sadly.
She led him to the couch and coffee table where she set two coffee mugs. He sat heavily, but his hand stayed on her knee. She handed him her coffee.
“I don’t need a lover,” she said to him. “Or a boyfriend. I don’t need a savior or a caretaker. Or a hero. Although you are certainly that to me.”
She watched his eyes widen. He sat up and drank his coffee, watching her over the rim. She saw the hope creep back into his face.
“I need family,” she said. “Do you understand?”
He put his mug down on the coffee table. “Jess, will you marry me?”
She smiled and felt her heart open to this man—the first one ever since Gaspar died more than ten years ago. “Probably,” she said, and then hurried on when she saw the euphoria ignite in his eyes. “But not for awhile. I need family, Bill. That means unity, that means group love.”
He frowned. “You mean me and Mia.”
“Yes, and whomever Mia chooses for a mate. I need you to love them as you do me.”
“I’d lay down my life for Mia.”
“I know you would, dearest.” She touched his face, the lines pulling his mouth down, worn deep from decades of worry and keeping fear at bay. “But in the meanwhile I need you to accept her for who she is.”
“I will, Jess,” he said without hesitation, tears glistening in his eyes. “I promise I will. I’d be honored to.”
She slipped into his arms and fell into his deep, hungry kiss. When he stood up, with her in his arms, she patted his chest to be put down. “You go on,” she said, “take your shower and don’t fall asleep until I get there. I have a phone call to make.”
Jack put the kettle on for tea and began chopping the cooked chicken for Daisy’s dinner. The little dog sat at his feet in the kitchen as he worked. When he heard the sound of the shower turn off, he smiled. It wasn’t just the thought of her naked in there, he told himself, it was being home together, doing domestic, unimportant things. The thought of his daily round with her filled him with a warmth that kept the smile firmly on his face.
Distracted by his chore, it was several seconds before he realized his cellphone—still on mute—was making an insistent vibrating noise on the counter. He glanced at the screen, then wiped his hands and took the call.
“Hey, Jess,” he said. “She’s fine. We got home from the hospital an hour ago and she’s just finished her shower.”
“Thank you, Jack,” Jess said. “I don’t think I got the chance to tell you in all the excitement last night how grateful I am to you.”
“Sure, Jess. No worries,” he said, watching Daisy poise on her hind legs to get a little closer to the counter top of chicken.
“Nobody else but you would have followed her there, Jack,” Jess said. “Nobody else but you—with no clues to go on—would have known she was there. If it wasn’t for you—”
“It’s okay, Jess,” Jack said. “No need for thanks. It all worked out in the end.”
“I also want to apologize for asking you to…not date Mia.”
Jack paused and turned his full attention to the phone call.
“It was out of line and misguided,” she continued. “I hope you can forgive my meddling.”
“No problem,” Jack said, his heart starting to pound in his throat. “You were worried about her.”
Mia stepped into the kitchen, her hair wrapped in a towel and wearing a long t-shirt that came to the tops of her thighs. She pointed at the phone and mouthed: is that my Mom?
He nodded.
“Well, I just wanted you to know,” Jess said. “And I wanted to thank you for being in my daughter’s life.”
“My pleasure,” Jack said, not knowing what else to say, his eyes still on Mia standing in the doorway.
“What was that all about?” Mia asked after he hung up as she moved into the kitchen to give Daisy a piece of chicken from the counter.
“Nothing. You hungry?”
“As always.” She settled onto a kitchen stool.
“You know, Mia, in the interest of full disclosure…”
“Uh oh, I don’t like the sound of this.”
“I can’t understand why you’d go off like that without telling me. I’m not the bad guy, you know. We’re on the same team.”
“Look, Jack, it was just easiest to do it this way. I knew you’d have a stick up your butt about it.”
Maybe it was the offhand way she said it, even more than the words, although they were galling enough. But Jack felt something like electricity zing through him and vibrate down to the tips of his toes.
And not in a good way.
He thought he’d lost her last night. Jess wasn’t brought into it until it was mostly all over but Jack had spent three frantic hours—and twenty minutes of pure agony—wondering if Mia were alive. He was standing at the sink when she spoke and he did a slow turn to look at her.
“Are you shitting me?” he said.
Her face was as guilt-free and clear as if she’d just come back from church. “What do you mean?”
She doesn’t have a clue.
“I mean,” he said, not caring that his voice was rising or that Daisy immediately retreated to the living room, “that it seems I’m always put in the position of wondering Where is Mia? Who’s got Mia? And I’m sick of it.”
“Well, that’s just—”
“If it’s a matter of trust, then I have to ask, you don’t trust me? By God, I think I’ve earned that from you by now.”
“You have, Jack. It’s just that you weren’t around so I—”
“You have a fucking telephone! You didn’t use it. You wrote me misleading texts—lies every one of them—so you could go of
f and do it your way without any interference from me!”
He was standing with his hands on his hips now and he saw a flush of pink splash across her cheeks as she roused herself to her defense.
“What could you have done?” she said hotly. “You could hardly pose as a runaway! Were you going to pretend to be a pimp?”
By God, he might just strangle her where she stood.
“I could have tracked you, Mia,” he ground out. “If I knew what the plan was, I could have tracked you so I knew where you were when things went south instead of having to piece together fucking riddles and interview all your boyfriends to find out which trunk the bad guy had stuck you in this time!” He threw his dishtowel across the counter, knocking over a half-filled pitcher of maple syrup.
“Bull shit,” she said, on her feet now, too. “You would’ve tried to stop me. Dress up like a homeless woman and infiltrate a human trafficking ring? Does that even remotely sound like something you’d give a thumbs-up to?”
“Just because I don’t want to see you sold to be some Kuwaiti businessman’s sex slave, doesn’t mean I’m not on your team! I would’ve thought just the opposite!”
“It isn’t the opposite!” she shouted. “We had a case! Find Maria! Your goals do not align with our team goals! They never have!”
“Screw the team goals!” he yelled. “I’m not green-lighting you acting as bait for hardened, depraved criminals in order to solve a stupid case.”
“So I was right not to tell you!”
They were nearly nose to nose now and Jack had no idea how things had gotten so far. He felt the electricity pulse through him like molten fire in his veins.
“More secrets,” he growled. “More lies!”
“You want the truth?” she said, breathing hard, her eyes flashing. “Here’s some truth for you, Jack. Why haven’t you asked me out? Are you backward? Do I need to make the first move? Do you want me to open your door? Light your cigarettes? Is that supposed to be my job?”
Without warning they both launched into each other. His lips found hers and he lifted her up as she wrapped her long, naked legs around his waist. One hand was in her hair, pulling her head back to devour her neck, her breasts, to finally control her, love her.
Complete Mia Kazmaroff Romantic Suspense Series, 1-4 Page 37
