by Lori Foster
Reese waited.
Voice fading, she focused her gaze somewhere in the past. “Murray died, and good riddance.”
For a time, Reese just held her, keeping her close, reassuring himself that she had survived and that nothing that awful would ever happen to her again.
He kissed her forehead, her ear and cheek, hoping she’d understand that nothing had changed with her truths.
After some time had passed, Alice eased back to see him. She searched his gaze. “Are you disgusted with me?”
“I’m proud of you.” And heartbroken, and enraged on her behalf.
Disbelief had her leaning away.
Reese touched her precious face, the corner of her mouth. “Anything else?”
It took her a minute to speak. “The police came, but we were already headed out of there. He gave me cab fare and a number to call if I had any trouble.” She knew what Reese would ask before he finished formulating the question. “The number was for a limited time. It doesn’t work anymore.”
Disappointing, but that would have been a long shot, anyway. “Where did you go?”
“Home to my family. That’s where he said I should go.”
“He told you not to tell anyone about him?”
“No.” Looking at his collarbone, Alice drew her small, cool hand along his chest. “He wouldn’t do that.”
Even at the worst of times, Alice seemed preoccupied with his body. Reese liked that. He more than liked her. Teasing her, he touched her chin and whispered, “Up here, honey.”
On a sigh, she lifted her gaze to his. “It was my decision to censor the story. There wasn’t much I could tell, anyway. I knew him only undercover with an alias. And he was long gone. Telling any of that to the police would only have confounded them, and it would have kept me with an open file. Instead, I told them the deal had gone bad, and everyone started shooting.”
“Close to the truth.”
“Yes. Close enough that they had what they needed from me.”
Reese considered the plausibility of that. Any good cop would be able to tell the difference between shots fired at close range and shots from a sniper. But maybe they wrote that off as a cohort, either of the buyer or the seller, who got away.
“What was his alias?”
“Why does it matter?”
Because she still wasn’t telling him everything. Did she hope to protect her savior because she thought Reese would go after him—which he might, if for no other reason than to get more answers—or because she still, to this day, had contact with the guy?
Watching her face for any sign of deception, Reese said, “Tell me.”
She gave in with a lot of tension. “The name he used was Trace Miller.”
The truth, as far as he could tell. “Thank you.” He’d do a search, but if the guy was half as good as he seemed, there wouldn’t be much, if anything, to uncover. “Now, about today...?” Reese prompted.
Alice drew a breath. “Today,” she said, “I saw that girl, and I knew something wasn’t right. I felt it.”
Because cops survived off gut instinct, Reese accepted that. “You should have called the police.”
“By then it might’ve been too late. I’m trying to make a difference, Reese. I want to believe that I’m stronger now than I was back then.”
She meant morally—and that frustrated Reese. “Do you honestly believe there was anything you could have done to change things?”
“Maybe not, but I still should have tried.”
“And died in the process? And then what?”
She shook her head.
Reese didn’t let her turn away. “He would have grabbed another woman, Alice. He would have replaced you.”
Shaken at that idea, she stared at him, her eyes haunted, her skin going pale. “Oh, my God, you’re probably right.”
“By enduring, you surely spared someone else.”
Her bottom lip trembled, shredding his heart. “I never thought of that.”
“You were too busy being guilty to see what I see. To see what others will see.” He brushed his thumb over her delicate but stubborn jaw. “Your family included.”
“That’s a really wonderful way to look at it.” A small, shaky smile appeared. “Thank you.”
On that high note, Reese decided it was time to jump up to the present. Hoping to keep her in a better mood, he picked her up and started across the floor.
“Are we going back to bed?”
Reese looked at her, saw the flush on her skin, the heat in her eyes, and he almost lost his resolve. Alice and her one-track mind.
Damn, he was a lucky man.
“We’re going to the kitchen.”
As he entered the room, she eyed the table with interest, her thoughts clear on her face.
Shoring up his resistance, Reese shook his head. “No, I won’t take you over the kitchen table.” The idea had merit, but this was too important to put off for any reason. “But I will feed you. I don’t know about you, but I’m starved.”
“Oh.” She looked disappointed for only a second. “We didn’t have dinner, did we?”
“And you haven’t yet told me about your newest exploit.” Remembering how close she’d come to danger worked to temper the lust. Flattening his hands on the table in front of her, Reese leaned in, nose to nose, wanting her to understand the seriousness of the current situation. “No fudging, and no omissions. I need to know everything, Alice, even the smallest detail. And I need to know it tonight.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
ALICE BIT INTO the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and thought it tasted better than anything she’d eaten in years. Her world felt...brighter, an enormous weight lifted off her shoulders.
She’d shared her biggest shame, and yet Reese hadn’t turned away. He was such a good man, a detective even, and yet he didn’t blame her.
It meant so much, more than she’d realized was possible. “Before I go to bed, I think I’ll email my mom and dad.”
“I’m sure they’d love that.” He set a glass of milk in front of her. “But why not a phone call?”
“It’s late and I don’t want to wake them.” They’d been apart so long now, she’d prefer to ease into things. An email, a request to visit...
Maybe even a reunion, this time without all the barriers of her shame and their regret.
Reese filled his own glass with milk, took his seat next to her and gave her such a severe, serious look that she almost squirmed.
He lifted his sandwich. “You’re okay now?”
“I won’t sob on you anymore.” How humiliating that she’d left his chest wet with her tears. “I’m sorry about falling apart.”
“Don’t be.” He ate half the sandwich in a single bite. “I’m glad you told me.”
She was glad, too. It felt better not to carry the burden alone. “Thank you for letting me.”
Because he’d more or less insisted, he shook his head.
“I’m not really much of a crier.” She pulled at the crust on her bread. “There never seemed to be much point.”
“Everyone gets emotional now and then, and you certainly had reason.”
“I bet you don’t cry when you get emotional.”
His smile went crooked. “No, but I hit up the gym and lift weights until my entire body aches.”
Eyeing that awesome body, Alice could believe it. “That helps you to get things back in balance?”
Shr
ugging one boulder shoulder, Reese said, “It expends energy. Sometimes I run, too, but usually I do that just because I enjoy it. It’s a good time to think about things, to put them in perspective.”
“Things with your job?” she asked, and then digging a bit more, added, “Or with personal relationships?”
“Usually the job.” He turned his milk glass just a little, his thoughts hidden from her. “Rapes, missing teens... Those cases get to me more than murder sometimes.” His gaze met hers. “Many of the murders we see are between creeps. Bad deals that got out of hand. That sort of thing.”
Alice’s heart pounded. “So...you’re saying when a really bad guys dies, it’s hard to mourn him.”
“Impossible, actually. I do my job. I follow all the leads. I uphold justice. But I’m not going to lose sleep over it.”
Would he feel that way if he ever knew the extent of what she’d done?
Reese’s eyes narrowed as he studied her. “But a kid alone on the streets, or a woman who’s been brutalized, yeah, that plagues me.”
“Does that happen often?”
“Once is too often, you know? We get domestic abuse calls all the time. Usually it’s drinking that got out of hand, and the one who called us regrets it later. Once we’re involved, we’re involved.”
“I think that’s a very good rule, actually.”
“Yeah, me, too. Because you just never know.” He blew out a disgusted breath. “Last year there was a case of a man who’d used his wife as a punching bag too damn many times. Our first call there was due to a neighbor. The wife denied being hurt.” Reese tightened all over. “But she had bruises, and there was something in her eyes....”
Swallowing became difficult; Alice had seen that look too many times, on too many women.
She’d even seen it...while looking in the mirror.
His hand on the tabletop curled into a fist. “Once we got involved, we found a macabre history of broken bones and concussions.” Deliberately, he shook himself out of those memories. “She’d married him when she was sixteen. For twelve years she put up with that abuse.”
“I hope he got a very tough punishment.”
“If death is tough enough.”
Oh, God. “You didn’t...?”
Reese shook his head. “The bastard went after the neighbor who’d called the cops. He broke in, drunk and raging.” With satisfaction, he said, “The neighbor shot him dead. Self-defense. He had a permit for the weapon. No charges were brought against him.”
Alice bit her lip. “The woman?”
“Last I heard, she went home to her family, and they were attending counseling together.”
Alice sincerely hoped the woman was happier now. She had not a single doubt that Reese would have done everything in his power to ensure that outcome. “You’re very good at your job.”
He gave a short laugh. “I hope so. At the very least, I’m as honorable as I can be.”
“Of course you are.” She couldn’t imagine a more honorable man.
“I appreciate your faith.” He sent her a smile. “You know we had some corruption at the department. Having crooked cops around complicates everything. Peterson has a handle on that now, but cleaning house is going to leave us shorthanded for a while. I’ve got a stack of shit on my desk, open cases that I need to get to.”
“I understand.” She had her own workload piling up. “I suppose on Monday, we’ll get back to business.”
He eyed her. “I have a feeling that you, Alice, will be my business.”
“You mean personally?” It still amazed her that Reese wanted her. Not as much as she always wanted him, but enough.
He shrugged. “With what Rowdy told me, probably professionally, too.” He finished off the other half of his sandwich, watching her as he chewed. “Speaking of that...since you’re feeling better now, let’s get on with the rest.” He nudged her plate toward her. “You can talk while you eat.”
So he’d only fed her to help her regain control? Considerate and practical. “What happened today, you mean?”
“Yeah, that.” Crossing his arms on the table, he scowled at her. “What the hell, Alice?”
The sudden shift in his tone left her feeling defensive. How could he forgive her for what she’d taken part in—forced or otherwise—so long ago, but take issue with her for getting involved now? “She needed help.”
“Apparently so. But what you did was reckless, and it’s as likely you could have been caught and hurt instead of helping her.”
What he said...she’d realized that all on her own. “I know. That’s why I was thinking I need to be better equipped, and I need to get a better plan.”
Reese choked. Coughing and wheezing, he held up a hand to fend off her assistance. After finishing off more milk, he took a moment, his shoulders bunched, his expression dire.
When he caught his breath, Alice didn’t give him a chance to start lecturing. “She had a bandage loosely wrapped around her arm. I thought she’d been hurt, Reese, maybe wounded.”
Incredulous, he stared at her. “And so you decided to jump into the middle of it?”
Okay, so that sounded bad. Alice tried to reassure him. “Turned out she wasn’t injured at all. She’d just gotten a new tattoo.”
That got Reese’s attention, not that he hadn’t already been focused on her with the force of a laser beam. “A tattoo?”
“Still red and swollen.” Alice chewed her bottom lip, remembering. “I found her at the mall parking lot, and it seemed to me she’d just gotten it, probably someplace close. Like maybe only a few hours before. The tattoo was part of why she was so upset.”
Reese stared at her. “What did it look like?”
She tried to picture it in her mind. “An odd design made up of numbers and lines twining together.” Knowing it was important, she said, “Cheryl told me that the tattoo is used as identification for people carrying drugs—mules, I think she said they’re called. The lines and numbers indicate what drugs are being carried, where they’re from and how much they’ll cost.”
His eyes flared. “No fucking way.”
Alice frowned at him for the language. “I know, unbelievable, right?” For the next twenty minutes she relayed everything that had happened. She didn’t skip a single detail since, clearly, Rowdy had already spilled the beans.
With every word out of her mouth, Reese looked more livid.
Somehow, Alice had to make him understand. “Cheryl was not transporting drugs by choice. She’d moved to the area to be near a guy—I don’t know his name because she didn’t say. But the relationship, at least on his part, was just a ruse, a way to lure her in. He told her that if she loved him, she’d move the drugs for him.”
Though his gaze darkened, Reese stayed eerily silent.
“There are more, Reese. Cheryl said that Hickson—the creep I left bound in that disgusting motel—gets the girls tattooed. I don’t know who he works for, though. Cheryl did a lot of crying, and she kept worrying that I might be with some competing drug dealer or something, but I believe the girls are coerced, maybe even forced to transport drugs.” As Alice spoke, her temper rose again. “I’m certain they’re tattooing them against their will.”
Reese looked stunned by her deductions. Did he think she was too naive to piece it together? It didn’t take a genius—or a detective—to see the truth.
Thinking of how Cheryl had tried to scrub away the tattoo, Alice leaned in closer to Reese, anxious to help. “I remember
the van that brought her to the mall parking lot. And the truck I followed, too. I didn’t think to memorize a license plate, darn it, but it occurs to me that they probably met at the mall because the tattoo parlor is nearby.”
Alarm had Reese’s shoulders going rigid. “Stop right there.”
Driven by new urgency, Alice tuned him out. “I could visit the area, maybe look around a little. I might see the van or truck again.”
“Alice—”
“Nothing dangerous this time,” she said with a flap of her hand. “I could just check out the locations of the local tattoo parlors.”
His hands locked onto the edge of the table. “No.”
“Maybe I could even stroll inside to see if anyone had a design like that and—”
He shoved back his chair. “No.”
“—because I might be able to match up the tattoo artist with the design.”
Eyes red and nostrils flared, Reese jerked to his feet and loomed over her.
His mood finally sank in, and Alice stared up at him, bemused. “You’re upset with me?”
He opened his mouth, closed it again. His jaw clenched. His big hard hands curled into fists.
“Reese?”
After running a hand over his head, he pointed at her and snarled—actually snarled, “I think you’re fucking wonderful, remember that.”
“Oh. Okay.” Fucking wonderful? What did that mean?
“But,” he said, his tone hard edged, “what you did today—not a year ago, Alice, but today—was as foolhardy as it gets.”
Fascinated, Alice watched him.
He dismissed her awful connection to a wretched human trafficker, but was outraged over her saving a single girl?
Knowing he didn’t blame her gave her new confidence. He was right that Murray would have replaced her. Without Reese, she never would have considered that.
