Devil in Disguise

by Heather Huffman

  Veronica gave a quick nod of approval. “That’s the Rachel I know.”

  “I’m assuming you have a plan.”

  “I do, but I promise the pep talk wasn’t self-serving.”

  Rachel merely smiled and shook her head. It didn’t matter either way; Veronica’s words were true. It was time she fought back. “What do you need me to do?”

  “Let’s have dinner and talk to Conrad. Something tells me he won’t be too keen on me sending you in undercover.”

  “I’ve been undercover before,” Rachel countered.

  Veronica eyed her skeptically. “I still don’t think he’ll like it. Let’s talk to Conrad, and then Rick and I will head out after dinner. Meet us in Atlanta in two days. I’ll leave you the address of our place in Cabbagetown.”

  “You don’t have to leave. You’re welcome to stay here,” Rachel protested, mentally acknowledging even as she did that sleeping on the floor would terrify her.

  “While I’m sure we are, I think the two of you could use a little more honeymoon before you jump into this thing feet first.”

  Rachel wasn’t fully prepared for the fight Conrad put up. Given that they’d met while facing down a corrupt politician who kidnapped women for giggles and that Rachel regularly put herself in dangerous situations to get the story, she didn’t expect him to be overprotective. She was furious and embarrassed. They tried to keep the fight to a dull roar in front of company, but the tension between them was enough that Rick and Veronica politely excused themselves shortly after dinner.

  Rachel saw them to the door, offering one last reassurance that they would both be in Atlanta at the appointed time.

  “No, you won’t,” Conrad countered.

  Rachel ignored him. “I’ll see you then.”

  “I’m so glad to see it’s not just me.” A grin tugged at the corner of Rick’s mouth.

  “See you soon.” Veronica gave Rachel a quick hug. “We’ll check in on Julia before heading that way.”

  “Thanks.” Rachel stood resting her head on the door after their guests had gone, attempting to rein in her temper.

  Conrad placed a hand tentatively on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, but you don’t understand, ma bichette. These men aren’t men. They’re pure evil – I don’t want you on their radar any more than you already are.”

  “Don’t you dare.” She whirled to face him, fire in her eyes. “Don’t you call me your little doe and push me to the side while you, the big strong man, rush in to save the day. We met as partners; we’ve always been partners. Don’t you dare treat me like I’m too weak or stupid to help now.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of calling you weak or stupid – I have no desire to see my manhood in a mason jar on your mantle.”

  “I’m not the least bit amused,” she informed him. “You’re not as charming as you think you are.”

  “How am I supposed to respond to that?”

  “You’re supposed to tell me that you’re being a foolish ass, and of course we’ll go to Atlanta together.”

  “Really? Because that’s not what I’m feeling at all.”

  Rachel set her jaw and brushed past him to set about cleaning up the kitchen.

  “Ma bichett, Rachel, don’t just walk away. I’m not trying to be an ass here.”

  “So it comes naturally?”

  Conrad took a deep breath, as if pulling back in his initial response. “Cute.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be. I can’t believe you’re trying to tell me I can’t go.”

  “I know I can’t tell you not to go. I’m merely suggesting it, strongly.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m strongly suggesting you drop this.” She arched her eyebrows.

  “I can’t.”

  Fury bubbled through her veins. She dearly wanted to throttle her beautiful husband, but she reminded herself she wasn’t a violent person. Tears burned behind her eyes, but she’d be damned if she let them through. With a deep breath, she calmed herself enough to talk. “I know we need to finish this conversation tonight, but right now nothing good is going to come from me saying one more word to you. If you value your life or this relationship, you’ll give me a few minutes alone.”

  Rachel didn’t try to decipher the look that was on his face as he stormed out of the cabin. She focused on the dishes instead, silently wishing there were more of them. She needed time to think, and she thought best when she was active. Once the dishes were done, there would be nothing left to do in the tiny cabin now that the sun was slipping behind the horizon.

  She wasn’t sure what she was more irritated with – Conrad’s reaction to Veronica’s plan or her own jumbled emotions. Who was he to tell her she couldn’t go? Still, as her pile of dishes dwindled, she admitted he hadn’t told her she couldn’t go, or at least he’d backed off that particular stance. But his words stung. They made her wonder if he’d lost his faith in her ability to pull something like this off.

  She couldn’t fully explain why she so badly needed to be a part of Veronica’s plan or why she’d even come to Louisiana with Conrad in the first place. Maybe she was atoning for past sins. Maybe it was as simple as vengeance for her sister. Something stirred in her soul, a longing she couldn’t name.

  Conrad silently let himself back in. Rachel was instantly and acutely aware of his presence. She planned to ignore him, but he stood behind her, wrapping his arms around her as he presented her with a bouquet of irises. She took the purple peace offering with one hand and rested her other hand on his, comforted by the feel of his skin and the warmth of his solid presence. His very nearness wreaked havoc on her already jumbled emotions, making it difficult to remember the very sensible arguments she’d been working on in his absence.

  Conrad planted a kiss on the top of her head before resting his chin in the same spot. “I’m not trying to be an ass, mon amour. I know you are a smart woman, and I know you risk your life over lesser things than this. But you don’t know what they’ll do to you if they get their hands on you.”

  “Do you?” Rachel wondered just how much he’d seen in his time in Atlantic City.

  “I have a pretty good idea, and it turns my stomach.”

  “How is it any worse than what they’ve already done?”

  His voice was pleading. “Please don’t make me relive this. Just trust me; they won’t think twice about brutalizing you every way possible.”

  “So, you want us to both hide here together?” Rachel asked the question even though she could have recited the answer along with him.

  “You know I can’t just walk away from this. I have to finish what they started.”

  “And what will they do to you?” She turned in his arms to peer up into his serious dark gaze. “Give you a smack on the wrist and send you on your merry way?”

  “My end would be swift compared to yours.” His voice was grave. “And it terrifies me, the thought of them touching you.”

  “Swift or not, the thought of your end terrifies me, too.” All fight long gone from her, she set aside the flowers so she could reach up to stroke his cheek. “I’d rather go down in flames with you than live a nice, quiet life without you, knowing you’d died trying to set this right all by yourself.”

  As the words left Rachel’s mouth, she suddenly identified the inexplicable ache surfacing in her soul. She knew what she wanted, no matter how illogical, no matter what the cost. She also knew now wasn’t the time to share her clarity with Conrad, so she tucked the knowledge away in her heart for a later conversation.

  Pain was etched in his ragged voice as he pulled her back into the current conversation. “I’m the one who took the job. It’s my fault any of us are involved with them in the first place.”

  “Did you know who they were when you took the job?”

  “My gut told me not to take it, and I didn’t listen.”

  “Okay, whoa. First of all, we’ve all regretted not listening to our gut once or twice. That shouldn’t be a death sentence. And since when did we decide that
these guys found Julia because of you? According to Rick and Veronica, the Internet is rife with traffickers trolling for girls her age. We have no way of knowing the two are connected.”

  He opened his mouth to protest, but she shook her head.

  “No. Stop it. There’s enough wrong about this whole thing without anyone strapping on unnecessary guilt. We both know you took that job to be closer to me, so technically, if we want to play the blame game, the fault could be traced back to me. Besides, it was my sister these parasites took. If nothing else, let me do this for her. Veronica’s plan is a good one. We have a chance to end this thing, to get our life back. Let’s take it – together.”

  “If we do this, if we go to Atlanta, I want you to promise me that you’ll be in and out, and you’ll stay out of sight as much as possible.”

  “I promise.”

  “And you won’t try to take these guys on by yourself. You’ll stick to the plan.”

  “I’m not an idiot.” She halfheartedly shoved at his massive chest.

  “No, but you’re feisty, and I know you have an innate need to protect the innocent and expose corruption. These guys are going to piss you off more than they already have. It’s a matter of time until you snap. Once you do, all rational thought will leave your brain.”

  “How did I first meet your sister?” She reminded him of his own ability to lose reason.

  “That was different.”

  “Uh-huh. You kidnapped me. You kidnapped me and hauled my butt – in an ugly old El Camino no less – to a Motel 6 in the middle of nowhere so I could meet your sister. You’re lucky I didn’t press charges, and you know it.”

  “I knew you wanted me too badly to press charges.” His mood lightened briefly. “And I’d tried to convince you to leave the story alone. You’re like a dog with a bone when you smell a good story.”

  “You’re so humble and flattering. I love that about you.”

  He lifted her onto the countertop, leaning down to kiss each cheek before brushing his lips against hers. “You’re right. It was a stupid gamble, and I could have ended up in jail. But it’s not the same.”

  “The premise is, and you know it,” she countered, not willing to succumb to his diversionary tactics.

  He straightened and looked her dead in the eye, all hint of romance or teasing aside. “If you veer off plan, if you put yourself in their sights, they will torture you in ways you can’t begin to imagine.”

  “You didn’t see them torturing people, did you?” Rachel couldn’t help asking.

  “I heard stories, always after the fact. Mostly rumblings at first. I didn’t realize how bad it was until this year.”

  “That explains your change in mood when we met over Christmas. And then when I called in July, I knew for sure something was wrong.”

  “I didn’t want you any more involved in it than you already were.”

  “Do me a favor?” Rachel bit her lower lip and looked up at him with luminous eyes.

  “Maybe. That look scares me.”

  “Stop trying to protect me.”

  He shook his head. “You know I can’t do that.”

  “There has to be a happy middle ground, babe. We had that once; we used to have each other’s back. Can we go back to that?”

  “I’ll try,” he promised.

  “Try really hard.” This time she was the one to divert his attention as she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him into her embrace. Her fingers sunk greedily into his hair as her mouth claimed his.

  When he at last came up for air, he rested his cheek against hers and chuckled. “If you’re trying to get your way, it might work, but you’re fighting dirty, mon amour.”

  “Maybe I am a little, but I mostly just wanted to do that.”

  “Good, because I’ve wanted to do this for a while now.” He took her head in his hands and kissed her. His touch was languid and seductive. She melted into him.

  Rachel couldn’t say how long they were wrapped around each other in the kitchen, how many kisses they shared, or how many words of love passed between them before he carried her to their bed. She only knew, as she lay in his arms in the moonlight, that she couldn’t keep the longings of her heart from him.

  “Conrad?” She began tentatively as she absentmindedly stroked his arm.

  “What is it, ma bichette?”

  “What would you think about, I mean when – if – everything goes back to normal…”

  “When,” he interrupted her to correct.

  “Okay, when everything goes back to normal…”

  “And a new normal.”

  “Right, a new normal. Anyway, when things settle down and our lives aren’t in danger and all that, what do you think about having kids?”

  He paused for a moment before answering cautiously. “I know you don’t want kids, and that’s okay.”

  “But that’s just it, love. It kind of hit me this week. I want a baby. Well, not any baby. I’m not necessarily fond of them in general. But I want your baby.”

  He responded with a deep, rich chuckle that came from deep in his belly.

  “I’m serious.” She was mildly hurt.

  “I’m sorry. It’s just the way you phrased it. It’s one of the many reasons I love you.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I think the stress of the past few weeks has finally gotten to you.”

  Rachel propped herself up so she could frown down at him. “Stop teasing me. This is a fairly huge revelation for me.”

  He studied her for a moment. “You really are serious, aren’t you?”

  When he saw the answer in her face, he gave his with a big grin as he scooped her into his arms and peppered her face and neck with kisses. She giggled as his sandpaper jaw tickled her sensitive skin.

  There were a thousand things she could be worried about – that she should be worried about. But when Rachel finally drifted into a happy sleep that night, it was with the thought that she and Conrad were going to make very pretty babies together just as soon as they rid the world of this one particular brand of evil.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  IF RACHEL HAD BEEN THERE for any other reason, she would have enjoyed staying in the adorable house on Carroll Street that Rick and Veronica had turned into a temporary headquarters. Some of the streets she’d seen surrounding theirs looked a bit dicey, but the people-watcher in Rachel appreciated the unique flavor of this little neighborhood. It had only been a day, and she’d already fallen in love with the vibrant color of Cabbagetown.

  Their street was narrow with a brick sidewalk; it was lined with a hodgepodge of Victorian farmhouses, bungalows, and shotgun-style homes whose architecture dated back one hundred years. It didn’t hurt that a little café with good wine and decadent tapas was within walking distance, either – or so Rachel heard. She hadn’t been able to venture out to see for herself. While not totally sequestered, the general thought was that the more Rachel showed her face around town, the greater the danger that someone would recognize her.

  Still, the instant her feet had touched concrete, Rachel had felt more comfortable in her own skin. She envied the fact that Conrad seemed equally at home in either setting, although he seemed much bigger here – maybe it was the crowded street. It was kind of like fitting a Great Dane in a compact car.

  For the first day and a half after their arrival, Rachel and Conrad had holed up in their room, studying the homework Rick had assigned them upon their arrival. Each had their own flash drive crammed full of facts, figures, blueprints, maps, names and places – anything they could possibly need to know to pull off their assigned roles.

  It drove Rachel nuts that all of the curtains were tightly drawn. The time she’d spent with Conrad in Louisiana had made her a sunshine addict. Rick had done a sweep to verify their safe house wasn’t on the radar of any human traffickers, but they still had to take certain precautions: keeping the windows closed, avoiding the covered porch that beckoned Rachel to come and people-w
atch, and jumping through so many hoops to disguise themselves when coming or going that Rachel hadn’t yet mustered up the will to try. Not that it mattered; Conrad was going to be difficult to disguise anyway.

  Veronica was in and out, never home for more than a couple of hours at a time. Rick rarely pulled his nose out of the computer. Rachel would set food beside him for breakfast and lunch, but inevitably, a couple of hours later, she’d swing back by to grab the half-eaten remnants of his meal. The only time she had any real interaction with either of them was dinner.

  Rachel wasn’t offended; she was the same way when she was elbow-deep in a story. But playing only a minor role in the current situation left her with too much time to miss her sister, her cat, and even her mother. She wondered how they were all getting along. She fretted over where her family would go when it was time to leave the safety of Neena’s home. She made herself crazy trying to solve the puzzle of where she and Conrad would go and what they would do once it was all said and done.

  She found herself cooling her heels, waiting for the next step in her own story to unfold with no real assignment yet except to learn all she could about this particular group of traffickers and their operation. About the time Rachel decided she couldn’t shove one more piece of information into her beleaguered brain, Veronica came back from one of her trips with two people in tow.

  Rachel had known they were coming and what their roles were, but she wasn’t entirely ready for how young the beautiful redhead appeared to be. Even though she knew the girl to be in her mid-twenties, she had a youthful innocence about her that made Rachel want to protect her. The imposing man at the girl’s side was Rick and Veronica’s partner, Vance. He seemed more than capable of protecting anyone he damn well pleased. She was tremendously interested in hearing about the recovery he’d just returned from, having only caught bits and pieces of the story so far, but they both looked exhausted. They excused themselves to take a cat nap while Rick went back to his computer and Veronica called her brother on the secure satellite phone. This left Rachel and Conrad with little else to do besides go back to studying.