Armored Attraction

by Janie Crouch

  When they had finally broken apart, Vanessa had been halfway over the center console into his lap and both of them were breathing heavily. The windows were completely steamed up and Vanessa’s blouse was half unbuttoned.

  It had taken them five minutes before they could pull it together enough to even get out a coherent sentence. By then Vanessa had no idea what she would say to him, so she had straightened her shirt and bailed out the door, walking to her car without looking back at Liam.

  But she’d felt his eyes on her. And known what his look meant. And everything in her body had tightened at the thought as she walked.

  So yeah, making up something about how her old flame was in town and had gotten her completely discombobulated would not be any stretch of the truth at all.

  Fortunately, nobody seemed to care. Everyone was busy with their own set of issues—there was always more than enough work to go around—and didn’t even notice if Vanessa looked a little flush. Or if they did they just attributed it to whatever supposed sickness she’d had for the past two days.

  Vanessa had multiple voice-mail messages on her phone. Some were from families she worked with, which she listened to and took notes on. Two were from Judy in the hospital.

  “Hey, Vanessa, it’s Judy. I just checked you and that teenage girl in a few minutes ago. Then the police showed up looking for her and you guys were gone. I just want to make sure you’re okay. She didn’t look like much of a threat, but you just never know with some of these kids today. Call me.”

  Another one from her the next day.

  “Hi, Vanessa, it’s Judy again. I talked to your boss and she said you’d called in sick. I just wanted to make sure you were really okay. The police came by here again this afternoon looking for you or that girl. Just want to talk to you for myself to make sure you’re okay. Call me.”

  She’d better call her friend before Judy did something crazy such as go to the police herself with concerns about Vanessa’s behavior. Vanessa liked Judy a lot, but the older woman did tend to be a bit paranoid.

  Vanessa was just picking up her phone when it buzzed on her desk. She pressed the intercom button to talk to her boss.

  “What’s up, Maureen?”

  “Vanessa, can you come out to the lobby? There are two officers here and they said you need to go with them to the sheriff’s office for questioning.”

  Chapter Nine

  Vanessa hung up with Maureen and immediately called Liam. He picked up on the first ring.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “The police are here.” She tried to keep the panic out of her voice but couldn’t quite manage. “What do I do?”

  “Damn it,” Liam muttered. “They must have been watching your office. We knew this was a possibility. Just stick with the story of me and you as lovers. That will also be corroborated by Officer Atwood’s statement from what he saw on Tuesday.”

  “Okay,” she whispered, staying hidden behind her door so no one could see her from the clear windows opening out to the lobby. “But I thought we were trying not to let them know who you are.”

  “I’m sure it will be suspicious that an Omega agent just happened to show up the day after one of the victims escaped.”

  She could hear the tension in Liam’s voice.

  “But the perp might buy that you and I are just rekindling our relationship.”

  She gripped the cell tighter. “But he might not. Which would put the girls in danger.”

  The phone on her desk buzzed again.

  “I’ve got to go,” she whispered.

  “See if you can keep my name out of it, but if you need to tell them it’s me, that’s okay, Nessa. All right?”

  There was a loud knock on her office door. Evidently the officers were tired of waiting.

  “I’ll do my best. Bye.”

  She disconnected the call and slipped the phone into her purse. She didn’t know if she’d be allowed to use it again or not once they took her to the station.

  She opened the door. “Can I help you, gentlemen?”

  “Vanessa Epperson, we need you to come with us to the sheriff’s office.”

  “Guys, I’ve been out sick for two days.” She glanced over their shoulders and saw that everyone in her entire office was watching the spectacle. “I’ve got a ton of paperwork and cases that need my attention. Does this need to be done right this second? Could you come back tomorrow?”

  “No, ma’am,” one of the officers, the shorter, chunkier one, said. “We’ve been instructed to bring you in right now.”

  “Am I under arrest? Are you going to put me in handcuffs?” Vanessa laughed lightly, but neither man even cracked a smile.

  “Only if you refuse to come with us, ma’am.”

  “Fine.” Vanessa walked over and made a show of straightening papers and organizing her desk. She knew she was stalling but didn’t know why. There was no help coming.

  She didn’t want to be arrested. Didn’t want to answer their questions. Didn’t want to take a chance on letting Liam and Karine down by saying something wrong.

  When the officers stepped closer to her, she gave up. She just put everything down and went with them. She didn’t want to be arrested in front of her colleagues, but they were all staring at her as if she were already in handcuffs anyway, so she guessed it didn’t matter.

  “I’ll be back later, Maureen,” she said as she passed her boss, both officers flanking her. “Sorry for the ruckus.”

  As the men put her in the back of their police car, Vanessa vaguely wondered if anyone else would think it was overkill that the department had sent two large officers to bring her—half their size and weight—in. Probably not.

  The drive was short to the sheriff’s office. Vanessa expected to be fingerprinted or have her mug shot taken or something. She realized she really didn’t have a good idea of what happened on this side of law enforcement.

  Liam would. He’d been here often enough when he was younger, and he worked in law enforcement now. But Vanessa was determined not to bring up his name no matter what.

  They brought her into an interrogation room—she’d seen enough television shows and movies to recognize the two-way mirror for what it was—sat her at a table that had four uncomfortable chairs, read her the Miranda rights and left.

  Nobody came in and yelled at her. Nobody came in and threatened her with jail time. Nobody took her belongings or searched her person. As a matter of fact, they were nice enough to leave a bottle of water out on the table. So Vanessa waited.

  And waited.

  She had a signal on her cell phone, but she didn’t want to make any calls or send any texts. She was sure this room was being watched, to see what she did, who she contacted.

  Finally, more than an hour after she’d been placed in the room, someone came in. Handsome, young, maybe not even as old as Vanessa’s twenty-eight years. But it was plain to see he was all-business, looking to make a name for himself.

  She disliked him on sight.

  “I’m Assistant Sheriff Tommy Webb,” he said, sitting across from her at the table. “You’ve been read your rights, correct, Miss Epperson?”

  “Do I need a lawyer?” she asked.

  The man cocked his head sideways and gave her a smile she was sure was meant to put her at ease.

  Liam would’ve done it much better.

  “I’ve found that criminals are the only ones who need lawyers, Miss Epperson. But, certainly, it is your right, if you’d like to call one.”

  It was probably better to try to get out of this without a lawyer. Not that she knew one to call, anyway. Her parents had one on retainer, but Vanessa wouldn’t call him even if she knew the contact info.

  “I don’t need a lawyer.”

  “Good.” Webb looked please
d with himself. “Let’s just start with an easy question, like, where have you been for the past couple of days?”

  That wasn’t an easy question at all. It was probably one of the most difficult questions he could ask. Vanessa thought fast. Should she try to pretend she’d been sick? Or should she do as Liam had suggested and bring him into the equation?

  Of course, she also wanted to keep his identity a secret so they didn’t know an Omega Sector agent was sniffing around their backyard.

  “You called in sick to work, Miss Epperson,” Assistant Sheriff Webb said, probably trying to make her think they knew quite a bit about it. But she knew they didn’t know the truth. “Why don’t you start there?”

  She would follow Liam’s advice and go with the “hot lovers” story. That was pretty darn close to the truth anyway.

  “Look, Officer Webb...”

  “Assistant Sheriff Webb,” he corrected.

  Vanessa barely refrained from rolling her eyes. “Assistant Sheriff Webb.” She leaned a little closer in her chair. “Is what we say here going to be reported back to my boss?”

  “We’re under no obligation to report what you say here to your boss.”

  Vanessa noticed he didn’t actually say they wouldn’t tell her boss, but she left it alone. “Okay, yeah, I called in sick, but I wasn’t actually sick.”

  “You were with someone,” Webb continued for her.

  “I’m sure you don’t want all the dirty little details, but it was a guy that I met last year and he came back into town. Things got pretty hot and heavy between us.”

  “Can you provide us with his name?”

  Damn it. “Um, no.”

  Assistant Sheriff Webb’s eyebrow rose. “Why not?”

  “Let’s just say he, um, wasn’t supposed to be with me. And that he has a definite aversion to anything having to do with the police.”

  Webb wrote down a bunch of notes. Probably that Liam was a criminal or married or something. Good. The more shady they thought him, the better.

  “We’ll come back to that,” he said. “You were with him for the whole two days?”

  “Yep.” Vanessa smiled dreamily, which wasn’t too difficult when she thought about her kiss with Liam this morning. “That Officer Atwood guy who came to the hotel Tuesday morning saw us.”

  “Yes, but that was early Tuesday. Did you stay at that hotel until this morning?” Webb didn’t look up from his notes as he asked the question.

  Because they knew she hadn’t been there. Webb was hoping to catch her in a lie.

  “No.” Vanessa shook her head. “We went to another place. I think the cop kind of freaked my friend out.”

  “And where was that place?”

  Vanessa realized she was digging herself in deeper. “I don’t mean to be rude, but what is this all about? I haven’t done anything wrong... Well, at least not illegal, and neither has my friend. Why do you have so many questions about what I’ve been doing the past couple of days?”

  Webb didn’t respond, obviously trying to decide whether to push it or not.

  It was time to take a page out of the Liam Goetz playbook: stand naked in the doorway.

  “Look, I’ll be glad to give you a blow-by-blow,” she snickered a little at that, “of the entire past forty-eight hours. What we did at a friend of a friend’s house. On the bed. And on the kitchen table. And even right outside on the back deck. Come to think of it, maybe we did do something illegal. But I don’t think that’s what you want to write down in your little notebook.”

  She leaned back in her seat and crossed her arms over her chest, feigning a smug confidence she didn’t have.

  Liam would be proud if he could see her right now. She knew it without a doubt.

  And it worked. Webb grimaced and took some papers out of another file on the table. “Fine, if your actions for the past couple days are not fit to be written, then let’s talk about the girl you picked up on Monday evening.”

  Vanessa rolled her eyes as if she was bored. “Seriously? I told that officer guy all I knew about her.”

  “And what was that?”

  It was important for her to remember the details she’d told Officer Atwood. “She was walking on the side of the road. I’m in social work, like you know, so I was concerned about her. I took her to 7-Eleven for some food and Gatorade.”

  “Did you talk to her? Ask her about her situation?”

  “She didn’t say much. Honestly, I think she was probably on something. She didn’t really seem to understand much of what I said.”

  Hopefully, if Webb was the one in on the trafficking ring, he would think Vanessa just thought Karine had been on drugs, not that she’d noticed the girl was from a different country.

  “So what did you do after getting her something to eat and drink?”

  “I took her to the hospital. She still seemed dehydrated and possibly on drugs. More help than I could give her. Plus, I had other plans for the night.”

  “So you didn’t really talk to her and you didn’t really care what happened to her. You just dumped her at the hospital. Odd behavior for a social worker.”

  “It wasn’t like that. Look, most of the time I get up early and work late to help people. Any of the families I partner with can attest to that. But I had plans, so I couldn’t take this kid on.”

  “It sort of looks like you took the kid on.” He took a picture and slid it over to Vanessa. It was of security footage of her and Karine at the hospital, Vanessa hovering close and protectively over the girl.

  Vanessa shrugged. “I’m not a monster. Just because I couldn’t stay there with her doesn’t mean I didn’t care about what happened to her.”

  “We need to find this girl, Miss Epperson.” Webb’s voice took on a very grim tone.

  Vanessa watched as his face seemed to get harder, eyes flintier.

  Yeah, this guy was pretty desperate to get his hands on Karine.

  Too desperate.

  Webb took out some other pictures and placed them in front of Vanessa. “These are from Tuesday night, the night after you dropped the teenager at the hospital.”

  The pictures weren’t very clear, no real visual of a face, but it was definitely someone with long brown hair, about Karine’s height and build. The person was obviously robbing a house, grabbing valuables and stuffing them in a bag.

  “Is that her?” Vanessa asked. She knew very well it wasn’t Karine, but played along. “Officer Atwood mentioned something about her being wanted for burglary.”

  Webb slid the pictures back and then took out another stack. “Unfortunately, your teenage runaway is now wanted for more than burglary. When the woman whose house she broke into came home, she hit her in the head with a metal fire poker. The woman died.”

  Vanessa gasped as the next set of pictures Webb set out showed the girl hitting a woman and the woman falling to the ground.

  “Evidently the suspect didn’t realize there was a security camera at the house.” He pulled out another picture. “Moreover, the person she was with didn’t realize there was a camera, either.”

  He pushed another picture in front of her. A woman, also dressed in black, like the one who had brandished the fire poker, stood by the shadow in the doors.

  Again, you couldn’t make out many details about the person. But her height, her build, the hair coming out from under the dark ball cap she wore?

  Looked quite similar to Vanessa.

  “This was Tuesday night?” she finally blurted. The pictures were jarring. The knowledge that someone seemed to be setting her up even more so.

  “That person.” He pointed to the woman in the shadow. “Looks pretty similar to you.”

  “That’s n-not me,” Vanessa stuttered.

  Assistant Sheriff Webb’s eyes were har
d. “I’m getting a lot of pressure to get this case solved, Miss Epperson. More than that, I’m determined to catch the person who did this—whether it’s your teenager friend or not—and the woman she was with.”

  Vanessa swallowed. “That’s not me. And I don’t know the location of the girl you’re looking for. I can’t help you. I’m sorry.”

  “Well, you are our best link in this case. Our only link right now. So you have two choices—you either provide me with the name of the man you were supposedly with for the past forty-eight hours for an alibi, or we arrest you and continue this questioning later.”

  Chapter Ten

  As soon as Vanessa had disconnected the call with Liam, he sprang into action.

  “Ladies.” He didn’t want to frighten Karine, so he kept his tone as light as possible. “I don’t mean to interrupt your television viewing, but we need to vacate a little sooner than planned.”

  Andrea was on her feet in an instant.

  “Trouble?” she said softly.

  “Locals picked up Vanessa.”

  Andrea grimaced. “I’ll get dressed.”

  “What means vacate?” Karine asked as she brought the cereal bowls over and began washing them in the sink.

  “It means leave. We knew we needed to go to another house, remember? We’re just having to do it a little earlier than we’d planned.” He touched her shoulder gently, slowly. It was the first time he’d initiated any sort of physical contact, and was glad when the girl didn’t flinch or pull away.

  “Miss Vanessa?” Karine asked.

  “She’ll be fine. Promise.” He’d see to it personally. “She’ll meet us there soon, okay?”

  “Okay.” She reached up and squeezed his hand.

  They were completely packed and ready to leave less than twenty minutes later. He and Karine followed Andrea as she went to a local rental property office and secured a house for the next two weeks. Then they drove to the house.

  Andrea had chosen well. It was a great location, directly on the Roanoke Sound, but far enough away from the action that no one would accidentally stumble onto them. It had a boat dock and a small fishing boat, which could allow for a second means of escape if needed.