“Thank you for seeing me.”
“Hello, Rachel.” His handshake was perfunctory. “What seems to be the problem?”
“I need to locate a missing person, a young Hlông girl who was kidnapped from the camp by her brother. I’m sure she’s in Bangkok.” He motioned her through the open door into his office. With a wave of his hand, he indicated that she should take a seat in a red leather chair drawn up before a carved mahogany desk, flanked by the flags of the United States and Thailand.
“Are you sure she was brought here against her will?” He rested one hip on the edge of the desk and surveyed his foot in its white leather pump.
“She disappeared from our cottage—she’s my assistant—without a word. It took me five days to find someone who had seen her leave the camp. She was with a man, her brother as I said, and she was crying.” She clamped her fingers around the straps of her bag. It contained a change of clothes, her passport and what little money she had. Harrison Bartley eyed the woven bag distastefully.
“Young girls are brought down from the hills into Patpong every day.” Rachel hated the accepting tone of his voice, the little nod of his head that said, “You get used to hearing such things in this part of the world.”
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t heard the words before. Father Dolph had warned her this was how it would be when she’d told him what she’d learned from the Hlông woman who’d seen Ahnle leave the camp with her brother. “He’s most likely taken her to Chiang Mai or Bangkok.” The priest’s words had been gentle, his tone sympathetic but resigned. “You’re too brave and intelligent to hide from the truth, Rachel. Unwanted daughters are often traded away here. Surely that happened in the village where you lived? It’s an old custom. We can only pray to God and work to change it.”
“It’s a terrible practice but it still happens here.” Bartley’s words echoed Father Dolph’s in her head. “Officially, I can’t do much. The girl isn’t even a Thai national, is she?” He twitched the leg of his pants. “They turn a blind eye to what the hill people do down here. Except for the king. Bit of a reformer, His Majesty.”
“Perhaps Ambassador Singleton might be able to give me some more information.” She closed her eyes to blot out the sight of Bartley’s handsome, vacuous face. The sharp sting of angry, frustrated tears pricked behind her eyelids. “Can you arrange for me to speak to him?”
“He’s unavailable, I’m afraid.”
“Please.” She would beg if she had to.
“I’m sorry, Rachel.” The peevish tone was gone. “The ambassador is in conference with the king’s minister right now. I couldn’t get through to him if my own life depended on it.”
“I see.”
“Look, why don’t you try to get in touch with your friends from the jungle?”
“I don’t understand.” She was so tired she couldn’t think straight.
“Sure, you do.” For the first time she heard real anger beneath Bartley’s smoothly cultured tones. “Tiger Jackson and that black friend of his. Surely you know it was their camp we spent the night in?” He stood up and walked behind the desk, distancing himself from Rachel and her problem.
“I don’t know how to contact them.” She could be blunt, also.
“Try the Lemongrass.” He sat down behind the desk.
“The restaurant you took me to that day?”
“I’ve heard you can contact Tiger Jackson there. He’s got a damned sight better chance of finding the girl than we do. Our Mr. Jackson has friends in very high places.”
“By that you mean he’s paid off everyone necessary to ensure he’s not bothered by the authorities.”
“So do the kind of…businessmen who are interested in young girls like your assistant, if you catch my drift. It’s the accepted way of doing business in Southeast Asia.” He twirled a gold pen between manicured fingers. “Do you know I couldn’t get one single person, including my boss, to listen to me when I told them we spent the night in his jungle hideout? No one. And the fellow who gave me the map? He’s gone. Rotated home right in the middle of his tour. There isn’t a copy of that map to be had anywhere in Thailand. The one I had with me that day, remember?” Rachel nodded. “It’s gone, too. Disappeared. Just like your little friend. And I’m sorry to say, I think you’ve got just about as much chance of finding her as I do of getting back to that wat without it.”
“YOU MUST LISTEN TO ME. It’s urgent that I contact him. Now. Today.”
The voice sounded familiar, feminine, American, sweet and clear. Lonnie Smalley pushed aside the beaded curtain that separated the private rooms and offices of the Lemongrass from the main dining room off the bar.
“Sorry,” Ponchoo, the Thai maître d’ and occasional bartender, was saying. “There’s no one named Tiger Jackson here.”
Lonnie lifted a shaking hand and parted the curtain. He needed a fix but Brett had made him promise not to leave the restaurant. He’d gotten some bad stuff last time he’d gone out on his own and it had nearly killed him. Or at least that’s what Billy said. He could only remember the dreams, horrible dreams of monsters and blood and then nothing at all. The nothingness hadn’t been so bad. At least not till he’d awakened in his bed with the worst hangover he’d ever had in his life.
“Please. It’s important.” The woman standing in the filtered sunlight near the bar windows was Rachel Phillips. He remembered Billy telling him she’d spent years in a Vietnamese prison camp and a hill village in Laos. He’d thought a lot about her since then, of the things that must have happened to her. Of the things she must have seen and couldn’t forget—like him. He wondered if she felt as out of place in the world as he did these days. He wondered how she’d been able to go home again. He never had. Or had she been able to go home again? Maybe not. Maybe that’s why she was back in Southeast Asia—because she didn’t belong anyplace anymore, just like him.
He thought about going into the bar to ask her but he decided against it. Fire danced up and down his arms, just under the skin, and his head pounded like a kettle drum. He’d better tell Brett she was here. He wouldn’t like being interrupted, not while the two bigwigs he was palaverin’ with in the back room were there. But Lonnie thought Brett had better know the pretty woman with the sad smile and blue-gray eyes was kicking up a rumpus in the bar.
BRETT HADN’T REALLY BELIEVED it when Lonnie came sidling into his office to tell him Rachel Phillips was in the bar arguing with Ponchoo, but the younger man had been telling the truth. He stood a moment, behind the beaded curtain, watching her. She was wearing a flowered cotton jacket and skirt that was mostly pink and green, and a white blouse, open at the throat. She was thinner than he remembered and her hair had lost the glorious moonlight sheen that haunted his dreams. Her face, reflected in the mirror behind the bar, was tense and exhausted.
Something was wrong, very wrong, for Rachel Phillips to have taken the risk of coming to him. A thousand times over the past months he’d wished to hell he’d never given in to the impulse to let her see and feel, and know of his attraction to her. He’d pushed a little too hard and she’d bolted. But now she was back and he had another chance. He looked back over his shoulder, consigned the two very important and influential gentlemen he’d left cooling their heels in his office to Hades, and walked into the bar.
“I’m sorry I can’t help you,” Ponchoo was saying in the friendly, polite way all Thais carried on business, and even arguments.
“I have to find Tiger Jackson.” Her tone was friendly and polite, also, but tired, with a thread of anxiety snaking along beneath the surface calm. “I was told I might find him here.”
“Sorry.” Ponchoo picked up a glass and started polishing it. “Do you want a drink?” he asked politely, changing the subject and ending the discussion as far as he was concerned.
“No. Please.” The barman pretended not to hear.
“Arguing with a Thai is like trying to wrestle a cloud.”
Rachel whirled toward him, her eyes w
ide with relief, and a hint of wariness. “Brett.” As always, the sound of his name on her lips made his gut tighten with need. “He said he’d never heard of you.” She looked back at Ponchoo accusingly. He shrugged and smiled disarmingly.
“Sorry, ma’am.” He went back to polishing his glassware.
“He has his orders.”
A faint hint of color stained her cheeks. “Of course.” She wrapped her hands around the straps of the yaam she carried on her shoulder.
“What’s wrong, Rachel?” He didn’t come any closer. He didn’t want to frighten her away again. It was late afternoon, the bar was empty for the moment but the early dinner crowd would be arriving soon. He pulled a high-backed bamboo chair away from a small table nearby and held it for her.
“Is it so apparent something’s wrong?” she asked, brushing nervously at her hair where it lay against her cheek.
“Yes. And I know you wouldn’t come to me unless you needed help.” He held her gaze with his own. She didn’t flinch or look away, just smiled sadly.
“It’s Ahnle. She disappeared over a week ago. I think she’s been brought here against her will. I just got here today—I came in a supply truck. I tried the embassy first. I thought…Ambassador Singleton might help. He’s a friend of my brother, Simon.” She made a helpless little gesture with her hands as she sat down.
“Since you’re here, he obviously didn’t.” He signaled Ponchoo to bring her something to drink.
“Juice is fine,” she said when the bartender appeared at her elbow. “I never saw the ambassador. Harrison Bartley suggested I try to contact you here.”
“Out of the goodness of his heart, I imagine.”
She smiled, just a hint of a sparkle in her tired eyes. “I don’t think so.” Her smile disappeared. “Brett, can you help me?”
“You’re looking for a needle in a haystack.” She flinched when he said it.
“I have to try to find her.” He hadn’t been wrong in thinking Rachel was growing very attached to the young Hlông woman that day at the camp.
“Khob khun,” she murmured as Ponchoo set the tall glass of iced juice in front of her. “She didn’t come here of her own free will. I know she didn’t.” Rachel curled her hand tightly around the glass and looked down. “She’s lost everything, Brett. Can you understand that? Her family…her identity…” She was silent a moment, then looked up at him with such sorrow in her blue-gray eyes that he was shaken to the very center of his soul. “She’s lost everything dear to her. I can’t stand by and see her lose her freedom…her self-respect.” Her voice grew stronger, determined once more. “I have to find her.”
“In a city this size…” he began, choosing his words carefully. He didn’t want to build up false hopes. There were people he could contact, but it would take time. If Ahnle had been gone over a week already, there was no telling what might have happened to her.
“Surely there are places I can look for her?”
“No, not alone.”
She reached out her hand, as if to touch him. He leaned back in his chair, away from her. If she touched him, he didn’t know what would happen. He’d sure as hell want to touch her back, and he’d probably be tempted to go off with her on some damn fool search of the seedier bars off Patpong Road. He couldn’t do that, not now. He was too close to talking the gentlemen in his office into giving him the extra quarter-million dollars in gold bullion he needed to ice the deal with Khen Sa. The search for Ahnle would have to wait.
“You won’t help me?”
“I can’t leave here now.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t like to publicize this fact, but I own the place.”
“I see. Business first.” She squared her shoulders. The hand she’d reached out to him just moments before curled into a fist. “You don’t have to tag along with me. Just tell me where she might be. Surely you know what kind of places take young girls like Ahnle.”
“Not firsthand, if that’s what you’re implying.” He was angry, too. His reputation had never bothered him. He did what he had to do and the rest of the world be damned. But seeing the contempt in Rachel’s eyes flicked him on the raw.
Rachel closed her eyes briefly. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I just thought…”
“A man with my reputation would frequent dives like that.”
“Brett.” This time she did touch him, a butterfly caress on the back of his hand that rocked him with the force of a mortar shell going off beneath his feet. “Forgive me. I’m tired and I’m scared to death for Ahnle. I have to find her. I know…I know what it’s like to be forced into…” She broke off and took a deep breath. “Please help me find her.”
For twenty years he’d been able to put duty and necessity before his own needs. Never had it been harder to do than at this moment.
“Where are you staying?”
“I…I don’t know.”
He recalled her disjointed explanation of Ahnle’s disappearance, the method of travel she’d used to get to the city. She probably didn’t have more than a few dollars to her name.
“There’s a place you can stay nearby.” She started to object but he cut her short. He couldn’t afford to delay the stalled negotiations in his office much longer. “It’s a guest house. Clean and cheap. Lonnie can take you there. I’ll put out some feelers on finding Ahnle. I should know something in a day or two.” Or sooner than that, if he could find Billy and head into the Patpong district himself later that night.
“A day or two? I can’t wait that long.” She stood up. So did he. Rachel leaned forward, rested her hands on the table. “I intend to go looking for her today. Now.”
“That’s out of the question.” He kept his voice low. One or two patrons had begun drifting into the bar. “Patpong Road is no place for a woman alone.”
“I’ll manage.”
“I said you’re not going. That’s an order.” He’d made a mistake saying that. She stood taller, her shoulders thrown back, her chin high. She looked brave and determined and scared to death.
“No one tells me what to do. No one.” She started to walk away. Brett was aware of curious looks, suspended conversation around them.
“Rachel, wait.” He ran his hand through his hair. He’d rather face Khen Sa and a hundred of his men than argue with a woman, especially this woman. He wanted to make love to her, not fight with her.
“No.” She shook her head. “Don’t you see, I can’t wait? I waited half a lifetime for someone to come for me. I’m not going to let that happen to Ahnle if I can help it.”
“Dammit.” Brett watched her walk away, back straight, her hips swaying gently beneath the soft cotton skirt. What the hell was he supposed to do? Ponchoo couldn’t leave the bar. Billy wouldn’t be back for hours. He’d have to let her go for the time being. Right now he had to get back to the men in his office. They were all taking a risk just meeting here, but time was getting short and he needed the gold Khen Sa demanded as ear nest money, and damn soon. He watched the door close behind Rachel, then turned and walked back through the beaded curtain to his office, a grimly determined look on his face.
Women. For twenty years he’d managed to stay pretty much free of them. Now, in a matter of months, in a number of meetings he could count on one hand, Rachel Phillips had managed to turn his life upside down. Hell, he thought, twisting the knob on his office door with a great deal more force than necessary, she was making a wreck of his life and he hadn’t even gotten around to kissing her.
RACHEL STOOD ON THE SIDEWALK outside the Lemongrass, looking for a bus stop. She simply didn’t have enough money to bargain for a taxi, although it would be faster. At least the Lemongrass was close enough to the Patpong district that she shouldn’t have to transfer. It hadn’t been so convenient getting to the restaurant from the embassy on Wireless Road.
“Hi.” The hoarse, ruined voice belonged to Lonnie Smalley. “Need a lift?” He was leaning out of the open window of a very battered VW of ind
eterminate age and color.
“I’m going to Patpong,” she said, fishing in her yaam for her sunglasses, “not some guest house your boss picked out for me.”
“I figured that when I saw you march out the door. I overheard some of what you told him,” Lonnie said without embarrassment. “You’re makin’ the colonel real mad, ya know.”
“It can’t be helped.” She leaned down and looked at him.
“Get in. I’ll take you where you want to go.”
“I don’t want you getting in trouble for helping me.”
“Don’t worry about me. I know some of the places you’ll need to go look for your friend. Get in,” he repeated, opening the door.
“Do you think we can find her?” Rachel asked, as he maneuvered his way through the heavy traffic.
“We can try.” He handled the car competently enough, although his hands were shaking and his face twitched uncontrollably. He needed a fix, Rachel realized, badly. He turned his head, saw her watching him. “Don’t worry. I’m not going to dump you to go off looking for some China White. I’m tight. Okay?”
“Okay,” Rachel said doubtfully. She hadn’t considered the complications of Lonnie’s addiction when she’d agreed to accompany him. She wondered what had happened to make him lose control of his life.
“Patpong is no place for a lady.”
“I’ve been in worse places,” Rachel said quietly.
“Yeah,” Lonnie said, nodding his head. “So have I.”
The days were getting shorter. It was almost dusk before they arrived at the entrance to the Teak Doll. It was a bar on a narrow, twisting side street called a soi off Patpong Road. Behind them, the noisy main drag of the so-called sex center of the city was busy and well-lighted. Here, where she stood with Lonnie Smalley, it was relatively quiet. The neon signs were smaller, many with burned-out letters above ramshackle bars and massage parlors.
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