“You wouldn’t be you if you weren’t a cockeyed optimist. Don’t you dare change. He’s out there somewhere.”
“You really believe that?” Annabelle rose, began to pace. “I’ve proven myself to be a lousy judge of character when it comes to marriage.” And that wasn’t all she was questioning about her life, which scared her half to death.
Martin went to her, held out his hand. “You’ll get back on the horse one of these days. Meanwhile, I have an idea—you ready for an adventure?”
“What kind?”
“A let’s sneak Annabelle out of here covered with a blanket in the back seat adventure.”
“I don’t know…”
“C’mon,” he entreated. “I have a couple of hours with nobody breathing down my neck. Let’s make a jailbreak. You haven’t turned chicken on me, have you?”
“A blanket? Seriously? It’s too hot.”
“I have a/c, you know. And I brought the Rover, not the Jag, so you’d have room to stretch out.”
“Where are we going?”
“Are you turning into a full-fledged recluse on me? ’Cause if so, I’m calling the paparazzi myself.”
Alarm shivered through her. “Martin…”
“Oh, honey, you’re worse off than I thought. If you don’t trust me, of all people.”
Had she become that suspicious of everyone? If she couldn’t trust her best friend, who could she trust?
She was not going to go down that road. “Of course I do.” She sighed. “It’s just been so great to feel this safe.” Hotel Serenity was as advertised—better, even, since Liam had gone above and beyond and had made arrangements with the owner, Vanessa Porter, for Annabelle to have the place all to herself.
Annabelle awoke each morning in this magical place Vanessa had created, her quarters the amazing aerie that was normally the honeymoon suite, an entire floor atop the former carriage house, with killer views of downtown Austin and Lady Bird Lake. A mockingbird serenaded her with its repertoire as she enjoyed her own nest in the treetops, and each night the moon silvered her bedroom. The food was amazing, the service discreet and there was the added kick of a tranquility room on the grounds, complete with massage anytime she wanted it. Annabelle’s heart was still sore, but every day the pain receded. And the respite from her normal breakneck pace was sinfully delicious.
“What, you don’t think I’ll protect you?” He wasn’t teasing anymore. He was hurt, this man who was the only one she truly did trust outside of her family.
She took a deep breath. “I know you will. So where will this adventure take me?”
“I don’t know…my house? I didn’t plan ahead, but—” His cell phone chirped with a voicemail. She appreciated that he turned off the ringer when he was with her. He glanced at the screen and frowned. “Damn.”
“Go ahead and listen.”
He did, and a change swept over his handsome features. When he finished, his strained expression said it all.
“Go on,” she urged. “I’ll be fine here with my goodies.” Even though the notion of getting out had begun to appeal to her more than she’d expected. Maybe she was getting a little antsy in her ivory tower.
He bent to kiss her cheek. “I’m sorry.” He shook his head. “It’s great to be successful, but…”
Annabelle placed one hand on his jaw. “You’re preaching to the choir, you know.” She smiled past her disappointment. “Now shoo—I have chocolate to pig out on and, thanks to the demands of your business, no one to hang around and give me puppy dog eyes to beg me to share.”
“I’ll try to make it back later.”
“I’m fine, I swear.”
“Sorry, kid.” But his mind was clearly already elsewhere.
Annabelle hugged her dearest friend and watched him go.
And admitted to herself that she was lonely.
She squared her shoulders, gathered up her goodies to take them to her quarters. She mounted the steps but paused halfway up, gazing out at the lake, at the beauty of the day she was missing while she cloistered herself here. It was beautiful and she’d desperately needed the peace when she arrived, but she’d seen nothing of the wonders of Austin Martin had described.
Was he right? Was she really ready to emerge? A part of her was restless, but another part shuddered at the notion of attracting any attention.
She glanced back at the house. Maybe after she put all this away, she’d go see if Vanessa had time to visit instead.
“Okay, so who wants to go first?” VICTAF head Doc Romero’s piercing gaze scanned the group gathered around the conference table at task force headquarters in an anonymous office building in northeast Austin.
“Internet chatter picking up,” offered Doc’s right hand man, Bob Jordan.
“How would you know? You figured out how to turn on your computer yet?” teased Trini Sanchez, the group’s newest member, on loan from the immigration agency ICE.
Some grins, a couple of raised coffee mugs. Balding, paunchy Bob was everyone’s favorite uncle and the go-to guy for anything you didn’t want to bother Doc with, but his aversion to technology was legend.
“Bite me,” Bob retorted. “I can read reports.”
“As long as someone prints them up for you,” quipped Saint Valdez who, like Sean, had come to VICTAF from the Austin Police Department.
“Okay, okay,” Doc said. “So brief me. What’s the chatter?” Though he would be asking for the sake of the group—there wasn’t so much as a dust mote floating in the air that Doc didn’t register. VICTAF was his baby, and while most cops would have retired by now, at sixty-two, Doc showed no signs of slowing down or handing over the reins. Sean was glad about that, personally. Imagining VICTAF without Doc—or Bob, for that matter—wasn’t something he cared to contemplate. He’d been psyched to be invited to join the prestigious inter-agency group, and he’d been here longer than many of the others. Most rotated in and out within a couple of years in accordance with Doc’s original design, but Sean had found a niche where he’d felt like he was making a difference, and Doc had encouraged him to stay.
But sometimes the difference seemed too minuscule to count. Like now. This case was driving them all buggy.
“First of all, investigation of this recent crime scene isn’t producing much in the way of promising forensic evidence,” Bob said. “But there’s no time for getting pissed off. Word is, Koslov is planning to deliver a shipment of Middle Eastern women and children next.”
“What’s motivating his change of merchandise? He usually handles Hispanics. And why bring them through Texas?” asked Mack Lawrence of the Department of Public Safety. “A lot easier for Central Americans to blend in.”
“Sad statement,” interjected Saint, “but thanks to the overall paranoia about the Middle East, there’s an increased appetite in the sex slave trade for women from that region.”
Expressions of disgust, from hardened jaws to shaking heads and narrowed eyes, traveled the room, but this group had seen too much to be easily shocked. You had to grow a thick skin to survive in the world they walked in.
Sometimes, though, Sean thought, man’s ability to enjoy the suffering of his fellow beings, to profit from misery, made him damn sick.
“We still think he’s using Jorge Lima?” asked Trini.
Doc nodded. “Or whatever name he’s going by now. Why mess with a winning formula?” The Brazilian had proven elusive to both his own country’s law enforcement and U.S. agencies. He’d created a pipeline that shifted constantly but never ceased operations.
Assorted muttering made its way around the room.
Doc shrugged. “Lima’s not in our purview, though. We have to focus on what we can do here at home.”
“The money,” Sean stated.
“Yep,” Doc answered. “The money. The cocktail waitress at Danger Zone—any progress on finding her, Saint?”
“Nothing worth talking about. Since we have to stay under the radar at the club, I’ve been playing it
low-key, asking around. I had a young patrolman go in, pose as someone whose eye she caught, trying to get her phone number so he can see her again. The bar-back he talked to said she wasn’t sociable. That she left after her shift and didn’t really get to know anyone. No one seems to know much about where she lived, and she didn’t show up for work yesterday. Bar-back says she’ll play hell getting her job back. We’ve talked to her family, but she left home at seventeen and they don’t care if they ever see her again. In other words…we got nothing so far.”
“Keep tugging that line for a while. It’s the best lead we’ve had,” Doc said.
Around the table, faces echoed his frustration.
“I may have a line on something,” Sean offered.
Doc lifted an eyebrow.
“I was there last night, and I met these two women…”
General hoots and catcalls. “No surprise there, Romeo,” snickered Saint.
Sean rolled his eyes. That whole bit got old years ago, but if he let them see that his rep as a ladies’ man bugged him, they’d never leave off. So instead, he played it up. “Not my fault you’re boring old married farts. Women like me…it can’t be helped.” He actually did get along well with women, always had, but he preferred to think it wasn’t his face but the fact that he genuinely liked them.
“I’m not old—or married,” piped up Trini.
“And Clarice doesn’t seem to think I’m too boring,” intoned Saint.
Sean couldn’t refute that. Saint was part of the Sandoval/Sullivan clan by marriage if not by blood, and it was rife with happy couples. Somehow Sean had been adopted by them when Alex Sandoval had been his supervisor at VICTAF. He had attended many a family gathering since then, seeing for himself what a good marriage could do to smooth out life’s rough edges. Saint’s was one of them.
“Yeah, but Clarice’s a shrink, and with you she’s got a lifetime project,” he quipped.
Saint laughed.
Doc cleared his throat. “Okay, people. Back to business.” He turned a stony look on Sean. “So you just, what, decided to drop in without clearing it with anyone?”
“You can ask me that after the other night? You saw what they did, those bastards.”
Doc only looked at him over his reading glasses with an expression that made Sean feel all of fifteen, trying to defend actions he knew pushed the boundaries. “So what happened?”
“The first girl was just one of Lowe’s teasers, girls he hires to bring the guys. Sort of a cross between saloon girls and hookers, but they’re careful not to get busted. He must pay them well, since they’re so closemouthed.”
“So why is this one going to pan out?”
“Her loyalty is being strained. She’s got the hots for Lowe, and Sage called her out on it.” Martin Lowe and Sage Holland were co-owners of the club. “She thinks Sage wants him for herself.”
Bob looked cheerful. “Jealous women make great CIs.”
“Sometimes,” Saint said. Confidential informants, as they all knew to their peril, were unreliable by nature. “Until one takes her man back, and the case goes south on you.”
Heads nodded all around the table.
“But she’s not the one who got my attention. I spotted a girl whose sister is one of the vics from the other night, I’m damn near positive. She was back by those doors, the new ones Vice thinks are being used for more than private dances with clients, but…”
Around the table, people straightened in their chairs.
“But…?” Doc prompted.
Sean exhaled in a gust. “I lost her. I had her off by herself, but what I suspect is her pimp started searching. When he got too close and I turned to deflect his attention, she took off.”
His frustration was echoed on other faces.
“She’s a key, I know it. Scared to death of someone named Hector and worried sick because her sister didn’t show up to meet her. She talked about being brought over, and she’s from Istanbul.”
“Got a name?” asked Saint.
“Not a real one. Says it’s Candy, but that’s her pross name, I’m sure. She’s a dead ringer for a girl from the other night, so much so they could be twins.”
“That it?” Doc asked.
“Yeah,” Sean answered morosely.
“A slim lead, but we’re not getting any good ones. I’m not ready to send someone in to get an invitation to one of the back rooms because busting the club for prostitution or drugs, either of which is very likely to be going on, will dry up any chance we have of getting on the inside. Our focus is not sex or drugs—we’ll leave that to Vice later. We need to find the money trail to trace it back up the pipeline. That’s job one for us, people.” Doc shot a glare at Sean. “And no more cowboy vigilante action. You know better.” His eyes locked on Sean’s.
Sean didn’t look away, though he knew Doc was right. He was just so damn tired of the bad guys getting away with so much.
Doc leaned back in his chair. “Anybody else got something to report?”
“Yeah,” replied Holly Patterson, DEA agent. “Lowe’s formed an interesting new pattern. Every day for the last week, he’s gone shopping—”
“Holy crap,” quipped Mack. “The guy’s obviously gone off the deep end. Shopping? Every day?” He gave an exaggerated shudder.
Holly sighed. She was also new to VICTAF, though she was an experienced agent. “Then he pays a visit to the same place.”
“Where?” asked Bob.
“This expensive hotel off South Congress, an old mansion that was turned into what they call a boutique hotel.”
“Boutique?” hooted Bob. “What the hell does that mean?”
Saint glanced at Sean. Sean stared right back. Only one place met that description, and they both knew the owner. Had helped get it ready to open, as a favor to a mutual friend.
“If you’d ever stayed anywhere but a no-tell motel, you’d know that means a place catering to a special clientele,” Sean explained. “And no, I don’t mean anything dirty.” He looked at Holly. “Hotel Serenity, right?”
“You know it? Problem there? Should we be investigating?”
“No. Absolutely not.” Saint was frowning.
Sean could read his mind. No way would Vanessa Porter allow something illegal to go on at her beloved hotel—and she would know. Nothing escaped her notice. Hotel Serenity was her dream, and she was fierce in her love for it.
“How can you be sure?”
Sean spoke up first. “A friend of ours owns it. It’s strictly aboveboard, and it’s too small for anyone to be using it as any sort of front. She keeps her finger on every aspect.”
“Vanessa is family,” Saint said. “And the Sullivans are all straight arrows.”
“Sullivans?” Doc asked. “Alex’s family?”
Sean nodded. “His brother Dane and Vanessa are a couple.”
“Alex Sandoval,” Doc explained for the benefit of the newer task force members. “Former FBI. He and his wife Jade were both on VICTAF. Jade rotated out a few years ago. Alex retired before that.”
“How come?” asked Bo. “I mean, if it’s any of my business.”
“Because now he’s making more money than this whole group put together,” Saint said. “He’s one hell of an artist, and he’s getting famous.”
“Sullivan…” Holly looked up. “Liam?”
“Bingo,” replied Bob. “Alex is the older half-brother of Dane and Liam.”
“Wow.” Holly wasn’t that easy to impress, but clearly she was now.
“Yeah, there’s no way anything illegal is going on there,” mused Sean. But it was the best lead they had, and it could be just the angle he’d been searching for. “We need to find out why Lowe is visiting every day.”
“There’s something else,” Holly said. “No guests coming in or out the entire week we’ve been watching him.”
“No guests?” Saint shook his head. “That can’t be right. Vanessa opened last September, and she’s booked solid months ahead. It’
s the place to stay in Austin now. Big hit with the entertainment crowd.”
Holly shrugged. “I don’t know what to tell you. There have been a few food deliveries and some workers coming and going, but otherwise…nada.”
“What kind of shopping?” Sean asked.
“Women’s clothing, books, gourmet food. Chocolate, the expensive stuff.”
A woman, Sean thought. Jackpot.
“So he’s got a woman in there? Why wouldn’t she be staying at that big-ass place of his out in the hills?” Mack asked.
“Maybe he’s wooing her.”
“Look, we can speculate all day, but it appears either of you could check it out pretty easily,” he said to Sean and Saint. “So who’s going to find out what the deal is?”
“Not that easy, Doc,” said Saint. “Vanessa has a lot of guests who come specifically for the privacy she rigorously maintains. She’s fired people with loose lips.”
“He’s right,” Sean added. “It’s a religion with her. Guests count on that.”
“So you seriously can’t ask her? Or won’t?”
“She’s family, Doc,” Saint repeated. “I mean, if I hear something…”
“But we won’t,” Sean said, though his mind was already spinning through the possible angles.
Doc’s expression made clear that he was unhappy. Sean knew, however, that Doc held the same healthy respect for the family that Sean did. “Eyes sharp,” Doc ordered Holly. “If you need more help, you speak up. Someone’s got to come out of there at some point, whoever it is Lowe is visiting. We’ll respect the hotel’s privacy as long as we can, but if you get the faintest whiff that there’s something illegal going on there or that those visits are more than chasing tail, we have to act.” He stared at Saint and Sean in turn. “I understand how you feel, but…”
Sean nodded. “I know. But she’s a good woman, Doc, and she’s had a tough road. I’d bet everything I own that nothing illegal is going on there.”
Texas Bodyguard Page 3
