VANISHED, A Romantic Suspense Novel (Edgars Family Novel) (21 page)

“
Men are so easy to manipulate, Abby.” Brianna slipped on the stilettos and looked at her outfit in the full-length mirror.

“
You’re going to get hurt, Brie.”

“
You worry too much,” she said, grabbing her bag and heading for the door.

“
Dating two guys at once is bad enough, but now you’re seeing the computer lab teaching assistant on top of it?”

“
It’s just a friendly dinner.”

She looked at her friend’s slinky black dress that revealed too much cleavage and leg to be anything less than a seduction waiting to happen. The guy wasn’t going to know what hit him. “Yeah, right. Just a friendly dinner.”

Brianna laughed. “If he decides to raise my grade above the two-point-eight it is now, I can’t help it.”

Strong arms wrapped around Abigail and pulled her back against Luke’s solid frame, the heat from his body soothing the chill that had replaced her anger. She leaned her head against his neck, feeling the steady thrum of his pulse against her cheek. “After what I just said out there, I’m surprised you want to come within ten feet of me.”

He chuckled. “The others think I’ve got brass balls for coming in here.”

For a moment she allowed herself a smile, then set it aside. “I wasn't making an idle threat, Luke. When we find this scum—and I have every faith we will find them—I plan to make them pay for treating women like this, especially my friend.”

“I’m not planning to stop you, unless it means you go to prison, sweetheart. I’m not into conjugal visits.” He continued holding her and looking out the window. “You know, Brenda might be more important to these guys than just for what information she has.”

“Brianna, and exactly what would that be?” she said turning her head to look at him.

“If they are selling women, she’d bring big bucks. Probably more than the other women.”

“Because she’s so beautiful. You know, she’s more than a pretty face and sexy body. Inside she’s smart and she does care about people.” Abigail took a deep breath and tried to pull away, but he held her still.

“You’re right, she is much more, but in this case her outer shell may be what’s keeping her alive.”

“And you’re telling me this why?”

Releasing her, he stepped back as she turned, setting his hands on her shoulders. “Because I believe she’s still alive and you should too. Planning to sell her as one of their sex slaves explains why they haven’t killed her, but given what we’ve just found out, how big this slavery ring is, we need to focus and move fast—”

“—before they move her out of the area and we never find her,” she finished his thought.

He nodded.

“What do you need me to do?”

“What you do best.” He grinned that charming grin that used to irritate her in their training days. “Follow the money.”

His words struck another sensitive spot with her, his belief that she was better suited behind a safe desk somewhere and not out in the field. Almost from the day they first met he’d voiced his opinion on that. Apparently it hadn’t changed.

As he turned to leave she grabbed his arm to stop him. “I need to know something.”

“What?” He drew his brows down slightly, fixing his hazel eyes and all his attention on her. She ignored the way her body warmed at his intensity.

“When we were training in Georgia, why did you try so hard to make me fail?”

With a deep breath he looked around the room before settling his gaze on her once more, as if he were looking for the right words to say. “We don’t have time to go into this now.”

“I need to know why. You and I both know I ended up chained to a desk in Washington because of how you pointed out my analytical skills over my physical abilities to the trainers at every turn.” She released his arm and bit the inside of her mouth to stem the burning of tears in her eyes. Dammit, she thought she’d gotten past this, but even five years later it still hurt.

“You know your analytical skills were miles ahead of the rest of the class, Abby. You have the kind of brain the agents in the field depend on to feed them accurate intel. I didn’t think it should be wasted out in the field.”

“Bullshit.”

He blinked.

She’d shocked him. Heck, she’d shocked herself. She rarely cursed, but Luke seemed to bring out the worst in her.

“It’s the truth.”

“No, Mr. Hacker, you have great analytical skills, too, yet no one questioned you being a field agent.” She poked him in the chest. “You targeted me from the moment we met. At first I thought it was because I was a woman.”

“That's crap. I have no problem with women being field agents.”

“I know.” When she’d had time to think about it after their training ended, she’d acknowledged he treated all the recruits the same, male or female, everyone but her.

“You know? Then what is this paranoia of yours about?” His brows had drawn down as he studied her in puzzlement.

“I realized it wasn’t female agents you had a problem with. Just me. What I want to know is, why?”

Silence filled the space between them and she was sure he wasn’t going to answer. Then he said, “Because of the dream.”

“What dream?” Now it was her turn to be confused.

“The night after we met I had a dream about you.”

“About me? What kind of dream?”

“The kind of dream that wakes you up shaking and in a cold sweat.” Suddenly he plopped down on the bed, his coloring pale as he stared out the window. He spoke as if he no longer saw her. “It was dark and we were on a mission together. We’d entered this run-down office complex and I lost sight of you. I kept calling your name, but you didn’t answer. I kept turning corners, like in a maze. Then I saw you, lying face down on the floor. When I turned you over, you were dead.”

She sat down beside him, slipping her hand in his. “It was just a dream, Luke.”

“You don’t understand,” he said, and the tightness of his voice sent a chill through her.

“Help me to understand it, then.” She grasped one of his hands in hers. Its coldness frightening her.

“I don’t remember dreams. I’m sure I have them, I just
never
remember the details. They don’t stick with me. No names, place, images, certainly not action or color. But every time I have this dream it’s as if I’m there and it’s real.”

His words stole her breath for a moment.

“You’ve had this dream more than once?”

He nodded, lifting his hazel eyes to hers, fear deepening them until the flecks of gold were almost gone.

“How many times?” she whispered.

“Almost nightly when we were in training. It went away once you were in Washington and I was out in the field.”

“You haven’t had it since?” Some of the anxiety left her body.

“I had it the night before last in the hotel. Only…”

“Only?” The tension in his hands and face slammed her own fear back full force.

“It was different.”

“How?”

Once more he stared off into space as if reliving the dream. “You were covered in blood. Your eyes cold and lifeless. And you talked to me.”

“What did I say?”

“
Why didn’t you help me?
”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

A knock sounded on his office door.

Senator Howard Klein looked up from the files he was studying for the next interstate highway bill to see his eldest son standing in the doorway. “Did you get our merchandise moving and our little problem taken care of?”

“Delivery of the trained merchandise to the supply houses down south is on its way with Snake and his men.” Dylan shrugged, then sauntered in to slide into the leather chair across the mahogany desk. “Our other little problem still won’t confess where she’s hidden the flash drive, but I’ve got her secured in the big training house.”

“You should’ve gotten rid of her permanently.”

“You’ve seen what she looks like, sir. Once she’s healed and trained properly, she’ll bring a very hefty price. Well worth more than the trouble she’s causing right now.”

His son was right. The bottom line was finding quality merchandise and the Mathews woman was a natural beauty—what they’d called a stunner when he was younger. That kind of high-end female flesh was hard to come by. “See that she doesn’t cause any more trouble. The last thing we need is for anyone to get their hands on that information. Hollister says she copied locations of the houses throughout the Midwest area.”

“She’ll be docile and ready to please by the time I get done with her.”

He fixed his gaze on Dylan and arched one brow. “How can you be sure when you haven’t gotten her to give you the location of that drive yet?”

“I think it’s time to change tactics. Like any good mare, the first thing is to break down her spirit. The torture by our men has been quite…brutal.” His son smiled like a cobra watching its prey. A well-practiced look the boy learned from him at a young age. “All I have to do now is show her how to please me to stop any further beatings. Part of that will be to tell me where she hid the drive.”

The senator felt his cock growing hard at just how his son would bring the woman under his control. He’d used the same tactic on more than one of his slaves over the years. “Too bad she won’t be healed up and trained by Friday. There are big spenders coming to trade merchandise at the next auction. Many from overseas.”

Dylan rose from the leather chair and headed to the bar in the corner of the office. He poured two glasses of imported whisky. He brought them back to the desk, handing him one before taking his seat once more and taking a healthy drink of the amber liquid. “Is Master Lee going to be there this time?”

“Yes, he is. Why do you ask?” He watched the idea form in the ice-cold blue eyes that mirrored his own.

“If I can get the information from the slut before tomorrow night, perhaps he’d like to take her off our hands. He’d pay a large sum to do so. The condition she’s in is something he treasures.”

“With the added benefit that he’d move her out of the jurisdiction of our courts and make her virtually disappear.” He opened his laptop and logged into the account only his special clients could access. “We’ll send him a live feed of her now and see if he’s interested.”

Dylan set aside his glass and stood to leave. “Then I’d better go visit our little traitor. I’d say by now she’d do just about anything for a kind word or gentle hand, wouldn’t you?”

He watched his son stride from the room like a man in control of everything about him. His eldest was everything he’d wanted him to be. One day he’d be sitting in the White House, he was sure of it. But for now—the senator turned on the camera to the training stable at the big house where the bitch giving them all the trouble had been deposited—for now he’d enjoy watching his son get the little whore to service him.

* * * * *

Hours of reading files about more than a hundred missing women had Abby happy to open the financial data Luke sent to her laptop. The women’s files had angered and depressed her in equal measure. So many lonely women, desperate to find love only to end up in a hell a group of over privileged men had created for their own amusement.

After her little tirade and talk with Luke, the group decided on different areas to investigate and Luke had assigned them each information to gather. Castello had driven Kirk to work so he could talk with the caterer about the party last month, but hadn’t returned yet. Jeffers had headed back to his precinct office for a few hours to see if there was any information about the three dead women, even though they all knew that unlike what most people saw on TV it would be days, if not weeks, before the forensics people came up with anything. Since his return this evening he’d been working another database Luke had hacked. This one seemed to be a shipping firm owned by a company that was owned by another company that ultimately was owned by Hollister-Klein.

“You okay, Ms. Whitson?” Detective Jeffers asked from across the table.

She sighed, but nodded. “Yes. At least with the financials there aren’t any faces staring back at me. And please call me Abigail. After today, I think formality is a bit overrated, don’t you?”

“Yes it would. And I’m Aaron.” He gave her a tentative smile and the corners around his deep-blue eyes crinkled a bit, though a sadness still remained.

What had made him so unhappy? His job? Or something more personal?

“Is that what you do back in Washington?”

His question caught her still wondering about his story and it took a moment for her to realize he was talking about the information on her computer. “I’m an analyst for the Treasury Department.”

“Isn’t that a branch of Homeland Security now?”

“Only part of it. The Customs Department, Secret Service and FLETC moved under the umbrella of Homeland. The rest remains still as the Treasury Department.”

“You don’t usually handle missing persons cases then, I bet.”

A laugh escaped her. “Not really. I mostly look into international money laundering and fraud.”

The humor left Aaron’s face. “So if your friend hadn’t stumbled onto something odd and contacted you, we wouldn’t have a clue this was going on right under our noses, would we?”

“You would’ve caught on to the problem at some point.” Luke looked up from his laptop where he sat on the couch. “No one stays hidden forever. This group is getting sloppy and cocky. Otherwise Abby’s friend wouldn’t have found out whatever information it was that has them running scared.”

“You’re assuming anyone could’ve found what she did,” Abigail said, fixing him with a stare that dared him to say her friend was stupid.

Luke set aside what he was working on, stood and stretched, pulling the dark sweater tightly over his chest and flat abdomen. Heat surged through Abigail remembering all that warm skin and firm muscles beneath that she’d run her hands over last night. When he stopped and their eyes met, she knew he was thinking about the same thing. Her face grew more flushed but she wouldn’t break the contact between them as he slowly sauntered over. Field agents weren’t cowards and neither was she.