Trick's Trap (A Singular Obsession Book 5)

by Lucy Leroux

  “I’m pretty sure,” he said, trying not to wince. He’d taken a nap, but for a moment, he’d doubted his own eyes.

  “And she looked scared, didn’t she?” Maia interjected. She took hold of his shirtfront beseechingly. The dark circles under her eyes mirrored his own. “Did you see anyone chasing her?”

  A corner of his mouth turned up, but it wasn’t a smile. “Just me. It seemed to startle her when I used her real name. As far as she’s concerned, I’m not supposed to know it, remember?”

  He put his hand on Maia’s slight shoulders. “But this is good news. She’s alive and in one piece…You look as tired as I feel, and no wonder with a baby on the way. Why don’t you let Calen take you to your room and get some sleep while I talk to Jason and Ethan? We’ll get a search plan going. By the time you wake up, we’ll have it ready.”

  “No, I want to stay,” Maia protested, but she couldn’t stifle another yawn. The early stages of pregnancy zapped her strength the first time around, too.

  Trick squeezed her hand, determination filling his chest. “Now that we know for sure Tahlia is alive, I promise we will find her. You can trust me on this one—I’m not going to let her go without a fight this time. But tonight, you can get some rest. We’ll go over our plan with you in the morning.”

  “That’s a great idea,” Calen said, slapping him on the back before extracting Maia from his embrace. “You’re ready to pass out, babe. Let’s just go upstairs and I’ll run you a nice room-temperature bath.”

  “Room temperature?” Peyton wrinkled her nose.

  “You’re not supposed to have hot baths when pregnant,” Calen said, wrapping Maia’s coat around her shoulders.

  “I don’t think she’s going to freeze on the way to your room. It’s just down the hall,” Liam pointed out.

  “Shut up,” Calen said, flipping him off as he took advantage of his wife’s exhaustion to usher her out.

  Fortunately for him, Jason coaxed Maggie and Peyton into following soon after. But Trick was too buzzed with excitement and concern to do the same.

  “Was it her?” Liam asked. “You can tell the truth now.”

  He rolled his eyes. “I’m not fucking lying, and I’m not imagining things. It was Tahlia. She’s lost weight, but it was her. I would never forget those eyes. And she recognized me, too.”

  His brother continued to glower skeptically, but Jason wiped his chin and started to pace. “Okay, so what do we know? What was she wearing? Did you see anything that might identify her?”

  Trick scratched his head. “The only thing I registered was her jacket. It was blue denim, and it didn’t seem heavy enough for this weather.” He closed his eyes, trying to picture every detail. “She was wearing a black skirt, and there was a blue backpack under her shoulder. That’s all I remember.”

  Jason nodded, taking notes, but Liam was still frowning.

  “So if it was Tahlia, I have a question. Why did she run away?”

  Chapter 10

  Tahlia gasped as she lowered herself into the corner cot of the dank basement room. The stitch in her side faded on the short train ride to Spanish Harlem, but her mad dash nearly wrecked her.

  I am not in shape anymore. Always being hungry killed the will to exercise.

  Tonight, she was lucky enough to have a room at a local women’s shelter there. That hadn’t been the case of late. Beds were in short supply at most of the shelters now that winter was here, but the woman at the catering company she’d been temping for made a call on her behalf. Gina wanted Tahlia to return to the Caislean in downtown Manhattan tomorrow for another event, so helping had been in her best interest.

  Waitressing that wedding was supposed to be the highlight of Tahlia’s week. With her earnings, she was finally going to have enough money to for the buy-in at the Hammer room, the cheapest underground casino she’d found on her poker forum.

  But how could she go back to the Caislean now?

  Tahlia hadn’t believed she’d ever see Patrick again. At least not while she was awake.

  She huffed an unwilling laugh, blinking back tears. Late at night when everything was quiet, she let herself think about him. In her imagination, the night they met ended very differently.

  Tahlia had spun some serious fantasies about that man, but more than anything, she’d wished for a chance to go back and explain everything to Maia, her only close friend from school.

  How in the world did those two know each other?

  She almost collapsed from heart failure when she ran smack into Patrick. He’d used her real name, which was terrifying after months of living anonymously.

  She assumed the worst—that somehow her uncle had gotten to him, that he’d been bought off. Afraid he was about to grab her, she’d bolted. Tahlia was halfway across the street when Maia started yelling.

  Her impulse was to turn back, but the sports car that nearly clipped her forced her to move. When she was safely on the other side of the road, she’d seen Patrick go back and push Maia out of the road. Maia’s husband was there, too, as well as a few others who appeared familiar.

  Unsure what to do, she ran for the nearest subway station.

  She racked her brain, trying to remember all the people she met through Maia after her friend had gotten married. There had been a lot of new faces and names, but she didn’t think Maia had ever mentioned a Patrick. And they hadn’t met in person. Tahlia would have remembered him.

  Maia was married to Calen McLachlan, the insanely rich son of an Irish mobster. Tahlia googled him to make sure he wasn’t involved in anything illegal before the wedding. As far as the public and police were concerned, Calen was a successful entrepreneur and investor, nothing more.

  His questionable reputation had been a comfort, although Tahlia hadn’t thought about it that way at the time.

  Her family had left her alone for a few years after she’d started grad school. Things changed in her third year. Dante and Cain started spending time in Boston. She’d gone from an average boring student to a paranoid freak who constantly looked over her own shoulder.

  But right when her life started to go south, Maia met and married her millionaire. Overnight, she acquired a pack of new friends, rich and connected people who could protect her.

  Perhaps that was why Tahlia continued to socialize with her long after things became uncomfortable with her relatives.

  Her family’s intrusive surveillance was obvious to others by then. In Tahlia’s last year of grad school, her cousins and their lackeys dogged her everywhere she went. The exception had been when she’d gone to see Maia at her then-fiancé’s penthouse apartment.

  Her relatives also left her alone when the two had gone out for the occasional meal, mainly because her friend was always accompanied by bodyguards, courtesy of her overprotective husband.

  And she’s still well-guarded. Tahlia wrapped the thin denim jacket closer to her body. Maybe she could reach out now that Maia knew she was alive.

  Don’t even think about it, she ordered herself sternly. It was far too dangerous for all concerned.

  But the weak part of her mind couldn’t help picturing asking Maia for help.

  Her friend would give it without reservation. That she knew already. But the image of her father’s body flashed in her mind.

  No. It was impossible. Going to Maia had never been an option. In fact, Tahlia clung to that friendship far too long—a futile attempt to hang on to some semblance of normalcy in a world that was spinning out of control.

  I didn’t even love my father. That hadn’t been an easy thing to admit, even to herself. Santino certainly hadn’t loved her. He hadn’t even let her call him Papa or Father while he lived. Theirs had been a rigid and very formal relationship.

  Her mess of a childhood was why she was a badly socialized, self-taught math geek, one who faked being normal. And then something happened. Maia had been talking to her about her new friend Eva, the wife of her husband’s friend. It had been an incredible story about h
ow a poker game saved Eva’s life.

  Tahlia had always been good at card games, but it was that story that prodded her to do something with her skill.

  She started playing online, but the popular website she tried showed signs of being biased against the player. The odds, which she could calculate in her mind in seconds, hadn’t played out the way they should have.

  Tahlia decided she needed a game where she could see a person’s reaction. One fateful afternoon, she took the bus to the local Indian casino. At first, she’d floundered like anyone out of her depth. But once the novelty and anxiety faded, she’d found an unexpected advantage in her sorry childhood. The way she’d grown up forced her to become an expert at reading human expressions while masking her own. It was a talent she honed at the awkward family gatherings. That ability combined with her math skills and excellent memory, and Tahlia was instantly an elite player.

  That was how she ended up at Chao’s playing against Patrick—because of the story Maia had told her. Somehow, she’d come full circle.

  I can’t go back to the Caislean, can I? Not if she wanted to avoid putting her only friend in danger. Patrick, too, apparently.

  She had to stop thinking about him. As far as he was concerned, she was a ghost. A resurrection was not in the cards. Not for her.

  Tahlia huddled in the narrow twin bed later that night, mentally counting her cash. She had a little over two hundred dollars left to her name. It wasn’t enough for the buy-in at the Hammer room, but with luck, it might be enough to get her to California.

  Flying standby on a budget airline had been her plan, but now she’d been recognized, perhaps a bus ticket was the way to go.

  But she would be much better off if she could get paid for tonight’s work…

  Then at least she’d have enough cash to get a room for the first night. She just needed to convince Gina to give it to her while simultaneously failing to keep her word to do a second night of work.

  “No, absolutely not.” Gina was adamant. The matronly redhead blew her frizzy hair out of her face, giving Tahlia a dismissive once-over before sidestepping a busboy in the busy industrial kitchen.

  “You don’t get rewarded for letting me down and leaving me in the lurch. Two waiters and a line cook already called in sick.”

  “I am so sorry.” The guilt was eating her alive, but she needed that cash.

  Gina put her hands on her hips. “I can still use you.”

  She waved at Tahlia’s nondescript dark pants and top. “You could even wear that. At this point, I don’t care.”

  Tahlia winced and glanced around at the other waitstaff, but none of them were paying them any attention. Everyone was scrambling to get ready.

  She twisted her hands together. “I hate this. I’ve never broken my word before. I always keep my commitments, but I need to leave town and the money would be a huge help.”

  Tahlia followed Gina around the counter where the chef was preparing line after line of puff pastries. He was garnishing them with thin slices of foie gras and a berry compote.

  Her stomach rumbled. Tahlia tore her eyes away from the food. “It’s not like I’m asking for a handout, or even an advance. I only want last night’s pay.”

  Gina stopped. Her expression was not precisely sympathetic, but she didn’t appear ready to shell out any cash either. “See here, I hire from that shelter you’ve been staying in a lot. I get that a girl just has to disappear sometimes. I want to help, because believe it or not, I’ve been there. But I need to balance that with keeping a roof over my kid’s heads. Besides, I don’t have any cash on me. And there’s no way in hell I can drop everything to go get it now.”

  She broke off to gesture to the chair near the back door. “The way I see it, you have two choices. You can go sit in the corner and wait until this is all over, or you can borrow a white shirt from my bag and grab a tray. If you do the latter, at the end of the night, I’ll give you the full two days wages, plus a small bonus you better not mention to any of these other guys. So what do you say?”

  Tahlia took a shaky breath, surreptitiously glancing left and right. It felt as if there was a bright spotlight on her, but she knew it was all in her head. What if Patrick or Maia showed up as guests?

  “I’ll do it, but if I suddenly dive under a table, please pretend not to notice.”

  Gina nodded, patting her on the arm. “Thanks. These two weddings are huge for us. It’s the first time we’ve worked this hotel. If we can get on the Caislean’s list of preferred vendors, we’ll be all set—I can pay the kid’s college tuition without my deadbeat ex-husband’s help. Now go to it.”

  Tahlia nodded, tying the apron around her waist.

  A few hours later, Gina kept her word. Tahlia had her wages plus an extra thirty dollars. It had been an extremely stressful evening, but she was reasonably certain no one spotted her. Feeling hopeful for the first time in memory, she went to the bus station where she’d stored the bag with the rest of her cash.

  Her plan was to leave immediately, but the next bus heading to California didn’t depart until the following morning.

  Staring forlornly at the closed ticket counter, she debated going back to the shelter, but it was after one AM. The doors closed at midnight.

  Resigned to spending the night on a wooden bench, Tahlia found an empty seat in a relatively well-lit corner of the station.

  This is fine. She’d slept in much worse places. Before Gina vouched for her at the last shelter, that list included the sidewalk in Williamsburg and a cardboard box behind a dumpster in Dumbo. This would be a cakewalk compared that.

  Slipping her arms through the straps, Tahlia hugged the bag to her chest before settling down for the night, vowing not to sleep. But the long hours on her feet took their toll. She drifted off despite the bright light behind her lids.

  A slight jostling woke her a few hours later. Tahlia opened her eyes with a start, but it was too late. A knife was cutting the second strap of her backpack. Before she could react, it was pulled away from her.

  “No!”

  She shot to her feet, pounding after the scumbag stealing all her worldly possessions. Yelling incoherently, she reached out, the tips of her fingers grazing the back of the dirty black hoodie he was wearing.

  Before she could get ahold of it, she felt a hard shove from behind. Tahlia went down, landing on her knees. An intense stabbing pain arced up her left leg as it struck the flagstone.

  Red flashed across her vision as she parted her lips in a silent scream. Gasping and sobbing, she tumbled forward, hitting the floor hip first. She couldn’t prevent her head from following it. It struck with force on the stone tiles.

  For a moment, she lay there, too overwhelmed to move. Tears streamed down her face, obscuring her vision as a second man ran past.

  All she registered was a flash of silver piercings in a gaunt acne-ridden face. He gaped at her before following the first assailant.

  The pair disappeared before she could pick herself up.

  Chapter 11

  Trick was multitasking like a freak. He’d just finished a conference call with the contractor on the Sydney expansion while drafting a pleading message to the great Chao himself.

  He hadn’t wanted to go back to Boston. Tahlia was in New York and as long as she was, it was where he needed to be. But he couldn’t run the investigation alone and his most trusted contacts in law enforcement, his brother-in-law Jason and his partner Ethan, were based in Boston.

  Missing persons was not their purview, but he and few of their high-powered friends pulled a few strings to get them officially assigned to Tahlia’s case. After he and Maia saw Tahlia in New York, they’d spent most of their after-work hours on it as well.

  Right now, the two FBI agents were camped out on the couch and pair of love seats that formed the conversation nook in his office. They were poring over evidence photos and making calls, but after his latest move contacting Chao, he was regretting suggesting they make this their h
ome base.

  The call he was desperately waiting for came a few minutes later.

  “We have an agreement,” Chao said in Mandarin.

  He rose from his leather office chair, turning his back to the agents to face the floor-to-ceiling window. The Boston skyline was growing steadily darker as the last fingers of sunlight dipped below the horizon.

  “Thank you,” he said in his terrible Mandarin accent. “I’m very grateful. I’ll forward the details later tonight.”

  He released a pent-up breath before hanging up with exaggerated casualness. His act didn’t fool them. The agents hadn’t missed the exchange. They were both staring at him.

  “What is it?” he asked, sitting back down, shuffling the pile of papers on his desk as if searching for something.

  Jason tsked. “Nice try. Spill.”

  He scratched his head. Damn. “How did you know something was up?”

  “We’re detectives,” Ethan said flatly.

  “Not good enough. Seriously, what gave me away? I wasn’t even speaking English or Russian or any of the other languages you know,” he said, gesturing at Ethan, the resident linguistics expert.

  Ethan’s fine dark eyebrows rose. “It’s not what you said, it’s how you said it.”

  Damn. They were good. Or I’m terrible. Clearly, his poker face didn’t extend to phone conversations. Either way, Trick couldn’t keep the truth from them now. He just hoped they wouldn’t arrest him for what he had planned.

  “Fine. You remember when we were brainstorming that night I ran into Tahlia? How I decided to check in with all my underground gaming contacts in New York?”

  “I do,” Ethan said, leaning back on the love seat and crossing his arms. “I also remember you promising to share whatever you heard from them.”

  “If any of that info had panned out, I would have. But then I had another idea…”