by Jenifer Ruff
It wasn’t a promise and the man couldn’t be trusted, but it was enough to give Rivera hope that Emma was still around.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Rivera paced on the carpet. While they’d been gone, the couch in Victoria’s suite had been pulled out and made up into a bed. Smooth white sheets, a blanket, and pillows were arranged into a very inviting layout.
“You should have seen these girls.” He ran his hand over his head and chewed hard on two new pieces of gum.
“I know.” Victoria pressed her hands over her mouth and slowly shook her head.
“It bothered me even more than I expected. I feel sick about leaving them for the next guy to have his way with. They were drugged, could barely sit up.” Rivera leaned against the wall and stared at the floor in front of his boots for a few seconds. “Before I left, when I was still in my car, someone else drove up to the motel. I watched him go into the first room I was in. I got his license plate.”
“Good. Let’s run it now with the others.” She woke up her laptop. “I want to bust each of the customers as much as the people running this show. Maybe more.”
“So do I.” He pounded a fist into his other hand. “One of the girls had the same brand Rebecca asked me about earlier this week. A Jane Doe in Virginia. Dead for less than a day before they found her.”
Victoria’s jaw dropped. “Really? How big is this ring?”
“Exactly.”
“Did you tell Rebecca?”
“I sent her a picture of the brand.”
“Good.” Victoria looked down at her computer. “Okay. I’m ready. Read me the numbers.”
“North Carolina. SRV7T94”
Victoria typed on her keyboard. “The plates are registered to a Volvo S90—”
“Yep. That was the car.”
“The name on the registration is Thomas Stanton.” She switched to another app and typed his name. “He’s an attorney.”
“He went into one of the rooms. But I can’t prove anything. Aside from him, we don’t know if any of the plates belong to people who were actually with the girls.”
“Unless a girl can pick him out of a line up.”
“Not likely…not the two I saw. Even if the threats and manipulations didn’t come into play, they were too out of it.” He stopped pacing. “Send the info to Murphy. See how he wants us to handle it.” Rivera pointed to the pull-out bed. “You expecting company?”
“Yep. You. Unless you want to sleep on the floor in the lobby. There’s not a room to be found in the area. Big game weekend, remember?”
“Yeah. I think I’ll take your offer and bunk up with you. Thanks.”
“Not ‘with.’ Near.”
“Near works for me.” He laughed. “Think your dog-sitter guy will be okay with it?”
“Ned knows. He said to remind you he does neutering for a living.”
Rivera smiled and shifted toward the door. “I was thinking I’d grab a beer. Want one?”
“No, thanks.” She stood up and grabbed her coat out of the closet. “Listen, make yourself at home, or . . . whatever you need to do. I’m going outside for a while, maybe take a short walk around the hotel.” She stopped by the door and put on her coat. “What else did Rebecca say when you called her?”
“She said no one has claimed the Jane Doe yet. Is that what you mean?”
“When we get back home, how about a double date? Me and Ned. You and Rebecca? We could go to dinner. Have a nice time.” She smiled. “As an investigator, I happen to know she’d really like that.”
“Oh, uh . . . sure. Sounds good.” His answer was more polite than convincing.
“Unless you’ve got someone else in mind?”
“Huh?” He stared at her. “No. No one else.”
“I’d have everyone to my house, except I don’t cook, and I know you’d need to down a bottle of Benadryl to come inside.”
Rivera gave her a half-hearted smile.
“Rebecca is an amazing woman, a gorgeous, confident physician, and for some strange reason, she’s got her eye on you.” Victoria laughed. “Guess she likes the strong, silent types. Anyway, we’ll talk about it more later. I won’t be long.”
♦ ♦ ♦
He waved as the door closed. Some strange reason? She had to be teasing him.
He’d lied to her face. There was someone else all right. Had been for some time. But now, with whatever Victoria had going on with Ned . . . she’d pretty much just confirmed it—and with him staying in her room, it wasn’t the time to tell her how he felt. If she didn’t reciprocate his feelings, it would be beyond awkward staying there. He didn’t want to ruin their friendship and possibly get booted out of the bureau for sexual harassment in one swoop. He’d already tried to tell her once, on their last case. He could wait. Although—it was her that made up the bed for him. He hadn’t asked and hadn’t expected to stay there.
Outside the window, Victoria passed by, walking briskly. Rivera followed her with his eyes until she was out of view.
He decided to take a quick shower while she was gone. After hanging up his wet towel, he dressed in a t-shirt and shorts, the same clothes he’d brought to work-out in if he got the chance. He turned off the living room lights but lamps remained on in the bedroom. Their illumination carried through the suite. He sat down on the make-shift bed and heard the click of the door opening.
Victoria came in and hung up her coat. “I’m back.”
“How was the walk?”
“It helped. I’m just having a hard time with this. Dealing with kids and a kidnapping.”
“Remember our last case with the spree killer? You asked what could make me angry enough to go on a rampage?”
Victoria closed her eyes. “I do.”
“Do you remember my answer?”
“You said pedophiles, anyone who hurts children.”
“I feel that way even more after today.”
“It’s going to be okay,” she said from the bathroom doorway. “If we do this right, we can save all of them.”
“Right.”
Victoria stepped into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.
Rivera closed his eyes and prayed she was right.
♦ ♦ ♦
“Rivera, are you still up?” Leaning against the pull-out bed, Victoria spoke in a raspy whisper. Her lace nightgown just barely covered the top of her thighs. She wore her FBI cap and bright blue running shoes.
Rivera sat up. “Yeah, I’m awake.”
“Good.” She sighed, and there was something there that sounded like contentment. “I know it’s really late, but I can’t sleep. Guess I’m just too wired.”
“Oh. Well, I brought a bottle of wine. It’s a thank you gift, for letting me stay in the room, but we could open it now.”
“That sounds wonderful. It’s been a long day. A glass of wine would be perfect.”
Rivera poured the wine into water glasses. Victoria sat down on the pull-out bed, crossing her gorgeous, long legs. The cap and running shoes had disappeared and her toes were covered in a light pink polish.
“Remember our last case?” She laughed. “What an oddball, right?”
Rivera drank his wine, poured another glass, laughed along with her, but it occurred to him that there really wasn’t anything funny about the case. His laughter felt off. It didn’t matter. Whatever was happening with them, he wanted to ride with it. Work had no business intruding.
Victoria rested the rim of her glass against her bottom lip. “I always feel like you’ve got my back, Rivera.”
“Yeah. I feel the same way. We’re a good team. You know, Tori . . . Rebecca and I… I’m not really interested in anything beyond a professional relationship.”
“No? Oh, I just thought . . .Why not?”
“There’s kind of someone else.”
Victoria lowered her voice. “Kind of?”
“She . . . doesn’t know. Well, I haven’t told her . . .” Am I imagining things, or is she leaning c
loser?
“Maybe you should.” Her voice was so low, he could barely hear her. Her pink toe-nails nudged his ankle.
It’s not my imagination. I haven’t moved and our legs weren’t touching before. “It could be awkward. We work together occasionally.”
“Do you think that’s just a coincidence, the working together?”
“No. It’s not. I’ve asked to be assigned to cases with her before. But she also requests my help. She could have asked for anyone to help her, but she asked for me.”
“She must trust you. She must know she can count on you.”
“She can.”
They gazed into each other’s eyes. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion. Victoria placed her hand on his arm, the tips of her finger moving in tiny circles. An electric current ran through his body.
“I’m sure any girl would be flattered to hear you’re interested.”
“I think she might be interested in another guy, though.”
“You know what they say, Agent,” she whispered. “No guts no glory.” She stroked her hair and smoothed it around her ear, then let her fingers trail down her neck. “You should tell her. If you really do like her, she needs to know.”
“Maybe… get together, talk for a while over some wine first? Something like that?”
Her eyes were focused solely on him. “And then, when you’re alone together and you’re both relaxed, you could say something like, I think you’re an amazing FBI agent, and a really great person. I have so much respect for you. I’ve also been attracted to you since the very first time we met, and I’d love to take you on a real date sometime.”
Rivera couldn’t take his eyes off her. Is it okay to touch her back? Is this what she really wants?
Her breath tickled his ear. “Sounds… nice, doesn’t it?”
There was no mistaking what she wanted. He turned to kiss her.
Victoria’s mouth opened and a sickening, high-pitch wail erupted. Rivera’s hands shot up to cover his ears.
What the hell?
Victoria vanished into thin air, as if she’d never been there at all, but the shrill, wailing sound continued.
The relentless noise jolted Rivera to a sitting position. He opened his eyes, suddenly wide-awake. What’s going on?
The bedroom door opened and Victoria rushed past him wearing a t-shirt and shorts, stuffing her laptop into her bag. “Wake up, Rivera. Fire alarm. Let’s go.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
In Ms. Bois’s basement, Sofia and Anastasia sat curled up in chairs eating some of their stash from the previous day. There had been no other opportunity to go upstairs and search for a phone.
A whirring noise traveled through the ceiling.
“That is garage door opening.” Anastasia grabbed the remote and silenced the television. Sofia hid their food wrappers inside her suitcase.
In less than a minute, the shouting began.
Ms. Bois’s sharp voice was clear. “I told you to get them out of here! You had no right to bring them to my house!”
“You, of all people, of all women, I might say, lecturing me about rights?” Stephen’s laughter rung out, crazy and scary. “That’s very funny. Very, very funny.”
“Shut up, Stephen.” Her voice rose to a shrill height. “Where are they now?”
“They’re in the basement. You won’t have to see them.”
“She already pretends we don’t exist,” Anastasia said, wrapping her arms around her knees. “She can’t even look at us.”
“Yeah. Like we got ourselves trapped here all on our own and she had nothing to do with it,” Sofia said. “Or maybe the cold-hearted bitch actually feels guilty and that’s how—"
“No. She doesn’t. She won’t like Emma being sick. At least Emma is sleeping now.” Anastasia had spent much of the day watching over Emma, giving her sips of Ms. Bois’s fancy bottled waters and reporting her condition to Sofia. “Maybe feels better when she wakes up.”
Above them, Ms. Bois screamed and something shattered.
“Did that make you feel better?” Stephen asked. “I think someone’s had a bad day.”
“He likes making her much angry,” Anastasia said, gripping her earlobe.
“Maybe they’ll kill each other,” Sofia whispered with a wishful smile.
Anastasia didn’t smile back. “He is going to come down here and be angry on us.”
Sofia’s gaze flew to the small closet next to the bathroom. Just large enough for one person. She couldn’t bear the thought of being locked in a space that small.
The voices upstairs grew quieter, Stephen and Allison’s hostility channeled through snide remarks. Sofia stood near a ceiling vent directly under the kitchen, craning to hear them. “Ms. Bois said the place near the stadium isn’t going to work out and ‘they’—you and me—aren’t coming back here after Winston-Salem. Or else.” Winston-Salem was a few hours away. She’d been there enough times to know. Would the tip line number work there? And if so, for how long? Maybe it was only a temporary phone number.
“Or else what?” Anastasia asked. “What place?”
“I don’t know. Shush.” Sofia listened. “Now she said Emma has to get out of the country immediately and she’s making it happen.”
“If Emma leaves country and we don’t know where she is,” Anastasia cried, “what good is number?”
“Shhh,” Sofia warned.
Footsteps with a clicking heel struck the hard-wood floors above.
Anastasia’s eyes followed the sound across the ceiling until it disappeared. “I think she went to second floor.”
Only Stephen’s voice echoed down through the vents, singing something about don’t stop him now because he was having such a good time. “Nothing irritates Ms. Bois more than his song outbursts. That’s why he’s singing so loudly now,” Sofia said. Please don’t make her angrier.
The door at the top of the basement stairs opened and footsteps descended on the carpet. Too light to be Stephen or Svet. The girls jumped out of their chairs and stood up straight with their backs against a wall, terrified of seeing Ms. Bois.
Sofia’s eyes darted around the room, worried something might have been overlooked and one little thing might be out of place, even though they’d been so careful since they arrived.
Ms. Bois appeared wearing yoga pants and a tight gray jacket for exercising. Her red hair was gathered in a bun on top of her head. She spotted them cowering in the corner, and scowled. “Where is she?”
Sofia pointed to the bedroom.
Singularly focused on getting to Emma, Ms. Bois passed without another glance at them. She disappeared into the room and closed the door behind her.
Sofia and Anastasia exchanged looks. Sofia wasn’t sure what to do, other than stay out of the way.
Only minutes later, the door opened and Ms. Bois stormed out, head held high. “She’s not even pretty. All that she has and she’s not even that pretty, is she?”
She didn’t look at the girls, so Sofia wasn’t sure if Ms. Bois was asking them a question that required an answer or just talking to herself. Sofia stayed quiet.
“Don’t give her anything,” Ms. Bois said, headed back toward the stairs. “She needs to learn to take care of herself. Life isn’t always easy.” Ms. Bois stomped up the stairs, but yelled back, “And don’t you dare ruin anything in my house with your grubby little hands.”
Sofia couldn’t help but look down at her hands. They were clean. Her nails were lightly polished. Her cuticles smooth.
Anastasia’s shoulders drooped forward. “She is worst person in whole world.”
“Maybe,” Sofia answered. “It’s a tough contest if we’re picking winners.” She tried to lighten the mood but was still shaken from seeing Ms. Bois. Thank goodness she’s already gone.
“Leaving in thirty minutes, ladies,” Stephen yelled down in a strangely cheerful voice. “Evening dresses. Pink and red. Be ready.”
Anastasia hurried toward the bathroom.
Relieved he wasn’t coming down too, Sofia got ready. When it was almost time to go, the girls stood in front of the bathroom mirror, clean, smelling nice, and wearing dresses with some simple jewelry.
“Do you remember the number?” Sofia asked Anastasia, speaking to her reflection.
“Yes.” Anastasia set her jaw in an expression as serious as Sofia had ever seen.
They said it together several times.
“Something important is going to happen tonight,” Sofia whispered. “It has to. That number is our ticket to freedom. All we need is to get hold of a phone.”
“Come on! Get going!” Svet shouted in a way that sounded like he’d had to ask repeatedly. If Svet was there, it meant Stephen had left to check on the motel girls.
They jogged up the stairs, carrying their heels through the beautiful house to the van waiting in the garage. Sofia’s heart beat fast and she was a little lightheaded, but it wasn’t from lack of food. For once, her stomach was full from eating everything they’d taken from the pantry and fridge. She was weak from a combination of nerves, excitement, and fear.
They drove in style. The silvery gray Mercedes Sprinter had black tinted windows and a handicap plate, although none of them were disabled.
Svet fiddled with the radio dial. “How’s that new girl doing?”
“I think you made her sick.” Sofia was careful to disguise the hatred in her voice with a flat monotone.
Svet laughed. “Too much of a princess, she is. That needs to change. Oh—almost forgot.” He alternated his gaze between the road and looking into the rearview mirror at the girls. “I have something for you.”
He tossed a small object onto Anastasia’s lap. At first, Sofia thought it might be a lipstick. A client once wanted their lips colored black. Another insisted the girls’ hair be worn in two French-braids. One wanted Sofia to pretend she was blind. Whatever the party girls’ customers wanted—they got, because they paid the big bucks. The package might contain someone else’s whim.
Sofia pressed a button on the ceiling, casting light on a wad of wrinkled tinfoil. As Anastasia peeled back the foil, Sofia caught Svet’s sadistic grin. His eyes gleamed with delight as he waited for their reaction. A cold, foreboding shiver ran down her spine and she braced herself for whatever the package held.