Harlequin Romantic Suspense May 2018 Box Set

by Regan Black

  He bent over her back, mirroring her position on the sofa but not wanting to crush her with his weight.

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “Mmm. I could get used to this.” Trina moved to stand up, and he backed away, not ready for their “adult sleepover” to end. She turned and faced him. “Don’t look so sad, Rob.” She looked at her watch. “We’ve still got two more hours.”

  * * *

  Trina stood under the shower and allowed the water to massage her shoulders. She and Rob had made love two more times since they’d gone at it like animals on the sofa. Soaping herself up, she laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Rob stepped into the shower and took the bar of soap from her, lathering her back.

  “We were like two rabbits when we came in.”

  His deep chuckle filled the space. “More like dogs, if you ask me.”

  “Do you think it’ll always be like this with us?” His hands stilled. She’d surprised him.

  “I hope so, Trina. I’m counting on it.”

  CHAPTER 13

  It was hot and muggy at the truck stop the next week, when Trina got the call from Carl, the ministry leader, that she and Rob were needed again. The stop’s owner allowed them to set up outside the main entrance, off to the side. The tables were away from the larger throngs of motor travelers coming in and out of the combination fast-food/convenience store/coffee shop establishment. Trina did a quick walk-through of the building, re-familiarizing herself with all entrances. There were full showers and lockers in the back for the truckers, all rentals. When she was done, she sat down at one of the outreach tables.

  “I’m thinking I should pose as a trucker and go hang out in the shower. Don’t you think there’d be conversations to overhear?” Rob spoke as yet another eighteen-wheeler drove into the huge lot, pulling parallel with another humongous trailer truck. It had freshly painted fruits and vegetables on the side of its trailer, with a popular grocery chain’s name painted over the images. At least three dozen trucks with connected trailers were parked in parallel, making the parking lot look more like a village.

  “I think that the women who come here to turn tricks do it inside the truck cabs, or even outside in the woods over there. Less chance of being caught, and if the cops show up the trucker can always say he knows the woman. You might overhear something else, though, that could help us track the girls.” Evidence that would put Vasin and Ivanov behind bars for good, once they caught them. If Trina had anything to do with it, she’d see Vasin in cuffs right now. It still chafed that he’d sprung free.

  “There are female truckers, too, you know.” Rob poked fun at her, and she smiled.

  “I do know. And yes, I know that some of them indulge in the sexual market as well. We’ll just have to keep our eyes and ears open. And if we’re very lucky, we’ll get a break sooner rather than later.” She forced her gaze on the lot, away from Rob’s handsome face. They’d have their sexy time later. The anticipation simmered between them.

  “Where did Carl go?” Rob strained his neck to see past the trucks and highway traffic that routed into the station.

  “He said something about needing coffee.” She shooed away a yellow jacket, intent on the sugary treats that were now individually wrapped in plastic instead of being on open display.

  “It’s been twenty minutes.” Rob looked agitated.

  “Go check on him if you want. I’ll be fine.”

  “Text me with anything odd.” His voice was stern as he stood up. “Do you want coffee or tea, a soda?”

  “No, I’m good. Thanks, though.” She kept scouring the area in between the trailers.

  “I’ll be back out in a minute.” He walked off, and Trina allowed herself the pleasure of taking in his form, his shape, his butt. This was so easy, falling into working with Rob again.

  And she’d fallen in love with him as he was today.

  As much as her heart sang at the thought of being with him as a lover and maybe more, her brain existed for a good reason. To keep her heart from breaking into an infinite number of shards again. Because no matter how much she wanted to believe Rob was here for the duration, for the hard times as well as good with his newfound son, she couldn’t shake the deeper worry that something awful would take him away again.

  * * *

  Rob stood in the bathroom at the sink and washed his hands. He’d had to force himself to stay here, wait for a chance to listen in on the truckers’ conversations. He was in a hurry to get back outside to the table, to the outreach post, to a chance to break the trade that had insinuated its way into what had to be the nicest slice of small-town America he’d ever had the chance to experience. He saw someone walk in and pretended to be examining his face.

  Who are you kidding, man?

  Aw, hell. It was all about Trina. Trina made everything more exciting, the colors of the Appalachian Mountains a deeper green, the contrast of postthunderstorm steam a smokier blue. He heard the sound of footsteps from the shower area and ducked his head. With a ball cap on he looked like any other trucker or fast-food customer.

  “See anything yet?” The guttural Russian came from a corner of the wide room, past the stalls, near the showers. Rob froze. Vasin.

  “Two of our girls are out there. I verified.”

  How the hell had they verified?

  “Stupid bitches don’t know enough to cover their ink.”

  “They’re the two we delivered to the club? And we allow to live with the others in the apartment? And they’re trying to two-time it?” Rob heard the indignation at what ROC would consider a blasphemous act. They usually kept their working girls separate—a group for the club, and a group for the truck stop. And he’d bet a dozen women were living in one squalid apartment, the cheapest available. He wondered if the women had somehow gotten together, because it sounded like the criminals were being outsmarted.

  “They forget about the tattoos that show they’re ours.”

  “They are crazy to think we wouldn’t figure out what they’re doing.”

  Ah. Tattoos. And Rob thought the Russian mobsters were the stupid ones, assuming no one would be able to understand them. They sounded angry, though, and that meant danger for the two girls who were no doubt trying to make extra money on their terms so that they could escape their life at the club. They weren’t the first to attempt it, from the reports he’d read.

  “Do we grab them now, or at the club later?”

  “Later. Monitor the situation and make sure we have names.”

  “I don’t know their names. Not all of them.” Rob thought he knew that voice, too—

  Minsky. There were two of them, then. Manageable. He wasted no time on wondering how Vasin’s number two henchman was here when he was supposed to be in jail. The intel reports had said Vasin was free but didn’t mention Minsky, so he’d probably never been caught the other day. Both men would recognize him, so Rob quickly entered a stall and shut the door. It cut against his instinct to linger in the restroom. He wanted to be out in the parking lot with Trina. Of course Trina could handle herself and any jerks who came along, but it didn’t stop his protectiveness from clanging alarm bells.

  “They used to be good girls. Did their jobs. Got regular jobs later. Now everyone wants to save all the victims.” Minsky’s sneer when he said “victims” pretty much summed up the attitude of ROC toward any suffering on the part of their captives. For ROC, it was all about the bottom line. Cash trumped women trafficked for sex, as well as the fates of the inner cities where their smuggled weapons and drugs were sold. Anger simmered in Rob. Vasin’s operations had reached its venomous tentacles into Silver Valley. The town where the mother of his child had chosen to raise their son.

  He couldn’t act yet, though. It was best to wait out these two ROC bad guys and catch them in the act of trying to kidnap the girls again, or as they assaulted
them at the club, arrest them on the spot. As soon as he heard them depart through the shower room, he left the restroom and made a beeline for the exit. Trina was still out at their spot, and he wasn’t about to trust the other couple from church with her safety.

  Rob had to know Trina was safe.

  * * *

  “How many women actually trust us enough to take some of the food?” Trina spoke to Binnie and Chuck, the seniors who were pulling the outreach shift with her and Rob. Carl had stopped by earlier to check on things but left the evening shift to his fellow church goers.

  “They never come up to me if Binnie has to run into the restroom, or get a snack.” Chuck looked bewildered, as if he took it personally.

  “That’s because they’re scared, sweetie.” Binnie patted her husband’s knee and lowered her voice for Trina. “He forgets his hearing aids and then shouts and it scares the truckers, let alone the ladies. It’s no wonder they won’t come up to him.”

  Trina loved this couple, and she only knew them peripherally from Silver Valley Community Church. She liked to think it was how she’d be with her partner one day. Two peas in a pod.

  “Where’s your young fellow?” Chuck leaned around his wife, speaking in a modulated tone as if to deny what Binnie had just said.

  “He went in to get something to drink.” Trina noticed a movement out of the corner of her eye and turned to see two young women approach the table. They walked with their heads down, eyes averted from Trina but definitely focused on the sandwiches in wax paper and the plastic-wrapped baked goods.

  “Help yourselves. Our volunteers baked the goodies and the truck stop provides the sandwiches.” Trina spoke up.

  They said nothing but each took a sandwich and a couple of cookies.

  “Thanks.” The mumbled word was accented and Trina instinctively knew it was Russian.

  “Are you thirsty? There’s cold soda and water here.” She opened the cover of the cooler that the truck stop filled with donated ice and beverages.

  As the women bent over the cooler and reached in for their drink, Trina saw that one of them whose hair was pulled back in a high ponytail had a tattoo of what looked like a crescent moon. The symbol was just behind her left ear. The girl straightened quickly and met Trina’s eyes. Caught.

  “Nice tat.” Trina kept it easy, not wanting to spook them. Drawing out a potential witness wasn’t easy and required the patience of someone far saintlier than her, but she had to give it a try.

  “She likes my sickle.” The girl spoke in rapid-fire Russian to the other girl. A sickle. Of course. Not the moon. Was it a symbol of their native land for them? That didn’t make sense, not when Ukraine had split from the former Soviet Union. The girls had all been shipped in from Ukraine, if the Trail Hikers intelligence reports were accurate. ROC had branded them with these tattoos.

  Trina played ignorant, tilted her head in interest. “It’s a crescent moon, right? I love anything to do with the sun, stars or moon.”

  “I have one, too.” The second girl spoke better English and lifted the fall of her black hair to show Trina her tattoo. This time Trina made out the thin hammer that sliced through the sickle’s center. It had to be linked to ROC. There were so many tattoos with each factor of the criminal organization that she didn’t have a chance to know all of them.

  “Are you sisters or best friends? Is that why you have the same tattoo?” Trina silently prayed they’d open up. She noticed that Binnie and Chuck were being quiet, watching her interaction.

  Both girls laughed. Not the silly adolescent giggles they deserved to enjoy but harsh barks that only the jaded were capable of.

  “Tell her we’re sisters. It’s okay.” Again, the quick Russian meant to be under the radar.

  “Oxana and I are sisters, all right.” The young woman rolled her eyes. “I have to keep her out of trouble.”

  “What’s your name? I’m Trina, by the way.”

  “Ekaterina.”

  “That’s so similar to my name, you know.” Trina saw they were losing interest as their eyes shifted past her and back over their shoulders toward the long row of trucks parked for either a short rest or the night. Trina imagined it didn’t matter how long any of the truckers were here as the women made their money and moved on to the next client. It was almost hard to believe something so dark and lurid went on in the truck cabins as the blaze of the summer sunset in Silver Valley lit up the sky with fuchsia and lavender streaks.

  Keep them talking.

  She opened her mouth to ask where they were from, in a very open, curious American way. She saw Oxana’s mouth drop open at the same time she dropped her food onto the gravel lot and screamed.

  Trina twisted to see two burly men bearing down on the young women, their faces intent.

  “Come now. No fight or you will regret it.” The taller of the two men spoke in Russian. Their faces were obscured by the brims of their hats, but Trina knew the voice of the man she’d failed to apprehend in the Poconos. Vasin.

  The men were only strides from the girls. Trina was certain they were underage, and since they each had the tattoos that might indicate the gang who’d sold them, she wasn’t about to watch them be taken in by ROC.

  “Call the police.” She spoke directly to Binnie and Chuck before she leaped over the table and ran after the group of four. The girls bolted for the safety of the parked trucks, which would give them a place to hide and stall their attackers. The men were fast for being so beefy, and they ran right behind the girls, their dark shoes spitting up gravel. Trina closed in on them, fists pumping. As the girls slid between two long trailers, the men heard Trina and stopped in their tracks. She saw them each reach for a weapon—one a pistol, the other a knife—as they turned around to face her.

  Adrenaline pumped through her, and she sucked in deep breaths to stay steady, focused. As long as these brutes were looking at her, the girls had a fighting chance to get away.

  * * *

  Rob walked out to the outreach table, and when he saw Trina’s empty seat, Chuck and Binnie excitedly moving their arms, and Binnie with a cell phone to her ear, his stomach lurched.

  “She went that way! Two men are chasing the girls!” Chuck’s septuagenarian voice was surprisingly strong.

  “Have you called the police?”

  “Yes. Go get her!” Chuck’s concern was palpable.

  And more justified than he could imagine. Rob ran out into the lot that served as the truck rest stop and saw Trina’s slim figure standing approximately two hundred yards away, her legs in a wide stance and her arms up in front of her. She aimed her pistol at Vasin and Minsky, as Rob would expect. Trina was a warrior.

  What made his mental warning alarm clamor like an air raid siren was the sight of each man holding a lethal weapon. Vasin held a Beretta in one hand, shouting something Rob couldn’t hear over the continuous purr of the parked trucks as they ran air-conditioning in the summer heat. Minsky held a blade, its surface reflecting the streetlamps that had begun to flicker in the waning light.

  Rob had seconds to figure out how to save Trina’s life. Because while she’d had the Trail Hikers indoc, Trina was at heart a US Marshal. She wasn’t going to go home until she had these criminals in cuffs. She’d never cut her losses and run away.

  The rumble of a Mack truck engine broke through his concentration, and he ran in front of an eighteen-wheeler preparing to leave the rest area. He waved his arms and flashed a badge—also that of a US Marshal, like Trina’s, as it made a great front for both of them as they worked as undercover Trail Hikers. The truck’s brakes engaged with a hydraulic groan and the cab lurched to a stop. Wasting no time, Rob reached up and opened the driver’s door. “US Marshal. I need your vehicle. Please get out.”

  “What about my dog?” The female driver pointed to a large pit bull in the passenger seat.

  “He friendly?
”

  “If I tell him to be.” She grinned.

  “Best take him with you.” Rob didn’t want to put any civilians at risk, human or canine.

  “You’re going for those jerks messing with that woman over there? Keep Rosie with you. In case you need backup.” The woman slid out of the seat and Rob jumped in.

  “Clear the area, ma’am.” The woman backed away from the rig, her eyes wary as she probably just realized she’d given a supposed US Marshal her superb piece of machinery, her entire livelihood. As well as her dog.

  Rob slammed the door shut and immediately shifted into gear, turning the wheel to be able to bear down on the trio of armed adversaries. “Hang on, Rosie.” The dog let out an enthusiastic bark from the passenger seat.

  His hands gripped the wheel and he drove straight ahead, picking up speed but retaining control. But no matter how controlled, how well executed, the next several seconds were, he couldn’t escape the reality of what was at stake. One wrong move and Trina would be dead.

  * * *

  Trina heard the motor approach and didn’t flinch. She needed only a split second, maybe one full heartbeat, of distraction on the part of these losers. The full beam of headlights hit the eyes of the guy holding the knife, and when he squinted she quickly kicked the knife out of his hand. He swore in Russian, bent over and cradling the hand she’d made contact with. She turned and aimed her weapon at Vasin.

  “Drop your weapon or you’re both dead.” She’d take out Vasin first, since he still held his pistol, but she was prepared to shoot his accomplice, too, if need be.

  Vasin grinned malevolently before he turned and took off between the rows of distribution trucks. Trina couldn’t risk a shot with so many civilians around and the possibility of a bullet ricocheting into a trailer or worse, an occupied cab. The majority of the cabs were sleepers, and the drivers slept on bunks in the back. Vasin knew this, of course. She’d have to secure the knife dude and then go after Vasin.