Tasha Campbell did not get intimidated. She slapped her hand down on the table and stood up. Marching across the pub, she stopped right in front of the hottie in the baseball cap. She had only just taken a breath to speak when he lifted his gaze from the tablet and gave her a onceover.
“Hello, Tasha. I was wondering if you were ever going to get up the courage to come over here and talk to me.”
YATES KNEW RIGHT off that he’d picked the wrong thing to say. The little blond with the rocking body and the sassy attitude looked at him as though he’d just insulted her in the worst way. Her dark eyes flashed fire so hot that he actually felt like his eyebrows had just been singed.
She cocked her head and put one hand on her hip. “I’m sorry. You must be Yates. I don’t know why I didn’t clue in right away. I mean, the rudeness alone should have been an immediate tip off.”
“Sorry,” Yates grunted.
He hated how women always took everything the wrong way. Actually, he pretty much hated talking to people in general. He had thought this Tasha chick would be different. She was sort of fascinating in her own way, or at least her online persona was. They’d messaged back and forth a few times in the last week. She was brave and brash, and he admired the hell out of how hard she’d been trying to track down info on her case files.
“Would you like to sit?” He gestured to the other side of the table. He’d picked a booth—as was his custom—and he was sitting with his back to the wall in a corner, where nobody could sneak up on him. Once a SEAL, always a SEAL, and he was actually still a SEAL. His team just happened to be between deployments.
“So.” Tasha sat down, leaning forward with an almost aggressive aura that put Yates on edge. “You said you had information on my missing women.”
“Possibly, yes,” he ventured. “Your description of the abductions sounds very similar to the abduction of my CO’s younger sister.”
“You’ve only got one case?” Tasha sounded vastly disappointed. “The way you talked, I thought you had tons of intel. One case doesn’t add up to squat. I’ve got four, and I’m still confused as hell. I know these women all went clubbing—two of them here—two of them up in Baltimore. The abductions were within a week of each other here in DC. The two in Baltimore took place in the same month. The women just seemed to disappear off the face of the earth. There are no commonalities between victims. There’s nothing to help build victimology, and it doesn’t even seem to be the same perpetrator.”
“Are you done?” He raised an eyebrow.
She shot him a dirty look. “No. You should also know that the police seem to be in on it.”
“Yes. I’ve noticed that’s pretty much your focus.”
“They know what’s happening!” Tasha insisted. Her dark eyes gleamed with excitement. “You don’t understand. These cops are helping the perps. It’s like there’s a boys club out there stealing girls, raping and then killing them, and the cops are just covering it up!”
“So that’s your theory,” Yates murmured. He was actually disappointed.
She shrugged. “What other theory could there be? The first victim has been missing for over six months. Statistically speaking, she’s dead. Her family already knows that. They want me to find out who did it. They want justice. The other three families are paying me to do the same thing.”
Yates cocked his head to one side. “They’re not paying you.” He didn’t even bother to pretend it was a question. “They may have hired you to begin with, but you stopped taking their money long ago.” Which made her far more worthy of respect in his estimation.
She looked away, sitting back in her seat and taking a defensive posture. “So what?”
“What nothing,” Yates said softly. “Would you like me to tell you what I know?”
She snorted. “Go ahead. What happened to your friend’s little sister? I’m sure a civilian has got the whole story all figured out. What? Do you watch crime shows every night?”
He pursed his lips. Man, the woman had a serious chip on her shoulder. He thought his attitude was bad. She actually had him beat. “Just under three weeks ago, my CO…”
“What is this CO stuff, anyway?” she interrupted.
“Commanding officer,” he said drily. “Can I finish?”
“What are you? National Guard?”
He was going to let that go. It was sort of obvious that the woman was trying to bait him for some reason. “No. I’m a Navy SEAL.”
“Whoa.” She leaned forward again. “Seriously?”
Again. He had to remind himself that people frequently called liar when they were just expressing disbelief. It was an annoying social norm, as far as he was concerned. Not to mention insulting.
“Okay.” She waved her hands. “Continue.”
“My CO contacted one of our team who lives in the Little Creek area. The CO’s sister had gone missing, and the roommate had emailed my CO to tell him that the cops didn’t seem interested.”
“Typical,” Tasha snorted. “Good to know the entire Eastern Seaboard is in on the scam.”
“We discovered an operation run by a man who calls himself The Broker. They abduct young women from clubs. Targets are chosen randomly based on the geographic area. The only stipulation is that the women don’t have a lot of ties within the community. They’re all young, susceptible, and in most cases they could fall under the heading of not missing, but just negligent of telling their friends where they are.”
“See!” Tasha said triumphantly. “Is that not the most irritating excuse ever? The cops just want to push it all off on bad one-night stands and the girl deciding to run off with some guy!”
“Okay,” Yates said gruffly. “You have got to lay off the cops. I’m not saying that they aren’t taking bribes, all right? But this is bigger than they are. These women are being sold through online message boards to buyers worldwide. It’s an international human trafficking operation. I’m pretty sure no DC cop is going to even realize what’s going on, much less be able to do anything to these guys besides look the other way.”
Tasha blinked a few times. Yates kept waiting for her to say something. She seemed to be processing everything he’d just told her, yet she didn’t really look like she believed him.
The she folded her hands together and looked him straight in the eye. “I want in.”
Chapter Two
She wanted in? Yates sat back in his seat, his brain going in a thousand different directions at once. Technically it wasn’t his investigation. It was Trapp’s. His CO had been pretty specific when he told them in no uncertain terms that he wanted all the help they could get on this.
For Trapp, that usually meant utilizing every resource available, though, not inviting a bunch of strangers onto their team. A SEAL team was a pretty closed unit. Every one of them had tasks that they excelled at, but they were also versatile. It kept them from being stuck out in the field somewhere without anyone alive who could perform a vital part of an operation.
“You don’t look happy.” Tasha actually looked amused. “Look, I’m not happy about it either. I don’t particularly want a bunch of jarheads on my tail.”
“Marines,” Yates said, his tone clipped. “Marines are jarheads, not SEALs.”
“Oh, excuse me.” She made a little face, her manner obviously sarcastic. “Let me make this clear. I’m only going to work with you as long as you’re useful to my cases. I’m only marginally sure that they’re even connected.”
“They are,” Yates said absently. “I’ve run the demographics analysis. I bet if you interview each woman’s family, you would find that she’d gone to that club a few times already before she was abducted. Anyone who had seen her inside the club would have thought she’d just found a new guy. They disappeared into a VIP section, and that’s the last that anyone saw.”
Tasha went silent. That more than anything else told Yates that he’d hit the nail on the head, so to speak. She was now so still that even her long blond ponytail looked as
if it were made of stone. He couldn’t help but study the fine features of her face. She really was a striking woman in her own way. Not classically beautiful, but she had a certain character that other people often lacked. Yates found himself in the odd position of being glad that she was going to be working with them.
TASHA STARED AT Yates and tried not to be miffed that he knew so much about her cases. How did he and his “team” find out so much about this apparent trafficking ring? And really? Human trafficking? She’d totally been barking up the wrong tree. Allegedly.
From the beginning Tasha had figured she was looking at some kind of serial rapist who killed his victims. The idea that these four women could still be alive was daunting. Worse. They could be alive in some brothel halfway around the world. The idea was staggering. It was horrible!
“Fine.” Tasha said quietly. “So you’re convinced that my cases and your—case—are connected. Let’s go look at the information and see if our stories match up.”
There was a smile playing around the corners of his mouth. “So you essentially want me to open up my files and let you pick though and take what you want.” His Cheshire Cat grin was getting on her nerves. “How convenient for you.”
Tasha cocked her head, looking him over. This guy was not what he first seemed. That was becoming increasingly obvious. Worse, she found him utterly fascinating. He was hot. For some reason she kept coming back around to that fact. But there was certainly more to Yates than just his looks.
“So you’re a SEAL.” Her tone came out conversational. What was she trying to do? Tasha cleared her throat. “How is it that you have time to investigate this? Don’t you have to go save the world or something?” Oh God, she sounded so lame!
His eyebrow twitched. She couldn’t decide whether it was involuntary, or whether he was laughing at her. “I’m on leave. Our whole team is. The CO is handling another team and another operation overseas. So for now we’re taking care of this because we have the time, and because he’s a friend and he needed our help.”
Tasha couldn’t find anything to say. Her brain was struggling. “Do you like being a SEAL?”
He shrugged. “The training is intense, but once you get past that, it’s never boring.”
“Never boring,” Tasha murmured. “I bet not. So how does being a SEAL make you qualified to investigate a human trafficking operation?” Oh great. Now she’d just insulted him. She was really putting her foot in her mouth today. Dammit!
He actually laughed. “You have a real way with words. You know that?”
“Sorry.” Tasha put her hands over her face. “Sometimes I continually stick my foot in my mouth. I’m not trying to be rude or condescending or anything. I’m just curious, and I’m never afraid to ask whatever is on my mind.”
“That probably comes in handy working as a PI,” he told her.
“It does, actually.” Tasha laughed, thinking about just how right he was. “People never think I’ll actually go where I go, and say what I say. But I’ve walked straight into super awkward situations that were just about to blow sky high and I’ve told people stuff they really don’t want to hear. I’ve seen things that make me wish I could bleach my eyeballs later, and I never back down when I know I’ve got a lead.”
YATES COULD NOT stop the smile that stretched across his face. This was the woman who had fascinated him online. He stood up, gesturing to the door. “Come on then. Let’s go see if we can put some pieces of this big puzzle together.”
She got up from the booth and moved confidently toward the door. She walked with an unconscious grace that affected Yates in ways he wasn’t comfortable with. There was something inherently sexy about her. Or maybe that was all in his head. How long had it been since he’d been with a woman? One year? Two? He couldn’t even remember. It was pathetic, really. People had this idea that SEALs were these badass military men who went all over the world and saved lives before coming home and just snapping their fingers to have any hot chick they wanted. In Yates’s experience, it hadn’t worked quite like that.
They left the pub, and Yates started walking down the street toward his basement apartment. Beside him, he could practically hear Tasha’s brain kicking into high gear. He could only imagine what her observations might be on him personally.
“So?” he prompted. “I can hear your question. Just ask it.”
“Have you lived in this neighborhood for long?” she wanted to know.
Yates considered that. “Off and on for the last five years, I guess. Meaning that I’m only here when I’m on leave from the base at Little Creek. I grew up in the area.” Whoa. Why had he told her that? He never talked about that.
“You grew up in DC?” Her interest was locked on. He could tell. “What did your parents do?”
“My father worked at the Pentagon.” He wasn’t going any further than that. “And my mother was in the Navy.” Okay, so apparently he was. Great.
“Your mother?” Tasha’s eyebrows shot up. “She must be really proud that her son is a SEAL.”
“She died in the Gulf War.”
“Sorry.”
He shrugged. “It happens.”
“I grew up here too.” She seemed to reconsider. “Well, I grew up in Herndon.”
So she’d grown up comfortable. Interesting. “What made you decide to become a PI?”
“Cops are dicks.”
“Right.” Something made the hair on the back of Yates’s neck stand up. He turned right down an alley, feeling the need to duck out of sight for a moment. To her credit, Tasha didn’t say a word. She just followed.
“What are we doing?” she whispered.
Yates didn’t answer. He wasn’t even sure he had an answer. He was starting to think that he’d become paranoid. Then he saw the little man in the long brown coat. The guy was trotting down the street as if he’d been following something and had lost his quarry. Behind him, Yates heard Tasha’s breath catch.
“Do you recognize that little weasel?” Yates asked in a whisper soft voice.
She edged out a little farther, as though she intended to make a positive ID. “Yeah. His name is Johnny Dean. He’s another PI.”
“Any reason he’d be following you?”
“Can’t think of one, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist,” she murmured. “He’s headed somewhere in a hurry. Does he know where you live? It’s close by, right? Maybe he’s headed there.”
“I suppose we follow him and see.”
TASHA WATCHED THE fluid way that Yates moved. He was essentially ducking from cover to cover, using trees, shrubbery, trashcans, and anything else to cover their progress down the street behind Johnny Dean. The thing was, instead of looking ridiculous, he managed to make his movements look slick and professional. There was no exaggerated rolling from place to place like in the movies. Instead, Yates twirled, twisted, and ducked like a dancer. It was rather impressive to watch.
Then there was her progress behind him. She felt like an elephant stomping around, trying to stay out of sight. He probably thought she was ridiculous. In fact, he had to, because she thought she was ridiculous. Whenever she had assignments where she had to hide or do stakeouts, she tried to stay in one place. The whole recon thing had never been her deal.
Suddenly Yates ducked into another alley. Tasha tucked in behind him and waited to see what he’d do. Turning his head, he looked down at her and winked. Her belly did a silly little flip flop. In fact, she was in danger of sighing like some lovesick schoolgirl. What. The. Hell?
“Looks like he’s camped out across the street from my apartment,” Yates told her. “I think it’s time we have a chat with Mr. Dean and see why he feels the need to spy on us.”
“You really think it’s us?” Tasha wondered. “Have you ever seen him before?”
“No.”
Her stomach started to cramp. “Then it’s probable that he’s following me.”
“What cases are you working right now?” he asked. Then he arched one
eyebrow. “You know, the paying ones.”
“Ha. Ha.” She sighed, running through her mental list. “There are three cheating husbands, which is nothing new. That’s the PI’s bread and butter. Honestly, if men decided fidelity was an option, I’d be out of a job.”
“All right, point taken.”
Did he sound grumpy about that? Hmm. Interesting. She flipped further through her mental list. “Then there’s a case involving disability fraud, and a woman looking for a daughter she put up for adoption twenty-six years ago.”
“That’s quite a case load.” He turned his head, giving her a smile. “One might suggest you’re a bit of a workaholic, Tasha Campbell.”
“Or one might suggest that I’m broke,” she quipped. Ugh! Why was she joking and flirting right now? They were being followed. And it was probably her fault. Great. That’s all she needed. For this guy to see her as one big walking liability. That was pretty much the story of her life.
“So,” Yates began. “Are you ready to go have a chat with Mr. Dean?”
“Bring it on.”
Chapter Three
Yates really liked Tasha’s spunk. Although, it wasn’t just attitude: the woman had brass. He pressed his back to the wall at the mouth of the alley. Leaning out as far as he dared, he got a good look at this Johnny Dean character. This guy had smarmy private eye written all over him. From his ratty brown trench coat, to the battered ball cap pulled down over his eyes. What Yates could see of his face looked weasel-like, and he even slunk along as if he were some kind of rodent.
“Wow,” Yates murmured. “This one looks like a real winner.”
“Oh he is, believe me. Just ask him. He’ll tell you what an awesome guy he is.”
Yates actually chuckled, despite the tenseness of the situation. “I’ll lead. You come up behind me. We’re just going to go in and take him by surprise. If the way he’s eyeing my apartment is any indicator, he’s pretty damn sure you’re inside there.”
SEAL INVESTIGATIONS: A 5-Books SEAL Romance Series Page 17