Hand on the doorknob, Lydia paused and waved away the words. “Nothing to thank me for. Lukas told me not to quit my day job. That I’m pretty much a failure when it comes to match-making.”
Cate shrugged. “We’re just not in the market for that.”
“We?” A light came into Lydia’s eyes as she led the way into the ICU. “Did you and Christian discuss it?”
Only a seriously hearing-impaired person wouldn’t have heard the hopeful note in Lydia’s voice. And she had perfect hearing. Cate carefully edited her answer before speaking. “Outside your house. When we went to get our cars.”
“Oh.” Disappointment slid like heavy dew off the word. Feeling sorry for her, Cate almost said something, but stopped herself at the last moment. No sense in having Lydia entertain any false hopes. What had happened Friday night had been a fluke.
Right?
Lydia squared her shoulders as she looked at the young girl in the bed. Their would-be witness was conscious now, watching them with large, frightened brown eyes.
“How are you with languages?” Lydia asked Cate.
“I’m not exactly a linguist.” Cate made eye contact with the girl and offered her a smile. “I know Spanish.”
“So do I. Just enough to order a limited amount of food,” Lydia said. “Somehow, I don’t think that’s the language the guard heard.”
“And Polish,” Cate added.
Lydia glanced in Cate’s direction. “Now, there’s one you don’t stumble across every day,” she commented. Just then, the girl ventured a few hesitant words. They became more urgent as she finished. Lydia looked at Cate. “Anything?”
“Sounds like it might be Czech, or maybe Ukrainian.” At the mention of the second, there was a flicker of recognition in the girl’s eyes. “Ukrainian?” Cate repeated. She saw the same reaction. “I think we might have a winner,” she told Lydia.
Taking out her cell phone, Lydia flipped it open. “Let’s see if the department has anyone available who speaks Ukrainian.”
Slavic languages were similar. At times, if a person knew one, they knew another. Her father had been able to make himself understood in half a dozen languages, or so he liked to tell her.
She supposed she had nothing to lose. It was worth a shot, Cate thought.
Coming over to the bed, she took the girl’s hand and very slowly, in clear and distinct Polish, told her not to worry. That they were here to help her. She ended by asking if the girl understood.
An eagerness they hadn’t seen before highlighted the girl’s face. “Tak.”
Lydia slapped her cell phone closed without completing her call and quickly crossed back to the bed. “What did you just ask her?”
Cate’s eyes were on Katya’s. She was still holding the girl’s hand, trying her best to convey reassurance. “If she understood what I was telling her.”
“And that word I just heard her say, that was a yes?” Lydia cried eagerly. Cate nodded. “Oh, Cate, I could kiss you. Ask her how she got there. Ask her—”
But Cate had already begun questioning the girl in a tone that was low and soothing. Despite that, despite her assurances to the girl, tears began to run down Katya’s cheeks. Her words were cut short by sobs that all but choked her.
“What are you doing to my patient?”
Cate stiffened. She didn’t have to turn around to know that Christian had entered the room. Damn, she’d hoped to have more time to pull herself together before having to face him again. Say like half a decade or so. But she’d never been one to run from anything, even her own confused feelings or the very real possibility of embarrassment. So, after allowing herself one short, bracing breath, she looked over her shoulder at the man she’d made love with on Friday night.
Christian strode into the room, immediately taking charge of his territory. As per his instructions, he’d received a call from the head nurse on duty that the girl had finally regained consciousness. The second he’d heard, he’d driven just inside the speed limit to get here. He’d wanted to examine her before word reached Lydia and her people.
He should have known better.
Cate raised her chin, her eyes defiant. “Comforting her.”
Christian frowned. “Funny, she doesn’t look very comforted.”
She wasn’t about to get embroiled in any kind of verbal sparring match, nor was she going to let him pull rank on her. He might be the girl’s doctor, but they had a responsibility to bring whoever had done this to her to justice. Not to mention that there undoubtedly were other lives at stake. Maybe many more lives at stake.
“That’s because she’s remembering what she went through,” Cate informed him.
Damn but she looked like a firecracker about to go off. What was it about these bureau women? Even as he wondered, Christian couldn’t help thinking that she looked magnificent with her blazing eyes.
“How do you know that?” he challenged. “The nurse said she didn’t speak any English.”
This was getting too personal and she resisted. She didn’t want to get personal with him, not any more than she already had. This was the time for retreating, not advancing.
But she had no choice.
“She seems to be able to speak a little Polish,” Cate finally said.
“Christian—” Lydia came to stand between the two “—let Cate talk to her.”
Though he loved her, he gave Lydia the same look he’d given Cate. Here, at the hospital, his responsibility to his patients came first, ahead of his loyalty to those he cared about. “I don’t want her getting upset, Lydia.”
He might have been talking to Lydia, but it was Cate who answered. “My guess is that this girl has been through something a hell of a lot more upsetting than being asked a few questions. Maybe if she feels she can tell someone who understands, she might start healing.”
The moment stretched out as he studied Cate. “So now you’re a psychiatrist?”
“I’m whatever I need to be in order to close this case and keep girls like Katya from becoming punching bags and worse for the scum of the earth,” Cate replied crisply.
“Christian, could I see you for a minute?” Lydia requested. Not waiting for him to answer, she took hold of his arm and draw him over to the side. Away from Cate and the girl in the bed.
For a second, Christian continued looking at his sister-in-law’s partner. He hadn’t realized, until this very moment, just how unprepared he’d been to see her after the other night. Though he masked it well, running into her like this made him feel as if he’d just received a blow to the solar plexus. It took effort to continue to breathe evenly.
Lydia had his ear as soon as she’d drawn him over to the side. “Is there something going on here I should know about?” She was asking as both an agent of the bureau and as his sister-in-law, although the latter had to take a back seat to the former. Nothing could be allowed to get in the way of this case. Nothing.
He nodded toward the girl in the hospital bed. “She’s obviously regained consciousness and—”
“No,” she fairly snapped, annoyed. He knew what she was talking about, she thought. Why was he pretending otherwise? “I mean between you and Cate. Did something happen after you left our place Friday?”
Yes, something happened. I think the sky fell in. His face was impassive as he said, “We went out for a drink.”
For just a split second, Lydia Wakefield, FBI agent, took second place to Lydia Graywolf, sister-in-law. Her eyes brightened. “Really?”
He was not going to go there. “Lydia, I can’t have you and your partner badgering my patient.”
Her eyes narrowed, pinning him. “Right now, I’m badgering you.”
A dark look reminiscent of the one she’d seen only once before, at Alma’s funeral, descended over his face. “Don’t,” he warned.
Lydia raised her hands just enough to indicate surrender. “All right, have it your way. I’ll give you space. But not when it comes to her,” she added, indicating his patient.
“I need to have her questioned. We’ve already lost too much precious time while she was unconscious. Christian, think,” she insisted when she saw that she was losing him. “There could be lives at stake. Lives of girls just like her.” She played her trump card. “Do you want me to show you the videotapes? Do you want to see what those girls are made to do?”
“No.” The very thought of what could be on those tapes made him physically ill at the same time that anger flared through his veins. He set his jaw. “All right. I’ll give you ten minutes.” Five was the normal time limit. Five minutes per hour at an ICU bed. “But no more. She needs her rest and I don’t want to take a chance on her having a relapse.”
But Cate had used her time well while Lydia had hashed things out with Christian. She’d spent it talking to the girl. Communication had been halting. Katya was Ukrainian and there were words she didn’t know in Polish. Plus she was growing very tired.
Although she wanted to press on, Cate knew she couldn’t. But she did feel she had something for them to go on. Leaving Katya’s side, she came up to Lydia and Christian just as he was granting them permission to go ahead.
“No relapse,” Cate said. They both looked her way. “Katya’s told me enough for now.”
Lydia was at her side immediately. “Well?” she demanded eagerly. “Do we have any idea who’s behind all this?” She asked the question even though she knew there was little hope of getting a positive answer.
“We might,” Cate allowed. Christian shot her a suspicious look, or maybe she was just reading into it. She wasn’t trying to be coy, she just wasn’t sure of the information the young girl had given her. But there were ways of tracing and verifying it. “I did find out what happened to her. Old story.” It was nearly as old as time. Different faces, different methods, same results. Slaves for the highest bidder.
“She and her sister were told that they could have a wonderful life in America if they would just help gather together some of their young friends to go along with them.” Her lips twisted in a mirthless smile. “It was a ‘package deal’ they were offered. There were twenty of them in all, all from her village. The oldest was sixteen.” Cate tried not to let her mind paint pictures as she spoke. “They were brought over here in one of those large metal freight boxes.”
Christian stared at her. It sounded too horrible. “A box?”
She nodded, pressing her lips together. “The ship transporting them docked in San Diego. They were sick and frightened by the time they got there. No one cared,” she said grimly. “They were taken to the first of half a dozen or so locations. The girls were separated, threatened that if they didn’t do as they were told, they would be killed and their parents would be horribly tortured before being put to death. Seems the man at the top of the pyramid is powerful with a long reach, or so she overheard one of the guards say.” Cate had seen and heard a great many horrible things during her time at the bureau, but this very nearly overwhelmed her. “Katya says she doesn’t know where her sister is right now.”
Lydia listened quietly, taking in the information. Her time at the bureau had taught her to be wary of Trojan horses. As awful as it seemed, the girl could have been deliberately left behind with misinformation. “Why did they leave her?”
Cate had asked Katya the same thing. And her stomach had twisted when she heard the answer. “Because she refused to appear in one of those videos we found. She was afraid that her parents might somehow get to see it and be ashamed of her. The scum in charge of the filming beat her when she wouldn’t do what he told her to.”
Cate paused and took a breath, the queasiness in her stomach increasing. She refused to give in to it. “From what she says, she thought that he believed she was dead when he left. She told me she stopped fighting and lay very still, hoping he’d finally leave her alone. He beat her to show the others what happened if one of them disobeyed him.” She looked at Lydia, knowing she wasn’t supposed to admit this out loud to another agent. Unable to keep her peace. “I’d like to kill him.”
“Take a number.” And then Lydia forced a grim smile to her lips. “He’ll go down,” she promised.
Christian looked at his sister-in-law sharply. Just how big a role was she planning to play in this? “Why don’t you report this back to your assistant director and have them take it from here? This is obviously international.”
Cate looked from Christian to Lydia. Neither one seemed to notice her for a moment.
Again she got the feeling that there was more going on between the two than she understood.
Since Lydia had seemed eager to get her and Christian together the other night, she could only assume that what was between them had to do with family loyalty, not any kind of sexual attraction. Most likely, Christian was feeling protective of Lydia, like a younger brother might toward the sister he cared about.
She liked that about him.
She liked a lot of things about him, a small voice reminded her. Maybe so, Cate silently countered, but she couldn’t allow that to cloud her resolve not to get entangled with him.
You slept with the man. I’d say that was getting pretty entangled.
Cate blocked the voice out. She turned toward the girl, who was still watching them with wary eyes. “I’m going to stay with her awhile.”
“Don’t you think you’ve questioned her enough?” Christian protested. He took the girl’s pulse. It was reedy and irregular. “I told you, she needs her rest.”
“No argument,” Cate agreed, surprising him. She liked that, too, she thought, catching him off guard. God knew he’d caught her off guard Friday night.
“Then why…?”
“Because I think she’ll feel better if there’s someone here who understands her. I might not be able to understand everything she says, but I’m willing to bet it’s probably better than anyone else on the floor is able to do.”
Lydia nodded. “I guess it’s lucky for us you’re Polish.”
Cate felt Christian’s eyes on her as she agreed, trying her best to sound offhand about it. “I guess so.”
She knew he was thinking about the line she’d said the other day to him, about having to endure Polish jokes for no reason. She supposed, since she’d been raised Polish, that did give her some claim to it, even if she really wasn’t.
“Kay-ate.”
She looked toward the girl and crossed back to her bed. She asked her if she needed something.
Christian watched as a warm expression came over Cate’s face. Saw her squeeze the girl’s hand and nod. He couldn’t hold back his question. “What?”
“She just asked me to find her sister for her.”
There was sympathy in his eyes as he looked at the small girl. He felt the same kind of anger he imagined his sister-in-law was grappling with. People who took advantage of such innocence should be destroyed. Painfully. He supposed that feeling was at odds with the oath he’d taken, but given a chance at the man who had done this, he knew which way he’d lean.
He looked at Cate. “Tall order.”
Cate nodded, then amended, “Maybe not so tall.”
“How do you mean?” Lydia wanted to know.
“She gave me something to work with just now.”
Lydia appeared as if she was ready to jump out of her skin as she literally grabbed Cate’s arm and tugged on it. “What? What did she just tell you?”
Her eyes swept over Lydia and Christian. “The name of the man who originally approached her. She just remembered it.”
Lydia fisted both hands and jerked them down in a victory sign. “Yes, Virginia,” she cried, “there is a Santa Claus.”
Chapter 30
Several hours later, when he was finished with his morning patients, Christian went to the intensive care unit to see how Katya was coming along. Easing open the door, he found that Cate was sitting right where he’d left her. Beside the bed and holding the girl’s hand.
Somehow, it didn’t surprise him to find her there. He was beginning to r
ealize that there were a great many qualities that he and this woman shared. Seeing something through was one of them. Quiet compassion was another.
After crossing to the bed, he picked up the chart that hung at the foot of the bed and flipped it open to the last entry.
“How’s she doing?” he asked her mildly.
Cate had seen his reflection in the window as he’d opened the door. Her pulse had accelerated at the same time. Just like a schoolgirl’s, she thought. Where was this going to go? She had no answer.
“Better, I think. She’s been sleeping most of the time.” Cate rotated her shoulders and realized she’d gotten a little stiff. She needed to find herself a gym around here and start working out again. Her body missed a regular schedule. “Fitfully, but I think that’s because she’s dreaming.” She saw him glance quizzically in her direction. “I can see a lot of eye movement going on beneath her lids,” she explained. “She doesn’t like what she’s dreaming.”
Getting up, Cate wrapped her hands around her arms, drawing them in close to her. “I can’t even begin to imagine what it had to be like for her.” A bittersweet expression played across her face as she leaned over Katya and brushed the hair away from the girl’s face. “She should be dreaming about her first kiss, not…”
Cate’s voice trailed off, ending in a sigh. She hated the fact that Katya had been robbed of that, robbed of being able to enjoy first love the way only the innocent could.
Christian paused to take Katya’s pulse, then glanced at the monitor to make sure everything was recorded properly. “Life isn’t always fair.” Very gently, he placed the girl’s hand back down on the covers again. “At least you found her in time.”
“Right, focus on the positive.”
She realized there was a touch of bitterness in her voice and she struggled to bank it down. He had a point. If she hadn’t found her when she did, Katya would be dead. Besides, wasn’t that what she always tried to do? Focus on the positive? Why was she balking because he told her the same thing? And why was everything continuing to scramble inside of her like this whenever she looked at him? If anything, Friday night had been about eliminating needs, not increasing them.
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