Run to You

by Susan May Warren

  Why bother trying to find it with someone else, when it would only be a sorry substitute? He was a one-woman man. He’d known it for years, and watching her in that cute orange apron as she poured batter into a pan only confirmed it. No, he didn’t want a housewife, but seeing her like this had him conjuring up two little dark-haired boys hanging on her apron strings.

  “You okay, pal?”

  The voice, coming from above him, make him jerk. David looked up, and yes, he must be dreaming because there was Roman, sitting on the top steps, giving him a small shake of his head.

  Of course, his voice made Yanna look up, but David ducked up the stairs, and into the relative safety of the next flight. “Shh. You trying to get me busted?”

  Roman grinned, but it wasn’t a grin of triumph. He better than anyone knew all about unrequited love. Only, his love had finally been returned. While David’s…

  He shoved those dreams right back where they belonged, in never-never land.

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes. When did you get here?”

  “This morning. Early. Took a bus from Taipei. Vicktor’s in the shower.”

  “He’s here too?”

  Roman looked like he’d been up for about a week, with circles under his eyes, a two-day beard growth, and his hair matted on his head. David guessed he didn’t look much better, although his shower last night had at least made him feel human.

  Roman confirmed his assumptions with a sorry look. “You need a haircut.”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” He rubbed a hand over his face, sat next to Roman. “Tell me everything you know about Elena and her disappearance.”

  Roman filled him in on the details. “Truthfully, I think Yanna knows the most.”

  “Which is painfully little,” David said. “For all she knows—really knows—Elena was kidnapped by someone else, or even still in Korea. Or ran off with Bob to Maui.”

  “No, she’s here. Elena passed through passport control over a week ago. And the fact that she used the same dating service, stayed at the same hotel, and ended up in the same country, well I’m thinking that Yanna’s at least warm.”

  “Shoot. I was really holding out for Maui.” Although David could have guessed that Yanna wouldn’t be that far off the trail.

  “I probably shouldn’t ask what you’re doing here, huh? Something about top secret and special forces?” Roman scratched his beard, making a face.

  “Something like that. But it’s all gone south, and my partner’s been shot—”

  “Chet?”

  David nodded.

  “Who shot him?”

  “See, that’s why you don’t want to ask.”

  Roman raised an eyebrow. But wisely, said nothing. Finally, “How are we going to track down Elena?”

  “We’re going to track down Kwan, that’s how.” Yanna stood on the landing on her way up the stairs. “If you think I can’t hear you, then you must think I’m stupid. I’m going to track down the GPS I left on the boat and see if I can find Kwan.”

  Roman got up and gathered Yanna in his arms. “You really scared me.” He let her go and dug into his pocket, pulling out what looked like a necklace.

  Yanna took it and held it to herself. “Where’d you find it?”

  “At the hotel. A maid found it.”

  David looked up at Yanna, saw that her eyes glistened. “What is it?”

  “It’s my locket. I wasn’t sure where I lost it. It must have ripped off when they snatched me from my hotel room. My sister has one just like it,” Yanna said, opening the locket. She handed the picture to David. A girl who resembled a younger version of Yanna but without as much verve stared at him. He gave it back to her.

  “Thanks for coming after me.” She edged away from him, looked at them. “I find it extremely eerie that here I am in Taiwan with two of my best friends—”

  “Three. Vicktor’s in the bathroom.”

  “Oy, three—when I need you the most. Thanks.”

  David saw emotion flicker into her beautiful eyes, and his throat tightened. He knew what it cost her to say that. He touched her hand. “We’re not the only ones on your side, you know. I think you might need to chalk this up to God’s providence. Maybe He’s trying to tell you something.” Please, please, Yanna, listen.

  Her smile fell and she stared at him, her face unreadable. Roman glanced at David, then back to Yanna. “It smells great down there.”

  “Pancakes. American style.” She lifted the apron, swayed with it. “Like my new outfit?”

  David took a breath and said nothing.

  The door in the hallway above them opened. Vicktor came out, trailed by a gust of steam.

  “Any hot water left?” Roman asked.

  “Hey, Yanna,” Vicktor said, but David wasn’t sure if it was relief or a question his tone held. “I’m glad to see you. How fast can you get me a visa to America?”

  11

  “First, stop hovering. Second, you’re acting like I haven’t the foggiest idea what I might be doing. Go back to your corners and let me work.” Yanna opened up the laptop computer Roman had brought with him and entered her password.

  The breakfast dishes had been pushed away, and she hadn’t felt this full in—well, she never let herself eat like she did today. And being here with Vicktor and Roman and David, watching them interact…it felt like college again.

  It felt like maybe, yes, everything would be okay.

  “So you work with computers?” Trish said, coming to sit beside her. Slim—except for her cute little belly—with short brown hair and hazel eyes that seemed to pick up more than Yanna expected, Trish hadn’t even asked last night—just instinctively known that Yanna needed privacy. Some time to sit in the bathtub and…cry.

  She couldn’t remember the last time she’d let herself cry.

  And, stupid her, she was crying just as much for herself as for Elena. While she knew she should have every thought focused on finding her sister, Yanna couldn’t help but wish with everything inside her, that David loved her. That he’d hijacked a scooter and flagged down a bus and jumped in front of a ninja with a knife because he couldn’t live without her.

  But even last night, when she’d all but begged him with her eyes to kiss her, he’d simply done the I’d hate to lose a friend act.

  So this morning, when Trish handed her an apron and wire whisk and asked her to stir, she’d decided, fine—let him see what he might be missing. And so what David had laughed.

  It was his loss. She made good pancakes.

  “Yanna runs an IT department in Khabarovsk,” David answered for her.

  She did more than run it. She single-handedly brought the lot of them into the twenty-first century. And she made pancakes.

  “Tell me your brilliant plan,” David said, apparently not listening to a word she said about hovering. Then again, when did he ever? Like his comment about God. Thanks, but she wasn’t going to take some good fortune and start proclaiming revival. Even if she did believe there was a God, she’d done just fine on her own.

  She didn’t need someone else letting her down.

  “Hopefully Kwan still has my cell phone. Even if it is off, the GPS is working. We can use it to track down Kwan, who will lead us to Elena.” She looked at him. “So, you see, this isn’t over—not by a long shot.” She smiled real big at the men in the room. “Brilliant.”

  “You do surprise me,” David said, smirking. He glanced at what was left of his pile of pancakes.

  “Tracking down Kwan isn’t necessarily going to lead you to Elena,” Roman said.

  “How do you even know this guy was a member of the Serpents?” Vicktor asked, turning away from the window. “Maybe he was just a human trafficker.”

  “His ring,” David said. “All the major players in the Serpents are given a ring with a snake. Kwan had one on his middle finger.”

  Yanna’s hand went to her cheek, where said ring had left a bruise. “That brings me to brilliant plan number tw
o,” she said. “What if Kwan were to see me, the girl who got away. And I’ll be wearing another tracking device, but now that you’re in the country, I let myself be captured again and—”

  “No way. Not on your life.” David cut her off, shaking his head as if maybe she couldn’t understand him. “I’m not letting you near him. He’d kill you and laugh while doing it. No way. Uh-uh. Nope.”

  “Okay, okay, I got it. I just thought maybe you’d be hiding in the bushes and do that thing you did last night.”

  “What did he do last night?” Roman asked, shooting David a look.

  “Someone jumped us. Tried to kill Yanna.”

  “I don’t think he really cared who he stuck his knife into, as long as he started with one and ended with the other,” Yanna said with a shake of her head.

  Quiet filled the room.

  “Okay, David’s right, there’s no way you’re getting near Kwan.” Roman wore a strange look, glanced at David. “I’m really sorry. I should have never let her go alone.”

  “Oh, that’s not the half of it, Roma,” David said in a dark tone. “I haven’t told you about the boat or the ocean or her stealing my wallet. She’s lucky I haven’t wrung her neck and sent her home in handcuffs.”

  “Which I’d just take off.”

  “And throw in the ocean.”

  The silence in the wake of their words made Yanna realize she’d been yelling. She glanced at Trish, who was staring at her coffee. Yeah, nice one, David. Now she sounded like some gangster in front of this sweet woman. She directed her attention back to her computer program and her GPS system and what she did best.

  And there, lit up on the screen, was her signal. “I found Kwan, only he’s not in Kaohsiung.” She looked up at David. “The signal’s here, in Taichung.” She pointed to the screen, then zoomed in to the street name. “It’s not on his boat at the harbor, which means he has it with him. Why would Kwan hang on to my cell?”

  “Maybe he’s using it.”

  “Maybe it’s a trap.” This from Vicktor, who came back to life from where he stood at the picture window. “Maybe he knows you’d try and track it down. Maybe he wants you to find it. And him.”

  “He’s right,” Yanna said, but Vicktor’s theory had David’s attention. She turned to him. “We’re going after that blip.”

  “I’m going after that blip. You’re staying here.”

  Trish and Cho had gotten up from their places to lean over Yanna. “Where is that?” Trish asked.

  “It’s an address downtown.” She read off the address in Mandarin.

  “I know that spot. It’s a teahouse. I’ve been there a few times.” Trish set her cup down. “What would this Kwan man be doing there?”

  “Some traffickers use businesses to warehouse women en route because they’re high profile, an unlikely target,” Roman said. “Our team in Vladivostok raided a casino filled with Korean and Chinese women on their way to inland Russia.”

  Trish put her coffee down. “Well, I think I need some tea.”

  “Trish—” Cho said, his tone dark. “Don’t—”

  She rounded on her husband. “No, you listen. While I’m there, Yanna can have a look around. She can pretend to go to the bathroom or something. I won’t get hurt.”

  “You could get hurt,” Yanna said.

  “I’ll be fine. Besides, I want to help. I’ve been in this country long enough to know about this problem and to feel frustrated by my inability to help. I’m doing this.” She turned to Cho. “I’ll be fine, I promise.”

  Yanna looked at David. His I-hate-this-idea expression broadcasted his feelings loud and clear.

  Cho took his wife’s hand, his expression mirroring David’s.

  In the corner, Vicktor sat down on the sofa, sighing so loudly that he sounded like he might have had something terrible to eat for breakfast. And she’d made the pancakes, so— “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s just driving me crazy. Now that I know you’re okay, I can’t get her out of my mind. If I could just get ahold of her, find out if she’s okay.”

  She didn’t have to ask who. “Going to America is a really bad ide—”

  “I need to be Dr. Vladimir Zaitsev. Today.”

  “Vicktor—” Roman paused. “If you get caught, I mean, that’s a forty-eight-hour medical pass. That’s barely enough time to hail a taxi. If they find a fake visa on you, you’ll be deported, and then you’ll never get back to America, and you might as well kiss marrying Gracie in the States and living happily ever after goodbye because they’ll take your visa application and use it for dart practice.”

  “Who’s Vladimir Zai—” Trish started.

  “You’re assuming that I’m the kind of guy who just twiddles his thumbs while the woman I love is in trouble.”

  “No, we’re assuming that you didn’t dump your brains in the ocean on the flight over and can see that a few missed phone calls don’t a national emergency make,” David said.

  “Vladimir Zaitsev is a, let’s say, friend who lets Vicktor borrow his identity, occasionally, for sudden trips into the US,” Yanna said quietly to Trish.

  Vicktor got to his feet.

  “In Vicktor’s defense,” Roman said, stepping between David and Vicktor, “Gracie’s been acting weird, and he can’t get ahold of her, and she might be sort of mixed up with the wrong fella.” He turned to Vicktor. “Still, you can’t go running off to America every time she doesn’t answer the phone, pal.”

  Yanna stood up. “Vladimir Zaitsev has a forty-eight-hour pass from Russia to America. I can make that happen for you, keep it under the radar, and have you pick up your visa in Taipei. But you have to promise that you’ll leave the States in two days or you’re not the only one who will be chipping ice off the sidewalks if you screw up. An FSB Agent going AWOL—”

  “Not just AWOL,” Roman interrupted.

  “In the United States,” Yanna clarified, “is going to raise more than a few eyebrows in Moscow. And Washington.”

  “What she’s saying is that we might all be writing to each other from various correctional facilities around the world,” David said.

  “Gracie needs me,” Vicktor said, and the expression on his face, filled with so much agony, or perhaps fear, was enough for Yanna to sit back down at the computer and start digging around her records.

  Because, deep inside, in the places she so didn’t want to visit, she desperately wished that David might look that way and say that about her someday. And come running.

  Instead of always running…away.

  Twenty-seven missed calls? Gracie scrolled down through her cell phone, reading the numbers. There must be a malfunction on Vicktor’s phone because certainly he wouldn’t be that obsessed.

  Although in an OCD sort of way, it touched her that he’d tried that hard to get a hold of her. Which told her that next time she texted him, she’d make sure her phone had enough juice to answer the call. True, she’d been in the hospital for half of them—and unavailable thanks to hospital policy against cell phones. But it took her until she climbed out of bed sometime in mid-afternoon at the Holiday Inn before she realized that, after she’d turned it back on, and buried it in her purse, it had died.

  She pressed redial, and listened. “C’mon Vicktor. C’mon.”

  It rolled over to voice mail. “Hi, it’s me. I see that you called. I’m sorry I missed you. Call me back.” She hesitated to add anything about last night, and what she’d discovered, or the fact that right now she wasn’t at home because, well, neither she nor Mae thought it prudent to return, just in case Jorge or his cousin had thugs watching her door.

  And she would certainly not add anything about Mae’s chat with Officer Williams, and then Alex who had finally shown up, listened to Luba’s story, and offered official assistance in 24 hours, once Ina officially became a runaway. And Williams, because he turned out to be a nice guy in the end, even alerted the hospital security, who upped their surveillance around ICU just in case Ina’s friend
-slash-captors decided to return and reinforce their first lesson.

  But, yes, Gracie could sure use a conversation with her own personal hero right now. Even if he did lose it, or did something crazy, like show up on her doorstep.

  Well, she might even like that. A lot.

  She debated calling back. Then put the phone back in the bureau to charge, and went out into the suite area, where Mae sat, channel surfing.

  “Great hair,” Mae said, looking up at Gracie.

  “I feel like I’ve been sleeping for about three months, and have grown fuzz on my teeth.”

  Mae nodded. “I wish I could sleep. I keep thinking about Ina, and what could be happening to her right now.”

  Gracie sat down, glanced at Mae’s choice of programming. “The History channel?”

  “Probably why I can’t concentrate.” Mae flicked off the television, threw the remote onto the sofa. She bunched up the pillow behind her head and stretched out.

  Gracie drew up her legs on the armchair, sitting cross-legged. “I don’t even want to let my mind go there, to what might be happening to her.”

  “I saw this special on human trafficking once. Said that 27 million people over the world were trafficked—men, women and children—into forced labor, and of course the sex trade. And some countries look the other way, especially poor countries who need the money tourists spend.”

  “But certainly that doesn’t happen here in America?”

  “Um, yeah, it does. The special said that the CIA believes nearly 50,000 people are trafficked into or through America every year as sex slaves, domestics, garment, and agricultural slaves. It could be happening right here, in this hotel.”

  They stared at each other, and Gracie reached for a pillow, holding it against her, wanting to cushion the thoughts running through her head.

  “The special also said that the average life span for a woman caught in trafficking is…four years.”

  “Ina is seventeen.”

  Mae put her arm over her eyes. “I don’t think Alex is going to do anything, at least anytime soon. I wish I could get a hold of Chet. He’s got friends all over the FBI. Maybe he could get them involved.”