Veda gaped at him.
“I’m gonna find her,” he said. “Me. Just me. Never you. And this stays between us, you understand?”
The tears in Veda’s eyes shook her voice. “Do you even know where she is?”
Linc held her gaze before looking away.
Once again, however, the emotion in his eyes was answer enough. “How will you find her, Linc? Where do you even begin? How do you even begin putting an end to this?”
Linc’s eyes fell to the Ziploc bag still sitting on the counter. The bag that contained the cell phone Veda still hadn’t asked him about. Then, he moved into a distant place once more, eyes vacant.
He responded through clenched teeth, repeating the words once more. “It never ends.”
15
The following evening, Linc sat on the edge of the bed in the small hotel room he’d just purchased. His green eyes shifted to the right as he spoke into the phone on his ear, gazing vacantly at the view of downtown Shadow Rock, its sparkling skyline highlighted from the hotel room’s twentieth story window. Decorated in muted colors—mostly whites and soft browns—the room felt subdued but homey, with a small living area in front of the wall-to-wall windows.
“I’m as good as I can be considering the circumstances.” Gage’s voice fluttered through the receiver, answering the question Linc had just asked him a few seconds into the unexpected call he’d made to Linc’s burner phone. “Once I make it to—”
“Don’t say it,” Linc stopped Gage before he named the city he was on the run to. The city where he’d assured Linc he’d be safe as he awaited trial. “The only person alive who should know where you are, and where you’re going, is you.”
“Right.” Gage took a moment, presumably to figure out how to speak candidly. “What’s the news on their arrest?”
“FBI was brought in to investigate. David and Pierce are being held in custody until tomorrow morning, but something tells me they’ll still slither free of the charges. They’re arguing that there’s no proof the container was ever on the Celeste. Can’t lie, it’s solid, and without your testimony, they’ll walk.”
“What about the guard?” Gage asked. “When I first went down there, I got into an altercation with a guard. I managed to get him locked into a container. He didn’t strike me as crooked. Surely he could testify as well.”
“Says he locked himself inside the can by accident and that there was never a royal blue crate. Never any kids in the hold.”
“He’s lying.”
“He’ll take it to the grave to ensure your father doesn’t do it for him. Like I said, you’re it.” Linc sighed. “You’re it, Gage.”
“What about the kids?” Gage pressed, his voice growing desperate.
“All drugged within an inch of their life. Kept high ‘round the clock. Dazed. Confused. Hypothermic. Dehydrated. Most couldn’t even state their own names and birthdates. Any lawyer would tear their testimonies to shreds with ease, let alone the team working overtime for the wealthiest bastards on the island.” As he spoke, Linc took a deep breath, letting his head fall forward. His hair fell with it, framing his face in waves as he took in the sight of his black t-shirt, jeans, and black sneakers. His feet bopped in time with his heart, which raced for a plethora of reasons.
It raced for the person who was scheduled to knock on his hotel room door any minute. It raced for the daughter he’d yet to find. It raced for the wife he’d lost. For the life he’d lost. The two lives he’d lost. Without his permission or even his knowledge, two lives had been stolen from him.
The life he’d never know with his wife and daughter.
And the life he’d never know with the man on the other end of that line.
I think you’re my brother. The words lived on the edge of Linc’s tongue—knees still bopping, heart still swelling. His eyes, staring ahead, danced back and forth as he fought to speak the words.
But he didn’t speak them. A part of him wondered if those words would only ever have a home on the tip of his tongue and the bleeding edge of his heart. He wondered if the words he’d yet to say to his own mother would live and die there as well: Is David Blackwater my father?
Once upon a time, he’d believed his mother, Grace Hill, was the easiest person in the world to talk to. He’d believed that, outside of his father’s identity, there was nothing he didn’t know about her. That was until—thanks to a botched attempt at nailing The Chopper—he’d accidentally learned that Gage was his half brother.
Now Linc didn’t know what he believed. He didn’t know what he knew. Looking at his life, he couldn’t even decide what was real anymore.
So he didn’t say the words.
Gage swallowed heavily on the other end of the line. “How is she?”
“Safe.”
“On my way off the island… I left a fresh burner behind. In the rose bushes at the hospital. Right across from the fountain. Will you… will you please give it to her?”
Linc heard the hesitation in Gage’s voice. A hesitation that could only manifest itself when one man was asking another man —a man he’d once gone to war with over a woman’s love—to help him get in contact with the woman they’d gone to war for.
But there was no room in Linc’s heart for frivolous battles.
Not anymore.
“Yeah,” he said, gruffly. “Look. We’ve been on the phone too long.”
“You’re right. I’ll call again when I’m at the final destination.”
“Good.” Just as they were saying their final goodbye, a knock on the hotel room door stole Linc’s attention, and he spoke the rest of his words to Gage absently, his green eyes riveted to the door. “Be safe. A’ight? Bye.”
He stood from the bed as he hung up, shoving the burner phone in the back pocket of his jeans. Then he sank his hand in the front pocket and retrieved Lisa’s cell phone. The cell phone Martin had illegally smuggled from evidence before handing it over to him, putting his job on the line for the millionth time since the two of them had met.
“Why does that feel like goodbye?”
Martin’s words from the wake permeated Linc’s head as he clutched Lisa’s phone in his hand, cleared his throat and straightened his t-shirt. He moved across the main room and through the long hallway that led to the door just as another knock rang out.
Once there, Linc pulled the door open.
A tall, slim woman awaited him on the other side of the doorway. Her eyes were lowered with one hand propped high on the doorsill and the other hanging coolly at her side. A glittery silver dress hugged her body, which, while slim, was somehow still bursting with womanly curves. She lifted her lowered eyes while shaking her blonde hair, curled into big ringlets like a classic movie star, away from her face. Her sultry eyes, the color of green olives, met Linc’s across the threshold as the tiniest lift—Linc wouldn’t call it a smile—hit the corners of her red lips.
It was the same non-smile-smile that had touched the lips of every trafficked girl who’d graced a profile on Raw Moon, the mail-order-bride website that had blasted open the island’s biggest sex trafficking ring just a few days earlier. The website that hadn’t just blasted open the islands biggest ring, but also the heart churning fact that Linc’s wife and daughter had fallen victim to that very ring as well.
“Mr. Washington?” she purred, her lips protruding sensually as she fluttered her lashes.
Forward as she was, Linc didn’t miss the glare of apprehension in her eyes. It wasn’t a continuous glare, but instead, one that came in waves, darkening her smiling eyes at their deepest depths, as if she was always aware, always ready, for things to take a turn for the worst.
“I’m him,” Linc said, confirming he was “Mr. Washington” while stepping away from the door and motioning inside. “Come on in, Ruby.” Linc knew this woman was no more “Ruby” than he was “Mr. Washington” as he watched her sashay into the room.
She kept her eyes on him even as she passed, making sure to brush the sid
e of her body against his as she moved, her gold stiletto heels digging into the carpet as she made her way into the main room. A tiny gold purse hung from a delicate chain strap on her arm.
Linc watched her as he closed the door, engaging the deadbolt and the chain lock.
At the sound of the deadbolt clicking, along with the clink of the chain lock as it slid into place, Ruby froze in mid-step, swiveled on her heel, and met his eyes across the entryway. Her leafy green orbs shifted.
Linc had already spotted her apprehension when it had been but a short-lived glint in her flirtatious eye. But he saw it even clearer right then, as Ruby struggled to recover from the shock of him locking that door. He couldn’t blame her for being taken off guard. She didn’t know him. Yet, here she was, alone in his hotel room. He was twice her size and could do anything to her he pleased—with the ease of a lion toying with a piglet. Of course the click of a lock would catch her off guard. No matter how professional, she was still human at the core. Her unease was simply natural selection hard at work.
Linc held her gaze as he approached, joining her in the main room where the queen-sized bed took center stage. He noticed how Ruby let him pass her so that she was closer to the door, lingering in the domed archway that separated the hallway from the bedroom area.
He smirked as he faced her. It was adorable. That she thought she had a choice. That she thought being closer to the door meant she could escape him if she chose.
A silence fell.
“Can I see a picture ID?” she whispered, taking the chain strap of her bag in a tight grip while shaking her hair out of her eyes.
Linc considered the question with a small smile, and because he’d been expecting it, he didn’t hesitate to approach her on a slow foot, holding her gaze as he reached into his pocket.
Ruby straightened but kept her face relaxed.
Linc noticed the lump move down her throat, however, revealing her true instincts once more, as he fingered his ID from his pocket and offered it to her.
She looked up at him for a long moment, appearing to regret that she’d possibly offended an honest client, but regardless, she took the ID from him using two perfectly manicured fingers. Shaking her hair out of her eyes again, she took a deep breath that made her ample bosom heave before slowly lowering her eyes to his ID.
Linc saw the moment she read the name “Herald Washington” because her flirtatious smile returned with a vengeance. The hint of unease that had been present a moment before made its exit from her eyes for good as she offered the plastic back to him, still clutching it between two fingers. “Looks good.”
Linc took the ID and held it up, smiling softly before placing it back in his pocket.
She tilted her head at him, licking her plump red lips with a soft squint.
He held her gaze, allowing her to stare.
“You’re very striking,” she whispered.
He raised his eyebrows. “Striking. That’s a first. Uh… Thank you?”
“You’re welcome,” she said, pointedly, confirming that she’d meant it as a compliment. Unarmed by his ID, she moved deeper into the room, brushing the tips of her fingers against his chest as she went, allowing him to, once again, be the one closer to the door. “Sorry about that…” She turned on her heel, playing her fingers together. “It’s just… cops, you know?”
Linc nodded to reassure her that everything was fine. Another part of him wanted to reassure her because the tiny, barely discernible glimmer of tension was slowly reemerging at the depths of her aura. He decided it was a facet of her that would never completely go away. At least not as long as she was in that room with him.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve made love with a man as handsome as you,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed and crossing one toned leg over the other.
Linc moved to the middle of the domed archway, watching her quietly.
She cradled her hands on either side of her body on the bed, looking up at him. “What do you like?”
His voice lowered. “What do you do?”
She shook her head gently while letting her voice lower too. “For you? Everything.”
He nodded with a soft moan while sinking his hand into his back pocket. “You know what? I almost forgot…” He removed a gold police badge from his back pocket—an old badge he’d once lost track of, years ago, since his former lieutenant had confiscated his current one—and held it up for her to see.
At the sight of that badge, Ruby’s eyes expanded and her chest hitched in a sharp gasp. She jumped to her feet and raced for the door.
But Linc’s wide body took up half the entryway, and he stopped her with ease, grabbing both her arms before using his weight to guide her back into the room. She stumbled in her high heels, struggling to keep up with his rapid strides, yelping when, as he released her arms at the foot of the bed, the momentum he’d picked up caused her to trip over her heels and plop back down onto the mattress.
Linc moved in a flash, replacing the badge in his hand with Lisa’s phone and tapping at the screen. As soon as he’d pulled up what he’d been looking for—the picture that had stolen the air straight from his lungs the moment he’d first laid eyes on it—he turned the screen toward Ruby.
One look at the photo Linc had pulled up and Ruby’s already wide eyes exploded to twice their size.
“Where is she?” Linc demanded.
Ruby’s chest heaved as she drank in the photo of Emma. The only photo Linc had of her wild head of long blonde curls, her rosy cheeks, her snaggleteeth, and her big green eyes.
She lifted her eyes back up to him.
Silence.
“Do you want to go to jail?” Linc showed Ruby his badge again when the silence went on too long. The badge he wouldn’t dare tell her was actually out of commission. He shook Emma’s picture. “Tell me where she is and you don’t get charged with prostitution tonight. This entire exchange stays between us.”
Ruby shook her head rapidly, causing her blonde hair to get stuck to her long, false eyelashes. “I don’t—” Her voice broke. “I don’t know who that is.”
His eyes hardened. “You don’t know who this is?”
She shook her head again.
Linc brought the screen back into his line of sight and continued tapping at it, pulling up another picture. Another picture that had stopped his heart the moment he’d laid eyes on it the night before. A picture of “Ruby” and Lisa smiling into a photo. A picture with the exact same house in the background that was showcased in the photo of Emma.
When Linc showed Ruby the picture of her and Lisa, the color drained from her face.
“Same day. Same house. Smiling with her mother.” Linc pointed to each part of the photo he addressed—the timestamp emblazoned in the corner of the picture, the illustrious home in the background, and Lisa, who was smiling next to Ruby in the photo. He paused to pull up the photo of Emma once more. “You were in the same house this photo was taken, on the same day, smiling with the woman who gave birth to this child. I’ll only ask you one more time, Ruby. Do you want to go to jail tonight, or do you want to tell me where the fuck she is?”
The fear in Ruby’s eyes washed away like a tidal wave. Her shoulders collapsed, and all that was left was defeat. “I swear to God I don’t know,” she whispered. “I knew Lisa, but I’ve never seen that little girl. I’ve never seen her before, I swear.”
Linc’s jaw tightened, and he looked back down at the photo of Emma. Pressing his thumb and forefinger together, he placed them on the screen before spreading them apart, zooming in on the house that was in the background of Emma’s picture. Zooming in on the mirror hanging on the wall behind her. The mirror where half of a man’s face was reflected, slightly blurry, but just clear enough to make him recognizable to anyone who’d met him.
Linc turned the photo back to her, pointing to the face of the man he’d just zoomed in on. “Who is this? Who is this man?”
Tears filled Ruby’s eyes. “I don’t s
ee him anymore. I stopped seeing him when I started turning my own tricks. Building my own client list. Even if I were able to see him again, I wouldn’t. No matter how much he pays. He’s fucked up. He’s crazy!”
During the hours Linc had spent tracking down her profile on Backpage the night before—immediately after seeing her smiling in that picture next to Lisa—he’d concluded that, unlike Lisa, Ruby wasn’t a victim, but instead a free agent. One of the few women on that island who turned tricks by choice. Who ran her own ads. Built her own list. Treated the job like a legitimate business venture. As far as Linc knew, she didn’t even have a pimp.
He’d believed she wasn’t a victim, but seeing the fear in her eyes at the sight of the man in the background of Emma’s picture, Linc realized how wrong he’d been.
“No one will ever know it came from you.” He heard the slight hint of begging in his voice and tried to bring it under control. “I just need to know who this man is. Then you leave this room. This exchange never happened. We never saw each other.” He shook his head. “That’s it. You have my word.”
Ruby’s teeth began to chatter, but she didn’t speak.
Linc nearly screamed. “Or you go to jail. Is that what you want?”
Appearing on the verge of screaming herself, Ruby snatched her eyes away from him, her wild orbs searching the room frantically before she pushed off the bed with a huff. Standing, she moved toward the window, keeping her back to Linc with her arms crossed tightly.
Linc followed, stopping when he was just a few feet behind her. He ground his teeth, nearly shattering the cell phone as his fingers tightened around it.
Ruby hesitated, still facing away from him. “You didn’t hear it from me? You’ll let me go?”
“Yes.”
With a deep breath, she turned on her heel, tightening the arms she had crossed over her chest as she nodded to his phone. “That photo was taken two years ago, in Russia. I highly doubt the girl is still there. He was probably grooming her to be auctioned off.”
“He who?”
“They called him Gleb. That’s all I know. A real big fish. Loves American hookers. Lisa and I were… two of his favorites. The only time I saw Lisa was when we were with him. He liked having us both at the same time. But I haven’t seen him since that photo was taken.”
Rouse (Revenge Book 7) Page 11