“Too bad, honey, it’s in the script.”
Dob snorted. “Yeah, in the script.”
“I didn’t get a script,” she said. They snickered. “What are they talking about out there, anyway?”
“Who knows?” Bark shrugged as he took a screwdriver to the camera case. “Tryin’ to talk him into sticking with the deal, I guess.”
She hunched into herself, her arms crossed against the room’s frigidity. They must spend a fortune on electricity—not to mention have heavy-duty circuitry—to support the air conditioning and the hot lights it combated far too effectively.
“That guy acted weird.” She tried to sound kind of vacant. “He talked like, like the point of this wasn’t the movie, it was the sex.”
Bark straightened and tossed his screwdriver onto the bed. “I gotta get more tools.” He left the room.
Dob looked back and forth at his retreating back and Reese, then mumbled something about getting Skav and made his own exit.
“Well, hell.” She couldn’t hear Skav and the client anymore. They must have moved farther down the hall. “I’m alone,” she muttered so Griff would know what was happening, “but there isn’t much worth snooping in here.” She bent and picked up the box Skav had drawn the handcuffs from. She shook it, loath to dig through the items. Nothing exciting in there.
She rose and circled the dead cameras. A metal table against the wall held a computer and case of DVDs, a sheet of labels, and an office-style telephone. Getting caught on the computer would be stupid, but she had an excuse for the phone. She lifted the receiver and pressed redial. A ten-digit number appeared on the readout. She was about to murmur it to Griff to write down when the door opened.
“What are you doing?”
She absorbed the surge of shock without jumping at Skav’s voice. Nonchalantly, she flipped her hair over her shoulder and turned only her head to look at him while depressing the button on the phone to hang up the call.
“I figured we’re done here tonight. I was calling for a ride.”
Skav scowled and walked over, making a “gimme” gesture with his fingers. She handed him the receiver and he slapped it down. “These phones are restricted. You’ll have to figure it out when you get out there. Come back tomorrow night and we’ll do this again.” He didn’t look at all happy.
“What about him?” She aimed a thumb at the door. “He seemed pretty mad.”
“He’ll be okay. The fluffer did too good a job, is all, and he got overexcited. He’ll be fine tomorrow.”
The image raised a burst of laughter she captured in her throat. “Same time, or a little earlier?” she managed to ask.
“Come at nine.”
The double entendre overwhelmed her control, and this time Skav chuckled with her. “Git outta here.” He tapped her on the back, and she went out into the deserted hall. Bark and Dob were arguing in another of the bedrooms, but the trick was nowhere in sight. She went into the dressing room and quickly changed back into her own clothes, then took a moment to open and close all the drawers in the vanity and look behind and between all the hangers. If Skav came in she’d just say she was checking out the clothes, but he didn’t, and she found nothing.
As she walked toward the stairs, she tested the knob of the room that had been locked the night before. Still locked. She bet if there was anything worth seeing here it was in that room, and wondered if she had time to force it open. It was a simple bedroom door lock and she didn’t doubt she could. But Skav was moving stuff behind her, and Dob and Bark were ahead of her, so she resisted temptation and moved on.
The trick loomed in front of her as she reached the bottom of the dark staircase.
“Oh!” She touched her fingers to her chest. “You startled me.”
“I just wanted to apologize for earlier.” His accent was gone, but he still had a refinement in his voice and she didn’t doubt he was who he’d said he was. “I got carried away. First job and all that. It won’t happen again.”
“It’s okay.” She smiled nervously and shifted her weight as if he made her uncomfortable. “Skav said the fluffer did too good a job.”
His face darkened. “Is that what he said? Who the hell do you think the fluffer would have been? I’m not letting one of those assholes touch me.” He collected himself. “He was just covering for me because I’m such a newbie. Anyway, no hard feelings?”
“Okay.” They shook hands, which felt absurd, and he walked her out the front door and turned to go to his right. Assuming this was the alternate access to the property she’d never found, she followed him instead of heading to the gate she always used. At the rear of the garage, a gravel drive went out another gate to a tree-lined alley formed by the walls of the neighboring properties. They went through the gate, and he closed it behind them. It latched but didn’t lock. They probably kept it open when they expected people, which she supposed explained why they didn’t ask her how she got onto the property yesterday.
Or maybe they were just stupid.
Mr. Fluffer jerked a thumb to a black BMW speedster parked in a circle carved into the woods. “You want a ride?”
“No, thanks. I’ve got someone coming for me.”
“Suit yourself.”
He didn’t seriously think she believed he was a fellow actor, did he? Not with a car like that. But maybe he just wasn’t that intelligent, either. He’d almost blown the whole thing with his confession, after all. She guessed Skav had reminded him what they were doing was illegal and if she found out he was paying to have sex with her and she didn’t know it, they could all go to jail.
She watched him drive off in a spray of gravel, then she turned left and walked up the narrow road. As soon as she emerged onto the main street, Griffin pulled up and opened the passenger door from inside. She climbed in, and he took off, looking grim.
“You okay?” was the first thing he asked.
“Fine.” She looked at the woman in the back seat and gasped. “Kimmie?”
Reese fastened her seatbelt, unable to hide her dismay. Kimmie’s eyes were huge. Her face practically glowed in the darkness, it had so little color, and she kept biting her lips. She’d wrapped her fingers tightly around each other.
“Oh, sweetie. This was the acting job you told me about?”
The young woman’s eyes filled with tears. “I answered an ad at a website that puts out calls for extras and stuff, you know, in movies and commercials? I totally thought it was legit. I asked all these questions they tell you to ask, and he told me—” She pressed her lips together, a sob catching in her throat.
Griff had pointed out how much they looked alike, which explained why Reese had gotten in so easily yesterday. But never in a million years would she have connected Kimmie’s acting job with what was going on in that house.
“What did you think the job was?” She tried hard to keep her voice free of judgment or sarcasm.
“Acting.” Kimmie pressed the back of her hand to her mouth for a moment. “He said lots of girls got their start in adult entertainment, and he knew people who’d recognize my star potential.”
“Oh, hon.” Reese’s heart ached for the girl, but how could anyone go through life believing such things?
Then again, she had believed Joey’s conviction that they’d be together forever, and Chris’s that he loved her. She’d even believed in Brian, and she’d been far older than Kimmie.
“They lied to you,” she said as gently as possible. “I think they’re taking money from rich men who want to have sex with strangers and film them doing it. They let the men do whatever they want with the women.”
Griff’s tension permeated the car, and Reese glanced at him. He was gripping the wheel so tightly his biceps looked like they’d tear his shirt.
“That’s prostitution, and it’s illegal.” She spared Kimmie the theory that they didn’t just let the women go afterward, both because she didn’t have true evidence of it, and because Kimmie clearly couldn’t handle it. The you
ng woman had stopped even trying to hold back her tears.
“Please don’t tell the families I work for,” she begged, accepting the tissue Reese handed over the back of the seat. “They’ll fire me in a second, and I love those kids.”
Reese assured her she wouldn’t tell anyone. “What about your family? Your parents? Do you have anyone at home with you?” She had no idea what Kimmie’s overall situation was, just that she was nanny to four kids, was about twenty years old, and wanted to be an actress.
Kimmie settled against the back of the seat and stared out the window, the tissue limp on her lap. “My roommate should be home. She’ll think this is hilarious,” she grumbled. She’d clearly turned the corner, and by the time they pulled up in front of the apartment building she’d directed them to, Reese thought she’d be okay.
Griff stayed quiet until they were alone in the car. Then he exploded.
“I can’t believe you can talk about it so easily. I heard what almost happened, and it was all I could do to stay in this car.”
“You have to trust me,” Reese started, but he cut her off.
“You have no idea how much I trust you. If I didn’t trust you—and if you hadn’t blasted me last night and shown me how much power you have, even off a little cell phone battery—I’d never have let you go in there in the first place.”
She didn’t answer. He couldn’t have stopped her, not short of chaining her to the basement wall, but there was no point arguing. He couldn’t feel the pressure of time, of Brian’s surgery looming. Every minute they were on horseback today, and working together in the bakery, the craving for a normal life, one she created, that she dictated, had built within her. Now she admitted she was afraid. Afraid if she accepted the challenge she faced, allowed it to seem insurmountable, she’d stop. Give in.
Fail.
Every one of her husbands had failed her in some way. She wouldn’t fail Brian. Or herself. It had nothing to do with how he’d treated her. She needed to know she was better than that. That she would never fail those who loved her and depended on her. Ever. For her own peace of mind.
She let Griff simmer until a little slack appeared in his sleeve and his knuckles didn’t look like they’d bust through the skin.
“I’m going back in tomorrow.” She said it quietly, but with enough strength to keep him from arguing. “I need to get into the locked room. I know the information I need is in there.”
“And then what? What about Kimmie, and all the other women like her? How are you going to stop them from being exploited?”
She was afraid to answer, because she didn’t know. And given a choice between taking down this porn ring and going after Big K, she’d choose Big K. She couldn’t say that, either. Griff’s moral code wouldn’t tolerate it. The only reason he stayed with her on this, allowing the breaking and entering she’d done, was because he knew she’d never take anything from the houses, or hurt anyone. Otherwise, he’d no doubt have reported her to the cops and turned his back on her.
The thought made her throat ache.
“I’ll let Andrew know everything before I go after Big K,” she finally said.
“And tell him what? That you broke in here? Jail time will help a lot in finding Big K.”
He sounded so scathing. “What do you care? You don’t even want me to go after him. You’ve tried to talk me out of it every step of the way.”
“I just want this finished.” His jaw tightened around the words.
“Why?”
“Because it needs to be over. Until it is, you’ll never move on.” He pulled into her driveway and shut off the car.
“That’s my goal,” she said. He’d always known that, and she knew it wasn’t what he meant. She pushed the conversation back to the original thread. “So I have to go in tomorrow night or I may never reach it.”
He inhaled and let out a long, heavy sigh. “Fine.”
“Fine.” She got out and strode into the house, losing momentum as soon as she got inside. It had been a long, draining day. Had it been only a few hours since she was so relaxed and content at the stables? She couldn’t even think anymore.
Griff’s footsteps thumped up the front steps, and she escaped to her bedroom. She couldn’t handle being close to him. Her defenses had been obliterated, and she was afraid they’d end up fighting. Really fighting—the irreversible kind.
She sat on her bed and listened to him close the front door, check the back door and all the windows, and start down the hall. His footsteps paused in front of her room. She held her breath, but he continued into the guest room.
Instead of rising to get ready for bed she waited, eyes closed, her mind adding his movement to the sounds. A creak of bedsprings when he sat to unlace his boots, followed by a couple of thuds as he pulled them off and dropped them to the floor. Then silence for a minute. She imagined him undressing, maybe putting on a pair of soft pajama bottoms. Then his door opened and his footsteps, this time soft shushes across the wood floor, went into the bathroom next to her room. The toilet flushed, water ran, silence. Water again. Electric toothbrush, more water. She swayed a little as she mentally followed him back to the guest room, where he slid under the sheet and pulled out a book. He always read before he went to sleep.
Now she forced herself up to change into her nightshirt, slip into the bathroom to brush her teeth and stuff, and slip back into her room. She’d been operating on a couple of hours of sleep a night for a few days now and had been up close to twenty-four hours, so her entire body sighed its thanks as she climbed into bed, closed her eyes…
And an idea popped into her head, rendering her suddenly wide awake and mad at herself for not thinking of it sooner.
She could go back to the Alpine house. She had the layout now, and had seen enough on her reconnaissance and visits to be reasonably certain Skav and the boys weren’t staying there. The dog wouldn’t be a problem. She could drive right up to the gate in the alley, climb over, sneak inside, and inspect that room. The locked one, the one that must hold all the secrets.
If she got inside and found what she needed, she wouldn’t have to go back tomorrow night.
Instinctively knowing Griff wouldn’t approve even with that in the plus column, she got dressed, quietly left her room, and went into the kitchen. She poured herself a glass of juice, making light noise. Enough to draw him out if he was awake, not enough to wake him if he wasn’t. Nothing. Not a sound. So she eased out the back door with both her keys and his—he was parked behind her—and left. He would probably hear his car start, but he had no way to follow her.
The first sign that this was a horrible idea was the cop car she passed halfway to The Charms. It wasn’t Andrew, luckily, and in the glimpse she got of the officer driving, it didn’t look like he was paying her any attention. But the car, nondescript as it was, might still be noted. And what if the same officer spotted her again near the Alpine house?
She hesitated at the next stop sign. Maybe she should go back. Follow the plan again tomorrow night, with Griffin as backup. But the phantom stroke of hands on her body made her gag. If there was a chance she could avoid that scene again, she had to try. So she drove on, passing two regular cars but no more cops. No one saw her pull into the little alley next to the wall. She drove around the circle so the car pointed outward, ready to leave in a hurry if she had to, saving her from trying to back out if she didn’t. The gate was still unlocked. She frowned at it. Why wouldn’t it be locked now? Cautiously, she went through and eased it closed. Maybe they’d forgotten, arguing with each other over how badly the night had gone.
The yard was dark, the air still, no breeze. Sound carried, so she stepped slowly, making sure she avoided leaves or twigs or anything else that would make noise. She eased up to the front door and examined the lock.
Dammit. She’d half hoped her quick inspection of it the first time she was here had been wrong. But no. She wasn’t going to be able to use a credit card or knife to open this one. The dead bol
t would require true lock-picking skills, and though she’d ordered a kit online and followed the instructions that came with it, the most she’d gotten open was a tiny padlock, the kind people used on shed doors and little fire safes. Dead bolts were impossible.
She sat back on her heels, thinking. Maybe a window. Since there were no lights here, and no way the guys would come back—
A shadow crossed the narrow window in front of her, making her gasp and jerk back. She lost her balance and fell over, catching herself with her hands and bent elbows to soften the sound of her fall. Rolling, she pressed herself against the wall of the house, along the porch floor, in case anyone looked out.
They hadn’t left.
She was fucked.
Her heartbeat counted out the seconds with a helpful throb in her ears. The door never opened. No vibrations of the wall behind her or the porch under her indicated anyone walking just inside the front door. Minutes went by. Nothing.
Holy crap, that was close. What the hell had she been thinking? Fatigue and desperation had made her stupid, however logical her reasoning had seemed back at home. And now, as adrenaline ebbed, she felt herself beginning to crash. She’d be lucky to make it home, even if no one spotted her sneaking out of here.
Spots danced in her vision as she eased half upright and across the porch to the steps. Risking standing to get circulation moving properly, she started down to the ground level. Her right foot didn’t clear the first step and she pitched forward. The ground, three stairs below, rushed toward her.
Braced to hit the slate walkway, she went completely dizzy when she stopped a foot above it. Then she became conscious of the solid arm around her midriff and the ripe scent of a man who’d been up for almost as long as she had.
She let her head rest on Griffin’s shoulder as he pulled her upright. “What the hell are you doing here?” she whispered. He held a finger to his lips and guided her back to the gate, then out to his car in the alley. Hers was nowhere in sight. “Scratch that. How the hell did you find me?”
A Kiss of Revenge (Entangled Ignite) Page 11