“That’s not the question you should be asking,” Simon said.
He was dressed impeccably in khakis and a crisp white Oxford shirt. No tie. His attire varied only slightly day to day.
“What do you want?”
“Again, not the question.”
“I don’t know you, I don’t have shit for you. I don’t know what you fucking want.”
“Ask me why.”
“Why? Why what?”
“Why you are tied to that chair.”
Ron blinked. It took him a minute to comprehend, but he still didn’t get it. “Because you tied me here?”
“Technically, my associate Mr. Cross tied you to the chair. But why did I order him to do so?”
“I don’t know. Why?”
“Because you are a child rapist and a kidnapper and the lowest form of scum on earth.”
Ron stared at him as if Simon was crazy.
“What?” He sounded confused. “I don’t rape kids.”
Simon slapped him. “You raped Hope Anderson. I have the proof.”
“Hope? Theresa’s kid? Hell, she’s not a kid. She was practically all grown up. She hit on me.”
Simon slapped him again. And again. Bella felt sick. Partly from Ron’s head being violently assaulted and partly from the idea that he thought a twelve-year-old was “practically all grown up.” He was sick, he had no remorse. He would do it again if he had a chance.
“Where. Is. Hope.”
“I don’t know!” Ron screamed. “I don’t know!”
Simon hit him so hard the chair fell over and Declan struggled to straighten it up. Blood flowed from Ron’s nose and mouth and he was blubbering. “I don’t know, I don’t know!”
Before Simon could hit him again, Bella stepped forward.
“Let me,” she said quietly.
She got close to Ron and squatted in front of him. “We know you gave or sold Hope to a sexual predator. Don’t argue semantics. Who did you give her to?”
He didn’t want to talk, but Simon stepped forward and raised his hand.
“Martin Hirsch. Fuck, he’s going to kill me!”
“And you think I’m not?” Simon said, the fury in his voice making it shake.
Bella turned to him. She saw the truth in his eyes. He fully intended to kill Ron Dumfries. She shook her head. “Simon, no.”
But he wasn’t listening to her. “Who is Martin Hirsch? Tell me everything or I will make you suffer.”
Ron spilled his guts. Martin Hirsch was in L.A., but Ron heard through the grapevine that Hirsch was looking for blonde girls under fourteen who had no family to care what happened to them. Ron, apparently, had turned over a couple runaways to Hirsch over the years—girls who he’d picked up off the street, had sex with in exchange for a place to sleep and food, and when they got too “clingy” according to Ron, he turned them over to one of Hirsch’s people for a thousand bucks a pop.
A thousand dollars.
There was no remorse in Ron, only fear of his own pain and suffering. Bella wanted him to suffer.
“Do you know what they do to child molesters in prison?” she said quietly.
“No fucking way. You beat me up! No way you can prove any of this shit. No—”
A gunshot went off and Ron’s head exploded, his brains and skull splattered on the corrugated metal wall behind him. Some of his blood hit Bella’s shirt. A drop on her neck.
Bella turned and stared at Simon, unbelieving. He couldn’t have …
He pocketed the gun. “He would disappear before the police put him behind bars. If we could prove that he sold Hope. Which we can’t do, and you know it.”
He shook his head. “Don’t feel guilty. He would have raped those two little girls he’s living with now and sold them when they became trouble. You know it as well as I do. You’ve been there, Bella. Don’t tell me it won’t happen again.”
He walked away.
Declan said, “Go with him. I’ll take care of this.
Bella should have walked away then. She was in too deep with a man she obviously didn’t know.
But there was no turning back now. Not when Hope Anderson was still out there, waiting for someone to care enough to find her.
Bella cared.
She had to find her. Or all of this would be for nothing.
Present Day
Bella realized that she was a killer long before last night at the bar.
She’d killed a man when she was fifteen to save her life.
She’d killed in the line of duty to save her partner.
And she’d killed last night, when Diaz’s bastard held a gun to her head.
But last year, while she may not have pulled the trigger, she’d been party to a cold-blooded murder. Ron Dumfries was a rapist and sex trafficker and thief who had no remorse. She didn’t care that he was dead. She did, however, care about who she had become since that day. What she had to justify in order to find Hope.
It has to be worth it.
If Hope was dead, it was all for nothing, and she was finding it harder and harder to live with herself.
Hope had to be alive.
She had to be alive, or Bella realized she had nothing left. No soul, no future. Because how did you come back from a deep darkness that grew bigger every day?
She stared at the phone Sean Rogan had given her. A lifeline.
But she couldn’t hold on.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Sean and JT had just arrived at the small El Paso airport when Sean’s untraceable burner phone rang.
JT grabbed the phone off the charger before Sean could.
“Be calm,” Sean told him.
JT answered. “You could have gotten yourself killed last night.”
“JT?” the surprise was evident in her voice. “You shouldn’t be following me.”
“Simon lied to me, he lied to you.”
“No. Well, he probably lied to you, but he knows you don’t approve of what I’m doing.”
“You cannot possibly believe Hope is still alive.”
“I have two minutes, and you want to argue with me?”
She was right. They needed intel. “We’re working on shutting down Hirsch’s operation on our end.”
“You’re bringing in the feds?”
“Rick put together a task force, only people we explicitly trust.”
“If they jump too soon, I’ll never find Hope.”
She was still so focused on the girl who was missing, a girl who was most likely dead, a girl Bella might never be able to find.
“JT—I know you don’t approve of my work, but I am damn good at it. And someone has to do it. If not me, who?”
“I never disapproved of your work, Bella. I’ve always been proud of you.”
“Really.”
The sarcasm wasn’t lost on him.
“I don’t approve of Simon Egan’s tactics. But that’s not you—I hate that we haven’t talked in nearly three years. Hate it. I can’t lose you, sis. Not again.”
“You’re not,” she said quietly. “JT, I’m okay. I know you’re working with Declan. I know you and Dec have been talking on and off over the years, and I’m glad. I never wanted to come between you and your team. When I asked Dec for an extraction, I didn’t know what I was facing, right then and there, and I panicked. But now I know what’s at stake, and I’m safe for now.”
“You can’t possibly believe that. Declan is in the hospital. He was shot twice by the Moore brothers outside the bar when he attempted to stop them.”
“Dec is hurt?” She was worried, and she should be.
“It could have been you, Bella.”
“He’s going to be okay, right?”
“Yes. But he can’t help you, only I can. You have to let us get you out. We’re not far.”
“Please trust me. You’re going to follow, okay—just keep your distance. Don’t spook them. As soon as I have confirmation about Hope—whether she’s even alive—I’ll call. I promise
. But you have to let me do this. I’m losing the phone. I can’t risk it—not when I’m so close.”
“No!”
“You’re obviously not going to give up—I’m just asking that you stand down for a little longer. Trust me. We’re leaving El Paso soon, then I’ll be meeting Hirsch’s partner. This is so important. It will change everything—and gives me my best chance of finding Hope.”
“Where?”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know.” She paused and JT thought he’d lost her. Then she said quietly, “Hirsch sent all the girls who came with us from Phoenix off with Desiree Jones and her thug Thad. Three of the girls are underage—well, four are underage, but do not trust the girl named Sara. I can’t say for certain, but I think they’re headed for San Antonio—and they might already be there.”
“Is that where you’re going?”
“No. I don’t know where I’m going, but it’s not San Antonio. I know how to get out of a jam, and I memorized this number. I’ll call you. Okay? I’ll call you when I have what I need. Trust me. Please trust me. I love you, Jimmy.”
She hung up.
“Fuck!” JT exclaimed.
JT was relieved when Sean didn’t say anything. Bella was in so deep, she didn’t even realize she was in danger.
“I have an idea, and we need everyone to help,” he said.
“Anything.”
“We need to find this girl Hope. Dead or alive, we need to know exactly what happened to her before she dropped off the face of the earth. Her social media profiles, her family, how she was hooked up with Hirsch—I don’t trust anything Simon Egan said, so we verify it all.”
“Declan will know,” Sean said. “He said she was sold by her stepfather.”
“So did Simon.”
“Still, we need to talk to him, get everything we can on Hope Anderson.”
“You’re right. Get word to the hospital that as soon as he’s able to use a phone to call in.”
JT called Laura Dixon. He told her he spoke with Bella, and what he and Sean planned to do.
She said, “Adam and I will begin the groundwork.”
“If you need anything, call me.”
“How did she sound?”
“Determined.”
“That’s Bella. Is she okay?” Laura sounded worried, and JT didn’t blame her. Bella had never gone this deep, and there was an edge to her voice that worried JT as well—as if she didn’t care what happened to her, as long as she took Hirsch and his operation down. That kind of thinking got people killed, and JT couldn’t lose anyone else.
“For now,” he said. “We could have got her last night—we were right there! But she didn’t want to go. I should have forced her.”
“She would never have forgiven you.”
“Not if she believes Hope is still alive.”
“We have friends in Simon’s organization. I can find out exactly what he knows.”
“Be careful.”
“Simon would never come after me or Adam.”
“Not physically.”
“Not any way.”
“I’m sending you contact information for Lucy Kincaid. She’s an FBI agent in San Antonio, and my partner Jack’s sister. I trust her—and she has the knowledge and resources to help on this. Send her what you know as well, okay?”
“A federal agent can certainly expedite some things, I’ll reach out.”
“There’s four underage girls on their way to San Antonio now. Bella doesn’t know their fate.”
“I can’t leave now—I just arrived back in Seattle with Christina and Ashley, and they are having a difficult time.”
“We’ll take care of it on our end, but do you have room for them?”
“I will always have room.”
JT hung up and closed his eyes. “She’s desperate,” he said. “Desperate people do stupid and dangerous things.”
“She’s also smart,” Sean said.
“Let’s go, Sean—if we can find these girls, maybe that’ll give us the information we need to find out what happened to Hope and bring Bella home.”
* * *
Bella held onto the phone. She needed to dump it—but it was now her only lifeline. She may have bought herself some loyalty with Damien. She hadn’t slapped him when he kissed her, after all. She could easily lie, say she picked it up in the bar, picked it up in the other house, that it belonged to Desiree.
She slipped the small flip-phone in her bra, under her breasts. One benefit of having decent-sized boobs was the ability to conceal small objects. She almost laughed at the thought.
She really was on edge.
She walked out of the house, half expecting Damien to have heard her end of the conversation, but he was on the phone talking to who knew, and Hirsch was sitting in the passenger seat of the limo. Their driver was checking something in the engine.
Oh shit, if JT put a tracker on their car and they found it, she was in deep shit.
Damien was angry. He closed his phone, leaned into the window, and said something to Hirsch. She walked over casually, tossed her bag in the backseat, and caught Hirsch’s response.
“Fucking rat. Send someone to deliver a message. I want Milo’s head on a platter. If he didn’t rat us out directly, he flapped his gums.”
Damien glanced at Bella, his expression unreadable, and got back on his phone.
“D said we’re leaving.”
“Shut up.”
She sat in the back of the car. It was the middle of the day, early spring, and the heat level was rising, but it wasn’t unbearable.
The driver closed the hood. “I didn’t see anything, boss.”
“Get in. Damien! We’re leaving!”
Damien climbed into the backseat with Bella. Was he sitting closer than usual? She couldn’t tell. Maybe an inch or so. She stared out the window.
He was still on the phone, listening. “You sure?” She couldn’t hear whoever was on the other end. “Take care of it,” he said after a minute, “and call me when it’s done. No excuses.”
He ended the call and pocketed his phone. “Jerry said Milo has disappeared. No one has seen him in two days. It’s looking like he called the cops.”
“I want him dead.”
“Jerry’s on it.”
“And the girl?”
“They haven’t ID’d her, and there’s nothing to connect to us.”
Bella slipped on her sunglasses and pretended to relax. It was damn hard to appear relaxed when she was so tense a coin could bounce off her nerves.
Hirsch got back on the phone. Bella didn’t understand most of the conversation, but at the end she nearly jumped through the roof. That she didn’t was a testament to her training and instincts.
And she could be wrong.
She had to be wrong.
Hirsch spoke, his voice dripping with anger and sarcasm. “What would you have liked me to do, Tommy? She was made an example like you insisted, it was handled. Milo was your contact, your guy. Don’t fucking tell me he didn’t squeal, he’s nowhere to be found.”
Tommy was such a common name. There was no way it was the Tommy who had tormented her for thirteen months. The Tommy that worked for Sergio. He was dead, wasn’t he?
“Sergio will never hurt anyone again.”
That’s what JT had told her that night eighteen years ago when he saved her life. He didn’t know about Tommy; no one did. Bella had never asked what happened that night because at the time she didn’t want to know. The girls—they’d been freed, but likely most went back to the streets. At the time, Bella didn’t know how to help anyone, she could barely help herself. She’d been a child. But the guilt ate at her. What if those others had had the same chances she had? What if those others had been taken to Ruth’s House to heal? To go to school? Maybe even college? To become someone … someone more, someone better than they thought they could be?
She was in a daze, she realized, because she suddenly became aware that they had stopped. They w
ere in the middle of nowhere, where a small, private airstrip had been maintained. Perfect for drug runners and other criminals.
“Are you waiting for an engraved invitation?” Hirsch scowled.
She got out of the car. Damien handed her her black bag. He intentionally rubbed his hand against hers.
He may be the only reason she was alive right now.
She was going to be sick.
She swallowed the bile that rose to her throat and smiled. “Hey, do you have a bottle of water? I’m really thirsty.”
He half smiled and handed her one from the backseat. She drained the water. He seemed pleased that she’d asked him for something.
She had no idea what she was going to do, but there was no turning back now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Lucy was happy to see Brad when she walked into his office, especially after getting off the phone with Sean and JT. She needed answers. More, she wanted to figure out where Bella was going, especially if she wasn’t heading to San Antonio.
But at this point, finding those young girls had become her number one priority. And that included finding Hope.
“If you find out what happened to Hope—if she’s dead or alive—Bella will leave,” JT had said. “That’s the only thing driving her right now.”
Lucy hoped and prayed she found Hope alive. While she didn’t know Bella, she had begun to put together a profile as she learned more about her past and what she had done over the last eighteen years. Going undercover for so long had to be soul-destroying, but more, she’d personally justified it because of the greater good: saving a young girl from the same fate she had suffered. In some ways, Lucy suspected Bella was saving herself. If Hope was dead, Bella might snap. There were some things you couldn’t come back from.
“You took my advice, I see,” Brad said.
“I didn’t have time to go home and change.”
He waved away her casual attire. “Learn anything?”
“They won’t rent to me because they’re under new ownership. Frank and Oliver Martinez. Brothers. Frank sold the business, Oliver went along with it. He doesn’t know what’s going on, but Frank suspects it’s something illegal. That was my gut. He’s sketchy. Not a criminal per se, he seems to be of the don’t ask, don’t tell variety.”
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