by Nicole Helm
“I still don’t know you. I don’t know who you’re connected to. I don’t know what happens when you’re cleared to go home. If you want to take that personally, that’s your prerogative, but that’s certainly not how it’s meant. I don’t know you, and until I do, until I know what you’re after and what your connection is, there is nothing I can do to trust you. Not and do my job.”
She shifted on the couch and looked away from him, because as true as it was, it was somehow still irritating. She totally understood what he was saying. It made nothing but sense, and that she was oddly hurt he couldn’t trust her was ridiculous.
“I may have found a connection...” She swallowed. If she told him, he might trust her. For some strange reason, she really did want him to, but if she told him, was she putting herself at risk of never being able to touch one of these cases again? If he knew she was connected to this one little case, would he keep everything from her because her sister was involved? Or would he maybe have some compassion because he had a sister of his own?
Would it be worth suffering through having no answers to get a little bit of the possibility of a new answer? She didn’t know, and she found the more she sat there and he stood there—an unmoving mountain of a man—the less she knew.
She stared into those gray-blue eyes, searching for some hint that there might be warmth or that compassion might be a word in his dictionary. There was absolutely nothing in his face to give her the inclination, and yet she so desperately wanted it to be so.
Later she would blame it on exhaustion, not just of the day, or the week, but over the past eight years. But for right now, she opened her mouth, and the truth tumbled out.
Chapter Eight
“A connection?” Everything inside Vaughn tensed as he glared at her. She might’ve found a connection? A connection to what? How could she have possibly found something in cases he’d pored over for years and found next to nothing except gut feelings and hunches?
“There was a case in your files...” She cleared her throat, and she most assuredly did not look at him, but she also showed no remorse for going through his files. It was hard to blame her. He would have done the same thing in her situation. That’s why he’d bothered to set her up; he knew she’d do it.
What he hadn’t known was that she might actually offer some information. He thought he would have to drag that out of her.
She fidgeted on the couch and chewed on her all too distracting bottom lip. He could jump all over her and demand answers, which would stop the mouth distraction, but it wouldn’t be the most effective route to take.
The most effective route to take with Natalie was, unfortunately, patience. To listen to what she said, to understand it. She was a hypnotist, but her fervor over the importance of hypnotism and what it offered pointed to the fact that she was conflicted herself—a moral dilemma, just as she’d said about Herman.
So, he stood, his hands clenched into fists, his muscles held tight. And he waited.
“There was a file on human trafficking. It mentioned that there was some sort of possibility of a drop-off point being at the Corlico Plant?” She looked up at him questioningly.
He hesitated for a second, but she’d already read the file, one he’d left available to her. Might as well give her the information. “Yes, we intercepted a group of people there. Based on all the information we could collect, it wasn’t the first time that the trafficking went through there. But they immediately stopped since we intercepted, and we had no one to arrest, nothing to go on. We’ve never been able to find anything after it.”
“Three years ago, right? That’s when you intercepted?”
“Yes.” Three years and eight months. He didn’t even have to look it up. When it came to cases he thought had to do with The Stallion, he had most of the prominent details memorized.
She took a deep breath, clasped her hands together and then straightened her shoulders. She fixed him with a certain gaze, and he knew this was going to be whatever she’d been hiding.
“Eight years ago, my sister disappeared from the Corlico Plant parking lot.”
She didn’t have to go further. Suddenly everything came together. Why she asked Herman about the girls, why she would ruin years’ worth of work with the Rangers to ask the questions that she wanted to ask instead of letting him and Stevens handle it.
She was searching for her sister.
“Unbelievable,” he muttered.
She didn’t even have the decency to appear shamed. She shrugged. “Do you how many years I’ve been waiting to have a case that might connect to Gabby? Do you know how many hours I’ve spent trying to figure out what happened to her? They never found a body, in all this time. No one ever found a clue that might bring her back to us. I know she’s alive. I don’t care if anybody believes it or not, I know she is.”
Her eyes had filled with tears, but they didn’t spill onto her cheeks. She looked straight at him, strong and determined, and so certain her sister was still alive. He could say a lot of things about Natalie, but she was a strong woman. Obviously stronger than he’d even seen so far.
“Something with that factory is connected. It’s too big of a coincidence. She disappeared there. Then Herman said he keeps the girls. The human trafficking thing stops there, and that’s where she disappeared—before it stopped, I might add. It was late, and she was waiting for my father to get off from his evening shift, and maybe she saw something she wasn’t supposed to see, or they saw her and thought she was part of it or...”
“Natalie, that’s a lot of maybes. We have to work in fact.” He tried to say it gently, but it had been a long time since he’d had to employ gentleness with someone.
“The fact is that this factory has something to do with this case. It has something to do with The Stallion. Who owns it?”
It hit him almost like a lightning bolt, painful and sharp, and he realized...
He turned to his computer and immediately pulled up the file they had on Victor Callihan. He owned the factory, and Vaughn had done extensive research into his background after the trafficking raid. He’d found nothing that might link the man to any crimes, but maybe it stood to reason to dig again, and deeper.
Callihan was a rich man. A powerful man. He’d have the means to do these things. Including keep his nose clean, even when it wasn’t.
It couldn’t really be that easy, could it?
Natalie was immediately behind him, looking over his shoulder at the screen. The soft swell of her breasts, accidentally he assumed, brushed his back, and he had to grit his teeth to focus on the task at hand.
“Does the name Victor Callihan mean anything to you?”
“No,” she returned. “He’s the owner?”
“Of the plant and the corporation that runs the plant. He’s a bigwig in Austin. After the raid, we investigated him, but we didn’t find anything remotely criminal. But if the plant is the common denominator, we should look into it more.”
“But you don’t have Wi-Fi.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t have wired internet.” He glanced over his shoulder at her, but only came eye-level to her breasts. He quickly looked back at the computer because the last thing he was going to keep doing was noticing anything remotely sexual about her. He was too professional for that.
“First, I need to send an email to Stevens, so he can look into things from his side. He’ll have access to all the Ranger files and faster internet.” Vaughn tried to slide out of the chair, but again his shoulder blade kind of drifted across her breasts. Seriously. What the hell was this?
He cleared his throat and walked over to the entertainment center that held the cord he needed to hook the computer up to the internet jack. He didn’t look at Natalie, and he felt like a wimpy idiot, but sometimes that was the best alternative. He certainly didn’t want her to s
ee the effect she had on him. That could lead nowhere good.
“Okay, so, what could Stevens find that might tip us off? What would we be looking for?”
“First, you are not looking for anything. You are an innocent bystander.”
She huffed out an irritated breath. Which was better than the worried lip chewing. “I’m the one who brought this connection to your attention.”
“You could have brought it to my attention a lot earlier. If you had mentioned your connection to The Stallion or this case, I—”
“I didn’t know I had anything to do with The Stallion or this case. I still don’t. I mean, I think it’s too big of a coincidence, but that doesn’t mean he has my sister. It doesn’t mean...” She trailed off and looked away, and he knew that she was struggling to control her emotions.
He didn’t like how easy it was to put himself in her place. Often, due to his father and sister’s fame, his sister had received threatening letters or emails. Paparazzi had gotten too close, and occasionally a fan had gotten too interested. He knew what it was like to have concern for your sister’s well-being.
Natalie’s situation was so much worse, because for eight years now she had been in the dark. She was surviving based on faith alone. As much as Vaughn wanted to discount faith, considering you couldn’t get much done with it, he couldn’t ignore how admirable it was.
It was admirable that she had put herself into a position where she might find some information about her sister’s case. It was admirable after all these years she believed, and she hoped. All in all, Natalie was proving to be something of an admirable woman. That was the last thing he needed right now.
“The trafficking incident was three years ago. Something could have come up in the past three years that we haven’t thought to put together.” She might operate on faith, but he had to operate on fact. “Knowing this little bit means that when we go back through all of that information with a fine-tooth comb. We know a little bit more about what we’re looking for. And we can add the details of your sister’s case with the other possible Stallion related cases. When you have a man like this, where he has his fingers in so many different things, who runs an organized crime ring, a little connection could be the connection that leads us to him.”
Vaughn connected the computer to the wired internet line. She had moved away from the table, so he could sit safely at it without worrying about her body being anywhere near his.
He logged in and typed a quick email to Stevens with all the pertinent information. His instinct was to go ahead and start searching, even though Stevens would have better luck in that department. His partner would have access to all the police files at work, and faster, less frustrating internet. But when Vaughn glanced at Natalie, she was pacing the living room, wringing her hands.
He could read all sorts of emotions in her expression. It wasn’t just sadness, it wasn’t just fear. There was a myriad of things in there. Anger and uncertainty, hope and helplessness alike. The thing he recognized the most was that antsy kind of energy you got when you desperately wanted to fix a situation, and couldn’t.
He could sit here and fool around trying to find the information he wanted, but that probably wasn’t the best use of his time right now. Not if he wanted to put Natalie at ease.
Since when is putting Natalie at ease your concern?
He ignored the commentary of his brain and pushed back the chair. “I can do more searching later, but for right now we need to use what little light we have left.”
She looked over at him, her eyebrows drawing together. “What do we need light for?”
“I’m going to teach you to shoot.”
* * *
NATALIE BLINKED AT VAUGHN. She didn’t know what to say to that. It certainly wasn’t what she had expected. But she hadn’t known what to expect when it came to Vaughn.
She thought he’d be angrier about her not mentioning her sister’s case. She thought he’d shut her down and out while he went to work trying to find information out about this Victor Callihan. She kind of wanted him to do that, but Vaughn didn’t do anything half-assed or foolishly, so she knew there was a rhyme or a reason to him teaching her to shoot.
She couldn’t decide if she wanted to know said rhyme or reason. She wasn’t sure she wanted to learn to shoot. She wasn’t sure what she wanted, except an hour to have a good cry.
“We don’t have too much time, so I can only show you the basics, but it wouldn’t hurt for you to have an idea.”
“Oh. Oh. Okay.” What else was there to say?
“I’ll get my extra ammunition, and then we’ll go outside and get started.”
“And you think we’ll be safe out there?” They were inside with the windows closed, and so far he’d only let her go outside as a shadow to him. But he frowned at her, as though the question were silly.
For the first time, she wondered how old he was, considering the little lines bracketing his mouth. Actually she was starting to wonder a lot of things about him. Things that she should absolutely not wonder about the man investigating a case that might have to do with her sister. Things she definitely shouldn’t be wondering about the man who was keeping her safe.
“I don’t suggest things that aren’t safe, Ms. Torres. Remember that.”
He turned and disappeared down the hallway, presumably to get that extra ammunition he spoke of. She noticed he tended to stick with “Ms. Torres” when he was irritated with her. But when he was a little soft, or a little nice, which apparently he could be—shock of all shocks—he would call her Natalie.
She definitely way, way too much liked the way her first name sounded in his rough-and-tumble, no-nonsense drawl.
She really had to get herself together before she learned how to shoot a gun.
There had been a time in her life, directly after Gabby’s disappearance, when she had jumped at every little thing and considered getting a gun. Even knowing her sister’s disappearance was probably random, she hadn’t felt safe. But in the end, the idea of carrying around a gun hadn’t made her feel any safer. In fact, the idea of carrying anything that deadly when she was that jumpy only made her more nervous. So she’d never learned how to shoot and she’d never owned a gun.
But something about Vaughn was...reassuring almost. She trusted him to teach her. And teach her well. Obviously he knew what he was doing with a gun, as frequently as he reached for his.
That didn’t even scare her. They were in a dangerous situation, and it had only ever felt comforting that he reached for his weapon when startled. Truth be told, nothing about Vaughn scared her. Except that nothing about him scared her. Yes, that part was a little too scary. How easily it was to trust him and listen to him and follow his orders.
She blew out a breath as he returned. He carried a box and a little black bag, and strode toward the door with his usual laser focus.
“All right. Follow me.”
“Do you always express things as an order? You could ask. You could say please.”
“I’m doing you a favor. I don’t need to say please, and I certainly don’t need to ask permission. You can follow me and learn how to shoot a gun. Or you can stay here. I really don’t care which one.”
She doubted that he didn’t care, but she managed not to say that. Instead, she followed him outside and around the back of the house. She couldn’t imagine there being much more than twenty or thirty minutes left of light, but Vaughn seemed determined to see this through.
“We’re not going to worry about hitting some little target. We’re just going to work with the basics of aiming and shooting.”
He set the bag down and opened it, pulling out big glasses she assumed were safety related. He handed her the glasses and two little orange foam things. When she looked at them skeptically, he sighed.
“They’re earplugs. You
pinch the end, and you put it in your ear. It’ll keep the gun noise from bothering you.”
“Right.”
“Now, I’m going to explain everything before we put in the earplugs, and then I’ll position you the way you need to be standing and holding the gun. Understood?”
“Aye, aye, Captain,” she said sarcastically, because if she was sarcastic she wouldn’t overthink the phrase “position you.”
He rolled his eyes, clearly not amused by her. But that was okay, because she was amused enough for both of them.
Vaughn pulled his weapon from the holster at his hip. He began to explain the different components to her, the sights, the trigger. What kind of kick to expect and how to aim. She couldn’t begin to understand all the jargon or keep up with the different things. He went too fast.
“Are you following along?”
She hated to admit it to him, and herself, but his speed wasn’t the issue. Oral instruction had never been easy for her. She had to do things before she fully understood them.
“It’s okay if you don’t understand something. You can ask as many questions as you need to.”
She hated the gentle way he said that. Hated when he was nice, because it made her feel silly or like a victim, and she didn’t want to be either. She wanted to be as strong and brave as him.
“I find it easier to understand something if I’m actually in the process of doing it,” she gritted, far more snappish than she needed to be.
He didn’t react. He simply gestured in front of him. “All right. Stand in front of me.”
She did as she was told, and stiffened perceptibly as his arms came around her sides. She had to swallow against the incomparable wave of... It wasn’t just attraction, though that was the most potent thing. He was tall, a hard wall of muscle. He smelled...surprisingly good. He was warm, and she wanted to lean against him. She wanted his arms to hold her.
It’s just that you’re afraid and in danger. That’s all. It doesn’t have to mean anything.