Savage Deception

by R. T. Wolfe

  "Thank you," she said into the microphone. "We're going to take a short break." She glanced to find Gil with his mouth open, staring at her in pissed off wonder. They weren't due for a break for ten more minutes. Ten-minute break? Twenty-minute break? What was the big deal?

  Setting the system to prerecorded, she headed for the bar. "Diet Coke. Lots of ice."

  Duncan came behind her and brushed aside the sweaty strands of hair that stuck to her neck. She hadn't realized she was sweating.

  "Nickie—"

  "Don't. It's one more set. I'll be fine."

  "I was going to ask if you drove."

  "Oh." She shook her head and her forehead tightened. "Don't think I don't see how you're looking at me. I'm fine."

  "You mentioned that."

  "Gil picked me up. You can take me home." She looked just in time to see his chin jutted back and his brows lifted high.

  "Please," she added as a sarcastic afterthought.

  He straightened and looked down at her. She knew she was being a bitch and couldn't find it in her to care. Her four-inch heels put them right about nose to nose. She took her soda and stood in front of him, her chest expanded like a friggin' silverback gorilla. She set down her untouched drink and stormed out the door. Air.

  Barreling through the group of smokers, she let her chest heave and sucked in the cold, welcoming the burn. How did she not think of it? She remembered a random woman who picked her up from her last foster home. She remembered struggling to keep her eyes open in the four-door sedan. And then waking, freezing cold, in the woman's car. They were in the driveway of Gloria's square, ranch home.

  "Hey, babe. Nice pipes." The male voice was close to her, and she realized it was much too close.

  She wanted to kick herself. She never let her guard down to her surroundings and whirled on him. Fist cocked, she stepped forward only to have Duncan step between them.

  His back was to her as he addressed Mr. Babe. "We're together," Duncan said calmly enough that it pissed her off more.

  "Sorry, man." The guy held up his hands, palms out.

  "You don't have to finish the set, Nickie."

  "Did you talk to Gil?" She was mortified. "This is my gig. I'm getting paid. And if you say one damned thing about covering my check..."

  He had the nerve to hold her arms down at her sides. Blood boiled in her veins.

  "Gil came to me at the bar. He cares about you, as do I."

  She strained against his arms, but he didn't let go. "But you're not taking a swing at me or anyone else," he added.

  She forced her body to relax. He waited an annoyingly long stretch of time before he trusted her enough to let go. Then, she stormed back into the bar and picked up her guitar. The owner generally liked them to slow down the last set before closing time, bar closing time that is. But her fingers wouldn't have it tonight. She didn't glance back at Gil and knew he would follow her lead. They played about jungles, the city and not backing down. The crowd shook the floor with their last chance at foreplay before leaving for the night.

  The pain and worry in Gil's face was more than she could handle. She'd been an idiot. It didn't matter that she had been fifteen. She should have known better. No one moves foster homes to a new state. It was one more thing she had shoved into her subconscious, like her memories of the white house. And look at all the good that did her.

  "I'll get the cleanup, Nickie. Go home."

  Gil's words stung. They always did that together. "Fine." She put her guitar in her case, slammed the latches in place and turned to find Duncan. He had his back to her, drinking what she was sure was ice water. She could see his face in the tinted wall of glass behind the bar. His expression wasn't pain or worry. It was angry.

  * * *

  Duncan drove her to his house. Without even asking. "Maybe I don't want to stay here tonight." It was a lie.

  "Too bad." His eyes didn't move.

  She forced her arms not to cross. "I don't have my bag." Arms crossed or not, she sounded like a child.

  He pulled the car in the garage slowly and carefully. She swore he meant it as overt sarcasm. Like always, he walked around to get her door, but she was determined to do it herself.

  He blocked her way to the house. With eyes half closed, he lectured her like she was a child having a tantrum. "Whether you like it or not, you have a drawer filled with the clothes you've left on my floor. And you know what? I'm going to hang them up. With hangers. In my closet. Gloria loves you, her family loves you and you're going to have closet space that belongs to you in my home."

  She let her instincts take over and swung at him, even if she didn't have the nerve to close her fist. He must have been ready for it, because she was damned quick and he caught her wrist as if he was catching a baseball. His eyes were fire. She was going to slap him. She'd never slapped anyone in her life. Punch, yes, but slap? She barreled forward, forcing him to stumble on the few steps that led up to his service entry. With her free hand, she pushed him against the door and covered his mouth with hers.

  Against his wishes, Duncan went instantly rock hard. He didn't know what all was going on in that head of hers, but he was done kidding around it. He'd intended to make her talk, to make her sit down and talk. Somewhere in his head, he remembered that plan, but other parts of his body had taken over.

  She tortured him with the way she squirmed against him, leaving him sandwiched between her female body and a cold door. Her lips were more than angry, more than demanding, they needed. And she took.

  Reaching behind, he turned the knob and let them tumble through to the floor. He broke her fall as clothes were yanked free and buttons skidded across the carpet.

  She had damned strong arms for a woman and used her strength to pin his shoulders to the rug that covered the hardwood floor. Her lips attacked his with a vengeance, her tongue a challenge.

  Taking her torn blouse, he slid it over her shoulders, trapping her arms as he flipped her over and beneath him. The sounds she made were like an animal. Her back arched madly, and he leaned low, taking her into his mouth, nipping one side, then the other and pulling with his teeth. She screamed with what sounded like part frustration, part pleasure.

  Twining the single boot she still wore around his calf, she twisted until he was forced to release her or end up with a broken leg. She straddled his chest with one leg in her jeans and her blouse hanging from an arm. Reaching behind her, she grabbed him, forcing out his own set of frustrated growls. His fingers dug into her hips as she moved, somewhere in his head, he knew he would leave marks. Before she caused him to fly over to a place he wasn't coming back from, he sat up, making her slide off his chest, landing heat to nothing but heat.

  She blinked rapidly, and he took the moment of surprise to dig his fingers into the warmth.

  Chapter 22

  Somewhere in her head, Nickie knew her body shook with desperation of many forms. But for now, there was this. There was him. His fingers assaulted her inside and out. In her drunken lust, she sensed his other hand lacing through her hair and pulling her head back, so he could reach her jaw, her neck, her collarbone. Teeth grazed over her.

  The crest was brutal, shaking her from head to toe. The hand that fisted her hair went from demanding to stabilizing as her body shuddered and released. His arms were the one place she felt safe. She let herself go, body, voice and heart. The exhaustion that followed left her completely limp.

  "Oh, no you don't."

  He guided her to the rug more carefully than she would have liked and began moving his lips and hands in ways she wasn't equipped to stop. She climbed a mountain so fragile she would surely break. The peak threatened her. She was too weak to do a damned thing about it.

  He gave and gave. Enough for both of them. Her arms and legs were weights holding her to the rug. He took her over, her eyes rolled and noticed him watching her with a heart-breaking intensity. The convulsions rocked her, and she thrashed with the weight of him keeping her grounded, keeping he
r protected.

  Her fingers inched their way around the muscles in his sides and held on. Opening to him, he poured himself over her and into her, pausing for a mind-blowing moment when completely joined. She cried out in need as lines of tears dripped down the sides of her face. Digging her nails in his sides, she pulled him to her, moving with him in perfect sync.

  "I love you. I need you," she choked as they moved faster. He was close but in control. She forced her eyes to focus deep into his chocolate brown. Flecks of gold flashed in his irises as Nickie and he moved and pulled, grabbed and arched. They went over together, sweat sliding their bodies against each other. Neither could stop and worked every ounce of the last push.

  Somewhere she heard her heels thump against the wood floor and sensed her arms dropping to her sides. He was heavy and warm, and she didn't want to move from this spot for days. He lifted on an elbow, causing her to open an eye in one last pitiful attempt to seem intimidating—as if she could ever intimidate Duncan Reed.

  With one boot still on her leg and Duncan's shirt still over his shoulders, he slowly and gently brushed the hair from where it stuck on her forehead and cheeks, slyly wiping away her tears.

  "My eyes were watering."

  He kissed her temple where he had dried her face and whispered, "Of course they were," before turning her head to kiss the other side. "You're all I want. You have every piece of me."

  More water escaped, and a flood of guilt poured from each surface. "I'm so sorry—"

  He placed his fingers on her lips. "Shh. I know you are."

  * * *

  Nickie slept next to him without moving, tucked into him as she rarely did. No dreams shook her or caused the whimpers that made him realize how helpless and useless he could be. He'd woken a dozen times throughout the night, checking on her, ensuring she was still there and was still his.

  Deep sleep must have eventually found him, because for the first time he could remember, he woke to find her sitting on the wooden stool in his painting studio, writing on a piece of chart paper he used for practice and samples. The moon still shone through the skylights with a haze of cloud cover making it a soft light.

  With brows tucked closely together, she wrote feverishly and didn't move when he rose. He slipped on a pair of workout pants and headed to the bathroom. As he passed his closet door, he noticed his shirts had been pushed together.

  He leaned in and his heart skipped a beat. The clothes she had worn the night before hung in the space between the wall and his shirts. He brushed his teeth and set the coffeemaker before making his way to her. Careful to walk around the back side of his easel, he lowered himself onto the settee near his stool.

  "Good morning," she said as she drew, crossed out and wrote. She wore one of his shirts and a pair of purple panties he remembered putting in her drawer.

  "Good morning." He leaned over and kissed her once on the lips. She tasted like mint and Diet Coke.

  She turned the easel so he could see. The fact that she was ready to share this made him nearly as happy as the closet space.

  It was the same sheet he had used to list the names of the five men who were involved in her past: Jun Zheng, ex-Police Captain William Tanner, ex-Fire Chief Brian McKinney, James 'Slippery Jimbo' Spalding and Thurmond Moody.

  Beneath, she had written a chronological list of events. "I'm done ignoring, done suppressing. I'm writing what I remember, making notes of what I don't. Some of this I don't remember in my head, but I remember NYPD discussing it."

  Her timeline started with the day she was abducted from her home. Although he could see fine from where he sat, he leaned in to get a closer look. It was in the night. Everyone had been asleep in her home, including the help. She was in a second-story bedroom. Her window had been closed. The man took her at gunpoint.

  Duncan didn't know any of this before now.

  She wrote the name Jun Zheng next to Thurmond Moody. Moody's had a question mark next to it.

  Next were the words "Page 2." He yearned to turn the page, but refrained.

  The accounts she remembered from the night of her escape were next; the food for the dogs she kept in the pocket of her housecoat, the necktie, the man, fumbling in the cold, climbing the fence and running until she stumbled across the domestic disturbance police investigation.

  She wrote about the scene from the picture with Thurmond Moody and Jun Zheng, as he handed her over to her parents and reporters took dozens of pictures outside the police station in Baltimore. She stayed with her parents for a total of eight weeks before the three of them agreed she would be better served as a ward of the state and placed in foster care. Who does that to their child?

  The next line read, 'Page 3.' He assumed it listed the foster homes she remembered, which made him assume page two contained a list of places the men who kidnapped her made her work.

  The pain in her eyes from the night before was still fresh in his memory, and he second-guessed whether he was ready to see either list.

  Next was the woman who came and removed her from her second-to-final foster home. Nickie had written that she assumed she'd been drugged, then woke in the cold car of the woman she thought was from Child Services.

  She listed her eighteenth birthday when she had applied to change her name to Nickie Savage. Her time in the academy, the date of her promotion to Detective and of her lateral transfer to Northridge two years ago.

  Following was reference to the photo of Tanner as a detective at a routine press conference. Zheng stood behind him like he was Secret Service.

  The next was of Tanner accepting commendations for the arrest of the dozen or so perps involved in the prostitution ring he and Nickie assumed was their competition.

  As he read, she added her bust at the Seneca, New York, casino, where a young girl was found dead and handcuffed to a bed in a back room. A second girl had been discovered that night hiding in a janitor's closet and gave up the location of where they were taking the rest of the girls. Las Vegas, Nevada.

  She jotted down that he saw Zheng there. A sharp pang of guilt raced through him as he thought of how long he took before he shared that information with her.

  She wrote that Slippery Jimbo spotted Zheng in Northridge, that Zheng had been asking about her, that he was probably the driver in the crash that took down Tanner and McKinney and that Zheng was involved with Thurmond Moody.

  Finally, she spoke. "For years, I suppressed my memories as a way to move forward."

  He contemplated that statement for a few minutes while she wrote about how Moody was involved to this day and how they now waited for the feds to call, saying they had a bite from the bugs Duncan had placed around the white house. "Some would say suppressed memories are a protection from events too harsh to remember."

  "Those people don't have knowledge that could help rescue young girls from captivity and forced prostitution." She crossed her legs on his stool, making him wonder how she could do that on such a small space. "I'm going to talk to Gloria."

  She must have sensed he was going to protest, because she held up a hand. "I believe in her, in them, but I need to know what they know. They never took another foster child after me. Why? Who contacted them to say I was coming? Do they remember a name? A face?"

  Taking his hands, her gaze lifted to his. "Mostly, I want to find the missing file from my disappearance. I don't want to shove any more of this away. I need to know. I'm ready to know and want you to... do what you do to find it."

  * * *

  Nickie sat in the perfectly shoveled drive of Gloria's home. It was mid-morning, which meant the regular myriad of parked cars in the drive and along the curb was absent. The snow was at least eighteen inches deep with drifts over three feet. She couldn't remember a time when Gloria's drive and walks weren't manicured to perfection. The multitude of loved ones who helped her seemed endless.

  And yet, here Nickie sat, and for some reason, she couldn't convince herself to open her car door. What if? It was a question she d
idn't want to consider. Gloria was the only true family she'd ever had. But it wasn't possible that a licensed foster parent wouldn't know a child from across state lines was placed in her care. Nickie ran her hands over the top of her hair.

  The front door was open, as it generally was. The glass had been pulled up over the screen on the storm door months before when the chill in the fall air hit. The glass was steamed, maybe frosted. She couldn't quite tell from her car. Turning her eyes down, she considered the file she held in her hand.

  Noticing movement, she turned her gaze to the front of the house. Gloria stood with the door opened wide. Nickie clicked the ignition far enough to roll down the passenger window.

  "How long are you going to stay out there?"

  It made Nickie smile. Rolling up the window, she took a deep breath and got out.

  She found Gloria in the kitchen, making coffee and tea, one for each of them.

  She slithered into one of the mismatched chairs she'd learned to love. The table in the middle of the kitchen was small and made their proximity uncomfortably close. She noticed Gloria's eyes land on the file as she lowered to her chair. She didn't inquire, but instead cupped Nickie's cheek with her warm, plump hand, causing Nickie's eyelids to close unintentionally.

  "Tell me about the day I came here." She hadn't even said, 'hello.'

  Gloria didn't flinch, not even a blink as she released Nickie's cheek. A small smile curled at her lips, and she dipped her head to the side. The ancient teapot on her stove sang. Rising from her chair, Gloria pulled down two mugs that were as mismatched as the chairs.

  "I started as a foster parent when my husband died, rest his soul." Her back was toward Nickie. She had no face to read. "I needed the money, but mostly needed to feel needed." She mixed a spoonful of instant coffee in one mug and dunked a tea bag in the other. Carrying them to the table, Nickie watched as she took a deep breath.

  "I always wondered when you would come to me with this. It was silly of me, really. To become a foster parent. I had my own children to care for, then their children. It wasn't long until I was overwhelmed and had Child Services place me on its emergency-only list."