Well, hell. Maybe the company would have Kris acting a little less…chilly. He needed some helped with this, needed an extra pair of eyes and an extra pair of hands running things.
But—he sure as hell didn’t have to like it. And he’d wait a day or two more before he decided to let her in.
He was heading out in the morning for Slade. There was a guy living there that just might have a clue about where Nessa had ended up. But it could get ugly. The redneck had been riding shotgun in the van when Nessa had been kidnapped. And according to Jadus Monroe, he had gone on with Nessa for the second leg in her trip. Jadus had been the pick up guy. But he said, after Dylan convinced him to talk a little, that the other guy knew more.
There was a good ole boy tight knot community in Kentucky and they weren’t about to let a kid like Jadus inside. But Jadus had listened, and watched. Mick Langes had taken the girl on down to Slade, Kentucky without realizing Jadus was tailing him. Thank God for greedy bastards like Monroe, Dylan thought. He’d not only followed him to Slade without getting caught, once he had taken note of the vicinity where Langes seemed to stopped, he had taken his stolen truck up to one of the numerous overnight campsites, paid the fee and simply climbed out and hiked through the woods until he was able to keep an eye on Langes.
That’s what happens when Langes picks up an ex-Special Forces for the pick up guy. Jadus Monroe’s rap sheet was a mile long, but it had originally started out in the army, where he had been dishonorably discharged when he was caught taking drugs on leave. Monroe had spent a year as a Ranger in Iraq. Maybe something there had broken him, Dylan thought bleakly. The grim eyed man he had knocked to his knees, the one who had pulled a young girl off the streets all for money wasn’t the kind of man Dylan would have served with.
Of course, if Langes had picked up the average Jones, Dylan wouldn’t have known shit about the cabin in the hills where the other girls were taken, because the average guy wouldn’t have been able to find it. And he wouldn’t know about the man who had appeared to buy Nessa, one who was unknown to the public eye.
“Quit stalling” Dylan told himself, shaking his head. Grabbing the handle, he shoved the door open and climbed out, glaring sourly at the Blazer and wishing it on the bottom of Rough River.
“Don’t look so happy there, bro,” Shawn said from to the left.
Dylan continued to stare at the Blazer without batting an eyelash. “I’m rethinking. You’d be more comfortable in a hotel. My treat.”
Shawn laughed, the sound soundly odd, tight. Almost forced. But when Dylan looked at him, his brother just shrugged. “You’re welcoming committee has already invited me to stay,” he said. “She’s cooking supper. Steaks on the grill. Potatoes. Salad. I think I wanna marry her.”
Dylan snarled at him. Shawn’s mouth quirked up in a half hearted smile that had Dylan’s eyes narrowing. “She’s too good for you. Besides, you have to finish growing up, kid,” Dylan said in an offhand manner, waiting to see the fire burn in Shawn’s eye. His brother couldn’t ever resist the chance to fight.
But Shawn only shrugged. “Way she’s been snarling when she hears your name, I’m thinking she’s probably too good for your sorry ass, too,” the youngest Kline said, lifting one broad shoulder as he stared sightlessly into the woods just beyond Dylan’s house. His eyes, usually so easy were carefree, looked troubled. “I’d suggest you start working on that, Dylan.”
Then he turned, ambling up the walk, his booted feet falling silently on the brick way as Dylan stared after him.
Shawn had just walked away from an argument with his brother. That kid hadn’t ever taken a slap to his youth well. Of course, there was little left of kid in Shawn. Didn’t matter that he was twenty-three and had been through hell off and on through his younger years. They’d all been forced to mature quicker than they should have.
Dylan and Nikki would always see something of a kid in Shawn.
But he had just walked away, instead of trying to start a fight.
Something was definitely not right.
Chapter Nine
Kris flexed her hands nervously, letting them hover above the keyboard as Shawn and Dylan hollered at a baseball game on the TV downstairs. Thank God, she thought fervently as they had finally settled down to something. Besides hanging at her elbows, that is. After Shawn had gotten back from his walk, he had been watching her with dark, intense eyes that were far too unsettling.
And Dylan, well, he just watched. And everything about him had always unsettled. And aroused....
Aggravated? She suggested to herself pithily.
Smothering a laugh, she thought, yeah. That too.
Loitering in a chat room full of teenagers could be so annoying, and so…enlightening, it was almost disturbing. Most of them were just frustrated kids. But others, others concerned her, bothered her. Every time Silverwolf came on, her instincts screamed at her.
Not to run and hide, but to run and find.
He was the link to Nessa.
And to laying Slvrnghtgale to rest. Something there.
Something…
A familiar little beep sounded. You’re awfully quite tonight, the message in the IM box read. She’d been to enough chats she knew her way around the terrible spelling there was online. And teenagers were even worse.
Smiling, she typed out, Stuff on my mind. Sorry.
Need 2 talk?
Kris replied in the negative and waited, holding her breath.
Her patience, or his greed, was already to pay off. Mom has 2 take me into Lex tomorow. We don’t go their much. But I can prolly ditch her for a coupla hours if ya wanna go to the Greene Mall. We can talk, U can blow steam.
Kris’s mouth curved into a hot, pleased smile. Maybe. When do you want to meet, Silverwolf?
****
Shawn waited until Kris was pulling out before he called Renee. The cop couldn’t have been any more than five minutes from the house, he figured, because by the time he had pulled on a shirt and washed his face, she was banging on the front door, her pretty brown eyes hot and glowing with excitement, a lust he hadn’t ever seen.
A need. Like what he saw in Dylan’s eyes, he mused as he stood aside. “Damn, girl. You never looked that excited to see me,” he teased gently as he led her down to Kris’s office. “She might have moved stuff. I doubt she’s worried about me snooping. But Dylan—different story.”
“Anything. Find me something. Anything,” Renee said. “That bastard Moorehead chased me off the force because I wouldn’t let some cases go. Called me a hysterical female, theatrical, over imaginative…none of that would matter, except it turned the cases over to some jack ass who couldn’t find his dick with a roadmap.”
The hungry light in her blue eyes, the tensed and ready set of her body made Shawn pause. “If this is nothing…”
Renee smiled, some of the tension easing out of her body as she lifted a hand to caress his cheek. “I got to see you, babe. Regardless, it won’t be…nothing.” Her blonde curls danced merrily around her face as she tossed her head and smiled saucily at him. “I’d travel a day for that chance any time.”
Shawn covered her hand with his and pressed it gently before kissing it and moving away. “Come on. Kris left in an all-fire hurry this morning. Something’s not right. I can feel it.”
It wasn’t nothing.
Renee read the papers aloud to him after he simply barred her way when she tried to leave, her eyes dark and angry. “That’s my brother’s woman,” he said quietly. “My sister’s best friend—her other half. If you think you can waltz out of here and leave me behind, well, you had better remember exactly who it is you are dealing with.”
Renee sized him up. She was pretty sure she could take him—hell, no she couldn’t. The gun at her back wasn’t even an option. Grimly, she said, “Your brother’s woman is either a damned lunatic or a genius. How in the hell did she piece this together?”
Succinctly, she condensed it down as far she could, pacing the r
oom as she read, knowing that watching him would only make him uncomfortable. Hell, so he had a problem with letters.
Renee couldn’t understand algebra. Her tongue tripped as she came to the neatly printed entry about the girl who had IM’ed her out of the blue. The cop in her was tensed and ready, on full alert, even as part of her snickered… phony!
The talks about the other girls. Several of them.
And there was a name that was far too familiar. Slvrnghtgale... A name Renee knew hadn’t been online in months. Andrea Silver, the sweet faced teen with the voice of an angel who had gone missing from Fayette County a year ago. This was the case that had pushed her into overdrive, into overtime, into near insanity.
Up and missing without a trace.
Loved to dance, loved to sing, most likely had a career in it. Overly protective parents that never let her out of their sight, and the girl was itching to try her wings. She had, up and slipping out of the house one night a year ago, last seen talking to two men, apparently, with very minimal descriptions available and then she continued on to her destination.
She was never seen again.
Renee was working the task force that had been formed to locate the local celebrity with her bell-like voice and her innocent charm. She had fallen in love with the innocence that smile held and her heart had broken a little more every day as nothing had been unearthed.
“These are the people who took one of my kids,” Renee said quietly, her fingers clutching the papers spasmodically, a muscle twitching right beside her eye. “I don’t understand it. How does she know this? We couldn’t find a damn thing. Nothing.”
Clearing her throat, she settled her hips against the desk and stared at the papers, not at Shawn, not out the window, but at the papers. “There is another girl, closer. Nessa. Geez, this woman details everything. They took her, but she wasn’t the fighter they wanted her to be. She’s being returned…”
“Returned to where…” Shawn asked softly, a full throttle rage just boiling behind his teeth.
“The slave house where they took her. She didn’t meet satisfaction,” Renee said “And he wants a replacement.”
The rage shining in Shawn’s eyes damned near eclipsed her own. Fortunately, she decided that having him ride with her was a good thing. Because driving around him would be easier than moving him. “Slave house?” he repeated carefully.
“White slavery. They take women, kids or young women off the streets and sell them into sexual slavery. It’s not white slavery—it’s sexual slavery, and the problem is growing like you wouldn’t believe. I was tracking her down, I was working her case. And this good ole boy club was going insane because I was talking to everybody I could find. Somebody who knew her wanted her. I know it.”
“And Kris is right in the middle of it,” Shawn said softly, moving over and gently tugging the papers from her hands, staring at them as if they were written in Greek before taking them away and laying them face down.
“I’ll go and catch up with her. We can follow her, keep up—”
Shawn laughed. “No. Darlin’, that is my brother’s woman. You will not be doing a damn thing without him knowing. If you want to go and find him while I go and tag Kris, feel free. But, babe, you are not leaving and taking off for one of mine without us,” Shawn said, his voice lowering, a soft, humorless smiling creasing his face as he lowered his face, his mouth just a breath away from hers, the warning in his eyes having her heart skittering in her chest even as she cursed herself.
“Shawn, babe,” she said, mockingly, as she tried to remind herself not to be intimidated by the man standing in front of her. “I’m a cop. All I would have to do is make a few phone calls—”
He laughed. “Don’t kid either one of us. They didn’t believe you last time and you don’t want to chance it this time or risk the bastards sliding any further away.” Silky blond curls tumbled into his green eyes, keen and sharp, no longer soft and dreamy and he smiled a cold, knife edged smile. “Now are we going to go and get my brother? I don’t think he wants to let his woman get any closer to these guys than she already is.”
That dark dangerous look on his face had Renee swallow and rub her hands down her jean covered thighs. “Is she his woman or yours?” she asked, frowning.
Shawn laughed, shaking his head as he stepped back, skimming the back of his hand down her cheek. “Oh, Kris is all his. Pretty as she is, well…she’s definitely not what I am looking for.”
“Hmmm, I remember. You’ll know that when you see it, won’t you, lover?” Renee asked, feeling an old burn of jealousy rip through her. Then she swallowed and pulled back. “C’mon, let’s go get him.”
****
Kris sat on the high stool, sipping her cappuccino, waiting.
She was out of her mind.
So totally out of her mind. Waiting here for a man who would likely try to kidnap her. Well, the ‘her’ he thought she was. But she couldn’t exactly change her mind either. If she up and left, she was scared to death the bastard might show up and try to…
Kris sat up slowly, feeling a cold chill slide up her spine. All around her was the low buzz of a normal Wednesday in a busy mall, chattering parents, sedate music, nothing new that she could see. Nothing out of the ordinary. Not even a man. Very few teenagers, even. A few preteens, lots of toddlers, preschoolers, and parents…
A dark haired, brooding girl entered her line of sight as Kris continued to stare and wait, breathing shallowly. He was coming closer. Kris’s eyes flew to the girl. A red alert started flashing in her head. Leave. Damn it. Leave.
The girl glanced up, a frown on her pale, pretty face. And she was pretty, even though her dyed black hair made her look far too pale. Her spiky black brows gave her an almost elfin appearance and her mouth was rosy red even without lipstick. Her eyes danced over Kris without connecting and locked on somebody behind Kris. She looked almost hypnotized and Kris felt a fear slide through her belly as somebody entered her peripheral vision, moving past her and glancing at her, sizing her up and dismissing her.
It was him.
And he wasn’t alone.
Even as he studied all the people in the food court, she could feel a good four more enter the area with him, studying everybody in there with them. Anger, frustration, disgust, greed… and speculation. Shit. Lifting her eyes, she stood slowly, moving up to the girl who was still staring at the man who was sliding in and out of the mall customers, an idle, friendly smile on his face.
But his eyes kept going back to the girl who was watching him avidly, almost hungrily.
“He’s too old for you,” Kris said, keeping her voice light and friendly as she kicked her leg over the bench the girl was sitting on, straddling it and studying the girl’s face. “And he’s up to no good.”
The girl gave her a snide look and asked, “He your boyfriend? Nah. Can’t be. Doesn’t look like he knows who you are.” Sliding her fingers through her hair, she slid him a flirtatious glance as he circled back around and headed back her way.
Kris cocked a brow at her. “No, kid. He isn’t my boyfriend. He’s trouble.” Taking a deep breath, she decided what the hell. “He’s what they would have called a slaver a couple of hundred years ago. He is here looking for a girl to kidnap so he can sell her to the highest bidder, somebody who will turn that girl into a body slave. Preferably a kid, a young one who is young enough to be clean, healthy, hopefully a virgin, and sassy and feisty enough to fight, and keep fighting.”
The girl’s eyes widened, her bangs disappearing under that spiky fringe of hair. She looked as though she didn’t know whether she wanted to laugh or just get up and go call for the men in the white coats. Kris smiled and offered her own cell phone. “Go ahead and call the loony hospital. But stay here. Don’t go with him. Don’t leave here for a long, long time and have somebody you know come and pick you up,” Kris said.
The girl’s eyes dropped to the phone.
Kris could feel eyes on her. Angry eyes, knowing eye
s.
Busted.
The girl frowned at her and asked, “Why? Are you nuts?”
“Could be…” Lifting her chin, she met the eyes of the man standing across the corridor. He was staring at her. No longer at the girl, but at Kris. Kris let a cool, cocky smile cross her face even as the fear that had been snaking through her came to full bloom inside her belly. Lifting her chin, she said in a level voice that carried, “I think you’re looking for me.”
And then she looked back at the girl. “I’m not crazy. And I’m not wrong. But even if I am, what have you got to lose by humoring me?”
The girl glanced over her shoulder as Kris spoke, catching a glance of the man’s eyes.
Something she saw there froze her. “Holy fuck, did you have to do that?” she hissed, her head whipping around as she stared at Kris.
The sound of solid male boot heels on the ground echoed far too loudly in the crowded mall. Kris swallowed her fear and said quietly, “Go to the music store and hang out there. Take the cell phone, kid and call whoever you know for a ride. Wait there—”
“Look, lady, if he’s that much bad news…”
“So do I get two in exchange for one, I wonder?” a soft voice said, filled with humor. It was a warm, sexy voice, filled with humor, heat.
Lifting her eyes, Kris shoved the phone into the girl’s hand and pushed her away. “I said, go.”
“No. The girl stays. You played a bad game with me, Dreaming. I will take her, as well as you.”
Kris smiled. “No. You see, I will start screaming. The worst you can do is shoot me with the gun I know you have.” Her eyes flashed. “I know what you have planned, and to me, death sounds much more pleasant. And you don’t want that attention. So she is going to walk away, and I will watch her walk into the music store.”
His eyes narrowed. “Guns… what is this talk of guns? I am a lover of flesh, which you somehow know. Why would I bruise such lovely flesh with a gun?” he said silkily, reaching out and trailing his hand down her cheek.
ALWAYS YOURS Page 18