“Sweetie, you’re scaring me a little.” The last thing she wanted was for her mom to worry.
“Just please go with him when he gets there, okay?” Her phone pinged with a text message.
Hawk mouthed the words, “The picture.”
She nodded.
“I promise, I’ll explain more when I see you.” She hated that something she’d done had put her mother at risk. “I’m sending Eddie’s picture to you now.”
She opened Hawk’s text and sent the photo to her mom.
“Okay, I got Mr. Calabretta’s picture. Thank you for that. Can you send me his cell phone number, too? I’ll add it to my contacts list.” She quickly added, “Oh, and please ask him to text me when he is close to my office so I can meet him in the lobby. If this good-looking young man walks in here to pick me up, it’ll just give all of the hens in the office something to gossip about.” Her desk phone started to ring in the background. “I’ve got to go, sweetie. My boss is calling. I’ll be ready when Mr. Calabretta gets here.”
“Okay. Love you, Mom.”
“Love you, too.” Her mom ended the call.
She relayed her mother’s request for Eddie to meet her in the lobby. “Are you sure he can keep her safe?”
All three of them shared a peculiar look.
“Trust me, Charlotte,” Hawk said. “As long as Eddie’s with her, no one will get to your mother.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
ThoughCharlottetrustedthemto keep her mother safe, Hawk could still see the tension in her shoulders and the small crease between her eyes.
Totally understandable—she’d gotten caught up in an extremely dangerous situation and, unlike Hawk, was unprepared for the havoc that kind of stress could wreak on a person’s nerves and emotions.
He’d been a forward scout during his time in the Marine Corps and had been deployed to one of the deadliest forward operating bases in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Having grown up learning to track and read terrain from his father and grandfather, being a scout was second nature to him. Part of his duties had been to take the lead to identify enemy targets, then communicate details about their personnel, firepower, and location coordinates to ground units and to help guide artillery fire.
During multiple risky deployments, he’d learned to compartmentalize, focus, and block out stressors in order to get the job done. Otherwise, he or his buddies could have ended up being sent home to their families in a flag-draped coffin. His work with OSI further entrenched that conditioning.
But he had a feeling Charlotte was a lot tougher than she realized. You don’t do the kind of work she did—talking to victims of trafficking and listening to their stories of abuse and survival—and not come away with powerful internal fortitude.
“Charlotte, I was actually going to call you today.” Dulce walked over, lifted an electronic tablet from her desk, and tapped the screen a few times. “I could really use your help with this difficult case.”
Hawk walked over, sat on the floor next to Remy, stretched his legs out in front of him, and crossed them at the ankles. His gaze continued to travel back to Charlotte.
Damn, his protective instincts with this woman were off the charts.
“I’d be happy to take a look at it.” Charlotte accepted the tablet from Dulce, tucked her hair over one ear, and her greenish hazel eyes traveled over the information on the screen.
Without looking up, she asked, “How long was she held captive?”
“Sixty-three days.” Dulce crossed her arms.
“That’s a very specific number.” She pulled her gaze up from the screen.
“If you go to her photos, there’s one of her arms.” Dulce reached over, tapped the screen, then pinched to zoom in on something.
“Are those—” Charlotte narrowed her eyes, turned to Dulce, and a look of horror marred her pretty features. “Are those … cut marks?”
“They are.” Dulce nodded. “The poor little thing kept count of the days by making tiny little cuts on her arms with a small piece of wire she kept hidden from her captors. By the time we found her, some of her wounds were so badly infected, she had to receive IV antibiotics.”
“That’s horrible.” Charlotte’s focus returned to the tablet. “Where is she now?”
“She’s at one of our safe houses near Kalispell, Montana,” Dulce said.
