“You should have been up there with me, Owens. Nothing gets the donors champing at the bit more than a nail-biting rescue story.”
A rescue?
“Jim…” Terry gave Jim a quick shake of his head. “You know that’s never going to happen. This is Dana Michaels from…” Terry stopped, his voice fading as he stared down at her. “I don’t know where you live now…”
Was that sadness she heard in his tone? Regret?
“Trenton. New Jersey,” she said quietly.
“We met in Afghanistan,” he continued, returning to his just the facts manner. Shifting his right leg with a hint of a wince, he cleared his throat. “She suspects her nephew was kidnapped and trafficked.”
“I don’t suspect,” she said sharply. “I know for a fact he is—or at least was—in Las Vegas, being held against his will and forced to…” She didn’t want to finish her sentence, but she had to. “He’s being sold to tourists for sex.”
Terry rested his big, strong hand against the small of her back, and the warmth from his touch grounded her. “Show him the pictures.” He nodded down at her, and she pulled the bundle from her bag. “They’re grainy, Sir, but Dana’s right. I know the kid’s look. He’s scared and he’s definitely underage.”
Dana handed over the stack of evidence she’d collected over the past three years, her hands almost steady as she launched into her speech. She knew it. Practiced it. Memorized it. Perfected it. Added to it when necessary. “Micah was on a school trip to Philly, and the chaperone left the group alone at dinner at a popular restaurant. From what the other kids told me, Micah and Roni, his best friend, were playing ski ball while they waited for their teacher. One of the girls who hadn’t left the table saw two men hanging around the arcade attached to the restaurant before they disappeared. The police refused to investigate. These photos are from several private investigators my sister and I hired over the past three years. The last one managed to ‘buy’ one of the boys for an hour. His picture is the one that’s in full color. Will was taken from Phoenix six months after Micah.”
Terry’s brows lifted in question. “A PI got close enough to talk to one of the boys? That’s rare.”
“He was expensive. And good at his job,” she retorted. “Unlike most of the others. One was a piece of shit and destroyed my sister’s last shred of hope. Two others never got close enough to the kids to talk to them but were able to get some of those pictures for us. Only the last one learned anything real. But Will was so terrified of the guy in charge—he called him Big Daddy—that he clammed up and refused to say much. He and the other boys—anywhere from four to ten of them—moved around a lot when they weren’t ‘working.’ Shitty motel rooms or old apartments, sometimes a house. The girls were somewhere else. They only saw one another when Big Daddy threw one of his ‘parties’ where all the kids would be auctioned off for the evening.”
Throughout her entire speech, Terry never moved his hand from her back, but she sensed the tension in his body growing by the second and shifted closer to him. He smelled good. Like sandalwood and leather.
“I’m sorry to say this is all very common,” Jim said, handing the bundle of pictures back to her. “We know of at least six separate cartels operating in Las Vegas. Most have multiple income streams. Drugs, guns, trafficked kids and adults. We can’t go after all of them. We had some success in Miami, but we’re a new organization, Ms. Michaels. Only been in operation for a year or so. If you can forward copies of all this information to our office, along with any other information you’ve been able to obtain, we’ll start a file. But…”
Dana shoved the photos into her bag, his tone all too familiar. Dismissal. “I’m s-sorry. This was a mistake…” Spinning on her heel, she ran for the door, and when Terry called her name, she just ran faster.
Terry
Oh, hell no. The woman he’d dreamed about for three years was not going to run out on him. He turned to follow her without a word to Jim, but a dozen of Rescue International’s biggest donors had gathered around them—all wanting a word with the Executive Director.
“Excuse me,” he said more than once as he tried to escape the throng and shouldered past the VIPs. A flash of blue caught his eye at the doors to the ballroom, and he growled low in his throat. The sound must have carried, because the crowd parted for him.
Bursting through the door, he found only an empty hallway leading from the ballroom to the hotel lobby. A hint of Dana’s perfume lingered, and he broke into a loping run.
“Dana, wait!” A glimpse of dark hair and blue satin at the far end of the lobby. She turned, tears gathering in her eyes, and Terry’s heart ached.
“What do you want?” Swiping at her cheeks, she sniffled, then dug into her bag for a tissue. “Your boss made it very clear he wasn’t going to help me.”
“I lost you once. I’m not doin’ it again. And Jim isn’t your only option.”
Her eyes widened, and she took a step back. “You? What are you going to do? Fly to Vegas yourself and hunt down Micah?”
“If I have to.” Terry straightened his shoulders and took a deep breath. “I was on that raid in Miami. The guys with me? They take on jobs no one else will touch. Like findin’ Micah. I can help.” After a beat, he added, “Fuck it. I’m goin’ to help.”
“You don’t even know me,” she said quietly.
“I want to.” Terry held out his hand, and Dana stared at it for several seconds before shaking her head.
“My sister…Laura can’t work. I take shifts at Trenton Memorial when I can to pay the bills, but we’ve lost everything. This trip…the ticket to get into the party…that was it.” With each word, Dana seemed to shrink before his eyes.
“Can we go somewhere and talk?” he asked. “Anywhere. The bar, a coffee shop, hell…I have a room at the hotel for the night.”
Had he really just asked her up to his room? Dumbass. She wasn’t ready for that.
“That came out wrong. I’m sorry,” he said. “I figured it would be private. Easier to talk—”
“I liked you.” Dana’s cheeks flamed a deep crimson, and she stared into his eyes with a mix of fear, regret, and…was that desire? “When we met? There was something about you. I know we didn’t have much time together, but if Micah hadn’t disappeared, if I hadn’t taken the first plane back to D.C., maybe…”
