His large, warm hand enveloped hers, simultaneously filling her with a sense of calm and the desire to tug him closer. “I know you don’t want to talk, but I’m here for you if you change your mind. Or just needa shoulder.”
“Please, don’t,” she whispered, freeing her fingers from the comfort of his grasp.
“Okay.” He straightened and put several inches between them. Not enough to reset her faulty inner compass that seemed calibrated to point to him. Nor enough to give her relief from his tantalizing scent. His expression was akin to someone who’d been sucker punched. “I didn’t realize it bothered you,”he said without a trace of irony, despite the fact that she’d practically wrapped herself around him less than an hour ago.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just can’t…”Trust myself. Control myself. Let myself get attached.
The combination of anger, hurt, and confusion on his handsome face made her chest ache.
“It’s fine,” he said, shifting away. “You don’t owe me anything. And no one should evertouch you against your wishes.”
Her wish was for him to continue what they’d started this morning. But what she needed was entirely different, so she merely watched him walk away.
The wait for stores on St. Isidore to open had been interminable. If Caitlyn had been willing, Kurt surely could have found an enjoyable way for them to pass the time. But after the morning’s revelations, she’dretreated into pensive silence, playing solitaire with a deck of cards she found somewhere, and he couldn’t blame her.
Instead, he’d wandered the house, periodically peeking through shutters for signs of surveillance, pulling books off the shelves, and watching the TV for news updates.
Finally, just before ten a.m., he checked the street for potential witnesses and, finding none, borrowed Marlowe’sLand Rover and backed down the driveway. He wore the cricket cap and sunglasses with another pair of jammers and a T-shirt he’d purchased at the cruise terminal.
The computer store he’d found in the phone book was closed on Sundays, but he lucked out at a small variety shop next to a row of popular tourist restaurants. He grabbed two pay-as-you-go phones and a Wi-Fi enabled tablet marketed forkids.
An hour later he returned with the gadgets, a cheap pair of reading glasses—not strictly necessary unless he wanted to avoid a raging headache—enough food to hold them over for a few days, and changes of clothes for each of them, opting for dark colors in case they needed to sneak through the jungle again.
Within thirty minutes, Caitlyn had the phones programmed with all the importantnumbers, and Kurt had emailed Tara using a self-deleting email service Valerie had shown the team a couple years back. She and Tara were working through mounds of data about Lambert, Valerie digging up the info and Tara sorting through it while she worked.
The earliest any of his guys would be able to fly out was the next morning. With Caitlyn’s approval, he asked Tara to purchase tickets forJason and Dan on the first flight out.
Working through a VPN—virtual private network—that anonymized his location, Kurt checked his email, read the news, and scoured the maps of St. Isidore for…something. Did he really expect anything to jump out at him and scream,Rose is here?
“What else can I do?” Caitlyn asked, tapping her fingers on the counter.
All that restless energy and nowhere toput it. “I’ll have Valerie post some of her findings where we can take a look at them. The more eyes the better, right?”
The tightness around Caitlyn’s mouth relaxed a bit. “Thank you.”
They spent the day sifting through Lambert’s personal and business information, looking for something that might tell them where to find Rose, or something they could take to Shaylee’s friend in the St. IsidoreRoyal Police Force that couldn’t be ignored.
Needing a break, Kurt checked his email account. “Valerie sent another file drop,” he said.
Caitlyn groaned. “I’m not wired to sit in front of a computer screen all day. A cockpit computer, yes, but this… I want to find something helpful, but right now I’m nothing but an oversized couch warmer.”
Kurt started going through the files. “This is informationon Lambert’s finances that they’ve already gone through. He has a couple of shell corporations and what look like accounts with offshore banks that don’t give out financial info.”
Caitlyn stood and stretched and then parked next to his stool to peer over his shoulder, teasing him with her nearness.
Her rejection of his simple, gesture of support had cut deep, but none of this was about him.Not really. So he tried to let it roll off his back. Caitlyn was the one who’d been hurt.
He’d give her whatever she needed, even if it was space.
“What does that mean exactly?” she asked. “We already figured he had shady business dealings.”
“Valerie managed to track payments from the so-called employers of some of the people The Underground has helped rescue. The evidence isn’t probably legalin any court of law, but it shows a direct link between Lambert’s corporate holdings—”
“And the trafficking victims. You’re saying he’s not just a customer, he’s a supplier?”
“Looks like it,” he said, satisfaction evident in his voice.
“Well, that’s something.” Caitlyn sat back with a thoughtful frown.
