“Hello, Mickey. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you.”
He walked toward her and she fell to her butt, her legs stretched in front of her. She tried to use her heels to push herself backward, but the awkward movement caused her to tip to the side. The man chuckled and crouched down in front of her.
“I’ve heard an awful lot about you. First from Pete, and then from Graham. Stupid Graham, running around trying to catch the bad guy. Not knowing I’ve been under his nose this whole time.”
Terror rippled over her, but she refused to let it take hold of her. “He’ll figure it out. He’s already putting pieces together. He won’t stop until he finds me.”
The man tilted his head to the side, an amused smirk played on his face. “Do you know who I am? I don’t think you do, or you’d know I’ve already gotten away with everything. It wasn’tuntil you showed up things started going wrong. But you’ll pay. I’ll make sure of it.”
Floorboards creaked from outside the room and the man stood straight, his ears tuned toward the door. The groans of the house grew louder, and her pulse quickened. Someone else was here.
As fast as lightning, the man dropped his hand to her head and grabbed a fistful of hair. Her hands shot up to stop him, but she couldn’t fight him as he yanked her to her feet. The roots of her hair all but pulled from her scalp and she bit back a shriek of pain. Something hard pressed into her back and her stomach sank. He had a gun. “You’re coming with me. Can’t be too careful now, can we?”
Pushing her in front of him, his grip tightened on her hair as they walked out of the room and stepped into a dining room. Wooden floors squeaked beneath her flip flops and a rectangular table dominated the room. A crystal chandelier hung from the middle of the ceiling and a man sat tied up at the head of the table.
She craned her neck forward and squinted into the darkness. With no windows, it was hard for her eyes to adjust. She closed them for a few seconds, praying Graham wasn’t the man at the table, and opened them again. Her vision sharpened, the picture in front of her becoming clearer. The man at the table seemed older than Graham, his posture drooped and his hairline receding. “Who is that?”
Her captor turned them toward the table. “A friend of mine. He’s going to play a key piece in my escape. Because of you, things got a little messy this time around. I won’t be able to pick up the pieces and move onto the next thing. I need to make a big bust to clear any lingering suspicion of my department.”
The truth of who held her life in his hands slammed into her like a punch to the gut. “You’re with the FBI?”
He let go of her hair and clapped slowly into the quiet room. “Very good, Mickey. But, I mean, it shouldn’t have been too hard to figure out. How do you think Pete knew you were in Mexico? Or that I got Paula to let me into her home when she was alone before I could drug her and get her on a plane? When you have as many years as I do in the FBI, it’s easy to slip through the cracks to get what you need.”
The light flicked on and Mickey squinted to protect her eyes from the sudden brightness. “Don’t you mean slither?” Graham’s gruff voice sounded behind them and the man’s body stiffened against her back.
“I wasn’t expecting you here so quickly. I didn’t even get a chance to call and tell you what I had found.” The man turned her so they faced Graham who stood in the arched doorway, a gun pointed toward them. “But this will make things much easier.”
Graham nodded past them at the man hunched over at the table. “Is Harper alive? Or did you kill him too, Eric?”
“I didn’t kill anyone. Just because Pete was smart enough to use the razor blade I gave him, doesn’t mean his blood is on my hands.”
Mickey’s eyes devoured Graham. Her heart slammed into her ribcage and every muscle in her body yearned to fly into his arms. But she couldn’t. Her hands were still bound together and Eric stood at her back. He’d let go of her hair, but there was no telling what he’d do if she tried to move.
Her mind snapped to attention and focused on what Graham had said. “Eric? As in your partner?”
A dark scowl covered Graham’s face and anger flared in his eyes. “One in the same. How did I not see it sooner?”
Eric’s hot breath skimmed over the back of her neck and she shuddered. “I made sure you always looked somewhere else. Who do you think’s been pulling the strings all these years? Whydo you think Harper was so pissed at you? I was feeding into his misgivings about your ability to run the case. ‘Graham’s head just isn’t in it, sir. He’s too caught up with this girl, Mickey. Wants to follow his gut again and not use his head.’ It was too easy. But Harper started to question my word and poke around. I needed someone to place the blame on, and you were already looking in that direction. It would have been a nice, easy way to clean up the mess Pete left me.”
Mickey ground her teeth together and asked, “What about what happened in Austin?”
“You told her, huh?” Eric chuckled. “Man, watching it eat you up inside the past month has been the funniest shit I’ve ever seen. And knowing I was the one who put the whole thing in motion. It killed me keeping it to myself. But then Harper started asking questions and Pete had to fuck everything up. I couldn’t keep it hidden much longer, so I figured why not let Harper take the blame? You’ve been bitching about how unfair he is like a whiney girl. Thought you might find some poetic justice in it.”
The lines in Graham’s face deepened and he clenched his jaw. “Why? Why would you do any of this?”
A moment of tense silence passed before he said, “It started for the money. I made dick with the FBI, and day after day I chased after drug dealers rolling in dough while I pinched pennies to make ends meet. It didn’t make sense. When I switched over to the human trafficking division and I saw a chance to break into the market, I jumped in.”
“You jumped into the market?” she asked through clenched teeth. Her stomach rolled. “You steal children from their mothers and sell them for sex. You are the lowest form of filth on this planet.”
Eric’s large hand shoved hard between her shoulder blades and she fell head first onto the floor. Her conjoined wrists shotout in front of her to break the fall, but they pushed into her stomach and stole her breath as she landed on the floor. Feet scurried behind her, and ragged breaths filled the air.
Bang!
“Motherfucker,” Eric yelled.
Bang!
Another shot rang out and Graham dove to the floor.
