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She shushed him with her finger then grabbed his arm, pulling him into the bathroom and closing the door behind her.
Now he could see her.
He refused to let his breath be stolen just because he was seeing her again for the first time in eight years. But damn if he could stop himself from staring at her.
Her hair was shorter now. Stopping just past her shoulders rather than flowing down to nearly her waist as it once had. But it was still that same deep auburn color that reminded him of fall leaves or russet chrysanthemums. Her eyes were the same soft brown—although she had often worn colored contacts when she was a teenager, always wanting to be more dramatic. That had never made sense to Liam. Her eyes were stunning just the way they were.
She was still tiny. God, he’d forgotten how little she was. Her personality was so big, people tended to forget that she was barely five foot two and couldn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds. Standing beside her now, Liam towered over her. As always, it didn’t intimidate Vanessa.
Something was different about her now. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it exactly, but something about her had changed.
Of course she was more mature, in her looks, even in her movements. But it was more than just that. Something in her eyes was different—a depth that hadn’t been there before.
A depth that was only caused by living through pain. Real pain.
He knew that look, had seen it often enough when he served in Afghanistan with other men who had known heavy loss. A pain that would never be fully erased.
Liam couldn’t even reconcile seeing a look like that on Vanessa. It just wasn’t possible. He had known her since she was fifteen years old. Knew firsthand how selfish and self-centered she was.
So he had to be wrong about whatever he thought he saw in her eyes now.
“That girl out there is what the hell is going on,” she said.
Liam had been so deep in his own thoughts he had forgotten he’d even asked the question.
“Who is she?”
“Her name is Karine. That’s all she’s told me so far. I found her when I was walking the Sound yesterday evening.” Her eyes shot away from his as she said the words. “She was unconscious on the ground, in only a T-shirt. A teenager.”
“Runaway?”
Vanessa cracked open the door so she could check on the girl and then closed it again. “No. I think she was part of a human-trafficking ring, Liam. She’s from Eastern Europe somewhere—Estonia, I think she said—and was being held on a boat. Says there are other girls. Seven of them.”
Liam muttered a curse under his breath. Human trafficking had been a huge issue up and down the entire east coast for years. He wasn’t surprised to hear something had popped up in the Outer Banks. The string of islands was an ideal place to bring in a boat unnoticed. Easy access and tourists year-round, so locals wouldn’t pay particular attention to a boat they didn’t recognize.
What Liam didn’t understand was why Vanessa felt local law enforcement might already be aware or even a part of the situation.
“Explain more why you don’t want to go to the local police. They would be best equipped to handle this, or at least begin the investigation. Have the most knowledge of the area.”
Vanessa shrugged. “I’ll admit I may be wrong about this. But I took Karine to the hospital yesterday evening so she could get checked out. She seemed to be keeping it together pretty well until she saw a sheriff’s deputy at the nurses’ station. She freaked out, Liam. Completely panicked.” She touched his arm as she said it, then immediately dropped her hand again as if burned. “Sorry.”
Liam had no idea what to say about her touch, so he just ignored it. “Did you press her about it?”
“Yes. It wasn’t that particular officer she recognized, but she was convinced it was someone wearing that uniform.”
The sheriff’s uniform hadn’t changed in the years that Liam was gone from the Outer Banks. It was still brown; still ugly. But it wasn’t the only ugly brown uniform in the area—Liam hated to think they were suspicious of law enforcement when it could actually be a package delivery guy who was the perpetrator. A traumatized girl could easily be forgiven confusing two brown uniforms.
“There are a lot of brown uniforms out there,” Liam said.
“I know. And I’m trying to keep that in mind. But she was convinced. And I thought it was better to be wrong and have to apologize than her be right and back in her captors’ clutches.” She shrugged. “So we snuck out of the hospital without anyone seeing us.”
He couldn’t disagree with that line of reasoning. Under similar circumstances he probably would have done the same.
“The clincher for me was when I woke up this morning and there was a ‘fugitive alert’ and the police were checking cars trying to leave Nags Head.” She shook her head. “I tried to take Karine to Norfolk last night, but she refused to go. Says she has to stay and help the other girls.”
“She sounds like quite a kid,” Liam said. “Strong.”
“Yeah, but she needs help. I can’t keep her cooped up in this hotel room. She needs a doctor and a counselor.”
“I was wondering about this place. Why are you here? If you were trying to pick a place no one would ever search for Princess Vanessa, you certainly found it.”
Her eyes narrowed. Princess Vanessa obviously still struck a nerve.
Her voice was tight. “I couldn’t take her back to my place. And, yeah, I didn’t want anyone to find me.”
Liam had never been afraid to poke the tiger. “Your dad would probably not be interested in a teenage misfit staying in the Epperson mansion.”
She turned all the way from him then, in the guise of cracking the door to check on Karine again, but he could tell the topic didn’t sit well with her.
“I don’t live in my parents’ house on Duck any longer, so I wouldn’t take her there anyway. But, yes, I’m sure my dad wouldn’t like it.”
Duck, despite its corny name, consisted of mostly million-dollar mansions rather than the much less expensive vacation rentals, restaurants, and putt-putt golf places of the other islands in the Outer Banks.
Elitist in a word.
He shouldn’t be surprised that she didn’t live at home any longer. She was twenty-eight, for heaven’s sake. No one would still live with their parents at that age if they had other options. Especially if Daddy paid for those other options, of which Liam had no doubt.
“So, where’s your place?”
“In Kitty Hawk.”
He raised an eyebrow. “On the beach?”
“No.”
“On the Sound, then?” She had to live on the water. Vanessa Epperson had always lived on the water.
“Look, where I live is not important, okay? I just couldn’t chance taking her to my place. Not if the police are after her and someone at the hospital reports she’s with me.”
He could agree that Vanessa’s suspicions of the police were grounded, given Karine’s fear of the uniform and the car-search tactics this morning. Until they knew for sure, they would keep all actions under wraps.
“Why don’t I go in to the sheriff’s office today and feel things out? I could tell them I’m here on vacation or something.”
Her eyebrow rose. “You really think they’re going to talk to you at all? You have a history with the Outer Banks police. They probably haven’t forgotten that.”
It was true. Liam had been a hell-raiser back in his juvie days. His grandmother had done the best she could with the wild child she’d been forced to raise after both his parents had died suddenly when he was ten. But even her loving yet strict hand hadn’t been enough to keep him out of pretty regular trouble with the law when he was a teenager. Nothing too serious: some fights, occasional vandalism, a few nights of disturbing the peace after he’d been able to talk some poor tourist into buying him alcohol.
He was actually thankful for a lot of his misspent youth. During one of the times the sheriff’s office had handcuffed him to a chair, he’d met Quint Davis, the DEA agent who had taken the time to look past Liam’s rather gruff exterior and talk to the half boy, half man underneath.
Quint had gotten Liam to join the army and then picked him up as a DEA agent immediately after Liam’s discharge, which had eventually led to his job at Omega. Liam owed the man his life.
But, yeah, anybody who had worked at the Outer Banks sheriff’s office for more than ten years was going to remember him. He doubted they would even know he was law enforcement now, unless they ran a background check on him.
“Well, this time I’m not some kid they’ve arrested for stumbling drunk down the beach.”
Their eyes locked. He had met Vanessa on just such an occasion. She had stuck her snooty little nose up at him and told him to go find a bench and sleep it off.
He hadn’t been able to help falling in love with her right then and there.
“I’ll just be checking in as a professional courtesy, as a fellow law-enforcement officer,” Liam continued, ignoring the shared memory between them. “When I heard about the escaped fugitive, I wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help.”
Vanessa was nodding, about to respond, when they heard a cry from the bedroom.
“Miss Vanessa?” The voice was lost. Sorrowful. Frightened.
Vanessa ran to the young girl, but Liam kept his distance. He had no doubt she would not want to be near a man right now.
“I’m here, Karine. I was just in the bathroom.”
Karine all but jumped into Vanessa’s arms.
Vanessa sat on the bed and smoothed the girl’s hair, holding her loosely so she wouldn’t feel trapped.
“Who is that man?” Karine asked.
“He’s my friend. His name is Liam. He’s going to help us get you and the other girls to safety.”
Karine reached over and turned on the lamp next to the bed. Liam just stood there as she watched him with eyes that had seen too much. Even if they got this girl to safety today, away from the horror she had lived through, she would never have a child’s innocence again.
Her childhood had been finished from the moment someone had kidnapped her and thrown her on a boat.
Finally she nodded. “Okay,” she said to Vanessa.
Liam guessed he’d passed the test.
They needed a plan. But first Liam knew that everyone needed food.
“I’ll go grab some breakfast from—”
His words were interrupted by a pounding on the door.
“This is the Outer Banks Sheriff’s Department. Open the door.”
Chapter Four (#ulink_b6d0d27f-dd12-5670-8ebc-e74cc4d4100c)
Vanessa stood. The sheriff’s department had found her? How? She hadn’t used a credit card.
This was the problem with living in a relatively small town. There were no secrets. One call from the police to the front desk in a systematic search and the clerk would undoubtedly have remembered her and told them. It was pretty odd for Vanessa to be at a hotel of this caliber, since most people knew her face and reputation—the Outer Banks princess—but didn’t really know anything about her. They assumed she still lived off her parents’ money, just as Liam had assumed in the bathroom.
She didn’t. She hadn’t for more than eight years.
It really didn’t matter how the officer had found her. She had to figure out what to do.
They couldn’t get out the one window of the room; it was right next to the door. There was no window in the bathroom, either.
The pounding on the door came again. Not obnoxiously loud, but firm enough to know whoever was on the other side meant business. “I need to speak with Vanessa Epperson.”
Tears were running down Karine’s face but she made no sound. Vanessa glanced frantically around the room before her gaze settled on Liam.
Who was taking his shirt off?
“Get her into the bathroom, then come back out here.” He looked at Karine. “Stay very quiet in there. We’ll take care of this.”
The young girl nodded and ran to the bathroom. As soon as she turned away, Liam kicked off his shoes and socks and started unbuttoning his jeans, before pulling them, and his underwear, all the way off.
Liam was naked.
Vanessa pulled the bathroom door closed behind her and tried not to stare but could not help herself.
Liam was naked.
He ruffled his own hair so it stood on end, then turned and walked to the door, opening it a few inches.
“Man, what is going on? Do you know what time it is?” Liam looked down at an arm that didn’t have a watch on it. “Neither do I. But it’s like the butt crack of dawn.”
“Um, excuse me, sir.”
Vanessa couldn’t see the officer but could hear the discomfiture in his voice.
“We were told that Vanessa Epperson was staying in this room.”
“Well, she is, man.” Liam yawned and ran a hand through his hair. “But she’s a little worn out right now if you know what I mean.”
Liam opened the door a little farther, his nakedness causing the man to step back rather than step closer to look inside.
“Um, could you put some clothes on, sir? I’d like to talk to Miss Epperson, please.”
The officer wasn’t going to be deterred, although Liam was doing his best. Vanessa wasn’t sure if the officer could enter the room without a warrant, since it was a hotel, not a home, but she didn’t want to find out.
She pulled off her pajamas—T-shirt and shorts—so she was also naked, grabbed the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around herself. She wasn’t as bold as Liam and willing to answer the door buck-naked.
“Hey, baby.” She walked up behind Liam and slid her arms around his chest, running them over his pecs and abs, feeling them tighten under her fingers. “What’s going on?”
This is all just an act. This is all just an act. This is all just an act.
Liam put an arm around her and pulled her in front of him so the sheet was covering them both from the officer outside.
But her very naked back was pressed to his very naked front. All of his naked front. Vanessa couldn’t stop the shiver that ran through her entire body when he reached down and kissed the tender skin joining her neck and shoulder.
