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LUCAS PACED THE waiting room, anxious to talk to Charlotte Reacher.
Meanwhile, he phoned Tradd Hoover.
“The art teacher is still in surgery,” he told Tradd. “The studio where the attack happened looked like a war zone. Bullet holes everywhere. My brother, Sheriff Harrison Hawk, is supervising the crime-scene unit.”
“All four girls were foster kids?”
“That’s right.”
“That sucks,” Tradd said. “As if their lives haven’t already been hard enough.” Tradd made a clicking sound with his teeth. “In the other two instances, the kidnappers didn’t leave a witness behind. First abduction took place at a dance camp. Shot the teacher in the back before she even saw what was coming. More bullets were lodged in the floor near the ballet bar where the girls stretched. Five girls were taken, ages twelve to fourteen.”
Good God. Twelve years old? She was just a baby. Innocent. A girl with no idea what the men had in store for her.
“Second attack was outside a Waco high school. Men snuck up on the cheerleading squad as they were walking to their cars after practice. This time they lay in waiting, snatched them one by one. No casualties. Science teacher was leaving about that time and saw the last of the six girls tossed into the back of a black van. Tinted windows. No tag. Driver raced away just as another girl ran around the corner. She was in the bathroom changing or she would have been taken, too.”
“Did she see any of the men well enough to make an ID?”
“Afraid not. She was pretty shook up. Said all she saw was a man’s back and the gun he was holding to her friend’s head.”
“You think we’re dealing with the same men or factions of a larger trafficking ring?”
“Hard to say at this point. Unfortunately there weren’t any surveillance cameras at the dance camp. There were two in the high-school parking lot, but the assailants shot them out.”
Of course they did. “None at the art studio, either,” Lucas said. Although he’d advise Ms. Reacher to install a security system if she reopened the studio. “How are the families holding up?”
“About like you’d expect,” Tradd said. “They’ve seen enough TV and news stories to speculate on what’s happening. None of it’s pretty.”
No, it wasn’t. Most likely they were being drugged and held somewhere until they could ship them out of the country or to perspective buyers. They probably had clients waiting.
His stomach knotted. Too many depraved people in the world, and men who’d pay for sex.
The girls who didn’t go to a buyer would suffer an equally harsh or worse fate. They’d be put in brothels, forced to work as prostitutes. Treated inhumanely. Beaten. Raped. Sometimes drugged, chained in a room so they couldn’t escape.
“Email me the files, crime-scene photos, information on the victims so I can compare.” Not that he thought the victims or their families had anything to do with this. This read like a professional hit. The ring targeted random groups that were vulnerable, easily accessible and fit a certain type and age range.
Otherwise, they would have also taken Charlotte Reacher.
Instead, they’d left her for dead.
* * *
THE GIRLS WERE SCREAMING. They needed her. She had to help them. Stop the bad men...
Charlotte blinked and tried to open her eyes, but she was so sleepy she couldn’t force them open. A few minutes ago, she’d heard someone talking. The nurse, she said her name was Haley. They were moving her to a room.
She’d been shot. Had a head injury. Had undergone surgery.
She was lucky, Haley said. She was alive.
But what about Evie, Adrian and Agnes, and Mae Lynn?
Tears seeped from her aching eyes and trickled down her cheeks.
A warm hand touched hers. Slid over it and squeezed.
She tensed, then realized it felt good. Comforting.
And she was cold. So cold inside...she shivered.
“Charlotte, my name is Special Agent Lucas Hawk.”
A man’s voice. Gruff. Almost tender. Another squeeze of her hand and she realized the hand belonged to the man speaking.
“I know you’ve been through hell today and you’re exhausted, but I need to talk to you. Need to ask you some questions.”
She blinked, wanting to see his face, but her eyelids slid closed again. The medication must be weighing her down, drawing her back to the darkness. She wanted to stay there, to be numb and forget, to silence the screams.
“I promise you I won’t stay long, but you were shot by some men who came into your art studio. They forced the students in your class to go with them.”
Her lungs squeezed for air. She suddenly couldn’t breathe. She clawed at the bedding, gasping. A machine beeped. Footsteps clattered, then a woman’s stern voice said:
“Sir, you’re upsetting her. You have to leave.”
“I’m sorry,” the man said in a gruff tone. “I won’t stay long, but we need her help. The men who shot her kidnapped four teenagers. Time is of the essence. The kidnappers might be moving the girls out of the country as we speak.”
The woman mumbled something Charlotte couldn’t understand, but the agent’s words taunted her.
She had to do what she could to help find her students.
She moaned and reached for his hand. He took it and stroked her palm. The contact gave her hope, and she forced her eyes open.
But the room was dark. Completely dark.
“I need you to tell me anything you remember,” Special Agent Lucas Hawk said. “Even the smallest details might help—”
His words became garbled as panic seized Charlotte. She blinked furiously, but a cloudy haze of gray and black shrouded her vision. She couldn’t see his face.
Couldn’t see anything but an ominous black.
* * *
LUCAS STIFFENED. Something was wrong.
Charlotte gasped for a breath, her fingernails digging into his palm. “Help...”
He cradled her hand between both of his, tried to soothe her. “You’re safe now, Charlotte. You’re in the hospital and you’re going to be okay.” But those four teenagers weren’t.
Dear God, he hated to push her, but they had to act quickly. The men could be halfway across the state by now.
She pushed at the sheets and grabbed the bed rail with her free hand. “I...can’t see,” she whispered between choked breaths. “I can’t see you. I can’t see anything.”
Lucas’s pulse clamored. “You mean you can’t see the shooter? You were in the studio, weren’t you? Or did you and the girls hide?”
“No... I was there,” she cried, her chest heaving. “They stormed in and took them. I tried to save them, but the big one shot me and hit me in the head.”
She jerked her hand from his and pressed it to her temple. She winced when she discovered the bandage. Her forehead was bruised and discolored, a knot at her hairline, and she had five stitches.
He leaned over the bed and stroked her arm. “Charlotte, it’s okay, I know it was terrifying and you wanted to save your students. Just tell me what you saw and we can still save them.”
A sob escaped her, painful and heartbreaking. “I couldn’t stop them. I tried to.”
“Shh, I know you did. I saw the studio, bullets were everywhere.”
She grabbed his arm and pulled him closer, then stared up at him with terror-glazed eyes. “I did try, but I failed and they’re gone.”
“I’m sorry, that’s why I’m here. I need your help, though.”
“But I can’t see,” she cried again. “I can’t see anything.”
“You mean you didn’t get a good look at the men?”
She shook her head wildly. “No, I mean my vision is gone. I can’t see you or anything in the room.”
A cold chill swept over him. She’d suffered a head injury. The doctor hadn’t mentioned anything about her eyes, but it was possible...
“I’ll get help.” He rushed from the room and spotted the nurse. “Get the doctor. Now.”
His commanding tone made the woman’s eyes widen, then she raced to the nurses station. A second later, a page sounded over the intercom, then she hurried back toward him. He met her in the doorway.
Her disapproving look speared him. “I told you not to upset her.”
“It wasn’t me,” Lucas said between gritted teeth. “She says she lost her vision.”
Alarm flashed on the nurse’s face, and she rushed into the room. Charlotte was lying so still that it sent a bolt of fear through him.
The nurse gently touched Charlotte’s arm. “It’s Haley, your nurse, Ms. Reacher. The doctor is on his way.”
Charlotte turned her head toward the nurse, but the glazed expression in her eyes remained.
Then silent tears began to slide down her cheeks.
* * *
THE VAN THE men had put them in bounced over the ruts in the road and threw Evie against the side of the interior.
She bit back a groan of pain, blinked to stem the dizziness then wrestled with the zip ties around her wrists, but they wouldn’t budge. Hands bound behind their backs, Adrian and Agnes were curled together in the dark corner. Agnes was sobbing while Adrian talked in low whispers to comfort her. Mae Lynn was lying on her side, her eyes glazed in shock.
When those nasty men had thrown them in the van, Mae Lynn had been screaming. One of them had jammed a gun in her face and threatened to kill her. Mae Lynn had gone quiet and hadn’t moved or spoken since.
Terror gripped Evie’s chest in a vise, squeezing her lungs. Ms. Charlotte had been shot. Was she dead?
Tears crowded her throat. No... She couldn’t be. Ms. Charlotte was the only person in the world who cared about them. She helped Evie see that she might have a future. That bright colors and light existed. That she could paint beautiful pictures and express herself through art.
And that she was beautiful even though no family had wanted her as their child.
Agnes’s sobs bounced off the dark walls of the van, drawing Evie back to the situation. She had to stay tough. Do something to get them out of here.
But what?
There were four men, and they were all huge. She barely weighed ninety pounds.
And they had guns.
If she could grab one of those guns, she might be able to force them to release her and the others.
She knew how to shoot. That, she’d learned early on.
Everyone thought she was a weakling. But they were wrong.
She’d survived one foster home after another because she studied people. She didn’t know what these men wanted with them, but she had an idea.
A shudder coursed through her, and she squashed the thought.
She’d wait for the right moment, then she’d grab one of their guns. No one knew it, but she’d shot a man once. Foster daddy number five.
She’d had to, or be his bitch. That’s what he’d called it when he took the other fosters to bed.
She wasn’t going to be anybody’s bitch. She’d kill whoever tried to make her into one just like she’d shot that bastard, foster five.
Chapter Three (#u879bc957-ee39-5475-897c-9277cac85550)
Lucas gritted his teeth as the nurse shoved him from the hospital room into the hallway. A doctor rushed in, and the nurse joined him, leaving Lucas watching through the small window in the door.
The nurse took Charlotte’s vitals while the doctor shined a light in Charlotte’s eyes. Silent sobs wracked the petite woman’s body, her fear palpable.
Was it possible the only witness to this damn trafficking had been blinded in the attack?
“Lucas?”
His brother’s voice dragged him from his somber thoughts.
“What happened? Is she all right?”
“I don’t know.” Lucas exhaled sharply. “She just woke up from surgery.”
“Have you talked to her?”
“I was trying to, but she got upset and the nurse made me leave.”
