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“Good work, Charlotte. These details could be helpful.”
He quickly texted the analyst at the Bureau the information. Keenan Hart was thirty, smart, and obsessive about details.
She quickly responded with a return text.
Black van reported in the Waco kidnapping. Authorities already on the look for it. Researching tattoos now.
When he looked up, Charlotte’s eyes were closing. Sensing she was about to fade again, he hurried to ask his last question. “One more thing, Charlotte.”
She moaned softly. “Hmm?”
“Did all of the men speak English or did one of them speak another language?”
She twisted her head toward him as if she could see him, but the blankness glazed her eyes again. “The leader was really the only one who talked. He spoke English.”
“Did he have an accent?”
She frowned. “I don’t think so. Why? Do you think they’re foreign?”
His gut tightened. He’d suspected Columbian or Eastern European. But without witnesses to the other kidnappings, that was a guess.
His phone beeped with a text. Harrison.
Black cargo van spotted outside Tumbleweed at an abandoned warehouse. Meet me downstairs and we’ll check it out.
Hope made Lucas’s adrenaline spike, and he placed his hand over Charlotte’s. Her hand was small and delicate, and her skin felt soft, feminine.
Thankfully, she was tougher than she looked.
“Charlotte, I may have a lead on that van. Harrison and I are going to check it out. Get some rest.”
She nodded weakly although she was already drifting asleep.
He smiled at her, then sadly realized that even if she was awake, she couldn’t see him. The thought bothered him more than he wanted to admit.
All the more reason he’d track down these sons of bitches and put them away.
Determination kicking in, he hurried to the elevator, rode to the lobby and rushed outside to meet his brother.
Harrison was talking to Honey on the phone. When he hung up, emotions clouded his face. “I broke the news to Honey. She’s going to pick up some flowers, then visit Charlotte in a little while.”
They hurried to his brother’s SUV, and Harrison sped from the hospital parking lot. “Any more word on Charlotte’s condition?”
“No. She’s trying to be strong, but she’s hurting and scared.” Lucas tensed. “Doc says the blindness might be temporary. They have to wait on the swelling to go down. That might take a while. Days. Maybe weeks.”
Harrison’s expression turned grim, and they fell into silence as his brother maneuvered through town then veered onto the road leading to Dead Man’s Bluff.
This place held bad memories for them both.
“Those warehouses have been abandoned for so long I’d forgotten about them,” Harrison said.
Lucas nodded agreement.
But they would be the perfect place to hold the girls until they could move them to the buyers.
* * *
CHARLOTTE’S SHOULDER THROBBED, the pain intensifying as images of the kidnappers flashed through her mind. They had stolen the girls she was in charge of, girls she loved. Girls she was supposed to help.
The door squeaked. Her eyes flew open, but the black nothingness filled her vision.
Then a footstep. And another. So soft that she had to lie perfectly still to hear it.
“Lucas?”
A hushed sound. Breathing. Deep breathing. But no voice.
Terror seized her. “Agent Hawk? Harrison?”
No answer.
She reached for the call button, fumbling along the bed to find it.
The acrid odor of cigarettes wafted toward her.
Dear God, the leader of the kidnappers had smelled like cigarettes.
Had he come back to kill her?
Chapter Four (#u879bc957-ee39-5475-897c-9277cac85550)
Cold fear pressed against Charlotte’s chest. Lucas said that the men who’d taken her students had struck before and had never left a witness behind.
Had one of them come here to finish the job he’d begun?
She was stone-still and held her breath, hoping whoever was in the room would think she was unconscious and leave. If not for the scent of cigarette smoke and the fact that he hadn’t said anything, she might think it was a doctor.
But doctors identified themselves.
Footsteps padded softly. Every cell in her body tensed with anticipation. Her left arm was hooked to an IV. All he had to do was inject her with a drug that would seep into her system and she’d drift into oblivion. No one would ever be the wiser.
She did not want to die.
Another footstep. The tray table made a noise as he pushed it away from her.
His breath punctuated the silence. The bed jarred as he bumped it.
She finally found the call button and pressed it, praying the nurse or a staff member would come quickly.
Her lungs ached for air. She slowly released her breath, straining not to make a sound or rustle the covers.
“Ms. Reacher,” a deep voice murmured. “Are you awake?”
She lay perfectly still, careful not to flinch or even bat an eye.
“I hate to disturb you, but my name is Gerald Ingram, I’m with the police. I need to ask you some questions about what happened at your art studio.”
He was a cop?
She slowly released a breath. But questions nagged at her. If he was investigating, why hadn’t he been with Harrison or Lucas?
In spite of her efforts at control, her breath wheezed out, shaky and rattling in the tense silence.
Being in the dark heightened her other senses. If she could see his face, she might be able to tell if he was lying or out to hurt her.
“Ms. Reacher, I know you were injured and underwent surgery, but the men who shot you kidnapped four of your students. Can you describe them?”
Tears burned the backs of her eyelids, desperate to escape. In her mind, she pictured Adrian and Agnes, and Mae Lynn and sweet Evie. What was happening to them?
If the men planned to sell them as sex slaves, hopefully they wouldn’t hurt them, at least not physically. That would mess up their product.
But the girls must be terrified.
Another nudge from the man’s hand. “Ma’am, I need a statement about what happened. Did any of the men call each other by name?”
She searched her memory. Had one of them spoken a name?
“You’re the only one who can help,” the man said again. “Please talk to me. You do want to help find those girls before something bad happens to them, don’t you?”
Anger shot through her, and she opened her eyes. Darkness. Not even a sliver of light.
“So you are awake?” he said with a hint of sarcasm to his tone. “Now, what—”
“Excuse me.” A woman’s voice echoed from across the room, and Charlotte realized the door had opened. The nurse. Finally.
“Sir, you aren’t supposed to be in here,” Haley said.
“If Ms. Reacher can identify the men who kidnapped her students, she needs to speak up.”
Rustling of clothes and footsteps sounded as Haley approached. “Ms. Reacher has cooperated with the sheriff and FBI already. She’s just undergone surgery and needs her rest.”
The man’s hand brushed hers. “Come on, Charlotte,” he said impatiently, “give me something.”
She blinked rapidly, her head throbbing with confusion, and the memory of the gunshots and girls’ cries.
A machine beeped. Her heart monitor? Blood pressure?
This time a softer hand. Haley. “It’s all right, Charlotte, it’s all right.”
“What’s wrong with her?” the man snapped. “She’s going to make it, isn’t she?”
“Yes, but you need to leave.”
“But she hasn’t told me anything,” he protested.
“And she’s not going to,” Haley said. “Now, either leave or I’ll call security.”
The man protested again.
“Now,” Haley ordered.
Emotion bubbled to the surface, threatening to spill over. Charlotte hated being in the dark, and at the mercy of others.
Footsteps again, then the door closed. Her chest heaved as she breathed out.
Then Haley was back. “I’m sorry about that.”
“He said he was a cop,” Charlotte said.
“He was no cop,” Haley said with a grunt of disgust. “That man is a reporter, and not a nice one. He’ll do anything for a story.”
Charlotte closed her eyes, grateful she hadn’t said anything to him. She’d instantly felt uneasy with him.
Not like she had with Lucas. He’d made her feel safe.
The reporter’s name replayed in her head. She vaguely recalled seeing him on the news. Haley was right.
He was ruthless. Had been known to run with a story without verifying the facts or his source. Had interviewed victims of crimes before and implied they were at fault for being victimized.
What kind of garbage would he air about her?
* * *
LUCAS SCANNED THE area as he and Harrison approached the abandoned warehouses. They were only a few miles from the cave at Dead Man’s Bluff where they’d found his sister’s body.
The gruesome image of her bones lying beside two other young girls’ skeletons would haunt him forever. The fact that she’d lain there dead for almost two decades made matters worse. All that time they’d searched for her, and struggled to hold on to hope that somehow she was alive.
But her disappearance turned out to be a tragic accident. A mentally challenged boy named Elden had wanted to make friends with Chrissy, but he hadn’t realized his strength, and he’d smothered her to death. His mother had protected him. Unfortunately, Chrissy wasn’t his only victim.
Harrison’s police SUV bounced over the rugged terrain, gravel and dirt spewing.
A row of three warehouses popped into view as Harrison steered the vehicle over a small hill. A rusted-out black cargo van sat by the building.
Except this van had been burned and only the charred shell remained.
Lucas’s pulse jumped. If the trafficking ring had brought the girls here to house them until they moved them to buyers, they might have left the girls inside.
The area looked desolate, the warehouses weathered, the steel siding dingy. The Texas sun faded to night, casting shadows across the rugged land.
