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The Hunted
Rachel Lee
Her story sets off a violent spark. His investigation puts them in the line of fire.Journalist Erin McKenna is not only investigating a major defense contractor suspected of complicity in the international sex-slave trade but testifying against them in court. Her world collapses when that same firm buys her newspaper and she's fired without explanation.Her home is ransacked, her computer stolen and she is attacked. FBI agent Jerod Westlake is haunted by the disappearance of his sister long ago, and has dedicated his life to ending the international sex-slave trade.When he discovers Erin wounded on the floor of her apartment, he swings into action to protect her as a witness–and as a woman. Jerod needs to protect Erin's life and track down her source. But once they start working as a team, the real danger begins….
Praise for the novels of
RACHEL LEE
“A highly complex thriller…deft use of dialogue.”
—Publishers Weekly on Wildcard
“The Crimson Code is a smart, complex thriller with enough twists to knot your stomach and keep your fingers turning the pages.”
—New York Times bestselling author Alex Kava
“With its smartly paced dialogue and seamless interweaving of both canine and human viewpoints, this well-rounded story is sure to be one of Lee’s top-selling titles.”
—Publishers Weekly on Something Deadly
“A suspenseful, edge-of-the-seat read.”
—Publishers Weekly on Caught
“Rachel Lee is a master of romantic suspense.”
—Romantic Times BOOKreviews
The Hunted
Rachel Lee
To the lost, and the men and women of law enforcement
who try to find them.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Epilogue
Afterword
Prologue
Caracas, Venezuela
She shuddered as she heard the bolt on the door open. She always did, even after…how many months had it been?
She was sixteen, she thought. Or maybe seventeen. Had it been two years since she’d left home, or three? It was hard to be sure. When she’d been on the streets of Denver, she’d been able to keep track of time. Even though one day had been mostly the same as the next—get high enough to function, then find a john to get money for the next fix—there were cycles. There were the days when the shelters offered free lunches and showers. There were Sundays, when it was more difficult to find johns because they were trying to pretend they were good, churchgoing men. There was the change of seasons.
It was the change of seasons that had done it. She’d already decided she wasn’t going to spend another winter in Denver. Phoenix would be nice, or Los Angeles. Somewhere warm. So she’d forced herself to cut back on the crystal—what a bitch that had been—to save enough money for a bus ticket.
“Anywhere warm,” she’d told the woman behind the ticket counter.
“How about home?” the woman had asked.
She’d actually thought about it—for perhaps two seconds. It would have been Thanksgiving soon. The thought of a home-cooked feast, the memory of her mom’s homemade stuffing and savory gravy, had almost made her mouth water. She’d almost said, “Yeah, is this enough to get to Virginia?”
But there was her uncle. Living two blocks down. Coming to spend the night drinking with her dad, and then, once Dad went to bed, coming into her room. Again. At least now she got paid for it.
“Nah,” she’d told the woman. “How about Phoenix?”
That had been the last decision she’d made. The bus to Phoenix wouldn’t leave for an hour, so she’d decided to get some food and crystal money for the trip.
The john had seemed nice enough. Reserved. Not outright leering. She knew the type. In her profession, the world’s oldest, you had to learn to spot them. The type who’d settle for a straight half-and-half, a blow job and a fuck, ten minutes each, if that. He didn’t even try to bargain. A quick fifty bucks.
Looking back, she realized that should have been the warning sign. Johns always tried to bargain. She was cute and clean, slender, a natural blonde, with high, firm tits and prominent nipples that showed through her T-shirt. So she could get a little more than the older girls who had been doing it for so long they looked and felt like worn-out kitchen sponges.
Even so, fifty had been more than twice the going street rate. He’d just nodded and said, “Fine. I know a place close by. What time does your bus leave?”
And that was when she’d disappeared forever.
Yes, it had been just before Thanksgiving. But what month was it now? She had no idea. When she heard the TV from the next room, it was muffled and in Spanish. There were no windows in her room, and the weather never seemed to change here.
No cycles anymore. One day truly was the same as the next. The food was the same, day in and day out. Even the john was the same. Two, sometimes three times a day. It had been more at first. He’d gotten bored, she guessed.
That’s how men were, except for her uncle. If he’d gotten bored, she would probably still be living in the Better Homes and Gardens fantasyland of Fairfax County, in the two-story brick front on the eighth-of-an-acre lot, with the perfectly manicured lawn, the three-car garage, the giant-screen TV in the family room always tuned to whatever game was on at the time, listening through the shared wall as her brother whacked off to Internet porn.
But her uncle never had gotten bored, and she couldn’t stand him anymore, couldn’t stand wondering if her brother whacked off listening to her uncle’s grunts and the creak of her mattress springs, wondering if her brother heard or cared when she’d lain in her bed afterward, crying into her pillow and counting the days, the hours, the minutes, until she could get the hell out of that house and never ever come back.
Well, she’d gotten out. And she would never get back.
The door opened, and he stood in the doorway with a bag in his hand. He tossed it onto the bed. “Get dressed. You go home.”
He pulled the door closed as he left. He didn’t bolt it. First time ever. She pursed her lips, wondering what that meant. His words didn’t matter. She’d learned to ignore words. Home. Beautiful. Love. Whatever. But he hadn’t locked her door. That mattered.
She opened the bag. Faded jeans and a green T-shirt. No bra or panties, but she hadn’t worn them in so long, she didn’t care. The jeans and T-shirt still had store tags clipped on. She bit the tags off and felt a tooth chip. It was the diet, the gritty tortillas that wore away at the enamel. But Dad was a dentist. He’d fix it.
New clothes. The door not locked.
She was going home.
She washed up as best she could at the sink. Put on the jeans and the T-shirt. Brushed out her hair with her fingers. It had lost some of its blond luster, but the girl in the mirror still had the big brown eyes everyone had always talked about. Her face wasn’t quite as fresh. But with some exercise and makeup and a good diet again…Yeah. She could go home. She could be…
…who?
Candi was the name she’d used in Denver. Her parents had called her Candace. But no one had called her anything since she’d gotten here. Not a name, anyway. Just puta. Whore.
Who would she be when she got home? Her uncle’s puta? Candi? Would she even remember what it meant to be Candace? Or would she take one look at her dad’s face, then look at his crotch and wonder how many half-and-halves it’d take to get her tooth fixed?
“Are you ready?” he said, opening the door again. “You look good.”
Words. Whatever.
“Sure.”
She followed him out of her room and then the front room and then out into the courtyard. She’d only seen it once before, when she’d been brought here. Looking around, she realized she’d been living in the servants’ quarters. Well, that fit.
Terra-cotta tiles glistened in the morning sun. It had rained last night, and the air was thick with moisture and the sweet scents of the garish tropical flowers that bloomed in carefully trimmed beds around the courtyard. Not a stone, not a grain of sand out of place. That part was like home, at least.
The black SUV was new, not the same one she’d come here in. The leather was baby smooth under her fingers as she climbed into the backseat. He got in front and pushed a button, and a little screen came down out of the roof. “Movie?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
He put a DVD into the dashboard player, and moments later the screen flickered to life. Bugs Bunny, speaking in Spanish. He’d bought the DVD for a child. Maybe a daughter. Maybe she was sitting where this man’s daughter usually sat, watching the same cartoons his daughter would laugh at while he drove her…where? To school? To church?
She realized she knew nothing about this man. And that was probably why he was letting her go home. He was just another businessman in a foreign country. She didn’t even know what city she was in. She couldn’t identify him.
She fought the urge to look around as they drove. Part of her wanted to memorize everything, to pick out some sign, some landmark, that she could recall when she got home and tell…someone. Someone who could come and find this man. Instead, she just watched Bugs Bunny make a fool of Elmer Fudd. In Spanish.
They were climbing into the mountains. The man must have an airstrip up here somewhere. That would make sense. He could hardly put her on a commercial flight. She would probably be sitting atop a pile of cocaine. She wondered if it would be soft.
“We stop here to pee,” he said, pulling off onto a side road. “More hours to the airport.”
She didn’t need to pee, but that was fine. She was used to peeing on command. When Dad had taken the family to Yellowstone, he’d scheduled in every pee stop, a little X in yellow highlighter on his trip planner. She and her brother had giggled because Dad had used yellow for the pee stops. The thought made her smile.
There wasn’t a bathroom. That was fine. Living on the streets had taught her the more basic skills of life. She pulled down her jeans, carefully tucking the fabric back between her ankles, turning her hips forward as she squatted, pressing a finger on either side of her urethra and lifting, so she would shoot out rather than straight down, keeping her jeans dry.
She heard the schlick-schlick as he worked the slide, and she knew. Part of her thought about trying to run or turning to fight. But her jeans were around her ankles. There wouldn’t be time. It wouldn’t matter.
Fuck it.
Instead, she looked down at the leaves rippling under her stream, at how they flicked this way and that, and just waited. Her throat caught as she thought about Yellowstone, and she and her brother giggling at a yellow X. Back when she had been someone else. Someone innocent and soft and hopeful.
She heard the crack an instant before the bullet crashed through the base of her skull and exploded every thought, every memory, every sadness, every hope.
The blackness came fast.
She was home.
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