Deadly Questions (Hardy Brothers Security Book 8) (19 page)

“Let’s go,” James said, moving around the couch. “Let’s get her. Hey, blondie, you’re staying here.”

Mandy paused. “But … .”

“No,” James said. “I know you want to help Sophie, but I can’t do my job if I’m worried about you. You’re staying here. I know you’re safe here.”

“He’s right, my dear,” Peter said. “We’ll call you the minute we have Sophie. I promise.”

“But … .” Mandy jutted out her lower lip.

James gave her a quick kiss. “You’re staying. One member of this family in danger is all I can take right now.”

Mandy crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine, but you’re going to owe me later.”

“One shark hunter coming up,” James said, giving her another kiss. “I’ll call you as soon as I can.”

“My mother was a prostitute,” Lily said, beginning her story with a grim detachment that Sophie recognized in herself. The story was real, but the emotions associated with it were buried.

“Actually, she was a stripper before I was born,” Lily said. “She had a plan. She was going to seduce a rich patron and get pregnant. She thought the money she would get from that would get her out of the life.

“Unfortunately for her, the man she picked only lied about having money,” she continued. “When she told him, he pleaded poverty. So, there she was, a woman who used her body to make money, and the baby who ruined everything. She never let me forget about that.

“She tried to go back to stripping after I was born, but her body was never the same,” Lily said. “That was my fault, too. I ruined her future. That’s what she told me. She didn’t have a lot of options. She’d never graduated from high school, and she wasn’t meant for the service industry – at least the kind of service associated with restaurants and hotels. So, she became a prostitute.”

“That’s terrible,” Sophie said, keeping her face neutral.

“Even when she was a garden-variety hooker, she still thought she was going to make it big,” Lily said. “She saw some show – one of those
Dateline
things – where a woman worked her way up to being the top prostitute in New York or something. She had high-end clients. She was bragging about making a million bucks a year. My mom thought she was going to do that.

“I’m sure you can gather how that went,” Lily said. “Each year, that dream became dimmer and dimmer in her eyes. Each birthday I had made my mother realize she was losing time. The older she got, the less attention she got. She was never going to get to the level she thought she deserved to get to.

“That’s when she got another idea,” Lily said, her eyes vacant.

“She sold you, didn’t she?” Despite herself, Sophie felt pity for the woman. She was a product of the circumstances she’d been raised in.

“I was nine years old,” Lily said. “I was almost too old to fetch top dollar for that market, but she found an interested party. She sold me for twenty thousand dollars – and a vintage convertible. She didn’t even tell me goodbye.”

Lily’s story was like a punch in the gut to Sophie. “Who did she sell you to?”

“His name was Harland Bennett,” Lily said. “He owned a big house on the east side. He lived there with his two sons. They had a nice living room, a satellite dish, a big-screened television, and I was chained in the basement.”

Sophie was horrified. “Chained?”

Lily rolled up her pants, revealing her left leg. She pulled down the black sock so Sophie could see the scar that wrapped around her ankle.

“Oh, God,” Sophie said.

“He didn’t touch me for a week,” Lily said. “He’d come down once a day and put a plate on the floor. He wouldn’t give me utensils. He was worried I would try to stab him with a fork, so I had to eat with my fingers – or like a dog.

“He started to condition me,” Lily said. “If I was nice to him, he was nice to me. If I cried, he was mean. If I was angry, he was mean. He rewarded me for good behavior, and he punished me brutally for bad behavior.

“He started by making me give him blow jobs,” she continued. “This went on for weeks. Good behavior got me rewards, like candy or a television of my very own. After a time, he decided that wasn’t enough and he … well, I’m sure you can imagine what he did.”

“I can,” Sophie said. “I don’t need to hear the details.”

“Good, because I don’t want to talk about them,” Lily said. “Anyway, I spent three years in that basement. By the time I was thirteen, I was too old. He decided to make me his adopted daughter after that. He moved me to a room upstairs and treated me … with absolute disinterest.”

“Did he enroll you in school?”

“Yup.”

“How?”

“He just said he was my father and he never knew I existed,” Lily said. “He said my mother showed up on his doorstep and dropped me off. No one questioned him. My life was better after that. I didn’t exist at home – except to clean and keep the house up – but it was better than being chained in the basement and raped every day.

“I was happy to stay there until I was sixteen,” Lily said. “That’s when things changed. That’s when I realized that I had changed.”

“What happened when you were sixteen?”

“Harland came home one day with a new
friend
,” Lily replied. “She was scared, and she was blonde, and she was eight.”

Sophie shuddered. “What did you do?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“What could I do? At least it wasn’t me this time.”

“So, you just sat back and let him abuse another girl?”

“She was his property. There was nothing I could do,” Lily said. “You can’t take another man’s property.”

“I’m fairly sure that was the same argument used by slave owners.”

“Who says they weren’t right?”

“I do,” Sophie said. “You had a chance, Lily. You had horrible things happen to you, but you could have saved that girl.”

“Last time I checked, Misty was fine,” Lily said. “She’s on the streets now. She didn’t have the constitution for Harland’s work. I understood that. I check in on her from time to time, make sure she’s fed, you know that drill. That’s all I could do.”

“Misty?” Sophie was floored.

Lily narrowed her eyes. “You know her?”

“No,” Sophie said, shaking her head. “It’s just an odd name.”

“She picked it,” Lily said. “We all pick new names.”

“Why did you pick Lily?”

“It was my favorite flower.”

“Well, bully for you,” Sophie said, all sympathy for Lily washing away. “And where is Harland now?”

“He still lives in the same house,” Lily said. “He runs the operation now, though.”

“He’s the one running girls over the border?”

“It’s a lucrative business,” Lily said. “I’m his right-hand woman now. I’m second in command. And, when I kill him, I’ll be taking everything over.”

“You’re going to kill him?”

“He’s a child rapist,” Lily said. “Of course I’m going to kill him. I thought, once he got older, that his appetite would die. He just pops Viagra like aspirin now. It’s sick, and it makes him last a whole lot longer.”

“Why haven’t you done it yet?”

“I need to have all my ducks in a row,” Lily said.

“And what ducks are those?”

“I need money,” Lily said. “I was building it up gradually. I’ve been moving women across the border on my own for months, and keeping all of the profits for myself. When I left Harland’s house, I did some time on the streets – that wasn’t a lie – and I knew Christian had diversified. That’s why I decided to do a few pots runs with him, too. I’m in charge now. I’m the one with the power. Well, actually my brothers have joined my cause. They don’t like Harland any more than I do.”

“One big, happy family,” Sophie murmured.

“They know how to take orders,” Lily said. “They’ve been helpful.”

“I’m guessing those were the two guys with you at the newspaper.”

“Yes,” Lily said. “Carl and Keith. They’re good soldiers. They’re going to be very important to my team when I take over the whole operation.”

“That’s why someone noticed the missing girls,” Sophie said. “You’ve been taking more and more of them. You got sloppy.”

“I don’t get sloppy.”

“Well, people didn’t notice the trafficking until you amped it up,” Sophie said.

“Yeah, who did put you on my tail?”

“You told your story to Emma,” Sophie said. “She remembered it. Peter was the one who heard about the women going missing from the street. He went to the Hardys. That’s how this all came about.”

“Oh, yes, Peter,” Lily said. “What a prince he is. I bet he did the same thing to you when you were a kid. That’s why you moved out of that mansion when you were eighteen, wasn’t it? You can tell me.”

“Peter never laid a hand on me,” Sophie said. “He’s not built that way.”

“Then why would you leave? You could have lived like a princess there your whole life.”

“I don’t want to live off of others,” Sophie said. “I’m independent.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “Whatever. I know what I know. Men only want one thing from women. Peter wanted it from you. That’s why he took you in. I’m not stupid. You may not want to admit it – and I get that, it’s hard to deal with – but I know what happened with that man.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I know women like you, Sophie,” Lily said. “I know women like Emma. Her father did the same thing to her. That’s why I knew she would be a good choice.”

Sophie stilled. “You were going to take Emma?”

“Who knows, I might still take her,” Lily said. “She’s young and beautiful. The Hardys will lower their guard at some point, and when they do, Emma is ripe for the picking.”

“Don’t you dare touch her,” Sophie warned. “I’ll kill you.”

“Oh, Sophie, you’re not going to be in a position to do anything,” Lily said. “I’ve got a new home all picked out for you, too.”

Sophie’s heart skipped a beat. “What?”

“Not everyone likes children,” Lily said. “I’ve already got someone who is dying for a crack at you. You’ll be happy in your new home. I’m sure of it.”

“ARE
we sure she’s there?” Grady asked.

He was sitting in the back seat of James’ Explorer in the parking lot of the Evergreen Hotel. Just the sight of the hole Sophie was being held in had Grady’s skin crawling.

“My men are in the front office,” Peter said. “The owner recognized Lily. He rolled right away.”

“Where is he now?” James asked.

“He’s watching porn in his office while taped to his chair,” Peter said. “I have no interest in killing him. I also have no interest in him tipping off Lily before we can get to Sophie.”

“Have we heard from Finn yet?” Jake asked. He was sitting in the back with Grady.

James nodded. “He’s got both Emma and Ally, and he’s taking them to Peter’s house. It was just a precaution, Jake. I don’t really think Emma and Ally are targets right now. I just wanted to be safe.”

“I still don’t like it,” Jake said.

“Lily has never even met Ally,” James said. “I’m honestly more worried about her plans for Emma at the moment. Ally would be a high-risk gamble on her part.”

“I want to kill her,” Jake growled.

“Try meeting her,” Peter said. “You’ll want to kill her even more then.”

“I’ll pass,” Jake said. “Let’s just get Sophie and get the hell out of here.”

“Do we know what room they’re in?” James asked.

Peter pointed. “The one with the two men leaning against the car and pretending to read a newspaper in front of it.”

“How can you be sure?”

“Since when do two men who look like they can’t read share a newspaper in a motel parking lot?”

“I’m not calling your intuition into question,” James said. “I just want to make sure we kick the right door in. We can take those two out easily enough. If we get the wrong room, Lily might have enough time to hurt Sophie.”

Grady leaned forward. “We need to get her.”

“We’re getting her,” Peter said. “Just let me double-check with my men in the office. I need them to
persuade
the owner to make sure he’s telling us the truth.”

“Persuade?”

Peter arched an eyebrow. “Don’t worry. I’m paying him off, not beating him.” He pushed his phone to his ear. “It won’t be long now, and just remember, Lily is mine when this is all done.”

“I don’t care,” Grady said. “As long as I have what’s mine back, I really don’t care.”

“I’m starting to like you more and more,” Peter mused. “You have a certain … idealized devotion that I can’t help but have respect for.”

“Well, great,” Grady said. “I’ll give you a hug later.”

Peter smirked. “Yes, I’m definitely starting to like you.”

“I AM
not going anywhere with you,” Sophie said.

“Something tells me that you’re going to be hard to break,” Lily said. “That’s what some men like, including the one you’re going to. He’s clearly going to get his money’s worth.”

“Yeah? And how much am I going for?”

“I got thirty grand for you,” Lily said. “If you were two years younger, it would have been forty, but I can’t help that.”

“You do know that Peter is going to hunt you down and kill you, right?”

“Oh, please,” Lily said. “I handed Christian up to the Hardys on a silver platter. I’m not even a suspect. They’ll kill Christian, and they’ll never know what happened to you. Why do you think I had a man call Peter?”

“Do you even know who he is?”

“I’m aware of his reputation,” Lily said. “Personally, I think it’s a little inflated. I lived with him for two days. He’s a wimp.”

“You clearly have no idea what you’re talking about,” Sophie said. “Peter is a shark, and he’s going to eat you for lunch and spit you out.”