SEIZED Part 3: Steamy Romantic Suspense (Seize Me Romance Fiction Series) (7 page)

Carrie

After that confrontation with Blake, I’m off-balance. I’m sure he’s hiding something more. The thought that I slept with him makes me sick. I could scream with frustration, but I’m on the street, I’m wired for sound, and I want to preserve any last shred of dignity I can. Now is not the time for venting. I’ll do that later, at the hotel; when there’s space to process the grief washing over me.

Despite everything, despite all the lies he’s been telling and all the secrets he’s keeping, my pussy is throbbing. I want Blake like I’ve never wanted any one before. Just the sound of his voice made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. An attraction of this intensity must have a lifetime effect. I feel like he’s branded on my soul. As if fate has stuck us together for a reason.

Oh God, I just don’t know who to believe
. There’s something to be said for trusting your gut. I was aware the whole time that something was wrong with Blake, but was it really this? Could he have been leaving me to touch someone else in the same way, or is there more to this story? Instinctively, in the center of my heart, I want to trust Blake Anderson. But I would have to be the biggest fool on the planet if I didn’t listen to the FBI.
Christ, maybe I’m beyond help, to even be thinking this way.

I look around for Jason and sigh. There is no decision to be made. He came to see me, I got the message across about Neon, and left him standing there. That’s it. I need to focus on what’s important. I did this for April and no one else. I’m a good friend, and there’s a chance I may just uncover the story of the century. Whatever is going on with Blake needs to be sidelined.

Jason drives up in the taxi, and I slide into the passenger seat next to him. My tasks are almost done. It’s a tiny victory.

“How was that?” he asks.

“Good. Did he take the bait?”

“A team is following him to see where he goes.”

“Okay. Are you sure I was being followed by Neon’s people? I didn’t see anyone suspicious or feel any one watching at all. Just goes to show how much I know about surveillance…”

“You did well. Not to worry.”

It’s not until then that I look over, and notice Jason is dressed as a completely different man. A hat and fake beard cover most of his face. Even his posture looks different. The changes seem very real, and that’s what is ironic. This is my life now. I’m in an FBI car, driving the streets with a man who’s
actually
in disguise—after leaving Blake, who was dressed as himself and has been putting on a show all this time. I want to laugh, but the reality of what’s going to happen to him sets in.

“It’s not so late yet. Are we going to see enough girls to make it worthwhile?”

“Prostitution is a twenty-four hour business, Carrie. The street girls are still out, if you know where to look for them.”

I don’t answer him because I don’t know what to say. I don’t know anything about this world. I’m naïve, and just being here is a learning experience. I sit back and let him drive. We drive across a few city blocks, and pull in behind an alley. There are girls spread out at several street corners in all directions.

“The high class girls will be in establishments,” Jason continues, “but the street welcomes new kids, and the ones with addictions. Not many places will hire a girl if she shows signs of drug use. Standards are high. There are still reputations to maintain, depending on the clientele. Drugs are a recipe for disaster, for those who take the business more seriously.”

“Do you know where Neon’s girls work?”

“Territories can change, but she holds down a good chunk of the area in the next three blocks. Keep your eyes peeled, okay? I don’t expect to find April out here. She’s more likely being saved for the elite clients, but we might as well look around and see what we can track down. Remember, if by chance we find her, take no action. The other team is going to take care of Blake and Neon. We need to wait long enough for Neon to claim April, otherwise we’ll have no ability to lay charges.”

The plot thickens. My stomach can’t take it. “So if we see April, you want me to leave her out there? This is ludicrous, Jason.”

“Trust, remember? April’s safety is of the utmost importance.”

“It doesn’t sound that way.”

“Just give us a chance, okay?”

I can’t nod or reply. The truth is, if I see her, I’m more likely to scream her name and run towards her, not sit there. I let him believe whatever he wants to believe. We drive past row after row of walkup apartments, with packs of two or three, and sometimes a solo woman beckoning. I begin to feel sicker. It’s not their bodies or what they do that’s causing my nausea. It’s the outright squalor involved. Jason tells me these girls will have sex with up to twelve men a night. Sometimes safely, sometimes not.

Jason drives smoothly and continues to talk as I look right into the faces of everyone who’s out there, hoping to see April. “When they’re summoned to a car window, they need to make the most of the opportunity to earn, regardless of who it is. There’s no room to be picky, the street’s not a place where girls have the right to decline clients. If they don’t earn enough, they’ll be given or traded away by their pimps, or they’ll have to stay out until they make their quotas.”

“It’s a complex relationship between pimp and hooker. They need each other, and resent each other. The partnerships are rife with conflict and violence. Neon is popular, but she’s no kinder than the big guys out there. Girls flock to her because she used to work herself, and the drugs flow steadily.”

My phone chimes in the pocket of my hoodie and I pull it out to see another unlisted number on the screen. Jason says it’s not any of his people, and nods for me to answer.

“Hello?” I say it with caution, not knowing who’s waiting on the other end.

“Carrie? Hello there. It’s Jessup Lee, here. How are you?”

“Mr. Lee. Oh. Hello.” I turn to Jason and mouth the name ‘Jessup Lee’, raising my eyebrows. He makes a signal with his hands to keep the conversation going.

“Carrie, I wanted to phone and see how you’re doing. We haven’t spoken for some time and I’d like to have a chat if you have time this evening? It’s important we connect.”

Yuck, the sound of his voice makes me feel even dirtier than seeing all the haggard women and destitution on the streets.

“Uhh, that won’t be possible today. I’m not in New York at the moment, Mr. Lee. It’ll have to be another time, if at all.” I hadn’t planned to speak to him, and I make a slip about the last time I had seen him. “Frankly, Mr. Lee, after the last experience, I don’t feel comfortable meeting you. I can’t be sure you won’t lock me in a room somewhere.”

Jessup loses it. “Now listen here, you little bitch. You’ve got no fucking idea what you’re up against…”

I cut him off and hang up, and tell Jason what he said. “What a prize asshole.”

I hate him for thinking he can control me, for knowing my number to begin with, and I hate him even more for trying to move April to New York. Whatever power games he’s been playing could well have been the cause of her disappearance. It makes me feel like calling him back, to tell him to fuck off.

Jason pulls to a stop at the next corner, and sits with me in silence. He doesn’t push me to say more. I appreciate his patience. It’s getting dark outside. The skyline looks beautiful. It’s a stark juxtaposition, considering the ugliness of the situation in the streets around us.

I look a little closer at the corner where we’re parked. There are two tired-looking girls leaning against the wall. Neither of them are facing us. I’m about to tell Jason to keep driving when I notice something about the way one of them moves.

Is that? No it can’t be
. My mind must be playing tricks on me. One of them looks like April. It’s not the April I know. It’s a skeleton; a shadow of the person I know, with the same bone structure as my friend.

Before I can speak, I’m out of the car, walking towards her. I don’t hear Jason jump out after me. I just need to look closer.

“April?” I say in a soft, trembling voice. “Is that you?”

Carrie

The girl who looks like April and moves like April, and who was once my best friend freezes at the bottom of the brownstone steps. We meet eyes and for a second I see a glimmer of recognition in her sunken face. Jason makes it to my side and pulls me away. His strong arms wrap around me before I get to say another word. He has me in the car and half way down the street before I know what’s happening.

I’m kicking at the locked car door now. “Let me out, now!” I scream.

He refuses and the look in his eyes instantly shuts me up. There’s something wild there. Something that makes me stop and think about what I’m doing. It’s an authority that puts me in my place. For now, it silences my struggle. I don’t know what I was doing getting out of the car like that. I could kick myself; instinct just took over.

“Shit! Did I just blow it?”

“I don’t know if she recognized you. I hope she didn’t because right now we need more time. Just because you’ve found her doesn’t mean you can take her back to the hotel, Carrie. Snap out of it. Neon owns her now. And we need to stop Neon. That’s how we end this longstanding criminal. We need Blake to connect Neon to April, understand? Removing her now won’t stop the problem, and we’re so close.”

I burst into tears. I’m sobbing and shaking uncontrollably. My best friend. My beautiful friend. I weep for her. For everything that’s happened and for the way she looks now. I’ve never seen her so thin and sick and vacant. It’s been less than two weeks, and she looks like a different woman. The desire to go running back there and grab her is overwhelming. I feel so powerless.

The tears keep coming and I feel Jason’s hands on me, stroking my hair and comforting me as I sob through my fingers. His hand comes to rest on my shoulder. I wish I had more to help to make the pain go away. We say nothing for a moment and I hold myself gently during this most recent meltdown.

I’m aware of everything awful that’s probably happened to April, but somehow, I feel it will be okay soon. There’s a plan in place. I trust this man’s team is going to make it happen. He must feel the change in me, because he releases my shoulder and smiles gently.

“Carrie I need you to be brave. Can you do that?”

I can’t speak, but I nod my head. He takes a moment to tuck a strand of lose hair back behind my ear. It’s the gesture that counts—one human restoring the façade of another. Maybe there’s more to this man than I think there is; who knows.

“I’m going to take you to a café up the street to wait while we monitor the area for Blake. Most of her thugs have left the area, so you’ll be fine in there. You’ve done your part. It’s essential we keep you out of danger now. I still need you to be aware of your surroundings, but I’ll be back to get you within a half-hour. Will you be okay?”

              I nod again and he drives about a hundred feet down the road. He lets me off and waits for me to find a spot inside. I pick a table where I can just make out April through the front window. I watch her carefully from the distance. It breaks my heart to see her walk up to a car window, attempt to negotiate a trick and get rejected. There was a time when every man in our home town wanted to date that woman. Now she’s a shell of her former self, and the scum of the earth don’t want her.

I try to put aside my own feelings. The way to help April is to wait.

Jason must have decided to go back on foot. I see him walk from the side of the café and make his way up to the other corner, past April. I would never have guessed it was him under that disguise, but his butt still looks the same when he walks—lean and powerful.

It’s warm here in the café. The clerk must think the same thing. She walks over to the front door and props it open with two door wedges. It makes no difference. I get up and buy a bottled water from her, and go back to my seat to watch. Nothing much seems to be happening. A few cars cruise past, and another girl comes down the brownstone steps and picks up a job. She nods at April and gets into the car.

April’s body language tenses and she shrinks back into the brick wall. I look around the surrounding area. There are a few parked cars, an abandoned apartment complex, and a Laundromat that’s open. If someone wanted to attack her they could, but there must be someone bigger and tougher watching her. Today, she has Neon’s thugs and at least two of the FBI team. The locals probably wouldn’t dare mess with Neon’s girls.

I sit back for a second and wonder what I’d do if she were attacked again. I don’t think I could restrain myself. I’d have to do something. This whole thing makes me want to throw up. I sigh and lean forward, resting my head in my hands. My gut wrenches to tell me none if this is okay.

A faint voice filters through the front door of the café. It gets closer. My head’s in my hands, but I’m listening. It’s someone talking loudly on a cell phone as they walk down the street outside. I close my eyes to listen for a while, and I’m about to tune out when something the person says makes me look up. The voice is familiar. I squint through the coming darkness, peering out to see who it is.

I immediately duck my head back down in my hands. It’s Neon. She’s right there!
OMG
! Any second now, Jason is going to walk back from the where he is, and possibly get seen. There’s nothing I can do, but hide my face and sneak a peek through my fingers.

She looks exactly like the pictures Jason showed me back at the field office. Her lipstick is bright orange. I figure it must be her trademark. Her skin is pale and sickly. Her hair is jet black. It’s literally midnight black. She’s bone thin—so leathery and tiny. The woman must have to buy her clothes from the children’s department. I don’t know of any store sells that sort of street clothes to kids, though!

With her high heels and long straightened hair, she reminds me of a cross between Elvira and a Pit bull. There’s something rabid about the way her mouth forms around the words that are spewing into the phone. I am repelled and equally fascinated.

I keep my head down and listen to her finish her conversation. She had a deep, throaty voice. She is unmistakably the same person who phoned the other day to warn me off Blake. She may have told me to mind my own business, but I didn’t listen. And now she’s busted. I know it with a hundred percent certainty now. This must mean she’s the one who has April. My heart drops in my chest. I assume it also means she’s got Blake.

Two things happen as I watch the scene unfold. First, Jason exits the store but walks the other way to come around the block. Next, Neon stops beside April, hangs up the phone and starts saying something that doesn’t look friendly. Is April in trouble for something? It looks like it. I can’t hear what’s happening anymore.

Jason pulls up in front the café and waves for me to get back into the car.

“Look who’s here!”

“I know, I saw her on the way out, it’s rare for her to be out on the street like this, it means she got word of your mini-investigation from Blake or someone from her crew.”

“Can’t your team arrest her now?”

“No, Neon will be checking in on earnings for the night. We need to see her taking money from April, or giving April drugs. There has to be a transaction.”

I gulp a little at that. This is worse than I thought.
Why can’t they just arrest her and get April away? Why does April still have to be a pawn
? Anger comes over me. It kills me. They expect me to leave her here so they can catch Neon?

“There has to be more we can do.”

“We can’t. We have to wait.”

“I can’t believe this. We can’t leave her here if Neon doesn’t engage in a transaction. That’s just—well it’s crazy. Is there anything we can do at all?”

Jason shakes his head and then reaches up to touch his ear. He’s also wired and starts talking directly to someone on his team. I can’t hear what they’re saying, but his eyes dart to me and anxiety rises in my gut.

I look back at the street and instantly understand. His team was alerting him that Sergeant Blake Anderson is on site. More than on site; he’s here. He saunters around the corner and joins Neon in a blatantly intimate conversation.

Their body language is close. She’s angry at him for something, and he takes her repulsive verbal abuse. The man is clearly pussy-whipped, and pays not an ounce of attention to the victim of the crime standing right next to his girlfriend.

I turn away and throw up in my mouth a little at what it all means. The bile is bitter on my tongue and I manage to swallow it back down without vomiting all over Jason’s lap. The betrayal is physical, gut wrenching. This isn’t my heart breaking; it’s the insides of my gut burning and clenching in pain. I can’t look again. I don’t want to see the lies play out in front of me. I also can’t help myself.

Blake has obviously come from our earlier meeting. He’s gone from telling me to trust him to the vipers’ nest he’s been trying to hide from me. I wish I knew what he was saying to Neon. Just the fact he’s here means he knows about April. He’s probably known the whole time.

              I wish I had a camera. If I did, I would pull it out and take photos. I’m sure Jason has someone from his team doing video surveillance, but I would capture the closeness of their body language, and the way April shrinks in the background. My shutter would be clicking multiple times to capture the contrast between his healthy brown skin and her pale, pasty body.

I would get a close-up of the cold sore on April’s lips and the way she’s scratching her arms and neck. Her breast jiggle visibly with every flick of the scratch in the tacky red moneymaker style dress she’s wearing. The camera would also put some much-needed emotional distance between us. I want to know what’s going on for personal reasons, but I would also capture every detail for the story later.

There’s no way that slimy bastard Blake is going to get away with this. I want them to take his badge, and throw his corrupt two-faced ass in jail. I would make the exposé with a personal edge. I’m already picturing the big and bold title on our website. A warmth settles over me. I’m going to save my friend, and happily nail him to the wall. It’s time to end my sorry-ass hang-up with Blake, and remove him from my life for good.

“It’s time to take you back to the hotel,” Jason says. “My team will keep watch until I get back later this evening.”

“Will you get April out of there?”

“Leave it with us. We’ll do what we can.”

I’m so sick of watching, I nod. I just want to get out of here. He starts the car. He speaks to one of the FBI team members stationed nearby over his headset, and we pull off without a word. Now is the time for me to get my story down, and document every piece of evidence against the man I love. After it’s done with, I can work out my next moves, and process this anger.

“This is a coming to a positive good resolution, Carrie. I know it doesn’t feel great yet, but we’ve made more progress bringing Detective Anderson down than we could have ever hoped.”

There’s something about the way he says it that puts me on edge. He’s so satisfied, yet April is still someone’s street-walking slave. I press my hands on the dashboard.

“Is this about April at all?”

“Carrie, you’re angry, it’s okay. Be angry. Be angry at me, be angry at the world but don’t mistake my desire for justice as anything but that. I’m here to help you get your friend back. I’ll get you to your hotel and if you want, we can talk after you calm down. And you can ask me anything you want.”

I’m not sure whether it’s his calm tone that cracks me, or the words I just spewed out. Or maybe it’s the sheer pressure of everything that’s happened. I slump down in my seat, look out the window and try to stop the tears from falling. Just minutes ago I was angry as hell, and now I feel like nothing is ever going to be ok again. The reality of it all is too much to bear, so I close my eyes.

“Carrie, it’s going to be okay. I’ve got you. Just rest up. We’re nearly there.”