Stop at Nothing (17 page)

Kyle stared at the fire blazing in the cabin's massive stone fireplace, watching in fascination as the flames moved in a sensual dance. His eyelids were getting heavy, the long drive to the cabin and the quiet serenity of the place making him relax to the point that his entire body felt like it weighed about twice as much.

“Are you bored too?”

His head snapped toward the sound of Tyler's voice. “We've only been here for a few hours,” Kyle said with a grin. “You can't tell me you're bored already.”

Tyler rolled his eyes and flopped down on the sofa next to him. “There's no cable or wireless. What am I supposed to do while I'm here?”

“You could try reading,” Kyle suggested. “That's what my brothers and I always did when we went camping with my parents.”

Kyle couldn't help the sad smile that came to his lips when he thought about those trips with his parents. Mac always turned them into some kind of survivalist-training boot camp, but his mom had made sure that they had fun too. She'd have s'mores and homemade lemonade ready when they got back from the daily mandatory three-mile hike. And when it was time for them to settle in for the night after telling ghost stories around the fire and they were all too scared to go right to sleep, she'd make sure each of them had their own flashlight so that they could read the latest
Spider-Man
or
X-Men
comic books for a while.

“I can't read,” Tyler complained, interrupting Kyle's thoughts. “I forgot my e-reader.”

Kyle laughed. “You mean to tell me you don't have a single book around this place?”

Tyler shrugged. “Maybe in the library.”

“That's probably a good place to look,” Kyle said, ruffling the boy's hair. “Maybe you'll even find some Robert Louis Stevenson.
Treasure Island
was my favorite when I was your age.”

Tyler sighed. “I guess…” He paused for a moment, looking up at Kyle through long lashes. “Mom said she's going to bed early. Is she going to be okay?”

Kyle nodded. “Yeah, I'm sure she will be. She's just tired.”

Tyler nodded. “Okay. Well, I'll find a book and read, I guess, but I'm not going to sleep early since I don't have to go to school tomorrow. Aunt Abby said she'd call and let them know.”

“Then I'm sure she will,” Kyle said with a terse nod.

He watched Tyler sulk away, his disappointment at the cabin's lack of technology clearly putting a damper on his vacation from school. Kyle was still smiling when Abby came into the room pulling on a bright blue cardigan that made her eyes an even more electric shade of blue.

“Going somewhere?” he asked, hoping like hell she'd say no. All he wanted to do was drag her into his arms and pick up where they'd left off down in the boathouse. They'd continued their make-out session there, but it'd only whetted his appetite for more. Hearing her quiet gasps as she fought to keep from crying out drove him wild. If the boats hadn't been in sore need of a good scrub-down, their sojourn there would've ended much differently…

“Emma's asleep,” she told him. “And I just passed Tyler in the hallway. He said he was going to bed to read for a while. I thought I might go outside and sit on the porch. Care to join me?”

Not really the answer he'd been hoping for, but he had to admit that the thought of sitting with her under the stars was just as alluring. “Wouldn't miss it.”

He was careful to make sure the screen door didn't slam shut when they went out onto the front porch, not wanting to draw Emma or Tyler from their beds to see what all the racket was. Plus, he'd had to share Abby with them for the whole evening. He wanted her to himself for a little while before he had to leave the next morning.

“I tried to call to book a flight to New Orleans,” he told her as they curled up together on the porch swing. “But I wasn't able to get a signal out here.”

“Cell phone service can be pretty spotty out this way,” she told him, draping her leg over his thigh and resting her head against his chest. “It gets better a few miles down the road. If you don't want to wait until morning, we can drive down that way.”

He shook his head and pulled her closer. “It'll keep. I'm where I want to be right now. I already hate that I have to leave you for a few days.”

“That was your choice,” she reminded him, “not mine. I still think I should be going with you.”

“You'd just spend the entire time worried about Emma and Tyler because you weren't here,” he pointed out. When she lifted her head to argue, he gave her a pointed look. “Am I wrong?”

“No,” she begrudgingly admitted. “You're not. You know me far too well. I'd be a nervous wreck. I know this is the best place we could've taken them. No one really knows about this place but family.” She laughed. “You saw the road to get here. No one passing by would even know it's there! So I guess I should be telling
you
not to worry either.”

Kyle's arm tightened around her. “That's definitely a comfort. But it's more that I just don't want to be away from you for that long.”

She lifted her eyes to him and offered him a broad smile. “I'm glad you're here, Kyle. I've missed you.”

“I've missed you too,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her hair. “
God
, I've missed you. There were so many times I almost called, but I wasn't sure you'd want to hear from me. I just wanted to hear your voice, talk to you about my day—especially during my last couple of months in New Orleans.”

She reached up and cupped his cheek and brought his face down to hers for a lingering kiss. When it ended she said, “You can tell me about it now. I'm listening.”

He took a deep breath and let it out on a long sigh, steeling himself to dredge up the memories that he'd been trying to suppress for months now. “One of the cases I'd been working on in New Orleans had to do with a human-trafficking operation.”

“Are you serious?” She was visibly taken aback, pulling out of his embrace. The better to peg him with a pissy look, from what he could tell.

He nodded warily. “I know I should've mentioned it sooner—”

“Damn right you should've!” she shot back. “Why didn't you say anything after you read my reports for Hamilton? You might've had information that was relevant to
my
case.”

He sighed, his shoulders sagging. “I didn't want to make connections that weren't there just because I wanted them to be. That's not good detective work, Abby. You know that.”

She studied him for a long moment before her irritation with him for holding out on her dissipated. “Tell me about your case,” she prompted, although her solicitous tone sounded forced. “I'm listening.”

He hesitated, fearful of what might happen once he opened the dam that had been holding back the horrific memories. But then her expression softened and she took his hand and laced her fingers with his. She turned so she was facing him, giving him her undivided attention.

When he saw the love in her eyes, felt the warmth of her palm against his, he nodded, more to himself to confirm it was time to tell her the truth than for any other reason. “I inherited the case,” he began. “It was one that the New Orleans office had been working on for a few years. The guy who'd been assigned before me had been a good agent, but the stress of it finally got to him. He requested a transfer to Seattle.”

“Is that what happened to you, Kyle?” Abby pressed gently. “Is that why you came back to Indiana? Did you wash out?”

He had to laugh out loud at that one. “No, I really did get transferred. And a thirty-day suspension. This week off isn't exactly a vacation. It's the final week of my mandated leave.”

Abby's eyes went wide. “What happened?”

“I was obsessed with the case in New Orleans, Abby,” he explained. “I was willing to do whatever it took to bring down those sons of bitches—even if that meant being accused of using excessive force to bring in a key witness who was trying to skip town. The guy filed a complaint against me. And considering I was already pretty much at the top of my boss's shit list, he didn't exactly need much of a reason to send me packing.”

“But you did great at the academy,” Abby said, defending him. “And they loved you in Miami. Why did this jackass in New Orleans have it in for you?”

He vaguely wondered how she knew so much, but was gratified by her defense of him nonetheless. “Let's just say my family legacy preceded me.”

She groaned. “
Idiots
. You're more than your family history, Kyle. And they're morons for not seeing what an incredible man you are.”

He brought her hand up to his lips and pressed a kiss to her palm. “This is why I love you.”

She smiled and leaned forward to brush a kiss against his mouth that ended far too soon for his liking.

When she pulled back again, he continued, “Anyway, so this case fell into my lap when I started and quickly became my focus at the expense of everything else. And it got worse when we found
her.
”

Abby shook her head. “Who?”

“Her name was Rosalie Sparks,” he replied. “She'd been a beautiful fifteen-year-old with a promising future. Until she went missing. She'd met some guy online and convinced herself she was in love with him, that he was her soul mate. He told her he was a sixteen-year-old boy who had a shitty home life and played on her sympathies. Their exchanges started out pretty harmless, but they began having some really explicit conversations in their chats. Eventually, this guy convinced her to send him pornographic photos of herself. Not long after that, he talked her into meeting him.”

Abby cursed softly and tenderly caressed his arm, instinctively knowing that the story wasn't going to end well.

Kyle scowled, the thought of that sick asshole preying on Rosalie making him wish he could castrate the bastard and shove his balls down his throat. He heaved a sharp exhale. “Some guy walking his dog uncovered Rosalie's remains about a year later.”

“Oh my God…” Abby closed her eyes for a moment. “Her poor family.”

He pulled a hand down his face, remembering the day he'd had to deliver the death notification to Rosalie's parents. Her mother had handled it a little better, having already resigned herself to the fact that her daughter would never return. But the father had held out hope. Kyle could still hear the man's heart-wrenching sobs.

“Rosalie had been beaten and raped,” Kyle went on. “Her head was bashed in.”

Abby gasped. “Good God.”

“It was one of the most horrific crime scenes I've ever seen,” Kyle told her. “At first we thought it was another case of a young woman being lured to her death by a lone sexual predator. But then the medical examiner found a mark on the inside of Rosalie's right thigh, a brand that we'd found on several other men and women who'd been arrested in a prostitution ring operating as an illegal massage parlor.”

“Was Rosalie working there too?” Abby asked, her brows coming together in a frown.

“That was the big question,” Kyle told her. “We questioned the prostitutes we'd arrested and began to piece together how their operation worked. Not surprisingly, it was run by a woman who was bringing girls and young women into the U.S. with promises of work, marriage, a better life, but then forced them into prostitution or domestic labor.”

“Unfortunately, that kind of thing is growing more common,” Abby told him. “But those sorts of operations are small scale compared to what Tartarus is involved in.”

“True,” Kyle admitted, “but soon we were able to tie the massage-parlor operation back to another investigation that my predecessor had begun. He'd busted a group for human trafficking after state troopers pulled over a box truck with dozens of dead illegals in the back. Everyone thought the group was just a bunch of freelancers trying to exploit people desperate to get into the country. But we kept making more connections, finding more of these seemingly small freelance operations, and discovered they had a common thread—a kind of parent company that they all reported to.”

“And you think that parent company might be Tartarus?” Abby asked. “I mean, Curtis isn't the only asshole out there doing this kind of thing.”

Kyle raked a hand through his hair. “I know… It's just… It's a gut feeling, Abby. I can't explain it. There were little things that kept cropping up in your reports, similarities that jumped out at me.”

“Okay,” she said, her voice taking on that particular tone that told him her mind was racing as she mentally sifted through all the information. “What about Rosalie? So far, everything you've mentioned has dealt with groups preying on people literally dying to get into the U.S. But Rosalie doesn't fit that description.”

Kyle shook his head. “No, she didn't. That's why the brand was so confusing. Luckily, we caught a break when a male prostitute the New Orleans cops brought in started singing like a canary to try to avoid jail time. The stuff he was giving up prompted them to call us in.”

Abby's spine stiffened as she waited for what Kyle was about to tell her. She was so beautiful in the moonlight, her eyes wide and alert, her brilliant mind ready to absorb his every word. He couldn't help reaching up and briefly caressing her cheek with the back of his fingers. He needed the contact, needed to feel the silky smoothness of her skin before he shared the rest of the story.

When his hand dropped away, Abby took it in both of hers, not saying a word.

Kyle took a deep breath and let it out on a long exhale, wishing the process could cleanse his soul of the heaviness that weighed on it. “This guy—Harlan Rhodes—told us about the way his bosses recruited new people, sometimes for use here domestically, but more often to satisfy the appetites of American businessmen and others traveling abroad.”