Suddenly a Spy (24 page)

“Is Rick there?”

“Are you going to talk about me like I’m a
child now?” she demanded.

“No, I need to talk to him about tonight.
Paranoid much?”

Veronica sighed and handed the phone back to
Rick. She went to the bed and ran her fingers across the fabric of
the scarf. It really did feel exquisite. With one last wistful look
at the garment, she wadded it up and tossed it in the trash. Even
if he hadn’t bugged it, she didn’t want to keep anything that
reminded her of the time she’d spent with him in Bulgaria.

It felt too much like a relationship
souvenir. She considered lighting the scarf on fire, but decided
against it. Knowing her, she’d burn the place down.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Veronica hated waiting. It never failed that
once she was in place for a mission, she realized she had to pee.
Apparently something about sitting in an unmarked van in a seedy
alleyway triggered her bladder. Her heavy eyes were propped open by
adrenaline alone. She was bored, too. Her mind flitted from one
random topic to the next, although it always came back around to
her bladder and Jeff’s announcement.

“I can’t believe he’s getting married. What
if she doesn’t say yes?”

“Maybe they’ll start having a litter of kids
and get your mother off our back.”

“That would probably blow my mind. I’m still
trying to picture Jeff married, let alone with kids.”

“I think that’s them,” Rick nodded at an SUV
that pulled up in front of the building. “Yep. It’s like a clown
car—look at all he girls piling out.”

“You be careful, okay?”

“You, too. Remember, get them loaded and get
them to the house in Downers Grove. The attorney will take it from
there. I’ll meet you back at the hotel, okay?”

“Got it.”

Rick planted a kiss on her temple and slid
out the back of the van. She watched him get in their rented Buick
and pull away, following the SUV at a safe distance. With one last
deep breath for courage, she pulled her gun and stepped out of the
van.

Even if they were fairly certain there were
no other guards, she felt better with her Makarov in hand. It had
become a trusted friend.

Veronica slinked along the edge of the
building, holstering her gun long enough to pull a pair of pliers
when she came to the first security camera. She monkeyed her way up
a nearby tree and hung down by her legs to reach it.

As she reached for the wires, a voice broke
through the stillness. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

“Why, would it put a crimp in your budget to
lose more girls?” she glared at Marko as he materialized from the
shadows.

“No, because the building is rigged to
explode if a security camera is compromised. I’d rather lose the
merchandise than go back to prison. There’s always more where these
came from. You can thank Rick for that measure—we implemented it
after he had me arrested the last time.”

“They aren’t merchandise. They’re people,”
she hopped down from the tree and stood to face him.

“I didn’t come to debate ethics with
you.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because, my dear, I didn’t want to watch you
get yourself killed. Your husband should have known we would have
more security than a camera or two. And don’t worry—I’ve saved you
the embarrassment of a second divorce.”

“What have you done?” her blood ran cold. The
corner of his lip twitched in cruel amusement and she knew Rick was
headed into a trap. The fire of fury replaced the ice of fear in
her.

“It’s really more a question of what you’ve
done. If you hadn’t logged on the Internet with your laptop in San
Francisco, I wouldn’t have been able to get there before you left.
I’d been waiting very patiently for your IP address to make an
appearance.”

“So I did lead you to us,” she absorbed that
information.

“Don’t worry. We found you in Greece the old
fashioned way—so it wasn’t all you.”

He seemed to be almost enjoying himself. All
she could think about was Rick. He was in danger, and it was her
fault. Anger and fear boiled inside of her until she exploded off
the ground into a spinning kick that caught Marko square in the
jaw. He cursed and stumbled backwards. She advanced without
mercy.

“Where is he?” There were many questions she
could ask, many answers that Marko held, but that was the one
burning on her brain.

“You stupid…,” Marko sputtered and swung a
powerful fist towards her face. Pain reverberated through her jaw
when it made contact. She stumbled back, dodging his second punch
and returning with three lightning fast strikes of her own. The
rage behind them gave them power, but he still brushed her off like
a gnat, his hand snaking out to grab her by the throat when she
advanced on him again.

Their eyes locked. She’d almost come to
expect this moment in every battle. He seemed to search for that
piece of her that would heed his call to step over the line between
them. She silently begged him to cross over in her direction, to
listen to that sliver of good in his soul. Neither budged.

“You know what? I’ve wasted enough time on
you. Thanks for the tip about the cameras,” she kicked the inside
of his knee, knocking him off balance enough to free herself, then
she took him down with a spinning wheel kick to the head.

She knew in her brain that she should pull
her gun out and remove him from the equation permanently, but she
couldn’t bring herself to shoot another human being in cold blood.
It was one thing when they were shooting at you. Another when they
were a broken heap on the ground.

Having the cameras functional just meant
she’d need to move more quickly. It wasn’t a deal breaker. Besides,
according to Marko, any potential threat was aimed at Rick.

It only took a moment to unlock the front
door and she soon found herself face to face with a very surprised
teenage girl brushing her teeth and wearing nothing but a t-shirt
and panties.

“Go get your clothes on and get the other
girls. I’m here to help you.”

“Who are you?” a young woman emerged from the
bedroom, her face guarded.

“My name is Veronica Sinclair. My husband and
I are here to free you.”

“Where is your husband?”

“Getting rid of the guards. I have a van
outside that will take you to a woman who will take care of you.
Your families are safe; but we must move quickly,” Veronica’s
frustration mounted. How did these women not understand? Why did
they not move?

“How do you know their families are safe?”
Marko appeared at the door, his clothes torn and blood dripping
from his face. The girls knew him and shrank back. “They aren’t
going anywhere tonight, princess, and we both know it.”

Veronica growled in frustration, hauling off
to punch him only for him to catch her fist in a crippling grip.
She wanted to whimper. Pain radiated from her hand and shot down
her arm. She gritted her teeth and did the first thing that came to
mind. Maybe because it was the first self-defense move her daddy
taught her.

When her foot connected with his groin, it
was with a velocity powered by rage, pain and frustration, and it
was enough to bring him to his knees. As he sank, she brought her
knee up to catch him under the chin. He fell back and she put a
booted foot on his neck to hold him in place.

“There is a black van in the alleyway by this
building,” she turned to the girls. “Go now.”

The women scurried to do as they were told.
Veronica assumed that whatever culture they came from, they could
recognize the hint of insanity that now lurked in her eyes. She’d
been pushed just a little too far this night.

When she and Marko were the only two left in
the building, she looked down into his rage-filled eyes. “Leave.
Walk away from this. Please. I don’t want to have to kill you.
Don’t ask me why not, but I don’t.”

He didn’t follow her as she walked away from
the building. She didn’t stop to see if he’d found his way out
before she clipped the wire on the security camera.

The world seemed to rotate in slow motion as
she strode towards the van while the crumbled old apartment
building exploded behind her. Maybe it was wrong, but she didn’t
care if it took out the crack house next to it. Something in her
was hardening and she wasn’t sure there would be any going back
from that.

Veronica slid behind the wheel of the van,
turning only long enough to offer a brief word of reassurance to
the girls. “You’ll be okay now. I’m taking you somewhere safe.”

Gripping the steering wheel so tight her
knuckles were white, she tried not to think about why no muscle had
shown up to stop her. It was part of the plan—Rick would have taken
care of them. But Marko had planted the seeds of doubt.

What if Rick had been heading into a trap?
She wasn’t sure she was strong enough to handle him turning up like
Vance. Or worse.

The 19 miles from downtown Chicago to Downers
Grove was the longest trip of her life. When at last she pulled
down the drive of the white dollhouse belonging to the attorney,
her nerves were completely frayed. The silence emanating from the
terrified girls was deafening. The picture of Marko’s eyes glaring
up at her was seared into her brain, and the image of Rick broken
and bloody replayed in her head.

Veronica wiped her eyes with the back of her
hand. She had to transition the girls; then she could go find
Rick.

“You must be Taylor,” she greeted the woman
who’d come to meet them in the driveway.

“And you must be Veronica,” the willowy
attorney extended a small-boned hand. It wasn’t the kind of savior
she’d envisioned delivering these girls to. “Um… do you need help
from me getting them settled?”
“Nope,” the woman smiled as if she knew Veronica’s thoughts.
“Unfortunately, I’m well practiced in this. We’ll be okay.”

“I feel like I should be going after the
bastards who patronized that club,” Veronica gave the frightened
creatures in the van one last look.

“The files your husband sent over will go a
long way towards exposing them—that entire operation, actually.
We’ll get most of them. Especially without Kulenović money funding
an endless supply of attorneys to fight me. You keep them busy and
I can fight the middle men here.”

Veronica nodded and handed Taylor the keys.
“Good luck.”

“I’ll be praying for you,” the woman accepted
the key ring.

“You too,” Veronica responded. She had to
admit she wouldn’t actually be praying for the woman, but those
words were the first to tumble out of her mouth.

“My assistant, Ellen, will drive you back to
town,” Taylor gestured to a young woman who emerged from the house
on cue. She had short, spiky brown hair and an elfish face. She
wore a pair of faded jeans and a worn out t-shirt with a broken
peace sign on it. Another unlikely hero, Veronica mused.

“I think it’s great what you and your husband
do,” Ellen commended Veronica as they made their way back to the
city.

“I just kind of fell into it,” Veronica
admitted. “At first it was about getting my own life back. Then I
realized I couldn’t just walk away from those women. No one else
seemed inclined to help them.”

Even as Veronica answered, her mind was
focused on Rick. She hoped he was okay and wondered if maybe she
should have told Taylor to focus those prayers in his direction. A
part of her wanted to run away with Rick where they could live out
their days on a little island in the middle of nowhere—just them
and their dogs.

She remembered their honeymoon. They’d toyed
with the idea of sending for the dogs and staying in paradise, but
she’d been lured back to civilization by shoes and coffee. Now
she’d trade it all to live with him in a hut in Zimbabwe. Anywhere
in this great big, wide world, just as long as he was there.

The image of Anuli’s warm brown eyes floated
through her mind. Those eyes had seen more horror than Veronica
could really comprehend. She imagined telling Anuli that her
problems were just too much, that helping her would require too
much effort.

“I just don’t understand how people can
ignore this crap,” Ellen fumed, interrupting her reverie.

“Sometimes we don’t realize how bad the
problem is,” Veronica shrugged. “Sometimes we tell ourselves the
problem’s too big, and we’re too small. Or maybe it’s a concern for
someone else to solve. I spent a lot of years writing about crime,
and it never once occurred to me to do something to stop it.”

“It just makes me so angry. People should
care more.”

“Complacency is a dangerous thing,” Veronica
agreed. “But not everyone can go undercover to break up human
trafficking rings. Or dedicate their lives to human rights
law.”

“But doing something is better than nothing,”
the frustration seethed in Ellen’s voice; she couldn’t fathom how
such a simple statement wasn’t obvious to the rest of humanity.

Veronica merely nodded, looking out the
window in hope of ending the conversation. She wasn’t in the mood
to sit and pass judgment on other people for how they lived their
lives. She certainly hadn’t thought twice about ignoring the
world’s problems in her past life. It was an easy thing to do.

Her focus shifted to the reflection looking
back at her from the window. Maybe the wide blue eyes and blonde
curls were the same, but the resemblance to the bride who’d stared
at her reflection just a few short months ago stopped there. The
new Mrs. Sinclair had wondered then what she’d gotten herself into.
She wondered if she could survive the pain of being lied to
again.

This Mrs. Sinclair was only a little older
but much wiser, and she wondered if she’d be able to take even one
breath in a world that didn’t have Rick in it. She rested her head
against the cool window and sent a wish heavenward that he would be
in their hotel room when she returned. Maybe they couldn’t just
walk away from the need, but surely they could take a break from it
when this was finished.