Page 57 of Spies Like Us

“Are you okay?” he asks me as Miller opens the fridge and pokes around for a moment. He pulls out a covered container of something. I turn my back and pull my fishnets on, followed by my boots as I think about my response.

“Yeah, I am. Lathan helped a lot,” I tell him, and he smiles gently. “You all have to remember that this is new for me—feelings are new to me. I learned very early on to compartmentalize, and I’m good at it, but I haven’t seemed to be able to distance myself from this team. You all wormed your way in, and I’m not sure I can get you back out.” I’m being brutally honest, and I know he recognizes that. “I’m going to fuck up, and quite frankly, I’m jealous as fuck when I see him and her together. I know rationally that he is doing it for the mission, but emotionally, I’m a mess. I just want to put a bullet between her eyes and toss her into a shallow grave for predators to nibble on.”

Ryland blinks, and I think he’s kind of lost for words, but Miller snorts with amusement as he slides a steaming bowl of food in front of me. It’s in a to-go container with disposable cutlery.

“We saved you some dinner. You can eat it on the drive,” he tells me, going to the fridge and grabbing a can of soda, placing it in front of me before picking up my backpack. The food smells familiar, and when I look down, I find a bowl of mac and cheese staring back at me.

“Come on, we can talk in the car.” Miller waits for me to get up and grab my food before he leads the way to the garage entrance. I can feel Ryland following behind us.

“He called Sadie and begged for the recipe, told her you were having a bad day and wanted to make you feel better. I could hear her scream of excitement from across the room,” he whispers behind me. I blink, looking down at my food again, before reaching for the fork to take a bite. The familiar flavors of my mom’s mac and cheese hit my taste buds, and I burst into tears. Miller spins around with a look of panic on his face as Ryland wraps an arm around my waist and pulls my back against his chest.

“What? Did I do it wrong?”

“You made me mac and cheese? You called my mom?” I blabber, and his panic melts as he glares at his boyfriend.

“I was hungry and craving mac and cheese. It’s not a big deal,” he argues, trying to make less of a deal of it than it is, but I shake my head.

“It is. It’s the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me,” I tell him. I shuffle forward, the bowl held against my chest like it’s treasure, dragging Ryland with me. I can hear him chuckle under his breath, but I ignore him and lean my head against Miller’s chest. “Thank you.”

“It was nothing,” he mutters, but his arms come up, embracing both me and Ryland, and I lean into the three-way hug, feeling all sorts of emotions that I won’t look at too carefully. They are too close to the ones I felt for Lathan earlier, and I’m not ready for that.

“Come on.” Miller gently extracts me before helping me into the back seat of the car. “Make sure you eat that before it gets cold. Ry can get rid of the trash for us when he drops us off,” he instructs me, placing my backpack on the floor near my feet before going around to the passenger seat. I just gape at him, completely blown away by this new version of Miller.

“Sexy, isn’t it?” Ry mutters to me before closing the door and climbing into the driver’s seat.

“Hell yes,” I reply, scooping up a bite of my food and squirming on the spot as the familiar and comforting taste explodes across my taste buds. It is glorious, and I won’t tell him this, but it tastes even better than my mom’s because he made it for me. Kind and loving Miller is hot as fuck.

Chapter 26

The guys’ search of the shipyard turned up nothing of interest. They said there are plenty of empty containers, but nothing that points to them trafficking people in. They placed a few cameras around the yard, and a team of analysts back at the Lighthouse will be watching around the clock for any suspicious movements.

Lathan’s deep dive into the women’s backgrounds was a little more interesting. The old lady who used to run Serenity House prior to Martha died in a car accident. Her brakes failed. Upkeep on the car wasn’t the best, and it was lucky she didn’t have any foster kids in it when it happened. She was originally rescued by EMTs and brought to the hospital where they managed to get her into stable condition, but later, she had a heart attack exacerbated by her injuries. It was deemed an accident, and the case was quickly closed.

Lathan dug a little deeper, however, and learned that the brake lines had small slices in them. Also, there wasn’t anything wrong with her heart that would have caused a heart attack. There was an overabundance of adrenaline in her system, and the coroner blamed the accident, but there were also large traces of epinephrine in her system. The coroner ruled that as nonsuspicious, because it was used to try and resuscitate her. This is the same coroner who also covered up Bishop’s and the other girl’s deaths. If that’s not suspicious, I don’t know what is. Martha was also one of the nurses treating her.

Brock’s mention of the foster father going to jail was a red flag, and Lathan looked into the case. He was charged with almost fifty counts of sexually abusing a minor over the time they ran the house. The foster mother swore she never knew anything about it on the stand, and I guess a lack of foster homes allowed her to keep running the place.

Over the course of the next few days, Dayton made some calls to some of the former foster kids, and they said she knew all about it and threatened them all to keep their mouths shut. Four former kids had committed suicide during their stay at the house.

“Are we assuming that the four women who are now prominent members of Summerville society were four of the children who were abused?” I ask Anders quietly as we set up the bar for Thursday night.

“I don’t think it would be much of a stretch to assume that,” he replies, leaning against the bar as I cut up a lime.

“God, that’s awful. I feel a little sorry for Martha now. She can’t have kids, and she married a serial philanderer. What does she have? I wouldn’t blame her if she was the one who killed her former foster mother. Hell, I’ve taken care of the same kind of scumbags in my job—coworkers or partners who looked the other way while their friends, lover, or colleagues abused people or did horrible things,” I point out, and Anders nods.

“Yeah, I guess she’s just trying to make the best of a bad situation. We wondered why she reported her foster kids missing if her husband has ties to the trafficking ring, but I bet it’s because it reminds her of what she went through, then maybe it’s her way of trying to make better choices. She can’t kill the ones responsible, but she can make sure they pay.”

“What I don’t understand is how or why her husband let her do that.” I stop cutting and look at him. “Surely that draws attention to their actions.”

“Yes, but no. What if he let her report it to appease her, but expected the police chief to bury it? One of the other deputies took her report, and it was in the system, so when the police chief tried to hide it, it was too late. It had already appeared on our radar.” Anders pushes off the bar as Miller and Keith both return from storage with straws, peanuts, napkins, and spare bottles of alcohol. We can’t continue our conversation, but we have even more information to go on now.

“It’s ladies’ night,” Keith croons. “My favorite night of the week. All the desperate and dateless are out and looking to get liquored up. Watch out, boys, you’ll get your pick of prime pussy tonight. No one goes home lonely.”

He places his bottles on the bar and rubs his hands together as the music switches on, making it difficult to talk quietly. Once the doors open, we are slammed. I have no idea why we are so busy. The dinner crowd is loud and obnoxious, but when they all finally depart, the club crowd pours in like we’re the last club in the state, and the only one to provide alcohol. Thankfully there are more staff members on tonight—ones I haven’t met before—because we would have been screwed without them. Matthew even opens up the upstairs bar, and the club is packed to capacity.

I barely get time to breathe, but it’s getting close to one in the morning when Matthew stops me, my tray piled high with empties. “Let Carla do that. I need you up in one of the cages,” he tells me.

“What?” I ask him, sounding confused.

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