Page 14 of Draven

Draven

A rap on the motel room door brings my head up from where I’ve been reviewing the evidence Louise had gathered on the missing women. Papers are scattered all over the bed, the scene chaotic to anyone but me.

I get to my feet and open the door.

“You’re late,” I snap, turning my back on her to kneel in front of the bed once more.

“And you look like shit,” she hits back, dropping her purse on the floor with a thud. “Here.” She passes over a coffee and a bag of pastries. “Touch the chocolate croissant at your peril. It’s mine.”

After setting down the bag of pastries, I remove the plastic lid from the coffee, blow on the contents, then sip, only to screw up my face. “Where’s the sugar?”

“It’s bad for your health. You always did put too much sugar in your coffee.” Tossing a few packets of sweetener on the bed, she juts out her chin. “Let’s start the detox now, shall we?”

“Fuck’s sake, you sound like my mother,” I grunt, fishing inside the bag. I remove the pastry she warned me not to touch and bite into it. No sugar for me, no fucking chocolate croissant for her.

“Hey!” She makes a grab for it.

I whip it out of her reach, chucking the bag at her. “You wanna play games, Lola, bring it.”

“Asshole,” she mutters.

The paper bag rustles, and she removes the boring apple Danish that I know she bought for me especially. If she’s remembered my sugar addiction, then she’s remembered that includes an aversion to fruit in pastry.

She takes a bite, kneeling down beside me, then picks up a picture of Kiera, her expression somber. “Have you caught up with what we’ve got so far?”

I nod. “Hence I look like shit.”

A ghost of a smile touches her lips, disappearing as fast as it arrived. “Initial thoughts?”

“I think your supposition that the women have been trafficked has legs, and the arrival of the FBI lends itself to that hypothesis. So, I pulled in a few favors from various contacts and discovered another eight to ten abductions in other counties across Jersey that fit the M.O. of this gang. Bergen, Essex, Hudson…they’ve all been hit.”

“Oh, God.” She returns her attention to the photograph, the pads of her fingers dabbing against her mouth—a habit I recall as one she falls back on when she’s concentrating. “Do you think we stand a chance of finding her? Of finding any of them?”

I wait in silence until she lifts her eyes to mine. “Finding them? Yes. Finding them in one piece and unharmed?” I hitch a shoulder. “You need to prepare for the worst. You know as well as I do what happens in cases like these.”

Louise covers her face and takes a deep breath. When her hands fall back into her lap, her eyes shine with tears she won’t allow to fall. Not in front of me, anyway.

“I don’t want to believe it. I can’t bear it.”

I briefly touch her shoulder, the urge to soothe her pain momentarily pushing our difficult past to one side. If sex traffickers had my sister, I’d start a war in order to get her back. I totally understand Louise’s utter helplessness, along with a steely determination to bring her sister home and fix shit later. Worrying about the months and years of therapy in Kiera’s future—and that’s if we find her alive—won’t do her any good. Focus. That’s what she needs to do. Luckily for her, focus is a top strength of mine. If she wavers, I’ll pull her back on track.

“Here’s something interesting.” I pass her a statement from a potential witness. “This woman claims to have seen one of the victims being taken.”

Louise sets the pastry on top of the paper bag and licks her fingers. A tremor of pleasure shoots right to my groin. If my dick keeps standing at attention every time she moves or breathes, I’m in for a fun time. She takes the sheet of paper from me, our skin briefly touching in the exchange. I have an urge to extend the connection, but Louise shows no reaction as her eyes cast downward to scan the page.

“Yeah, Sally Fowler. I interviewed her when I was still a part of the investigative team. What of it?”

“Something in her statement doesn’t add up.”

Her head comes up, eyes narrowed. “What?”

“She said she saw the fourth victim, Darla Adams, being bundled into a van from outside the pharmacy, right?”

“Yeah. And?”

“And the van was on the opposite side of the street, parked up in front of the ‘Piece of the Pie’ bakery.”

Louise huffs a breath. “Stop telling me information I already know, Draven. I’ve read the damn reports a hundred times. Get to the point.”

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