Page 31 of Texas Kissing

I forced myself forward, jogging the rest of the way back to the bus. I’d spectacularly failed to get Bull out of my head, but at least I’d decided that I’d done the right thing, the night before. Now I had to focus on the meeting. In my line of work, acting like a lovesick fool is a good way to get killed.

The meet was at Momma B’s, a diner not far from the arena. It was actually a pretty nice place, all done out in shades of blue and white that made it feel pleasantly cool, and with a lot of polished wood. The morning rush of workers was just dying down and the families on holiday, stopping in for a relaxed breakfast, were just starting to arrive. The menu was good, too. I’d been living in Gold Lake for two years—why have I never been in here, before?

Oh yeah. Because I have no one to have breakfast with.

I was nervous, so I arrived even earlier than usual. That left me with a full half hour to kill, so I made the most of it and had juice and coffee and waffles with strawberries and maple syrup.

When the guy and his two heavies strolled in, I was just pushing my sticky plate aside and finishing up my coffee. I sized them up as they approached. Blond hair, expensively styled. Nice suit. His two heavies were typical hired muscle: no neck and carefully blank expressions.

What interested me about the guy was that he wasn’t from one of the usual customer bases—not Russian or American or Mexican or even Colombian. He’d flown in from Europe, although he was vague as to exactly where and insisted I call him simplyCarl.

I’d guessed at Austrian or German. From his accent, as he said my name and sat down, I was spot-on. He smiled and told me how pleased he was to finally meet me. He was charming, in a way—even sort of good looking, but...

Something was off. However much he smiled, I still felt my stomach knotting. It was like a spider asking you to stroke it. Then the two heavies slid into the booth as well—one beside Carl and one beside me. Now I couldn’t easily get out, if I needed to run.Shit.

“So,” Carl said enthusiastically. “To business.” He leaned in. “I need European passports. I’m told you can do those.”

I nodded. “Which countries?”

“Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria, about thirteen United Kingdom—“

“ThirteenUK?”My eyes bulged. “Wait, how many are we talking about in total?!”

“Eighty-seven.”

I felt my jaw drop. I’d been expecting five or ten.

“Is that a problem?” he asked, losing his smile.

I swallowed. “Not at all.” It would mean a lot of late nights, but it wasn’t like I had anything else to do. And it would take my mind off a certain cowboy.

“Good.” His smile returned. It was in contrast to the two heavies, neither of whom had smiled at all. He popped the catches on his briefcase and took out a ring binder.“Here are the details,” he said, tossing it to me.

Making sure that no one at the other tables could see, I cracked it open and looked at the first page. There was a passport-sized photo, ten neat fingerprints on a card, a name, date of birth, eye and hair color...everything I’d need. The only unusual thing was that the photo was of a woman—a pretty young thing with glossy black hair. Her date of birth was only three days after mine. Normally, in the criminal world, it’s all men. Maybe she was someone’s girlfriend.

A lot of the people I work with aren’t good at organization but this was perfect—it would make my job a breeze. “Fine,” I said. “Depending on the exact mix of countries, figure three a day, so twenty-nine days. Let’s meet one month from now.”

Carl raised an eyebrow. “You work weekends? When do you have fun?”

I gave him a polite smile and started to shove the file into my shoulder bag, but the corner caught on the fabric. I had to pull it out and shove it in again, which was when the thing flopped open. I saw another page, about halfway through. Also with a woman’s photo. I blinked and, out of some deeply-ingrained paranoia, turned the page.

Another woman.

They were all women. Every single one. All my age...or younger. Eighty-seven women, all needing passports so that they could be sent—shipped—all over Europe.

I tossed the file back to Carl. My fingers tingled, as if I’d been tainted just by touching it. “No.”

He leaned forward. “Is there a problem?”

“I’ve always been very clear about what I will and won’t do,” I said. I glanced around. All around us,families were chowing down on eggs and hash browns, while the moms checked their Facebook feeds and the dads checked out the waitresses. I lowered my voice until he almost had to read my lips. “And I don’t do trafficked women.”

Carl shook his head. “Mine is a very old, established business. Rich clients. Very discreet. There won’t be any problems. Nothing to blow back on you.”

I frowned. “I said no.”

He opened his briefcase again and took out a thick envelope, put it on top of the ring binder and shoved both across the table towards me. “Half now, as agreed,” he said. “Half on delivery.” He smiled at me, as if to show how reasonable he was being.

I charge three thousand dollars for a European passport and all the back-end hacking that goes with getting the false name onto the right databases. There was a little over a hundred and thirty thousand dollars in that envelope. All I had to do was reach out and take it.

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