Chapter 28
Chapter
Twenty-Eight
GRACE
V oodoo carried me into the house, not setting me on my feet until we were inside. Then he pointed me to the sink and hovered as I washed my hands. There were scrapes on my palms. After taking a moment to study them, Voodoo hummed under his breath.
“I don’t think we’ll need to bandage them. Do us a favor, though, Firecracker, heal before you get hurt again?”
“Funny,” I deadpanned. “I’m totally laughing on the inside.”
“I’m glad you find this entertaining,” Bones responded in a cool tone. Clean dish towel in hand, I pivoted to face him while I dried my hands.
I thought of and discarded a dozen responses, then just looked at Voodoo. “Why can’t I have a phone?”
He didn’t answer immediately. The glances exchanged between the others wasn’t lost on me, but I kept my attention on Voodoo. Did I think intimacy earned me any answers?
No.
Did I think I could leverage it?
Maybe.
“This is really simple, answer the question or just take me back to that airport and drop me off. I’ll figure out where I’m going from there.”
“That can’t happen,” Lunchbox said, arms folded. “Before you start throwing things… we have our reasons.”
“I’m very happy for you,” I said as I pivoted to face him. The fact he’d climbed right up there and gotten me down wasn’t lost on me. All of them had saved me over the past few days. “What are your reasons ? I think I have a right to know that much.”
“Maybe.” He didn’t glance at Bones but it seemed present regardless.
“Firecracker,” Voodoo slid an arm around me, but I sidestepped away, shrugging off the contact.
“Don’t try to handle me,” I ordered, maneuvering so I didn’t have one of them behind me. “If you don’t want to or are not willing to answer me, fine. It’s a free country—most of the time. But if that is the case, then I’ll just go. I’m not your problem.”
“You’re not a problem, Gracie,” Alphabet said as he shifted his stance. There was a flicker of discomfort across his face, but he braced a hand on the back of a chair. When I opened my mouth to argue, he raised his free hand. “I know, we’ve lost some ground in the trust department. But Voodoo was putting together a burger for you. Lunchbox cooked it and his burgers are pretty much next level. Maybe come sit and eat?”
Did the burgers smell good? Absolutely. My stomach twisted at the allure, but we didn’t have time for that right now.
“Then what?” I shifted my gaze from Alphabet to Voodoo to Lunchbox and then back. I skipped right past Bones. If I never spoke to him again, it might be too soon. “You delay again? Or you shove me in another room? Maybe I’ll get chained to another wall somewhere?”
It would hardly be new in this current experience. The circular bruise around my ankle and around my wrist were both clearly visible, even if they were varying shades of green, blue, and black. As many body aches as I had and as sore as my back was, I really couldn’t feel the others anymore.
“We haven’t chained you to anything,” Voodoo said firmly. Dislike licked every single syllable. “You have every right to be angry. I did tell you that we would take care of it and I haven’t changed my mind.”
“But?” Because that unspoken word hung heavily in the air.
“But the situation has changed,” Lunchbox said, picking up the thread from Voodoo. “The burgers are still warm and it would probably help if you ate.”
I was going to scream. They weren’t listening to me. “I want to leave.”
None of them moved. Unsurprising.
“Gracie…” Alphabet said before he limped closer to the table and dragged a chair out. “Come on, come sit. You’re pissed and you’re frustrated. You’re probably tired and in pain. Sit down, eat the food, let us try to explain this to you.”
Twisting slowly, I stared at him. Some distant part of my mine said play along, lull them into compliance, then just go when the opportunity presented itself.
But I was tired.
I was frustrated .
Yeah boy, you betcha, I was furious.
“I want to leave,” I repeated then pivoted to face Voodoo and Lunchbox. Neither man said anything.
“The answer to leaving is no,” Bones said, interjecting into the conversation. “Now sit down so that Alphabet will.”
The snap of command made me jump, but Bones wasn’t looking at me, he was staring at Alphabet, who had two hands now on the back of the chair he’d pulled out for me.
It killed me to follow that order, but Alphabet’s white knuckles and tense expression had my feet moving before I processed the fullness of Bones’ statement.
I dropped into the chair. “Happy?”
“Delirious.” You could have etched wood with the sarcasm in his voice.
Alphabet moved to sit in the chair to my left. There was an untouched burger in front of him. The minute he sat, the other three shifted, with Voodoo taking the seat opposite and sliding one of the two burgers in front of him over. There were condiments and toppings present.
I didn’t want any of them.
The fact Bones yanked out a chair opposite Alphabet and sat seemed to let some of the ballooning tension out. Lunchbox returned with beers, water, and juice. He eyed me briefly, then the drinks.
“The water is fine,” I said, then because I could probably catch more flies with honey than vinegar, I added, “Thank you.”
“You want ice? Or a glass?” It was a nice gesture.
“The bottle is fine. I’m really not that high maintenance.”
“Could have fooled me,” Bones muttered and then his chair jerked and Bones glared at Voodoo.
“Ignore him, he hasn’t slept and he’s being a dick.” Voodoo nodded to the burger. “Let me know if you want us to warm that up or add anything else to it.”
As much as I didn’t want to eat, I took a bite just to shut them up about the food. Lunchbox came back with a second bottle of water, then passed the drinks out before he took the chair next to me.
The rectangle shape of the table left plenty of room. I was kind of surprised anyone took my side. Unless it was just to make sure I couldn’t get away.
All four men were silent while I chewed the first bite. Then I took a second. The burger was actually pretty good. It wasn’t too hot, but it was still warm and it was juicy. It was just a little on the medium-rare side of medium, which was also good.
Alphabet let out a sigh before he took a bite of his own food. One by one, the others dug in and ate or added stuff to their burgers and then ate.
About halfway through mine, I nudged the plate aside and took a long drink of the water. My stomach had cramped when I smelled it, now I felt almost too full. Painfully full.
“You want something else?” Lunchbox asked and I shook my head.
“No, I haven’t been eating that much.” If at all really. “Except what you guys have given me. That’s making my stomach hurt.”
“Take it easy then,” Voodoo suggested. “You probably need smaller meals more frequently.”
“I can take care of that,” Lunchbox said and I sighed.
“Please… just tell me what’s going on. If you really are my new captors, I’d rather just know that and as more than just a passing conversation.” I flicked a look at Voodoo. “If it’s something else, I’d like to know that too.”
A cool nose bumped at my arm and I glanced down to where Goblin stared up at me. As soon as I moved my arm, he tucked his head against my thigh. With care, I scratched him gently between the ears before stroking down his back. The short hair was almost downy and soft. Had someone given him a bath? Or had I just not noticed before?
The contact helped ease some of the internal shaking that seemed to worsen by every passing moment. It didn’t do anything for the headache forming behind my right eye or the urge to cry. I fought both, because I really didn’t want to add tears to the whole situation.
The silence elongated to the point I thought they were just not going to answer me at all. Glancing up from where I’d been staring at Goblin, I found Alphabet, Lunchbox, and Voodoo all staring at Bones.
The fourth man sighed, then cut a hand through the air. “Tell her.”
A wave of dread hit me at the resignation in his response. Whatever it was, it was going to be bad. The other three were not in a rush to say anything, and I had to fight to keep my hand steady as I pet Goblin, rather than fisting his coat.
“I can’t find your sister,” Alphabet said, finally and I whipped my attention to him. “I started the search yesterday. I’ve found her records, verified her ID, you’re right, you’re identical. We put calls into her law firm, I also checked the status of her apartment’s lease and her bank account.”
There was invasive and then there was…
“You said you couldn’t find her ,” I tried to speak around the bitter taste those words left on my tongue. “You found everything else?”
“Essentially. She’s been gone for at least a week that I can account for.”
“So her law firm has already filed a missing person’s report? They’re lawyers, they always know how to work with cops.” That was Am in a nutshell even before she passed the bar. If an attorney from her firm went missing, she’d probably be the first one to call the cops.
“Alphabet called them,” Lunchbox said. “So did I, two separate times, two separate reasons, they gave us the same answer.”
I cut my gaze back and forth between Alphabet and Lunchbox.
“They indicated she no longer worked there, that she’d sent in her resignation rather abruptly. When I pressed, saying I was a client,” Alphabet continued. “All they would say was that her departure from the firm was unexpected and they didn’t have a forwarding address or contact info.”
“That’s bullshit.” I whispered the words, but there was just no way.
“I didn’t say it was true,” Alphabet told me, leaning forward and folding his arms together on the table edge. “To be frank, they wouldn’t just give out that kind of information to anyone. They didn’t even ask for a number to have another attorney get back to us. The thing is… there’s a party line and a united front. It’s even in the firm’s electronic records. Their human resources manager noted her abrupt resignation and added no rehire to her file.”
I sat back against the chair abruptly. The bump jolted the cut in my back but I didn’t care. “Why would they lie…?”
“That, Miss Black,” Bones said in those arctic cool tones, “is what we will have to find out. However, based on your experiences and the resemblance to your sister, she is most likely with similar human traffickers.”
My stomach bottomed out.
“Captain,” Lunchbox said with a sigh. “She gets it.”
“No,” Bones said evenly, not once taking his cutting gaze off of me. “She doesn’t.” While that may not have been pointed at me, he never looked away. “You really don’t. You think, first of all, that you have some say in what happens next. You don’t. You think you can just leave when you want. You can’t. You might even be considering how to smother me in my sleep so that you can seduce these three idiots into doing what you want…”
“Hey,” Alphabet snapped and Goblin made a quiet noise of complaint. I forced my hand to open since I’d started digging my fingers in.
“The point, Miss Black. You can’t. We will help you. We will continue the search. However, that will have to continue in the background. If we get actionable intel, we’ll make our calls then.”
Loss and anger vied for top position in the tempest surging through me. Fighting tears was growing almost impossibly difficult. “And I’m supposed to just agree to all of this?”
“There is no choice for you to agree or disagree. This is the situation.”
“So, I am a prisoner?”
“Guest,” Alphabet said with another dark look at Bones. “You’re not a prisoner.” He sighed and shook his head. “Gracie, there is a lot I would like to just explain to you. To help you to understand. Right now, I can’t. Because we’ve already compromised you by bringing you here.”
“To your house?” I swiped at the tears that tried to escape. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want to come here.”
“We know,” Voodoo offered those two words with an element of apology. “That doesn’t change the outcome. You’re here. That means you have to stay here or with us. For now …” On the last word, he shot a glare at Bones then refocused on me. “If we tell you any more, we will make all of this worse.”
A huff of disbelief escaped me. “You can’t let me go because you decided to help me and bring me here. But you can’t help right now because you have something else to do and… I can’t leave because I’ve seen here. If that’s true—then it’s going to be true when ”—I absolutely refused to say if —“we find Amorette.” I swallowed around that lump in my throat. “What then? ”
“Then we’ll find out,” Bones said. “Whether you like the answers or not, now you have them. Continuing to ask will not change them.”
“You’re such an asshole,” I told him as I shoved my chair back. Fortunately, Goblin had already retreated as I stood. A prick of guilt hit me for not thinking of him.
“Where are you going?” Alphabet asked.
“No where,” I said. “Apparently.”
I left them at the table with their food, their drink, and their secrets. I took one of the bottles of water with me as I retraced Bones’ earlier path to get back to “my” room.
The deadbolt was just a twist. I had to stretch to slide the bolt out of the lock at the top and the bottom. Did they think I was going to break it down or something?
Shoving the door open, I returned to the room with the open window letting in the breeze and my view of nothing but the horizon to remind of the current facts.
They had me.
They weren’t going to let me go.
What about Amorette? Would they really look for her? Somehow, I didn’t think I’d ever know, cause they’d never let me leave to do anything about it.
Closing the door, I headed over to the big bed. I curled up on my side, tucking my head to the pillow. Gradually, I lost the war with my tears, but I didn’t let my sobs out. The tears could go, but I wasn’t going to sob until I found Amorette.