Chapter 12
CHAPTER TWELVE
Matt and Elizabeth sat tensely on the sofa, waiting for Wendy to return. Elizabeth wanted to get up and follow her down the hall, but she suspected that the woman had deliberately left the room to give herself some privacy.
Too bad we can’t amplify hearing, Matt murmured inside her head.
She answered with a slight nod.
Their tension mounted with every minute Wendy was away, and Elizabeth started imagining all sorts of scenarios—like Derek Lang walking in the front door.
But finally, Wendy returned with a cautious smile on her face.
“Sabrina’s coming over.”
Just then, a wailing cry from upstairs made Elizabeth jump.
“That’s Olivia,” Wendy said, probably telling me that she needs her diaper changed.”
She departed again, but this time, Elizabeth was relieved. They’d cleared one hurdle.
Ten minutes later Wendy was back, holding a one-year-old girl in her arms.
“Do you remember Miss Elizabeth?” she asked.
The little girl pointed at Elizabeth. When her mother set her down on the floor, she crawled toward the sofa and pulled herself up, grabbing Elizabeth’s knee to steady herself.
“I’ll be right back with a bottle,” her mother said.
Elizabeth offered the little girl the bunny, and she snatched it away, hugging it in her arms.
This was familiar and brought back more memories. She remembered that Wendy was a good mother—and willing to help the women who’d ended up in Derek Lang’s clutches.
When Wendy returned, she unfolded the playpen by the window and set her daughter inside.
Olivia lay on her back, kicking her foot in the air as she held the bottle and sucked. Elizabeth watched the baby, thinking how sweet she was. But was she bringing danger to this family just by being in this house?
Lang doesn’t know we’re here . Matt said, and Elizabeth knew he’d caught the drift of her thoughts.
We should get out as soon as possible.
When the back door opened, she jumped, but she relaxed when she saw Sabrina striding down the hall. She was a young woman of medium height with short blonde hair and cautious eyes. She looked delicate but obviously had inner strength—and the courage and determination to escape a bad situation.
When she spoke, it was with the thick accent Elizabeth remembered. But the words were not what Elizabeth expected to hear.
“Are you the woman who was staying with that nurse when she was murdered?”
Elizabeth sucked in a sharp breath. “How do you know about that?”
“It was all over the news. And Wendy said that you claimed you had amnesia.”
“I didn’t claim. It’s true.”
“You’re not just saying it to get out of helping us?”
Beside her, Elizabeth could feel Matt sending the newcomer soothing thoughts.
It’s all right. You were expecting Elizabeth to help you. You were scared and angry when she didn’t come back. But now she’s here, and she’s going to help you like she promised.
Elizabeth saw Sabrina relax fractionally.
“I’m sorry I left you in the lurch,” Elizabeth said.
“But you were staying with that nurse.”
“Yes. Are you going to call the police and tell them where I am? If they drag me into the investigation of Polly’s death, then I won’t be able to help you get your friends away from Lang.”
Sabrina answered with a slight nod.
“Lang’s men were chasing me the day I was supposed to meet you. That’s why I crashed my car, hit my head, and ended up with amnesia. I couldn’t meet you because I didn’t remember anything.”
Sabrina struggled to hold back a sob. “I waited for hours.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I thought you’d changed your mind. Or … or you were too scared to do it.”
“No. I still wasn’t sure how to get in there, but now I have a plan,” she said.
She knew Matt caught her thoughts when his hand closed around her arm. “No,” he said.
“Can you think of anything better?” she asked.
After long seconds, she felt his acquiescence and looked back at Sabrina. “Matt will get in by pretending to be a customer. And I will slip in the back way and mingle with the women. While Matt keeps the men away, I’ll get the women out.”
“You wanted to shut down his operation,” Sabrina pointed out.
Elizabeth nodded. “I don’t know if we can go that far. But we can rescue the girls who are there. And after everybody’s out, we can burn the house down. That will set him back while we figure out the next step.”
Sabrina looked torn. “I want him in jail for what he’s done to me and the others.”
“I do, too, but it might not be possible.” She changed the subject. “And you have that secret welfare organization ready to take them in and hide them until they can get new identities?”
“Yes.” She turned her gaze on Elizabeth. “Can we go get my friends tonight?”
“It’s better if we have everything planned. You need to get the welfare group ready with transportation, and Matt and I need to rehearse our roles,” she answered.
Sabrina’s expression turned fierce. “You want me to get a rescue operation organized tomorrow? How do I know that you’re not going to disappear again?”
Elizabeth felt her heart squeeze. “I can’t absolutely guarantee what’s going to happen tomorrow night,” she said. “But Matt and I plan to be there.”
It was the best she could do, and she let out a sigh of relief when Sabrina nodded. “Where are we going to meet? How are we going to do it?”
Elizabeth hadn’t thought about all the details, and because this woman was pressing her, she felt like the room was closing in on her.
Matt gave Sabrina an angry look. “I know you’re worried about your friends, and you’re anxious to get them out of Lang’s clutches, but Elizabeth has already been through a lot because she committed herself to helping them. She’s almost gotten killed more than once. The man who murdered that nurse almost killed her, too.”
As he spoke aloud, Elizabeth knew he was sending Sabrina a soundless message. Don’t lean on Elizabeth. She’s doing everything she can. She’ll be ready tomorrow night. All you have to do is have a van ready to take your friends away from The Mansion.
She saw Sabrina take a breath and let it out. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I know I’m not making this any easier for you.”
“It’s okay,” Elizabeth managed to say, then cleared her throat. “I told you that I had a memory loss when I crashed my car, and I still don’t remember everything.”
Sabrina nodded.
“I need to ask you some questions. You might have answered them before, but I don’t remember some details.”
“I’ll answer what I can.”
“There are men at The Mansion who act as guards, but who greets guests?”
“Mrs. Vivian.”
“Where will she be?”
“Probably mingling with guests. She might also be near the door.”
“I saw men eating and drinking.”
“The Mansion orders a lot of prepared food. And the bar is always stocked.”
“Is there any place the women aren’t allowed to go?”
“They usually stay in the front.”
“I’ll be dressed like one of the women, but I’ll probably have to come in through the kitchen.”
“You could say you were getting a snack for a patron.”
“Okay.”
“How many bedrooms?” Matt asked.
“Eight.”
“So each girl doesn’t have her own room?”
“No. They bunk together and use the nice bedrooms for entertaining guests.”
“How many women will be there?” Matt asked.
“Twelve or fifteen.”
They discussed more of the layout before she asked, “Will there be a problem getting the women to come with me?”
Sabrina’s brow wrinkled as she considered the question. “Mention my name and tell them I sent you to get them out.”
“But there could be women you don’t know.”
And one of them could give me away, Elizabeth was thinking, but she didn’t say it aloud because she didn’t want to make it sound like she was coming up with objections.
“Are there guards inside the house?” she asked.
“In a guard station down the hall from the kitchen. They watch TV screens there.”
The monitors for the cameras, Matt said.
Yes.
Finally, she knew that she’d gotten all the information she could before actually going into the den of iniquity.
“We should leave now,” Matt said.
“Can you give me the shelter address where you will take the women?”
Sabrina gave him an address several blocks away.
“We’ll meet there at seven tomorrow,” he said, then stepped to the door and scanned the street. When he saw nothing suspicious, he ushered Elizabeth out.
They walked around the corner to his car, and she dropped into the passenger seat.
“Thank God I’ve got you,” she whispered. “How did I ever think I could do this myself?”
“You had the courage to do it, but you didn’t count on the lengths Lang would take to get you out of the way.”
“Stupid of me.”
“Of course not.”
“I guess I didn’t realize how ruthless he is.”
“Because your background and training make you think about helping people—not hurting them.”
When she started to speak, he leaned over and pressed his lips to hers. But you do have me, he said. And we’ll do it together.
She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into the kiss.
They clung together for long moments, and she thought again how lucky she was to have found this man who was strong and determined—with the survival skills she lacked.
She knew he heard that and smiled against his mouth.
I’m so open to you, she silently murmured.
Likewise.
When she caught the thought in his mind, her breath stilled.
I love you.
Oh, Matt.
You had to know it was true.
But I never expected it—not ever in my life. I was always so alone.
And you know I was, too.
“I love you,” she said aloud, knowing there was no need to speak. But she wanted to say the words because they were important to her.
She would have been overwhelmed by happiness, yet she couldn’t allow herself that joy. Not yet.
“We have a job to do,” she whispered.
“And when we’re finished, we can figure out what we will do for the rest of our lives.”
“It will be easier if we can prove we had nothing to do with Polly’s death,” she answered.
“I’m hoping that we can get evidence after we take care of Lang.”
He pulled away from the curb, heading for the motel.
“We still have to practice the skills we’ll need to pull off the rescue operation at The Mansion.”
“And it’s not going to be as easy as persuading two women who wanted to believe our story.”
“I wouldn’t exactly call Sabrina easy,” she argued. “She was upset—and that made her angry with me.”
“But I want to work on a person who isn’t involved with us and get them to do something totally against their best interests.”
She caught what was in his mind. “Is that fair?”
“This is love and war. And it’s not like we’re robbing a bank.”
She understood his logic, but she still didn’t like what he was planning.
When they returned to the vicinity of the motel, Matt drove around the restaurant area, looking for a place that was a cut above the fast-food restaurants with drive-in windows. He found a small Italian restaurant that didn’t appear to be part of a chain.
“Do you want to do it, or should I,” he asked.
“In this case, I think a guy will be more persuasive. If you can do it at all.”
“Just give me some psychic energy.”
They walked into the dining room, which had a central aisle and tables on either side. Framed scenes of Italy decorated the stucco walls. At the back there was a counter with a menu above it. Two young men with short, dark hair wearing white uniforms were behind the counter.
“Help you?” one of the men asked.
Matt studied the menu, and Elizabeth felt he was getting ready to tell a whopper. “We have one of your certificates for a free meal,” he said.
“We don’t …” The man stopped in mid-sentence, looking confused.
Elizabeth could hear Matthew furiously projecting false information. You believe me. I have a certificate that gives me a thirty-dollar free meal. It’s a new offer, and I’m the first customer to cash it in. He opened his wallet, took out a business card he’d gotten from a colleague, and held it up. “See, here’s my certificate.” And you don’t need to take it away. You just need to look at it, he added without saying anything aloud.
Elizabeth held her breath as she waited to find out what would happen. Giving away food was so clearly against the restaurant’s best interests that it seemed impossible for the guy to go along with Matt’s suggestion.
The counterman eyed the card and nodded. “I never heard of it before, but I guess it’s okay—since you got this thing.”
She could feel Matt relax a little as he turned to her. “What do you want, honey?”
She looked at the food that had already been prepared. “A calzone would be good.”
“Make it two,” Matt said. “And add a couple of Cokes.”
While the man was packing up the order, Matt made a silent suggestion. We didn’t spend nearly thirty dollars. Why don’t you suggest that we take a couple of cannoli?
His audacity took Elizabeth’s breath away, but she stood without speaking beside him, waiting to see if it worked.
“You haven’t used the whole thirty dollars. How about a couple of cannoli for dessert?” the counterman asked.
“Great idea,” Matt agreed.
Elizabeth shot him a look as she waited for the man to come to his senses, but he cheerfully packed up the food and drinks and handed over the bag.
“Thanks,” Matt said as they strolled out.
Elizabeth was in more of a hurry and had to keep herself from running to the car.
Once inside, she breathed out a deep sigh. “I guess if we ran out of money, we could work as con artists.”
“It’s only a temporary necessity—I hope. I mean, until we get out from under the Lang problem and clear our names.”
As they drove back to the motel, she could hear ideas flashing in Matt’s mind. He was thinking about the next evening’s raid on The Mansion.
But as soon as they entered the room and closed the door, he set the food down on the table and reached for her.
She came into his arms with a small sob.
“I’m sorry. I know you hate all this. You don’t like stealing food, and you don’t like the plans I’m making.”
“I’d like to forget about them right now,” she said with a small sob.
He lowered his mouth to hers for a kiss and told her he’d wanted to be alone with her for hours.
She wiped everything out of her mind but the feel of him, the taste, and the emotions that ran wild between them. When he pulled back the spread and took her down to the surface of the bed, she clung to him, then rolled far enough away so that she could tear off her jeans and panties.
He was doing something similar; only he never got his pants all the way off. She pushed the sides of the zipper away and pulled his briefs down, freeing his erection. With his legs trapped, they didn’t have many options. She straddled him, bringing him inside her before she began to move in a frantic rhythm that brought them both to climax almost immediately.
She collapsed on top of him, and his arms came up to fold her close.
As they clung together, he whispered, “It’s going to be all right.”
“We’ll be walking into danger.”
“Can you think of a better plan?”
Of course, she couldn’t. She hadn’t been able to do that in the first place. Now, the moment of reckoning was coming all too fast.
“We should eat before the food gets cold.”
“Eat our ill-gotten gains?”
“Uh-huh.”
“We should pay for it.”
“We’ll send the restaurant some money—when this is all over, and we have access to our bank accounts.”
“If it’s ever all over.” She gave him a fierce look. But one step at a time. Tomorrow, they would do their damnedest to shut down Lang’s operation.
“Then on to the next problem,” he said. They both knew what that was: solving the puzzle of their strange powers—that had been turned on when they touched each other.