7. Draven
Chapter 7
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.”
An involuntary quirk of my lips brings another heavy sigh from her. My cock must like the constant challenge, given how hard it is.
“Well,” I say, drawing out the reveal, as well as my own pleasure. There’s something about Louise’s refusal to show anything other than irritation in my company that turns me on in a way few women have managed. “You can’t see the bakery from outside the pharmacy.”
She draws a thoughtful breath, then she shakes her head. “You’re wrong.”
“I’m right.”
“How could you possibly know that?”
“You remember where I grew up, yes? Before your lily-livered snowflake sensibilities chased me out of town.”
She tightens her jaw, and her fists, her angry glare sending a shiver of desire skimming down my spine. One day, and soon, I’ll tame this woman, if only to prove that I can. I know the perfect way to shut her sassy mouth.
“Are you ever going to just let the past go?”
“No.”
She pinches the bridge of her nose with her thumb and forefinger, her lids falling shut in clear frustration. “I still don’t believe you. How would you even remember such a trivial detail after living away from Camden for years?”
“Trust me, sweetcheeks, I spent many a dollar at the bakery, and I kept that pharmacy afloat during my formative years with the number of condoms and bottles of lube I bought.”
“I’ll bet you did,” she mutters.
I fashion a faint smile. “Jealous?”
She snorts. “Of what? Those poor women who had to endure you sweating and heaving on top of them? Hardly.”
I grin. “I don’t remember receiving any complaints.”
She rolls her eyes, rubs her lips together, then sighs laboriously.
Rising to stand, I gather the papers into a pile and shove them into a folder. Grabbing my coffee, I cock my head. “Come on.”
She remains kneeling, the position sending a rush of images through my mind. If she drops her gaze, she’ll see how turned on I am. Every time I engage in banter with Louise, my cock is all “Let’s go!” eager to participate in a game of its own. In a way, I kind of hope she does drop her gaze. It might incite a discussion I’ll be happy to encourage.
She doesn’t. Instead, she says, “Where are we going?”
“To prove I’m right.”
I grab my leather jacket and shrug into it. Without waiting for her, I head outside. As predicted, she follows. I hand her a spare bike helmet. “Put this on.”
She points to her car. “I can drive.”
I shove the helmet at her. “We’re taking the bike. Now, put it on.”
“I don’t want to ride on the back of your bike. I’ll follow along behind.”
I growl. “Fuck’s sake, woman, do as you’re goddamn told. We’ll get there quicker.”
Her lips thin, a deep scowl drawing her brows low before she snatches the helmet from me and pulls it over her head. I do the same with my own and get on the bike, with Louise climbing on behind me.
“Hold on to me,” I say, suppressing a shudder of pleasure when her hands slip around my waist, and she lays her palms flat against my abdomen. I start the engine, kick it into gear, and pull out of the parking lot. Once on the highway, I floor it, Louise’s loud squeal audible through my helmet, and her arms gripping me tighter. I figure she’s never ridden on the back of a motorcycle before. If I have anything to do with it, this won’t be her last adventure. I like having her behind me.
I’d like it even more if I was behind her, pounding into her sweet, tight pussy.
It only takes fifteen minutes of weaving in and out of the traffic to arrive on Bolder Street. About halfway down is the pharmacy. I check my mirrors, then pull onto the left-hand side of the street. Cutting the engine, I remove my helmet, and hang it on the handlebars while I wait for Louise to dismount.
She tugs off her helmet and makes several attempts to smooth her hair before giving up with a sigh.
“Never took you for the type of girl who gave a shit about her appearance.”
She ignores my needling, instead fixing her gaze across the street. She walks a few paces, then returns, taking a few steps past me in the opposite direction. “You’re right,” she eventually says, immediately recognizing the issue in the form of a giant statue of Frank Wigham, one of the town’s founders, and a fucking great eyesore. If I had my way, I’d take a wrecking ball to the monstrosity.
“From here”—she points at the vape shop next door—“to there,” she says, this time indicating the comic store on the other side of the pharmacy. “You can’t see the bakery.”
My crooked, and cocky, smile makes her scowl.
“I know,” I gloat.
“Urgh.” She throws her hands in the air. “You just love being right, don’t you?”
“Who doesn’t?” My smile grows. I do love being right. I especially love being right when Louise is wrong because she hates being wrong that much.
“But, why? Why would a witness lie?”
“Maybe she didn’t.” I shrug one shoulder. “Maybe she wasn’t standing here at all. She could have been farther down and just thought she was outside the pharmacy. Most people’s memories are unreliable. It’s why we have to corroborate witness statements with other evidence.”
She narrows her eyes at what she thinks as a dig at her and the investigative team. On this occasion, it wasn’t. I simply stated a fact most police officers know all too well. When information is coming in thick and fast at the start of an investigation, things get missed. Eventually, someone would have picked up on the discrepancy.
“Plausible, I suppose.” She sets off again, stopping when the bakery comes into view, and I follow.
“God, Draven, can you imagine how terrifying it must have been to simply be going about your business one minute, then snatched right off the street in broad daylight the next? And the only person who claims to have seen anything is potentially an unreliable witness.” She turns my way, but she’s not looking at me. She’s staring into the distance. “Where are they?” she murmurs, more to herself than me.
An urge to ease her obvious distress has me caressing her arm with the back of my hand; a soft, tender, and very unlike me move. I expect her to step away, or to snap at me not to touch her.
Instead, she tips back her head and stares up at me. “I’m glad you’re here.”
Her admission makes me uncomfortable, yet I’ve no idea why. Maybe it’s easier to forget how fucking much I like her when we’re arguing.
I drop my hand. “Let’s go.”
A flash of… some thing crosses her face, vanishing as quickly as it arrived. “Where to?”
“I think it’s time we had a chat with Sally Fowler, don’t you?”