16. Luke
LUKE
Blackthorn’s main house is lit up like Christmas when I pull in—every window glowing, the porch lights blazing. Jake and Mason wait on the front steps, and I can see the tension in their postures from fifty yards out.
By the time I’m out of my truck, Jake’s already moving toward us, his eyes scanning my truck and then me. “Status?” he asks quietly.
“Secure.” I push my wet hair out of my eyes. “One survivor. Female. Apparent trafficking victim, not confirmed.”
“Harper?”
“Secure also.” I hope. I open the passenger door and help the woman climb down. She’s still wrapped in Harper’s coat and the blanket, still shaking, and still looking like she’s not sure she’s safe. Who can blame her?
Mason steps forward immediately, his voice low and calm the way it is when he gentles his horses. “Let’s get her inside.”
“You good to walk, sweetheart?” I ask her.
She clings to the blanket but she shakily nods. “I’m good,” she says, her voice raspy.
We move as a unit—Jake leading, Mason flanking, me bringing up the rear. The woman walks between us like she’s afraid the ground might open up and swallow her whole.
Inside, the kitchen is warm and bright. Emma’s setting the kettle to boil. Lily rushes forward with more blankets.
But she stops suddenly, gasping.
Mason strides to his woman, concern all over his normally stoic face. “What is it?”
Lily shakes her head, staring at the woman. “She just looks so much like Mandy, except for her hair color.”
I turn to look at the woman I fished out of the ravine. Yeah, I guess there was a resemblance to Lily’s dead older sister. Mason, Jake, and I share a glance. Another one of Turner’s games to fuck with us? I know what I’d bet.
Lily clears her throat and smiles at the woman. “Let’s get you dry first,” she says, taking the damp layers and wrapping her in dry ones before leading her to a chair. “Coffee or whiskey?”
“Whiskey. Please,” the woman adds as she shivers.
“I got it,” I say as I move. I grab the bottle from the cabinet and pour two fingers into a glass. I bring it to her, holding it until I know she has a hold of it. She tosses it back in one swallow, coughing as she sets the glass down with shaking hands.
Jake pulls out a chair across from her, his posture open but alert. “Can you tell us your name?”
“Jenna. Jenna Morales.” Swallowing audibly, her gaze darts around the room before returning to Jake. “Who are you?”
“We’re the reason you’re still alive,” Jake says in his point-blank way. “Can you tell us what happened, Jenna?”
She stares at the table for a long moment.
I pour her another whiskey and set it in front of her.
She picks it up and holds it but makes no move to drink it.
“I was taken from San Antonio,” she says, her voice flat.
“I don’t know how many days ago. A week?
Maybe more? I’m a nurse, and I was walking to my car after my shift at the hospital when someone grabbed me from behind and stuck me with a sedative, I think.
I woke up in a basement somewhere. There were other women there.
They kept us separated, but I could hear them crying. ”
I glance at Lily. She and her sister had been abducted when she was eighteen. She’d escaped, but her sister hadn’t. Her face is expressionless, but I see the way her hands are clenched.
Mason moves behind her and envelops her in his arms.
I wonder what Harper would do if I hugged her like that. Probably mule kick my balls. She didn’t look happy at me whisking Jenna away, but at least she hadn’t argued. I wish I could have seen her face when the van exploded.
“They moved us twice,” Jenna continues. “I don’t know where we were. But at the last place they brought in a man. He inspected the girls like they were livestock.”
My jaw clenches so hard I hear my teeth grind. “They? Not you?”
“He rejected me. He said I was ‘the wrong one.’ They took the other women somewhere else. He told the guys who kidnapped me to take me away.” Huddling into herself, she looks at Jake straight on. “They weren’t going to let me go, were they?”
He shakes his head. “No.”
The room is silent except for the low whistle of the kettle starting to boil.
Jake leans forward slightly. “Did you hear any names? See any faces you’d recognize?”
“They wore masks most of the time,” Jenna says, shivering again. “But I heard one of them on the phone once. He said something about ‘Turner’s orders.’”
The name lands like a grenade.
Mason’s eyes cut to mine. Jake’s expression goes cold and flat.
Emma comes around the island, setting a cup of tea in front of Jenna. “You’re sure you heard ‘Turner’?”
Jenna nods. “I’m positive.”
Lily steps forward then, her voice gentle. “Come on. Let’s get you cleaned up and into some dry clothes.”
Jenna nods and lets Lily guide her out of the kitchen. The second they’re gone, the room explodes into motion.
“Multi-state operation,” Mason says immediately. “San Antonio to Montana. That’s not small-time.”
“That’s more of a network than we thought,” Jake agrees. “It means he has infrastructure. Routes. Buyers.”
Emma puts her hand on Jake’s shoulder, leaning against him. “If he’s moving women across state lines, doesn’t that make it federal jurisdiction?”
I lean against the counter, arms crossed. “We can’t trust the FBI to send someone who isn’t in Turner’s pocket. He’s got a long reach, and we don’t know who he’s paid off.”
Her eyes snap to mine, and I see the pain there. We both know she’s thinking about her father and how his death was brushed aside as accidental.
She exhales deeply. “So what do we do? We can’t just keep Jenna here indefinitely. And we can’t let her go back to Texas. Turner’s people will find her.”
Mason glances up, as if he can see Lily through the ceiling. “Turner’s up to something. That woman resembling Mandy isn’t coincidence.”
I nod. “Which is why we can’t let this continue. Who knows what Turner has up his sleeve.”
“Or how he’ll implicate us,” Mason adds.
“We need someone outside the system to help with both Jenna and Turner,” Jake says. He faces me. “Someone with reach but no official ties.”
I smile wide. I know exactly who he’s thinking about. “Hendricks.”
“Hendricks,” Jake concurs.
“He has connections everywhere. DOD, State, private contractors. If anyone can move a witness without leaving a trail, it’s him.” Mason rubs his chin, thinking about it. “Think he’ll do it?”
“He’ll fucking jump at the chance at us owing him one.” I pull out my phone and dial the man before anyone can second-guess the decision. I sit down in Jenna’s chair and get ready for the fun.
He answers on the second ring. “Riot.”
“Hendricks.” I tip my chair back, propping my feet on the table. “Still grumpy?”
“Still breathing?” he counters dryly.
I grin. “Last I checked.”
“Pity.”
“We’ve got a situation.” I roll my shoulder, stiffening from where I landed on it hard. “Trafficking victim. She needs extraction and protection outside official channels.”
“I fucking hate traffickers.” There’s a pause. Then Hendricks exhales slowly. “Where is she now?”
“Here. Blackthorn. Safe.”
“Keep her there,” Hendricks says. “I’ll have a team en route by morning. In the meantime, document everything she knows. Names, locations, timelines. I want a full debrief.”
“Copy that.”
“I assume we’re going after the people responsible?”
I grin. “You assume correctly.”
“Good.” He hangs up.
Lowering my feet, I let the chair drop to the floor and set my phone on the table. “He’s in. He’ll be here by morning. Until then, we keep Jenna safe and get everything she knows on record.”
Jake nods. Mason’s already moving toward the office, probably to set up recording equipment for her statement.
Emma pushes off the counter. “I’ll get a room ready for her.”
“I’ll do it,” Jake says, standing. He doesn’t let Emma lift a finger, even though she’s only a couple months pregnant. I don’t blame him—I’d be the same way.
“I’m going to change.” I pluck at my wet shirt. And then I have to drive into town to make sure Harper is actually secured and not a loose end.