Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Cannon
“Hey, how’s Eloise?” Blade asks as soon as he answers.
I smile, liking that my boss’s first concern is for my girl. “She’s… Well, she’s shocking me actually.” I glance toward her bedroom door. I don’t want to hide or lie to her, but I think she’s in the bathroom anyway.
“How so?”
“First of all, her IQ is off the charts.”
“Really? That should be nice for you. An intellectual mind to keep you on your toes.” He chuckles.
“Yeah, well, it also means she reads between the lines really easily. She spent some time telling me everything about herself, but after that, she started grilling me about Daddy Doms and Littles. I barely had to tell her anything because every time I start a sentence, she finishes it.”
Blade laughs harder. “She’s going to be a handful. Why do I picture a devious, sassy girl who gets herself into all sorts of trouble and manipulates her Daddy into giving her exactly what she wants?”
I groan. “I think you’re spot on.”
“Then I’d say you’ve met your match.”
I sigh. “Anyway, back to her past. There’s good news and bad news. The good news is it’s not as horrifying as I expected. I’m not saying she’s lived a life of luxury. Far from it. But she wasn’t beaten or raped.”
“That’s a relief.”
“Her full name is Eloise Manning. But rape and physical abuse aren’t the only ways to ruin a person’s life.
She was manipulated by the school cop right after her eighteenth birthday.
He planted drugs in her locker and threatened her with decades in prison if she didn’t do as he said.
At which time he trafficked her and left her with some fuck in the Appalachian Mountains.
That man, whose name was James Westin, used her as his live-in maid for three-and-a-half years before he dropped dead of a heart attack six months ago.
She took the opportunity to run for her life, and she’s been on the run ever since.
Until the dark cloud that’s been following her since birth put Stark in her path. ”
“Jesus, fuck. No one deserves that much bad luck.”
“Well, that was the last bad luck of her life.”
“I believe you. I’m glad you were the one to pull her into your arms and carry her out yesterday.”
“Me, too.”
“Wait, why is she still on the run?”
“Because the cop who trafficked her made regular visits to make sure she was behaving. He reminded her every time that she could either continue to cook and clean for her fucking captor or serve time. Eventually, he would have found James Westin’s dead body and Eloise gone.”
“James…Westin. Noted. And this cop?”
“Gary Larkin.”
“Got it. Surely you don’t think he ever turned her in for anything, right?”
“Nope. I suspect you will find her record squeaky clean. That doesn’t change the fear she’s lived with for the last four years. She was eighteen. She had no choice but to believe him.”
“Of course.”
“And…”
Blade draws in an audible breath. “And Larkin’s a dead man.”
“Very dead,” I respond.
“Do you think he trafficked other women?”
“I know he did for a fact. Eloise says he used Westin’s place as a waystation. When she first woke up, she was in a basement. Concrete cell. She’d been drugged. Mattress, bucket, pitch dark, no water.”
Blade hisses. None of us likes stories like this. Human trafficking makes us fucking see red. Red blood that is.
“The thing is…well, she’s stunning. It’s been a pain in her ass for most of her life. Beauty can be a curse, but in this case, for whatever reason, it probably saved her life. Westin wanted her for himself, and Larkin owed him, so he kept her.”
“But he didn’t rape her?” Blade asks.
I run a hand down my face. “Oh, he tried.” I chuckle sardonically. “She put him in his place. He never did it again.”
“Good girl. Fucking strong and smart. And apparently gorgeous.”
“And mine.” I don’t know why I feel like staking my claim. It’s not like Blade would look twice at Eloise. He’s head over heels in love with June. I’m feeling ridiculously defensive.
“I have no doubt. No one’s going to challenge you, man.”
“Sorry. You’re right.”
Blade clears his throat. “I’ll have Mace start digging. I’m sure he’ll find nothing on Eloise. We’ll track down Larkin and find out everything we can about Westin.”
“Thanks. Oh, Eloise would like to meet June. I suspect she’s going to nap for a while. Can I call you when she wakes up?”
“Yes. That’d be great. June is nagging me every five minutes.”
“How not shocking,” I joke.
“Mace has a computer, phone, and e-reader ready. Should I have him bring them to you?”
“That would be great, thank you.” I end the call, pocket the phone, and head for Eloise’s open door. I don’t hear her moving around, so I’m not surprised when I step through the open door and find her sound asleep on the mattress in the corner.
She takes my breath away. She’s wearing a purple outfit now, curled on her side, clutching the doll she slept with last night. I can’t seem to step away. I feel the urge to watch her for a bit.
She’s definitely stunning. Like cover-model pretty. No wonder people have always treated her differently. Some people are just born with good genes. Though apparently her mother didn’t have a good common-sense gene. She left her newborn in a rest stop bathroom.
I cringe. I guess it could have been worse. At least the chances were high that someone would find her quickly. The woman could have dumped her in a trash can. I shudder.
I guess I should be grateful that my Little girl’s mother made it possible for me to find her twenty-two years later. I wish Eloise hadn’t had such a rough life, but I’ll do everything in my power to make sure the rest of her years are filled with safety and joy.
When a knock sounds on my front door, I back out of the room, pulling the door almost closed so Mace and I won’t disturb her.
I jog over to the door, checking the peephole before opening it and stepping back. “Come on in,” I say in a low voice.
“Sleeping?” he whispers.
“Yeah. She needs to sleep for about four years.”
Mace cringes. “I got the gist from Blade. I’m so sorry for everything she’s been through.”
“Thanks.” I take the pile of electronics from him and walk toward the kitchen area to set them on the table.
“Blade says she’s super intelligent.”
I nod. “Off the charts. I’d love to see her education records, just out of curiosity. She lived with twelve foster families in eighteen years, which means she was yanked from school to school nearly every year, probably in the middle of the semester on occasion.”
Mace’s face tightens. “So sorry. I’ll find her records.
You know her grades won’t tell you a thing about her intelligence, though.
She might have been defiant. A lot of kids who are misunderstood or ignored or even misdiagnosed don’t do well in their classes.
Her IQ could be off the charts, but she might have tanked her exams.”
“Yeah, I doubt it. She’s a pleaser. She likes to learn, too. I suspect she kept her head down and did everything she was supposed to do.”
“And she didn’t finish high school, right?”
“No. She was trafficked before she graduated. I assume you’ll find her listed as a runaway, if anything at all.
She was already eighteen when he took her.
The man who blackmailed and trafficked her knew what he was doing.
He preyed on her because he could make her look like a runaway, and since she had no blood relatives and had officially aged out of the system, the police wouldn’t have even taken a report.
Technically, she’d been free to walk away whenever she wanted. ”
“The system sucks. Blade says Larkin trafficked other women, too?”
I nod. “No idea how many. Eloise doesn’t know either. Larkin used Westin’s mountain cabin as a stopover between abduction and sale, but he stopped using that particular location after Westin kept Eloise.”
“Got it. I’ll get to the bottom of it.” Mace gives my shoulder a squeeze and heads for the door.