44. Audrey
AUDREY
I was nervous for more reason than one as we drove to Harrison that night.
Dean wouldn’t let what Holden had done stand. I knew that.
I just didn’t know how he’d retaliate.
I sat in the front seat of Graham’s truck, Ridge and Holden in the back, and worried over the situation that felt like it was slipping away from me.
I’d joined the Hunt to keep Ella safe. Now I was living with three men who were beginning to feel less like captors and more like lovers, and my relationship with Dean was more volatile than ever.
At the same time, the ranch was beginning to feel like the refuge I’d needed all along. My apartment felt small and confined by comparison, the hospital sterile and impersonal.
And the Bulls were taking good care of me.
Holden had taken me straight up to bed after the incident at my apartment.
He’d tucked me in, brought me soup made by the housekeeper named Reva (it was terrible, but he swore it was better with barbecue sauce), and I’d slept most of the day, a luxury I hadn’t experienced since before Ella was born.
“You okay, wildcat?” Ridge asked from the back seat.
“Fine.” I looked out the window as dense stands of trees passed by on the sides of the road, strips of asphalt illuminated under the occasional street lamps, the road dark in between. “There really isn’t anything out here, is there?”
“Nope,” Holden said. “All the more reason it’s shady as fuck that Ashcroft is routing some of their trucks here.”
“Maybe some other wholesaler is renting out the old Bluebird warehouse.” I couldn’t help hoping it was true.
I didn’t want Dean to be trafficking women. Our marriage was over, but I didn’t want him to be a bad person.
Didn’t want that for Ella.
I wanted her to have a normal dad. A decent man who did the right thing and who could be an example of what it meant to be a good human being.
Holden snorted behind me. “Doubt it. No offense, but your ex is a fucking asshole.” There was a beat of silence before he yelped in pain. “Ow! What the fuck?”
“Sorry.” Ridge, who didn’t sound sorry at all for whatever he’d done to Holden, shifted in the back seat.
“Coming up on the right,” Graham said, easing off the gas.
They were the first words he’d spoken since leaving the ranch, and I wondered again why he was involving himself in my business. He was a busy man with a whole ranch to run, and it wasn’t even like he was into me.
Then I remembered what Ridge had said about Graham’s feelings toward me.
You’d be surprised.
And I would be surprised if Graham had any feelings about me, especially since he hadn’t joined in the night I’d fucked Ridge and Holden.
Yet here he was, driving his truck to the Bluebird warehouse when it had nothing at all to do with him.
Bright lights came into view through the trees, and Graham coasted past the warehouse, slow enough to give us a look at the hulking metal and concrete building but not so slow as to draw attention.
The faded bluebird logo was illuminated under the exterior lights of the warehouse.
An Ashcroft truck was pulled up to the exterior of the building, its cargo area facing the open warehouse door, the truck blocking our view of the warehouse’s interior.
Graham cruised past the building, then did a U-turn before pulling to the side of the road a few hundred feet from the warehouse’s driveway.
He cut the engine and we were enveloped in silence.
Through the trees, we could make out the exterior lights, the outline of the Ashcroft truck, and every now and then, the movement of people on the grounds.
“How many of the trucks are routed here?” Ridge asked. “Is that something we know?”
“Somewhere around thirty-percent,” Graham said.
Thirty percent. A large enough number that it was unusual — all those trucks going out of their way, spending more money on fuel — but small enough that it was at least possible the stop was entirely innocent.
A rumble sounded through the night, pulling me from my thoughts.
“Truck’s leaving,” Graham said.
The headlights came on, and a few seconds later the truck pulled away from the warehouse door.
“Can you see anything inside?” Ridge asked, trying to see from the backseat.
My shoulders sagged. The warehouse door had been closed, blocking our view of the interior, before the truck even pulled away.
“Door’s closed,” Graham said.
“Fuckers,” Holden said. “They’re definitely hiding something.”
“Now what?” I asked.
“Now we— ”
“Wait,” Ridge said. “Headlights behind us. Get down.”
We ducked, waiting for the vehicle to pass, then lifted our heads in time to see a white Escalade pull into the warehouse lot.
“It’s Dean,” I said. “He’s got Ella tonight.”
“It’s past eleven.” I heard the disapproval in Graham’s voice. “Ella should be in bed.”
“Any chance he left her with someone?” It was obvious from the tone in Ridge’s voice that he didn’t want to ask the question.
“Every chance,” I said.
Bitterness rose in my throat like bile. Dean could have left Ella asleep with one of his girlfriends in charge. Or maybe he’d had his mom — as meek and cowed by Dean’s dad as Dean had tried to make me toward him — come over and sit.
But the point was, I didn’t know. And the not knowing — who was with my daughter, whether she was safe — filled me with frustration so profound I wanted to rage.
“Can you see Ashcroft?” Holden asked.
Graham turned his head. “Figure’s moving but I can’t tell who it is.”
“We need to come back,” Ridge said from the back seat. “Try and get inside.”
“Might be less activity during the day,” Graham said.
He had a point. If Dean — and whoever else was involved in the trafficking operation — was trying to keep their activity under the radar, they’d be more inclined to work at night.
Maybe the warehouse would be more accessible during the day.
“Dammit,” I muttered.
“Hang tight, doc.” Holden squeezed my shoulder. “We’ll figure this out.”
He was trying to be reassuring, but there was nothing reassuring about the fact that Ella was spending half the time with a possible sex trafficker even if that person was her dad.
Especially if that person was her dad.
“I need evidence,” I said. “Something I can use in family court.”
Ella loved her dad. I didn’t want to take that from her.
But her safety came first, and the more I learned abut Dean’s activities, the more sure I became that Ella wasn’t safe alone with him.
It put me in a terrible position. Turn a blind eye to what Dean was doing and risk Ella’s safety — or get the evidence I needed to put him away for good.
And when I got right down to it, the decision wasn’t even hard.