Chapter 1 #2
Hayden groaned at that. “Why me on this one?” He grunted. “Bloody hell.”
“No need to be prickly now, as it’s all good,” Trent noted, followed by a laugh. “Maybe you were assigned this gig because you did such an exemplary job looking after Tricia in her time of need.”
“Yeah, and see where that got me?” he muttered.
Trent snorted. “Exactly. Babysitting somebody else.” The guys all had a good laugh over that.
Yet, at the end of the day, if babysitting was his assignment, Hayden would do it regardless. Some of these jobs sucked. That was just a fact of life. “Fine. I’ll work on tracking her down. Do we have any idea of her last location? Anything to give us an idea of what she’s doing?”
“Causing trouble,” one of the guys supplied.
“Yeah, besides that,” Hayden muttered, with a smirk, just as they arrived at their hotel. Soon they were in Trent’s hotel room. Trent handed Hayden a file. “This is the relevant info we have on Nancy Drew, redacted.”
Hayden raised one eyebrow at the reference to redacted.
Trent shrugged. “With the international elements involved, it was deemed required—by our elders,” he quipped.
Hayden shook his head, then read through the brief info. He found it hard to keep his eyes open. Frowning, he turned to the members of his team. “Right,” Hayden muttered. “I’ll go crash for four hours because I really need it. Then I will get on top of this.”
He grabbed the first bed that he saw and dropped and crashed. When his phone buzzed a few hours later, he rolled over with a groan, waking up as he reached for his phone. Mason had sent a text message with a first name and a phone number.
That’s all I have right now, but it should be enough to put you in contact with her. She might know you.
Hayden stared at that. When the fog cleared up, Hayden texted back, What do you mean, she might know me?
But no answer came.
“Damn it.” Hayden didn’t know many women who’d gone to boarding schools, with ties to shipping magnates or with sufficient connections to mobilize Mason for protection. Any that he might know would be a work connection, not a social one. None named Andrea.
Mason never replied. Hayden shook his head and knew better than to ask again.
With his mind spinning, Hayden got up and headed to the kitchen, dialing the number Mason had given him as he walked. When a very low, harsh response came from the other end, his heart froze. “Who’s this?” Hayden asked. He was expecting Andrea, the loose cannon daughter, not some guy.
The man spoke again, his tone cold and hard. “If you’re looking for her, too damn bad. You’re too late.” And then he disconnected.
Hayden swore as he stared down at his phone, then quickly texted Mason, who followed up with a phone call almost immediately.
Mason shared, “I just got that number. It’s the last number she had called from.” He sounded a whole lot more worried than he had before.
Hayden added, “Get me a location off that number if you can.”
“When was the phone call made?” Mason asked.
“Just a minute ago. When were Tesla or Lena last in contact with … Who is it? Andrea?”
Hayden heard voices in the background, and then Lena came on the phone.
“Hey, I only heard from her once, and it was, … gosh, maybe sixteen hours ago,” she told Hayden. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of her ever since. This is the number that she called me from. Did I just hear that you called that number and somebody else answered?”
“Yes. And the message was not one we want to hear. And it most definitely wasn’t her.”
“Damn,” she muttered. “She has another phone. Let me see if I can find it.”
“Why does she have two phones?”
“She says it’s protection in case things go south while she’s working the streets, usually solo.
She brings food and water to the homeless and tries to get them to shelters at night or when the weather is really bad.
She distributes blankets too when it’s cold outside.
She also heard about the missing students from the same university she went to, which offered that semester-abroad program in London.
So she’s been following up on that too. I told her not to but she wouldn’t listen.
She took a couple classes in journalism in college, was on the school paper. Here’s her other number.”
He wrote it down. “So she’s a journalist for a living?”
“No. She’s a wannabe journalist, … but a full-time do-gooder, trying to find her place in the world,” she shared.
“She’s all heart but not necessarily streetwise.
She gets into a cause and goes all in. She’s big on helping at soup kitchens, at animal shelters, et cetera.
She heard something about female students going missing, and that was all it took. She was all in.”
He snorted, and Lena sighed, adding, “I know you guys don’t agree with those choices, but I don’t know anyone who has been able to convince her otherwise.
Not even her father. I’ve known Andrea for a few years, after Tesla did a talk at the university.
We met her at the mixer afterward and hit it off.
She’s crazy and wonderful but a bit scattered as to a true career direction. ”
“Oh, Lord. A do-gooder. We can’t have her involved with these people.” Hayden couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “We’re dealing with human trafficking, for God’s sake.”
“Oh, I hear you,” Lena noted. “Doesn’t mean Andrea will stop looking into this.”
“Of course not,” he muttered, with a headshake. “When does anybody ever listen to us? We’re just trying to keep her safe.”
Lena chuckled. “Not everything is as black-and-white as you guys think.”
“No,” he replied, “it’s often way the hell worse. Get me a location on this second phone and text me that address. I’m already in the vehicle, about to leave.”
*
“Shit, shit, shit.” Andrea Galanis crept along the back wall of the huge warehouse, filled with machinery. For the first time in her life, she was absolutely terrified.
Somehow she’d gotten into something way the hell over her head. And now, having escaped from her captor but not from the warehouse, she was really frightened and didn’t have a clue what to do.
She’d already lost her phone to the huge, burly asshole, who seemed to have nothing but nightmare scenarios for her on his mind.
And she wouldn’t stick around for more of that shit, not after he’d been distracted by a phone call.
That opportunity had been too good to pass up.
Thankfully he hadn’t tied her up as well as he’d thought, so she had booked it while she had the chance.
Yet she was still in the warehouse, and so was he.
When her backup phone rang, she scrambled to get it out of her pocket and shut off the ringer, so her kidnapper wouldn’t hear it, yet it had already given away her location.
Even as she heard footsteps coming, she quickly sent a text for help. Whoever was on the other end of the phone, sent back a simple text reply.
Location?
She replied right away, knowing she didn’t have much time. Warehouse in Georgetown. Close to old gas station. An old commercial district existed here, before the area became zoned as residential. Mostly empty buildings at this point, while the city decided what to do with them.
After that came no further texts, for which she was damn grateful.
She set the ringer to Vibrate, which could still give her away.
She adjusted her volume as low as it could go but had no idea if that had anything to do with the Vibrate function.
Then she slipped off this wall and hid behind the various machinery on the floor, knowing this asshole would be trying to find her as fast as he could.
And, damn, he’d already gotten very close. She heard his deep rumbling voice.
“You won’t get away from me, bitch. You think I don’t like this part? I live for it—knowing that you’re petrified, oozing those sweet juices. I can smell the fear in your pores,” he spoke menacingly.
His voice was thick, heavy, and—she hated to confirm it—filled with desire, as if this were the part that he really enjoyed. And that sparked far too many questions in her mind.
Had he let her go on purpose?
Had he set up a scenario so she could get away, just so he could come after her?
Was she being hunted for real?
The thought of being the prey to this predator made her sick, and yet it was all too possible. Whenever you had some creep like this one, the possibility of truly getting free again was slim.
She knew she shouldn’t have come down here alone, after receiving that earlier message that Cleo was possibly here—or at least someone with information about Cleo.
Andrea should have asked for more clarity.
Still, she had been on her way back downtown anyway to drop off food and water to the homeless.
So she swung by here. Yet her decision to come here had been a bad idea, as she found out a little too late.
As she entered the dark warehouse, before she could call out to Cleo or anybody, she overheard a conversation in progress.
“Cleo’s trouble. Get her gone. We’ll take care of Andrea. Europe is dropping us like we’re kryptonite. We must prove ourselves, or we’re done on this side of the pond. And you know the money is over there.”
Andrea had been targeted by these guys. That made things even worse. And the mention of Cleo tied these guys to that student’s disappearance as well. Yet the get her gone part could have different meanings, depending on which asshole was talking and which asshole was reacting.
While she had been listening intently to their conversation, one of the guys snuck up on her, surprising her, and quickly tied her up. She didn’t have a whole lot of options right now.
Yet currently just this one guy remained. The other two had left, telling the Hulk here to confirm that Andrea couldn’t talk. And now the cat-and-mouse game that he was playing made her realize what a fundamentally stupid mistake she had made.
And yet that bloody Arlene and everything she was involved in was just so wrong.
Well, supposedly was involved in. Yet Andrea trusted her gut.
She knew Arlene was up to no good. Andrea still hoped to prove it.
How was Andrea supposed to help anybody if she never took a chance?
Plus, it always seemed that everyone waited around for somebody else to do something.
And so, here Andrea was, wanting to do something.
And yet, in her current situation, that something part may not be happening. Pissed off, frustrated, and angry at the way things were turning out, Andrea slipped around another piece of machinery, looking for a way out, a way past this asshole.
He laughed and called out, “Nice try.”
And this time his voice was too close. Just when her heart was beating out of her chest, and she could barely breathe, he made a lunge.
Thinking she was caught, she soon realized that he thought she was on the other side of this tractor.
She quickly and quietly slipped around the next couple tractors, as he started to swear.
She began to think that he might have some hearing issues with his left ear. Keeping that in mind, trying to stay on his left side, she circled around until she returned to where she had been picked up by him in the first place. And now was beside the front door.
As soon as she could, she stepped right up to the door.
She tried to remember whether it squeaked or not when she first came in here.
She had no idea. Regardless, squeak or not, with one last glance around, she opened the door and bolted outside, hoping to get as far away as she could.
She made it outside, and, instead of crossing the street, she took the corner of the building, knowing that the Hulk would probably take off in some direction, without giving any thought to which way she had gone.
She would use that to her advantage, or at least she hoped so.
As soon as she turned the next corner, now at the back of the warehouse, she ran as fast as she could down the block, which was hard in the dark, especially when barefoot.
She stumbled once and barely caught herself, then kept on going full speed, until she slammed hard into another body, who picked her up and slapped her up against the nearest wall, a hand over her mouth, as he whispered something to her.
She frowned, thinking she recognized his voice.
He repeated the message. “Did you hear me? Calm down, no shouting, no screaming. I’m here to help.”