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can convince y’all to split up this list with me?”
“I’ll hop on a plane to Mobile,” Jack volunteered with a grin. “There’s a place there I know with fabulous biscuits and gravy, so when I’m done, I know I’ll have a great meal.”
“I’ll take Norman,” Logan said. “I’ve been before and I know my way around. Shouldn’t take me long.”
“I used to live in Houston,” Joaquin pointed out. “I’ll be able to get in and out of there fast.”
“I guess that leaves me with catching the next flight to Arizona,” Hunter quipped. “Where is this place?”
“Halfway between Tucson and Phoenix. I passed through there once.” Joaquin shrugged. “Look on the bright side. It’s not a big town. It’ll take longer to get there than to search it.”
“Whoever finds her, I think we should take her somewhere with a lot of security, where we can watch her twenty-four seven. Like Dominion.” Logan turned to Joaquin. “It’s Thorpe’s club in Dallas. Callie and Sean will be there, too. We can ask them questions at the same time.”
“Club?”
“BDSM.” Logan set his jaw. “You got something to say about that?”
Why would he? “Not a word.”
“Excellent.”
“I highly recommend you keep it that way.” But clearly, Hunter wasn’t suggesting.
Whatever. Impatience burned a hole in his gut. He just wanted to get this show on the road.
“Check in as soon as you’ve reached your target and either eliminated or identified her,” Joaquin said.
“What do we do with the women we know aren’t Tatiana? We can’t just leave them to this sadistic fucker and the prick giving the orders.”
A heavy pall fell over the group. No one wanted to upend lives . . . but they all refused to leave another innocent woman to suffer so brutally at these killers’ hands.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Logan suggested.
“All right.” Joaquin didn’t like it, but he agreed. “Now we need to get going. The more time we waste here, the more time someone else has to die.”
Chapter Two
AFTER five hours of sleep and another four on the road, Joaquin drove through the historic Houston Heights neighborhood, cruising slowly past Bailey Benson’s address. As sunset dipped closer, the golden glow backlit the cozy bungalow painted a pretty blue-gray with fresh white trim. Original stained glass graced a transom window over the front door. The little porch and dark wood front door gave the place charm.
It didn’t look like a house where a murder could take place, but looks could be deceiving.
He didn’t see a vehicle parked in the carport to the left of the house, but a bicycle was tethered to its back post. Vaguely, Joaquin wondered where this girl was now. He read the sketchy bio information Stone had given him again—more about dance than anything else. Nothing that told him precisely who she was.
As he scoped the house to find the best entrance to sneak in without being spotted, his phone buzzed. Logan.
“What did you find?” Joaquin didn’t waste time with chitchat or preambles.
“I just got to Norman. Bad news. Emily Boyle was reported missing shortly after noon today.”
His stomach balled and dropped. “Shit.”
“I’m going to keep looking around, help if I can. But from what I can tell, she left her job as an assistant in a real estate office to grab some coffee this morning and didn’t return. Of course, the police won’t consider her an official missing person for another fifteen hours, but . . .”
“We know what happened, most likely.” Joaquin sighed into the phone. “We’re too late.”
“As much as I hate saying it, the situation doesn’t look good. But I’m not giving up yet. I’m trying to retrace Emily’s steps and talk to anyone who saw her just before she disappeared.”
“Thanks. Keep me posted.”
He couldn’t stand the thought that a young woman was probably, even now, being strapped down and scalpeled, punctured, then dismembered until she either admitted to being Tatiana Aslanov or she bled to death. Either way, she’d die eventually. If she wasn’t the scientist’s daughter, they’d snuff her out with no compunction. The best he could do was focus on Bailey Benson, hope she was the missing girl, and save her in case these brutal bastards came her way.
Then take them down for what they’d done to Nate and the other women.
Jack and Hunter had both climbed on planes to their respective destinations. Something between anticipation and dread bit into Joaquin’s stomach. He hoped they’d have better news than Logan, but everything looked bleak.
As soon as the sun slid below the horizon, he drove a few streets over, slipped on a ball cap, and shrugged into a long raincoat. He climbed from the car and locked it, then strolled down the street, pretending to be a resident out for an evening stroll.
It didn’t take him long to reach Bailey’s little house. He ducked behind a row of hedges and crouched, following it to the side of the house, testing every door and window. He gave her credit for keeping the doors locked, but he found a loose knob on the door into the kitchen. A quick turn of the multi-tool he kept in his pocket, and he stripped away the hardware. From there, it wasn’t hard to reach through and unlock the door. Predictably, no one had retrofitted the house with a security system.
Once inside, he reattached the doorknob and tightened it before making his way through the shadowed space, looking for a good hiding spot. He hoped like hell that she actually made it home, instead of disappearing like Emily Boyle. But since she wasn’t due to work at the dive where she waitressed until Tuesday, he wasn’t sure where else to find her but home.
Joaquin cased the place. Because the house was older, it didn’t have a walk-in pantry or closet he could slip into. Nor did Bailey’s place have a living room in the normal sense of the words. What it did have, however, was two walls of mirrors, gleaming hardwood floors, and a ballet barre.
The woman liked her dance. He’d never been to a ballet. Neither of his sisters had been into that sort of thing. His sister Mari had been a volleyball player. His mother had enrolled Kata for a time, but his younger sister had preferred to be one of the guys. Football, softball, soccer, even lacrosse . . . If Joaquin played a sport, Kata had joined in.
A jangling noise alerted Joaquin that someone had unlocked the front door. He dove into a floor-to-ceiling armoire Bailey had set up in one corner of the space and arranged himself around some ragged toe shoes, a few leotards, some tulle-like things, and a musty collection of old playbills from past ballets in a box.
Just as he settled with his knees somewhere near his throat, he heard a commotion at the front door. It opened, shut. Keys clattered onto a nearby surface.
“Blane, don’t be that way,” the voice said. “You know I love you.”
Joaquin couldn’t hear what the voice on the other end of the phone said, but Bailey laughed. “Of course no one is more wonderful than you. Didn’t I follow you around like a puppy when we first met? I tell you all the time how incredible you are.”
She paused, and Joaquin heard her footsteps drawing closer. The rustle of plastic told him that she had set a bag on the counter of the kitchen, which was open to her dance room. He leaned around in the cabinet until he caught a glimpse of her through the tiny sliver of space between the armoire doors.
Bingo!
Bailey Benson appeared, phone pressed to her ear, wearing a smile and a pair of killer dimples. She looked so fresh-faced, with rosy cheeks and her light brown hair in a loose bun. Wavy tendrils caressed her neck. He’d never seen a woman with such delicate shoulders and hands. Her fair skin would surely bruise easily. Even when she extracted apples from her grocery sack, the movements were graceful. He could look at a girl like her all day long.
Blood rushed to his cock like a flood, and he gritted his teeth. A man would have to be careful with a woman like that beneath him.
He definitely liked sex physical and a little rough. Breaking her would be too easy.
He shoved the thought aside, reminding himself that he wasn’t here to get Bailey into bed, but to save her. Because if this asshole Joaquin chased managed to abduct and torture her, he would be far more than a little rough.
A protective surge punched Joaquin in the gut.
“Aww, come on,” she crooned into the phone, pursing a full pair of lips that he could imagine plump and rosy and wrapped around him as she sucked him deep. “It’ll be great. You’re gorgeous, Blane. We do hot and sweaty really well together. You know it.”
Well, hell. She was talking to her boyfriend about sex. Joaquin didn’t poach, and getting excited about some girl into another guy wasn’t his speed. The fact that he currently spied on her through her armoire doors made him feel like a pervy letch. He shook his head.
She giggled. Her blue eyes sparkled. Fuck, she really was gorgeous. Then again, he shouldn’t be surprised. She was young, blue-eyed, and nubile. And despite her conversation, she had a startling air of innocence.
“All right. I’ll wait until tomorrow night. You’re terrible to string a girl along and leave her panting, you know?”
The douche on the other end had turned down sex with her? Scratch that. That guy wasn’t a douche, but a complete fidiot.
Bailey laughed, then hung up. She finished putting away her groceries, then stashed her purse on the kitchen counter and made her way to the open space of her dance studio. As she bent to retrieve a pair of toe shoes scattered on the floor, Joaquin got his first look at her form south of her shoulders.
Holy fuck, what a pretty thing. She wore some sort of gray spandex dance garment that covered her from shoulders to ankles yet revealed every dip and slight swell of her body. Along with the delicate shoulders, she had pert breasts that curved her leotard gracefully. Her narrow rib cage funneled down to an even smaller waist. The slight flare of her hips was just enough to be feminine. Firm thighs, muscled calves, and tiny feet that looked even smaller in those torture chamber shoes.
The woman weighed about a hundred pounds. She wasn’t tall. God, had he ever even kissed a girl that fragile? No. But her lips looked like the least delicate part of her, pink and puffed. Soft. Sex ready.
Shit, the thought made him even harder.
As soon as Bailey finished lacing up her shoes, she ran back and grabbed her phone, then flipped through her playlists and chose a song. She set the phone down and struck a pose. Classical music filled the room, and she danced like a butterfly, flitting, floating. She looked so light. The woman came damn close to defying gravity. How could anyone stay in the air that long with her legs in the splits? How could anyone turn on the tips of her toes seven or eight times like that without losing her balance, getting dizzy, or throwing up?
Through the thin, stretchy fabric, Joaquin witnessed every bunch of her thighs as she leapt, every ripple of her shoulders as she waved her arms in graceful expression. And her face . . . He had no doubt that she was never happier than when she was moving with the music to express the beauty of the dance and song together. Simply stunning.
He wasn’t a dance sort of guy, but watching her made him fucking ache to touch her.
Time seemed without meaning, almost endless. When she pirouetted out of his vision, it frustrated him . . . but then she came back, and the sight of her was like something that soothed the savage beast inside him. The control she had over her body astounded him. Bailey lifted her leg, cradling her foot in her hand and hoisting it above her head, turning as she did, head flung back, eyes closed, as if in ecstasy.
Damn it, he was about to bust out his zipper.
One song bled into the next, then another. Even her graceful fingers turned him on, and he imagined his big dark hands all over her fair skin, enveloping her slight form as he drove into her sweet, tight cunt.
He drew in a deep breath. Mission objective: Save the girl from being horrifically murdered. He had no business thinking about sex with her. She had a boyfriend. He was a foot taller and outweighed her by at least a hundred pounds. The grooves on his face revealed the harsh danger in his life she would never understand. Bailey would probably take one look at him and scream.
As she raised her leg behind her, arched her back, and made some graceful sweep with her arms, the phone in his pocket buzzed. Thanking fuck that the music covered the sound, he pulled it from his pocket. Jack Cole. Caitlyn Wells’s body had been discovered about four that afternoon. He’d thoughtfully included a picture. As he saw it, Joaquin hissed in a breath. She’d received the same treatment as the others—broken, sawed into pieces, mutilated almost beyond recognition. If Logan and Hunter’s theory about who was behind all this was right, these separatists were working faster. Or maybe they were just losing patience. Either way, it wasn’t good. They’d be done with the girl in Oklahoma soon. And they’d be heading down to Houston—if they weren’t on their way already. Then they’d abduct Bailey and— Fuck no. He couldn’t even think about that. It wouldn’t happen on his watch.
He tapped out a quick curse to Jack and added that he’d call later.
About that time, Bailey turned off the music. Perspiration dripped down her neck, disappeared between her breasts. Patches of moisture discolored the back of her leotard. Her hairline was soaking wet. Joaquin found himself just as fascinated. Did she work that hard in bed with a lover, chasing pleasure with him to create an unforgettable experience?
She disappeared, and he saw the shoes fly across the room, back into the corner. The patter of footsteps over the hardwood floors grew quieter, fainter, until they disappeared. The creak of the old house’s water pipes sounded in the walls next. Bailey had probably gone to shower.
Easing the armoire door open, he peeked out. All the lights were on and the coast was clear. Excellent.
First order of business: Secure the location.
Joaquin unfolded himself from the cramped space and backtracked to the front door. He wanted to throttle her when he found it unlocked. Was she insane? Even if she didn’t know about the danger breathing down her neck, any run-of-the-mill rapist or killer looking for an easy thrill could just walk right in while she was in a tile box with her eyes closed and so damn vulnerable.
Shit. He’d never quite understood the urge to spank a woman, but he was starting to get a clue.
After locking them in tight once more, he swiped her phone and schlepped back to her bedroom. Sweat-damp clothes littered the floor. Running water pelted the walls and floor of the shower. She sang in a high, lilting soprano. He didn’t recognize the song. Something about eternal love—vomit—but she could carry a tune. That shouldn’t surprise him. She was both musical and talented.
Tucking himself behind a plush chair in a corner of the room, he prowled through her phone, just waiting for her to emerge from the bathroom. She didn’t password protect the device, so he could see the name of her last caller. Blane looked young, fit, and boyishly handsome. They’d exchanged a series of texts with lots of flirting and hearts.
Somewhere in the back of his head, Joaquin wondered if her boyfriend would pose a problem by doing something inconvenient like dropping by unexpectedly tonight. Joaquin would almost wonder what she saw in a guy like Blane, except it was both obvious and irrelevant.
The phone in Joaquin’s pocket buzzed again. He pulled it free to see a message from Hunter. The girl in Arizona was in Africa on a mission trip for the next six weeks. They exchanged a few texts, agreeing that she was safe for now and that if the case was still up in the air when Alicia Allen returned, they’d deal with her then. Hunter said he was catching a return flight home tonight. Giving him the thumbs-up, Joaquin had shoved his phone in his pocket again when he heard the bathroom door open.
Along with a cloud of perfumed steam, Bailey emerged. He caught a glimpse of her barely covered in a yellow towel, little water droplets raining down her pale skin as she scurried across the room.
/> She stopped right beside the bed, and a moment later the TV flipped on. She scanned a few channels, then paused.
“Welcome to Callindra Howe,” said the male announcer with the buttery voice. “Thank you for being with us. Your story of survival and courage has inspired many in the face of adversity, and everyone is thrilled that your story has a happy ending.”
“Thank you for having me here.”
“In case you’ve been living under a rock . . .” The voice-over went into an explanation of Callie’s history, surviving the murder of her entire family and repeated attempts on her own life. The backstory included a description of Aslanov and his research, along with a hint that this played a role in her tragic past. A little gasp escaped Bailey.
Joaquin inched his gaze above the back of the chair. She stood stock-still and staring. What had her so mesmerized? He cocked his head to see the TV. A picture of Viktor Aslanov appeared on the screen. He whipped his stare to Bailey again. She looked spooked and pale.
