A squawking voice dragged Maryse from a deep sleep. For a minute, she was disoriented. Then Brooks’s hand tightened on her shoulder, and she remembered.
The plane. Cami.
Her heart dropped, and she sucked in a breath.
“We’re on the ground.” Brooks’s voice was low and somehow reassuring in spite of the fact that he hadn’t really said anything significant.
“I missed the landing?”
“Well. It was a smooth one,” he teased.
“Must’ve been.”
“We’re one step closer to Camille. And I’ve got something to show you.”
“To show me?”
“Yep. I was going to explain, but I thought it was better this way.”
“Okay,” she said cautiously.
Something about the brightness of his words made her nerves flutter. Not that she didn’t trust him. But she was pretty sure he’d make an effort to disguise his own worry in an attempt to assuage hers. She opted for waiting it out and threaded her fingers through his as the captain announced they were ready to deplane.
Brooks didn’t add anything, either. He just pulled her to her feet, then led her quickly into the airport. But the second their feet hit the carpet, he stopped short and turned her to face the rest of the passengers, and she knew her trepidation was valid.
“What are we waiting for?” she asked, dreading the answer.
He gave her hand a squeeze and inclined his head. “That.”
Maryse felt the blood drain from her face as she spotted the petite woman exiting just then. “That’s Dee White.”
“Yes, it is,” he murmured back.
The other woman looked up. She met Maryse’s gaze and blinked nervously before nodding once at Brooks. Then she stepped forward, bumped her foot on a ridge in the floor and dropped her purse, spilling the contents.
As she bent to pick everything up, Maryse used the opportunity to squeeze Brooks’s hand back—hard—and ask, “You knew she was on the plane?”
“Yeah. I talked to her while you slept.”
“And you didn’t wake me up?”
“I didn’t want to worry you.”
“Well. I’m worried now.”
“She’s going to help us.”
“How? Why?”
He bent down and spoke close to her ear. “She knows Nank, sweetheart. She’s our only in. All we need her to do is find where they’re holding Cami. And as far as why is concerned...she’s not much more than a mercenary. For the right price...”
“And why would we trust her?”
“We wouldn’t. We won’t.”
She tipped her head up, watching him watch Dee guardedly. “So...”
“She knows I’m a cop.”
“What?”
“I’m pretty damned sure she knows, anyway. So. You’re going to offer to pay her, and I’m going to offer to keep her out of jail.”
“Can you do that?”
“Possibly. But all that matters is she believes it.”
“Unless she decides to sue you for not following through.”
“Fine. I’ll just promise to try and keep her out of jail.”
Maryse couldn’t quite muster up a laugh. Especially not when she realized that Dee had finished fishing her items from the ground and was now headed their way. Though the other woman held her head straight ahead, her eyes darted nervously around the airport.
It made Maryse more nervous herself. So much so that she didn’t notice the four uniformed men until they were already brushing past. Brooks slid his hand down her arm and tugged her away.
“Brooks,” she hissed. “What’s going on?”
“Look. Subtly.”
She tipped her head just as one of the men slapped a pair of cuffs onto Dee’s wrists.
“What are they doing?” she asked.
“Taking her in.”
“I can see that. But for what?”
“Who knows? I’m sure there’s a list.”
“But—” She cut herself off as the police moved by again.
Two cleared the way while the other two held Dee’s arms. The petite woman kept her head down as they passed.
“This is bad,” Brooks said. “And not just because she can’t help us.”
“She knows who you are.”
“And she can identify you.”
“And...oh, God. She knows about Cami.” Dizziness hit Maryse hard as she realized how much more precarious their already-precarious situation had become.
“C’mon. We need to get our bags and get moving.”
“To where?”
“Anywhere but here.”
They made it all the way to the carousel. But just as the bags from their flights started dropping, Brooks’s phone chimed, and when he pulled it out and glanced at the screen, Maryse knew it wasn’t good news.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“A text message from my partner.”
“What does it say?”
“It says ‘look up.’”
“What does that mean?”
Slowly, Brooks lifted his head. Maryse followed his gaze. At first, she saw nothing. But as she continued to stare, she spotted a flurry of activity just past the throng of people waiting for their luggage. Passengers and their families parted to make room for yet another set of uniformed police, these ones moving with the subtlety of a herd of rhinos.
Brooks drew in a noisy breath and spoke grimly. “That’s my captain and his favorite group of men.”
“I thought you said they didn’t work out of Vegas.”
“They don’t.” His phone pinged another message, and he glanced down, then back up again, scanning one side of the airport.
“What did that one say?” Maryse asked, trying again to see what he saw.
“‘Look left.’ And there he is. Come on.”
He didn’t wait for her to answer, or mention the bags they were leaving behind. He just grabbed ahold of her hand again and tugged her along. He swiped sideways, out of view of the oncoming officers, then ducked into the crowd. He pulled and pulled, and for a while, she thought their weaving path was random. But after a few minutes, she realized that the same man had been ahead of them the whole time. Dressed in khakis, a T-shirt and pulled-down ball cap, he moved along at a pace that was just too fast to be called meandering.
They moved through several crowds of people and past multiple baggage carousels. They went through a hall and curved into a newspaper kiosk. Pretty soon, Maryse was lost. Which she guessed was the intent behind the whole thing. She wasn’t sure she could’ve found her way back to their starting point for a million dollars.
But at last, the crowd thinned. For a second, the man in khakis was nowhere to be seen, but as they rounded a corner and Brooks slowed, Maryse spotted him again. He’d moved through a set of wide automatic doors and stood on the other side, his elbow resting on the roof of an off-duty taxi. He inclined his head slightly in their direction as they hurried toward the door themselves, and then he climbed into the driver’s seat.
As they followed outside, Maryse inhaled. Factoring in the five-hour flight and the time difference, it had to be about midnight. But the air was warm and dry even though it was fully dark, and the city lights illuminated the horizon. She knew that if they got closer to the strip itself, the time wouldn’t matter. It was one of the few things that she remembered clearly from her last trip—that strange feeling that no one in Vegas ever slept.
Everything else about those few days was a blur, drowned out by her new reality. She’d been terrified and alone except for a very tiny, very quiet Camille. She hadn’t yet figured out that the near-silence came from the newborn’s deafness. She hadn’t yet figured out anything. The world had seemed too big, and her prospects were dim.
“You all right, sweetheart?”
She glanced up and realized she’d stopped just a few steps from the cab. Brooks was looking down at her with a concerned expression on his face, clearly waiting for her to answer.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“You sure?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, sweetheart.” Brooks let go of her hand, offered her a smile, then kissed her lightly before opening the back door and signing, Welcome to Vegas.
Nervous, but trusting him nonetheless, she slid into the backseat. He followed, and in seconds, they were moving out of the terminal and toward the lights.
* * *
For several minutes, the inside of the cab was quiet. Brooks could practically feel the questions building up in his partner’s mind. Could almost see them adding more gray to the man’s salt-and-pepper hair. They’d worked together for four years, and though they were very different men, this was the first time he’d felt the need to keep anything from Masters.
Not your secrets to tell, he reminded himself.
Which was why he needed to approach things carefully. And he had his own questions, too. Like how his partner had known he’d be at the airport, and why their mutual boss was there, too.
The other man broke the silence first, his near-black gaze boring into Brooks. “Hey, Small?”
He braced himself. “Yeah, Masters?”
“Did you call her ‘sweetheart’?”
“That’s what you’re going with?”
“Seems pretty significant considering just this morning you told me there were zero pretty girls up there in Canada.”
“I took your advice and found one.”
“She is pretty.”
“Sure is.”
“And I’m guessing she’s calling the shots.”
Brooks relaxed, just a little. “You guess right.”
Masters paused, then glanced in the rearview mirror, his eyes on Maryse. “Hi, honey.”
“Sweetheart,” she corrected, making Brooks grin.
“Maryse, meet my partner, Shepherd Masters,” he said. “Masters, this is Maryse.”
His partner tipped his hat. “Miss. Must’ve pulled a hell of a good trick to get this guy to break this many rules.”
“Does he usually follow them?”
Masters’s shoulders lifted up and down. “He usually follows at least a few at a time.”
“I didn’t ask for his help.” Maryse didn’t sound defensive—just honest.
“Not surprised at all. He’s stubbornly helpful. ’Specially when it comes to things that involve Caleb Nank.”
Brooks’s mouth twisted. “Subtle segue.”
“Not a lot of time to be subtle.” Masters threw another glance at Maryse. “It’s fine if you don’t want to tell me how it ties together, but I sure as hell wouldn’t mind knowing why I’m taking risks with my career to save your butts.”
Maryse’s hand slipped across the car to slide into Brooks’s palm. “You trust him.”
It was a statement rather than a question, but he nodded anyway. “A hundred percent.”
“Then I do, too.”
“Girlfriend seal of approval,” Masters said.
Brooks knew his partner had dropped the label to irritate him. Or possibly just to get a read on his reaction. It didn’t bother him at all. In fact, it felt right.
Or maybe not quite strong enough, he admitted.
He stole a glance at Maryse. Just a look was enough to make his chest squeeze. Yeah, she was definitely more than a girlfriend.
Brooks cleared his throat. “Tell me what’s happening on your end, Masters.”
“You mean how did I devolve from being a perfectly sane cop this morning to being a taxi thief tonight?”
“Exactly.”
His friend tossed the ball cap aside and gave his head a scratch, then sighed. “Well. I was thinking about you coming home...”
“Pining for me?” Brooks interjected.
“Can you shut up for a few seconds?”
“Probably not.”
His partner shot him a dirty look over his shoulder. “Anyway. It was bugging me a bit. So I went to the captain this afternoon and asked him if you’d be back anytime soon. He got kinda buggy. Not like him at all. Nervous, you know? So I stuck around the station, thinking something was up.”
“You spied on the captain?”
“Had to.”
“I’m impressed.”
“I said shut up, right?”
Brooks squeezed Maryse’s fingers. She was smiling a little, which was good, because he was damned sure things were about to get a lot darker. Masters was looking at her again, too.
“You sure you want to stick with this guy? He’s a serious thorn,” he said.
“I’m sure,” she said, her voice tinged with amusement.
Masters sighed. “Fine. Your life.”
“Back to the spying,” Brooks ordered.
“I did some paperwork. Just kinda watched what was going on. The captain was on the phone, mostly. Really sweating. Called a few of his favorite guys in.”
“And usually you’re one of those guys.”
“Usually I am. But today I wasn’t. So I was thinking about it a little more. You were already on my radar, and also the only thing I could think of that could make the captain not want to tell me what was going on. So I hit up Chatty Patty.”
“She’s one of our desk sergeants,” Brooks told Maryse. “Tends to know just about everything.”
“Right,” Masters agreed. “And she did know what was going on. At least enough to tell me it had something to do with Nank and Canada. So then I’m back to the same common denominator.”
“Me.”
“Yeah. You. Pain in the—”
“I get it. I interrupted your day off. How did you figure out I was coming in on this flight?”
His partner shook his head. “I didn’t. The captain came out and sent me home. So I left for a while. But it was bugging me. And you know how I can’t let something go if it doesn’t feel right, so...”
“So you stole a cab.”
“Borrowed one from my cousin. I waited for the captain to put together his unit, then I tailed them here. Wasn’t expecting you, actually. From everything I overheard, they were picking up a girl. Got clearance from both the Vegas people and the TSA to come in and grab her.”
“Dee White,” Maryse said.
“You know who the girl is?” Masters asked.
“We do,” Brooks replied.
Maryse frowned. “But that doesn’t make sense, does it?”
“No,” he agreed. “It doesn’t.”
“Why the hell not?” his partner wanted to know.
“Because the captain and his guys didn’t get to her. TSA grabbed her as she came off the plane,” he explained. “Why would they do that if they’d cleared Rain Falls to do it?”
Masters tapped his fingers on the wheel while Brooks turned it over in his head. He couldn’t see the TSA agreeing to something, then rescinding it with no notice.
“Whoever grabbed her wasn’t TSA,” he said. “I don’t know how they got past all the security, but they did. The captain is going to be pretty damned ticked off.”
“So who took her?” Maryse asked.
“My guess is Nank’s men.”
Her lips pressed together in a tight line for a second. “That’s worse, isn’t it, than the police having her?”
He ran a frustrated hand over his hair. “It depends on what they want from her. I was assuming Dee had told Nank we were coming. So were they here to rescue her from us? Keep her from talking the way we wanted her to? Or did they do what my sneaky partner here did and intercept the captain’s plans? And why the hell did the captain want her in the first place? Does he know about you?”
“Lot more questions than answers,” Masters said.
“No kidding.” Brooks sighed. “We need to regroup.”
“I’ve got a safe house just outside of Rain Falls,” his partner told him. “We can use it. If the shot-caller agrees?”
Maryse nodded her assent quickly.
“Good,” said Masters. “Now maybe you can tell me a bit about what’s happening on your end?”
“You mean how I went from a single cop on forced vacation to a stepdad-hopeful on a rogue mission in under twenty-four hours?”
The car jerked to the side as the other man flung his head to the side in surprise. The look on his partner’s face might’ve made Brooks laugh under other circumstances. But right that second, he was having a hard time finding anything funny. All he wanted to do was get to their destination so he could put his police skills to work and bring home the little girl.