20
If Adam was shocked, he didn’t show it.
“Can you tell me why you put her on the list?”
“A lot of little things. A lot of big things. The main big one is that I suspect that she held a human being as a slave for a decade. That’s not something she would want to be publicly known. And of course there’s the fact that, other than a few charities, she’s the beneficiary of almost everything I have or will have when I turn thirty. If she kills me now, she gets it all.”
“Those are strong motives.”
“That’s why she’s on the list and why I’m about to get all up in her business.” How she dreaded it. What else might she find?
Adam’s forehead wrinkled. “I don’t want you to have to dig into her life. I’ll do it. First thing tomorrow.”
“I can do it.” She couldn’t shove this off on anyone else.
“I know.” He reached for her laptop and gently closed the lid. “But that doesn’t mean you should. Anything you find out about her could be considered invalid if we wind up going to trial.”
“Not when I’m the expert.”
“Exactly. You’re the expert. And as the expert, we need you to stay on Lisa Palmer’s case. I can’t help as much with that. I can help with this.”
He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “You need to sleep.”
“I can’t. I keep hearing the gun—” She would be hearing that pop-pop for the rest of her life. “I can even smell it. Smell him.”
“Then I’ll stay with you.” He led her into the living room and set a pillow on one end of the sofa.
She sat on the edge as he walked to a basket by the fireplace. She would humor him for a few minutes and then she would get back to work.
He returned with a blanket. “Please. At least try.”
She rested her head on the pillow and he tucked the blanket around her. He planted a light peck on her forehead. “Go to sleep, Bri. I’ll be right here.”
She thought he might sit at her feet, but instead he grabbed a pillow, tossed it on the floor near her head, and took a seat.
He must have taken a shower before he went to bed because she could smell his shampoo. Not anything overpowering, but enough that it drove the scent of bullets and death away. She studied the back of his neck, his shoulders. He wasn’t leaning back against the sofa, but instead he had his arms draped around his knees.
She wondered why until she caught the outline of the bandage through his T-shirt. “Does your back still hurt?”
“Not too much,” he said. “Leigh’s probably going to take the bandage off tomorrow. I mostly notice it when I lie down. I’m a side sleeper, so it hasn’t been too bad.”
“Good.” She was losing the battle with consciousness, but she was terrified of what was waiting for her in her sleep.
“Bri, I’m praying for you. Right now. Go to sleep, babe.”
And she did.
When she woke Friday morning, he was asleep on the floor beside her. That didn’t surprise her, but the sight of Anissa in the recliner and Gabe in the oversized chair did. Maybe she wasn’t the only one who’d been having nightmares.
Except . . . she hadn’t. At least, she didn’t think she had. She checked her watch. Six thirty. The darkness outside was fading.
Motion on the deck caught her eye. She almost reached for Adam but relaxed when she recognized the figure of Lane pacing back and forth. He seemed like a good guy. Young. Eager. Kind.
Father, protect him as he protects me. Protect all of them. Show me what to do. Help me see beyond my fears and insecurities to what is the truth of this situation. Help us free the captives. And help me accept whatever I must face in the days ahead. Help me remember you love the fatherless and the orphans. That even when our parents abandon and desert us, you never will. Help me to be able to forgive as you forgave, because there is no way I’ll be able to do that on my own.
Adam stirred on the floor. His eyes fluttered open and found hers. “Hey,” he whispered. “How did you sleep?”
“Fine. I think.”
His sleepy smile was quite possibly the most attractive thing she had ever seen, and she had to force herself to stay on the sofa. “I fell asleep too. I woke up when Gabe and Anissa came in, but then I crashed.”
“Came in?” Where had they gone?
“Long story. I’ll explain later.”
He rolled into a sitting position and rested his chin on the sofa inches from her. “You’re beautiful.”
She could feel the blush spreading all over her body. If he thought she was beautiful first thing in the morning, then he was delusional. Not that she minded this type of delusion.
“I’ll make us some coffee,” he said. “It’s going to be a long day.”
He wasn’t kidding. She’d gotten to her lab by eight thirty, which given the amount of security Adam, Gabe, and Anissa had insisted on, was a small miracle. She still had Dave on the inside, which was quite comforting. But he wasn’t alone. He’d been joined by someone named Evan. Outside the lab were two more officers whose names she’d not heard. And then, as if it wasn’t crazy enough around there, they’d called Tyler from campus security. He was circling the building every three minutes.
She was not going to be able to live like this. And she had one huge problem.
She still didn’t have a dress.
The gala was tonight. Why they held the gala on a Friday night was a mystery to her, although apparently it had been that way forever and no one was willing to change it.
She’d tried to get out of it. She’d volunteered to stay at Leigh’s, barricaded behind closed doors with a phalanx of officers patrolling the house, but no one had liked her plan.
“Sabrina, we have tons of security at the gala. You’ll be safer there than anywhere else,” Gabe said.
“We’ll have your back,” Anissa said.
Anissa was still going with Gabe. Since they were volunteering their services and weren’t technically there on official police business, the captain had agreed to it.
“I would never consider having you there if I thought you’d be in danger,” Adam said. “You’ll be with me all night. Gabe and Anissa will stay close. We’ve reviewed the list of officers providing security and they’re all great. Plus we’re going to add a few others of our own that The Porterhouse staff won’t know about.”
She still didn’t know if it was a good idea.
Her phone buzzed. Leigh. She held on tight because Leigh was going to be a mess. “Hello.”
“I have so many things I want to say right now.” Leigh’s voice quavered. “But Anissa told me to stay focused. You need a dress and I can help you.”
“I wouldn’t be able to wear anything of yours.” Leigh was at least four inches shorter than Sabrina. And probably a size two.
“I’m not talking about my clothes. Don’t stress about it. Come to my house at two o’clock. We’ll make it happen.”
This made absolutely no sense, but Leigh was very hard to argue with. “Fine.”
“Sabrina?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad you’re okay.”
“Thanks.”
She heard Leigh sniff as she disconnected the call, but she couldn’t dwell on it. The last thing she needed was to start crying.
She poured herself into her methodical search of Lisa Palmer’s hard drive. When she found a file that looked promising, she sent it to Mike. Mostly she found a lot of stuff that had zero relevance to this case.
She worked through lunch. There had to be more there. Finally, around one o’clock she pulled up a few files that seemed out of place. Lots of receipts from the same restaurant. There had to be something significant about it. She’d gotten so focused that she jumped when her phone rang.
It was Adam.
“Hey.” She filled him in on what she’d found, but he cut her off.
“This sounds like a promising lead and we can talk about it more tomorrow, but don’t you have somewhere to be?”
She looked at her watch. It read 1:45.
“Yikes!” She put the phone on speaker as she raced around her office making sure everything was secure before she left. “Adam?”
“Yes?”
“If Leigh can’t find me a dress . . .”
“I told you I didn’t care if you wear jeans and a T-shirt.”
“I’m not wearing jeans.” She hadn’t meant to snap at him, but she kind of had.
“Okay.” He was backpedaling fast. “But I know you own some lovely dresses. You could wear something you’ve worn to a fundraiser. It doesn’t have to come to the floor or be something you’ve never worn before.”
He had a point. Although she’d rather hear the assurance from a girl. Guys didn’t pay attention to anything like that.
“Sabrina, you’re going to be the most beautiful woman there just by walking in the door. Please don’t stress about the window dressing. I certainly won’t be.”
“I wish I had your confidence.”
“If you don’t have it for yourself, then have it in me. I would never put you in a situation that would embarrass you.”
He was worried about embarrassing her? That was crazy. She was worried about embarrassing him.
“You’ll be fine. More than fine. You’ll be great.”
“Okay.”
“Sabrina?”
“Yes?”
“I’ll pick you up at six.”
This was crazy. Completely and utterly crazy.
Adam had spent most of the past two days working with the captain, Ryan, Gabe, and the two human trafficking investigators they had on staff. No one else was being brought in. No warrants had been requested, although everyone was in agreement about which judge they would ask.
They’d come up with a dozen different scenarios for what they would do if they found any evidence of victims on the property at The Porterhouse. The human trafficking investigators had been added to the security detail and assigned to the kitchen. The hope was that they would be able to spot any signs that the workers were victims of labor trafficking, and in a best-case scenario they might be able to talk to a few of them and find out where they lived, where they were from, and where their families were. The kinds of questions it would be natural to bring up in conversation but that could be vital to their investigation.
It was already midafternoon on Friday before Adam had a chance to dive into the life of Sabrina’s mother, Yvonne Fleming.
Yvonne Fleming wasn’t a nice person. He’d found posts on social media from irate employees—former employees—all of them claiming she expected perfection from mere mortals. That no one could live up to the high standards she set. One hypothesized that she was an alien. Another that she was the world’s only living survivor of a heartectomy.
Bottom line—she was hard to work for and a lot of people hated her for it.
But YTT Healthcare was a publicly owned health-care system, and the stockholders loved her. She ran a tight ship. She expected the best of her employees and anyone who contracted to do work for YTT. She’d successfully sued at least three different companies for breach of contract when they failed to meet her requirements.
Bottom line—she was hard to work for and a lot of people loved her for it.
Just like hundreds of other executives all over the country.
There had never been a hint of impropriety. And it wasn’t because people hadn’t looked for it. They just couldn’t find it. Her taxes were paid in full and on time. YTT had a reputation for meeting and exceeding regulations. In fact, one sure way to get fired was to have your department fail an inspection.
She had a zero-tolerance policy for mistakes.
Adam tried to imagine how Sabrina had come from a woman like this. He’d seen Sabrina with her students. She was demanding and firm, but she tempered that with grace and kindness. She made her students clean their lab so the cleaning crew wouldn’t have much to do. The one time he’d heard her get upset with a group of students was when they left a mess and made the comment that the janitors would take care of it. Her wrath had been somewhat beautiful to behold. And those kids had learned a good lesson. But she hadn’t kicked them out of her program.
She picked up trash off the street.
She bussed her own table at restaurants.
She overtipped for everything.
Sabrina was as unlike Yvonne as it was possible for her to be.
But Adam couldn’t find anything that would cause Yvonne to want to kill Sabrina. And Yvonne had been on a tour of YTT facilities over the past three weeks. She’d been in a different location every few days. Lots of flights. Lots of hotel rooms.
For someone who liked everything done efficiently and tolerated no error, she didn’t seem to be managing this “kill Sabrina” mission well at all.
Which made him wonder if she had anything to do with it.
Yvonne had a new boyfriend. A lawyer named Ezekiel Kemp. Did Sabrina know anything about him?
Somehow he doubted it, but he wasn’t going to mention it tonight. It could wait until tomorrow.
“You ready for tonight?” Gabe leaned against Adam’s desk.
“Ready as we’ll ever be. Ryan checked with his sister about babysitting her kids. Rebecca promised she’d be home no later than ten. He’ll come straight here and be available for whatever we need.”
“Good. I have a feeling we’ll need him. I’ll feel better knowing he’s got our back.”
Gabe’s remark struck a nerve. “Are we doing the right thing, Gabe? Should we try to build a huge team and work it from every angle?”
Gabe didn’t respond with some glib remark. He stared out the windows and chewed on his lip. “I’m all for cutting off the head,” he said. “But this isn’t drug trafficking or money laundering. This is slavery. If we can free them tonight? This weekend? Versus the months of posturing and planning we’d be dealing with if we waited on a task force, then I’m all for getting whatever limb we can reach now. Some of these traffickers are weak. They aren’t hardened criminals. They’re evil, but they’re marshmallows. We squeeze hard enough, and they’ll be fighting each other for who can be the first to turn on the rest of the organization.”
He slapped the desk. “So chop-chop, pretty boy. Time to get fancy and go catch the bad guys.”
At six o’clock, Adam Campbell was sweating.
He rubbed his hands on the pants of his tuxedo and knocked on Leigh’s door. Anissa opened the door and she was . . . stunning. “Wow.”
She smiled. “Thank you. But you ain’t seen nothing yet.” She stepped to the side and he entered the house. “She’ll be down in a second.”
Gabe was standing in the living room and Anissa went to him. “Quit complaining,” she said as she helped him adjust the holster that would hold his weapon at his side. “I can assure you this is more comfortable than the one I’m wearing.”
Adam tried not to think about where that might be. Her black dress had a high collar, no sleeves, and fit tight to the waist. No way she had a weapon concealed in that area. The dress flowed from her waist and was a little bit shorter in the front than in the back. Not that he had personal experience, but it seemed like the perfect dress for someone who might need to be able to go into “cop mode” in a hurry.
She helped Gabe put his jacket on, then turned him around to face Adam. “Can you tell we’re armed to the teeth?”
“You both look fabulous. You’ll blend in beautifully. Thank you.”
Gabe’s eyes were fixed on the stairs. “She, however, will not blend in at all.” He winked at Adam and offered his arm to Anissa. “Let’s give them a moment, shall we?”
Adam turned to the stairs. And tried to remember how to breathe.
Sabrina descended and came all the way to him before he regained his ability to speak. Even then, all he managed was “You . . .”
“It’s not too much?”
He shook his head. “Definitely not.”
Her gown was green. That much he was sure of. And it fit her perfectly. He thought it might be satin. Or silk? It went to the floor. And had a top that kind of wrapped around her shoulders.
She had on high heels. He couldn’t see them, but her face didn’t usually come this close to his when they talked.
Her hair was up, but little curls framed her face in a most alluring way.
“Leigh found it. It’s about fifty years old. You don’t think it will matter? That it isn’t new?”
Was she seriously concerned about this? “There’s nothing to worry about there. I may refuse to let anyone else dance with you for fear they will attempt to steal you away.”
She laughed. “There’s nothing to worry about there. I’m not available for stealing. And neither, might I add, are you.” Her eyes held his and he couldn’t help but wonder what she saw. He barely even knew what he was feeling. Joy. Desire. Those were the only two he could articulate, but there was a vast sea of emotion he didn’t know how to access right now.
He leaned forward to claim her lips. He released her far sooner than he wanted to. “Ready?”
“Not even a little bit.” She rubbed his lips with her thumb. He hadn’t thought about the damage he might do to her lipstick.
“Sorry,” he whispered.
“Don’t be.”
Leigh came down the stairs in her scrubs. “Thank you,” he said.
She grinned with obvious delight. “I’ve had so much fun. I know you’ll have a blast. I hope you catch the bad guys while you’re at it. But I don’t want to see any of you until tomorrow. Got it?”
Anissa and Gabe reentered the room.
“That goes double for Gabe,” she said. “Be safe tonight.”
“Yes, Mom,” Gabe said with a laugh.
They said their goodbyes, and Adam ushered Sabrina to the waiting limousine. Gabe and Anissa climbed into Adam’s Audi. “You’d better be careful, Chavez.”
Adam slid into the seat of the limousine beside Sabrina. “I usually despise limos,” he said. “But I’m beginning to see their advantages.” He made sure the window between them and the driver was up. “Are you okay about tonight? Have everything you need?”
Even in the dim light of the back seat he could see the look of barely suppressed terror on her face.
Maybe if he could get her distracted she wouldn’t be so nervous. “I want to hear all about this afternoon,” he said. “Leigh must have been in her element, getting to play real-life dress up.”
Sabrina’s eyes widened. “She was like a kid with a new set of dolls. And Anissa—I didn’t know she was such a whiz with hair. She’s a pro. Although she did tell me if that got out it would ruin her reputation so to please not tell anyone. But I assumed she didn’t mean you.”
She seemed more relaxed and they talked the rest of the way to The Porterhouse, but as the limousine rolled to a stop by the long red carpet out front, he could almost feel the stress enveloping Sabrina like a fog.
“Hey.” Adam rubbed her hand with his. “First, because I’m on the board, we’re some of the earliest to arrive, so you don’t have to worry about walking through a throng of people. And second, Gabe and Anissa will be coming in right behind us, so you’ll have familiar faces from the beginning.”
She blew out a breath like she was trying to cool off a hot chocolate.
Her eyes met his. “Do not leave me alone.”
“Never.”
He climbed from the limo, then reached for her. She slid out beside him and he got a good look at the heels she was wearing. Good grief. Those things were deadly weapons of their own. Would she still be able to walk in them by the end of the evening?
“Nice shoes,” he whispered as they walked inside.
“Thanks. They’re equipped with GPS tracking and an emergency flare. I think they technically belong to the sheriff’s office. Anissa brought them to me and told me not to ask questions.”
She grinned at him as the doors opened and they walked inside. He had no idea what sort of stunned expression was on his face when his mother’s voice broke through his shock.
“Adam. Sabrina. How lovely to see you both. Come.”
The next thirty minutes were a whirl of activity. And it had been far easier than he’d expected to keep his promise not to leave Sabrina alone. She’d introduced him to her friend Martine and others who had volunteered countless hours to this event. Then he’d introduced her to each of the other board members and to the gala committee members. Sabrina stood by his side, smiling and nodding, occasionally chiming in or making a kind observation about someone’s dress or a particular decoration.
If she’d been trying to run for “woman most likely to impress his mother,” she was doing a great job. But she wasn’t. She was just being herself, and he adored her all the more for it.
Gabe and Anissa had made a round of the location and had spoken to the security personnel—hopefully there wouldn’t be any tension between them. And Leigh had unexpectedly shown up outside with all of their heavy coats in her car. Bless her.
He wasn’t surprised he’d forgotten the coats after he’d seen Sabrina. He’d forgotten how to speak. The only reason he’d kept breathing was because his brain kept all that stuff going for him without conscious thought.
The guests began to arrive—first in a slow trickle, then a steady stream. He made it a point to speak to everyone he could and introduced Sabrina to all of them.
As the evening progressed, her mental acuity floored him. She forgot no one. Not a single name or occupation. She nodded, smiled, and spoke to people in lines and on the dance floor.
“She’s amazing.” Adam’s mom tugged on his elbow. “But I’m not going to give up my dance.”
On cue, Adam’s father emerged from the crowd. “Dr. Fleming, would you do me the honor of sharing this dance with me?”
Her eyes sought Adam’s. She was nervous, but pleased.
“If you take my girl, then I’m taking yours.”
His dad laughed. “Fair enough.”
His mom was laughing as he spun her onto the dance floor. “You’ve been the talk of the room tonight.” She smiled at him. “I’ve been accosted by no less than five irate mothers wanting to know where she came from.”
“I think you’re enjoying this a little too much.”
“I think I’m enjoying it exactly the right amount.” She winked at him. “You two make a striking couple. Where on earth did she find that exquisite dress on such short notice?”
“Leigh found it.”
“It’s perfect. A little vintage—nothing like anything off the rack. No one around here is wearing anything like it. And the green is a stroke of genius. It’s the perfect color for her skin tone and her eyes. But I have to tell you, I’m more impressed with her poise. If she’s nervous, it isn’t showing.”
“She is.”
“Then you need to get her out of here.”
“You just said she was doing great. Why—”
“To give her a break.”
“She could probably use some fresh air. Grab those coats Leigh brought for you and go for a walk along the promenade by the lake. Give her a few minutes to let down her guard. Steal a kiss or three.”
“Mom!”
She squeezed his arms tight. “I love seeing you happy, dear. I can’t help it.”
“Thanks.” He pecked his mom’s cheek. “You’re the best.”
He scanned the crowd. His father and Sabrina were easy to spot. They appeared to be deep in conversation. He danced his mom in their direction. “Adam?” His mom’s voice had lost all its earlier jollity. “I know what you’re up to. Be careful tonight.”
“We will.”