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The look on Kelsey's face had Eric's breakfast knotting in his stomach. He knew that look—he'd seen it in her eyes often enough. Kelsey had left somebody. Somebody she loved.
Fine.
A decade had passed. Of course she'd moved on. He ought to have moved on, too.
He poured himself a third cup of coffee he knew he wouldn't drink, just to give him a moment to regroup. While he added the sugar, he said, "More tea?"
"Sure."
He grabbed another tea bag, filled her cup, and popped it in the microwave. While it warmed, he spun his wedding ring.
The reason he'd never moved on.
Because maybe they'd been young, maybe they'd been crazy to elope, but he'd taken those marriage vows seriously. Still did. Never believed for a minute she'd died, and not just because of blind hope. No body, no evidence. Nothing but an anonymous call. Only a fool would fall for that.
He'd waited.
Apparently, she hadn't.
Fine.
If she left him to go back to...to whoever, then fine. At least he'd know. He could put the ring back in the drawer where he'd been storing it for a decade. He could break the vows, move on. But not until he knew the rest of the story. Because out there, somewhere, was the person who'd destroyed his life. And with no hope of keeping Kelsey, nothing would stop him from finding that person and making him pay.
He silenced the niggling in his conscious, the one that told him revenge wasn't the answer. Maybe it wouldn't make him feel better, but at least he'd be doing something. At least he'd have a plan.
The microwave beeped, and he gave Kelsey her tea, waited 'til she'd added sugar, and asked the question that would get his mind back on track.
"What made you leave Kansas City?"
"I was playing a club one night." She wrapped her hands around her cup.
"Are you cold?"
"The tea will warm me up."
"No sense sitting here shivering when there's a fire right there. Come on." He lifted her tea and offered his arm, which she took with a smile. He helped her to the sofa, though she was perfectly capable of getting there on her own. He set her tea on the coffee table. The dog had been warming herself in front of the fire, as if her winter coat wasn't quite warm enough. But when she saw Kelsey, she padded around the table and sat at her feet. Kelsey scratched under Magic's ears.
"Why were you singing?" he asked. "Thought you'd been working as an administrative assistant."
"I just sang one night a week, to help with the bills."
He remembered how she loved to be on stage, how she'd energize a crowd. He sat on the chair catty-corner to her. "You always enjoyed performing. You must have loved it."
She frowned. "Not really. It wasn't... Things changed after..." She swallowed, looked away. "It was scary, being on stage. Knowing people were seeing me, but because of the stage lights, I couldn't see them. It was a risk every time I stepped up there. I'd search the audience for familiar faces before I went on. I played bars the locals frequented, not that there were tourists visiting where I lived. I thought I was safe."
Eric hated to think of his Kelsey as skittish. Again, the desire for revenge gnawed like hunger. "Why did you do it, then? Why take the risk?"
Her smile was shy, the smile of that girl he'd met on the quad years before. "I guess I was pretty good, because people came to see me. I made a cut of the bar's sales. I could bring home a week's wages in a couple of hours. It was worth the risk."
Nothing was worth the risk, not if the people after her wanted to hurt her. How much money did it take to support herself, anyway? How much did she need?
He was being judgmental. He didn't care. "Was it? Worth it to risk your life for a couple of bucks in your pocket?"
Her eyes flashed. "You have no idea what my life was like."
"Your choice. Not mine."
"You don't understand."
"Obviously."
She looked away, sighed like she'd been defeated, and made him feel like a jerk. "It wasn't worth it, in the end. Somebody recognized me. A girl I went to high school with. I talked to her, tried to hide my accent, pretended like I had no idea who she was. But she knew. And since I hadn't seen her until after my show, who knows who she texted? For all I know, she took my photo and plastered it all over Facebook."
"So you ran."
"I ran."
"Smart."
"It's why I'm still alive. Every time I saw somebody, even when I wasn't sure... But it was harder this time. Kansas City had been home."
He threw his next remark out, hoping for truth. Hoping he was wrong. "You have somebody there."
"What do you mean?"
"Somebody you love."
She smiled, looked away, shook her head. "Not like you think. Just... I'd made some friends."
Nope. She was lying. About that. Maybe about more. Maybe this was all a ploy to get out of town. She'd spin her tale, then ask him to make good on his promise. And he would, too. Drop her wherever and be done.
Except it would never be done. Regardless of how she felt, he'd love her forever.
He stood, stoked the fire, and reminded himself that he'd had a life before Kelsey showed up. Maybe not the perfect life, but friends, family, and faith. He'd lived without Kelsey before. He could do it again.
He just didn't want to.
"Eric?"
He added a log, made sure it was burning, then replaced the screen. He sat and folded his hands together. "So you ran."
She met his gaze, held it, seemed to be trying to convince him of something. He didn't look away, and she sighed. "I came here."
"Why here?"
"The man who"—she stared at her hands—"who took me. He has connections in Nutfield."
He repeated her words in his head. The man...in Nutfield? Too many questions left unanswered in that statement. "Tell me about this man."
Her face paled, and she reached for her tea with trembling fingers, then seemed to change her mind. She resumed petting Magic. "He... I was..." She took a deep breath. "His name is Carlos."
He remained silent, tried to will her the confidence to speak.
"Carlos Otero. I don't know if that's his real name, but it's the one he's gone by since he came to the States."
"From?"
"Venezuela."
"Is that the man you saw at the house in Savannah?"
She shook her head. "That was a lackey, the guy they hired to lure in the girls. He had a pretty face and no heart. He got into human trafficking to put himself through law school."
Human trafficking. The words were so innocuous considering what they represented. To have her speak them so casually made him want to punch someone. The man who'd done this to his wife. He let the feeling roll through him like the energy from a lightning strike, pushed the fury aside, and focused again. "How do you know that much about him?"
"My testimony put him in prison. Him and a bunch of other guys. The highest up in the organization besides Carlos was a guy named Mateo Ruiz, Carlos's right-hand man."
Eric was still absorbing that news when she continued.
"I crippled"—she made air quotes around the word—"their operation. That's what the detective said. More like I sprained it. It healed faster than my ankle, I think. A month, maybe six weeks later, Carlos was right back at it. Apparently, there's an endless supply of greedy, heartless men who treat women like livestock."
He silenced his first response to that, flipped through a few others before settling on, "We're not all like that."
Her gaze flicked to his, then back to the fire. She didn't seem convinced.
She was getting way ahead of him. He couldn't keep up. "Let's go back to the beginning. You woke up in the trunk of a car. Then what?"
"The kid, Kyle, drove me to a little house on the outskirts of Miami. Danielle was there, along with a few other girls. I'll never forget the look in my sister's eyes when she saw me. Such hope. She had no doubt that I could rescue her."
Kelsey stared into the fire while he watched her face. He couldn't force his eyes away, though the expression he saw, that haunted look he'd seen the night before, wounded him like no words ever could. If only she'd trusted him. If only she'd asked him to go with her to find her sister, or called him before she'd gone to that house. He'd have been there for her. None of it would have happened.
By the look in her eyes, Kelsey had rehearsed those if-onlys for a decade.
She wiped a tear from her cheek, then another.
He went into the small bathroom under the stairs and grabbed a box of tissues. Back in the living room, he handed her one and set the box on the coffee table.
"Thank you."
He waited until her tears stopped falling before he said, "Then what happened?"
"Then..." But her voice trailed off. The only sound in the room was the crackling fire and the ticking clock. The dog pressed into Kelsey's leg, and she pet her, though her gaze never left the fireplace.