Under Threat B.J. Daniels (best free novels txt) 📖

“I can’t put my investigation at risk,” he returned, back to the implacable Texas Ranger.

“You have me in the middle of nowhere under lock and key. What risk is being posed?”

“I still don’t know you. I don’t know who you’re connected to. I don’t know what happens when you’re cleared to go home. If you want to take that personally, that’s your prerogative, but that’s certainly not how it’s meant. I don’t know you, and until I do, until I know what you’re after and what your connection is, there is nothing I can do to trust you. Not and do my job.”

She shifted on the couch and looked away from him, because as true as it was, it was somehow still irritating. She totally understood what he was saying. It made nothing but sense, and that she was oddly hurt he couldn’t trust her was ridiculous.

“I may have found a connection...” She swallowed. If she told him, he might trust her. For some strange reason, she really did want him to, but if she told him, was she putting herself at risk of never being able to touch one of these cases again? If he knew she was connected to this one little case, would he keep everything from her because her sister was involved? Or would he maybe have some compassion because he had a sister of his own?

Would it be worth suffering through having no answers to get a little bit of the possibility of a new answer? She didn’t know, and she found the more she sat there and he stood there—an unmoving mountain of a man—the less she knew.

She stared into those gray-blue eyes, searching for some hint that there might be warmth or that compassion might be a word in his dictionary. There was absolutely nothing in his face to give her the inclination, and yet she so desperately wanted it to be so.

Later she would blame it on exhaustion, not just of the day, or the week, but over the past eight years. But for right now, she opened her mouth, and the truth tumbled out.

Chapter 8

“A connection?” Everything inside Vaughn tensed as he glared at her. She might’ve found a connection? A connection to what? How could she have possibly found something in cases he’d pored over for years and found next to nothing except gut feelings and hunches?

“There was a case in your files...” She cleared her throat, and she most assuredly did not look at him, but she also showed no remorse for going through his files. It was hard to blame her. He would have done the same thing in her situation. That’s why he’d bothered to set her up; he knew she’d do it.

What he hadn’t known was that she might actually offer some information. He thought he would have to drag that out of her.

She fidgeted on the couch and chewed on her all too distracting bottom lip. He could jump all over her and demand answers, which would stop the mouth distraction, but it wouldn’t be the most effective route to take.

The most effective route to take with Natalie was, unfortunately, patience. To listen to what she said, to understand it. She was a hypnotist, but her fervor over the importance of hypnotism and what it offered pointed to the fact that she was conflicted herself—a moral dilemma, just as she’d said about Herman.

So, he stood, his hands clenched into fists, his muscles held tight. And he waited.

“There was a file on human trafficking. It mentioned that there was some sort of possibility of a drop-off point being at the Corlico Plant?” She looked up at him questioningly.

He hesitated for a second, but she’d already read the file, one he’d left available to her. Might as well give her the information. “Yes, we intercepted a group of people there. Based on all the information we could collect, it wasn’t the first time that the trafficking went through there. But they immediately stopped since we intercepted, and we had no one to arrest, nothing to go on. We’ve never been able to find anything after it.”

“Three years ago, right? That’s when you intercepted?”

“Yes.” Three years and eight months. He didn’t even have to look it up. When it came to cases he thought had to do with The Stallion, he had most of the prominent details memorized.

She took a deep breath, clasped her hands together and then straightened her shoulders. She fixed him with a certain gaze, and he knew this was going to be whatever she’d been hiding.

“Eight years ago, my sister disappeared from the Corlico Plant parking lot.”

She didn’t have to go further. Suddenly everything came together. Why she asked Herman about the girls, why she would ruin years’ worth of work with the Rangers to ask the questions that she wanted to ask instead of letting him and Stevens handle it.

She was searching for her sister.

“Unbelievable,” he muttered.

She didn’t even have the decency to appear shamed. She shrugged. “Do you how many years I’ve been waiting to have a case that might connect to Gabby? Do you know how many hours I’ve spent trying to figure out what happened to her? They never found a body, in all this time. No one ever found a clue that might bring her back to us. I know she’s alive. I don’t care if anybody believes it or not, I know she is.”

Her eyes had filled with tears, but they didn’t spill onto her cheeks. She looked straight at him, strong and determined, and so certain her sister was still alive. He could say a lot of things about Natalie, but she was a strong woman. Obviously stronger than he’d even seen so far.

“Something with that factory is connected. It’s too big of a coincidence. She disappeared there. Then Herman said he keeps the girls. The human trafficking thing stops there, and