Disruptor (12 page)

She nodded. “Are you an alcoholic?”

He set about making the coffee. “No, just an
idiot. I drink when I party. When I’m not going out, I don’t miss
the booze.” He snorted. “Or the partying, for that matter.”

“Then why do you do it? Party?”

He shrugged. “Because I’m just another dumb,
idle trust fund baby. Because it’s what I’ve always done. My
friends all go to clubs and private parties. And I do have fun when
I go out.” He paused for a moment. “Actually, I think I do miss it
when I haven’t gone out in a while. I like the loud music and the
lights and just getting lost on the dance floor. You don’t have to
think when your body’s on autopilot.”

Dani knew what that was like. “I feel that
way when I fight.”

“That’s more than a little disturbing.”

She focused on the smell of the coffee,
silently listed all the things he had arrayed around the French
press. Maybe she wasn’t quite a hundred percent yet. “Are you
scared of me?”

A good ten seconds passed before he answered.
“Not enough to ask you to leave.”

“At least you’re honest.”

“You can be honest, too, with me.” His blue
eyes darkened with intensity. “Where were you, Dani? What
happened?”

On the way back, she’d made the decision to
tell him. Some things, not everything. More than he was probably
ready for, despite his curiosity. If she was going to find those
other girls, she needed help. And she needed…she didn’t know the
word for it.

Backup. She needed backup. Not out in the
streets, but someone to help her obtain information. Someone who
knew the ins and outs of the city. Someone who could be a sounding
board. Goddamn it, she needed someone to talk to.

“So much for being a loner,” she mumbled.

“What was that?” A sly grin lit up his
face.

Dani returned the grin but it quickly faded.
As tempting as it was to just keep on doing whatever this was with
Kevin, there was work to be done. “Bring the coffee.” She slid into
the breakfast nook.

Once again, he did as asked. A girl could get
used to that. Dani pushed the thought away and braced herself. This
was going to be a rough conversation. “They were traffickers.”

“You don’t mean drugs or guns, do you?”

“No.” What she hadn’t decided was exactly how
much to tell him. About the current situation – yes, because she
needed his help. About her own past, ugh. She’d rather not. Even
when Hurd had forced them into therapy, there were things Dani had
not talked about. For all the trust she was putting in Kevin, she
still wasn’t ready to talk about the voice that filled her
nightmares.

“I saw four girls being moved from a boat to
a van, and the van taken to that house.” She cleared her throat. “I
was watching from a rooftop across the street when I saw them make
a break for it. Three of them made it down a fire escape. A couple
of the Russians came in and grabbed the last girl.”

“So you went to help her?”

Dani nodded.

“Did you get her out?”

“Yeah. She made it out.”

“But you stayed behind? Why?”

To give the girl time to escape, was the
answer on the tip of her tongue. It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the
whole truth, either. Dani stayed because she wanted blood. She
wanted payback. She wanted to dish out some punishment to men who
thought they could make slaves of women. Men who thought their size
and strength and their social standing and money gave them
permission to treat women like toys. Dani wasn’t a toy, and neither
were those four girls. The only thing she’d wanted more that night
than for those girls to get away was to kill every single person
responsible for the girls being there in the first place.

“To give the girl time to escape,” she
said.

Neither of them had touched their coffee.
Kevin sat with his forearms resting on the table, the fingers of
one hand making nervous circles on the surface. The silence
stretched between them, heavy and full of tension.

“To kill as many of them as I could.”

“Dani.” He reached for her.

She pulled her hands into her lap. “I was on
the streets once before.” The words tumbled out and she couldn’t
stop them. “I got caught by traffickers. Not the same ones, it was
in…it was in a different city. They had me and three other girls,
and they kept us for three days before they handed us over to the
buyer. Don’t ask me what happened during those three days because
I’ll never tell you. I’m never going to talk about it. Just believe
me when I tell you, traffickers deserve to die.”

Kevin whispered her name.

“I wish I’d killed every single one of them.”
She fled the kitchen and raced into the living room. The tablet was
there somewhere, she’d left it on the coffee table. Or maybe it was
the sofa, she couldn’t remember. She’d left it somewhere in this
damn room.

Kevin approached with the device in his hand.
“Is this what you’re looking for?”

She snatched it from him. “Did you see it?
The picture of the dead girl? She was one of them. You can’t tell
it from the picture but her body is covered in these marks.”

“What kind of marks?”

“Stun gun marks. She was tortured with a stun
gun before the bastard strangled her to death.” Dani stabbed at the
screen mindlessly, unable to recall how to find the app.

Kevin took the tablet. “You sound like you
know who it is. The killer. Is he one of the traffickers?”

“Yes.” Dani paced the stretch between the
back of the sofa and the windows. “He used the stun gun on one of
the girls when they were being moved. I didn’t find him in the
house. He could have left when I was on that rooftop, or when I was
making my way down the stairs. I don’t know.”

“What do you mean, making your way down the
stairs?”

“I made sure that last girl got out the
window and then I fought my way down the stairs.”

“How did you get in the house?”

“I jumped from that rooftop. I took a piece
of rebar with me and I left it in somebody’s chest. I fought, and I
shot the men with their own guns, and I…I.” She couldn’t remember
it all. She knew she’d found a lighter somewhere, and she vaguely
recalled starting a fire in the house. But she couldn’t remember
everything. Just a haze of violence and blood and screams, until
she walked out into the night and got into Kevin’s car.

“I checked out.” Dani stopped in her tracks
and sat on the floor. “I didn’t realize it until now.”

Kevin came around the sofa and sat beside
her. “What do you mean, you checked out?”

Dani put her head in her hands, trying to
still the whirlwind in her mind. “They said it was called
dissociation. It’s a symptom of PTSD. I did it right before you
came in the kitchen.” She had to stop talking. Stop telling him her
secrets. He would kick her out once he knew too much and she
couldn’t risk that, not yet. She needed his help to find the girls
and get them to safety. So she’d better just shut up right now.
Just shut up. Just shut –

“Who diagnosed you, Dani? Was this after you
got away from who bought you? You’re leaving so much out.” He
placed a hand on her shoulder, offering comfort.

Dani didn’t want

(deserve)

comfort. She scooted away, hair flying as she
jerked her head up. “I can’t tell you. I won’t.”

“It sounds like you need to tell
someone.”

“I can’t!” She covered her mouth with a fist.
He was trying to help, she had no business screaming at him. Faking
a calm she didn’t feel, she said, “Some of it is personal. A lot of
it is just too dangerous to tell anyone.”

“I made the decision to risk the danger when
I opened my car door and told you to get in. So stop treating me
like a child and talk to me.”

So much for calm. “The only thing you need to
know is that I need help finding the other girls before they wind
up dead, too. Are you willing to do that? Because if you’re not,
I’ll go right now.”

Anger shimmered between them. The electric
blue of his eyes had turned to ice, his face a hard mask. Adrenalin
surged through her and she wanted so badly to punch something.

“You’re not going anywhere.” He climbed to
his feet.

Dani jumped up and shoved him against the
glass wall. “I could hurt you and you know it.” She circled his
throat with her hand. “So don’t give me orders.”

“You’re not going anywhere because I’m going
to help you.” He covered her hand with his. “And you know that. So
don’t try to bully me, Dani.”

She stared at where their hands covered his
throat, and for a moment all she could see was the ugly ligature
mark on the dead girl’s body. Dani yanked her hand away, suddenly
ashamed. He was right – she’d been trying to bully him. She’d put
her hands on him in anger and could have seriously hurt him if
she’d lost control.

“Do the cops know about this girl?” Not as
angry now, but his voice still didn’t have its usual warmth.

Dani put several feet between her and Kevin.
She couldn’t meet his gaze. “I didn’t have a way to call in a tip.
Somebody might have by now, I don’t know.”

He sighed. “I don’t know how to do it without
the call being traced. Let’s focus on how to find the other girls
for right now, then I’ll figure out how to call in a tip and stay
anonymous.”

Back to business. Good. He wasn’t going to
throw her out, even though she definitely deserved it after what
she’d just done. Focus on the mission.

“
Your focus will be on various types of
high-danger missions.”

She forced the sudden memory away. “Can you
draw faces? Like a police sketch artist?”

“I’m better than any police sketch artist. Be
right back, I’ll get some supplies.” He hurried upstairs. Probably
wanted to be as far from her as possible.

She didn’t blame him. She wished she could
run away from herself, too.

Dani stepped out of the sunshine into the
pit-like darkness of a dive bar on the farthest edge of Lincoln
Heights. A few bare bulbs and the vivid neon of beer signs provided
the only illumination in the place. Anyone else would have been at
a disadvantage with the abrupt change from bright to dark, probably
one reason the regulars preferred the place. Dani adjusted her
night vision with all the concentration it took to flip her hair
back. She walked into the bar with confidence, something that in a
woman would garner the wrong kind of attention in a dump like
this.

Good. She was spoiling for a fight. The day
was a total waste. No one wanted to talk to her, even when she
flashed the cash Kevin had given her to buy information. Maybe
nobody had seen the girls. It was a big city, easy to get lost in.
Dani had taken advantage of that fact herself. Just days ago,
though, people in the South Side wouldn’t have viewed her with such
suspicion if she’d struck up a conversation with them. She’d looked
like one of them then. Now, cleaned up and wearing nice clothes,
she looked like an outsider. Not a cop, but not someone who had any
business wandering around Cabrini and surrounding neighborhoods,
hitting up strangers for information. Guilt nibbled at the edge of
her thoughts all day, for so many reasons she’d lost count.

She tossed a bill on the bar and ordered a
shot. “I’m looking for some friends of mine.”

The bartender poured whisky in a chipped
glass. “You don’t have any friends here.” He pushed the glass
toward her, some of the liquid slopping out.

Dani smiled then downed the shot. She pulled
out copies of the sketches Kevin had drawn, now heavily creased
from being folded and unfolded so many times. “I used to know these
girls back in the day and I was hoping to find them again. Have you
seen them?”

The bartender leaned on one beefy, tattooed
forearm, staring at Dani, never once so much as glancing at the
sketches. “Word of advice, little girl. Get outta here before
someone decides they want a better look at your pretty face.”

She smiled again. “I can handle myself.”

Two bruisers in dirty jeans and old leather
took up residence on either side of her. One of them leaned in
close. “I wouldn’t mind seeing you handle yourself.” He laughed at
his own bad joke.

The ugly sound grated on her nerves. “If you
don’t back off, I’m going to handle you, and not in a way you’ll
like.”

The two bookends laughed but the bartender,
he could tell Dani meant business. She could see it in his eyes. He
said, “Take it outside.”

There was no getting out of a fight. As soon
as she left, the two bruisers would follow. Energy hummed in her
muscles, her body eager for a little violence. Might as well get it
on. She placed another bill on the bar and winked at the bartender.
“Have a nice day.” Not looking back, she sashayed out the door.

Sadly, only the talkative bruiser chose to
follow her to the alley. Dani purred, “Where’s your buddy? I was
hoping to take on both of you.”

He leered. “Don’t you worry. I got more than
enough for you.” He took a step toward her.

Dani grabbed his hand and used it to twist
his arm. While pulling his body down, she used his weight to bring
hers up and caught his neck between her knees in midair and flipped
him over. Momentum brought them both to the ground, Dani in total
control. A few more seconds of pressure from her knees on his
throat and he was a limp, gibbering mass. She released him and
moved swiftly to a kneeling position beside his head then gave him
a good thump to the noggin just because.

“That was quick and unsatisfying,” she said.
“I bet you hear that from all the girls.”

A few garbled vocalizations that might have
been curse words passed his lips, along with droplets of spittle.
Dani leaned over, putting one knee on his throat again. “If you’re
not going to give me a good fight, the least you can do is give me
information.” She took the sketches out of her pocket and held them
in front of his face. “Have you seen any of these girls?”