Job Hunt (37 page)

T
HE
THEME
night at the dining club had drawn an impressive crowd of old and young, gay and straight, starched and kinky. It wasn’t even eleven o’clock yet, but the place was heaving. Lisa Tyrrell hadn’t expected to feel conservatively dressed, yet neither she nor Jack stood out among the leather and lace-clad clubgoers.

Vampire lookalikes in black suits, ruffled shirts and long cloaks were out in force. Capes swirled, lace bodices hugged nubile shapes and tried to contain voluptuous ones, and whips coiled and slithered over the parquet like a convention of snakes. Lengths of chain twinkled with every flash of the strobes, and if she’d been collecting, Lisa could have opened a leather cuffs and collars shop the following morning.

Inhibitions had gone right out the window with this crowd, and both alcohol and more hazardous means to relaxation were as freely available as Jack had predicted.

“He’s here,” Jack breathed into her ear while she contemplated the idiosyncrasies of spandex and acres of skin against the dark oak paneling of the formal dining room. Weird didn’t even begin to describe the effect.

“Any sign of the boys?”

“He has two with him, for decoration only.”

Jack’s voice held a tone she’d not heard before, and Lisa turned to see his face. He stood with his back to her, seemingly relaxed and focused on a trio of witches in minimalist clothing, but bands of muscles stood out hard and tight across his neck and back.

“Jack?” She wasn’t sure if it was wise to touch him, decided against it, and knew she’d done right when he shook his head once and spoke loud enough to be heard without having to turn.

“Not now.”

Moments later the crowd had swallowed him up.

Lisa, who’d only seen one grainy surveillance camera image of the pimp, managed to locate the man in the third room she explored. He stood off to one side, watching the crowd with a speculative look in his eye that chilled Lisa to the bone. Clive’s description of medium everything and bleach-blond hair wasn’t doing the man justice, though his attire—smartly tailored black trousers and a maroon shirt—made him appear ordinary enough to be forgettable. Only the company he kept differentiated him from the rest of the crowd. No other patrons sported bodyguards or had their arms around two boys who looked too young to be out that late.

Lisa had wondered about that, had imagined that, if challenged, Goran Mitrovic would play the I-had-no-idea-the-boy-was-underage card, but the man would have to be a certified moron to make that one stick. Nobody who saw them would give the boys a year over fifteen, though Lisa had no idea how Jack had determined that they were nothing more than arm candy for the evening.

It was tempting to second-guess everything Jack did or said. The man was endlessly intriguing, and it would be a fun game to play, but Lisa knew that she couldn’t afford the luxury. Jack had his skill set, she had hers, and if they wanted to get their hands on the pimp, she had to trust what he told her.

While she watched, Goran’s bodyguard steered the boys out of the melee and toward a marginally quieter corner. The one-blond-one-dark combination reminded her of Nico and Daniel, as did the eyes that never focused directly on anything. But while Nico and Daniel had clung to each other, these two boys were… too still. No fidgeting, no bopping to the trance and techno the DJ pumped out. They didn’t even turn their heads to check out the more outlandish of the costumes that dotted the throng. It was eerie.

“Did he drug them?” she asked when Jack joined her again a while later. The man worked the club like a pro, never in the same place for long, watching, listening, and memorizing, invisible in the crowd.

Jack shook his head at her question. “Don’t think so.” The strange tone—raw and subdued like a muted cry of anguish—was still in his voice.

“Then why are they so…?” Lisa had to stop herself from pointing at the two human statues beside the maroon-clad man, from staring as she might at a museum exhibit.

“I guess he’s had them in solitary,” Jack said and finally met her gaze. His eyes were shadowed and harbored a confusing mix of pain and rage. His fingers were like ice where she brushed across them, despite the heat in the room. “It’s confusing when you first come out of solitary. Coming out into this….” He waved his hand to encompass the noise, the strobes, and the crazy press of bodies. “They’re on overload.”

As if he regretted giving her even that small glance, Jack’s gaze shuttered, and he was gone again before Lisa could question him further. It was her turn to watch Goran and his boys, and she could soon attest to the fact that when you were not having fun, time didn’t fly. It crawled.

Her concern for Jack wasn’t helping matters. They touched base at intervals, and Lisa’s dread grew despite the professional facade Jack hid behind.

Something’s wrong with Jack.

She sent the text message during a bathroom break, and then stared in horrified disbelief at the answer on her phone’s screen.

Seriously fucked up case. He could be having flashbacks.

Flashbacks. Jack Horwood struggled with flashbacks, and nobody had seen fit to even mention that? As soon as she got out of this club, Lisa Tyrrell was going to strangle Clive Baxter.

She returned to the crowded bar area where Jack kept watch over Mitrovic and his boys. He looked no different than he had before Lisa had read the text, and she wondered if Clive could be wrong. In Lisa’s experience flashbacks temporarily disconnected a person from reality. While Jack was tense and something clearly bothered him, he was fully aware and focused on their task.

They traded places, and Jack disappeared into the crowd. Lisa watched the two statue-still boys, watched Mitrovic hold court, and wondered what had possessed her to volunteer for this op. Alex had tried to dissuade her as had Jack, and while she’d never worked prostitution or human trafficking cases, she’d spent enough time both undercover and on surveillance to know how such assignments went.

The reason had to be Jack, she decided finally when she spotted him working his way through the crowd toward her once more. Jack Horwood had looked like delicious jailbait the night she’d met him. Learning what he did—in his spare time, without jurisdiction or backup—had intrigued her. And maybe she had listened a little too long to the rumors about the man and his way of working until curiosity had prompted her to ask for a ringside seat.

“He’s getting ready to move the boys.”

Jack handed her a drink, which she promptly spilled to give herself an excuse to head once more toward the washrooms in the back of the club. Safely in a cubicle, she texted the update to Raf’s phone, glad that something was finally happening.

I can see them,
flashed up on her screen a few moments later, followed by a second confirmation.
On the move.

An instant later Lisa was too.

K
EEPING
AN
eye on the pimp grew more difficult now that he had sent the two boys away and started to mingle. It was fortunate, then, that the club only had two exits. And that the layout of the rooms made it fairly easy to keep them both in sight.

Some of Jack’s tension had eased as soon as the boys had left the club. He was more proactive shadowing both Mitrovic and the bodyguard the man schlepped around, more intent to get close enough to overhear conversations between Mitrovic and other guests.

Those guests were invariably older men, successful professionals in age and demeanor, and Jack seemed to burn their faces and voices into his mind, ready to find them again at short notice. It was chilling to watch him work, knowing that many of those men who basked in their own power and importance were destined for a rude, unpleasant awakening at the hands of the law.

For that much Lisa Tyrrell had learned about Jack Horwood. The man would always be there when asked to help hunt a pimp, he would forgo sleep and home comforts to help the children they rescued, but his rage and most of his considerable focus was reserved for chasing the buyers, the men who used their money and position to buy what should never be for sale.

Watching Jack work, Lisa kept one eye on the exit and the other on the clock. She wondered how far Raf had followed the two boys, and she prayed that the next message on her phone would be the go-ahead to arrest Mitrovic.

It wasn’t.

T
HE
TEXT
that flashed up on her screen simply said,
Call me now
.

Lisa frowned, then stepped out into the night—phone already at her ear—and walked a short distance away from the entrance.

“It’s Lisa,” she said when Raf answered the call.

“Gone to shit,” Raf’s voice rasped in her ear. “Car took the kids to a private party. Shoot me later, but I broke in, found them in the middle of some seriously sick shit, and called it in. We’ve arrested the whole damn lot of them.”

“Were the other boys there?”

“No,” Raf sighed. “That’s the problem. The two we have here have no idea where they’re being held, only that it’s a house with three floors and an attic. Gareth has been speaking to them, but they’re—”

“I know.” Lisa straightened her back and drew a deep breath. “So… we’ll go get Mitrovic. Keep standing by.”

“Will do. I just wish….” Raf broke off, and Lisa didn’t need to ask. She flipped the phone closed without another word and returned to the club.

S
HE
FOUND
Jack close to the club’s back exit, looking as if he contemplated the benefits of a breath of fresh air or simply waited for a cab. The thin sleeveless tee clung damply to his torso, his shoulders slumped, and even his inky spikes drooped in apparent exhaustion. Jack Horwood looked all partied out, but the gaze he hid behind the long lashes was as sharp as it had been three hours earlier, and he even found a crooked grin for her when she drew near.

“Boys went to a private party,” she whispered, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning against him. Under the innocent look he’d perfected, Jack Horwood was all hard, solid muscle. He loosely draped an arm around her waist and turned them so others passing through the doorway wouldn’t bump her while he listened to her relate Raf’s news.

His stance didn’t change while she spoke, and neither did his breathing or the strength of the hold he had on her waist. It made no sense unless…. “You knew?”

“It was an option,” he answered, and the tone of his voice had changed to bleakest winter. “I triggered the warehouse alarm when I saw you come back in.”

“Are you sure you can do this?” The question was out before Lisa could stop herself, and Jack’s expression froze.

“Of course,” he said icily, and they stood silent and still in what might have passed for a lover’s embrace until Jack spotted movement in the club’s parking lot.

“Aaaand… we’re in business,” Jack breathed into her hair when a black Jaguar eased out of its space and disappeared down the lane. “I hope you can run in these.” Jack drew back and pointed to Lisa’s boots with their four-inch heels.

“Try and catch me.”

It wouldn’t be quiet, not with a set of cuffs in each boot and metal caps on the heels, but it would be as quick as they needed it to be.

They’d discussed transport options earlier in the evening and had decided to go with simple. Cars left parked in this part of town often ended up on bricks. Taxis didn’t follow any timetable, and Mitrovic or his men could spot a tail. Relying only on themselves, they could ensure they’d be at the warehouse when Mitrovic showed up. The place was less than a mile away.

A blind man could have followed their progress down the road. That early on a Saturday morning, the neighborhood was so quiet their footfalls raised echoes. Jack’s rubber-soled boots made little more than heavy scuffing sounds, but more than once Lisa elected to run along the grass verges bordering the road, just to muffle the staccato clack of her heels on the pavement.

She followed Jack down shortcuts and narrow alleyways and footpaths between houses, intent on her footing when the thin yellow glow of the streetlights petered out. When they reached the railway line and the entrance to the small industrial estate that backed up against it, they slowed and kept to the sliver of shadows beside the buildings.

A garage, a body shop, and a scrap metal dealer lined one side of the estate. A self-storage space and four warehouses took up the other. The whole site was deserted but for a single man leaning against the middle warehouse’s loading bay, only feet away from a black Jaguar. The glowing tip of a cigarette confirmed his location when clouds sped across the moon and took the light.

“Shit. He left the dog out front.”

“Back door?” Lisa suggested.

“Doesn’t have one.”

They needed to be in the warehouse before Mitrovic had finished checking the fake disturbance. “Pretend you’re out of it. I’ll get us close,” Lisa decided.

“Wait.”

Jack pulled a knife from his boot and held it up against his wrist, ready to do damage.

“Don’t kill him,” Lisa ordered. “Source of information.”

Jack grunted, whether in assent or argument Lisa didn’t have the time to explore or worry over. He let her grab his wrist and pull his arm over her shoulder, slumping to even out some of the height difference between them. She wound her other arm around his waist and hooked her fingers into his belt loops before she stepped from cover and started to drag Jack down the street, weaving and cursing as she went.

They weren’t quite in striking distance when the guard peeled himself from the warehouse wall and stepped into the street.

“Are you Dale?” Lisa called out before he could check them out.

“What?”

“Are you Dale?” she slurred. “My boyfrien’s drunk an’ t’ man at the greashy shpoon said you c’n give ush a lift.”

“What greasy spoon?” The man took a step closer, reached for Jack, and got a kick to the knee that took his balance and dropped him to the ground.