Stripped Bare (9 page)

Stace blushed, could actually feel her face flushing with warmth. “Yeah, well,” she sighed. “Crap. To be honest I wasn’t even thinking about you being in the house.”

Ally started laughing and Stace couldn’t help but join in. Ally had successfully helped her to relax and get her mind to quit obsessing over what they were going to do today. It was still there but it wasn’t controlling her like it had been. Ally would make a great friend.

“Just so that you know where I stand from the beginning,” Ally continued after they both were able to stop laughing. “I’m not going to let you sleep with Blake to make us even.”

Stace laughed again. “I believe I said that you were the common denominator between us all, and I was the only one who hadn’t been with you.”

“Hmmm,” Ally replied. “I’ve never been with another woman. I promise I’ll keep it in mind.”

Stace shook her head and grinned. “Yeah, I’m sure Blake and Shep wouldn’t mind that.”

“Good grief,” Ally said. “They’d either want to watch or have video or pictures.”

Stace nodded her head and they were both laughing again. When they finally recovered from that laughing spree Stace turned and gave Ally a hug.

“Thanks, Ally,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” Ally replied.

Stace tensed as she heard an engine and knew that Shep and Blake were back with her sister’s car. What would they find? Would they find anything?

“Breathe,” Ally told her giving her another squeeze before stepping back and looking up into Stace’s eyes. “Just breathe.”

Stace gave a shaky sigh. “Is that for me or you?” Stace said noticing that Ally looked a little nervous as well.

Ally smiled softly.
“Both of us.”

It was then that Stace realized that Ally really cared. She couldn’t imagine what it must be like to do what Ally could do. Touch something and connect with a person who had touched that object. Ally called it both a blessing and a curse. Stace hoped today was more of a blessing.

Ally took her hand and held it firmly in hers. “Ready?”

“As ready as you are,” Stace replied and Ally just softly smiled and, still holding her hand, they walked out the door toward where Shep and Blake were getting out of the cars.

Both men immediately headed toward the two women and Stace felt like part of a couple when she watched Blake wrap his arms around Ally and pull her close and felt Shep do the same to her. For a moment they all just stood there on the porch looking at Chloe’s little compact. Blake took Ally’s hand and led her off the porch toward where the car was parked.

“How does this work?” Stace quietly asked Shep.

“Ally will do her best to form a connection with your sister,” Shep said. “She can do this with anything your sister has touched but she wants to form as strong a connection as she can so she wants to use the last thing we know of that Chloe touched. You just have to make sure that whatever she sees or doesn’t see, you can’t touch her or it breaks the connection.”

Stace watched as Blake opened the door of the car and noticed how Ally slipped into the seat without touching anything. Ally closed her eyes and appeared to take a deep breath.

“Let’s move closer,” Shep said and taking her hand they both moved to the car standing inches from where Ally now sat. Stace had never held hands so much in her life. It almost made her laugh but the situation was too serious for the nervous laughter.

Stace watched, entranced. One of Ally’s hands hovered over the steering wheel while she held the other out for the keys Blake held in his hands. Her eyes were still closed and Stace realized what Blake had been waiting for when Ally nodded, her eyes still squeezed tight.

Everything seemed to go so fast after that. The keys hit Ally’s palm the same second her hand closed on the wheel and Stace couldn’t have torn her eyes away if she needed to. Ally had made a connection.

Ally sat carefully in the car not allowing her hands to touch anything. She wanted to secure as strong a connection as she could. She closed her eyes and tried to center her thoughts on the task ahead. She visualized the missing woman, Chloe Anders, and took several deep cleansing breaths. One hand hovered over the steering wheel of the car while the other was held out palm up. When she nodded Blake would drop the keys into the palm of her hand.

She nodded. The keys hit her palm just as her other hand wrapped around the wheel. The world tilted and spun and Ally was no longer in a car.

The air was thick and warm. Heat surrounded her, seeming to come from everywhere.

“She’s in a room. It’s closed in. Small but crowded. A man is there. She’s afraid of him. No, that’s wrong. She’s intimidated by him.” Ally shook her head concentrating. “What do you expect?” she yelled.
Chloe’s words, not hers.
“I’m a nursing student not a doctor. These people need a doctor. I don’t know what’s wrong. I don’t know what to do. They need fresh air. They need to be bathed. I can’t do it all myself.” Ally looked through Chloe’s eyes and what she saw appalled her. “There are at least twenty-five people in the room. Some of them are just children. They’re speaking Spanish. They’re sick, very sick.
Fever.
The heat is from fever. It surrounds her. Whatever they have she’s getting as well. She’s tired, exhausted and now she’s running a fever too. They keep spreading it back and forth. As soon as she gets one fever-free another one has it. She can’t seem to keep ahead of whatever they’re passing.”

Ally tried to focus on where Chloe
was,
anything she could see that might lead them to her.
“A cabin.
They’re in a cabin somewhere. He knows. He knows that she is getting sick. He touches her forehead. He’s cursing. He’s mad, furious.
Yelling.
He’s worried about her. He scoops her up and is carrying her out of the cabin.
Woods.
It’s in the middle of a heavily wooded area.
Trees everywhere.
Thick with trees.
Cabins.
So many cabins.
Can’t focus.
So hot, hard to breath.
So hot.

“Why did you take me?” Chloe’s words again and the link was strong enough that Ally could hear his response.

“Because I love you, Chloe,” he whispered. “I’ve loved you since the day I met you.”

“Fear.”
Ally thrashed her head against the back of the seat though in her head it was against a strong masculine chest.
“His cabin.
His room.
His bed.
Don’t touch. Hot.
So hot.
Water.
Please. I need water. His hands on my skin, tugging,
stripping.
Air.
There’s air, so cool.”

Ally could feel the hand running a wet cloth over Chloe’s bare skin.
Could hear the soothing voice whispering words of apology and love.
She could feel the fever raging through Chloe’s body, the heat of it behind her eyes burning them.
The heat on her breath like a fire-breathing dragon.
He leaned forward, closer and closer until she felt his lips touch Chloe’s.

Like a bolt of lightning the connection was made and he was seeing her, Ally, and the connection she had made with Chloe. He knew she was there, seeing through Chloe’s eyes. And in that moment Ally could see in his head, could see what he was doing and why.

He reeled back hands fisted at his sides and yelled, “No!”

A force hit Ally crashing into her like a brick wall and she screamed. Hands grabbed her hand and with a jolt she slammed back into her body. She vaguely heard someone curse and the touch left her skin. Her breathing was ragged. She was gasping for air and she still felt surrounded by heat, as if the temperature raged in her body. And then she felt nothing as she passed out.

Blake and Shep both cursed as Stace reached out and touched Ally when the scream left her throat. Shep pulled Stace back but it was too late. Even as they continued watching Ally passed out cold. Blake cursed again and scooped in to lift his fiancée up into his arms and headed toward the house.

“What?” Stace said looking at Shep in confusion. “What happened?”

“You touched her,” Shep said. “Remember that I told you no matter what happened not to touch her?”

“She was screaming,” Stace all but yelled at him. “What the hell was I supposed to do?”

“You were supposed to listen and let her hold the connection as long as she could,” Shep said.

“I…” Stace shook her head. She’d never seen anything like that, never seen someone so deep in a trance that they seemed to be someone else. It had scared the hell out of her.

Shep pulled her to his chest and hugged her close. “I know.”

“She’s alive, Shep,” Stace whispered against his shoulder.
“Sick but alive.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “When Ally wakes up she’ll be a little weak but tends to recover quickly once she’s awake. She’ll be able to tell us more then.”

“She said cabins,” Stace said. “That there were cabins everywhere. I’m drawing a blank. I can’t think of any place like that.”

“We’ll look online at camping sites,” Shep said leading the way to the front door, Stace’s hand held firmly in his. “That many cabins, it has to be a camping ground or some other outdoorsy place that would keep a number of cabins.”

“She’s sick,” Stace said again. “She has whatever those people have.
Spanish-speaking?
About twenty-five of them?
Some only children?
What the hell is my sister caught up in?”

“It sounds like trafficking, human trafficking,” Shep replied. “Unfortunately it happens a lot. People tend to be surprised when it shows up in their area, especially if they don’t live on a coast or near the Mexican border. But sadly a lot of people are taken and shipped farther inland in trucks. They’re treated no better than animals.”

“Jesus,” Stace exclaimed.
“Human trafficking here.
You know I’ve spent so many years going to other countries and rescuing people from similar situations. Usually Americans that either were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or related to or dating the wrong people. And all I ever had to do was look in my backyard.”

“It happens that way a lot,” Shep said. “We did the same thing. Went into countries where few would venture to help the unlucky ones who did and almost died because of it. The money was good, the adrenaline rush better.”

“So why did you stop?” Stace asked.

“Jack found out he had a daughter,” Shep said speaking of his boss. “So we all followed him back and started working in our backyards,” he said with a smile.

Stace looked at him. They were so much alike. It had to be more than just the circumstance that they were in, him helping her find her sister. Perhaps feelings had developed quicker than they would have otherwise but she honestly didn’t feel as if it mattered anymore. He was here for her in a way that no one else ever had been. Even now he was pulling her back to him wrapping his arms around her and holding her close as if he needed to touch her even more than she needed to feel his touch.

“We’ll find her, Stace,” Shep whispered against her ear before placing a kiss on the side of her head. “No matter how long it takes, I’ll help you find your sister.”

And he would. Stace didn’t doubt him for a moment. He was the one who had brought Ally here to help them. He had trusted Stace not to judge or sneer at what Ally could do. He had trusted her with the knowledge that he’d had a relationship with Ally and her fiancé,
Blake, that
had included sex once upon a time. He had trusted her with something, no someone, who was important to him.
Because she, Stace, was important to him.

“We’ll find her,” she agreed holding him tight. When they did, Chloe and her recovery would come first. It would have to. Her sister deserved no less from the person who had failed her so many other times. Stace believed that Shep would not only understand but would be around to help then as well. Already she couldn’t imagine her life without him.

Chapter Nine

Stace and Shep spent the rest of the afternoon combing maps and sites online for any and all camping sites within the entire state. They would start close and work their way out. They were printing pictures when available hoping that when Ally recovered and came down she might be able to recognize one of them and really narrow their search.

Already they had weeded out the places that were actively running. It had been apparent from what Ally had said that they had to be someplace where there was no fear of anyone seeing them. Should have been easy but wasn’t. There were several summer camps that were closed down and abandoned. There were also a number of family camping sites that were closed due to whatever reason. So their list still had a lot of sites on it.

Shep was printing out the last batch of stuff while Stace put everything out in piles with the photos on top. There were ten possibilities. Who knew that there were that many camping sites even in the state much less that these were only the abandoned ones? They had separated them by proximity and size. With their experiences, Stace and Shep felt that the people would be kept in a smaller location. It was easier to guard that way.

At least now they knew why there had been no traces left. Someone with so much at stake would know the consequence of leaving any discernable trail. What Stace didn’t know was how or why these people had decided on her sister. They had to have known that Chloe was a nurse as that was obviously why she was there. They took Chloe to deal with whatever sickness had struck. Only now, according to Ally’s vision, Chloe was sick too.

“How long do you think we have?” Stace finally ventured to put her fear into question. “How long do you think Chloe has? She is sick, running a fever.”

“Ally’s visions are usually in the moment,” Shep answered. “So that would mean that Chloe just fell sick.” He stood up from where he’d been sitting for the last few hours and pulled Stace up and into a tight hug. “Don’t lose faith. Ally not only gave us our first and only lead,” he leaned back to look into her eyes. “She found her. Chloe is alive and it’s only a matter of time before we find her.”