Sweet Revenge (34 page)
Authors: Christy Reece
Tags: #Mobi, #epub, #Sweet Trilogy, #Last Chance Rescue, #Romantic Suspense, #Contemporary Romance, #Fiction
Ryker’s Rescue Chicago, Illinois
“I know I shouldn’t have done it, but I didn’t have any money to feed her.… They said they’d take good care of her.”
Arms propped up on her desk, Mia Ryker leaned closer and tried to see the truth behind Sandi Winston’s lies. The girl was pencil thin. Dark shadows beneath her eyes told of poor sleeping habits, her pallid complexion was an indication of bad health, and her black hair, limp and lifeless, proof of improper nutrition. She was scratching her arms almost frantically, which could be anything from severe dry skin or fleas to a side effect from her condition.
Mia had seen enough addicts to know the symptoms. Sandi said she’d given her daughter away because she couldn’t feed her. More likely, it was in exchange for her drug of choice … whatever that was.
“When did this happen?” Mia asked.
“Two weeks ago.”
Mia held back an infuriated sigh. The child could be halfway around the world by now.
“And you told the police everything?”
The flicker of her eyelids and slight dilation of her pupils gave Mia a warning before Sandi lied and said, “Yes … everything.”
Mia would come back to that later. “And did these men say where they were going to take her?”
Sandi lifted a bony shoulder in a tired shrug. “They just said they would take her to a safe, warm place where she’d be fed and loved.”
Keeping her expression as bland and nonjudgmental as she could, Mia asked, “How much did they pay you?”
Sandi’s bloodshot eyes went wide with denial. “I didn’t … They didn’t …”
“I need to know as much as I can if I’m going to find your daughter.”
Sandi chewed on her dry lips, apparently trying to decide whether Mia could be trusted. Mia reviewed her next steps. She had contacts—unofficial avenues—that the authorities wouldn’t and couldn’t pursue.
If the men were new, she might have more trouble tracking them down. But if they were some of the regular slime that dealt in human trafficking around the city, she should be able to locate them.
The two-week time delay was her biggest problem.
“When did you tell the police?”
“A couple of days after it happened. I got to thinking maybe they weren’t legit … you know?”
Yes, she did know. Most likely, Sandi had woken from her drug-induced haze and realized what she had done. Screaming at the young woman who thought so little of the precious gift of a child was a temptation, but one Mia couldn’t take. Finding the little girl trumped lecturing the mother.
That didn’t include not putting Sandi on a major guilt trip, though. “Your daughter is depending on you. When a mother brings a child into this world, she gives her a promise that she’s going to take care of her.”
“But I did. I—”
Mia raised her hand to stop another lie. “If you really want to help her, you’ve got to tell me the truth.”
Allowing the silence to eat into Sandi’s guilt, Mia waited. She pushed aside the need to jump up from her desk, grab the woman by the shoulders, and shake her until she told the truth. At one time, that’s exactly what would have happened. Experience had given Mia wisdom and, more important, patience. Pissing people off or scaring the hell out of them only worked sometimes, under certain circumstances. Patience would give her much better results.
Mia was almost to the point of reverting to her old ways when Sandi finally spoke. “Two thousand dollars.”
Alarms went off inside Mia’s brain. From a human-trafficking standpoint, two thousand wasn’t a huge amount of cash for a healthy child. But if these were local lowlifes and they saw how desperate Sandi was, they should have known she would have taken much less. To give her that much made Mia think it was as much about buying Sandi’s silence as it was about purchasing her child.
She picked up her pen and began to jot notes. “Describe them for me and how you met them.”
“A friend hooked me up.”
“And this friend’s name would be …?”
“Arnold, Ernie … something like that.”
Mia ground her teeth together, the vague answers from Sandi putting her on edge. Again, she fought the need to shake the girl. “Sandi, look at me.”
Startled and too-old eyes widened as Mia’s stern voice shook Sandi from her lethargic state.
“You either give me all the information you have—answer
all
of my questions—or get up and leave with the knowledge that you’ll probably never see your daughter again. Which is it?”
The girl released a shaky breath and said, “It was my friend Freddy.… I just didn’t want to get him into trouble. He hooks me up with the good stuff sometimes. When I told him I didn’t have any money, he told me about these men who might be willing to help me out. I called them.”
“Describe them.”
“There were two of them. They never told me their names.”
“What did they look like?”
“One was real short and kind of fat. The other one had a foreign accent, was tall and thin and walked with a limp. They were both kind of old.”
“Old? How old?”
“I don’t know … maybe forties or something like that.”
Though life experience had aged her considerably, Sandi was most likely still a teen. Forties probably
was
old to her.
“What about hair color?”
Sandi slowly began to describe the men. Once the girl warmed to her task, her descriptions were surprisingly vivid and detailed. Flipping to a clean piece of paper, Mia sketched the men. When Sandi stopped, Mia quickly finished her hasty drawing and then turned the paper for the girl to see. “Did they look anything like this?”
The gasp Sandi released told Mia she’d nailed the drawings. Not for the first time, she was grateful for the art classes her elite education had provided.
As Sandi suggested a few changes in the drawings, Mia absently made them while her mind zoomed toward what she needed to do. These men weren’t any she’d seen or heard of before. Since setting up her rescue business, she’d become acquainted with the local slime that traded in people as if they were marketable merchandise instead of human beings. In some cases, she’d helped the police put the creeps away; others continued to evade detection. But she knew most of them by sight or reputation. These men were new.
What had they done with Sandi’s one-year-old daughter? Was the child even still in Chicago, or had she been taken to another state already? Or another country?
“If I get your daughter back, Sandi, you’re going to have to clean yourself up and be the mother your child deserves. You going to be able to do that?”
The emphatic nod seemed genuine, but Sandi’s physical appearance indicated she was a longtime addict. Making promises and not following through was as habitual to her as the drug itself. Little did the girl know that Mia would make sure that either she cleaned herself up or the child would be taken away from her. She’d do all she could to help, but no way in hell was she going to put a kid back into her mother’s arms if she was going to be endangered or sold again.
Mia opened a drawer in her desk, withdrew a disposable phone, and handed it to the younger woman. “I need to be able to get in touch with you. My number is already on speed dial. I’ll call you if I have other questions, and if you think of something else, you can get in touch with me at any time.”
The girl stood. “That’s it? Is there anything else I can do?”
“Yeah. Clean up and get yourself some food. There’s a restaurant on Eighteenth Street called Maxie’s. Tell them Mia sent you. They’ll feed you as many times as you need. Do you have a place to stay?”
“I’m staying with a friend.”
“Is your friend using?”
“No. She’s been trying to get me clean. She’s the one who told me to come see you.”
Eager to get started on the investigation, Mia stood and walked the girl to the door. “I’ll call you as soon as I know something. And remember, if you think of anything, call me. Okay?”
Sandi nodded, her eyes filling with tears. “Do you think they’re feeding and taking care of her?”
As much as she wanted to snarl at the girl that her motherly concern was too little too late, she wouldn’t. Having Sandi’s cooperation was imperative. Mia had learned long ago to keep judgment out of her tone and manner. Putting people on the defensive rarely helped a case.
However, neither would she lie. “I don’t know what their plans are for your daughter, but I promise I’ll do all I can to bring her home.”
The instant Sandi cleared the door, Mia turned back to her desk. Even with a detailed description of the men, she had her work cut out for her.
She picked up her phone and began to make calls to the network of people she relied on daily for help. The little girl had been gone for two weeks. Finding her after such a long time was going to take everything she had, but she refused to believe it wasn’t possible.
Having overcome impossible odds before, Mia was determined that this would be just one more thing she would conquer.
A
LSO BY
C
HRISTY
R
EECE
No Chance
Second Chance
Last Chance
Rescue Me
Return to Me
Run to Me
Sweet Justice
Table of Contents
