Sexual Games [The Heroes of Silver Springs 8] (Siren Publishing Classic) (16 page)

“We don’t like coincidences,” Cooper told her. “Is there anything else you can tell us about this Jim you met or the people who have been following you?”

Jennifer shook her head, frowning. “I wish there was. Lexie is a good person. I’ve known her over a year. She’s been trying hard to turn her life around. She wouldn’t have just run off. I’m certain of that. Something has happened to her.” She closed her eyes and whispered, “And I’ve got a sinking feeling it’s something really horrible. She’s been missing too long already.”

Mallory reached across the table and covered one of Jennifer’s hands with hers. “Don’t give up hope. We’re going to find her.”

Jennifer opened her eyes, and gratitude swam in the tears she held back. “What happens next?” She shifted her attention to Jackson and then Cooper.

Jackson knew the question she left unspoken. What did they plan to do with her?

“I’m going to assign an agent to watch over you,” Cooper answered. “Unless you want to be put into protective custody.”

Surprise sliced through the tears and gratitude in her eyes as she stared at the team leader. “I expected you to take me into custody but not for protection. I know I broke several laws. I—”

“You did,” Cooper cut her off. “You’re also the best informant we have on a case that appears to go deeper than any of us first believed.” He pulled his cell from his pocket, checked the screen, and got to his feet. “I want you to tell Agent Stone—Mallory—everything you know personally about Lexie Stratus. I also want the two of you to get with our sketch artist. I want a picture of this Jim guy to run through our databases.” He swept a glance across the other agents in the room. “The rest of you come with me.”

Jackson followed Cooper, Cameron, and Kell out of the interrogation room, closing the door behind him. Cooper stopped in the hallway and turned to Jackson.

“Do you think I made the wrong call in there?”

“No, sir.” Jackson agreed with Cooper’s decision to let Jennifer walk as opposed to arresting her. “We make deals with informants when necessary, allowing them to slide on misdemeanors in return for valuable information. What you just did was exactly that, only in an unspoken way.”

“Good, then we’re on the same page.” Cooper glanced down at his cell phone still in his hand. “Tarantino is with the medical examiner now. The body found this morning wasn’t Lexie Stratus. Dental records have identified her as Erin Griffin.”

“One of the four missing strippers we’ve been looking for?” Kell asked.

Cooper shook his head. “As of two o’clock this morning she was an employee at Stardust. My guess is she was abducted right after her shift.”

“Why kill her?” Jackson voiced the first thought that came to his mind. “If this is a trafficking ring like we think, why not save her and auction her off to the highest bidder?”

Cooper shoved his cell into his inner coat pocket. “That’s what I want you to find out.”

* * * *

“I’m no longer a little intimidated.” Terri moved away from the sign-in table, her gaze sweeping the gathered crowd of firefighters and spectators, her eyes the size of saucers.

“That’s good.” Thaddeus waited for her to start walking, wishing he could say the same. They had over an hour to kill before the first event, plenty of time to get his nerves in check. Or throw up, which was exactly what he felt like doing at that moment.

“No, it’s not, because now I’m a
lot
intimidated. Did you see the names on that list? There were hundreds of them!”

Yeah, Thaddeus had seen, hence his stomach’s suddenly overwhelming desire to rid itself of the breakfast he had eaten that morning. “We knew there would be.” Firefighters, retired and active, representing departments across the state had traveled to Waterston for the event, each of them hoping right along with Thaddeus and Terri that they could win the title of state champion.

“True, but seeing it certainly doesn’t make it any easier to swallow.” She puffed out a breath and planted her hands on her hips. “What now, Vegister? Do we head back to the staging area and our gear or do you want to walk around a bit, maybe see if we can find your parents?”

“I doubt they’re here yet.” Finding them would be easy. His father had used his influence to secure front-row seats to the event.

“Or we could look for Cameron.” Terri’s eyes glinted with mischief as she looked at him. “I know that’s why you asked Jackson about his work day back at the apartment.”

“Then you also picked up on the fact that it’s highly unlikely Cameron will show.” Had he really expected the man to?

Yes.
After their date last night, the promise in Cameron’s gaze coupled with his declaration that he would see what he could do, the freaking kiss Thaddeus could still feel on his lips, he’d firmly believed Cameron would show.

“Yeah.” Terri sighed. “I got that, too.”

“Hey. Terri.”

Thaddeus watched Terri’s eyes return to saucer-state before she closed them and heaved a deep breath. Over her shoulder, he spotted the firefighter she had met yesterday at the restaurant headed their way. He had to work not to grin. “Looks like your man is here.”

“He is so not my man,” Terri grumbled and painted on a truly fake smile as she turned.

“Wow, I can’t believe I found you with all these people hanging around.”

“Me either.” Terri’s tone clearly said she wished he hadn’t.

Thaddeus dropped his head and stifled a chuckle as the guy started to ramble. Terri had filled him in on her date over breakfast, a date she expressly stated she had no intentions of repeating. He shoved his hands in his pockets, making a mental note to empty them before he suited up in the staging area, and waited to hear what creative brush-off line Terri would use this time. His attention got diverted when his cell in his pocket started to vibrate.

Unknown
the screen read, and he rolled his eyes.
Mental note number two, get a new phone as soon as you get back to Silver Springs.
Every call, whether it was one he had saved to his contacts or not, had been registering as unknown for weeks. Not that he needed his phone to tell him who was on the other end of the cellular waves this time. No doubt it was one of his parents calling to let him know they had arrived.

“Good morning. I take it you made it,” he said in lieu of hello.

A soft male sigh followed by, “I wish, sweetie,” sent his gut into a riot of tingling surprise.

“Wow, sorry, I was expecting it to be Mom or Dad.”

“I take it your phone still isn’t acting right.” Adrien Bingham’s too-sexy voice flowed through Thaddeus’s ear and sent embers of familiar heated longing raining through his system. “I hope I didn’t disappoint you.”

“Of course not! God, it’s—” Good to hear your voice, he started to say except,
Jesus
, talking to Adrien after the date he’d had last night with Cameron was far weirder than he had expected. “I’m glad you called.”

Was he?

Yes
, because even those incredible hours he had spent with Cameron last night hadn’t gotten him over his desire for Adrien.

“I would rather be there with you. I wanted to come and, you know, show my support, but I figured it was probably best that I didn’t. Things here at the office have gotten all wonky on me.”

Concern cut through the longing first, and Thaddeus stiffened. He worried about Adrien. The man was a top-level DEA agent. How could he not? Adrien put himself in a world of danger on an everyday basis chasing down bad guys and hoping those would lead him to worse ones.

Cameron is FBI.

Thaddeus shut off his mind. He so wasn’t going to think about those similarities right now. He certainly wasn’t going to travel down comparison lane where Adrien stood on one side of the street and Cameron the other, with himself right there in the middle.

Talk about living life on the edge.

Forget the street. He was teetering on a cliff with both men at the bottom, not knowing which direction to fall, and there came the confusion with a trace of skepticism on the heels of his concern. Adrien had always been up-front with him about everything. So why did he get the feeling Adrien’s decision not to come to Waterston had nothing to do with work?

“Tough case?” Thaddeus asked. He glanced at Terri, saw she had already ditched last night’s date and was now watching him, and briefly met her gaze. Her mouth dropped and he knew whatever she saw in his eyes had been enough for her to deduce who he was talking to.

“It has potential. I didn’t call to talk shop, though. I wanted to wish you luck. Your first event starts soon, doesn’t it?”

“In about an hour.” Thaddeus realized his nerves had settled, at least where the challenge was concerned. Talking with Adrien did that. It calmed him even as it heightened his desire for the man. “You should see the people here. It’s crazy!”

“Nervous?” Amusement slid into Adrien’s tone, and Thaddeus couldn’t help but grin.

“I’m shaking out of my boots.”

“You’ll do great. Treat it like you would a real fire scene. Give it your all and I know you’ll come out on top.”

“Your confidence is inspiring, baby.”

“I’m confident because I know how good you are. What about the rest of your trip? Have you had any time to get out, see what’s changed in your hometown?”

Adrien’s question had Thaddeus’s mind reeling back to last night, to his walk with Cameron to the Chinese restaurant and back. “Not much. We got here too late Wednesday to do anything. Then Jackson wasn’t home and we had to chase him down.” He paused, considered whether or not to even mention Cameron, and decided to go for broke. “Cameron, I think you know him. I’ve heard you mention his name a time or ten.”

In front of him, Terri shifted and lifted her brows.

Thaddeus averted his gaze and waited through a beat of thick silence. His heart pounded. Maybe he imagined the weight of that moment, but it sure didn’t feel like it.

“Cameron Stone,” Adrien finally said. “Yes, I know him.”

How well do you know him?
“I thought he was the same guy. Anyway, he had to swing by and let us into Jackson’s apartment. They, he and Jackson, are working on some case. Apparently they got a pretty big break in it that night or something. Terri and I haven’t seen much of Jackson at all.”

“So you haven’t had much time to talk?”

Adrien’s tone sounded conversational enough, but Thaddeus swore he heard more there, almost as if he were afraid Thaddeus and Jackson had found plenty of time to talk. It wasn’t jealously. Adrien knew Jackson wasn’t gay. But what else did he know about Jackson? More to the point, what did Jackson know about Adrien?

“Not yet. He’s hoping to squeeze in some free time before Terri and I head back to Silver Springs.”

“This probably isn’t the best time to ask, but maybe you can squeeze in some free time for me when you get back. There are some things that, well, we need to talk about, things I should have told you a long time ago.”

Thaddeus swallowed, his heart in his throat. Should he tell Adrien he already knew, that he had figured it out? Should he tell Adrien about last night, about his date with Cameron, about the freaking kiss he couldn’t get out of his mind?

“I’ll call you as soon as I get back to town,” he said instead. “We’ll meet somewhere, have a drink, and you can spill everything.”

Adrien took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Something is telling me I don’t really have to.”

Thaddeus closed his eyes. “That would be your agent senses tingling, baby.”

He had been right. Cameron
was
the other guy. Trouble came in realizing that having his suspicions confirmed didn’t do a thing in washing away his confusion because, damnit, Cameron was now the other guy in his life, too.

It didn’t take long for Mallory to discover working the crowd at Stardust for one night apparently established the norm for any night to follow. The biggest difference her second night on the job presented was that the regulars, who made up more than seventy-five percent of the clientele, knew her by name. The slimy Leroy Platt, who once again sat at the same table drinking the same drink, even continued his attempts to know her by feel.

“You sure have a sweet ass, darlin’.” His drunken slur and the feel of his hand cupping her left cheek had bile rising in her throat.

Mallory swallowed it, determined not to puke on the bastard, and gave him her most dazzling smile. “I believe you said something to that effect last night.”

“Seems I did, but you threatened to have me kicked out last night. You planning on having Bruno over there come and drag me out tonight?”

“No, I’m planning on serving you this drink and telling you to watch the stage just like I did last night. It’s about time for the next lovely beauty to start dancing for you.” Though, she would rather toss him out on his ass herself. Unfortunately, the check she had ran on him at HQ that morning revealed so many shady secrets in his closet that she had been forced to put him at the top of her list of people around Stardust to watch, least of which was the substantial withdrawal from his bank account mere days after Lexie Stratus disappeared.