Laura Kaye - Hard As You Can

“Well, I really need your help, Crystal Roberts. Before I go, can I ask you a few things?”

The question shot tension through her body, but Shane kept them moving to the beat of the song. “I don’t know.”

“Fair enough. My asking doesn’t mean you have to answer. Just remember that, okay?”

“Okay,” she said, skepticism coloring her voice.

“Do you know why Church was holding my friend hostage?” he whispered against her ear.

“No.”

Truth.

He nodded, his cheek brushing hers. “Do you know who Church was supposed to meet with last night at Confessions?”

She shook her head, inserting a tiny pause. “No.”

Also truth. Though his gut told him she knew something even if it wasn’t who.

“You’re doing great. Just a few more. Were they holding anyone else with my friend?”

There went her pulse again. “Uh, no,” she said, though there was an upward lilt on the end of that last word that gave it the hint of a question.

“Are you sure?”

“He was the only one I saw,” she said, anger swirling into her tone.

Truth. And it was clear Crystal was practiced at answering questions in their most narrow constructs so that, in absolute terms, she could tell the truth.

Shane nodded. “Okay, okay. Just stick with me. Now, this next one’s a doozy. There’s no way to ask it without just asking it.”

She released a shaky breath. “What?”

Their voices remained soft, hidden under the musical umbrella of the song. The conversation was holding Crystal on the very edge of her tolerance for risk. Shane could feel the truth of that in her touch, in her reactions, in her very physiology. But he had to ask. “Is Church involved in trafficking girls?”

Sure enough, the tension in her sweet body ratcheted up under his hands. “I’m just a waitress.”

“I know,” he said, keeping his voice soft, calm.

“Why do you care?” she asked, still dodging the question. And, in so doing, giving him the answer.

Sadness slinked through his gut at the realization that, in her world, caring was apparently so rare it was noteworthy, and maybe even suspect. He didn’t need the firsthand experience of Molly’s loss to be outraged that women were bought and sold like commodities on a shelf. He cared because he was a human being who couldn’t stand injustice. And because he was a soldier who had the skills, training, and knowledge to do something about it. “ ’Cause maybe I could help.”

She scoffed. “I can’t decide if you’re crazy or have a death wish.”

He shrugged. “Both have been asserted by my very best friends, so you’d be in good company either way.” Shane dipped his head until he could look Crystal in the eyes. Fear and panic danced in those green depths. “What does he do with the girls?”

She shook her head.

“You’re just a waitress.”

She nodded. The song—their dance—was seconds from ending.

“I know.” He cupped her cheek in his hand, careful not to push against the bloom of red on the fine bone below her eye. “One more question then, because I’m almost out of time. Can you tell me about the delivery taking place Wednesday night?”

For less than an instant, her gaze widened. “No.”

There was that precision again. He winked. “Let me rephrase. What do you know about the delivery taking place Wednesday night?”

“I . . . don’t know.”

“I might have gotten my friend back, but he’s still in danger, Crystal. This meeting might be the key to something for him. For both of us.” He let the question hang there, then . . . silence. Their song ended. For a moment, it seemed perhaps she hadn’t noticed, because she kept moving. So he did, too. A commercial came on. An obnoxious car salesman shouted about sales and interest rates and zero down payments.

“Oh,” she said, just noticing the change. Her arms withdrew from his body, and he missed her touch everywhere though she didn’t actually step away.

“Well, our song’s over.” He reached for her hand but let her be the one to actually make contact. After a moment, she slipped her fingers into his palm. Shane lifted her hand to his mouth and let his lips linger against the smooth skin on the back of her hand. Without warning, he flipped her hand over and placed a small silver cell phone into her loose grip. “There’s a single number programmed into it. It comes directly to me,” Shane said quietly, patting the phone in his pocket. “It’s a brand-new prepaid, so it’s clean.”

Her gaze lit on the rectangular device like it was a snake that might rear back and bite her.

Shane wrapped her fingers around it, relished the skin-on-skin contact for one last moment, then gently let her go. “Thank you for the dance. And the conversation. If you—or Jenna—need anything, use that.” He nodded toward her hand.

Crystal gaped at him, only now her face was a lot less readable. But by God, she was a beautiful little thing. Hair like a low, warm fire on a cool winter’s night. Skin like peaches and cream. Curves meant to be traced and gripped.

Stepping to her side, he brushed a kiss on her cheek. Without saying a word, he crossed the small room to the door. Man, he hoped he was playing this right. But he feared if he kept pushing, he’d send her fight-or-flight response into overdrive. And then those walls would go up high, hard, and fast in a way he might never be able to counteract. Backing off seemed the only way to go.

He gripped the doorknob.

“Hey . . .”

“Yeah?” he said, smiling over his shoulder.

Her mouth moved, but no sound came out. She cleared her throat, and the whisper that came out was nearly inaudible. “Thanks for helping me with Jenna.”

He gave a single nod. And then he walked out the door.

Shane planted himself in the shadows across the parking lot from Crystal’s apartment. Would she leave? Would someone arrive? He couldn’t pull himself away for the night without seeing if there would be any discernible repercussions of his visit.

A half hour passed, and everything remained quiet. From the outside at least. Then, one by one, the lights inside the apartment went out and the windows went dark. It was after 1:30 a.m., after all. The lateness and the darkness and the quiet were all perfect for the last thing Shane needed to do before he left.

He crossed the lot and the scrubby grass in front of Crystal’s building, then circled the building to the rear. Bingo. The electrical, phone, and cable wiring congregated down the back of the brickwork at one corner. Shane retrieved the receiver-transmitters and Swiss Army knife tool set from the side pocket on his thigh and made quick work of wiring up the units so Marz could collect the feed from the devices he’d planted.

At the middle window above him, a dull glow just hinted at light behind the curtains, and Shane could almost picture the small lamp on Jenna’s nightstand. Had Crystal gone back in to check on her? Or did Jenna need help again?

The latter question flooded a restlessness through him he really had no business feeling. Didn’t mean he could make it go away, though.

Best solution was to bug out.

Shane ghosted through the night-darkened backyards to the side street on which he’d left his truck. For shits and giggles, he drove a circuit through the apartment complex and around the immediate neighborhood surrounding Crystal’s place. Not that he ever expected to need the intel he gathered, but in his world there truly was no such thing as too much information.

He spent the ride home analyzing all his interactions with Crystal Roberts. The lie about the surname had him wondering about the first name, too. She did work in a strip club, after all. Didn’t most of the dancers take stage names? Though she wasn’t a dancer, at least not that he’d seen so far.

An image of Crystal onstage, dressed more scantily than ever before, crawled unbidden into Shane’s brain. Moving that lithe body to the music. Gyrating around a pole. Removing clothing piece by tantalizing piece. While every man in the audience eye-fucked her—

“Sonofabitch,” Shane bit out in the quiet of the cab. He shook his head and forced the image out. Focus, McCallan. He had no right to have an opinion about what she did or didn’t do anyway. So what did it matter to him?

Buuullshit, a little voice said inside his head.

“Fantastic,” he muttered. Because his subconscious was clearly aware of something he was working his ass off to ignore—that a nascent sense of investment, of responsibility was taking root where Crystal and her sister were concerned. Mission or no.

Twenty-five minutes later, Shane reached the driveway along the side of Hard Ink. Pressing the button on the black rectangular clicker he’d received just this afternoon caused the chain-link gate blocking the drive to swing inward, clearing his entrance to the parking lot beyond. His tires crunched over the gravel, and the truck’s movement set off the new motion-sensor lights. Had they really just installed all of that this morning? Seemed like days ago. Or maybe that was just his exhaustion speaking.

Because Shane couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up in the morning feeling fully rested.

As he crossed the lot to the back door, he blew a kiss and flicked the bird to the closest security camera. He could imagine Marz’s laughter—as well as the few choice words he was probably saying in reply.

Shane keyed himself in, passed the locked door to the long-closed tattoo shop, and jogged up the cement steps to the second-floor landing. He went straight to the gym, wondering who might be up that he could debrief at this hour.