As they reached the top, Declan reached around her to open the stairwell door.
“Thanks.” He certainly was a gentleman. Not something she’d experienced with most men over the years, and despite herself, she found it quite appealing. Swallowing, she redirected her thoughts. Now was not the time.
“Mira’s the last door on the end. The corner unit.” She pointed to the navy door with a gold 9K just below the peephole.
She halted a few feet from it and looked up at Declan with the thought that she still might be able to get him to back off. His expression told her that wasn’t going to happen . . . but, man, was he breathtaking. Rugged, tall, exuding strength, and yet as she’d just reflected, a gentleman. He was intelligent, loyal, hardworking—but what she loved most about him was his strong relationship with Jesus.
Yes, he had a knack for getting under her skin—now being one of those times—but the only real negative was his penchant for being overprotective with her. She appreciated his concern—and to be fair he didn’t know just how much she could take care of herself—but it was a festering point of contention that kept her heightening feelings for him even more heated and at the surface.
He dipped his head. “Are you okay?” he asked at her beyond-embarrassing gaping stare.
“Sorry.” She blinked. “Zoned out.”
His lips twitched into a smile.
Greeeatt. He saw right through her, which only vexed her more.
Once again directing her focus off Declan Grey and on to Mira, she said, “Mira’s going to be startled to see you . . . a man, accompanying me, especially one so . . .” Virile. Manly. No. She couldn’t say those adjectives out loud.
He arched a dark brow. “One so . . . ?”
“Intimidating,” she blurted without thinking, though it was accurate. With his sturdy physique and commanding presence he could easily intimidate Mira.
He frowned. “You find me intimidating?”
“I can see . . . where other people would.”
He linked his arms across his broad chest, a slight smirk on his lips. No doubt at her flustered responses. Why couldn’t she just act normal around the man?
“But not you?” he said, taking a step closer.
Sandalwood and a hint of spice filled her nostrils, reminding her of cozy nights in front of the fire at her friend’s log cabin. Of course he’d smell enticing. What had he said? Oh, right. “I mean you’re clearly good at what you do and well trained, and with your build . . .”
His lips twitched again in pleasure. “My build?”
“You know what I mean. You’re six-three. One of your hands is bigger than both of mine combined.”
He took another step closer. Cardamom. That was the spicy, aromatic accent. “But you don’t find my build intimidating?”
She found it . . .
She immediately cut off that thought, pulling her eyes from his adorable chin dimple. They’d gotten so far off track her head was spinning, and she needed to be on her game, needed to keep Mira safe and feeling secure. She didn’t know what a good man Declan was. It was Tanner’s job to convince her. “We should go in,” she said.
She turned and knocked on Mira’s door before Declan could say anything else that could further dizzy her thoughts or emotions. “Mira,” she called in a low voice, “it’s Tanner.”
After a moment the door cracked open and Mira smiled up at her, but fear quickly replaced the happiness in her friend’s almond-shaped eyes at the sight of Declan standing beside her.
“Don’t worry,” Tanner said in her most soothing tone. “He’s a friend.” Theirs was most definitely an unexpected friendship, and certainly a different type of friendship than she’d ever experienced before, but she’d truly come to value his opinion, depend on his presence, and long for time with him, despite the heated frustration he often raised inside her.
As her mom would say he “tickled her ire.” But while she’d never admit it aloud, the frustration resulting from their verbal sparring was strangely addictive. He kept her on her toes and incited a cascading rush of adrenaline coursing through her. He brought her to life. Clearly what was wrong with her was no little thing. She never chose the easy path.
After a few moments’ hesitation and another reassurance from Tanner that Declan was in fact a friend, Mira let the chain drop, the metal clanging against the door as she pulled it open and stepped back.
Declan followed Tanner inside Mira’s place. The apartment was small but tidy with touches of her homeland here and there. A Malaysian cloth with traditional batik design lay across the back of what appeared to be her reading chair, and a labu sayong, a glossy black clay jar, sat on the small window box beneath bird-print curtains.
He only knew what the items were because he’d been with Tanner at the Ten Thousand Villages store when she’d picked them up for Mira, to make her friend feel more at home. Tanner was thoughtful that way—in ways he wasn’t—and the more time they spent together, the more he longed to be kind like her, or at least closer on the spectrum.
“I will get some tea,” Mira said, still not making eye contact with Declan. Tanner was right. Unfortunately, Mira was intimidated by him. Understandably so. He couldn’t fathom the horrors she’d endured. But that made the purpose of their visit all the more vital. A monster like Ebeid needed to be stopped, and Mira might just be the key.
Until they knew what exactly they were facing, what type of attack the men Mira had been held hostage with had planned, it was nigh on impossible to combat.
Waiting to start the questioning when he wanted to plow headlong into it was hard, but pressing Mira would get them nowhere, so he would follow Tanner’s lead. While the women stood at the counter waiting for the water to boil, he took a seat at the round white kitchen table—the chairs ice-cream-parlor style with white-and-blue-checked seat covers. They reminded him of his gram’s, though hers had been a yellow-and-white crisscross pattern.
As Tanner and Mira talked quietly in Mira’s native tongue, Declan’s mind drifted back to childhood afternoons at Gram’s house, sitting at her table, his legs dangling in the air as she prepared an ice cream sundae for him after school. His mam was home, but he always stopped by Gram’s on the way home from school. Sometimes all the guys—Griffin, Parker, and Luke—joined him, the four seated around the table with ice cream on their chins and Gram humming Irish lilts as she worked about the kitchen. Good memories.
Pulling himself from the past, he glanced about at the furniture in Mira’s apartment. It was in nice condition, and he was betting Tanner had found it.
Tanner really was amazing. It was not surprising she’d worked with the Global Justice Mission helping rescued sex-trafficking victims in Cambodia before returning to the States last year. He bet she had been equally amazing in her work with the Intercultural Resource Center before she joined the Bureau.
Mira carried the tea over on a tray with three white cups, a short white teapot with blue flowers, a creamer, and a sugar bowl. She set the tray in the center of the table and, as she and Tanner sat, Mira observed Declan, though still careful not to make direct eye contact. She was more than wary—she was scared of him.
Causing her any fear or trepidation was not his intention. He didn’t mind when criminals feared him, but not Mira. He smiled as she poured his tea, then lifted the cup and said, “Thank you.”
She nodded, the smidge of a smile gracing her face. She had beautiful cocoa skin, dark eyes, and long dark hair. She was a beautiful woman, and he feared what horrific things may have been done to her.
He sat back, determined to let Tanner take the lead.
“Mira, may we show you a picture?” Tanner asked.
“Of who?”
“The man we believe was the American ship captain who brought you over from Malaysia.”
Horror flickered in Mira’s eyes. She pulled her arms in close to her body and crossed her legs. Basically balling up as much as possible while in a seated position. “Why?” she ask
ed.
“Because if you can identify him, we can add another count of human trafficking against him,” Tanner said, but there was so much more riding on it. So many possible follow-up questions.
Mira stiffened. “I can’t.”
Tanner reached for her hand. “I know you are worried about your sisters back home, and I understand why you fear for them, but making sure men like that captain stay behind bars is the best way to protect them.”
Mira pondered that a moment and then nodded. “A-All . . . right.” She swallowed.
Declan had Captain Randal Jackson’s mug shot on his phone, so he handed it to Mira. “Is this the man who bought you?” he asked quietly. The words were so cruel, the action brutal.
Tears welled in Mira’s eyes, and she nodded.
Tanner clamped Mira’s trembling hand in hers, and Declan offered her his handkerchief.
His muscles coiled and tensed. Jackson was a monster. What had he done to this poor woman for so much fear to live in her sorrow-filled eyes?
He hated to keep questioning her. It felt like the most insensitive thing, but they were here to stop a terrorist threat. He couldn’t lose sight of the mission. He had to ask. It was his job. “I’m sorry to prod, but it would be really helpful if you could tell us what happened once you landed in America.”
Mira looked to Tanner, who nodded.
Mira sniffed, holding back burgeoning tears welling in her eyes and began, her voice uneven and shaky. “We came to Baltimore. I did not know where I was. I later heard Baltimore.”
“And then?”
“I . . .” Tears slipped from her eyes.
“It’s okay,” Tanner said, resting her other hand on top of their clutched ones. “You can trust him. He’s trying to help.”
Thank you, he mouthed, and Tanner nodded.
He took a deep breath, praying Mira continued.
“A man came to collect us from the ship,” she said with disdain.
“Us?” Declan said.
“Me and the others.”
“How many?”
“Twenty-one, I think.”
Fury pounded through Declan at the horrific injustice of it all. “And the man who came to collect you?” he asked.
Mira said something in Malaysian, her gentle features pinched fierce.
Declan arched a brow at Tanner.
“Evil man,” she translated.
Evil man sounded about right. Tanner’s jaw tightened in sync with his. They both loathed injustice. One thing they had deeply in common. Hardwired into them by their Creator.
“They put us into groups,” Mira said, her voice cold, devoid of emotion—she’d distanced herself from the painful memory. He’d witnessed it in other victims of abuse. He believed it was a God-given mechanism to battle against the evil confronting them. “I was placed with three men. Two Malaysian and one Indonesian.”
“When was this?”
“Three years ago this summer.”
Horror tracked through Declan. Three years? That meant Mira had only been seventeen at the time. He’d be paying Captain Jackson another visit in the pen, and Jackson had better pray the Lord provided Declan the willpower not to lay waste to him.
“Another man came for the others, and they were put in a white van, just as we were. We pulled out of the lot, and I never saw the others again. Me and the three men were taken to the house where you found me.”
“So you have no idea what happened to the other people?”
“No. Only that they went with the lanky white man in that van.”
Lanky? White? “Any chance you recall his hair color?”
“Blond.”
“Anything else noticeable about him?”
“He had a . . . scar along the right side of his neck and was missing his right . . .” she traced the side of her head and said something in Malaysian to Tanner.
“Earlobe,” Tanner supplied, turning toward Declan. “He was missing his right earlobe.”
Lennie Wilcox.
Declan exhaled, his blood pressure rising. He would have to hit the hiking trail later today to work off some of the righteous anger churning inside.
Mira’s eyes widened at Declan’s response. “Do you know this man?”
“I’ve tried to arrest him many times, but I’ve never found a witness to ID him.”
Mira looked to Tanner in panic, and a flood of words rushed out in Malaysian.
Tanner spoke back, her tone soft, even, and reassuring. She looked to Declan. “I told her she didn’t have to identify him.”
And that’s how Lennie Wilcox was going to get away with it again.
“She still has two sisters back in Malaysia,” Tanner said beneath her breath. “She’s terrified to go to the authorities because she fears what retaliation might come. She’s only speaking with you because you are with me.”
He nodded, but he wasn’t there to hurt Mira or get her family harmed, only to obtain vital information that could protect thousands of lives, and then they’d leave her in peace. He had no intention of bothering her again, but this was necessary for the safety of his home and the country that he loved. “I understand,” he said.
“Who is the man with the scar?” Tanner asked him.
“Lennie Wilcox.”
Understanding registered in Tanner’s eyes. Lennie Wilcox was Max Stallings’ right-hand man, and the one running Max’s business while Max was in prison. Max ran a horrific scam, promising people a fresh start in a bountiful country and then basically enslaving them by giving them low-paying jobs and charging them exorbitant amounts for their necessities, all the while keeping them living in his buildings; no other word but slums could do them justice.
In addition, he’d been in the smuggling business for at least three years according to what Mira had just shared. Much longer than he’d realized. That would definitely require further investigation.
“And the evil man who came for you? Was he American?” He noticed she hadn’t described him—probably in an effort to disengage her thoughts of him as much as possible.
Mira shook her head. “Arabic. Egyptian, I believe.”
“You don’t think . . . ?” Tanner said, casting a furtive glance at Declan.
“Jari Youssef.” He nodded, his mind going to the same man. “That was my first guess. It makes sense.”
Jari Youssef had worked for the Islamic Cultural Institute of the Mid-Atlantic and was also the man who’d picked up terrorist Anajay Darmadi when he’d been smuggled into the country. Jari had been shot in the backseat of Declan’s Suburban as he was taking him in for questioning and had died on the scene. No doubt killed by the members of the cultural institute in an attempt to be certain he didn’t talk.
Declan called fellow agent Tim Barrows and asked him to text the photo they had at the office of Jari Youssef. When it arrived he showed it to Mira. “Is this the man who picked you up?”
Mira nodded as the door blew in, a brief second of terror flashing in her eyes before a gun retorted.
4
Declan swung around, moving to grab Tanner and yank her behind the kitchen table, which he was about to kick over, but the man who’d busted his way in had already grabbed her. He stood with one arm wrapped around Tanner’s waist, her back flush against his chest, the muzzle of his Beretta wedged to her temple.
“Drop the gun or I shoot,” the man said as a second man entered, his gun aimed at Declan’s head.
As he turned back to Tanner, her expression was different than he’d expected. Instead of fear, he saw cold calculation.
He didn’t have the shot, not the right angle. If she moved just a little to her left, perhaps . . .
Before he could finish his thought, Tanner stomped down with her heel on the man’s instep. He flinched, and that was all it took for her to elbow him in the solar plexus, reverse head-butt him, and swing around, relieving him of his gun as his free hand flew to his dazed head.
The second man turned to fire on Declan, but not b
efore Tanner got her shot off—straight to center mass. The man stumbled back, lifting his gun. She fired again, this time right between his eyes.
She kneed the first man with impressive force in an area he wouldn’t soon recover from and stood over him with his own gun pressed to his head as he crumpled to his knees. “Who sent you?” she demanded.
Declan stood, gun aimed to back her, but it was pretty apparent she required no backup.
Where on earth had that come from? He’d always suspected there was something about Tanner he couldn’t put his finger on, but he’d never have guessed . . . Those were no simple self-defense moves, especially not the two perfect shots she’d gotten off under such heated circumstances. Her actions—or rather, reactions—bespoke of military or agency training. His interest in Tanner, along with his curiosity about the source of her skills, skyrocketed.
Declan stood over the man kneeling on the floor. “The lady asked you a question.”
Sound echoed in the hall and both he and Tanner stilled. Boot steps coming up the stairs.
“There are more coming,” he said. He thumped the man on the back of the head with the butt of his gun to knock him out and glanced into the hall. Men were rushing up the long zig-zagging stairwell. “We need to move.” He surveyed the space. “The fire escape!”
“But . . . Mira.” She knelt at her friend’s side, tears tumbling down her face. “We can’t just leave her.”
He stepped to her, crouching beside her while covering the door with his gun. “Honey, she’s gone. If we stay, we will be too.” He reached for her hand and after a reluctant breath, she took it.
They moved to the living room window and he thrust it open, indicating for her to go first.
Kicking off her heels, she stepped onto the fire-escape platform. He followed, a bullet shattering the glass mere inches above his head, shards plunging down on him, embedding in his skin, slicing across his shoulder blades and the back of his arms. Ignoring the stinging pain, he followed Tanner down the first flight of stairs and onto the next platform.