He went bursting back inside with a crack of the door against the solid wood of the wall. His eyes found Hanna instantly, standing across the way looking incredibly too confused, too innocent. She was the new variable, the thing out of place. He marched over to her with a very different look and a very different intention in mind. She sensed it in his posture and his eyes, and backed away slightly in fear.
“You, talk. Now,” he said, grabbing her by what thin fabric he could get at the neck of her shirt.
“What? About what?” she said, struggling to get out of his grip. But it was iron. He’d held full grown men just like this. Fit as she was, she had no chance.
“You show up out of nowhere and my sister is gone,” he said. “Tell me why.”
“I have no idea,” she said breathless, still trying to find any way to break free.
“I don’t buy that, spill.”
“Roarke, what’s going on?” one of the guys said, coming over to grab his hand away and spare the poor woman from his vice grip.
“My sister is gone.”
“She probably stepped out for--”
“She’s not in the bathroom, not out smoking, not in here. Her own goddamn birthday party, I want to know where she is.”
The man released his grip and Rick walked over, arms crossed, glaring at the woman. She looked positively terrified under some many gazes and under the vice grip of Roarke’s ever increasing anger. The beers in his system seemed to turn into jet fuel as he glared at her.
“I swear, I don’t know a thing,” she said. “I clearly chose the wrong night to play new kid.”
“Don’t make jokes right now, not to me.”
“I think she’s telling the truth.”
Rick stepped forward and grabbed at his hand. He managed to pry the woman free. She jumped back, just out of reach, but didn’t break eye contact. She was scared, but not for herself. Roarke didn’t have time to focus on that. He walked out, grabbing his bike helmet, and heard several pairs of feet following him.
***
Laura was left alone in the bar--no Hanna, Hanna was alone in the bar. She had to think like Hanna, think of herself as Hanna. She’d heard horror stories of other cops at the station who’d failed miserably at their undercover work by thinking of it like throwing on a shirt or a pair of pants. It was too easy to slip that way. It’s not like anyone had to be journaling their cover’s thoughts in some dark corner and having a mental breakdown of conflicting personalities. But it was too easy to take it all too lightly.
Hanna was left alone in the bar with a few other elements who were too drunk to move or had no bike to lend a hand in the impromptu search for Roarke’s missing sister. Here she’d been hoping the most that was going to happen tonight was fending off his attempts to sleep with her. She had to admit she was glad for the distraction because she wasn’t sure how good she’d be at forcing him away the longer he tried and the more alcohol she got in her system--for the cover, of course.
She knew his physical description from the file, but it was another thing entirely being faced with it. He was huge in person, in everywhere, she could imagine. He was tall, looming over other men around him. His shoulders were broad and filled in across his chest with expanses and valleys of toned muscle, visible beneath his loose fitting shirt. His dark hair was like a tease compared to the lush depth of his even darker eyes. It was an easy place to get lost in, and, for a minute, she didn’t really care that it was happening.
Then the girl turned up missing. Hanna had time only to register the identity of the birthday girl in question by the notes in her file: dark hair, dark eyes, and butterfly wrist tattoo. And things took a sharp move in a completely different direction she’d been dreading. They had several leads on these missing girls. There were plenty of them. The police had managed to keep most of it under wraps from the general public and the frenzy that would most certainly follow. But word was impossible to stop on the street. She saw it in Roarke’s eyes. He’d suspected the same thing.
The Caracals had been taking girls and selling them right out of the country. She was going to use that tidbit of information to help gain Roarke’s trust, but now it all seemed to blow up completely in all their faces.
She stood up and walked out.
***
She took the most indirect route possible to get to the police station and stopped several times in convenience stores and gas stations along the way. She wasn’t banking on Roarke’s shaky trust in her. In fact, she’d be shocked if he wasn’t having her followed in some way. So she dodged around town, made it look like she was hunting for a specific brand of cigarettes that she magically got at the gas station that had a back exit she used to cross the vacant lot and into the back entrance of the police station.
“Hot plate,” she called out, letting the door slam behind her. It was their code for shut-up-and-pay-attention.
“That much of a wild night at the birthday party?” James asked. She glared at her uncle. “Something serious then?”
There was no one more skilled than this man at flipping from playful to deadly stern in seconds. She’d been on the unfortunate end of that a few times when she’d snuck in late during her teenage years and was caught smoking when she was sixteen. Right now, she was thankful for that level of focus.
“The youngest Withers kid has gone missing,” she said. “Female, twenty-one, essentially matches all the other missing girls the Caracals have been taking.”
“What’s happening down there now?”
“Roarke Withers took half his gang out on a search on their hogs. It almost blew my cover right off the bat,” she said.
“What happened?” James asked, stepping forward and placing his coffee down.
“It was bad timing to be the party crasher the night the guest of honor goes missing. It’s been rectified. As far as I can tell. He’s got bigger fish to fry right now.”
“Put out an all points,” James said, turning to the officers behind him. “Get her picture, her description. But this stays a police matter. If they start seeing missing posters it won’t take a lot of math to figure out how we got tipped. That being said, I want to find this girl before the Pharaohs do, so light a fire under your asses and go.”
All laziness vanished as coffee and donuts were dropped, bodies sprang out of chairs. Hanna dropped into a chair and didn’t give a care for her carefully placed makeup as she rubbed her eyes and forehead. She knew there was very little chance of the night going to plan at all, or at least vaguely pleasant. But she didn’t expect the action this quick, or to be on the defense.
“You doing okay kid?” James asked, sitting on the desk in front of her.
“Yeah, just tired. Putting up with Withers is a real pain in the ass,” she said.
“That’s what I was afraid you’d say. Your personal feelings still concern me--”
“Thinking he’s an asshole is hardly ‘personal feelings.’ You make it sound like we slept together.”
“An image I clearly want to have of my surrogate daughter.”
She blushed and cringed and gave him an apologetic smile. It was his turn to rub his eyes, though his skin was more worn, wiser, and far more in need of the attention.
“Isabelle is a good kid,” she said. “I’ve been watching her for a while. The universe’s choice of family for her is unfortunate, but she doesn’t need to be punished for that.”
“We’ll find her.”
She wanted to believe him. But instead she settled for one of the cigarettes she bought and the flask of Wild Turkey she knew one of the secretaries always hid under the greeter desk. One throw back and it was better than trust and hope any day.