Angel woke up with a pounding headache and cotton mouth. She was also completely disoriented. It took her a long time to remember where she was. She was in a comfortable but small bedroom with a twin-sized bed and yellow and blue ruffled curtains on the windows. There was what looked like a hand-made quilt on the bed; she’d woken up underneath it and sweating profusely. She pushed back the quilt and sat up. She was surprised to see that she was in a green satin nightgown that she’d never seen before in her life.

She got out of bed on shaky legs and went over to the window. She was on the second floor of a house that looked out across acres and acres of farmland. She could see the clubhouse where Dax had taken her last night, and she had obviously gotten drunk. She only prayed that she hadn’t said anything stupid to blow her cover or piss off her brother. As she pondered that and wondered if she should check in, there was a soft knock on the door. She went over and opened it and found one of the young girls from the party last night standing there with a tray of food. The first thought Angel had was that this was almost better than a hotel; the coffee smelled wonderful.

“Hi! You didn’t do all of this for me, did you?” Angel stepped back and the girl brought the tray into the room and sat it down on the dresser.

“We make breakfast every morning. I thought you might be hungry.”

“Actually I didn’t think so until I smelled it. Now, my mouth is watering. Thank you so much.”

“It was no problem. I hope you don’t have too much of a headache this morning?”

Angel grimaced. “Not too bad. I didn’t make a complete fool out of myself, did I?”

“No,” the girl smiled. Angel was still trying to remember her name. She remembered playing pool with her and doing a shot…or more…with her and one of the other women. She also remembered wondering if the girl was even of age. She looked about twelve years old. “Trust me, I’ve seen plenty of people make fools of themselves at these parties and you weren’t one of them.”

“That’s good to know,” Angel said, nervously. “Is Dax…does he live here? I mean, not in this house, but on the…”—she was about to say complex because that’s what they called it at the station, but she’d heard the club members last night simply referring to it as “the property”—“…property?”

The girl nodded. Suddenly Angel remembered her name. It was Danielle. “Yes, all of the guys do. The ones that are married and the executive board, even if they’re single, have their own house. There is one other house for us girls and two houses for the guys.”

“Wow, like a big fraternity/sorority,” Angel said with a laugh.

“Kind of.” Danielle went on, “we farm the land and the girls take care of all the cooking and cleaning, and in exchange we’re given free room and board and pretty much anything else we need.”

Angel walked over and picked up the steaming cup of coffee off the tray; brought it to her nose and inhaled. After taking a sip and savoring it she asked Danielle, “So do any of you work, off the property?”

“Yes, some of us do. I have a part-time job in the bakery in town. Celia owns her own business; she runs the coffee shop/bakery. Linda Bowman is a nurse and Callie Vickers works for the veterinarian’s office.”

“Wow,” Angel said again. If anything, she had expected them to all be blue-collar workers. She wondered why so many professional women would choose to live as “club girls,” instead of having their own place and dating men that weren’t criminals. That thought brought Dax into her head, and the feelings she’d had every time she got close to him last night. She supposed that she could see a woman getting caught up in something like that. Some women, but not her. She just had to keep reminding herself who this gorgeous, sexy man really was. She had to keep all the things she’d learned about him, before she came to the compound, at the front of her mind. Dax Marshall was a criminal. His club could be credited with more deaths than she’d made collars in her career so far. He wasn’t the good guy that her heart and her body wanted him to be. She’d learned a long time ago that the old saying about beauty being skin deep was right much more often than it was wrong. She was here to do a job and she intended to do it.

“Well, I should get down and start the dishes. Let me know if you need anything else.”

“I will, Danielle, thank you.” Danielle started for the door and Angel said, “Hey, can I ask you a personal question?”

“Sure.”

“Why do women choose to live here?”

She smiled and said, “You mean besides the pounds of hot male flesh and the almost constant party going on across the way?”

Angel smiled too. “Yeah, besides that.”

“Well, I can really only speak for myself. When I turned eighteen I wanted to get as far away—from this county and Massachusetts and Connecticut both—as I could get. I got on a bus headed south and I happened to get off here in town to stretch my legs. I met one of the guys at the station; he just struck up a conversation with me. He said his name was Bob, but they all called him Bubba. He seemed like a really nice guy and when he invited me out here for a barbecue, I thought, what the heck? I wasn’t in a hurry. That day was just…it was awesome. It was the first time in my life that I’d just been accepted like I was. I ended up staying the night with Bubba and the next day he took me with him on a toy run. I saw all of these big, burly bikers buying toys…just so they could donate them…and it warmed my heart. I stayed on another day and then another…and, well, I’ve been here now going on six years.”

“You’re twenty-four?” She nodded. “Jesus, I thought you were twelve.”

Danielle giggled. “I get that all the time. Good genes, I guess. I suppose I had to get something positive from at least one of my junkie parents.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to touch on a sore subject.”

“It’s fine. You couldn’t have known.”

“Well, thank you again, Danielle. Is there anything I can do to help downstairs?”

“No, we have a schedule. Everyone has their job, so it’s under control.” Angel thanked her again and then went back over to the window. This place was like some kind of commune from the sixties or something. The sheriff had told her these girls were abused, and he made it sound like they were practically being held captive and used as sex slaves…but considering what she remembered from the night before and talking with Danielle this morning, that didn’t seem right. They all seemed really happy. She went back over to the tray and took the lid off the plate. There were fried eggs, bacon, hash browns, and toast. A cup of fresh fruit sat next to the plate and there was orange juice as well as the coffee she’d been enjoying. She picked it up and had gone to sit on the edge of the bed to eat when her purse began to ring. She touched her finger to her ear. The transmitter was still there, so why were they calling her? She went over and picked up the phone. As soon as she recognized the number for the police station and hit accept, she heard Micah’s voice.

“Angel?”

“Yes, I’m here.”

“Are you still at the compound? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I slept in the club girls’ house. They put me up in my own room and delivered breakfast to me this morning.”

“You sound like you’re on vacation,” he said, sarcastically.

“And you sound like you would rather hear that I wasn’t okay.”

“You know that’s not true. We just haven’t been able to get in touch with you since midnight last night and we were worried. The captain wouldn’t let us call last night, but I couldn’t take it any longer.”

Angel suddenly felt bad. “I’m sorry. David did say it would only be good for about eighteen hours before it needed to be recharged, so that would explain it. I’ll keep the phone handy until I leave here, but make sure no one calls me. I’ll call you if I need anything.”

“Good, okay. Did anything happen that we should know about?”

“Not tha…” She started to say not that she remembered, but she caught herself. What a shitty undercover detective she was turning out to be. “Nothing significant,” she said.

Micah’s tone went soft and he said, “I need you back home and safe, Angel. I laid awake all night last night, imagining all the things that might be happening to you. Plus, I miss the hell out of you. I want you home, in our bed.” It wasn’t exactly “their” bed. Angel still had her own apartment, but she stayed at Micah’s more often than not. He’d asked her more than once to just finish moving in, but she was holding out…she wasn’t sure why or for what. She just didn’t feel ready to make that solid a commitment.

“I want to be home too, Micah, but you’ve had to stay away for your job too and I dealt with it. I told him I had to be in Hartford tomorrow, so I’ll be back then, okay?”

He sighed. “Okay. Keep in touch,” he said again.

“I will. I should go. It looks like there’s a lot of movement going on outside.”

“Okay, babe. I love you.”

“Love you too.” There hadn’t been anything going on outside the window, but she didn’t want to talk to Micah about their relationship while she was on assignment either. Sometimes she thought maybe their roles were reversed and she was the man and he the woman. Probably growing up with all of those brothers had somehow affected her ability to communicate and express her feelings the way that a normal woman should be able to. With a frustrated groan, she deleted the call log and then turned off the phone. She took a shower then and put on the same clothes she had on the night before and went downstairs. She had one more day to find something out, and she resolved that today she was going to do that with a clear head. She wasn’t sure what had gotten into her the night before. Maybe it was just years of focusing on her career and the all but stale relationship that she had with Micah. She’d needed to cut loose. Of course, she needed to choose who she did that with and where just a little more wisely next time. Even with all the bad habits she’d picked up from her brothers over the years, she’d never let a pretty body make her forget her own scruples. But Jesus, Dax’s body wasn’t just pretty, it was perfect, and so were his smile and his voice and the way he smelled. The way that tattoo on his biceps peeked out in a burst of color every so often…the sound of his laugh…She knew as soon as she had those thoughts that continuing with this assignment was wrong and dangerous. But there was no way she was going back to her boss, her brother, and her boyfriend and telling them she had to recuse herself because her panties wouldn’t stay dry when she was in the same room as the bad guy. She’d get her bad guy and then she’d go home and get her needs taken care of there…at least most of them.