Chapter Ten

The guys were gone a long time.

Trish bedded Miguel down on one of the mattresses in what was the guest bedroom. Looked like Dev’s bedroom would be extra crowded by sunset with all these women if Family Services didn’t show. Dev had placed a call to them after Cord and Seth left. By then she’d changed into her waitress uniform, dark blue slacks and a turquoise shirt that proudly declared Conch Shack in bright yellow lettering across her back, in case she didn’t have time to change later. Things could get plenty harried when Cord retrieved more victims than anticipated.

While she waited for her company, Dev cleaned the kitchen and made stacks of peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwiches. It was still early. Scottie hadn’t gotten up out of bed yet, so she heated a stockpot full of chicken noodle soup for the hungry women and/or children soon to arrive. She never knew who or precisely how many Cord would return with. Just in case, she set the last of her fruity breakfast cereal on the table. Little kids would like that.

After arranging an array of paper bowls and plates, plastic utensils, napkins, and bottled water on her tiny kitchen table, she brewed a big pot of coffee. Sugar and cream packets came down from the shelf over the sink and joined the set-up. At last, she was as ready as she could be for visitors.

Scottie peeked into the hallway. “Again?” he whispered, his cute little brows lifted in childish curiosity.

Dev nodded. This wasn’t his first rodeo. “Yes, honey, again. Want breakfast before everyone gets here?”

“Yes, please,” he answered as he sidled up to his usual place at the table and pushed the stack of napkins out of his way.

Dev scrambled two eggs and made four pieces of toast, determined to enjoy her time with her son before Cord and Seth returned.

“You made a lot of sandwiches,” Scottie said quietly, his eyes on the large covered plastic containers filled to the brim. “Uncle Cord must be bringing lots of ladies home this time.”

“Yes, he is, so you need to eat before he returns.”

“I can help,” he whispered timidly.

“Of course you’re helping,” Dev exclaimed as she transferred the eggs to her best plastic plates and added buttered toast. “I’ll need all the spare blankets from the closet in my bedroom. Could you get them for me when you’re done eating?”

“Sure,” he replied with enthusiasm, his fork already full of eggs. Nothing excited Scottie more than helping his mom. He didn’t know the real reasons behind Uncle Cord’s lady friends showing up at all hours of the day, and if Dev had her way, he’d never have to know. She’d only told him that Uncle Cord rescued women from some very bad men in the world, that those women needed someplace safe where they could rest and eat before they went onto their next destination, a nice clinic where professional services took over and made sure they went home.

Her humble bungalow was just one of many on the underground railway for these women, a no-kidding rest stop where they could get their bearings and prepare themselves for what lay in store. Physical examinations. Rape kits. Testing for STDs. Police reports. Those unpleasant necessary things.

“When you’re done, brush your teeth,” she reminded Scottie.

“Yes, Mom,” he mumbled around a mouthful of toast.

Seth couldn’t believe his eyes. He and Cord had returned to Drunken Sailor Island in Uncle George’s much larger pontoon boat. Painted Navy gray, the watercraft could hold two-dozen people, plus supplies. But Uncle George hadn’t bought this island a hundred miles north of Cuba just for the view.

“You look like him,” Cord said as Seth cut the motor and idled toward the dock he and Devereaux had left only hours earlier. “Only problem is you’re Army.”

Determined to get along with Devereaux’s brother, Seth let the dig slide. “How’d you get involved with my uncle?”

“Old bastard called me the day after I left the Corps. Don’t ask me how he knew. Said my service to my country wasn’t over yet. Said he needed men like me, that America needed men like me.” Cord spit over the side. “Usual bullshit. Once a Marine, always a Marine.”

Like that answered anything. Seth rolled his annoyance with Cord out of his neck. “Talk to me, Shepherd. How long have you been intercepting the human trafficking out of Cuba?”

“Now you’re interested?” Cord seemed to have a mile-wide chip on his shoulder.

“Now that I’m involved, yes. How do you know my uncle?”

“Already told you. He’s a Marine, I’m a Marine. Figure it out.” Cord waved toward shore, and holy shit didn’t begin to explain the view. Seth lifted his hand to block the morning sun piercing the edge of the cloudless horizon like a laser pointer. Nine women of varying ages sat huddled beneath the closest palm tree on his island. Two little blonde girls. A deflated CRRC - Combat Rubber Raiding Craft.

“You rescued all these women?” Seth asked, willing to cut Cord some slack in light of the awesome job he’d done rescuing so many women in a damaged raft.

“It’s what I do,” the big guy bit out as over the side he went. Instead of waiting for Seth to pull alongside the dock, he hit the surf and swam the rest of the way.

Seth maneuvered quickly and securely. Once alongside the dock, he tied the boat fore and aft to steady it for the anxious passengers on the beach. The women swarmed Cord, then dragged him into the shade, pointing toward Seth, their voices raised with distress. He waved to dispel their anxiety while Cord spoke to them. The man spoke Cuban. Good to know.

Only the smallest of the refugees advanced, the two little girls. They couldn’t have been more than eight or nine. Had to be sisters the way they clung to each other.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, needing to get these fair complexioned girls out of the sun before they burned, and out of sight before this rescue went sideways. One never knew who was out there watching, or what drones were flying high overhead, snapping pictures and listening in.

The girls shook their heads in unison, like the twins on some horror show he vaguely remembered. Big brown eyes stared at him. Of course they weren’t hungry. They didn’t trust him enough to accept food from him, a stranger, and why should they? Whoever had kidnapped them had probably used a similar line to lure them away from their parents. Candy, little girl?

Seth folded his frame to the dock and sat Indian-style. He had all day. He could wait.

“McCray!” Cord bellowed from beneath the trees. “Get your fat ass over here!”

Again with the insults. Seth winked at the girls as he lifted to his feet, then skirted around them, keeping his distance so as not to frighten them. He’d barely cleared the closest sister when the softest whisper reached him, “Are you gonna take us home to our mommy, Mister?”

Riiiiiiiiiip went his rugged almost-Army Ranger heart, which, come to think of it, wasn’t so rugged after all. Seth took a knee, but kept a respectable distance. Trust was a delicate thing, and he wouldn’t hurry it. The next step was up to them, but they looked so small against the world, and so scared. He clasped his palms over his raised kneecap. “I am,” he said, blinking hard. “I’ll take you anywhere you want to go. Just not back to Cuba.”

“Home,” the other sister mumbled around the dripping wet thumb in her mouth. “We wanna go home.”

“Are you girls twins?” he asked, though it seemed obvious.

“Ah-huh,” the first girl replied. “I’m Emma. This is Maddie. We’re sisters.”

“I see that. Where does your mommy live?”

“In a big white house,” Maddie said, again around her thumb. “She lives there with my daddy and… and…” Her mouth opened wide. “We wanna go home!”

Emma edged closer to Seth while Maddie’s wails turned to hiccups. “Please, Mister. We got lost, but we didn’t do nothin’ wrong, and Mommy doesn’t know where we are, and we just wanna go home really, really badly.”

That did it. Seth swiped a hand over his eyes with one hand, while he gestured to the boat with his other. “Then climb aboard, ladies. I’m taking you to your mom and dad. Do you know your phone number? Would you like to call them?” He pulled his satphone up from his pocket. A smart man never went anywhere without one, not in this day and age.

That did the trick. Maddie’s little body hit him first, then Emma’s, and Seth found himself flat on his back on the dock, holding both girls and crying with them. He misdialed the first time and got a disconnect because he couldn’t see straight. The second time, a woman answered with a quiet, “Hello?”

“Excuse me, ma’am, but are you missing your daughters, Emma and Maddie?”

She shrieked. “My babies! My girls! Thayne! Thayne!”

Seth held the phone from his ear, then tried again, but a man spoke now. “Who are you and what do you want? I’m not rich, but I can come up with—”

Seth cut him off before the poor man broke his heart. “Former United States Army Sergeant Seth McCray, at your service, sir, and I don’t want anything. Hell, no. I’m not the guy who did this to you and your family, but I do have your daughters. They want to come home, sir, and to be honest, I’m new at this, but your girls are safe and… You have my word, sir. I’ll keep them safe until you and your wife can get here,” he ground out, his voice gone hoarse and tight.

“Where…?” Emma and Maddie’s father could hardly talk as well. “Where are you? Please. Tell me.”

“Florida Keys, sir. Drunken Sailor’s Island, but we’ll be on the mainland in a couple hours.” Seth passed his phone number to the distraught father while Emma and Maddie’s mother sobbed in the background.

“Tell them I’m on my way,” their father said. “Yes, honey. I’ll ask. Are they h-hurt? God, where have they been all this time? It’s been months.”

Seth ran an appraising eye over the kids hugged up against him, clinging to him as if their lives depended on him. What an incredibly powerful feeling. Wide-eyed and finely boned, they reminded him of Devereaux.

Cord bellowed again, but the cocky Marine could wait his turn. Seth had his arms full of two little pixies who needed him more. “I can’t say for sure if they’re hurt or not, sir. They look physically well to me, but I’m no doctor. Right now, they appear to be tired, maybe hungry. They were located in Cuba, and I imagine they’re on their way to the Florida State authorities this morning. They’ll probably be in touch with you soon, and you might not hear from me again, but—”

“Th-th-thank you,” the poor man broke down, sobbing wretchedly. “God bless and keep you and… Thank you so damned much, Seth McCray. I don’t know you, but I owe you everything.”

Emma’s and Maddie’s mom must’ve grabbed the phone. “Can I talk to them?” she asked, her voice shrill and panicked. “Are they with you? P-please? Let me talk to my girls.”

“You bet, ma’am,” Seth said as he held the phone to Emma’s ear. “Your mommy wants to talk to you.”

Emma took the phone. Rested it to her ear. Blinked. “Mommy?” Then tears. Then sobs. By the time she was done, Emma had hold of Maddie’s shoulders, and both girls were shuddering emotional wrecks. Maddie took her turn with the phone but could hardly say a word. She squeezed both eyes tight and just nodded at the sound of her mother’s voice, and that was okay. Seth knew how much power mother’s and father’s voices held.

After a few more words with the girls’ father, who Seth now knew was Thayne Ward of Charlotte, South Carolina, Seth signed off. That explained the slight southern twist to the girls’ words.

He lay there staring at the burgeoning blue morning sky overhead and breathing hard while they settled into his arms like they were meant to be there. Maddie hiccupped once her sobs subsided. Emma burrowed under his chin and fingered his collar. What a good, good day.

Cord finally stomped over to the dock, but once he saw the girls, his expression mellowed. “You got them to talk? Well done, McCray. I was afraid… Well, let’s just say they’ve been through enough.”

Seth nodded. He understood ‘enough’. “What’s next? The authorities? The hospital? Where do we go from here?”

“Back to Dev’s place. She’ll feed them, then Family Services takes over. They’ll make sure they get the medical attention they need. They’ll contact the families.”

Chagrined, Seth revealed the satphone in his palm. “I might’ve already done that.”

A genuine grin cracked Cord’s ugly face. “Good on you. But next time, hold off on that, okay?”

Next time?