CHAPTER 10
CAITLYN’S WORDS WERE so out of context that it took Kurt a second to comprehend them. And then all the long-held anger and the leaden sense of betrayal collapsed over him with the force of a tsunami. Twelve years evaporated in an instant.
“Immaculate conception, was it?” he snapped. They may have only shared a few kisses the night before he left for training, but he’d ridden high on the memory during the ten weeks he was gone, parlaying it into much, much more.
Only to return to find out she was six weeks pregnant. Simple math.
Her face turned bright red.
Shit. He sighed. Hadn’t he moved past this? “I know we didn’t have an explicit understanding or anything, but I—”
“Aaron raped me.”
Kurt’s chin jerked back and he gaped like a fish stuck on dry sand, suddenly unable to breathe. “He…” Christ. Kurt’s blood heated as rage pounded through his veins, useless and inadequate. “That fucker.” He forced his hands to unclench. His violent mood wouldn’t do either of them any good now. “God, Caitlyn, I’m so sorry.” Could he be more impotent? “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you report him?”
She hugged her middle. “And relive that horrible moment over and over only to have it all shoved under the rug? No, thank you. I just wanted to move on. And I have.”
“I’m sorry,” he sighed and raked his hair. “I didn’t mean to attack you.” More than anything, she hated to be vulnerable. He knew that. But still… Jesus. If he’d known, he never would have walked away from her after such a trauma. He’d been nursing his broken heart, feeling like the injured party, totally unaware that she’d been violated in the worst way. Never mind that she hadn’t told him, shouldn’t he have sensed something was wrong?
Instead he’d taken her at face value, letting her drive him right out of her life.
If he could go back, he’d hunt Aaron down and break his fucking neck.
“Besides,” she said. “I let him in to my room. We had a history. He was a freaking cop. It was my word against his, and you know the military doesn’t have a great track record with that kind of thing. You really think anyone in charge would have believed me?”
Sadly, no. Assholes like Aaron usually got away with it, and even if they were caught with irrefutable evidence, they often skated with minimum sentences. Especially if there was even a hint the woman had “asked for it.” Given the shaming and skepticism victims often faced, he understood her reluctance to seek justice.
“You could have told me,” Kurt said softly. “I would’ve kept your secret. I would have been there for you. No expectations.”
Her gaze didn’t waver. “I know.”
And still she’d chosen not to. He could’ve easily taken that personally, but that would be selfish. Especially given that he would have left her again even if she’d been willing to pursue a relationship—friendship or otherwise—after what she’d been through. PJ training lasted at least eighteen months and he’d just been getting started. Near-constant deployment would have followed. He’d have rarely been home. She had owed him nothing.
Except, just now, she’d given him something anyway. Her trust. And after a dozen years of believing otherwise, he knew she hadn’t tossed him aside the minute he left for Indoc. She hadn’t lied to him in the way he’d thought.
“Why are you telling me now?” he asked.
She licked her lips and sighed. “Because despite what you thought I did, you’re here. I hurt you, and I’m sorry. That’s the last thing I wanted to do, but at the time I was too wrapped up in my own pain to care. I certainly wasn’t in a place to pick up where we left off. Letting you believe the worst of me was easier than telling you the truth.” She lifted one shoulder with studied indifference. “And I was afraid of what you might do.”
Her concern over his reaction was justified. He would’ve hunted the motherfucker down and probably ended up in jail. He wouldn’t even have regretted giving up the Air Force and the PJs if it meant Caitlyn got justice.
“Did you talk to anyone?” he asked.
“No. You’re the first.”
His heart folded in on itself. She had suffered all this alone. “Thank you for trusting me now.”
She nodded and stared at the wall behind him, arms crossed.
“I wish to God you had cheated on me,” he said. “I wish it had been that simple and harmless.” Between her dad, stepdad, and Aaron, it was no wonder she didn’t trust men to treat her right. “I would gladly take that hurt a million times over if I could take back what happened to you.”
“Yeah.” Her emerald gaze met his. “Well.”
Right. He couldn’t. He was being stupid. Wanting to fix and save her when it was far too late to do either. And not his place, for that matter.
What she needed was for him not to show pity or look at her like she was damaged. And couldn’t he relate?
He was out of words. Completely out of his depth. Instead, he reached for her and she stepped into his careful embrace. Another display of trust.
After few seconds, she slid free. “Thanks.” She cleared her throat. “I’m going to turn the news back on, but keep the volume off in case we get any more visitors.”
“Good idea.” End of discussion, but his mind churned. He poured himself more coffee while she found the remote and switched on the TV.
“Shit.”
Kurt turned. “What’s wrong?”
Her gaze never left the screen. “Glenn died.”
According to the news, Glenn Lambert had succumbed to his injuries overnight.
I killed him. The words clanged in Caitlyn’s head. Just hours ago, he’d taken his last breath, and it was her fault. He had been a vile man with murderous intentions, clearly complicit in his dad’s crimes. He’d come at her with a knife. She couldn’t regret her actions.
That didn’t mean she was over it. She would have rather seen him face the justice and humiliation of a trial. Sadly, though, left to the court system, the entire Lambert family could easily go unpunished.
Not that she planned to hunt anyone down. Vigilante she was not.
As much as she wanted to be proactive about finding Rose, they needed more information. But they also couldn’t stay sequestered in Brandon Marlowe’s house forever. Nor did she want to be on the run from police and Lambert for the rest of her life. And she certainly couldn’t subject Kurt to the same fate just for trying to help out a former friend.
Ever since she’d found Rose, Shaylee had been using her network to learn more about Lambert’s company and dealings. Assuming Rose was okay—and Caitlyn couldn’t bring herself to consider the alternative—they needed to find a way to get Rose out of his clutches and figure out if he was merely part of the organization behind the trafficking on St. Isidore, or he ran the business.
“Hey.” Kurt appeared at her side. “Are you okay?”
She held her elbows and watched the silent newscaster as the story moved to ongoing cleanup efforts in the Leewards. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because no matter the circumstances, it’s not easy to take a life.”
“In this case, it should be.” Her voice came out with an edge like chipped ice. “The world is better off without him.” But he was still a person with a whole world inside his head, and family and friends who would mourn him, whether he deserved it or not.
She wouldn’t cry over him, but that didn’t mean she would throw a party either.
“If I were one of your guys, would you be worrying?” she asked.
“Yes. Absolutely.” He crossed his arms, unconsciously mirroring her stance. “In fact, I have a plan for mental health services, and I encourage anyone on my team who needs them to use them. It’s all confidential and I’ll never know, but we need to reject the stigma behind people seeking help when they need it. It’s hurting too many service members and civilians alike.”
“You’re a generous man.” And like no one else she’d ever met.
He scoffed. “Also selfish. I want them to keep working for me and if they’re messed up, they can’t do their job.”
Yeah, right. Was he afraid she’d think him a big softy? As if there was anything wrong with that. It only made her…like him more.
“Aren’t we all a little messed up?”
His low laugh rumbled through her. “Yeah.”
In retrospect, she probably should have sought counseling after Aaron attacked her. She’d thought herself so strong and tough, and he’d shattered that belief. Her physical wounds had healed, but she retreated into herself, hyperaware and skittish around men, hiding it under a hard shell of indifference and sarcasm.
She had spoken to Kurt as little as necessary and counted the days until he formally entered his PJ training and left Tinker for good. Having him around had been torture because he was everything she could want in a man, but he loathed her. And she was broken anyway, at the time not sure she’d ever want a man to touch her again.
And then she’d lost the baby. Kurt had noticed her car in the parking lot after hours and found her in the women’s locker room, bleeding out on the floor. Part of her had hated him for seeing her at her most vulnerable. For caring for her while the paramedics were on their way. For making her realize how much she had lost by hurting him. For making her want more, the whole stupid fairy tale.
She had pushed him away even harder, refusing to see him at the hospital, and then Terrell had brought her home and told her Kurt was gone. He’d been called up to start his training earlier than expected. No goodbye, just gone. Terrell had been the perfect friend then, no censure, no questions, just support.
That night she had cried for hours. When the tears were gone, she picked herself up and began the long process of putting herself back together, reclaiming control of her life, immersing herself in martial arts and self-defense classes that went far beyond the basic disarming and defensive techniques the Air Force had given her.
And, eventually, encounters with men who liked a woman who took charge had helped her heal and regain her confidence. But she could see now that Aaron had still stolen far too much from her.
She’d made herself too strong, her shell too hard, and Kurt had put cracks in her protective cover. If she let him get any closer she might shatter.
His large, warm hand enveloped hers, simultaneously filling her with a sense of calm and the desire to tug him closer. “I know you don’t want to talk, but I’m here for you if you change your mind. Or just need a shoulder.”
“Please, don’t,” she whispered, freeing her fingers from the comfort of his grasp.
“Okay.” He straightened and put several inches between them. Not enough to reset her faulty inner compass that seemed calibrated to point to him. Nor enough to give her relief from his tantalizing scent. His expression was akin to someone who’d been sucker punched. “I didn’t realize it bothered you,” he said without a trace of irony, despite the fact that she’d practically wrapped herself around him less than an hour ago.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just can’t…” Trust myself. Control myself. Let myself get attached.
The combination of anger, hurt, and confusion on his handsome face made her chest ache.
“It’s fine,” he said, shifting away. “You don’t owe me anything. And no one should ever touch you against your wishes.”
Her wish was for him to continue what they’d started this morning. But what she needed was entirely different, so she merely watched him walk away.
The wait for stores on St. Isidore to open had been interminable. If Caitlyn had been willing, Kurt surely could have found an enjoyable way for them to pass the time. But after the morning’s revelations, she’d retreated into pensive silence, playing solitaire with a deck of cards she found somewhere, and he couldn’t blame her.
Instead, he’d wandered the house, periodically peeking through shutters for signs of surveillance, pulling books off the shelves, and watching the TV for news updates.
Finally, just before ten a.m., he checked the street for potential witnesses and, finding none, borrowed Marlowe’s Land Rover and backed down the driveway. He wore the cricket cap and sunglasses with another pair of jammers and a T-shirt he’d purchased at the cruise terminal.
The computer store he’d found in the phone book was closed on Sundays, but he lucked out at a small variety shop next to a row of popular tourist restaurants. He grabbed two pay-as-you-go phones and a Wi-Fi enabled tablet marketed for kids.
An hour later he returned with the gadgets, a cheap pair of reading glasses—not strictly necessary unless he wanted to avoid a raging headache—enough food to hold them over for a few days, and changes of clothes for each of them, opting for dark colors in case they needed to sneak through the jungle again.
Within thirty minutes, Caitlyn had the phones programmed with all the important numbers, and Kurt had emailed Tara using a self-deleting email service Valerie had shown the team a couple years back. She and Tara were working through mounds of data about Lambert, Valerie digging up the info and Tara sorting through it while she worked.
The earliest any of his guys would be able to fly out was the next morning. With Caitlyn’s approval, he asked Tara to purchase tickets for Jason and Dan on the first flight out.
Working through a VPN—virtual private network—that anonymized his location, Kurt checked his email, read the news, and scoured the maps of St. Isidore for…something. Did he really expect anything to jump out at him and scream, Rose is here?
“What else can I do?” Caitlyn asked, tapping her fingers on the counter.
All that restless energy and nowhere to put it. “I’ll have Valerie post some of her findings where we can take a look at them. The more eyes the better, right?”
The tightness around Caitlyn’s mouth relaxed a bit. “Thank you.”
They spent the day sifting through Lambert’s personal and business information, looking for something that might tell them where to find Rose, or something they could take to Shaylee’s friend in the St. Isidore Royal Police Force that couldn’t be ignored.
Needing a break, Kurt checked his email account. “Valerie sent another file drop,” he said.
Caitlyn groaned. “I’m not wired to sit in front of a computer screen all day. A cockpit computer, yes, but this… I want to find something helpful, but right now I’m nothing but an oversized couch warmer.”
Kurt started going through the files. “This is information on Lambert’s finances that they’ve already gone through. He has a couple of shell corporations and what look like accounts with offshore banks that don’t give out financial info.”
Caitlyn stood and stretched and then parked next to his stool to peer over his shoulder, teasing him with her nearness.
Her rejection of his simple, gesture of support had cut deep, but none of this was about him. Not really. So he tried to let it roll off his back. Caitlyn was the one who’d been hurt.
He’d give her whatever she needed, even if it was space.
“What does that mean exactly?” she asked. “We already figured he had shady business dealings.”
“Valerie managed to track payments from the so-called employers of some of the people The Underground has helped rescue. The evidence isn’t probably legal in any court of law, but it shows a direct link between Lambert’s corporate holdings—”
“And the trafficking victims. You’re saying he’s not just a customer, he’s a supplier?”
“Looks like it,” he said, satisfaction evident in his voice.
“Well, that’s something.” Caitlyn sat back with a thoughtful frown.
Knowing Lambert was in on the whole scheme raised the stakes, and put Rose in greater danger if he knew that she’d been working undercover.
“Can’t this help us narrow down possible locations for where he’s keeping Rose? This sitting around is killing me. We need to find her ASAP.”
Assuming Lambert had her at all. And that he hadn’t killed her already. Fuck. Kurt would definitely not be sharing that thought.
“Valerie is looking at Lambert’s contacts and trying to track his location. Anything you know that we don’t might help.” Without some solid piece of intel to act upon, there wasn’t much they could do. Short of driving around the island randomly hoping to spot her… Talk about impossible. “I understand how you’re feeling, but we need something to point us in the right direction, otherwise we’re useless. We can’t go off half-cocked with nothing.”
She let out a heavy sigh. And rubbed her forehead. “I know. I know. I’m just frustrated. And worried.”
“I get it.” He sat on his hands so he wouldn’t do something stupid.
A message from Tara popped up. Check your work email.
He navigated to the portal for his official email, which Tara regularly skimmed, cleaning things up and pointing out important correspondence, just as she did with the snail mail. The third message from the top was from a sender he didn’t recognize, but more importantly the subject was ROSE.
We have Rose. Will trade her for Caitlyn Brevard and Kurt Steele. No police. No backup.
More details after response.
“She’s still alive,” Caitlyn said on a relieved breath.
The attached image showed Rose standing in front of a clock tower at a cruise ship terminal, holding today’s newspaper. The shadows were long and the clock showed four-thirty. The message had been sent a few minutes after five o’clock.
“That’s the port in Sancoins,” Caitlyn said.
“I’m replying ‘yes,’” Kurt said. “I’ll see if Valerie can trace that email.” That might even be what Lambert was attempting to do in reverse. He looked to her, realizing he’d gone into boss mode. “I assume that’s what you want.”
“Of course.”
He sent the reply and stared at the screen. The clock on the kitchen wall ticked loudly, suddenly the most obnoxious thing Kurt had ever heard, and he hadn’t even noticed it until now. Caitlyn seemed to be holding her breath as she paced the living room. Everything in him screamed to go to her, but he wouldn’t make that mistake twice.
They waited in silence, unable to do anything. Which was stupid. It could take hours, hell, even overnight, for them to hear—
A new message popped into his Inbox.