“This has nothing to do with Bradley. He would never do something like that.”
“I don’t know what he would or would not do, but I do know that we have very good intel that says the drugs were created on that ranch.”
“No. That’s wrong.”
“It’s not wrong. Kay, we need to find the source of those drugs. If it isn’t Bradley Ryan, then we need to find out who it is. Will you help us with that?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything about any of this.”
“Look at those girls, Kay. Look at them!” he suddenly yelled at her, causing her to jump in her seat. Her heart thudded sickeningly against her chest. “They have parents who are mourning them already, as if they are already gone, but I don’t think they are dead. I think they are out there somewhere, and they are being fed drugs and having disgusting things done to them by ruthless men.”
Tears were falling down Kay’s face. She didn’t want to look at them. She didn’t want to think of things like that being done to them. It was all too horrible.
“Kay,” the woman from yesterday said in her soothing southern drawl. “We know you don’t want anything to happen to these girls if you can stop it. Help us bring them back home, Kay. You can’t do anything for Selina. She’s gone, but you can give us the people who sold these drugs and it might lead us to who they supplied that did this to five young girls. Kay, will you help us?”
It didn’t go unnoticed that she kept repeating Kay’s name, trying to make this personal with her. Kay’s heart was broken for these girls, but hadn’t she just gotten out of her own hot water with a man who wanted to do similar things to her? She couldn’t even save herself. How was she going to be the heroine to these girls?
The thought struck a chord. She remembered how she had felt lying on that floor with Cullen on top of her, ripping at her clothes, abusing her body and making sickening threats about what he and his clan intended to do to her. Without the intervention of Bradley and his guys, she could well be in the same boat as these girls, locked away somewhere and used by men until she wanted to die.
“Yes,” she said, looking at the agents with tears in her eyes.
Despite what Bradley had told her to do and say, there was no question in her mind that she would help them.
“Good,” the female agent said with a relieved tone. “Time is of the essence here. Every day these girls spend away from home is another day they are suffering or risking death. Let’s get started.”CHAPTER TWENTY-TWOKay thought of nothing during the next few days. Her discussions on what was happening was limited to written exchanges on the white board and shower talk. The agents had chosen well by putting their device in the locket Walter had given her. She rarely took it off and, if she did, it was nearby. They had guessed this and used it to their advantage.
Now, if she tried to take it off and put it somewhere out of listening range, they would know that it was deliberate, and they would act upon that. It always had to appear to be on or near her person. She got creative when it was absolutely necessary. Today was one of those days.
She had been recording various conversations around the house with a small digital recorder. Voices, sounds, comments...things that happened routinely and wouldn’t sound out of the ordinary to hear more than once. Using headphones, she used the computer to splice them together into conversation, blending them as much as possible so they didn’t sound out of sync.
It wasn’t a professional job, but it was good enough to fool someone listening through a tiny speaker like the one in her necklace. More importantly, it would allow her to be elsewhere and have unencumbered conversations without worry. Between that and the lectures, she was able to buy more and more time without being heard.
“Bradley, we need to talk,” she told him. “I need to know what you’ve found out about the drugs.”
Bradley’s eyes shot up, looking alarmed. He glanced at her chest and noted that the necklace wasn’t on and looked at her curiously.
“I bought us some time. Only about thirty minutes or so,” she told him.
“How? Why? I want you to stay out of this.”
“I’m already in this and you know that. I can’t let you just take care of this quietly. I know that is what you will want to do to protect the clan, but if you do, they will never find the contact. No contact, no girls. They have to find those girls.”