Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 83970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83970 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 420(@200wpm)___ 336(@250wpm)___ 280(@300wpm)
I’m mentally telling myself I need to focus on the job ahead of us rather than the woman I can’t stop thinking about that’s back home. I step out of the bathroom and hear Shadow chuckle, clearly from the scowl on my face since I know I’ll never be able to get her out of my mind. Compartmentalization has never been an issue before now. Before Emmalyn. I shake my head in frustration and grab clothes out of my suitcase.
“What?” I ask harshly, looking over at Shadow and finding him just staring at me with a stupid smirk on his face.
“You’ve got it bad for that girl.”
His words ring true. Before I can deny what he’s said, I think about my ignorant behavior yesterday morning in the kitchen. I remember my childish behavior just to save face in front of my crew. I won’t make that mistake again, not even when it is only Shadow and me in this room.
“She’s different,” I admit but refuse to make eye contact with him, rather I busy myself with getting dressed.
“She’s beautiful.”
I snap my eyes up to him, readying myself to give another warning to him, but he’s watching my reaction. I can see that he’s simply stating a fact, a fact any man who looks at her would have to acknowledge; he’s not implying that he wants her on any level.
“She is, but it’s more than that. I feel,” I pause before speaking again, making sure I say the right words. “I feel connected to her somehow. I felt it the second our eyes met in Denver.”
Fuck. I’ve kissed her once and I pretty much just admitted to my oldest friend that she has my balls.
“Before you saw her old man hit her in the back hall?” I nod. “Fuck, Kincaid.”
“Yeah,” I say reaching for my boots.
He stands and walks toward the bathroom to shower. “They say when you know, you know.”
He leaves me with that. Alone, with nothing but my thoughts and the fact that I just admitted, out loud, the connection I feel to Emmalyn.
***
The trip from DC to Johannesburg, South Africa was uneventful. With one stop in Ghana to refuel, the second leg of the trip was spent in small bunks getting as much sleep as possible, gearing up for the countless number of days we have ahead of us as we search for twenty-three-year-old Constance Harrison, daughter of the always controversial Senator William Harrison of Georgia.
I flip through the file that was provided in Washington when we switched planes from the private jet we took from the small airstrip in New Mexico. The picture of the smiling girl paper clipped to the corner of the thick packet hardens my resolve to find her. We’ve done this type of recovery before, but it never gets easier. These trafficked girls go through hell the minute they’re snatched from their families. Constance has been gone for two weeks, and the woman we hope to bring home will, no doubt, not be the same person that was taken from her college campus thirteen days ago.
The agencies that have worked the case before we were called seem to think that the abduction was random. They have no reason to believe that Constance was targeted specifically or as a political maneuver against her father. There has been no ransom request; no letters delivered to the Senator; no disgusting videos of Constance being abused. No contact whatsoever taunting the Senator into some sort of forced action with the promise of his daughter’s safe return to them. These facts are unsettling because the abductors have no motivation to protect her. The fact that they consider her just another slave to serve their purposes doesn’t bode well at all.
I cut my eyes to Shadow, who finishes reading just about the same time I do. I shake my head slightly, and he nods knowingly. The last time we had a case this cold, the outcome was not what we’d hoped for. We’d found the girl we were looking for, but a body to return home to her family was not the way we ever wanted to end a mission. This case has much of the same feel as the case from last year.
Rather than causing a feeling of defeat, knowing how hopeless the case may be, it adds determination to the team. We give a hundred and fifty percent every time we go out on a mission, with hope to bring home the person we’re looking for alive. If that doesn’t happen, then a lot of closure can be found in being able to bury the body of a loved one, rather than wondering for the rest of their lives what happened.
I’m itching to jump into action the second I hear the rumble of the plane’s engines, informing me that we are beginning our final descent into South Africa. I close my eyes and ask for patience, strength, and a watchful eye on this mission. The request is two-fold. I need to return the Senator’s daughter, but I also need to get home to a woman that needs to be nurtured and healed from the abuse she’s suffered at the hands of the man she once believed loved her.