Burning the Past (Southern Heat Book 3) Read online

  She continued to scratch Penny’s belly, softly and slowly. The motion soothed her. “I don’t know how long I was in the shipping container before I heard the sound of another woman, crying softly.” She plucked at a piece of grass on her jeans with her other hand. “Turns out there were probably six of us in there, traveling cross-country.” She sighed. “The third time the men came into the shipping container, I thought I recognized one of the voices.”

  It had been perhaps the most horrifying realization of all. “My boyfriend.”

  Dean grunted low in his throat. “Nick?”

  His voice was filled with shock. Just like she had been when she first realized the truth. At first, she thought that they had kidnapped him, too, but couldn’t figure out why. She nodded. “Turns out he worked for the ring. He played me. From beginning to end.” She stopped petting the dog and clasped her hands in her lap, shaking her head. “I was so stupid. So naïve.”

  “How could you have known? How could anyone have known?”

  She didn’t say anything.

  “We like to believe the best in people. It’s the way most of us are. Unless someone gives us a reason not to. It must be so hard to have that destroyed.”

  She turned to him, once again blinking back tears of self-loathing. “I dated the guy for two months. Two months! And I never realized . . .”

  “Bad guys don’t always look like monsters.”

  “Ain’t that the truth?” she muttered. Without warning, warm tears flooded her eyes, overflowing. She quickly turned away and swiped at them, but Dean had already seen. He must think she was so stupid, damaged goods. She’d been branded, for God’s sake. He hadn’t asked her any questions, but she could just imagine his thoughts. Maybe he didn’t want to have anything to do with her anymore.

  “Come on, Amy, let me walk you back home.”

  She turned to him, amazed at the gentle compassion she heard in his voice. He offered her a slight smile.

  “I’ll even let you hold her leash.”

  Unbidden, a laugh bubbled up in her throat. She searched his face, but didn’t see any signs of condemnation or judgment in his expression as he stood. Penny looked up at him and at her and then rose, her little tail wagging as she jumped down from the bench. True to his word, he handed her the end of the leash. She took it and stood.

  They slowly walked out of the park back toward Promise House, Penny leading the way as if she had been coming to the park every day for weeks. It had felt . . . cathartic, telling Dean a little bit about what happened to her. She really did like him. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t still scared.

  By the time they returned to the shelter and stepped up onto the porch, she was beginning to feel better. Soon, she’d be back in her room. Safe. At the door, the dog paused and looked up at her. She reached down and picked her up, snuggling the pup in her arms as she turned to Dean.

  “She really is a sweetheart, you know. You should bring her around here often. She’d make a good therapy dog.”

  He smiled. “Meg said exactly the same thing.”

  She glanced down at Penny, who lifted her muzzle to her chin and gave her a lick. “You’re a heartbreaker, you know that?” She turned to pass Penny back to Dean and inadvertently bumped into his shoulder, falling slightly against him. With Penny trapped between them, her eyes moved upward, her mouth only an inch or so from his. She couldn’t stop herself. She lifted herself up on her tiptoes as she passed the dog to him and kissed him, her lips barely grazing over his.

  The warmth that surged through her at the simple touch of his skin was incredible. Amy was tempted to take it further, but it would have to stop with the kiss. No way in hell was he going to see her naked body. Not now, not ever.

  Dean appeared surprised by the sudden gesture but quickly recovered, kissing her in return, not exactly a chaste kiss, but not passionate, either. Comfortable. They bid each other goodbye and she stepped into the house, closing the door softly behind her. She heard him walking down the steps from the porch and then, moments later, the sound of his truck starting and pulling away from the curb.

  Amy raised her hand to her lips. It was shaking slightly, but this time she wasn’t sure it was from fear. She walked slowly upstairs to her room and closed the door, heading immediately to the bathroom, closing the door, and turning toward the narrow door mirror screwed into the back of it. She undressed and examined herself. Tried to see herself as Dean might.

  She could stand to lose a few pounds, but who couldn’t? She needed to get more exercise. She wasn’t flabby. Her breasts were high and firm. Her waist narrow, a gentle flaring of her hips followed by long legs. She glared at her reflection for several moments and then turned toward her left. There, on her right hip, maybe two inches below her hip bone, she saw the other keloid scar. Just like the one on her neck but this one was bigger, maybe three inches in circumference.

  Another mark, courtesy of the sex-trafficking ring. Fucking Nick Summers! She couldn’t believe she had trusted him. Shaking her head, cursing herself for her naïveté, stupidity, and blind trust, she hurriedly dressed, yanking her panties and her jeans back up, covering the reminder of one of the worst mistakes she had ever made in her life.

  She’d just emerged from the bathroom and into her bedroom when she heard footsteps coming up the stairs, followed by a knock on her door. She stepped to it and opened it. “Hey, Meg, what’s up?”

  “You have a phone call.”

  One of these days she had to get a cell phone. Not that she had many people to put into a contact list. Promise House had a land line, but she didn’t use it often. She’d tried to call her parents once, but the call had disconnected. Not sure whether it was deliberate or simply a glitch, she’d hesitated to try again.

  Another hurdle to overcome. Maybe. Someday.

  She nodded and headed downstairs into the living room. She didn’t know where Meg had found the antique rotary-dial phone, but it fit perfectly with the house, sitting on a small table in the corner. The receiver lay next to the phone. She picked it up. Who would be calling her? Dean had only just left and Sloane usually just dropped around to see her. There wasn’t really anyone else who would want to talk to her. No one knew she was here except for a few people in Monroe, her therapist, and of course, her parents. But they’d never called.

  “Hello?” She cringed at the tentative, worried tone of her voice.

  “Amy Valenso?”

  A male voice. Not one she recognized. “Who is this?”

  “Miss Valenso, my name is Special Agent Spencer Hemmings. I’m from the FBI. We need to talk.”

  8

  Dean

  Dean had no sooner gotten into his house and tossed his keys into the metal dish on a small entryway table before his cell phone rang. He pulled it from his back pocket—Meg.

  He frowned as he answered the phone. “Hey, Meg, what’s up—”

  “Dean? It’s me, Amy.”

  What a pleasant surprise. Had she—

  “Can you come back over?”

  The tone of her voice gave him pause. “What’s wrong?”

  “The FBI just called me.”

  The FBI? What did the FBI want with Amy?

  “They want to . . . well, an agent named Hemmings is at the Monroe Police Department. He wants to speak to me.”

  He heard the worry in her tone. Her voice trembled slightly. “Did he say what he wanted?”

  “No, but . . . but I’d rather not go alone. Meg said she would take me, but if you’re not doing anything and you wouldn’t mind . . .”

  “No worries, Amy. Let me just take care of Penny and I’ll be right over.”

  He disconnected the call and reached down to unfasten Penny’s leash from her collar. He hurried into the kitchen, made sure she had a full bowl of water, and gave her a doggie biscuit.

  “I’ll be back in just a little while, okay?”

  She looked up at him, gave a wave of her tail, and focused on her treat. He quickly turned and
left the kitchen, snatching his keys from the dish as he reached for the front door. In less than a minute, he was back in his truck, driving over to Promise House.

  What did the FBI want with Amy? While he didn’t know the whole story, he thought he’d heard Sloane mention that the guy who had been responsible for her kidnapping was in jail. Sloane’s old boss, an antiquities dealer, had had something to do with the same sex-trafficking ring that had kidnapped Amy. Sloane had somehow managed to escape his clutches and expose the guy for what he really was.

  He was in jail now. He hadn’t asked Amy, but since she and Sloane had both been rescued and the antiquities dealer arrested, he had assumed that Amy’s kidnapper, another member of the ring, was also sitting on his ass in jail.

  As he drove through town, making his way back to the shelter, he tried not to make anything of the fact Amy had called and asked him to go with her. It was a step in the right direction. He would go anywhere that she needed if it helped her.

  Amy was already waiting on the porch when he pulled his truck up to the curb. As soon as she saw his truck, she hurried down the driveway, much as she had the day they went for coffee. She was different this time, though. She climbed in and sat down, fastening her seatbelt without looking at him. From what he could see of her profile before her hair fell down to block his view, her skin was pale and eyes wide, staring out the windshield as if . . . as if what?

  Damn it. She was probably reliving one of the worst moments in her life. He pulled away from the shelter and headed for the police station. “It’s going to be alright.” The words were meant to soothe, but even as he said them it sounded like an empty platitude. “You’ll find out soon enough what the guy wants.”

  Amy nodded. One hand over her mouth, her shoulders tight. He glanced at her occasionally, but that wasn’t easy driving through late-afternoon traffic. Not that Monroe was a terribly busy town, but it was time for school to let out. A lot of people left work about this time, too, especially if they commuted to the other end of the county or Savannah.

  “At least he didn’t say you had to come down to the FBI office in Savannah.”

  “That’s true,” she mumbled. “Thank goodness for small favors, huh?”

  She didn’t say anything else for the duration of the ride to the police station, shoulders stiff, hands folded in her lap, steadily gazing out the window. He couldn’t imagine what she was thinking.

  He wanted to ask questions, make sure she was holding it together okay. She was obviously surprised by the request, so it was doubtful that she had spoken with the FBI since the incident. So why now? Dean hated the rock that settled in his gut with the thought. From what Meg had told him about Amy’s situation, she was making progress. Slow, but progress nevertheless. Would this visit with the FBI agent encourage more progress or trigger a setback?

  He pulled his truck into the parking lot of the police department. Whichever it was, he was about to find out. He moved quickly and managed to round the hood before Amy opened her door and stepped out. She cautiously looked around, as always, and then resolutely eyed the front doors, hands shoved into the front pockets of her jeans.

  “You ready?”

  “No, but I guess I have to be.”

  Together they walked in. Dean was prepared to speak to the officer at the front desk, but Amy beat him to it.

  “My name is Amy Valenso. I got a call from an FBI agent . . . Hemmings. He wanted me to come down and speak with him.”

  The officer nodded, obviously aware of her impending visit. He glanced at Dean. “And you are?”

  “Dean Gibson. I’m with her.”

  The officer gave him the once-over and then nodded. He reached for the phone, pressed a button, and uttered a quick statement. “She’s here.” He nodded and then gestured with his thumb over his shoulder. “Down that hallway there, second door on the left.”

  Dean led the way. Monroe’s police department wasn’t overly large, but more than capable of dealing with maintaining relative law and order in Monroe and surrounding communities. Drunk and disorderlies, traffic accidents, the occasional domestic dispute, panhandling . . . the usual. Not much violent crime here. Besides the front desk officer, four patrolmen and several men and women in street clothes sat at their desks, talking quietly on phones, staring at computer screens, or filling out reports.

  The hallway was short; two interview rooms on the right, a bank of filing cabinets at the end. On the left, two doors. The first one was closed, the second open. He stood in the doorway to find a man with short-cropped black hair hunched over a small stack of file folders stacked neatly on an industrial-type metal desk. The kind of desk his teachers in elementary school had.

  Amy stood next to him as he knocked on the door jamb.

  The man looked up, saw the two of them standing in the doorway, and quickly stood, gesturing for them to enter. “You must be Amy Valenso.” He approached Amy with his hand extended. She nodded and took it. “I’m SAC Spencer Hemmings. Thank you very much for coming to see me today.”

  Amy nodded and gestured toward Dean. “This is Dean Gibson. A friend of mine.”

  Dean smiled. She hadn’t hesitated, had actually said the words quite easily. Hemmings turned to him and extended his hand. He returned the agent’s firm handshake and then guided Amy toward one of the two straight-backed reception chairs placed in front of the desk. Other than the desk and a filing cabinet, the room and the walls were empty. Hemmings saw him glancing around.

  “They told me they’re in the middle of converting this space from a storage closet to an office. I guess they saw fit to put me here.” He shrugged with a good-natured smile. “That’s okay. I don’t need much space, just a place to review my files.”

  With that, he got right down to business, hesitating only briefly as he appeared to assess Amy’s posture. He cast a quick glance toward Dean, then back at Amy. She watched him, shoulders slightly hunched forward although she sat with a straight back and her chin lifted. Her right foot jiggled nervously on the floor.

  “Amy, I have some news for you, and it’s not good.”

  Amy stiffened and glanced between him and the agent. “What do you mean?”

  Hemmings looked at Dean, then at Amy. “Is he aware of your history?”

  She shrugged. “Some of it.”

  Amy looked like she was going to be sick. Her face had turned ghastly pale, her pupils constricted, her nostrils flaring slightly.

  “Amy, you should know that Summers has been seen in Savannah. But—”

  She interrupted, half rising to her feet. “What?” She stared at the agent. “He was supposed to be in jail!”

  Dean frowned in confusion. Summers? Who the hell was he? But then he remembered the name of Amy’s former supposed boyfriend from back in Arizona. Same guy? Nick Summers? The one she had been dating. The one who had ultimately revealed himself as part of a sex-trafficking ring. Anger surged upward. His heart skipped a beat and his blood pressure rose. He glanced at Amy, saw her disbelieving expression.

  “Amy, please sit down,” the agent urged.

  Dean recognized the look of commiseration on the agent’s face. Hemmings leaned forward in his chair, eyes focused on Amy, his voice soft. He was trying to be kind. “There’s no easy way to say this. But you need to know.”

  Amy slowly shook her head. “How did this happen?”

  “He was being extradited back to Arizona to stand trial for unrelated charges. After that, we were supposed to get him back. Long story short, he escaped.”

  “Escaped . . .”

  Dean wanted to reach for her hand, to offer her some sort of comfort. She looked deflated. If possible, her face was even whiter than before. Her lower lip trembled slightly, but her face remained passive. Only the pounding pulse in her neck and her tremulous voice gave her away.

  “Amy, you’re the only witness we have that links Summers to Sakkas and the ring. We’d like to put you in protective custody until he’s captured and can stand trial�
��”

  “No!” Her voice rose sharply as she pushed to her feet. Amy shook her head, staring down at the agent, her face now flushed with color.

  “I can’t . . . I can’t let that happen. I’m just beginning to—” She paused and swallowed hard, her hands balled into small fists at her side. “I’m just getting my life back together,” she choked out. “What about the other girls? Surely one of them has to be willing to testify. Aren’t they?”

  Hemmings leaned back in his chair, glanced at Dean, and sighed heavily. “Amy, we haven’t been able to find any of them.”

  The comment left Dean stunned. He shook his head in disgust. What the hell had he thought would happen to those women who had been kidnapped and shipped across the country in a semi? More than likely they had been shuttled onto an oceangoing vessel and sent off to God knows where. The thought took his breath away and left his mouth dry. It could’ve been Amy. And Sloane.

  It was one thing to read about something like that in the newspaper or hear it on the news. Quite a different experience, and reaction, to know someone who had barely managed to escape such a horrible fate.

  “Do you think that he knows she’s here?”

  The agent turned his gaze from Amy to Dean. “I don’t see how, but it’s a chance I’d rather not take.”

  “I can’t—”

  “What do you mean by protective custody?” he asked.

  Hemmings turned to Dean. “We could put her in a safe house, or possibly witness protection.”

  Amy stomped her foot. “Absolutely not! I’m not going to have my life turned upside down again, not by anyone!”

  Dean stared up at her. This was the first time he had seen her so outspoken, so animated, so . . . determined.

  “I understand how you feel,” Hemmings said. “And for now, we’ll let things stand as they are. I just wanted you to be aware of what was happening. We have agents and police departments in several surrounding counties looking for him. We may find him tonight, tomorrow, or—”