Devil in Disguise (7 page)

Rachel couldn’t be sure, but her mother seemed almost contrite. “I think so. Veronica thinks I surprised his attackers. The doctor says we have to wait and see how much damage was done. He’s still out of it, but they said he won’t be able to talk even when he wakes up. Not for another day or so, anyway.”

“I guess you’ll be sitting by his bed instead of over here helping your sister, then, won’t you?”

Rachel wanted to throw it in her mother’s face that she should know plenty about choosing a man over family. She dearly wanted to. But her little sister was now dry heaving at her side, and this was neither the time nor the place for another battle with her mother.

“I’ll be running between the two rooms, but I wouldn’t dream of not being here for Julia.” Rachel went to get a cool washcloth before sitting on the edge of Julia’s bed. Julia gratefully allowed Rachel to
clean her face; she sat up a little and looked at Rachel with haunted
eyes.

“You were right. You tried to warn me.” With a sob, Julia
crumpled against Rachel, who instinctively wrapped her arms around her.

“Sweet sister. No one could have seen this coming — not really. It’s not your fault, and you will be okay again.”

“Nothing will ever be okay again.” Julia’s muffled words
brought Rachel to tears.

“You’ll heal, my love. I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but you will heal. For now, though, cry all you need to, baby girl.”

Rosemary left her daughters long enough to clean the plastic pan Julia had been sick in, placing it within easy reach before joining them on the bed. The three women held on to each other, allowing the tears to wash the pain away.

Veronica coughed softly from the doorway. “I’m sorry to
interrupt. Can I see you for a moment, please, Rachel? We have a few things that can’t wait.”

“Sure.” Rachel straightened and wiped her eyes. “We can walk over to check on Conrad again. Julia, I’ll be back soon, sweetie.”

Julia nodded, lying back on her pillow and staring miserably out the window. Rachel had no idea how to help the girl. She wished she
could talk to Neena. If anyone would know how to reclaim one’s spirit after having it trampled by evil, it would be Neena. The
woman had
survived being wrongly imprisoned for killing her rapist. She’d been hunted like an animal and had even lived in the woods before
rebuilding her life from ashes.

As Rachel was deciding to take Julia to visit Neena once they were out of the hospital, Veronica interrupted her thoughts.

“I couldn’t get security for Conrad. Jeff tried; he really did. The field office here is already spread really thin with the fallout from our raid to get Julia. I threw my best temper tantrum, but it got me nowhere. They must really be out of resources.”

“I’ll hire someone then. I’ll call the station and ask my assistant to track down a good private security service.”

“I don’t think we’re there yet. Rick and I will take turns
guarding him tonight, and let’s see where we are tomorrow.”

Rachel merely nodded in agreement, making a mental note to call into work as soon as possible to request a leave of absence.

Veronica stopped outside of Conrad’s room and turned to face Rachel. “Your sister is going to need some pretty extensive therapy
to help her recover from this ordeal. Getting her back so quickly
made a big difference, but I still think she’d benefit from getting help from
someone trained to work with girls in her situation. I’ve been
making a few phone calls, trying to get her into a program out in L.A.”

“Whatever you think she needs,” Rachel immediately agreed.
“Thank you. And money’s no object. I’ll pay for whatever she
needs.”

“Well, then she’s better off than many of the girls we help, but I’m not so sure money will help. Right now, there are only about 50 beds in the United States for rescued trafficking victims.”

“How many trafficking victims are there?” Rachel tried to recall the facts from the piece her station had run last January.

“Depends on who you ask. In my opinion, a safe guess would be about a hundred thousand. I don’t think anyone really knows for
sure.”

“What do you do with the girls you rescue, then?”

“Some go into hiding. Sometimes other women’s shelters help us out. Some girls are put in a juvenile detention center because it’s the only way to keep them safe from their traffickers.”

“So they’re rescued from slavery and put in jail?” Rachel wanted to borrow Julia’s pan to retch. It all seemed so fundamentally wrong.

“It doesn’t make any sense, I know. We just desperately need more homes equipped to care for these girls.”

“I know someone who can help her. Try to get her in the home, but if you can’t, I’ll disappear with her until you tell me it’s all clear.”

“It might never be clear, Rachel. If Julia goes back to her old life,
she’ll always run the risk of being killed out of retribution for leaving. Not just her, but her entire family. Right now, they might
not connect you with her. If you get involved beyond this point, there’s no going back to the old way of things.”

Rachel set her jaw stubbornly. She didn’t like what she was
hearing. Everything in her raged against the injustice of it all. With a small shake of her head, she turned and walked into Conrad’s room. She
stood with her hands on his bed railing, looking down at him as he slept. Veronica slipped up to the other side of the bed, waiting for
Rachel to process.

“Why don’t you work on Web content anymore? Last time we spoke, you were responsible for updating the FBI’s website. This is definitely a vocation change for you.”

“I kind of stumbled into it. Once I found out what was
happening, how these young women were hurting, I couldn’t go
back. Of course, marrying a spy kind of steered the new career path,
but that’s another story altogether.” Veronica smiled softly, and Rachel wondered if it was a happy memory drifting through her eyes.

Rachel tried to smile at Veronica, but the end result was rather shaky. “I’d like to hear that story sometime.”

“We’ll need a bottle of wine if I’m going to get into that saga.” Veronica’s laugh was soft and brief. “How did the two of you meet?”

“Conrad was convinced I was going to get his sister killed in my
attempt to break a story, so he kidnapped me.” Tears welled in Rachel’s eyes at the memory. At the time, she’d been furious at his
audacity.
Once she learned the truth, she’d been in awe of his dedication to his family. Conrad had a singular loyalty that was both rare and refreshing.

“Interesting first meeting,” Veronica acknowledged. “Maybe
your story deserves a bottle of wine, too.”

“In fairness to Conrad, we had actually met before that. We’d had at least five or six interactions before he resorted to a federal crime,” Rachel amended.

“Wait a minute – I think I remember that story. It was the Kali Langston prison break, right?”

“That’s the one,” Rachel nodded. “We wound up working
around the clock together to clear Kali’s name. She kept the alias she’d been living under – Neena Russell. In her mind, Kali Langston was gone. If she went back to that name, her little family would never have any
peace. But working on that story, trying to help Neena, that’s when we fell in love. After the story, he took the job at the casino and
moved to
Atlantic City to be closer to me.” Rachel never took her eyes off
Conrad.
“He wanted to marry me. I wanted to marry him too. I didn’t
because of my job. I lost the man I love for my job, and now I’m going to have to walk away from it anyway. I won’t have either.”

“The future isn’t written yet,” Veronica told her.

Rachel reached out to run a finger along Conrad’s arm. “I don’t understand why.” She studied his features and waited for his eyes to flutter open.

“Not to be blunt, but Julia was worth a lot of money to them. For every three girls we take off the streets, we cost traffickers one million dollars.”

“I knew that. Not the numbers, that’s appalling, but I figured it was about the money. I just mean – why him? Why did they do this to him? Why not you or me or Rick?”

Veronica bit her bottom lip and looked from Rachel to Conrad and back to Rachel again before answering in a soft voice. “They
were punishing a traitor. Up until last night, he worked for them.”

RACHEL CLASPED THE BED RAILING,
the plastic the only thing keeping her from hitting the floor, and she wasn’t holding out high hopes for its ability to do the job.

“Maybe you should sit down,” Veronica suggested gently. “He wasn’t one of them or he’d be in jail right now. I think he was just in over his head, if it helps.”

“I’ve never known Conrad Langston to be in over his head with
anything.” Rachel shook her head, not sure what to do with the
words they were saying.

Veronica looked uncomfortable. “I think this is a conversation you should probably have with him.”

“Really? You tell me this when the man can’t even speak, and then you tell me to talk to him about it?”

Having quietly entered the room, Rick made his presence known
by joining their conversation. “Aw, I don’t know, I imagine Ronnie here would say our best conversations are the ones where I can’t respond.”

“It does have merit,” Veronica agreed.

Rachel ignored their banter, pensively chewing on her thumbnail and staring at Conrad’s sleeping form. She couldn’t be certain her mind wasn’t playing tricks on her, but it seemed his expression had changed

“I think he’s waking up,” she announced, catching their
attention immediately.

Veronica peered closer to him. “I think you’re right.”

“We’ll leave you two alone – go get a doctor or something,” Rick offered. “I agree with Ron; you two need to talk when you can. But
from the conversations I’ve had with the man, he didn’t know
anything concrete. He had his suspicions, but he was keeping his mouth shut to protect someone.”

“His sister? Is Neena in danger? Should we call her?”

“Neena’s fine,” Veronica reassured Rachel. “I’ve never even heard of her. The traffickers certainly haven’t seemed to find her.
Honey, it was you he was protecting. Somehow they knew he was involved with you.”

“Are you saying what happened to Julia was because of me?” Rachel was certain that if she’d eaten anything at all that day, it would have come up right then and there. Her stomach couldn’t take much more of this.

“There’s no way to know. It could have just as easily been a coincidence, so don’t think like that,” Rick said.

Rachel didn’t buy it for a second, but she merely nodded.
Conrad was really beginning to stir, which meant this discussion would have to be shelved for later.

“We’re leaving now,” Veronica promised. “But we’ll be around if you need us. And we’ll be by later with supplies and food, okay?”

“Thank you.” Rachel nodded, her eyes never leaving Conrad.

They were alone when his eyes finally fluttered open, instantly locking onto Rachel’s concerned gaze. He opened his mouth to speak but winced in pain.

“Shhh,” she soothed, taking his hand in hers and leaning closer. “Don’t try to talk yet. You inhaled a poison. Your voice will come back. The pain will subside. Just rest,
mon amour
.”

He calmed, but the look in his eyes was tormented. Rachel
struggled to decipher what those deep brown eyes were saying. Was it an apology? A question? Rachel would do anything to relieve the
pain she saw in those eyes, so she said anything and everything that came to mind that might possibly be the answer to his unspoken plea.

She told him how Julia was, how he was, when it was, where
they were, what the prognosis was, and even their trouble getting Julia into a safe house, but the question on his face didn’t subside.

Doctors came in and ushered Rachel out. She patted his hand
and promised to be back after visiting Julia. The walk to see her
sister gave her a chance to think, to process.

Julia was sleeping fitfully when Rachel got there. Rosemary
looked completely wrung out.

“Mom, why don’t you at least take a bathroom break and a walk? I’ll sit with her for a while.”

“Your friends brought us fresh clothes and some stuff to clean up with – wipes and toothbrushes and deodorant and stuff,” Rosemary told Rachel as she stood, looking relieved at the chance to walk away from the nightmare for even a moment.

“God bless them, huh?” Rachel was amazed at their thoughtfulness
—
a
mazed, and eager for a chance to freshen up. She’d lost all sense of time, but she did know her teeth felt funky.

Once she was alone with Julia, she sat quietly, holding her hand and thinking through all that had happened, all she learned, and what their options were at the moment. It just didn’t make sense to
her that despite human trafficking having seeped into so many aspects of their culture, there were only fifty beds in the entire
country to care for rescued victims. There was no way in hell she would allow her little sister to be sent to jail over this.

“Mom?” Julia’s voice sounded small as she fought her way out of a sleepy fog.

“No, sweetie. It’s me. Mom took a bathroom break.”

“Hey, Rachel.” Julia seemed to brighten at her sister’s presence.

“How are you? Can I get you anything?”

“Ice chips.” Julia pointed to the Styrofoam cup on her bedside table, licking her dry lips.

“Conrad woke up,” Rachel told her sister as she helped her get a few ice chips off the tip of a spoon.

“Good.” Julia sighed and leaned back against her pillow. “He was so amazing. I just started crying when he busted down that door; I was so happy to see him. I knew I was saved.”