Heart of Light (37 page)

~~~~~~~~~~

A
QUIET
KNOCK
SOUNDED
on the door several hours later and Jolene’s heart began thumping in her chest, wondering how she would react when she set eyes on the man that gave her up so easily in favor of the bottle.

Sensing her anxiety, Cam grabbed her hand, hoping that his simple act would give her strength for what he could only imagine would be a difficult day. “If it’s too much, I can tell him to come back another time…when you’re feeling better.”

“No. I’m actually okay,” she admitted after some thought. “A year ago, or even a month ago, I would have been petrified to face him. But now, here, with you… I don’t know. My past doesn’t scare me anymore. I’m not going to let it define who I am.
I’m
going to define who I am. Nothing or no one else.”

“Good. You ready?”

She nodded and Cam brushed his lips against hers before raising himself off the couch to answer the door. Just before he opened it, he turned and met Jolene’s eyes again. “Are you sure?”

“Yes. I can do this.”

“That’s my girl.” Cam returned his attention to the door, opening it. Elsie stood there with two men who appeared to be in their late fifties or early sixties. One was rather tall and extremely fit, his hair turning gray in a distinguished kind of way. His blue eyes sparkled and Cam had a feeling that he was Jolene’s father. The other man was shorter with balding hair. He looked slightly weathered and was overweight. They both certainly gave off the appearance of working in the law enforcement field.

“This is Cam,” Elsie said, striking up a conversation. “He’s the wonderful man that’s been taking care of our Jolene. And this…” She turned to the taller man. “This is Jolene’s father, Greg. And his former partner on the police force, Mark. Make friends.”

“I like this one,” Mark said. “Too bad she’s about thirty years too young.”

“And taken,” Elsie said. “But I like you, too, Mark.” She winked. “Come on. You can buy me a drink while we let Jolene and her dad catch up.”

Mark looked at her, troubled.

“No,” a quiet voice called out from within the apartment. “He was like a second father to me. He stays.”

Greg’s eyes widened in response to that familiar voice. It was more mature than the teenage voice he remembered, but he wouldn’t mistake it for anything.

“Jolene?” he quivered, looking to Cam for permission to enter.

He nodded, stepping aside to let him in.

“Is that really you, peanut?”

Tears filled Jolene’s eyes when she saw her father walk into the living room, rushing to the couch. “Daddy?” she cried out, her voice shaking. She had so much she wanted to say to him. She wanted to scream, and yell, and shout, and cry. But she also wanted to feel the love he had for her. She saw it now. That was the look he had on his face when she fell out of the big oak tree in the front yard and broke her arm when she was just eight. He must have seen it happening and ran to her, his eyes wide with worry. The look on his face was the same as it was all those years ago.

“Jolene…peanut?” Greg wrapped his arms around her, unable to believe his eyes. After all his years of following one false lead after another, he was shocked to actually be face-to-face with his daughter. “I’m so sorry. I was never the father you needed or deserved. I regret everything. It’s all my fault.”

He pulled back, looking at his daughter, checking out her bruises and noticing that her leg was elevated and a set of crutches were propped on the end of the couch. “What happened? Who hurt you?”

She rolled her eyes, wiping her cheek. “That’s a loaded question, Greg,” she said under her breath.

Cam sat next to Jolene, grabbing her hand in his. “Wait, if this is your father, then how come you call him Greg?”

“Because she was a pain in the ass when she was a little girl and insisted on it, isn’t that right?”

Jolene laughed through her tears, looking at Cam. “Yup, I did. My mama called him Greg, so I wanted to call him Greg, too.” She met her father’s eyes once more, her emotions overtaking her again. “But I promised myself that if you ever found me, I’d call you daddy. I love you, Daddy,” she sobbed. “And I forgive you.”

Greg wiped his daughter’s tears. “Oh, pumpkin. I’ve been wanting to hear those words come out of your mouth for more than ten years. I’ll never let you down again. I promise.”

Cam smiled at the ease that Jolene seemed to have as she stayed enclosed in her father’s embrace, thinking how, just a few months ago, she wouldn’t let anyone touch her. He just hoped that it was his doing that made her realize that it was healthy to receive love. That love wasn’t something of which she should be frightened. That a simple touch could make her feel someone’s love.

“You remember Mark, don’t you, Jolene?” Greg said, pulling away from his daughter’s delicate frame and nodding toward his former partner.

Jolene wiped her eyes and set her gaze on the short man standing just a few feet away, thinking that he had eaten a few too many doughnuts over the years. She remembered Mark being relatively in shape, just like her father. The years weren’t good to him, but she was happy to see him nonetheless.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said gently. “I’ve missed whooping your ass in blackjack.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Who whooped whose ass? I seem to recall a few nights you were in town visiting that you got all bent out of shape when a nine-year-old girl beat you and you left with your tail between your legs.”

“Rematch later?”

“Definitely.”

Jolene spent the next several hours catching up with her father. They laughed and cried, sometimes both at the same time. Toward the end of the evening, her eyes started to get heavy and the pain from her ribs had returned.

“Come on, peaches,” Cam said, leaning down and scooping her up in his arms. “You need rest.”

“But I don’t want to miss anything,” she complained through her yawn.

“Listen to Cameron,” Greg said. “He’ll take good care of you now.”

Cam sent her father an appreciative look before carrying Jolene down the hallway and into the master bedroom. “I’m so proud of you. You were so strong today. I hope you realize how big of a step this was.” He placed her on the bed and began to help her out of her clothes.

“Even though I have trouble bathing, I
can
change into my pajamas without your help. You know that, right?”

“But what fun would that be?” he said with a wink.

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?” She leaned back against the pillow and raised her hips so that he could slide her yoga pants off her before helping her into a pair of silky sleep shorts.

“If you’re referring to taking care of the woman I love, yes. I don’t enjoy having to help you change your clothes because it’s my fault that…”

Jolene quickly grabbed Cam’s arm, getting his attention. “Don’t think that. Please. I don’t want you to think that you could have done anything to prevent what happened. Even if you…” She stopped short, the memory of Cam throwing money at her as she begged for him to believe her still fresh in her mind. “It would have happened no matter what. It wasn’t the first time that he…”

“That day!” he exclaimed passionately. “I knew it! That day that the living room was all in disarray and you were wearing sunglasses. Did he…?”

Jolene slowly nodded her head.

“How many times did he hurt you?”

Meeting his intense eyes, she gave the only answer she could. “Every time, Cam. Every time he fucked me, whether he hit me or not, he killed me a little bit more.”

He shuddered at the tone of her voice.

“And the reason it felt like another stab to my heart was because of you.”

He pulled back, a look of wonder on his face. “Me?”

Her lips turned up slightly as she tenderly stroked his cheek. “Because even back then, I think I loved you. I cried myself to sleep every night, not for what I had to endure, but for what I was doing to you by letting that man do what he wanted with me. I could deal with that. I had in the past. But I hated the thought of betraying you. Hurting you. Destroying you.”

He crushed his lips to hers. “You can be so goddamn frustrating, yet so incredibly amazing at the same time. Do you know that?”

“So can you.” She opened her mouth, giving him permission to enter. Their tongues danced and Jolene moaned into the kiss, the passion behind it more fulfilling than any of their previous kisses. Lifting her hips, she tried to wrap her legs around Cam’s waist, crying out from the pain.

“Oh, Jolene. I’m so sorry.”

“Goddammit! Do you have any idea how sexually frustrated I am right now?”

Cam grinned. “I’m pretty sure I have a
very
good idea. But just think how amazing that first orgasm will be. And, Jolene, I cannot wait to see that.”

“You know what, Cam?”
 

“Yes?”

“Our love... It’s like the love you watch in the movies or read about in books. But the best part of our love? It’s real. It’s not fake. It’s pure. It’s simple, yet earned at the same time. I never thought that I’d find my happily ever after, that I’d find somebody like you. But I’m so grateful that I did. I love you.”

He leaned down and gingerly swept his lips against her forehead. “I love you, too, peaches. More than you can possibly imagine. You’re
my
happily ever after. Sleep well. I’ll be right outside in the living room, should you need anything.”

Her body warmed from his sensual and caring words. “Thank you.”

He quietly left the bedroom and made his way down the hallway to the living room, joining Elsie, Mark, and Greg.

“Your friend here has been giving us a little bit of info on what happened to Jolene,” Greg said when Cam reappeared and took a seat in a recliner, facing them.

“Why don’t we start at the beginning,” Cam said, his voice stern. “Jolene was able to forgive you so that she can move on with her life, which is important to her. But I want to understand what the hell happened. Let’s start with her mom. Her
real
mom.”

Greg slumped his shoulders forward, knowing that he needed to eventually tell the truth. Hesitantly, he started, “You see, I loved Jolene’s mother very much. And I failed her. Jolene has her eyes. And her smile.” He fished his wallet out of his pocket and handed a photo to Cam. “That’s her. That’s my Angelina. Angie.”

Cam scanned the crinkled picture of a blonde woman with a striking resemblance to Jolene, other than the hair color. “What happened to her? I have a feeling there’s more to the story than her dying in childbirth. I’m not new to the game. All of my patients who have been through similar experiences as Jolene…”

“Wait a second. Patients?” Mark interrupted.

“I’m a psychiatrist, and I have a handful of patients who have also been the victims of human trafficking.” He nodded toward Greg. “Like your daughter. I think between what I know from what Jolene’s told me and your story, we may be able to put all the pieces together and end this. She needs closure. You need closure. I need closure. I won’t be able to sleep until I know that the bastard who put the fear in her is no longer able to torment any other women out there.”

Greg took a deep breath. “Angie was beautiful. She could have been a model. Her eyes were so blue, they popped off her face. It was a color that was bluer than the bluest ocean. In those eyes were my peace, my salvation, and her downfall. She said some guy promised her modeling jobs, that her face would be on the billboard in Times Square. She never told me the name. Her parents wanted her to go to college and get an education, but you try telling a seventeen-year-old girl that she has to go to college instead of making money modeling, so she ran away. She was put to work as a waitress to help cover all the money he said he was spending to get her modeling career started. I doubt the bastard ever had head shots taken.”

He took a long drag from his soda. “I don’t know all the details, it was difficult for her to talk about, but what I
do
know is that I fell in love with her almost immediately and would do anything to protect her. But it wasn’t enough.”

“How did you meet her?” Cam asked.

“I’m not proud of it, but I was going through a tough break-up. Some guys on the force were complaining that my work was slipping because of it. They were right. I had just made detective and I didn’t want to lose it, so I thought that maybe if I could just find some sort of release, even if for just a night, I could finally move on.

“I was given the address of a small boutique hotel on the outskirts of town. I almost turned back a dozen times, thinking that no woman worth spending time with would sell her body like that. But I was wrong. I remember opening the door to that room and seeing Angie’s eyes. They were sad and full of fear but, at the same time, there was hope in them.

“That first night, we just talked. I kept going back to see her for months before she came to me with the news that she was pregnant. We had finally slept together about a month before and were so caught up in the moment that I never put a condom on. It was stupid, but the horror in Angie’s eyes was something I had never seen before. She told me stories about what happened when some of the other girls had broken the rules. I didn’t know what all of the rules were, but I’m pretty sure at the top of the list was not getting pregnant. She recalled what happened to a girl a few years earlier who had gotten pregnant through no fault of her own…her wrists were slit open as she remained bound to a metal table. They drained her body of blood. All the girls were forced to watch her take her last breath so they knew not to do the same thing.”

“Fuck! It’s the same guy!” Cam said animatedly. “Jolene… She mentioned something similar.”

Greg looked at him and slowly nodded. “I know.”

“What?! You knew it was the same guy? How?”

“I was warned. I took Angie away that night and I stayed in Chicago. It was stupid of me, but I thought that no harm could come to her with a detective for a fiancé. I ignored her constant pleas to leave town.”

“Well, at least we have a location. Where was this hotel?”

Greg shook his head. “That’s no guarantee. Based on what Angie told me, he moved the girls around constantly. He had them all over the country. Just because
she
was in Chicago, it didn’t mean that he was. She said that he had a whole slew of men working for him, keeping his operation running. The hotel was just a place he sent the girls to see clients. He didn’t keep them there. She wouldn’t tell me where they were kept. I don’t think she even knew. According to her, he liked to keep them disoriented so they couldn’t get away, and even if they did, they would have no idea where they were.”