“Chimera isn’t with me right now.”
Unreasonable anger swelled. “You got rid of my cat?”
“No! Damn, do you always have to think the worst of me?” He released her leg and squeezed the wheel with both hard-knuckled hands. “She’s with my dad right now. Or actually, my dad’s man.”
“Your dad’s man?” Kennedy blinked. “What exactly does that mean?”
He shook his head. “Tell you what. Let’s come back to that later, okay? For now, just know that Chimera is well loved and cared for.” He tipped his head to the pile of stuff he’d dumped on the floor. “Check out those wallets, see if you know either of those bozos. Keep their licenses out so I can give their names to my brother.”
“Your brother? The guy who’s even taller than you?” She’d seen him once at the gym, along with a woman who looked equally beautiful and badass, as if she could chew rusty nails while seducing someone.
The relationship to the brother had been plain. Both men shared superb physiques, incredible height and gorgeous faces. Reyes’s eyes were a warm hazel, but his brother’s had been bright blue. At six foot four, Reyes was tall, but his brother had a few inches on him. Of course she’d noticed the brother—it would have been hard not to—but unlike the other women at the gym that day, Kennedy hadn’t gawked.
“Babe, if you keep questioning everything I say, we’re never going to get this show on the road.”
Get the show on the road? Her life was in a shambles and he cavalierly—
“I got this, okay?” He glanced at her, then returned his gaze to the dark road. “Cooperation would be nice, but you have my word, I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
And there it was, that cockiness she knew would make her feel better. “Okay. Thank you.”
His grin created an over-the-top dimple in his cheek. A man like Reyes McKenzie didn’t need the added charm of dimples, for God’s sake.
“Licenses?” he prompted with an endless store of patience.
“Right.” Having a purpose galvanized her. Her fumbling hands accidentally dumped one wallet, and she didn’t care. Quickly she located both IDs, studying the faces, hopeful of making sense of what had happened. “No.” Deflated, she dropped back in the seat. Damn, she really had to get a grip. “I’ve never seen them before.”
“No big deal.” He glanced at her again. “How’d you get out of the apartment?”
“I wasn’t there. I was on my way home from the airport after a weekend in Texas.”
With no expression at all, he asked, “Doing what?”
She really didn’t feel like summing up her entire life for him, but she supposed it was necessary. “I’m a professional speaker, specifically for schools and colleges.” Every muscle in her body tensed. She watched his profile, counted five beats of her heart, then made herself whisper, “I cover the dangers of human trafficking.”
Slowly he nodded, as if that answered a question he hadn’t yet asked. “You have that knowledge from experience?”
Five more heartbeats, each strong and steady. It was a practice she’d learned to remind herself that as long as her heart beat, she was alive.
And as long as she was alive, she had hope.
Tonight she had more than hope.
She had Reyes McKenzie.
“Should I gather from your silence that you don’t want to talk about it?”
Giving up her scrutiny of his face, she stared out the passenger window. “I talk about it all the time. Professional speaker, remember?”
Accepting that, he asked, “How old were you?”
So matter-of-fact, as if she hadn’t just imparted life-altering news. Most people were taken aback at the mention of something as heinous as trafficking. They balked and usually changed the subject.
None of which would help a person taken into captivity.
What victims needed, especially young people, was information. Ways to avoid being taken, and what to do if they were.
No one had ever reacted as Reyes just had. So what was his real vocation? Definitely, he did a lot more than just running a gym.
“I feel like everything I say causes you this painful introspection. I’m sorry for that, okay? But the best way for us to tackle this is to first understand it.”
Kennedy knew he was right. She filled her lungs with a bracing breath. “I’d just turned twenty-one. Fresh out of college. A know-it-all.” In truth, she hadn’t known a damn thing, not about the real world. “I tell kids what to watch for, how important it is to have situational awareness, and what it means to risk going out alone.”
“Did you get taken from Texas? Or here in Colorado?”
“Florida,” she answered. Going into speaker mode, she insulated herself from harsh memories. “I was jogging on the beach, enjoying my solitude, thinking about my future...” She remembered it all in sharp-edged detail. “The next thing I knew, men had me, one with his hand so tight over my mouth I thought I would suffocate. I lost a sneaker in the sand. My shirt ripped.”
Again he cupped her knee, the simple connection offering needed comfort.
“I got stuffed into a van and taken to a house with a few other women, some of them drugged unconscious.” Tension gathered along her neck and upper spine. “That was punishment if you tried to get away. I saw two women held down while another woman injected them.”
“The woman who injected them—she worked with the traffickers?”
“Yes.” And that was something Kennedy still struggled with. How could one woman do that to another? She’d made a point of being the opposite. She helped not only women, but also children and some men.
“It’s an ugly business. Anyone who’s not a monster can’t make sense of it.”
Very true. “After a few weeks, I got away only because another one of the captives sacrificed herself. Literally.” Kennedy rubbed her forehead, thinking of Sharlene and how she’d tried to mother everyone, even the women who were the same age as her. “There was one guy known for cruelty. He wasn’t satisfied with rape. He...” Her throat closed. These were details she didn’t share during her talks, not because they weren’t important, but because they were far too personal.
Reyes lifted his hand from her knee, turning it palm up, waiting. When she put her hand in his, he enfolded it in his strength. Somehow, he seemed to know what to do to help.
Amazing.
“Her name was Sharlene. She was thirty years old and the most beautiful soul I’ve ever met. More than once she convinced a man that he wanted her instead of one of the other girls. She’d tell us to be really quiet, to avoid eye contact, and then she’d draw attention to herself.” Kennedy stared at him. “She was used so poorly, and she did it anyway—to spare the rest of us.”