Page 15 of Midnight’s Captive (Stroke of Midnight #2)
Taryn tapped lightly on the door. “Giselle?”
Not wanting to appear threatening or make any moves that frightened the new girl, she stepped back to the other side of the hallway.
“Yes?” A soft voice, barely audible, replied through the door.
“It’s Taryn. Can we talk for a few minutes?”
“Um, okay.” Locks turned, then the door opened a crack. Giselle peeked around the edge of the door. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine,” Taryn reassured her. “But I need to ask you a few questions. Can I come in? Or we can go to my office.”
The girl paled.
Dammit. She hadn’t meant to sound like both good cop and bad cop.
“Or we can go to the kitchen,” Taryn added.
“The kitchen.” Her voice was still soft, but Giselle’s response was decisive. She slipped through the crack between the bedroom door and the door frame. The flowing pants and baggy sweater made Giselle look even smaller than she had the first night. Having originally seen the girl in her skintight dress, Taryn wasn’t surprised by the loose clothes.
Taryn kept a closet full of new clothes that she offered to the women who stayed here. They could pick anything they wanted and if they couldn’t find anything that fit, Taryn purchased it. She truly believed it was the first step to reclaiming their lives and was glad Giselle had found clothes she was comfortable in.
Side by side, they walked to the kitchen. The lights flickered on automatically when they entered the room. “Want anything?” Taryn asked.
“I’ll take a beer.” Giselle looked everywhere but at Taryn.
“Yeah, um, no.” Taryn bit back a laugh.
Giselle dropped into a seat and glared at her. “Why the hell not?”
“Because you’re what, twelve?”
“I’m eighteen.” Her tone dared Taryn to challenge her.
“Bullshit. At the most, you’re fifteen.” Taryn studied Giselle while she poured two cups of coffee. Her dark hair was caught up in two simple braids on either side of her face, adding to her childlike look. Taryn placed a mug in front of Giselle. She wrapped her hand around the other and took the seat across from Giselle.
“Almost seventeen,” Giselle mumbled. She took a sip of the coffee and spit it back into her cup. “Oh my god, can’t I get some sugar or something?”
Taryn slid the container of sugar cubes across the table to Giselle.
One, two, three, four went into her cup before she tasted it again. Then she dropped in another two. Taryn’s teeth ached just watching her.
“How are you doing?” She watched the girl closely.
“Um, okay?” Giselle took a gulp of her coffee-flavored sugar.
“Good.” Taryn wasn’t sure how to have this conversation. Never in all the years she’d been doing this had someone come to Razor Jack’s looking for a missing girl. That was how careful she was.
The fact that Giselle’s pimp had started here...
Her stomach cramped and Taryn set the coffee cup down. The bitter brew probably wasn’t the best idea right now.
“What do you want?” Giselle set the cup down on the table with a thunk.
“I can’t just check in?” Taryn deliberately pushed her buttons.
“Sure, you can,” she said sarcastically, “but you aren’t. You want something.”
Taryn hated that she was already so jaded, but that’s what the streets did. Chewed girls up and spit them out. “You’re right. I was trying to make you feel better first.”
A snort from across the table. Taryn smiled. “You want it straight?”
Giselle nodded.
“Okay.” Taryn sucked in a deep breath. She was about to seriously ruin this girl’s day. “Your pimp came into the bar tonight looking for you. I don’t know how he found you.”
Giselle paled. The blood drained from her face so quickly that Taryn worried she’d pass out.
“Did you tell him? Are you handing me back to him?” She lurched back from the table and scrambled to her feet. Coffee sloshed out of her mug.
Before she could race out of the room, Taryn grabbed her arm. Giselle struggled, but she couldn’t break Taryn’s grip. Her fear was almost tangible, and Taryn shivered. She remembered that feeling.
“It’s okay. You’re safe.” Taryn spoke quietly, as if soothing a skittish animal. “Sit down. Please.”
Giselle resisted, her body trembling. She strained toward the door.
Taryn gently steered her back to her chair. When Giselle finally sat, Taryn hooked her foot around the bottom rung and dragged the chair closer to the table, minimizing her ability to escape.
“I swear I didn’t tell him where you were. I never would.” Taryn leaned close. Made sure that the other woman looked at her. “That’s why I wanted to talk to you. Do you have any idea why he would come in here asking for you? Have you been here before?”
“I don’t even know where we are,” Giselle said sullenly.
Taryn pursed her lips. That was probably true. She’d had the girl hide when they’d left the sleazy hotel and entered through the back of the bar. She knew Taryn was the Jack, but she obviously hadn’t realized what that meant.
“You’re at Razor Jack’s,” Taryn said.
“The bar?”
Taryn nodded. “The rooms are in the back.”
“That’s why you didn’t want me wandering around.”
That sounded like an accusation. Or maybe Taryn was just tired. “Yes and no. I wanted you to use this time to rest. Let your body heal. Let your mind accept that you’re safe.”
Giselle snorted. Her skin was still pale, but she’d stopped shaking. “Except he found me.”
“No. He didn’t find you. He asked about you, but he didn’t get his hands on you and he won’t. But did he ever bring you here? Did anybody?”
“No. He kept me and the other girls on the other side of town, over by the old high school.”
There wasn’t just one “old” high school in Seattle, but there were a lot fewer than expected for a city that was two hundred years old. Online school had rendered many of them obsolete and many had been demolished to make room for more skyscrapers. The area Taryn had assumed was the pimp’s territory included an old school. She had no idea what it was used for these days.
Taryn reached out and patted the girl’s hand. “That’s what I thought his territory was, too.”
She’d terrorized Giselle and still wasn’t any closer to discovering why he’d shown up tonight. Frustration clawed at her insides.
“Did he have any rivals? Enemies who might have territory around here?”
Over the past few years, Taryn had leveraged the Jack’s reputation to eradicate the pimps who claimed territory around the bar. Most people believed they’d left of their own volition—which they had, if you counted threats of bodily harm and disappearance as their own decision. When new pimps had tried to move into the territory, well, they didn’t last long.
Giselle shook her head again. “I don’t know. I’m sorry.” She sounded frustrated, which was better than scared in Taryn’s mind.
“It’s okay. I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t missing any information.” Taryn took a deep breath and prepared to ask her last, worst question. “Could he have put a second tracking device on you?”
“No!” Giselle trembled and wrapped her hands around her middle. Taryn expected her to cry, but she was a fighter and held her tears back. She hated to think about how Giselle had learned that skill.
“No,” Giselle repeated. “Do you think there’s another one?”
Fuck. How was Taryn supposed to answer that? She didn’t think so, but to risk everything she’d built on a hunch?
She chose her words carefully and tried to be reassuring. “No, I don’t think so. But I want to be sure. Just in case your pimp was tricky and used a second one.”
She braced for Giselle’s reaction. Once again, she proved stronger than expected.
After several fortifying sips of heavily sugared coffee, Giselle clutched her mug in both hands and stared into it. “What do I have to do?”
“We’ll need to do a second scan, with stronger equipment.”
“Can I think about it?” Giselle asked.
Shit, Giselle wasn’t going to like her answer. Taryn needed to be respectful of her feelings, but the answer was no. “I want to say yes, Giselle, but I can’t. I need to know for sure so I can protect you and the other girls.” Taryn looked her straight in the eyes. “Do you understand?”
She sniffled, but nodded. “I understand. If there’s a second tracker, will you send me away?”
“Absolutely not.” Taryn reached over and squeezed her hands. “We’ll do the scan now and if there’s a second one, we’ll take care of it the same way we did the first one. Okay?”
With one last sniff, Giselle straightened and nodded. “Okay. Let’s do it.”