At the middle window above him, a dull glow just hinted at light behind the curtains, and Shane could almost picture the small lamp on Jenna’s nightstand. Had Crystal gone back in to check on her? Or did Jenna need help again?
The latter question flooded a restlessness through him he really had no business feeling. Didn’t mean he could make it go away, though.
Best solution was to bug out.
Shane ghosted through the night-darkened backyards to the side street on which he’d left his truck. For shits and giggles, he drove a circuit through the apartment complex and around the immediate neighborhood surrounding Crystal’s place. Not that he ever expected to need the intel he gathered, but in his world there truly was no such thing as too much information.
He spent the ride home analyzing all his interactions with Crystal Roberts. The lie about the surname had him wondering about the first name, too. She did work in a strip club, after all. Didn’t most of the dancers take stage names? Though she wasn’t a dancer, at least not that he’d seen so far.
An image of Crystal onstage, dressed more scantily than ever before, crawled unbidden into Shane’s brain. Moving that lithe body to the music. Gyrating around a pole. Removing clothing piece by tantalizing piece. While every man in the audience eye-fucked her—
“Sonofabitch,” Shane bit out in the quiet of the cab. He shook his head and forced the image out. Focus, McCallan. He had no right to have an opinion about what she did or didn’t do anyway. So what did it matter to him?
Buuullshit, a little voice said inside his head.
“Fantastic,” he muttered. Because his subconscious was clearly aware of something he was working his ass off to ignore—that a nascent sense of investment, of responsibility was taking root where Crystal and her sister were concerned. Mission or no.
Twenty-five minutes later, Shane reached the driveway along the side of Hard Ink. Pressing the button on the black rectangular clicker he’d received just this afternoon caused the chain-link gate blocking the drive to swing inward, clearing his entrance to the parking lot beyond. His tires crunched over the gravel, and the truck’s movement set off the new motion-sensor lights. Had they really just installed all of that this morning? Seemed like days ago. Or maybe that was just his exhaustion speaking.
Because Shane couldn’t remember the last time he’d woken up in the morning feeling fully rested.
As he crossed the lot to the back door, he blew a kiss and flicked the bird to the closest security camera. He could imagine Marz’s laughter—as well as the few choice words he was probably saying in reply.
Shane keyed himself in, passed the locked door to the long-closed tattoo shop, and jogged up the cement steps to the second-floor landing. He went straight to the gym, wondering who might be up that he could debrief at this hour.
Marz and Nick sat around Marz’s desk in the far corner. Both men’s gazes cut toward him as he stepped into the room.
“Hey,” Shane said, crossing the wide space.
“Wassup, my brother? Besides your middle finger? Where’s the love?” Marz said, reclining in his chair. He was the picture of ease, with his hands laced behind his head and his feet propped on the desk, the prosthesis his cargo shorts exposed crossed over his ankle.
“Blew ya a kiss, too,” Shane said, grinning.
“You know I can’t handle these mixed signals.” Marz winked.
“How’d it go?” Nick said, rising from where he’d been propped against the desk’s edge. “Make any headway with the waitress?”
She’s not just a waitress. Shane forced himself to dial back the irritation Nick’s label had unleashed. Crystal was a waitress. It was just that, in the few hours he’d spent with her, he’d also learned she was so much more. A survivor. A sister. A caregiver. A fighter. And Shane suspected he’d only scratched the surface.
But if he spilled any of this personal reaction toward her instead of speaking about her like the operational asset she was, Nick’s radar would sound off all over the place. “A little. Not as much as I hoped, but I laid some good groundwork. And, I managed to get us some ears inside her place, too. Whatever good that may do.”
Nick’s gaze narrowed. “How’d you end up at her place?”
Shane recounted the entirety of his night, from bugging Confessions and his confrontation there with Crystal, to following her to her apartment, helping her sister, and finally questioning her after bugging her apartment. He conveniently left out the dance. And the feel of her body in his arms. And how hard she’d made him no matter how much he’d tried to rein himself in.
Marz immediately got to work on the computer, connecting to the transmitters and testing the feeds.
Shane held up a hand and started counting off on his fingers. “Here’s what I nailed down for sure. Church is involved in human trafficking. Some part of it takes place in or via Confessions. And there is a delivery taking place Wednesday night. I think I need to sit on my hands for twelve to eighteen hours and see if Crystal reaches out. In the meantime, we get some ears on those transmissions and see if she has any conversations that might be useful. If not, I’ll need to go back in and push a little harder.”
Nick nodded. “Was she as skittish as at the club?”
“Every bit. Even in her apartment. She was pretty clearly afraid I’d be found there. No doubt by whatever scumbag took a hand to her and marked her face.” Not wanting the others to see how much Crystal’s abuse affected him, Shane scrubbed his hands over his face and tugged his fingers through his hair, still stiff with the gel.
Marz froze, his gaze cutting up to Shane, while Nick’s expression slid into a scowl. “Shit. Someone beat her?” Nick asked.
Shane dropped his hands and felt a big bucket of pissed off park itself on his chest. “Yeah. Because of what we did.”
“She said that?” Nick asked, his tone subdued, like he didn’t want to rile Shane any more than he already was. Which meant Shane was doing a stellar job hiding how angry he was over this. Fantastic.
“She didn’t have to,” Shane said, needing to put an end to this topic. “Anyway, the degree of her fear and the fact that someone had no qualms marking her in a visible way both seem to point to some kind of association with a higher-up in the Church organization. And, if I’m right that this same someone outfitted her otherwise no-frills apartment with several thousand dollars in high-end media components, he’s either a boyfriend or a sugar daddy or something. Least that’s what my gut is telling me.” Though, when they’d danced, Crystal sure hadn’t responded to him like her heart had been claimed by another man. Because, damn, she’d been every bit as affected by their dance as he had. He’d put money on it.
“Sounds right,” Nick said. “Seems like the sister could be an in with Crystal, too. If the girl needs medical care she’s not getting, you could no doubt white knight it and earn some favor.”
Shane frowned. “If Jenna’s not getting treatment or medicine, she’s in some serious trouble. She had a full-blown grand mal seizure. Doubtful Crystal’s pulling in health benefits as a waitress, so unless someone’s picking up the tab, I have no idea how she’d cobble together money for the meds. They’ve gotta be damn expensive.”