Abaco was still growling deep in her throat. I didn’t dare let her go.
“What’s going on here, Seychelle? What did she mean by trouble?” He held his hands wide, his palms lifted. “What can I do to help?”
“Sunny called you?”
“Yes. Where is she?” He looked around the combined living room/kitchen and then headed into the bedroom. Abaco tried to lunge at him as he walked past us, and it took all my strength to hold the dog back.
From the bedroom I heard him say, “Sunny, it’s okay. I’m here now.” There was something not quite right about how he said it. It was too calm.
I got my fingers firmly around the dog’s collar and dragged her to the bathroom, and locked the door.
When I turned around, James was kneeling in the closet opening, and he had freed the rope around Sunny’s legs with a small keychain knife. He helped her to her feet. He’d removed her gag, and she shouted, “Sey!” before her voice was cut short so suddenly, the silence that followed sounded louder than her cry.
In my dark bedroom, the scene lacked color of any sort. The walls, the closet with the swaying empty hangers, the back of James’s head, all were colored only in black and white and muted shades of gray. In that quick glimpse I’d caught of her face, Sunny’s wide white eyes and pale skin made me remember James’s paintings hanging in the gallery down on Las Olas.
“James, what ...,” I started to say, but then I saw that same little half smile on his face, his head cocked to one side. His hand was wrapped around her throat, his brown skin contrasting with hers, the position grotesque yet familiar.
“James, let go of her!” I grabbed his arm and tried to wrench it free. A burst of lights went off in my head, and I found myself on the floor, the side of my head feeling like a firecracker had exploded in my ear.
“Man, that feels good.” Cesar was standing just inside the door to my room, smiling and rubbing his fist. Zeke pushed past him and took James by the arm.
“Mr. Long, not yet. We can still use her.” He peeled James’s fingers from Sunny’s neck. She began coughing and gasping for air. Zeke shook his head and said to Cesar, “The man just doesn’t know his own strength.”
James adjusted his shirt and cleared his throat, blinking at Zeke for a moment as though struggling to remember who he was. “That’s enough, Zeke.”
“No disrespect, but the boss would be pissed if you did this one before he got a shot at her.”
In the video. The arm.
I launched myself at James before I’d had time to think it through. A high-pitched wail filled the room, and even I was startled at some deep level to realize the sound had come from me.
Finally, Zeke grabbed me about my midsection and pulled me off him. James had never stopped smiling.
B. J. was half asleep or unconscious when we all came into the house through the kitchen, but the noise woke him, and he started to heave himself up off the couch before he saw the gun in Zeke’s hand.
“What...”
“Relax, lie back down,” James said. He turned on a small lamp. “See, everyone here is fine.”
“Sey...”
I didn’t answer him. There was nothing left in me. Zeke pushed me toward the love seat, and I fell back into the cushions and covered my face with my hands.
I had kissed those lips. I had touched him, laughed with him. If we hadn’t been interrupted that night by someone, probably Neal, looking in the window, I might have slept with him. First Neal, then James. What was wrong with me? I rubbed at my lips and felt dampness, and realized I had been crying.
Cesar dragged Sunny into the room with his big hand clamped over her mouth. “I think she likes me.” He stuck out his thick tongue and ran it over the side of her face.
“Hey, let her go,” B.J. said, pushing up into a sitting position and then finding Zeke’s gun again pointed at his face.
Sunny’s eyes met mine, looking not so much afraid as resigned. Cesar’s hand held her head tight against his upper abdomen.
I forced myself to sit up on the couch. “Dammit, James.” Even my voice sounded soft. “Make him leave her alone.”
“Seychelle, you’re so predictable. It’s certainly made it easy to follow you. We would have been here sooner except for the fact that this idiot”—he motioned toward Cesar—“couldn’t put two and two together when he heard the boat engines start up earlier.”
Cesar looked at James through his wide-set eyes and his upper lip curled.
“I’m surrounded by idiots.” He waved his hand at Zeke and Cesar.
Cesar’s grip on Sunny’s head grew so tight, the blood drained from his fingers. He and James were locked in some sort of staring match.
“She’s just a kid, James,” I said. When I got no response, I added, “I don’t know why I’m even bothering. You’re no different from either of them.” I jerked my head toward Cesar and Zeke.
“Actually, I’m quite different.” James turned to face me, and his smile turned into a self-satisfied smirk. “I see her as a commodity. I understand the business potential. Men have an appetite for young girls like Sunny.” He spread his hands apart, palms up. “It’s the law of supply and demand.”
“You sick, twisted jerk.”
“No, Seychelle, it’s not that much different from selling cars or shoes. I’m just a good businessman. It takes a certain kind of talent—insight, if you will—to recognize opportunities.”
“Talent? Who are you kidding?”
“I’m serious. I first met Crystal at a Harbor House fund-raiser, and I recognized the opportunity immediately. I could see he was fascinated with what I did, working with young girls every day. He told me he was interested in meeting privately with young girls, and I had an endless supply of runaways. We never had enough beds for all of them at Harbor House, anyway.”
“Stop it. Why are you telling me this?”
He reached over, took my hand, and pressed it between his. I yanked my hand back as though I’d been burned. “I’m just a good businessman, that’s all. Crystal’s the one with the need, always wanting someone fresh, unsuspecting, someone who will fight hard. Who am I to judge? Live and let live.” He laughed out loud then, as though at some private joke.
“When it was just the beatings, I paid the girls well, and they left happy. He got jobs for some of them in the club, and they could make lots of money there.
“Then he started with the video camera. The timing was perfect. I got us onto the Internet, contracted with servers around the world.”
“That’s right, Long,” Cesar said, his guttural voice lower than usual. “You’re the man.” He turned to me. “Dude never wanted to get his hands dirty, always acting like he’s better than us, till one day he found out he likes squeezing off chicks.”
James moved so fast, Cesar never saw it coming. Sunny fell to the floor and James held Cesar’s wrist twisted high behind his back. “No one asked your opinion, now, did we, Mr. Esposito?”
When Cesar didn’t answer James applied more pressure to the bent wrist. Cesar grunted.
“I didn’t hear you.”
“I said I’m fucking sorry,” Cesar said, his voice strained.
The room seemed unnaturally quiet just before we heard the crack of breaking bone, followed by Cesar’s scream.
James smiled as he looked down at the man now crumpled on the floor cradling his wrist and whimpering. Then he smoothed out imaginary creases in his clothing, reached into the pocket of his slacks, and pulled out a cell phone. “You look a mess, Seychelle, you know that? That’s a shame, beautiful girl like you.”
“James, Neal’s outsmarted us all. He’s out there collecting Crystal’s money,” I said.