More Than Words, Volume 6 Page 7

  “Good idea. I’ll put the hamburger back in the freezer.”

  “Just how thawed is it?” she asked.

  “Let me put a finger on it and see. Pretty much thawed.”

  “Then you don’t want to refreeze it. Put it in the refrigerator. We can have sloppy joes tomorrow.”

  There was silence on the other end of the line. Karen looked to make sure they hadn’t been disconnected. “Seth? Are you there?”

  “I remember Amy saying almost those same words.”

  Karen wasn’t sure what to say. “You must miss her,” she said at last.

  “I do,” he admitted.

  Karen let out a long, slow breath, waiting for him to say more. “Seth, I—”

  “It’s all right, Karen. I’ll always love Amy, but Miranda and I have to move on with our lives.”

  Karen felt a sudden lump in her throat. Did he mean what she thought he meant? Was he opening the door to a relationship with her? Was he saying he was ready to love again?

  “Karen?” he said when she didn’t speak.

  She swallowed painfully over the lump in her throat, then said, “I’ll see you at five-thirty. Don’t forget to put the hamburger back in the fridge.”

  He laughed and said, “That sounds like Amy, too.”

  She closed the phone. And smiled. It wasn’t such a bad thing to be compared to a woman she respected and admired. And whom Seth Burnett had loved.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Karen and Seth smiled at each other over Miranda’s head as they headed toward the food court in the mall. Karen thought Miranda was standing a little straighter now that she was the proud owner of a bra.

  Karen had suggested to Seth, having seen the condition of Jackie’s bras, that they buy a couple for her, too. It made the shopping trip more fun for both girls as they tried on a dozen different bras and compared how they looked in them. Miranda settled on four bras she liked and which fit her properly, while Jackie picked two.

  Karen reached out and ruffled the hair that was left at Seth’s brow after he’d had it cut and styled. “I see you finally got your hair trimmed.”

  He reached up and smoothed his shortened hair. “Figured I might as well do something useful while you guys were shopping.”

  “Daddy, Jackie and I want to look at some headbands.” Miranda pointed toward a boutique on the opposite side of the mall. “Can we meet you and Karen in the food court in fifteen minutes?”

  Karen saw that Seth was leery of letting Miranda out of his sight. She could hardly blame him. “They’ll be all right if they stick together,” she said quietly.

  “Stay together,” he said.

  “We will,” Miranda promised.

  “And don’t be late. We’ll wait to get something to eat till you join us.” He turned to Karen and said, “I don’t think I’m ever going to be able to relax when she’s out of my sight.”

  “Come with me,” she said, reaching for his hand.

  He took her hand and followed where she led. “Where are you taking me?”

  She took him to the men’s department of an upscale department store next to the food court.

  “What are we doing here?” he asked.

  She reached up and pulled the open collar of his shirt down far enough that he could see it was frayed. “I think you need a couple of new shirts.”

  “I didn’t used to be as good at doing laundry as I am now,” he admitted. “The machine grabbed a few of them and chewed them up until I learned to drop them in a heap instead of wrapping them around the agitator.”

  She began holding up shirts of various colors next to his face to see what looked best. “White with blue stripes to match your eyes,” she said, handing him a shirt. “And pink, I think.”

  “Pink? To match what?”

  “The blush on your cheeks right now,” she said with a laugh. “Blond men with tans as nice as yours look handsome in pink.”

  “Give me that shirt,” he said. “And show me where I can go put it on.”

  She fluttered her lashes playfully. “Put it on when you get home and I promise to admire you in it.”

  His glance caught on hers for a moment before he said, “Is that an invitation?”

  It was her turn to flush. She focused her gaze on the stack of shirts in front of her. “It might be.”

  He reached out and tilted her chin so she was looking up into his eyes. “I accept.”

  Karen felt a frisson of anticipation race down her spine. “Then we have a date.”

  Before he could say anything more she reminded him, “We need to pay for these shirts and go meet the girls.”

  Because the salesclerk at the register was a trainee, it took longer to pay than they’d expected. When they were finished, Seth grabbed her hand and hurried to the food court.

  “They’re probably wondering where we are,” he said as he stopped at the entrance and searched for the table where they were sitting.

  She and Seth hadn’t been standing there more than ten seconds when Jackie and Miranda appeared in front of them and shoved them back out into the mall. Both girls were white-faced.

  “What’s wrong?” Seth asked.

  “Daddy, she’s here.”

  “Who’s here?”

  “Susan,” Jackie replied. “We saw her. She’s sitting at a table talking to a girl.” She turned to Karen and said, “A girl just like me.”

  Karen wasn’t surprised at how brazen the sex traffickers were, to send Susan No-Last-Name back out, barely a month after the police had raided the motel where they’d been keeping their victims, to recruit more vulnerable young women. These pimps were ruthless and relentless.

  Seth turned to Karen and said, “What do we do? We can’t let her get away again.”

  “Keep the girls here,” she said, “so Susan doesn’t see them and get suspicious. I’ll call for backup. When they get here we’ll—”

  “What if she leaves?” Jackie interrupted. “What if she’s gone when the police get here?”

  “I’ll keep an eye on her,” Karen promised. “I won’t let that happen.” She looked into Jackie’s eyes and said, “This is what I do. Trust me.” She turned to Seth and said, “Keep them away from the food court.”

  “Come on, girls,” he said, ushering them back into the mall. “Let’s stay out of the way.”

  But Jackie wasn’t moving. “I hate her!” she cried as tears spilled onto her cheeks. “Susan lied to me. She stole my phone. She let them hurt me.”

  Karen put her arms around the girl and pulled her close. “It’s all right, Jackie. You’re safe. It’s all over.”

  The girl was sobbing incoherently. Sympathetic tears appeared in Miranda’s eyes and she hugged her friend from behind. Karen met Seth’s gaze and said, “Take her. I have work to do.”

  She watched as Jackie and Miranda both clutched at Seth.

  As she headed back into the food court he said, “Be careful, Karen. Come back safe to us.”

  Moving toward the area where Susan was sitting, Karen called her contact with the Dallas sex-trafficking task force, told him where she was and that she had a suspect that needed to be taken into custody. “How long before you can get someone here?” she asked. “Well, make it fast. I don’t know how long she’ll be here.”

  It would be much safer to take Susan into custody when she left the mall, but if there was any chance Susan intended to leave with the girl she was talking to, Karen knew she’d have to stop her. She couldn’t take a chance that the girl would end up getting abducted, as Jackie had.

  When she wasn’t on duty, Karen kept her Glock in her purse, which was specially designed to carry the weapon. She didn’t expect to have to use it today, but she was glad it was there.

  She bought herself a hamburger and a Coke and settled herself at a table close enough to Susan and the teenage girl to be able to hear what they were saying.

  “Oh, you like it? My boyfriend has a friend I’m sure would buy you cool necklaces, too,” Sus
an said.

  She was using the same spiel she’d used with Jackie. Why not? It had probably worked many times before.

  Karen ate her burger slowly while her eyes roamed the food court looking not just for the task force she’d summoned but for accomplices who might help Susan spirit the girl out of the mall and into a life of sexual slavery.

  Karen’s phone rang and she fumbled to answer it. When she finally got it to her ear she heard, “We’ve got all the exits to the food court covered.”

  “She’s all yours, unless she convinces the girl to go with her,” Karen replied. “If that happens, I’m going to intervene and keep the girl here. Susan won’t wait to see what I want. She’ll head for an exit and you can pick her up.”

  With their plan established, all Karen could do was wait.

  It didn’t take long before Susan and her victim stood. Susan said, “You’re really going to like him. Let’s go hook up with my boyfriend and he’ll introduce you.”

  Karen slid the Glock out of her purse and held it down at her side. She approached the pair with a smile on her face. “Hi. I see you’ve made a new friend,” she said to the young girl. Before the girl could protest, Karen turned to Susan, held out her free hand and said, “My name is Karen. This is my daughter. What’s your name?”

  “It was nice meeting you, Cleo,” Susan said to the girl. “And you,” she said to Karen. “But I need to take off. See you later, Cleo.”

  “But—” Cleo protested.

  When Cleo started to follow Susan, who was quickly making her way toward an exit, Karen tightened her grip on the teen’s arm and said, “I’m a policewoman. That woman, whose real name is Jane Turner, is a criminal. She’s going to be arrested when she gets outside.”

  Cleo gaped at Karen.

  Karen took advantage of the girl’s surprise to steer her toward the entrance to the food court. “Is your mom here at the mall with you?”

  The girl shook her head.

  “Do you have a cell phone with you?”

  The girl nodded.

  “Why don’t you call your mom? I’d like to talk with her.”

  The girl fumbled her phone out of her purse, hit a speed dial number and said in a trembling voice, “Mom? I think I’m in trouble. There’s a policewoman here who wants to talk to you.”

  Karen took the phone the girl held out and said, “Your daughter’s not in trouble, ma’am, but she’s had a narrow escape.”

  She explained what had happened and asked Cleo’s mother to come to the mall and pick up her daughter. “Yes, I’ll keep an eye on her until you get here.”

  Karen had just completed the call when she heard shouts coming from the area of the mall where she’d left Seth and the girls.

  “Wait here,” she said to Cleo. “Don’t move!”

  She broke into a run when she heard the first scream.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  When the sex-trafficking task force arrived, Seth noticed they were dressed all in black with bulletproof vests, like SWAT. They quietly and capably moved everyone away from the food court exits, to give themselves a safe perimeter in which to arrest Susan No-Last-Name. He kept his arms around both girls’ shoulders as they stepped back out of the way.

  “I hope Karen’s all right,” Miranda said.

  “I’m sure she’s fine,” Seth said, hiding the worry he felt. He wondered if Susan was carrying a gun. He knew Karen kept one with her at all times, because he’d seen her take it out of her holster—or out of her purse—and lock it up in a gun safe the moment she got home. He hoped she wasn’t going to have to use it.

  “Oh. Oh.”

  Seth followed Jackie’s pointing finger to a well-dressed older man standing well clear of the police perimeter on the opposite side of the mall.

  Jackie tugged on Seth’s shirt until he leaned down, then she said in a ragged, breathless voice, “That’s Susan’s boyfriend. He’s one of the men who beat me up.”

  The tall, thin man’s watchful gaze turned back in their direction and he spotted Jackie. Seth watched him jerk as though he’d been struck. He obviously hadn’t been expecting to see a victim the police had rescued from his clutches at a mall on the opposite side of town.

  Seth looked to see if he could catch the eye of one of the task force police, but they were moving in the other direction, apparently responding to instructions they were receiving over their police radios.

  He realized the man who’d beaten Jackie was leaving, moving quickly but not running, so he wouldn’t draw attention to himself.

  “He’s getting away,” Jackie protested. “We have to stop him!”

  “Jackie, we—”

  The girl pulled free and ran after the stranger, screaming at the top of her lungs. Miranda yanked herself out of his grasp and followed her friend, shrieking at Jackie to be careful.

  Jackie threw the bag that contained her bras at the villain but it flew a few feet beyond him. Nevertheless, he was forced to slow down to avoid tripping over it. Miranda saw what Jackie had done and threw her bag, as well.

  Both girls shrieked with joy when it hit him in the back of the head. A pale pink bra flew out of the bag and landed across his shoulder.

  Seth ran after the girls and quickly overtook them. He grabbed Miranda by the arm, then reached out and caught Jackie’s shirt, hanging on for dear life as the girl struggled to get free. “Let him go!” he said. “The police will catch him.”

  “No, they won’t!” Jackie cried. “He’s getting away!”

  Which was when Karen went flying past them at full speed, her Glock in hand. “Stop!” she warned the man. “Police!”

  The felon looked over his shoulder at Karen, saw she couldn’t fire her weapon because of the people in the mall around him, and kept on running.

  Seth held his breath, wondering what Karen was going to do if she did catch up with the guy, who was easily six inches taller than she was and outweighed her by fifty pounds.

  A moment later he found out. Karen shoved her gun into the purse slung around her shoulder and launched herself bodily at the fleeing man. They both went down in a heap.

  Seth ran toward the tangle of bodies, the two girls racing alongside him. By the time they reached Karen, she had her knee in the middle of the tall man’s back and a metal cuff around one of his wrists. Seth had known she also kept a pair of cuffs in her purse, but he’d never expected to see her use them.

  She finished cuffing the man, then stood, grabbed one of his arms to help him and ordered, “Get up.”

  As the man struggled to his feet, Jackie attacked him with her fists. “I hate you! I could kill you!”

  Karen intercepted the girl and hugged her tight as task force officers took custody of the suspect. “It’s all right, Jackie. He isn’t going to be hurting anyone for a very long time.” She pulled Miranda into a comforting three-way embrace, and Seth stepped forward to wrap his arms around all of them.

  He was surprised when he realized Karen was trembling. She’d acted so quickly and competently that he’d never imagined she might have been scared.

  He met her gaze above the girls’ heads and said, “Are you okay?”

  “I think so. I was so scared….”

  “You didn’t look scared or act scared.”

  “I wasn’t scared for myself. I was terrified that creep would hurt one of the girls.”

  The head of the task force arrived and said, “We arrested Jane Turner when she left the mall. Nice work, Toller.”

  Seth watched as two task force members held the suspect Karen had tackled while they replaced her handcuffs with their own and gave Karen’s back to her. Seth watched in disbelief as she calmly returned them to her purse.

  She caught him staring at her and said, “Don’t look so worried. This almost never happens.”

  “Almost never?” he said.

  “I don’t normally have to arrest the bad guys,” she said.

  But it was plain she was fully capable of doing it. “Remind me no
t to make you mad,” he said.

  She managed a crooked smile and turned to tell the girls, “I’ve got to go back to the office for a little while. We can talk about all this when I get home.”

  Home sounded pretty good right now, Seth thought. He watched as Karen walked off with the head of the sex-trafficking task force.

  A gangly teenage boy approached the two girls with the bags they’d thrown at the suspect in one hand and the pink bra dangling in the other. “Here you go,” he said holding out the bags.

  Jackie took both bags from him and handed Miranda’s to her.

  The boy held out the pink bra and said, “Which one of you does this belong to?”

  “I’ll take that,” Miranda said, snatching it out of his hand, her face as pink as the bra.

  “Don’t I know you?” the boy said to Miranda.

  “We have English together,” she said. “I sit two seats behind you.”

  “Yeah. I liked your story. I’m Jeremy. What’s your name?”

  “Miranda. This is my friend Jackie.”

  “I have math with you,” Jackie said.

  “You do?” he said, surprised. “I don’t think I’ve seen you.”

  “I sit in the back row.”

  “Oh. Well.”

  The teens stared at each other for another minute before the boy said, “Guess I’ll see you at school.”

  The minute he was out of hearing, the two girls grinned at each other, then broke out in giggles.

  “What’s so funny?” Seth asked.

  “Jeremy Donaldson is the cutest boy in school,” Miranda said. “And he had his hands all over my bra.”

  “Do not,” he said, “repeat what you just said to anyone else. Ever.”

  Miranda laughed. “You should see the look on your face, Daddy.”

  Seth wished Karen were here to share the delicious irony of the moment. As he hustled the girls out of the mall, Seth realized he was looking forward to hearing her laughter when he repeated what Miranda had said.

  He would also be very interested to hear her thoughts on how he could delay the moment—hopefully far in the future—when his daughter happily invited some boy to put his hands all over her bra.