Denied Read online

  If it wasn’t for the constant nerves twisting her stomach, and the gun in her purse, Lily would have thought it a good day for a road trip.

  The sky was a brilliant blue overhead, and when she caught sight of the ocean, it twinkled and sparkled, reflecting the sunlight. Lily kept her eyes glued to the window, hoping to spot something that would give her a clue as to where she’d been held, but so far everything appeared far too touristy. Also, they’d only been in the car for less than an hour, and she was certain she’d been taken a greater distance from L.A. than this, though, because she’d been unconscious for a part of the journey, it was impossible to know for sure.

  Cameron took guesses as to what she was looking for, his relaxed, cheerful manner the complete opposite to what was going on inside Lily. But though he asked questions jokingly, she knew he was still trying to get information out of her.

  “It has to be something to do with the coast,” he mused, his face scrunched up a little as he thought. “So is it a boat? You’re looking for a boat.”

  “Nope.”

  “A certain beach, then, where you spent time as a child and want to find again.”

  “Way off,” she said.

  “Hmm …” He rubbed his chin, scratching the couple of days’ growth of stubble. “A beach bar where you once had an evening of unsuitable sex before never seeing the guy again!”

  “Cameron!” she exclaimed. “Definitely not.”

  “So put me out of my misery and give me a clue.”

  “Not a chance. I already told you I can’t tell you anything, and now you’re distracting me. Do your job and concentrate on the road.”

  He sighed. “You’re a slave driver, anyone ever tell you that?”

  “Yeah, the last slave who died of exhaustion. Now quit it.”

  But the mention of the word slave had hit close to home. She’d covered her emotions with a little banter, but hadn’t that almost been her fate? And, while she might have escaped, all those other girls she’d been locked up with hadn’t.

  “You okay?” he asked, glancing over at her. He must have sensed her change in mood. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to push you.”

  “It’s okay, I’m fine. I just need to concentrate.”

  She twisted in her seat to check out the rear window and make sure she hadn’t missed anything. Lily frowned. A black sedan was behind them—not so far away that they would lose sight of it, but not close enough to see any details about the vehicle either.

  She turned forward, chewing her lip. She didn’t know why the car had set off all her internal alarms. They were on a fairly busy road, of course there were going to be other vehicles. It was nothing. She was just jumpy and suspicious at the moment.

  Even so, she turned back again. The car had fallen farther behind, so it was almost out of view, but she saw the blinker come on for the next turn off.

  She twisted around to the front and relaxed a fraction. She was being paranoid.

  After an hour, they stopped at a roadside café to grab more coffee. By this point Lily was wondering if she really needed anything else hyping up her nerves. But she was still hungry—as though her body wanted her to make up for all the meals she’d missed—and wanted to pick up a sandwich as well. They left the car in the lot and went inside. The place was bustling with people, a line of customers waiting at the counter. Cameron joined the queue while she used the restroom, and then they switched. When they reached the front of the queue, she chose a pastrami and rye, and they got their food to go. They’d eat in the car while Cameron drove.

  Lily stepped out of the café and froze.

  The black car she’d seen behind them was parked across the other side of the lot.

  “What’s wrong?” asked Cameron as she stood, staring.

  She shook her head. “I’m not sure. It’s probably nothing, but that car was behind us most of the way here.”

  He shrugged. “It’s pretty much a single lane, so that’s not unsurprising.”

  “But why has it stopped here?”

  “Plenty of people have stopped here. It looks like a popular place to eat.”

  “Yeah, I know,” she glanced over at the black sedan again—a Lexus, she could see now. “I’m sure you’re right.”

  “Of course I’m right.”

  She forced a smile and followed Cameron toward their vehicle. She pulled open the passenger door and climbed inside, but the presence of the Lexus worried at her like a stone in her shoe. She tried to shake it off. Cameron was right—there were plenty of other vehicles on the road that had stopped off here. Why was that particular car giving her the chills? Instincts, she told herself. Trust your instincts. She hadn’t the night she’d been taken, and look where that had gotten her.

  “Wait here a moment,” she said, getting back out of the car.

  “Lily?” he called after her, but she didn’t answer. Breaking into a trot, she hurried toward the car. She glanced around, trying to see if anyone was approaching. She waited for the yell of someone asking what she was doing around their car, but none came. The car was big and expensive, and she knew it would be alarmed, so she didn’t bother tugging on the handle to see if the door had been left unlocked. Instead, she cupped her hands either side of her face to peer in the driver’s window.

  She didn’t know what she thought she might see. It wasn’t as though a photograph of herself was sitting on the passenger seat. The interior appeared immaculate, and she didn’t spot any clues as to who was driving.

  Lily straightened and stepped away from the Lexus, glancing around.

  No one had rushed out of the café demanding to know what she was doing with their car. She could go back into the café and ask who owned the vehicle, but then what would she say? Were you following me? She’d only make herself look like a crazy person, and if someone was following her, then she’d just let him know she was onto him. Plus, it wasn’t as though he was going to say yes.

  She walked back to Cameron’s car, her eyes glued to the café in case someone was watching her from one of the windows, though no one caught her eye. Without saying anything, she climbed back in the car.

  “Feel better now?” Cameron asked.

  “No, not really, but I guess I’ll be keeping an eye out for that car as well.”

  “As well as this mysterious thing we’re looking for?”

  “That’s right.”

  She was aware she must sound like an extremely paranoid crazy person. A crazy person with a gun in her purse. Suddenly filled with a fresh burst of paranoia, she checked her purse. The gun was exactly where she’d left it. It occurred to her that she really should have taken her purse with her when she’d gone to check out the other vehicle. She sighed and shook her head at herself. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for all this shit.

  “We’ll be hitting the freeway soon,” said Cameron, taking her sigh for worry rather than annoyance at herself. “No one’s going to be able to follow us on there.”

  He reached out and touched her cheek lightly with his knuckle.

  All at once, a memory flooded back to her. She was lying in Monster’s bed, him beside her, but fully dressed. They weren’t alone. Another man was in the room with them, on the other side of the bed, opposite Monster. He appeared to be touching her arm. No, not touching, tapping.

  “What’s going ...?” she managed to ask.

  But then a jab of pain spiked through her arm. She hissed air in over her teeth and tried to jerk her arm away, but already a strange warmth flowed through her body, and she felt the pull of sleep trying to drag her under.

  “What ...?” She tried to ask the question again. What’s going on? But now her tongue felt thick, and her mouth didn’t move as she wanted it to.

  Monster reached out and touched her cheek with his knuckles. “I’m so sorry, Flower. I had no idea it would come to this. I love you and I only want you to be safe.”

  She tried to reply, but this time all she could do was make a distant moan. She knew she should b
e frightened, but only a drowsy sense of calm settled inside her. Though she wanted to keep her eyes open and find out what was going on, her eyelids suddenly felt like the heaviest things in the world.

  As they slipped shut, she heard him say, “You gave me no other choice ...”

  Twelve

  A touch on her hand made her jump.

  “Everything all right?” Cameron asked.

  She gave her head a slight shake to bring herself out of her reverie. “Yes, sorry. I just remembered something.”

  “Anything important?”

  “No. Well, yes, but nothing you need to know about.”

  “You don’t have to shut down on me all the time, Lily,” he said, his expression pained. “I wish you’d trust me with something. You’d feel better if you talked about it.”

  “I’m sorry, but there’s no chance talking will make me feel any better.”

  Cameron sighed and started up the car. They pulled out of the roadside café’s parking lot, Lily casting a glance at the Lexus as they went. No one else had approached the other vehicle.

  Her thoughts went back to those last moments with Monster. The drugs that had been given to her via an IV must have blocked out that particular memory until now. What did it mean? “I love you,” he’d said, “and I only want you to be safe.” So she’d been right in thinking Monster had done what he had because he still cared about her. Did she allow herself that little bit of hope, or did that make her insane to be wanting to care about a man who had allowed someone else to drug her and have her moved to another country?

  They rode in silence, and she sensed the tension radiating from Cameron. He’d given up teasing and questioning her, but concentrated on driving instead, his expression stony. She guessed he was regretting giving her a ride now, but even though it made her feel like a complete bitch, she couldn’t allow that to distract her. She’d warned him not to come along.

  After another forty-five minutes, they entered a small town. The place had an industrial atmosphere, though it was also coastal. Tall, chain-link fences, topped with barbed wire, appeared to surround everything—including what appeared to be completely empty lots—and scraggly palm trees dotted the wide, barren streets and coastline. The buildings were plain and rectangular, painted cream with red roofs. Everything had a temporary feel to it, as though it had sprung up, not expecting to still be around this long.

  Lily’s eyes narrowed. “What is this place?”

  “A Marine Corps base, I think.”

  Her heart had increased its pace, pattering in her chest. “Do you think there might be an airfield nearby?”

  “I guess so. If they’re military, you’d think they would.”

  It was crazy. Surely Cigarette Hands and his crew weren’t trafficking women from a Marine base? Might they even be Marines, or perhaps had been once upon a time and so knew their way around this area? She couldn’t imagine the whole camp being used at once. Perhaps a part of it had been abandoned and closed off.

  She felt sick with nerves. While the prospect of finding them this morning had filled her with a righteous anger, now she was terrified.

  Cameron looked at her curiously. “I take it we might have found the thing you were looking for?”

  “I’m not completely certain yet, but it’s definitely a possibility.”

  “You want me to pull over?”

  “Yeah. Go for it.”

  Though the area must originally have been a temporary Marine base, a whole town had sprung up around it. The place was sparse, dry, and dusty—a convenience store, a gas station, and a handful of takeout places staggered along the main street.

  They went to the gates leading on to the Marine base. Armed men checked who entered and left. Lily had no plans of entering, of course. She didn’t think where she’d been kept was on the base, but possibly was located in the same area or another part of town. There was something else she needed to know.

  “Excuse me?” she asked.

  The young Marine looked at her curiously. “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Do you know if there’s an airport around here?”

  He frowned slightly. “Not an airport as such, ma’am, but there is a private airfield about three miles east out of town.”

  “Thank you. One more question? Are there any big shipping containers around here?”

  “Shipping containers?”

  “Yeah, you know, big metal containers that are used to transport things on ships.”

  “Not that I’ve come across, but if you keep heading north out of town and then take the first exit, there used to be a port where the base brought supplies in and out of town. It’s been shut down a decade or more, though, and I’m pretty sure it’s all locked up. I don’t know what you think you’d find there.”

  She gave her head a slight shake and threw him her brightest smile. “Oh, nothing. I came here years ago as a kid with my parents, and I had a memory of some of the places they took me, but I wasn’t totally sure if I’d remembered them or imagined them. You ever do that?”

  The young man gave her that same baffled look. “Why don’t you just ask your folks?”

  “They died a few years ago.”

  “I’m sorry. It would be a strange place to take a kid sightseeing, though. Was your dad in the Marines?”

  “Oh, no. But, hey, thanks for your help. I really appreciate it.”

  He nodded. “Sure.”

  She turned around and caught Cameron by the arm, hurrying him away. “Let’s go back to the car.”

  He wore the same confused expression as the Marine. “What’s going on?”

  “Please, let’s just go.”

  She climbed back in the passenger seat and put her head in her hands. Now what the hell should she do? Did she go to the police and tell them she thought this might be the place without actually checking it out herself? What if she was wrong and all she succeeded in doing was making herself look like the big fat liar they seemed to think she was anyway? Or someone looking for attention and wasting police time? Something even worse occurred to her. What if there were girls inside one of those containers right now? What if she waited and those girls—or even one of those girls—was shipped or flown out of the country only hours before the police might have rescued her? Or perhaps Cigarette Hands had contacts in the police department who he was paying off, and they heard about her reporting the location and made a run for it before the legit cops could get there.

  “God damn it!” she swore, slamming both fists against the dashboard. With horror, she realized tears were perilously close, but they weren’t tears of sadness. They were of anger and frustration.

  Cameron reached out and grabbed her wrist. “Hey, quit it. You’ve got to talk to me. What the hell is going on?”

  “I didn’t want to get you involved.”

  “But I am involved, aren’t I?” he said. “I got myself involved when I came and banged on your apartment door the other night and then called the police about you.”

  It was true. She hadn’t asked him to do that.

  “I think the traffickers who took me might be working out of the abandoned port the Marine was talking about,” she admitted, finally. “It fits all of the things I could remember about the place, including the fact I was put on a private plane not far from where they were keeping me.”

  His eyes bugged wide. “We need to report this.”

  “Yes, you’re right, but what if I’ve got this completely wrong? I could be looking in totally the wrong direction, for all I know. The police already think I’m a time-wasting liar.”

  “I’m sure they don’t think that.”

  She lifted her eyebrows at him.

  “Okay, okay, but again, I played my part. How about we drive down to the port and take a look? We’ll keep our distance and not do anything stupid.”

  She nodded, though she was trying to get a grip on her nerves. “Okay.”

  What would she do if she saw Cigarette Hands, the man who had snatched he
r from her place of work and kept her locked up in a box, forced to piss where she sat? Her hatred for him ran deep. If she caught sight of him, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to hold herself back. The gun in her purse seemed to pulse like a beacon. If she saw him, sauntering around, knowing what he’d done to her, and worse to numerous women before her, she didn’t know if she’d be able to stop herself from shooting him there and then.

  Cameron got the car moving, and they followed the road out of town.

  “There,” she said, pointing to the turn-off.

  He took it and they followed a narrow track away from the main town and road. A number of the same regimented structured buildings were abandoned, another chain-link fence and tall gate blocking off the area, but Lily looked past the gate and her heart stopped. In the distance, beyond the fence, stood a number of old shipping containers.

  “Stop the car,” she said.

  Cameron did as she asked, and she opened the door and climbed out. From what she could tell, no one was around.

  Beyond the chain link fence, a ramp led from the concreted area down to the ocean, which slapped up against the walls of the abandoned port.

  Vertigo suddenly swept through her, and she felt the ground move beneath her. The smell and sounds of the place made her feel as though she’d stepped back in time, the memory sweeping back over her so she experienced the trauma all over again. Despite the heat of the day, a cold sweat broke out across her skin, and the chill penetrated right down to her heart.

  Could there be women inside one of those things, beaten and raped, and terrified for what their future held? She knew she couldn’t walk away without checking first.

  Reaching back into the car, she pulled out her purse and removed the gun.

  “You need to get out of here,” she told Cameron. “Drive back onto the main road and wait for me there.”

  “No chance. I’m calling the cops.”

  “No cops,” she said. “I’m planning on killing the son of a bitch who took me. If I don’t come back, you can call the police then.”

  His eyes widened in alarm. “What happened to keeping back and not doing anything stupid?”