Minutes to Kill (Scarlet Falls #2)(68)

The door opened into a long corridor. Doors lined both sides. They were marched down the hall. At the end, five rooms stood open.

“Two girls to a room,” a man ordered. He pushed the pregnant girl through the first doorway and pointed at Jewel. “You, in there.”

Shit.

Pressing a hand to the small of her back, the pregnant girl shuffled in. That was the one person Jewel did not want to get to know better.

As Jewel passed by, the man blocked her path and whispered in her ear, “I heard about you. You’re the troublemaker. Just remember, every time you act up, I punish you both.” He stepped away and closed the door, leaving Jewel alone with the pregnant girl.

“What’s your name?” Supporting her belly, the girl lowered her butt onto one of the cots. “I’m—”

“Don’t say it. I don’t want to know.” Jewel crossed to the opposite cot, sat on it, and closed her eyes. She’d counted six armed men and twenty doors. With two girls to a room, that meant forty women could be held in this warehouse. This was no pimp and a few hos. This was big business.

“Penny. My name is Penny. And that’s my real name, not the ridiculous one they gave me.”

Jewel opened her eyes. Across the tiny room, Penny folded her arms over her belly and shot Jewel a Screw you look.

“What’s that?” Jewel regretted the question, but it was too late to pull it back into her mouth.

“Fantasy.”

Jewel snorted. “That is ridiculous.”

“What’s your real name?” Penny asked.

“We’re not doing this.” Jewel remembered Lola’s betrayal. She couldn’t trust anyone. People did what was best for themselves, and she’d better learn to put her own needs first.

“Doing what?”

“Getting chummy. This is temporary. Some kind of processing center. We’ll all be redistributed. Who knows where we’ll end up? You worry about you, and I’ll worry about me. Got it?”

“Yeah, I got it,” Penny snapped back. She curled up on her side, one hand cradling her belly. Jewel turned toward the wall. That baby wasn’t her problem, but she couldn’t help wonder what would happen to it after it was born.



Brody grabbed towels from the closet. He handed one to Hannah and rubbed the other over the dog’s fur.

Hannah’s teeth chattered as she unsnapped AnnaBelle’s leash. “Your house is beautiful.”

“Thanks. It’s big and requires a lot of work, but it’s home.”

The dog trotted down the hall. She found the cat’s water bowl and drank it dry. Brody refilled it. “She won’t chase the cat, will she?”

“I have no idea,” Hannah said. “Let me grab her.”

But the old cat sauntered in, fearless, and rubbed on the dog’s side. AnnaBelle gave him a sniff and a wag.

“What’s his name?” Hannah stooped to scratch behind a scraggly ear.

“Danno.”

She laughed. “Good name for a cop’s cat.”

Brody went to the thermostat and turned up the temperature. “The retrofitted air-conditioning system isn’t the most efficient, but these old radiators can put out some heat.”

“What year was this built?” She trailed a hand over the wainscoting that lined the foyer and hallway.

“1885.” He led her down the wide-planked corridor to the kitchen. “Why don’t I give you something dry to put on? I have to shower and change.”

“Would you mind if I took a quick shower?” she asked. “I’m cold straight through.”

“Not at all.” The thought of her naked in his house sent a bolt of hunger straight through his blood.

The narrow staircase forced them into single file. He flipped on the light in the guest bath. When renovating, he’d followed the house’s original decor as closely as possible. The bath was fitted with retro fixtures: a pedestal sink and a cast-iron claw-footed tub he’d bought at auction and had re-enameled. The floor was cream-and-black octagonal mosaic tile.

“This is lovely.”

“There’s soap in the shower and towels in the linen closet behind the door.”

“Thanks.” She went into the room, pausing with the door half closed. She blinked back at him, a shocking amount of emotion swirling in her pretty blue eyes. With the crisis over, she looked lost.

He wanted to kiss her, but she was shivering hard, and he was filthy. “Need anything else?”

“No. I think that’s everything.”

“I’ll put some dry clothes outside the door.”

With a nod, she disappeared. A minute later, he heard plumbing squeal, and water rushed through pipes somewhere else in the house. He rooted through his drawer for a pair of sweatpants, a tee, and a flannel shirt. He piled them outside the hall bath. In the master, Brody stripped, dropping his bloody clothes in a trash bag. He stepped into the glassed-in shower. While he’d maintained the house’s antique integrity in the rest of the rooms, he’d fully modernized the master bath. It was ten minutes before he was satisfied that no more blood remained on his body. He dried off and wrapped a towel around his hips.

“Brody?” Hannah called from the hall. “Can I put my wet stuff in your dryer?”