she spent most of her time in the lab when she was at work, but she could definitely recognize evil when she saw it. And this was the worst example of evil she had ever seen. It took effort not to shiver in its presence.
“You brought me a gift?” Roland asked Brennan. Approaching Tiana, he circled around her slowly as if she were an inanimate object, like a painting or a vase that had been given to him.
“No, she was in the motel room when I got there. He’s dead, by the way,” Brennan told Roland. “The kid you wanted me to check on. He’s dead.”
“You?” Roland asked, his implication clear.
“No,” Brennan answered, wondering if all this was part of an elaborate game. He was fairly certain that Roland had been the one to have the young man killed. “I didn’t kill him. He was already dead when I got there.”
Roland raised one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. “You?” he asked, turning toward Tiana.
She shook her head, hoping she could keep the charade up long enough to find her sister. “No, I found him that way. Someone got to him before I could.”
“The whore has a mouth on her,” Roland announced with a nod. It was difficult to say whether there was admiration in the man’s voice or if what they were hearing was the calm before a storm.
Not taking any chances, Brennan remained alert. He knew that things could turn on the head of a pin at any moment.
“She also isn’t a whore,” Tiana informed him with a toss of her head that seductively sent her flame red hair over her shoulder.
The appearance of amusement in Roland’s features increased. “Oh, really?”
“Really,” she confirmed in a no-nonsense tone of voice.
“You brought along your girlfriend?” the man questioned, as if he believed the woman’s disclaimer.
“Why don’t you talk to me instead of him?” Tiana proposed, making her voice sound as arrogant as the man she was speaking to. “Especially since he doesn’t speak for me because he doesn’t know me.”
“Is this true?” Roland asked, looking at Brennan. What the man was thinking was impossible to gauge.
Brennan had no choice but to tell the truth without knowing where that might lead. “I just met her in the motel room.”
“All right, who are you?” There was an unspoken threat in the man’s voice that forbade her to say anything but the truth. It went without saying that it would go badly for her if she lied.
She said the lines that she had been practicing ever since she’d asked for a leave of absence. “I go by Aphrodite Starling and I’ve come with a business proposition for you.”
The cold, dead eyes never left her face. “I’m listening.”
“I run an escort service of young ladies, emphasis on the word young,” she began. “Some of my girls have aged out, shall we say? I’m in the market for replacements. I need fresh talent. Word has it that you have fresh talent,” she told him, forcing herself not to look away. If she did, she knew he would take it as some kind of weakness—or worse. She had to win him over and do it fast.
“I might,” he said vaguely, as if they were talking about a tool she wanted to borrow from his garage.
She kept it conversational, as if he was her first stop, but not necessarily her only one.
“I’d be interested in seeing what you have, perhaps taking a few off your hands.” She paused a moment before adding, “I’ll pay you top dollar.”
The man appeared to only be vaguely interested, but she knew that had to be an act. Men like him were only in it for the money and they wanted as much as they could get their hands on as fast as they could get it.
“I’d like to see the color of your money,” he told her.
She had a counterrequest. “I’d like to see the nature of your girls.”
He laughed, shaking his head. “Not so fast. I don’t even know who you are.”
“And you won’t,” she told him matter-of-factly. “I don’t broadcast my organization. Staying under the radar is how I survive. Word of mouth in a very small, elite, tight circle does all the advertising for me that I need. Once I’m confident that you can deliver—and that you’re not just out to steal my money—I’ll give you references and you can have me checked out to your heart’s content.”
“That sounds fair,” he allowed, then added, “But I’ll have to think about it. It doesn’t pay to be trusting. You understand that?”
“Oh, perfectly.” Because I trust you as far as I can throw you, she told the unsavory man silently. Still, what she thought of him didn’t really matter. He had her sister, of that she was fairly certain. That gave him all the cards to hold. She just had her bluff, nothing more.
“I have photographs I can show you,” Roland was telling her. “You can make your choices from them.”
“Photographs can be easily doctored,” she told him with just a hint of contempt in her voice. “When can I see the girls in person so I can make my choices?” she countered.
“My, my, such eagerness,” Roland said with a laugh that had no humor in it whatsoever. “All in due time, my dear, all in due time.”
Okay, if he wanted to play word games, she’d play along. Anything to gain his confidence—as far as it went. “I heard that time was scarce and that you and your ‘people’ would be leaving the country very soon.”
He sneered at her gullibility—or at least that was his inference. “Don’t believe everything you hear.”
“Then you’re not leaving soon?” she asked, watching his eyes for some sort of a sign that would give him away one way or another. When he didn’t answer, she looked to the man who had brought her here for a confirmation or denial.
“Don’t look at him,” Roland warned sharply. “He doesn’t have an answer to that any more than you do. You see, I do believe in equality. You will both be kept in the dark until such time as I feel you need to be enlightened. Not a moment sooner,” he told her.
“All right, then, for the time being, I’ll look at those photographs you have.” The moment the words were out of her mouth, she knew it wasn’t even going to be that easy—seeing a photograph of Janie wouldn’t confirm that she was still alive. But she had to try even though she knew she was playing right into his hands. Maybe she could use that, she told herself. Use that to win the miserable human being over.
It was a long shot, but right now she didn’t have anything else.
“Tomorrow,” he said. “Come back tomorrow and perhaps I’ll let you look at them then.”
She played along and looked confused even though in her heart, she knew that the man was enjoying asserting his power.
“You just offered to show those photographs to me now,” she protested, delivering just a part of the frustration she was beginning
