her wrist and held on to it just tightly enough to get his point across.
“The first one’s free, on the house, so to speak,” he told her. There was the hint of a smile on his lips, but his eyes were deadly serious. “Anything after that has consequences,” he warned. His eyes narrowed as he looked into hers. “Understood?”
“Understood,” she ground out grudgingly between clenched teeth. Okay, she thought. Now I know how far I can push you.
She dropped her hand to her side when he released it.
Chapter 3
It did surprise Tiana that the good-looking stranger was making no effort to leave the room. Most people wouldn’t have wanted to share space with a corpse, yet he didn’t look the least flustered. Since he appeared to be her only possible link to Janie, she couldn’t leave until he did. She needed to have him take her to whoever he was associated with—and hope that whoever that was had a link to her sister.
“So now what happens?” she asked him.
“That all depends,” he answered. He was still trying to figure her out. He’d already decided that the woman was a spitfire, but what else was she? Was she telling the truth about why she’d come to see the dead man, or was there something else going on? And just how was that going to affect the ultimate outcome of his assignment?
Like everything else he’d dealt with in the secret lives he’d had to undertake, Brennan decided to play it by ear.
“On what?” she asked.
“On who you’re asking about. If you’re referring to our friend here—” he nodded toward the dead man “—he stays right where he is. The motel maid will undoubtedly find him sooner or later and then he becomes the motel manager’s problem.”
“You’re leaving him here?”
“Why not? He can’t be traced back to anyone of consequence and since he can’t hold up his end of the conversation, I don’t see any point in taking him with me. Dead bodies are really a pain to get rid of,” he told her.
The first second when no one else was around, he intended to call in and tell the chief of Ds about this latest casualty of the sex trafficking ring they were looking to take down. From everything he’d managed to put together, the man on the bed was nothing more than a would-be gofer for the organization. Someone who’d traded on his looks to get girls to follow him into the trap that was set for them. More than likely, he’d probably gotten an inflated sense of self and had asked for a bigger share of the profits. The answer to his demands was undoubtedly why his person was now sporting a bullet hole.
“If you’re asking about me, I go back to where I came from. As for you,” he began as he looked down at her—and then paused.
The woman sounded a little impatient. “Yes?”
“Are you really on the level about looking for fresh talent?” he asked. His first instinct had been to cut her loose. His second was to keep her close. Maybe he could incorporate a little soul-saving into this assignment he was on.
She raised her chin again, appearing ready to go at it with him. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
He laughed shortly. “You really want me to go into that?”
“That depends on how wild your imagination is.”
His eyes met hers. If she really was a madam, he wondered what she’d been like, working her way up within the ranks. He knew better than to get involved, but it cost nothing to let his imagination go for a moment or two.
His mouth curved as his eyes swept over the length of her. “Pretty wild.”
“Then no,” she answered almost primly. “But I am on the level,” she informed him. “Girls wear out fast in this line of work. And if they don’t, they have an unfortunate habit of outgrowing it. My clients like them young and dewy fresh. The bloom only stays so long on the rose before it fades away.”
Brennan nodded. “Your clients are fickle,” he concluded.
“My clients are discerning,” Tiana corrected him pointedly.
“Potato-po-tah-to,” Brennan replied, waffling his hand in front of her as if to say that he saw right through her protest.
He couldn’t help wondering again what someone like her was doing mixed up in something like this. She looked too clean, too refined for the kind of lowlife this sort of a trade usually attracted. They might have more money and have positions of importance in the everyday world, but her clients were still scum, just well-kept scum.
With no effort at all he could see this woman who’d given him such a phony name being a teacher or a shop owner, not someone who dealt in the misery of young women as she peddled their flesh to the highest bidder.
He wasn’t here to get personally involved, Brennan reminded himself. Or to save a so-called fallen woman. The only people he was supposed to be concerning himself with were the young women who had been kidnapped or pressed into this life by being lied to. He was here to save them, not to get mixed up with a woman with electric blue eyes and hair that made him think of an out-of-control forest fire.
“I wouldn’t look down my nose at anyone if I were you,” she informed him. “It’s not exactly as if you’re without reproach here.”
Brennan spread his hands in an exaggerated show of innocence. The smile on his face was positively wicked. “Never said I was.”
“You haven’t really said very much of anything, have you?” she accused.
Brennan didn’t bother denying it. “Better that way. I make it a rule never to hand over the nails to my coffin to anyone. Never know when someone could use it against me,” he told her.
“Well, not that I don’t enjoy debating philosophy with you, mister...” She paused for a moment before asking, “What did you say your name was?”
Boy, was he enjoying this. “I didn’t.”
“Well, say it now,” she ordered.
“Wayne,” he said, drawling out the surname. “Bruce Wayne.”
He had to be kidding. “Bruce Wayne,” she repeated. “As in Batman?”
He heard the disbelief in her voice. He’d meant it as joke, but decided to stick to the name. For one thing, it was easier to remember. “My father had a sense of humor.”
Her eyes took measure of him, from his head right down to the tips of his shoes. Okay, let him have his little joke. Maybe if she went along with it, Tiana thought, she could get closer to him. She needed some sort of a way in, and now that Wayne was permanently out of the running, this man was going to have to be it.
“Obviously,” she agreed.
Not that she believed it for a minute. But it didn’t matter what his name was. He could call himself Peter Rabbit for all she cared. As long as he provided her with a way to get to her sister, she’d call him any name he wanted.
“Not
