Armoured Attraction

“No!” Karine repeated, grabbing for the door handle. “I stay here.”

“No, wait. Don’t get out,” Vanessa said.

Karine was exhausted, traumatized and injured. Vanessa prayed she had been mistaken about the police uniform. Many of the men in the sheriff’s department Vanessa had known most of her life. She couldn’t imagine they would be involved with the victimization of girls.

But she wasn’t about to put Karine out on her own, no matter how unlikely the scenario may be.

“Okay, we’ll stay here in Nags Head,” Vanessa told her, watching her visually relax. “We’ll go to a hotel.”

Karine nodded and eased lower into her seat.

If Karine was going to refuse to leave the area, Vanessa was going to need to see about someone coming here to help them. Contacting the local police was out of the question. She needed someone outside that circle, someone in federal law enforcement.

Liam Goetz.

He was DEA, which maybe didn’t deal with trafficking directly, but at least she knew he wasn’t local. He’d know how to help or tell her who to contact.

Of course, she hadn’t talked to Liam in eight years. Didn’t even know if he would be willing to talk to her now. But he was her best chance in this situation. She had to try.

Vanessa sped to her apartment to get his phone number, which was written on the back of a picture of the two of them. She should’ve thrown it away years ago but hadn’t been able to make herself do it. Now she was glad she hadn’t.

She grabbed a couple changes of clothes from her room, but nothing to make it look as though she wasn’t there, then ran back out to the car. She had no doubt one of the first places the police would start looking for Karine was at Vanessa’s apartment.

As she pulled away, she Bluetoothed the number on the back of the picture. She forced herself not to look at the much younger, more innocent version of herself in the photo. That girl was gone forever.

The phone rang twice before someone answered.

“DEA call center.”

“Um, yes, I’m trying to reach an agent. At least he used to be an agent.” Vanessa wasn’t sure exactly what she should say. Maybe Liam didn’t even work for the DEA anymore. “He gave me this number.”

“Please provide the name of the person you are trying to reach and I’ll direct your call.” The operator was briskly efficient.

“Liam Goetz.” Vanessa had no idea what department he worked for or even what city.

“Please hold.”

Vanessa drove toward some older hotels closer to Nags Head. They weren’t very expensive, which was pretty much all Vanessa could offer Karine right now. Plus, the police were probably less likely to look for her there.

The longer Vanessa was on hold, the more convinced she became that this whole call to Liam was probably useless.

“Hello? You’re trying to reach Liam Goetz?” A briskly efficient female voice this time.

“Yes. But I don’t know which division he’s in—”

“I’m going to connect you to his voice mailbox. Please leave a detailed message. We will make sure he gets it.”

Okay, so evidently he did still work for the DEA. That was good.

“Okay.”

“Please hold. Leave a message when you hear the beep.”

Vanessa was startled, caught off guard, a moment later when she heard the beep. There had been no outgoing message.

“Um, Liam, it’s Vanessa. Vanessa Epperson.”

How much should she tell him?

“I’m still living on the Outer Banks, but I’m actually staying at a hotel at the moment.” She gave him the name and address of the hotel they’d just pulled up to. “I need your help. I have a situation here and believe local police might be involved, so I need federal law enforcement. If you could just point me in the right direction, I would really appreciate it. I wasn’t sure who else I could trust. Just call if you can.”

She was rambling, so she left him her number and then disconnected the call. She’d done all she could do there. She knew she needed to have a backup plan in case Liam didn’t call her back. After all, the last thing she’d heard him say about her eight years ago was that she was a selfish, spoiled brat who didn’t have it in her to care about another person.

Yeah, she definitely better have a backup plan in place.

Chapter Two (#ulink_9fab4a50-9656-536b-bf9e-75273c922cbd)

Liam listened to the voice-mail message for the umpteenth time.

Vanessa Epperson.

He could honestly say he’d never expected to hear her voice ever again. After all, she hadn’t even cared enough to leave him a voice mail eight years ago when she’d decided he wasn’t good enough to marry.

Or a letter. Or an email. Or a face-to-face explanation.

But evidently she’d gotten over her phone aversion. Good for her.

Liam played the message again.

She needed help and was contacting him because she thought he was still DEA. He hadn’t been DEA for more than five years, since Omega Sector’s Critical Response Division had recruited him to lead their hostage rescue team.

Fortunately for Vanessa, since Omega Sector was made up of agents from multiple different law-enforcement agencies—FBI, Interpol, DEA... Hell, Liam had worked a mission with a damn Texas Ranger last month—her message had been recorded and immediately forwarded to him.

She didn’t mention what sort of trouble she was in, just wanted Liam to drop everything and help her. Like how she’d always wanted everyone to drop everything to do what she wanted. Some things didn’t change.

He listened to the message one more time.

Liam should call one of his many friends from the head DEA office in Atlanta and have them send someone to Nags Head. Or he might even know someone at the FBI field office in Norfolk he could call.

It was the logical thing to do; probably the most professional answer to this situation. He could have someone there handling Vanessa’s problem in three or four hours.

But who was Liam kidding? He wasn’t going to make those calls. He was already walking down the hall of the Critical Response Division’s headquarters to his boss’s office.

He wasn’t sure what he was going to tell Steve Drackett. Just that he needed some time off to help an old friend. God knew Liam had enough time off saved up.

He knocked on Steve’s office door, his back office door that led directly to Steve himself, rather than pass through the main office entrance guarded by Steve’s four assistants.

Four young, attractive, quite competent and intelligent female assistants.