The Job (Auctioned) by Cara Dee (highly illogical behavior txt) 📕

Darius cleared his throat. “If they look malnourished in the photos, it’s safe to assume their organization starts keeping records once the kids have been held hostage for a while. Maybe there’s a hub of sorts in Nevada that they go through before they’re sold off or shipped to an auction.” He blew out a harsh breath, and I could sense his mind was spinning as quickly as mine was. The difference was, I didn’t work in intelligence, and I would be useless at drawing the conclusions he was able to with his training and experience. “I’ll have to think about this,” he said. “I’m glad you called me, though. It might change our plans a bit. Get ready just in case. Maybe you and Boone will have to go in sooner and clear the house.” He paused. “You know what—it’s great you’re taking pictures. I want you to make them good. No glares or anything—because if the evidence somehow disappears in the next several days, we’ll need you to replant it.”

I understood. That made sense. There was definitely a risk that these pictures might move to another spot when the whole fucking family showed up, and God knew what they had planned.

“I’ll document all of them,” I promised.

“Good job. Send them to me later.”

Well, yeah, but… “I’ll send them to Willow. Unless you’ve learned how to accept encrypted files that fly under the NSA radar.”

“Uh. Send them to Willow.”

I cracked a quick smirk. Thought as much.

Fourteen

This was it.

I was in love with him. I was in love with us, with everything we shared, with our future.

Every fiber of my being screamed for Ace when we left AJ’s house, but we couldn’t pick her up right away. I’d completely lost my appetite, so we went straight home and began sorting through our findings. I didn’t talk much—which Boone noticed, judging by the looks of concern he fired my way every now and then—but he left me alone while I edited the photos of the trafficking victims.

I’d told him about them. I’d also told him I didn’t want him to see them.

It took me three hours to work my way through sixty-two images and make them look like copies of the originals. Sixty-two faces so devoid of hope that I kinda wanted to kill myself near the end.

Whatever Darius had in store for the Langes, I prayed at least some of these innocent boys and girls would find their way home to family, friends, and freedom again. And that the Langes died painfully.

The moment I’d sent the files to Willow, I closed my laptop and fell back against the couch cushions with a heavy sigh. I scrubbed hard at my face, in desperate need to erase the victims from my memory.

“Did you get it done?” Boone asked.

“Yeah,” I muttered behind my hands. I let them fall to my sides when I heard him open the window, and I saw he’d made me a drink. Rum and Coke, it looked like.

“I figured you needed one.”

He figured right.

“Thanks.”

As I straightened in my seat and accepted my drink, he sat down on the edge of the coffee table and pulled out a pack of smokes.

I took one. Hadn’t smoked in probably three years, but now was the time. Once upon a time, I’d been a social smoker, Boone more so than me. We’d been social about a whole lot, I guessed. Reckless weekend warriors. Parties that went on for days.

It’d all ended pretty much overnight when Ace landed in our laps.

Ace.

My chest constricted. I wanted to go pick her up soon. I just needed something in between, something that created a gap between trafficking victims and our daughter.

I took a big swig from the glass and let the rum do its job.

“Tell me what to do to make it better.” He extended his lighter and lit my smoke, then his own.

I coughed on the first inhale. Christ.

The second was better. Same with the next gulp of my drink.

I gestured toward our makeshift pinboard on the wall where we had a bunch of notes, printouts, images, and lists. I’d seen him add things to it in the past few hours.

“Talk money with me,” I requested. “I was kinda out of it after I saw the photos.”

I’d still been there. I’d just…gone through the motions. I’d cracked open the safe, which had made me lose more respect for AJ as a criminal, because the lock had been too easy to open without any signs of forced entry. I’d also taken more pictures, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember specifics. I’d only managed to snap out of my temporary depression to make sure we didn’t leave any traces behind when we left.

“By the way, when did AJ get home?” I asked.

“About two hours after we were gone.” He flicked some ashes into an old soda can. “No audio’s been picked up yet, though.”

Good to know. Whatever audio we got from AJ’s house would be recorded and stored in one of my laptops in the closet.

“But okay—money. There’ll be a shitload of it.” Boone reached behind him and grabbed my camera. “Presuming we won’t touch anything that’s hard to sell without leaving a trail of evidence—mainly art—we’re still looking a lot of green here. Twelve $1500 suits, expensive shoes, thirty-seven one-carat diamonds, about a dozen rare, first-edition books—so far, anyway. I’m still going through his shelves. A rough estimate of twenty K in cash, watches worth at least half a mil, kitchen appliances for about five grand, and…I don’t even know about the golf clubs yet. And I still have more photos to look at.”

Hot fucking damn. He’d been busy while I’d edited in misery.

Boone flipped through the images on the camera and showed me a couple on the screen. It was AJ’s collection of watches.

Jesus. We could go nuts.

It was going to be difficult to leave shit behind. After all, it had to look