Orange Blossoms & Mayhem (Fantascapes) (28 page)

This was one of those rare occasions I wished I was an orphan.

A glance down the table showed Dad, Jeff, and Grady in cool mode, their body language stiff and wary. But Mom, Candy, and Gramma Blaine were openly speculative, checking Rhys out, no doubt wondering if this was the one, the right man for Lainie.

And there was absolutely no way Rhys wasn’t going to notice.

Fortunately, Mom announced that supper was ready and waiting, and we didn’t get down to serious conversation until after Rhys declared his first taste of Key Lime Pie to be ambrosia and drained the last drop of his coffee, made from freshly ground beans. We cleared the dishes and left them to the hopefully tender mercies of the high school student Mom hired to help out each Sunday night.

“
So, Tarrant,” Dad said after we’d settled in the living room, “you specialize in human trafficking?”

Rhys proffered the slow smile of a man well-fed, well-rested, and well-satisfied with who and what he was. On Arlan Trevellyan such self-satisfaction would be appalling. Somehow, on Rhys Tarrant, it looked . . . well,
right
.

“
I’ve done stints in drugs, counterfeiting, and art theft, sir, but I got hooked on human trafficking a few years ago when I saw what was happening with the tsunami victims. Thousands of homeless children being whisked away by traffickers instead of reunited with their families.”

“
Oh, no!” Mom breathed.

“
God!” Jeff echoed, his blue eyes wide with shock.

“
I don’t imagine it got much publicity here,” Rhys said, “but helping to identify disaster victims has become one of Interpol’s major projects. The earthquake in Pakistan just added to the toll. In the chaos traffickers move in and grab up kids and women who lost their husbands or can’t find them. The helpless, the vulnerable. It’s bad, really bad. What with Iraq, Afghanistan, and your own hurricane and tornado disasters, I suppose the American media figures you’ve heard enough, so there’s not much news time for other people’s problems.”

“
But what do these traffickers
do
with the children?” Gramma asked.

Silence, as most of us squirmed, and Rhys struggled for his choice of words. Finally, he gave up all hope of subtlety. “Mostly, ma’am, they’re sold into slavery. Some into jobs no one else wants to do, many as–um–sex objects.”

Gramma blinked, one blue-veined hand flying up to cover her mouth.

“
The same with the women,” Rhys continued quietly. “The best-looking are sold into prostitution, the rest into jobs for which they receive no pay and bare subsistence food. All are kept locked up, stuck in a foreign countries for which they have no passports, no ability to speak the language. Even if they could escape, most are convinced the outside world is worse than the life they have. They’re lost and terrified.”

“
But that’s horrible,” Candy said. “Why isn’t this a big scandal?”

“
It is. But in the States you hear about human trafficking only when a truckload of Mexican immigrants gets fried in the desert heat or someone opens a cargo container of Chinese so crammed in they suffocated before they made it to shore. Yes, it’s a problem in the States, but the worst of the trafficking in women and children is too far away for most Americans to be interested.”

If you’re thinking my heart was swelling with pride over my man from Interpol, you’re right. Guess he was worth saving five times.

“
So how does all that tie in with Lainie’s egg guy?” Jeff asked.

Rhys drew a deep breath. “The Russians have been into trafficking in women practically since the day the Iron Curtain dropped. Have you ever googled ‘Russian brides’? Amazing stuff, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Some of the women actually put themselves on the Net—to get a husband, to get out of Russia, etcetera—but many are tricked by seemingly legitimate job offers, others are just plain kidnapped and sold. If they cause trouble, their families are threatened. And sometimes, to make the point, the threats are carried out. A few years ago, when a girl from Poland led a revolt against the traffickers, they beheaded her parents.”

“
Dear God,” Mom murmured.

I wasn’t surprised. Since meeting Rhys, I’d done a lot of research, reading my way through trafficking articles posted on the Net, and some pretty startling stuff from the local library as well. “But Viktor’s bride must be willing,” I said, because he asked me to accompany him to the airport to pick her up. She has to be legit.”

“
The trouble is,” Dad said, “it could all be a set-up. The girl could be part of the plot.”

“
What plot?” Candy demanded.

“
Who knows?” Jeff said, “but something’s got someone’s panties in a twist. These guys aren’t after Tarrant just because they don’t like his face.”

“
Something, someone
,” I taunted. “Just listen to yourselves. Talk about pie in the sky!”

“
Laine!” Dad’s tone was about as sharp as it gets. “Were you, or were you not, almost drowned less than a week ago?”

“
Yes, sir,” I mumbled, almost too softly to be heard.

Rhys stepped in to explain Interpol’s take on the subject, that the traffickers—if that’s who was involved—had called off the hit. But he made no mention of the shock tactics it had taken at Interpol to get him to Florida. “Laine is going to take me to the Slavic American Club tomorrow. Hopefully, I’ll be able to write it off as a possible disaster site. Worst case, I’ll be able to talk more intelligently to the Sheriff’s Department about what could happen.”

“
Club’s not in county jurisdiction,” Jeff offered.

Oh, shit! I’d missed it
. I should have known, but . . .

“
It’s inside Three Rivers boundaries,”Jeff added in voice-of-doom mode. “Local cops. Not good.”

“
They’ve had problems,” Dad explained to Rhys. “Enough so they’ve got an interim chief and very few applicants for top cop.”

“
Our Sheriff’s Department’s
way
on the ball,” Jeff asserted, obviously embarrassed as well as frustrated by the intrusion of the Florida hick town image, “but the Slavic Club is just inside the Three Rivers city line. County can warn them, ask them to work with you, but we can’t control the situation. No SWAT team, no major fire power, no fast computer connections.”

“
No smarts,” I added into the general gloom.

“
You mean, like I’m dealing with village constables?” Rhys inquired on a sigh.

“
Right.” Jeff and I responded in unison.

I could almost see the profanities flitting through Rhys’s mind. Bad enough, he was a foreign intruder in an area rarely touched by Interpol, but now he had to function in a city where even Calusa County deputies weren’t wanted.

“
I’ll make some phone calls,” Dad said. “I think I can smooth the way, though it’s tough in a town where the Chief of Police keeps changing like they’re playing musical chairs. But Charlie Purvis—that’s the county sheriff, Tarrant—has a mighty clout. They can’t ignore him, no matter how much they might want to.”

“
Thanks,” Rhys said. “If we’re lucky, this whole thing will turn out to be a mirage or something I dreamed up after that crack on the head in Peru.” He turned a broad smile on my mother. “And if I’ve been too busy eating to express myself properly, Mrs. Halliday, may I say to all of you that I truly appreciate Laine’s expertise and am well aware she acquired it from being raised in your remarkable family. I’m here not only because trafficking may be involved—not only because I owe Laine my life five times over—but because I’m rather fond of her and am anxious to return the favor.”

I squirmed, but I glowed while I did it. Talk about
smooth
!

“
Hear, hear!” Jeff grinned. Grady slapped Rhys on the back.

I had a horrible feeling Dad was going to say something like,
Welcome to the family
. Instead, Rhys’s gallant speech was allowed to linger, without comment other than a variety of beaming smiles, while I turned my red face to the tile floor and repeated firmly,
It’s not love, it’s not love. He’s too good to be true. It’s not love.

We finally agreed to discuss the whole thing again on Monday night when, hopefully, we’d be more sure of our options. Talk switched to yesterday’s wedding at Crest House, mostly congratulations on a job well done.

On the long dark drive back to the center of town, by silent agreement we shoved all thoughts of trafficking and possible disaster aside, and kept them there ’til morning. This was our time, Rhys’s and mine. Time to keep the wolves at bay, the Russian bear out of sight, out of mind.

But with the relentless Florida sun bursting through the draperies after another semi-sleepless night, reality flooded back. By ten o’clock Monday morning the Sheriff’s Department had sent a copy of Interpol’s warning notice to the acting Chief of Police in Three Rivers, and by shortly after noon, Rhys had an appointment to meet with him at three.

“
Wonderful,” I groaned when Rhys told me. “You’re just going to waltz into the Three Rivers police station in broad daylight.”

“
Laine . . .” For a moment there I thought he was going to pat me on the head. Fortunately, he thought better of it. “I think Interpol’s right; they’ve called off the hit. I may be sniffing around, but I’m the man in the European suit who doesn’t even carry a gun, trying to communicate with a local cop who’s attempting to hold his department together until some hero willing to fight the mob comes along. And what am I going to say anyway? If it weren’t for that warning bulletin from Interpol, I’d sound like a nut case.

“
Your Viktor plays with the big boys,” Rhys added. “Whatever they’ve planned, they’re no longer afraid of our stopping it. They’re counting on Viktor’s guaranteed right to get married when and how he sees fit. They’re the giants, we’re the ineffectual little ants nibbling at the beanstalk. I see it all the time.” Rhys frowned, sinking his teeth into his lower lip. I’d never seen him so serious. “Statistics tell us organized crime takes one thousand
billion
dollars a year out of the world economy. Cops try so effing hard to make a difference, but sometimes it all seems so . . . futile.”

“
So they’re laughing at us.”

“
Right in our faces.”

My pride bristled, refusing to accept the image. “Unless, of course,” I countered, “we’re completely wrong about everything.”

“
Not bloody likely,” Rhys growled.

Instead of using Rhys’s rental car, I had him drive the Lexus, which was already loaded with the tools of the trade I feared we might need, as I rode shotgun in the front passenger seat. Okay, so the shotgun was under the seat, the Glock in the glove compartment, and the HK MP-5 and
bolas
in the trunk, but the satisfying feel of my Lady Smith weighted my jacket pocket.

Over-reaction? I didn’t think so. We were two known targets of the Russian
organizatsiya
driving into a town where the mob was suspected of establishing a strong enough hold to intimidate the local police. We might be protected by the truce we
thought
Viktor had indicated . . . We might not. I scowled at a particularly fine example of staghorn fern wrapped around a live oak and settled down to giving Rhys directions.

We’d allowed enough time before Rhys’s appointment to check out the city boundary, hoping Jeff had been mistaken. Nine miles east on the Tamiami Trail I ground my teeth as we passed the sign to Deep Spring, where Arlan Trevellyan had beaten me to the punch. The turn-off was tastefully marked by an incongruity in this land of right-wing politics and evangelical churches. Three bronze statues—all female, all nude—raising their arms in seeming ecstasy over the recuperative powers of the springs, beckoned people to the waters that had attracted humans as long ago as ten thousand years.

We drove past a sign welcoming us to Three Rivers, continued on past the left turn to the Three Rivers government complex that included city hall, the police and fire stations, and a community building. Three more blocks on Route 41, the Tamiami Trail, and we passed another left leading to the Slavic American Club. One more long block . . . two. We passed a sign saying,
Thank You for Visiting Three Rivers
.

“
Damn!” I muttered.

“
That’s it then,” Rhys sighed as he slipped into a left-turn lane and did a U-ey back toward the police station. “Wish me luck.”

While he was busy with the chief, I went back to the Slavic American Club and examined it from the outside with great care. Though far from the elegant clubhouses of Calusa County’s myriad golf course communities, it was quite a few steps up from a local church hall or the Three Rivers community hall. The club’s pink stucco walls and red tile roof were embellished with classic Greek columns in front, making an interesting combination of Mediterranean Revival and Georgian. Or maybe it was the Tara influence.

The club was about a quarter of a mile off the Trail, set on a large lot, with one of the area’s widest canals—at least thirty feet across—at the rear property line. But there was no waterfront view, the steep bank down to the canal hidden by a dense tangle of underbrush. The front of the club, the part with the tall white columns, faced the side street. A large parking lot wrapped around all four sides of the building.