Blue Diablo

when he answered, “She strikes me as a smart, capable woman.”

Maybe he had nothing to base it on, but that was nice to hear. I mean, damn, I drove from Shreveport to Mexico City all by myself and managed to get myself a shop on a shoestring budget. So yeah, I felt like I could take care of myself, but I understood Chance’s concern. This wasn’t a typical situation.

That didn’t mean I intended to abandon him to it.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said to Booke. “I may be in over my head, but I’ll swim.”

“Or drown,” Chance muttered.

I ignored that because I heard the frustrated concern lacing his words. He carried a lot of guilt about the Mann incident, and I’d made it worse.

“Thanks,” I said. “How come you’re up at this time of night anyway?”

“Insomnia. Hope I helped a bit. Let me know how it turns out, and... thanks for keeping me company a little while.” The software chimed as Booke disconnected.

After easing to my feet, I stretched. “We should go clean up the kitchen.”

Chance sighed but he didn’t argue. “That’s the least we can do.”

“Agreed.”

When I faced him fully, I tried not to laugh. I’d seldom seen him looking less than pristine, and there he stood, spattered in black slime. He swiped a hand across his cheek in a boyish gesture and succeeded in smearing the stuff down his jaw. My expression must have given me away.

“I know, I know. Come on, you.” He started for the kitchen.

“Shit.”

Chance stopped in the doorway, offering an impatient glance over his shoulder. “What’s the matter now?”

“We ruined Chuch’s new rug after all.”

I hadn’t heard him laugh like that in so long.

Before I followed him into the kitchen, I went back to the computer. The idea that Min had ties to Boys Town had been working on me quietly ever since we found the link in Saldana’s office. So I hesitated, hands on the keyboard. Did I really want to do this? Yesterday I’d wondered whether she’d been a working girl. Would learning that change how Chance felt about her, about the mystique surrounding his conception?

He wouldn’t pursue this angle. I knew that. With a sigh, I typed, “Asian prostitutes Nuevo Laredo Boys Town” into the search field. Google rewarded me with close to two thousand hits, foremost a mention of the infamous donkey shows. But the third hit offered me a picture of an Asian themed brothel that resembled a red pagoda.

I stared for a moment in silence, wondering about the link. Where did the women come from who worked there? How did Min get out of Korea?

Well, if we knew that, we might have the answers we needed to find her.

So I simplified my search criteria to “Korean prostitutes in Mexico,” hoping for a wider result. That time I got nearly 87,000 hits. My stomach twisted in knots as I read the headlines of various articles:

PROSTITUTION RINGS ON RISE

THIRTEEN CHARGED IN GANG IMPORTING PROSTITUTES

HUMAN TRAFFICKING & MODERN-DAY SLAVERY

I clicked a link on a news Web site and read on:

The Republic of Korea (R.O.K.) is primarily a source country for the trafficking of women and girls internally and to the United States (often through Canada and Mexico), Japan, Hong Kong, Guam, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Western Europe for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation.

By the time I finished, I felt sick. What did this have to do with Min? I fervently hoped she hadn’t suffered as I was beginning to fear. Perhaps she’d run from her past only to have to catch it up with her years later.

Her expression as she went with those men reflected no surprise, only resignation. She’d known it was coming; it had just been a question of when.

Now the question was whether we could reach her in time.

Boys Town

First, though, we had a kitchen to clean.

By the time we hauled out the last bag and emptied the bucket of dirty water into the laundry tub in the garage, I wanted to collapse. The garbage disposal had blown itself up and would need to be replaced. Chuch and Eva had gone to bed an hour before, and the fact that she didn’t protest told me just how freaked she must be. Chance looked even worse than I felt. His back must be killing him.

“You take the first shower.” I tried to be generous.

“We could take one together...” His heart wasn’t in the lechery, though, and he trailed off as he ambled toward the bathroom.

I laughed softly. “Baby, I would hurt you.”

“Promises, promises,” he muttered as he shut the door.

Shortly thereafter I heard the water running. With a tired sigh, I sank down onto a kitchen chair. Head in my hands, I wondered how we could handle everything. We seemed singularly ill-equipped.

Chance made it quick, so I took my turn sooner rather than later. The stuff from the disposal was sticky, so I scrubbed hard with Eva’s loofah. My skin glowed pink by the time I stepped out onto the fuzzy bath mat. I wrapped up in a towel, wishing I had a robe. As I’d left my bag in the living room, I had no choice but to go out vulnerable and bare.

Hopefully he was already in bed.

To my dismay, I found him sitting on the couch. He hadn’t donned a shirt, just a pair of track pants that hung low on his hips, revealing the lovely slope of his abdomen. Oh, Lord, we didn’t have on nearly enough clothing to be in the same room.

He glanced up with his heart in his eyes, raw and desperate. A jagged piece shifted to the right inside me. Despite my better judgment, I went to him and perched on the arm of the sofa. Touched his hair lightly. I angled my head to check out his cuts—at least I told myself that, never mind that my pose showed far too much of my thighs.

“Does it hurt?” I touched his bare shoulder, shivered from the heat of his skin.

“More than I knew.” By his expression he wasn’t talking about his back, but I didn’t know if he meant my leaving or his mother’s vanishing act.

Since I didn’t know what to say, I pretended not to notice the nuances. “Would you like me to do the ointment and new dressings before bed?”

“Please,” he said. “But I’m not going to sleep.”

I glanced at the clock on the mantel. “Are you kidding?”

“Nope. Boys Town stays open all night, and I’ve wasted too much time, Corine.” He sounded so bleak. “You can go on to bed, but I can’t. They’re not going to keep her alive forever.”

I suspected he knew as well as I did that it might already be too late. Though exhaustion hung on me like barbells, I didn’t argue. Just went to find my bag and put on clean clothes. He knew perfectly well I wouldn’t let him go out alone. After I dressed, I did his back, tried to ignore the way he tipped his head back with the pleasure of my fingers on his skin. I remembered how to touch him. Wanted to.

But I shouldn’t. “There, you’re all set. Get dressed.”

“Bet you say that to all the guys.”

I smiled. “Only the cute ones. You have the keys to the Mustang?”

In answer he plucked a set from the pegboard by the front door.

Driving after dark always makes things look different. I’d have been lost from the second turn, but he drove as if he knew where he was going. I certainly hoped so.