“All yours then. Just let me know if I need to punch someone.”
That earned me a swift smile and a chuckle as she reached for the door. I got to it before she did and opened it for her. The bell overhead jingled, announcing our arrival. Not that anyone would be able to hear it over the racket inside the shop. The air was hotter than outside. Warm, humid, and it smelled of dust, paper, and something kind of burnt.
Everywhere I looked, there were stacks of paper, some printed, some not. The machine near the front was running and it was printing off large sheets with three or four pages per sheet.
Lainey made her way through the center of the shop toward an archway made out of more paper and boxes. Everywhere you looked there were boxes, not all of them stacked neatly. The precarious nature threatened bodily harm if they were bumped.
A woman appeared through the archway, a stack of hard covers in hand. She nearly ran into Lainey because her attention was elsewhere. Fortunately, her gaze snapped up at the last second. Stopping in her tracks, she let out a shriek.
Eyes wide and sweat decorating her brow, the woman stumbled back a step and Lainey caught her arm to keep her from falling. She said something in German. The rapid-fire speech sounded lovely from her, not that I could follow it.
Fuck, Ezra was right. She really was brilliant and beautiful. Her mind was sexy as hell. I was going to sign up for one of those language courses. While Lainey spoke to her, the woman shot me a look then her attention went back to Lainey again.
She answered in German, her speech not quite as rapid-fire. So, not a native speaker. She spoke enough to get by. I scanned the front of the shop. Then glanced past the woman toward the back.
“Is she here alone?” The question in English, just loud enough to make sure she could hear me, was a test.
Did our erstwhile target speak a third language as well?
“She is being evasive,” Lainey said. “I startled her and she has a large order. Do you want to go check the back?”
“Stay away from the windows?” Compromise offered.
“I can do that,” she said with a smile. Compromise accepted. I cut around the woman who suddenly let out a shrill amount of words.
Yeah, she didn’t want me going to search. Too bad. The back of the shop was worse than the front. There were literally boxes upon boxes. Books and magazines spilled over from large, unbalanced stacks. I’d never seen so much paper.
It was hotter back here than it had been out front. More equipment rumbled and hummed as it ran. The sound of paper crinkling and rolling carried. It was loud, too damn loud.
I was just about to head back up front when I spotted a photo on a desk. Stalking over to it, I tugged the photo off the pinboard. Pivoting, I headed back to the front of the shop. I bypassed the women to head to the door. It didn’t take me any time to secure it, then close the blinds and flip the light off to indicate it was closed.
A burst of excited, and aggravated, chatter burst out of the woman. She’d put down the covers she was carrying and gesticulated wildly.
Lainey never turned away from her. Good girl. Don’t give her your back. When the woman started forward, Lainey stepped back into her path. I crossed to them and the woman shut up abruptly, though she glared daggers at me.
Saying nothing, I held the photo out to Lainey. She glanced at it. The stiffness in her posture seemed to harden even further as though she were becoming stone.
The woman spit something out in German. Lainey took the photo from me and turned it around to show the woman. As abruptly as she’d begun her new tirade, she shut up again. Her pallor gave her away.
I didn’t need to speak her language to read her physical reactions. Lainey’s next question was phrased so carefully, I could almost taste the anger vibrating between the words.
The photo was of Andrea. She was with another girl. The fact the photo was here confirmed some of our worst fears. It was also a solid lead.
“The door is locked?” Lainey asked over her shoulder.
“Yep.”
Our host tried to bolt and I caught her before she could make it three steps. She whirled and tried to hit me, but Lainey blocked her fist and wrenched her arm down and around.
“Then we’re going to have a chat with Katerina. Could you let the boys know?”
Armlock firmly in place, Lainey marched the woman into the back. I scanned the front again. The printer was still generating a stack of pages so I left it to that.
When I followed them into the back room, I found Lainey directing Katerina into her desk chair. The woman argued, then snagged something off her desk to use as a weapon. She never touched Lainey. In a move that I had to admire, she disarmed her, then smacked her across the face with the—what the hell was that? It looked like a heavy ruler.
Katerina let out a cry, clutching at her face as she staggered back into the desk. Lainey pointed the oversized two by four shaped ruler at the chair. This time, the woman obeyed.
It didn’t take me long to find tape. It wasn’t duct, but packing tape. Still, it would do. I secured her arms to the chair arms and her feet to the base. The woman kept protesting, but then she tried to spit on me.
Yeah, I’d be fighting too but the language barrier was getting old.
“You got this?” I could easily inflict the pain to get to the answers, but I didn’t have the language. Lainey could communicate.
“I do.” She glanced down at the photograph again. It was like a ripple of force passed over her as she studied it, then her expression went fierce and her eyes flat.
I messaged the guys while she spoke to Katerina. Adam wanted to see the photo, so I snapped a picture of it and sent it to him. While I did that, Lainey went through the woman’s desk and found a scissors, a file, another two-by-four shaped ruler, a rotary cutter and a pair of pliers
Katerina paled again when Lainey returned to her. Pliers in hand. Whatever she said in a rush did not make Lainey happy.
Lainey asked her one more question.
Apparently, she got the wrong answer… again.
She pulled one of the woman’s fingernails off. Yeah, that would fucking hurt. Katerina’s screams agreed with me.
It took Lainey an hour.
And most of her fingernails, but Katerina finally admitted something while sobbing. The words came out far more rapidly, but Lainey was wholly focused on her.
