Sheltering Dunes

Chapter Twenty-two

Allie grabbed the phone on the first ring, slipped out of bed, and padded naked into the living room so as not to wake Ash. “Tremont.”

“Got a call to route through to you,” Smith said.

“What’s it about? I just finally got to bed.”

“I know, sorry, but I figured you’d want this. You’ve been running all those checks and something must have popped up somewhere. Got a detective down in Philly wants to talk to the lead investigator, and the file says that’s you.”

Allie’s heart jumped. Finally, something. “Great. Can you connect us?”

“Hold on…” A click and a buzzing came over the line. “Go ahead.”

“This is Officer Allie Tremont.”

“Detective Lieutenant Rebecca Frye of the Philadelphia PD.”

“How can I help you, Lieutenant?” Allie hoped she didn’t sound nervous. Ordinarily she wasn’t intimidated by brass, but detective lieutenants didn’t make callbacks for nothing. All of a sudden, she wasn’t certain what she wanted to hear. If Mica was in trouble, then she wanted to know. She wanted to prevent another episode like last night. On the other hand, if Mica was trouble, Flynn was going to get hurt. She’d seen the way Flynn had looked at Mica. Flynn was already hooked whether she knew it or not. Mica had been harder for Allie to read. When she’d looked into the rearview mirror and seen Mica with her head on Flynn’s shoulder, she’d been surprised. She hadn’t expected that kind of vulnerability from the tough street kid Mica obviously was. Now she found herself hoping she wasn’t going to hear something that would end up hurting either of them.

“I might be able to help you,” the cool, deep voice on the other end of the line said.

“How is that?”

“You sent out a missing persons bulletin—Hispanic female, mid-twenties, using the name Mica Butler.”

Allie squeezed the phone so hard the edges made ridge-like indents in her palm. She really was on to something, and she somehow doubted a detective lieutenant was calling back about a missing person. “That’s right.”

“What has she done?”

“Nothing that I’m aware of. She was involved in a vehicular incident, and then last night, an assault.”

“Butler assaulted someone?”

Allie searched for some clue in the detective’s voice but could find nothing. She was aware she was providing more information than she was getting, but then again, she was the one asking. “No. She and another woman were assaulted while walking home from the bar where Butler works. Could be random, but I have the feeling Butler was the target.”

“What makes you think that?”

“No attempt was made to sexually assault either woman, robbery didn’t seem to be the motive, and it didn’t have the earmarkings of a hate crime. It appeared the assailant specifically wanted Butler.”

“An abduction?”

Allie took a stab in the dark. “Or maybe a retrieval. A jealous husband maybe.”

“Do you have a computer handy?”

“I’m at home, but my personal computer is available.”

“Let me have your e-mail address and I’ll send you a file. You can tell me if your girl is our girl.”

Allie strode to the small alcove she used as an office and opened her mail program. She gave the detective her e-mail address. “May I ask what your interest in this is?”

“The file’s on its way,” Frye said. “If your girl and our girl are one and the same, you’ve got the girlfriend of the leader of the mid-Atlantic division—Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware—of MS-13 up there.”

Allie’s pulse skyrocketed. She knew it. She knew something was off. “Is she wanted for anything?”

“At this point, she’s a person of interest. She might be on the run. We’re not sure.”

“Wait a minute, it’s coming through.” Allie clicked on the file and a grainy photo appeared. The girl in the image was Mica. She let her breath out and her stomach turned over. She was happy to have been right, but felt no joy in being vindicated. Whatever was going on couldn’t be good for either Mica or Flynn. “That’s her.”

“Her name is Mia Gonzales,” Frye said. “She’s twenty-three and has been in La Mara since she was fifteen.”

“Any arrests?” Allie asked. God, what was she going to tell Flynn?

“Surprisingly, no. Our intelligence is patchy, but reports are she’s smart and tough and has managed to avoid routine sweeps.”

“Maybe she’s clean.”

“Maybe. Tell me about the assault.”

Allie filled her in. “We don’t have much of anything to go on at this point.”

“I take it your population is fairly transient—tourist town?”

“The year-round population is small and we know everyone. There’s no established gang activity locally, but we’ve had our share of problems during the height of the season with drugs moving through and even some small-time arms deals.”

“I remember there was an offshore shootout a few years back. That was drug related, wasn’t it?”

“I wasn’t here then, but the acting chief was. Reese Conlon.”

“You’ve got a situation on your hands that could get nasty, Officer. We need to know what she’s doing there.”

“I can talk to her.”

“You could,” the detective said. “I’d like to speak to your chief first. Got a problem with that?”

Allie smiled. Like it would make a difference if she did. When a ranking detective wanted to speak to her boss, she didn’t have much choice. “Of course not. I can give you her number. Unless you want to wait for her to call you when she comes in.”

“I’d like to keep things moving. Let me have her number.”

Allie gave her Reese’s number.

“Thanks, and nice work, Officer Tremont. Most people would’ve just let it go.”

“Thank you, Detective.”

“I have a feeling we’ll be speaking again.”

“Any time.” Allie ended the call, went back into the bedroom, and took a clean uniform out of her closet.

“Going back to work?” Ash asked, coming up behind her.

Allie turned, wrapped her arms around Ash’s neck, and kissed her. “That was a police detective from Philadelphia. Mica—the girl with Flynn—is part of a gang there.”

“You were right, then, about something going on.”

Allie sighed. “Yeah. So why don’t I feel better about it?”

“Because you don’t want Flynn to get hurt, and something tells me you may even like Mica a little bit.”

Allie draped her uniform shirt and pants over the back of a chair and headed for the bathroom. Ash followed. When she turned on the shower and stepped under the spray, Ash came with her. She put her hands on Ash’s shoulders and said, “Turn around.”

Ash did, and Allie soaped her shoulders and back, running her hands up and down the columns of muscle, her belly heating as Ash’s ass flexed with each stroke. “There’s something about Mica that’s likable.” She massaged Ash’s neck, pressing along her spine with her thumbs, working out the knots. Ash had spent too many hours behind the wheel lately. “She’s tough and strong, but I suppose she’d have to be to survive in that environment.”

“Babe, you gotta stop touching me or you’re not getting to work for a while.”

“Is that right? Well, you were gone longer than usual, so you must be working on a deficit right now.”

Ash spun around, grabbed the soap, and tumbled it into the soap dish while backing Allie against the tiled wall and kissing her. “I don’t have to be away to build up a powerful need for you. I just have to be breathing.”

Allie skimmed her hands over the outer edges of Ash’s breasts and rubbed Ash’s nipples with her thumbs until they tightened. “You’re going to have to hold on to that powerful need a little while longer. Can you do that for me?”

“I can do anything you want.” Ash nuzzled Allie’s neck and kissed her. “Just be careful.”

“I will be, I promise.” Allie hoped for Flynn’s sake, and Mica’s too, that this all turned out to be nothing more than a coincidence. That the assault in the alley had nothing to do with Mica’s past. She could hope for that, but she knew it was only wishful thinking.

*

Flynn lay with her head propped on her elbow facing Mica, who sat cross-legged, her elbows on her knees, her chin in her hands. Mica had pulled off her T-shirt and Flynn had stripped down too. The room was warm, sun coming through the window behind Mica, haloing her body in gold and leaving her face in shadows. She could see Mica’s eyes, though, dark and glittering and troubled.

“Why was that guy after you last night?” Flynn asked.

“I’m not sure,” Mica said. “He either wanted to take me back, or he wanted to make an example of me.”

Flynn couldn’t get a deep breath, not because her side hurt, but because the more Mica told her about the gang, the more her stomach tightened with dread. “What does that mean? Make an example of you?”

“When you join La Mara, it’s for life,” Mica said. “No one leaves.”

“But you did.”

“I didn’t leave. I ran away.”

“Why?”

Mica shook her head. Flynn kept catching her off guard with her questions, asking her things she couldn’t believe Flynn cared about. Like why she joined, and what her family was like, and if they knew what the gang was like. Asking her what it was like being in the gang, being a woman, being afraid. She answered things she’d never told anyone, because Flynn kept watching her with her calm, gentle expression and eyes so fierce Mica felt Flynn’s gaze heat her skin. Flynn was the most amazing combination of steady and strong. Mica reached for Flynn’s hand. Warm. Sure. “I don’t want to tell you any more. You shouldn’t know any of this.”

“It doesn’t matter what you tell me,” Flynn said, “because you’re not going back. And no one’s going to know what I know.”

“But if they find me with you, you need to be able to walk away.”

“I’m not doing that.”

“Then I hope being a priest doesn’t mean you can’t lie. Because you’ll have to. You have to tell them you don’t know anything. That we just hooked up casually and you don’t know anything about me.”

“Let me worry about what I say and who I say it to.”

“I would if you weren’t so crazy.”

Flynn smiled.

“Now it’s your turn,” Mica said.

“What do you mean?” Flynn pushed some pillows together against the wall and sat up, her bare leg stretching along Mica’s.

Flynn’s skin was smooth and hot, and Mica remembered coming with her legs wrapped around Flynn’s thigh. Her breasts swelled and her clit started to ache. She wanted to straddle Flynn right then and there, kiss her and rub against her until she made Flynn make those crazy sexy noises, until she got hot and wet and came on her again. That would be the easy thing to do, a lot easier than talking. But Flynn knew things about her now that no one else did. And she wanted to know about her.

“I saw you with that sick guy the other day. I heard you praying for him—and it mattered to him. You’re a priest. What are you doing here, why aren’t you, you know, being a priest?”

Flynn traced her fingers down Mica’s arm, around the edges of the blood-red heart. “I left—not the church. Just the system.”

“Why?”

“Because I wasn’t very good at it.”

Mica narrowed her eyes. “I think that’s bullshit. You looked pretty good at it to me. And that man thought so too. Whatever you were saying, it wasn’t just words. I could feel it across the hall. You touched him somehow, someway.”

Flynn closed her eyes against the piercing pain. She’d always known her calling, always been so sure, until her arrogance cost an unbearable price. When she opened her eyes, Mica was staring at her, demanding an answer. “I was counseling a teenager. Her name was Debbie. She thought she was a lesbian, but she wasn’t sure, and she was afraid God would abandon her if she sinned.”

“Do you think God cares?”

“No,” Flynn said, “I don’t. I think love, respect, caring—those are the things that matter. But what I think isn’t what’s important.”

“So what happened?”

“We talked. I urged her to discuss things with her parents, gave her some information on gay and lesbian youth groups where she could connect with other young adults in the same situation. We talked about God.”

“You didn’t tell her what to do?”

Flynn shook her head. “It’s not my place to dictate behavior.”

Mica laughed. “You’re kind of a strange priest.”

“At the end of our last session, Debbie said how much our talks had helped her understand her feelings. That she felt better about who she was.”

“So that’s good.”

“I thought so,” Flynn said grimly. “I was very pleased with what we had accomplished. Except the next morning she took a bottle of her mother’s prescription medication. By the time anyone realized she wasn’t in school, it was too late.”

“She didn’t tell anybody?”

“No. She didn’t call me. She didn’t tell anyone. But she left a note. A note that said she knew God wouldn’t forgive her for what she’d done, but she didn’t believe God would forgive her for who she was either.”

“Oh man, that’s bad. I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t see it coming.” Flynn rubbed her face. “If I’d suspected, if I’d had the slightest idea what she might do, I could have stopped her. But I let her walk out, pleased that we were making progress. Pleased that I’d helped her. When I had utterly and completely failed her.”

“Being a priest,” Mica said softly, “that makes you a mind reader too, huh?”

“I should have known, Mica. I should have known and I didn’t.” Flynn’s chest constricted with the agony of her failure. “My arrogance, my pride, blinded me to her need. I failed her.”

“You did what you could—if she’d come to you, you would have helped her. It’s not all on you.” Mica shifted closer and slid her arm around Flynn’s shoulders. She tugged and Flynn rested her head on her shoulder. “You can’t save everyone, you know.”

“Maybe you’re right,” Flynn murmured. “But if you don’t try, what’s the point of anything?”

“Do you think you can save me?” Mica asked.

“If you’re in need of saving, you’ll do it yourself. You’re plenty strong enough.” Flynn tilted her head and met Mica’s gaze. “I don’t want to be your savior. I’m no one’s savior.”

“That’s good, because I don’t want you to be my priest.” Mica kissed Flynn slowly and thoroughly. “Even if you are one, no matter what you say about it. You can walk away from your life if you want to, but you can’t change who you are. Didn’t they teach you that?”