Caribbean Rescue (Coastal Fury Book 16), Matt Lincoln [best book recommendations .txt] 📗

As we drove back, my mind raced with all the ways this could go wrong. We hadn’t had any time to finalize any of the details of the plan with Daniela, and I hated going in blind like that. I could only hope that things would go well tomorrow afternoon.

24

Olivia

Olivia sighed as she sank into the brown leather couch back at the Grace Bay Police Station. She’d just finished getting Jenny settled into her hotel room. The girl had seemed totally fine with everything until it was actually time for Olivia to leave. Then all of a sudden, she’d started to panic.

It was obvious that she’d latched onto Olivia as a kind of security blanket. It was understandable, considering everything the poor girl had gone through. She saw the agent as a beacon of safety, so of course, she felt groundless when the time had come for Olivia to leave.

She’d felt awful about it and had even been tempted to stay for longer, but she couldn’t postpone it indefinitely. She needed to continue this investigation, so after staying just a little longer to help her relax, she’d finally managed to leave and make her way back to the station.

Olivia felt drained. It was always so emotionally taxing interacting with victims of abuse. She loved her job, but having to stay strong in the face of such an awful reality and be someone’s pillar of support took a toll on her. Sometimes she just wanted to break down and cry hearing some of these victim’s stories, but of course, she couldn’t do that. She needed to be the one they looked to for support, not the one making them feel worse by turning into a blubbering mess.

She wondered vaguely how long it would be until Ethan got back. It hadn’t been all that long, so she knew that it was unreasonable to start worrying. Still, her mind kept drifting back to him. She wasn’t sure when it had started. Maybe it had been when she’d watched the delicate way he’d handled Eddy’s interview. Lately, she had found herself more and more drawn to him, and she worried every time he and Holm did something stupid. Which was pretty much every time they did anything since it seemed like they couldn’t go more than a few hours without getting involved in some sort of brawl or gunfight.

She glanced at the time on her phone again and frowned when she realized it had only been two minutes since she’d last checked.

“Get a grip,” she muttered to herself.

Was she really getting all worked up over some guy she had met, what, less than a week ago? Sure, he had those unbelievable baby blue eyes and that obnoxiously cute smirk, and he knew his way around a gun, which she’d never realized until now was actually a pretty attractive feature, and…

She groaned as she realized she was doing it again, letting her mind be consumed by this man. One romantic evening on the beach and suddenly she was acting like a lovesick teenager.

She stood up and walked to the vending machine, determined to keep her mind occupied when the break room door suddenly creaked open.

She snapped her head around to see who it was and felt a wave of relief wash over her when she saw it was Ethan and Holm, both unscathed as far as she could tell.

“How did it go?” she asked as she rushed toward them, vending machine completely forgotten.

“Well, we met Danny,” Ethan replied a little sourly as he stepped into the room and headed straight for the couch.

“Why do you not sound happy about that?” she asked as she took a seat next to him.

“Because she’s kind of blackmailing us into busting her and the rest of the girls out of the bar tomorrow,” Holm replied flatly as he fell backward onto the couch.

“I’m sorry, what?” Olivia asked in surprise.

“Exactly what he just said.” Ethan shrugged as he placed his hands on his hips. “She was just as sketchy as Jenny made her sound. She agreed to tell us what she knows about the traffickers, but only if we help get her and the other girls out tomorrow. Which, of course, we want to do, but she didn’t exactly give us much time to plan.”

“So, what did you say?” she asked as she sat back down on the couch.

“Didn’t have time to say much,” Ethan scoffed. “She dropped her conditions on us and then ushered us out so we wouldn’t get caught by the traffickers. Of course, Morris was a little ticked off that we left without arresting anyone.”

“She told us to come back at noon tomorrow,” Holm added as he sank into one of the empty chairs near the couch. “Apparently, the men will still be asleep around then, aside from one guard. Aside from that, we don’t have much as far as a plan goes.”

“I see,” Olivia muttered as she thought over everything they had just told her. On the one hand, she could understand Danny’s desire to make sure the girls were safe before she did anything. Heck, the thought of leaving the girls there even one more night made her stomach churn, so she could understand why Danny would use their rescue as a bargaining chip. On the other hand, there were so many ways this could go badly for both the women and the agents. If any of the traffickers caught wind of the plan, they might end up walking straight into a trap. If the mission failed, the men might retaliate against the women and kill them.

Olivia looked up, ready to express her concerns to the MBLIS agents, when she noticed just how tired they both looked. It was almost ten now, and the day had been both physically and mentally draining, so it wasn’t surprising that they both looked like they were ready to collapse.

“Why don’t we head back to the hotel?” she suggested instead. “It’s