I felt sick. “Maybe his neighbors are scared shitless of him. They ignore what goes on.” Where I grew up everyone turned a blind eye. No one mentioned the drug dealer that lived next door. No one bothered looking in on me when my mother was passed out drunk in the front yard. No one intervened when Amber and I would arrive home with newly purchased designer clothes and unexplainable cash in our pockets.
“Probably so. He left her like that in his driveway. Whether he was leaving her for dead or planned to come back and get her later, I don’t know. I grabbed her and took off.”
“Why didn’t you go to a hospital? Or the police?” I understood why Reeve’s men would be wary, but Joe had more faith in the legal system.
“She refused to go anywhere but here. She was insistent and scared. She’d been to the doctor before, remember? With other bruises, and somehow she ended up back with her abuser. I didn’t know who to trust. So I brought her here.”
He tilted his head and studied me. “Didn’t figure I’d see you here when I arrived.”
“Yeah, well.” I’d hired Joe to investigate Amber’s disappearance, but I hadn’t always been forthcoming with him about my own snooping. At the moment, I didn’t want to think about the circumstances of my presence at Reeve’s Wyoming ranch let alone talk about it. “How did you know to look for her there? How did you realize she was still alive?”
“I didn’t. She’s not why I was following him.”
I wrinkled my forehead. “Then why…?”
He gave me an incredulous glance, one that said he couldn’t believe I had to ask. But I did have to. I needed him to say it.
And he did. “I was looking for you.”
There was affection in the way he held my gaze, his expression so much easier to read than Reeve’s had been, but equally hard for me to bear, for such different reasons.
I lowered my eyes to the floor. “Thank you, Joe. For finding her. For bringing her here.” I couldn’t manage to thank him for what he’d done for me. He’d gone willingly into danger, after I’d eluded him and been uncooperative. When I’d put myself in the damn situation after his countless warnings. I didn’t deserve his concern. I couldn’t condone it with gratitude.
He took a step toward me. “Emily, there’s something else you should know.” He waited until I looked up before he went on. “The tattoos. I found out what they mean.”
“The V tattoos?” Besides Amber and the Jane Doe from the autopsy, I’d also seen one on an employee of Reeve’s in Los Angeles. “Doesn’t it just stand for Vilanakis? I figured it was some show of mob support. Like a gang tattoo.”
“It does stand for Vilanakis. But the tattoos aren’t inked voluntarily. They’re like a brand. Anyone wearing the mark belongs to Michelis.” In case I didn’t get the picture, he clarified. “As in indentured servant.”
“That’s not even legal.” Which was a ridiculous thing to say since I knew the mob didn’t care much about the law. My throat grew thick. “What does that mean anyway? She got away. She’s safe now. Right?”
“My impression is that Michelis brands people when their debt to him is too great to pay back in a lifetime. Which, if that’s true, if Amber owes him that big, then he’s —” He broke off at the sound of footsteps.
I wanted to know more, but when I turned I found Reeve approaching. I forgot about branding and servitude, and got swept up in the confusing mix of emotions that rose at the sight of him. There was so much unsettled between us – and that was without anyone else involved. Amber and Joe only complicated things that much more.
“She’s asking for you, Emily,” Reeve said, his eyes pinned on Joe. “She’s in the suite next to yours.” It was a dismissal that left little room for refute.
Besides, I really did want to be with Amber, so I nodded and headed upstairs, despite knowing that Joe could very well reveal all my secrets. Maybe it was time for those secrets to come out anyway.
If she really had been asking for me, she wasn’t by the time I arrived upstairs. Now the only thing on her mind was getting something for the pain. Her shirt was off, and there were several bruises down her chest and arms, some yellowed and fading, others were much newer. Several near-black angry splotches lined one side of her torso. Jeb was pressing on them when I walked in, and though his touch seemed tender, the examination had her in tears.
I ran to hold her hand and stroke her hair, but she was in such agony, I wasn’t sure how much my presence helped. Jeb finished tracing the lines of her ribs before looking up at me. “Emily, would you mind going down to the kitchen and making some ice packs? If there’s some frozen peas or something, that would work just as well.”
“Sure. Broken?” I’d had broken ribs before. I knew that pain.
“Just fractured, I think. But her breathing’s not great. I’d like to get her on some oxygen so that she doesn’t develop pneumonia.”
“We have some for emergencies in the main office,” Brent piped in. “I’ll call down and have it brought up. And, Emily, there’s ice compresses in the small freezer in the pantry.”
I bent to kiss Amber’s forehead. “Hang in there. We’ll get you feeling better soon.” She squeezed my hand so I knew she’d heard me, although I’m sure it was hard to believe in her current state of discomfort.
The men Jeb had sent for supplies were coming in as I left the room and by the time I returned with ice packs, Amber had been hooked up to an IV and fluid was dripping down the line into the vein at her wrist. Her eyes were closed. She was either asleep or almost there so I didn’t disturb her. Instead, I handed Jeb the compresses, then sat on the love seat near the bed and watched, helpless.