Third Degree
A Niki Finley Novel
J.D. Dudycha
Table of Contents
Title Page
Third Degree
Other Titles by Author
A Note to the Reader
Prologue
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
Epilogue
Text Copyright © 2019 by Jonathan D. Dudycha
Cover Design Copyright © 2019 by Yocla Designs
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the email below.
ISBN: 9781097240746
[email protected]
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents that are portrayed in this book are from the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any similarity to all persons, living or dead, businesses, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Ordering Information:
Quantity Sales - Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.
Printed in the United States of America
Other Titles by Author
GAGE FINLEY ADVENTURES
Scavengers
Dark Descent
Buried Secrets
Deep Blue
Hurricane
Niki Finley Thrillers
First Shot
Second Best
Baseball Stories
Paint the Black
Sitting Dead Red
Chasing the Dream
Inside the Dugout: A collection of Baseball Stories
The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness has not overcome it.
John 1:5 NIV
To Chad:
You’ve been my pastor, my teacher, but most importantly, my friend.
A Note to the Reader
ALTHOUGH FICTIONAL, this story illustrates the very real threat posed by human trafficking.
According to the US State Department there are between 20 and 30 million individuals who are enslaved at any given time, with 600,000-800,000 being trafficked each year. Trafficking has become an epidemic, and we must take steps to stop it from happening.
If you suspect anyone is in danger of being trafficked, please don’t be afraid to speak up; someone’s life may depend on it. You can contact the National Human Trafficking Hotline at 1-888-373-7888 or go to https://humantraffickinghotline.org/.
I will be donating a portion of the proceeds from this book to help organizations put an end to this despicable act of malevolence.
Thank you for reading, and remember, no matter who you are, you can be the light in the darkness.
Prologue
Somewhere in southern Minnesota
February
THE CRYSTALLIZED SNOW crunched beneath her bare feet as she ran. Stumbling with each step, she sank, not all the way to the earth, just a few inches at a time. Her chest heaved and burned from the cold air. She couldn’t turn back for fear of the danger that lurked behind. With one particular step the hardened snow seemed to trap her foot in place, and she bent over at the waist as her body lurched forward. She floundered for support, but there was nothing around to hold onto. Bent over the rough snow that felt like sandpaper, she felt as if her bare legs were burning from the frost. She wasn’t dressed for this chance meeting with the frigid air—wearing only a thin nightshirt—but she’d had little choice.
She didn’t dare turn around in case the man hunting her was following behind. She’d escaped his hold inside the shack less than fifty yards back. Her fear of him was spurring her onward, away from him. She must get to safety, which had to be close now. Catching her breath, she lifted her weary head to gather her bearings. She scanned left, nothing but an open field with more snow and ice. Then she whipped to the right. Trees. Not a dense forest, just some scattered trees. At least there would be something to hide behind, to blend in with.
Freeing her stuck foot, she continued through the snow heading for those elusive trees, but it was much farther than she anticipated. As she forged ahead, her feet became numb. Soon, so did the rest of each leg.
Upon her next step, her momentum carried her forward, but since she couldn’t feel her lower extremities, her body overcorrected and her foot pushed through the three feet of piled snow, almost down to the frozen ground below.
The ice covered her leg up to her thigh, nearly reaching the groin. She carried her torso forward, doing her best to rip her leg free. But with no feeling, she wasn’t sure it budged at all. Tears ran down her face. She didn’t want to die, but if she stayed out in the elements much longer, there was a good chance she would. However, freezing to death was a welcome preference to what she would have endured inside that shack.
Then a noise, a familiar crunch, echoed in her ears. She slowly turned her head, but she didn’t see anyone. Then she heard another crunch, this time louder and closer. She rocked feverishly to break herself free, creating enough space in the snow to pull herself up from the bank. She crawled, hauling herself along in the snow. Her legs were beet red, almost utterly useless. She dug her fingertips into the crusty ice until she could move no longer.
A pair of boots stopped her path. Using both fists, she pounded onto the tips of his toes, but in her weakened state her attempt to hurt him was futile. She continued to pound, and he allowed it. In the cold, eventually she would exhaust herself. And there was little else he would have to do, aside from getting her back to where she belonged.
Soon her body gave out, and she stopped fighting. He reached down and lifted her up, but rather than carry her, he tossed her onto a wooden sled he’d brought with him. He then spun around and made his way back toward the shack.
She fell in and out of consciousness as he dragged her along. She felt the bumps as they rolled over the snow. Her legs, and now arms, were completely numb.
“Why?” she said through chattering teeth.
But her captor just kept pulling her along.
Rage boiled over in her mind, but her body would not allow her to retaliate. Let me go! You demented bastard!
Once they arrived at the shack, she smelled the smoke from the chimney. The promise of warmth waited inside, but she was terrified of what else awaited her there. The man reached down to his sled, lifted her up, and tossed her over his shoulder. Regaining momentary strength in her arms, she pounded his back with balled fists, but the thickness of his jacket softened the blows.
He threw open the door to the shack, then turned around to shut it. As she lay over his back, she lifted her head to see three other women dressed in similar apparel staring back at her. Their f
aces were covered with fear as they lay on separate mattresses on the floor, handcuffed with one arm, stretched backward, attached to a pole that ran the entire circumference of the cabin.
The man walked over to an empty mattress in the center of the room. Still holding her over his shoulder, he bent to his knee, then flung her over and dropped her down. She bounced off the mattress twice, then tried curling into the fetal position, but her bones, stiff still from the cold, wouldn’t allow it.
She was shivering, not because of the cold but out of fear. She closed her eyes and waited for his unwanted touch. He grabbed her wrist and brought her arm back, locking her into the metal handcuffs. Then he stood tall. Only half conscious, she heard him pacing around the mattress, felt him staring at her from above. She sensed him leave the bedside momentarily, but he soon returned. He bent down and rested a charm—one you’d see on a woman’s bracelet—against a full glass of water. The charm itself was a running woman.
She stared at the charm as light refracted through the glass of water from the glistening fire in the background.
This was his calling card. He had left each woman in the room, each captive, some sort of memento, a gift to remember him by. And this one was for her. But the charm wasn’t because she’d made a run for it; no, it was because she was a runner. A college athlete. An all-American athlete. And he had taken her.
1
Miami, Florida
Two weeks later
LYING ON A TOWEL ON the sand of South Beach, Niki raised her head to the sky and soaked up the rays of vitamin D that warmed her skin. She paid no mind to the chaos around her. Strolling tourists, a game of pickup volleyball, screaming children—none of it penetrated her psyche.
She loved the beach, the ocean. It was her escape from reality, from the reality of what had happened only weeks prior. Things had changed since she lost her team in Africa. After being ousted from ZULU, she figured this was her chance to find normalcy. To live like a normal college student, and to enjoy everything that came with that. She had buried all her thoughts about that fateful day, and her PTSD, deep into a cavity of her brain she never wished to visit again, which was the only reason she was able to sleep at night.
Behind tinted sunglasses she kept her eyes closed, while facing the sky overhead, until she felt someone’s shadow block out the warmth. Instantly Niki opened her eyes and raised up on her elbows to see who would dare take the sun away. It was Dwight. The kid she was paired with to give a report on Sierra Leone in Professor Lord’s Intro to History class.
“Dwight? What are you doing here?”
He stumbled over his words as he stared down at her in her bikini. “I . . . I have something to give you.” Embarrassed, he turned his head away and handed her a folded slip of paper.
“What is this?” She held it in her hands but refused to open it.
“I don’t know.”
Niki stared up at him, then stood to her feet, dusting the sand from her legs. “What do you mean, you don’t know?”
He looked her in the eye, but then quickly shifted his gaze away, concerned he would slip up and gawk at her toned body again.
“Dwight!” She moved to catch his eye. “Who gave this to you?” She stuck out the note toward him.
“Some lady.”
Niki scanned the area. She saw no one she recognized. “Which lady?”
“I don’t know. She stopped me in the quad. Gave me this slip of paper and told me to find you.”
“How did she know you knew me?” Just as he was about to speak, Niki continued. “Wait, how did you know where to find me?”
“Lucky guess.” He shrugged, then grinned, nervous about her reaction.
Niki didn’t have the energy to dwell on these details. She unfolded the slip of paper and read:
Two minutes. Starbucks. Ocean Drive.
—AC
Collar? Niki knew instantly. She didn’t hesitate, not even to pick up her towel.
“Niki, wait.” Dwight lifted it from the sand. “Your towel.”
“Keep it safe for me,” she said over her shoulder, and jogged away down the beach.
With her bare feet pressed into the sand, she stared down the path between two high-rise buildings. The swaying palms canopied the path leading to Ocean Drive. She stalled for a moment before walking ahead over the crisscrossing bricks in a herringbone pattern.
What the hell does she want? I’m done. No longer a part of ZULU. She can’t just call on me. She continued walking until she met Ocean Drive. Starbucks was only a few hundred feet to her left. The director told me I’m done. He practically blamed me for Mitch’s and Lara’s deaths. Said I was second best, my fault. So why, if I was such a burden on him and the organization, is Collar calling on me?
Niki prepared herself for what she would say. Then she was reminded of what Collar said in the elevator before leaving ZULU: “This wasn’t your fault. . . . This is the life you chose.” True, she did choose to work with Collar and with ZULU, but that was then, and things change even after only a few weeks.
When Niki reached the storefront, Collar stood near the window, facing outward toward the street. Still wearing her Ray-Bans, Collar tipped her coffee toward Niki and exited, meeting her on the boardwalk.
Just as Niki was about to speak, Collar spoke up instead. “Let’s take a walk.”
Collar led Niki toward the grass and palm trees that lined the street.
“Look, I don’t know what you’re here for, but I’m not interested,” Niki said.
Collar squared her body to Niki’s and ripped her glasses from her face. She needed to look Niki in the eye. “I told you, you chose this life.”
It was as if Collar had read her mind as she was walking from the beach. “The director said—” Again, she was going to make excuses, but Collar cut her off.
“You used that bullshit excuse on me once, never do it again.” Collar began to walk away but quickly turned around.
Niki shadowed her movements.
“Besides,” Collar went on, “this is not a sanctioned mission.”
“Then what is it?”
“A favor to me.”
Niki didn’t feel she owed Collar any favors. Aside from employing her and her father on various missions over the years, all Collar did was stand up to the director for her, but that was hardly worthy of a favor. “I don’t think I owe you anything.”
Again, Collar stopped. “Is that a fact?”
“Yeah, I didn’t ask you to go back to the director and tell him I wanted back in.”
“You think that’s what I’m talking about?”
Niki was confused. “What then?”
Collar turned away and looked down Ocean Drive, gathering her thoughts. Rather than elaborate on how Niki owed her, she became misty-eyed.
“Are you . . . crying?” This was the first time Collar had shown any semblance of emotion in front of her.
“It’s my sister, Ashley.”
“Your sister? What about her?”
“She’s been taken.”
Niki gulped. I’m such an asshole. “I’m sorry.” Niki grabbed Collar’s shoulder. “Where?”
“She was abducted from her college in Minnesota.”
Niki put her hand over her mouth. “When?”
“Two weeks ago.”
“Two weeks?!” Niki knew how crucial time was in cases like these. “Do the local police have any leads?”
“No. The FBI has gotten involved as well because there have been four abductions in the last two months from universities throughout the Minneapolis area.”
“Holy shit, Collar, that’s bad.”
“I know. That’s why I’m coming to you.”
“I assume they’ve found no traces of any of the young women?”
“None.”
“What do you need me to do?” Niki had no background tracking down these types of criminals.
Collar turned and paused. She started to speak but seemed hesitant.
Nik
i pushed her to answer. “It’s okay, just tell me how I can help.”
“I need you to pose as a college student.”
“I am a college student.”
“I know. But not here. In Minnesota.”
Niki sucked in air at her request. “Why me?”
“Because all four women have something in common.”
“What’s that?”
“They’re all blonde. Athletes. And at top of their class.”
“So what, this is some serial abductor targeting this type of girl?”
“We can’t know for sure.”
“But you’re willing to put me out there as bait to find out?”
Collar dropped her head. “Look, you don’t have to do this, it’s just . . . I know you can track down this guy, or the organization that’s behind it.”
“What makes you think this is an organization?”
“Because we’ve seen an uptick in sexual trafficking in the area as well.”
“You think these girls are being trafficked? Where? Out of the country?”
“Again, we don’t know.”
A pit grew in Niki’s stomach. This sounded foolish, like she was being led to slaughter.
“It’s your choice, Niki. I’ll understand if you don’t want to do it.”
Screw it, Niki thought. With her own experience of being abducted and held in the Virgin Islands against her will, she knew exactly what these young women were going through. Maybe not to the extent they were, but the torment of her own abduction remained even now. She had to help them.
“I’m in.”
2
Somewhere in southern Minnesota
THE FOUR WOMEN WERE forced to stand in the center of the room, facing the door. Their heads were down. Their instructions were to lift them only if their chin was touched. Ashley stared at her feet. They were stained black from the dirt and soot that had collected on them over the previous two weeks.
The temperature inside the cabin had dipped because there was no longer a lit fire. The air inside couldn’t have been warmer than fifty-five degrees, and the woman shivered wearing only their thin nightshirts.
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