by Christa Wick
“I’m not cleaning that up,” Julie repeated, her tone strident.
A hand roughly shoved at Daniella. Her back hit against the bottom cushion of a couch that was as stained and grimy as the carpet. With her vision remaining blurred, she saw the same blotchy shape of the man who had shoved her grab Julie by the hair, haul her over to the spot and push her down until the woman's face was about an inch from the former contents of Daniella’s stomach.
“You giving the orders around here, slag?”
“No, Stoker,” Julie whimpered. “I—”
He whipped Julie’s head upward, hyperextending her neck as his voice dropped to a menacing whisper that sent hard chills stabbing down Daniella’s back.
“You don’t get to use ‘I,’ you got that? You ain’t human. You’re meat. Meat for me to fuck, meat for me to sell.” He pushed her head down again, the tip of her nose brushing the vomit. “Now what is your meat ass going to do?”
“Clean this,” Julie answered through lips tucked tight against her teeth.
Releasing the woman with another sharp jerk that sent her landing on her side, the man they called Stoker walked over to a battered leather chair alongside the couch. He plopped down, knees spread wide, the heels on his heavy boots pointed inward and almost touching.
Daniella swallowed, her throat raw and her spit tasting of bile.
He lifted a bushy eyebrow that was an aging mix of dark brown and gray. “You know me?”
Daniella rolled her lips before shaking her head at the question. This “Stoker” wasn’t any of the men who had appeared on Mr. Cobb’s camera, either the fire or the visit to her house on the Thursday before the fire. He could be any one of more than two dozen names Reed had on a list, but she hadn’t looked through the photos or the men’s summaries. She just knew they were all horrible people.
That was all she had wanted to know—until now.
“You’re…an associate…of Merl’s…” Daniella trailed off. Whatever drug Donnie had shoved down her throat was making her thoughts punchy.
She thanked God that Stoker, presumably the boss of those present, hadn’t answered Donnie’s question about giving her a second pill.
“Associate?” Stoker rolled the word around his mouth then off his tongue. “I own that two-bit pimp.”
She nodded her understanding.
“Which means, what’s his is mine.”
Her cheeks heated. She knew angering him was absolutely the wrong choice, but she couldn’t stop the words from rushing out of her mouth. “There’s no proof Christine is his!”
Julie, returning to the room with a roll of paper towels and a squirt bottle, froze. Daniella froze with her. “Meat,” she was certain, didn’t yell at the boss and she needed to stay alive long enough to get Christine to safety.
Stoker leaned forward, his elbows planted against his knees and his fingers dangling between his legs like spiders encrusted in dirt and oil. “He owned your slag of a little sister—her ass, her mouth, her pussy…and anything that came out of it.”
Daniella dropped her head, her stomach threatening another full revolt. Her gaze landed on a bag next to her. She recognized it as Julie’s denim purse. It was filled with crap—a brush the girl didn’t look like she had ever used, a smoke-stained glass tube, a long red strip of rubber that reminded Daniella of when she donated blood, a zip case, two phones…
Her gaze darted away. Covering her face, she faked another dry heave.
One of the phones looked exactly like the phone Reed had given her.
The tip of a pointy shoe hit her ribs as Julie growled a warning, “You better not throw up again!”
Donnie, quietly observing, repeated the question Daniella had been dreading.
“You want me to dope her up again? She came off that awful fast—Mexicans must be cheating us.”
“Not yet,” Stoker answered, leaning back in his chair. “She can clean up her own puke first.”
Julie dropped the paper towels and squirt bottle then slithered over to Stoker’s side, her body squirming, her hands running over her hips and breasts. “Mmm…daddy, Donnie said all I had to do was get her out there and I was good for the day.”
Slowly cleaning up the mess she had made, Daniella kept her head down. But her gaze cut a wide arc as she scanned the room. Hearing Julie’s sick attempt at a seductive whine, she felt like someone had jabbed an ice pick into her heart. The bitch had sold out an innocent baby for her daily fix of drugs.
“Paulie!” Stoker bellowed as he pushed Julie away from his chair.
Metal clanked out of sight. Daniella turned her head in the direction of the sound to see an open doorway and the edge of a refrigerator.
A man ran through it, a bandana tied around his throat.
Please, Lord, please, she silently prayed. Don’t let them cook anything around the baby.
Tears filled her eyes at the thought that this was the kind of squalor and violence Lynn had left Daniella's home, two months pregnant, to come back to. Why? Had she not been welcoming enough to Lynn?
The coroner had said Lynn stayed clean during the pregnancy, so it wasn’t for the drugs. And Daniella couldn’t believe her sister could love Merl like that—that any woman could love any man like that.
“Yeah, boss?” Paulie asked, his thin frame vibrating in place.
“Bring me a beer and whatever you got for this slag.”
Stoker pointed at Julie. The woman let out a happy squeal and skipped over to her purse. Sitting on the couch, she pulled the purse into her lap. Daniella looked up just in time to see the cautious glance Julie threw in her direction.
Did that mean it was her phone in the woman’s bag? Had Julie re-checked the car when Christine was being moved and found it then? If so, Stoker and Donnie must not know or they would have said something already.
She forced her gaze back to the mess in front of her before Julie, as brain dead as the girl was, could read all the questions darting around in Daniella’s eyes.
Paulie returned to the kitchen and came out a few seconds later with two bottles of beer. He served Stoker first, then offered the second to Donnie before turning to Julie. She already had the rubber strip around her arm. He pulled a zippered case out of his pocket then removed a syringe from inside.
“I’m gonna want to fuck soon,” Julie leered, throwing her legs wide as Paulie inserted the needle into her arm and began to press the plunger. “One of you big, sexy men might want to take my panties off now.”
Daniella swallowed down another reason to vomit.
“Not even if you bathed first,” Paulie snorted, returning the syringe to the case and heading back into the kitchen.
Listening to the sound of pots being moved around, Daniella tossed the used paper towels into a wastebasket. She leaned wide as she did so, getting a glimpse of the kitchen. The room was a small square, the sink, stove and cupboards on one side, the refrigerator and a pantry cupboard on the opposite side, with a small table and three chairs against the same wall. At the far end, a door led out the back of the house, its dirty windows streaked but not so bad that all the natural light was blocked.
Just before she looked away, a cat unwound from one of the chairs, jumped to the floor and crept cautiously toward a water bowl.
Settling quietly into place, Daniella tried to scope out the rest of her surroundings. There was a hallway to her left, no sign of stairs going up or down. The living room she was in had two heavily draped windows, one to Stoker’s back, the other behind the chair in which Donnie sat. The front door was a few feet to Donnie’s right, its deadbolt turned and the security chain in place.
“No way out,” Stoker laughed mirthlessly.
Daniella bobbed her head at an angle, half denial that she was looking, half affirmation that he seemed to be correct. She looked at Donnie, who appeared to be on his first beer and nothing else. Stoker was almost through the one Paulie had just brought out. An empty bottle was on the table next to him.
; Julie was busy digging in her purse, her body weaving side to side.
“Kitty,” Julie called. “Kitty, kitty…”
She pulled out a laser pointer and danced it around the edge of the doorway. The cat in the kitchen didn’t respond.
Seeing where the junkie was about to aim the pointer next, Daniella lurched forward and snatched it out of her hand. Stoker jumped up at the same time, his wrath focused not on Julie but at Daniella.
She scrambled backward, one arm raised to shield herself against the blow she could see building on his craggy face and clenched hand.
“You think anyone wants to buy a blind baby?” Daniella cried out, her scream bringing Christine to noisy tears.
Stoker stopped the backward pull of his arm, but his hand remained fisted.
“Yeah,” he smirked. “I do. Makes for some interesting…games.”
He pivoted, unclenched his fist then nearly snapped Julie’s neck with a vicious backhanded blow that knocked the junkie unconscious. As her body tumbled against the couch’s cushions, her purse fell onto the floor.
Returning to his chair, Stoker took a sip of his beer before pointing its tip at Daniella.
“But I like to keep my options open.”
Fingers curling around the laser pointer, Daniella scooted closer to the baby. As casually as she could, she picked up Julie’s purse and placed it on her opposite side where it was out of Stoker’s direct line of sight. She made sure to have the open flap resting against her hip so she would have a chance to slip a hand inside when Donnie’s attention was elsewhere.
Even if the phone that looked exactly like hers wasn’t—it was still a phone. She just had to figure out how to use it without anyone seeing.
Would they allow her to use the restroom without one of them watching her?
They might, but first she had to get the phone out of the purse and concealed on her body without one of them noticing.
Christine had calmed down after Stoker returned to his chair. Daniella stroked the baby’s arm as she tried to formulate a plan. Stoker was staring at her or the baby, she didn’t know which, just knew she needed the man’s eyes off her. Donnie, it seemed, was occupied with his smart phone.
Daniella felt her cheeks getting hot. She wasn’t cut out for this kind of scrutiny or subterfuge. She needed to pull her shit together immediately. Christine was counting on her. She was all the little girl had to keep her safe and Daniella wouldn’t fail her niece like she had failed Lynn.
A phone rang, its ringtone causing Daniella to jerk. Her hand clenched at the last second to keep the laser pointer from falling out.
Stoker dug into his back pocket, tapped the cell phone he removed from it and barked a greeting without ever taking his smirking gaze off her.
She glanced at Donnie, who looked once at his boss then returned to whatever had him entertained on his phone’s small screen. He licked his lips, cheeks flushing and she had her first clue what he might be looking at. Catching her gaze on him, he leaned forward and showed her a picture of a woman being severely used by several men at once.
“Recognize her?”
The face wasn’t in the shot, but there was a familiar birthmark that curved along the bottom of her left collarbone.
Daniella looked away, her attention locking on the baby.
This would not be Christine’s life!
“Think you’d be interested in a party like that?” Donnie taunted before slapping his forehead. “Oh, yeah, I forgot. No one gives a fuck if you’re willing. In fact, it’s more fun if you’re not.”
Stoker hissed at Donnie then cut one of those I’m on the fucking phone glares in the man’s direction.
“I’m thinking two-for-one,” Stoker said, talking to the caller. “The, uh…what do you call it…dynamics? Yeah, the dynamics of the relationship would be fun, you can always sell her off later.”
Donnie, his gaze harsh on Daniella, waggled his eyebrows at her then tilted his head in Stoker’s direction. For further torment, he stuck his tongue out, wriggled it up and down, the tip lewdly pointed.
Her skin prickled with warning. She jerked closer to Christine as a metal lid fell to the floor in the kitchen, spinning noisily around its rim until it came to a slow stop. A second later, a body hit the floor.
“Fuck!” Stoker yelled, pulling the phone away from his face. “Fucking junkies all around me! I told him not to do a hit until this shit is done.”
He stabbed a finger in Donnie’s direction. “Drag Paulie’s fucking ass in here so I can kick it!”
Donnie stood, pulled his pants higher up his hips and tossed his phone on the chair. Stoker told his caller he would get back to him, hung up then reached deep into the cushions on his chair to pull out a long, thick pistol.
“Maybe I should just put a bullet in the fucker’s head. He’s not that good a cook.”
No longer thinking about sneaking her phone out of Julie’s purse, Daniella threw herself over Christine’s car seat, her body shielding the baby.
Donnie stepped in front of the arch to the kitchen. His jaw dropped, two words leaving him before a soft thwip sounded and he hit the ground dead.
“What the—”
14
Reed Henley
Stark International Headquarters
Sitting at a work station in the operations room on the executive floor, Reed Henley reached into his pocket as his cell phone vibrated with an incoming text.
Julie Thrall, Child Protective Services
220 Mill Hollow Road, Morrisville.
The text was from the clone he’d given Dani.
For a few seconds, he tried to make sense of the puzzling message. He had told her that he would have Teddy Gallant’s crew deal with the kiddie cops, and they had as far as he knew.
And the caseworker’s name had been Corbin, not Thrall, if memory served.
Thrall…
A fresh wrinkle marred his forehead, the last name and address location tumbling around in his brain before eventually clicking into place.
Just as a second text message came in.
HELP!!!
“Fuck!”
A dozen heads swiveled in his direction.
“Get Kane in here,” he barked as he brought up an application that would take control of Dani’s phone. “Tell him it’s Marquardt.”
Reed silenced Dani’s ringer and turned on the speaker, the cloned version of her device equipped with an enhanced microphone and GPS unit, with everything, including the camera, capable of being controlled remotely.
“Recovery unit, this address,” Reed ordered, tearing off a sheet of paper with the Morrisville location and handing it to one of the men standing by for just such an order.
With that done, he listened in for any more intel he could gather, anything at all that could help them get to her faster.
He heard a rumble of motorcycles and a weaselly male’s voice that sounded out of place given the violent people he knew were on the other end of this phone line.
Hey guys, I don’t want no trouble. This is just a fare…the lady’s business ain’t none of mine.
No, sir. You don’t understand. They want the baby!
Hearing Dani's frantic voice pleading with the stranger eased his tension a fraction, but no more than that. She was alive, at least. If she was lucky, they wanted her along with the baby. Otherwise, he didn’t expect that Dani would live much longer with everything he had learned about the motorcycle club and their foreign connections.
Two seconds later, Trent busted through the door and yanked the man at the workstation next to Reed out of his chair.
All the while, Reed typed furiously at his keyboard to try to navigate some of the apps on Dani’s phone. He pulled up the camera and saw nothing but black.
The microphone app fed into the computer, converting the words to text. Reed tagged the actors—Dani, Christine, the unnamed driver, a woman who identified herself as Julie, and a male named Donnie who seemed to be in charge as he o
rdered some of the other bikers to drag the driver out of the car and put him in a cage.
A picture popped up on screen of a middle aged male with shoulder length brown hair, the source not Dani's phone but the database piecing together both Donnie’s voice pattern and his first name. Reed scanned the accompanying text.
Donald Wells, age 32, last release date January 9, 2016, from Albemarle Correctional Institution, New London, NC, after serving six years for first degree kidnapping.
Working the keyboard at the next station, Trent opened up the link on Wells’ name for known associates.
Half a dozen listings for Mills Hollow Road popped up, along with the name and number for the men’s probation officers.
Someone tried to call into Dani's phone.
“Don’t lose that incoming number,” Trent bellowed at the communications expert. “I will fucking gut you if you do. Get it and get a trace on location.”
“Guess you were telling the truth,” they heard Wells say a few seconds later as the incoming call was terminated.
Desperate grunts followed, the sound of a subdued struggle recognizable to every man in the room.
Still tapping away at his keyboard, Reed glanced at his boss. He’d never seen the big, bad Trent Kane look this remotely worried about anyone. Or this pale. Not that the man looked any less intimidating at the moment.
In fact, he looked downright deadly.
Within seconds, Trent had a picture up of a woman on the screen—very early twenties, pretty with blond hair but already showing signs of drug abuse.
Julie Isabelle Brown
Prostitution, Drug possession, Distribution
Active warrant out for her arrest
Trent punched in the cell number listed on Julie’s bond record into the tracking software just as the sounds of struggle coming from the other end of Dani’s phone concluded with Wells crowing in victory over the speaker.