by Wick,Christa
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, 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 and hitting Daniella’s shoulder 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 let her use the restroom?
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 Daniella.
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 birthmark that curved along the bottom of the 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, then 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—”
Chapter Twelve
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, Children’s Services, 220 Mill Hollow Road, Shotwell. HELP!!!
The text was from the clone he’d given Daniella Marquardt. For a few seconds, he quirked a confused brow at the message. He had told her that he would ha
ve Gallant’s department deal with the kiddie cops and they had. The caseworker’s name was Corbin, not Thrall.
Thrall…
A fresh wrinkle marred his forehead, the name and the location scraping at the back of his skull.
“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.
He heard a rumble of motorcycles and a male’s voice.
Just a fare guys…lady’s business aint none of mine.
“Recovery unit, this address,” he barked, tearing off a sheet of paper with the Shotwell location and handing it to one of the men standing by for just such an order.
They want the baby!
Hearing Daniella’s voice eased his tension a fraction, but no more than that. If she was lucky, they wanted her and the baby. Otherwise, he didn’t expect that Daniella would live much longer with everything he had learned about the motorcycle club and their foreign connections.
Kane busted through the door and tossed the man at the workstation next to Reed out of his chair.
Reed typed furiously at his keyboard. His feet danced around, too, hitting pedals under the desk that let him 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—Daniella, Christine, the unnamed driver, a woman who identified herself as Julie, and a male named Donnie who seemed to be in charge as he ordered 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 Daniella’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, Kane 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 Daniella’s phone.
“Don’t lose that number,” Kane bellowed at the communications expert. “I will fucking gut you if you do.”
“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 Kane so pale, but that didn’t stop the man from working. He had a picture up of a woman, 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…
Kane punched in the cell number listed on Julie’s bond record into the tracking software as the struggle on the other end of Dani’s phone concluded with Wells crowing in victory.
“Hope you don’t mind dry swallowing, bitch.”
“You have Ops Control,” Kane said, jumping up from the workstation and stripping off his tailored jacket.
“The hell I do,” Reed shot back. “Marcus, get your ass over here.”
Kane rounded on Reed, murder dancing in his gaze. “Marcus doesn’t have your level of OC experience, now stop wasting my fucking time.”
“And I don’t have yours, so maybe you should sit your ass down,” Reed countered. “Plus, you’re obviously going tactical on this and—”
Wrapping his hand around the collar of Reed’s shirt, Kane jerked him close. “Don’t explain company protocol to me.”
Reed smirked and the urge to punch his smug face bordered on uncontrollable. Kane forced his fingers to unclench, his hands dropping to his sides.
“Unless you want to roll out there as a civilian, with just your personal weapons and vehicle and no updates from this room…”
Reed let the unfinished threat hang in the air. Seeing no change in Kane’s expression, he changed tactics.
“Marcus, get Stark on the line.”
“Don’t move, Marcus,” Kane growled.
The young man at the command console froze except for the darting of his eyes between the two most senior men in the building at that moment. The only one who could veto either of them was the man he’d just been ordered to call.
Kane finally released the breath of air he’d been holding in, his gaze flicking to the big clock in the operations room. “Marcus, if you screw up—”
“I know, you’ll gut me.”
Kane acknowledge the threat with a wolfish smile then sprinted from the room. Reed chased after him, reaching the tactical garage thirty seconds after Kane.
“There’s a reason you don’t do tactical anymore,” Kane glared as Reed shrugged into a bulletproof vest.
“Yeah, yeah,” he groused. “I’m an old man with three fused vertebrae. I can still outshoot your stubborn ass.”
“With a scope at five hundred yards,” Kane answered drolly, holstering a second sidearm. Next he shoved a comm link in his ear. “Marcus, tell me you have something.”
“Still pinging Miss Marquardts’ phone but we need another cell tower for direction of travel,” Marcus answered, his reply earning a deep scowl he couldn’t see. “The car service was a Tap&Ride—”
“We’ve got a backdoor into their database,” Kane interrupted.
Stark International had put in an at-cost bid on all the major car service applications, convincing the companies that ran them that their liability risks were too high without driver accountability via GPS tracking. The fine print on the contracts they had won referenced routine system checks. The scope of those checks meant they could engage in 24/7 tracking of over a quarter million drivers in the U.S. and Europe.
“Already working on that, sir. We’re trying to establish a connection with the driver’s GPS.”
“Feed any coordinates into Tac 6,” Reed ordered, grabbing the keys to the tactical van off the hook before Kane could snatch them up. Muffling his comm link, he looked at his boss and friend. “Dani wants you there in one piece.”
Kane snorted, a million shadows multiplying in his already black gaze.
“Dani doesn’t want me there at all.”
Chapter Thirteen
The recovery unit will be here in five,” Reed cautioned as Kane exited the van twenty minutes after leaving Stark International.
Reed had the vehicle parked behind a burned out barn. Twenty yards of fallow field separated the barn from a line of trees. Another eighty yards on was the beginning of a dirt drive with a rusting barbed wire gate. Images Marcus had pulled from Google Maps while they waited for satellite coverage showed that the dusty road extended a quarter mile past the turn-off. At the back end of the property, shielded by more densely packed trees, was a one-story ranch style home.
Kane lifted an uncompromising brow. “That’s five minutes in the hands of a Level 22 psychopath.”
Reed’s face went red. They were no longer worried about Donnie Wells. With Marcus checking all cell tower hits for the area and cross referencing the numbers with Wells’ known associates, they strongly suspected that Abraham “Stoker” Turner was in the club’s stash house.
Deemed too crazy even among the bikers, Turner mostly operated separate from the club as its liaison with the East European syndicates, supplying the foreigners with a steady flow of meth and human flesh.
He had earned his club nickname for the things he li
ked to do to the women when they were no longer attractive or cooperative enough to earn the club money. Calling him a sexual sadist would have been a mild rebuke or, to Stoker’s way of thinking, faint praise.
“Right,” Reed relented and grabbed the shotgun from the weapons rack inside the van. “Let’s just hope no one spots the van or us before recovery gets here.”
They ran the twenty yards to the trees, their black tactical dress visible to anyone passing on the road. They were going in blind, no idea how many vehicles or bodies were at the house. Caution would dictate that they set up a perimeter and perform surveillance for the recovery team.
But the feed from Daniella’s phone inside the house meant there was no room for caution—not for Kane.
You think anyone wants to buy a blind baby?
Kane had one pistol out of its holster, a silencer threaded at its end. Reed recognized the frosty look on his boss’s face.
“So that’s how we’re going to do it?” he asked.
“If necessary,” Kane answered as they came up on the clearing around the house.
At the back of the building, there was a distance of maybe four feet from leaving the trees to being at the rear door. The sides and front had more open space. There were three motorcycles and the Tap&Ride car littering the drive.
Seeing the sedan, Kane’s expression darkened.
The damn coward would be lucky if anyone went looking for him once Daniella and the baby were rescued.
With a hand gesture, he directed Reed toward the front of the building, ordering him to stay within the cover of the trees until called forth. Reed glared in reply, but didn’t argue.
“Four targets minimum,” Marcus advised over the comm link. “One female, Julie Brown. Three males, Abraham Turner, Donald Wells and a third identified only as Paulie. Sounds like he’s their cook.”
“Stop talking” Kane growled. “Unless you’ve got something I don’t already know.”
“Recovery arrival in three-point-five,” Marcus said and then the comm link went silent.