9 Kill for Me

by Karen Rose

  “What about the outside, Ashley?”

  “Just a house. Nothing special.”

  “How did you get there?”

  “First by the river, on a boat. I got sick in the boat. Then a trailer.”

  “Like a tractor trailer?”

  “No. Horse trailer. Had hay.”

  Luke frowned. “Did the horse trailer look different? Unique?”

  “All white. Pulled by a pickup truck. White, too. Sorry.”

  Luke smiled at her. “Don’t be sorry. You got out alive. We’ll find the others.”

  “Where’s my dad? He’s going to be so worried.”

  “He’s here. We found your name scratched in the cot.”

  She shuddered, tears filling her eyes. “I was so scared.”

  “But you did so well, Ashley. How did they get you?”

  “So stupid. I . . . I met a boy. Online.” Her lips twisted as her teeth chattered. “Jason.”

  “The ever-popular Jason,” Luke murmured. “You weren’t the only one, Ashley.”

  Her eyes were haunted. “They took five of us. Then . . . shot the others.”

  “I know. We found them. Ashley, did you see your captors?”

  “Two women, young. One was thirty, one twenty. Maybe. And the man. Creepy.”

  “There was a man? Describe him.”

  “Old. Creepy. Tanner.”

  “His skin was dark?”

  “No, his name. Tanner.” She was drifting. “And a guard. I think he’s dead.”

  “Ashley, wake up,” Luke said, and she struggled to obey. “What about the guard?”

  “Young. Big. White.” Again she smiled, but faintly. “I hope I killed him.”

  “Ashley, don’t go to sleep,” Luke said sharply. “How far away is the house?”

  She blinked, her eyelids heavy. “Don’t know. I swam hard. But the water was cold.”

  He brushed a hand over her battered scalp. “Ashley, what did they do to your hair?”

  “I did it,” she said, clenching her chattering teeth.

  “Why?”

  “Haynes. He likes blondes. I didn’t want to go with him. So I did it.”

  Haynes. They had a customer. Customers tended to roll on the distributors, at least in the Internet child porn business. It was how they’d been able to unravel Web sites in the past. Follow the money. It was as old as time.

  “So Haynes didn’t want you?”

  “Never saw me,” she murmured, so softly he had to bend closer to her lips. “Bobby threw me in the hole. I got out. Chipped the bricks until . . . I . . .”

  She said no more. Luke looked up at the medic.

  “Unconscious. Her body took a real beating in that cold water. If she hadn’t been in such good shape, her heart might have stopped.”

  Dutton, Sunday, February 4, 5:20 a.m.

  Susannah was pacing impatiently when Luke emerged from the ER.

  “They say she’ll be all right,” he said. “I’m going to wait for her father to get here.”

  She tugged his arm. “The doctors can talk to him. Come on, let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “I found Terri Styveson’s marriage license in the public record. Her maiden name was Petrie. This address is a house that belonged to her mother.”

  “Bobby’s grandmother.”

  “The court filed an executed will fifteen years ago when the Styvesons were found murdered in their home in Arkansas. The authorities ruled it a robbery gone bad. Barbara Jean’s grandmother was found dead in her sleep a few months later. Barbara Jean inherited the house. It’s an old one, built in 1905. It’s called Ridgefield House.”

  He stared at her. “I was only away from you for thirty minutes.”

  She smiled, triumph in her eyes. “Chase is sending a team. Corchran’s closest, so he’s probably there already. Well?” she asked. “You waiting for an engraved invitation?”

  He put his arm around her shoulders and they ran to his car, his heart pounding like a sledgehammer. “Have I told you that you’re amazing?”

  “No. I don’t believe you have.”

  He laughed, hopeful for the first time in days. “You’re amazing. Get in.”

  She was grinning as they pulled out of the parking lot. “I like this. I think I might like it better than the courtroom. It’s damn exciting.”

  “Only when you’re not too late,” he said, sobering.

  She sobered as well. “Corchran had search parties with dogs searching a mile from where she was pulled from the water, but this house is another mile past that. I don’t know how she managed to get so far downstream.”

  “She’s a swimmer,” Luke said. “Her father showed Talia her ribbons.”

  “Then she just swam the race of her life,” Susannah murmured.

  “Let’s hope we’re as fast.”

  They were ten minutes out when Luke’s cell buzzed. “Papadopoulos.”

  “It’s Corchran. They were definitely here, but now they’re gone.”

  “Fuck,” Luke snarled. Too late. You were too late. “What do you see?”

  “It’s an old house. They set it on fire before they left, but we got here in time to keep it from destroying the whole house. Oh, and there’s a dead guard around the back.”

  “Ashley really killed him?” Luke asked, his mind racing. Too late. Too late.

  “Not unless she had a rifle. He’s missing a good part of his gut. He has a shallow stab wound in his shoulder and one hell of a goose egg on his head. We found a bloody marble doorknob near his body.”

  He thought of Ashley’s small smile. “Ashley must have hit him with it and knocked him out, then Bobby shot him rather than leave him behind alive. She’s nothing if not consistent. Do you see the white pickup and a horse trailer?” He’d called in the BOLO from the back of the ambulance.

  “Negative. We found a minivan registered to Garth Davis and a Volvo registered to his sister Kate. And a black LTD.”

  “Registered to Darcy Williams,” Luke said, his jaw taut. “DRC119.”

  “Yep,” Corchran said. “The plates were under the front seat. But no horse trailer.”

  “Let’s get every available unit out searching.”

  “We’re already on it.”

  Luke snapped his phone shut. “Goddammit. I’m tired of being too damn late.”

  Susannah said nothing for a full minute. “Where would they go?” she finally asked. “If this was their base of operations, where would they go?”

  “She had to have put her kids somewhere,” Luke said. “Maybe she went there.”

  “Luke,” Susannah said, straining forward. “Ahead. That vehicle that just merged onto the highway. It could be a trailer.”

  She was right. Luke sped up, radioing for any backup units in the area to respond. “They’re speeding up,” he said tensely, driving faster. “Get down.”

  Susannah obeyed, ducking her head below the window. “What are they doing?”

  “Not slowing down. Just stay down.”

  “I’m not stupid, Luke,” she said, aggrieved.

  No, she was amazing. “I know.”

  “He’s seen us,” Tanner said, his hands clenching the steering wheel. “We never should have come on the interstate. I told you it was too dangerous.”

  “Shut up, Tanner. You’re not helping.” Bobby looked in the side mirror. “He’s gaining. We either shoot him or we ditch the trailer and run.”

  “He’s too close. We could never get away now. So shoot him. Now.”

  Bobby heard the panic in Tanner’s voice, then considered the options, the odds. They know about the trailer, but they don’t know who I am. I need time. Time to get away and begin again. Finally Bobby considered the trumping factor—What would Charles do? And the plan was decided.

  “Tanner, you’re going to pull into that rest area ahead and park diagonally, blocking the road. You and I will get out of the truck and jack a car. By the time they stop to see what’s inside the trailer, we’ll
be back on the interstate, ducking into the next exit.”

  Tanner nodded. “It could work.”

  “Of course it’ll work. Trust me.”

  Susannah’s neck was getting cramped. “What are they doing now?”

  “Same thing they were doing the last time you asked,” Luke answered from behind clenched teeth. “Not slowing down.”

  Staying down, Susannah leaned over the center console and took the small backup revolver from Luke’s ankle holster.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “Arming myself. And staying down,” she added before he could say it again.

  “What the . . . ?” Luke muttered. “Hold on.” The car careened to the right. “They’re getting off at a rest stop. Whatever happens, you stay down. Promise.”

  “I won’t be stupid,” was all she’d say.

  He growled a curse, then threw on his brakes. Ahead of them she could hear the squealing of tires as the trailer slid to a stop. He was out of the car before it stopped, shouting, “Police. Everyone down. Everyone down. In the truck, freeze.”

  Then a gunshot cracked. Luke. Tightening her grip on his backup revolver, she threw open her door and slid out, using the door as a shield. Luke was nowhere to be seen. She almost ran after him, but stopped at the trailer.

  All that mattered was the girls.

  Tires squealed somewhere ahead of the trailer and Susannah heard Luke curse. He ran back, fury in his eyes. “Bobby jumped out and hijacked a car,” he said. “You stay and wait for the backups. Move.”

  Susannah jumped out of the way as he drove up on the curb to get around the pickup, which had been parked diagonally across the road. She refocused her attention on the trailer. The pickup’s motor was still running. The back was locked, a chain threaded through the handles. She pulled herself up, standing on the back bumper to see in the dirty window. And the breath she’d been holding came out in a whoosh.

  Dear God. Ashley had said one girl had been sold to a man named Haynes, so Susannah expected to see four girls, three of the five who had gone missing from the bunker plus Monica’s little sister. But before her were more than twice that many, huddled together, tied and gagged. She pounded on the dirty window.

  “Are you hurt?” she shouted.

  One of the girls looked up, and even through the filth covering the glass, Susannah could see the devastation in her eyes. Slowly she shook her head. Then stopped, changing to an even slower nod as the tears began to stream down her cheeks.

  The chain was padlocked, so Susannah ran around to the pickup’s cab and stopped, grimacing at what she saw. “Oh, hell,” she muttered. What was left of a man sat behind the wheel. Most of his head was sprayed over the cab. Grimacing, she pulled his keys from the ignition, then tried all the keys in the padlock until she felt it give.

  Feeling triumphant, she yanked the chain from the back of the trailer, hearing it clank-clank-clank as each link hit the bumper, then the pavement. She threw open the doors and exhaled as ten pairs of terrified eyes sought hers. “Hi,” she said, breathless. “I’m Susannah. You’re all safe now.”

  Interstate 75, Sunday, February 4, 6:20 a.m.

  Luke walked up to the horse trailer in time to see Susannah shaming a man into shutting off his video camera. She stood in front of the unfortunate documentarian, fists on her hips, a petite prizefighter primed for a bout with the champ. Had he not just had his heart knocked down to his knees, he might have smiled.

  In the thirty minutes he’d been gone, someone had freed the girls in the trailer. Now officers were gently moving them to waiting ambulances, two at a time.

  It was triumph. And it was tragedy. In the thirty minutes he’d been gone Bobby had taken yet another life. And she’d gotten away. Too late. Too late.

  “How could you?” Susannah was saying to the filmmaker as Luke got out of his car. “You’ve got kids in your car—daughters,” she went on. “How would you feel if some opportunist wanting to make a buck splashed your daughters’ pictures all over CNN? Give me that tape. Now,” she snarled when he would have argued.

  The man popped the tape from the camera, then slunk away, sputtering apologies.

  “Dumb ass,” she muttered under her breath.

  Unsettled and needing her, Luke put his hands on her shoulders and she jumped. “Sshh,” he murmured, soothing himself as much as he soothed her. “It’s just me.”

  Her frown disappeared when she saw him, a soft smile blooming. “You weren’t too late this time.” But she sobered when she realized he had not smiled back. “What happened, Luke? What took you so long? Where’s Bobby?”

  “Bobby got in a car up at the end of the row. The engine was running with the passenger asleep. The driver hadn’t locked the door.”

  “I knew she’d stolen the car, but she has another hostage?”

  “No. She pushed the passenger out going about sixty. She knew I’d stop. Of course I did, but the passenger was dead. She’d shot him first.”

  Her fingers closed over his arm, lightly. “I’m sorry.”

  “Yeah. Me, too.” He looked to the end of the rest area to where a man sat in the back of a police car. “Now I get to tell that man his son isn’t coming home.”

  “Let someone else do it. Chase will be here soon.”

  “No. I’ll do what needs to be done.”

  “Then I’ll go with you.”

  He almost said no. But after everything, he needed someone to lean on. “Thanks.”

  The man got out of the police car as he approached, the color draining from his face when he saw Luke’s expression. “No.” He shook his head. “No.”

  “I’m sorry. Your son was shot by the woman who stole your car. He didn’t survive.”

  The man took a step back, denial warring with horror. “But we’re going to Six Flags. It’s his birthday. He’s fourteen. He’s only fourteen.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Luke said, his heart so heavy he wasn’t sure he could bear it. “Is there someone I can call for you?”

  “My wife. I need to call my wife.” Stunned, numb, he stared ahead, his cell phone in his hand. “She’s home with the baby. This is going to kill her.”

  The state trooper who’d been waiting with him gently took the phone from his hand. “I’ll take care of this, Agent Papadopoulos. You get back to your other victims.” The father’s shoulders were now heaving, the sound of his sobs like a knife in Luke’s gut.

  Now Luke had one more face to add to all the others who haunted his mind.

  Behind him, Susannah’s small hand came to rest on his back, tentatively at first, then with greater pressure. “You saved ten girls, Luke,” she whispered. “Ten.”

  “All that father cares about is the child we didn’t save in time.”

  “Don’t do this,” she said, urgency giving her voice strength. “Don’t you dare do this to yourself.” She grabbed his arm and swung him around. “In that trailer were ten girls who would have been forced into prostitution and death. Now they’re going home. You stop thinking about the one you didn’t save and you start counting the ten that you did.”

  He nodded. She was right. “You’re right.”

  “Damn straight I am.” Her eyes narrowed, full of purpose. “Now walk back to your car. You’re going to drive back to Atlanta, sit down with your team, and figure out how to catch Barbara Jean Davis. Then you can throw her into hell and throw away the key.”

  He started walking, her arm around his waist. “I’m so tired.”

  “I know,” she said, her voice gentle again. “Let me drive back. You can sleep.”

  He leaned over until his cheek rested on her head as they walked. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I think I owed you before. Now we’re even.”

  “We’re keeping score?” he asked soberly.

  “Not anymore. I think you need somebody as much as I do.”

  “You’re just now figuring that out?” he murmured.

  Her arm tightened around h
im. “Don’t be smug, Agent Papadopoulos.”

  Interstate 75, Sunday, February 4, 6:45 a.m.

  Bobby finally drew a steady breath. The car from the rest stop was ditched. This car was a new one, stolen from a parking lot off the highway. What next? What next?

  Tanner’s dead. It had been so much harder that she’d thought, pulling the trigger. I’m alone. I’m truly alone. There was Charles, but Charles had never been . . . family.

  Tanner was my family. And now he was dead. But he never would have been able to run fast enough. She’d known it when she’d told him to trust her. Tanner had a fear of jail and he was too old to survive prison. He would’ve wanted it this way.

  So now what? Susannah Vartanian. She was the only end left unsnipped. She’d been with Papadopoulos. She’d ruined everything. My business. My life. Now Charles would finally get what he wanted. For some reason he’d always hated Susannah, more than even Bobby had.

  I could have killed her long ago. But putting it off had annoyed Charles—the only way Bobby had been able to control him when it was always the other way around.

  Fine, Charles. You’re about to get what you want. I’ll kill her for you. Then I’m gone.

  Atlanta, Sunday, February 4, 8:40 a.m.

  They’d all regrouped around the conference room table, a strained mix of euphoria, exhaustion, and despair hanging over the team. Ed and Chloe, Pete and Nancy, Hank, Talia, and Mary McCrady. At Luke’s request, Susannah sat with them. Her quick thinking had led them to the girls tonight. She deserved to be in on the accolades.

  “So we’re still not done,” Pete said when Chase finished. “Bobby’s still at large.”

  “We got the girls, alive,” Chase said. “Not only the ones from the bunker, but Genie Cassidy and six others who had been lured from their homes. And that is huge.”

  “We also recovered boxes of records from Bobby’s trailer,” Luke said, “showing proof of financial transactions between Bobby and her customers. Names and locations. We can prosecute dozens of perverts who bought children for sexual slavery.”

  Chase’s smile had edge. “We provided the FBI with the locations of her truck stop whorehouses, which span from North Carolina into Florida. GBI agents right now are raiding ten different homes to rescue the girls Bobby’s most recently sold, including the girl sold to Darryl Haynes on Friday night.”