Colton Showdown

by Marie Ferrarella

  If it was the latter, then he would have to be alert for some kind of a setup. This party he’d just been vetted for—did attending mean that he would be walking into a trap?

  Tate’s natural instincts warned him to proceed with caution, but they were also short on time. He couldn’t afford to be overly wary in the name of self-preservation. There was a great deal at stake and this could very well be their one and only chance to rescue the girls and catch the main players in this sex trafficking ring. He couldn’t drag his feet, but that still didn’t make his uneasy feeling go away.

  Tate supposed that if he wasn’t so suspicious, most likely he would have been dead by now. Overconfident people were careless and being careless almost always got you killed.

  “Maybe I haven’t heard of you, either,” Tate countered loftily, curious to hear what the man would say. The caller clearly had a large ego and that could only work in the investigation’s favor, Tate thought.

  For a second time, he heard the man on the other end laugh. The sound was short, oddly cruel and completely dismissive.

  “If that was an attempt to get me to blurt out my name, Mr. Conrad, you’ll have to do better than that—if I were inclined to keep it secret. Which I’m not,” he continued after a pause, as if he were playing out a fishing line. “Not to worry, Mr. Conrad. All will be revealed Friday night,” the man promised ominously.

  Okay, he was right, Tate thought. The man was definitely mocking him. Moreover, the man was clearly secure in what he perceived to be his superiority.

  “Why then?” Tate wanted to know.

  “All these questions,” the voice mocked. For a second, Tate thought the man would hang up. But instead, he went on to answer the question. “Because after Friday’s party, I will have enough on you to destroy you if I wanted to. Call it insurance.”

  Tate could swear he felt the man’s fangs going into his neck. Thanks to his sources, he had a more than reasonable idea, although still not confirmed, of the identity of the scumbag he was talking to. Most likely, the man on the other end was Seth Maddox, a high-profile millionaire in New York City who’d made his fortune thanks to his astute investment acumen. Maddox more than fit the profile that had been put together regarding the man who was running the sex trafficking ring.

  “Then this is a stalemate,” Tate acknowledged.

  “An equal balance of power,” the man corrected. “Of course, if you’d rather opt out—” he offered loftily. His very tone said he knew there wasn’t a chance in hell that would happen.

  If possible, Tate’s contempt for the man who was pulling all the strings behind this operation increased. “Where and when?” Tate asked, curbing his impatience.

  The laugh was even more irritating this time around. It literally dripped of smugness. “So, we’re still on. Good. Friday at 11:30 p.m. at the old abandoned Hubbard Warehouse just outside of North Philly.” There was a brief pause, then the man asked, “You’re familiar with it?”

  The building sounded vaguely familiar, although he couldn’t place it. But even as they spoke, the location was being plotted by one of his team. “I can find it,” Tate assured the caller.

  The moment the words were out, Tate remembered. The warehouse had once belonged to a thriving toy manufacturer. But when the company’s target audience turned its attention toward video games, the toy manufacturer closed up shop. Hubbard’s Toys disappeared from toy stores and, eventually, the warehouse was stripped bare, now housing rats rather than children’s dreams.

  “Good. I look forward to finally meeting you. I know I don’t have to tell you to come alone.” The warning in the voice was enough to send chills down the spine of a hardened criminal.

  “Just me and my money,” Tate replied. He was rewarded with what sounded like an actual chuckle, this time devoid of frost.

  The next moment, it was gone.

  “All the company a man could ask for” was the mastermind’s approving response. “Except, perhaps, for a young, untried innocent. Don’t be late. Doors close at midnight. After that—I don’t care who you are—you won’t get in.”

  Was the man concerned about the police or was this just a ploy to sound even more exclusive? Tate had a feeling it was most likely the latter. But he had a more pressing question on his mind.

  “And Jade will be there?”

  He had to ask. The man he was talking to was perverse enough to sequester her somewhere else just to keep him twisting in the wind—and returning for the next go-round, whenever that might be.

  There wasn’t going to be another go-round, Tate thought. Not if I can help it.

  “Heart still set on that one, eh?” the voice mocked.

  In this case, there was nothing to be gained by pretending he was indifferent to who he “received” in exchange for the briefcase full of money.

  “Yes, it is.”

  The mastermind’s response surprised Tate. “I like a man who knows what he wants. Yes, Jade will be there, ready to do whatever you want her to,” the man added. “She knows damn well what’ll happen to her if she doesn’t.”

  Undoubtedly that was supposed to impress him, Tate thought, disgusted. He found it hard keeping his mouth shut and refraining from telling this subhuman how he would have loved to be given an excuse to gut him the way he deserved.

  But there was nothing to be gained by that—or by torturing himself with the knowledge that his hands were absolutely tied right now and would continue to be until this was all resolved the right way.

  He was damn glad that the sting was going down soon. He wasn’t sure how much of this man he was going to be able to take. His blood ran cold when he started to think of what could have happened to Hannah, as well as the others, had Solomon Miller not come to them asking to trade information for immunity.

  Without him, Emma and Caleb would have never found the bodies of those poor murdered girls and he wouldn’t have known about the upcoming “party,” where bored or depraved wealthy men were allowed to act out fantasies best revealed on a psychiatrist’s couch.

  “See you tomorrow night,” the man on the other end said. Even that sounded mocking. And then the connection was terminated.

  The second the call was over, Emma came into the hotel room, which was far less upscale than the one where he’d met with Hannah and her guards. His sister shook her head, telling him what he already suspected. The call wasn’t traceable.

  “It was a disposable cell,” she said. “Randall couldn’t pin down a signal,” she added, referring to the computer whiz attached to their team.

  Tate wasn’t surprised. Despite the two goons at the hotel, he was certain these weren’t amateurs they were dealing with. If they had been, the ring would have been history by now, instead of the elusive threat that it was. With any luck, though, that would all change after tomorrow night.

  “We got Miller to confirm what we already suspected,” Emma continued, taking a seat for a moment on the edge of the bed. “You were talking to Seth Maddox.”

  Well, that did fit what he’d heard about the man. Maddox was a risk taker who played for high stakes because he enjoyed the rush of the risk and the thrill of winning. He also wasn’t above playing dirty to reach his goal.

  “Have you got a voice match to confirm yet?” he wanted to know. There was always the chance that Miller was lying to throw them off, playing both sides against the middle.

  “Randall’s working on it,” she told him. “Should have it any minute now.” She laughed then and saw her brother raise a quizzical eyebrow. She let him in on the joke. “I think Miller’s insulted that we’re not taking his word for it.”

  They needed more than hearsay to secure the warrants that they were going to need. A voice match was going to be part of the evidence. Besides, he had a feeling they were going to need all the help they could get.

  “Right now, the sensitive feelings of a confidential informant aren’t exactly high on my list of concerns,” Tate told his sister. In his mind, he replayed
his words to the man on the phone. “I’m going to need another briefcase,” he told his sister.

  Emma grinned. “I suppose you’re going to want money in it.”

  He laughed shortly. “Well, yeah, that’s the general idea.”

  “Can’t get by on your good looks?” she asked, amused.

  “Maybe next time,” he answered dryly. “In the meantime, I need that briefcase crammed to the locks with money.”

  Money to supposedly buy an entire evening of ecstasy with a virgin of his choice. From the intel they had picked up so far, he was going to be in the company of politicians, athletes, Hollywood movers and shakers, not to mention renowned Wall Street investors. All well known, all powerful men.

  And all depraved.

  Tate felt as if he needed to take a shower already.

  “Gunnar has taken care of it,” Emma assured him seriously.

  The pieces were all coming together, Tate thought as he nodded.

  * * *

  “You up for this?” Emma asked her brother the following evening.

  Tate was dressed in a designer suit that appeared to have been hand-tailored just for him. He cut a handsome figure, Emma thought proudly. But pride took a backseat to concern. Of late, she had become more and more aware of the body count and she couldn’t help being worried about him.

  “You’re going to be all alone in a tank of piranhas,” she reminded him.

  He saw the concern in his sister’s eyes and thought of all the times they’d fought as children. But, fighting or not, there’d always been an undercurrent of love there. Their adoptive parents had seen to that. He doubted if he and his siblings could have been closer if they had shared the same bloodlines.

  “Yeah, but knowing there’s a SWAT team, not to mention you, right outside, ready to rush the place, will make me feel bulletproof,” he said, trying to get Emma to focus on the manpower that was backing him up. It was practically a squadron. That should make her feel better about this. “How about you, Tomato-head?” he asked her, deftly changing the topic. “How does it feel knowing this is your last assignment?”

  She wasn’t focusing on anything except the next step in the plan. “Ask me after we get them,” Emma told him. She placed the suitcase in front of him on the bed and snapped the locks open.

  “I’ll do that.” Tate lifted the lid and glanced at the sea of green. “All there,” he murmured more to himself than to Emma.

  “By the way, I forgot to tell you. Randall confirmed the voice patterns,” she told Tate. “You were talking to Seth Maddox, all right. Guess being a millionaire NYC investor, rolling in cash, just wasn’t enough for the man.”

  “No satisfying some men,” Tate quipped dryly, shaking his head. He took a deep breath, bracing himself. The next moment, he was surprised by Emma, who threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. “Hey, what’s this?” he asked.

  “For luck,” she answered, then backed off self-consciously.

  “Since when do we need luck?” he teased her. “We’re Coltons, remember? We make our own luck.” He snapped the locks back into place, then picked up the suitcase. “Okay, let’s get this show on the road,” he urged and led the way out of the hotel room.

  * * *

  The cars that were parked outside the abandoned warehouse that evening would have made an automobile enthusiast’s mouth water. There had to be over twenty of them and, Tate observed, not a single economy model in the lot.

  He wasn’t much on cars himself. If it had four wheels and was reliable, that was good enough for him. But he had to admit that the BMWs, Mercedes and Ferraris, not to mention a host of other high-end vehicles, were an impressive sight, especially when they were all in one place, the way they were tonight. He had driven over in a Ferrari. Part of the act. He’d parked the car next to a Bentley and gotten out.

  He saw no one in the shadows, but knew his people were there. They were good at being invisible.

  Tate talked to them now, taking advantage of the two-way amplifier he had hidden deep in his right ear.

  “You’d think people who were lucky enough to afford wheels like that without blinking would be happy with their lot instead of trolling the internet, looking to get their thrills by ruining innocent young girls,” he murmured to the people he knew were listening.

  “No justice,” he heard Emma answer.

  “Sure there is. It’s us,” he said just before he terminated any further exchange.

  He was drawing too close to the entrance to be seen murmuring to himself. This had to go off without a hitch in order to ensure that no one would be hurt. At least, no one who mattered, he amended, thinking of Hannah and the others.

  The towering hulk of a man standing guard at the warehouse entrance looked him over with eyes that gave the impression that they missed nothing. They would have easily made his blood run cold had he actually been who he claimed to be and not a carefully trained Philadelphia detective, Tate thought, approaching the man.

  “Ted Conrad,” he said, identifying himself as he held up the driver’s license the tech department had crafted for him at the beginning of this operation. Closing the wallet, he slipped it back into his pocket. “I’m on the list.”

  “Indeed you are, Mr. Conrad, indeed you are.”

  The voice behind him belonged to the man he’d spoken to on the phone yesterday. As he turned to look at Seth Maddox for the first time, Tate felt the man’s arm come around his shoulder as if he and Maddox were old friends.

  Even if Randall hadn’t found the voice pattern match, recognition would have been immediate once he caught a glimpse of him. It was a familiar face that habitually graced the covers of business magazines and routinely appeared on the pages of the country’s business sections. Fortunes were made or lost according to the words Seth Maddox uttered.

  “Mr. Seth Maddox, I presume,” Tate said dryly.

  Maddox eyed him for a moment before the insincere grin bloomed forth. “Right the first time.” Playing the grand master and loving the role, Maddox gestured about the huge, festively decorated warehouse as they entered. “Welcome to paradise, Mr. Conrad,” he declared with no small fanfare.

  Tate was surprised the man didn’t have a five-piece orchestra shadowing his footsteps. The place would have warranted it, he couldn’t help thinking. Tate took a moment to get his bearings and try to take as much in as he could. He’d seen amusement parks that had less going on.

  The warehouse that once housed innocent dolls, stuffed animals, wooden puzzles and train sets was effusively decorated to mimic an artist’s conception of Shangri-La.

  It looked like an old Arabian Nights movie he’d once seen as a child, Tate couldn’t help thinking. Except everything had been supersized. He wasn’t very big on fantasy, favoring the truth instead, but it was plain that truth had no place here.

  Strategically placed fans were causing filmy pastel-colored drapes to billow out seductively. It did the same for the scanty apparel that Hannah and her friends were forced to wear, emulating harem girls whose only option was to obey the will of their masters.

  The way the curtains were positioned along the far wall toward the rear, Tate had a feeling that was where the makeshift “rooms” were located. Rooms where each “buyer” got to “play” with his “merchandise” for the night.

  That was where, he thought darkly, the young women, purchased for the night, were taken to be used and abused, feeding lusts of men who would never be satisfied.

  “Must have cost a pretty penny to have the warehouse decorated like this,” Tate commented, pretending to be impressed as he scanned the surroundings.

  “Don’t worry, I plan to recoup every penny,” Maddox told him with an amused laugh.

  “That’s your right,” Tate agreed. He didn’t see Hannah. He could feel his uneasiness grow. Was that his intuition or just his fear of things going wrong? “Not to seem rude, but I’d like to see Jade now,” Tate told the man.

  He wasn’t going to have any peace u
ntil he finally got Hannah out of here in one piece and back to her family. But the first step was to locate her. Once he was certain she was all right and all the players were in place, he was going to give the signal for SWAT to come bursting in and finally put an end to this.

  “Of course, of course,” Maddox was saying in that same mocking voice he’d used on the phone yesterday. “She’s right here, Mr. Conrad.” Turning, he called to someone in the milling crowd. Because of the din, Tate missed the name.

  The next moment, Tate saw a humorless, tall, wiry man bringing in a young woman.

  Hannah.

  She looked like every man’s dream come to life, he thought.

  Dressed in swirling layers of see-through, colorful nylon, Hannah looked clearly humiliated. Tate would have given anything to throw his jacket over her to lessen her shame a little. But a gesture like that would be a dead giveaway. It would have been clear that he wasn’t here to try to satisfy any perverse appetite.

  He needed the charade to continue a little longer. Somehow, he was going to make it up to Hannah, he silently swore.

  Hannah’s eyes were again filled with wariness as she regarded him.

  He was back to square one with her, Tate thought, frustrated. So be it. He resigned himself to that, focusing on his goal for now. It was going to be over soon, he promised himself, slanting a quick glance toward Hannah. He offered her a quick, encouraging smile.

  The next moment, a high-pitched noise had him wincing as it proved to be almost unbearable for him.

  Maddox looked at him with pity that wouldn’t have fooled a five-year-old. “My apologies, Mr. Conrad. Please, come with me.”

  The next wave of noise was even more jarring.

  At the same time, he also noticed that Maddox had managed to herd both him and Hannah into a space well removed from the rest of the crowd.

  “What is that noise?” he demanded as the decibel level increased, practically vibrating inside his ear. It was all he could do not to wince again.

  “Why, it’s jamming, Mr. Conrad,” Maddox told him almost gleefully. The investment guru nodded condescendingly toward his pocket. “Your cell phone won’t work here. There’s no signal. Sorry, precautions, you understand,” Maddox said, watching Tate take in his every word.