“Blake?”
She made her way down the hall, flipping the light switch as she passed it. Lucy didn’t charge out of one of the bedrooms to meet her. There was no sound of water lapping the toilet bowl because someone forgot to put the lid down.
“Lucy? Here, boy!”
She didn’t realize the depth of her mistake until she reached the end of the hall. The soft glow of her bedside lamp lit her room, and in the dim light her father grinned at her like a hunter who’d just bagged the biggest buck of the season.
“If you’d come along the way I wanted you to, the dog wouldn’t have had to die,” he said. “I always liked dogs.”
She scanned the room, searching the shadowy corners. Lucy wasn’t there. “You bastard.” She sniffled. Her hands fisted at her sides.
He laughed and moved closer, halving the distance between them. “You’re not a fighter, Haylie. Never have been. Don’t start acting tough now. I’ve got men lined up who’ve paid good money for a show. They don’t want a fight. And neither do you.”
Bile rose in her throat and fear gripped her, but she willed herself to stay calm, to remember the techniques they’d practiced in the defense class Amanda had dragged her to. He wasn’t a big man. With a swift kick to the groin and an eye jab, she could level him long enough to get out the door and probably make it all the way to her car. Even if she only got as far as the parking lot, the cops should be there any minute. She just needed to hold him off long enough for the police to arrive.
She took a step back.
“Don’t run, Sunshine. We’re just going to walk out of here and go for a ride.”
“Fuck you.” The words ground out between clenched teeth.
He reached for her. She grabbed his wrist, twisted and stepped into his chest like she’d been taught. Before she could leverage her body to send him to the ground, his other arm came around and the cold barrel of a gun rammed into her throat.
“Uh, uh, uh,” he warned. “Don’t piss Daddy off.” He twisted his wrist free of her grip. “The way I see it, you owe me a pretty penny. Think of all the money I lost sitting behind bars. All the nights I couldn’t sleep with my wife. And what am I supposed to do now? Work at the 7-11? Hell, they won’t even hire me. I’m a convicted felon, a sex offender.” He twisted his hand in her hair and jerked her head back. She bit down, refusing to cry out, to give him the satisfaction of her pain. “You’re going to make plenty of money for me tonight.”
He ran the gun over her chest and down her side. “I’m glad you kept yourself in such fine shape. Won’t be hard to sell you at all.”
A giant of a man came to a stop in the doorway. “She’s fast,” he said and pushed his hand over his bald head. “Lost my damn hat.” His Foo Manchu carved the only lines on his round face and a huge tattoo ran the length of his forearm. An anchor. “We better get her out of here, before the cops come to check out that gunshot.”
Haylie opened her mouth to scream, but her father jabbed the gun into her windpipe hard enough to leave her wheezing.
“Come on, baby girl,” he growled in her ear. “Better keep the bruising to a minimum. It don’t look good on camera, and you’re gonna be a star.”
“You’ll have to kill me first.” She spat at the bald man and twisted her head around fast enough to catch her father’s forearm between her teeth.
* * * *
With the town streets in the rearview, and the two-lane blacktop that led out to the beach ahead, Blake drummed his thumbs against the steering wheel. The speedometer registered close to seventy when he eased off the gas near the intersection of Highway 59 and Mandido Beach Drive
and blue lights flashed across his windshield.
“Shit.”
He slowed down and pulled to the shoulder. Now would be the time to have a great set of tits and a killer smile. Blake steered his car onto the crushed shells that lined the roadway and reached into his glove compartment for registration and proof of insurance.
His car rocked as the police car sailed past him, siren wailing. In his rearview, another police cruiser, lights flashing, came up fast, then sped by. Had to be an accident or a homicide to pull more than one of them out in that big of a hurry.
A hundred yards up the road, a familiar red Hummer swerved and sped toward Blake in the oncoming lane. Larry Melvin’s driver wouldn’t stay out of jail long at this rate. Blake gripped the wheel of his car, prepared for an evasive maneuver if the guy was smashed or just felt like running over somebody. The Hummer whizzed past, windows tinted too dark to catch a glimpse of anyone inside. Even the windshield was darker than the law allowed.
In the rearview, he watched the Hummer leave the pavement long enough to kick up a cloud of dust from the shoulder before the driver jerked it back on the road again. Idiot. It’d be a miracle if he didn’t kill somebody tonight.
Two miles down the road, he saw the flash of cruiser lights again. The parking lot of Haylie’s condo was lit up like a laser light show and officers covered the ground between the buildings like an army of ants. The whole damn department must have come out.
Every nerve in his body stung like it had a bee buried butt deep in it. He whipped into the parking lot, and ignoring the arm signals of a uniformed officer, parked his car into the slot next to Haylie’s.
Before he could get the door open two officers swarmed him. “Sir, are you a resident?”
“No. What’s going on?”
“We’ll have to ask you to leave. For your own safety.”
“My girlfriend lives here. She’s been getting threats.”
“What number is hers?” the officer asked.
“One oh two. In the first building there.”
The officer’s eyes darted to his partner and Blake jerked his head toward Haylie’s door in time to see an officer emerge with a figure in his arms, cradled like a baby.
“Haylie!” He pushed past the cops and tore off toward her condo.
Within three feet the officers had him by the arms as he struggled to break free. “She’s not in there, sir,” one of them said. “We’ll need to ask you some questions.”
“Where is she?”
“Sir, please.”
Blake settled down enough to allow the police officer to lead him over to the hood of his car.
He never should have left her alone. What in the hell had he been thinking? “Is she…” He couldn’t finish, couldn’t dare ask what he feared the most.
“She hasn’t been located,” the officer said. “Now, you said she’s received threats?”
Blake tried to wrap his mind around the officer’s words. “What do you mean hasn’t been located? Do you have reason to believe something happened to her?”
“If she was in trouble, where would she have gone?” the officer asked.
Blake rattled off the names of the Belles and keyed Kara’s number up on his cell phone. The officer copied the information, while his partner dialed Kara.
“That’s her car.” Blake pointed at the year old Camry parked next to his car. “I just left her an hour ago.”
Another officer approached. “We’re taking the dog to the emergency clinic. It’s still alive.”
“Lucy’s hurt?” Blake’s mind reeled. What in the hell had happened in there? “Call Ashlyn Langford, Mandido Beach Animal Shelter. She’ll take care of the dog.”
The officer nodded and turned away.
“You’ve got to tell me what happened.” Blake could barely hold it together. His entire world rocked beneath his feet. He couldn’t lose her this way. His muscles burned, and his hands curled into fists.
“Sir.” The officer’s patience was forced. “If you’ve got information that will help us find your girlfriend, we need you to tell us what it is.”
“If she’s not here, why isn’t somebody out there looking for her?” Blake yelled. “What the hell is the whole fucking department standing around here for?” He had to find her. He didn’t have time to waste jerking off with these idi
ots.
“Do you know who would have abducted her?”
“Abducted?” The word slammed into him, as if nothing had made sense before those three syllables were uttered. He had to put his palm on the warm hood of the car to stay on his feet. “Her father,” he said. “Carl Monroe. Convicted pedophile recently released from prison, skipped parole, and has a warrant for domestic battery. He broke into Haylie’s house and threatened her, but you guys didn’t think that was enough to go on.” His arms shook with restraint. “We’ve filed several reports against him.”
The officer jotted furiously in his little notebook. “Anything else you know about the guy? Friends? Associates? Employer? Where he might have taken her?”
Blake shook his head, and racked his brain for anything he’d read in the case files that might lend a clue.
Another officer approached swinging a plastic evidence bag with a tattered red baseball cap inside. “One of the men at the place she went for help found this when he went after the guy.”
Blake squinted at the baseball hat. He’d seen the logo emblazoned on it before. “Hold that up.”
The officer with the notebook nodded his approval, and the other officer held the bag toward Blake.
“M3X Productions is Larry Melvin’s company,” Blake said, and then with a glimmer of hope added, “I just passed his red Hummer on Mandido Beach Drive
headed toward the Florida line. He was almost at the intersection of Highway Fifty-Nine, swerving all over the road.”
The officer radioed the information to dispatch, asking for officers to pull over any vehicle matching the description on Highway 59, and to call in help from the Escambia County Sheriff’s office in case Melvin had headed into Pensacola. He sent two of the uniforms to Melvin’s house to see what they could find there.
Blake shook his head. They’d never find her at Melvin’s. He kept his house clean as a morgue. He’d gloated about that and a lot of other stuff that was protected by attorney-client privilege. But Melvin had screwed with the wrong person if he expected any privileges.
He should have made the connection before. Melvin’s pornographic production company made the perfect set-up for a sicko like Carl Monroe to hook up with. The first time he’d sold Haylie, his only outlets for profit were grainy VHS tapes and still photographs. Now with Melvin’s production company he had digital equipment and the Internet. Blake’s blood ran so hot, he could feel the burn.
“I’ll need your personal information,” the officer with the pad, said.
Blake rattled off his cell phone number and dug his driver’s license out of his wallet.
“You’re the attorney that defended Melvin?”
“Good memory.”
“We’ve been after him for years, and thanks to you he’s back on the streets.”
Blake pushed his hands through his hair and tried to recover from what felt like a punch in the gut. “I didn’t know he operated this way.”
“Bad guys are bad. They operate anyway that suits them.” The officer handed Blake his driver’s license. “Don’t go far. If we have any questions we’ll call.”
Blake’s phone rattled in his pocket. “You seen her?” he asked without bothering with pleasantries.
“Hell no!” Kara yelled. “What’s going on?”
“Did she contact one of the other girls?”
“Amanda’s here. Ashlyn hauled ass to the animal hospital. Haylie was supposed to meet us for dinner, but she hasn’t called any of us.”
“What do you know about her father?” Blake was already moving toward his car. There was no time to waste standing around a parking lot.
“Nothing. She’s never said a word about him.” Kara repeated the question to Amanda and turned her attention back to the phone. “Nope. Not a word. He must be a real bastard.”
“He is.” He already had the key in the ignition and shifted into reverse. “And he’s got her.” He aimed his car toward the street. “Anything else she refuses to talk about?”
Kara consulted with Amanda. “She won’t set foot on the military base.”
“N.A.S. Pensacola?”
“That’s the one. We tried to take her to the museum and the Officer’s Club a couple of times, but she refused to go. Never would say why. Come to think of it, she doesn’t go to Pensacola at all. Ever.”
Pensacola Naval Air Station wasn’t far, barely across the Florida line and in the direction Melvin’s Hummer had been headed. Armed guards were stationed at every entrance and without a military ID or a really good reason, it was going to be hard as hell to get past the gates. Since September 11th, the military didn’t play around. Even great tits and a killer smile wouldn’t get him past those sailors, and if they would, he didn’t have them.
“Start heading toward Pensacola, I’ve got a phone call to make. I’ll call you back.”
Chapter 13
Footsteps and voices echoed off the ceilings and metal walls of the building her father and the buffoon he called Hank had her in. Haylie couldn’t see through the blindfold that bit into the corners of her eyes and the back of her head, but the acoustics of the place told her they were the only three people there. For now.
She explored her surroundings as best she could with her hands duct taped behind her back. They had thrown her on something soft. Not a mattress. It had less structure. More like an oversized bean bag. Velvet. The floor she walked in on, still barefoot and in the swimsuit she’d worn to the beach, was concrete.
Her father’s boot heels clicked closer and the door at the far end of the building rattled shut.
She strained her ears to see if he was alone. She didn’t detect anyone else and she allowed herself a breath of relief. The torture wouldn’t start yet. Her father didn’t care to touch her. He only cared about the money he could make.
“Comfortable?” Carl Monroe asked.
She clamped her mouth closed, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a response. An open hand connected with her cheek. The sting sparked a flame of determination. He would pay for everything he had ever done to her. Everything. She wasn’t the tongue-tied little girl he’d tangled with the first time.
“Where’s your friend?” The first time she blocked out as many details as she could, but not this time. Tonight, she wouldn’t forget a thing. Every person involved would pay for everything they did.
“Don’t worry, Hank’ll be back. For his efforts tonight, I’ve promised him a freebie.”
“Didn’t think you could handle me by yourself this time?”
Her father snorted. “I didn’t need Hank’s help with you. I brought him along in case your boyfriend tried to play hero.”
She winced. Blake wouldn’t be playing hero. He wouldn’t even be missing her yet, and the Belles would just be sitting down to dinner. Who knew how long it would take them to sound the alarm.
She wasn’t going to delude herself. There wouldn’t be a grand cavalry running into to rescue her. This wasn’t a movie. This was her life.
He fumbled at the back of her head and snatched the blindfold off, pulling hair with it. She struggled against her wrist and ankle constraints to no avail and squinted beneath the brightness of the lights aimed down on her. A no-budget movie set surrounded her, cheap spotlights and a backdrop painted like a desert sunset behind a wide purple velvet bean bag. Off to one side, a steer skull leered at her from the base of a fake cactus.
Beyond this little studio area she could make out the concrete floors, metal walls and open rafters she had guessed were there. She was in a warehouse. An old, half dilapidated warehouse. The same place he’d taken her the first time. Only then it had been different. There’d been no elaborate set up, just a mattress on the floor.
Haylie shut the memories off before they consumed her. This time she wasn’t a little girl who still held out for a chance her father would change his mind, that he would save her. That he loved her enough to protect her. Or that he loved her at all.
A helicopter beat the air
in the distance. It wasn’t coming for her, just part of a military exercise.
“Ready to be a movie star?” he asked.
She clamped her teeth together. “What makes you think anybody wants to buy this trash?”
“There’s a World Wide Web of customers, Sunshine. It’s not like the old days when we had to whisper and pass notes.” He nodded to a monitor set up in the corner. “Tonight we’re streaming live video. Instant stardom. How many Hollywood actresses would give their left tit for that? We’re calling it ‘Buried in the Desert.’ Catchy title don’t you think?”
Something in his eye sent a chill down her spine. The title held more than innuendo.
“You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
“I’m not.” He glared at her. He’d always hated it when she didn’t catch on as fast as he expected her to. That’s how she’d become so good at reading his mind. At reading between the lines, in general.
“Who is?”
“That’s a surprise.” His smile reflected pure evil. The corners of his mouth twitched and his thumbs rolled across his fingers in anticipation. He glanced toward the computer monitor. “But with all these witnesses, you can rest assured he’ll rot in jail.”
* * * *
Blake put his cell phone on speaker and dialed Kara’s number. He didn’t have time to waste. Larry Melvin had answered his home phone and swore Blake hadn’t seen him out on the road. After a few well placed threats that blew his attorney-client privilege to hell and back, Melvin admitted Hank Hawkins might have taken the Hummer out. And he might be working on a project in an old warehouse off Fairfield Avenue
in Pensacola. None of Blake’s threats got him to give up the address, but at least he had a direction to start looking in.
He’d already put a call into to Officer Levitt and told him what he knew. The time it would take to coordinate a police effort across state lines might cost Haylie her life. Somebody needed to scour every warehouse anywhere near Fairfield Avenue
.
Kara picked up the phone on the second ring. “You know your way around Pensacola?” he asked.
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