“Yeah,” Emily said. “And we’re not talking about some grubby Middle Eastern rug merchants or Russian mobsters or foreign terrorists, these are college guys. They’ve all got nine-to-five jobs on Wall Street somewhere. But this is how they make their real money. Blake is the point man. He finds some vulnerable babe barely into her twenties who’s just arrived in the Big Apple from Bumfuck, Kansas, like me, wines and dines and seduces them, and then they find themselves in a little cage begging for a scrap of bread or to go to the bathroom. It’s so disgusting.”
“Blake will have moved all of the girls out of that warehouse location,” McCall said.
“I was running away in a blind panic. I don’t think he’ll pack up shop just because I ran out into the night. But I heard them talking. They are going to move the girls to a new location. And pretty soon. Maybe tonight.”
“Then we’re too late,” Tara said.
“Not if I can take you there,” Emily said.
“You said you have no idea where the warehouse is,” McCall reminded her.
“I don’t. I’ll get Blake to tell me. Put a wire on me, isn’t that what they do if you’re trying to trap some creep and the FBI are with you?”
“Blake would make sure you weren’t wearing a wire,” Tara said. “He’d strip you naked to be sure.”
“That’s the idea.”
McCall was looking at Emily. “What’s your plan?”
“Go to Blake’s office. He’s there right now. Calvin told me that. I’ll come on to him. Let him know that I escaped, if he doesn’t know it already, but that I wanted to be with him. He doesn’t want to sell me into slavery like the other girls. He wants me for himself. I’ll ask him where the warehouse is, and you guys can be listening. Have the cops with you. Once he’s said the location, you can swoop in and grab him.”
“Too great a risk,” Tara said. “He might not give up the location.”
“Those girls are going to be sold, okay?” Emily said with more passion in her voice. “I killed a man tonight. If Blake moves the girls out of that warehouse, I killed Calvin for nothing.”
“Even if you seduce Blake, he’ll take you back to that warehouse,” Tara insisted.
“That’s what we want him to do.” McCall looked back at Emily. “Can you make Blake believe you want to be with him no matter what business he’s in?”
“I can do it. I can make this work.”
“We’ll have to make a pit stop first,” McCall said.
* * *
No lights were on at Manhattan Electronics when McCall, Tara, and Emily got out of their cab, but Mary unlocked the door and let them in. Tara led Emily over to the main counter. McCall followed Mary through the darkened store toward Brahms’s office at the back.
“How did it go with Norman Rosemont?” McCall asked her.
“Piece of cake. He did manage to get his hand down my cleavage and cop a good feel. Mind you, so did I. He’s a big boy.”
“Probably more information than I needed,” McCall murmured. “He’s in place?”
“Jimmy let me out at Sloan Kettering that night. I don’t know where he took Rosemont after that.” They were almost to the back, where light spilled from Brahms’s office. Mary stopped McCall with a squeeze on his arm. There was no more lightness to her voice. “I don’t know who you really are, or what kind of work you’re doing now. I don’t care who that girl is or what’s happening to her. I only care about my boss, and this is not a good night to drag him away from the hospital to cook up some nifty little gadget for you.”
“There are lives at stake. And I’m out of time.”
“So his feelings aren’t that important to you.” Mary nodded. “You’re really a ruthless person, aren’t you, Mr. McCall?”
He didn’t answer that.
“Just remember he’s sick with worry.” Mary moved over to where Tara and Emily were waiting.
McCall walked into Brahms’s office.
Brahms was sitting at his cluttered desk working on a tiny electronic tracking device. “Just checking the circuit. You going to nail this bad guy tonight?”
“That’s the plan.”
Brahms slipped the back onto the small circular device, clicked it into place, and handed it to McCall. “I don’t have time to make up another one for you. Go, go! I have to get back to the hospital, but first I need to talk to God.”
McCall left him sitting at his desk, murmuring words he wanted only God to hear. McCall walked over to where Mary was standing with Emily and Tara. “I need a bra, and Emily isn’t wearing one.”
“I guess that leaves me,” Tara said.
She shrugged off her leather jacket, pulled off her shirt, took off her bra without a hint of embarrassment, and handed it to McCall. Then she put her shirt back on.
“You two must’ve got cozy,” Emily muttered.
McCall turned to Mary with the bra in one hand and the silver tracking device in the other. “How good at sewing are you?”
“You’re lucky I keep a sewing set here at the store. The boss manages to get holes in all of his sweaters. Give me five minutes.”
Mary disappeared behind the main counter. McCall took out his cell phone and handed it to Emily. “Call Blake in his office and let him know you’re about to take a cab over there to see him. The caller ID won’t come up. Make sure he doesn’t leave until you get there.”
“But call your mother first,” Tara said quietly. “Let her hear your voice. Let her know her daughter is still alive.”
Emily nodded and took the phone.
* * *
A uniformed security officer escorted Emily up in the elevator at 1290 Avenue of the Americas to the thirteenth floor. He said, “Mr. Cunningham is expecting you,” his tone indicating he knew she was a hooker, and the elevator door closed. She walked past empty glass offices to the corner office, from which light spilled. When she walked in, she was greeted with a magnificent panorama of the skyline of Manhattan through two huge windows. There was a leather couch, an armchair, and two client chairs. Blake was sitting behind a modern desk working on his laptop computer. He was wearing gray flannel trousers, a classic white oxford cotton shirt and a gray Bucharest paisley tie and a twill blue blazer.
He stood up. His gaze was like laser beams going right through her. “Close the door.”
She closed it.
Blake did an odd thing. He turned his laptop computer around so that the screen faced into the office. He came around the desk. Every instinct screamed at Emily to get out of there, but she stood her ground.
He looked at her for a long moment. “You killed a friend of mine tonight.”
“He tried to rape me.”
“Where did you get the shiv?”
“I found it on the warehouse floor.”
“Why didn’t you keep running? Why aren’t you on the first Greyhound bus back home to good old New Brighton, Minnesota?”
“Because I want to be with you.”
He took a step toward her. Fear shot through her body in a tremor, but she controlled it.
“You look like shit.”
“You wouldn’t look so good yourself if you’d spent a month caged up like an animal,” she retorted.
“And you’re not afraid that I’ll take you right back to that cage?”
“Is that what you really want? To sell me to the highest bidder with the others? I thought you wanted me all to yourself.”
She wondered if she’d hurled the challenge at him too fast, but he slowly nodded and smiled—the smile of a cobra.
“I never had any intention of handing you over to some sleazy Arab who jerks off at the sight of an American girl’s tits. But I had to teach you a lesson. How do I know you haven’t brought the cops with you? That you’re not wired for sound?”
“I’m not,” she said simply.
“Strip for me.”
She stepped out of her black high heels and turned around for him to unzip the back of her dress. He did, and the dress fell to
the floor. She picked it up, dropped it onto the leather easy chair, turned back to face him, unclasped Tara’s bra, and dropped it onto the black dress. She stepped out of her black panties and tossed them onto the easy chair.
“Turn around.”
She turned once in a full circle. “No wire.”
He took two swift strides to her and grabbed her by the throat, almost lifting her off her feet. She gasped. His face was close to hers.
“I’d known Calvin since high school,” he hissed. Then he let her go and smiled again. “But we were never close. You didn’t run. You came here. That’s all I needed to know.”
He kissed her and pushed her down to her knees. She unzipped his slacks and pulled his boxers down. After she performed the oral sex he wanted, he threw her onto the couch, took off the rest of his clothes, and climbed on top of her. She closed her eyes as he kneaded her breasts and massaged her shoulders and then moved inside her. It was the most vile fifteen minutes of her life. But she was still alive. Once he’d climaxed, Blake rolled off the couch and got dressed. Emily picked up her panties from the chair and slid them on. She picked up the bra.
“Keep it off. I like you better without a bra.”
“I’d feel weird not wearing one.”
“I said leave it!”
She shrugged like it was no big deal and dropped the bra back onto the armchair. She picked up her dress and stepped into it. Blake zipped her up.
“That dress is a disgrace. You need a new wardrobe. We’ll go shopping tomorrow. I have to go to the warehouse. There’s a shipment going out tonight. Then we’re moving our location. You cool with that?”
“None of those girls mean anything to me. I told you, I want to be with you.”
“You’ll come with me to the warehouse. Then we’ll go to a late dinner.”
She stepped back into her black high-heeled shoes. Blake opened the office door for her. She glanced down at the bra lying on the easy chair with its concealed tracking device. “Shouldn’t I at least take it with me? You don’t want the cleaning guys finding it.”
Blake grinned. “They’ve found them before. Let’s go.”
She walked through the doorway and Blake closed the door behind her.
Now she was trapped.
CHAPTER 32
McCall sat in the passenger seat of Mike Gammon’s Prius, parked on West Fifty-Second Street just above the side entrance to 1290 Avenue of the Americas. Gammon was behind the wheel, Tara in the back. McCall had no way of knowing which exit Blake and Emily would take from 1290. Two parking facilities were close by, one in the CBS building at West Fifty-Second Street, another one at 354 West Fifty-Second Street. McCall had to rely on the tracking device that Emily was wearing. He checked the small receiver in his hand. The little red light in the bottom right-hand corner remained static
“She’s not moving.”
“Maybe Blake’s going to stay in his office with her,” Tara said. “Drink champagne, ball her all night.”
“With news that one of his guys is dead and the warehouse may be compromised?” McCall shook his head. “He’d get her out of there as soon as the sex was over.”
“So why hasn’t he?” Gammon asked.
McCall shook his head. He could feel the frustration coiling into a ball in his gut. He hadn’t wanted to send Emily into the lion’s den alone. But if they had burst in with cops, Blake would have denied all of the charges, a high-priced attorney would have had him out on bail in two seconds, and the warehouse—if they ever discovered its location—would have been completely abandoned. Emily’s gutsy plan had been the only one that had made sense. Blake would take her with him to the warehouse. They would follow.
But the light on the receiver remained static.
Emily still wasn’t moving.
Or she left the bra behind, McCall suddenly realized.
* * *
They had exited the Morgan Stanley building from a back entrance and walked a couple of blocks to a parking facility where Blake had picked up his BMW. He’d made a phone call and then pulled out into the traffic. Emily noted that he had a pair of Italian Persol sunglasses hanging from the top button of his shirt.
“What happened to your Fendi 411s?”
“I dropped them in my apartment last night and then managed to step on them. Had to toss ’em out.”
After that he didn’t say another word to her.
She knew it was over.
He had seen right through her charade, but he had wanted to have that sex with her before he returned her to her fate. Her nipples chafed against her dress as if a reminder that she should not have left the bra behind.
After twenty minutes, Blake turned down a street that looked vaguely familiar to Emily. She recognized the partially constructed building on the right where she’d met Blake and Robert McCall at the rave party. She glanced past Blake and saw the old Mercury Theater with its scaffolding gleaming in the streetlights. Four blocks later Blake turned left onto a narrow street between two huge warehouse buildings, and then right into a cul-de-sac that led up to another warehouse. Two black Ford SUVs were parked outside it. She knew this was the warehouse where she’d been imprisoned.
“I need to call my mom,” Emily said suddenly, “let her know I’m okay. Can I do that? Just so she hears my voice?”
Blake shrugged and handed her his iPhone 6. “Make it quick. I’ll be listening.”
Emily took the iPhone, turned slightly away, and tapped out a number. After a pause, she said, “Hi, Mom, it’s me. I know it’s been weeks since I’ve called you. I’m so sorry.”
At the other end of the call, in Mike Gammon’s Prius, McCall motioned for Gammon to drive out into the traffic. Tara leaned forward from the back.
“Where are you, Emily?” McCall asked softly.
In Blake’s BMW, Emily sounded exasperated on the cell phone. “Of course it’s really me, Mom! Don’t you recognize my voice? I’ll prove it to you. The last play we saw together in Minneapolis, at the Mercury Theater, was a thriller called Catspaw by Robert McCullough. Really creepy. You remember how hard it was snowing that night? We had to walk four blocks in a blizzard from the parking lot, remember that?”
“Wrap it up,” Blake said.
“I gotta go, Mom. I’ll call you soon. Lova ya.” She disconnected and handed Blake his iPhone, praying he wouldn’t look at the last number she’d dialed. “Thanks.”
Blake slipped the phone into his blazer jacket and pulled up to the warehouse building.
Emily prayed to God that Robert McCall had understood her message.
* * *
Melody looked out from her cage at the sudden flurry of activity in the warehouse room. One of Blake’s college thugs had opened the cage nearest to her and was dragging out the two young women in it. He handcuffed both of them together, then clamped them with a second handcuff around the cage-door bars. Other men were pulling the other girls out of their cages. The realization of what was happening sent a shiver through Melody.
They were moving them.
Emily had never come back. Melody feared she might be dead. Melody thought that was what happened to the girls who didn’t cooperate. Her cage door was unlocked and a man she’d never before seen—he looked like he should be coaching a Little League team—dragged Melody to her feet and thrust her out of the cell. He was holding on to the arm of another blond girl, in sweats with her hair pulled back in a ponytail. Little League Man cuffed them together, then snapped them with a second pair of handcuffs over the bars of Melody’s cage door.
The other blonde pleaded, “Let me go home! I won’t say a word about this! I swear it!”
Little League Man didn’t bother to answer or even acknowledge her. He moved away to help with the handcuffing of the other prisoners.
“My name’s Amy,” the blonde whispered. “What are they going to do with us?”
“Sell us,” Melody said softly.
There was a commotion at the big front doors of the warehous
e. Melody looked over and saw the last person she’d ever hoped to see back here—Emily. At least she was alive. And she didn’t look as if she was a prisoner. Blake Cunningham was with her, an arm around her shoulders. Another of their captors, Melody had heard him called Chip, lunged forward and grabbed hold of Emily.
“Don’t harm her!” Blake warned.
“She murdered Cal!”
“You heard me!” Blake said sharply. “I was on Skype when she came to my office. I made sure the buyer saw me fucking her. He’s going to pay double for her.”
Chip motioned to one of Blake’s other men, who thrust a brunette over to him. Chip handcuffed the brunette to Emily, then snapped another handcuff over Emily’s other wrist that, in turn, snapped over a railing near the warehouse doors.
Melody’s stomach churned.
There’d be no rescue now.
* * *
Mike Gammon’s Prius passed the old Mercury Theater. McCall counted four blocks. A narrow alleyway was on the left.
“Turn here!” McCall said.
Gammon made the turn, traveling between two large warehouse buildings. After fifty feet there was a right-hand turn into a cul-de-sac. The narrow alleyway continued on. Gammon braked to a halt. They could see two of Blake’s men manhandling two bleary young women, handcuffed together, into the open back of one of two black SUVs. McCall reached into his pocket and handed Tara a card.
“Call the Seventh Precinct. Ask for Detective Lansing.”
“Shouldn’t we call the Feds?”
“Detective Lansing is hoping to hear from me,” McCall said, the irony lost on her. “Tell him to bring a SWAT team with him. Stay in the car until the cops get here. Back up into the alleyway so you’re facing south. If one of the SUVs drives away, follow it.”
McCall and Gammon got out and disappeared down the alleyway. Tara slid into the driver’s seat, reversed back down the alleyway, turned around in the street, and reversed back until she was just above the cul-de-sac. She picked up her cell to call the cops.
McCall and Mike Gammon reached the side of the warehouse, where an old pickup truck was parked. A couple of the cages had been collapsed and were lying in the open truck bed. This warehouse wall had no doors. Blake’s men were bringing the cages around from the front. One of them disappeared around the corner. His partner readjusted the second cage on top of the first. McCall recognized him as one of the two from the first rave party who’d been standing at the second-floor balcony with a Heckler & Koch 9mm in his belt.
Killed in Action Page 24