by V. K. Powell
Chapter Twenty
Abby paced in the small office and stared at the wall clock as if she could make the hands move slower by sheer willpower. It was past four in the afternoon and she hadn’t heard from Kinsey all day. If she’d gotten this young woman into trouble, she wouldn’t be able to forgive herself, not after what had happened to the Torres. She wanted her work to be about making a positive difference. Glancing at the clock again, she dialed Loane’s number and heard a ring outside her door.
“You called?” Loane walked into the room, her expression not reassuring.
“Did you find her? I can’t make that delivery until I’m sure she’s okay.”
Loane shook her head. “I’ve looked everywhere.” She took Abby in her arms and hugged her tight against her chest. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure this out.”
“If something happens to her…”
“I know.” Loane stepped out of Abby’s embrace and looked around the office. “Let’s backtrack. When she left yesterday, did she say where she was going?”
“To remove the cameras while I made some phone calls. You don’t suppose she went to the storage unit and—”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.” Loane pulled her cell phone from her belt and tapped the screen. “I hope she hasn’t removed them yet. The video might give us a clue to her location. Plus it would be a bonus to watch the van being loaded with weapons from the unit.”
“You can do that, on your phone?” She stepped closer and rested her hand on Loane’s arm. The warmth of her skin and firmness of her muscles grounded her, and she breathed a bit easier.
“Kinsey put an app on it that gave me access to the cameras and the tracker. Let’s see if either is still working.”
She watched as Loane slid her fingers over the screen. In a few seconds a video of the storage unit appeared. The time stamp indicated the last update was about an hour ago. “That’s Ray and Tiny loading the van. Perfect, and those look like the boxes I drove up from Miami.” She exhaled when Kinsey’s face blocked the screen as she removed the camera. “There she is.”
As she watched the next shaky segment of the video, her heart pounded. The recording was like a roller-coaster ride, images bouncing up and down, in and out of view as Ray and Tiny dragged Kinsey across the parking lot toward the storage space. “Those bastards.” Then the camera feed ended.
She tried to control her rising panic. “What have they done to her?”
“We’ll find her.” Loane’s voice was tight with worry. “I promise, but I’m worried about you too. They know you hired Kinsey.” Loane put her arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “Let me check one more thing. Then I have an idea.” Loane tapped the phone screen again and a map appeared. “See that? It’s the tracking device and it’s heading in our direction. That means either Kinsey was able to place it on the van before they got her or she’s in the van.”
“How do we check without arousing further suspicion?”
“Tell them whatever you have to, just stall them. I have to check out the storage unit. Can you handle this end?”
She forced herself to breathe slowly and focus on what needed to be done. “This could be the performance of my life. I’ll make it a good one. Go. They’ll be here any minute.” Loane turned toward the door but Abby stopped her. “And in case I don’t get to tell you this again, I love you.”
“I…” Loane feathered a gloved finger down the side of Abby’s face. “To be continued.”
Loane’s touch left a track of chills, followed by searing heat. She pressed her body against Loane’s and placed her ear to her chest, her steady heartbeat reassuring. At this moment she wanted nothing more than to wrap herself around Loane and never let go. But her personal desires would have to wait, again. “Hurry back,” she whispered as she stepped away.
When Loane left, she dropped into her chair and gripped the sides of the desk. She pushed the images of Kinsey being dragged across the parking lot from her mind and replaced them with visions of Ray and Tiny behind bars. Maybe they had already called Carl about Kinsey and were on the way to kill her next. She buried that possibility, along with the memory of Simon, Alma, and Sylvia, under the very real probability that someone would soon answer for their deaths. Releasing her grip on the desk, she let the tension ooze from her body, and a sense of calm determination took over. She would not fail.
As the delivery time neared, she checked the hallway outside the office to ensure her privacy and called Bowman to update him on the delay. Had she been wrong to trust him? Maybe he was the leak and had blown her cover to Carl. Perhaps Carl’s offer for Loane to accompany her on the delivery was a direct result of that information.
It was too late to second-guess her decision now. If the delivery was a trap, at least she and Loane would have backup they trusted. Bowman had already picked up Tyler and they were waiting nearby. Next, she made the call she’d anticipated for almost two years. “Director Barrio, it’s Abby Marconi.” She hadn’t used her real name officially for almost as long, and it felt like freedom rolling off her tongue.
“Yes, Abby?”
“I’m making a delivery of weapons to New York tonight under orders directly from Carl Torre.” She gave him the details and asked for further instructions.
“Once you’ve secured the weapons and money and made the arrests on your end, call me. And be sure to involve local ATF and law enforcement. I’ll have a team standing by to move in on Torre at his estate. Any idea yet on the leak in the local ATF office?”
“Nothing concrete. Dan Bowman thinks there’s a back door as well, but we haven’t pinpointed it yet. Maybe some of the folks we bring in will be interested in a deal. At least we’ll have some leverage.”
“Maybe I was wrong to keep Bowman out of the loop. We’ll see. Keep me posted.” Before she had a chance to voice her own concerns, Hector Barrio hung up.
When a knock sounded at the door, she forced herself back into character. “Come in.”
Ray and Tiny shuffled in with the same nonchalance they gave every task. If either of them suspected her of being involved in Kinsey’s spying, they didn’t show it. “You ready to go?” Tiny asked. “The van’s in back.”
“Where’s your traveling companion?” Ray said.
“She had to run a quick errand, and I have to close out what I’m working on here. Why don’t you guys get a drink while I finish up? Shouldn’t take long.” They nodded and headed toward the bar. “And I’ll need to check the shipment before we leave.”
Tiny stopped so quickly that Ray almost plowed over him. “Boss didn’t say anything about that.”
His objection made Abby think either they suspected her or Kinsey might be in the back of the van. It would be a stupid move on their part, but stranger things had happened in the criminal world. She wasn’t going anywhere until she knew. “If you think I’m leaving here without making sure I have the cargo, you’re very wrong. I don’t trust you with my life. The guys at the other end of this deal aren’t Boy Scouts. So either I check or you call Carl and tell him I’m not making the delivery. Your choice.”
The air in the room seemed to thicken with tension. She counted the loud ticking of the clock as the seconds passed, wondering if she’d made a tactical error that Tiny had somehow pinpointed. “Fine. We’ll check it when you’re ready. I’m getting a drink. It’s been a shitty day.”
“Oh, by the way.” She couldn’t resist offering him one last chance at redemption. “Have you seen the new office person, Kinsey? She didn’t come in today. Did she call or anything?”
Without turning to face her again, he said, “Nope.” Abby added his name to the list of people she’d show no mercy once this case was over.
*
Loane dashed out the back entrance of the club just before Ray and Tiny pulled in with the van. She dialed the storage facility while running to her Jeep parked a few blocks away. “Tori, it’s Loane Landry. I need your help. Are you still on State Street?”
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“Closing up for the day. What can I do for you, Officer?”
“I believe a girl has been abducted and left in unit twenty. I’m on my way there now, five minutes out.”
“I’ll get everything ready.”
While she drove, Loane thought about Abby’s good-bye. She’d wanted to tell Abby she loved her too, but not like that, not in a topless bar in the middle of an investigation. When she said those words for the first time, she wanted them commemorated in romantic style to show Abby how much she cared. Was she being overly sentimental or cowardly by not revealing her feelings? The answer didn’t come.
When she pulled into the facility, Tori Hiatt was waiting by the storage unit holding a power drill and battery pack. “I appreciate this.”
“I hope you’re wrong.” Tori’s childlike face and blue eyes projected obvious disbelief. “What an awful thing to do to someone.”
Loane pounded on the garage-type door at unit 20, praying for a reply. She had a sick feeling that Ray and Tiny had dragged Kinsey into the unit and killed her. They couldn’t afford to have a witness. But she hadn’t shared her suspicions with Abby, maybe because she couldn’t bear to hear the words aloud, afraid they’d somehow become reality. She held her breath and pounded again. “Kinsey, are you in there? Can you hear me?” Nothing.
“Step aside, Officer.” Tori raised the drill.
“Wouldn’t a pass key or bolt cutters be quicker…maybe even a lock pick?”
Tori gave her a curious glance. “Don’t have pass keys to customers’ units, remember, and the locks are resistant to bolt cutters. Can’t say about the pick. Fortunately, I’ve done this a few times. It won’t take long.”
Loane stood back and looked down at her hands, surprised to see them shaking. They were as unsteady as her insides. The image of charred bodies and the pain of loss flashed through her mind, settling around her heart. She wasn’t ready to see someone she cared about hurt or injured again. The grinding of the drill pulled her back to the present, its insistent hum digging into her consciousness.
“Almost there,” Tori said. A few seconds later, the lock fell away and she stepped aside. “This is where you take over.” She reached into her back pocket and handed Loane a flashlight. “You might need this in there.”
Loane rolled the unit door up and shined the light around the inside. As the beam swept the space, she saw nothing but small cardboard boxes piled almost to the ceiling and old furniture covered with dust. Hope drained from her like water down a falls, leaving her physically weak. She slid her hand along the back of a sofa for support and forced herself to move farther inside. Please, please, let me find her…and let her be okay.
“Anything?” Tori called from the front.
“Not yet.” The steady sound of her own voice kept Loane moving forward. She swung the light to the opposite side of the small space behind a tower of boxes. The beam flashed across a familiar patch of red hair and a black backpack.
Kneeling beside Kinsey’s body, she detected a pulse at her neck, slow and weak. “Call an ambulance,” she yelled. “Can you hear me, Kinsey?” She kneaded along her arms, legs, and spine for obvious injuries, then took a deep breath and rolled Kinsey over onto her back.
As she repositioned Kinsey, she saw a large pool of blood underneath her body and a mass of dried blood and hair on the right side of her head. Her face was ashen, lips swollen, and one of her eyes and a cheek were already showing signs of bruising. Loane lowered her head and listened for breathing sounds, hearing no obstruction. “Kinsey, open your eyes. It’s Loane.” She felt helpless, and with no real medical training she hesitated to move her again for fear of doing further damage. In the distance the ambulance’s siren wailed.
“Tori, can you make a path through some of this stuff so they can get to her?” Loane suspected Ray and Tiny had used the empty cardboard boxes to hide Kinsey’s body after they removed the guns.
“I’m on it.”
She looked over her shoulder and saw Tori plowing through furniture and boxes as if coming to assist her own family. A few seconds later, the paramedics arrived. Loane stood by as they checked Kinsey and carefully loaded her onto a stretcher and into the ambulance. “How is she?” she asked. “Can you tell how badly she’s hurt?”
“Not sure yet. Do you know how long she’s been unconscious?”
Remembering the time stamp on the video, she guessed. “Maybe an hour at most. I can’t be sure. Is that bad?”
“We need to go. Is someone following us to the hospital?” The guy looked from Tori to her.
Abby was alone at the club with Ray and Tiny, and she didn’t know if they were suspicious of her yet. Abby was waiting for her, but Kinsey was alone, with no friends or family, and she was injured. Loane was torn between her love for Abby and her need to protect her and the friendship and responsibility she felt for Kinsey. She couldn’t let Abby make the delivery alone, and she couldn’t leave Kinsey without anyone.
“I’ll go,” Tori offered. “You obviously have something equally important to do.”
Loane glanced at Kinsey, then her Jeep, relieved yet afraid she was letting Kinsey down.
“Go, I’ve got this,” Tori said.
“Are you sure?” When Tori nodded, she added, “Please tell her I didn’t want to leave.” She started toward her Jeep but turned back. “Let me know when you hear anything…and if you wouldn’t mind, call her mother, Councilwoman Brenda Jeffries. Kinsey won’t like it, but her mother should know. And thank you, Tori.”
As she pulled away from the storage facility, Loane thought about how quickly she’d become attached to Kinsey in spite of her unconventional dress and behavior. Kinsey had filled a void, and Loane had opened up to her when she thought herself incapable of doing so again. Had that been a necessity or a desire to genuinely connect, and what, if anything, did it say about her relationship with Abby?
She glanced at the dashboard clock that read four fifty-five. Had Abby been able to stall the trip? By now Tyler and Bowman would be impatiently waiting and wondering what caused the delay. Speeding down Market Street, she dialed Abby’s number with one hand. She couldn’t make her wait another minute for news about Kinsey.
Abby’s voice was strained with worry when she answered so Loane got to the point. “I found her.” The sigh of relief from the other end made her smile. “Have you left yet?”
“Nope, finished checking the cargo. Will you be here soon?” Loane could tell she wanted to ask for details but couldn’t because others were nearby.
“Turning in now.” She hung up, skidded into the parking lot, and parked beside the van as Abby came out the back.
Her first instinct was to protect Abby, to get her as far away from this place as possible. That impulse was only slightly dulled when Ray and Tiny exited the van. She clenched her hands around the steering wheel until they throbbed, remembering what they’d done to Kinsey. They’d intended to kill her, she was sure of that, but botched the job. If she got out of her vehicle now, she’d lose any chance of bringing them to justice, clearing this case, or being with Abby ever again. She forced herself to stay in the Jeep long enough for her anger to pass.
She watched as Abby spoke briefly to Tiny, waved her good-byes, and walked toward the Jeep. When she saw Loane’s face, she must’ve sensed her mood. “What’s wrong, hon?”
“I want to kill those bastards with my bare hands.”
Abby opened the door and pulled her toward the van. “Come with me. Now.”
Chapter Twenty-one
Abby drove through downtown and onto US 29 in silence. She could almost imagine the plethora of historical facts running through Loane’s gorgeous head as she regained her composure. She had never understood how history could calm one’s nerves, unless it was the boredom factor. It was Loane’s quirk.
“When you’re ready, I’d like to know about Kinsey.”
The light in Loane’s blue eyes turned dark and dangerous again, and she clenched her hands into
tight fists. “They beat her”—her voice cracked—“and I think she was shot too. It was hard to tell with all the blood. She was unconscious. They tried to kill her.”
“Oh, my God.” Abby took one of Loane’s hands and worked the fist loose enough to entwine their fingers.
“I didn’t want to leave her, but you—”
“I’m sorry you had to make that decision. I know it couldn’t have been easy.”
“Tori Hiatt, the facility owner, went with her. She’s a nice woman. I asked her to call Kinsey’s mother and let me know when she had an update.”
“Will she be all right?”
Loane shrugged like a guilty child unable to explain her behavior.
“You don’t think this is your fault, do you?”
“Abby, I got her involved in this mess. She’s a kid.”
“And I hired her at the club where she met Ray and Tiny. If you want to compare guilt, let’s start there.”
“She kept them from assaulting me the night we met.” Loane looked at her for the first time since getting in the van, a grin tugging at the corners of her mouth. “She was a redheaded fireball and a quick thinker. They never stood a chance. I thought she was a major pain in the ass, but she grew on me.”
“I guess we both owe her, huh?” She squeezed Loane’s hand and brought it to her lips for a light kiss. “Kinsey doesn’t strike me as the type of person who’d do anything she didn’t want to. She needed to find her friend and we needed her help. If she could hear us now, she’d tell us both to get over ourselves.”
“You’re probably right, but I’ll still take great pleasure in slapping the handcuffs on Ray and Tiny when we get back,” Loane said.