Lost in the Darkness (Crusaders of the Lost Book 1)

by William Mark

  “Alma?”

  The girl pulled off her headphones but stayed seated.

  “Si?”

  “I’m here to help you, honey,” Rachel said with compassion and care. The girl looked at her confused, and Rachel repeated herself in Spanish. She reached out for the girl to take her hand and offered a comforting smile to the frightened young girl. She smiled back, but as she reached out to take Rachel’s hand, her face turned to one of shock and horror. She quickly retracted her outstretched hand and cowered back in the chair. Rachel didn’t understand and begged her to come with her, saying that she was there to help.

  Rachel failed to notice Cortez had entered the room behind her. He was holding a nickel plated and pearl handled pistol to the back of her head. Rachel spun around to see the barrel of the gun staring back at her. She backed up half a step before being backhanded across the jaw. The blow sent her falling hard to the floor and stars popping in her peripheral vision. She held herself up on all fours as she nearly blacked out from the fierce blow, but before she could stand back up and fight, Cortez had jumped on her, hitting her several more times with the butt of the gun. She was able to block most of the blows with her hands but was stunned by the ones he managed to land. He yelled at her in Spanish, cursing her and calling her names, demanding to know what she was doing in their house.

  Rachel tried to focus on surviving at this point but felt her world closing in on her. The same terrified feeling came over her as when she was trapped in that nightmarish prison as a little girl. She forced herself to focus and avoid going back into the abyss, for her life now depended on it.

  “Help, please help; he’s upstairs.” Rachel managed to get out over the comms. But she didn’t hear any reaction. No one’s voice came through, no answer, no reaction. She was alone. She repeated her cries for help as the trafficker turned his physical abuse on the young girl also knocking her to the floor.

  “Stop! Please stop!” Rachel begged the man for the young girl’s sake.

  He stepped back over to Rachel and backhanded her once more across the face. Blood filled up the inside of her mouth from a cut sustained inside of her cheek. She coughed and spat blood onto the floor.

  He stopped for a moment and yelled back downstairs to the other man. Rachel could translate something about checking the rooms. Still no reaction over the comms. She reached up to her ear and instead of feeling the small, plastic, ear bud transmitter, she felt nothing but her own ear. It was gone. It must have fallen out when she was violently backhanded by the trafficker. She frantically searched the floor but couldn’t find it.

  Without provocation, Rachel was yanked up by the hair and dragged out of the bedroom. Panic took over as she clawed the floor and grabbed for anything to fight against Cortez. The trafficker was deceptively strong and kept her off balance and unable to fight back while dragging her down the hallway. She felt helpless, a feeling she hated and had vowed she would never feel again.

  Cortez dragged Rachel down the stairs. Her feet stumbled underneath her causing her body to hit each step as she was pulled down the stairs. Julio had kicked in the door to Louis’ bedroom and found the room empty and the window open. With his gun drawn, he kicked Jack’s bedroom door open and found him huddled in the corner alone still recovering from the shot to his genitals. Julio read a pathetic and pleading look on Jack’s face and quickly put his thoughts together. Without hesitation, he aimed his gun at the conman cowering in the corner and shot him once in the head for his treachery and betrayal.

  “Where are they?” Cortez slung Rachel onto the floor of the formal room at the base of the stairs. He had just gotten the report from Julio that the girls were gone, and Cauldress was dead.

  “Where are they, punta? Tell me, or I kill you now!”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she answered, refusing to be intimidated by the men.

  “Bitch!” Cortez lashed out, striking the woman again across the jaw and following up with a kick to the ribs. He ordered Julio to go outside and search for the girls and the woman’s accomplices. He reminded Julio that they were half-naked women in the cold Colorado Mountains and they couldn’t have gone far. He had to preserve the enterprise at all costs.

  Rachel took the brunt of the kick in the ribs and coughed out in pain as she gasped for breath. She pushed herself upright and against the back wall next to the bar. She looked up, bloody lip and face, and told the trafficker who stood over her, “Go fuck yourself.”

  Cortez grew angry and stepped up and put the barrel of his gun to the forehead of Rachel Goodwin. Her body went numb, and only thoughts of her sister came to her. If she was in fact dead, she was about to meet up with Rhonda in the afterlife. She realized she found comfort in the thought of seeing her sister again, whether in this world or the next. She closed her eyes in anticipation. She was calm and ready.

  The gunshot was much quieter than Rachel would have imagined. And there was no pain. She awaited the reaction and the divine white light to appear—there was no light or harp music—just an odd movement that didn’t register until she realized she was not shot and wasn’t dead.

  Her eyes opened, but she didn’t want to believe what she saw. Julio, the muscle bound trafficker was falling backwards into the threshold of the oversized door. Cortez was turning around to find the cause of the disturbance behind him. He held his gun pointed in Rachel’s direction. As Julio fell, an image appeared from out of the blackness and into the light of the foyer. The image moved swiftly and with purpose through the open door. Curt moved with such fluid speed and aggression, his trench coat billowed in his wake, like a caped superhero taking control. His Glock 22 was aimed steady in his outstretched hand as he closed the gap to the trafficker standing over Rachel. Cortez watched in shock as his man fell to the ground. He swung the steel plated pistol around to take aim at the apparition coming his way, but before he could gather his focus, Curt fired a double tap into his chest, knocking him backward. Blood spattered from his chest and sprayed across Rachel’s face where she was still sitting on the ground below him. As a reaction of being shot, Cortez squeezed the trigger, sending an errant round into the wall behind Curt, narrowly missing his head. She watched in morbid excitement as the despicable man fell to the cold tile floor, gasping for his last breath and in search of an answer for what was happening. Lying on his side dying, Rachel crawled over to him and looked into his eyes. She met his stare with a look of satisfaction. It was satisfaction from not succumbing to the terror he tried to impose, not at his impending death. It was a triumph she failed to achieve as a victim all those years ago, and she felt vindicated, to a degree, while she watched the life fade from his eyes. As Cortez lay lifeless on the floor, Curt stepped over him and kicked the gun from his dead hand. He transferred the gun to his right hand and reached down and pulled Rachel up with his left.

  “Are you okay?”

  Stunned more than anything, she felt the blood returning to her body and outer extremities, and she told Curt that she was okay. He tugged her toward the door, telling her they had to leave before the authorities arrived. Her senses quickly returned as thoughts of meeting her presumed dead sister dissipated. She stopped suddenly and met Curt with a questioning look.

  “Alma? We have to go get her!”

  “We already have; let’s go.”

  Rachel was relieved and followed Curt as he grabbed her hand and lead her away from the house on the bluff. They ran down the trail to the neighboring driveway. Rachel ignored the growing pains from her injuries and followed Curt down the steep path. Louis had cranked up the Mercedes Sprinter and gotten all the girls loaded up just as Rachel and Curt made it down the trail. They jumped into the van and slammed the side door shut as Curt yelled at Louis to drive. The Sprinter lurched forward and knocked the newly liberated girls off balance in the back of van. Rachel looked back at the scantily clad women holding each other in their arms, trying to comfort one another in this moment, wondering if they had made things wors
e by trusting these strangers. Rachel felt relieved that all five girls were accounted for, and they no longer had to endure the hell of enslavement. The injuries she sustained during the beating from Cortez started to take effect, but she realized it was worth it to save these girls from a life of torment and misery. They stared back at the heroic woman and finally started to believe that they were truly safe.

  Chapter 17

  He held his eyes closed as hot water cascaded down his body, hoping to wash away the guilt of taking a man’s life. Curt had been a cop for nearly fifteen years and worked on this clandestine team of do-gooder Crusaders for the last two, but he had never taken a life. He had been saving that honor for the man who took his son. The guilt was from the fact he didn’t care about the men whose lives he took. They were despicable men doing evil in this world, and he would get over it as soon as the shower ended. He knew the operation was risky going into it, but they managed to rescue the girls from their bondage. However, things went wrong. That was the nature of the job, and one of the reasons they operated in secret, but after this, he wondered how long it would remain a secret?

  Curt remained in the shower, letting the steamy, hot water soak into his body. It had been a long night, and it was after midnight. The team fled from the house on the bluff quickly after the shootout went down. A late night call to the Orion Project representative in Denver was made, and they had agreed to make the drive into the mountains to Vail. It was the best thing for the girls freed from their sex enslavement.

  The Orion Project was founded to help the victims of human trafficking survive the aftermath of their enslavement. They are victim advocates who excel in their work with human trafficking victims. They have counselors to help the girls realize they were brainwashed from the beginning, starting with their recruitment. The problem for these girls, specifically, was that there would be no arrest that coincided with the rescue of the five girls, mainly because Cortez and Julio were now dead. This meant they may not qualify for the T Visa that is normally granted to the victims of human trafficking. However, as in most criminal enterprises, Cortez most likely answered to someone above. But that was no longer the team’s problem. They had rescued the girls and needed to slip back into anonymity. Following the evidence up the food chain was someone else’s job.

  Rachel was taken back to the hotel and cleaned up. She sported a few bumps and bruises from the ordeal, maybe a broken rib from the vicious kicks from Cortez, but otherwise, she was fine. She stood proud with her battle scars displayed openly as the representative from the Orion Project showed up a few hours after. The deal, greased with a substantial anonymous donation made to the project, was simply to take the girls back to Denver and stick to the story that they managed to escape on their own after some kind of home invasion robbery that left the two traffickers dead from gunshot wounds. Their story was that they were hiding in the back and didn’t see the robbery go down. Therefore, they could only offer evidence in the trafficking case against the enterprise employing Cortez and Julio, not to the shooting that led to the men’s deaths. Before handing over the donation, written from the secret account of Alexis Vanderhill, the Orion Project rep agreed to those terms and didn’t ask questions, but he knew they were lies given the presence of Rachel’s injuries and the huge sum of money. Nonetheless, the rep was more interested in taking down the enterprise than how the girls came to be freed. It was more important that they were free, no matter the reason. Rachel agreed and they parted ways.

  Alexis Vanderhill was attending a late night fundraiser in Charlotte when Beth Young called her and advised her of what happened. She listened without reaction as Beth explained that three men were dead, but five innocent girls were rescued from enslavement. Alexis maintained her composure for appearance’s sake, and after hanging up quietly, she excused herself and made arrangements to leave for Colorado at once. There was some exposure that needed to be minimized. She listened as Beth explained that Rachel thought of calling the Orion Project to help take the girls. Alexis agreed and directed her to call the specific representative and authorized the use of a “donation” to make things go smoothly. Beth could tell Alexis was not happy since her answers were short and forced to sound cordial.

  Louis remained in the Sprinter, listening to the police scanner for updates. A neighbor down the hill on the bluff had heard the report of gunshots echo down the small canyon as he and his wife were sitting on their porch, enjoying a cool night outside. He called in the suspicious incident, and when the first officer got there, he found the carnage within.

  Soon after, the detectives were called, along with the crime scene unit. The theory of a home invasion presented itself over the radio, but as the detective responded, he asked if anything looked like it was taken. The officer, after completing a cursory search of the chalet, couldn’t answer with certainty and explained that the house was empty for the most part, except for beds set up in most of the bedrooms along with sexual paraphernalia, condoms, alcohol, and some women’s personal items. This assessment led to the detectives silence over the radio. Louis kept tuned into the radio channel for any additional information.

  The messy crime scene was quickly controlled, and the radio had little voice traffic. This kept Louis in the dark about what they were learning from the crime scene. After the detective arrived on scene, he sent someone to the neighbor’s house. They didn’t see anyone related to the shooting but stated that they had seen a dark colored sedan leaving the house about a minute after hearing gun shots. They offered that they had seen the same car driving around the area earlier in the day and the day before. Louis figured they had seen Curt conducting surveillance on the house and hoped that was the extent of what they saw.

  As the radio traffic slowed, Louis used the time to inventory the equipment. He checked the ear bud comms from everyone and noticed that they were short one. He pulled up a program on his computer that he designed to help manage and keep track of the team’s communications. He had wanted to install GPS in the ear buds, but that wasn’t quite feasible with their size at this time or within his budget. So, he activated each ear bud, starting with his. It squelched as he turned up the volume, which meant it was in the box where they’re kept. He went down the list checking each one, and when he got to Rachel’s, there was no squelch, even at max volume. But if it wasn’t in the van, where was it? It was on, according to the program, so he should hear Rachel talking or doing whatever if she forgot to take it out. But what he did hear wasn’t her talking. It was rather strange. It was muffled voices. Maybe she set it down somewhere at the hotel, and it was picking up some random conversation. He clicked on a few filters in his program, and the voices cleared but not enough to understand what was being said.

  One of the voices got louder and louder; then Louis knew exactly where the ear bud was.

  “There was a void in the blood spatter against the wall downstairs like someone was against the wall when the smaller guy was shot. The guy in the foyer dropped where he was shot, and so did the one in the bedroom. That fucker was executed in there, so there was at least one other person here during the shooting other than the doer. I’d say a woman based on all these lotions and make up.” The raspy voiced man sounded seasoned and confident in his observations.

  “So, what do you make of this?” another voice asked.

  The voice and movement got much louder and clearer as if they were right on top of the ear bud. Louis stared at his computer console wide-eyed and frozen, unsure of what to do, but he felt compelled to keep listening.

  “Hmm, looks like blood. A few things knocked around up here,” the raspy voice said, followed by a pause. “Looks like there was a struggle up here. See that scuff mark on the wall by the vanity?”

  The other voice agreed with him. Louis listened carefully as the men moved around the room.

  “What’s that?” again the raspy voice asked pointedly.

  “What?”

  Louis had a sinking feeling he knew exactly what t
hey were looking at.

  “This? What the hell is this?” Louis dialed back the volume as the detective’s loud, raspy voice filled the van’s interior to a near deafening level.

  Louis stared at the console, knowing if he made a loud noise the man could hear him as well. He went stiff with indecision.

  The detective blew on the tiny tan plastic thing he held in between gloved fingers, “Hello?”

  Louis, his mouth gaped open, slowly extended out his hand careful not to make a noise and clicked the ear bud off. Silence fell inside of the van, but he was still afraid to make a sound. He looked around and stared at the box of the remaining ear buds. If they found out how to activate the small earpiece, they would be able to listen in on their conversations and subsequent operations.

  Chapter 18

  The mountain air was still which left a calm eerie silence to the cool night. Curt felt as if the heavens were looking down at him, watching in judgment as he packed his luggage in the Mercedes Sprinter. It was late, and most everyone in the mountain hotel was already asleep. Louis relayed what he heard from Rachel’s ear bud to Curt and let the information digest for a moment. The home invasion theory provided to the Orion Project rep might hold up based on what Louis heard, but if they figured out where the ear bud came from or where it led to, the team’s existence would be in peril. They would have to figure something out soon.

  Louis left Curt and went back inside to pack up his luggage. They decided they needed to head out as soon as possible. On his way back in, Beth passed him with an angry scowl on her face and made her way toward the van, suitcase in tow.

  “You didn’t have to shoot them Curt, god dammit! We’re supposed to be protecting life, not taking it.”

  Curt looked up at the seething woman but realized he lacked the energy to argue with her and then looked back down not saying anything.