by Leslie Wolfe
She saw stars, and tears started rolling from her eyes, although she despised herself for crying in front of that animal, for showing weakness and fear.
He let go of her arm and spat on the floor. She looked straight at him, her teary eyes filled with hatred and contempt. She stood hesitantly, her head throbbing from the shock and the pain, not taking her eyes off of his.
“He’s going to kill you first,” she hissed, then grinned while wiping her face with the back of her hand.
The second blow came immediately, without warning, sending her tumbling across the floor. He reached her in two steps and grabbed her hair, dragged her to the cage, then shoved her inside and locked it.
“Not before I teach you some manners,” he said, glaring at her, then at the other two girls. “I’m going to enjoy breaking you in.”
Krista stood against the back wall, shivering and whimpering, while Mindy sat on the floor, her eyes hollow, her face immobile. When the man left the garage, slamming the door shut behind him, Meredith breathed, then started sobbing quietly, hugging herself. She dropped to the floor, feeling too weak to keep on standing.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Krista asked, her voice reeking of hatred. “Do you want to get us all killed?”
Meredith looked at her, then lowered her eyes. “It’s not about you. They only want me.”
“Oh, so you’re so damn special, huh? Then what are we doing here? Keeping you company?”
“No,” she whispered. “You’re right, we’re all in hell.”
“Then stop making these crazy threats. Keep your filthy mouth shut,” Krista commanded, punctuating her request with a slam of her hand against the wire wall of her adjoining cage.
“Do you know where we are?” Meredith asked, looking at Krista first, then at Mindy.
“Like we’d tell you if we knew,” Krista replied. “Who knows what stupid shit you might try to pull off. Do you know what they do to punish girls like us here?”
“Look, my dad is a cop, and he—”
“Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard it all before,” Krista replied. “They’d kill us all before they let a cop in here, that much I can tell you. And they’d probably start with your scrawny ass.”
Meredith scratched the site of the microchip implant they’d shot in her arm on the first day of her captivity. It wasn’t hurting her, but just knowing it was there made her want to tear her flesh off to get to it, yank it out, and stomp it under her feet.
“There are others?” she asked quietly.
“What did you expect?” Krista scoffed. “Yeah, there are others, smart girls who learned their lessons, and now sleep in real beds, take showers, eat real food.” She paced her cage slowly, the look of bitterness on her face inexplicable.
“Then why are you in here, if you have all the answers?” Meredith asked quietly.
Krista stared at the back wall, then at the ceiling. “I—I’m afraid,” she eventually said. “Of those men, you know. When they took me, I was so scared I threw up all over them.” She slid her fingers through the wire loops and rattled the cage wall. “Now I know my lesson; next time I’ll do better. I’ll do whatever they want, just to get out of here.” She crouched to the floor, grabbing her lower abdomen with both her hands.
“Did they hurt you?” Meredith asked.
Krista nodded, tears pooling in her eyes. “It hurts inside, down there.” She sniffled and squeezed her eyes shut. “They gave me a shot; it made me dizzy and nauseous. But it doesn’t matter; I have to behave next time, I have to.”
“Why?” Meredith asked, although she thought she knew the answer.
Krista’s rage returned in full force. “Because they keep the misfits in here, the ones they’re going to kill if they don’t believe we can make money for them. If they don’t think we can be trusted.”
“How do you know this?” Meredith asked. “Who did you talk to?”
“They let me use the bathroom,” she replied. “Another girl was there. She was dressed in silk, not rags, and wore real jewelry. She said she started like us, only a month ago. She seemed happy.”
“Happy, my ass,” Meredith replied. “You must be a total moron if you think—”
“Henderson,” Mindy said. “We’re in Henderson. I recognized the sound the tires made when crossing the overpass at 215 and 515. Then we drove only a few more minutes after that interchange.”
“Thanks,” Meredith said.
“Great,” Krista intervened. “Now how are you going to tell your daddy that valuable piece of information? Are you telepathic?”
Meredith stared at Krista but didn’t say a word.
“Then we’re still screwed,” Krista whispered. “I’ll have to learn to do what they want.”
“They’ll teach you,” Mindy said, speaking softly, her voice weighed down by immense sadness. “Just give them a couple of days.”
“How about you?” Meredith asked. Her head was spinning, the earlier pain subsiding, leaving room for petrifying fear.
Mindy chuckled sadly. “They’re going to kill me soon. I’m not a fit.”
“Why?” Krista asked.
“I have a strong gag reflex. I can’t do what they want me to do.”
24
Cocaine
Thirty-four hours missing
Holt folded the phone and let it slip into his half-ripped jacket pocket, then turned to me and stared, his jaws clenched tightly, his teeth gritting.
“Are you coming?” he asked and climbed behind the wheel of Dr. Hickman’s UTV.
“One second,” I replied, as I beckoned the ornithologist to come over quickly.
He rushed, his gait crooked and clumsy as if he’d never run a yard in his entire life.
“Dr. Hickman,” I asked, as soon as he was within earshot, “what would cause your vultures not to eat? This girl was already dead, and still, they didn’t touch her.”
He rubbed his chin and tugged at his overgrown mustache. “They’re smart birds,” he said hesitantly as if speaking before he’d finished thinking things through. “There must be something wrong with her, something they could only smell up close. Otherwise they wouldn’t even circle.”
“How do these birds choose where to circle?”
“They’re attracted by any form of life that is still for a while. In the desert, that’s all it takes to become carrion. Although they strongly prefer herbivorous animals, not omnivores, like humans are.”
“Baxter, for crying out loud,” Holt shouted. “We need to go. Now.”
“Have your vultures circled like this in the past? In this area?” I asked, climbing in his UTV.
“We just finished tagging the birds, and before the kettles were smaller, more dispersed—”
“Yes or no, doctor, please,” I interrupted, aware of the passing of every second.
“Yes,” he replied, staring at the sky for a brief moment. “Geez… I hope there aren’t any other girls buried alive out here. I didn’t think of that,” he added, sounding ashamed. “When I get back to the lab, I’ll pull the locations from the computer history and send you the coordinates.”
“Thanks,” I shouted over my shoulder because Holt had already set the UTV in motion. “Someone will bring this vehicle back.”
“He didn’t hear you, Baxter,” Holt said grimly.
“No, but you did, when I asked if you knew who took Meredith. Talk to me, Holt.”
He pressed his lips together as if the words fought to come out but a part of him wouldn’t let them.
“I told you I worked undercover a few years back; that’s when I got addicted to cocaine,” he said. “The organization I infiltrated was led by a man named Samuel Klug, known on the streets as Snowman. Back then, he only dealt in snow; that’s street for cocaine.”
“Yeah, I know what it means. Is he the one who took her?”
“Yes,” he replied. “I recognized his voice the first time he called. He’s got it out for me for bringing his organization down five years
ago. He managed to escape back then, and there was no direct evidence against him to justify an extended manhunt. He’d always been the man behind the curtain, pulling strings, calling the shots.”
He stopped talking, and I didn’t interrupt his thoughts for a while, although I wanted to scold him for not sharing that piece of information earlier. But moments passed by, and he didn’t continue.
“Then what happened?”
“He got away. Most of his people didn’t. That day, when the bust went down, he lost a lot of dope in the ensuing seizure.” He clenched his right fist and slammed it against the UTV’s steering wheel. “I didn’t think he’d be back. I was a reckless fool, thinking he’d just go away and leave me, us, this city, alone for good. I believed he’d steer clear of the cop who had almost locked him up. No; for him it’s payback time, and I should’ve seen him coming.”
“Could he be the serial killer who’s done this?” I asked, gesturing toward the desert we were leaving behind at full speed.
“No,” Holt replied quickly. “He’s a killer, a psychopath, and deserves to be shot on sight. But he’s no serial killer, Baxter.”
“Are you sure? How else would you explain—”
“He’s a straight shooter, vindictive and evil; not a pervert who rapes dying girls, keeps souvenirs, and what not. He’s got an entire organization of hookers—”
“Rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power, about control. And this Snowman seems to be a power freak, based on what you’re telling me.”
“And I’m telling you, he didn’t do this. It doesn’t fit. No, he took Meredith because he has a rule. If someone did him wrong, first they must make him whole again, repay the debt somehow, then be punished, most likely killed.”
We reached the highway, and Holt stopped the UTV next to the railing, then ran to his Interceptor. As soon as I jumped in and closed the door, he pulled a U-turn and headed back into the city at full speed, lights on and siren blaring.
“Okay, but the same two men kidnapped your daughter and the victim of a serial killer. How do you explain that? Is Snowman one of the two men who took Meredith?”
“No, he’s not. Snowman is African-American, thirty years old, no priors. No one’s ever managed to land his ass behind bars. I came close, but the brass pulled the plug early, and he skated.”
“Then what do you think happened? What’s the correlation between Meredith and Alyssa?” I choked as I said Alyssa’s name, remembering her paralyzed body, buried alive, defenseless, waiting for the predator to come calling again.
“Two different sources told me Snowman is into human trafficking and enforced prostitution these days, to supplement his drug trafficking income. Maybe Alyssa was one of the girls he kidnapped for that reason. He must’ve used the same two knuckleheads to grab Meredith.”
“You’re on to something,” I said, feeling a wave of frustration rile me up. “If you’d kept your damn phone turned on, you’d know that Anne found an embedded tracker in Alyssa’s arm. That supports your theory about forced prostitution. That, and the fact that the poor girl had been repeatedly raped over the past three weeks since she’d been taken.”
“A tracker?”
“Yes, a GPS-enabled microchip, pretty high end. Fletcher is tracking the source, hoping to get to the buyer.”
“I need to speak with him,” he said.
I dialed Fletcher and connected the call to the car’s media system.
Fletcher picked up immediately.
“It’s Baxter and Holt,” I said. “We need—”
“Oh, you found him,” he reacted. “We were both worried about you, Holt,” Fletcher said. “What do you need?”
“Pull everything you have on Samuel “Snowman” Klug. Figure out what property he owns or occupies in Henderson. It should have a large garage.”
“That’s it? Find a Henderson property with a large garage? Three hundred thousand people live in Henderson, and there are over ninety thousand detached homes with a garage. You have to give me more than that.”
“There isn’t anything more,” Holt snapped. “Find known associates of Klug’s; focus on white people, not black.”
“Wait, maybe there is more,” I intervened. “That house could have five active mobile phones pinging the towers, and one of those signals could be the one who visited the Mojave crime scene.”
“Got it. What else?”
“Any news on the mobile phone users who visited the desert site?”
“Not yet. I have to look at all carriers, all subscribers, then filter out. It will take a while.”
A wave of disappointment washed over me like a cold shower. I’d hoped he could correlate the signal to identify the property, but not if he didn’t have the phones identified yet.
“How about those microchips?” I asked.
“Detectives Nieblas and Croker are pulling in the vendor now. We’ll find out who he sold that particular one to.”
“I know who he sold it to, and that doesn’t do anything for me,” Holt said. “Can you hack into them? See the location of the chips?”
“Not sure I follow,” Fletcher said. “What chips? We only have one. I’d need the serial numbers and identifiers to visualize the locations of any other chips.”
“Press that vendor,” Holt replied. “My gut tells me he sold Alyssa’s chip as part of a bulk order. Localize them all, see if we can find more than one in a certain location. If that location is in Henderson and it comes with a garage, that’s the jackpot.”
“You’re looking for a place where he might keep the girls, I get it,” he replied.
“Thanks, Fletch,” I said, after looking at Holt and seeing he didn’t have any other questions. “I might call you later, okay?”
“Yeah, but don’t hang up just yet. About the crooked cop your daughter and her friend surprised in the men’s room, I have the composite based on Casey’s description running; so far, no matches. I’m running it against the LVMPD employee database, with special approval from the sheriff himself.”
“How did you pull that off?” I asked.
“Everyone’s pitching in,” he replied. “No LVMPD employee is willing to go off duty until we find Meredith.”
“Thanks, let us know.”
“Will do,” he replied, then ended the call.
Three beeps marked the beginning of uneasy silence. I struggled to find the right words to say. What could I possibly tell Holt that could make him reconsider what he was about to do? It seemed crazy; I couldn’t think of a single, possible scenario in which Snowman would keep his word and promptly release the girl the moment Holt gave himself up. He was a fool for even considering it. Either that, or he was bloody lying to me again.
Holt turned right, and I recognized the street he lived on. I decided to give him yet another chance to come clean.
“What are you planning to do?” I asked. “Turn yourself in?”
He pulled to a stop on his driveway. “What else can I do but go?”
“Uh-uh,” I reacted, surprised by the intensity of the fear and anguish I felt at the thought of losing him. “You can’t do that; I won’t let you.”
We walked to the house, and he unlocked the front door. We entered a typical bachelor’s living room, littered with sports magazines and scattered clothing. A few books were stacked on the end table; James Patterson, Tom Clancy, and a couple of others I didn’t recognize. Beer remnants at the bottom of a bottle of Bud Light generated a stale smell with a tinge of brewer’s yeast in the air. I frowned when I saw the bottle; one of the rules of the twelve-step program was to stay sober and away from all intoxicants, not just the one that brought the addict into the program.
“Not your choice to make, Baxter,” he said while slowly taking his jacket off, protecting a hurt shoulder by the looks of it.
I propped my hands on my hips and got in his path. “You’re stepping into a trap, Holt. He’s going to kill you, and there’s no guarantee he’ll keep his word and let your daughter go.�
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“I know that,” he replied grimly, as he pushed me gently to the side and opened the kitchen pantry. He bent over and dug through a toolbox, extracting a sledgehammer.
“Okay,” I said, trying to breathe deeply but failing. “I’ll give you six hours, and if you’re not out of there, I’m bringing the entire department in on this.”
“I won’t last six hours,” he replied, and then slammed the hammer into the wall, right next to a painting. “Not unless he’s got other plans with me.”
At first, I thought he was taking his anger out on the wall, but soon I realized I was wrong. As the hole in the wall expanded, and pieces of drywall fell to the floor, I was able to see the object hidden in there. It was a small package, the size of a book, wrapped in aluminum foil and then vacuum sealed in plastic.
When he was able, he reached into the hole, extracted it, and ripped the plastic open. The package drew air with a hiss, and I smelled the familiar odor of gunpowder.
“What the hell is that?” I asked.
“A bargaining chip,” Holt replied calmly, continuing to unwrap the contents from the layered packaging.
“Cocaine?” I reacted, my voice a high, screechy pitch brimming with frustration. “Is this the missing kilo of dope from that bust last month?”
He shot me a long, tired look. “Yes,” he admitted. I heard sadness in his voice and a trace of guilt.
“You lied to me,” I reacted, starting to pace the room angrily, trying to refrain from doing something physical as an outlet for my anger. “You bloody lied to me, Holt!”
“Yes,” he replied, lowering his gaze. Then he looked up again. “I needed to do this.”
“The IAB is after you for it,” I said, gesturing at the brick of dope lying on his coffee table on a stretch of wrinkled aluminum foil sprinkled with gunpowder.
“I know,” he replied, rubbing his forehead and shifting in place. “Listen, we have to—”
“No, you listen,” I replied. “I lied to them for you, putting my career and my entire life on the line. They had me investigate you, and I swore you didn’t take that coke. I covered for you against all logic, because I knew an addict will always do anything in his power to get his hands on more dope. Tell me you’re not using!” I urged him, at the same time holding my breath and hoping he’d somehow manage to win me over again, to prove to me that what we’d had together wasn’t a complete lie.