Cold Hunt

by Mary Stone

  32

  Ellie set her book on the bedside table when the doorknob turned, her hand going to her hip. She cursed under her breath. Her gun was gone, locked away until she was cleared to carry again. But all that mattered was she had finally given Ben’s family closure, after two long years of wondering.

  Kyle, one of the guards Ellie had hired, stuck his head through the doorway and grinned at Ellie. “You have a visitor.” His gaze went to the hand still poised at her hip, and he shook his head. “You know keeping you safe is my job, right? You can chill. No one is getting through this door.”

  Ellie forced herself to relax and tilted her head toward the hospital bed in the middle of the large, private room. “I know. I’d just like to have some way of protecting her if you can’t.”

  Kyle held her gaze. “I can try to bring on another guy if that would help.” He shrugged. “Two per shift seems like enough, but—”

  “No, you’re right. I’m just on edge. Who’s here?”

  He stepped out of the way, letting Jillian through and closing the door behind her.

  Ellie rushed forward to take the bags Jillian carried before she toppled over. “What’s all this?”

  “Clothes for Valerie, some shoes, and toiletries.” She set the rest of the bags down and dug through one. “Fuzzy socks, a prepaid cell phone so she can call anyone she needs to, and some snacks for when she’s sick of hospital food.” Jillian glanced at Valerie sleeping peacefully, sedated so she could rest, Sam by her side in the bed. “They didn’t say anything about Sam?”

  Ellie shook her head. “Even if they had, Sam has refused to budge since they brought Valerie to the room.”

  “Good.” She rubbed Sam’s head and brushed her fingers over Valerie’s arm, which was curled around Sam even as she slept. “If she feels safer with Sam by her side, that’s all that matters.” Jillian moved one of the empty chairs so she could sit near Ellie. “How are you holding up? Any word on when you’ll get your gun back?”

  “I’m fine, but Fortis wants me to take some time off.”

  “Paid?”

  Ellie nodded. “He’s pulled a few strings and authorized an extended leave for witnessing a fellow officer’s death, in addition to the standard thirty days.” She turned her attention back to Valerie. “I’m not going to take it all, but I think I’ll spend some time advocating for her.”

  “She’ll appreciate that. Has she woken up?”

  “For a few hours this morning.”

  “Did she say anything?”

  “She said a lot.” Ellie fished her notepad out of a bag at her feet. “There’s a detailed description of the men who kidnapped her and Ben. She recognized one of them from a charity trip she took with Ben.”

  “A trip like Mabel and Tabitha took?”

  “Yes and no. In Valerie and Ben’s case, they completed the trip, but here’s where it gets interesting.” She flipped to the next page and scooted her chair sideways so Jillian could read over her shoulder. “Katarina’s name came up again. But like Mabel and Tabitha’s case, there’s no pictures of the woman anywhere.”

  “That’s one hell of a coincidence.”

  “I thought so too.” Ellie unlocked her phone and tapped the screen. A collage of pictures appeared. “On a hunch, I had her look at missing persons cases, and some of our Jane Does to see if she recognized anyone. These are the people she picked out from that first night in the warehouse before she and Ben were separated at the auction.”

  Jillian’s eyes widened. “I recognize a few of those faces.”

  “So do I. Jillian, I think whatever this circle of evil operating in Charleston is, it’s a lot bigger than even Arthur Fink realized.”

  “Is that why you hired private guards instead of having uniformed officers posted at the door?”

  “It is.” She’d known the decision was going to make waves, but she didn’t care. Nothing was more important than Valerie’s safety.

  “I wondered why Jacob was downstairs looking put out.”

  Ellie grimaced and glanced at Valerie again. The woman was still sound asleep. “He’s hurt, and I don’t blame him, but I’m serious when I say that nothing we know leaves this little circle right here.”

  Jillian gave a sigh of relief. “What are you going to do when they want to question Valerie?”

  “I don’t know, but I hope to put off letting anyone near her for as long as I can.”

  “What about her family?”

  Ellie deflated and bit her lip, forcing back tears that seemed to threaten every fifteen minutes. “Her parents died in a car accident while she was captive. She took it really hard.”

  Jillian covered her mouth as she absorbed the news, then she asked, “And her friends online who were searching for her?”

  “There’s a possibility she’ll end up in witness protection, so we’re holding off on announcing that she’s alive for now.”

  Jillian clenched her jaw and nodded. “There really is no one we can trust with her safety.”

  “Not Fortis, and not Jacob. Not even Chief Johnson.”

  Jillian recoiled. “Even him?”

  “Especially him.”

  “But why? Isn’t he the one who found you and stayed with you in the hospital?”

  “Yes, and now that we know this ring of traffickers is more than just sleazy deviants and one dirty detective, I’m seeing his motives in an entirely new light.” She told herself once again that she wasn’t being paranoid, only cautious.

  “So, what do we do now?”

  “Right now, keeping Valerie safe is the only thing that matters. We have to keep this case quiet and investigate on our own.”

  Jillian nodded. “And what about Valerie? Is she safe here, and for how long?”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ll take care of finding her a safe place to lay low until we have what we need.” Ellie gazed out the window, eyes narrowed and shoulders rigid. “There’s evil lurking in the shadows of Charleston. When we come for them, they won’t know what hit them.

  Gabe leaned back in his desk chair, covering a yawn that escaped. Rolling his head to the side, he stared at the clock. Still recovering from his vacation, the patient schedule had been hectic for more than a week as he tried to appease clients without overloading his boss. It was a delicate balance of kissing ass and fluffing egos, but he was a master at making people happy.

  Now, if he could just convince this workday to end so he could go home and rest. But the hour hand seemed to be stuck in place.

  Down the hall, a door opened. Gabe sat up straight, fingers on his keyboard, and a friendly smile on his face.

  When his boss, with graying hair and neatly trimmed beard, came into view, Gabe’s smile widened. “That was your last patient of the day. Can I get you anything before we lock up, Dr.—”

  “I’ve got to run, Gabe. I’ll see you Monday morning? I might have a surprise for you then, but no promises.”

  “Of course.” Gabe got up to walk him to the door. “See you Monday.”

  Patting his pockets, his boss pulled his car keys out and stepped to the door. At the threshold, he stopped. “Gabe, can you make sure I locked my office door? I have to run.”

  “Of course, sir, I—”

  The door shut behind the doctor, and Gabe was alone. He closed his mouth and took a deep breath before slinging his messenger bag over his shoulder and shutting his computer down for the weekend. He was so ready for the weekend.

  Out in the hall, he turned the key in the lock, froze, and groaned. “You forgot to check his office door,” Gabe muttered, slipping back into the office and speed walking down the hall.

  When he tried the handle on the office door, it turned. Not locked. Using the first key on the ring, he stuck it in the lock, but the key didn’t fit. He tried the next and the next, but none of the keys worked. “What the hell? I don’t have time for this.”

  Exasperated, he stepped through the doorway, checking the handle for a button he could depress
to lock the office. Not that anyone could get into the therapy room if the main doors were locked, but Gabe refused to risk his job security over his boss’s paranoia. Gabe knew a good thing when he had it.

  A noise at the desk caught his attention, and he paused, abandoning the locking mechanism when he realized the computer was still on.

  “Will this day never end.” He stomped across the room and nearly tripped when his trousers caught on the corner of the bottom drawer. The fabric tore, the sharp wood point scratching his skin.

  Gabe checked his shin for blood, found none, and used his throbbing leg to push the drawer closed.

  The metal tab that locked the drawer prevented it from closing, and Gabe realized the doctor had turned it too soon in his haste to leave. The drawer bounced back open a few inches, revealing the spines of multihued books arranged neatly by color.

  Curiosity overcoming him, he sat down in his boss’s chair, taking the first scrapbook out of the drawer and setting it on the desk. He stared at it for a long time before opening it to the first page, eager to see the pictures inside. He’d always wanted to get into scrapbooking, and he’d had no idea his boss was crafty.

  “Surprise, surprise.”

  The first page featured a single picture of a man with a yellowed bruise healing near his eye, an expression on his face that Gabe had seen in the mirror in his old life.

  His breath caught, and for a moment, he thought he was looking at himself, strung out on drugs and glaring into the camera. But the man wasn’t Gabe, and the picture looked more like a dating ad than a mugshot.

  Enthralled, Gabe turned the page, smiling at the man’s transformation. He was wearing casual black slacks and a simple yellow button-down shirt with his jacket open at the hem. It was very office chic, and almost identical to the outfits Gabe favored for work attire. The man posed on a couch, his dark eyes hauntingly intense through the camera’s lens.

  Gabe frowned when he turned to the next page, to a shot of the man in more risqué poses, his shirt unbuttoned, bare chest exposed. The man was gorgeous enough to be a model, and Gabe was sorely tempted to snag one of the photos for himself.

  Glancing around the room, even though he knew he was alone, Gabe took his phone out and snapped a picture of the man. “I’ll save that for later,” he whispered to the hunk now on the screen of his phone.

  He closed the book and returned it to its spot, fiddling with the metal tab on the lock until the drawer shut all the way. Using a letter opener, Gabe held the drawer open just enough to jam the thin blade into the gap and shove the metal tab into place, locking the drawer tight.

  The computer gave a soft ding, and in the corner of the screen, a dialogue box popped up, letting him know there was a message.

  Gabe stared at it for a long time, not sure what he should do. On one hand, no one would be in until Monday to answer the message, but it was still business hours. If the message was an emergency, Gabe could be risking someone’s mental health by leaving the message to sit all weekend.

  With shaking hands, he clicked on the message icon.

  Glad you enjoyed your vacation. I have another one like your last purchase. Here’s the link if you’d like to check it out. It’s a little more than the last, but for you, I can lower the bid by 5K. Let me know ASAP. This isn’t going to last.

  Gabe scowled and rolled his eyes. A sales pitch. “Figures.”

  He almost erased the message, but curiosity got the better of him. He’d had no idea about the scrapbooking. Maybe there was more to the good doctor than Gabe would ever find out if he minded his own business.

  Lower lip caught between his teeth, he clicked on the link and held his breath as the page loaded.

  A picture of a young man filled the screen. Beside the photo, a detailed bio listed the man’s age, height, and weight. But it was the letters flashing in red that caught Gabe’s eye. The man was listed for fifty thousand dollars, delivered.

  Gabe’s mouth dropped open, and his eyes widened as he leaned forward to read it again, sure he must have misunderstood.

  The person who sent the message was selling a living, breathing man, and from the looks of him, he could’ve been related to the man in the scrapbook. And Gabe. Gabe’s eyes widened, and he held his breath, staring at the screen as his heart raced inside his chest.

  The message icon changed, letting him know there was another message waiting. He couldn’t stop his fingers from clicking.

  I’m glad I caught you in time. I’m not sure this one is going to last the weekend. If I don’t hear back from you in an hour, I’ll have to put him up for bid.

  Gabe read the words three times, hand gripping the mouse, mind reeling. He clicked back on the website, staring at the picture that looked so much like his own reflection, his eyes drawn to the staggering amount of money the site wanted for whatever services the young man offered. He was frozen, unsure of his next move.

  But then the popup asked him if he would like to buy the item or continue browsing.

  Gabe had to make a decision.

  Sweat popping out on his forehead, his breath coming in quick gasps, he moved the cursor and made his choice.

  The End

  To be continued…

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  How did it all start for Ellie Kline?

  I hope you enjoyed Cold Hunt. I have a very special and exclusive FREE Book offer for you! Cold Start is a bonus story to the Ellie Kline series which introduces you to Ellie and friends. Rising to the rank of detective wasn't an easy feat for Ellie Kline. Discover her humble law enforcement beginnings—and why she was always in so much trouble—in this special bonus story.

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  Ellie Kline Series

  Cold Truth (Ellie Kline Series: Book Two)

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  Acknowledgments

  How does one properly thank everyone involved in taking a dream and making it a reality? Here goes.

  In addition to our families, whose unending support provided the foundation for us to find the time and energy to put these thoughts on paper, we want to thank the editors who polished our words and made them shine.

  Many thanks to our publisher for risking taking on two newbies and giving us the confidence to become bona fide authors.

  More than anyone, we want to thank you, our rea
ders, for clicking on a couple of nobodies and sharing your most important asset, your time, with this book. We hope with all our hearts we made it worthwhile.

  Much love,

  Mary & Donna

  About the Author

  Mary Stone lives among the majestic Blue Ridge Mountains of East Tennessee with her two dogs, four cats, a couple of energetic boys, and a very patient husband.

  As a young girl, she would go to bed every night, wondering what type of creature might be lurking underneath. It wasn’t until she was older that she learned that the creatures she needed to most fear were human.

  Today, she creates vivid stories with courageous, strong heroines and dastardly villains. She invites you to enter her world of serial killers, FBI agents but never damsels in distress. Her female characters can handle themselves, going toe-to-toe with any male character, protagonist or antagonist.

  Discover more about Mary Stone on her website.

  www.authormarystone.com

  Donna Berdel

  Raised as an Army brat, Donna has lived all over the world, but no place has given her as much peace as the home she lives in with her husband near Myrtle Beach. But while she now keeps her feet planted firmly in the sand, her mind goes back to those cities and the people she met and said goodbye to so many times.

  With her two adopted cats fighting for lap space, she brings those she loved (and those she didn't) back as characters in her books. And yes, it's kind of fun to kill off anyone who was mean to her in the past. Mean clerk at the grocery store...beware!