Rather than answer out loud, Jacques simply sprinted in the direction of the car. Time was of the essence if they were going to catch those two.
And there was still a murderer out there garroting women somewhere.
* * *
Kyra enjoyed the sensation of her stomach dropping out from under her as the rental car sped over a huge bump in the road. The vehicle’s tires screeched as Diego spun the wheel, avoiding an oncoming car by mere millimeters.
Good move.
From the groans in the backseat, it seemed the rest of the team didn’t share her opinion of Diego’s driving. Well, like it or not, he was making excellent time.
They’d managed to cover almost half the area around the red light district so far. And while there hadn’t been a sign of Anna or Darrel yet, at least they were eliminating areas where they weren’t. It was just a matter of time before they managed to track those two down.
Good thing, too. The thought of a young man, not quite eighteen, out on the streets of Amsterdam on his own… well, it wasn’t pretty.
Hold on. Did that mean that she actually cared?
That was so not okay.
They sailed through an intersection with a red light, honks and the squeals of rubber against asphalt following along behind them. The fact that they were still alive was just another testament to Diego’s superior skills.
Seriously, Kyra wasn’t letting anyone else drive ever again.
“Watch out!” screeched Darchak from the backseat, but Diego already had his foot on the brake.
They slammed to a halt, Kyra having to work hard to make sure her head didn’t connect with the dashboard due to the abrupt stop. There, right in front of them, was a huge gathering of people with picket signs.
“What is this being?” Darchak asked from the backseat, his tone sounding worried. Of course, that seemed to be his standard state of being.
“Look,” Mti said, pointing.
Standing opposite the mass of protestors was a gathering of scantily dressed women… and men. Sex workers.
“It must be a protest against prostitution,” Jacques murmured as he craned his neck to see over Mti’s head.
As he spoke, the group of prostitutes surged forward, entering in amongst those holding up their signs. They seemed to be carrying items in their hands. Bottles, bricks, lengths of pipe. Kyra watched as one young gigolo stooped to pick up a rock in his fist.
This was about to get really ugly, really fast.
* * *
Mti felt the growing agitation of the crowd as a psychic blow. While this may have started out as a peaceful protest, it would not remain so for long.
“We must find a way to exit,” he said to Diego. “Now.”
“But we still haven’t found Darrel,” Kyra argued. “And that’s the only remaining direction we haven’t searched.”
“Um…” Jacques said. “I think Mti might be right.”
The two groups were now mingling, angry words sailing back and forth. An arm was raised up… one of the sex workers grabbing onto a picket sign… and then violence erupted on both sides.
Within seconds, the front of the car was surrounded by women in high heels and bikinis, men in nothing but tight briefs, and their much more conservatively dressed opponents. One of the protesters was thrown backward against the hood of the vehicle, the resultant metallic boom resonating in the small space inside.
“Diego,” Kyra barked. “Get us out of here.”
The Spaniard threw the car into reverse and backed away from the violence, just missing a young prostitute who could not possibly be the legal age. For a moment, Mti was face to face with the girl through the window, and he felt her pain radiate from her.
She looked nothing like Anna, but the sense of despair and hurt that came from her was almost identical. This was a real person, someone’s daughter. These were the women their team was tasked with saving.
And right now, that same group of people were keeping them from doing their job. The irony of the situation stabbed at Mti, exacerbating his feelings of helplessness.
Darrel was missing, as was the one girl that might help them in their search.
With a sea of angry humanity separating them.
* * *
Darrel looked at the note again, written in Dutch.
Help me alstublieft. Ik vrees voor mijn leven.
Help me, please. I fear for my life.
So now he was following her through the streets of Amsterdam. Why had Anna taken off like that? If she wanted his help, the least she could do was not make it quite so much of a challenge for him, right?
He watched as she made her way over the bridge that arced across one of Amsterdam’s many canals. She turned her head, her scarf flapping in the chilly breeze, appearing as if she were searching for something… or someone… then continued on.
Was it him? Had she been looking for him?
Darrel cursed himself. All it would have taken was for him to call out a bit. Reach out to her. But there was a part of him that was afraid that she’d changed her mind. That maybe she’d decided a seventeen-year-old language prodigy wouldn’t be much of a help to her after all.
Maybe he could prove her wrong. But in order to do that, he would need to keep up with her. And that would require a bit of a sprint right now.
A hulking brute of a young man stepped out in front of Darrel, blocking his path. From the path he was taking, and the fact that he had a knife clutched in his hand, it was clear that this was no mistake.
This was an intended mugging.
Without pausing, Darrel sank into a defensive stance. When it came to street fighting, he preferred Krav Maga. Not the most elegant of forms, and not something he would ever take into a dojo, but it got the job done. Fast.
The would-be thug opened his mouth to make the inevitable threat, but Darrel was already done with this encounter. If he didn’t wrap this up quick, Anna would be long gone. Darrel wasn’t about to let that happen.
The assailant rocked back on his heels as he came to a halt, and Darrel used the momentary imbalance to his advantage. Darrel placed his other hand right in the middle of the young thug’s chest while blocking the young punk’s knife arm with a forearm. Without pausing, Darrel then slid his fingers down to grasp the weapon itself. At the same time, he snaked his leg around just behind the young man’s knee joint.
Before the mugger had any idea what was happening, he was disarmed and flat on his back. Darrel leaned in close, holding the knife up where it could be seen.
“Bad idea,” Darrel breathed.
He stood up, allowing the wannabe criminal to scramble to his feet and rush off into the night. Maybe not such a good plan, to try to attack someone that held no less than six black belts in various forms of martial arts.
Darrel looked around, taking stock. They had passed into a different area of De Wallen. Instead of the red light apartments, they were now in an area with the private homes that served as their own form of less-regulated bordellos.
And it was into one of those homes that Anna disappeared.
Was that it? She hadn’t wanted him seeing that she worked more than one angle of the sex trade? To be honest, the whole sex worker thing was both repellant and attractive to him at once. Knowing that she worked in a private home in addition to one of the window apartments didn’t make much of a difference to him.
But now, it appeared that if he was going to help her, he would have to wait. For one very compelling reason.
He wasn’t old enough to get in.
* * *
The car pulled to a stop at the side of the road several blocks away from the riots. The sounds of the clash could still be heard faintly in the night air.
Kyra ground her teeth together. Right now she wasn’t sure with whom she was more irritated, Darrel or the protestors. Then she thought about the fact that Darrel had just bailed on them without even a word.
Darrel. She was definitely the most irritated with him.
>
Hard to remember how young he was. The fact that he could speak pretty much every language on the planet, combined with his skills at self-defense, made it difficult to think of him as a kid sometimes.
But right now, with him in the wind, he seemed small and vulnerable in Kyra’s mind. Somehow, without realizing when it had happened, she’d started worrying about her linguistic prodigy.
Damn that kid.
“Where we go now, jefa?” Diego asked as they approached a major intersection. They’d just crossed the bridge that took them out of the red light district, but it would be some time yet before they could go back the way they came.
Time to make a tough call. There was no way for them to pursue Darrel or Anna right at the moment. And there was only one other option that was bouncing around in her head at the moment.
“What say we go crash Visser’s private party?” she asked the team. “If he’s interrogating a suspect, we should be there.”
Heads turned toward her. Darchak looked nervous, but once again that was just his permanent expression. Mti seemed to think for a moment, then nodded, and Kyra was reminded once more why she loved having the Haitian on her team.
That just left Jacques and the new guy.
Diego looked up from a gun he was cleaning, which seemed to be what he did to keep his hands busy when there wasn’t anything else going on. Placing the gun in his holster, he nodded.
“That sound to me like a good idea.”
Hiring this Spaniard was turning out to be one of her better ideas.
That just left Jacques. And he was the one Kyra was the most worried about. Not only did the team have a tendency to listen to him, but Jacques also shied away from anything that might ruffle official feathers.
Like showing up to an interrogation to which they weren’t invited.
Good policy for a public relations guy. Problem was, his instincts almost always went directly against Kyra’s own.
The Belgian pursed his lips. “I will regret this later. But yes. That Visser…” He shook his head. “Let us just say that I am not a fan.”
That settled it. Time to go rattle some cages.
And maybe interrogate a pimp while they were at it.
CHAPTER 3
Once more, the car careened through the streets of Amsterdam, leaving angry gestures, words and honks behind them. The distant cacophony spoke of the fear the Spaniard generated with his aggressive driving.
Mti pulled his energies inside of him, gathering up his strength. In addition to the stress from the journey, there was something off here in Amsterdam, with this case. Something that had nothing to do with the clues they had gathered so far.
Mti was worried about Darrel.
The young man could handle himself in a fight. That was not a concern.
But Darrel was young, and in spite of what he liked to project, a bit naïve. Mti had seen the way the linguist had been staring at Anna, and while the girl seemed kind enough for a prostitute, Darrel was set to get his heart broken at the very least. Crushed and ground into the dirt was the more probable conclusion to the story.
In addition, there was a serial killer loose. And while up to this point, the victims had all been Dutch sex workers, there was no telling what might happen if Darrel stumbled into something by accident.
The car pulled to an abrupt halt, right outside the building that housed the Politie. Typical government building, with perhaps a touch more class than many. Concrete and glass combined into a form that was less than neoclassical, but more than a squat and square lump of stone and metal.
As they rushed through the front doors into the lobby, Kyra made a beeline toward the receptionist. The man on duty looked up at Kyra and nodded.
“Hallo,” he said.
“English?” Kyra asked, and her frown told Mti she was thinking of the fact that Darrel was out there somewhere right now, instead of by her side, translating.
Kyra wore her emotions on her face, which made her simple to read most of the time. However, her emotions were unlike most other people’s, so she still managed to remain a bit of an enigma.
“Yes, I speak English,” the receptionist answered.
“We are with the task force working on the prostitute killings,” Kyra stated, her toe drumming a tattoo on the hard floor tiles. “We are looking for First Lieutenant Visser and Inspector Meijer. They are interrogating a witness.”
The man looked down at his computer screen. “I am sorry, but they are not here.”
Kyra snorted. “Nice try. They told us they were coming here to interrogate a pimp who had been picked up in connection with the case.”
Again, the man stared at his screen, punching buttons. As he did so, his expression went from the stiff but pleasant look of someone who worked in reception, to something more concerned.
“I do not show that there is any witness of that nature in custody.”
Mti felt a chill slide down his back. This was the sense of discomfort he had been feeling. It had to do with what was happening right now.
“Shit,” Kyra cursed under her breath as she turned away from the desk and stalked out toward the front doors of the building. “We need to find Darrel. Now.”
Mti could not agree more.
* * *
Darrel started awake from where he must have started dozing off on the street. After sitting on the curb for more than an hour, he’d seen pretty much nothing.
But now, there were two men entering the bordello. That, in and of itself, was not unusual. What was unusual about this was that they were dressed in police uniforms. That and the fact that Darrel recognized them.
Visser and Meijer.
What the hell was going on here? Weren’t they supposed to be off interrogating some pimp or something? That was what Darrel thought he had heard when he left the team to go follow Anna.
Well, maybe not left. That was such a harsh way of putting it. Leave of absence sounded better. Not that Kyra would see it that way.
Darrel swore to himself. Who was he kidding? Kyra was going to rip his head off and piss down his neck hole when she got her hands on him. And all for what? Running around the streets of Amsterdam, chasing after a girl who scared him almost as much as she drew him to her.
Shaking his head, he turned his attention back to the front door of the private home. What about these cops? That was weird, right? Darrel crept closer to the two men, who seemed to be arguing with one another. The shorter one… Meijer… looked to be the more unhappy of the two, but neither one of them appeared all that thrilled to be here, for whatever reason.
Then, a shock coursed down Darrel’s spine.
This was what Anna had been frightened of. Something was going on with these two officers… or maybe just one of the two, since the little guy seemed less happy to be here.
Anna could be in danger.
Darrel sprinted around to the back of the home, darting down a dark alleyway. Hoping against hope, he looked for a rear exit. There had to be one, right? Even if these places were legal, they had to have a bolt hole.
Sure enough, there was. Darrel rushed over and banged on the door. Hard. Hard enough that he was afraid Tweedledum and Tweedledummer in the front of the house might hear.
But after a moment, it got the required results. The door opened up, and there in front of him was Anna.
“Hallo,” he said to her in Dutch. “I’m here to rescue you.”
Anna shook her head from side to side, the gesture almost violent. “I do not need to be rescued any longer. I am safe here.”
“But those two policemen,” he argued. “They’re right out front.”
Anna gasped, then her eyes narrowed. “They will never leave me alone. What can I do? There is nowhere to run.”
“I could take you back to my hotel,” Darrel said, then realized how that must sound. “No, not in that way. I mean…”
She shook her head, stopping his speech. “Perhaps…”
Pausing for a moment, Anna
looked into Darrel’s eyes, almost like she was seeing into his soul. He felt his heart beat in an erratic rhythm.
“Do you trust me?” she asked.
Darrel could do nothing but nod.
“I think we may be able to hide here,” she said.
“But--” he began.
She continued, cutting him off. “You remember I told you about my grandmother? This is her place. It belongs to my family.”
Anna took his hand, leading him into the large house. He felt his heart give another stutter step as he moved through the dark hallway.
Fantastic. Darrel was now going to meet a prostitute who could qualify for the senior’s special at the Sizzler back home. While holding hands with one of the prettiest girls he’d ever known. Who also happened to be a prostitute, and the other woman’s granddaughter.
This wasn’t weird at all.
* * *
Jacques watched as Kyra went into high gear. Where before she had been focused, now her gaze was like a laser that burned through everything around.
It was impressive as all hell. It was also more than a little sexy.
Dammit.
“We need to find Darrel,” she was saying, “and that means finding Anna. What do we know about her?”
“Dutch. Young,” Mti said. “And from what Darrel mentioned to me after speaking with her, she is descended from a long line of prostitutes.”
Kyra snapped her fingers. “Darchak. Search for private homes for prostitution registered with the government. What was her last name?”
“De Jaager,” the Haitian answered.
“That’s the one to look under,” she said, speaking to the computer tech.
After some furious typing, Darchak lifted his head up from his computer. “I am having an address.”
Jacques stepped in. “Are we sure that this is the right place? I’m assuming de Jaager is a fairly common Dutch surname.”
“No, I’m not sure,” Kyra shot back. “But after generations of making money off sex, I’m betting that there’s a private home in their name. And I’m guessing that’s where Anna would go if she felt threatened.”
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