Orlinda looked at Mia with frightened eyes and then turned and exited the room. Maria staggered off the bed toward the door and Jamie caught her arm to prevent her from falling.
“Took you long enough,” he said to her, his voice frigid with displeasure. “We’ll talk about it later.”
Mia saw him grip Maria’s arm tightly, white ridges showing on her upper arm. Maria gave a muted gasp of pain before fleeing the room.
When they were alone, Jamie tucked the gun into his waistband and crossed his arms.
“Are you a cop?” he asked.
“No.”
“That’s good. I’d have to kill you if you were a cop.”
“What I said is true,” Mia said, trying to force down her panic. “I have people who will miss me. They’ll come looking for me.”
Orlinda slipped into the room, placing a small leather case the size of a manicure kit on the dresser. She handed Jamie a rope.
“I’m sure they will,” he said. “Most don’t but sometimes the white ones do. Please make yourself comfortable on the bed.”
“I prefer to stand, thanks.”
“We can do this the easy way, and I highly recommend it, or I can have poor little Orlinda here sit on your chest and hold you down.” He turned to the girl. “If you scratch her or bruise her in the process, I’ll beat you ‘til you lose hearing in the other ear. We clear?”
Orlinda nodded and looked nervously at Mia. Jamie grabbed Mia and swung her around until she faced away from him. She felt him grapple with the rope as he pinned one of her arms behind her. Instantly, she stomped at his instep but he moved aside and she only grazed his foot.
“Stop that now,” he said, almost good-naturedly. “Stand still for this or I’ll bring Maria back up here and break a finger every time you don’t mind me. Trust me, she can still turn tricks with a handful of broken fingers but it won’t be near as much fun.”
“You are a demented monster,” Mia said, feeling death and perversion course from his fingers where he touched her. He yanked her hands behind her and secured them with the rope. “I guess you don’t care if my wrists are scarred and bloody?”
“My customers aren’t as interested in wrists staying pretty. There.” He turned her around and looked at her critically. He put a hand up to sweep a long tendril of hair from her face and she jerked her head away. He sighed. “You might as well have a seat, Leanne,” he said. He looked at her. “Is that your real name? Well, it doesn’t matter.” He turned to Orlinda. “Who’s downstairs? Any johns left?”
She nodded. “Two came back after she made us chase ‘em away. Mister David says she robbed him.”
“Did she now? Tsk tsk tsk.” He looked at Mia and grinned. “You, my darling, are what we call in the trade the primo prize, you know that? Alright, Orlinda, tell the girls to get back to work and tell ‘em I said to give the johns anything they ask for.”
He turned to Mia. “A little customer service never hurts. They want three on one? No charge tonight. Go on now.”
Orlinda slipped out the door and Jamie went behind her to shut it.
“Whatever you have in mind won’t work with me,” Mia said, her heart pounding in her throat. “I am personally connected with the Atlanta police commander.”
“Nice for you,” Jamie said going to the dresser and unzipping the leather case. “It won’t matter. You could be Obama’s niece for all the difference it would make.”
“My point is,” Mia said, twisting around on the bed to try to see what he was doing, “that you cannot get away with this. Too many people know I’m looking for the human trafficking ring.”
“All the more reason why you need to disappear. Come to think of it, it was very good fortune for me that you showed up tonight.” He turned and held up a hypodermic needle. Mia felt her arms begin to tremble.
“By the way, how did you know we would be cruising Memorial Drive?”
Mia hesitated but she knew Taneka was safe and she didn’t want to risk him bringing Maria upstairs. “One of the victims rescued in last month’s FBI sting told me.”
“Huh,” he said, as if considering this. “Might be time to move things around. Alright, darling, I’m sorry I don’t have any alcohol to swab the injection site but you look pretty clean to me so we’re just going to have to chance it.”
“Why are you doing this? Do you really think you can get away with it?”
“Past experience says yes,” he said with a grin. “I’m doing it because I can get fifty G’s for you from a guy I know in Miami.”
Miami? That means he’s taking me offshore. Mia tried to control her building panic. She took a long ragged breath.
Is this really happening?
“Is…is that where you took Lorna?”
“How in the world do you know Lorna?” For a moment, she could see she’d thrown him but he recovered quickly. “It doesn’t matter. Maybe you’ll run into her in Bahrain. We’ll have one of our docs check you out in Miami. I can pretty much guarantee you won’t remember much of the trip. And if, by some miracle, you turn out to be a virgin—any chance of that, darling?—I can guarantee you won’t be molested in any way. Until your new owner takes possession, of course. If on the other hand, you’re not…pure…” He shrugged. “Well, there have to be some perks to the job, right?”
Mia already knew through her Internet research that white women—regardless of age—were considered a premium in the Middle East. She also knew that when the doctor examined her in Miami, he would discover she was a virgin.
“Now, are you going to sit still like a good girl,” Jamie said, waving the needle at her, “or do I need to bring poor Maria up? She’s been through a lot and I’m hoping you won’t make me do that.”
“Go to hell,” Mia said, rolling backwards and kicking out with her feet. She caught him on the arm and watched him juggle the bouncing hypodermic to keep from dropping it. She ran to the window, but with her hands behind her, hesitated, unsure of how to break it. In the reflection of the glass, she saw Jamie’s face behind her, like the true vision of his soul, contort into a mask of chilling deformity.
“Maria!” he screamed. “Get your ass up here now!”
Mia turned to face him, the fury and hopelessness of the moment swamping her like a physical restraint until she couldn’t breathe. She staggered back to the bed and sat down.
“You’ll get yours someday, you little worm,” she whispered hoarsely, tears welling in her eyes. “If there’s a God in heaven, you will.” She turned her head away as he held her arm and pulled the sleeve of Jack’s shirt up to just above the elbow.
And jabbed the needle into her arm.
17
Burton sat in his car on the corner of Memorial and Blossom, watching the house. He had no concrete reason to believe Mia was in there. He should be thirty miles across town in the opposite direction where Bryant had directed him. And he would’ve been if it hadn’t been for the fact that when he checked his GPS to locate Cascade Avenue, he noticed Memorial Drive—like an artery slicing open the city from top to bottom in one long red line. And that’s when, as fast as a slap to the face, he knew the answer to the riddle.
Taneka was discovered by her pimp on Memorial Drive. Mia was going to the source. Mia was somewhere on Memorial Drive.
In the end, it hadn’t taken long. One deliberate, slow cruise up the street revealed the usual addicts and prostitutes at work. On the return drive he slowed at every side street until he saw what he was looking for.
Mia’s car. Parked one block away but clearly visible from Memorial Drive if you were looking for it.
She was here.
An hour later, after creeping past dozens of darkened side streets, Jack came to a street that had more parked cars lining it on either side than Mount Bethel did on a Sunday morning. As he sat and watched only men come out of the house, he was as sure as he could be. It was definitely a whorehouse of some kind. Whether it was a sex slaver operation was a whole other question.
He put in the call to Maxwell, noting it was just past three in the morning. “I think I’ve found a trafficking operation. At the very least it’s a prostitution ring.”
“Are you seriously waking me up with this crap? I ought to have you arrested for harassment.”
“Mind putting Jess on? I want to tell her that her daughter is down here on Memorial Drive dressed up like a hooker to find a sex slave ring because you can’t be bothered.”
“I never liked you, Burton,” Maxwell said. “You know that? And I know Mia’s not my daughter but I will skin her alive if she’s really done something crazy like that.”
“Tell her mother,” Jack said tightly, “since you are having trouble believing it—that Mia had a feeling that tortured girls were living at this house on six ten Blossom Lane off the north side of Memorial Drive…”
“I swear to God, Burton, the pair of you are certifiable…”
“…and that she could really use some back-up about now,” Jack said forcefully. “Do it, Bill. Send back-up to six ten Blossom Lane now or explain to Jess later why you didn’t.”
He hung up before Maxwell could respond.
He stared at the darkened house and drummed his fingers against the steering wheel.
What possible shred of evidence do I have to believe that Mia is in there?
Mia had followed the same crumb trail that he had. And it led here. To this street, to this house. He knew her. This was how Mia thought. This is what she would do.
With nothing else to go on, hell, this is what I would do.
He watched three more men leave the house. No one else had gone in for nearly an hour. The parking lot lining the street had shrunk to just five cars now. He wasn’t sure some of them weren’t abandoned.
How long should he wait? He glanced at his watch. It was now thirty minutes since he called Maxwell. Was waiting longer doing anybody any good? If Maxwell came, it could be too late. And if he didn’t come…Jack released his seatbelt and left the car. He jogged across the street, walked to the front door and knocked. A young African-American woman answered the door. With all the makeup she was wearing, he couldn’t tell if she were underage or not.
“Can I help you?”
“Awful late for a youngster like you to be up, isn’t it?”
He watched her face go from wary to alarmed and when she tried to shut the door, he jammed his foot in and pushed into the living room, drawing his gun as he went.
“Where’s your pimp?” he asked.
A man came out of the kitchen, a bowl of popcorn in his hands. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Burton pointed his gun at him. “Put your hands in the air.”
The man handed the popcorn to the girl who answered the door and raised his hands. And smiled. Jack saw the outline of a pistol sticking out of the back of the man’s waistband.
“Two fingers,” he said. “Drop the gun on the floor.”
The smile never wavered. “Are you robbing me?”
“Just do it.” Jack could see there was a woman slumped on the couch. He could hear noises coming from upstairs.
“Orlinda, take my gun out of my—”
“No,” Jack said. “Stay where you are. You do it. Two fingers.”
Slowly, the man reached behind and plucked the gun from his waistband and dropped it on the floor.
“Who else is here?” Jack said moving to the foot of the stairs, his arms at right angles holding the gun on the man. “Mia!” he shouted up the stairs and listened. All talking upstairs stopped.
He turned to the girl with the popcorn. “Tell everyone upstairs to get down here right now.”
She turned to look at her pimp and Jack shouted, “Now!” and she dropped the bowl and ran up the stairs.
“Are you a cop?” The man said, his raised hands now a notch lower than they had been. “Because I think I can make it worth your while to be reasonable about this.”
“Shut up unless I’m talking to you.”
The girls came down bunched together, their eyes wide with fear. Every one of them looked at the pimp before they looked at Jack with his gun.
“Come in the living room,” Jack said.
“I hope you remember I tried to be reasonable, friend,” the pimp said. “Orlinda, get his gun.”
“Stay back, girl.”
“Or what, friend? You going to shoot her? You going to shoot every one of these poor girls? Because if you shoot poor little sweet Orlinda who never hurt a soul in her life, I’m just gonna send the next girl and the next girl and the next.”
Jack watched the man drop his hands, his face contorted into a hideous mask with his laugh.
“Hand me my gun, Orlinda,” the pimp said.
Lights from outside flooded the living room at the same time the front door burst open. The girls screamed but Jack didn’t waste any time. If he knew this slime ball—and he’d met the type before—he’d grab for one of the girls in a last desperate attempt to bargain.
In two steps, Jack was on him and slammed him up against the living room wall, knocking the flat screen television to the floor. He slammed his elbow up against his chin and the man crumpled but Jack held him pinned.
“Where is she?” he said into his face. “Where’s the woman you found tonight?”
Jack saw the look of recognition appear in the man’s eyes before he hid it behind a layer of guile.
“No comprendo, bud,” he wheezed, fighting for breath under Jack’s arm.
Maxwell called out as he entered the house. “Jack! Did you find her?”
Jack released the pimp as two uniformed officers flanked him and pushed him aside. They handcuffed the pimp as they read him his rights.
Maxwell stood in the middle of the room, his hands on his hips looking around the living room. The girls huddled together, clutching each other. The woman laying on the couch still hadn’t moved.
“I’ll be out before breakfast,” the pimp shouted, and Jack realized he wasn’t boasting to the cops—he was warning his girls.
Jack went to where the girls stood, their eyes wide. Five African-American girls, including Orlinda, and three Hispanics. None of them over seventeen.
“Was there someone else here tonight? A white woman?” he asked.
They looked at him in terror. Two looked past him to the pimp as he was being walked out of the house.
“Don’t worry, girls,” he called to them. “I’ll be out soon. You hear what I’m saying?”
“Get him outta here,” Jack said in frustration.
Two cops came from upstairs. “All clear,” they said. “Some evidence of drug use. Definitely a flop house of some kind.”
“Bill,” Jack said. “These girls are sex slaves. Look at them! Do they look like any kind of prostitutes you’ve ever seen?”
“We’ll get it sorted out downtown,” Maxwell said, tiredly. Two other cops began herding the girls out of the house.
“Wait! Stop!” Jack intercepted the two Hispanic women and one began to scream in horror.
“Leave ‘em alone, Jack,” Maxwell growled. “I’ll let you sit in on the interviews down—”
“Hola, senoritas,” Jack said to the women. “Persona de nombre Maria? Este you es Maria?”
The smaller of the women flinched at Jack’s words. He pulled her away from the group.
“Maria? Is your name Maria?”
She nodded, and covered her mouth with her hand. Tears filled her eyes.
“Did you see a white woman tonight?”
“El angel…” she murmured. “She was here.”
Jack grabbed her by the shoulders. “You saw her? Where is she?”
Maria shrank under his touch and he released her.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Mucho…siento, senorita. Where did she go?”
Maria looked away fearfully in the direction the pimp had gone and then back to Jack.
“Your pimp took her?” he asked. “Did your pimp take her somewhere?”
Maria hesitated and then nodded. “She say we safe now,” she said. “But Senor Jamie kill her.”
Jack’s stomach lurched as a panoply of images shot across his mind. He staggered back a step.
“What did she say?” Maxwell was suddenly standing beside Jack. The minute Maria saw his face clenched in torment, she began to cower.
“Jamie,” Jack said, stunned. “That’s the name of Lorna’s pimp.” He swallowed and looked back at Maria. “You have a brother named José? You were both taken two weeks ago?”
She looked at him like she didn’t understand but then slowly nodded.
“How do you know she’s dead?” he asked her. “Did you see Jamie kill her?”
“Oh, Jesus, God!” Maxwell said and ran a hand across his face.
“He give her the drug.”
“What drug?”
“To make her…sleep and never wake up.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Jack said. “She’s too valuable to them.” He turned to Maxwell. “Your people looked everywhere in the house?”
Maxwell looked frantically around the living room as if trying to think. “Everywhere a full-grown body might be, yes. She’s not here.”
Maria looked sadly at Jack. “She gone,” she said. “The angel is gone.”
Jack turned back to her. “Did you see him carry her out of the house?”
“Jack, let’s do this downtown…”
“No! Dammit! Don’t you see? He’s got to transport her. At the very least, you need to shut down all roads going out of the city—”
“I can’t do that!”
Jack looked at Maria. “Did you see him carry her out?” he repeated more loudly.
She nodded, her eyes round with fear as if he were blaming her.
“Where do you think he carried her to?”
She looked away and then back again. “To…to his van.”
Jack ran to the window that faced the street and raked back the drapes. After a moment, he saw it, nearly hidden under a long draping willow tree. “White van with blackened windows?” He snapped his head to look at her and she nodded. Maxwell was out the door before he was. “Get the air wedge,” he shouted to the uniformed police officer standing by the front door.
Complete Mia Kazmaroff Romantic Suspense Series, 1-4 Page 36
