Sins of the Father and Mother (A Tanner Novel Book 42)

by Remington Kane

  Too old? Kelly was barely twenty-five. A week after Kelly left, a new girl was brought in. She was black and only sixteen. Her name was Brianna. After the first time O’Clery raped Brianna, she was found dead in the shower. She had slit her wrists open with a piece of glass.

  Inga understood then that there was only one way to escape the nightmare she was in. Brianna had seen that right away. The next time they were brought onto the yacht for a party, Inga jumped overboard when they were out at sea. No one had seen her do it, and her splash into the water went unheard due to the cranked-up sound system aboard the yacht.

  When the yacht drifted out of view, Inga waited to die. She tried drowning herself at one point, only to fight her way back to the surface, and discovered that she still possessed a will to live.

  If fortune hadn’t favored her by sending Bob and Eileen’s sailboat into her path, she would have perished in another few hours. Instead, she lived.

  Inga told her horrific tale to the authorities and an investigation was started. A detective who heard Inga’s description of Nick remembered that he had questioned someone matching it recently concerning the disappearance of another girl. Nick had not been a suspect in that case, just one of many people who had been present at the party where the girl had last been seen. When questioned by authorities with his lawyer present, Nick Duffy, who was really Nick Collins, denied any involvement with Inga’s abduction. Collins stated that he had never met Inga, and he had an alibi for the date she’d been abducted.

  Further questioning was fruitless, and Nick wasn’t charged with any crimes. As for Johan, the police never found him.

  Inga knew the name of O’Clery’s yacht. It turned out that it was docked at a port in the Bahamas. The owner of the yacht was an American businessman involved in the aluminum industry. He claimed that he didn’t know anyone named O’Clery. When Inga was shown the man’s photo, she found his face to be unfamiliar to her.

  The faces she did remember, those of her abusers, weren’t found in any of the photos of those convicted of sex crimes. Inga was free, but still being tortured. Knowing that the women she’d been with were still in the grip of their captors was unbearable to her. What good was her being free if she couldn’t use that freedom to help the ones whom she’d left behind?

  Eight months after being rescued at sea and telling the authorities her story, they’d yet to find another victim or convict anyone. That was when Inga met an old woman at a support group for victims and loved ones of those who had suffered sexual assault. The woman’s grandson had been snatched by a man in a park years earlier. Her son and daughter-in-law despaired at ever seeing him again and reached out to someone who it was claimed could help. That man had been Maxwell Lee. Maxwell found the woman’s grandson in a matter of days after the police had been searching for months.

  Desperate to do something to help her friends who were still sex slaves, Inga contacted Maxwell. Maxwell, Bo, and Ali listened to Inga’s story and agreed to see if they could help.

  Because it was obvious that the people they were after were violent, Maxwell called Spenser and asked for his assistance. Spenser was involved in a situation with one of his own clients but said that he would send someone in his place.

  “The people we’ll be going after are violent, Spenser. Let your friend know that things could get dangerous.”

  Spenser laughed. “Tanner can handle danger, Maxwell. And if these slavers you’re going after want a fight, he’ll give them more than they can handle.”

  “He sounds like you.”

  “I trained him, but he’s surpassed me. You couldn’t ask for a better man to have your back.”

  Thanks to Inga, there was a team of hunters looking for the people who enslaved her. Like their prey, they didn’t play by the rules.

  4

  Competition

  Tanner approved of the strategy Maxwell laid out. Since Nick Collins was the only direct connection to what had happened to Inga, he would be the one targeted first. The police might not be able to move forward with their investigation for lack of evidence, but that didn’t apply to them.

  Maxwell’s plan was to make Nick Collins talk and give up his superior in the gang. Thanks to Kate’s hacking skills, they knew where to find Collins.

  “He’s no longer in the Miami area,” Kate said. “He’s operating out of Key West. I checked, and six college students have gone missing here in Florida during this current Spring Break. I’d bet that Collins is responsible for the disappearance of at least one of those girls.”

  “There’s something I don’t get,” Michael said. “How are all these girls and women going missing without there being a huge uproar?”

  Ali answered that. “Nearly thirty thousand women under the age of twenty-one went missing last year alone in this country. That’s over eighty a day, or more than three every hour. Some are runaways, some victims of violence, and some just don’t want to be found. With those massive numbers, six missing college students tends to fade into the background.”

  “The people doing this aren’t fools either,” Maxwell said. “Of those six college students that have gone missing, three were presumed to have drowned in a boating accident at sea just yesterday. One of the others was traced to Georgia, where someone used her credit card to buy clothes in her size. The police there think that she might have buckled to the pressure of being in school and decided to take off without telling anyone. I don’t think those women drowned or that the other one ran off to Georgia. Tell them about the police report, Bo.”

  “One of the survivors of the boating accident that allegedly claimed the lives of those women was named Johan Becker. We sent Inga a photo of him. She said that she thinks he’s the same Johan she met the night she was abducted, only he looks bigger and has shorter hair.”

  “Bigger as in taller?” Michael asked.

  “Bigger as in big,” Bo said. “Johan Becker competes as a powerlifter.”

  “A boating accident is a handy cover story for the abduction of three women. Whoever is in charge of this group isn’t stupid,” Tanner said. “There must also be a lot of people involved.”

  Maxwell nodded. “I assumed that as well. We were asked by Inga to find her friend, Regina, and the women she was being held with on that island. I intend to do that. As far as bringing this organization down completely, I’ll leave that to the authorities. If we do what we set out to do, we’ll stir up trouble and leave behind enough evidence for the cops to pick up the ball and run with it. Our core mission is to find Regina Young and to locate that island. Beyond that, we’ll save as many women as we can.”

  “I’d like to get my hands on that bitch who called herself Mistress,” Kate said.

  “You might get your wish,” Maxwell said. “For now, let’s everyone relax and order some food from room service. I want to eat before we take the drive down to Key West.”

  While they waited for the food to arrive, Maxwell asked to speak with Tanner alone out on the balcony.

  The two men stood by the railing and looked at the view of the beach below. Tanner remembered that he and Sara had been invited to spend time at his cousin’s beach house, which was located on one of the nearby Keys. He had accepted. On his last vacation in New York City, he had to defend himself against a number of threats and was only able to relax toward the end of their stay there.

  “Spenser told me that you’re an assassin. I know he used to be one as well.”

  “Is that a problem for you or your people?”

  “Not at all. We’ll need a killer to be able to handle the people we’re going after. We’re not private investigators or bounty hunters. We find missing people, and we do whatever it takes to locate them.”

  “From what Kate and Spenser have told me, you have an impressive record of being successful at that. He also said that you don’t ask for money. How do you manage that?”

  “Spenser doesn’t charge either. Instead, he takes money from the people he goes after. Criminals,
smart criminals, usually have a lot of money. Like Spenser, we fund our work by stealing from the victimizers of innocents.”

  Tanner smiled. “I like it.”

  “I know some things about you, Tanner. I think it’s only fair that you know something about me and my people.”

  “Spenser only told me what it is you do. He never said why you do it.”

  “My grandmother took me from my home in Kentucky when I was twelve and drove me to western Canada. She was a member of a cult there and wanted me raised in their faith. I was in that compound for over six weeks until a team of mercenaries hired by my father snuck in there and rescued me. Those days were sheer hell and I still have nightmares about them once in a while.”

  “You were abused?”

  “Oh yeah, physically and mentally, because I refused to be brainwashed by the cult. I was young, but I wasn’t stupid, and I hated the cult’s leader, Jebediah Bainbridge. You should have seen him. He was a silly little man who wore an obvious jet-black toupee above a long beard that was white. He also dressed in a cassock, as if he were a priest. He always wore a red one, like the type worn by cardinals. I couldn’t understand why anyone would believe a word he said. To my twelve-year-old eyes, he looked like a clown.”

  “Many people search for something or someone else to believe in because they have no faith in themselves.”

  Maxwell stared at Tanner. “You’re right about that. Spenser said that you were perceptive. I understand you two have known each other for a long time.”

  “Since I was sixteen. Spenser saved my life then.”

  “I’ve known Bo since he was eight. His mother was my first client. Bo’s father was an alcoholic who lost custody of him. When he kidnapped Bo, I was the one who tracked his father down and found them. Bo Sr.—the Name Bo is short for Bolton—wasn’t a bad guy, he just had a bad habit of drinking too much. When he was drunk, he lost his judgement. The court gave him six months in jail for taking Bo and he used that time to get himself off the booze. When Bo got older and left the army, he asked if he could work with me, and we’ve been partners ever since.”

  “And Ali?”

  “She’s a recent addition, but I’ve known her since she was thirteen. I was working another case when I heard screams coming from the basement of a house. When I broke in to investigate… I found Ali being raped by a guy who turned out to be a serial killer. He had already killed five victims in little over a year. Ali would have been his sixth.”

  “Is he in prison?”

  “No sir, he is not. I sent him to hell that night. After what I saw him doing to that child… to Ali… the man had forfeited the right to draw another breath.”

  “I see we think alike when it comes to people who harm innocents.”

  “Like the people we’re after. You kill as many as you have to, Tanner. We’re going to bring retribution to these bastards.”

  “Starting with Nick Collins,” Tanner said.

  Nick Collins liked Key West well enough, but he still missed Miami.

  After Inga survived her suicide attempt and came forward to accuse him of drugging her, it was decided that he’d be better off working in another area.

  He hadn’t remembered Inga at all, but his friend, Johan, had. To Nick, Inga was just another blonde airhead looking for a good time and too stupid to realize that her beauty made her a target. He’d lost track of how many girls he had drugged or helped to abduct over the years. Most had been business, but there were some he drugged because he wanted them for himself. It was rare that he needed to do that, most women desired him, and many threw themselves at him.

  Nick rose from his bed inside his apartment. He’d been playing cards all night and hadn’t gotten to bed until after ten in the morning. He checked his phone and saw that there was a text from his cousin, Emily. She was telling him that she had found a good candidate. He ignored it. They already had enough girls and the ship they would be taken away on would be sailing soon.

  Nick, his sister, and other members of his family, made a small fortune abducting women to later be sold as sex slaves. Inga had been right when she’d notice that Mistress bore a resemblance to Nick. Mistress was Nick’s older sister, Nancie.

  A look in the bathroom mirror reflected back to Nick the face of a man in his mid-twenties who, although still good-looking, was no longer the fit young stud he had once been. There were faint lines around Nick’s eyes, and a softness to his middle. Too much nightlife and drugs will do that to you, no matter how young you are.

  His father had recently told him that his days of being the bait for their victims would soon be coming to an end since Inga had placed him on the cops’ radar. There was no shortage of handsome young men in Florida. Some of them would do anything for money and didn’t care who had to suffer for them to get it. Like his sister, Nick would be moved up to a management position and supervise the young studs who would take his place.

  There was also a cousin named Victor who was fourteen. He could be brought into the business soon. Victor was a good-looking kid who would someday break hearts. He would do fine in the coming years and could help them lure in younger girls. Currently, there were six members of Nick’s family involved in the operation. It had been started over a decade ago by his father.

  Arthur Collins, Nick’s father, knew people who had an interest in acquiring young women and girls. Arthur decided to fill that need. In the beginning, he hired people to abduct the girls for him and most of them were runaways. They were later turned over to a gang of pimps for a few thousand dollars each. The pimps then placed the girls on the street where, in one year, they would earn ten to twenty times as much as Arthur received for supplying them.

  Arthur considered running his own girls but rejected the idea because of how much effort and time it would take. He had other illegal enterprises to manage that took far less effort. One of his contacts inside a Columbian cartel learned that he was selling women. The man told Arthur that he’d be willing to pay him good money for a blue-eyed blonde between sixteen and eighteen. Arthur delivered a seventeen-year-old girl to him three weeks later and made as much as he normally got for selling five girls. Arthur realized that he should be catering to a better class of customer. That also required that he abduct a more select group of women.

  His people stopped trolling bus stations and homeless shelters and began looking for women at colleges and high schools. They had orders to find women whose looks were exceptional. Later, when his son, daughter, and nieces were older, Arthur brought them into the business.

  The Collins family had always been involved in one criminal activity or another, going back to Prohibition days. The drug trade had been good to them overall, but law enforcement continually turned up the heat and the penalties were getting stricter.

  That was not the case with human trafficking. For one thing, it was difficult to prove. Even if someone caught them transporting women about in a van, the women would deny that anything was wrong. They knew if they talked that someone they loved would be murdered. It was a great way to keep people in line. It also didn’t need to be done all the time. Snatch a dozen women over a week’s time and you could make several times more than most people made working all year. Of course, like any other business there were expenses. Transportation had to be arranged, a place rented to hold the auctions, and muscle hired. But trafficking women was highly profitable. It merely required one to be heartless.

  Nick brushed his teeth then stepped into the shower. A short time later, he walked out of the bathroom while tightening the belt on his red silk robe. He was headed toward the kitchen to start the coffee maker. He jerked to a stop when he noticed that there was a man sitting on his sofa. Nick was opening his mouth to ask the man who he was when he sensed someone else behind him. He turned his head to find Bo standing there. Nick was six-foot-one, but he had to crane his head back to look up into Bo’s eyes.

  “What the fuck is this?”

  Tanner, still seated on the sofa, gestur
ed for Nick to take a seat across from him. Tanner had kept his sunglasses on. It was a bright day and glare was coming in through a set of floor-to-ceiling windows.

  “We have some questions for you.”

  “Questions about what?”

  “Sit down.”

  Nick settled in a wing chair that was across from Tanner and slightly to the left. Bo stood behind the chair. Nick felt his presence there like a great weight on his shoulders.

  “We want to know about your operation,” Tanner said.

  “Operation? I don’t know anything about an operation. I’m a day trader.”

  Bo spoke. “This will go a whole lot easier on you if you don’t try and deceive us, Nick. We know that you’re part of a gang that abducts women to later be sold as sex slaves. You’re going to tell us everything you know about it.”

  Nick shrugged. “I don’t know shit about it. You’ve got the wrong guy.”

  “That’s not what Inga Olson says,” Tanner said.

  “Who?” Nick said.

  Nick’s hands were resting on the arms of the chair. Bo reached down and swallowed up Nick’s right hand in his own massive mitt. When he squeezed, Nick yelled in pain. From where he sat, Tanner heard the distinct sound of at least two bones breaking. The strength it would take to accomplish that was impressive.

  Bo released Nick’s hand, and Nick held it up as pain caused his eyes to water.

  “You broke my fucking hand.”