Profile of Fear: Book Four of the Profile Series (Volume 4) (17 page)

More sounds from below. Muffled cries. Frantic hammering against the door.

“You might check on your dog. He sounds upset.”

Ortiz placed his beer on the bar. “Excuse me. I’ll be right back.”

The second she heard his steps on the stairs, Carly began exploring the house. There was a living and dining area on her level, along with a kitchen. A short hallway led to a small guest room and an office. Taking a thumb drive out of her purse, she copied the contents of his hard drive, nervously checking the hallway and listening for sounds of him returning.

Soon she heard muffled crying and Ortiz’s hostile voice as he entered the living room. Carly peered around a wall. He was not alone. With his arm around her neck, he pinned a young woman—no more than a girl, maybe thirteen or fourteen—against his body. The girl had duct tape sealed across her mouth and binding her wrists.

Carly withdrew her gun and entered the room. “I’m a federal agent. If you are as smart as you think you are, Ortiz, you will let the girl go.”

Ignoring her, Ortiz withdrew something silver from his pocket, clicked a button, and a switchblade sprang to life. The girl’s terrified, muffled screams filled the room as she began to struggle against him. He squeezed her neck in a choke-hold until she was barely conscious, and then pressed the knife against her throat. The girl’s eyes bulged in terror.

“Put down the gun, bitch.”

“Not happening.” Carly tightened her grip on the gun, and struggled to get a good shot, but he kept the girl positioned as a human shield.

“This does not have a good ending. You’re both going to die and I am going to move on, build my businesses, and live the good life.”

“Don’t bet on it.” Carly yearned to hear sirens. Where the hell was her backup?

“It’s too bad about you, Charlotte. A customer in Orlando was going to pay top dollar for you. This should have been easy. You drink your wine, get drunk, and lose consciousness. It’s my three-step plan for success. I deliver you to my customer, and he makes sure you have plenty of the drug of his choice so he can control his new sex slave.”

“You’re a sick bastard. How many women have you done this to?”

A slow, evil smile spread over his face. He was enjoying this talk. She’d use it to stall until help could arrive. “What about this girl? What’s her story?”

“Got a client who wants to play ‘Daddy,’ and this stupid girl fit the bill. Found her at a bus station. Runaway from Chicago. She’s looking for a new life, and I was going to give her one.”

“You call that a life. Selling her to a pedophile?”

Carly’s heart was beating so hard; she wouldn’t have been surprised if Ortiz could hear it across the room. This was her first big case and if backup didn’t arrive soon, she was probably going to die.

She tried to swallow, but her throat was dry. Think, Carly, think. You can do this. Got to stall. Carly’s thoughts were all over the place, like a group of first graders let out for recess.

“He was also willing to pay top dollar, so what do I care?”

She heard the faint sound of a siren in the distance. “Hear that siren? That’s my backup.”

His expression twisted with indecision before he lifted the knife and slashed the girl’s throat. Carly could hardly believe her eyes as blood flooded down the girl’s neck.

As she slumped to the ground, Ortiz dived for Carly, slamming into her before she had the chance to get off a shot. The gun, knocked from her hand, spun crazily as she dropped it onto the floor, and so did his knife.

Carly rammed her forearm up and into his throat and his airway. Ortiz choked and struggled to breathe. She then pushed him off her and managed to break away. Where was the gun? Realizing Ortiz was pushing to his feet, she spun around and stomped down on his fingers, making him howl with pain.

Diving under a table, she retrieved the gun, and stood to aim it at Ortiz. But he was gone! There was a dead girl on the floor. Who knows how many other victims… And she let the bastard get away.

The sirens grew louder as she searched the house. Clearing each room on the upper level, there was no sign of Ortiz. She was about to search downstairs when Dan Levitt and Sam Isley knocked down the front door.

“He may have gone downstairs.”

The basement was massive, with many small rooms. Three women were in the first room they searched; duct tape covered their mouths, and shackles fastened their legs to the floor. The next four rooms were empty.

Carly heard the twisting of metal of a door unlocking and ran toward the sound. Ortiz was standing at the top of a short staircase, before the door that led to the garage.

“You haven’t seen the last of me, bitch. I am your worst nightmare. I will find you if it’s the last thing I do. I will slice your throat and kill those close to you. That’s a promise.”

As he turned to go through the door, Carly got off a shot and a crimson stain covered the shoulder of his white shirt. Running toward him, she tripped on the second step of the staircase and fell. By the time, she regained her balance, Ortiz was in a Hummer parked in the garage. He slammed through the garage door, making his escape. Carly let him get away—again. She blinked back the tears that threatened to spill, and choked back the hot bile rising up her throat.

Chapter Thirty-five

Carly felt Brody’s hand grasping her own. He had moved next to her, and with a finger wiped tears from her cheeks.

“I failed.”

“How can you say that? You rescued three women, who owe their lives to you.”

“But not the girl. She bled out before the ambulance arrived. I should have done something different to get him to release her.” She looked into Brody’s compassionate eyes. “It was
my
responsibility. I should have saved her.”

“That wasn’t going to happen, Carly. No matter what you did, the result would have been the same. She was his shield from you. When he heard the sirens, he must have freaked out and killed her so he could get to you. Thank God you were able to fight him and get your gun back. You could have died, Carly. I have no doubt he would have killed you, too. You did what you had to do. End of story.”

“I wish it
was
the end. But it isn’t, Brody. Ortiz has not forgotten his promise. He has people looking for me.

“Sam Isley was here to tell me they think Ortiz or some of his men broke into my Orlando house. They poured red paint all over the bed, splashed it on the walls. Plus they painted a red circle with the letters ‘JO’ inside. That’s Juan Ortiz’s brand; he puts it on all the women he traffics.” Her words tumbled out, fast and clipped, as fear gripped her.

“How could he have found the house in Orlando when he didn’t know your true identity? You told him your name was Charlotte.”

“He found a photo of me in the
Orlando Sentinel
from several years ago, where I was accepting a charity award. Once he had my real name, it wasn’t hard to find my address. I hoped he’d think I still live in Florida. But now that we know he is in Shawnee County…”

“You think he tracked you here?”

“I’m not sure. Cam’s informant, Donda Hicks, thinks he is after Becca. It seems the monster is Becca’s father.”

She stopped, started, and stopped again, trying to find the words. “That evil bastard is Becca’s father. I’m so sorry, Brody. I’ve put all of us in danger! I’ve led him right to our door.”

Chapter Thirty-six

Hailey Adams sat at a table at her mother’s café, filling salt and pepper shakers and lamenting about how boring her young life had become. She’d practically grown up in Mollie’s Café, owned and operated by her mom, Mollie Adams. The place was filled with timeworn red Formica tables in the dining area, with red vinyl booths lining the perimeter, and framed record albums adorning the walls. Everything was fifties style, from the gingham curtains, to the uniforms the waitresses wore. If her mother had her way, the waitresses would be serving food wearing felt poodle skirts and roller skates. That idea was quickly squashed the first week when Belinda Ross fell—while carrying a platter of tenderloin sandwiches, fries, and sodas—and broke her arm. Thus inspiring her rich daddy to threaten a lawsuit.

An old jukebox, a gift from a customer, still blasted out songs by Elvis, the Everly Brothers, and Nat King Cole, among others. The fact that Hailey knew all the fifties songs and the people who sang them was a testament to how much time she’d spent at the diner. Too darn much. She wasn’t one of the popular kids, nor would she ever be, thanks to working at her mom’s café while the rest of her class was out having fun.

She heard her mother’s voice in the kitchen and the rich aroma of freshly baked cinnamon rolls filled the air. Cinnabon had nothing on her mom, who soon appeared at her table, gripping steamy cups of hot cocoa and coffee in one hand, and four hot cinnamon rolls on a plate in the other. She set the items on the table and sat down.

“Let’s take a break, sweetie.”

Hailey eyed her mother with distrust. “This isn’t another one of your mother-daughter talks where you do all the talking, is it?”

“Suspicious much?” As Hailey rolled her eyes, Mollie nibbled at a cinnamon roll and then sipped her hot coffee. “Would it be so bad if it was?”

“I’m sixteen-years-old, so it’s a little late for the sex talk.”

“
Barely
sixteen. You just had your birthday, and we’ve already had the sex talk.”

Hailey’s mouth watered as she eyed a cinnamon roll, before plucking it from the plate and biting into it. That diet she and her best friend, Niki, had discussed just flew out of the window on wings of savory cinnamon and rich butter.

“What’s on your mind, Mom? Let’s get this over with.”

“I was thinking that maybe you’d like to have a slumber party and invite some friends over.”

“What friends?”

“I don’t have names, but I just thought maybe you’d like to get to know some of the other girls in school. You spend a lot of time with Niki.”

“I get it. This is about Niki. She’s my best friend, Mom. Get over it.”

“With her black eye-shadow Goth-look, purple-streaked hair, and bad attitude, she’s a lot for a mother to get used to.”

Niki was Hailey’s BFF, the only one at school who got her. There was no way she’d let go of their friendship. No way. But getting mad at her mother usually got her grounded, so she took a slow, calming breath to dial down her anger from an all-out temper tantrum, to just plain annoyance. “Yeah, well, let me tell you, Mom, getting used to Dr. Hot Stuff hanging around hasn’t exactly been a party for
me
.”

“That’s different, Hailey, and stop calling Bryan that. It’s disrespectful.”

“How is it different? I’m not throwing confetti over your new man, and you don’t like my best friend. Sounds like we’re even.”

“Why is it so hard for you to give him a chance?”

“He’s not Uncle Cam. Not even close.”

“Hailey, Cameron Chase and I haven’t been together for a long time.”

“Uncle Cam always helped me with my homework and taught me to play basketball. He even went to my soccer games. You can’t say that about Dr. Hot Stuff, can you?”

Mollie fidgeted with her napkin. “He’s interested in getting to know you, but you don’t help things by leaving the room every time he starts a conversation with you. Please give him a chance, Hailey.”

“No, he’s interested in you, not me. Didn’t he stay over again last night?’”

Her mother’s face flushed crimson and she averted her eyes.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Hailey’s cell phone alarm sounded, and she got to her feet to pull off her apron. “Saved by the bell. Got to go. Don’t want to be late for school.”

“We can talk about this later.”

Hailey shot her a smirk, raced toward the door, and said over her shoulder. “Can’t wait.”

After school, Hailey pushed Niki in a swing at the park playground. Niki was barely five-foot-one inches tall and ninety pounds, compared to Hailey at five-foot-five and one-hundred-and-ten pounds. The girls were as different physically as they were close emotionally.

They moved to a picnic table and Hailey sipped a coke, while Niki played with the ash on the end of her cigarette. A car filled with teenaged boys drove slowly past. “Hey, Niki. Let’s hook up Saturday night.”

“Bite me.” Rolling her eyes at Hailey, she brushed back a lock of purple hair. “Stupid boys. So sick of them.”

“I’m sick of this boring, hick town.”

“Did you have another fight with your mom?”

“She keeps trying to push her new boyfriend down my throat. So why is it so important that I like him? She does. That’s for sure. He’s started to sleep more at our house than he does his own.”

“So why don’t you like him? Dr. Pittman is hot. Seems nice, too.”

“Just don’t.”

“It’s because of that detective your mom used to date, isn’t it?”

“Uncle Cam’s a sergeant now, not that it matters. I miss him, and I just don’t see why Mom can’t get him back.”

“Maybe it’s a lost cause like my mom and dad.”

“That’s different.”

“I guess so. It would be a pretty miraculous, tabloid-worthy moment if my mom got my dad back, since he took off when I was born and hasn’t been seen since.”

Hailey sighed. “I want to do something exciting and fun for a change.”

“Now that you have your license, we could go to the mall Friday night.”

“That’s a great idea. But my mom will have a hissy fit.”

“I’ve got some ideas on how we can get around your mom. Keeping moms clueless is one of my super-powers.

Chapter Thirty-seven

Carly, Cameron, and Robynn gathered in the Shawnee County Sheriff conference room with Brody.

Brody glanced at Cameron. “Before we get started, what’s the latest on keeping Becca safe from Ortiz?”

“Everyone in the house is aware of the situation and certainly more aware of security, including using the security system. No more forgetting to set it or leaving doors unlocked.”

Carly interjected. “When Kaitlyn and I are watching Becca, we will be armed or will have a weapon nearby. Don’t worry. We won’t let anyone get near her.”