The Stolen Ones (17 page)

“LIKE HELL YOU’RE TELLING NANCY.”

Windermere looked at Stevens, rolled her eyes, and reached for her cell phone. From the ambulance, Stevens tried to stand, swayed, gave it up and sat down again.

“Your wife will kill me if I don’t tell her you got shot, partner,” Windermere said. “And unlike your friend upstairs, I don’t think she’d aim for the chest.”

Stevens leaned his back against the door of the ambulance. Windermere watched him, thanked God for about the eightieth time they’d swiped Kevlar vests from Fast’s truck before entering the Blue Room. Thanked God that piece of redneck trash hadn’t had time to try for a headshot, and that the blunt force trauma Stevens had absorbed was enough to take the wind out of him and leave a hell of a bruise, but nothing more.

“I’m fine, Carla,” Stevens said. “You know how much Nancy hates this cowboy stuff.”

“She barely trusts me as is,” Windermere said. “I swear to God, she’ll kill me.”

“So I’ll tell her,” Stevens said. “Scout’s honor. Soon as this case is closed.”

The case.
The Blue Room was now swarming with Billings PD and whatever Montana G-men Agent Fast had been able to dredge up. The shotgun shooter and his buddy had been the only men armed in the brothel; there were three other sad-sack losers huddled in the girls’ little bedrooms with their dates pressed in front of them. The Billings PD had booked the lot of them, taken them down to a holding cell for whenever Windermere got around to questioning their degenerate asses.

There were girls, too, of course—the first two escapees, the young one Stevens had almost got his ass blown off trying to save, and four more in the back rooms. None of them had much in the way of clothing, and Windermere had detailed a Billings uniform to find coats, shirts, and sweatpants before she piled the lot of them into a police van to await questioning themselves.

Not that any of them spoke much English. The johns were terrified and would probably spill everything they knew, which would damn the two dead men upstairs but mean jack shit to the Dragon.

“I wish those two dirty bastards didn’t have to die,” Windermere said.

Stevens met her eyes. “You’re thinking we just dried up our own trail.”

“I mean, they were filthy. I don’t mind that they’re dead, but . . .”

“We saved seven victims, though,” Stevens said. “That little girl—”

“Is safe,” Windermere agreed. “But there’s another truckload just like her coming down the pike, unless we can trace this back to the Dragon.”

“I know,” Stevens said. “So?”

“So we have a mountain of paperwork to do as far as this fiasco is concerned,” Windermere said. “We have three johns to interview, and the girls, too, if we can find translators. Not that the Heat girls in Duluth gave us much more than Irina did, but maybe we get lucky this time. Maybe
these
girls recognize the Dragon.”

“Right,” Stevens said, and Windermere could see for the first time how tired he appeared, how utterly depleted.

“We’ll finish this,” she said. She sat down beside him, put her arm around him, pulled him to her. “I’ll work these johns,” she said. “Start on the paperwork. You go somewhere and rest. You get shot, I figure that earns you the night off.”

Stevens nodded. “And Nancy?”

“You tell her later,” Windermere said. “But Stevens, I swear, if this comes back on me, I’ll shoot you my damn self.”

CATALINA SAT
in the passenger seat and watched the thug drive. The big man said nothing, his brow furrowed in concentration and worry, his nervous eyes jumping between the rearview mirror and the road.

She wondered what had happened. Where the thug’s partner was, the scary scar-faced man who’d tried to force himself on her. She wondered who the other man was, the man whose truck they’d stolen. Mostly, she wondered what had happened to the humanity she’d seen in this thug’s eyes.

Outside, night was falling. The SUV’s engine howled. The thug drove with one hand. With the other, he pulled out an iPhone. His eyes flicked from the screen to the road, his lips moving but not saying anything.

Catalina shifted. “Where are we going?” she asked him.

The thug didn’t answer. He muttered a swearword. Struck the steering wheel, and she recoiled from the sudden violence. She could still feel the imprint in her skin where the thug had pressed his gun. He’d been ready to kill her. He would have put a bullet inside her to protect himself from the other man.

She had been wrong to imagine this thug was her friend. He was just as evil as his missing partner. He just wanted her for something different.

She had to get out of this truck.

The thug sped down the highway. The gas station disappeared behind them. The man kept playing with his phone, barely paying attention. He was distracted. He was vulnerable. She had to do something.

Catalina felt for the seat belt across her lap. Pressed the release button quickly, before she could stop herself. Then, as the thug glanced at her, she lunged for the wheel.

The thug tried to block her, but he was too slow, too late. Catalina grabbed the steering wheel with both hands and turned it hard over. The big truck lurched onto the shoulder, tires squealing, kicking up dirt. The thug forgot about her. Fought to regain control of the vehicle. The truck bounced and bumped over grass and gravel. It was speeding too fast. The thug couldn’t control it.

Catalina fumbled with her seat belt. Caught the end and struggled with it, dragged it across her lap. Slipped it back into the release just as the SUV collided with something hard and unyielding, launching the thug through the windshield and out over the hood, jerking Catalina forward until her head struck the dash. She was strapped in, though; she didn’t fly through the windshield. The thug did. He left a hole, jagged, through the glass.

It was the last thing Catalina saw before she passed out.

KIRK STEVENS
was never any good at keeping secrets.

“What?”
Nancy’s voice went up about three octaves. “My God, Kirk, and you didn’t tell me?”

Stevens caught Windermere’s eye across the modest FBI office, got a sympathetic look in return. “It wasn’t that serious, Nance,” he said. “I had a vest on. Barely knocked me down.”

“Bullshit, Kirk. Don’t pull that with me. You got
shot
.”

Stevens said nothing. Knew he wasn’t going to win the fight. Nancy had never been comfortable with the gunplay part of her husband’s job, though lately she’d at least seemed to accept it. Still, Stevens had been dreading this conversation.

“This was, what, last night, Kirk?”

“That’s right,” Stevens said. “I didn’t want you to get worried.”

“Well, I
am
worried,” Nancy said. “Of course I’m worried. I haven’t seen much of you in weeks, because you’re out there getting shot at and God knows what else. Why shouldn’t I be scared?”

“There was this girl,” Stevens told her. “Probably Andrea’s age, in a shitty little brothel. Too much makeup and not enough clothes, and some asshole smacking her around. I couldn’t—I had to stop the guy, Nance.”

Nancy didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Stevens said. “I just don’t think I can give this one up. Not until we catch these guys.”

“I know,” Nancy said. “I’m not going to ask you to come home, Kirk. I just want you to be careful.”

“I’ll be careful, Nance.”

“
Really
careful, Kirk. Because I need you to come back here and be a father again sometime, after you rescue these women.”

Stevens felt suddenly weary. “Andrea acting out again?”

“
Always
, Kirk. She’s sneaking out to see Calvin at all hours; she’s rude when I confront her about it, won’t do her chores or talk to me, even. All she wants to do is play on that stupid phone of hers.”

“Shit.” Stevens felt his nerves tighten. “She’s still with Calvin, huh?”

“I could just use your help,” Nancy said. “So don’t get yourself shot again, okay?”

“Yeah,” Stevens said. “Roger that.”

“How’s the case going, anyway? Apart from the whole you-getting-shot thing.”

“The case?” Stevens surveyed the little office, the piles of paperwork. They’d filled out forms through the night and into the morning, given statements to a couple of Salt Lake City agents about the Blue Room raid, and interviewed the three unlucky johns, none of whom had any decent information to give.

Windermere was working on the girls now, but judging from her expression as she shuttled back and forth from the interview room to the coffee machine, she wasn’t making much headway. Half of the girls were Bulgarian, and good luck finding a Bulgarian translator in Montana. The others came from all over—Romania, Poland, the Ukraine—and even those who could speak English knew next to nothing.

“Well, crap,” Nancy said. “Something’s gotta give though, right?”

“I hope so.” Stevens looked across the office to where Fast had planted himself at his old desktop computer. “At least when I’m doing paperwork, I can’t get shot. How’s Irina doing?”

“Irina?” Nancy’s tone brightened, and he could tell she was glad he’d asked. “She’s fine, Kirk. I’ve been by to visit her in the safe house a couple of times, and she seems to be doing better. They tell me she’s eating, and the staff says she’s starting to interact with the other women. So, you know, she’s okay.”

“Hasn’t remembered anything else about the Dragon, has she?”

Nancy sighed. “Afraid not, Agent Stevens. You’re going to have to do the heavy lifting yourself.”

“What else is new?”

“You’ll get there,” she said. “Hurry up and solve the case, cowboy. I miss you.”

“Miss you, too.” He ended the call, stood and wandered over to the coffee machine and poured himself a fresh cup, then nearly spilled it all over himself colliding with Windermere coming out of the interview room.

“There you are,” she said. “Come on in here. We just caught a break.”

SHE’D LEARNED HER ENGLISH
watching American TV shows in Sarajevo, she said. She apologized if it wasn’t any good.

Windermere snorted. “You speak better English than half the people in this country,” she told the girl. “Nothing to worry about there.”

Sanja was her name. She was twenty, her features smooth and delicate. She had the hardened eyes of a soldier, though, and her skin was marked by fading bruises. She shivered. “I’m afraid,” she said.

Windermere reached across the table. “You’re safe, Sanja. The men who did this to you are dead.”

Sanja bit her lip. “They were terrible men,” she said, her eyes downcast. “Worse than the customers. They beat us until we screamed. Forced us to do things with them. They told us they would kill our families if we didn’t obey.”

“How long were you with them?” Stevens asked. “When did you come to America?”

Sanja thought about it. “It’s hard to tell time,” she said. “Maybe a year and a half, maybe two years? The days blur together.”

“Sure.” Stevens caught Windermere’s eye.
Jesus Christ
, his expression said, and she knew he was thinking about his daughter.

“You were telling me about your friend,” she told Sanja. “Her name was, what, Amira?”

“Amira, yes,” Sanja said. “We came over together, in the box. We lived next door to each other in the brothel, neighbors. Never allowed to talk to each other, but we— There was a vent we could speak through, if we whispered. We talked sometimes, when there were no customers.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Life. Before the box. Our families. Sarajevo.” Sanja smiled. “She told me I would be perfect for her older brother, when we got out of there.”

“And then?”

“And then, they found out about us. About the vent.” Sanja lowered her eyes. “One of the men heard us talking. He . . .” She paused. “He beat us. Did horrible things.”

She stood and turned around, lifted her shirt, exposing long faded scars across her back.

Stevens exhaled. “Piece of shit.” He had an expression on his face like Windermere had never seen, every muscle tense, his mouth tight. Like he was fighting something. Like he could barely restrain himself.

Windermere reached out, touched his arm. Stevens blinked. Relaxed a little. But his jaw remained clenched. “When did this happen?” she asked Sanja.

Sanja sat down again. “Weeks ago. Maybe two weeks? Not long. And then Amira was gone.”

“Gone.” Stevens’s voice was choked. “As in dead?”

“No, no,” Sanja said quickly. “There was another delivery. They took Amira away with them and blocked up the vent so I couldn’t talk to the new girl.” She shrugged. “She was Romanian, anyway, I think. We wouldn’t have had much to say.”

“So they took Amira away,” Windermere said. “Any idea where they took her?”

Sanja nodded. “She had a regular customer, a large man, very fat. After Amira left, they gave him me to play with, instead. Because we’re both from Sarajevo, or because we were neighbors. I heard him ask about Amira, this customer. I didn’t let on that I understood.” She looked up. “I never told them I could speak English. Not the men in charge.”

“So you overheard their conversation.”

“The customer asked about Amira. He didn’t like me the same. Amira had bigger boobs, he said. The man laughed at him. Told him Amira was gone. He could follow her to . . .” She faltered. “I’m sorry, I don’t know this country well.”

“It’s okay,” Windermere said. “Did it sound like he was talking about a city?”

“I don’t know,” Sanja said. “The fat man, he said it was too far, even for a pair of boobs like Amira’s. ‘Navada,’ he said. This is a place?”

“Nevada,” Windermere said. “It’s a state. Where in Nevada did they send her? Las Vegas?”

Sanja shook her head. “I know Las Vegas. Everyone knows. I would have remembered this.”

“Reno?” Stevens said. “Reno, Nevada?”

“Reno.”
Sanja sat up. “This is the place. He said Amira went to Reno, Nevada.”

“Well, hot damn.” Windermere looked at Stevens again. “Reno, Nevada, partner. No rest for the wicked.”