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“Special Agent Watanabe.”
John hoped he’d made the right decision “It’s Iron Hawk.”
A moment of silence stretched out on the other end. Was Iles there with Watanabe? John hoped not. He hadn’t the slightest doubt Iles would rather John rot in hell before helping him.
“I heard you found your fiancée.”
“Yeah, but my daughter wasn’t there, which is why I’m calling.”
“Tough break. What can I do for you, Captain?”
The formality of his speech made John wonder if the junior agent would go against his superior and help him. He had once before at Sommers’ precinct. Would he do it again?
“I need help finding my daughter.”
“What kind of help?”
John wondered what in the hell the agency was doing, if anything, to find his daughter.
“My daughter is being flown out of the area in the morning at seven. I don’t know from what airstrip. What would be your best guess?”
There was silence on the other end.
Zora nervously bit her lip. John listened to the other man’s breathing until he thought he would scream in frustration.
“Iron Hawk, why don’t you let us handle this?”
Heat flushed his skin. “Yeah, like you handled Danny Matisse’s murder?”
Watanabe took a long, drawn out breath. “Look—” Anger vibrated through the usually placid agent’s voice.
John rubbed his forehead. “Look, I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
John disconnected and palmed his cell.
“Do you think he’ll help?” Zora asked.
“Don’t know.” John stood. “We need to get out of here.”
Zora had driven the car up to the side entrance. They both started for the driver’s door. She narrowed her eyes at him until he got into the passenger’s seat. She put the car in gear and rolled forward.
John frowned. “Just back up.”
“Hey, I grew up in New York City. I’m lucky I know how to drive, period. Backing up isn’t—”
She yelped then slammed on the brakes.
The Hardbody’s headlights outlined a dark form lying in the snowy drive. A dark stain haloed the body.
“Wait here.” He paused with his hand on the door handle and gave her a level glare.
“I hear you,” she said.
When he reached the body, clearly a female, he lowered to his haunches and placed two fingers against the woman’s throat. A useless gesture. She was as cold as the snow she rested on.
Gray hair fluttered around her face. Her profile she reminded him of the Wicked Witch of the West.
“Is he dead?” Zora’s head leaned out of the car’s open window.
John stood and lumbered back to the vehicle. “She. Yeah, she’s dead. At least a couple of hours.” This was not Milo’s handiwork. The woman had been shot with a 9mm gun. Milo was a knife man.
“Back up,” he said.
“Are you going to just leave her?”
“There’s not much we can do for her now.”
“Can’t you call someone? The local police?”
“Better leave the police out of this. At least one of them works for Stojanovic.”
“Stojanovic?”
“Milo’s boss.”
“Oh.” She thought a moment, then reluctantly put the truck into reverse, and started a long torturous stop-and-start back down the drive.
“Now what?” she asked when they’d reached the road and were parked across from the entrance to the house.
“We wait for Watanabe.”
She leaned her head against the head rest. After a moment she said, “I was going back to New York to find the woman who used to be Zora Hughes.”
He’d fallen in love with that demanding, bossy woman. “You are that same woman.”
She shook her head. “No, I’m not. I feel useless. My day is spent taking pictures, food shopping, and cooking.”
He straightened in his seat. “You don’t—”
“Don’t get me wrong, I know you didn’t expect me go all domestic. It’s just I rushed out to here without a clear plan for my life. I thought because I loved you everything would work out, just like in a romance novel. Except I’m living the part after the novel ends. No one tells you what happens to those women in the next chapter of their lives.”
John didn’t know what to say. He just wanted her to stay. But he knew that wasn’t fair. “If you want to go back to New Year, it’s okay with me.” Liar. But what right did he have to say stay.
“Is it?” She turned in her seat to face him. “I know you’ll be too busy to even notice I’m gone.”
He studied her face. Even the fatigue and stress she’d gone through in the last couple of days hadn’t diminished her appeal. Yes, he only saw her in the mornings, but that was when she was most beautiful—no makeup, vulnerable. He loved her more than life itself. But was it right to keep her hostage on the reservation? He was there because he felt like he could make a difference. Maybe he should just throw in the towel and let Thomas Crow have the election uncontested.
His cell buzzed. Watanabe’s number appeared on the display. John swiped the screen. “What do you have for me?”
“The Ackerman Field is a private air strip about forty-five minutes due west from where you are. Nothing else within two hundred miles. It would be too much exposure to fly your daughter out of the public airport.”
John didn’t ask how the agent knew where he was. “Thanks. I appreciate this.”
“Yeah.” The agent sounded tired. “I hope this pans out okay, because if it doesn’t, you and I will be looking for new jobs.”
∞
Stojanovic sipped Glenfiddich as he viewed the taped camera shots of the brothel. He had a routine. After dinner he’d look at footage of the brothel’s daytime activity, sometimes speeding through the tape, because most of the action happened at night. After he viewed the taped footage, he’d switch to live feed.
He got a kick out of watching prominent citizens, their pale asses front and center to the camera, thrusting to the tune of two hundred dollars an hour into one of his girls who was forty years younger than the men’s plastic surgery-enhanced wives.
A knock sounded at his office door.
“Who is it?”
“Duggar, sir.”
“Come in.”
A tall, brutish man, with a face like a prizefighter who’d lost more fights than he’d won, stepped into the room. “Milo’s not answering his phone.”
Stojanovic hadn’t heard from his second in command since late afternoon. “Keep trying.”
“Yes, sir.” Duggar shut the door behind him.
When the man’s footsteps faded down the hall, Stojanovic returned to viewing the previously recorded security footage.
On the screen the two Indian girls, wrapped in sheets, crept out of their room and tiptoed down the hall toward what they thought would be freedom. He was surprised the policeman’s daughter hadn’t tried to escape earlier. She appeared to have more spunk than the mousy one. Bored with watching the girls pull the door handle time and time again and expect different results, he clicked on a different view.
The new girl with the red hair was on her knees servicing the city councilman’s worthless son. The boy had no balls. Stojanovic chuckled and took another sip of whiskey. Actually, the boy had balls, because the girl’s hand was wrapped around them, but he had no backbone. He snorted, screwed, and gambled his father’s money away.
Stojanovic skimmed through two hours of clients coming and going until the digital clock at the bottom of the screen read midnight.
He threw back the rest of the whiskey and studied the flames in the fireplace.
What was Milo up to? He occasionally disappeared for a few days, but he informed Stojanovic beforehand. He also hadn’t texted to say he’d taken care of Iron Hawk and his girlfriend. That didn’t bother Stojanovic because he knew Milo always took care of hits.
But for his right-hand man to go silent when a big transaction was imminent made Stojanovic uneasy.
Turning back to his laptop he switched to live feed again. The camera view went blank for a millisecond. When it reactivated, the view was of a hall. He clicked through several frames—just corridor views. All empty.
His gut tightened. Picking up his phone, he dialed Vera Plume’s number. On the other end, the madam’s phone rang several times before reverting to voice mail.
He sat back in his chair. Fingers steepled, he studied the camera shot. Those weren’t empty halls. The camera had been rigged to loop with an earlier image.
He punched the button on the intercom to the kitchen. Duggar answered.
“Bring the car around. And Duggar—”
“Yes, sir?”
“Get the boys to meet me at the House. Tell them not to go in but to wait for me outside.”
Twenty minutes later with Duggar at the wheel, Stojanovic arrived at the brothel. The house was lit from attic to basement. Montclair came to the car.
Stojanovic lowered the glass. “Take the boys and search the house. If you find Mrs. Plume—”
“We already found her. She’s dead.”
Stojanovic’s heart kicked into high gear. “How? Where?”
“Shot. Her body’s over there.” Montclair pointed toward the old carriage house. “Someone shot her in the back.”
Stojanovic swore. “Search the house.”
Montclair jogged off waving to his men to follow. Stojanovic poured a whiskey from the bar. Cracks were appearing in the wall of his empire. From time to time someone would try to make a bid, but he’d crush them and things would quiet down for a while.
Ten minutes later Montclair sprinted up to the limo. “Not a soul in the house.”
“That can’t—” Stojanovic glanced at his watch. It read 1:30 a.m. Milo was to come for the girls around five and deliver them to the airport. Stojanovic was to be there to greet the buyer, turn over the girls, and collect the ten million dollars.
Who had the girls? Milo. The certainty of his second-in-command’s betrayal made Stojanovic’s stomach churn with too much acid. From the least likely quarter, another was taking up the gauntlet.
“How long has Mrs. Plume been dead?”
“Hard to tell. Her body’s cold, but it’s freezing out here. Could be an hour or could be a couple of hours.”
Stojanovic tapped his fingers against the leather armrest as he thought about the video footage. Maybe there was a chance he was wrong. “You guys heard from Milo?”
Montclair shook his head. “Haven’t seen him since early this morning.”
Other than Stojanovic, only Milo knew the details of the delivery.
To Montclair Stojanovic said, “You and your men follow me.” To Duggar he said, “Airstrip. Now.”
∞
Ackerman Field was bordered on one side by snow-covered brush and the other by a forest of trees. John leaned forward to peer out of the windshield. A tall—maybe seven- to eight-feet—chain-linked fence surrounded the area.
“Pull over to the side.”
Zora compiled. “What are we going to do?”
John let the we slide. There was no way Zora was going beyond the two sturdy iron gates locked in place with an equally sturdy padlock.
Two steel corrugated hangers—with doors wide enough to drive a jet through—sat back about a hundred feet from the runway.
The locked gate puzzled him. Had Watanabe been wrong about the airfield? John drew a deep breath. Had Watanabe lied? Was there another airfield, where at this moment the FBI waited for Milo and the incoming plane?
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” Everything.
His daughter’s future rested on his evaluation of Watanabe. John had never been a man who let others fight his battles. He trusted in himself alone. People let you down, like his father, a man of empty promises, whose affair with booze meant more to him than his own family.
John took another deep breath. He could feel Zora studying him, could feel her tension and fear. He believed Watanabe had been truthful, unlike Sommers. If the agent lied, then John had to believe the FBI had his daughter’s welfare at heart and would bring her home safely. He prayed to the spirits his trust in the junior agent had not been misplaced.
He turned to Zora. “We have to move the truck so it can’t be seen from the road. If that padlock is any indication, Milo hasn’t arrived yet. We don’t want to spook him.”
Or anyone else. John hadn’t forgotten that Sommers was out there somewhere.
They drove past the main entrance about a quarter of a mile before enough undergrowth appeared that could camouflage the vehicle.
“Turn around and pull in over there.”
Shrubs scraped the driver’s door and hood as Zora drove the truck into a thicket of bushes. He’d have to reimburse Emma for a new paint job.
“Here’s the plan.” He reached into his boot and pulled out his Colt .380.
Zora flinched.
“You can do this.” He placed the gun in her hand. “I want you to stay in the car.”
She was shaking her head before he’d finished speaking. “I’m coming with you.” Her lips were so tightly compressed lines appeared on either side of her mouth.
“It’s too dangerous.”
“And it’s safe here?” She raised her hands indicating the car half buried in the shrubs and the isolated area that surrounded the airstrip.
John rubbed his neck as he struggled for patience. “Zora—”
“You don’t know what’s out there.” She pointed in the direction of the airfield. “You don’t know how many men there are, and you don’t know if the people on this plane have armed guards. You’ll be one man against God only knows how many guns.”
His breath left his lungs in a long shuddering sigh. She was right. He hadn’t a clue what faced him once he found Milo and the girls. But he’d be damned before he put another member of his family in danger.
“If you leave me here I’ll just follow you.” Her eyes blazed in the semidarkness of the car.
What had made him want to align his life with this woman? She was opinionated, stubborn, obstinate, and downright infuriating. And he knew she wasn’t just blowing smoke. She’d follow him right over the fence, onto the airstrip, and right into danger.
Spirit give me strength. “Okay. Stay with me and don’t make a sound. When I say move, you move.” She nodded. “When I tell you to stay put, you stay put.”
This time she didn’t nod quite so quickly. He narrowed his eyes, ready to handcuff her to the steering wheel if he had to. She must have seen the message in his eyes.
She wet her lips. “I promise.”
“We climb the fence.”
Her head bobbed, indicating she was on board.
“We’ll be out in the open as we make are way across the field toward the hangers, so stay low.”
He studied her. Her breathing was a little quicker but not in panicked huffs. Her hands held the .380 steadily.
“The most important thing is to get Laurie to safety. If I’m down you take her and run. Don’t stop, don’t look back. Do you understand?”
Now her gaze shifted rapidly across his face. Her nostrils flared, and there was a mute appeal in her eyes.
“John—” She reached out to him.
He shook his head. “If you can’t do it, then stay in the car.” He studied her face. “Shoot anyone who comes close. At least one of the people I love needs to leave here alive.”
Tears made her eyes bright.
“What’s it going to be?”
He hoped she’d choose to come with him. At first he’d been resistant to the idea, but as he’d talked he’d known if Laurie was to make it out, he needed assistance.
She straightened her shoulders and tightened her grip on the small weapon. “I’ll come with you.”
He took back the .380, placed it back in the top of his boot, and then pulled her into a tight embrace. Burying his face in her hair, he said, “I love you.” It might be the last time he said it.
She shuddered against him.
He pulled back and reached for the passenger door handle. “Let’s go get our daughter.”
∞
John watched the airfield with one eye and Zora with the other as she struggled to climb the chain-linked fence.
“Hurry,” he whispered.
She grunted in reply. She didn’t have the upper body strength and was too weak to pull herself up quickly, and the hospital socks didn’t help. If he’d had the Jeep he could have given her his mud boots, but he didn’t have the Jeep, and the boots were too big and not suited for this climb.
She’d almost reached the top when he heard the drone of an engine. A large plane broke out of the clouds to the east. The plane lowered as it neared.
Zora froze at the top of the fence, watching the plane with the same look of horror that was making his stomach clinch. The plane and its buyer were early.
“Hurry. Hurry.”
Gripping the top of the fence that was padded with his leather jacket, she swung her leg over the top.
“Jump,” he demanded.
The plane circled the airport and was preparing to land.
She hung at the top of the fence.
“I’ll catch you.”
She hesitated for one second then pitched forward. He felt the impact in his ribs. Something tore like a boat from its moorings. He set her on her feet. She casted a worried glance in his direction. He stomped on the pain. No time for it. The plane hovered over the runway as the landing gear descended.
John grabbed her hand, and they sprinted for the nearest hanger. The roar of the jet muted any words he could have said to Zora, so they kept running.
Then everything happened at once. The plane touched down, the middle hanger’s doors opened, and a limousine roared through the front gates of the airfield.
John drew his gun from his waistband. They were sitting ducks. If they could just get to the first hanger, they could use it for cover.
Sweat rolled down his back and he picked up his pace, dragging Zora along with him. She stumbled and fell in the snow.
Her breath wheezed out of her lungs. When she attempted to get to her feet, she swayed like the wind was buffeting her from side to side. He glanced at the hanger and the approaching car. Kneeling, he pulled the .380 out of his boot and placed it in her hand.
“Stay here.” She shivered. He didn’t know if from fear or cold. He regretted leaving his jacket on the fence, but it didn’t matter now. He kissed her, one quick, hard touching of the lips, then jogged off.
Reaching the first hanger, he pressed his body against the building and inched forward until he could see.
The plane had taxied to a stop but its propellers still spun.
A male dressed in all black strolled out of the second hanger. Milo. John took a deep breath and pushed down the urge to rush forward.
Two guys, guns drawn, stepped out of the driver and front passenger doors of the limousine. They advanced on Milo. One of the men said something to the Serb. He lifted his arms away from his body. One of the guys patted him down.
The guy who did the pat-down turned and shook his head at whoever was in the car.
Stojanovic stepped out of the vehicle.
Short, clipped words and an angry tone carried above the whine of the plane’s engine. Stojanovic was pissed. John didn’t give a shit.
While the men had their pissing contest, John backed up to the rear of the first hanger. No door or window. Through the front door appeared to be the only way to get to his daughter.
He retraced his steps.
Stojanovic pulled his cell from his coat pocket and turned toward the plane. Milo took one step forward, grabbed the crime boss around the neck, spun him around, and placed a blade to his throat.
The phone slipped from the older man’s hand.
Flashes of the pat-down flickered through John’s mind. Where had the blade come from?
“Drop your guns,” Milo shouted at Stojanovic’s men. “Drop them or I swear I’ll slit his throat right here.” John didn’t care a flying fuck about Stojanovic. Let Milo kill him.
The guys hesitated their gazes on their boss. Whatever communication passed between the men and Stojanovic, John didn’t know, but they dropped their guns.
“Kick them over here,” Milo demanded. The men complied.
Milo shouted something over his shoulder. Two girls emerged hesitantly from the middle hanger.
Laurie.
Sommers followed close behind, his gun pointed at John’s daughter’s head.
John checked a response to call out to her. Then a red haze slid across his vision almost blinding him as he studied the girls. They were dressed traditionally—doeskin dresses, moccasins, right down to beaded headbands.
Milo and Stojanovic were making a mockery of his culture. There was no doubt in John’s mind this had been something cooked up in the two men’s minds to entice some sick fuck to pay more money for the girls.
Breathe.
The plane’s hatch started to descend.
John stepped away from the protection of the hanger.
“Stop right there.” He leveled his gun at Sommers’ head. “Let them go.”
“Daddy!”
The word brought tears to John’s eyes. She hadn’t called him Daddy since she was two years old. He shut out her voice.
Sommers pulled Laurie closer, placing his gun at her temple. “You’re a little short on man power, Iron Hawk.”
“No, he’s not.” Zora shouted. She stood to John’s left.
What the fuck? He gritted his teeth. Why, oh, why didn’t she follow directions? He clamped down on his anger, but his heart was beating so hard, he felt like it would jump from his chest. He couldn’t lose them. A cold wind blew across his flushed face.
The plane’s door had stopped its descent. Obviously, the buyer didn’t want to be part of this standoff. Good. One or two fewer guns to deal with.
John kept the Sig leveled on Sommers, who used Laurie as a shield.
“Have you forgotten your oath as a police officer? The part where you’re supposed to protect the weak?” John shouted.
“Fuck you, Iron Hawk,” Sommers shot back.
“Quit all the jabbering and get the girls on the plane,” Milo commanded.
John glanced briefly at the second girl. Short and stocky, there was something familiar about her, but at this distance he couldn’t be sure. Both Milo and Sommers seemed to have forgotten about her as they held on to their hostages.
Keeping his arm around Laurie, Sommers moved sideways, closer to the plane. He motioned with his gun hand for the other girl to move with them. She hesitated, her gaze on Laurie.
The stocky girl moved so quickly John almost missed the kick she leveled at Sommers’ knee. Laurie twisted in the detective’s grip, exposing his side. A flash of light, then a crack of sound boomed near John’s left ear. Sommers screamed. His leg buckled, and he lost his hold on Laurie.
John took the shot. Sommers’ head exploded in a burst of bone and bloody matter.
The girls’ screams mingled with the sounds of approaching cars.
The plane, with its hatch fully retracted, started to reverse on the runway. Its movement was blocked by two sedans racing down the tarmac toward it in opposite directions.
John swung his gun on Milo and Stojanovic. Keeping the men and bodyguards in sight, John put himself between Milo, the bodyguards, and the girls.
“Daddy.”
“Get behind me, baby.” He motioned for the other girl to do the same.
“Daddy.” The word was muffled into his shirt as she burrowed into his back. Her soul crushing sobs brought tears to his own eyes.
“It’s gonna be okay, baby,” he said as he watched Stojanovic and his flunky, Milo. John didn’t care if Milo killed Stojanovic, but the older man had details the FBI could use to find a lot of missing women.
More dark sedans streamed through the entrance. Stojanovic’s men jumped into their limousine like mice leaving a sinking ship.
Two men stepped out of the sedans, blocking the plane.
Iles and Watanabe.
John couldn’t stop himself from grinning. Damn, it was good to see them. With the FBI’s guns trained on Milo and Stojanovic, John relaxed his guard, turned, and drew his daughter into his embrace.
Zora stood a short distance away, watching them with a hand over her mouth. The .380 hung at her side. He gave her a thumbs-up.
“Put the blade down.” Iles shouted.
Iles’ shout made John turned back toward the drama playing out a few yards away.
Milo smiled. Leaning down, he whispered something into his boss’s ear. The man jerked in the younger’s one hold. Then with one swift flick of the wrist Milo slit Stojanovic’s throat. The older man’s knees buckled. Milo released him. Stojanovic’s body crumbled and lay like discarded garbage on the ground.
“Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot,” John shouted. As much as he’d like to see Milo dead he had too much useful information about the missing women.
“Drop your weapon, Milojevic, and kick it this way.”
To John’s surprise, Milo dropped his blade and shoved it away with the toe of his boot. With Iles weapon trained on the Serb, Watanabe retrieved the guns and bagged the switchblade. Only after they’d tied Milo’s hands behind his back did Iles squat next to Stojanovic’s body. The agent rose slowly and shook his head at John.
John had used his body to shield his daughter from Stojanovic’s death, but the other teen had witnessed it. Zora walked over to them and drew the other girl into her arms.
“It’s okay, baby,” John cooed to his daughter as sobs racked her slender body. “It’s okay.” When her crying was under control John asked, “Who’s your friend?”
“Destiny,” Laurie said into his chest.
John smiled for the first time in days. Now he knew why the girl had looked familiar. He’d call the Little Feathers the first chance he got. “That’s great.”
His daughter looked up from the shelter of his arms and seemed to notice Zora for the first time.
“I’m glad you’re safe, Laurie.” Zora’s face telegraphed her uncertainty of her reception.
John held his breath. He only released the air trapped in his lungs when Laurie left his arms and went into Zora’s. She held his daughter close.
