She jumped out the back with Peabody, McNab, and the uniforms behind her. “Talk to me,” she demanded as they headed toward the front.
“Baxter’s team moving in the rear,” Roarke told her. “Water side of tunnels blocked. Jenkinson’s team moving into tunnels. No activity in the tunnels but yours at this time.”
Jamie added, “You’ve got twenty-two kids on the first level, Dallas. Two in that studio, in a bed. Three of the fuckers in there with them. The others sitting in some kind of classroom, two adults in there, two others in the hall.”
“Keep it coming. We’re going in.”
Pedestrians scattered when she drew her weapon, and ignoring them, she went through the door.
“Hands up. All hands in the air. NYPSD. I’ll drop you,” she warned the man who started to slide a hand in his pocket.
She heard the commotion in the back, and the pounding of cop feet as more uniforms rushed in.
“Restrain, remove, secure,” she ordered. “Moving up,” she added, and ran for the stairs.
“Roarke’s working on deactivating interior locks,” McNab called from behind her. “It’s not all one system, but—”
She took a quick look at the one on the stairway door, stepped back. “Take it down, Officer.”
Dubock stepped up with the battering ram. It took two solid hits, then she was through. “Peel off,” she ordered, then stunned the suited man whirling toward her with a weapon.
Cops scattered in assigned directions. Kitchen area, classrooms, to the next level. Through the shouts, the rush of feet, the whine of discharged weapons, reports from other locations sounded in her ear.
With Shelby, she pounded her way toward the studio. Screams ripped out behind her, and she heard something big and breakable crash in the kitchen area.
Then the hard snap of shock sticks, the low hum of stunners.
She took the studio door down, standard lock, with a flying kick.
She registered the two minors in a bed, two adult males, one adult female.
“Move, I put you down. Take the girls, Shelby.”
“We’re the police,” Shelby said as she moved toward the bed. “You’re okay now.”
“On your knees, now!” Eve snapped. “Hands behind your head.”
The woman with a shock stick in hand flicked it toward Eve, then jittered and fell when the stun hit her mid-body.
The videographer swung the camera and tripod at her while the other charged. To avoid the blow, she dropped into a crouch, fired up. As the camera flew across the room, and he toppled, she pushed up to deliver a kick to the next. He went down before she gained her feet.
She glanced back at Shelby and the weapon in her hand. “Thanks. Good reflexes. Rescue and containment, first-level studio,” she ordered. “Two minor females, three suspects. Suspects are down. Stay with the girls, Officer, until Rescue takes them.”
“Lieutenant—”
“Don’t leave them,” Eve ordered as the two girls clung to each other and wept. “We clear this floor, then move up.”
She ran out, sweeping her weapon, separating the voices in her ear—tunnels secured, main level secured, Willowby’s team in action on second level, Baxter’s team responding there—from the sounds in her ear.
Girl kid screams and wailing, cop shouts.
She found Peabody with two suspects down and restrained, and Officer Marshall trying to deal with the panicked girls. She saw the look of pain on Peabody’s face.
“Are you hit?”
“Shock stick—just a graze. Hurts like hell, but I’m good.”
“Listen up!” She shouted it, and most of the wailing eased off. “We’re the police, we’re the good guys. You’re safe now, and we’re going to get you out.”
“Rescue’s heading up, sir,” Marshall told her.
“Hold here until. Shelby’s got two more girls in the studio, and three suspects down. Peabody, with me. We clear the floor.”
“You can’t leave us! You can’t leave us,” one of the girls screamed. “I want my mom!”
“We’re not leaving you,” Peabody said in her Peabody way. “Nobody’s going to hurt you anymore, and we’re going to get you to your mom.”
Fuck it, Eve thought. “Stay, stay with Marshall until Rescue gets them out.”
“Dallas.”
“Stay.”
She cleared as she went. Empty rooms, hardly more than cells, locked storage areas holding shock sticks, collars, batons, stunners.
A lot of weaponry, she thought, against a bunch of kids.
She came to another locked door—a double set. High probability, she remembered, for Auntie’s office.
“Roarke, do you read?”
“I do.”
“I’m at Beaty’s office door. Can you deactivate the lock? No access at this time to a ram, and it’s secured like the stair doors.”
“Not anymore it’s not.”
“Oh, okay then. Stand by.”
She pushed in, swept.
Efficient luxury, she decided. Fancy desk, high-end D and C, cushy furnishings, private bathroom, she recalled from the blueprints.
And with the office door shut behind her, she heard nothing from outside the room.
“EDD, give me a read on heat sources, my location.”
“Just you, LT,” Jamie told her.
“Read on top floor.”
“One.”
“There you are,” she murmured.
“Willowby, second level. We’re clear. I have an injured officer, twenty-six girls, thirteen motherfuckers. Baxter’s team on assist and now moving up to the next level to assist McNab’s team.”
“First floor clear and secured. Heading up. Jamie, monitor that heat source. I want to know where she moves if she moves.”
On the second floor, she found Rescue escorting girls out, weeping girls, silent ones with glazed eyes.
“Dallas.” Willowby swiped a hand over her forehead. “Permission to bring in two more from SVU. We’ve got a lot of vics here.”
“Granted. The injured officer?”
“She took a baton hit to the arm. Looks broken. Medical’s on the way.”
“I’m moving up.” She held up a finger as Jenkinson spoke in her ear. “Copy that. Have medical take her, call for removal of the suspects. Infirmary level’s clear,” she told Willowby. “We got the doctor, another so-called medical, and an unconscious girl strapped to the damn table. Brought her in this morning—that vehicle driving out of the tunnels.”
“Did we get them?”
“We got them. I’m heading up,” she said again.
On the next level, she took out a fleeing woman with a bare-knuckled fist to the face. Stopped short of doing the same when she realized the one charging her was maybe twelve.
“Hey, hey.” Eve blocked the punch. “I’m a cop. I’m here to get you out.”
“Fuck the fucking cops.”
Eve dodged the kick, pivoted, and wrapped her arms around the girl from behind.
“Stop, stop now.”
“I’ll kill you!”
“Knock it off! Jesus Christ, Trueheart,” she said when he, mouth bleeding, ran her way.
“Sorry, Lieutenant. Some of the kids scattered. They’re scared.”
“I get that, but— I said knock it off!” Eve snapped when the kid tried to kick Trueheart. “We’re the NYPS-fucking-D, and we’re getting you the hell out of here. There are a lot of girls in here these bastards snatched and hurt, and we’re going to help them. If you run when I let you go, you’re on your own.”
“I’ve been on my own my whole life.”
“Yeah, sad story.” She nearly sighed with relief when a Rescue team came through the stairwell door. “You can go with them, help us put the fuckers who did this to you, and all the others, in cages, or you can take off and help them keep doing it.”
“Screw them, screw you, and everybody else.”
“Okay then.” Eve released her. “Go.”
The girl rounded on Eve.
“Lottie,” Eve said. “Lottie Crug.”
“How the hell do you know? I don’t know where the hell I am, and screw you, I’m not leaving Carrie.”
“Who’s Carrie?”
The girl’s eyes went to molten slits. “Trainee 282.” She snarled it. “They took her down for vids, the fucking pervs, and—”
“Describe her.”
“She’s a white girl, long blond hair, and—”
“Blue eyes, maybe a hundred pounds. Carrie Wheeler.” Another face on her board, Eve thought. “We got her out, her and the girl they had with her. The three assholes who held them in there are currently in lockup.”
“Maybe you’re lying.”
“Not everybody lies,” Trueheart said, and the girl snorted.
“What planet are you from?”
Eve watched Baxter and two officers lead a group of girls their way.
“Check with Dr. Mira,” Eve told the Rescue team. “Have her locate Carrie, so Lottie can see for herself.”
“If you’re lying, I’ll find you, and I’ll make you pay.”
“Well, that terrifies me. Is this level clear?” she asked Baxter.
“That’s affirmative.”
“Heading up.” She released the girl. “Don’t be stupid. Baxter, Trueheart, with me.”
She started up. “Jamie, status on top floor.”
“She’s moving around, just started to. I think she was eating breakfast or something before.”
“I’m going up. Help clear the next levels,” she told Baxter. “I’m taking the top.”
“Want backup?” Baxter asked her.
“I like my odds on the one-to-one.”
She jogged up the stairs, level by level. Fifty-eight girls secured so far, came the report in her ear. Another twelve in the process. Eighty-six suspects in custody.
“Roarke, do some magic on her door. Jamie, where is she?”
“The bathroom. I, ah, think she, you know, relieved herself. Looks like she’s washing her hands.”
“Too bad. Lowers the possibility she pisses herself when I take her. I’m at the door.”
“It’s got an alarm, taking it down. Hold there.”
“Come on, come on,” she whispered, bouncing on her toes.
“She’s in the bedroom, Dallas,” Jamie told her.
“And the lock’s down. Mind my cop.”
“You bet.”
Eve pushed in as Beaty stepped out of the bedroom doorway.
“Hi, Auntie. Hands up, turn and face the wall. Well, shit,” she said when Beaty leaped back, slammed the door. Eve heard the sharp click of the lock.
“Yeah, that’ll make a difference.”
She stepped up, kicked it open, whirled away. And wasn’t a bit surprised to hear the stunner stream hit the wall behind her.
“It’s a cliché, but needs to be said. The place is surrounded. You’ve got nowhere to go. So, you know, come out with your hands up.”
“Come and get me.”
“Dallas, Lowenbaum. We burned through the privacy screens, and have a clear shot of the subject on the top floor. Want us to take it?”
“And spoil my fun? Just hold.”
She dived, facing the opening, sweeping streams as the return fire hit over her head.
The gasp of pain brought huge satisfaction.
Beaty had dropped to her knees, her right arm shaking where the stream had grazed her. Her stunner lay on the floor.
“Go ahead, try for it. It won’t be a glancing hit this time.”
“I know who you are. Bitch.”
“Yeah? I know who you are. Move another inch toward it, we’ll be carting your unconscious ass out of here. You’re done, get it? The girls are out, your perverted staff is in custody. Now, down on your face, hands behind your back.”
“I don’t take orders. I give them!”
With that, she lunged up, charged. Eve had a split second to decide, but since she already had, it didn’t take that long.
She lowered the weapon in her right hand and led with her left.
One jab in the face.
“That’s for Mina Cabot.”
Beaty’s head snapped back; her eyes went glassy for an instant. Then she snarled, grabbed for Eve’s weapon with one hand, tried a right cross with the other. Blocking most of it—a couple of knuckles on the chin got through—Eve stomped her boot on Beaty’s designer heel.
“That can be for Dorian Gregg. And this?” The uppercut had Beaty’s eyes rolling back white. “For all the others.” She stepped over to put her boot on the dropped stunner.
Breathed out, breathed clear as she studied the woman sprawled at her feet.
“Subject is down.”
Her weapon swung back up when she caught movement in the doorway. Then lowered with a shake of her head when she saw Roarke.
“Nearly took a stream, pal.”
“I trust your reflexes. I wasn’t needed in the van, so I thought to see what you were up to.” He tapped his chin. “Caught you a bit, did she?”
“Caught her more.”
“So I see. The rest of the teams are a bit busy at the moment. One of the guards got to a weapons lockup before it could be secured.” He held up a hand. “Under control or I wouldn’t have simply continued up.”
“Injuries?”
“I can’t tell you, but Peabody indicated all minor on your side. Mira’s already cleared about twenty of the girls, medically, so they can be taken into Central. Feeney’s already having at the electronics. When do you want to leave?”
She crouched, secured Beaty’s hands behind her back. “Now’s good, or as soon as I get the clear from all teams, and somebody comes up and hauls this one out of here.
“Here comes Peabody.” Eve turned to the door as her partner, one eye swollen, rushed to the door.
“We’re clear. Got the last of the girls out. Bad guys in custody, already transported, or secured and awaiting same.”
“Good. Who punched you in the eye?”
“Elbow jab. Jenkinson took a double stream to the chest. Even with the vest, it knocked him on his ass. He is pissed. But we kicked their ass a lot harder.”
“We kicked their ass. Start processing those kicked asses, and get some muscular uniforms up here to haul her out. She’s no lightweight.”
“You’re going? You sure you don’t want me to go with?”
“Need you at Central. Long Island team,” she said into her comm. “We’re a go in … five,” she said when Roarke held up five fingers. Then she pointed at the stunner on the floor. “Make sure that gets bagged and taken in, Peabody. Good work, and put an ice pack on the eye.”
“You’ve got a bruise on your jaw.”
“Shit.” She rubbed at it. “Well, all in a day’s.”
She hated this part, but knew the timing mattered too much to indulge herself. When she reached the roof, she took one look at the waiting jet-copter and sucked it up.
She got in, strapped in as the others—Feeney, McNab, Lowenbaum, and two of his men along with two uniforms—did the same.
Roarke took the pilot’s chair while she took out her ’link and notified the Long Island PSD currently watching the estate that they were on their way.
A lot of manpower, she thought—because she wanted to think of anything but the sound of the damn flying machine roaring to life—for one rich, middle-aged pervert, but they didn’t know how many they’d come up against.
The copter lifted off the roof, then shot like a bullet from a gun over the city. She sucked it up harder and turned to Feeney.
“You’re sure you can do this from the air?”
“Got a few extra toys.” He flicked a glance at Roarke but didn’t elaborate on those specifics. “We get close enough, we’ll jam up their alarms, their cams, their comms.”
“Somebody’s going to notice that.”
“Yeah, they are, so you’re going to have to move fast.”
“We can and will neutralize any targets outside,” Lowenbaum said when she shifted to him. “It’s what we do, Dallas.”
In theory, she thought, all she, the uniforms, McNab—if Feeney didn’t need him—had to do was get inside, take down any guards posted in the house, get to Devereaux, and arrest his ass.
It remained a possibility, one she considered a likelihood, he had innocent civilians inside.
Maybe it was just a business to him, but wouldn’t he want some of the fringe benefits?
“On approach, Feeney.”
“We’re ready.”
Eve sucked up more and looked. She saw the estate—the high white walls framing it, the green lawns, the gardens where everything lined up like soldiers, the sparkling blue waters of a swimming pool, and the glass-walled house beside it.
She saw the greener-than-green nine-hole golf course, a small orchard, a gatehouse, another two outbuildings, the frigging jet-copter pad.
And the main house, as white as the walls that separated it from the world. Some stone terraces spread on the top three levels with wide stone steps leading up or down, all graced by lavish urns of flowers or dwarf trees.
Tall windows shined like diamonds.
“Going silent,” Roarke said, and Eve resisted the desperate need to close her eyes.
The roar snapped off—how could she know how much she’d miss it?—and though she braced for the crash, the copter glided, as Roarke had assured it could and would, over the sparkling blue water, the greener than green.
“You’ve got your window, Feeney.”
“And we’re going through it. Jamming now. Alarms down.”
“Touchdown in ten.”
“Cams down.”
“In five.”
“Comms down. This baby is sweet!”
They didn’t land on the pad like a feather, but neither did they experience the bone-jolting shock she’d expected.
Rather than bless her luck, she shoved out. “Get the gates open for backup from the locals.”
“Smooth ride,” Lowenbaum said as he jumped out after. Then he was all business as he and his men fanned out.
Like the bone-jolt, she’d expected a flood of quick-responding opposition, but she covered the ground nearly halfway to target before she saw a single male step from an outbuilding.
He looked annoyed, then spotted her. Even as he drew his weapon, the stun struck, took him down.
“McNab, heat sources interior, how many and where?”
“Two in the kitchen area, two in the smaller dining room—one sitting—one in the entrance hall, all main level. Two on the second floor, none on the third. Cap’s taking it from here, I’m moving out.”
She paused, backtracked, and with the floorplan in her head, angled toward what had to be the window of the smaller of two dining rooms.
“Son of a bitch is having breakfast. A woman with him, standing. She’s wearing a collar, and not much else.
“McNab, use the outside steps, take the second floor with the officers, secure it.” She glanced over as Roarke stepped up beside her. “We’ve got the entrance and dining. Lowenbaum?”
“Only two, both in the gatehouse. Secured.”
“Take the kitchen. Nobody moves in until my go.”
“Copy that.”
“Side door down there.” She gestured. “Can Feeney lift the locks? I want to move on him before they bust the others down.”
“Easier for me, manually.”
“Then let’s do that.”
Inside, enjoying his steak and eggs and coffee, Devereaux smiled at Luna. “You did very well last night. So well, I had the need for good, rare, red meat.”
“Thank you, Master.”
“I believe I’ll find several years of enjoyment in you before I sell you off.” He ran a hand up her inner thigh. “You put me in a celebratory mood. I’m going to host a small party tonight with a few intimate friends. I have no doubt they’ll enjoy you as much as I.”
He skimmed those fingers over her center. “Does that please you, Luna? Does it excite you?”
She stared straight ahead as he fondled her. “What pleases you pleases me.”
“Enthusiasm,” he snapped.
She looked down at him, into his eyes. She smiled, rocked her hips.
“Better. Tonight, it’s going to please me to have you laid out on this very table, a tasty entrée. It will please me to fuck you while my guests watch, then it will please me to watch while they do whatever they want to you. Use you, abuse you.”
He pinched her thigh, hard enough to mark it, then went back to his breakfast.
“Oh, not too much, just enough.
“You’ll be a delicious centerpiece we can devour. One in your cunt, one in your ass, one in your mouth. I need to see your full potential while you entertain me and my guests.”
“My potential.”
“That’s right. It’s time I have my monthly parties again. You’ll be the star.” His eyes went hard when she said nothing. “I expect gratitude for giving you this privilege, for making you a showpiece.”
“Gratitude,” she repeated.
“Yes, gratitude, for that, and this.” He cut a small piece of steak, tossed it to the floor. “Eat it. Get down on your hands and knees and eat it so you remember what you are. My dog.”
Her chin dropped to her chest. A dog. She’d had a dog once, and loved him so. She’d been a girl once. She’d been free once.
Her heart wept and wept.
She started to lower to her hands and knees, and he laughed.
“Good doggie.”
Then her hand was on the knife, and the knife plunged into his throat even as her collar ripped pain through her.
She screamed, against the pain, against the years of fear and humiliation. She stabbed again.
“Move in, Dallas!” Feeney shouted. “Dining room, heat sources—one fading. Entrance subject on the run in that direction.”
“Move in!” Eve ordered, and leaped through the door when Roarke dropped the locks.
Beyond the expansive foyer with its golden sand tiles and towering ceilings a wide staircase swept. From beyond that came the screams. Eve shifted her attention right, left, up, as she rushed across the tiles into plush, empty rooms washed in sunlight.
As she did, the screams stopped. She heard a voice—female—in a tone of quiet pleading as she kept moving forward, then angled left.
And through a doorway into a dining room that smelled of coffee and blood. The man who had been Jonah Devereaux slumped in the high-backed chair, his mouth open in stunned surprise, his eyes fixed and staring as blood poured from the wounds in his throat, his chest, shoulders. A woman in a white thong and bra, a thin, transparent robe, and thick black collar stood over him.
Blood splattered her and dripped from the knife she gripped.
She bared her teeth at Eve and raised the knife high as if to strike again.
“You need to drop the knife. We’re the police.” Eve didn’t shout it, but kept her eyes fixed on the woman’s. “We’re here to help you.”
“Don’t hurt her. Please don’t hurt her.”
Eve lifted a hand toward a second woman, one in a black skin suit and collar. “We’re not here to hurt her. You need to stay back.”
“Please, you don’t understand.”
“Roarke.”
“We understand very well.” Roarke moved to the second woman.
“Put the knife down,” Eve repeated, “and step away from him.”
“I killed him.”
Had her eyes looked like that, Eve wondered, when she’d crouched over the body of Richard Troy, when she’d gripped the bloody knife she’d plunged into him again and again?
“Put the knife down,” she said yet again. “We need to get that collar off you.” And she lowered her weapon. “No one’s going to hurt you. Back off,” she ordered as one of her uniforms moved into another doorway. “Everyone, back off.”
“I won’t go back. I won’t.” Now the woman brought the knife to her own throat. “Death is better.”
“Stop. Look at me. Give me your name. What’s your name?”
“They took it when they took me.”
“Take it back. What’s your name?”
“I—my name is Amara,” she said as her eyes filled. “I am Amara Gharbi. I was. I am. I was.”
“If you use that knife on yourself, Amara, he wins. They took you from your home, from your family. Do you have family, Amara?”
“I did, in the before. But—”
“We’re going to help you get back, to your home, to your family.”
“I killed him. I gave him death.”
“They stole your life,” Eve said as she cautiously moved forward. “Let us help you take it back, Amara.”
“He said—he said he would have a party, and his guests would do what they wished to me.”
“It’s an initiation.” The other woman stood shivering and weeping as Roarke deactivated her collar. “He did the same to me when they first brought me here. I’m glad he’s dead. Glad he’s dead. I wish I’d had the courage.”
“It’s over now. This part’s over now,” Eve corrected, because it was never really over. “You stopped him, so this part’s over. Give me the knife, Amara, and let us help you get through the rest. You have to trust me. Please.”
She lifted her left hand, closed it over Amara’s on the handle of the knife. She could wrench it away, use her weapon on light stun. But she wanted Amara to make the choice.
“He’s finished,” Eve murmured. “Finished hurting you and all the others. You’re safe now, Amara. Let me have the knife. Let me have it so we can get you home to your family.”
When Amara let it go, Eve nodded at the uniform, held it out to him. “Let’s get that collar off you. Come over here.”
“He said—he said I was his dog. And he laughed, he laughed. I killed him. I killed him. I picked up the knife, and the pain, the pain. I didn’t care.”
“I know.”
But Amara shook her head. “No, no, no. You can’t.”
As Amara wept, Eve holstered her weapon, put arms around her. “I can,” she whispered. “I do.”