Faceless (Sinister Secrets Book 2), page 22
The dock.
He turned his Jeep toward the waterfront. “I got a weird text from Kevyn and she’s not responding.”
“What?” Alarm carried into his ear. “Her car’s still here. I’m turning into the lot now.”
“I’m not far from the waterfront. Wait for me.” After obtaining the address from Sid, Dak hung up and stomped on the accelerator.
Please, God. Let me be imagining trouble. Protect her.
Somehow, he didn’t think he was imaging anything.
Frankly, she needed protection. All the time. She had a habit of jumping into things without thinking.
What part of “no lone wolf” had she not understood? How could she go barreling into this – whatever this was – alone?
The light turned red ahead of him and he slowed, drumming his fingers violently against the steering wheel as he waited for the oh-so-slow light to change.
At least she’d sent him a picture.
That would help identify the man. Maybe.
The back view wasn’t terribly identifiable.
The man’s surroundings, however, were. He should be able to find the man’s route, at least part of it, based upon the surroundings in the photograph.
He pulled into the lot, spotting the Bureau-issued vehicle before Sid opened the door and stepped out. Parking two spaces away, he checked his phone. Still no response from Kevyn and it’d been ten minutes.
He sent another text, then exited the vehicle.
He fell into step beside Sid as Sid led the way toward the docks. “Fill me in. Condensed version.”
It all sounded fine, even Kevyn remaining behind to watch for the person Divers had met.
“I really thought she’d snap a few pics, maybe see what he was driving and get a plate.” Sid shook his head. “I probably should have known better, huh?”
Maybe, maybe not. “That might be what she planned to do.”
Things didn’t always go according to plan. Especially where Kevyn was concerned.
“I left her right here.” Sid gestured to some crates stacked by a building.
No sign of her there now.
Not that he was surprised. If she’d still been there, waiting, she would have responded to his text. “What building were you watching?”
Sid pointed at one on the other side of the drive. “That one.”
Dak walked to stand in front the building and looked both directions.
The area was strangely deserted. Sure, it was now after seven, but he would have expected some truckers or dock workers to still be working. Didn’t shipments come and go at all hours?
A few witnesses would sure come in handy right about now.
Well, he would work with what he had. Which was a picture and cryptic text.
Pulling up the picture she’d sent, he tried to find landmarks.
The bulk of what he saw in the picture were shipping containers and warehouses, none of which had anything that made them stand out.
Wait, was that a flag?
He zoomed in on the picture.
A large American flag was visible in the background.
He glanced above the building line.
There! On the right, a flag waved in the breeze as if beckoning him. “I think she went that way.”
Sid looked at the picture. “Looks possible.”
They headed down the drive, passing dozens of shipping containers, two trailers, and one semitruck cab.
A familiar landscape rose before him.
He stopped and pulled up the picture again. “This is it. This is where she took the picture.”
At least it confirmed they were headed the right direction.
The drive dead-ended at a large cul-de-sac. He turned in a circle. Nothing but more shipping containers and a handful of warehouses.
Several of them were run-down, probably abandoned.
No sign of Kevyn anywhere.
Still no response to his texts.
Forget it. He was going to try calling.
He brought up her number, but the call went straight to voicemail.
He didn’t like it. Not one bit.
Call for backup or run this with just the two of them?
If nothing was seriously wrong, he didn’t want to call a bunch of people in. They’d do a quick, cursory look, then he’d make the decision about backup.
“Fan out. Let’s check behind every container, under the trucks, in between buildings. Make sure she’s not unconscious somewhere.” If they found her, it wouldn’t be good.
If they didn’t find her, it’d be even worse.
₪ ₪ ₪
Mitch sipped his bourbon and stared out the window. The lights of the city glowed far below him, stretching for miles. In the distance, the tree-adorned mountains surrounding the city were tinged with the first hints of twilight.
That had gone better than expected.
He’d been waiting for the FBI to beat down his door for days now. It had only been a matter of time before they found his alternate identity and tracked him here.
Somehow, he’d expected more fireworks. Maybe even handcuffs and a trip downtown.
Part of him had expected Kevyn to be with them. Had kind of hoped for it, although it’d been a whole lot easier talking his way out of it without her there. If he’d had to look at her while implying that she wasn’t worth the trouble… well, that would’ve been rough.
He would’ve done it anyway. Had to, if he wanted to keep Tio happy and stay alive. But it would’ve made him feel like even more of a heel.
Any hope of having a relationship with his daughter was now a thing of the past.
He was alone. And he deserved to be.
₪ ₪ ₪
Pain.
It was the first thing to radiate through Kevyn’s consciousness as the world around her started to take shape.
She hurt everywhere. Her head. Her neck. Back and shoulders. Hips. And why did her foot feel like it was on fire?
Something cut into her wrist.
She tried to lift her hands, tried to shift away, but her hands wouldn’t budge.
She should figure out what was going on, but her eyes refused her mind’s command to open. The lids felt heavy. So heavy.
Male voices murmured in the background.
Why were there men around while she was trying to sleep?
Men…
Images flashed through her mind. The dockyard. Following the guy from the coffeeshop. The two security guys. The Desert Eagle.
A knife in her foot.
A breath bubbled up and she jerked her eyes open, only to blink them closed at the bright light shining directly down at her.
She pulled at her hands, but neither moved.
Blinking against the light, she looked over at her right hand, then her left. Zip ties. Secured tightly enough that she could hardly move. Looked like she was on some kind of gurney.
She lifted her head and surveyed her surroundings.
A hospital?
A metal tray with some bloody gauze and a vial of liquid bandage sat on a rolling cart not far from her feet. One of her feet was wrapped tightly in gauze, with only her toes showing.
Medical equipment lined the walls. She wasn’t sure what all of it did, but it looked like something she’d expect to find in a hospital.
Although clearly this was no hospital. The restraints on her hands evidenced that much.
Where was she? And how did she get here?
The voices came from an open door to her left.
Beyond the door, she could see what looked like a hallway, although she saw nothing but white walls and vinyl floor.
She needed to get out of here. Before whoever was outside came back.
Twisting her hands, she tried to break the zip ties, even as she knew her efforts would fail. There was a reason that law enforcement and bad guys used the plastic straps as restraints. They were cheap, but effective.
Maybe the gurney was on wheels. If she could twist enough to reach the scissors on that cart, maybe she could cut through the ties.
She wiggled around and threw her body to the left, but the table beneath her didn’t move.
Either it wasn’t on wheels or it was somehow secured in place.
Time for a new plan. Her feet weren’t restrained. Maybe she could use them to slide the wheeled cart containing the instruments closer.
She stretched out her bandaged foot, watching as it neared the edge of the tray.
Okay, this might work.
The movement brought fresh waves of pain from whatever other injuries she’d sustained. Her legs and hips burned and her back screamed in protest.
Clenching her teeth, she twisted her leg further until the edge of her foot connected with the corner of the cart.
Now to slide it closer.
She’d only have one chance. If she bumped it the wrong way, she’d push it out of range.
She gave it a kick.
Her foot connected solidly with the tray on top. The tray slid, wobbled on the edge, then clattered to the floor.
The voices outside silenced.
Great. She’d not only failed to get the tray close enough to use it, but she’d also alerted her captors that she was awake.
A man appeared in the doorway. Scrubs, marred with a few streaks of blood, identified him as the one who had most likely patched up her foot.
His eyes slid to the tray she’d knocked to the floor, but he said nothing as he came into the room to stand by her side.
Without a word, he shone a light into her eyes.
Behind him, another man appeared. Coffeeshop Man.
Clearly, he was the one in charge around here. Not the two goons who’d come after her, not the doctor or nurse or whatever he was in front of her, but the man who’d spoken to her in the coffeeshop.
She stared at him for a second, waiting for him to speak.
He didn’t. With his muscular arms crossed over his chest, he watched impassively as the man in scrubs checked her over.
“I’m fine. No thanks to you.” She bit out the words, then nodded at her foot. “I’m guessing I can thank you for that.”
He hooked his fingers into the pockets of his jeans and moved closer. “Crude, but effective.”
“You know the whole weight of the FBI will be all over this.” She narrowed her eyes on him. “You’ve kidnapped, and assaulted, an agent. That won’t go well for you.”
“Not just any FBI agent.” He moved closer, the bright florescent lights illuminating his startlingly blue eyes. “Mitch Taylor’s daughter.”
Her breath caught. This… connected to her father?
Myriad questions swirled in her mind like the mist off the Puget Sound.
One stood out above the rest. “Who are you?”
He pressed his lips together. “The one who holds your life in his hands. Don’t forget that.”
Without waiting for her to reply, he turned and strode for the door.
“Hey!” She lifted her head, jerking away from the latex-gloved hands still poking and prodding at her. “I’m not done talking to you!”
He didn’t even break stride as he moved through the doorway and disappeared from sight.
The man in scrubs leaned in, his face filling her vision. “I wouldn’t push him if I were you.”
She turned her attention to the man beside her, who was looking at her as if she were an interesting specimen, not a human being. “Are you a doctor? Don’t you have a duty to do no harm?”
A short laugh barked from him. “I turned my back on the Hippocratic Oath years ago. I do whatever he tells me to do.”
“Including stealing organs and murdering the donors?”
His head jerked back and his shoulders stiffened. Wide eyes indicated his surprise.
“Yes. We know all about that. We figured he must have a surgeon on staff to take care of the transplantations.” She examined his face, which was too surprised to try to disguise his feelings. “What happened? Medical negligence? Did you lose your license? Or is it just plain greed?”
Taunting a man with medical training, who had access to drugs and sharp instruments, probably wasn’t a smart move, but she doubted he’d do anything to her without Coffeeshop Man’s approval.
And since Coffeeshop Man had evidently ordered that she be bandaged up, he clearly wanted her alive for some reason.
Which was a mistake on his part. As soon as she felt up to it, she would find a way to escape. Or fight back, if no means of escape presented.
The doctor shook his head, his lips pressing into a tight line. “It doesn’t matter. What you need to know is that I have the power to save or end your life, so I’d think very carefully next time you choose to speak.”
He whirled, plucked a canister from the shelf, and grabbed a cloth.
What was that?
Whatever it was, it wouldn’t be good.
He doused the cloth and approached, pressing it tightly over her nose and mouth.
A sweet smell filled her senses and made her stomach heave.
She tossed her head to the side, but he caught it easily with his spare hand and forced it in place.
She held her breath. Her lungs protested the oxygen deprivation and her body begged her to breathe.
But the air was poisoned.
She tried to resist, tried to hold out, but her reflexes took over and she inhaled a deep breath.
The chemical flooded her body and blackness invaded.
₪ ₪ ₪
“Track her phone. I need to know where she is.” Tension lined Dak’s words, mirroring the hand gripping the phone and the tightness stretching across his back.
He ended the call and turned to Sid, whose drawn face surveyed the area.
There should be some trace of Kevyn somewhere. Yet so far they’d come up empty.
The sun lingered barely above the horizon, the darkness threatening to end their investigation before they even really got started.
The problem was that there was so much ground to cover here. It’d take days to comb through all the terrain. Any evidence they did find might not even be related to Kevyn’s disappearance.
He’d called for a forensics team, which was en route, but they wouldn’t have any answers tonight.
If only they knew where she’d last been, but all they had was the location of the picture she’d sent. It was a start, but it was unlikely that she’d remained in that same place.
“Let’s try retracing her steps.”
It felt futile, but he couldn’t do nothing.
Dak led the way back to where they knew the picture had been taken.
“The subject was there.” He pointed to where the subject in her picture had been standing. “Assuming he was headed that direction, Kevyn would have been trying to stay out of sight, right?”
“Right.” Sid gave a definitive nod and walked to a nearby shipping container. “If I were her, this would have been my next move.”
It was the most logical. They looked around on the ground, but didn’t see anything suspicious.
He didn’t know what he was looking for exactly. Shell casings? A personal item that may have been dropped?
They looked around. The next closest hiding spot was behind more shipping containers. They followed the imaginary trail to it and surveyed the area.
Still nothing.
Next up, a semitruck with attached trailer.
They walked around the truck.
A dark spot on the ground beside the passenger door caught his eye.
The spot, about the size of the burger he’d eaten less than two hours ago, was more oval than round.
Hard to tell in the waning light, but it looked reddish. Perhaps still damp in places.
He pulled a tissue from his pocket and dabbed at one of the wet-looking spots.
Blood. No question.
His breath thickened as he stared at the crimson spot on the tissue.
Was it Kevyn’s?
Without forensics, it’d be impossible to say for sure, but his gut said yes. While injuries occurred on docks, what were the odds it’d happen at about the same time that he lost contact with an agent?
“No sign of any gunfire.” Sid’s quiet words pulled his attention from the blood.
Sid was right. He didn’t see any bullet holes in the truck beside them, no discarded shell casings. Just a small puddle of blood.
Still, combined with the fact that Kevyn hadn’t responded to his texts or answered his calls, it all painted one very disturbing picture.
“Call the local hospitals. See if Kevyn was admitted.”
Sid pulled out his phone.
In the meantime, he’d check with dispatch to see if any 911 calls had been placed for this area.
The forensics team showed up as he and Sid finished their calls. No hospital admissions or ER visits for Kevyn or any Jane Does matching her description. No 911 calls.
Not only was Kevyn missing, it looked like she was also injured.
₪ ₪ ₪
Tio’s phone dinged.
He glanced at the display. A text from Zane.
Feds on the dock.
He cursed and hit the button to call Zane. “Feds? Are you sure?”
“Yep. They’re poking around by the truck. Looks like they’ve got forensics guys out there, too.”
He should’ve taken time to hose down that blood.
He knew that FBI agents rarely traveled alone, knew that she’d have other agents looking for her. Somehow he thought he’d have a little more time.
Well, they’d be safe here tonight.
“You ditched her phone, right?” Sure, he’d given Zane orders to do so, but the Feds were likely tracking that phone right now. He needed them to turn their attention far from this area.
“Yep.” Zane chuckled. “I put it inside a car with Oregon plates. With any luck, it’ll lead them all the way across state lines.”
Good. That wouldn’t solve all their problems, but it might buy them time.
The Feds would chase it down, discover it for the dead end that it was, and come back here, but hopefully that would be at least a day or two out.
Even when they did focus on this area again, it’d take them time to investigate and get the necessary warrants.
