It was the last place Chelsea Moore, the congressman’s daughter, had been seen. She’d met up with high school friends who had come down from college. Rumor and fear suggested whoever was taking women was killing them the moment they caused a problem.
The lounge chairs where she’d sat with the girls she’d befriended had been no more than twenty feet away. Belinda Hoyt and Terry Unger had been lounging on the chairs when Ellie Ferguson had insisted they race across to the bar.
Jordan was a good swimmer, a strong swimmer, but the man had come out of nowhere; and she’d twisted and fought and then gasped for air, kicking and struggling away, but it had been too late. Bursting to the surface for air, she’d been met with the slam of a fist. A glance at the lounge chairs revealed that Belinda and Terry were gone—they had disappeared in seconds. The world had become a fog. And then she’d found out what was happening to the missing women. It was what she and one of the Krewe organizers, Angela Hawkins Crow, had suspected: a sex-trafficking ring.
In her daze, she’d noticed the men who had taken them in the meat train had not been armed. They were arrogant and confident in their ability to manage the six women they had taken—Belinda, Terry, Ellie, herself, plus the redhead and a blonde. They had been taken at closing time, when families were all inside, when the pool bar was winding down, and the night life inside the place had begun. It happened swiftly—so swiftly no alarms had been raised. They would be by now, of course. But the girls were long gone.
Jordan was determined she wouldn’t be locked up. She believed the traffickers were getting their “merchandise” out of the country as swiftly as possible. She had to break free and run. She wouldn’t be caught off guard this time. And she was certain she could outrun Lefty even if he did have a mean left hook.
That was the only way to bring help to the others.
The men were starting to turn toward the van; the wide hatch door was open. Lefty was about to hop up.
Jordan slammed him hard with a right-foot kick just as he stepped up. As she had hoped, he was in agony—and off-balance. He fell back hard, crashing into his slimmer partner, knocking him off his feet as well. She leapt from the truck, searching the area. They were in an alley behind a large building.
An old meat-packing plant, just as she had suspected.
She had to reach the street.
She ran. She was halfway through the alley when she heard Lefty’s partner shouting.
“Get back here—unless you want every single one of your friends shot in the head!” he warned.
She slowed, then turned around. She stared at him, shaking her head. “The FBI is on to you! I’m not alone!”
Of course, she was alone.
The partner started off toward her again. “I’m gonna tell the boss! I get to shoot her!” Lefty shouted. He was still gripping his crotch.
“They are on their way; you’ll hear the sirens any minute!” Jordan warned.
Night had fallen. The alley was dark. Only moonlight provided a dim glow.
“Bull! You’re dead, bitch.”
“I don’t think so,” a voice said.
Jordan spun around. To her astonishment, she knew the man standing behind her, a no-nonsense Glock 22 in his hands, aimed at the kidnappers. He wasn’t in a uniform; he didn’t have one. He stood at about six-three, and he sure as hell looked the part of a man who wouldn’t hesitate to fire if necessary.
And she knew he had dialed a certain number on his phone before he’d accosted the men, and that there would be sirens soon.
“Patrick Law?” she whispered, stunned he was there. He wasn’t Krewe; he wasn’t a cop. The man was a psychiatrist!
Lefty’s partner took off running in the other direction. Lefty was screaming, heading into the building to get away, limping as he continued to clutch his groin.
“I’ve got the runner,” Patrick said. “Wait! You’re not armed. Help is coming.”
He headed after Lefty’s partner, who, ahead, in the alley, suddenly tripped on what appeared to be nothing at all. Then Patrick was standing over him, warning him not to move.
Jordan heard sirens.
Within seconds, emergency vehicles, police, and SWAT teams were on the scene, crowding into the alley along with a dark SUV filled with members of the Krewe.
Which was good for Jordan; the police officers were trying to help her, assuming she was a random victim. They brought her a blanket and urged her to the rear of one of the rescue vehicles. Bruce McFadden from the Krewe helped her explain she was FBI. She told them the real victims were in the van and in the warehouse and that they needed to hurry.
The traffickers might decide to murder the girls being held in the old slaughterhouse as they tried to escape.
Chaos exploded. Jackson Crow, supervising field director for the Krewe, helped lead a team as the police busted into the building.
An officer moved forward, taking the prisoner from Patrick Law. Agents and officers were helping the girls in the van. Police and Krewe in vests, weapons ready, were heading into the back of the warehouse, while others had already stormed the front. Bruce McFadden gave her a nod before joining those entering the warehouse.
Patrick Law walked back toward her, frowning and shaking his head.
“What the hell were you thinking?” he asked.
She felt her temper sizzle. Patrick wasn’t Krewe and he wasn’t a cop. His sister Colleen was Krewe, as was his brother-in-law, but he was a criminal psychologist and psychiatrist in Philadelphia. He had the look of a cop, though, or at least a man accustomed to authority—tall and lean but well muscled, with a rock-hard jaw and eyes that seemed to burn with green fire. Sure, she knew he saw action at times with the Philadelphia police, but his expertise was in the psychology of the criminal mind.
She had met Patrick and his consultant sister, Megan, when she had been undercover on a different assignment, one that had gone well. She’d assumed then he had been an agent, as he and Megan had been with Special Agent Ragnar Johansen.
Before that particular undercover assignment, Angela had ensured Jordan had a tracking device in her phone so that other agents would be following. That day, she’d been taken on purpose. Today, things had not gone as planned, and Patrick was staring at her as if she’d been an errant child.
By then, Jordan was standing by Jackson’s SUV with a blanket around her shoulders. She wished she was wearing a vest and breaking into the warehouse with the others. Her fear for those being held inside was not without merit. But she was in her bikini and a blanket, with no weapon and no vest. And unarmed, she was a liability to others. But she was hopeful Jackson might return with a backup gun she could use and instructions for her to move in.
“You could have gotten them—and yourself—killed,” Patrick continued. “What were you thinking?”