The Doll Page 7

  Neeva waited. Eventually he’d come closer, they always did.

  With the door open, the incessant talking in the hallway was even louder. The noise was a lesson or something. Words in English and then in some other language, trading back and forth with the same blah-blah-blah that had been going nonstop at least four meals back, and which was a whole lot better than the sporadic crying she could hear before. Crying and screaming. Little girls, it seemed, or maybe teenagers. Sometimes the screams seemed older, crying out in a different kind of protest than the hell she was living here alone: hurt, desperate, hopeless. The words were never in English, and with the crying, they came and went, came and went, usually spaced between every five or six meals, until eventually there was nothing but the language lessons and what seemed like just one person down the hall.

  The guard’s silhouette filled the doorway again, and in his hand was a rope … a lasso. No, a hose. Neeva waited for him to come closer, but he wouldn’t. They’d grown wise to her tactics, knew what she would do, and he wouldn’t make himself a target.

  With a flick of the wrist, the shadow man raised the hose and an unexpected wave of water hit. The cold brought shock and pain, and Neeva screamed. The water hit her full in the face. He aimed not only at her but at the walls and the floor, as if he intended to flush the filth and smell down the grated drain in the corner, the same way a zookeeper cleaned the cages of his keep.

  She gasped and choked, and when the stream moved to her chest, screamed again, and still it didn’t stop. Not until the walls were wet, the floor was wet, her clothes clung to the shape of her body, and the pad she’d been sleeping on was thick and heavy.

  The water shut off, and the shadow left with the hose. He returned to the doorway, then entered and came close, and although she clawed to get away from him, she was chained and hurting, shivering, and had nothing to throw. He grabbed her head. She fought him. He pried her jaw open. She tried to bite. He squirted liquid down her throat and in a moment the strength went out of her.

  He stood looking down at her as she lay shaking on the waterlogged mattress, staring up at him while the world tilted at long angles. With disgust in his voice he spoke, and although she couldn’t understand his words, she grasped the intent: Not such a tough one are you now, you filthy animal?

  GATESVILLE, TEXAS

  It was nine in the morning when Bradford drove into the parking area of the Mountain View prison unit. He had no legitimate reason for being here on such short notice, much less on a weekday and outside of visiting hours. It had taken an hour and a half on the phone during the drive down, and two hours this morning, asking favors and pulling strings, to make certain he’d get this far.

  He’d rolled into town at ten last night and spent the remaining hours between dark and dawn at a nearby hotel, grabbing what little rest he could from a mind that wouldn’t shut down. Replays and guilt. Possibilities and connections. Questions that didn’t have answers, until after a while it had all run together in a muddy pool and the sun began to rise.

  Bradford switched off the ignition. Before stepping out, he emptied his pockets, dumping everything, phone included, into the console. He repocketed his ID. None of the rest was allowed into the visitation area anyway, and the unnecessary clutter would only slow things down during the security screening.

  He paused before shutting the door, hesitant to move forward. Not because of what he might find, but for what, even after coming all this way to reach, he might not yet acquire. There were answers here, he was certain of it, but even after the warden had granted the exemption necessary for this visitation, he still didn’t know if Katherine Breeden would see him.

  Breeden was a lawyer, a damn good lawyer—thorough, clinical, brilliant, warm, and ruthless—a lawyer in prison for a murder she didn’t commit. She was there, not because she wasn’t smart enough to disentangle herself from the corrections system as quickly as she’d been dumped into it, but because Bradford had seen to it that she wouldn’t try.

  His success had taken ten minutes from start to finish, a conversation that had wrapped his metaphorical arm around her neck and put her in a choke hold, back when she’d been sitting behind bars in county, with bail set so high she couldn’t post a bond and flee, awaiting a trial being pushed through with impossible speed. Bradford hadn’t seen her since and it was difficult to know what to expect, what angle of approach would get what he wanted from a woman he was blackmailing into silence.

  She had to know he was coming.

  What was the point in being diabolically brilliant if there was no one around to admire the effort? Even if Breeden hated him, he was one of the few to whom she could gloat, perhaps the only one who could appreciate the endurance and tenacity necessary for a woman in her position to exact any form of revenge—assuming she’d had anything to do with Munroe’s abduction.

  But she had to have.

  Breeden had taken the fall for a crime that wasn’t hers because, to paraphrase a man Bradford had once known, she was risking her life to save it from a greater fear. Based on what he’d seen on those credit-card receipts, the people Breeden had kept silent for, the people she’d feared, were the kind of men who minced bodies into pieces rather than risk the repercussions and sting of betrayal.

  Out of the aftermath of Munroe’s Africa assignment, in the last pages of that story, had come the documents that outlined corporate shells, legal structures, and the mechanisms through which a criminal organization run by a man known only as the Doll Maker moved, transported, and sold human souls.

  Here, in the United States, Breeden had made it possible.

  Bradford had stumbled upon the connection shortly before she’d been arrested, the same papers he’d shown to Walker and Jahan the day before, and used that information to control her. The dossier of investigations and dirt digging had uncovered what Breeden had created on American soil, and then in the threads of splotchy documentation went further, tracing back to Europe, drawing connections between the apparently legitimate businesses in the United States and a worldwide market that sold girls into sexual slavery.

  None of the information Bradford held was specific enough to be provable, but it was enough to call attention to an organization that had thus far operated across borders invisibly and with impunity. He had taken the information to Breeden and threatened to make it all public in her name, knowing Breeden understood that if he did, these same men would guarantee her permanent silence.

  Blackmail was as close to a death threat as Bradford could offer, and it had done the job. Breeden had kept silent, and he still didn’t know if she’d been aware from the beginning who her clients were and of the tender life they sold, or if her choice to facilitate these crimes had been accidental and he’d been the one to bring her the news.

  At the time it hadn’t mattered. Breeden’s hands were certainly dirty in other affairs, and though she may not have been guilty of the murder, she wasn’t innocent, either.

  Bradford shut the vehicle door and made his way inside, to face the screening procedure and the metal detectors and to move on finally to the common room, where those not on offenders’ visitation lists had through-the-glass, noncontact visits with inmates.

  He was here because, despite what he still didn’t understand about Breeden’s prior involvement with the Doll Maker, the events of yesterday had been too precise to have been random, too accurate to have been accidental. Someone was feeding information to high-level filth, and Kate Breeden was the only possible pivot upon which all the pieces turned. Assuming he’d put the puzzle together properly, she would want to see him, if only to feel the triumph of his pain, and perhaps from this weakness he would learn what he wanted.

  Bradford was directed to a chair by a prison guard, and waiting for him on the other side of the glass was Breeden. She smiled when she saw him. Not happiness, per se, or gloating. Something closer to the relief of seeing a face from beyond the walls, no matter how much she hated it, because that was better tha
n nothing at all.

  She didn’t wait for him to speak or even allow him a chance to fully settle and put the phone to his ear before she said, “Miles, what a pleasant surprise. I expected you eventually, of course, but certainly not so soon.”

  Her words, the first third of which he’d lip-read, took the wind out of him. He’d come to find out what she knew—what she’d done—had tossed around opening lines and approaches, hoping to explain his presence without showing his hand, and she’d shut him down before he’d started.

  His face must have registered surprise.

  Breeden laughed.

  “Oh, Miles,” she said, “don’t be such a douche. If you’ve been clever enough to come to me, then surely you had to know I’d be waiting for you.”

  He swallowed bile and waited a half-beat. “What have you done, Kate?”

  She smiled, Cheshire cat–like. “That’s such an open-ended question with so many potential surprises. Let’s be more specific, shall we, darling?”

  “We both seem to know why I’m here, and we both know what I hold, so let’s just get on with it, okay?”

  Her fake smile faded. “Well,” she said, scooting back. “Obviously, cordiality is not your forte. As glad as I am for company, if you can’t be polite, if you can’t at least pretend to drag the conversation out with flattery or talk about the weather, I think I’m quite finished here.”

  Phone still pressed to her ear, she moved to stand.

  Bradford said, “How’s the food?”

  Breeden laughed again. “That’s much better,” she said, and returned to the chair. “The food fucking sucks, thank you very much.”

  “I like your choice in clothing,” he said. “It suits you.”

  “Now you’re pushing your luck.”

  “Do you like your roommates?”

  She sighed and exhaled toward the ceiling as if she was blowing cigarette smoke. “College was worse.”

  “Where’s Logan?”

  She turned her eyes to his. “Things were going so nicely, and you’re ruining the fun.” She paused and then, as if the idea of Logan bored her, said, “I haven’t the foggiest clue.”

  “But you knew they’d take him?”

  “Oh, please,” she said. “Me? Locked up in here?”

  “Look, Kate,” he said. “I’m not here to prove or disprove anything. I don’t have a recorder on me, I’m not taking notes, I’m not going to quote you, I’m not here to make your life difficult. I just want to find Michael. The men who took Logan have already broken bones, he’s cut and bleeding bad, and I’ve got it on tape. I need to find him before they kill him. Do you know where he is?”

  “I don’t,” she said.

  “Nor do you care.”

  “No, not really.”

  “And you had a hand in this?”

  She shrugged. “Wouldn’t matter either way, would it? I’m already locked up, aren’t I?” She smiled again knowingly, teasingly, and Bradford understood then, ran the numbers, the timing, and it made sense now how it was that those who had taken Munroe had known where to find her. “You pointed the Tisdale family toward me to get to Michael, didn’t you?” Breeden didn’t answer, but her smile widened, as if it pleased her that at least he grasped her brilliance.

  “They’re going to kill her,” Bradford said. “You know that, right?”

  “Maybe,” Breeden said. “And maybe you should have thought about that before you put me in a room with no way out as a way to protect her.”

  “I didn’t put you here.”

  “Well, you made damn sure I wouldn’t get out,” she said, and then let out another long exhalation of imaginary smoke. “Someone always loses, Miles, and this time it won’t be me.”

  “The information isn’t going to go away.”

  She smiled once more, this time witheringly. “That’s the problem with men like you, all tough guy and bang-bang,” she said. “You’re stupid and short-sighted. Honestly, I don’t know what Michael sees in you—you don’t exactly play in her league.” She leaned back, phone placed on the desk, and stared at him a long while before returning to the handset and speaking again. “Do you know why Michael partnered with me?”

  “Yeah, I do,” Bradford said.

  “She didn’t allow me close because I was a lawyer, or even a friend or surrogate mother figure—”

  He cut her off. “I know why she partnered with you, Kate. Does it make you feel good to say it?”

  Breeden continued as if he’d never spoken. “I am as tough and devious as she is, Miles. You’d be wise to remember that.” She paused. Turned her eyes directly to his. “There’s not a thing you can do to me now,” she said. “If that information leaks, they’ll know it didn’t come from me.”

  Bradford leaned toward the glass. “If that’s true, then there’s no harm in telling me where they’ve taken her.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You really aren’t the brightest bulb in the box, are you? You have the information. You’ve always had it. Go be a good little boy and figure it out for yourself.”

  He waited for the sting of frustration to pass and then, calm, emotionless, said, “You’re right, I’m not the smartest man. Perhaps I should ask for help in figuring this thing out—maybe from the media and law enforcement.”

  She laughed once more. “Oh, Miles, darling, such pleasant entertainment you provide today. You already had your shot at trying to destroy me,” she said. “You’re good, but you aren’t that good. I’m free of you now and I do find your myopia pathetically amusing, running here and there, so focused on Logan that you can’t see the bigger picture. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t possibly help someone so hopelessly obtuse.” She paused, nodded knowingly. “Don’t waste what precious little time you have.” And with that she put down the phone, stood, turned, and walked toward the guard on the other side.

  Bradford watched her go, and when she was fully out of sight, he, too, stood. On his way out, he detoured for the additional hassle and bureaucratic aggravation necessary to gain access to Breeden’s visitor records. Pinpointing who she’d been talking to was easy considering there was only one name on record, though not one he recognized.

  In the Explorer, Bradford shut his eyes and ran through their conversation, making mental notes and jotting words down on paper so as not to forget them. Lack of sleep and twenty-four hours of stress was starting to take a toll and irritation was setting in, made worse because he was now uncomfortably into his second day in the same set of clothes.

  He pulled his phone from the console. Missed call from Samantha Walker. No voice mail, just a text asking him to get back to her. And a missed call from Alexis, Tabitha’s daughter, which got his mind churning. He waited until he was on the road, heading east on 84, before he returned Walker’s call.

  “What did you get?” she asked.

  “Enough to know we’re moving in the right direction,” he said, “but not enough to take a shortcut. You at the office?”

  “I’ll be there in five,” she said. “I’m on my way back from Addison Airport. Why?”

  “I’ve got a name for Jack to run, can you pass it along?”

  “Yeah. And I’ve got a name for you,” she said.

  “Who?”

  “Michael Munroe.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  “Nope. They had docs in her name—or I should say his name. And the guy accompanying her—him—is Valon Lumani.”

  Bradford swore under his breath. The name Lumani was familiar to him from the blackmail pages. He was a kid, trained monkey and right-hand man to the Doll Maker, an orphaned nephew who had been under the Doll Maker’s wing since he was in diapers. That Lumani had been personally sent to collect Munroe was telling, as was the fact that he’d come prepared with documents for Munroe’s male persona. But the detail that put Bradford’s foot to the floor and sent the Explorer surging was that Lumani had traveled under his own name.

  If the profiles assembled in the documents were accura
te, the Doll Maker was a perfectionist, a stickler for detail, a man who lopped off fingers and toes, sometimes arms and legs, to punish those who failed to meet his expectations. If the nephew wasn’t worried about putting his real name on the line, then they weren’t worried about Munroe coming back after them.

  He said, “Off the top of your head, who do we have on reserve?”

  “Adams and Gonzalez.”

  Men that didn’t get a lot of hazard time but were kept on call in case personnel was needed on short order. They weren’t vested as part of the core team but had been with the company long enough to step in just about anywhere when needed. “Bring them both in and set them up for surveillance,” he said. “I’m going to need them for round-the-clock tracking.”

  “For how long?”

  “As long as it takes. I’ll pay the bill out-of-pocket, so don’t harass me about the resource expense, and I need you and Jack to start breaking down threads from that dossier and see what you can pull.”

  “We’ve been on it all night,” she said. “I’ll call the guys in as soon as I get back to the office.”

  “Listen,” he said. “I need you to do me a favor and swing by a couple of places—just drive-by stuff, see if you spot anything out of place: surveillance, odd activity, that type of thing.”

  “Okay,” she said, but he could hear the sigh in her voice. “Where to?”

  “Michael’s sister’s place. I just need to be sure we’re not overlooking anything.”

  “More hostages?”

  “Yeah, exactly. I’ll text you the details.”

  He sent Walker the information, set down the phone, and stared through the windshield at the three hours of road ahead. He didn’t have the manpower, the resources, to protect everyone. His mind churned over what Breeden had said, and more specifically what she hadn’t. She’d pointed the Doll Maker’s men toward Munroe and Logan, but the why escaped him. What need did a man like the Doll Maker have that he would send his nephew to collect Munroe? Certainly not as a favor to Breeden. If this was meant to avenge the business lost since Breeden had been in prison or to release the choke hold and allow Breeden to work again, they would have simply killed Munroe and come after Bradford. Instead, Munroe was missing and they’d abducted Logan.