Ruthless

Chapter 33

Nick

April 23

Tuesday afternoon

As they settleddown in what Lexi called Nick’s “war room,” Lexi swiveled on a chair beside him and held her cast to her belly. He was so damned thankful they’d found her, he wanted to hold her and not let her go.

He met her green eyes as she said, “Thank you for finding me.”

Nick grabbed her chair and pulled it toward him, the rollers making it easy for him to reach her. He captured her small chin in one of his hands. “How could I let down the best partner I’ve ever had?”

One of his cell phones rang and he released her to draw the phone out of its clip to set it next to a monitor as Lexi rolled her chair back a little.

He pushed the speakerphone button, his eyes still on Lexi. “Donovan,” he said.

“Is this Nick Donovan?” a young woman’s voice said over the speakerphone. “Kristin’s brother?”

Nick’s attention snapped fully from Lexi to the cell. “Yeah. Who’s this?”

“Carlene.” The girl hesitated. “You asked me some questions about Kristin weeks ago, after she disappeared. I was with her that night.” Her voice sounded hopeful as she added, “Have you found her?”

Nick rubbed his temples with his thumb and forefinger and he sighed. It was just a friend asking after his sister. “No,” his tone was sharp. He sighed again and said in a calmer voice, “We’re still looking for leads.”

“I wish we would never have talked her into going to the club.” Carlene sounded bitter. “She had a paper due for her abnormal psych class. Professor Michaels is a real dickhead.”

“I’ve got your number.” Nick was already turning his attention to the surveillance monitors. “I’ll let you know when we find her.”

“Wait.” The girl rushed to get her words out. “I’m on my cell phone and late for class because I just heard a conversation that I think might be important. What I overheard, well, the whole thing didn”t sound right.” Carlene paused for only a moment. “One of the agents with you mentioned sex slave stuff—that right now there’s a huge market for it in Boston and women were being kidnapped from clubs.”

Carlene had Nick’s full attention again. “Go on.” He gritted his teeth, trying to remain calm, but the sex slave reference wasn’t making it easy.

Carlene started talking faster, “I’d dropped my backpack by a faculty lounge in the psych building—you know, WJ Hall.”

“I interviewed Kristin’s teachers there after she disappeared,” Nick said. “Along with as many students as I could track down.”

“This was creepy and strange,” Carlene said, and Nick had the urge to tell her to hurry. “Okay, so I dropped my backpack. It’s a Louis Vuitton and I’d been in a hurry and hadn’t latched it right, so my books fell out.” She took a deep, audible breath. “Anyway, I heard voices. Men’s voices. I wasn’t paying attention until they said something that freaked me out.”

A sensation like flames licking his skin raced down Nick’s spine. “Go on.”

“I heard one man say he wished he had a student who’d drop out of school just to, uh, well…” she cleared her throat. “What he said was a student to drop out to ‘fuck’ any time he wanted to.”

Nick stood, his back completely rigid as he stared at the phone, those flames along his back turning into pinpricks of fire. “What else?” he asked.

“A couple of other men were talking, too.” The girl started to sound a little frightened. “One man said something about how hot the student was last night. They couldn’t believe how excited the cute little blond slut was to have three men, uh, screw her, all at the same time. That she liked doing it while—I didn’t catch a name—watched.”

Nick dropped back into his chair and his stomach churned. He braced his elbows on his knees and held his head in his hands, his mind suddenly swimming. His voice was hoarse as he raised his head and said to Carlene, “Did any of the men add to that?”

“I don’t think—” Carlene paused for a moment. “Wait. They said that the ‘professor’—so it was one of them—told the men the girl seemed kinda out of it because she liked to do a little coke before she got it on. One man laughed and said fine by him. He’d sure like to find a piece of ass like that himself.”

“Anything else?” Nick was finding it hard to talk. “Are you sure you didn’t catch any names? Recognize any voices?”

“No. The psych department is huge, and I’ve only studied under a few of the professors there.”

“What happened next?” If it was his sister—goddamn fucking sonofabitch. Then what she was going through was unthinkable. He’d gut every fucker who’d touched her.

The line crackled with a little static. “One of them sounded closer to the door when he talked so I grabbed everything I’d dropped and got out of there.”

“That was good.” Nick took deep, measured breaths as he continued to bend his head and brace his elbows on his knees. “You sure no one had any idea you heard them?” “Positive,” Carlene said. “A class let out the same time I scooted around the corner so I was sort of in the middle of them before any of the professors could have come out of the lounge.”

“Thank you, Carlene,” Nick said and he couldn’t have helped holding back the pain in his voice if he’d tried.

The floating sensation in his head made this lead seem surreal. It could be nothing, but it could be everything. “Let me know if you hear anything else,” Nick said.

“Absolutely.” Carlene sounded like she was swallowing down a lump in her throat. “Find her. Please.”

“I’ll find her.” Nick looked at Lexi and his expression said, “And the sonsofbitches who took her will pay.”

After Carlene said good-bye, Nick pushed the speaker’s off button and he met Lexi’s eyes.

“Something about this isn’t right, Nick,” Lexi said. “Could the blond student the men had been talking about be Kristin? Whoever bought her could have shot her up with that designer drug, Lascivious. The man could have made her do anything he wanted her to do.”

“Fuck!” Nick clenched his fists and slammed them onto his thighs. Rage burned within him like before. “We’re going to find that fucker and I’m going to blow the sonofabitch’s balls away. Before I kill him.

“It might not be her,” he continued. “But the whole thing is too big of a coincidence.” Nick reached for his RED-issued cell phone. “I’m calling everyone we can get on this.” He tapped his cell so hard it was a wonder he didn’t break the screen it. “I’m going to find who this sick bastard is and see if he’s got my sister.”

Nick

April 24th

Wednesday early morning

“Damn it.” Nick’s strides were long as Lexi tried to keep up with him from the parking garage elevator of RED’s HQ, into the lobby. He scanned his fingerprints, and walked into the elevators with Lexi at his side. “You should be resting,” he said as he narrowed his eyes at her.

Lexi had insisted on going with Nick to work even though she was supposed to be on leave. “You couldn’t hold me back no matter how hard you tried.” And he’d tried. The only thing he didn’t do was rat her out to Oxford.

Tuesday, yesterday, after the call from Carlene, Nick had immediately called Oxford on her cell. With her clear go-ahead it hadn’t taken Nick long to put together a plan and set up a K-Team—K for Kristin—via phone with the best special agents available to start on the Harvard op.

When Nick and Lexi stepped off the elevator on the fifth floor, they passed Special Agent Rani Ogitani who gestured to Lexi’s cast and said, “Aren’t you supposed to be home resting up, Steele?”

She rolled her eyes. “Not you, too. Rani.”

“Hope for your sake Oxford doesn’t see you.” Agent Ogitani shook her head before going down the stairs to the command center.

“Same here,” Lexi muttered. Nick turned away from Ogitani. Oxford would be all over them both if she found out Lexi was here.

As soon as they got to Conference Room Four, Nick notified his team to meet them in the conference room. It was only a matter of moments after he and Lexi were seated at the conference table when Takamoto, Jensen, Smithe, and Karl Weiss made it to the room.

It was obvious Lexi didn’t want to attract too much attention since she wasn’t even supposed to be there. She stayed clear on the far end of the table away from the head of the table. Nick was at the head of the table where he’d be leading the strategy session.

Still, all four agents who came into the room greeted Lexi in one way or another. Takamoto asked if he could sign her cast as he gave a wink. Smithe took one look at her face, grinned, and told her she looked like shit. Weiss shook his head and made a smart-ass remark about the size of her cast. And Jensen told her that she should get herself back home.

Nick was too wired to park his ass when his team assembled around the conference table. He still had a slight limp from the bullet wound, but he didn’t really notice it.

He leaned over the touchpad mounted into the table, just long enough to pull up a vertical holographic grid map. The map of Harvard Square and Harvard’s main psych building hovered over the center of the conference room table.

Nick held his anger in check—barely—as he laid out all the info he’d gathered from Kristin’s friend. He clenched his jaw. What the girl had said wasn’t pretty. And if it was Kristin—

The thought left him cold.

“Weiss.” Nick directed his attention to the sandy-haired agent who had a knack for appearing to be anywhere between his thirties to his fifties. “I want you on the inside today. Do what it takes to pass yourself off as a psych professor. Early fifties but acting like you’re fifteen years younger.

“Our target area is currently the floor where the girl heard the conversation.” Nick ran his hand over his stubble. “Let it slip you’re into kink if you think you’ve found a mark. As soon as you leave this conference room get to that building. RED already has you on the roster using your undercover name, Karl Zimmer.”

“Harvard, eh?” Weiss, who was actually in his early thirties, grinned. “Haaah-vaaahhhd. Never thought I’d pass onto those hallowed grounds.”

“Jensen.” Nick didn’t feel a damned bit of amusement. He moved his gaze to Jensen and met her eyes as he stepped closer to the table.

The redhead looked expectant. Nick said, “You’ll play the pretty co-ed who likes to have sex with professors in exchange for good grades. Weiss will tell the mark you’ve made excellent grades with him. We’ve got you registered as Brittany Jacobs and we’ll give you a list of classes that you’re going to attend, starting today.”

Jensen winced. “Brittany?”

Nick braced his hands on the conference table as he continued to speak to Jensen. “You and Weiss will have to act the part if our plan falls into place.” He looked at Weiss. “I want it clear Weiss is a perv.”

“Won’t be hard.” Smithe snorted a laugh. “Perfect assignment for Weiss.”

“Bite me.” Weiss made an obscene gesture with his hand at Smithe, but Weiss was grinning.

“You’ve got it, Donovan,” Jensen said as she ignored Smithe and Weiss. “Ready to start when you give the go-ahead.”

“Takamoto, how’s the surveillance?” Nick turned to the agent.

“After you called last night, I got a hold of every agent I could find and we did our thing,” Takamoto said. “When everyone was out of the building last night, we took over. We’ve got that whole floor wired from faculty lounges to offices and restrooms.”

Takamoto went on, “I’ve got a thorough, fast team and we’ve got some new kick-ass gadgets from the RED research and development team that Martinez provided us with. Excellent equipment that’s going to allow us greater surveillance with less manpower in all areas.”

“Good.” Nick gave a sharp nod. “Keep on it.”

Nick turned to Smithe. “Smithe, stay on those surveillance vids and the Internet, and keep working on tracking down that van and any nightclub that Benjamin Cabot might be tied to.”

“We’ve been searching ownership records for every nightclub as fast as we can.” Smithe looked frustrated. “But there are hundreds and so far we can’t trace any of them back to Cabot. Not even the Champagne Slipper, if you can believe that.”

“The clubs held by foreign investors are probably the ones we want to keep our eyes on,” Nick said.

“My thoughts, too,” Smithe said. “However, that doesn’t narrow the field down a whole lot.”

“It sure doesn’t.” Nick shoved his hand through his hair. “In the meantime, I’m going to snag a few more agents and continue to work every other angle we can come up with.”

Nick rolled his shoulders, trying to ease the tension between his shoulder blades. “Maybe we’ve missed something that will match up between the other girls’ disappearances and Kristin’s.”

“Besides the fact they vanished while at nightclubs and we have all twelve of those nightclubs under surveillance,” Jensen said.

“We know the nightclub Kristin was taken from was used twice.” Nick scowled and balled his fists on the conference room table. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and the idiots will go back to one of the others.”

Nick pushed himself away from the table and turned to Smithe. “Anything else on the Internet?”

“Rollins has come up with a few new chat rooms that we’ve been tracking down,” Smithe said, “but nothing that relates to the one we believe was associated with your sister.” Nick slammed his fist on the table. “Let”s do it.”