Chapter 16 #2
An angry laugh came first. “Yes,” she snarled, her tone turning ugly. “You’ve been a pain in my ass for a couple days now.”
“I’m happy to meet up and fight for him,” Kate stated coolly, even as she looked around, trying to figure out where they could have gone.
“I don’t think so. I think we’ll just see how he can do on his own.”
“Why?” Kate asked, deciding to poke the bear. “If you’ve been beating up all these innocent people, who have no training or conditioning at all, they were no challenge for you, right? Are you sure you’re ready for a little bit of competition?”
There was silence on the other end. “You think that you are competition for me?” Tamzen asked, outraged.
“I know that somebody who’s not fit isn’t,” she stated, with a playfulness in her tone. “So, yeah, I guess I’m a better choice than he is.”
Tamzen murmured, “You could be right.”
“You’ll just have to tell me where you are.”
At that, she laughed. “No. If you’re any good at your job, you’ll find him all on your own.” And, with that, the phone went dead.
Swearing, Kate called back Lilliana and Reese and had Colby added to the call, then filled them in on what happened. “I don’t know how she got a hold of Rodney, but she has him now.”
“And this is connected to these beating-victims’ cases?” Colby asked, dazed.
“Yes, we’ve had a couple developments today.”
“Apparently,” he muttered. “And?”
“I guess the motivation can be worked out later,” Lilliana interjected, “but we better get to Rodney, preferably before he shows up dead on the docks.”
“Yeah, I would prefer that too. Thank you very much,” Kate snapped.
“As for motivation,… part of it is the fact that her uncle and her brother have both sustained some brain damage, and I’m certain it came from fighting.
Being female is a problem, so she can’t have the gym in her name, or at least her face on the marketing.
Plus, she has zero respect in the fighting world because nobody thinks she could possibly be any good.
That would do it for me. Yet I think it’s more than that.
I think, for her, the ownership of the club is a really big deal,” she muttered.
“Christ,” Colby muttered, “but that has nothing to do with anybody.”
Kate repeated, “We have to find Rodney, and we have to find him fast.”
“And then you’ll have to fight for him,” Lilliana pointed out.
“I know,” Kate spat, her tone hard. “Believe me that I don’t have a problem with that. I’m looking forward to kicking somebody’s ass today,” she snapped. “But you know that Rodney is not in the best shape that he could be in, not after getting attacked a time or two recently.”
“Right,” Colby agreed, “but, by that standard, none of us are. We go to the gym on a regular basis, but that’s a whole different story when it comes to this street-fighting element.”
Kate noted, “Reese, I need a rundown on any other businesses that this woman may have owned and check out the driving routes from her house to the boxing business and from her brother’s residence, the areas that covers, and cross-reference it against the driving routes her uncle’s delivery service has.
See if a building fits the bill. Desolate, closed off, multiple exits. ”
“There is the obvious one,” Lilliana pointed out, “the warehouse that Simon owns now.”
“True, but I don’t know that Tamzen would take the chance of going back there right now,” Kate suggested. “That warehouse is pretty damn hot. And we do know that other bodies were dropped at various places.”
Colby groaned. “And we never once suspected that a woman was involved.”
“It occurred to me today,” Kate noted. “I just hadn’t gotten very far in terms of getting any proof.”
“You must have done something to trigger her,” Colby said.
“I don’t know if I did it or if it was just the fact that we showed up at her gym. Whatever the reason, this is the situation we’re in, and we need to move fast.”
As Colby started to work on a plan, Kate said, “I’ll get off the phone and call Simon.”
Lilliana asked, “Why Simon?”
“Because Simon saw it coming and told me to watch out for Rodney, who would wind up in the ring.”
“Christ,” Colby muttered. “Do what you have to do and keep us all in the loop. We don’t want to be looking for you as well.” He disconnected the call.
Kate phoned Simon. “Cancel dinner. Rodney’s been snatched.
” She heard his sucked in breath and added, “It was the damn girl you saw in the van, Tamzen. I don’t know if you’ve had any visions, anything that can help, but now is the time to share if you have.
We’re cross-referencing every available building within Oscar’s delivery route and looking to find any other businesses she’s been involved with. ”
“It could just as easily be the same warehouse.”
“I know, but I think that’s too easy for her,” she snapped. “By the way, I’m expected to sort this out and find them, then go in and fight for him.”
“What?” he snapped.
“Yeah, you heard me.”
“Well, Christ,” he muttered, “nothing like pressure.”
“I don’t give a crap about that part. She might be an ace boxer, but you know I’ll go in there not only with a weapon but with my guard up.”
“Sure, and she’s also expecting you,” he snapped.
“Yes, she is,” she confirmed. “And I can’t help that. I’m not leaving Rodney to be beaten to a pulp, while she works out whatever frustrations she has over being born female.”
“Good God. Take a breath, and I’ll see if I can come up with something. Meanwhile, I’ll head down to my warehouse to confirm nothing’s going on there.” When she hesitated, he added, “You can’t cover every place, so I can at least do this one.”
“And if she’s there?” she snapped.
“I will call you.”
“You may not be able to,” she pointed out.
He smiled. “I love you too.” With that, he ended the call.
She stared down at the phone in frustration and anger, but he was right. Kate couldn’t cover every place, and they needed other places to target. They didn’t have long before Rodney would get put to the test.
And it’s not that he wasn’t in great shape or that he didn’t follow through on all the standard training they had to go through, but he wasn’t into martial arts, and he certainly wasn’t into anything other than the traditional physical workout required by his job.
Tamzen’s fitness level would be a challenge for most fighters, except maybe not a pro boxer.
Still, Kate figured Tamzen certainly had a ton of boxing experience.
Until she heard back from Reese with leads, Kate had absolutely no location to go to, except for maybe the uncle. She quickly raced to Oscar’s house.
When he opened the door, looking supertired and stressed, he frowned.
“I know you don’t want to see me again, but that’s too damn bad. Your niece has snatched my partner.”
He blinked at her and asked, “What?”
“Your niece,… Tamzen has snatched up, kidnapped,” she spat, chewing on her words, “my partner, a goddamn cop. And that is something we have to deal with right now. She has already declared that, if I cared about seeing him alive, I need to fight her for him. On top of that, I have to find him first.”
He just blinked at her, as if nothing she was saying was making any sense.
“I know it’s not making sense, and your brain is processing this in an incredibly slow manner,” she added, “but I need to know where Tamzen could possibly have taken him.”
“Nowhere,” he bellowed helplessly. “It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe not, but she has him, so where could she go?” She was going crazy, and her mind was racing out of control. Yet another inkling of an idea just occurred to her.
“I don’t know,” he yelled, raising his hands. “It’s suicide if she’s done that.”
“No, not suicide, but it sure as hell will get her both an ass kicking as well as a prison sentence if she’s behind these other murders.”
He paled at that. “Dear God, no,” he cried out. “Our family has been through enough already.”
“I met your nephew.”
He winced and nodded. “He’s showing definite cognitive decline,” he admitted. “The boxing, too many head blows, too many concussions.” He shook his head. “It’s so sad. Why?”
“I don’t care about the why. I don’t care about the how,” she snapped, glaring at him, and totally ready to grab him by the throat and shake him. “I need to know where she might have taken my partner.”
“I can’t believe she would have done it.”
“Then let’s find out where she would have gone, and you can prove me wrong, but, just to give you some perspective, I talked to her on the damn phone.”
He blinked. “She has a vehicle,” he shared reluctantly.
“What kind?”
He frowned at her. “A van, like mine.”
“Like yours?”
“Yeah, she had it painted black too.”
She swore at that and quickly phoned Reese. “Tamzen,” she began, through gritted teeth, “apparently has a vehicle of her own, like Oscar’s. He doesn’t have a license plate for it.” She looked at him and asked, “Is it the business vehicle for the gym?”
“I don’t know,” he said, lifting his shoulders haplessly.
She gave Reese the name of the gym. “Run it, and see if they have any other property, anything close by. Is there an old warehouse or something where they might have been doing fights in?” she asked, turning to look at him.
Oscar looked at her and nodded. “Yeah, there is. We used to go there all the time. It was set up with a ring and everything,” he said, with a smile on his face—which quickly disappeared as he took a look at her. “She wouldn’t be there though. That building is pretty-well done for.”
“Sounds perfect.” Kate asked, “Where is it?”
“It’s downtown, in the commercial sector.”
She nodded. “And now you’re talking my language. I want an address.”
“I don’t have an address.” He frowned. “It’s somewhere around the corner of… just let me think.” When he gave her an intersection, she just glared at him. “I know. I know. It’s an area being revitalized, out in the commercial area.”
“ Sure ,” she said. Right near where Simon’s warehouse was. Damn it all to hell.