Logan's Light: A SEALs of Honor World Novel (Heroes for Hire Book 6), Page 3

  “Okay, I got it. Anything else on the phone?”

  “Yes, a bunch of text messages here. One mentions having picked up a new product. I’m scanning through it now.” By the time he worked his way through them, Logan wanted to shower. It wasn’t just dirty; it was pure nasty. “Levi, we need to find this Chandler asshole. He’s after Alina.”

  Beside him Colin sneered again. “I told her. She’s done no matter what you do to me.”

  Logan exchanged a hard glance with Harrison. Then he asked, “Anything in the wallet?”

  Harrison nodded. “Let me talk to Levi.”

  Logan handed over the phone and stepped closer to Colin in case he tried anything funny. Harrison went over the contents of the guy’s wallet with Levi. Logan half listened. It didn’t appear to be anything too important—his driver’s license and credit cards. If they could trace his activities through the cards, it would give some idea where he’d been and who he was potentially meeting. It all depended on if he paid or if somebody else had.

  As he studied Colin, Logan saw a pack of cigarettes in his top pocket. He pulled it out, and Colin laughed.

  “You lighting one up for me?”

  Logan opened the pack and saw only six inside. He dumped them on the table and checked the box. He’d seen all kinds of stuff hidden inside cigarette packs. But this one appeared to be empty. He tossed it on the table and faced Colin. “You realize the trouble you’re in, right?” He could feel Alina hiding behind him, obviously shaking, and with good reason. “You’re into raping and drugging women so they can’t resist, and then turning them over to your guys to put in the sex trade.”

  Colin shrugged. “It sure beats wining and dining them and getting dumped all the time.”

  “Hardly. But whatever excuses work for you.”

  Colin ignored him and turned to stare at the window.

  Harrison came back then. He handed the phone to Logan and said, “Help him stand. I haven’t checked all his pockets.”

  They stood Colin up, first checking the inside of his socks and shoes to make sure. In his back pocket, he had a small notebook. When they pulled that out, Colin’s gaze hardened.

  Logan smiled. “So this is interesting.” He flipped it open and studied it. Names and numbers. “Looks like a bookie list.” It wasn’t, but he watched for any reaction from Colin.

  Then he saw a couple names he recognized. Beside the names, first only, were dollar amounts. When he hit Laura Resnick, the first name Alina had read out loud, $14,000 was written next to it.

  “How long ago did you get paid for Laura Resnick?”

  Colin slumped in his chair, closed his eyes and pretended to fall asleep.

  Harrison stepped in front of Colin, blocking Alina’s view, and reached down.

  Colin screamed.

  Logan worried about Alina’s reaction, but no way in hell would he stop Harrison for making this asshole talk.

  When Harrison backed away, Colin whimpered like a little girl. “You can’t do that,” he managed between broken cries. “That’s police brutality.”

  “Oh, we’re not the police,” Harrison said. “And you’re nothing but a trafficker, so you don’t deserve any rights. Besides”—he turned to look around at Logan and Alina—“I don’t think either of them saw anything.”

  Alina shook her head. “No, but a second demonstration would be nice to see,” she said bitterly. “This asshole needs to pay for what he’s done to those women.”

  Logan grinned at that. “Nothing like a little bit of payback to make a victim feel better.”

  “So talk, asshole,” Harrison snapped. “How many women are still in Boston? Where is the exchange happening and when? If we’re lucky, some of them, if not all, might still be on American soil.”

  “Oh, my God!” Alina stared at him. “Do you think that’s possible? Can we find them? Save them?”

  Chapter 3

  Just the thought of helping the other women made Alina feel so much better. Having seen the purses had been like a death sentence. To think this asshole had been responsible for the torment of so many others… she couldn’t bear thinking about it. And she’d been saved by a fluke. Maybe these guys could help the other women. They weren’t the police, but were private security—whatever the hell that meant. Yet she knew they’d broken into the apartment and saved her and captured Colin.

  As far as she was concerned, these guys were heroes.

  “I want to help,” she said.

  Harrison glanced from her to Colin. “Tell us everything you know about the others in your ring—where they worked, what they did and how they tracked down the women. Where the women came from as well.”

  “How can finding out where he took them help us?” Alina asked.

  Logan wrapped an arm around her and walked her into the next room.

  Finding it something she already missed, she wrapped hers around him and snuggled close. “Thank you so much for saving me,” she whispered.

  “You’re welcome,” he said. “And any information we can find out about him will lead us to his connections and hopefully to where the women are.”

  “But you guys have a job to do, don’t you? Can you help with this?”

  “Yes, we do, and this is it. But we’re not officially here. The problem is, once we bring in the police, they will ask us not-so-politely to butt out.”

  She nodded in understanding. “I get that, but any information we find on our own to hand over to them will still move their case forward, right? We have an obvious time issue here. I don’t know when I was supposed to be moved to the other guys, but they are still after me—which is a nightmarish thought.” She shook her head and squeezed him tighter. “But what if they had a quota to fill? Maybe they’re moving all the women at once?”

  With a tilt of Logan’s head, he moved them closer to Harrison and Colin.

  Harrison exchanged a glance with Logan, then focused on Colin. “Feel like talking now?”

  “Fuck you.”

  Harrison reached forward once more. Before he even made contact, Colin screamed again at the top of his lungs, “Don’t hurt me. Don’t hurt me.”

  “Then talk,” Harrison said. “I don’t give a shit if I have to rip each body part off you one at a time. I’ve got absolutely no patience with rapists and murderers, or child and women traffickers. You are scum. And once you go to jail, I have inside connections to make sure everybody in that place knows exactly what kind of piece of shit you are. I’ll make sure your life is nasty. You’ll spend the rest of it on your knees in that prison cell with your ass up in the air. So, talk now or forever hold your peace.”

  Colin whimpered. “Don’t you understand they will kill me?”

  Harrison smiled. “If you make me lay hands on you one more time, I might kill you myself. And, if I don’t, I can guarantee one of the guys in the prison will, but only after you’ve been everybody’s little girlfriend for a while.”

  It wasn’t easy for Alina to watch Harrison. On the other hand, if ever a man deserved to be terrorized, it was this one. This was the asshole who had drugged and beaten her and who-knew-how-many other women. She stepped forward and said, “All these purses belong to women. How many more are there?”

  He glared at her. “I don’t talk to bitches.”

  Harrison reached forward.

  “No!” Colin screamed.

  Harrison straightened up, giving Colin a hard look. “Answer the lady.”

  “I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I’ve been doing this for a long time.”

  “How long?” Alina snapped. “And how many did you kidnap from my hospital alone?”

  He glared at her. “It was one of the locations where we found women.”

  Logan stepped closer, standing on the other side of Alina. “Where are you taking them? Are these women alive?” Logan pointed to the purses lined up. “Have they been taken off American soil?”

  He shook his head and said, “The exchange is in two days.” He gro
aned. “Shit. If I say anything more, I’m done.”

  “You’re done anyway,” Harrison snapped. “Talk.”

  “And while you’re at it, explain why you have the purses.”

  Colin glared and pinched his lips together.

  Harrison took a step forward.

  “Leave me alone,” Colin cried out. He glared at Harrison for a long moment, but, as if seeing no weakening in the man before him, his shoulders slumped. “Ah, hell.” Colin stared at the men, then shook his head. “I wasn’t to keep ’em. They’re like my trophies—of what I’ve done. I could keep the cash but had to hand over the credit cards. I was supposed to dispose of the rest …”

  “Well, I’m glad you didn’t,” Logan said calmly. “That proves your involvement in all these women’s disappearances.”

  “Just these ones,” Colin protested. “I didn’t have anything to do with the others. I wasn’t organizing this. I took orders. Not too many, not too fast. All by the numbers. But I don’t know what those are.”

  The apartment phone rang three times and stopped.

  “If you don’t let me answer that, there’ll be hell to pay,” Colin warned, eyeing the phone with fear. “These are not people to mess around with.”

  Logan and Harrison both shook their heads. At Alina’s confused expression, Logan explained, “He’ll give away his current situation.”

  “Someone called this morning,” Alina said calmly. “I’m not even sure anybody was at the end of it. It could be a checkup call. Plus, it doesn’t make sense to have a landline and cell if only one person lives here.”

  “That’s not true,” Colin said. “Lots of people have both.”

  “The only reason to have both,” she snapped, “is if you want certain people to use the landline and others to call the cell.”

  Logan picked up the house phone, checked the last number dialed, wrote it down, then walked a few steps away.

  She could hear him calling somebody. “If you hadn’t wanted anybody to know who you are,” she told Colin, “you idiot, you should have one of those ancient rotary dial phones. Not a digital that lets you read the call display.”

  He glared at her but didn’t say anything. Logan walked back a few moments later, putting his phone in his pocket. “Where are the women?”

  Colin smiled and said, “You might beat me, but I can’t give you information I don’t have. I meet somebody in the mall, and that’s it. We make the exchanges in the parking lot from my vehicle to theirs. The earlier women are lost. Some of them were taken years ago. I’m not the only collector. It’s a cross-country system. I’m just responsible for my corner. Hell, I wasn’t going to stay here, but we lost someone a while back and are now trying out a new guy. They said when I run low on prospects, they’d move me to another area.”

  Harrison snorted. “A mall? Not likely. No way in hell you can get somebody like Alina willingly out of your vehicle, and then into a public parking lot at a mall and not cause havoc. And if she’s unconscious, with you carrying her, that’s even more trouble.”

  She thought about that. “He has a really large suitcase in the bedroom,” she said quietly. “Any chance he’s been using that to transport the women?”

  Logan turned to her. “Show me.”

  She led the way to the bedroom. “I only thought about it now when you were talking about transporting the women. Because Harrison’s right. No way would they have gone willingly.”

  Sure enough, a large wheeled black hardcase piece of luggage sat in the closet. Logan laid it down and quickly flipped it open. He frowned. “Not a whole lot of space in here.”

  “I could get in there and see if I fit,” she offered.

  He shook his head. “No, because you’ll leave a DNA trace. If he’s had women in here, we’ll find out another way. The case comes with us.” He took some snapshots of it, inside and out.

  She stood beside it and said, “If you close it, I can lie on top of it. And scrunch up.”

  As a rudimentary test, it wasn’t a bad idea. He closed it, and she curled up on the top of the hard metal, and she’d fit without too much trouble. He took a few photos with her atop the case. As she got to her feet, she said, “That’ll certainly narrow down the women he chooses.”

  “So he’s looking for petite women.” Logan nodded to himself and carried the suitcase to the front hall. As they returned to the kitchen, sirens could be heard.

  She walked to the window and saw two cop cars and an ambulance pull up outside the apartment. She looked at Logan and Harrison. “Did you guys call them?”

  Both shook their heads and joined Alina at the window. Logan lowered his voice and said, “Levi would’ve.” He glanced at Harrison. “We still don’t have all the information.”

  Harrison nodded. “After this,” he said, “we’ll lose access.”

  He raced back to Colin. “How many women have been picked up right now?”

  Colin shrugged. “Alina was the fourth, moving out in the next two days. I was waiting for instructions.” He sneered. “But you won’t find them. We couldn’t do this since forever without some inside help.”

  “Cops?”

  “You could tell us their names,” Alina said quietly. “You’ll never be released from jail. Why not take the cops down too?”

  Colin turned to look out the window, some of the starch taken out of him. “Two cops. But I don’t know who. I never saw met them. That connection is higher than me.”

  “Not quite,” Logan said. “We have his tally book, which I’ll finish taking pictures of right now.” He stepped into the bedroom, opened the little notebook with the money and first names, then quickly took pictures of everything. “We’ll access the apartment building cameras, see if they have underground parking lot with security down there and find out how many times he’s taken the suitcase in and out of here.”

  “What a horrible thought,” Alina said.

  “Let’s go meet the locals,” Harrison said, as they all moved into the main room.

  She stared at the suitcase near the door. She turned on Colin. “Is that how you got me into the apartment?”

  He gave her a flat stare.

  “That’s what you did, didn’t you?” She glared at the suitcase with loathing. “I guess this can already be traced to me,” she said to Logan.

  Logan nodded. “Most likely. I saw blood inside that will help with IDs as well.”

  She could feel the color washing out of her face at the sound of that. She turned, knowing time was running out. “Did you kill any of those women?” She shoved her face into his and snapped, “Did you?”

  He shook his head. “I didn’t kill anyone,” he protested. “My boss wanted these women. It was my job to collect them, then move them out.”

  “What was all that bullshit about wanting something from me first?”

  “I’m not allowed to rape you,” he said. “Damaged goods aren’t worth as much. But if you were willing, then I was allowed.”

  Her hand went to her mouth. “So those women had sex with you, thinking it might get them out of here and that you might treat them better? Instead, you used them and then handed them over, didn’t you?”

  But he dropped his gaze to the floor.

  At the pounding on the front door, Harrison opened it, and the police flooded inside. Logan, Harrison, and Alina explained what was going on. It didn’t take the police long to grasp who was in charge and who was the criminal.

  When Logan turned and said, “We found Alina tied up in the bedroom,” all attention turned to her.

  She tried to smile but was suddenly intimidated by that many men crowding around her. She wrapped her arms tight against her chest and said, “I’m okay. Outside of the fact he tied me up for a couple days and beat me up as much as he wanted to, I don’t think I have any broken bones or anything. I don’t need medical attention.”

  “That’s not quite true,” Logan said. “She was drugged, and we don’t know what she’s been given, but her arm is
quite puffy and raw.” He lifted her T-shirt sleeve so the police could see her arm.

  The paramedics out in the hallway moved inside. She was led to the living room where she was given a quick once-over.

  “I still think you should go to the hospital,” one of the paramedics said. “This arm doesn’t look very happy at all.”

  “It’s been like that for a couple days,” she confessed. “It’s getting better.”

  “And yet you noticed it with all the other stuff going on,” Logan pointed out.

  They looked at the lacerations on her ankles and wrists, and the EMT said, “You should go in so we can take photographs to document all this too.”

  She bit her bottom lip, completely loathing to do so. Yet she was a nurse, and she had no reason not to trust the hospital. But she didn’t know these men, and right now going with anybody anywhere was not a good idea.

  Logan stepped in front of her. “Go with them. It’s important they get whatever trace evidence they can from your body, and you should have a rape kit done. You can’t trust this asshole to say he didn’t touch you. You were drugged and unconscious for however long.”

  She stared at him, fear in her eyes, and shuddered.

  He rubbed his hands along her arms, giving her a little squeeze. “I didn’t mean to come across so harsh. But the facts are the facts. Until we know them, we won’t have the right answers.”

  Tears filled her eyes as she stared up at him. She tried to nod, but instead she started to shake.

  He glanced at the two paramedics. “Give us a minute.”

  They backed off, and he wrapped her in his arms and held her close. “I know you’re terrified,” he whispered against her ears. “But there will be no repeat grabbing and bringing you here.”

  She drew a deep breath, reminding her how much her body hurt, and with a brave face, she said, “I’ll be fine.”

  With the paramedics at her side and Logan behind her, she let them lead her downstairs, out to the ambulance. She was grateful no stretcher had been brought in. That would be the last thing she wanted, to be strapped down again. She sat inside the ambulance, waited as one of the policemen got in, and then she stared at Logan.