31

In John’s office, Deirdre put the receiver back on the phone. “They’re back.”

Savannah pressed her hand to her chest and sighed. “Where is Buffy?”

“All the girls are downstairs in the medical center, being checked out.”

Before Deirdre could even finish the sentence, Savannah was already at the door and ripped it open. “Let’s go. Show me where it is.”

“We can’t just go down there.”

“If you don’t show me where it is, I’ll go by myself.”

“Ah, shit!” Deirdre cursed, but jumped up and joined her. “You’re a pain in the butt.”

“So are you.”

“Yeah, well, we can’t all be as cuddly as John.” Deirdre’s voice practically dripped of sarcasm.

They hurried to the elevators. “You don’t like him much, do you?”

Deirdre shrugged. “He should have let me go to Russia with him, but no, he made me babysit you.” When Savannah raised her eyebrows, she added. “No offense, but I’d rather be helping take out the assholes who took those kids than sitting around twiddling my thumbs.”

The elevator doors opened, and they rushed in. Deirdre looked at the buttons and hesitated.

“Well, are we going or not?”

“Hey, don’t get pissy with me.” Somebody passed by the elevator and Deirdre called out to him, “Hey, which level is the medical center?”

The guy stopped, gave her a strange look, then answered, “Lower level two.”

Deirdre hit the button and the elevator doors closed.

Before Savannah could comment on the fact that Deirdre didn’t know where the medical center was located, Deirdre cut her off with a glare. “I just started here, okay? And it’s not like I’d ever need the medical center myself.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You were going to.”

Savannah refrained from answering back. Clearly, the woman had issues. When the elevator door finally opened, Savannah stepped into the hallway. It wasn’t very hard to figure out which way the medical facility was located, since a myriad of voices drifted to her from a set of double doors. Kids’ voices.

Savannah’s heart leapt, and she started running. She pushed the double doors open and rushed into the large room. Several doors led from there to other, smaller rooms. Some of them were open, and she could see girls sitting on examination benches and on chairs. In the main room, there were partitioned off areas for various purposes. Here, too, she saw many kids, as well as several adults. Vampires, she assumed.

One person she recognized from behind. “John!”

He spun around. Their eyes locked. What she saw in them turned her blood to ice. “No!” She shook her head and let her gaze wander around the large room, let it fall on each child, examine each face. She walked farther into the room, turned this way and that. But there was no sign of Buffy.

She pivoted back to John, and he was already there, already gripping her shoulders, holding her so she wouldn’t collapse.

“Where is she, John? Where is my baby?” Tears stung her eyes.

“She was never on the boat. She was picked up before the ship left for Russia. The children confirmed it. A man came just before the ship left and took her with him.”

She slammed her hand over her mouth, but the sob tore from her chest nevertheless. “No, no, John, no!”

John wrapped her in his arms and pressed her to his chest. “Don’t give up, Savannah, because I won’t. She’s still in the country. She’s still here. And I’m gonna find her.”

“But how?” she wailed. “She’s gone, my baby’s gone.”

“The girls gave us a description of the man who took her, and we still have the two guys who held the girls at the port in Oakland.”

She looked up at him. “What makes you think they’ll tell you who he is?”

“They’ll talk, because I’ll make them fear me. I’ll show them what I will do to them if they don’t tell me all they know.” He slowly released her.

“You’ll torture them.” She made no judgement, only an observation.

“Yes.”

“I want to be there.”

“No. I don’t want you to see this.”

“I need to see it,” she insisted.

He hesitated for several seconds, then reached for her hand. “Come.”

John led her outside and down the corridor, then opened the door to a staircase. They descended one level, then entered another corridor.

“What happened in Russia?” she finally asked.

John gave her sideways glance. “The men involved are dead. They had a couple of customs officials on their payroll so they could smuggle the girls into the country. We got rid of them too. We went through their papers, anything they had on them. My team is currently combing through everything to see if they had anything that’ll identify their boss. The girls gave us a description of the man who took Buffy away. Detective Donnelly is on his way. He’s bringing a sketch artist with him so we can get a picture.”

She nodded. It was a long shot, but she appreciated that John wasn’t giving up.

“What’ll happen to the girls?”

“We’ll make sure they’re healthy, feed them, clothe them. But we can’t turn them over to their parents until we know where the head of the operation is holed up.”

“Why not?”

“Because if he finds out we rescued the girls, he might go underground forever, and then we lose our chance of finding Buffy.”

“Oh, God.”

“It won’t come to that. We’ll keep the girls comfortable until then.”

Fear nearly choked her. “But what if he already knows that you rescued the girls?”

“He doesn’t. The guys in Russia had no chance of contacting anybody before they died. From what we could piece together so far, there was a truck waiting for them, and the three men who transported the girls by ship were supposed to drive them cross-country. The trip would take several days. Nobody will realize for a few days that the girls aren’t on their way to their destination. Only then will whoever ordered them contact the kingpin and complain. We have time until then.”

“I hope you’re right.”

John pointed to a door. “They’re in there. Are you sure you want to be present? It might get bloody.”

Savannah tipped her chin up. “You can’t stop me.”

“I guess I already knew that.”

Using his keycard, John opened the door and marched inside ahead of her. She followed. The room was as large as her own bedroom, but it was sparsely furnished. In fact, there was no real furniture. The two cots in the room were built in, and the small table was affixed to the wall, the two chairs mere stools fastened to the concrete floor. A metal toilet without toilet seat and a tiny sink were located in one corner. The walls were bare. Neon lights on the ceiling illuminated the room.

The two men in the cell shot up on their cots. They looked worn out, their gazes guarded as they looked at John. Then they fell onto her, and both guys jolted. They recognized her, though she didn’t recognize them. After all, they’d worn masks.

“Stand up!” John demanded in an icy voice.

Both men immediately stood up.

“You withheld information from me!” John thundered. “And you know what happens to people who keep things from me? They get hurt.” He swiped his hand across the chest of one of the men, slicing his shirt to shreds.

The man yelled out in pain. “No! No! Stop!”

Savannah noticed the blood that now drenched the shredded shirt. John had used his claws on the man. And though it should frighten her to see the man she’d made love to use violence without flinching, she remained calm and without fear. He was doing this for her, for Buffy.

Shoving the hurt man back onto his cot with his hands pressed to his bleeding wounds, John directed his gaze to the second criminal. “Unless you want me to do the same or worse to you, you’d better talk.” John flashed his fangs at the man.

“Oh God! No! What are you?” He stumbled backwards, hitting the back of his knees on the edge of the cot.

But John didn’t let him fall. He snatched him by his shirt and pulled him closer. “Do we understand each other?”

Shaking, the man nodded. “Anything you want. Please, don’t hurt me.”

Savannah recognized his voice now. He’d been the driver the night they’d tried to kidnap her.

“There was a thirteenth girl.” He motioned to Savannah. “My friend’s daughter. She wasn’t on the ship. According to the girls we rescued, she was never on the ship. Who was the man who picked her up?”

“I don’t know.”

John dug his claws into the man’s shoulder, making him cry out in pain.

“I really don’t know,” he said quickly. “The boss sent him. He sent us a text message. Said not to put the girl on the ship; that a client, the man who’d ordered her, would come pick her up in person. We were to hand her over without questions. That’s what we did.” He looked to his associate for confirmation.

The injured man nodded. “It’s true. That man picked her up.”

“Did he have a name?”

“He didn’t give one. And we didn’t ask.”

“What did he look like?”

The man in John’s grip tried to shrug, but John’s painful claws stopped him. “Like a businessman, you know, suit, nice-looking, blond, maybe around fifty. That’s all, I swear. I don’t know who he was.”

“What else?”

The man hesitated. Then he seemed to remember something. “Yeah, he had an accent. Not sure, but it sounded Eastern European, maybe Russian, or Slavic. I don’t know, I’m not good with accents.”

“Another thing: when you kidnapped the little girl, were you supposed to kidnap her mother too?”

The man chanced a look at Savannah, then lowered his lids in shame. “Yes. But she wasn’t there. So we took only the girl.”

“Your boss ordered you to try it again, didn’t he?”

Again, the man nodded.

“God, you guys aren’t just evil, you’re stupid too, aren’t you?” John let go of the man and tossed him back on his cot. “You can rot in here for all I care.”

John turned and took Savannah’s elbow. “We’re done here.” Again he used his keycard to open the cell door and ushered her outside.

In the corridor, he looked at her. “Are you okay?”

She nodded. “What did you mean by them being stupid?”

John sighed. “They’re too stupid to see it, but it’s evident: the man who picked up Buffy was their boss.”

“What?” Her breath hitched. “How do you know?”

“The man behind this operation has been extremely careful that nobody working for him knows too much. But then he sends a client to pick up a child from the kidnappers he employs? Exposing the location where he keeps the girls captive until they can be put on a ship? A location he presumably wants to continue using? He’s not that stupid. But he counted on his henchmen to be too stupid to put two and two together. He took Buffy for himself; she was never meant for a client in Russia. And he tried to have you kidnapped after the ship had already left for Russia. He wants you and Buffy for himself.”

“Oh John, how are we gonna find him? From the description the kidnapper gave, it can’t be Alexi. He’s blond, and he has a heavy accent, yes, but he’s too young by at least twenty years. And if it’s not Alexi, who then?”

“We’ll know what he looks like soon. And then we’ll hunt him down.”