The Doll (10 page)

“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 accurate, 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.

They needed Munroe for something, but that on its own made no sense. Her skills were overkill for the type of operation the Doll Maker ran, and bringing her on against her will meant absorbing an enormous risk. You brought Munroe in when the job required stealth and brains and a chameleonlike quality, a job where a strategist, tactician, and linguistics expert was your safest bet. You didn’t bring her in to do a job your men had been doing on their own for a decade, you brought her in when the stakes were high, when you were moving something that … And then it hit him.

Neeva Eckridge.

He saw it now, the bigger picture, how Katherine Breeden the facilitator had offered Vanessa Michael Munroe as a fix to the Doll Maker’s problem of transporting the most sought-after face in the world. Breeden, who, outside of Logan, knew Munroe better than anyone.

Breeden was no longer afraid because she’d brokered a deal in exchange for her own life. If the Doll Maker should fail, Munroe’s only option would be to destroy him, and Bradford’s blackmail would be useless. If the Doll Maker succeeded, Munroe would die, and because of the brokered deal, Bradford’s blackmail would be useless. No matter the outcome, one of Breeden’s enemies would fall. No matter the outcome, Kate Breeden had already won.

M
ILES
B
RADFORD WALKED
through the doors of Capstone Consulting to the sight of Samantha Walker in the middle of the reception area, sorting through a pile of boxes that were part of the steady stream of mail received on behalf of team members stationed abroad. She looked up when he entered, nodded an acknowledgment, and said, “Drove by both places, and everything seems to be normal. For now. Reserves will be here in thirty minutes. Jack’s in the war room. I’ll be there in just a sec.”

He swiped his key card, the door buzzed open, and he stepped through. Beyond the dividing glass walls, Jahan’s head shifted up from the keyboard toward one of the monitors, which displayed a rapid database scan that paused occasionally to ping information.

Jahan didn’t turn when Bradford entered the war room, so Bradford let him be and instead stepped to the left side of the whiteboard, which was now heavily marked with fresh diagrams and notes, details his home team had obviously been puzzling over for far too many hours. The Doll Maker documents had been deconstructed and scrutinized, each thread of a potential trail broken down into further paths with dead ends crossed off and possible leads highlighted.

Names.

Companies.

Purchases.

Vehicles.

Properties.

Bradford wasn’t the only one running on lack of sleep.

With his back still turned, he said to Jahan, “These guys actually own stuff here in Dallas?”

A long pause and many keystrokes later Jahan answered. “Not sure yet,” he said. “We’re running into dead ends, a few red herrings. Not everything’s as accurate as we’d hoped. We’re still trying to sort the valid from the rest.”

Considering the original information source, the news wasn’t entirely surprising. “Did the papers exaggerate?” Bradford said.

Jahan shook his head. “If anything, they undershot by a wide margin.”

“How wide?”

Jahan shrugged and returned to the keyboard. Bradford didn’t press. How did one quantify the degrees of horror in human trafficking? Young girls lied to, bullied, bought, or kidnapped; children and teenagers transported and isolated, raped and beaten into submission, and then inducted into a life where the control wasn’t chains but abuse and fear.

Like Jahan, Bradford wasn’t ignorant on the issue. It was impossible to spend time in shithole locations without being touched by the plight of the victims and the helplessness of it, but until now most of what he’d encountered were child brides and the accepted domestic slavery of the cultures, not this, this barbarianism that took enslaving women one level deeper and preyed on the most basic of human drives.

Bradford knew what Jahan meant by “a wide margin.” The organization was farther-reaching and more deeply entrenched than they’d believed.

Bradford drew his finger along the California thread.

Jahan and Walker had seen it, too: Neeva Eckridge.

Too many threads, too many possible paths, and no time to trace them all.

Time.

How much time did they have? How long would it take Munroe to do the job they’d snatched her for? A day? Two? A week? God, it was impossible to know.

Time
.

He followed the threads down into Texas. Mentally cut off ninety percent of the diagram. Turned to find Jahan staring at him.

“Texas,” Bradford said. “They had Michael out of here within an hour of take-down. They didn’t pull Logan—and he’s in no condition for them to move far. He’s still here. In Texas. Probably still in Dallas. We need to find him.”

“Before Michael?”

Bradford drew a deep breath and stared at the ceiling. There was far more behind Jahan’s question than a matter of logistics. After a long exhale, he turned his eyes to Jahan. “Yes,” he said. “Before Michael.”

Munroe sat on the mattress, back to the wall, eyes closed, forearms resting against her knees. To wait in darkness was familiar from long ago, to allow the night to swallow her and take with it the fear of helplessness and the impatience for action.

One breath followed another while inside her head countermove played against counterstrategy, and she ordered and reordered, ended and started over in an attempt to see past the ruin, until noise in the hallway pulled her from her trance back to the madness.

The door slid open. She opened her eyes.

Arben filled the space, his body a silhouette against the hallway light, and he didn’t say anything, as if his presence was all the order she would need. Beyond him was another shadow—most probably the nameless guy, Arben Two. Neither man entered the cell, and this time the big man didn’t flinch when she stood and walked toward him.

Munroe followed Arben down the narrow hall, up the stairs, and through the gold-working room, which was now dark and deserted. Artificial light from the outside filtered in through the windows, casting just enough of an ambient glow on empty workstations that
flashlights weren’t needed, and up ahead yellow light and muted conversation filtered out of the Doll Maker’s office.

Arben rapped on the door and opened it without waiting. Nodded Munroe inside, and for the third time that day she found herself in the presence of the crazy man. This time he sat on the edge of his desk, assessing a life-size doll seated on a chair in the middle of the room. Lumani was to the right, standing military at-ease. He turned toward her only long enough to acknowledge her presence and then, expressionless, returned focus to his uncle.