Блейк Пирс - A Trace of Vice

It didn’t take long.

The man had taken off his pants and boxers and was crawling toward her. He was squinting slightly and she could tell that without his glasses, he was slightly uncertain. Soon he was right above her on his hands and knees.

No time like the present.

In one swift motion, Sarah brought her right leg up to her chest and thrust her foot forward, slamming the ball of her shoe into the man’s crotch. He immediately grunted and collapsed on top of her.

She had been expecting that and rolled his crumpled torso off her. Then she scurried to her feet and hurried to the curtain. The man was behind her moaning and trying to speak. She poked her head out and looked around.

At the far end of the warehouse, she saw the main door. But between her location and freedom were countless occupied mattresses and at least half a dozen men walking around, keeping tabs on things. There was no way she could make it that far.

But maybe she could find a back door if she kept in the shadows close to the wall. She was about to step out when she heard the man’s voice, strangled and pained, but clear.

“Help!”

She was out of time. Stepping out from behind the curtain, she dashed to the left, looking for anything that resembled a door. She made it about twenty feet before a guy appeared, blocking her path.

She spun around and started in the other direction but ran directly into Chiqy, who wrapped a huge arm around her. She could barely move.

Several feet away, she saw the man who’d been wearing the suit. He was doubled over, but standing up. He was still pantsless. Reaching up his hand, he pointed at her.

“I want her for half-price after this.”

Sarah saw Chiqy pull something from his pocket and realized what it was – a syringe. She tried to break free but it was no use. She felt a sharp prick in her arm.

“I warned you we’d have to use the sleepy shot if you were bad,” he said, sounding almost apologetic.

She sensed his grip loosening but realized that it was only because she was losing all muscle control. Chiqy felt it too and let her go. By the time she slumped to the floor, she was completely unconscious.

Keri was jumpy and nervous as she sat in the waiting room of the Fox Hills Mall security office. For the fourth time in the last fifteen minutes the same thought went through her head: this is taking too long.

One of the security guards was searching for footage of the food court from around 2 p.m., when Lanie had posted her last Instagram photo. It was taking forever, either because the system was old or the guard was inept.

Ray sat in the chair beside her, chowing down on a chicken wrap he’d picked up when they had visited the food court. Keri’s wrap sat in her lap, mostly untouched.

Despite the fact that it was 6:30 and the girls had only been out of touch for about four and a half hours, Keri had the creeping sensation that something was very off with this case, even if she didn’t yet have the evidence to prove it.

“Do you have to swallow that thing all in one go?” she asked Ray sourly.

He stopped in mid-chew and gave her a quizzical look before asking, with his mouth full, “What’s eating you?”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t yell at you. I’m just frustrated that this is taking so long. If these girls really were abducted, all this fiddling about is wasting valuable time.”

“Let’s give the guy two more minutes. If he doesn’t have it by then, we’ll bring down the hammer. Fair?”

“Fair,” Keri replied and took a small bite of her wrap.

“I know you’re annoyed about this,” Ray said, “but there is clearly something else going on with you. I think it has to do with whatever you were holding back at the station. We’ve got a little time now. So fill me in.”

Keri looked at him and could tell that even with the piece of lettuce in his teeth making him look ridiculous, he wasn’t joking around.

You’re closer to this man than anyone else in the world. He deserves to know. Just tell him.

“Okay,” she said. “Hold on though.”

She pulled out the small bug and camera detector she’d been keeping in her purse and motioned for Ray to follow her into the hall.

The contraption was recommended to her by a security and surveillance expert she’d once helped out on a case. He said that it was a good combination of portability, reliability, and decent price, and so far, he seemed to be right.

In the weeks since the lawyer Jackson Cave hinted that he’d be keeping close tabs on her, she’d found several eavesdropping devices. One bug had been put in the lamp on her office desk. She suspected a member of the cleaning staff had been bribed to place it there.

She had also found both a camera and an audio bug in her new apartment. The bug was in the living room and the camera had been set up in the bedroom. She had also found a bug inside her car’s steering wheel and another in the sun visor of Ray’s car.

Edgerton had added extra protections on her office desktop to specifically hunt for tracking software. So far, nothing had been discovered. But she played it safe and avoided using it for anything other than official business.

Her cell phone was clean so far, probably because it never left her side. It was the only device through which she’d communicated with the Collector and was therefore the one she was most protective of.

When they reached the hall, Keri swiped herself, then Ray. She pointed to his phone. He held it out and she swiped it as well.

Ray had been through this routine many times before in the last few weeks. He was initially resistant but after Keri discovered the bug in his car, he no longer balked. In fact, he’d wanted to rip it and all the others out of their locations.

She had pleaded with him to leave them in place and act like everything was normal. If Cave knew they were on to him, he’d suspect that they knew about the Collector and he might warn him to run.

Cave was already suspicious that Keri was the one who had stolen his files with dossiers on different abductors for hire. But he couldn’t be sure of that. Even if he was, he didn’t know how much Keri had discovered about his secret connections to this dark underworld or whether she had him under surveillance too. So he obviously didn’t want to risk incriminating himself by contacting the Collector if he could possibly avoid it.

He believed they were in a surveillance stalemate. And considering that Jackson Cave had a lot more information than Keri did right now, she was pretty happy with that arrangement.

She had promised Ray that when allowing the bugs to stay in place became counterproductive, she’d get rid of them, even if it tipped Cave off. They even had a code phrase that meant it was time to dump them. It was “Bondi Beach,” a reference to a beach in Australia that Keri one day hoped to visit. If she said those words, Ray would know he could finally rip the device out of his visor.

“Satisfied?” he asked when she’d finished sweeping them both thoroughly.

“Yes, sorry. Listen, I got an email from our friend this morning,” she said, choosing to be cryptic about the Collector even when she was sure they weren’t being listened to. “He hinted that he’d be reaching out. I guess I’m just a little on edge. Every time my phone buzzes, I think it’s him.”

“Did he give you any kind of timetable?” Ray asked.

“No. He just said he’d be in touch soon; nothing beyond that.”

“No wonder you’re so agitated. I thought you were just overreacting to this case.”

Keri felt the heat rise in her cheeks and stared silently at her partner, stunned at his comment. Ray seemed to know immediately that he’d gone too far and was about to try to clean it up when the security guard called out from the computer room.