Hunt Them Down(62)
“What are you doing?” Eiderzen asked, clipping her seat belt in place.
“We’re gonna check it out.”
Eiderzen grabbed the microphone from the dashboard clip and said, “Trooper Farrell from Trooper Eiderzen.”
“Go ahead for Farrell.”
“A Ford panel van with a partially matching license plate drove past us a minute ago. Corporal Steck will intercept and pull it over. You want to back us up?”
“You serious?”
“The last three digits matched one of the plates,” Eiderzen replied.
Steck smiled. Police work often involved pure sweat—talking to people on the street, canvassing an area to find a weapon, finding witnesses willing to share their stories. Out of the hundreds—and sometime thousands—of pieces of information a team brought in over the course of an investigation, it wasn’t unusual to get only one or two solid leads. Equally important, though, was that success in police work largely depended on luck and on a cop’s instinct to follow his or her gut. Farrell had done so with this case, and as long as it didn’t take him or his team too far from their primary mandate, Steck was ready to probe deeper into BlueShade Rental.
Steck looked in his rearview mirror. The rest of his team was right behind him. They were now traveling at close to ninety miles an hour. At that speed, it didn’t take long to catch up to the Ford panel van. When they were about seventy-five feet behind the van, Steck’s foot came off the gas pedal.
“Can you confirm the license plate?” he asked Erica.
“Yep,” she said. “That’s one of them.”
“Okay. Let the others know. We’ll pull it over.”
It didn’t matter how many years of service he had behind him. Every time Steck initiated a traffic stop, a rush of adrenaline surged through him. All traffic stops are potentially dangerous. Every year, officers of the Florida Highway Patrol were injured or killed during what Steck was sure the injured or dead officers thought was a routine traffic stop. There was nothing routine with traffic stops. Ever. About one out of ten physical attacks against police officers occurred while engaged in a traffic stop.
As he activated the emergency equipment of his police cruiser, Corporal Ryan Steck turned over in his mind everything he could think of that could go wrong.
Never could he have foreseen what was waiting for him and his team.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
Hallandale Beach, Florida
Hunt began his controlled descent down the stairs leading to the basement. He kept his back pressed against the wall and his gun in front of him but close to his body. When he reached the final step, a chill coursed through him.
Leila. She was here. I can feel it.
He listened closely for any sound. Once he was satisfied that the only noise was his own breathing, Hunt moved rapidly, room by room, searching for any signs of his daughter. The first room consisted of a double bed, which had been slept in, a dresser with a large mirror, and a night table with a lamp. A sink and a toilet were tucked next to each other in one corner. A video camera hung from the ceiling in a back corner. A lump formed in his throat.
Was it here that they kept her?
He tossed the mattress aside and opened all the drawers but didn’t find anything connecting the room to his daughter. The next room was a perfect replica of the previous one. With one major difference.
The blood.
Something terrible had happened in this room. To Leila? He blinked a few times and shook the dark thoughts away. If whatever had happened here had taken place more than an hour or two ago, the blood would be dry and brown. Instead, it was dark red and fresh.
And frightening.
Hunt let loose a slew of curse words. He was too late. They’d whisked Leila and Sophia away. Were they already in Mexico? Pomar had told him that was a possibility. There was one more room to check. As his eyes swept across the bedroom one last time, Hunt caught something on the floor, glistening in the murky darkness. He moved closer, shining the beam of his flashlight around.
There. What the hell was that?
Upon closer examination, Hunt realized it was an ear, or at least a chunk of one. It was still wet with blood. His heart sank, and his knees wobbled. In his mind’s eye, he saw Leila’s life from when she was a baby to a young woman. He loved her so much. His eyes began to tear up.
Christ, a fucking ear! How much more can I take?
He picked up the piece of flesh, almost dropping it twice it was so slick with blood, and rinsed it at the sink. As the blood washed down the drain, swirling in the white porcelain sink, a tremendous sense of relief surged through him. His legs no longer able to hold him, he sank to his knees and wept.
The ear wasn’t hers. The skin was too dark. His daughter—he was sure it was her—had put up a good fight. She hadn’t surrendered to her captors. He was proud of her. A smile creased his eyes and replaced the tears.
She hadn’t given up on him. Hang on, Leila. I’ll find you.
A soft creaking behind him made Hunt lunge to his right. He rolled once and came up on his knees, his pistol pointed at the door. Too late. A shadow on his left turned on a flashlight, temporarily blinding Hunt with its powerful beam. Hunt reacted immediately. Instead of staying put, dropping his gun, and hoping not to get shot, Hunt ducked below the beam of light and rolled forward before lunging low and hard at the shadow. With immense force, Hunt’s right shoulder rammed into the shadow’s midsection. Hunt dropped his gun in the process, but the shadow—Hunt could now see it was a man—was taken completely by surprise and expelled air in a loud groan. But the fight wasn’t over yet. The man wrapped his right arm around Hunt’s neck and began to squeeze with an almost superhuman strength. Hunt tried to pull down on the man’s arm with both his hands, but the man was just too strong. His arm didn’t budge an inch. Both Hunt’s carotids were being constricted.