They drove east, passing the industrial fringe of Denver, urban and suburban neighborhoods, then hit the farms and miles of crops—onions, beets, beans, and corn, some of which had been harvested, some still waiting. All of it looked peaceful in the crisp September afternoon.
The fields where their target was had not been harvested. Tall spires of drying corn hid just about everything. Worse than merely limiting visibility, it gave an enemy perfect cover. He exchanged looks with Val, all of his senses firing a warning.
They couldn’t wait for backup. Not even an hour had passed since Fiona’s ping. This was the first break they’d had in the nearly twenty hours since she’d been taken. Val pulled onto the narrow dirt road, with Kit close behind him. After a short drive, an area opened in the cornfield, revealing an old farmhouse, a yard, and some other supporting farm structures. Kit drove around behind the house, then turned around and parked.
A high chain-link fence surrounded the front and what Kelan could see of the side of the house. The eight-foot fence was topped by an inward sloping course of barbed wire. The place looked like a prison.
When Kelan got out of the SUV, he saw two dogs leaping and barking at something in the house. He could just make out a figure at the door. He thought it might be female. She was banging at the glass and shouting. Was it Fiona? Adrenaline burned his veins…and it wasn’t the only thing burning. A thin line of smoke seeped around the door, but the girl couldn’t come out because of the dogs.
“Val, there’s a fire inside! I’ll get the dogs. You get them out!” Kelan drew his weapon then opened the gate and whistled for the dogs. They paused in their vicious assault on the doorway and looked back at him, then rushed down the steps toward him. Totally expecting an attack, he was surprised when they sat at his feet and looked up at him.
The girl opened the door and shouted for him to get them out of there.
Everything happened so fast. He ordered the dogs to heel and took them out of the gate. At the trunk of his SUV, he retrieved a rope and tied them to the far corner of the fence.
Val was already inside the house with a fire extinguisher. Two girls hurried outside, coughing, sucking in fresh air, and coughing again.
“One…more…girl,” one of the girls said. “Inside. One. More.”
Angel tossed Kelan the fire extinguisher from their SUV then took over the care of the girls, leading them away from the dogs toward the SUV Kit had parked at the side of the house.
Kelan hurried inside the house. One more. Was it Fiona? Val was working on a pile of rags that still smoldered. The smoke burned Kelan’s eyes. He rushed through the tiny house. The two bedrooms had been divided into four cribs, each with a narrow bed and nightstand. The first three he checked were empty.
In the corner of the last was a small, huddled shadow. Unsure if it was a pile of dirty linens or a human, he rushed toward it and saw it stretch up as it sucked in a bit of air from a shattered, barred window.
He scooped her up, knowing instantly from the feel of her that she wasn’t Fiona. The girl tried to scream, but her lungs were too filled with smoke to make more than a hissing sound. She clawed at him and fought, but as he raced her outside, she started to scream, “No! Nonononono.”
“Easy, baby. I gotcha. The dogs are tied up.”
She wrapped her arms around his neck and clung to him. Kelan handed her over to Angel and went back inside.
Val had the fire extinguished, but it still smoldered. He’d kicked the back door open to let the thick cloud of smoke dissipate. “The doors and windows were locked and barred. Their only way out was through the dogs, who would have mauled them.”
Kelan looked out the front door to the dogs lying down by the corner of the yard. “Someone wanted them dead.”
Kelan’s boot crunched on something on the floor. He bent and picked it up. A mangled bit of metal—it was all that was left of Fiona’s bracelet. He went outside. The girls were sitting under the back hatch. Angel had found two blankets, which he wrapped around the girls.
“Where is she?” he asked them as he held up the bracelet. “Fiona. What happened to her?”
The youngest of the girls, the one he’d carried from the house, pulled the blanket corner from her face. “Are you him? Her boyfriend? She said you would come.”
He nodded. “Where is she?”
“They took her.”
“Who took her?”
The girl shook her head. Hers were the saddest eyes he’d ever seen. He’d seen that look in Afghanistan, in territories that kept passing between allied and Taliban control. Savaged though she’d been, he could tell the pain in her eyes was for him and Fiona.
“I don’t know them,” she said. “Fiona fought, but there were too many of them. They hit Bess and set the fire when we tried to keep them from taking her.”
“Describe them.” He could hear emergency vehicles in the far distance. The girl started to cough. Angel handed her and the others bottles of water.
One of the other girls looked at him. “They were white. They wore ski masks. It happened so fast. We were too focused on the fire to notice much else. Thank you for coming. She said you would.”
The fire engine was first on the scene. Kit and Val went to talk to the firefighters, hoping to keep the house as intact as possible so they could collect evidence. An ambulance arrived and the paramedics started working on the girls.
Kelan stepped away to phone Max. “What do we know about the owner of this house?”
Max told him the guy’s name. “He’s been on the watch list of several agencies. Among other criminal activities he’s associated with, he’s suspected of being a kingpin in Denver’s sex-trafficking industry, but they haven’t been able to pin anything on him.”
“Until now.”
“And maybe not now. The house has been leased for the last two years by a Fred Perkins.”
“Text me the addresses.”
“There’s a flag on the owner’s info, but I’m sending you the renter’s. Oh, and Lobo’s on his way over.”