Profile of Fear: Book Four of the Profile Series (Volume 4) (12 page)

She noticed Paul tensed and ran an agitated hand through his hair. Why the change in behavior? A wave of dizziness overcame her. She leaned back and took a deep breath. Was it the alcohol?” Moving her glass aside she said, “No more wine for me.”

“Melanie, I read in the paper about a meth bust where a two-year-old girl was removed from the house. What happened to the little girl? Was she one of your cases?”

It wasn’t the question itself, but the intensity in his eyes that made Melanie uncomfortable. Why was he asking her about that specific case?

“Let’s talk about something more pleasant than my job. I’d rather hear more about you. Where did you grow up? Do you have brothers and sisters?” The light-headedness returned. Was she intoxicated? How could she be drunk if she’d only consumed two glasses of wine?

“Melanie?” Paul asked. “Are you okay?”

She opened her mouth to answer him, and that was when her world went dark.

When Melanie regained consciousness, the muscles in her arms and legs ached, her fingers numb, and something covered her mouth. To her horror, she couldn’t move. She opened her eyes and pain exploded at the base of her skull. What was happening to her?

A stinging slap across her face made her wince. “Wake up, Melanie. I didn’t give you that much.”

Moaning, she turned her head away from the voice, blinking the frightened tears from her eyes.

“Don’t bother to scream, your mouth is duct-taped. Anyway, who would hear you out here in the middle of nowhere?”

Paul stood before her, his expression ruthless and angry, the look of ice-cold fury on his face. “That wine had quite a kick, didn’t it, Melanie? You were too easy. Sucked it right down, roofie and all.” Bending, he tightened the rope around her ankles, painfully pressing her skin into the rough bark of the tree. Straightening, he looked at her thoughtfully. “I need to remove the duct tape. I must warn you that if you scream, I’ll make sure you regret it. Don’t even think about it.”

With a vicious yank, he ripped the tape from her mouth, and she cried out.

“I’m warning you.”

She slowly shook her head. “I won’t scream. Please don’t hurt me. Why are you doing this, Paul?” Her heart was racing, nearly exploding from her chest. “Who are you?”

“I’m Juan Ortiz. Does that name sound familiar?”

“No.”

“You’ve really got to get out more, Melanie. Get your nose out of your miserable little do-gooder life. Hell, my photo is probably hanging in your post office right now. I became something of a celebrity when I hit the FBI’s Most Wanted List.” He pulled a serrated hunting knife from the picnic basket. Melanie gulped down several breaths to stay quiet.

“Oh, God. Don’t hurt me.” She pleaded. “Please put the knife away.”

“Tell me what I need to know and I won’t have to use it.”

“I don’t understand.” How could she have been so stupid, so wrong about a man? She thought he was her happily ever after, yet he’d probably end her life without blinking. Things were moving too quickly to process. Why was this happening to her? She struggled with the ropes that bound her hands at the back of the tree.

“The little girl that was rescued from the meth bust at Donda Hicks’ house is my kid and I want her. She’s my property. You tell me where she is and you walk out of here.”

“The two-year-old is your
property
?”

“You’re not as dumb as I thought. Where is she?”

Becca. Melanie thought of the baby she’d visited in the hospital, her beautiful little face miserable as she cried for Cameron Chase. How she’d clung to him when he entered the room. Why did this monster, who was wanted by law enforcement, want her? His property? What would he do to her if he found her?

“I don’t know what happened to her. Not my case.”

His face reddened, his eyes slits of rage. She saw the flash of the knife before she felt it slice her right forearm. The wound wasn’t deep but it hurt so much she could barely breathe as a trickle of blood streamed down her arm.

“Wrong answer.” He gritted between his teeth. “Let’s try this again. Her name is Becca. She’s around two-years-old, and her worthless mother ran away. Didn’t know about her until recently. No one keeps my property from me. No one.”

He wrapped one of his hands around her throat and she felt the pressure squeezing her windpipe.

“Where is Becca?”

“Please don’t hurt me. I’m telling you that I don’t know where she is.”

“You’re lying.” He roared, making her ears ring.

Removing his hand from neck, he jabbed the knife into the flesh of her left side. Excruciating pain took her breath away; the blood soaked her new dress and ran down her hips and thighs. A primal scream unexpressed nearly choked her as gasped for air, while the throbbing in her side escalated. She began shaking uncontrollably.

“It hurts, doesn’t it Melanie? She’s just one little kid that you don’t even know. Not even an acquaintance. Is she worth the pain? Is she worth your life?”

Melanie had spent the last six years of her life protecting children like Becca. Removing them from deplorable conditions gave many of them a chance for a better life. She protected the weak and innocent. Wasn’t that the real reason she endured a low-paying, punishing job? She was the only thing standing between Becca and a life of miserable pain from a monster who was a stranger to her. She was only two-years-old, with her whole life ahead of her. A life that would be filled with family and love, if Cameron Chase had anything to do with it.

“I don’t know where she is.” The dizziness returned, black spots appearing before her eyes. But her blurred vision didn’t prevent her from seeing him raise the knife.

Chapter Twenty-four

Cameron gazed through the one-way glass at Donda Hicks, who sat slumped in a chair in the interview room with her head on the table. He’d gotten a message from Henry Stephens at the jail that she claimed it was urgent that she talk to him. Imagining anything the drugged-out shell of a human being had to say could interest him was a stretch. He held her directly responsible for the abuse Becca had suffered, and planned to make sure child abuse and neglect were added to her list of offenses.

Jerking open the interview room door, he purposely dropped a thick file folder that slapped noisily onto the floor. Shrieking, Donda jerked and nearly fell out of her chair, which was his intention.

“Oh, I’m sorry. Sure hope I didn’t wake you up. Not resting well in your cell?” Sarcasm laced his tone as he glared at her.

Sitting down across from her, he studied her face. Dark smudges lay under her eyes, and skin stretched thin across her facial bones, making her look even more emaciated than the first time he saw her at the meth bust. Her left eye twitched as if it had a mind of its own.

“What’s up, Donda? What’s this urgent thing you have to discuss with me?”

Sniffing, she wiped her nose with her arm. “Look, I don’t care what happens to me, but whatever you do,
don’t
tell me where social services put Becca.”

“I have no intention of telling you a damn thing about Becca. You’re a kid’s worst nightmare for a mother. If it were up to me, I’d make sure you never came within a city block of a child for the rest of your miserable life.” His words were sudden, raw, and very angry.

She visibly flinched. Her face turned red and blotched with anger and resentment. “Who the hell are you to judge me? You got no idea what I’ve been through.”

“It’s all about you. Isn’t it, Donda?” He pushed back in his chair. “No room in your narcissistic, drugged-up world for a kid. Right?”

“Do you really think I’d ask to talk to an asshole like you if I didn’t have to? You can go straight to hell.”

“Why
are
we here? What’s so important that you had to talk to me?”

Squeezing her eyes shut for a moment, Donda clenched her hands in her lap so hard her knuckles whitened. She looked up at him, and he could swear he saw a tear threatening the corner of her eye. “I just got to know something. Did social services place Becca in a good home? Will the foster parents be good to her? Is she safe?”

Cameron thought of the evening before. Kaitlyn had bathed Becca and dressed her in what the little girl called her ‘doggie’ pajamas. All breeds of dogs sprinkled across the soft pink material. With her tiny finger, Becca had pointed out to him the dog in the fabric who looked most like her new friend, Godiva. Gabe and Kaitlin’s chocolate Lab had stuck to the child like superglue as she ran to Cameron’s arms.

Kaitlyn handed a colorful book to him. “It’s your turn for story time.” She settled down on the sofa next to Gabe and waited for him to begin. Reading to Becca was a ritual they’d started during her first week with them. It was a time when Cameron, Gabe, and Kaitlyn could relax and leave behind the stresses of their days.

The child settled in his lap so she could see the book’s pictures, and the large dog curled at his feet watching the two of them. The story was about a Siamese kitten who’d lost his mother and asked any animal he encountered, “Do you know where my mother is?” As he read, Cameron wondered whether Becca missed her mother. She had not asked for her since she’d moved into their home.

Becca listened intently and periodically touched the pages as if she were stroking the animals in the pictures. Finishing, he closed the book and looked down at her. She was fast asleep, smelling sweetly like baby shampoo, and looking angelic in his arms. Kissing her softly on her forehead, he glanced up at his brother, who smiled at him from across the room. Carrying the child up the stairs to her room, Cameron had realized how much he and his family had grown to love Becca. She was a part of them now, and he didn’t know what he’d do if her birth mother tried to take her away from them.

Donda’s snapped her fingers to gain his attention. “Hey. Are you listening? It’s dangerous for me to know where Becca is, but I got to know that she’s safe.”

Lifting an eyebrow, Cameron glared at the woman across the table. A stray cat was a better mother. If she was using reverse psychology to obtain Becca’s location, she wouldn’t get it from him. Social services might give it to her, but he’d die before he would. The woman was poison to Becca. “Yes. She’s safe. Becca’s with a family who loves her and will protect her. Is that what you want to know? Is that why you wanted to meet with me? I could have told you that in a phone call.”

Taking a deep breath, Donda exhaled, facing him but not really looking at him. “I need your help.”

Cameron’s eyes narrowed with disgust. “Seriously? What kind of help? A better question is why should I help you?”

“I have information.”

“What kind of information do you have that would remotely interest me?”

Her hands balled into fists, temper flaring in her eyes, Donda leaned across the table. “Maybe you’re the wrong person to talk to. I should have called the feds first.”

“You think your information would interest the FBI?”

“Yes.”

Leaning back in his chair, he studied her. What kind of information could a meth-head from a small county in Indiana have to offer the feds? Her husband was manufacturing meth in Shawnee County locally, so she might have information on meth dealers and a supply network. Intel like that would definitely interest him. But the feds? Not likely.

“I’d need to hear your info before I contact the FBI. That’s protocol,” he lied. It wasn’t protocol. She was free to contact federal agents on her own, but in the unlikely event she had information important enough for the feds, he wanted to hear it first.

“Juan Ortiz.”

Incredulous, Cameron ran his fingers through his hair. “Juan Ortiz? Isn’t that a fictional character created for a coffee commercial?”

“You’re an idiot. Don’t you ever read the FBI’s Most Wanted list? I’m not saying another word until you get me someone in here that knows who Juan Ortiz is.”

“If you’re so smart, tell me about this guy named Ortiz.”

Crossing her arms across her chest, she stiffened. “I mean it. I’m not saying a word.”

Cameron left the interview room, slamming the door behind him. At his office computer, he pulled up the FBI Most Wanted list and scanned the who’s who of dangerous criminals until he found Juan Ortiz.

Chapter Twenty-five

Cursing her computer, Carly Stone slapped it on the side and rebooted it. The computer techs who had been working on it for a week assured her that all was well. Apparently not.

Once her PC came to life, she opened the Internet and accessed the FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) database, where she re-sent a query regarding the tattoo found on the hips of murder victims Brandy Murphy and Shirley Metz. What appeared on the screen next made her heart stop and her jaw drop. Juan Ortiz. Of course, why hadn’t she figured that out when she noted the initials inside the circular tattoo were ‘J’ and ‘O’? But how could Juan Ortiz be involved with killings in Indiana, when he was hiding from the FBI in Mexico? She’d received no intelligence that he’d been found, or that he’d left Mexico.

Chapter Twenty-six

Carly hurried into Cameron’s office, fighting to even her breathing. She had to tell Cameron about the tattoo. “I have something to tell you about—”

Glued to his computer screen, he interrupted. “Have you ever heard of Juan Ortiz? Just found him on the Most Wanted List.”

Cameron glanced up at Carly, who had noticeably paled. He’d known his brother’s wife to be unshakable, no-nonsense, and in charge, yet she now appeared tense at the mention of a criminal’s name. Why? His eyebrows lifted as he drew back to study her face.

Hesitating for a moment, Carly then moved beside him to peer at Juan Ortiz’s information on Cameron’s computer screen. “I’ve heard of him. He’s wanted by the FBI for human trafficking, kidnapping, and murder. That’s just a few of his offenses. Why are you interested in him?”

Cameron swiveled his chair so he could see her face, but found her expression difficult to read. “I’ve got Donda Hicks, one of my meth bust arrests, in the interview room. She’s trying to trade information on Mr. Ortiz for some kind of a favor.”