Profile of Fear: Book Four of the Profile Series (Volume 4) (14 page)

“You saw Ortiz at this farmer’s market out in the country. How would he even know it was there? I don’t think I could find it by myself, not without someone local driving.”

“How should I know how he got there? I just know it was Juan I saw.”

“Keep going.”

“Like I said. Things felt creepy. I felt someone was watching me, but every time I turned to look, no one was. After a while, I decided I was just being paranoid, so I relaxed a little. I was filling a bag with sweet corn when I heard Becca let out the most terrifying scream I’d ever heard. I ran to her stroller, and saw Becca crying hysterically with her index finger pointing to a man in the next booth. It was Juan. He wore a ball cap that covered most of his face, but I knew it was him, the same slender build, the same dark eyes filled with hate. Becca had caused a commotion that must have freaked him out, because he got out of there in a hurry, disappearing in the crowd. I unbuckled Becca from the stroller. I was so scared I left the stroller there. I held my kid to my chest and ran like my feet were on fire to the truck and got the hell out of there.”

Carly felt the blood rush to her face. She didn’t want to believe that Ortiz was in the state, let alone the small county where she lived. “And you’re certain the man you saw was Juan Ortiz?”

“Seriously? Are you asking if I could recognize the bastard I had to screw for years? He wore a ball cap, there’s no way he could disguise those eyes. They’re dark as death.”

When Carly didn’t answer, Donda leaned across the table. “I’m begging you to promise me that my kid will be protected. Juan may not know exactly where she is now, but he’d be an idiot not to think she’s living somewhere in this county. And he may be a monster, but he’s not stupid. If Becca isn’t in a safe place and protected, he
will
get to her. It’s only a matter of time. And when he does, he’ll sell her to the highest bidder, or even worse, keep her himself. Her life won’t be worth living.”

Cameron was waiting for Carly when she left the interview room. She brushed past him and sprinted down the hall like she was in a relay race. Shouting her name, he rushed after her. By the time he caught up with her, Carly was in her car, gunning it through the parking lot.

He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and called the jail. “Inmate Donda Hicks is on her way back. Put her in solitary. No phone calls. No visitors and no communication with other inmates.”

Chapter Twenty-eight

Carly broke the speed limit getting out of Morel, ran a stop light, and nearly got T-boned by a grain truck whose driver angrily pumped his horn. Alarm closing like a fist around her heart, she reached the edge of town, and burned rubber as she made a turn and headed toward home. Fishing her cell phone out of her purse, she called Kaitlyn, but got her voice mail and disconnected the call. Where was Kaitlyn? She had Becca with her today, and had no clue that she and the child were in danger. Carly glanced at the rearview mirror to make sure she wasn’t being followed. Clear.

Carly forced the gas pedal down until she reached 80 mph, which was an insane rate of speed for the curvy two-lane highway. She didn’t give a damn. The sooner she could see for herself that Kaitlyn and Becca were safe the better. Glancing in the rearview mirror, she saw a hopped-up red pickup with a gun rack in the back window bearing down on her, matching her speed and then some. Pulling her small handgun out of her ankle holster, she placed it on her lap, prepared for confrontation. In her mirror, she could see the truck had closed the distance between their vehicles and he was riding her bumper. A car passed from the other direction, and the truck whipped around her and zipped ahead. It was just a kid. The teenaged driver laughed and waved at her as he passed. Carly cursed, focusing her fear and anger on the driver, and then pumped the brake as she neared a curve in the road.

She thought of Brody and what a mistake it had been to keep what had happened with Juan Ortiz from him. Sharing good memories with Brody came naturally, but how did she marry a man she couldn’t trust with the ugliest details of her life, as well as the good? God knew how much she loved him, but she couldn’t seem to open the door in her psyche and let him in. Why did she guard this one memory so closely in the vault of her mind? Clearly, she should have seen the psychiatrists that upper management demanded she see, if she wanted to return to active duty as a federal agent. Instead, she had resigned and fled to Shawnee County, where she took the consultant job with Sheriff Brody Chase. Her flight wasn’t far enough away, nor would it ever be. The memory was alive and well, and resided in her nightmares, from which she’d never be free.

Cameron would tell Brody what he learned from her interview with Donda. He’d show his brother the recording. She was sure of it. Carly would have done the same if her brother, Blake, had married a woman with secrets.

But what did Cameron really have to tell? That she was involved in a botched FBI op to capture Ortiz in Florida. So what? He knew she’d been a federal agent. She’d participated in many setups to catch criminals. The clincher was that Cameron had to have overheard her telling Donda that she was the one who’d given Ortiz the gunshot wound scar. Blurting that kind of personal knowledge to a suspect was idiotic, and she’d never done it before. No personal knowledge. That was the rule. Most of the agents she knew didn’t wear their wedding bands so that suspects wouldn’t know they had a family. You could never be too careful. So what does she do? She gives Donda Hicks knowledge about her identity and location that Ortiz would give his right arm to know. Information that could get her and everyone she loves killed.

Carly chewed on her lower lip and ran her fingers through her thick hair as she slowed to turn into the long drive that ran past the main house to the Honeymoon Cottage. Seriously? Was she actually considering
not
telling Brody the truth? That train had left the station. There was no way she couldn’t tell him—not when their very lives could be at stake.

Glancing one more time in the rearview mirror to make sure she hadn’t been followed, she turned into the driveway. Kaitlyn’s car was parked in one of the four-car garage spaces. Becca must be inside with her. She’d talk to Kaitlyn as soon as she made contact with the federal agents currently assigned to Juan Ortiz. If they had new intelligence on him, it was critical that she get it.

She’d unlocked the door and was heading inside the cottage, when Carly heard the crunch of gravel and saw a white SUV with tinted windows pull in and park next to her car. Oh God! What if Ortiz already knew where she was? What if she had brought death to her home? Her heart beat erratically.

Easing her handgun out of her ankle holster, she slid inside and leaned against the doorframe, waiting to see who the driver was.

A man with short-cropped blond hair unfolded his long legs, got out of the SUV, and leaned lazily against the side. He wore a gray pin-striped suit and looked like he could do a modeling stint for
Esquire
magazine. “Good to see you, Agent Stone. If that’s a gun in your hand, you might consider the penalties of aiming at your supervisory special agent for the FBI.”

She slipped the gun back into her waistband. “Since it’s you I’m aiming at, the bureau may actually give me a medal.
And
, Sam Isley, you are not my supervisor or anything else to me.”

“I’m sensing hostility. Come on, Carly, what happened between us was a long time ago.”

“Not so long that I can’t see in vivid detail you screwing my trainee on your desk as I stood in the doorway, holding a bottle of champagne to celebrate my return to you. You remember, I’d been on assignment for a month. Thought you’d be glad to see me and all that.”

“I wanted to marry you, Carly.”

“Thus making the humping even worse. You. Cheated. On. Me.” Gritting her teeth, she glared at him for a long moment, descending the steps to the driveway. “I think I’ve made it perfectly clear that I do not want to see you. I’ve moved on. I’m happily married. So why are you here?”

He gestured with his head to the cottage. “It’s not a social call. May I come inside to talk?”

“No.”

Nodding, he unbuttoned his suit jacket, thrust his hands in his pockets, and leaned lazily against his vehicle again. Carly’s fingers dug into her palms to keep herself from slapping the smirk off his face. If there was one person she was not in the mood to deal with today, it was Sam Isley. Not that it was likely that she’d ever have a yearning to spend time with her former supervisor/lover. “Say what you have to say, Sam.”

“Last night someone broke into your place in Orlando. Because you’re still tagged as a federal agent, the city cops called the Orlando field office, who called me.” He opened the car door to retrieve a photo in a clear plastic evidence bag from his passenger seat. “This was found on your bedroom wall, painted in red paint, before they dumped the rest on your bed.”

Carly looked at the photo. Oozing red paint covered her bed, splashes of it on every wall except the one above her headboard. On that wall, someone had carefully painted a red circle with the letters ‘JO’ inside it. It was the same return-to-owner symbol tattooed on Donda Hicks’ hip. The symbol Juan Ortiz had branded on each of his girls, his property. If Ortiz didn’t know her identity, how did he find her house in Orlando?

“How did he…?”

“How did he find you? That was my question until I saw this.” Isley handed another evidence bag to her. “This was found in your living room.”

Carly withdrew from it a folded newspaper article about a charity event she’d headed for the Orlando FBI field office. Along with the text was a photograph of her, holding the Lucite award the mayor had given her. “I guess I don’t need to ask how Ortiz found me.”

Wrapping an arm around her shoulders, Isley said, “I’m sorry, Carly. This kind of thing isn’t supposed to happen to agents.”

Jerking out of his embrace, she backed up a couple of steps. “Do you have anything else on Ortiz to tell me?”

“Yes. Two months ago, we received information that Ortiz is in the Midwest and heads a group of men who are trafficking young girls they’ve abducted or duped into working for them. They recruit their victims through online modeling ads where they are promised high-paying glamorous jobs.”

Carly nodded, taking it all in.

“I shouldn’t be telling you this.”

“Don’t you dare stop,” she warned.

“The Indy field office has a long list of missing women they believed were abducted as a result of answering these ads. Some of the girls are sold as nannies or maids. The others are trafficked for exotic dancing, prostitution, and janitors, restaurant waitresses or dishwashers.

“Restaurant workers? He owns restaurants? How is he getting away with that?”

“Under a variety of names, Ortiz owns a dozen
Last Stop Cantina
restaurants throughout the Midwest. In Indiana, he has one in Indianapolis, Lafayette, and Bloomington.”

“All three towns have universities. Is he focusing on coeds?”

“Not necessarily. Several of the missing girls are teenagers.”

“Why is he here in the Midwest? Why would he risk capture when he can conduct his business safely from Mexico? It doesn’t make sense.”

“We’ve had no sightings of Ortiz. We don’t know that he’s actually here.”

“He’s here. I just interviewed a confidential informant who saw him a few weeks ago.”

Isley’s jaw dropped open in surprise, and anger flickered in his eyes. “Damn it, Carly. You cannot withhold that kind of information from me. You know better.”

“Seriously? Should I have contacted you as quickly as you did me when you first learned of Ortiz’s operations in the Midwest?”

“Okay, that’s fair. I didn’t contact you right away because you shouldn’t be involved in anything that involves Ortiz.”

“Since when do you get to make that kind of judgment call?”

“I let you down—”

“When I needed you most. And this time, you put me in harm’s way.”

“How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?”

“Forget it. I have.”

“That’s a lie, Carly. You
haven’t
forgotten it. I wished you’d seen the shrinks like I asked you to.”

Swiftly, she changed the subject. “I want in on your op to catch Ortiz.”

“No chance. No personal agendas. Robynn Burton with the Indiana State Police will be in charge of creating the task force to focus on finding Juan Ortiz. Right now she’s focused on a series of murders. The bureau is stepping back to let the state police handle it. We’re in on a consultant basis only.”

“I want to be on the task force when it forms.”

“Not a good idea.”

“Why not?”

“So you can go vigilante? Not on my watch.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Carly snapped back, a little too intensely.

“Come on, Carly. Give me a little credit.”

They heard Brody’s SUV before they saw it, thundering down the driveway toward them, the big tires spitting gravel onto the lawn. Pulling in behind Carly’s car, he got out of his vehicle, anger radiating off him in waves.

“Agent Isley. What are you doing here? I’ll give you exactly two seconds to get off my property.”

Isley got into his car and powered down his window. “Carly can fill you in. Good to see you, Sheriff.” Backing his car up, he turned around and headed toward the highway.

Brody focused on Carly. “Do you want to tell me what that was all about?”

She headed for the house. “Not now. I’m going to get dinner started.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

Robynn Burton was waiting for Cameron when he returned to his office.

Standing to face him, hands on her hips, she was clearly annoyed. “Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you for thirty minutes.”

“Nice to see you, too, Sergeant.”

“Didn’t you get my email? I wrote you that I’d be here today by eleven.”

“I haven’t had time to have coffee, let alone check my email. Sorry. What’s going on?”

Cameron eased into his chair and took a moment to check her out. Robynn was still trying to hide her lush curves beneath a nothing-but-business black pant-suit, with a white blouse buttoned all the way up to her slender neck. She reminded him of Melanie Griffith’s character in the movie
Working Girl
. Robynn had a head for business, and a body made for sin. The latter being the subject of many a fantasy involving him pinning her to his bed, with Robynn moaning with pleasure beneath him. His eyes moved to her face, their gazes locked, and there was a moment of sizzling awareness that ended when Robynn blinked and then cleared her throat.