Evil Without a Face

sky.

Petrovin would be on his own.

“May God have mercy on us all,” the pilot muttered under his breath.

For anyone who heard him, they might have thought he had included Petrovin in his prayer, but that hadn’t been the case. A man like Petrovin had no use for God. And if the Russian made it out alive, every man here would require divine intervention to stay one step ahead of the man’s inevitable retribution.

Swallowing her next breath, Nikki aimed the weapon toward the closed door, preparing to shoot whoever opened it. She felt the weight of the handgun shaking in her hands. How hard would she have to pull the trigger? Could the gun go off accidentally?

But more important, could she kill?

All these thoughts raced through her mind, clouding her judgment as the shadow under the door moved in the red pulsing light. Down the corridor, she heard doors slamming. The guards were looking for them. She pictured the Russian’s face, and heard his voice as if he stood next to her in the dark. Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks.

Damn it! How had all this happened?

The culmination of her terror came down to this moment. When she put a face to whoever was outside the cell, only one pair of eyes came to mind, and she nearly threw up thinking about it. Could she do it? Did she have what it took to kill him? If the Russian walked through that door, she wasn’t sure she could pull the trigger. That was the kind of control he had over her.

But whether she was ready or not, she’d run out of time. The knob turned and the door creaked open.

Oh my God, please no! Inside her head, she screamed. Her heart thrashed in her chest and pounded the inside of her ears. She gripped the weapon and stepped away from the wall. As Nikki moved to the center of the room, she felt Shelby’s small fingers fall away. She had never felt so alone.

Now, the dark silhouette of a large man stood in the open doorway. Her eyes blurred with tears, but she couldn’t stop crying. She started to pull the trigger. And she would have done it, except movement behind the man distracted her. A face she recognized. In the red glow, she saw Jessica Beckett, the woman she never thought she’d see again.

Nikki’s sobs came in a torrent. She lowered the gun, her muscles too drained to keep the weapon hoisted. She wanted to say something, yet the words wouldn’t come. She was happy to see Jessica, but when the woman flipped the lights on, Nikki couldn’t believe her eyes. The man from the shadows who’d stood in the doorway was Uncle Payton.

And she’d almost killed him…again.

Before she could say anything, he swept her off the floor and clutched her to his chest, cradling the back of her head with a hand. In his arms, she felt safe. In his arms, she never felt so loved. And in his arms, she wasn’t alone anymore.

“I thought you were dead,” she whispered into his ear and burrowed her face into his neck. “And I almost… pulled the trigger. I could’ve—”

“Shhhhh. I’ve got you now, baby. You’re safe, Nikki,” Payton’s low voice reassured her. “Oh my God, I love you so much. I thought we’d lost you for sure.” Eventually, he lowered her to the floor and pulled back. “Let me see you. Are you okay?”

When he had assured himself she was all right physically, he grinned that same crooked smile she’d grown to love. She could see he’d been crying, and it broke her heart to imagine how close she’d come to losing him a second time.

“How’s Mama? I can’t believe I did this to her…and to you.” She pictured her mother’s face, and a devastating wave of regret hit her hard.

With a gun in her hand, Jessica kept watch at the closed door, searching out the glass portal, then shifted her gaze back to them, listening.

“You didn’t do anything wrong, honey…” Payton kissed her cheek and pulled her to him again. “…except maybe trusted the wrong folks. But they’re the ones who’re to blame here, not you.”

“That Russian man killed Britney. He took her heart and her eyes…they had an operating room.” Nikki knew she wasn’t making sense, but the words kept coming and she couldn’t stop holding her uncle. “He was harvesting body parts, selling them to the highest bidder…and he killed her. He almost did that to me, but I got away. That’s how I stole this gun.”

She handed the weapon over to Payton, glad to be rid of it.

“The Russian? The same one from Chicago?” Jess stepped closer and stroked Nikki’s hair. When the girl nodded, she said, “We saw the operating room, honey. These men will pay for what they’ve done.”

Before she and Payton found the row of holding cells and began their search of each one, they had located the operating room. An unconscious man lay on the floor, and another one dressed like a doctor had been shot to death; the gunfire they’d heard earlier. They’d also seen a crematorium where bodies had been destroyed in an industrial-size furnace, remains reduced to dust and bone fragments. Emissions from the crematorium probably got chalked up to the contamination in the area, perhaps sustaining the belief this part of the island was still at risk.

She and Payton had discovered Globe Harvest’s setup while looking for Nikki, but Jess had no intention of telling the girl what they’d found. It would be hard enough for the kid to recover from her ordeal without adding to her night terrors.

To distract Nikki, Jess turned to face the others.

“We’re getting you girls out of here—now.” She held out her hand to the smallest girl, a blond kid with freckles who was crying. “It’s okay, honey. We’re gonna take you home.”

Many of the girls had ventured timid smiles, hesitant to move until Jess said the word “home.” Then one by one they rushed to her. And when she felt the press of their warm bodies, Jess was overwhelmed with a flood of emotion, one that had been building in her for a very long time.

The sensation propelled her back to the day when she was rescued. She’d been a severely abused child who only existed in the moment, without a future or a past—and she had no one to call family. She thought she’d forgotten what it felt like, but in a rush everything came back.

“I hate to break up the party, but we’re not out of this yet,” Payton said. “We’ve got to get these girls out of here, Jessie.”

She looked up at him and nodded.

“Yeah, he’s right, girls. We gotta go.” Jess wiped her face and retrieved her Glock from the waistband of her pants. She headed for the door and did a quick look through the glass, then fixed her eyes on Payton.

“I’ll take point. We’ll keep the girls between us.” And to the kids, she said, “Everyone keep real quiet, okay? Shhhh.”

Jess opened the door, trying to minimize the creak, and crept into the hallway. With one hand, she clutched the little blond girl’s fingers, and she gripped her gun in the other. And when she got to the end of the corridor, ready to turn for the elevator, she stopped short—not believing her eyes.

Standing between her and the elevator was Alexa Marlowe and an entourage of men dressed in black and sporting FBI gear. Alaska State Troopers Frank and Gary were with them. Every last one aimed a weapon at her. If she had more of an inferiority complex, she might have taken offense. But as it stood, she never felt safer in her life.

“Damn, am I glad to see you.” Jess grinned. “Whoever said there was safety in numbers really knew what they were talking about.”

Once Alexa relaxed and lowered her weapon, she pulled something out from her BDU pocket, an item Jess knew well. Shaking her head, the woman twirled her red lacy bra in one hand and raised an eyebrow.

“You really know how to send up a red flare, bounty hunter. Thanks, you saved us time.” As Alexa approached, she got a good look at the girls behind Jess and added, “Well, I’ll be damned. Good work, Jessie. But if it’s all the same to you, I’d rather not end up a slab of bacon. I’m partial to my ass the way it is. I’m sure Globe Harvest has this place rigged to blow.”

“It’s worse. Nikki told us Petrovin is here,” Jess said. “If he’s in charge, we gotta get out of here fast.”

Alexa clenched her jaw in anger. “Let’s roll—NOW!”

Without hesitating, she and Payton grabbed Nikki and the smallest girl, and Alexa’s men reached for the other