“Help me.”
For a moment, Petrossian and Soto didn’t move, both of them stunned by the girl’s startling appearance. She wore a billowing white sleeveless shift, stained with what looked like fresh blood. The left shoulder strap of the tank dress had torn and flapped down, exposing her breast. Lacerations covered her chest and arms. Her blonde hair stuck matted to her forehead, stained by the same rusty crimson smears soiling her gown.
She staggered toward them, arms outstretched like the living dead.
“Holy shit,” mumbled Soto.
Petrossian snapped from his daze and leapt forward to catch the girl as she collapsed into his arms.
“Call an ambulance. Call backup.”
Soto fumbled with his shoulder mic and called in the requests.
“In there.” The girl pointed at the building, her whole body shaking.
“Who? Who’s in there? Is there someone else in there? Someone with you?”
She shook her head, her skull lolling on her neck as if the ability to keep her head upright had escaped her.
“Him.”
“Miss, help is on the way. What’s your name? Can you tell me your name?”
“Cleo. Cleo Frye.”
“She’s that girl,” said Soto, pointing at her. “The one who went missing.”
Petrossian nodded and used his thumbs to raise the girl’s drooping right eyelid.
“She’s drugged.”
“High?”
“Drugged.”
“I’m going in to look for more girls.” Soto sprinted toward the door, gun drawn.
“Wait for backup!”
Soto pretended not to hear Petrossian’s command. If there were more girls inside he wanted to be the first to find them. If this new girl had been kidnapped by the same guy who killed the others, he wasn’t sure how much time anyone inside had.
I’m going to catch this bastard.
Cleo was the latest in a string of pretty young women to go missing over the previous year. They’d found the one before Cleo in an alley, dead, ten pounds lighter than when she’d disappeared—and that didn’t include the weight of her severed fingers, nine of which they found in a bag tied around her neck. As with the girls before her, the pinky from her left hand was never recovered. The press had nicknamed him ‘Pinky’. Although this was one of his lesser sins, it was at least, consistent.
Soto pulled open the door and peered inside, temporarily sun-blind. He heard Petrossian call again.
He took a deep breath and stepped into the darkness.
This stops now. On my watch.
He paused, listening, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the single bare bulb glowing in the otherwise inky space above him.
The only sound he could hear was the cavernous space of the warehouse. The very silence of the chamber seemed to hiss in his ears. Though he could feel the emptiness above him, walls flanked his left and right. He shuffled forward, gun held in front of him. A makeshift hallway of black-painted plywood led him toward a dark red curtain.
Soto groaned.
I don’t like this.
In situations like these, nothing good ever waited behind a curtain.
Heart racing, he slid the heavy fabric aside. More low-watt bulbs hung overhead in this new space, and he could see the hallway continuing forward. If only he could see more—
Flashlight. Duh.
Soto jerked his flashlight from his belt and held it beside his gun, pointing the way his bullet would fly should he spot the sick bastard who cut up those girls.
He crept forward, a step at a time, shining his light along the walls. He didn’t like the feeling of being in a chute. He felt like a beef cow plodding to its death.
The air sounded different. Closer.
Shit. Up top.
He shone the beam skyward and found a black plywood ceiling a foot above his head. A few steps later, the ceiling opened up again. The warehouse’s roof stood much higher than the occasional plywood planks above him, straddling the walls.
Soto ran his flashlight along the next section of ceiling.
Anything could be going on up there.
The planks could be platforms for someone to stand. Checking corners and behind doors wouldn’t be enough. He’d have to watch for attacks from above.
The flashlight’s beam bounced off something shiny on the wall and Soto felt his finger flex on the trigger of his gun.
Jumpy.
A tangle of razor wire ran along the walls, constricting the path further, the network of silver mesh making it difficult to focus.
How had the girl escaped this hell hole?
The cuts.
That was why her dress and skin were torn. She must have run through the razor-wire-lined hall. The idea of it made his mouth dry.
Maybe I should have waited for backup. I should go back.
Soto heard a scraping noise and cocked his head to listen for the source.
Snap!
The popping sound flooded his veins with dread. Pain seared through the back of his ankle. As his leg collapsed beneath him, he spun on his good heel, roaring, frantic to find the cause of his agony.
Eyes.
His flashlight illuminated the face of an older man, staring up at him from the floor. The upper half of the man’s torso protruded from the wall, in a spot the razor wire didn’t cover.
There hadn’t been a hole in the wall a minute before. Soto was sure of it. It was as if the man had opened a tiny door and slid himself through like a snake.
Light glinted off the large kitchen knife in the man’s hand and Soto realized the awful truth.
He sliced my Achilles.
The man’s eyes widened as Soto’s gun trained on him. Wispy, wild gray hair undulating like seaweed under the shaking glow of the flashlight, Soto’s attacker made a strange grunting sound.
Soto’s brain processed
