Page 100 of Her Unflinching Warrior (Omega Sky)
BEST WISHES,
KENDALL DOUGLAS
“What the fuck?!He’s dragged Ma into his psychotic games?”
For a moment he looked to Jada to disagree, to tell him he was reading the message wrong, but she didn’t.
“He’s left a clue for you with her. It’s part of his over-the-top master plan,” she whispered.
“My mother?!” He slammed his fist so hard on the desk that the wood cracked.
Jada stood up and placed her hands on his shoulders. “Gideon, Honey, you need to calm down. You’re giving him the exact reaction that he wants.”
“But, Angel, it might not be a clue, she could be the target. He could be out there planning on killing her right now. Or worse, planning on kidnapping her, like he did with you.”
She curled her hands around the sides of his neck and forced him to look her dead in the eye. “Listen to me. You do two things. You call your brother Mike and have him check in with your mother. If she doesn’t answer, have him pull some strings with the nearby precinct to do an immediate welfare check. Got that?”
Gideon closed his eyes and blew out a deep breath. “And the other thing?”
“Trace that motherfucking e-mail, find out where he is.”
His eyes squinted, his mouth grim. “On it.”
* * *
Jada was handlingthe Zoom call as Gideon was on a three-way conversation with his mother and brother. Jada had heard the start of it and she wanted to start crying. It hurt to hear her man’s voice damn near tremble as he talked to his mother for the first time in almost twenty years. But she couldn’t think about that now, she had a job to do.
“Since Gideon could get ahold of his mother and she’s all right, we’ve got to assume she has some kind of message from Kendall.”
“What happens if she doesn’t realize what it is and can’t tell Gideon about it.”
“He’ll get it out of her,” Jada assured Lydia.
“Anybody have anything new to report since yesterday?”
“We do,” Lark and Dex said at the same time.
“You go,” Dex said, deferring to Lark.
“There’s this dating site for sadists, but you can only be invited in if somebody has met you in person and can vouch for you.”
“Lovely,” Lydia grimaced.
“It gets worse. When I dug down deeper, I found that there was a spot that showed where people were putting themselves up for auction as sex slaves, and men, women, and couples were buying them. I told you, sick. That’s where I found Naomi and Jenny; they were auctioneers.”
Jada trembled and forced back her nausea.
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Dare Stanton damn near shouted. “We work our asses off to stamp this shit out, and people are selling themselves into that kind of life?”
“Honey, calm down.” Riley grabbed his arm and laid her head against it. “It’s not our place to judge. It’s really not.”
“It is when you see some of these kids who look like they just graduated high school, if that,” Dex said grimly. “This is definitely something we’re going to be sending to the F.B.I.”
“But, let’s get back to the sicko sisters. They actually have a page where they offer their auctioneering services. Lots of pictures, including just candid shots. That’s when I spotted our guy. And we were in luck. Naomi tagged this to every damned account she could think of, which included a social media account owned by one K.D. Smith.”
“How long and how far has his grudge gone for Gideon? He even has an alias using his name?” Clint asked incredulously.
“Seems like,” Dex answered. “We’re pulling that string as we speak.”
