Taken by Robert Crais Read Free Book Online

ass!”
    Haddad’s eyes rolled toward Pike, pleading.
    “I have not lied! Look in the living room! I will show you!”
    The living room was empty except for three cheap futons set against the walls, and two cheap table lamps set on the floor. Duffel bags and blankets were lumped on the futons. Haddad lurched toward the futons, trying to point even with his hands tied behind his back.
    “You see these things? These are our things. This is why we had to come back, to get these things. I have not lied. This is where I saw your friend when we left.”
    The corner Haddad indicated was lit by a lamp. The opposite corner, on the far side of the living room, was dim with shadows. Pike glanced at the light corner.
    “Take it easy, Jon.”
    Stone stalked in a tight circle, moving from shadow to light as he burned off the adrenaline from his entry.
    “Easy my ass, Cole in the corner. This is fuckin’ bullshit. I wanna kill somebody. You see what’s back there, you’re gonna wanna kill this prick, too.”
    Haddad blurted out the words, speaking the way you speak when you fear for your life.
    “He was there in the corner, by the lamp. I swear to you this is true. I saw him when Ruiz and I carried out the bodies. His hands were behind his back, like mine. Orlato was telling Washington and Pinetta to keep him here for the Syrian.”
    Pike holstered his pistol and went to the corner. Even this close to the lamp, the light was meager. He studied Haddad, then considered Jon Stone. Stone looked like a blond shark adrift in the shadows.
    Stone said, “We’re wasting time, bro. He wasn’t here. And if he was, they killed him and dumped the body.”
    Pike said nothing. He took a knee, putting himself at Cole’s level with his back to the wall to see the room as Cole had seen it. He looked at the lamp, and that’s where he found the cricket.
    “Elvis.”
    Pike tossed it to Stone, who snatched it out of the air, and frowned.
    “Jiminy effin’ Cricket?”
    Stone tossed it back.
    “The girl’s mother gave it to him.”
    Haddad said, “I do not lie to you. I see him where you are. They wait for the Syrian.”
    “Was he hurt?”
    “I don’t know.”
    “Was the Syrian going to hurt him?”
    “I don’t know.”
    Stone’s voice came low from the shadows.
    “See the back, man. Go see what they were doing back there.”
    They marched Haddad to the bedroom side of the house, Jon Stone leading the way.
    The eleven Indians had been housed in the two smaller bedrooms, five in one, six in the other. Both rooms smelled of urine, human waste, and body odor. The walls along the floors held dark stains as if bare bodies had sweat into the paint, and rusty stains streaked one of the walls. Remnants of clothing and sandals were scattered on the floor, but nothing of Cole’s.
    Stone waited in the door while Pike checked, then stepped back to let him pass.
    “The killing floor.”
    The bathroom joining the two rooms was where they died. An extension cord with one end cut to expose the wires was coiled on the floor. Pliers, butane lighters, kitchen matches, and a blood-smeared ball-peen hammer were on the lavatory counter. The tools of torture. Bloody towels and a blood-specked pillow were on the floor.
    Stone’s voice was quiet.
    “We’ve seen places like this, bro. Somalia. Rwanda. That shithole in Honduras.”
    This was where the hostages were tortured to make them scream for their families, where Orlato and Haddad and Ruiz demanded money to make the screaming stop. When their families no longer answered the calls, or wired the money, one by one, they would be brought into the bathroom and killed. Then, one by one, they would be wrapped in the heavy plastic, loaded into a vehicle in the garage, and driven into the desert to be dumped into the cut.
    Pike studied these things, then stepped past Stone and Haddad, and went to the master bedroom. He stopped inside the door. Stone pushed Haddad in behind him, and Haddad immediately