Page 64 of Deep Within Me

“Please do as he says,” the young woman cried out. “Help me.Please.”

“I’m giving you twelve hours,” Carreon said. “After that, it’s her life then someone else’s. Perhaps I’ll choose a child next.” He gestured to the woman on the floor. “That one has—or had—twokids. Twins. Do you want to be responsible for those little boys dying too? Remember, it’s your decision.”

The monitor went black.

Liz moaned.

Zeke held her close and spoke to his men. “Did you get the location?”

Paul shook his head. “He has it set up so we couldn’t track it.”

“I can’t let someone else die,” Liz cried.

“You won’t,” Zeke said. “We’ll fix this.”

“How? You don’t know where he is. Where he has those women.”

“Why were they nude…at least from the waist up?” Jacob asked.

“He probably raped them,” Ike offered.

Liz whimpered.

“Maybe not,” Kele said.

Zeke frowned at her. “What do you mean?”

“Didn’t you notice their makeup? How heavy it was? Who looks like that?”

“Prostitutes,” Jacob answered.

“Or performers,” Kele said then spoke to Paul. “Play it back. Stop when Carreon moves out of camera range.”

Zeke watched the recording as the others did. Once Carreon’s image was gone, Kele said, “Freeze it there.”

The frame filled the screen.

“Look to the left of that guy’s right shoulder,” Kele said, pointing her pen. “See that thing on the wall? Looks like a calendar to me. The kind used to promote businesses—maybe the one where they are. Could be it’s a gentlemen’s club or a strip joint. Can you bring the calendar up?”

Using image-enhancing software, Paul isolated the area, blowing up the picture until a fuzzy blob filled the screen.

“Sharpen it,” Zeke said.

Paul tried. However, the way the light fell on the glossy paper had created shadows that obscured part of the wording.

“Lighten it,” Kele said.

Paul did. That only washed out more details.

Jacob swore.

“You’re not going to be able to find that other woman,” Liz said to Zeke. “She and those kids are going to die because of—”

“No, they’re not,” Zeke interrupted then spoke to his people. “Keep working on it. Do a search of all the strip joints and gentlemen’s clubs in a two-hundred-mile radius of here.”

“That could be hundreds,” Jacob said. “IfCarreon drove there. What if he took a private plane or helicopter after he fled his stronghold? He could be in Vegas for all we know.”

“Show the recording to our prisoners,” Zeke said. “They must know where that office is. If they refuse to talk, remind them of what they’re facing when we release them into Carreon’s hands. How he’ll believe they betrayed him.”

---