Page 51 of Bringing Chelsea Home

“Stairs,” Griff said simply. “Once we get the blueprints for building Number Three from Aunt Sally to show us exactly where the stairwells are, we’re going to get in the building and find the girls.”

CHAPTER26

Much later thatafternoon

“ ‘C’mon.”Mr. X pointed at Elaine. She and the girls had been moved to another room, this one with a table and chairs and were permitted to keep on the lights. The fast food served was barely edible to Elaine, but the girls gobbled it as if they were starving, just like Martin.

“What do you want with me?” she asked.

“You’re going to get ready to meet someone,” Mr. X. said. “Someone who’s been waiting to meet you a long time and you need to look your best.”

Big Daddy. He’s taking me to meet Big Daddy.Elaine returned the man’s stare. “What if I don’t want to meet this person?” she asked. “What if I’d rather stay here with the girls?”

“The man gets what he wants,” Mr. X. sneered. “And if you don’t come with me, I’ll make you watch me beat one of these girls. That tall one over there who looks a lot like you. I could start with her.”

“No,” Elaine said quickly. “I’ll go. Just don’t hurt them, please.” In the few hours they’d had together, the girls had poured out their hearts to Elaine, their stories so similar to Martin’s, and all wanting the same thing.

They wanted to go home.

She stood from her place at the table and walked to the door, waiting for Mr. X. He started to put his hand on her arm, but she jerked back. “I can walk to wherever you’re taking me on my own, thank you very much,” she said, channeling Dame Maggie Smith’s dowager countess fromDownton Abbey.

“I’m gonna enjoy watching you being taken down, you snooty bitch,” Mr. X. growled. “Move.”

He grabbed her arm again and shoved her into the hall, slamming the door behind them. Once in the elevator, it only rose to the fourth floor and they exited onto a carpeted floor. Still holding her, Mr. X. opened a door across from the elevator and kicked it open.

Along the walls were racks and racks of colorful dresses in dozens of fabrics glittering like a spring rainbow. Another rack held an assortment of shoes. A skinny woman in a chartreuse evening gown cut low enough to show everything God had blessed her with, belted with a thick yellow sash, stood to one side, arms folded. Elaine’s arrival did not seem to improve her sour mood.

“Get her ready, Josie,” Mr. X. ordered. “And if she gives you any trouble, slap her silly. But don’t bruise her face or leave any marks on it. The Boss hates ugly women.”

He left and apprehension tightened Elaine’s muscles into knotted coils. Josie’s examination of her was one of pure hate.

“How can you do this?” Elaine asked her. “Help hurt innocent children and young girls?”

“Pick out a dress,” Josie ordered, ignoring Elaine’s question. “I’ll do your hair and make-up and then you can put on the dress. And take off your underwear. Big Daddy likes things au naturel, know what I mean?”

“I can do my own hair and make-up,” Elaine argued, cringing at the thought of this woman putting her hands on her.

Josie advanced, her gaze trained on Elaine’s face. When she was inches away, she grabbed Elane by the collar and produced a very lethal looking knife from behind her back and placed the blade’s tip at Elaine’s jugular.

“You’ll wish I’d kill you by the time Big Daddy finishes with you,” she snarled. “Now go pick out a dress, a dark purple one, low cut to show your boobs and sheer enough to show everything else. Really high heels too, though you’re tall enough already. And hurry up. I ain’t got all night and Big Daddy will be here soon. He hates waiting.”

She shoved Elaine towards the racks and trying to swallow her fear, Elaine slowly headed toward the shimmering garments as she listened to the sound of a starting rain hit the roof.

An hourlater at the safehouse.

“Okay,you have your body armor, courtesy of Brotherhood Protectors and heat seeking devices strapped to your arms, also from BP” Grant Miller spoke to the men and women of the KPD, assembled in the safehouse’s security room, weapons in hand. It had taken awhile for them all to sneak inside and it was now completely dark.

Miller pointed at the building’s enlarged blueprint fixed to the wall. “Five stories, like this one. Five teams. Each team will cover one floor, using the staircase in the back of the building. Lots of rooms on each, but we don’t know how many are occupied or by how many, other than the victims we believe are being held there.”

“Do we know if they’re armed?” One officer asked.

“We don’t know for sure,” Miller admitted. “But since we believe it’s a handful of men and women guarding seven teenage, trafficked girls, we think that they possess minimal weapons at best. On the other hand, ladies and gentlemen, we have every reason to believe that Big Daddy is in that building–”

Gasps, low whistles, and exclamations of triumph sounded but Miller waved them to silence. “I know how you feel,” he said, re-gaining their attention. “No one wants that piece of filth more than I do. Big Daddy is no fool and he’s likely to have bodyguards. So, we’re going to be careful and do everything by the book, got it? Lieutenant Tyler? Do you have anything to say?”

Griff stood and forced his mind to stillness. “Let me say on behalf of the Brotherhood Protectors that I am damn glad you’re with us. Like most of you, Knoxville is my home and taking down Big Daddy and The Cadre–who Sergeant Miller tells me all of you know about–will only make this a better place to live.”

“Amen,” called Sergeant Owen and the word echoed around the room.

---