Unfound: A Mollie Stryker Thriller

PART ONE

Pandemic

Chapter 1

Present Day

Okay, I want this asshole healthy enough for questioning, shouted Mollie Stryker, a handsome woman with soft caring eyes and the demeanor of a pit bull.

Tense, she wore a Kevlar vest over black Nomex coveralls, her H&K P2000 9mm drawn and held next to her right leg with authority. Moving briskly with her were six other Seattle PD cops; one of them held a steel battering ram, all of them wore bullet-proof vests and black coveralls. On the coveralls, one arm patch indicated they worked out of the West Precinct; the other patch identified them as members of the SMPU, Special Missing Persons Unit. Mollie and the cops proceeded with quiet precision through the dim, cream-colored cinderblock corridor toward the dingy door marked with the number 12; one of the metal numbers were missing and readable because it hadn’t been painted over.

She had to keep her focus.

They had tracked the kidnapper suspect—believed to be armed and dangerous—to this dilapidated apartment building on the city’s outskirts. They’d been in his wake for several weeks.

One lead had taken her to an old barn on an abandoned farm ten miles outside the city limits. They’d found rotting clothes: an old pair of girl’s jeans, a blouse and a pair of boots. Forensics said the clothing was years old. Mollie knew they could have belonged to anyone—including the former owners of the defunct farm. CSI found no usable DNA in the barn. There’s was nothing there connected to the suspect.

A dead end.

Then an anonymous call took them to a motel room in downtown Seattle. That turned out to be a dead hooker. Some john had beaten the poor young girl to death with a ball peen hammer. Her face was a bloody pulp and it took DNA and dental records to identity the seventeen year old. There was nothing at the scene connected to the suspect.

Another dead end.

Then they caught a break—an eye witness saw a man take a young girl from a Seattle Mall parking lot, put her in the trunk of a car and speed away. The witness gave her a partial license plate number which lead them to ID the man as Simon Jenkins, a repeat sex offender specializing in 13-15 year old teenage girls, and recently released after serving five years in prison.

The reason for this little visit.

She gave hand signals for the cops to line up on either side of the door.

Then Mollie gave the silent countdown…one…two…and shouted, Now! The ram slammed into the white wooden door and knocked it flat to the floor. Mollie moved past the guy to lead the way. The other police officers were right behind her, shouting all at once for shock effect: some screamed put your hands up, others shouted down, down, down! Some growled like Marine grunts in boot camp and all of it mixed in with the sound of hard rubber boot soles and heavy breathing before the shout of clear, clear, clear came from three separate parts of the two bedroom apartment.

Then they all slowly relaxed.

Crap, he must be out prowling, offered Mollie.

Then bam! The guy bursts from an inconspicuously hidden closet and swung his gun up and ripped off three shots right into Mollie’s chest, knocking her flat on her ass.

Every other cop gun in the room swung toward the shooter and gunfire roared for five seconds. It sounded like Fourth of July fireworks until somebody screamed, Cease fire—he’s down!

Mollie looked like she was dead. Everyone stood around and waited, afraid to check her pulse. Then her eyes slowly cranked open and she winced in pain. A couple of cops helped Mollie up from the grease-stained carpet, three bullets had singed her coveralls, all stopped by the vest. She got to her feet, was a bit wobbly, and stood over the suspect in the corner of the room.

He was propped against the wall like a Raggedy Ann Doll splattered with blood, flesh and brains, his chest chewed up like raw hamburger meat, an image right out of a bad horror film. His weapon, a Glock 17, was still in his hand. The room’s musty smell was now diluted with the fresh scent of blood and cordite.

Fuck, fuck, fuck! shouted Mollie. She bent down and looked at the gun, Police piece, she said as she stood up and looked around the room. How the fuck did this lowlife piece of shit get his hands on a law enforcement weapon?

She didn’t expect an answer and everyone in the room knew it but one came anyway from one officer across the room, Three words, lieutenant, in-ter-net.

They all stared at her, hoping to break the tense moment, then Mollie ordered, Read him his rights, and the room exploded with laughter.

Mollie strutted from the room like a proud peacock. Once outside and alone, she nearly ran for her department issue black Chevy Tahoe SUV. It was raining harder than when they arrived, so she shielded her face from the rare September downpour with an arm. She got inside, snapped the mike from the car radio then dropped it, overtaken by a sudden rush of emotions. She put her head into her hands and cried. They’d been tracking this pert for days and now she couldn’t ask him one single goddamn question.

Shit.

She pulled herself together, pressed the talk button on the radio and said, Dispatch, Lieutenant Stryker, patch me through to the D.A.

*****

Sam Taylor was startled out of his light sleep by the vibrating iPhone. He looked over at this wife with curlers and flannel pajamas who had the annoying habit of snoring. He’d considered earplugs but knew he’d never hear the end of that. He scooped the phone from the night stand, swung his feet out of the bed to the walnut hardwood floor and headed for the bathroom. He looked at the phone screen and the caller ID and then hissed to himself as he hit the answer app.

This had better be good, Stryker, I was making love to wife, he said as he closed the bathroom door and flicked on the light. He frowned at his disheveled image in the big mirror that ran the length of the two sink black slate counter and thought he looked tired.

Sorry to bother you while you get your freak on, Sam, but I wanted you to hear this from me, said Mollie. We found Jenkins… She let her voice trail off.

And? he asked, baring his teeth to the mirror as if checking for cavities.

And the son-of-bitch shot me, so we had to put him down.

Sam took in a breath, Obviously he didn’t kill you, Lieutenant, his tone laced with disappointment.

You don’t have to be happy about that.

He ran his hand through his jet black hair, "What I’m not happy about Ms.—he emphasized the feminist title with disdain—Stryker is this guy was the best lead you’ve had in months and now he’s deceased. What am I going to tell the Mayor? What am I going to tell the media?"

Mollie took in a breath and slowly let it out, You know, Sam, I don’t really give a happy fuck what you tell either of them!

She hit the end button on her Blackberry. She stared out the wet window shield of the SUV as the Coroner’s office rolled a gurney with the body bag from the motel to a van. She turned on the windshield wipers so she could see them better. The rubber wipers squealed a bit over the glass and settled into a back and forth rhythm that seemed to make Mollie’s headache worse. She began to feel the pain from being shot in the chest, the adrenaline rush wearing off.

The officers on her team stood near their vehicles, smoking, cupping their cigarettes from the rain. She thought how could they smoke despite knowing every inhale was killing them slowly?

What the hell, we’re all dying slowly.

She got out and walked over to them. The warm rain battered her face but she didn’t bother to shield herself from it. She felt like it was washing away her anger. When she reached them she said, Sorry guys.

They all stood silent for a moment and watched a brand new unmarked black Chevy sedan rolled to a stop ten yards from where they stood. Detective Sergeant Frank Gross, a stocky man with a beer gut, graying hair and the perpetual expression of a cynic, got out, slammed the door, flipped up the collar of his London Fog.

I miss my Crown Vic, he mumbled to no one in particular as he approached the group.

Sorry you had to come all the way down here for nothing, Frank, Mollie said as he arrived.

No sweat, Mollie, I wasn’t sleeping worth a damn anyway.

They exchanged stares. Frank Gross had been assigned to her detail from the very beginning. He knew she was a bit green and he’d volunteered to teach her how to navigate Seattle PD politics. He enjoyed her penchant for profanity and irreverence toward authority and had grown to like her—like a big brother would—and he felt she liked him despite they were opposites on so many ways.

So, now what? he asked her.

We find another suspect.

You still think these kidnappings are the work of one man? he asked as his eyes found each man and woman on the team for a silent hello.

It’s a pattern. I can’t see how multiple perpetrators could have the same exact M.O.

Frank looked out across the motel’s empty parking lot at the city skyline in the distance and smiled thinly, Okay, let’s see if it all stops now that this guy is shaking hands with Lucifer.

Mollie nodded to him and the rest of the team and headed back to her vehicle. She felt numb and didn’t care that she was nearly soaked to the bone. She watched the crime scene investigator’s van arrive. She hoped they’d find Jenkins’s DNA this time. Maybe there’d be other useful evidence in the scumbag’s apartment.

Probably not.

Too many dead ends so far to be hopeful.

Her team drove off as the Coroner’s van hauled away the body of what everyone hoped was the guy behind dozens of missing teenage girls.

~~~~~

Chapter 2

When I look into the bathroom mirror, I don’t always like what I see.

I hate the freckles that stain my nose and cheeks. Cute everyone calls me. Well, I don’t think I’m so cute. I don’t want to be cute. I hate the word.

Cats are cute.

Dogs are cute.

Babies are cute.

I want to be pretty.

I’m twelve years old, almost thirteen—a teenager. When do I get to be pretty instead of cute? Maybe when these bee stings hiding under my training bra become more than a mouthful. Gawd, I’m taller than all the other girls my age, why do they have such big tits?

I don’t know why I make such a big deal about being pretty and having big boobs for boy’s to admire. I don’t even like them. They smell like dirty gym socks and scratch their balls when they think no one’s watching.

I wonder if I hate boys because of him.

I don’t know why Mom married that creep. He’s so polite to everyone when she’s around then when she’s gone he turns into a horny dickhead, smiling at me and licking his lips like I was a piece of hard candy.

I’m locking my door tonight like I always do when Mom’s not home.

Why does she have to work the night shift all the time?

I just don’t trust that asshole.

~~~~~

Chapter 3

Kevin Anthony Hawkins was one year out of Harvard Law. He’d passed the bar the first time and had worked for a prestigious New York firm but found it hard to adjust to the straight-laced atmosphere. A friend had referred the young man to Victor James, his present employer. African-American, Kevin was dressed in jeans, t-shirt and a Sean Jean hoodie. Upon meeting him, most people thought he was a professional athlete but he’d given up being a defensive back after college.

Too small for the NFL, he told people. The truth was he understood it was a hard way to make a living. He’d gotten a tryout with the New York Jets and got his knee blown out in the first week of training camp.

Thank God it wasn’t that year the Jets were featured on the HBO’s Hard Knocks series.

Several surgeries later, he had to accept the principle that it was better to live off your brain then your brawn.

So, he accepted a full-ride scholarship offered by Harvard Law, a hookup made possible by one of his old professors. Though Kevin had worked his way through Princeton on an athletic scholarship, he’d retained his grew-up-on-the-streets-of-Bedford-Stuyvesant demeanor all the way through law school. It drove the prim and proper professors crazy when he’d answer legal question correctly in class using street slang. His classmates loved it.

He sat in his silver 2000 5-Series BMW and watched the four teenage girls giggling in front of a night club. His head bobbed to the beat of Snoop Dogg’s Gangsta’s Luv emanating from the Sirius-XM radio he’d installed where the manufacturers radio used to be. The interior was dark blue leather with cracks of age showing.

He shook his head, not in disgust to the lyrics, but shame as he couldn’t help but to stare at the young girls’ tight bodies in short spandex dresses and think how he’d like to tap that ass. Each girl had different colored hair—green, blue, orange, and yellow—to match the color of their iridescent clothes.

He’d pulled out the photo sheet and compared the missing girls on it to the group he was watching.

No matches.

Despite that, he’d picked this slut pack as he liked to call them as his bait du noir. He hoped that they would lure in whoever were snatching young girls. His boss had several cases of missing teenage girls and had come up with nothing. Since the agency was being paid handsomely by the wealthy parents who hired their services, they expected results.

This was the third stop the girls had made tonight. He’d first spotted them at a night spot that catered to the rich and famous; well as famous as you could get in Seattle—not exactly L.A. or New York. The bouncer at the door turned them away immediately. He’d guessed there were too many old rich white guys cheating on their wives in there to have what looked like their teenage daughters looking over their shoulders while they ran their hands under the spandex dresses of their escorts.

Then they’d piled into a black Ford SUV and drove downtown to another club that was more their speed; a place that catered to teenagers. But Kevin knew they wouldn’t stay there long once they found out no alcohol was served by the establishment. They were out of there in less than thirty minutes.

He followed them to another night spot—Destiny Five in neon lights—just two blocks away and parked across the street, spaces were plentiful at that time night. He looked at the clock set in the worn leather dashboard, it was nearly midnight. When the girls went inside the club, he cranked the engine and headed home.

He’d come back at closing time to complete the night’s stakeout.

~~~~~

Chapter 4

Mama, she’s lying, Blair Rhodes, screamed; she looked very mature for a thirteen year old.

Her mother, Liz Rhodes, sat behind the wheel of the Chevy Cruze; puffy bags under her eyes betrayed her attractiveness. She was pissed, "With her own eyes, the principal saw you French kissing Jason in the hallway. Really, Blair!?"

They had ridden in abject silence until Liz pulled the car into the mall’s immense parking lot.

Blair pulled at the colorful French scarf—her father had given it to her when he’d returned from a business trip to Paris—hanging out of her bejeweled designer bag, That bitch, she mumbled under her breath.

Why, Blair? That’s all I want to know. Your father and I—

You talk about him like he’s here. It’s sick. Give it up, Mom—Daddy’s dead!

Oh, please, does everything have to be about your father dying?

You know what, you’re jealous! You don’t have a man and you don’t want me to have one!

You’re thirteen years old, for Christ sakes. Liz pulled in her anger as much as she could, You wouldn’t know what to do with a man if he landed on your head. And stop raising your voice to me.

I know more than you think, said Blair to herself.

Liz pulled the car into a parking space, killed the engine and somehow held her temper. Why are you in such a big hurry to grow up?

In a mocking tone, Blair answered, Why do you keep Daddy’s ashes in a jar on your night stand?

Okay, that’s it; we’ll finish this when we get home.

As Liz opened the car door to get out, Blair said in a steady voice, I’m not going to cry every night like you. Her tone was mature and scornful. I’m going to find someone to love me. I’m not going to be alone.

Liz got out and slammed the car door. Blair’s eyes brimmed with tears as she watched her mother move around the front of the car then yank open the passenger side door. Get out! Liz shouted. Her vision became blurry and she thought she might faint any second.

I want to stay in the car.

I said get the hell out of the car!

Blair got out. She was wearing a trashy Lady Gaga-style revealing outfit that irked Liz and that was why they were there. In fact, her daughter’s entire wardrobe irked Liz.

We’re going shopping.

No, I’ll wait here.

Blair…

Mom…

Liz lost it and grabbed Blair with both hands on each of the teen’s arms and shook her as hard as she could. Several shoppers passing gawked at her and moved on quickly. Liz was in a rage when she finally caught herself. But she managed to pull in it. "I’m