Sidney Sheldon's Mistress of the Game by Sidney Sheldon, Tilly Bagshawe Page A

Agent Jones?”
    “As a matter of fact, sir, I do. These ”—Agent Edwards’s colleague handed his boss a much-thinner manila folder—“are the derelict or deserted premises.”
    “How many?”
    “Only eighteen of ’em.” Agent Jones smiled. “I can set up surveillance this afternoon, if you want.”
    “No. Not yet.”
    “But, sir, we have less than sixty hours. The deadline—”
    “You think I don’t know what the damn deadline is?”
    Agent Edwards was pissed. What kind of idiots was the Bureau hiring these days? The last thing he wanted was to have every warehouse in New Jersey crawling with feds. If these guys got spooked, they’d kill the kid on the spot.
    The Blackwell family had taken a huge risk involving the authorities at all. With their money and connections, they could easily have made the payment quietly and been done with it. Or hired their own private hit men to get these guys.
    But they hadn’t. They’d come to Agent Edwards with a case that would either make or break his career. Screwing up was not an option.
    Finding the kidnappers’ car had been a coup. Agent Edwards had matched the DNA on hairs found in the trunk to hairs from Lexi’s bedroom pillow. Two voice-distorted phone calls to Peter Templeton’s office were probably made from inside a large, industrial structure. The FBI’s tech team had analyzed the echo, if you could believe that shit.
    But it wasn’t enough. Agent Edwards didn’t want eighteen targets. He wanted one.
    “Send a chopper up. Not too low. It needs to sound like routine air traffic.”
    “Yes, sir. What are they looking for, exactly?”
    Agent Edwards looked at his junior witheringly.
    “The Emerald City of Oz. Jesus! Tire tracks , shit-for-brains. They’re looking for fucking tire tracks.”
     
    He never wanted to get involved.
    He was in a brothel in Phuket when the call came through, enjoying the attentions of a pair of eleven-year-old twins. Pussies so tight they could have cracked hazelnuts, tongues as eager and skillful as any of the high-end hookers he used back home. Bliss.
    He loved the Thais. Such an enlightened people.
    “Ten million bucks, split three ways. The house has third-world security. Trust me, you’ll be taking candy from a baby. Get in, get the kid, get the money, get out.”
    “I don’t need that kind of money.”
    Laughter. “You don’t have to need it. You just have to want it.”
    “I’m straight now, all right? Find someone else.”
    He closed his eyes in pleasure as the girls plundered his body with their tongues and fingers. At home, he paid prostitutes to dress up asschoolgirls. But nothing could compare to the real deal: the smooth skin; the hard, budding breasts; the hairless paradise between the legs…
    “You know, the little girl is adorable.”
    The voice on the phone wasn’t giving up.
    “She’s the spitting image of her mother. Everybody says so.”
    He hesitated. An image of Alexandra Blackwell in her youth popped into his mind. He remembered her well. The long, lithe legs tanned a perfect caramel. The cascade of blond hair. The trembling pale-pink lips, parting, smiling.
    Hello, Rory. It’s been a long time.
    “How old did you say she was?”
    One of the Thai twins circled her tongue around his anus. The other opened her mouth, cocooning his balls in a cave of warm, soft wetness. He moaned with pleasure.
    “She’s eight.”
    Eight years old.
    The spitting image of her mother.
    Everybody says so.
    “All right. I’ll do it. But this is the last—”
    He never got to finish. The line had already gone dead.
     
    “Have you found her?”
    Peter Templeton clutched Agent Edwards’s hand so tightly he nearly cut off the circulation.
    Agent Edwards thought: Poor bastard. He’s aged ten years in the last two weeks.
    “We think so. Yes. A facility in Jersey, near—”
    “When are you going in?”
    “Tonight. As soon as it’s dark.”
    “Can’t you do it now?”
    “Tonight will be better. This is