"Hands behind your head," she said. "Weave your fingers together and get down on your knees."
"Who… who are you?" the girl asked in a quivering voice.
Caitlin did not take her eyes or her aim off the man kneeling in front of her. "Well, I'm not the hotel dick, sweetheart. Why don't you get yourself dressed. You'll need warm clothes and decent walking shoes if you can find a pair."
"Are you here to rescue me?" The hope in her voice teetered on the verge of being both pathetic and heartbreaking.
"No," Caitlin answered. "Rescues are totally not my thing. But if you want to slip out the window when I'm done and try to get away, be my guest. You're a prisoner here, right?"
She could hear the girl moving off the bed. Her voice still sounded shaky and upset, which was only to be expected given that she had just witnessed Caitlin blow a man's brains out.
"We're all prisoners here," she said. "There's a bunch of us. But they keep us apart, don't like us talking, I guess. Are you going to help the other girls?"
Covering her prisoner, she moved a few feet to the left, where she could keep the young woman in sight. "No," she said. "I'm not going to help the other girls. I won't be here that long. And if you want to live, you'll get going, too."
"Are you going to kill him or something?" the young woman asked as she climbed into a pair of jeans she took from a dresser drawer.
"That depends on how helpful he is," Caitlin lied.
Her captive bristled at that. "You will get nothing from me, you whore."
"Dude, as the guy who was raping this young lady not five minutes ago, I think it's a little fucking disingenuous of you to be casting aspersions on my moral standing."
He frowned, apparently having trouble following her.
"Disingenuous. It means do as I fucking say or I'll shoot you in the face."
He opened his mouth to retort, and Caitlin did indeed shoot him, but in the hip, striding over quickly to launch one booted foot into his solar plexus as he spun to the floor. The snap kick drove all the air from his body, cutting off the scream that had begun to form in his throat. The woman cut off her own shriek of horror by jamming a couple of knuckles into her mouth. Caitlin quickly glanced at the door through which the bodyguard she'd killed just before had come, but she heard nothing in the hallway outside.
"Do you mind if I ask your name?" she asked in as soothing a voice as possible.
"Donna," replied the woman. "Donna Gambaro."
"Okay, Donna. Do you know if there are other guards on this floor? I haven't had a chance to check it out. Lucky you, yours was the first room I tried. That's why you need to close your windows. Even in a nice hotel like this one."
The Gambaro woman visibly attempted to compose herself. A train of emotions ran over her face. Fear. Shock. Rage. All them morphing together. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, pointing at the man who'd been using her for his pleasure.
"If you're worried about him hollerin', don't," she said. "You hear screaming like that all the time around here."
Caitlin took a second to examine the woman properly. She was half dressed now, buckling up her jeans and adding a gray T-shirt. This chick was not going to wait around for a second chance.
"So this was your room, Donna? This is where you stayed the whole time? Did they let you out at all? I'm trying to get a sense of what's waiting beyond that door, is all."
Donna pulled on an old jacket. It didn't fit and looked as though it might have belonged to a man.
"They caught me a month ago," she said, her voice faltering. "I was working salvage with my brother in Toronto. We were… freelancers."
Caitlin shrugged. What did she care about somebody looting a dead Canadian city?
"Your brother?" she asked.
"He's gone. They killed him when they took me."
Donna Gambaro looked like she was thinking about giving her captor a couple of kicks in the head to settle some of that debt.
"I'm sorry about your loss," said Caitlin, "but I have to ask for your help. I need you to focus, Donna. Have you been out of your room at all? Can you tell me about the setup here? How many men? What sort of security?"
Caitlin could see tears welling in the woman's eyes and knew she had very little time before she fell apart. She decided to try a different line of approach.
"I don't suppose you know the name of our friend here, do you?"
"I've heard his bodyguard call him Mister 'You Chick' or something," she said. "Something kinda foreign like that."
Keeping her gun trained on the man, who was moaning and snaking about in great pain, Caitlin powered up the PDA Velcroed to her gun arm.
"Sounds like 'You Chick,' you say? All right, let's see, then. That is ringing a bell for me."
She tried a few spelling combinations until the database threw up a possible match.
"Jukic? Does that sound right? Danton Jukic?"
He groaned as though she had struck him again, and Donna nodded enthusiastically as she wiped away a few tears.
"That's him. Rat bastard ass fucker. Not so fucking tough now, are you? Huh?"
Caitlin shifted position slightly to put herself between the two of them. Jukic was sweating profusely, and deep body tremors had taken hold of him. He was having trouble keeping his moans quiet.
"Are you like a cop or something?" Donna asked. She pointed at the PDA. "That looks like one of those computers they used to have in cop cars."
"No, I'm not a cop. They don't get to shoot people on general principles. Or torture them. You hear that, Jukic? We'll be moving along with the torture in a minute. Just so you know."
His groan was noticeably louder, and he kicked out with one leg as though trying to push himself toward the door. Donna Gambaro fetched a pair of running shoes from the same dresser drawer in which she had stored her jeans. She sat on the end of the bed to pull them on. Caitlin could see that her hands were shaking, but she was doing her best. She kept the gun on Jukic as she spoke to Gambaro.
"Do they have guards in the hallways, Donna, do you know?"
Donna paused in the job of trying to untangle a knotted shoelace.
"Not always, no," she said. "Only the big guys get bodyguards. Sometimes some of the guys who came through here were just fighters or soldiers, you know. They got sent here as a reward. I talked with some of them. They weren't all bad. Some were pigs, of course. You never knew what you were getting. But that's men all over, isn't it? Anyway, no. There's not always guards in the halls."
Caitlin fetched a couple of photographs of Bilal Baumer from one of her pockets.
"You ever see this guy come in?" she asked.
"No," Donna said, after a brief look. She began searching the drawers, as if looking for something lost in the clothing. Jukic levered himself up on one elbow and gave the impression of a man who was about to start protesting again, leading Caitlin to drive another kick into his guts to quiet him down.
"That's good to know," she said. "Now, Donna Gambaro, you look to me like someone who can handle herself. That's good, too. The thing is I have to ask old Jukic a few questions, and… well, things are probably going to get ugly. Very ugly. I'm afraid I can't let you go until I have the answers I need. When I get them, we can both leave together, out the same window I came in. I'll be on my way then. But if I were you, I'd probably get my ass hunkered down somewhere nearby as quickly as possible. Do you understand?"
"Miss," Donna Gambaro said as she located a locket that obviously meant something to her, "I don't know who you are, but I used to wait tables at Hooters. I know when things are about to get ugly and when it's time to go. You won't need to tell me twice. Are you going to torture him?" she asked, pointing at Jukic.