Chapter 47

FORTY-SEVEN

Grinning, Beth punched the air when a response came into the chat room from Shoebridge. "He took the bait."

They'd been waiting patiently for over an hour, and she'd been on the brink of giving up. She scanned the page and then looked at Styles. "He's complaining that he's doing all the work. He mentions organizing auctions and distributing photographs to members as well as working night shift. He also says that he doesn't have any beds to take to the cabin where he's keeping the girls and will need more but he doesn't want to attract attention to himself by going into town to buy them. He suggests collecting them from the doctor's cabin." Beth looked away from the screen. "I assume it's closer to him than town."

"I figure you tell him that's fine. Go ahead pick up the extra beds he needs from the cabin." Styles met her gaze. "Maybe add how pleased he'll be with the new delivery and see what he says?"

Beth typed a suitable reply and they sat back and waited for Shoebridge to answer. She smiled. "He's going to get that done before work and he also mentioned that the auction that they had planned for the first of next month is going to be a money spinner. They have overseas and out-of-state interest. He suggests increasing the minimum bid as the demand is increasing by the day."

"Maybe tell him that they can discuss that when he sees him tomorrow." Jo leaned on the desk and looked at her. "Mention that he's late for his appointment so he has to go. You need to keep this conversation as short as possible before he discovers that you are not the doctor."

Nodding, Beth cut the conversation short. "I've added for him not to forget to send me the address for the delivery." She chuckled. "Here it is. We have the address. Kalo, can you give us a location, please?"

"Yeah, I've got it." Kalo smiled at them and a satellite map popped up on Beth's screen. " It's in Rainbow, not far from Rattlesnake Creek. You could drive from there. If he works nights, maybe you'd have a better chance of checking out his place when he's out."

As Styles and Carter wrote down the coordinates, Beth's mind moved into planning mode. She turned to Styles. "We need to move on this right away. How long will it take us to get home?"

"Some time." Styles pushed a notebook inside his jacket pocket. "We'll leave now for the ranch. Fly back to the Helena airport. Preflight checks will take time. Once we're back home, we'll change into tactical gear, night-vision goggles, and then drive to Rainbow and try and locate this guy's cabin." He looked at Carter. "I figure we'd get there around ten—if we can find his place in the dark."

"Yeah, it will take that long to get there." Carter chewed on a toothpick, frowning. "It would be faster if we took one of the choppers to Rainbow but then we'd announce our arrival."

"We'll drive." Styles rubbed the scar on his chin. "If we find any kids, we'll need to transport them back to town or Rattlesnake Creek. We'll also need a suitable vehicle to transport Shoebridge or whatever his name is this week."

Beth had closed down her computer and thanked Kalo during the discussion. She went to Styles' side. "You'll need Cash and maybe bring Nate along as well in case anyone needs medical attention."

"I don't figure we should risk Nate in a raid. If Shoebridge is at home, things could get nasty." Styles frowned. "TJ would be better and Cash can deputize him. Maybe have them as backup? I'd really prefer if they watched the road in case Shoebridge slips past us."

Agreeing Beth nodded. "Yeah, that would work."

"We can discuss all this on the way." Carter pulled on his coat and gloves and whistled to Zorro. "We'll meet you back at the ranch." He looked at Beth. "I'll make sure the bag you left in my truck is on the chopper."

Beth smiled at him. "Thanks." She turned to Styles. "I'm good to go."

From the moment they stepped from the hotel, Beth noticed a distinct change in Styles' demeanor. His shoulders had stiffened and his mouth formed a straight line, as if he was trying to prevent saying something to her. He drove like a man possessed, weaving in and out of traffic and taking the narrow backroads to the ranch at high speed. Agreed, Carter was nowhere in sight, but Bear needed a potty break before they left and they had fallen a little behind. "Is there a problem?"

"Nope." Styles didn't look at her and they slid around a corner on a dirt road in a cloud of dust and loose gravel.

Gripping the side of her chair, Beth turned to look at him. "Well, if you keep driving like a maniac, we'll never live to arrest Shoebridge. I'm sure you want to see him brought to justice."

"I'd like to see him dead." Styles laughed but it wasn't meant to be funny. "I'm having this inner turmoil. It's FBI agent versus brother. One part of me wants to see him locked up for life; the other part of me wants to beat him to death with my bare hands."

Relieved that he wasn't going to question her about the death of the doctor and why she had been so careless searching the room, she puffed out a sigh. It wasn't as if she could tell him. It had been her only chance to make an excuse for any latent DNA that Wolfe discovered after she'd killed the doctor. She turned in her seat to look at him. "If it helps any, I feel the same way, but Ginny isn't my sister. After seeing the images he had in his possession, there's no saving a man like that. There's no way he can be rehabilitated or whatever the do-gooders believe, and from the files I pulled from the doctor's laptop, the pair of them orchestrated an entire selection of horrific uses of a child. He should get the death penalty and so should a great deal of the men connected with them. They all have code names, but we can lay traps for them."

"How so?" Styles' shoulders relaxed as they headed into the ranch.

Beth smiled. "They would travel across the country to get to a kid. Many of them have been trapped by cops pretending to be kids online. If they believe they can get to them—the kids, I mean—they'll go to any lengths. Trapping them by, say, holding a live auction where they get to actually see the kids, which is something they do. We could round up fifty of them at one time. It all takes careful planning and held at a place they believe is safe. I'm sure we have people in the FBI capable of taking the entire ring down, piece by piece. The trick is making everyone believe that it's business as usual."

"Will you help coordinate that? I'm sure it will take a ton of people to keep something like this running." Styles stopped outside the ranch house and looked at her. "We'd need to involve all the countries this network has infiltrated. I know they have task forces for this type of thing." He shrugged. "I'm so glad you're an expert in cybercrime. This is way over my field of expertise."

Beth gathered her things. "You just concentrate on finding Shoebridge and saving Shiloh. Leave the tech part of it to me and Kalo."

"You got it." Styles slid from behind the wheel and opened the door for Bear. "I just hope he resists arrest."