Colby Core. Debra Webb

      Chapter One

       Saturday, December 26, 10:00 p.m.

      New Orleans had three inches of snow.

      Thus far the month of December had been tagged as the coldest on record the past several decades, as well as for the most snowfall.

      Just his luck.

      Coming south in winter was generally associated with warmer temps. But not this trip. This time was different on a number of counts.

      When Victoria Colby-Camp had called Riley Porter into her office on Christmas Eve, he had known that the case would be different from any other she’d assigned him. He’d put aside his plans to go home to Kansas City and visit his folks.

      There was no client in this situation—not a single, official paying client anyway. The parents of the children Von Cassidy and Trinity Barrett rescued mere days ago had called Victoria from the hospital in Alabama where they had been reunited with their children and implored her to use the assets of her agency to stop this human trafficking network.

      In addition, Von had gotten a glimpse of a young woman, Tessa Woods, involved in the network who had gone missing almost six years ago. How many other missing teens and children would be rescued by infiltrating this organization?

      Victoria had made a solemn promise to do all she could to make that happen.

      The FBI in Chicago, New Orleans and Huntsville, Alabama, had formed a task force to get to the root of this evil network.

      Right there in the hospital, on Christmas Eve, a preliminary strategy had been put into place. One of the captured kidnappers, Russell “Buzz” Smith, had spilled his guts hours earlier in hopes of a lighter sentence. He’d sworn that this had been his first job with the trafficking organization. He was relatively young and seriously scared and straight-up desperate enough to do whatever was asked of him.

      With his cooperation an opportunity had presented itself. Since the names of those captured or fatally injured in the Huntsville showdown had not been released to the press at the time, it was entirely possible—as far as the public knew—that one of the bad guys had escaped.

      The end result had placed the Colby Agency in a very unique situation. Riley was the right age and possessed the necessary coloring—brown hair and gold eyes—and build to pass himself off as Buzz Smith. Those who had met Buzz were either dead or being detained. No one else in the organization had seen Buzz face-to-face or spoken directly to him. He had been hired by one of the kidnappers who’d lost his life in the course of the operation.

      Putting through a call to the contact provided by Buzz Smith had set an operation in motion. Posing as Buzz, Riley had been instructed by the contact to come to New Orleans and report all that he knew.

      Riley sipped the whiskey he’d ordered an hour ago. He needed to fit in with the not-so-low-key crowd partying the night away in this rebuilt warehouse-turned-bar on the fringes of downtown New Orleans. But he couldn’t risk dulling his awareness in any capacity, so he sipped the drink slowly and tipped the waitress whenever she stopped to ensure he stayed on her good side.

      Riley had made the call less than twenty-four hours ago. This place—the Rusty Hinge, a sleazy bar way, way off Bourbon Street—had been named as the rendezvous point by the contact. Buzz Smith had sworn that he’d given up all the information provided to him in the way of a briefing when hired, basically just enough to get Riley in the door.

      It would have to be enough.

      With only a scumbag’s word, Riley had arrived at the rendezvous location an hour early for the meeting with the network’s contact. Riley had taken a position with