“Los Angeles and Dallas, Texas.”
She traced a finger on the smudged screen. “We used to cater solely to the Midwest, but the bosses want the company to grow domestically. LA is new, and we get overseas shipments out of there. The Lansdale branch moved to Dallas in the Spring. Bigger market.” She scrolled through several pages of lines. “Nope. Nothing on LA. The farthest west Delbert’s gone is Phoenix and the one stop in Texas was Dallas last week.”
Shit. So much for that theory. He noticed a gap in the arrival and departure dates for the Phoenix and Dallas trips. “Check out the dates and times when he arrived at both and when he left. Does it mean anything?”
Sheri growled. “Maybe—especially with Delbert. Let me check something.” She minimized the spreadsheet and clicked through other folders. “The drivers know we have GPS on the trucks, and they can disable them if they want to go somewhere we’d frown on like a strip club or something. If they’re smart, they park in a truck stop and take a cab, but I don’t think Delbert’s that smart. What they don’t know is we have a backup GPS unit on the engine.”
“Smart.”
“We don’t have to use it often, but…bingo.” Another spreadsheet popped up. “Same trip Delbert went to Phoenix, he made an off-book trip to Los Angeles. And there’s another trip to Lansdale. Why would he go there? We cleared out the office months ago.”
“I was hoping you could tell me.”
“Well, whatever it is, dumbass Delbert went there.”
“Can you print it off for me?”
After handing him the print outs, Sheri checked her watch. “Anything else? I gotta go get my kid. You can come back tomorrow if you need more. The owner is going to have a fit over this.”
Jake fished out a card with his number. “I’d appreciate it if you could keep it under wraps for now. I’m working with law enforcement, and we don’t want to spook the bad guys. If you feel like you have to tell him, have him give me a call.”
“What do we do about Delbert?”
“Nothing. He’s in custody in Branson and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.”
Five minutes later, Jake headed to his apartment to shower and change clothes. He relayed his findings to Bear, who was running out the door to follow-up on a supposed Shane sighting. He didn’t sound hopeful. Jake’s body tingled with excitement to know they had Delbert by the balls now. But, would it translate to a lead on finding Shane Langston? After what Shane did at the house, Jake planned on putting a world of hurt on him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Thanks to his meth-addicted mother, Willie Banks wasn’t hard to find. His white, vinyl-sided trailer hugged a tree line on the back edge of the Paradise Falls Mobile Home Park. The community wasn’t a paradise, contained no falls and, for that matter, wasn’t much of a park. Sitting near the junction of I-35 and Highway 96 in between Wichita and Andover, the collection of cheap, mobile houses screamed desperation against the sounds of cars and semi’s whizzing past, no doubt heading toward a better life somewhere. Willie’s trailer slumped on the far end with three empty slots between his trailer and the next. A dilapidated, yellow school bus with no wheels blocked the view of any neighboring prying eyes. It was perfect.
After spending the morning slinking through back roads to Wichita, Shane smoked sat behind the tinted windows of the darkened sedan, listening to a classic rock station at low volume, hoping the car battery didn’t die. He should try and quit the cancer sticks again. Then again, he could be hunted and shot to death at any moment so what was the point? Journey’s “Escape” turned to Boston’s “Long Time,” then to Springsteen’s “Born to Run.” He marveled how the trio of song titles captured the last week of his life perfectly.
As he lit another cigarette off the butt of his last, his thoughts drifted to his brother Danny. Danny gave Shane his first smoke. They’d crawled out Danny’s window on a warm summer night when Shane was twelve. Their mother banged some guy she picked up at a local watering hole, and the two brothers grew sick of the moans from down the hall. Danny had lit a Marlboro and handed it to Shane. He could still feel that first bite of smoke hitting his lungs. Danny crossed Shane’s mind often in prison, and the rumination flittered again through Shane’s brain that maybe he shouldn’t have shoved the letter opener in Danny’s throat. But his brother betrayed him. Broke the trust which was unforgiveable. If that was true, then why did Shane keep thinking about it?
The door to the trailer opened, and a blonde in ripped jeans and a pink tank top headed toward a green, plastic garbage bin. Their dented and weathered Ford Explorer slumped in the noon sun, parked on the slab of concrete abutting the bin under a covered car port.
From a distance, he wouldn’t kick her out of bed for eating crackers. Early twenties, solid build, better-than-average-sized rack, and an ass which would be good for a few more years before its inevitable, drooping decline. A waitress at the diner where Willie worked. Probably where they met. When he’d pulled into town earlier, Shane had watched her through the diner’s bay window. He’d been tempted to go in and grab a slice of pie, but that would be stupid. Willie might spot him which would spoil the fun.
Shane couldn’t wait to see Willie’s expression when he popped in. The little ingrate wouldn’t even give him the courtesy of looking at him during the trial. His pock-marked face locked forward on the prosecutor as he spewed every little secret he knew about Shane—the drugs he dealt, the people Willie suspected Shane killed and an accurate account of how Shane chopped up Bub Sievers with an ax in front of him.
The Feds seized everything, froze Shane’s bank accounts, auctioned off his car dealership and his houses. He owned nothing except a raging, vengeful fire burning in his gut. In truth, the prosecutors had enough to bury Shane a hundred times even without Willie’s testimony, but still…Willie broke the trust.
Growing up in a house with a drunk mother and absentee father, Shane learned early on trusting people got you hurt, and promises were empty. The number of people he’d trusted in his life were few, and Willie Banks had been one of them. The fact the little shit burned him ate at his gut. While prison bars clanged, and the shouts of his fellow inmates bounced off the miles of concrete, Shane thought of ways he’d make Willie pay for betraying him.
The girl slammed the lid on the garbage bin and darted back inside the trailer. Shane stubbed out the smoke in the ashtray and slipped from the car. He kept the knife low against his leg as he walked across the barren street, the blade whispering against his blue jeans, the brisk afternoon air biting its way through the thin windbreaker he squeezed over his bulky build. The striations of muscles in his forearm ached from the tension as he strangled the knife handle.
He hugged the side of Willie’s trailer as he crept toward the door, his eyes on the door handle and ears perked for any sounds other than the hum of traffic from the highway. From inside the trailer, audience cheers of a televised game show and thumps of feet in between muffled voices. He applied a delicate twist to the front door handle, mouth dry as it turned easily.
He cracked the door and odors of cigarette smoke, whiskey, and fried meat wafted through. Letting the door swing wide, Shane pressed against the trailer, waiting for the cold air and outside light to catch someone’s notice as it split the darkness inside the trailer.
“Goddamn it, Darcy,” Willie’s voice sounded. “You left the door open again. There’s a fuckin’ maniac on the loose, and you leave the door open.”
A southern twang, pitched high responded, “He’s gonna be after you, not me, so get off your ass.”
“I’m watchin’ the Price is Right. You left the door open; you close it.”
An exaggerated stomp of feet pounded the trailer floor, and Darcy’s blonde head poked out, bending forward to grab the door handle and pull it shut. Shane moved like a cat and wrapped a thick arm around her neck, slapped a hand across her mouth and yanked her out of the trailer. The woman tried to screech against his hand and bucked to get free, ceasing when Shane jabbed t
he tip of the knife against her throat. He guided her through the trailer door, his heart thundering.
Willie slumped on a plaid couch with thin cushions screaming garage sale at best, left by someone’s curb for trash day at worst. A Glock sat on the end table pointing toward the door. Willie’s auburn hair hung longer than when he testified against Shane in court. It draped over his eyes, which were glued to the television. Those eyes shot wide and the blood drained from his face when he spotted Shane holding the knife to Darcy’s throat. Terror, utter and complete terror. The look alone almost made the time Shane spent in the Jefferson City hell hole worth it. Almost.
Willie reached for the pistol and Shane pressed the point of the knife into Darcy’s throat. She whimpered as a hot tear dripped onto Shane’s wrist. “You don’t want to do that, Willie. You touch the gun and I slit her throat. Besides, you never were a very good shot. You cooperate, and she might live to see another day.”
Willie swallowed, jaw trembling as he eased back to the couch. “I didn’t have a choice in court. I swear to God. They wanted me—”
“Shhh. Relax, Willie. We’ve got plenty of time to catch up.”
* * *
Three hours later, after scrubbing the blood from his hands with the intensity of a surgeon prepping for an operation, Shane slouched on Willie’s couch nursing a beer from the refrigerator. He’d thought Willie would burst a blood vessel from fighting the ropes binding him to the chair while Shane choked the life from his girlfriend. Surprisingly, Shane had garnered little satisfaction in slicing up Willie with the butcher knife from the kitchen. The reality couldn’t match his prison cell fantasies.
The tell-tale rumble of a Harley drew close before coming to a stop outside the trailer. Shane emerged into the late afternoon sun and hugged a towering, broad-chested man sporting a buzz cut. Tattoos covered the biker’s muscled arms like sleeves as they poked from his Blood Devils vest.
“How you doing, Niebruegge? It’s been a while.”
Niebruegge leaned back on his bike and lit a cigarette. He studied the trailer. “Thought you wanted me to help you take out whoever was inside.”
“Turns out I didn’t need it after all. Just Willie and his girlfriend.”
“You at least enjoy yourself in there?”
Shane spit toward the trailer. “Not as much as I thought, but it was good enough.”
Niebruegge peeled off his sunglasses. “We even now?”
“As soon as you take care of those two in there.”
Niebruegge’s eyes narrowed to slits. “You didn’t say nothin’ about getting rid of bodies.”
A corner of Shane’s mouth curled up. “Let’s call it duties as otherwise assigned.”
“I’m on a motorcycle, man. How am I supposed to get rid of bodies with a bike in broad fucking daylight?”
“Use your imagination. You do this and I’ll forget about the shipment you screwed up.”
Niebruegge’s shoulders fell as he pinched the burning cherry from his smoke and dropped the butt in his pocket. “Shit.”
Shane patted Niebruegge on the back and strutted to his car across the street. He rolled away from the trailer, the descending sunlight reflecting off the windshield as it disappeared in a haze of dust.
With the appetizer of Bennett and entrée of Willie consumed, the dessert course awaited—Jake and Bear.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jake arrived at Elio’s just before five o’clock to meet Christine from Restoration House after finding her number on their website. The charming coffee house wedged in a depressed neighborhood along Kansas City’s Independence Avenue. Jake had tracked his share of delinquents to this area for Keats over the years. Though familiar with the high drug and prostituted area, he hadn’t been in the coffee shop. Hand-scrawled chalk menus covered the wall, and a group of patrons huddled in the corner over steaming cups and Bibles. Jake scanned the dozen tables in the shop, but nobody matched Christine’s picture from the Restoration House website.
Tired after wasting a day scrambling around Kansas City hitting up any informant and lowlife who could have a potential connection to Shane, he needed caffeine. He also needed a confidence boost and a shower after receiving nothing for his efforts but blank stares and possible exposure to tuberculosis from one particular drug dealer coughing up a lung in an alley.
He scanned the menu trying to figure out if there was a way to order a simple black coffee when a visually impaired woman with a white cane tapped her way toward the counter. She appeared to be in her late forties with long, straight flaxen hair draping across her shoulders. She edged off the path, inches from running into a table when Jake stepped over and offered his elbow.
“Thank you,” she sighed. “Been a long day.”
Jake guided her to the counter. “I’ll have a black coffee and get this lady whatever she wants.”
The woman wrinkled her button nose. “No, no. I can pay for it.”
“I insist. Happy Thursday.”
“Well, thank you.” She ordered some fancy sounding drink with sugarless syrup and turned to Jake. “I’m supposed to be meeting someone here.”
Jake took a longer look and realized it was Christine. The hair threw him off. He introduced himself and guided her to a table. The young man behind the counter brought their drinks over and disappeared to the back.
“Nice place,” Jake said. “I’ve never been in here.”
“I spend quite a bit of time here. I rent a room upstairs so I can be close to the girls on the street. You mentioned on the phone you wanted to discuss trafficking but aren’t a reporter or a writer. Can I ask why you’re interested?”
Jake gave her a generic summary of what he knew, leaving out the Shane Langston details. “I’m trying to get an understanding of how the process works and how girls get sucked into it. I mean, don’t they know what they’re getting into?”
Christine let a sad smile slip through. “These guys don’t approach the girls and say, ‘Hey baby, how’d you like to get into the sex trade?’ Many of them are sexually abused as children and come from a single-family home. Trust is hard for them. Half the girls who start in the life are runaways and get involved with survivor sex. Some are homeless teens who are couch-surfing, trading sex for a place to stay and shower. Some are in drug treatment programs, and the traffickers approach them and provide emotional deception. He’ll tell them he’ll take care of them, give them a place to sleep and some food to eat. He’ll give them the love and attention they didn’t get at home and seemingly want nothing for it. The girls feel safe and protected.”
Jake took a drink of the coffee, savoring the rich flavor. “They don’t turn them out right away?”
“No. But, eventually, they tell the girls they need their help. Times are hard, the food and the roof over their head might go away if they don’t get some money, and they talk them into turning a few tricks until he can get back on his feet. ‘It’ll just be for a little while, baby. Don’t you love me?’ They treat these girls like they have value, and the girls are so desperate for it they go along.”
“But that doesn’t last forever, does it?”
Christine’s chin dropped. “No. It lasts until they don’t have the money and he beats the crap out of her. Then he’s back to nice when the money comes back in and the cycle repeats itself. We call it trauma bonding.”
“Jesus.”
“Sometimes the traffickers have kids with the girls to anchor them there. The girl feels trapped. Hell, she is trapped when the guy is threatening to kill her or her kid if she leaves.”
Two girls entered the coffee shop. One black, one white. Early twenties, hard lives etched in their features. They said hello to Christine who told Jared behind the counter to put it on her bill. The girls said thanks and left.
“They know you around here?”
“I come from around here. Spent seventeen years on these streets. I buy them a coffee, maybe breakfast or lunch and help them to trust me. As I said before, tha
t’s not an easy task.”
“Then you recruit them to Restoration House?”
She took a drink. “No. Active recruiting would get me in serious trouble with their pimps or worse, put the girls in danger. I talk to the girls and try and make their lives a little bit better with simple things like a drink or meal. But they know what I do, and when they’re ready to get out, they call.”
“And what does Restoration House do for them?”
“We have to make sure they’re clean from drugs and they’re safe. Sometimes the girls are in crisis like hiding out and trying to get away from a bad situation. They don’t really want out of the life. For those who do, we have a place outside of the city where they can visit a doctor. A lot of them have broken bones which never healed right, abscessed teeth, things like that. They live with us, take classes, get therapy for trauma, get life coaching and set goals.”
Jake shook his head. “How long are they with you?”
“Some graduate after nine months. Most go anywhere from eighteen to twenty-four months. We’re a relatively new organization, but we’ve graduated over fifty girls. Something I’m very proud of.”
“Are there different, I don’t know, levels of girls for lack of a better term? We’re finding instances of girls being shipped from overseas and Mexico.”
“Not much like that around here. It happens some, but mostly in the bigger cities on the coasts like Los Angeles or New York.”
Jake thought of Candy and the dead girl from the trailer. Candy would blend in around here. The dead girl would stand out like blood on snow. Garvan had said the beauty at his club was headed to Kansas City. After questioning Keats about the trafficking, Keats suggested meeting at Lockwood’s for an auction. Jake put two and two together. “You ever hear of a place called Lockwood’s?”
Christine fell silent for a moment, stirring her tea, the spoon scraping against the ceramic side of her cup. “Just rumors.”
Jake Caldwell Thrillers Page 92