But Jack knew that if José came from there, and if that blue pick-up truck was connected to José’s death, then any evidence or clues leading to a conviction would have to be there too.
Mia was right about that.
When Jack reached the gate, he slipped through the metal slats instead of unlatching it. He crouched as he ran toward the darkened chicken huts, grateful for the fact that there was no moon. When he got within two hundred yards, he knelt in the tall grass that bordered the main dirt road leading to the parking lot.
A parking lot that still had plenty of vehicles in it.
Damn! What the hell was going on?
He crept closer through the grass until he caught the sounds of men’s voices in the air. He couldn’t see anything from where he was but he could clearly hear. Joe Don was speaking loudly, in Spanish.
They were working the poor bastards at night?
Just as he was about to back up the way he came, he heard a woman’s laugh followed a moment later by the sound of men’s laughter. He turned in their direction, which appeared to be around the back of the closest chicken hut. Quietly, slowly, he moved in a crouching position toward the sounds of the laughter. It wasn’t far but he had to stay in the bushes and the long grass so it took him several minutes to get close. Once he saw a young man walk across a pathway to the parking lot. Jack froze until he passed and then continued until he could see behind the first structure.
A small pre-fabricated garden shed sat in a narrow clearing behind the long metal hut. Standing in front of the shed in single file were more than twenty men. The area was lit by one large searchlight hung on a pole in the center of the clearing. The men in line were all Hispanic and relatively young. Some smoked and joked with each other. Some stood quietly, their eyes focused on the closed door of the shed.
Joe Don’s voice split the air. “Estancia en línea. No pueden hablar,” he said.
Jack wasn’t sure what he said, but he thought he recognized “no talking.” Immediately, the laughing men grew silent.
What the hell was going on? They look like they’re lining up for inoculations or Red Cross parcels or something.
The door of the shed opened and a young Hispanic man stepped out. When he did, Joe Don appeared from the other side of the queue, his gun clearly visible.
“Ir a el autobus,” Joe Don said to him, touching his gun.
Jack strained to see the direction the young man turned toward as a result of Joe Don’s words. In the parking lot, he could just barely see the roof of a large van with the windows blacked out. A tall Hispanic man came from around the side of the chicken hut and the direction of the parking lot. He had a rifle slung by a strap to his shoulder. Even from this distance, Jack could see the man was handicapped with a pair of seriously bushy eyebrows.
His heart began to beat double-time.
Mia’s attacker.
“Date prisa!” the armed man called out and when he did the young man began to trot in the direction of the bus.
Should he attempt a citizen’s arrest? Or come back with Maxwell? It would take him at least twenty minutes to get far enough away where it was safe to use his cellphone. He began to back away from the scene when he noticed the shed door open again. This time a young woman came out. She can’t be sixteen years old, Jack thought grimly as he watched.
The men standing in line whistled and made comments in Spanish while the girl walked to a bush three feet from where Jack crouched, lifted her skirt and squatted in the dirt. He was close enough to see her face. Her eyes were dulled and vacant.
“Date prisa!” Joe Don yelled to her. Her face flinched in fear, she turned and ran back to the shack where she quickly slipped inside with the first man in line.
That settles it. Jack pulled his gun from his holster and stood up. He took one step in the direction of the men waiting in line when he felt the cold barrel of a pistol firmly pressed to the back of his skull.
7
Why do people meet for coffee for a first date? Mia wondered as she fought the jitters she’d just created by drinking three high-octane lattes. You’re nervous already so why add caffeine to it? She sat across from Ben in the corner of the Midtown Starbucks, two china coffee mugs between them and the evening bustle of Atlanta’s business and art crowd around them.
Without his scrubs, his two-day old beard and the bleary cast to his eyes from long hours on a demanding job, Ben looked like he could have posed for the cover of GQ. His thick blond hair was short with a wave to it. And his blue eyes offset a smile that was omnipresent. And just so he didn’t look too pretty, Mia thought, he had a barely-noticeable scar over his right eyebrow.
“I’m so glad we finally did this,” Mia said, sipping her now-cool coffee.
“Me, too. I wasn’t sure you weren’t giving me the heave-ho when it fell through last time.”
Mia laughed, trying to imagine anyone giving this handsome, self-effacing man the heave-ho. Surely, he had no trouble finding dates?
“No,” she said, “just having technical difficulties. I own a detective agency.”
She watched his eyebrows shoot up and felt guilty for the exaggeration.
“Wow. That is seriously cool. So you’re a detective?”
“Well, we’re just starting out. Mostly I’m unemployed but with a vision.”
He laughed and she enjoyed the sound of it: warm and rumbling.
“I spend most of my time out at the barn riding my horse,” she admitted. “I can’t really afford him anymore but I can’t bring myself to sell him either.”
“I love horses,” Ben said. “I’ve only ridden a couple of times though. My hobby is flying model airplanes.”
“No way! Where do you do that?”
“Oh, wherever we can find a vacant field with no electrical wires, really.”
“We?”
He laughed again. “Just me and whatever crazy old coot happens to show up with his airplane. As you can imagine, it’s kind of a cult. Most normal people don’t apply.”
Now it was Mia’s turn to laugh. Feeling drawn to him and his warmth and energy, she found herself bending across the table toward him. Clearly emboldened by her reaction, Ben suddenly leaned across the table and kissed her on the mouth. Mia immediately knocked her coffee into her lap. She pulled away with a squeal.
“Oh, I’m sorry!” Ben said, looking around and then jumping up to grab a fistful of paper napkins from another table. “I’m such a klutz.”
“It wasn’t you at all,” Mia said, her face starting to redden. “I feel like an idiot.”
“Don’t. My timing sucks. Let me make it up to you.”
Mia wiped her lap with the paper napkins and gave him her most winning smile. “What did you have in mind?” she asked.
*****
“Kneel down,” the voice rasped, the gun prodding harder into Jack’s neck for emphasis.
Jack lowered himself to his knees. As he did he jerked his head away from the gun barrel and jammed his elbow into the midsection of the man standing behind him. When he heard the man grunt, he hammer-fisted him to the groin and as he felt the gun at his head drop to the ground, he twisted around with his own gun still in his hand and leveled it at his assailant.
Trey Bowers lay on the ground, his knees drawn up and his hands clutching his genitals, rocking back and forth and moaning.
“Bowers?” Jack whispered hoarsely, “What the fuck, man?”
“Under…cover,” Bowers managed as he attempted to get control of himself.
Jack looked over his shoulder at the clearing. The men continued to stand in line although they had started talking amongst themselves again. Joe Don stood on the other side of the line smoking a cigarette.
When he turned back to Bowers, the man was dragging himself to his knees.
“I’m with the FBI,” Bowers said, his breathing labored. “Can we…move away so we can talk?”
Jack knelt by him, wondering if this made any sense at all. “There’s a girl in
that shack being gang-banged by a couple dozen men,” he said fiercely.
“You don’t think I don’t know that?” Bowers’ face was filthy and contorted in pain. “I’ve been working this sting for three months. But you can’t screw it up now.”
“This is a sting? José is dead and that little girl is in there being forced to service half a football team. What the hell are you people doing?”
“This is much bigger than two people. I need you to listen to me. But not here, where it’ll blow six months of hard work.”
Interfering with an FBI operation was a federal crime. Bowers could’ve threatened him with prison time if he didn’t leave.
Jack edged quietly toward the fence with Bowers until the sounds of the men were swallowed up by the night. When Bowers could stand up, Jack saw that he was dressed in much the same outfit as Joe Don—filthy jeans, construction boots and a plaid shirt.
“What’s your role in all this?” Jack asked him.
“I can’t tell you and I hope you understand,” Bowers said. “Dinsmore Poultry has been the center of an illegal labor ring that we’ve infiltrated. We’re very close to bringing everybody down in it. We’ve just come off a successful sting that rescued over two hundred children in downtown Atlanta and ended with the arrest of more than two hundred and fifty pimps. We are cleaning up this cesspool, Jack, and we’re doing it one chicken plucking factory at a time.”
“Commendable. Can I ask what’s taking you so long?”
“We’re doing it the way it needs to be done. I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you the other day but I need for you to keep silent about what you saw tonight. And that includes making me.”
“I wouldn’t have made you if you hadn’t stuck a damn gun at my head.”
“I wouldn’t have had to do that if you hadn’t been sneaking around in the dark. You know you’re trespassing, right?”
“That little girl in there—”
“We’re on it, Jack. We’re trying to minimize all collateral damage. As soon as I get back to the clearing I’ll make a diversion and they’ll pack her and her sisters up and leave. Now, will you just go? Every second you’re here compromises my safety and the success of the sting.”
“I want to talk with you tomorrow then.”
“Fine. I’ll call you in the morning. Assuming I live that long. Now, go.”
Bowers turned and jogged back up the darkened path, disappearing quickly in the night. Jack hesitated and then slipped back through the gate, walking quickly toward his car. Sometimes you just had to trust that your partners did their bit. If Bowers said he was going to create a distraction to get the girl out of there, Jack would have to trust that he did.
He understood what it felt to believe the operation was bigger than any one person.
Goddammit.
*****
Mia cinched her robe around her and stumbled out to the hallway. Jack had waited up for her last night—which was exceedingly annoying. If she’d any guts at all, she would’ve invited Ben to spend the night. That would’ve sorted Jack out pretty fast. She smiled at the thought of what that scene would’ve looked like last night.
She went to the kitchen and found a steaming mug of coffee—prepared the way she liked it with hazelnut cream—sitting on the counter. Jack had his back to her facing the stove.
“Morning,” she said, sitting at the breakfast bar and wrapping her hands around her coffee. “You sleep well?”
Jack turned and gave her a glance before re-addressing the skillet of eggs and home fries he was cooking. “Well, enough. You?”
This was getting downright awkward. She took a sip of her coffee and stretched her legs. “Fine, thank you.”
He turned with a plate of steaming food in each hand and placed one in front of her.
“I made some headway last night,” he said, settling down on a bar stool opposite her at the counter.
Mia picked up a fork. “On the investigation?”
“I went back to the chicken farm.”
A thrill of excitement—and also annoyance—tickled her spine. Went without me?
“Well? What happened?” she asked, her fork poised over her food.
He shrugged. “Well, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is I confirmed that it’s definitely what we thought it was, an illegal trafficking ring using Hispanics as forced labor.”
Mia sucked in a breath.
“And…” He paused. “I saw the guy who attacked you.”
She slammed the fork down on the counter. “Are you serious? Then what are we doing sitting here having effing brunch? Let’s go!” She jumped up and tightened the belt of her robe as if ready to stride out the door. “Did you call the cops? Did they pick him up? Do they want me downtown to identify him?”
“Whoa, whoa!” he said, waving her back down onto her barstool. “No to all of that. It’s a little more complicated…”
“What the hell are you talking about?” she said, shaking her head. “How could it be more complicated than the fact that you saw the guy and know where he is? Please tell me that?” She tapped her fingers against the counter.
“Well, that’s the bad news part of all this. Turns out…there is an existing federal investigation going on and we can’t interfere at the moment.”
“Maybe you can’t!”
“No, now, Mia, neither of us can. I talked to…the guy in charge of it…this morning and he reiterated that they’re close to bringing down the whole organization and they can’t jeopardize all that by tipping their hand…”
Mia hopped up from her seat and went into the living room.
“Where are you going?”
She walked to the couch and saw what she was looking for on the lamp table. Jack’s rental car keys and cell phone lay at the base of the lamp. She snatched up his phone.
“What’s your access code?” she demanded.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I need your access code to unlock your phone. What is it?”
“Mia, would you quit acting like a crazy person and just—”
“Jack, give me your access code right this minute or I swear I’ll throw the damn thing off the balcony.”
“Five one one two.”
She jabbed in the numbers and scrolled through his recent calls. She looked up at him. “Unknown caller.”
“He used a burner phone.”
“Well, isn’t that convenient.” She tossed the phone onto the couch and returned to the kitchen.
“Look, Mia, I swore I wouldn’t reveal his identity—”
“Even to me? Your partner?”
“Even if we were married,” Jack said firmly. “I gave my word and besides, I believe in the integrity of what the feds are trying to do. As hard as it is to stand down—”
“Do you know the name of the guy who attacked me?”
She watched his mind work before he answered. He knew.
“Julio Hernandez,” he said finally. “He’s got a long list of priors and he’ll be taken down along with everyone else.”
“When?”
He paused again. “Imminently.”
“Is that what your contact said?”
“In so many words.”
“So you’re saying we wait.”
“It’s as hard on me as it is on you, Mia.”
“Really? I wonder if it’s as hard on us as it is on Maria? You know I read that sex slaves are raped on average of twenty times a day. Let’s see, how many assaults does that add up to every minute while we wait, I wonder. Are you good at math, Jack?”
“It doesn’t do any good to go after me, Mia. I’m just as frustrated as you are.”
She picked up her fork, her appetite gone. So he’d gone out last night while she was on her date. She knew she was being too hard on him. He obviously wanted to move things forward, too. And while she’d been drinking Chardonnay and flirting with Ben, Jack had been walking through a lumpy pasture after dark hoping not to get shot as a trespass
er.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I know you are. I’m just lashing out.”
“We should be glad that the mystery’s solved. And it’s being resolved.”
She snapped her head up to look at him. “The mystery isn’t solved,” she said. “We don’t know who killed José and we don’t know where Maria is.”
“Okay, not solved. Wrong word choice.”
“Are the feds coming down on Dinsmore Poultry for murdering José?”
She watched him scratch his chin and she knew the familiar gesture by now. Jack did it when he didn’t want to answer or when he was about to lie to her. She reached across the counter and wrapped her fingers around his wrist.
Instantly, he tried to jerk away but she was ready for him and hung on.
“Knock it off, Mia,” he growled, finally extricating his hand. “Do you know how offensive it is when you do that?”
“About as offensive as someone lying to you who you’re supposed to be partners with?”
“I’m not lying to you.”
“No, because I just called you on it.”
“What difference does it make? They’ll get the guy in their dragnet.”
“It makes a difference, Jack, because if they nail him as a pimp or as a member of this labor ring, he won’t get what’s coming to him.”
“José’s murder case is still open. His murderer isn’t going to get away.”
“Yes, he will if the Feds have him! They don’t care about some poor illegal alien offed in a house fire! There’ll be no justice for José if we don’t get it for him and you know that.”
She watched him as he stared at his hands and then looked up at her, grimly.
“Yeah, okay,” he said. “But there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Who says there isn’t?”
“Mia, if we try to interfere, we’ll just end up in jail ourselves. They’re going to pick him up along with everyone else—”
“What about reciprocity? Talk to Maxwell. Tell him to ask for the guy who killed José after the Feds bring everybody else down.”
Complete Mia Kazmaroff Page 28