Decision (Diversion Book 8)

by Eden Winters

  “That is good. But he can’t stay hidden forever.” Cruz spoke English without a trace of an accent, though he’d grown up in Mexico and used to pretend he only understood Spanish. Give him a reason, and he’d be all “No habla inglés” in a flat minute. And he’d definitely laid on an accent for Charlotte’s benefit.

  Lucky hadn’t quite forgiven him for the lie of omission. “No habla inglés” Lucky’s ass!

  Wait! Spanish. Cruz spoke Spanish.

  “While you’re here, I need you to do something for me.” Walter had given Lucky free rein, hadn’t he?

  Cruz’s brow furrowed. “What? And how illegal is it?”

  Lucky pursed his lips and cocked his head. How illegal was it? “There’s an apartment building across town. Every evening a bus picks up people and takes them to a warehouse or various places around Atlanta. In the morning the bus takes them home. They go straight inside, aren’t ever seen alone, and seem to be guarded. I want to know who they are and why they’re here. I need you to talk to them.”

  “They don’t speak English?”

  “I’m not sure. But if I’m going in there, I don’t want to leave empty-handed, ya know?”

  Cruz lifted his chin, a gesture so like Bo’s that Lucky’s heart ached for his partner to be on this case with him. “What do you think is going on? Gangbangers? Human trafficking? I need to know what I’m getting into.”

  “Could be both, but I’m thinking the warehouse they go to at night might be cranking out counterfeit drugs. Or at least storing them.” He told Cruz about Rett’s suspicions, while leaving her name out of the telling. If the shit hit the fan, he wanted her free and clear.

  Cruz stood and paced to the back door, staring out the sliding glass window. “Do you have pictures of any of them?”

  Lucky texted Johnson: “You got pictures of anyone from the apartment building?”

  “Sure do.” Of course, she did. His phone pinged a few times. Five pictures in all, some from a distance, a couple closer up. The pregnant woman’s face came into view.

  Lucky showed the pictures to Cruz, who flipped through the images, and flipped through again. “Text me the one of the pregnant girl. She stands out. We’ll focus on her.”

  Lucky did as told. For one of the few times in his life.

  “Let’s go. You drive. If what you say is true, I don’t need to take a Corvette. Too memorable. Of course, your car stands out too.”

  “I’ve got just the thing. First, I need to handle something.” Lucky held up a finger in a “gimme one minute” gesture, and texted Rett. “Something came up. Let’s push our plans out until tomorrow, okay?” He’d make use of Cruz’s Spanish skills while he had the time. Next, he texted Bo, “Going out for a bit. Back later.”

  Bo replied, “Okay.”

  Hmm… Some precautions might be needed. “You at work still?”

  “Leaving now.”

  Good. Play his cards right and Lucky might avoid a lecture. Still, he eased into the SNB parking lot, keeping a careful lookout for Bo, Walter, or Rett’s vehicles. Only a few cars, none of them of any importance.

  Losing a bit of his asshole reputation at work came with a few perks. Like the woman in acquisitions not asking too many questions.

  Just past sundown Lucky pulled out from under the SNB building in the world’s ugliest chicken shit green Malibu.

  Cruz scrunched down in the seat, hiding his face with his hand. “Man, this is embarrassing. I can’t believe you actually requested this piece of shit.”

  Getting under Cruz’s skin without even trying. Lucky for the win. “You said our cars were too noticeable.”

  “This one’s noticeable too, for being so damned ugly.”

  Lucky grinned, recalling his own first meeting with the car he’d underestimated. “This is nothing. You should’ve seen it when it still had spinner rims.”

  Cruz groused to himself in Spanish. Lucky tried not to be too smug.

  For about a minute.

  Chapter Thirteen

  They parked across the street from the building. Time hadn’t sweetened the image. Damned place wasn’t fit for anyone to live in. Someone ought to take a wrecking ball to the eight-floor stucco and pigeon shit fire trap. No fire escapes even.

  Lights shone from the windows, with an occasional shadow marking someone’s passing. Poor souls.

  “Wait here.” Cruz patted Lucky’s shoulder and climbed out of the car, guaranteeing Lucky wouldn’t stay put. Cruz didn’t complain when Lucky followed him to the front entrance.

  Four young toughs sat outside, though they didn’t look like the same men on the morning shift. Three feet from the steps Cruz yelled in Spanish, brandishing his phone. The two guys who’d stepped forward to stop him jumped back.

  Yep, best defense, good offense and all.

  Cruz charged toward the front door. All four men formed a barrier, chest to chest. Cruz screamed, looking up at the windows and calling, “Maria? Maria!” acting all the world like a man dying of a broken heart.

  With no warning, he slammed a fist into one guy’s mouth. The man shrieked, clutching his face. Blood spurted between his fingers. Cruz kicked another guy.

  The other two ran. Chicken shits. The two injured followed their friends into the night. Not gangbangers, and they didn’t appear armed. They’d have put up more of a fight.

  “Ain’t you afraid they’ll go tell their bosses?” Lucky would’ve snuck around and tried the back door.

  “No, my friend. They won’t tell anyone they got their asses beat down by a single man.”

  Probably true. Lucky wouldn’t want to admit such.

  Cruz grinned and jerked on the door handle. Nothing happened. Locked.

  “I got this.” Lucky jogged back to the car and returned with a kit he hadn’t used much lately. Fifteen seconds to open the door. The lock must’ve been forty years old. Spiderweb cracks covered one glass door panel, while plywood covered the other. It might’ve been easier to break the door down, but why have mad lockpicking skills and not use them?

  “They keep them locked in,” Cruz observed.

  Lucky’d noticed, the bastards. One lit match and the place would go up like kindling. What would happen to the tenants then? He drew his gun, holding his current best friend close to his chest, standing a few feet behind Cruz. Unlike in the alleyway training session, he didn’t need to lead with his gun.

  Paper, cans, cigarette butts and broken bits of plaster littered the floor. Bare boards peeked out from some areas of the walls. Chips in the faded linoleum floor invited unsuspecting shoe heels to throw somebody.

  The first door had no numbers, but a faded outline declared the apartment to be 1A. The dent in the panel appeared the right height and shape to be the work of a fist.

  Cruz knocked. The door cracked open and a scared face peered out. “Si?”

  Cruz showed the image on the phone and chattered away.

  The woman couldn’t have been more than twenty. She pointed up. Lucky made out “third floor, apartment B.”

  Cruz thanked the woman. She slammed the door. A chain rattled a moment later.

  Together Lucky and his convenient interpreter took the stairs two at a time. The whole place reeked of mold, onions, cigarette smoke, and other things he blocked from his mind. The handrail nearly gave way. Most of the lights were out in the stairwell, leaving them in a gray gloom.

  Coming from a poor background, Lucky’d stayed in some pretty low-rent apartments before moving into Victor Mangiardi’s mansion. None of his came close to this run-down hellhole.

  The third-floor hall lights were all out. Voices came from behind some doors, but no sounds of televisions, video games, or much else. That poor girl had to waddle up all those stairs?

  Cruz knocked on a door with a sideways B, the impression of the letter permanently etched into the door. Another scared face peered out.

  Dropping his bravado, Cruz crooned softly to the woman. She poked her head out of the apartment, took a long
look right and left, then stepped aside. Her eyes went wide at Lucky’s gun, but she said nothing.

  In her world, chances were thugs with guns made daily appearances.

  Four single mattresses took up the main room, no table, no chairs, though he counted eight women. All were young. Clothes formed neat piles beside each mattress. The pregnant girl sat in the middle of one of the mattresses. She paused, mid-brush of her hair.

  Cruz crouched in front of her, his voice a mere whisper. She answered with “Si”, “no” or a head nod or shake, and the occasional sentence or two. She kept her eyes downcast, staring at her hands.

  At last he stood, motioning with his head toward Lucky. Together they stepped out into the hallway. “Her name is Yolanda, but she wouldn’t tell me her family name. I told her she wasn’t safe here. Me pretending to look for her puts her in danger. She won’t come with us. She’s more afraid of us than of the men she refers to as bosses.”

  “We can make her.” Lucky had seen the inside of the apartment, and at least eight people living there. No way for someone to survive.

  “That would make us no better than the bosses. But she did give me some information.” Cruz trotted down the stairs, forcing Lucky to keep up.

  “What?”

  Cruz kept his mouth shut, the bastard, waiting until they’d gotten into the Malibu to speak again. As they pulled away the four thugs peeked out from behind the building and hurried up the steps, posturing like they hadn’t just been beaten down by a lone man.

  Lucky glanced to the passenger seat. Muscles twitched in Cruz’s jaw. “Out with it.”

  “She’s from Mexico City. Her father sent her with some men who promised her an education and a job in the states as a hotel maid. They took what little money she had and any decent clothes. For a while she transported drugs over the border until they brought her here and put her in a room with those other women.” Cruz clenched and unclenched his fists. “The men told her and the others that if they tried to run or go to the cops, they’d be arrested and put into jail as illegal aliens.”

  Motherfuckers. “What about the baby?”

  “She met the baby’s father here. He was one of the guards until he got into a fight with another guard and wound up on the wrong end of a knife.”

  Fuck. “Let me guess. She’s never been to a doctor for her pregnancy.”

  “I don’t think so. She worries. Thinks the bosses are going to sell her child.”

  What the ever-loving hell? The assholes! “And she wouldn’t come with you.”

  “No. I wish I’d had more time, but she begged me to leave before we got her into more trouble.”

  “Will the other women tell the bosses?”

  “Only if they have to, and to save their own hides. They’re as scared as she is.” Cruz sucked in a deep breath and blew out his cheeks. “She’s only nineteen. Most of the others are younger than her. She thinks one might only be fifteen.”

  Shit. Younger than Ty. She should be at home with her parents, going to school. Hell, Yolanda should be in college like Todd, not worried for her life and pregnant with a dead man’s baby, with no one to take care of her or the child.

  “You should’ve made her come.” Lucky flexed his jaw. Suddenly the image of Yolanda changed into a younger version of Charlotte, cradling a swollen belly in one hand and a black eye with the other.

  “I agree. But she did confirm your suspicions about the warehouse. Medicines are stored there. Most nights she works at a pharmacy under strict supervision. Her job is to package pills into bottles.”

  “Does she know what they are?”

  “No. She goes to work, does her job, comes home. No one tells her anything.”

  “Do they pay her?”

  Cruz shook his head. “Food and a place to sleep.”

  Slavery, then. Lucky might lose a lot of sleep over this shit. Human traffickers were the worst kinds of scum. Worse than palmetto bugs. And like palmetto bugs, the only good one lay crushed beneath his heel. “Thanks, Cruz. I appreciate your help.”

  “No problem. But why didn’t you get your partner to help? He speaks Spanish quite well.”

  Lucky couldn’t hide a wince. “I need to keep him out of this, at least for now.” He pulled into the underground parking garage at the SNB and the impounded car lot and switched off the ignition. The engine sputtered and died.

  He whapped the glovebox in the right spot to knock the lid open and retrieved his backup gun.

  Cruz studied him a long moment. “You shouldn’t keep things from your partner.”

  “The boss told me to.” Even without Walter’s blessing, he wouldn’t tell Bo his plans—his highly illegal plans.

  “I’ll ask you no more, but I will tell my superiors about this issue.”

  “What the—”

  Cruz held up a hand. “I won’t interfere with your work, but now that I know about them, I can’t abandon those people. Keep me posted and I’ll stay away. In the meantime, I’ll watch your back for Landry.”

  God, how Lucky hated having to depend on anyone, especially this man he didn’t know very well. “I want those people out of there.”

  “Then solve this case.” Cruz opened the door and got out, strolling across the parking lot without a backward glance.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Lucky arrived at his cube a few minutes early. Johnson saved him the trouble of tracking her down by being at Bo’s desk.

  Again.

  She’d brought coffee, one cup on his desk, one on Bo’s. He might think about forgiving her for once more invading his space. Still, he wanted to talk to her. “You were right about the women. They’re being trafficked.”

  Johnson narrowed her eyes. “How do you know? Don’t tell me you made a move without me.”

  “An opportunity came up. I took it.” He briefly explained his and Cruz’s visit to the apartment complex. “We gotta keep an eye on the pregnant girl, Yolanda. Make sure she doesn’t pay the price for Cruz busting in like that.” How was he to know the cretin planned to go all loose cannon on him?

  “Oh shit. We probably have to watch out for all of them. But trafficking isn’t our area.” Rett tapped a manicured nail against the side of her coffee cup.

  “She definitely backed up the theory of drugs being involved. That makes this our case.” For now, at any rate. Mexican citizens turned the case international.

  Johnson tightened her hold on her coffee cup to the point where the sides nearly buckled. “What can I do?”

  “I sent Walter a report of what I found out. Not a full report, mind you, but enough to let him know what’s what. Someone is meeting with him tomorrow from an anti-trafficking taskforce. A raid right now might blow our case. As much as I want those people out of there, if we don’t catch the bastards responsible, they’ll do it again.”

  “I don’t like it either. So, that means we gotta close our case.”

  Lucky nodded. “Tonight we check out the warehouse.”

  “I’ll be ready. First, we have something else to do.”

  ***

  “Today, class, we’re going to pay a surprise inspection on a doctor’s office.” Use his rookies to get his way? What was the use of having the puppy pack nipping at his heels if he didn’t intend to use them?

  They needed to earn their keep some way.

  Road Rage Robinson cracked her knuckles. Yeah, most likely to wind up in court for using excessive force.

  “I’m not taking all of you.” For all his reservations about Salters, he’d be the most useful at Lucky’s back today. “Salters, you and Agent Johnson are coming with me. The rest of you, I’ve emailed lists of online pharmacies for you to check out today.”

  As one the six remaining trainees groaned. Lucky fought a smile. He fully understood their pain, but he’d served his time doing menial tasks, why not get some pleasure out of sharing the wealth?

  Salters beamed.

  Lucky’s growl didn’t wipe the smile off his face. Lucky regretted
his decision already.

  Johnson swatted him on the back. “I shoulda brought popcorn.”

  ***

  Lucky changed into his official Southeastern Narcotic Bureau garb: Navy pants, polo shirt with SNB logo. How he’d once hated the uniform. Now the hate had faded more to love/hate. He’d never prefer his current clothing to T-shirt and blue jeans. Still, the outfit gave him certain advantages.

  Surprise inspections. A job perk in some cases. Like now. The SNB logo meant they couldn’t tell him no.

  The office wasn’t luxurious, but clean and well-lit. The furniture wasn’t too butt-ugly. A vase of artificial flowers sat on the coffee table, surrounded by the usual carefully arranged copies of parenting magazines and golf digests, the occasional Good Housekeeping thrown in.

  The place didn’t scream of money, and regardless of the Yelp review bitching of excessive wait times, only three people waited, two side by side on a couch in front of the table, the other in a chair across from them. The two, a pair of women, chatted quietly, while the other, a boy maybe Ty’s age, stared at his cell phone.

  Lucky strolled up to the front desk. A young woman glanced up and smiled. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “I don’t need one.” Lucky flipped open his wallet and presented his badge. “Agent Harrison, Southeastern Narcotics Bureau. This is Agent Johnson and Agent Salters.”

  “I’ll tell the doctor you’re here,” the receptionist at the front desk said.

  “That won’t be necessary.” Johnson smiled and put herself between Lucky and the woman before he formed a proper response. “This is a routine inspection. Tell me, are there any pharmaceuticals on the premises?”

  The woman recoiled. “No. Dr. Keel doesn’t stock drugs here. He only writes prescriptions.”

  “Mind if we take a look?” Lucky asked.

  Her blank expression hardened into a frown. Behind her another woman hissed into a telephone. Probably warning the doctor. A moment after she hung up, a side door opened.

  A man in a white jacket strolled into the reception area, with a genuine smile and an extended hand. “Dr. Desmond Keel.”