by Katie Reus
Nathan already had his door open by the time Cade pulled to a stop next to the line of SUVs. He did a quick scan of everyone. Three uniformed officers, Captain Nieto, Detective Sinclair, a couple of plainclothes men, Burkhart, and ten NSA agents, all of whom he recognized on sight. Field-trained, no analysts in the bunch. He also spotted two young boys wearing swim trunks and long-sleeved rash guards. They were barely teenagers. A soccer-mom type of woman probably in her forties stood behind them, her arms crossed over her chest. Her expression was a mix of fear and irritation.
After he rounded the SUV he fell in step with Cade and headed straight for Dax and the rest of their group. “What’s up?” he asked quietly as they reached Dax.
“Local kids like to fish here sometimes. They’re not supposed to because it’s a privately owned lake, but they’re freaking kids. Guess they saw some guy dump something they thought looked like a body. When their mom heard them talking, she called the cops. Sinclair”—Dax nodded in the man’s direction, and Nathan recognized him from the file they had on the guy—“was the detective who got the case. We got lucky that he was the one called or we might not have heard about it. One of his guys found a body. Twenty-something female. Thanks to those kids they had a pretty good location of where she’d been dumped.”
“Is it one of the missing women?” Because why the hell would they have been called in otherwise?
“Yeah. That’s what I meant by lucky. He recognized her face—which thankfully isn’t badly decomposed yet—and called his boss. Nieto called Burkhart immediately.”
“They scan her fingerprints yet?” Nathan asked.
Dax nodded. “Yep. She’s from our list. Taken about eleven months ago, and from what the local ME says, she died recently.”
So she was kept alive for eleven months. He wanted to know the cause of death. “Who’s taking the body?”
“That’s what we’re waiting on. Burkhart wants it and Captain Nieto isn’t happy.”
“We’ve got better resources.” That being an understatement. They had a private lab without the type of backlog the Miami PD would no doubt have. They could learn more about the body in less time compared to the locals. A win-win for everyone. They were in a time crunch here, but Nathan knew bullshit agency politics could hamper any investigation. He just hoped that didn’t happen now. There were too many women missing, too many innocent lives at stake. Amelia was in the age range of the women who’d been taken. Something that was hard to forget.
“No shit,” Cade muttered next to him.
Burkhart glanced over at them, nodded once. Nathan wasn’t sure who he was motioning to but broke away along with Cade and Dax, crossing the twenty yards to where the local cops, Burkhart, and the kids were. As they neared, one of the uniformed officers ushered the two boys and woman away toward a minivan.
“Dax give you the rundown?” Burkhart asked. Instead of a suit he wore cargo pants and a dark green Polo shirt today. His weapon was strapped to his hip and visible. He looked like an operator.
“Most of it,” Dax answered before Nathan could. “Didn’t get to the part about doing the grid search.”
Oh hell. That meant they’d be searching the lake for bodies. These women deserved closure, but searching and recovering the dead was one of the shittiest parts of his job.
“You three have the most experience with search and recovery and the best training,” Burkhart said to them. He glanced over as Nieto approached. The man was about the same age as Burkhart and in good shape. Burkhart nodded once at the police captain. “Captain Nieto has three men trained for diving. Combined with our ten—thirteen including you three—we’ve got a solid group. You guys will each head a four-man team. Nathan, you’ll have five. We’re going to work this lake in a grid.” He nodded once more at Nieto, who picked up where Burkhart left off.
“We’ve got a nineteen-foot patrol boat on the way, should be here in the next few minutes. Small vessel, good for this kind of operation.”
“And we’ve got three more Zodiacs on the way,” Burkhart interjected. “Nineteen-foot as well.”
Nathan simply nodded. Those were the perfect-sized vessels for evidence-recovery missions in a location like this. They were easily transported and could be deployed almost anywhere.
“My three guys are all trained in evidence recovery and are all PADI dive master–certified. All we want is to find . . . if there are more bodies. We’re willing to help, so use us.” Nieto’s expression flashed with anger as he glanced over at the still lake.
Good, Nathan couldn’t work with novices on something like this. Everyone needed to be able to do the job and keep up. “Let’s break up into teams, then,” Nathan said. “Do we have a map of the lake?”
When Burkhart nodded, Nathan felt a small measure of relief. He also needed to find out what kind of wildlife they could expect, though he figured gators and potentially water moccasins would be on that list. Some days he hated his job.
Hours later, Nathan pulled his regulator from his mouth and tugged his face mask up before climbing over the edge of the inflatable boat. The sun was about to set, and even though a team had put up floodlights along the shoreline an hour ago, it was time to head back in. They were already working in murky conditions; it’d be pointless and, more to the point, dangerous, to continue now.
“I’m calling it a day,” Nathan said to the three guys in the boat. Detective Sinclair was climbing in after him, his expression as grim as everyone else’s.
Sinclair simply nodded, slightly breathless as he took off his own face gear. The driver wordlessly headed back to shore where two other boats were already waiting.
“You know how many remains yet?” Sinclair asked. They’d been so busy diving and marking off spots as clear or not, none of them knew except Nathan.
He’d radioed Burkhart for the official count an hour ago and got thirty-five. Thirty-five dead women.
Murdered women.
Someone was going to fucking pay. He shoved his rage back, locked it up tight. Now wasn’t about that. “Thirty-five,” he said quietly.
One of the men cursed, but the others were silent. Today had been long and depressing and he was thankful for the silence. There were color-coded little flags floating all over the lake, weighted down near where bodies had been found or marking areas as clear. Some of the bodies still hadn’t been recovered, but they’d be brought up tomorrow.
All he wanted to do was go see Amelia. Just get in a vehicle and drive straight to her place. Hell, he didn’t even know if she’d be at work or home, but he needed to see her. To hold her.
Once they reached land, they waded to the shore. There was a team of guys waiting to take care of the boat for them. Nathan was running on fumes and wasn’t going to argue. Let someone else take care of it.
“The media need to know about this, get the word out,” Sinclair said quietly as they trudged up the sandbank.
The low hum of voices, rumbling engines of the boats, and some vehicles and crickets in the nearby woods created a cacophony of noise. More locals and more of Burkhart’s guys had been brought in over the course of the day. The dive teams had remained the same, but they’d needed others to help organize the remains. And even though he’d hated to stop working for even a few minutes, they’d all needed to eat to keep their energy up. Two men were in the process of breaking down some of the food tables. Right now Nathan wanted to get the hell out of here, but he wasn’t done tonight. Not by a long shot.
He just lifted a shoulder. “Not up to me.” He didn’t have the authority to make those decisions, something the detective knew. Neither did Sinclair. The only thing Nathan really knew about the guy was that he was friendly enough with Amelia, had a solid record with the police department, and was now aware that Burkhart and his team weren’t actually with the FBI. It had been pretty damn impossible to hide the fact with Burkhart on-site.
Sinclair muttered something under his breath about bullshit politics before stalking off in another dir
ection.
Nathan wasn’t sure if the guy would actually leak anything to the media—and expose his lie about being FBI to Amelia—so he did a quick search for Burkhart. When he saw him standing next to a foldout table with mostly empty food platters, he headed that way.
Talking on his cell phone, Burkhart nodded once as Nathan approached. It took another twenty seconds before he ended his phone call.
“You guys did good today,” Nathan’s boss said quietly, moving away from the table as two officers started clearing it off. “We covered a lot of ground.”
Nothing about today felt particularly good. “I wish we could keep going.”
“You need rest. All of you.”
“What’s the media situation?” Nathan asked, jumping right into it.
“Nothing yet, but we’ll start leaking information soon. I want more positive IDs first.”
Even their private lab wasn’t big enough for all the remains they’d found. Well, the lab was, but they didn’t have enough staff on-site. “What are we doing about jurisdiction of the bodies and the case?”
“The locals are going to get all the credit and we’ll let the media know that the Miami PD is working in conjunction with a federal task force. We won’t get specific about which agency. And we’re going to take half the remains as of now for ID purposes. The locals will take the other half. Nieto’s received the authority to set up a special team for this. There won’t be a backlog for his guys or ours. And we’ve already got a head start with the names.”
Which would make it easier to identify the women if they were indeed the missing ones from their list. Nathan’s gut said they were. “Does Nieto trust his guys not to leak anything until we’re ready?”
Burkhart gave one sharp nod. “Yes.”
“What about the first body? Any news from the lab?” They had an ID, but they needed more than that. If they got the right piece of evidence, it could help them pinpoint where the women were being kept. Or at least where the deceased woman had been kept and the cause of death. From there it would be about following down more leads.
“Nothing yet.”
Nathan had started to respond when Cade and Dax strode up, both wearing neoprene suits and dive shoes identical to his own.
“What’s the 411?” Cade asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
“You three go get some rest. You two start at the crack of dawn tomorrow,” he said to Cade and Dax. “Nathan, your alias has a meeting with a potential suspect midmorning. I’ve sent a file to your encrypted account. Get some damn sleep and coordinate with Elliott in the morning. It’s just a meet-and-greet, so you’ll be going in alone.”
He nodded once. Mercado wasn’t their only suspect, so Nathan would be working every angle he could to eliminate or take down their suspects. He wanted to be back at the lake, though, searching for more bodies. He felt almost compelled to do so, hated the thought of those bones wrapped up at the bottom of the lake. Some had been scattered, obviously by gators.
But that wasn’t his call and he knew he’d be more use in the field trying to find out who was behind this. The remains weren’t going anywhere and if he could help the women still alive, he would do everything in his power.
“I’m going to stop by the lab on the way home,” Nathan said. Though he had no intention of going to his NSA-owned condo, Miguel’s home base for the duration of the operation in Miami. He’d be heading straight to Amelia’s after the lab. He needed to see her, especially after today. But he wasn’t ready to go there just yet. He was too edgy. And knowing that she was keeping something from him about why things had gone south so many years ago wouldn’t make him the best company until he got his shit together.
“I’ll go with you,” Cade said, pretty much at the same time Dax murmured the same sentiment.
He shook his head. “Not necessary. Go home to your ladies. Is there an extra vehicle I can use?” he asked Burkhart, not wanting to get into a conversation about his teammates coming. Normally he’d welcome the company, but he needed to regroup.
Once he got an extra set of keys to an SUV, he grabbed his duffel bag from Cade’s vehicle and changed into dry clothes. In the half hour it took to drive to the lab, he kept the radio off, not wanting to listen to anything. Nathan had contemplated calling or texting Amelia, but he felt as if he were walking a tightrope right now.
He knew himself well enough that he’d be a dick to her right now. He needed to lash out at someone, and he wouldn’t let her become an easy target. She didn’t deserve that.
At the security gate of the nondescript building on the outskirts of downtown, he showed his badge and did a retinal and palm scan. He’d have to do it again a couple more times before being allowed into the actual lab. Which meant another twenty freaking minutes.
He’d thought the downtime would help him to regroup, but all he could think about was finding that first tarp-wrapped body. Bones, at this point. At the bottom of a cold, dark lake. He’d seen humanity at its worst before. Nothing should surprise him anymore. And really, someone using women, killing them, and then disposing of them didn’t surprise him, because he knew what kind of evil was out there.
But it did piss him off. The way humans so often hurt each other for superficial gain was a horrifying mystery to him.
It was one of the reasons he’d joined the NSA when Burkhart recruited him. Did he always agree with the methods the agency took? No. But he knew without a doubt they were doing a lot more good than harm.
By the time he placed his hand on the final biometric scanner outside the lab doors, about half of his pent-up energy had started to fade.
The doors opened with a quiet whoosh of air. One lab tech was at a computer and another stood next to Dr. Tai Nguyen at a table where the body of Ester Pajari was stretched out.
A pale blue sheet was pulled up over the lower half of her body as Dr. Nguyen and the tech spoke in quiet tones.
“Give me one moment, Agent Ortiz,” Nguyen said without looking over at him. Her long black hair was pulled back in a coil at the nape of her neck, as usual.
He remained where he was, not wanting to get in her way. Moments later she strode toward him, her white lab coat buttoned up. In the lab she rarely wore heels, and today—or tonight—was no different. In flats, she was about five feet one. She should have appeared fragile, but she had a commanding presence.
“You have good timing. I was just about to call Burkhart.” Her expression was unreadable. No surprise, since she rarely showed emotion while working.
“How bad is it?”
“Not . . . what I expected.” She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket and dialed before holding it between them. She pressed the speaker button.
Burkhart answered after two rings. “Tell me you’ve got something, Tai.”
“I’m with Agent Ortiz and have news.” She didn’t wait for him to respond, just jumped in as she always did. “The victim recently gave birth and, in simple terms, when she died, her body was in excellent condition. She’d been taking prenatal pills and getting the recommended amount of exercise. At least her body’s health would indicate so.”
Something started to buzz inside Nathan. “What about abuse or trauma?”
“None at all. No signs of sexual or physical abuse. Also no drug use. She was in perfect health.”
“How did she die?” Burkhart asked.
“Poison. It would have been a painless death, but definitely poison.”
“Any idea where she was being held?” It was a long shot, but Nathan had to ask. And he wanted to know what had happened to the baby, but the doctor wouldn’t know that. Fuck, he really hated this case.
She shook her head. “The tarp she was wrapped in is common, can be bought at any local hardware store. And her body was cleaned by a pro. There’s no one else’s DNA on her or the tarp. There also isn’t any on the weights that were holding her underwater. Whoever dumped her took serious precautions to cover their tracks.”
Various
thoughts filtered through Nathan’s mind, but the first one that popped up was black market babies. “She wasn’t being abused. There was no drug use. She was kept alive for eleven months since being held, and she recently gave birth.”
“Fuck.” Burkhart’s voice was savage.
His thoughts exactly. “Black market babies are big money, but I’ve never heard of someone kidnapping women and holding them in a large-scale capacity for this purpose. Usually they just kidnap babies.” Not that they knew that the other women they’d found would have similarities to Ester Pajari. But it was in the realm of possibility and one they had to consider.
“I’m sending more remains your way right now, Tai. Call in whoever you want for backup. I need to know if the rest of the women suffered similar fates. Some of the remains will be sent to the Miami PD’s lab. I’ll put you in contact with their ME so you can coordinate and compare findings.”
As Tai and Burkhart talked, Nathan scrubbed a hand over his face. Black market babies were a nightmare. Kidnapping women, impregnating them—via rape or insemination—then killing them and selling off their babies.
“I want to set up a meet with Alexander Lopez,” Nathan said before Tai could hang up with Burkhart. Lopez was a Miami weapons dealer who’d worked with various NSA agents—though he didn’t know they were agents. He was a criminal, no doubt, but he had a sort of moral code that made it difficult to dislike the guy. If there was a baby market operation going on in Miami and he knew about it, he wouldn’t like it. When something offended Lopez’s moral compass, he had no problem passing on the information.
There was a moment of silence. “I’ll have Selene set up the meeting. She’ll get a meet faster, since they have a relationship.”
“I—”
“You’ll go with her. Now go get some rack time. There’s nothing else you can do tonight and I need you sharp for that meet tomorrow.”
“Okay.” He didn’t plan to get any sleep, though. He was headed straight to Amelia’s after this. Nathan wasn’t sure if Burkhart would approve, which was why he wasn’t asking.