“We have one positive ID—Lance Dobleman,” Noah said. “He answered the door and fired the first shots. One officer was winged, managed to get his partner to safety, and ID’d him from his photo. Now no one will pick up the phone. There’s no way out—we have it surrounded. There’s no basement. They know they’re out of options.”
Villines said, “SWAT wants to get them into negotiation mode to buy time and reduce the tension. If we can develop a dialogue then maybe we can end this without anyone dying.”
The sun had long set and the headlights of every cop car were on, illuminating the block in bright, artificial light. Everything seemed sharper, clearer. SWAT was setting up two mobile spotlights at either end of the block aimed straight at the house. There had been no gunfire after the initial burst. Everyone was on edge.
This neighborhood was definitely better maintained than the trailer outside the warehouse. The small houses were older and set far apart from one another. Scraggly fruit trees filled every backyard. Lucy wondered if this was the home of one of the suspects, because it wasn’t like the others they’d seen. These houses looked like they had longtime residents who cared about their neighborhood and would notice strangers regularly coming in and out. But this particular house also had an attached garage, unlike most others. It would be easy to pull in a van and close the door, keeping the women out of sight.
“Based on Loretta’s notes, there could be up to eight women inside,” Lucy said. “She had fourteen women she was seeing who were all pregnant or had recently given birth. I’ve accounted for the two dead and the four we rescued; that leaves up to eight if Macey and Marisol are also here.”
Noah relayed the information to the SWAT team leader.
“No one is picking up the phone. My men are in position.”
“Eyes?”
“Negative. Working on it.”
Villines said, “SWAT has confirmed one gunman is in the rear. There are at least two female hostages in the rear bedroom.”
Lucy had an awful feeling about this. Dobleman and his cohorts knew they couldn’t get out of this as free men. Would they rather die?
SWAT got back on the bullhorn. “Lance Dobleman, it’s Kyle Brown again. I’d really like to talk to you. We all want the same thing, Lance. We all want to live. You want to live. You have a wife who wants you to live. Let’s talk, okay? Just pick up the phone and we can talk about this situation.”
Noah shook his head and said to Villines, “He’s the bodyguard to a woman known as Jasmine, the illegitimate daughter of a cartel leader. He knows he’s dead if he’s captured.”
“I don’t know this Jasmine,” Villines said.
“She’s the daughter of Don Flores, the dead leader of the Flores crime syndicate out of Mexico. It’s being run by his sons, according to my DEA contact. She’s a US citizen, hasn’t been on anyone’s radar except as to her parentage, but she’s suspected of running the black-market baby ring. Our white-collar experts are picking apart their shell companies as we speak, but she’s in the wind. We don’t even have a home address on her.”
Villines gestured to the house. “Maybe she’s inside.”
“Doubtful,” Noah said. “She’s long gone, probably bolted as soon as she heard the feds were in town. She was in Freer Sunday night—and that’s all we know.”
Noah was probably right, Lucy realized.
The SWAT leader was listening into his earpiece, then walked away as he spoke into his radio. “Reports. Alpha.”
A moment later there was sudden action as two teams of three, one each north and south of the house, ran around to the back, and another team approached the side of the garage and took cover against the wall.
Shouts from team members over the radio indicated there was movement inside, then a single shot came from inside the house followed by screams.
Noah and Lucy both pulled their weapons and squatted behind the squad car, eyes on the house. Nate was already behind the tactical van with a rifle. She hadn’t even seen him grab one.
Villines ran around to squat next to Noah. “They’re going to breach the house. SWAT believes they’re killing the hostages.”
Another gun shot from inside followed by commands from the SWAT team leader to go, go, go!
“Garage!” one of Villines’s deputies shouted. Whatever he said after was cut off by squealing tires; then the garage door broke apart as a white van burst out. There was no place for the driver to go, but he didn’t seem to care. He pressed the gas.
Villines went one way, and Noah and Lucy went the other. The van hit the squad car, the crunch of metal on metal echoing in the night. They ran as fast as they could to get out of the way. Gunfire followed from the back of the house, a burst then single shots then another burst.
Before the van completely stopped, the driver began to spray bullets indiscriminately from the driver’s window into the perimeter. Almost immediately multiple deputies fired at him and he slumped forward over the steering wheel. The van continued to roll forward, pushing the demolished squad car with it, until they were both wedged against a sheriff’s truck.
A swarm of SWAT officers surrounded the vehicle, guns drawn. There were screams from the back of the van. One cop opened the driver’s door while another held a rifle on the slumped-over body. He was clearly dead. They pulled the gun he’d used from the vehicle. Four other officers opened the back of the van. Lucy couldn’t hear their commands, but they were ordering whoever was inside to exit the vehicle.
Silence filled the air; only the sobs of women in the back of the van could be heard. SWAT started toward the front door when it opened.
Dobleman stood there on the small porch. He held a very pregnant woman in front of him. She was sobbing. Blood stained her dress and her face.
“Back away!” Dobleman screamed. He looked frantically about, left and right, wide-eyed. SWAT had him surrounded; they’d secured the house, and it appeared that Dobleman was the only remaining threat.
“Back off! I mean it!” He stopped at the edge of the porch. The .45 he carried was buried into the woman’s neck. “I’m leaving, right now, you’re going to let me go.”
The SWAT leader said, “Lance, it’s over. Put the gun down and you will live. Cooperate, it’ll help you.”
“Fuck you!”
He shot the woman and pushed her from the short staircase into the front yard.
Lucy screamed from the shock and surprise of Dobleman’s sudden violence.
He aimed the gun at the cops in front of him, but didn’t get off another shot. Multiple gunshots rang out and Dobleman fell backward against the house, dead.
“No!” Lucy didn’t know if she’d spoken out loud or if the shout was simply echoing in her head. She jumped up but Noah pulled her back down.
“Don’t be stupid!”
She stayed low. Noah was right. But dammit, she couldn’t just sit here. Maybe that poor girl was alive. Lucy had to help her. She was practically crawling toward the fallen woman, Noah at her side.
“House secure! Multiple casualties!” SWAT called over the radio. “Every medic inside, stat!”
Lucy jumped up again and this time Noah followed her.
Lucy, Noah, and one of the SWAT officers surrounded the woman on the lawn. The bullet had gone through her upper right shoulder just below the back of her neck. She was bleeding profusely. She opened her mouth over and over but no sound came out. Her hands flailed about and she suddenly grabbed Lucy’s arm.
“Bebé, por favor, bebé.” Her voice was weak. Then her eyes rolled back into her head and her body began to convulse.
The SWAT medic said, “I can’t stop the bleeding.”
“Put pressure on it!” Lucy took off her jacket and folded it, putting as much pressure as she could on the wound. In seconds the jacket was wet and sticky with blood.
“She’s not going to make it, Luce,” Noah said.
“She has to! Her baby.”
Lucy put her other hand on the woman’s sto
mach and felt the baby kick multiple times. She bit back a sob. “No. No. No!”
Noah said, “Can you deliver it?”
“I—maybe.” She had to try. “Where’s the paramedics? We need someone!”
The SWAT medic called in the ambulance that was waiting down the street. “House is secure. We need a paramedic stat.” He then pulled out a small emergency kit from his belt. He cut open the woman’s dress and liberally sprayed an antiseptic over her skin. “I’ve assisted in one emergency C-section when I was an EMT. We have to do it fast. She’s gone. I have no pulse. The baby won’t survive more than a couple minutes, if at all.”
He took out a scalpel and said, “This is all I have.” He hesitated.
“Do it,” Lucy said. “We don’t have much time.”
“I can’t. Not without authorization.” He looked pained.
Damn rules!
Lucy took the scalpel, took a deep breath, forced her heart rate to slow. She’d never cut into a living person before, but she’d cut into the dead. She knew how the body was designed, how the uterus expanded and thinned during pregnancy. It was a strong muscle, it needed a sure and firm hand.
At the top of the belly, she pushed down with the scalpel until she felt the muscle give. Then she made a smooth vertical incision down, across the large stomach, all the way down to her pelvis.
Thank God she’d cut through the uterus on the first try. She pulled it apart, separating it. There was very little blood. She saw the baby in the amniotic sac. She carefully punctured the sac, reached in and took hold of the infant.
“Scissors—we have to cut the umbilical cord before the toxins from the mother reach her. We need a clamp. Something to seal it.”
“Scissors?” The medic held surgical scissors in his hand.
Lucy nodded and without hesitating pulled the baby out. The medic cut the umbilical cord. Then he twisted the end still attached to the baby around the scissors and created a temporary clamp.
“She’s not breathing.” Lucy turned the small infant over, supporting her stomach with her hand and arm, and spanked her lightly. She was so small. So tiny. But she was perfect.
“She could have a blockage,” the medic said. He reached over and rubbed the infant’s back, then gave one light slap below her shoulder blades. He did it again. The legs kicked and suddenly a faint cry came out.
“Oh God,” Lucy said. “Oh God, thank you.” Noah took off his jacket and put it over the baby. Carefully, Lucy wrapped her up. “She’s small, about four pounds. We have to get her to a hospital.”
The paramedics rolled up with a gurney. They first saw the woman on the ground. “She’s gone,” the SWAT medic said. “But we have her baby.”
The paramedics ordered Lucy to put the baby on the gurney. Quickly, they wiped out her mouth then wrapped her in clean towels. “We’ll take her to the children’s hospital in Laredo,” one said. “Do you know anything about the mother? The infant?”
“No,” Lucy said. “The mother was dying, the baby would have died if we didn’t get her out. She wasn’t breathing at first…”
“That’s common in an emergency C-section. Good work.” They strapped the baby in.
“I want to go with her—” Lucy said.
“Meet us there,” the paramedic said and they rushed toward the ambulance.
Lucy stared after the baby. She couldn’t move. Suddenly her knees buckled, and she would have collapsed if Noah hadn’t caught her.
“You saved her baby,” he whispered in her ear. “It’s okay to feel, Lucy. It’s okay to cry.”
Lucy stared at the dead mother, then turned her head and buried her face into Noah’s chest. She clutched at him as if she were drowning.
She couldn’t think, she couldn’t put together a sentence. Waves of grief washed through her. Grief and anger. That so many human beings could hurt others with no remorse, no punishment. A baby who had no mother, no father. Alive, but what would happen to her?
Grief. Anger. And then a sudden relief that it was over. The last three days had been the second worst three days of her life. She wasn’t the victim this time, but she saw herself in the eyes of the woman who’d begged her to save her baby. She saw herself in the eyes of all these women. She could have been one of them.
There but for the grace of God go I …
She let Noah hold her. He sat on the ground and pulled her to him, his hand gripping her tight. She felt his chest, the sobs he was trying to hold inside. Suddenly, the tears came. Tears she’d never shed because she feared they would never stop.
They came.
CHAPTER THIRTY
It was nearly midnight when Lucy sat on the edge of the exam table. She’d washed off the blood, and Noah had insisted a doctor check her out. She was fine, she’d said. But she was drained.
“We should go to the hotel,” Noah said.
“Where’s Nate?”
“He’s still with Villines at the house.”
“I should have stayed. Done my job.”
“You did your job, Lucy.”
“I fell apart.”
“I would have worried more if you didn’t. Lucy—no apologies. You did what had to be done and saved that little girl. The SWAT medic told the story to everyone, including the nurses. They’re calling her Lucia.”
The tears threatened again and she shook her head to clear her thoughts. She couldn’t do this, not now.
Noah sat down on the doctor’s stool and took her hands. “Hey, Luce, it’s over.”
“It’s not. I overheard you talking to Villines. Marisol wasn’t in the house.”
“We found the Honeycutts’ phone in a closet, and it’s clear someone had been restrained inside. I’m going to make a run at Zapelli and see what he can tell us. His lawyer is raising Cain about unlawful detention and false arrest and whatnot, so we’re probably going to have to cut him loose.”
“You can’t!”
“You think I want to? I’m fighting hard to make sure we can keep him here, but I may not have a choice. We pushed the boundaries on this case. I told you to push, you did everything right, but we have to remember that we have rules for a reason. We don’t have cause. But I’m going to run at him, see what he can give us. The AUSA is staying up all night to see if she can make a case against him. But it’ll be up to a judge in the morning as to whether we cut him loose.”
Sometimes, she hated the system.
“They killed her,” Lucy said. “They must have killed her.”
“There was no evidence that she died at that house.” His phone rang. “It’s Dean Hooper, I have to take it. Then I’ll take you to the hotel.” He kissed her forehead.
“Armstrong,” he answered. He listened for a full minute, then said, “Where is he? I’ll pick him up tonight.”
He listened again, then swore under his breath. “Are you sure? Did he flee because he knew we were going to uncover this?… Really? Last week?… I’ll talk to his wife … This isn’t a joke, is it? Yeah, I know, you don’t joke about serious shit. Okay, I’ll be there first thing in the morning. I need a couple hours’ sleep before I can make the drive back, it’s been a fucking long day.” He hung up.
“What happened?” Lucy asked. “Hooper found something?”
“Hooper found Jasmine’s legal name—Jasmine Flores-King. King was her married name and she still uses it. “Then he found the lawyer who set up all the shell corporations for her. Once we uncovered her legal name, he said it got a bit easier, but I still think the guy’s next to God when it comes to this stuff. Hooper knows what to look for and he found it.”
“That’s great. I need good news right now.”
“But get this, the lawyer left the country last week. Went down to Acapulco according to flight records. But his wife is in San Antonio, flew here on Monday from—get this—Acapulco. So we’ll talk to her, see if she knows what her husband is doing. If he fled the country to avoid prosecution or what. After the week we’ve had, I’m going to push her hard.
No one is walking away from this bloodbath.”
As Noah spoke, Lucy’s stomach fell. She stared at him.
“Hey, do you need a doctor? You look pale. I’m sorry—I shouldn’t have dumped that on you tonight.”
“Spade,” she said.
Noah froze. “How did you know their name?”
“Sean. Sean was hired by his wife, Madison Spade, to go to Mexico and find her husband Carson and her son Jesse. She said they weren’t in Acapulco and she feared they’d been hurt or kidnapped. That’s why Sean and Kane went down there.”
“Has he found them? Does he know this guy is a fugitive?”
She nodded. “I haven’t spoken to Sean since…” When? Was it really this morning? “I talked to him briefly when we were at the property management office. Noon, I guess.” She rubbed her eyes. “He located them in Guadalajara and were working on an extraction plan. Sean suspected that Spade was laundering money after he dug around as Sean generally does … but he would have told me if he’d known it connected to my case.” She paused.
“What else?”
“I haven’t told Sean much about the case. We haven’t had much time to talk since he left.”
“Call him.”
She pulled out her cell phone and dialed. It went straight to voice mail.
She sent him a text message.
Call me. It’s urgent.
She watched as the text started to send. Then her phone beeped back a message.
Text undeliverable.
* * *
Marisol woke up because she was cold. She shivered, tried to reach for a blanket, and couldn’t move her hands.
She opened her eyes, panicked, but saw nothing in the dark. She heard nothing. She tried to shift but tight bindings cut into her wrists and ankles. She bit her lip to keep from crying out.
Everything was so fuzzy. She remembered the car … the trunk … the fear.
The fear was still with her. The fear would never leave. Until she died.
No, dear God, I can’t die. I have to save Ana.
They would kill Ana because of her. Take her babies and kill her. A cry escaped her parched lips.
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