by Matt Lincoln
For a moment, they just looked at each other. Olivia couldn’t tell who moved first, but an instant later, their lips were pressed together, and she was winding her arms around his neck. She stumbled slightly as he gently pushed her backward toward the bed.
They were supposed to be waking up early tomorrow. She knew that, but at that moment, she really didn’t care.
25
Ethan
I drained the last of my coffee and did one final check to make sure I had everything I would need before heading out. Olivia and I had spent the previous evening awake well into the night, so when my alarm had gone off at seven the following day, I’d needed to force myself out of bed and back into my own room to get changed and ready. I’d enjoyed one cup of coffee in Olivia’s room with her and then another in my own room after taking a shower. I was finally starting to feel a little less groggy, which was good because we still needed to figure out exactly what our plan for the day was.
I made my way down to the lobby to wait for Holm and Olivia, but to my surprise, they were both already down there.
“Nice of you to join us,” Holm teased as I walked over to where they were both sitting on one of the couches. “I just got a call from Morris.”
“Did he sound angry?” I asked, recalling how annoyed he’d been the previous day that we’d returned from the bar without arresting anyone.
“Nah.” Holm shook his head. “He sounded as chill as he did before, so I think he’s cooled off. Anyway, he called to tell us that the guy we arrested in Kew yesterday is ready for us to interrogate.”
“Really?” I asked. “The hospital cleared him?”
“I guess so.” Holm shrugged. “Morris said that he was there at the station and that we could stop by as soon as we were ready.”
“That’s perfect,” I replied enthusiastically. “We still have four hours until noon. We can go speak to him and see if we can pull any information from him that might help us today during the raid.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” Olivia smiled at me.
I smiled back at her before turning back to Holm.
“Well, what are we waiting for then?” I asked.
The three of us made our way out of the hotel and into the car. As I drove down to the Grace Bay station, I couldn’t help but glance over at Olivia sitting in the passenger seat next to me. We hadn’t had a lot of time to talk that morning since I’d needed to rush off after that first cup of coffee to shower and get dressed. I’d been a little surprised by her sudden offer of drinks the previous night, though pleasantly so. After she’d suggested we head to bed early, I hadn’t expected us to end up spending the night together. Not that I was complaining, of course.
“How do you think we should approach the interrogation?” Holm asked as I parked the car outside of the station. “You have a plan in mind?”
“Well, we should focus on seeing what he knows about the Oasis,” I replied as I turned off the ignition and got out. “Daniela said that there would only be one guard awake on duty, but we should make sure that’s accurate. Regardless of her status, she’s still one of the victims. There may be things she’s kept in the dark about.”
The three of us headed into the station. The officer sitting behind the desk greeted us as soon as we entered.
“Good morning,” he announced. “Are you the federal agents?”
“That’s us,” I confirmed as I pulled my badge out of my pocket out of habit.
“The captain is expecting you,” he replied after taking a close look at my badge. He pointed down the hallway with his pen. “Do you know the way to his office?”
“We do,” Olivia replied with a smile. “Thank you.”
We headed back off through the familiar bullpen and short corridor that we’d walked through so many times over the past few days. We had made it about halfway to Morris’s office when we were intercepted by Crowley. He stepped out of a room just as we were passing by, and he jumped in surprise when he looked up and found us standing in front of him.
“Oh, you scared me,” he breathed as his shoulders relaxed. “I was just getting the information off the suspect’s fingerprints.” He held up the bundle of papers he was holding for emphasis. “You came at the perfect time. Come on, the suspect is down this way.”
We followed him down another corridor and into a short hallway lined with holding cells. I recognized it from the previous night when we’d walked through there on our way to speak with Jenny. The cells had all been empty then, but today one of them had clearly been occupied recently. The door was open, and the sheets on the bed were rumpled.
We walked past the cell and toward a room just a few feet away. There was no two-way mirror like I was used to, but I could see the man from the night before through the small, rectangular window set into the door. His face was twisted into a scowl, and even from here, I could see how furious he was.
“His name is Antonio Roberts,” Crowley informed us as he glanced down at a tablet he was holding in his arms. “He has a few prior arrests on his record for public drunkenness, as well as one for domestic violence against an ex-girlfriend.”
“Sounds like a great guy,” Olivia muttered darkly.
“Oh, there’s more,” Crowley scoffed. “We looked into his employment history, assuming that he must work at the bar where he was arrested. Curiously, though, we were unable to obtain employment records for the last four months.”
“What do you mean?” I turned to look at him.
“Well, he was employed there,” Crowley explained. “He was a manager there for about a year. However, when we went to the bar, we could not find any official records for him beginning four months ago. No pay stubs, no tax paperwork. We also learned from a different employee that the owner of the bar suddenly stopped making his weekly visits approximately four months ago.”
“What?” Olivia gasped. “That’s a hell of a coincidence.”
“Indeed.” Crowley nodded gravely. “Apparently, Roberts told the other employees, most of whom are part-timers, that the owner had gone on vacation. None of them thought to question it until what happened last night.”
“Murder’s a pretty big step up from the petty crimes he’s been arrested for before,” I muttered as I turned to peer at him through the window. “Though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, considering he did shoot at us and in a bar full of people no less.”
“Maybe the owner found out what he was up to,” Holm suggested. “If he wasn’t in on it himself, Roberts would have to shut him up before he went to the police.”
“Let’s find out,” I replied as I pushed the door open.
Roberts looked up at us as we entered, the scowl on his face growing even more menacing as he recognized us.
“I’ll kill you,” he snarled, his teeth bared like a rabid dog.
“I’m sure you will,” I replied sarcastically as I sat down in front of him. His face turned a shade redder at the casual way in which I’d dismissed him. That was good. The more I poked his buttons, the easier it would be to get him to talk.
“You have quite the little operation going on down at that bar in Kew Town, huh?”
He snorted at me derisively before looking away, clearly intending not to talk. Why did they always have to do this the hard way?
“Tell me, just how long have you been doing this?” I asked, unable to keep the disgust I felt out of my voice. “It must be quite a while now, considering one of your victims was kidnapped nearly twenty years ago. You know who I’m talking about, don’t you?”
His gaze slid over to meet mine. He had an unreadable expression on his face. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, but I did know that my words had at least caught his attention.
“Allison Newark,” Olivia suddenly chimed in. “I believe you knew her as Cat. Does that ring any bells?”
That definitely stirred a reaction. Roberts leaned across the table to sneer at her.
“What the hell is it to you?” he snapped
at her.
“So you do know her,” I surmised. “Then you must have been there the day she escaped, too. Were you the one who shot at her?”
“Of course I did!” he roared, catching me by surprise. There was so much fury in his voice, more than seemed normal even for a piece of criminal scum like him. “She thought she could just leave! Run off and take the kid with her! Who the hell did she think she was?”
“Why wouldn’t she take her child with her?” Olivia asked, obviously confused by the man’s phrasing.
“Because she belongs to me!” he hissed back. “All of those girls do! She had no right doing anything without my permission!”
“Yeah, I don’t think so,” I replied. Olivia’s eyes were burning with untempered hatred, and as repulsed as the guy made me as well, I needed to keep this interrogation on track. “Unfortunately for you, she managed to make it all the way to Miami. That’s why we’re here, and that’s how we know about everything you and your little group have been up to.”
I deliberately decided to leave out the fact that she had ultimately died. There was no reason to give this jerk the satisfaction.
“She made it?” he gaped at me, his face draining of color. “She actually survived?”
“Eddy’s been reunited with his grandmother.” I dodged his last question. “He’s safe and sound, far away from your reach. So why don’t you start telling us what we want to know?”
“Why should I?” he scoffed in a show of indifference. I could hear the tremor in his voice, though, and I knew that his nerves were starting to wear thin.
“Maybe because we know what you did to the owner of the bar,” Olivia bluffed.
Robert’s eyes went wide at her words, and his mouth clamped shut with an audible click.
“A murder charge on top of everything we already have on you?” she continued. “That’s a pretty rough situation to be in. Of course, the FBI has pull all over the world. Maybe, if you cooperate with us, I can see about putting in a good word for you.”
He narrowed his eyes at her as though he was trying to gauge just from her face whether she was lying, which I was almost certain she was. While it was true that the FBI had the power to cut deals, I seriously doubted that Olivia would extend such an offer to a man as despicable as him. There was no reason for him to know that, though.
“Fine,” he finally spat after a moment of consideration. “What do you want to know?”
“First off,” I started, “what do you know about your boss, Samuel?”
“What do you mean, ‘what do I know?’” He scowled at me. “I know he runs things. I know that I do what he says, and I get paid to do it.”
“Do you know the address of the house he lives in?” I asked.
“The one in Cockburn?” he asked. “Yeah, I know it.”
“Good,” I replied as I pulled my phone out of my pocket. “What about the house that all the women are kept in? Do you know where that is?”
“Yeah, I do,” he grumbled.
“Great,” I replied as calmly as I could, though inside, I was thrilled. “We’re going to need both of those.”
I listened as he rattled off the addresses, recording them in my own phone as he did.
“I’ll let the captain know as soon as we’re done,” Crowley said to me. “We can run a search and make sure he isn’t lying to us.”
“Why would I lie?” he scoffed, sounding almost indignant at the accusation.
“Why would a human trafficker who isn’t afraid to shoot at a federal agent lie?” Olivia deadpanned mockingly. “Gee, I can’t imagine why.”
He bared his teeth at her in a snarl. A vein throbbed in his neck, and I could tell that he was itching to snap at her. It was probably driving him insane to be spoken to like that by a woman.
“One last thing,” I said as I slipped my phone back into my pocket. “I’m going to need you to tell me everything you know about the Oasis Lounge. How many men are there currently, how many women, and what is the security like?”
“And don’t get any funny ideas about pulling anything,” Crowley threatened. “Give us false information, and I’ll personally make sure you regret it. I don’t care what kind of deal the FBI wants to give you.”
He was absolutely seething, and for a moment, Roberts seemed to shrink away from Crowley’s tall, hulking form.
“Okay,” he grumbled. “I’ll tell you everything.”
I listened intently as he gave me all the information I wanted to know. As he did, I began to formulate a plan in my head. It would still be risky attempting to free all those women, but at least now we knew what we would be up against. I was going to make sure we succeeded and rescued all the victims trapped inside of that bar.
26
Ethan
We sprang into action as soon as the interrogation was finished. The first thing we needed to do was to build a team big enough to handle such a big rescue mission.
“Agents,” Captain Morris had said once we were all back in his office, “this is Officer Emerson Davis, Officer Gloria Thompson, Officer Mike Grayson, and Officer William Hanks. They’ll be accompanying you on your mission today.”
“Good to meet you,” I replied as I reached forward to shake each of their hands. Since the mission involved several victims, we needed to ensure we had enough manpower to get them all out safely.
“We’re happy to help,” Officer Grayson replied. “It’s hard to believe something like this is even happening. These kinds of things just don’t happen here, you know?”
No one ever thought that awful things could happen in their calm, peaceful town until they did. Nevertheless, it was comforting to know how determined these officers were to help us put a stop to this.
We spent the next hour or so going over the details of what we’d learned from the interview. Then, all we could do was wait until the appointed time.
It was now only ten minutes until noon, and we were about to put our plan into action. Antonio had confirmed what Daniela had told us about the traffickers still being asleep at this hour. According to him, the bar stayed open until about five in the morning, and there were rooms on the second floor of the Oasis Lounge, just like in the other bar in Kew Town. Aside from one or two men to keep watch, everyone would still be asleep for another few hours.
We were being accompanied by two other pairs of officers, aside from Crowley, to make sure we had plenty of backup. Assuming Daniela had done her part to make sure the women were ready to move ASAP, our current plan was to storm straight in and catch them unawares. Since we needed to make sure we had the element of surprise on our side, we had waited until just before twelve to arrive, just in case we happened to get spotted.
As we pulled into the parking lot, I was immediately alarmed to find someone standing outside the building, just beside the door. My anxiety eased somewhat as we got closer and I realized it was only Daniela.
As I got out of the car, I noticed that her posture was rigid. She looked tense as she surveyed everyone as they all got out of their vehicles, distrust bright and clear in her stern expression.
“Part of me didn’t believe you’d actually come,” she muttered as I approached her. “I’m so used to disappointment. I don’t believe a thing until I see it with my own eyes.”
“Well, we’re here now,” I replied. “And we’re ready to move. How many men are inside right now?”
“Six in total,” she replied quietly as everyone gathered around to listen. “Two of them are awake. They’re supposed to be keeping watch, but I managed to distract them. They’re both sitting at the bar right now.”
“Good.” I nodded. “And the women?”
“Upstairs,” she replied. “I’ve gathered them all into one room, the one immediately to the right as soon as you get upstairs. They’re ready to go as soon as we get your signal.”
“What about the rest of the men?” I asked urgently, nervous about wasting time out here.
“They’re upstairs as well.”
She frowned. “Though I’m not exactly sure which rooms they’re in.”
“Okay,” I replied as I turned to address the group. “Once we’re inside, Holm, Crowley, and I will deal with the two men at the bar. Officers Davis, Thompson, Grayson, and Hanks, you head upstairs and secure the remaining men. In the meantime, Agent Hastings and Daniela can get to the girls and get them out of the bar as quickly as possible.”
The officers who had been sent to work with us all nodded in agreement.
“Okay,” Holm replied. “Let’s go.”
Daniela opened the door quietly. I drew my gun from my holster, and all around me, everyone else did the same. As soon as it was open wide enough for us to step through, we all rushed forward.
“Federal Agents!” I yelled as Holm, Crowley, and I moved quickly forward, straight toward the bar at the center of the floor. Two men were sitting there, just as Daniela had said, tall pints of beer clutched in their hands.
“What the hell is this?!” one of the men roared as he jumped to his feet.
“Don’t move another inch!” Crowley yelled as he stepped forward, his gun pointed straight at the men.
The man halted in his motions, his hand frozen halfway toward his back.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I spotted the rest of our group running toward the back of the bar to make their way upstairs.
One of the men must have noticed them, too, because an instant later, he disregarded Crowley’s order and pulled something from behind his back.
“Stop!” Crowley yelled just as I pointed my gun at the man and pulled the trigger.
I was just a fraction of a second too late, though. The man had already managed to shoot. Luckily, the bullet didn’t hit any of our comrades, instead striking a table by the window.
The man fell with a groan as my own bullet hit him. His buddy yelled with fury and reached behind his back.
“Don’t even think about it!” I yelled as I pointed my gun at him. “Unless you want to end up like your friend there.”