by Rachel Brady
“That’s my girl.”
She wrapped an arm around my shoulder and led me inside.
Behind the counter, we looked over Brad’s shoulder at a list of directories on the hard drive. I wanted to shove him out of his chair.
“Hey,” I said to Jeannie. “Didn’t you want to search the hard drive?”
“Thanks,” Jeannie said, to me. Then, turning to Brad, she added, “Can I take a quick look in my son’s folders?”
She leaned next to Brad and got so close to the screen her shoulder brushed against his. He wheeled his seat backward, to reclaim some personal space, I imagined. Jeannie grabbed his mouse.
“Let’s see what he’s been up to.”
“Okay then,” Brad said. “I’ll be over here, ringing you up.” He faded toward a computer at the far end of the counter.
“Try My Documents,” I whispered.
She double-clicked the folder and a new list of folders appeared.
Jeannie read them off quietly, “Mortgage, Gear, Junk, MP3s, Old, Miscellaneous, Work, Financial, Pictures…”
She clicked on the Work folder, but only old resume drafts were inside. Apparently Edward Kosh—Scud—was a building contractor before he hit it big in human trafficking and contraband.
“Try Financial.”
The folder contained a variety of Excel Sheets: Interest Payments, Master Card, Home Improvements, and New Car, among others. In a list of such specific records, a nondescript filename caught my eye.
“Click on Transactions,” I said. The Date Modified column indicated it was updated only two days ago.
Excel launched and populated a short worksheet. There were no column headers.
Jeannie and I squinted at the data.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Is this what I—”
“This has to be male or female,” I said, pointing at a column of “M”s and “F”s.
“Origin and destination cities too,” she whispered. “And are those the ages of kids involved? I can’t believe this. What’s with the question marks?”
“Maybe a child not placed? And that last column…it has to be the person who took each child.”
I remembered the paper I’d found in Kurt’s duffel.
“Wait,” I muttered, unzipping the backpack. Where was that damn paper? I dug through stacks of money looking for it, and two thick bricks cash escaped onto the table. I glanced up in time to catch Brad staring, wide-eyed.
“Long story,” I said, and shoved them back in the bag.
Brad grinned. “Is that—”
“For a prank.” Jeannie reached over me, into the sack, and extracted a crisp fifty from her recent bank run. “Looks real, huh?” She winked and handed it to him. “Just don’t try to spend it.”
He walked toward the counter, inspecting the bill and turning it over in his hand. I wasn’t sure if he’d been tricked or paid off, and I imagined he was asking himself the same question.
The paper I wanted was nestled along the backpack’s liner and I unfolded it and held it near the keyboard.
“Look,” I said. “The first two columns on this paper match the ones on the spreadsheet, right down to the question mark. They could be dates, without the year listed.”
“Wait a minute.” Jeannie leaned forward and looked from the monitor to the paper. “How much money’s in your bag there, Em?”
I frowned. “Before I bought the car it was almost two-fifty.”
She ran a finger down the smooth surface of the flat screen panel and stopped on the last three numbers. “Eighty-nine, seventy-five, eighty-four…that adds to what? Two forty-eight?”
“I hate math.”
“Well, this math,” she pointed to the numbers on the computer and paper, “is in that bag.” She flung her finger toward my backpack. “Column seven here is money, if you add some zeroes. And you’re hauling around an awful lot of zeroes, lady.”
My eyes followed her finger and involuntarily fixated on the bag. I visualized its incredible stash, safely zipped inside. “Why would they risk toting that amount of cash?”
“Money laundering.” She answered with conviction but I doubted she had any idea what she was talking about.
I looked at the last column of the spreadsheet again. “Dalton and Kosh are obvious. And I know that name Reed.”
She turned back to the screen, as if double-checking me.
“That’s the guy I picked out of the photo line-up in Mattie’s case. The guy I was supposed to forget. He’s the one who went free because my deposition never made it to court.”
“I don’t know what to say. You did everything you could.”
I’d thought so too, but it hadn’t been enough. And now more children had been taken from their homes because that trial didn’t take Reed off the streets like it should have. At least six kids had been snatched this year, if I could believe what I was reading. And then it hit me.
“Where are the other years?”
“This is the only tab,” she said, clicking across the bottom, checking for more data.
“July seventh,” I said. “Do a search on 0707 and see what hits.” God, please something hit.
Jeannie opened a search window and typed in the characters. The computer found the text string in an Excel worksheet called Old that was in Scud’s Junk folder. When the file opened, my eyes went straight to the entry. I fell to my knees next to Jeannie’s chair.
My voice sounded far away again, like a distant whisper in my own ears.
“It can’t be anything else.” I scanned the row of data, reading out loud. “They took her on the seventh. She was ten months old. On the nineteenth, they placed her. That bastard Reed took sixty-five K for my baby.”
Even as I explained, my eyes locked on the entry in the destination column: Galveston.
Chapter Thirty-one
Jeannie and I took a few wrong turns on our way to Richard’s office, but eventually we found it. I was surprised to discover he shared a suite with a financial planner and a massage therapist.
“Eclectic group,” Jeannie said as we followed him down a hallway, past posters of the musculoskeletal system and a shelf of body oils. She carried printouts of the Excel sheets in one hand.
“This is me.” Richard peeled off into a side room. He flipped the light switch and I looked around. His furnishings were simple: desk, chairs, and a filing cabinet. The walls were bare. No drapes. A group of cardboard boxes were the only other items in the room.
“Just move in?” Jeannie asked.
Richard shook his head and tossed his keys onto his desk.
“What’d you tell the police?” I asked. We hadn’t heard his rundown yet.
“I told them I haven’t been to Gulf Coast Skydiving in over a week and I loaned the car to an associate helping me with a case.”
Jeannie crossed her arms and circled a stack of waist-high cardboard boxes. “You didn’t just move in, but you leave boxes out like this?”
Richard shrugged.
“When they asked me how to contact you,” he said, “I gave the number at your motel. You don’t carry a cell phone, do you?” He winked at me.
“Richard,” Jeannie said, “Has your wife seen this place?” She walked to his desk and sat in his chair. She found a rubberized stress doll, the kind that bends and stretches, and began flexing him in all directions.
“You could get in big trouble if they find out you lied,” I said.
Richard didn’t say anything right away. I had the uneasy feeling bad news was coming.
“They won’t have to dig that far,” he said. “Because it’s time for you to tell them what happened last night.”
“I can’t go to the police yet, Richard. Look what we found on the hard drive.”
I extended a hand toward Jeannie, meaning for her to pass the printouts. She was busy contorting the desk toy.
I found the printouts myself and brought them to Richard. I only showed him the entries from this year; I wanted his undivided a
ttention when it was time to tell him about Annette. Richard studied the paper and sank into a chair on the visitor side of his desk, since Jeannie had taken over his usual spot.
“If this means what you think,” he said, pointing to a row on the spreadsheet, “this entry must be for Casey. Eleven-month-old male, disappeared from Houston on February twelfth.”
I looked over his shoulder. “It says he was placed in Tempe on the twenty-first. That’s today.”
Richard stared into the space in front of him, thinking out loud. “Maybe he’s still here in town.”
“Richard’s right,” Jeannie said. “About the first thing, I mean. It’s time to come clean about last night and hand all this over. If we wait too long, they might never find Casey. And the FBI needs to hear what you know about the agent that was shot. But, if you two go in now with everything that’s happened, you’ll be stuck there for days.”
Jeannie tapped her model-perfect fingernails on Richard’s desk. “I think there’s one angle left that we can explore better than the Feds. David Meyer.”
“The detectives can question him,” Richard said.
“Yes, but he and Emily hit it off. She’s more likable than a strange man with a badge.”
“Trish and her men won’t be back. Not after nearly being busted last night,” I said. “Maybe she’s right, Richard. David might be the piece that unravels this. He has to know something about what Trish was doing, even if he doesn’t know he knows.”
“At least talk to him before you get tied up at a police station,” Jeannie said.
Richard stared at her. She’d begun inspecting her bruised cheek in the reflection of a picture frame.
“Stop looking at me like you’re surprised I have a brain, Richard.”
“I agree with you,” he said. “We should see Meyer first.”
I nodded toward the printout in his hand. “You see the last line?”
He raised the paper and focused.
I continued, “Eight-month-old female in Houston, taken six days ago. Has she been in the news?”
Richard frowned, “Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Well, I think those question marks you see mean the little girl’s on the market.”
“All the more reason to help the Feds bring these folks down ASAP.”
“Not that simple.” I passed Richard the paper with Annette’s information. He took a moment to scan the dates, then instantly understood.
His eyes were still on the paper when he said, “Galveston.”
“I’m afraid to go to the FBI, Richard. I was there when Clement got shot. If he’s unconscious, he won’t be able to vouch for me. They won’t help me unless they believe I’m innocent. That might take days.
“My only chance to figure out who has Annette is to get these people back into town, back into action.”
“Never mind these are the same people who tried to kill you.”
Jeannie looked at me. “Got an idea?”
“They have a baby to sell. I have a lot of money.”
“You’re not thinking,” Jeannie said. “You can’t set up a deal with them. They know you.” She gave a dismissive wave. “They know all of us.”
“I’m sure we could find a stand-in to do it for the right price,” I said. My newfound sack of money seemed able to repeatedly transform major obstacles into trivial afterthoughts.
“How would you contact them?” Richard asked. “The only phone numbers we have are for Kurt’s and Trish’s cells. I don’t care how good your cover story is, calling one of those numbers is sure to tip them off.”
He was right. Money wouldn’t help with that one.
“Okay,” I said, “Back to David Meyer then. If nothing comes from talking to him, I’ll have to take my chances with Clement and the FBI. They knew enough about the racketeering to be undercover at the drop zone. Maybe they know who to call when you want to buy a baby. With data from the hard drive, they could set up a sting.”
“How do we do the David thing?” Jeannie asked. “Show up at his office? Wait at his house?”
Richard produced his wallet and started leafing through cards. He pulled out a paper and walked toward the phone.
“We don’t have time to wait at his house,” he said. “I’ll ask about a visit to his office.”
“See if you can get the IP address for his remote log-ins,” I said.
He nodded and dialed. Jeannie stood and walked to me.
“How are you holding up?” she asked quietly.
I couldn’t answer without breaking down, so I shook my head. Jeannie put an arm around me. On the phone, Richard asked for the information I wanted, then about stopping by to see David. I thought about Annette’s entry on the spreadsheet again and felt my eyes start to sting, but the sound of the phone dropping into its cradle spurred me to keep myself together.
“Meyer called in sick this morning,” Richard said. “He’s not at work today. They’re looking into the IP address.”
Jeannie clucked her tongue. “Is it me, or does the timing of that sick day seem a little strange?”
“I don’t like it either,” Richard said, and grabbed his keys off the desk.
Chapter Thirty-two
Richard said that in his line of work, calling before an interview is like doing a cannonball jump before trying to fish. We had no assurance that just because David Meyer had called in sick he’d actually be home, but Richard was fairly confident that calling ahead would guarantee his absence.
That’s how we ended up in the parking lot of David’s apartment complex, staring through Richard’s windshield at the second-floor landing shared by units twelve and thirteen. David had no idea we were coming, and I had no idea what to say to him.
“Just introduce me,” Richard said. “Most people are open to questions when they think it’ll help a friend. If he understands why these answers are important to you, hopefully he’ll help us.”
“Yeah,” Jeannie said to him, “until you come to the part about how his two-timing, psycho girlfriend sells black market babies.”
She was in the backseat, leaning forward so she wouldn’t miss anything. Richard turned off the car.
We crossed a neatly maintained lawn and climbed the steps to David’s apartment. Richard knocked. Jeannie was close behind him, staring intently at the door. I looked behind us and surveyed the grassy yard separating us from the parking lot. An abandoned jump rope was coiled near a patch of geraniums below. I thought of Annette, how she might look jumping that rope, and felt inadequate. Maybe I wasn’t even picturing her face correctly.
The door swung open and I turned. I’m not sure who was more surprised, Vince or me.
It felt like ages had passed since we’d last spoken. I wondered if that was because of all I’d uncovered since then, or because of the sour note we’d parted on yesterday. He wasn’t wearing his cowboy hat and its absence made him seem oddly vulnerable.
He spoke first. “What are you…Is everything okay?”
He addressed the question directly to me, looking past Jeannie and Richard as if they weren’t there. A mixture of confusion and concern was on his face, and I wondered how genuine it was. After last night, finding Vince at David and Trish’s apartment was unsettling. Maybe David wasn’t a patsy after all. And what if the rift between Vince and his cousin was just another cover? I remembered the afternoon I’d watched Clement search around Vince’s truck, and wondered if the FBI knew something about him I didn’t.
I introduced him to Richard. Vince studied me a moment longer before shifting his gaze. He nodded to Richard and shook his hand, but his usual cordiality was gone and I had to look hard to find traces of the laugh lines I remembered. He nodded to Jeannie without the smile I’d expected, and then held the door for the three of us.
As we entered, David’s voice came from the hall. He was asking Vince who’d been at the door, but stopped short when he rounded the corner and found the four of us standing in his entry hall, staring.
; “Hi,” he said, almost like a question. It occurred to me I was the only person in my trio he was likely to recognize. I apologized for dropping by unannounced, introduced Richard, and explained that David might know something to help with Richard’s case.
“I’m the tag-along friend,” Jeannie said with a half-hearted wave.
David smiled at her, but it looked stilted. I wondered what we’d interrupted.
“Could I ask a few questions?” Richard’s tone was more cordial than usual. “You might have information about a child I’m looking for.”
David’s eyebrows rose. “A child? Sure.”
He gestured for us to sit. Richard and Jeannie took seats near him on the living room sofas. Vince and I remained standing. I wanted to sit—my leg was feeling weaker every moment—but it was more important to stay where I could watch David and Vince’s reactions to Richard’s questions. Especially Vince’s.
“What can I tell you?” David asked. He took a seat opposite Richard and sat on the edge of the sofa cushion, leaning forward so his elbows rested on his thighs.
Richard frowned. “How about the last time you saw Trish?”
David looked at Vince before answering. Vince’s posture seemed to straighten at the mention of her name.
“Trish?” David asked, “What does she have to do with a missing kid?”
“I’m trying to figure that out,” Richard said. “When’s the last time you saw her?”
“Last night.”
Richard redirected to Vince. “How about you?”
The look on Vince’s face was stern, and he didn’t answer right away. He seemed to be exercising enormous self-restraint. His eyes darted from Richard to David, and finally stopped on me. His posture relaxed a little when our eyes met. I’d never seen him stressed before. He seemed weary.
“Do you know something about Trish I need to hear?”
I hesitated. What to do with a question like that.
Richard pressed. “When’d you last see her?”
Vince raised a hand in Richard’s direction and kept his eyes on me. He asked me again. “What do you know about Trish?”
It was difficult, but I pulled my gaze off him to steal a glance at David, who had the wide-eyed look of a man afraid to speak.