by T. J. Kline
“Hey, T, what’s up?”
“I’m at the 4Teen Center—”
“Didn't you agreed to stay at home and let us work this? You're off this case and there's a good reason for it, T. You're too emotionally involved, T.” His voice was tight, and he sounded more worried about her than pissed she’d disobeyed orders.
“I found something here. You should head over.”
“Have the guys bag it and I’ll check it out when they bring it in.”
“It looks like a list of all the kids who’ve come through here and disappeared. She’s selling them off. Jones, the last entry is for a Casey.”
“Aw, shit, T…” A muffled sound filtered through the phone and she could almost picture him swiping his hand over his face, the way he always did when one of their cases looked like it was going bad. “Are you sure?”
“It appears she sold Rose for two hundred thousand. But her entry looks different from the others. First, she’s still listed as being here in Nevada.”
“Maybe she hasn’t gotten her out of the area yet,” he offered. “Good, then we can get a description of her to the checkpoints along the borders. Hold them up before they leave Nevada.”
“She doesn’t have the same code listed after her entry that the others do. Most of them have eight digits. Hers is only four. I’ve seen the same four digits listed on a few others but then it’s crossed out.”
“A date?”
“No. Like a filing system. Or code for a buyer?”
“Whatcha got?”
“1621.” She flipped through some of the pages, willing the answer to jump out at her. She spied a recent entry with the name “Megan” and the same number crossed out with a different eight digit-letter combination entered in the margin.
“Anything else?”
“Nothing.”
“Shipping code? Flight number?”
“You're assuming she managed get these kids on a flight unnoticed. With the way those girls looked last night when we got them out, people would be too suspicious to put them on a plane. It's possible if she hired a private plane but that would cut into profits. A helicopter. What if they're sending them over the border in trucks?”
“They might be truck numbers. Shit, T, for all we know that could be a pick up time.”
Her gut told her they were overlooking something even more simple. “It’s in here too often for that and it’s too random a number to be an appointment time.”
“What if this is where they are getting picked up from? An address?” The tap of his fingers on a keyboard were quick before Jones sighed back into the receiver. “The list of addresses in Nevada using the numbers 1621 is about twenty pages long.”
“How many here in Vegas?”
“Seven.”
That was a manageable list. “Send them.”
Her phone buzzed almost instantly with a message received. “There you go. I sent you a picture of the printout and—no freakin' way.”
“What?”
“The third one on the list is the strip club where we lost Tank. I just got off the phone with Leo and he had me checking into local strip clubs. Apparently, Monique was using them—”
Toni hung up the phone and reloaded the gun she’d found. She tucked the weapon into the back of her pants and, leaving the ledger open on the desk for Jones, she headed out a side door. It was against protocol and stealing evidence was likely to get her fired, but she wasn’t waiting around for backup to show. She didn’t want anyone there when she went in. The less Leo and Jones knew, the less fallout they would take after she rescued her sister. This wasn’t a case any longer, and she wasn’t following the rules. She no longer cared about protocol, warrants and reasonable cause.
She’d already made up her mind that if she found Monique or Tank at that strip club, neither was walking out alive.
Two hundred thousand. Two hundred thousand.
It didn’t matter how many times she repeated the dollar amount to herself. The last twenty-four hours had been miserable, feeling more like several weeks, and Monique couldn't stand being stuck below this club any longer, regardless of the payment being transferred to her account. She was sick to death of these ridiculously stupid women. Where they so naïve they didn't realize they would never see Vegas again? These idiots needed to get that through their heads and shut up. With Tank serving as a mediator, handling with them wasn't difficult. But stuck babysitting them alone, listening to their whimpering pleas to return to the Center, made her want to use the Oxy on herself.
Speaking of Tank, where was he?
The man had become increasingly useless when it came to getting her what she needed. How fucking hard was it to make sure her dinner order was correct? She poked at the salad, tentatively. The wilted lettuce and faintly off-color cheese looked suspicious. Either that or the darkened room and her exhausted mind were playing tricks on her. Either way, she didn't want to risk food poisoning while she hiding out beneath a strip club with only one filthy, questionable toilet and no privacy. She shoved the container away and took a sip of tepid water from the bottle Tank had brought down earlier. Thirsty, hungry and in desperate need of a shower, she cursed the lack of circulation and the heat weighed on her. The dank scent of earth and rotting wood choked her and Monique’s dirty clothes smelled of her own body odor, in spite of the perfume she’d found in her purse and spritzed on herself. She'd begun to look more like one of the girls she shipped out than the sophisticated businesswoman people flocked to meet.
A moan from the other side of the room made her temples throb. It took every ounce of self-control for her not to throw something at the two women Gupta had solicited. Still high on Oxy, passed out in the corner, both remained zip-tied to their chairs. It grated that she had to treat these two like fucking royalty - sponge-baths, glamor make-up and hand-fed three meals a day - while she baked down here in her own sweat, trying to choke down whatever swill she scrounged up after the strippers upstairs finished their shift. The stale bar nuts and martini olives didn't cut it. Not to mention she knew those bitches upstairs enjoyed every second of her suffer in this sweltering room.
Let’s see how much those sluts enjoy when I withhold their pay and their next fix.
It might not look like it now, but Monique still held their fates in her hands. Whether they danced or ended up sold to some pimp on the outskirts of Vegas. The worse she suffered down here, the worse she’d make their lives when she got back on top. She didn’t forget or forgive. Something she might have to remind a few people about, including her boss.
The bastard should have called by now, come to pick her up. She was sick of him taking her for granted, acting like she was another of his flunkies instead of the mastermind behind his operation. Maybe a well-placed threat was in order. Perhaps a little reminder of how much she knew and how quickly she could bring his entire operation tumbling down. Not to mention how easily she could release the names of the high-profile clients he ordered her to service.
Only another twenty-four hours.
The reminder did nothing to stem the irritation boiling within her. She wanted out of this room. She might not get outside the building but there was a locker room upstairs with showers where the strippers changed between sets and after their private appointments. With the club closed to the public until this afternoon and Tank arriving soon, she'd have him watch the women while she took a shower. And grab something stronger than water to drink. Everything would seem so much better after that.
“Twenty four hours,” she repeated aloud. “And two hundred thousand dollars.”
Toni pulled into the parking lot next to the club, leaving her rental car in the space near the road. It looked like every other “gentleman’s club” along the Vegas strip in the middle of the afternoon - deserted and nondescript. She'd watched two agents drive around the building, trying to look inconspicuous, following protocol to the minutia, before heading on the road. She ducked down, not wanting to risk them spotting her and calling
Jones.
Two beat-up sedans pulled in slowly, parking off on the far side of the club. A woman slipped from the driver’s seat of her car and climbed into the passenger seat of the other. He dropped his head against the headrest, his eyes closing, as his hands gripped the steering wheel.
Not one to interrupt the man’s blowjob, Toni used the man’s preoccupation as an opportunity to slip past to the back of the club. As long as the cars were outside, anyone who might guard the place would pay more attention to the pair, leaving her time to sneak behind the building and break in from the rear entrance. Un-holstering her Glock, she slid behind the hedges lining the other side of the parking lot, using them for cover. As she reached the back wall, she pressed her body as close to it as possible, cut across the lot and ducked between the exterior wall and a dumpster. The traffic noise was quieter behind the club but it was still loud enough to mask Toni’s approach. She paused, surprised to see a well-rounded woman in jeans and a dingy T-shirt standing outside alone, taking a long drag from her cigarette and staring into the distance as she yelled into her cell phone. Toni had expected the place to be empty since there weren't any other cars in the lot.
“I can’t tonight, Jim.” She sucked on the cigarette, the tip flashing orange for a moment. “Because I can’t. I have to work late. You know I need this job,” the woman complained. “It’s not like I’m stripping. I’m a janitor.”
There was a long pause and Toni froze, gun ready, waiting for the maid's next move. She hadn’t thought ahead any further than getting past any agents watching the club and into the building. She hadn’t expected there to be people working inside who didn’t realize what kind of nightmare this club housed, people who weren’t involved in Monique’s operation. Hearing this woman in the middle of an argument about not being home reminded her that there were more victims here than the obvious ones. The likelihood of her getting her sister out without gunfire was slim which meant innocent people would get caught in the crossfire. She needed to do whatever she could to minimize that risk.
“Okay.” The woman sighed heavily into the phone as she shot a glance in the same vicinity where Toni was hiding. She slunk further into the shadows of the dumpster, trying to ignore the stench. “I’ve got to get back inside but I’ll see you tonight, okay? I love you too.”
Toni re-holstered her weapon, waiting as the woman opened the back door and went inside. Just before the slow-moving door clicked shut, Toni stuck out her foot, slipping into the kitchen and behind the woman. She locked her arm around the woman’s neck in a sleeper hold. Toni grasped her own wrist, flexing slightly and ignored the woman's hands as they instinctively grasped at her forearms.
It didn't matter in the slightest. Within a few seconds, the woman's weight carried her to the floor and Toni dragged her into the pantry, shutting the door behind her. Feeling stupid for not bringing handcuffs or zip-ties with her, she hastily searched for something to use as a restraint, making due with cooking twine she found in a drawer by the sink. Toni wrapped it around the woman's wrists, binding them to her ankles and leaving her in the pantry where, if she screamed after coming to, no one would hear her.
With the woman safe, Toni pulled her gun and swept through the room before entering the main part of the building. It was eerily silent and seemed oddly bright with sunlight flooding into the room. Someone, probably the woman in the pantry, opened the windows, drawing back the gaudy, blood-red velvet curtains adorning them. As Toni peered outside, she noticed the prostitute seated next to her John now, smiling at him as he held several bills out to her. They wouldn't be out there much longer. She closed the windows and dropped the curtains, plunging the room into near-darkness. She latched the front door, locking it to everyone outside and, more importantly, locking everyone already inside the building with her.
Steam rose from a mop bucket on the main stage where three gleaming poles stretched from floor to ceiling, like brass sentinels guarding the room. The tables encircling the front of the stage reflected light dully, too many drinks spilled to allow them to shine again. Careful to make her steps as quiet as possible, Toni slid through the room, moving in the darkest shadows as she maneuvered behind to the bar. Mirrors lined the back wall of the bar. A flash of movement caught her eye, and she spun, sinking beneath the counter to shield herself.
“Will you hurry up? You weren’t supposed to leave the basement. Do you realize how risky this is? If he finds out—”
She recognized that voice. It was the man who'd escorted her into the 4Teen Center, Monique’s bodyguard.
“I am. And why would he find out?” A female voice, sounding annoyed. Monique Bentley. “I needed a shower.”
Toni peered around the corner of the wall and spotted Monique, her head poking out of a doorway as she and her guard argued in the hallway. A long corridor led toward the other end of the U-shaped building. Monique ducked back into the room she’d been in. Toni had no idea where either disappeared, or how many people she'd find if she followed them. She only knew she couldn't let them out of her sight.
Where ever Rose might be now, these were the only two people who could lead Toni to her.
15
“Jones, where is she?” Anxiety fluttered in Leo's gut. Toni still hadn’t returned his calls. He couldn't wait around any longer. If she wouldn't reach out to him, he’d go after her.
“I assume you mean Toni.”
“No, the fucking queen of England. Yes, where is she?”
Leo rarely lost his cool, especially with an innocent bystander. He needed to tell her what he’d learned so they could plan how best to go after Rose before she disappeared, out of the country and their reach. And now, with Jones stonewalling him, it had him concerned.
A drawn-out sigh from the other end of the phone made Leo wonder if Toni had threatened her partner to keeping his mouth shut. While he appreciated Jones's loyalty to her, Leo needed to convince Jones that not revealing her location would be more dangerous. She'd do anything. She was a loose cannon right now.
“Look, I’m doing everything I can to help her find Rose. Don’t make this any more difficult. We’re on the same side here.”
“Yeah, but I really don’t know where she is. She found a list of names at the Center—”
“When did she go there?”
“A few hours ago. She saw her cover name and what we thought might be part of an address.”
“You let her go alone?”
“No, I told her to go home then I sent a few agents to investigate.”
“And?” This felt more like pulling teeth than asking questions.
“They said the place was empty. Just a janitor on the phone at the back door of the building.”
“Okay, great. So, where's Toni?”
“What do you mean? She should be at home.”
“You sure? Do you really think she'd go home without checking on the place herself? If she has any reason to suspect Rose might be there, she'll tear down the walls to find her. The agents didn’t see her there,” Leo repeated.
Jones' breath over the receiver grew shallow, the pause pregnant as Leo assumed the agent was putting together the same clues he had. "Ah, shit! She didn’t want them to see her."
"Damn it, Jones." Leo ran a hand through his hair.
"I told her to go home," he argued. "Look, I'll send my agents back but you'd better get your ass over there. If she's found in that place without a warrant…” Jones’s groan made Leo’s chest constrict. “We'll lose every bit of evidence for this case. She'll lose her job."
"She doesn't care about that.” Leo was far more anxious for her life. “Give me the address?"
Jones rattled it off and Leo shook his head. How had they not seen this coming?
"Get your warrant. That girl we rescued from the Center yesterday said they run girls in and out through a strip club, but she didn't remember the name of the place or where to find it. With her testimony and the book Toni found, it should be enough to get one."
&
nbsp; "That’s the place we lost Tank earlier. There’s a good chance he’s hiding out there."
"Son of a bitch, she's determined to get herself killed."
Leo hung up and flipped on his lights and siren, zipping through traffic to get to the club as quickly as possible. Toni wouldn't listen to reason in her current state of mind and, somehow, he needed to stop her from going in alone. It would be near impossible. All she would need is a hint that Rose might be on the premises. She'd move heaven and earth to get her sister out alive, even at the risk of her own neck.
Leo spotted her rental car in the parking lot from two street lights away. He flipped the siren off as he slid into the club's parking lot and two beat-up sedans drove out. He cruised through the empty lot, passing the side of the strip club, praying for any sign of Toni.
Nothing which meant she was already inside.
Leo parked his car at the exit door, giving them an escape if shit went south they needed to get out fast. When the other agents arrived, they'd circle the building and cover every exit, but he needed to get her out before they arrived. Jones was right. The FBI already pulled her from the case and if she got caught here, they’d fire her.
He angled his vehicle between the two back doors, making it easy to spot in case someone checked the outer perimeter of the building. He'd offer a diversion and use the car as cover if anyone got a wild hair to start shooting
As he slid out of the driver's seat, he spotted the door near the dumpster open a crack. Leo was flying blind and could be walking right into a trap but this would be as good a place as any to get in. He tugged his weapon from his holster, easing closer to the door. As soon as he entered, a faint, muffled cry came from a closet to his left.
"Help! Please, God, help!" Leo heard the raspy tear-filled voice of a woman as he moved cautiously through a kitchen. It didn't sound like Toni and he considered ignoring it but couldn't pretend he didn’t hear someone who needed him.