Brycen’s eyes lifted.
“People would probably take me off the case if I brought you with us. Besides that, I don’t want you anywhere near danger. That’s why we had to leave you the last time.”
“But I can fight the bad guy, too.”
“I’m sure you could, Junior. But right now I’m only trying to find the bad guy. Once I find him, then that’s when the fight begins.”
Junior lowered his eyes.
“Junior?” Brycen was going to make him pay attention.
Her son looked up at Brycen with his sweet, innocent face, and, yes, with growing trust for the man who’d come along in his life.
“Your mother and I have to go to another one of those places tomorrow. A place where kids can’t go. So we need to drop you off at your grandparents’ house again.”
Junior’s face angled and his forehead crinkled into disagreement. “No. I don’t want to go back there.”
“It’ll just be for the day,” Brycen said. “Then we’ll be back to pick you up. We’ll play catch just like today.”
When Junior continued to frown, Brycen said, “You can be my partner. My partners help me in my investigations.”
Junior’s scowl smoothed and unbridled enthusiasm burst all over his face. “I can go with you?”
“No. This is a different kind of partnership. You watch my back by staying with your grandparents. As long as I know you’re safe, I can do my job. You’d be a big help if you do that for me.”
Junior’s enthusiasm crashed the way it had appeared.
Brycen pulled out a pin from his jean pocket. It was a sheriff’s star, a trinket he must have gotten somewhere. Drury had no idea where. Maybe he’d had it here. Maybe he’d ordered it online and had gotten it in the mail today. However he’d done it, Junior’s face lit up again.
Brycen pinned the star to Junior’s flannel shirt. “You’re officially my partner now. And as my partner, you have to do your share of the work. Are you ready to do that? Can I count on you?”
Junior looked up from the star, his tiny fingers rubbing the grooves and points. “Yes.”
Giving the boy’s head a rub, he smiled and said, “Thanks.”
When Junior bounded off into the living room and picked up one of his superheroes—Andy from the cartoon Toys—Brycen stood and faced Drury.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said almost bashfully, or maybe she saw hesitation.
“Mind?” She laughed wryly. “Why would I mind a man helping my child? I haven’t seen this much change in him in a year.”
“Well...I won’t be here indefinitely.” He scratched the top of his cheek, more of an uncomfortable reaction. He had reservations over how much he connected with the boy. Brycen out of sorts didn’t jibe with the tough detective who stirred her passion so easily.
“A little attention will go a long way. As long as he doesn’t start expecting you to stay, your attention will only do good.” She didn’t say she wished she could have been the one to bring her son out of his grief—or on his way to doing so.
His soft smile faded as he turned to Junior, still lost in a glorious, joy-filled imaginary world, buoyed by a few hours of one-on-one time with a heroic male figure. Drury could feel his thoughts. The worry over how leaving Junior would set the boy back. The worry—possibly his biggest—that he’d grow too attached.
She wasn’t fooled. His inner programming convinced him to leave. Alaska held too many bad memories. Made him feel dragged down. Backward. His show made him feel lifted and moving forward. Progress in a positive direction. Who wouldn’t make the same decision? No one intended to take a step backward in life. But would staying really be a step backward?
He’d accomplished a lot in Chicago. She couldn’t call that a mistake—much less his successful TV show—but that didn’t mean returning to Alaska would be negative. Maybe he needed to face the tragedy that had driven him away. Maybe enough time had passed. The timing could be right for him to grow.
*
Drury with her long, sleek leg up with her foot on the dash provided an alluring distraction during the boring wait for something to happen at the coffee shop. When they’d gone in for coffee, he’d planted a bug. Pretending to use the bathroom, he’d sneaked in the back and stuck it above the doorway to the office. They’d drunk coffee and observed awhile, then come out here, parked on the street around the corner. The deputy had taken care of a phone tap.
The skinny jeans Drury wore showcased her legs and butt. Her long, silky hair swooped down and back over her shoulder as she played a game on her smartphone. Her petite nose sloped in perfect harmony from her brow to her mouth. Long, dark lashes shaded her stunning blue eyes. She moistened her full lips and the movement transported him back to the snowstorm and the different kind of fire they’d ignited into flames.
“Aw,” she said when her phone made a few dinging sounds. Then she turned her beautiful face to him. “I failed to feed my monster candy.”
Her smile faded as she noticed the way he must have looked.
Then his phone chimed and broke the fleeting moment. He wasn’t sure if he was glad or disappointed.
“Detective Cage,”
“Detective. Deputy Chandler.”
Brycen pressed the speaker button so Drury could hear this.
“I’ve got some news on the shoeprints you found,” the deputy said. “The lab made a mold and we’ve compared it to Carter Nichols’s shoes. We obtained a search warrant of his home. He had two state trooper–issue shoes in his closet. One of them is a match for type and size. Even more, the pattern of wear is also a match.”
Not enough to slam-dunk a charge, but a piece of evidence toward that end nonetheless.
“He must have gone home after killing Juanita,” Brycen said.
“He did. There are things missing from his house. His undergarment drawer was open and empty except for one torn pair. We found no other undergarments in the house. He had a luggage set but the midsize suitcase is missing. No car keys. No wallet. I just received a report from his bank. He withdrew his money this morning. Three hours ago.”
Carter had run.
“We know he didn’t board any flights. I’ve got every available trooper looking for him and put out a statewide alert and notified the Canadian Border Patrol.”
“Good.” But if Carter had withdrawn his money three hours ago, he had time to make it across the border before law enforcement caught up to him. That was assuming he even went to Canada. He could have traveled to Washington State.
“Have you alerted the ferry services?”
“In Washington, yes.”
“Good.” Carter could have arranged for false identification, though. Their chances of catching him weren’t promising, not today anyway.
The sound of a phone ringing over the receiver of Brycen’s surveillance equipment made him cut the call short with the deputy.
“Gotta go,” Brycen said. “Coffee shop owner is on a call. Do a background on him.”
“Will do. Report when you can,” the deputy said.
Brycen disconnected.
“What are you doing calling me on this line?” a man’s voice said through the receiver. “You put me and my store in danger.”
“I had to. The cops are closing in, man,” the caller said. “You have to lie low until you hear from el jefe.”
“Is that Carter?” Drury whispered, typing into her phone.
It did sound like him.
“I’ve got to go to the Tennessee House today,” the coffee shop owner said.
“I wouldn’t go anywhere near there for a while,” the man on the other line said. “I mean it. Lie low. I’ll be in contact when I can.”
“Carter?” the coffee shop owner said. And then, “Damn.”
The call ended and Brycen heard only the sound of the man moving around in the office along with the moderate flow of customers buying coffee and talking in the background.
“John Pulman,” Drury said, reading
from her phone. “Came to Alaska twenty-four years ago with his wife and two sons. They’re grown now and he and the wife divorced three years ago. He opened the coffee shop soon after moving here. Seems to have been successful.”
“Let’s see what the background reveals.”
The sound of a door opening and closing preceded a car starting in the back of the shop.
“Get down,” Brycen said, slouching low in his seat.
Drury slouched, too, and a moment later, a car passed them. Straightening, Brycen pulled out into the traffic after John Pulman. Clouds had set in again. The forecast called for another several inches later today.
John made a left at a light. The light turned red as Brycen made the turn. He saw John go right a few blocks down. He sped up and made the turn.
“Where did he go?” Drury searched along with him.
They’d reached a below-average neighborhood with some commercial businesses mixed in. Brycen spotted John’s car parked in a circle driveway of the Tennessee House. The large white Colonial house with black trim had been converted to a hotel. A small parking lot in the back wasn’t very full.
Brycen parked and he and Drury walked to the front entrance. Inside, mosaic red carpet and dim lights gave a different impression than from outside. A chandelier hung from a high ceiling in the lobby. A curving staircase might once have been grand, but now a dirty path ran up the center of carpet and the chipped wood railing had lost some spindles. The smell of stale beer wafted from a lounge filled with dated wood tables and chairs and more mosaic red carpeting. The bar looked equally used and poorly maintained, running all the way along the far wall.
“Can I help you?” A woman appeared from the lounge and took what must have been her place behind a short counter angled in the lobby, the staircase behind her.
“We’re here to talk to John Pulman,” Brycen said.
“Oh...he isn’t here right now.”
“Yes, he is. We saw him drive up.” He brushed the side of his jacket to reveal his pistol as he retrieved his wallet and showed her his business card. “I’m Detective Cage. Why don’t you ask him to meet us in the lounge?” He gestured toward the lounge.
The woman looked from there back to him. “He’s already in there.”
Brycen nodded once. “Thank you.”
Drury followed him and he spotted two men and a scantily clad woman sitting at a corner booth. Brycen recognized the man across from the other two from the coffee shop. John Pulman.
The woman with the other man moved her chest, brushing breasts barely covered by sheer material against the man’s arm. She ran her hand down his torso.
An Asian woman in a short skirt appeared through a double swinging door and went behind the bar. “Can I get you something?” Her tight black top dipped seriously low and her nipples were clearly discernible. Another look at her face and he could tell the woman had applied heavy makeup to hide a bruise under her left eye.
“Ah... Brycen?” Drury said.
“Stay close.” While he’d like nothing more than to rescue the woman behind the bar, he had to take first steps.
He stopped a few feet from the table, watching the two men for signs of either one going for a weapon.
“John Pulman?” he said to the one he knew was that man.
He was lean and dressed business casual in tan slacks and a white shirt that sported a coffee stain, his buglike hazel eyes all but popping out from beneath a high forehead and stringy, thinning hair.
“Who are you?”
“Brycen Cage. This here is Drury Decoteau.”
The man slowly looked to her, a brief stillness overtaking him a moment. He understood now.
“You a cop?” he asked Brycen.
Drury hooked her arm with his, moving closer. This was no place for a woman like her. He could feel her distaste and discomfort.
“I’m a private investigator.” He handed him a card. “Dark Alley Investigations.”
A stillness came over John as he took the card. Without looking at it, he put it down. From the entrance to the lounge, two more women appeared, one a slender black woman, the other another Asian woman, both dressed in skimpy clothes designed to entice a man. The bartender pretended to be busy wiping the surface, but she kept looking over at Brycen as he spoke.
“You know,” Brycen said, “when I found out Noah Decoteau was shot outside a coffee shop, it didn’t occur to me that the owner might be involved.”
“I wasn’t involved.”
“Maybe not in the actual killing of a respected Alaska State Trooper, but you’re definitely involved.” He put a deliberate amount of certainty in his tone.
“Oh yeah? And what, exactly, do you think I’m involved in?”
Brycen moved his gaze over the lounge and then back to the table, seeing the bartender wearing a slight but smug smile. The two who’d appeared at the entrance must have just peeked in out of curiosity. “What is this place? A brothel?”
John grunted a laugh. The other man laughed with him as though it were a joke and the woman beside him smiled as though she felt forced to. She didn’t seem to be here out of choice. That alerted Brycen to consider possible reasons why. A beautiful Mexican woman about twenty years old, she didn’t strike him as the type who would need to resort to this line of work.
“This is a hotel,” the man next to her said. “Nothin’ going on here that concerns you.”
“A coffee shop and brothel make an interesting combination. What I’m wondering is how you thought you could hide behind the facade of a hotel.”
“If you’re not a cop, you have no jurisdiction,” John said. “So unless I need a lawyer, I’ll kindly ask you to leave.”
“What’s your relationship with Carter Nichols?”
“Who? Never heard of him.”
“He’s the one who warned you not to come here today.” He injected more deliberate certainty into his voice.
The man’s gaze narrowed. “You spying on me? Is that legal?”
“Probably not for a cop.”
Drury dug her fingers into his arm.
The Mexican woman sat up, moving away from the man beside her.
John’s gaze grew less narrow. Brycen didn’t have to follow any rules. He made his message very clear. These two had better not mess with him, and if they were forcing these women against their will to perform as prostitutes, he’d come down on them with everything he had.
“Carter Nichols?” he repeated.
John just stared at him.
“Why would he warn you not to come here today? To make sure your illegal prostitution activities weren’t exposed? Or something else? Something...say...” He acted as though he were pulling it straight from the air. “Something to do with Melvin Cummings?”
Drury’s fingers dug harder.
John’s single blink and slight flinch confirmed what Brycen suspected. The man across the table turned now-apprehensive eyes to John.
John put his hand up. “Look. I own this building. Pete here pays the rent and runs a perfectly legitimate hotel business. Maybe you’d like to stay here sometime?”
“I’ll pass. But I will be back.” With that, Brycen steered Drury toward the exit. Without turning, he said, “Whatever you’re doing, I’m going to find out, John Pulman.”
Outside, he and Drury got into the SUV.
“That was scary.”
Brycen didn’t answer. He saw the Mexican woman run out a back door. She glanced back as though she’d sneaked away. At the SUV, she got into the backseat.
“I don’t have much time. If you are who I think you are, you have to get us all out of there. It is not a hotel. You were right. It is a brothel. We were all brought here with lies. We were promised jobs in America and instead we were forced to come here. There are guards all the time. I got out now because John is in there freaking out and talking to them all.” Her chest heaved.
“You’re coming with us.” Drury looked at Brycen. “We can’t let her go back in ther
e.”
“No,” the woman said. “I will be all right as long as I know you are going to stop them and we will all be free. If I leave, they will be warned. They will know I talked and you will never catch them. They will take the others away from here and how long will it be before you find them again?” She shook her head. “I will go back in.”
“It’s a human trafficking operation?” Brycen said, incredulous.
The woman nodded. “They’re going to miss me if I’m gone much longer.”
“Who is behind the operation?” Brycen asked.
“I do not know. They keep us locked up in there. John is not the one running it. He only runs this house. They bring women in by boat and then take them to wherever they are going to force them to work.”
She opened the door. “That is all I know. Please. Help us.” She put her hand on Brycen’s shoulder. “You are a miracle.”
“I’ll get you out of there as soon as I can. Be ready. It may be as early as tonight.”
“Okay.” The woman smiled big and bright. “Tonight.”
She closed the door and ran back to the building.
“What if someone noticed her out here?” Drury asked.
Brycen scanned the windows and the back door, seeing the woman go inside and then peek out with a thumbs-up.
“She made it.” Drury sagged back against the chair. “You have to get them out of there tonight.”
He’d already taken out his phone.
*
Back at the troopers’ building, Brycen paced from one end of the conference room to the other. A top-ranking agent from the Alaska FBI field office sat in one chair. They had several others on the phone, including Kadin Tandy. He’d been instrumental in ramping this up the chain of command and getting the attention Brycen needed. As an ex–New York homicide detective and the father of a murdered daughter who had inspired him to fight for the innocent, the man had people in high places who listened. He ran the politics at Dark Alley, for sure.
Brycen had just finished briefing everyone on the case and all he’d uncovered.
“This is incredible,” the man attending in person said. “We have to move in now.”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” Brycen said. “We have to get those women out of there tonight. Before they move them.”
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