by J. D. Barker
After she swallowed the glass, the instructor had grabbed her by the hair and dragged her to the freezer, then forced her head inside. She hadn’t been prepared for water, and it filled her nose and throat, her coughing causing her to suck in more.
“Drink!” he shouted.
She couldn’t breathe.
He wouldn’t let her breathe.
The water burned at her eyes, tasted of the ocean. She tried to spit the salt water out, but he forced her mouth shut and pinched her nose until she swallowed. He repeated this three more times before the vomiting began. Then he tossed her back to the ground in the cage and locked the gate.
Larissa had not felt the glass going down, but the shards came up like razor blades, and when she cried out, it hurt even more.
The instructor watched her now.
He sat a few feet away on the concrete floor outside her cage, his dark eyes fixed. She heard him breathing, deep, ragged breaths. He held his right hand in his left; the fingers twitched.
A moan escaped Larissa’s lips, and she rolled over again. She couldn’t face those eyes.
“And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell,” the instructor whispered behind her in a voice so low, at first she wasn’t sure she heard him at all. After a few seconds of silence, he repeated the words, the s in soul dragging out with the hiss of a venomous snake.
Her stomach clenched and she tried to cry out, but the pain in her throat stifled the sound before it escaped, turning it into a muffled wheeze.
Larissa focused on the glass.
She didn’t want the glass to come up. She wanted it to cut right through her stomach and into her other organs. She wanted the glass to end this. She would swallow more if she could.
The pain meant she was still alive. When the pain stopped, she would find peace. The pain didn’t stop, though. She felt a burn at her belly like a hot knife from inside. Larissa clenched her knees and let out a silent scream.
Behind her, a cell phone rang.
A distant voice on the other end of the line, not on speaker but loud enough to hear. “Swallowing glass may not prove to be fatal. She may still see.”
The instructor let out a watery sigh. “She’s damaged, she’s been compromised. She can’t see. She’ll never see.”
“You need to try.”
“I need another.”
The basement dropped into silence again as the call ended.
The instructor let out an angry grunt.
Quiet.
Still.
Dark.
“And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment,” the instructor said, inches from her ear.
Larissa jumped, pain burning in her belly.
He was right behind her. She hadn’t heard him come into the cage.
Did she pass out?
How long?
She felt his hot breath on her neck. Smelled the stink of it.
She must have thrown up again, but she had no memory of it. Her hair was sticky.
Larissa turned to face him, the pain unbearable.
The cage was empty. The basement empty.
Alone.
The corner of the green quilt was bunched up under her head.
The house creaked around her, otherwise silent as a tomb.
52
Clair
Day 3 • 12:23 p.m.
Clair pushed through the door of Tanks A Lot Aquarium and Fish Supplies on Fifteenth and felt a wave of hot, humid air wrap around her. She stomped the snow from her boots and unzipped her jacket.
Rows of blue tanks lined each wall of the narrow shop, with three aisles of various goods filling the middle of the store.
A man with long, gray hair looked up from the counter behind the register, his finger holding a place in the paperback he was reading, the latest Jack Reacher. “Can I help you?”
Clair had visited three similar stores this morning. Each had proven to be a bust. She shuffled over to the counter and showed the man her badge.
He set the book down on the counter and frowned. “Did you find it?”
“Find what?”
“So you didn’t find it.”
Clair narrowed her eyes. “I’m not sure what—”
“If you didn’t find it, you shouldn’t be standing here. You should be out looking. You’re wasting time.” He let out a frustrated snort. “My deductible is five thousand dollars. It’s only worth a fraction of that, so I can’t claim it, can’t afford to buy another one. I need you to find the bastard who took it and bring it back here.”
Clair held up her hands. “I think we need to start over. I’m a homicide detective with Chicago Metro, and—”
“Homicide? Why would a homicide detective be searching for my stolen water tank?”
“Someone stole your water tank?”
“Isn’t that why you’re here?”
Clair dug her phone from her pocket and pulled up the picture Kloz isolated from the security camera at the park. “Is this it?”
The man took the phone and studied the picture, pinching the screen to zoom in closer. “Hard to say, that’s a crappy picture. Could be. I think so. Where did you find it?”
“Do you recognize the truck?”
“Nope.”
Clair retrieved her phone and dropped it back into her pocket. “When was your water tank stolen?”
“When I filed the report. Shouldn’t you know this already?”
“Let’s pretend I don’t.”
“You clearly don’t.”
Clair had never beaten an elder, but the prospect was growing increasingly enticing. “When was your water tank stolen?”
He drummed his long fingers on the countertop. “Week after Christmas. Busted into the warehouse at the back and ran off with it.”
“Was anything else taken?”
“Twenty bags of salt.”
“Can you show me?”
He folded over the page in his paperback and gestured for Clair to follow. The fish watched as they walked past, and Clair tried not to look. Fish had always creeped her out. Some of these were large too. She pictured tiny little teeth in their mouths. How people swam in open water, she’d never understand.
A door at the back of the shop opened into a cluttered warehouse. The walls were lined with metal shelves and racks. Old glass tanks cluttered the corner to her left, stacked precariously atop one another like a clear game of Jenga. Three metal barrels overflowed with plastic pipes and tubes of various lengths and sizes.
To her left, a large machine churned with a sound not unlike a broken clothes washer. The contraption stretched on for about ten feet, with piping flowing from box to cylinder to tank. Smaller pipes disappeared into the wall, no doubt leading back into the front of the shop.
“That’s my water filtration system. All those tanks out there are salt water, which is far trickier than fresh. One slip with the pH, too much salt, not enough salt—any little thing can throw off the ecosystem, and they’re all dead. Doesn’t take long, either, couple hours at the most.” He stepped over, studied one of the gauges. “I had a large pufferfish a few years back, thing was damn near a foot long. Something spooked him, and the little guy blew up to the size of a basketball, released its poison, and took out almost half my inventory. I swapped out the old filter for reverse osmosis after that and haven’t had a problem since. Still need to keep an eye on levels, though.”
Clair didn’t care to hear about the life and times of pufferfish. “Can you show me where they got in?”
The shopkeeper gestured toward the back of the warehouse. “My guess is they used the door.”
There was a large overhead garage door with a smaller metal door to the left. The second door had two deadbolts and a slide bolt. The overhead door was electric. “Which one?”
“Dunno.”
“There was no sign of forced entry?”
&n
bsp; His face pinched, turned red. “Like I told the first officer, the door is always locked. The overhead is always closed. I check them when I get in, and I check them again when I leave. They got in this way for sure. If the cops aren’t smart enough to figure out how, that’s on them, not me.”
Clair went to the smaller of the two doors, unlatched the deadbolts, pulled back the slide, and opened the door. The cold air rushed in, and she held her jacket closed with her free hand while studying the edge of the metal door. There were no scratches or dents. The door hadn’t been pried open. The deadbolts were both heavy-duty Medecos, tough to pick but not impossible. “You’re sure this slide bolt was latched?”
“You’d be hard-pressed to find a time when it’s not. I only use the big door, and that only opens with the remote in my truck or this button here.” He pointed toward a glowing button on the wall.
Walking back to the center of the room, he spread his arms out wide. “The tank was right here. I disconnected it from my truck the night before and filled it from the hose on the filtration system. Got it set up for the next day.”
“What was happening the next day?”
“I maintain sixteen large aquariums around the city, makes up nearly twenty percent of my business’s revenue. Think I can do that if I can’t haul water? Water evaporates, gets dirty, has to be replaced. I haul the tank on my runs so I can do a swap or replenish whenever necessary.”
Clair looked up at the garage door opener, a Craftsman 54985, according to the large decal on the side of the motor housing. A ladder leaned against the wall to her right. “Do you mind?”
He brought the ladder over and set it up under the opener. Clair pulled her car keys from her pocket, then climbed up and studied the back of the device. She found a yellow button, pressed it, then pressed the button on the remote for her own garage. The light bulb in the opener blinked as the unit memorized the signal.
When she pressed the button on her remote again, the motor above whirred to life and the door began to open. She pressed it again, and the door reversed.
“I’ll be damned.”
Clair climbed down off the ladder. “Who else has access to this space?”
“Just me.”
“No vendors, employees, landlord?”
“I hired a girl a few weeks back to help out up front, but she only showed up for a day. Nervous little thing. I don’t think she liked to be around people much.” He lowered his voice. “She was in Stateville Correctional for manslaughter, just got out. She told me what happened, and it sounded like an accident. Seemed like she was having trouble finding work, so I figured I’d give her a shot. We don’t do a lot of cash business here, and I didn’t see her walking off with a handful of fish. I’m a pretty good judge of character, and no alarm bells went off when I interviewed her, so why not, right? I’d been thinking of putting an ad in the paper anyway to get some part-time help.”
Clair’s eyebrows furrowed. “She applied for a job you hadn’t advertised? Not even a sign in the window?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “She came in on a busy day, saw I needed help, and offered. Like I said, I’d been thinking about advertising.”
“What was her name?”
“Libby. Libby McInley.”
Clair took out her cell phone and dialed a number from speed dial.
Straight to voice mail: “This is Detective Sam Porter of Chicago Metro, I’m—”
She disconnected.
Dammit. She’d meant to dial Nash.
53
Poole
Day 3 • 1:18 p.m.
Ah, my friends!
It is good to know you finally found your way here! I had hoped to be there with you when this moment came, but alas, it was not meant to be. I take solace in the fact that this material has found itself into your capable hands, as I am sure you will take it to your compadres in financial crimes so they may add it to the mounting pile of evidence against Mr. Talbot and company. While I believe this box contains more than enough information for a substantial conviction, I’m afraid I couldn’t wait for the trial portion of the program and went ahead and passed a sentence I believe to be more than fitting for the crimes at hand. Much like his longtime business partner, Gunther Herbert, Mr. Talbot will meet with justice face-to-face today, and he will answer for his actions on the swiftest of terms. Perhaps I will allow him to give his daughter one last kiss before goodbyes are said? Perhaps not. Maybe it’s best they just watch each other bleed.
Truly yours,
Anson Bishop
Poole smoothed the edges of the paper, studying the handwriting—neat and readable, yet oddly disturbing.
The note had been in the box found at an empty apartment by Detectives Clair Norton and Brian Nash days after Bishop kidnapped Emory Connors, hours after he kidnapped her biological father, Arthur Talbot. The apartment address appeared on employment documents Bishop completed as part of his fake identity and immersion into the Chicago Metro crime lab as Paul Watson. Bishop wanted the information found and had orchestrated a plan (one of many) to ensure it was found no earlier or later than he wished. He knew they’d track the address once his cover was blown but no sooner.
Poole had laid out the contents of the box in neat rows on a folding table before leaving to visit Libby McInley’s parole officer.
Reams of paper all bundled together, twelve in total.
The first seven bundles contained information centered on Arthur Talbot, specifically his real estate transactions and financial holdings. The Financial Crimes divisions of both Chicago Metro and the FBI were still unraveling the details, but to date they had seized more than fifty million dollars in assets believed to be derived from criminal activity. Due to the large size of Talbot Enterprises, most assets were frozen, but the courts allowed the company’s operating accounts to remain funded. Ultimately, they wished to sort this mess out without jeopardizing the thousands of legitimate jobs created by Talbot’s endeavors. Emory Connors’s trust had also remained untouched, as it was entirely detached from Talbot, something he apparently insisted upon.
Poole set these bundles aside.
The next four bundles were also tied to Talbot but branched out to include two organized crime families operating in and around Chicago, as well as twenty-three individuals. The crimes ran the gamut from gambling and money laundering to drugs and prostitution. This data led to six arrests, with many more in the pipeline.
Poole slid these bundles aside as well. It was the last one that interested him.
The final bundle held about three hundred pages of paper. The topmost sheet was lined in green and white with tiny, concise handwriting. The first line read:
163. WF14 2.5k. JM.
Attached to the bundle was a manila envelope containing twenty-six Polaroid pictures of teenagers in various stages of undress, both male and female. Each Polaroid was numbered. The handwriting did not match Bishop’s. According to the report Detective Nash filed, the envelope hadn’t originally been attached to this bundle but had been at the bottom of the box. While the two were most likely connected, Poole preferred to leave evidence exactly as found to preserve the findings. Attaching the two items based on assumptions was careless and could lead to false conclusions.
Poole ran a finger over the first line of text:
163. WF14 2.5k. JM.
The number 163 was believed to tie out to a specific child—a white female fourteen years old, either sold for 2.5K or bought for that amount, most likely dollars but possibly another form of currency. Bitcoin was the currency of choice for most human traffickers.
Poole knew Bitcoin well. The currency had been a thorn in the side of law enforcement since 2008, since criminals could trade it online like cash, leaving no way to trace just who was trading it and what it was being traded for.
If the line meant 2,500 Bitcoins, that would set the value at about 2.6 million US dollars. That was highly unlikely. A fourteen-year-old white female in good health typically
sold within the United States for under $25,000. K was sometimes used to abbreviate Bitcoin. If that were the case, then 2.5K would be equal to approximately $2,600, which was far more likely.
The idea that a human life could be bought and sold at any amount disgusted Poole, and he forced the thought from his head. He had to focus on the evidence.
163. WF14 2.5K. JM.
Child number 163, a white female fourteen years old, sold or was for sale at a price of $2,600. The initials JM could belong to the child or possibly the individual buying or selling the child. There was no way to be sure.
Poole flipped through the Polaroids. None were numbered 163.
Someone had matched the other photographs to specific line items; yellow Post-it notes had been placed beside each corresponding entry. Nineteen girls and seven boys.
Poole counted the lines on the first page—twenty-six. With close to three hundred pages, that meant there were almost eight thousand children listed here. Correction: there were almost eight thousand people listed here. If the number appearing after the code for race and gender was, in fact, age, many of the entries were older, although the highest number he found was twenty-three.
Chicago ranked third in the country for the highest levels of human trafficking. Recent studies estimated there were at least 25,000 victims in and around the city. If this list was to be believed, it represented nearly one-third of them. Poole had no reason to doubt Bishop’s intel. All his other data had panned out.
The Cook County Human Trafficking Task Force, the Chicago Regional Human Trafficking Task Force (CTTF), and the Illinois Task Force on Human Trafficking all received copies of the data, but they hadn’t made any headway determining the exact meaning. Should they figure it out, the data might lead to the largest human trafficking bust in US history.