Secrets in the Dark

by K D Michaels

  “Has the therapy been helping her? Is there anything we can do,” Brocard asked, smiling into the phone.

  “She’s getting better, but still has nightmares. They are getting few and far between, but it’s still hard as a parent to have to watch her go through it,” Eddie whispered, sounding almost defeated.

  “One day at a time. You need anything, you call any of us on the team and you know we will be there, no questions asked.”

  “I know…thank you,” Eddie responded before hanging up the phone.

  “Hey Sarge, was that Eddie?” Pratt asked as she walked into the squad room with Cortez and Raso behind her.

  “Yeah, he was calling to find out if we had any news on Dakota. It’s been three years and he’s still holding on.” Brocard shook her head as she got up from her desk.

  “We all do. We will find Candy too.” Rameriez staunchly proclaimed.

  “Heaven help her when we do, that’s for sure,” Cortez agreed, standing up from her desk looking around.

  “Hey Diez, you got a date tonight?” York yelled out.

  “Nope, canned his ass last night.” Diesel shrugged, packing her work bag.

  “What? The little people need love too, damn it,” Galvin Brody, the team’s admin assistant, protested.

  “I dated a midget once,” Diesel absentmindedly proclaimed.

  “They are called little people you dipshit!” Pratt groaned as she dropped her head onto her desktop.

  “He was really falling in love with me.”

  “He didn’t have that far to fall.” Raso bit the inside of her cheek.

  Pratt and York groaned out loud at the jokes flying around. “It really started with the little things here and there with him. Nothing too big or too small.” Diesel continued, ignoring everyone.

  “I bet it did.” Brody continued egging Diesel on.

  “I really, really tried to let him down gently when I told him it could never work out.”

  “Let me guess, short and sweet?” Cortez laughed.

  “You are all going to hell,” York laughed, shaking her head at her teammates.

  “Oh, my lanta, the good lord is definitely blessing me ta day!” Brody cheered, looking at the doorway behind the women.

  “Yay, that means squidward is here,” Raso mock cheered after Brody’s statement.

  “Leave my husband alone you whore!” Pratt walked over to her husband, giving him a quick kiss hello.

  “Hello my beautiful lass. How was ye day?” Lt. Joe ‘Highlander’ MacLeod asked his wife, smiling at her.

  “My day has definitely brightened, handsome,” Brody smiled, winking at Highlander, who shook his head, laughing.

  “You know what I hate about after parties?” Raso asked the room, breaking up the banter between Brody and Highlander.

  “Trying to find your dental floss in the sea of undies?” York answered without looking up from her paperwork.

  “Ice doesn’t wear undies, of any kind, on date nights. It seems they get in the way of wandering fingers.” Pratt reminded her teammates.

  “Raso has dates?” Highlander asked in confusion.

  “It’s what hookers call it now so their johns can feel special before the big letdown,” Cortez explained to everyone as she walked to the file cabinet from her desk.

  “It’s called sports nookie, get it right, bitches,” Brocard called out from her desk.

  Alpha Squad, Brody, and Highlander all burst into laughter when Raso flipped everyone off. Just then Brocard’s desk phone rang, causing everyone to go quiet.

  “Riverside County Sheriff’s Dept. Sgt. Brocard speaking, how can I help you?”

  “Hi, this is Special Agent Brandie Baker. I’m calling about a bolo your department put out a Candy Ruiz.”

  “Yes, Agent Baker, how can I help you?” Brocard snapped her fingers to get her teams attention.

  “I’m calling to let you know she’s been spotted here in Tampa, Florida. She’s currently under surveillance due to one of our cases currently going on.”

  “Thank you. We will advise our Captain. More than likely we will be in Tampa come tomorrow sometime.” Brocard wrote down some information on a note pad.

  “No problem. I’ll advise our team leader to be expecting you.” Agent Baker hung up the phone.

  “Okay, fill in the children,” Diesel begged Brocard when she hung up the phone.

  “Go home, get packed and be ready to go as soon as we get the all clear from the Captain. Candy has been spotted in Tampa, Florida. She’s currently under surveillance due to a case the FBI has going on there. They will give us more details when we get there,” Brocard ordered the team.

  “Babe, I know Eddie is family, with Shane, the SEAL thing and all, but please, don’t say anything until we know more. I don’t want to get their hopes up for nothing,” Pratt pleaded with her husband.

  “Ugh, that means squidward is hoping for a quickie before he goes buh bye.” Raso fake puked.

  “Stop being so jealous. I keep telling you Marcus wants your cranky ass. I don’t know why anymore.” Pratt smirked as she walked out of the squad room with her husband.

  2

  Alpha Squad landed in Tampa early afternoon the next day. The seven women split up with Diesel, Rameriez and Sgt. Brocard going to Tampa PD to check in with them and why they were in Tampa.

  Pratt, Raso, Cortez and York were tasked with checking in with the local FBI office to find out what was going on with their surveillance and where Candy fit in. On their way to the office, Brocard called them with the news that Agent Baker had called to redirect them elsewhere.

  Upon arriving at the address provided, Pratt, Raso, Cortez and York walked up to a group of three large, intimidating, yet sexy ass men standing in a huddle.

  “Hi, I’m Detective Pratt with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department. I’m looking for Agent Baker.” Pratt looked at each man, smiling as she waited for someone to tell her where Agent Baker was.

  “Sorry ma’am, wrong group. I believe Agent Baker is over there.” The tall god-like man with jet black hair and piercing blue eyes politely pointed further away to another group of people.

  “Thank you, I appreciate it,” Pratt smiled as she walked towards the other group with York following behind her.

  “Riverside County? Didn’t know Florida had a Riverside County.” The blonde-haired tall hunk looked over at his friends.

  “It doesn’t. We are from California. San Diego to be exact.” Cortez hesitantly stared at the three hotties, waiting for word on what to do from the others in the team.

  “Aren’t you ladies a long way from home? The dark-haired god stared at the two women.

  Raso stared the dark-haired hunk down, not sure how to respond. “Wellllll, we got called to come see the great and powerful Oz, so we followed the yellow brick road to the swamp instead.”

  “Oh shit!” Two of the men stepped back when the dark-haired hunk crossed his massive arms across his chest, widening his stance just a smidge.

  “Fuck a fucking duck!” Pratt and York rejoined the group, oblivious to the stare down between Raso and the dark-haired guy.

  Cortez and Raso turned away from the three men and looked over at their teammate. “What?”

  “Fucking Peter! He’s gator meat now. Asshole got dumped here. Half his ass is missing. Obviously, the gator had a snack before the top half washed up here.”

  Cortez lowered her head, huffing out a huge sigh. “Well shit, there goes our one fucking lead to finding Candy and Dakota.”

  “Who the fuck are you and what are you doing at my crime scene?” A short, overweight, balding man in an ugly brown jacket stormed up to the small group, getting into the women’s faces.

  Pratt glared at the arrogant newcomer as his face kept getting redder and redder from her stare down. “Goldilocks and the three fucking bears.” Pratt pointed to her teammates, not realizing she included the three men behind them.

  The frumpy man glared at the four women, br
eathing heavy, placing his hands on his hips. “Do you know who the fuck I am?”

  Pratt looked over at her three teammates who all shrugged, then looked over at the tree hunks standing behind them who all stood with a wide stance and their hands crossed across their chest, shrugging too. The small group then looked back at the increasingly angry man.

  “Witched witch of the east?” Cortez assumed.

  “Huh? I thought she was the good one?” Raso looked at Cortez in confusion.

  “Ghost of Christmas future?” York tiled her head to the side as she stared the grumpy man down.

  “Keynote speaker for the butt fuck convention?” Pratt placed both hands in front of her in a the ‘I don’t know’ gesture.

  Agent Baker walked up to the group, stepping between the angry man and the four women gathered around him. “Sorry detectives, this is Special Agent in Charge Stonewall. Sir, this is the team I told you about from California that was searching for the victim and his friends.”

  “Victim my ass. Fucker got what he deserved. Wish the damn gator would have let us talk to him first,” Cortez complained under her breath.

  Pratt’s phone rang just as Agent Stonewall started yelling at the three men standing behind her and her teammates.

  “Pratt”

  “What in the hell is all that racket in the background?”

  “Hey to you too, Uncle Larry. Some SSA named Stonewall having a coronary because we arrived at one of his crime scenes.”

  “You’re in Tampa?”

  “Yeah, we got called about a national bolo we put out. They were going to let us talk to one of the people on the bolo, Peter Robinson, but he’s now gator meat,” Pratt chuckled, looking over at the agent still going off with is hands flying all over the place.

  “How long will you ladies be there?”

  “A few days at least. We want to see if there’s a chance Dakota may be held here in Tampa. We think there’s a strong chance that Candy is here as well.” Pratt and the caller spoke for a few more minutes before hanging up.

  Raso stretched her arms over her head, leaning side to side. Ignoring the man yelling at the group as a collective, “Who was that on the phone?”

  “My godfather, Deputy Director of the FBI, Larry Keon. He’s apparently on his way here to Tampa for some meetings. He’s offering to introduce us to a friend of his here, someone named Ian Sawyer, who is the head of a company called Trident Security. Uncle Larry seems to think they can help us with the search for Dakota.”

  “God, I hope so. Lord knows we’re hitting every fucking wall there is with this search. Maybe some fresh eyes helping us look into this shitstorm will be the break we need,” York sighed heavily, looking over at the men talking amongst themselves.

  “I’m starting to wonder if she fell to victim to the same human trafficking ring that had Tina, only she wasn’t as lucky. We just haven’t found her body yet,” Raso joined the two women in their discussion, looking over their surroundings, with all the lights flashing, people milling around doing their own thing.

  “You mean the serial killer ring?” Pratt asked, making sure she was on the same page.

  “Yeah, I mean, granted Dakota was the target. We know Candy sold her, but not to who. All Tina knew was someone or something called Ares.” Raso threw her hands in the air, frustrated with the whole situation.

  “Excuse me ladies, I’m sorry, did you put human trafficking and serial killer ring in the same sentence?” The blonde-haired man questioned looking from the women to the dark-haired man who had spoken earlier.

  Pratt looked over at the three men then to her teammates who shrugged, “Yeah, we discovered a guy who created a unhackable website…”

  “All sites are hackable. You just have to know how to do it,” Blondie chuckled as he rubbed his hands together in glee.

  “Not this one. If anyone tries to hack it, it notifies the creator and the whole shit and kaboodle gets shut down,” Pratt informed the men, watching them look at each other in shock at the information. “The buyers are heavily vetted before they are given access to a username and password. The victims that are kidnapped by the website creator, are then sold on his website to people who are serial killers.”

  “The lazy man or woman’s serial killer website is what Diesel calls it I think,” York laughed, shaking her head at the name.

  Cortez joined the group, hearing some of the discussion. “We haven’t been able to track the second creator of the site. This second guy is damn good at covering his tracks.”

  “Second guy?”

  “We managed to find the main creator, which is how we managed to find one of the girls we’ve been searching for…long story there. We caught him about three years ago, but the site is still up and running with new victims every fucking time we turn around,” Raso finished up for Cortez, who was ogling one of the men in the group.

  “Probably a good thing we got there first instead of the squids.” Cortez cracked, smirking at Pratt.

  “Eh, I was tempted to tell them where we were headed and let all five SEAL teams have a little fun with the dude’s ass. May have been able to get more information then.” Pratt admitted to her teammates.

  The black-haired god looked from his two friends to the four women confused. “SEALs?”

  York was texting away on her phone, walked closer to Pratt to show her the texts. “Yeah, the victims are daughters of Navy SEALs.”

  “Where’s the asshole who kidnapped them now?” The amber-eyed hunk growled, taking a step towards the women.

  “Who? The guy who kidnapped the girls? Easy, he’s in prison for the rest of his life. The one who was in the process of trying to kill Tina, the one we managed to find? He’s dead.” York put her phone away after fiddling around with it some more.

  “The SEALs?” Blondie smirked as if he knew a secret.

  “No, unfortunately, they would have toyed with him some once they caught him. Three of us standing before you shot him at the same time. Who knew when three bullets hit the same spot in the head, it pops like a pimple,” Cortez popped her p’s at the same time she used her hands to simulate something popping.

  “Nice,” The three men answered in union, smiling.

  “Sarge just sent a text. Tampa PD is aware of the investigation and why we are here. She’s calling the Captain to give her a heads up about SSA Dumbass in case he wants to be a dick and call them to file a complaint,” York informed her teammates.

  Pratt smirked as she stared over at SSA Stonewall. “Let him, I’ll be a bitch and set Keon on his twatopotamous ass.”

  York rubbed her stomach as the team heard it rumble. “Awesome. Let’s go get some grub. Sarge said she found a place called Donovan’s to grab a bite and regroup.”

  Raso rubbed her stomach as well as they all headed to the SUV. “That’s good. I’m starving like a hooker who missed a fix!”

  “Did she…you know what, never mind. I don’t want to know!” Pratt rolled her eyes, placing her hands in the air in the surrender position.

  York leaned over into Cortez’s ears and whispered “Oh Lord help us! Diesel’s rubbing off on Ice.”

  Pratt mumbled as she walked away. “I told you fucking twats she was crazy!”

  An hour later, Alpha Squad had been seated at a table inside of Donovan’s. The team gave their orders to the waitress, waiting until she walked away before discussing the case with each other.

  “What did you guys find out about Robinson?” Brocard started as soon as the coast was clear.

  Keeping a straight face, Pratt looked at her teammates. “Well, he’s been dead for several hours. We have to wait for the autopsy report to find out if he was dead meat or live bait when the gator decided to use him for a snack.”

  The team looked over at Diesel when they heard her suck in her breath and mumble at the same time. Following her line of sight, Pratt, Raso, York and Cortez saw the three men from the crime scene as well as four new faces joining them.

  Rameriez
stared hard at the men, open mouthed as they stood there talking with one of the waitresses. “Those two with the black hair have to be brothers.”

  “I think there’s three brothers,” Diesel ogled the group of men.

  Pratt’s phone rang in the middle of her deciding to bang her head against the table, the window or the wall behind her. “Pratt”

  “Red! I landed ten minutes ago. Was already in the air, halfway there when I called you earlier. Where are you at now?”

  “Hey, Uncle Larry. We’re at a place called Donovan’s, just sat down and ordered.”

  “Good. I’m pulling in now. I’m meeting the guys I told you about for dinner. They should be in the place already. I’ll introduce you all.”

  “That’s great! Not sure if they have enough tables for us all though. It’s pretty packed.” Pratt looked around the friendly pub style restaurant.

  “They have a private dining area we can use if it’s available. I’ll text Ian to check into it. See you ladies in a few minutes.”

  Raso leaned into the table, placing her elbows on the table with her chin on top of her hands, batting her eye lashes. “Who was that?”

  “My godfather, Larry. He’s already in Tampa, getting ready to walk into Donovan’s.”

  “Whoa, who’s that silver talk drink of yummy water walking in the door?” Diesel turned around in her chair, learning over the back as if being pulled by a string towards the door.

  Pratt stood up, grabbing her napkin and walked over to Diesel, wiping her mouth roughly. “I swear to all that’s holy, Diez, I will cut your fucking ass. Paws off my godfather you tramp!”

  The good-looking silver fox walked over to the group of women, pulling her into a hug, “Laura! You’re looking beautiful as always.”

  “Uncle Larry! It’s so good to see you too. How have you been?”

  “Great…Great! How are those babies doing? I must thank you for the pictures you sent of all three kids. Those kids have their mother’s good looks.”