“Absolutely. We don’t have to charge and arraign him for seventy-two hours.”
“We’ll wait for Perez. She’s good, she’ll send him where I want.”
“Wait. Wait!” Meyer ran both hands through his short hair. “I need to talk to my lawyer. He’ll negotiate a better deal.”
“First, I can’t make a deal because I’m not a lawyer.”
“But you said!”
“I said that if you didn’t cooperate that every prisoner on your cell block will know you’re a pedophile. If you cooperate, they won’t hear that from me.”
“I’m not a pedophile!”
She turned the tablet to face him.
“She’s a prostitute! I didn’t know how young she was! We were just making a sex tape. Nothing more, it was just sex. Consensual! That’s it, consensual sex!”
It was all Lucy could do to control her rage. Her rage wasn’t going to help, not now. The calmer she was, the more unhinged Meyer became.
“Do you think this is the only video I found? I know that Martin Hirsch traffics underage girls. The two girls rescued in Phoenix? Yes, I see you know about them. One is still under fourteen, and the laws are bulletproof when a victim is fourteen and younger. She knows exactly who you are. They are both in protective custody far, far away where Hirsch will never get to them. If you give me Hope Anderson, I’ll get you in solitary. Now. Not tonight, not tomorrow. Right. This. Minute.”
“I don’t know!”
“Explain.”
“Look, I don’t know. I don’t know! Damien called Monday and said there was some heat in Phoenix and he wanted to move some of the girls. Told me anyone who was a problem to ship out to Z.”
“And Hope was a problem?”
“No, Pixie was cool. She was totally with the program. But one of the other girls had a fucking cow and got in my business, and then Pixie got in my face. That girl is insane when she’s off her meds.”
“Meds? What medication?”
“Just a figure of speech.”
Lucy didn’t think so. It was the way he was talking. And from the videos she watched, it was clear that Hope had been drugged. Drugging the girls kept them under better control.
“Monday? How many girls left with Hope?”
“Six. We were getting twice as many by the end of the week, so it wasn’t, like, that big of a hardship.”
He talked about the girls like they were goods, products to be moved around at his convenience. She wanted to hit him. She wanted to scream at him, pound him with her fists, force him to recognize that he was a bastard who didn’t deserve to breathe.
He might have seen something in her eyes, but it didn’t have the effect Lucy thought. He shifted uncomfortably, as if he was the one who was scared.
“Who picked them up.”
“Jorge. That’s all I know—he’s a driver for Mr. Hirsch. Jorge picked them up late Monday night.”
“Where did he take them.”
“I don’t know. I’m serious, I really don’t know. I really don’t know!”
She believed him.
“You know the locations of Mr. Hirsch’s other houses.”
“Yes, but—”
Lucy slipped him a pad of paper and pen. “Write them down. All of them. If you don’t know the address, write down the fucking cross street and the color of the paint. Every single detail of every house. Write down Jorge’s cell phone number. The make and model of the truck that picked up the girls. Their names, when you turned them out, everything. Now.”
“Look—you don’t understand.”
“Do I look understanding? Write.”
They locked eyes and Lucy didn’t budge. She became her old icy self, but with far more confidence than she had two years ago.
Meyer took the pen and started writing.
Twenty minutes later he put the pen down. “So, uh, what happens now?”
“We’ll keep you in solitary until Monday when it’s up to the courts to decide which jurisdiction you fall under. I will work to keep it federal, not Texas.” Criminals had a partly accurate impression that federal prisons were easier time than state prisons. But for a pedophile? A sex trafficker? Lucy didn’t think he would have an easy time anywhere.
And the federal government had tougher laws across the board about sex trafficking across state lines. No way was the AUSA going to give up someone like Meyer.
“Okay. Thanks.”
Thanks? He had thanked her? She didn’t think that had ever happened in the year plus she’d been a federal agent, and she’d interrogated a lot of criminals. Meyer was a brute in that he was big and acted tough, but he certainly wasn’t the brains of the operation.
She walked out, told the guard that Meyer needed to be in solitary until his arraignment, and she and Brad left.
As soon as they were out of the private meeting hall, she stopped and leaned against the wall.
“That was fucking amazing,” Brad said. “You flipped him in thirty-three minutes. It was like a Jedi mind trick.”
She had to smile at the comment. Smile or she was going to scream.
“And he thanked you. Thanked you for putting him in solitary. I’ve never seen it before. They’re going to show that recording to every interrogation class at Quantico for the next decade. Shit, Lucy, it was truly amazing.”
“Thanking me was unexpected,” she said, because she needed to lighten her mood. She won, but she felt disgusting, like Meyer’s filth had rubbed off on her. “We need to check out all these addresses, prioritized by distance. We start here and move out along the I-10 corridor.”
Most of the houses didn’t have specific addresses, but they had street names.
“I’ll map these out, that might give us more information.”
“Good idea, and pull property records where you have the exact address. Hope is in one of those houses.”
“Did you notice the look on his face when you mentioned Zimmerman?”
“He didn’t know that we had his name.”
“It was more than that. He didn’t pull the ‘I’m more scared of them than you’ card.”
“I don’t think he’s that bright.” Unlike Damien Drake, though Lucy didn’t say that.
“Maybe. Or maybe this Zimmerman isn’t who we—or Meyer—thinks he is.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
JT had to hand it to Chief Garcia. While it took a bit of patience to get the information out of one of Garcia’s informants, they learned that Papi Chavez had been with one of Gino’s hookers last night, Sue-Ann Bowers, and she had been knocked around.
“My CI said Sue-Ann had to call Gino for a pick-up at the motel, something none of them ever do, and he carried her out. I asked around the motel, but they shut up tighter than a—” he hesitated. “Well, let’s just say no one is talking. However, I know where Sue-Ann lives. Gino owns a couple houses, for his girls, bunks them three, four to a room. But they keep to themselves, don’t cause no trouble.”
This time, JT drove with Chief Garcia from the police station to a house in the middle of a borderline neighborhood. Definitely a far cry better than where Papi Chavez lived, but that wasn’t saying much.
Garcia was in full uniform and JT wondered if the occupants would ignore him. They didn’t. A woman sporting a black eye opened the door. “We’re not causing any trouble, officer.”
Garcia took off his hat. “I’m Reg Garcia, the chief of police, ma’am. I need to speak with Sue-Ann Bowers, if I may.”
“Why?”
“Well, ma’am, that’s between Sue-Ann and me.”
“She’s sleeping. She works nights.”
“I had a report that there was an assault last night, and I need to talk to Ms. Bowers and get her side of the story.”
“Assault? There was no assault.”
“Well, I beg to differ, especially when there’s a dead body I need to account for.”
“What? Dead who?”
“Peter Chavez, ma’am. Murdered this morning. An
d Sue-Ann was the last known person to see him alive.”
The woman’s face paled and she said, “Wait here.”
“That’s fine, ma’am, but leave the door open.”
She reluctantly complied.
“Would Gino kill a john to protect one of his hookers?” JT asked.
“Honestly, I wouldn’t think he’d care much, he’s not all that nice of a person, but stranger things have happened. Heat of the moment? He didn’t pay?” Garcia shrugged. “What do I know? I’m fifty years old and been married to the same woman for thirty-two years. Have never wanted to wander off that reservation. I leave the vice crimes to my head of vice.”
“Then why are you investigating this?”
“Because, Mr. Caruso, this had gone beyond vice to murder, and I have a hand in all murder investigations. Way to keep my department on the clean side.”
A short scream echoed from inside the house. Garcia had his gun drawn faster than JT and ran in. JT followed.
They found the woman who’d answered the door shaking an unconscious blonde girl. “She won’t wake up!”
“Back away,” Garcia said, all business. He checked her pulse, then pulled out his radio. “This is Chief Garcia. I need an ambulance dispatched to my location STAT. One female, twenties, unconscious. I have a pulse, but it’s weak.”
“Chief, there’s blood,” JT said.
The chief looked to where JT pointed. Her blanket was soaked with blood. The chief pulled it down and saw a towel and gauze wrapped around her bottom, all soaked red.
The chief said, “She’s lost a lot of blood, appears to be hemorrhaging. She’s covered in bruises and—sweet Mother Mary—bite marks. There’s been an attempt at medical care.”
He listened, then said, “ETA five minutes. The hospital isn’t far.”
He turned to the woman and said firmly, “If Sue-Ann dies, I will arrest you for accessory to murder after the fact for not bringing her to the hospital.”
“I didn’t have to! We brought in a doctor!”
JT’s stomach sank.
“A doctor came here and did this?”
“Yes. Yes! Early this morning, before six!”
“What’s his name.”
“I—I don’t know. It’s a girl doc. She just went by Doc. She was blonde, I don’t know! I don’t know!”
“Who brought this doctor.”
“I—I—”
Now the woman was scared. Terrified. She wouldn’t say a word, not if Hirsch was behind this.
“You will be telling me everything,” Garcia said. “Turn around. You are under arrest.”
JT looked at the unconscious girl. Bella had been here, had tried to help, but this girl needed emergency medical attention. And Bella had just walked away.
Walked away knowing she would likely die.
Before six.
Papi Chavez had died around eight this morning.
Bella—what have you done?
* * *
Bella stayed in her room most of the day. She exercised in the small space. And paced. And drank water. She couldn’t keep down any food. Damien didn’t seem to think anything was odd, which was good because she didn’t know how long she could hold it together. Not anymore.
Damien had killed a man for her. Because she had been justifiably angry at how poor Sue-Ann had been brutalized by that drunk bastard. She had no remorse that Papi Chavez was dead, what did that say about her? Yet … she would never have killed him. Damien did it as a sense of … what? A noble gesture? Did he think he was a white knight?
Bella had done a lot of things she hadn’t wanted to do while undercover, but she’d never—not once—slept with anyone she didn’t want to sleep with. She made out, flirted, teased, but she never screwed anyone unless it was on her terms.
She could not—would not—sleep with Damien Drake. The thought made her physically ill. She knew who he was and what he had done, and that he’d fixated on her somehow, thought of her differently than other people in his life, disturbed her.
What happened if he found out who she was? If he found out she was undercover? That she had been a cop?
He wouldn’t. He couldn’t learn the truth before she got away.
Contrary to what she’d told her brother, she hadn’t abandoned the phone Sean Rogan slipped in her pocket. Simon was too far away to help, and she was beginning to wonder if he would actually come and extract her.
But JT would. Her brother had never let her down. For years she’d used his guilt against him. She hated that about herself, but JT had felt so guilty that he’d been overseas when their dad gave her to Sergio. It wasn’t JT’s fault—none of it was his fault—but she never told him that. She never told him she didn’t blame him. Did that mean in the back of her mind she did? A little bit? Or that she just wanted him to feel as guilty as she felt? Because of the things she’d been forced to do. And things she hadn’t been forced to do. Like escaping.
And costing Julie her life.
Bella reached under the mattress for where she’d hidden the phone, then there was a knock on the door. She froze.
“Yeah?” she called.
“You sleeping?” Damien.
“Trying.”
“Mr. Hirsch is here. We need to talk.”
Talk? About what?
“Coming.”
She left the phone where it was. How long would it take JT to get from San Antonio to Port Arthur? That was, if he went to San Antonio. Four, five hours? She didn’t know. Kane could fly a plane—she’d text JT tonight, ask him to get her out. Call in the cavalry and arrest Hirsch and Damien.
She had failed. She hadn’t found Hope.
But Bella didn’t want to die, and everything had already gotten out of hand. She had enough evidence against Hirsch to stop him, and everything else was icing on the cake. And maybe, just maybe, they could flip Damien into telling them where Hope had been sent—or confirming that she was dead. To give her grandparents closure. A small thing, but still important.
She opened the door. Damien was standing right there. Too close. He ran his hand up and down her arm. She didn’t flinch.
“Z is coming. Let me do the talking.”
“Is this about this morning?”
“It’s gotten complicated.”
Damien led the way to the dining room. Hirsch was sitting at the head of the table. Not eating, not talking on the phone, just staring straight ahead. As soon as Damien and Bella walked in, Hirsch scowled. “You should have talked to me first,” Hirsch said. “What the fuck got into you, Damien?” He turned to Bella. “Did you tell him to kill the john? That girl was just a whore! Now the heat is coming down at the worst possible time.”
The cops found Papi’s body. That was the only explanation for Hirsch’s anger. No—Hirsch wouldn’t care about that, unless it led back to him.
It wasn’t Papi. The police had traced Papi to Sue-Ann. That was why Hirsch was furious.
“For two fucking years Port Arthur has been safe. Under the radar. A perfect spot to coordinate our operation. And the cops arrested Gino on suspicion of murder. But we all know Gino didn’t kill that prick, don’t we?”
“The cops don’t know that, sir.”
“But you do!”
Damien didn’t budge. “They’ll have enough evidence if they’re halfway decent cops. The gun’s in his car.”
Damien must have planted the evidence after he brought her back here this morning.
“Don’t be an idiot.”
For the first time, Damien directed his anger at Hirsch. The tension in the room increased ten-fold.
“Let me spell this out for you, Damien,” Hirsch said. “The cops traced the john to Gino and Gino to Sue-Ann and found the whore unconscious. She’s in the hospital having surgery as we sit here arguing about whether I should shoot you in the head.”
Damien glared at him. “Do not threaten me.”
“Carter’s now a liability,” Hirsch continued as if Damien hadn’t spoken. Did
Hirsch not realize that Damien was a greater threat? “The whores in the house gave her description to the police. Not yours, which is good because I don’t want to lose you. We’ve been through too much together. But this is fucked, and Carter is a problem.”
Bella froze. No fucking way. Her cover hadn’t been blown, but she was going to be executed anyway.
“I’ll take her back to L.A. with me.”
“Too risky.”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” Bella said.
“You don’t have a say in this.”
“I went to that house because you ordered me to!”
“I didn’t order you to kill the john!”
“I didn’t. But if you let your merchandise be abused like Sue-Ann, then you won’t have much of a business left, will you?”
“Watch your mouth, Dr. Carter. Never forget that you’re as expendable as any of the other whores.”
Damien tensed. He was going to do something rash. When had he become an emotional juggernaut? This was going to get them nowhere. Bella had to buy time.
She put her hand on his arm. Gently squeezed. “D, Hirsch is right. I’m sure he has a plan.”
“You’re not a whore,” Damien said.
Hirsch grunted. “All women are whores, Damien. Just because she has a brain between her ears doesn’t mean she doesn’t use the hole between her legs to lead you around by your dick.”
Every muscle in Damien’s body rippled. She could see it—she could feel it—why didn’t Hirsch realize that he’d created this monster and his monster was going to turn on him?
“Let’s go, D,” she said. “I don’t want to go to jail, I don’t want you to go to jail, either.” She lied so smoothly now she wondered if she’d ever learn how to tell the truth.
“Z is here, no one is going to do anything until we figure this out. Too much is at stake.”
The door opened and a squat, broad shouldered man in his forties walked in. He had a thick head of brown hair and cold blue eyes and walked with the swagger of a man who resented his lack of height.
Tommy.
“It’s been one fucking screw up after another,” Tommy said. “Phoenix, El Paso, this mess—I told you to take care of the whore, and by take care I meant if she can’t work, she needs to be at the bottom of the fucking ocean. And now San Antonio is in jeopardy. And it’s your people, Martin. Your people are screwing it up.
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