Human Traffic (Detective Damien Drake Book 5)

by Patrick Logan

  He expected to be confronted by one of Bob’s gym buddies, a roommate, maybe even his wife.

  Or a cop who had been called to the scene due to all the noise.

  But when he finally saw who it was, his entire body went cold.

  It was a young boy of maybe four or five years, dressed in white flannel pajamas. He clutched a Teddy bear in one hand, and while the other was jammed into his mouth.

  Beckett grabbed the side of the desk and managed to haul himself to his feet. Then he grabbed the manifest from beneath the yacht keys, tossed the bag of heroin that he had brought with him onto the floor, and stumbled out of the room.

  The entire time, he muttered, I’m sorry, over and over and over again in a dry whisper.

  Chapter 34

  Drake pulled into the parking lot of Triple D just as the sun kissed the horizon. As if on cue, Screech yawned and a moment later, Drake followed suit.

  “What now?” Screech asked after his jaw slammed shut. Drake looked at his partner and marveled at how bloodshot his eyes were.

  He couldn’t even imagine what his own looked like.

  “Now, I think we should get some sleep.”

  Screech squinted.

  “Do you ever sleep?”

  It was a simple question, and likely even rhetorical, but it gave Drake pause. The truth was, he didn’t sleep — not really. He passed out; that was the only way to ensure he didn’t have nightmares.

  Nightmares that featured the skeletal version of Clay.

  “Not really,” he admitted at last.

  Screech turned his eyes to the strip mall that housed Triple D Investigations until his gaze eventually fixated on the worn wooden door.

  “Then what the hell are we doing here? Shit, this is the first place that DI Palmer would look for you. In fact, I’m surprised that he isn’t here now, waiting to arrest your ass.”

  The man had a point.

  What was he doing here?

  He should be home with Jasmine trying to smooth things over, making her comfortable.

  But that would make him a sitting duck for Palmer. As for friends that he might crash with? Screech and Beckett were the only two people who even came close to fitting that description, but they were both out of the question. The cops had already been to Screech’s place, and even though Beckett now seemed more amenable to getting involved with the dead Colombian girls, their last interaction had been less than cordial.

  “I have nowhere else to go,” Drake admitted with a shrug.

  But that wasn’t entirely true; there was still family to consider. With all of the craziness of the last forty-eight hours, he’d nearly forgotten about his brother who had come out of the woodwork at Raul’s behest. But while Dane had come with Screech to the Reynolds farm, Drake was still apprehensive.

  He knew from experience that if Raul and Ken Smith had an interest in you, it meant that you had something that they wanted.

  And while Drake still had no idea how Dane fit into this picture, this wasn’t a good sign.

  He sighed.

  At this point, what choice did he have?

  Drake leaned over and looked at Screech.

  “You still have my brother’s number?”

  Screech raised an eyebrow, but he eventually pulled out his cell phone and read the number off.

  Drake committed it to memory, and then said, “What about you? You want me to take you back to your place?”

  Screech shook his head.

  “Naw, I think I’ll stay here. After all, somebody has to look after the place while you get your beauty sleep,” he said, but his voice lacked humor.

  “You know, Screech, it’s not too late—”

  Screech shook his head, effectively cutting Drake off.

  “I’m in this,” he said calmly. “I’m in this until the end.”

  It was a strange choice of words — until the end — but Drake let it slide.

  “I’ll just take a nap here,” Screech continued. “Then I’ll reach out to Yasiv and Dunbar, see if they’ve got anything on your Russian dude.”

  Drake nodded.

  With that, Screech exited the car and started towards Triple D. He was nearly there when Drake leaned out his window and said, “You’re a good friend, Screech. I’m not… I’m not really sure what that means, but I know you’re it.”

  Screech looked like he wanted to say something back, but in the end, he just nodded and walked into Triple D.

  ***

  Drake decided that for the time being the best way to avoid being arrested was to just drive. And as he did, he dialed his brother’s number.

  He hadn’t expected the man to answer and wasn’t surprised when he didn’t. What did surprise Drake, however, was his willingness to talk to the man’s answering machine.

  “Dane, it’s Damien. Look, I know you were out at the farm, that you helped Screech find me. I also know that Ray was your friend. What I don’t know, is what happened between you two all those years ago. Regardless, losing him must hurt.” His thoughts turned to Clay. “I’ve lost someone, too. Someone I was close with. And now… shit, and now I’ve got myself tangled up in a mess that I don’t think I can get out of. What I’m trying to say, is that after this is all done, I might be going away for a while. A long while. So… I know I’m rambling here, but if you want to talk, if there’s anything you need to tell me, now would be the time. I’m here for you. I’m here for you now, but the truth is, I should have been there for you back then. I should have—”

  The answering machine beeped, cutting him off.

  “Shit,” Drake swore, rubbing his eyes. He was about to toss the phone on the passenger seat when it buzzed in his hand. He stared at it, and for a second he thought he saw the number he’d just called — his brother’s number — on the display, but when he blinked, it read Unlisted.

  The last time he’d gotten a call from an unlisted number, it had been to tell him that the Skeleton King was back.

  Drake could only imagine what this was about.

  He took a deep breath and answered it.

  “Drake.”

  “Drake, it’s Sgt. Yasiv — it’s Henry. I’ve got… shit, she’s gone, Drake.”

  Drake sat bolt upright in the car seat.

  “Who? Who’s gone?”

  His first thought was that Yasiv was talking about Jasmine or maybe Suzan, but that didn’t make any sense.

  “Speak to me, Yasiv. Who’s missing?”

  He heard the man take a deep breath on the other end of the line.

  “Mandy… she was staying at my house. Everything was fine when we went to sleep last night, but when I woke up… I think she might have climbed out of the window, Drake. And now I have no idea where she is.”

  Drake slammed his fist on the dash.

  “You promised me you’d keep her safe, Yasiv!”

  “I know, I know, Drake. I’m sorry. I didn’t… shit. I didn’t think that she would run away.”

  A horn honked, and Drake realized that he’d drifted into the center of the road. He gave the other driver the finger and righted his car.

  “Does anybody at the precinct know about her?”

  “No, I didn’t tell anyone. Kramer didn’t even remember that she was at the hangar. He thinks that you threw something at him, something that knocked him out. We found nothing there, by the way, nothing but the trails of blood. I even had SCUBA comb the shore, but so far, they haven’t come up with anything. But Kramer… shit, you’ve gone from a person of interest to America’s Most Wanted. Palmer is gunning for you, Drake, and this time there’s nothing I can do to stop him.”

  Drake ground his teeth in frustration.

  He figured this was coming, but he’d hoped for more time. They had to find out where the next shipment was going to be dropped, they had to save the new girls before they ended up in a dumpster with their throats slits like Veronica’s friend.

  And he’d made a promise to Mandy, one that he intended to keep, no matter
the cost.

  “I’m close here. I’m close to finding out where these girls were headed. I just need more time.”

  There was a short pause.

  “Yasiv? You still there?”

  “You need to be careful, Drake. This mess you’ve gotten yourself into… I think that you’re in real danger. It might be in your best interest to just come in. I can… I can keep you safe.”

  Drake couldn’t believe his ears.

  “Keep me safe? Keep me safe? You couldn’t even keep Mandy safe and nobody knows about her. The cops… the Mayor… they’re the ones behind this shit. If I came in, I’d be walking right into their arms. That’s what they want me to do. I just need more time… one more day. I need to—”

  Drake was cut off by the sound of a siren. A second later, cherries lit up his rearview.

  “Goddammit, Yasiv! They found me!”

  Chapter 35

  Beckett, drenched in sweat and Bob’s blood, slid in behind the steering wheel.

  He knew that he should get out of there, that he should flee the scene as quickly as possible. But he didn’t.

  First, he had to be smart; smarter than he had been.

  Beckett put the syringe and scalpel back in the leather case and tossed it on the passenger seat. The second thing he did was slam his hands against the steering wheel five or six times in rapid succession until his palms started to ache.

  “Fuck!” he screamed.

  His plan had been terrible, the execution worse, and he’d almost died.

  And there was a fucking kid there, an innocent kid who was now scarred for life. All because he’d rushed it. Beckett had been so eager for his next kill, that he’d just run head first into this mess, guns blazing.

  This fact bothered him more than nearly being killed by the white hulk; it wasn’t at all like him. He was analytical, calculated. But this… this was something else.

  This was bloodlust, plain and simple.

  And it scared him. It scared him badly.

  With gritted teeth, Beckett put the car into drive. His only saving grace, he knew, was that he’d been in the fortified room when Bob had attacked him. If it had happened in the kitchen, somebody would have heard them, someone other than a ten-year-old boy. If that had been the case, he wouldn’t be surprised if the cops were already at his house, waiting for him with a set of handcuffs at the ready.

  As the adrenaline finally fled him, Beckett did a quick assessment of his wounds. His ankle was severely twisted and he had a deep bone bruise on his hip. His throat was raw and scratchy and it was still difficult to breathe, but by some miracle, Bob hadn’t crushed his hyoid bone.

  He’d gotten away lucky.

  Or had he.

  As Beckett drove slowly down the Manhattan streets in the early dawn, he did a mental inventory of his equipment. The outer glove on his left hand had torn, but the one beneath was still intact. The gloves on his right hand were unblemished.

  As far as he could tell, he wasn’t bleeding, either, which meant no DNA at the scene.

  It was possible that—

  “Oh, no,” he moaned.

  The balaclava!

  Beckett whipped his head around to the backseat, then glanced at the floor.

  It wasn’t there.

  He remembered Bob ripping it off, but he couldn’t recall grabbing it before getting the hell out of there.

  He still had the yacht manifest, but he didn’t have his goddamn balaclava. And the way it had been so violently torn from his head… it most definitely had his DNA in it.

  Beckett gripped the steering will so tight that his knuckles nearly dislocated. And then he screamed as loud and as hard as he could.

  “You fucked up, Beckett! You fucked up real bad this time!”

  This wasn’t like Craig Sloan or Donnie DiMarco or even Ray Reynolds. Bob Bumacher was a man who had a presence in New York, the same goddamn city that Beckett worked and lived in.

  And he’d left his DNA at the scene; his DNA and an eyewitness.

  Beckett took three deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth, trying to calm himself.

  It worked… almost. He was still furious, but he could sense these feelings taking up residence in his hippocampus so that his cerebrum could focus on the problem at hand.

  “Think, Beckett,” he said to himself as he pulled into his driveway. “Think about how you can fix this. That’s what you do; you’re a pathologist. You piece together the evidence, the time of death, the nature of the victim’s injuries. Use your goddamn brain, Beckett.

  He knew that he had to somehow get the evidence back from the scene, but the first thing he had to do was get rid of the evidence on his person.

  Mainly, Bob’s blood.

  After glancing around to make sure that there were no dog walkers or joggers in the street, Beckett scooped up all his tools and quickly headed up the stairs to his house. He looked around once more as he unlocked the door and, confident that no one had seen him, he slipped inside.

  Beckett went directly to the kitchen and pulled out a garbage bag from beneath the sink. Then he made his way upstairs and stepped into the shower still fully clothed. Once inside, he stripped off his gloves and his bloody clothing. He tossed everything, including the small leather case containing the syringe and scalpel, in the garbage bag and did it up tight.

  Only then did he turn on the water — scalding – and stood beneath the showerhead. Before long, the water that ran off him went from red to pink to clear. He scrubbed every part of his body from his fingernails to his toenails to make sure that none of Bob’s DNA — a single epithelial, a drop of blood, saliva, a tear, anything — remained on his person.

  When he was done, he repeated everything from the beginning, starting from the top of his head and working his way down to his toes. Fifteen minutes later, Beckett stepped out the shower.

  During his shower, Beckett’s mind had been working in overdrive, trying to figure out a way to get his balaclava back.

  He took a seat on the corner of his bed and retrieved another case from the bedside table. Only this one didn’t contain a scalpel and syringe; this one contained an amateur tattoo kit.

  As he continued to work out a solution to his problem, Beckett lifted his right arm and began the process of inking another tattoo line beneath the others. As he worked, he kept repeating the same four names over in a whisper.

  “Craig Sloan, Donnie DiMarco, Ray Reynolds, Bob Bumacher. Craig Sloan, Donnie DiMarco, Ray Reynolds, Bob Bumacher. Craig Sloan…”

  Chapter 36

  During his entire career as an NYPD police officer and then as a detective, Damien Drake had been in a grand total of three police chases. And for two at him, he had been relegated to the back of the pack.

  But this… this was new for him. This time, he was the one being chased by the cops.

  Common sense told him to pull over, to try to explain things. But common sense had always been a stranger to Drake. Instead of stopping, he gunned it. Only his car was nearly forty years old and hadn’t been in for a tune-up for half that time. To his rusty Crown Vic, flooring it meant a subtle and gradual increase in speed.

  “Great,” he grumbled. But what is car lacked in speed, Drake made up for in familiarity. He slowed at a stop sign to make it look like he was going to stop, but then made a hard right. The police car followed.

  “We’re just getting started.”

  Drake was no longer a police officer, but he knew exactly what techniques they would use, and at what point they were required to just let him go.

  The last thing he wanted to do was run someone over, but if he was speeding in a crowded area, the police would eventually back off.

  Drake took a left on the next street, as he tried to orient himself in the city. It was coming up on 6:30 AM and New York was starting to come alive. He made another left and spotted a familiar school crossing sign.

  He headed straight for it.

  The cops must have realized
his plan as well, because they tried to pull up beside him. They were going to initiate a precision immobilization technique — the PIT maneuver — in which the front of their car pushed the rear passenger door of Drake’s Crown Vic, effectively causing him to spin out of control.

  But so long as he drove directly in front of them, this was impossible.