They walked out to the sunroom at the back of the house. Savanna closed the doors and looked over at Lyric who was lounging near the far windows. Both of her mothers being there meant they were still keeping tabs on her somewhat. Savanna and Lyric noted that she was holding McKenna’s hand. Lyric raised an eyebrow at her wife, by way of saying See? Savanna made a face at Lyric, as she moved to sit in one of the chairs on the patio. She looked at the five girls sitting on the couches and chairs. Then she looked at Cody, gesturing for her to proceed.
Cody nodded and stood in front of the girls, leaning against a nearby table. She pulled out a cigarette and held it up. “Anyone mind? she asked.
All the girls grinned, shaking their heads. Cody lit the cigarette as her eyes scanned over the girls. They were all pre-teen or teenagers, their ages ranging twelve to seventeen but they all looked a lot older and more hardened by their lives out on the street. Lyric, Savanna, and McKenna had all noted that Cody’s hands were shaking slightly. Lyric looked over at McKenna who mouthed, “She took it,” indicating that Cody had indeed taken her meds that morning. There was just some stress even Lithium couldn’t keep at bay.
“So, I don’t know what you’ve heard,” Cody said, her tone matter-of-fact, “but I’m not Cody Wyatt.” Her look was pointed. “I’m actually Cody Falco, and I’m a special agent for the California Department of Justice. I work for a human trafficking task force. It’s my job to stop people who are using young people to make money by selling them into sexual slavery.” Her look was serious and somber. “I have personal experience with this shit, and it destroys lives.” She looked at the girls, noting that they all looked shocked. “The reason the house is closed at this point is because we arrested John Tucker for multiple counts of human trafficking and money laundering. I know a couple of you knew that already,” she said, looking at two of the girls, Julie being one of them. “So, if you have any questions, this is your chance to ask.”
McKenna watched Cody, seeing the ‘cop’ part of her come out. She was completely self-assured and her confidence was high. She suspected that the shaking hands were simply because she didn’t like now knowing how the girls were going to react to her information.
“How old are you really, Cody?” one of the girls asked.
“Twenty-two,” Cody answered.
“Whoa,” the girl replied, widening her eyes.
Cody grinned engagingly. “Yeah, I’m old,” she said, taking another draw off her cigarette.
“You smoke, Cody?” another girl asked.
“Like a train at this point,” Cody said, grinning.
“How long are we gonna be here?” another girl asked. Her name was Rosa, and she didn’t look like she was happy about the situation at all.
“Well, we have to see what happens with the case,” Cody said, glancing at McKenna. “But if it goes right, McKenna might be able to reopen it.”
“What’s she doing here? She’s married to him, right?” Rosa asked, her tone snide.
Cody narrowed her eyes slightly. “McKenna’s not involved in that,” she said, her tone strong.
“How do you know?” Rosa asked, her look full of attitude.
“’Cause I’m good at my job,” Cody said, her tone more pointed.
“Were you fucking her then too?” Rosa snapped.
Cody took a deep breath, forcing herself to remain calm, when she really wanted to smack the girl for being a bitch. She also wanted to say, Are you still pissed because I wouldn’t fuck you? Not that the girl hadn’t tried every way to Sunday to get her into bed.
“We were not involved then,” Cody said, her tone even.
Rosa leaned back in her chair then, her arms crossed, her dark eyes flashing still, but she stopped asking questions. She’d had her sights on Cody from day one, but the girl wouldn’t give in. Now she knew why, it irritated her.
“One last thing,” Cody said. “I need to know if John tried to get to any of you, other than you two,” she said, glancing at Julie and another girl called Tammy.
“He asked me once if I wanted to make some money,” one of the girls said. Cody remembered her name was Barbara.
“What did you say?” Cody asked her eyes narrowing slightly.
“I said cool, but…”
“But what, Barb?” Cody asked.
Barbara shrugged. “It didn’t sound right,” she said. “He wanted me to take pictures or something…”
Cody closed her eyes for a second, then blew her breath out, looking over at McKenna who looked somewhat ill suddenly.
“Did he bug you about it?” she asked.
“He asked a few times, but I just blew him off,” Barbara said.
Cody nodded. “You’ve got good instincts, always listen to them,” Cody told her. “If you’d be willing to give me a statement that would be great.”
“Sure,” Barbara said, nodding.
Cody pulled out her badge wallet containing her business cards and handed them to all the girls. “If any of you need anything, I want you to call me,” she said, her tone sincere. “And if any M-13 members try to contact you, or harass you in any way, I want you to call me any time, day or night. Do you all understand?”
“Do you carry a gun, Cody?” Julie asked, her eyes wide as she looked at the badge clipped to the black leather wallet.
Cody turned, lifting the back of her shirt, showing them the holster at her back with the fairly nasty looking gun in it.
“Holy shit, girlfriend is strapped!” Rosa said, grinning.
Cody grinned. “That’s all,” she said, signaling an end to the meeting. “If any of you want to talk to me privately, I’ll be here for a bit.”
All of the girls nodded, standing up and talking to each other. Cody walked over to McKenna, looking down at her, her eyes searching McKenna’s.
“You okay?” she asked McKenna.
“Yeah,” McKenna said, blowing her breath out. “It’s just really hard to hear. It’s one thing to have learned what he was doing, but it’s another to actually hear it from these poor girls… Part of me really wanted to believe it was just a bad dream or something… I feel so stupid…”
“You weren’t stupid, Kenna, he knew what he was doing,” Cody said, her tone soft.
McKenna blew her breath out, nodding her head. She put her hands on each of the ends of the denim vest Cody was wearing, her head bowed, leaning it against Cody’s chest. Cody leaned down, kissing the top of her head affectionately.
Lyric and Savanna noted the two talking and saw the sweet gesture.
“Told ya,” Lyric said to Savanna.
Savanna glanced back at Lyric. “You are all-knowing babe, all-knowing,” she said, her tone far from sincere.
Lyric laughed, smacking her wife on the butt, Savanna laughed then too.
“Cody?” Julie queried softly, walking up to where Cody and McKenna were standing.
Cody turned to look at Julie. “Hey,” she said, her voice gentle, “you okay?”
Julie nodded. “Thanks to you,” she said, her tone sincere.
“I’m glad I could help,” Cody said.
“How did you know I was hurt?” Julie asked.
“That day in the study,” Cody said. “When I dropped the pencil.”
Julie looked surprised. “I thought that was weird,” she said, shaking her head.
“Well, sometimes you do what you gotta do to figure out what’s going on,” Cody said, smiling softly.
“You said you have personal experience with this…” Julie said, her tone cautious.
Cody nodded. “Yeah,” she said, her tone somber.
“Like what?” Julie asked.
Cody felt McKenna’s hand slide into hers, she squeezed McKenna’s hand gently.
“Like exactly what you went through,” Cody told the girl.
Julie looked shocked. “No lie?” she asked.
“No lie,” Cody said, shaking her head. “I was fourteen.”
“How did you get out?” Julie asked.
Cody raised her head, nodding toward Lyric and Savanna talking on the other side of the room. “They saved me.” Julie looked over at the couple and then back at Cody, nodding.
“Well, you saved me,” Julie told Cody. “And I won’t ever forget that.”
Cody smiled, her eyes misting with tears. She reached out and took Julie into her arms.
“Thank you for that,” Cody said her voice gravelly with emotion.
“What would you think about me adopting Cody?” Lyric asked Savanna one morning.
They were lying in Lyric’s bed and had just made love. Savanna’s head rested on Lyric’s stomach, she lay cross ways on the bed. She looked up at Lyric.
“How long have you been thinking about this?” Savanna asked, her tone mild.
Lyric grinned. “A week or so,” she said.
“Or since she came back that last time,” Savanna said.
“Or since then,” Lyric added, her grin wide.
Savanna moved to sit up. “I think that you’d be fantastic as a mother,” she said, her tone sincere.
Lyric looked back at her. “Would you be willing to do it with me?”
Savanna’s brows furrowed. “Huh?” she asked. “Oh, you mean help you with the paperwork? Sure.”
Lyric grinned and reached up to pull Savanna down to her. She kissed her, then pulled back to look at her.
“No, I meant being her mother with me.”
Savanna looked back at her for a long moment. “Are you asking what I think you’re asking?”
“If you think I’m asking you to marry me, then yes, I’m asking what you think,” Lyric said, her tone so matter-of-fact it was maddening.
“So you just drop a question like that into the middle of a sentence and think that’s okay?” Savanna asked her tone incensed as she sat up again.
Lyric laughed her blue eyes sparkling. “I thought it would be easier that way.”
“Easier than what, Lyric?” Savanna asked sounding flabbergasted.
“Than the whole one knee thing… You know how complicated that can get, there’s the where to do it and how to do it and did I do it right… And did they really put a man on the moon, and is Elvis really dead…”
By the time Lyric’s voice trailed off Savanna was laughing and shaking her head.
“Only you,” Savanna said, her tone amused.
Lyric sat up, taking Savanna’s face in her hands. “I love you, Savanna, and I want you, me, and Cody to be a family. So will you do me the honor of becoming my wife?”
“Oh, see that’s much, much better…” Savanna said. Whatever she was going to say next was lost when Lyric kissed her deeply.
“So, what do you say?” Lyric asked, her blue eyes searching Savanna’s.
“I say that I’d love to be your wife, Lyric,” Savanna replied.
“Good,” Lyric said, sounding very pleased with herself. “Now help me with the adoption paperwork.”
Savanna laughed, shaking her head.
Two days later Savanna and Lyric took Cody to dinner, ostensibly to celebrate their engagement. Lyric had presented Savanna with a ring consisting of chocolate and topaz diamonds and it winked and shined in the lights of the restaurant.
After they’d ordered, Lyric looked over at Cody.
“So we have a question for you,” Lyric said.
“Okay,” Cody said, looking at them both suspiciously.
Savanna looked at Cody, reached across the table and held out her hand to her. Cody took Savanna’s hand, looking worried suddenly. When Lyric did the same thing, Cody took Lyric’s hand with her hand shaking.
“What’s going on?” Cody asked, her tone fearful.
“Cody, we want to know if you want to be our daughter?” Lyric asked.
Cody went completely still, and Lyric and Savanna exchanged a look, both wondering if the girl was really ready for this.
“You mean it?” Cody asked, her look indicating that she wasn’t even daring to hope that they did.
“Of course we mean it, Cody,” Savanna said with a wide smile.
Cody looked to Lyric.
“My idea, so of course I mean it,” Lyric told her.
Cody jumped up from the table and threw herself into Lyric’s arms.
“Woah…” Lyric said, trying not to fall out of the chair, even as she held Cody to her. “I’m thinking this is a yes…” she said, smiling fondly.
“Yes, yes, yes…” Cody chanted quietly against Lyric’s shirt.
Lyric and Savanna exchanged a look, smiling. They had a nice dinner talking about their plans, where they’d live, whether or not Cody could paint her room any color she wanted…
Three days later, things went straight to hell. Cody disappeared again, and Lyric was frantic. She questioned every person in the group home. On the third day, she finally caught a break, finding something out from one of the kids who was rarely at the house. All she had to hear was one name. “Sureños,” and her blood ran cold.
“Who are the Sureños?” Savanna asked, watching as Lyric put on her vest and loaded her gun, before putting it in her shoulder holster.
“They’re a Mexican gang… And they run a human trafficking ring…”
“You don’t think Cody…” Savanna started but her voice trailed off as she grew pale.
“Stay with me babe,” Lyric said, reaching out to steady Savanna.
“What are you going to do?” Savanna asked, her tone worried.
“I’m going to go get our daughter,” Lyric said, her tone serious.
“You can’t just walk in there,” Savanna said, knowing enough about any kind of criminal operation to know that.
“Watch me,” Lyric said, her eyes blazing.
“Lyric wait, you can’t…” Savanna said, suddenly frantic. “You’ll get yourself killed!”
“I’m not leaving our daughter there a minute longer, Savanna, I don’t have time to do things by the book!” She leaned in to kiss Savanna. “Give me twenty minutes, then call 911 and report it here’s the address I’m headed to.” She gave Savanna a serious look. “You have to wait the twenty minutes, Van, if they hear sirens before I get to her, they’ll kill her, do you understand me?”
Savanna nodded, looking terrified.
“I’m sorry, I gotta do this, Van, you know that,” Lyric said.
“I know,” Savanna said, nodding. “But I’m scared.”
Lyric nodded. “I know.” Then she leaned in, kissing Savanna one last time. “I will get her out of there, if it’s the last thing I do on this Earth. Just remember that I love you,” she said, her look somber.
Savanna hugged Lyric then, doing her best not to try to hold her back. She knew that Lyric needed to go after Cody, she was just afraid this would the last time she’d see her.
“I love you, Lyric… So much…” Savanna said.
Lyric nodded, moving to the door. Then she was gone.
Lyric climbed into her car and started it with a roar. She glanced at the group home one last time, hoping it wouldn’t be the last time she saw it. She shook her head, not the time to think like that. Putting the car into gear, she sped off. Queensrÿche’s “Screaming in Digital” poured out of the speakers. Lyric used the screaming guitars to center herself, and focus her on what she needed to do. She had to push away the visions of what could be happening to Cody, if she was even still alive.
She got to her destination in record time. Glancing at her watch, she noted she still had seventeen minutes until Savanna would call the police. She looked around as she got out of the car. She was half a block from the hotel she was headed for. She prayed that she had the right intel and that was where they had Cody. As she approached, she saw Sureños hanging around. She didn’t make eye contact, but kept walking, acting like she was headed to her own room. She got up to the second floor without incident. Glancing at the room numbers, she knew she only had a few more to go. Looking down the corridor she could see two Sureños standing by a door chatting.
Lyric slowed, shifting her neck, doing her best to focus. As she walked toward the two men, she glanced around her like she was lost. She moved her hand to her waist, scratching her belly. Both men looked at her, but didn’t see her as a threat, she was just a woman after all. Lighting fast, she pulled her gun out, and pointed it at both of them.
“Now, nice and slow…” she said, smiling sweetly. “Open that door, and you better pray that my daughter is in there and okay, or I’ll make you sorry you were ever born,” she practically growled.
The two guys looked at each other, and then back at her.
“We don’t know what you’re talking about lady,” one of them said.
Lyric reached up under the back of her jacket, pulled out the Kaybar knife she was carrying and stuck it to the guy’s crotch. “You know what I’m talking about now?” she asked, her lips twitching with anger.
“Yeah, yeah!” the guy said, putting his hands up.
“Move…” Lyric growled.
They moved toward the room door and opened it. Lyric shoved them inside. Glancing around, she saw Cody huddled on the bed and had to look away, knowing she couldn’t take seeing her that way and focus on getting them out of there alive.
“Get in there, now,” Lyric said, pointing to the bathroom.
The men did as she said. She’d just locked them in the bathroom and turned to Cody when she felt the burning pain of a knife sliding into her side. She jumped to the side, spinning as she did, and faced a man twice her size. She had the time to think, “Where the hell did he come from?” before he lashed out and hit her in the face. She dropped her gun, but held on to the Kaybar knife she’d used on the men now locked in the bathroom.
She heard Cody scream her name.
Pure adrenaline was the only thing that kept her on her feet. She lashed out with the knife in her hand, catching him in the arm, because he’d expected her to go down. He charged at her, and she had to dive out of his path to keep him from taking her down. She knew if he got her on the ground she was dead and so was Cody. She spun around to face him, as he staggered up obviously shocked that she’d avoided him.
Vendetta (WeHo Book 7) Page 15