He didn’t worry about Umberto, he would never talk.
“You guys hungry? I can get Velda to make us something,” Javier said, patting his belly.
“No, we ate on the way,” Lalo said, glancing over at Umberto.
Before Javier responded Umberto spoke. “I was starving and the kids were too.
“It’s cool man, when you’re hungry, you’re hungry. We bought burgers and chicken nuggets for the kids,” Lalo said calmly, smiling at Umberto.
Javier told them a million times, not to stop anywhere on the Texas side of the border. Anyone could see the merchandise, and that was dangerous. He gazed out at the road, but he needed to drill this concept into their thick skulls. “Next time pack a fucking lunch!”
A woman exited the house, stepping into the garage.
Umberto, smiling like a teenage boy talking to a pigtailed cheerleader. “Hi Velda, how are you?”
Javier didn’t understand why his cousin was so shy around women.
Velda asked, “Where are they?”
She wasn’t what he would call attractive, but she had nice long black hair. Her body was thick with nice feminine curves.
Lalo answered. “They are in the back.”
“Bring them in here so I can get them bathed and dressed,” she said.
Javier gestured to Lalo and Umberto to get the kids inside.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
A Blue Infinity
Bernice walked through a doorway, into a kitchen and saw a señora smiing at her.
The kitchen wasn’t that big. The señora waved forward, everyone walking into the living room, which had a long sofa and a shorter love seat.
“Turn left, and go down the hall,” the señora said softly.
Bernice did what she was told, hoping for a way to escape. The house smelled funny. Not stinky, just different from her house. It was made out of wood. American movies always showed these kinds of houses. Back home everything was made out of bricks and cement.
The boy sniffed. “When are we going home?”
The señora walked over to the boy and knelt down. “You are going to a new home sweetie. You are going to be with a new daddy soon, who will love you more. You will learn English, have nice clothes, and eat tasty food every day.”
“But, I want my papa!”
Bernice didn’t understand what she meant about a new daddy. She had parents and they were looking for her right now. Probably mad at her too. Even if they hit her, she just wanted to see her parents.
“We can talk more later, now come on, we need to put you in the bathtub, you’re dirty,” she said, tickling his sides.
The boy didn’t giggle.
They followed the señora and walked into a bedroom. The walls painted in light blue with white spots, a bed against the far wall with a dresser next to it.
She turned, taking a good look at the señora. She was old, around forty years old, and her brown hair reached her shoulders. The señora wasn’t that tall, her face had little holes like a sponge.
Bernice didn’t like the señora. She was bad, just like the ugly man, and the pelon.
“I’ll be right back, chula, I’m gonna give him a bath and then it will be your turn.” The señora grinned ear to ear.
They left the room.
A way out of this house was needed. Bernice wandered over to the window adjacent to the room’s entrance, but it wouldn’t budge.
Inspecting the windows, she noted that all of them had been nailed shut. A lot of land stretched as far as her eyes could see, outside the window.
Bernice tapped the window as throwing something through it would make too much noise and they would come.
Bernice was trapped. Images of her parents popped in her head. If she ever had a chance, she was going to tell the policía.
The señora came back with the boy. He was wet, and only had a towel around him, she took it away from his body, drying his hair in front of Bernice. She turned her head as she had never seen a boy’s private area.
“Look in there.” She referred to the dresser of drawers. “There are a lot of clothes in there and in the closet. There should be some clothes that fit you,” the señora said.
The boy ran over to the dresser and found a pair of Spiderman underwear and put them on. He went over to the closet, found some clothes, took them over to the señora, and she helped him get dressed.
“Chula, your turn.”
Bernice turned her head, peering out the window, seeing a blue infinity, wishing there was a way to escape or tell someone to help her.
As she took her clothes off, something jingled. She scanned the room, wondering where the noise came from.
“What’s wrong, chula?”
Her eyes shot up, she remembered. The keys! They were in her pocket. “Nothing, can I change in the bathroom?”
The señora inspected the boy and smiled.
“Yes, go ahead.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Slid A Finger
Houston, Texas
Mitch dunked the last piece of his roll into his soup, as he tossed it in his mouth.
Henry placed the last piece of chicken fried steak into his mouth, chewing, and then swallowing. “When we were little she protected me.
Mitch swallowed. “I understand. She’s your older sister and she protected you from the Boogie Man.”
“Can I tell you something?”
“Yeah, of course.”
“You can never tell anyone.”
Mitch nodded, focusing on his food.
“Our mother was killed, murdered.”
Mitch looked up, his eyes bulged. “I didn’t know that.”
“Chloe and I ended up in foster care,” he said. Almost as if he didn’t want to say the words.
Mitch said nothing.
Henry pushed his plate away, hated thinking about that time of his childhood. “And… we were sexually molested.”
Mitch put both heels of his palms on the table and looked at Henry. “Sorry brother.”
He shrugged. “Chloe protected me until it happened…”
“It?”
“Until the day I told her that a man touched me.”
Mitch jutted out his chin. “How did she protect you?”
Looking in the direction of his plate but seeing something else, something from the past. “They threatened her. If she didn’t do what they told her to do they’d return her to Foster Care and keep me. They raped her.”
Mitch’s left eye twitched. “What the fuck? Your Foster parents did that?”
“No, Kenneth, our Foster father, pimped her out. Men would come over and give him money.”
“And she did that so they wouldn’t molest you right?”
“Yeah, and when I told her about the man touching me, she lost it, and killed our Foster parents.”
“Damn, partner, how old were you?”
“I was eight, and Chloe, twelve. She…”
Mitch held up a finger. “Wait a minute, partner. You’re telling me that Chloe killed them when she was only twelve years old?”
“Yes, that’s what I’m saying,” he said. “But you can’t consider them to be people. They were diseased animals, needing to be put down.”
Mitch nodded. “You won’t hear me say that I disagree.”
Henry glanced off to the side, and then back at his partner. “Like I was saying, Chloe put up with being molested for two years, only so she could stay with me and keep me near her, to protect me. Chloe endured being raped dozens of times by countless men.”
He wiped his mouth. “Partner, I’m not sure what to say.”
Henry continued. “She was in the process of cutting out Kenneth’s tongue when the cops entered the house and stopped her. Me and Ana got home as they brought Chloe out.”
“Who’s Ana?”
“Oh, she was another girl that lived with us, another foster kid.”
“Were they pimping her out too?”
“Yeah, they did.” H
enry barely remembered Ana.
Mitch shook his head. “Damn, real fucking psychos, your foster parents.”
“Yeah, they were.”
“What did they do with Chloe? The cops?”
“Ana and I told the cops what had happened.”
Mitch leaned back in his chair.
“There weren’t any charges brought against her, but Child Protection Services didn’t want her after they heard what she had done. A judge stuck her in a mental institution,” he said, closing his eyes. He breathed out deeply, thanking God for his sister.
The two men stayed seated for a few minutes without saying a word, and then Henry broke the silence. “Nobody understands my sister. Chloe’s a good person, really, but she’s not like most people. She’s got issues with managing her anger. There were a lot of psychiatrists over the years who tried, but none of them ever made a connection or got through to her.” Henry lifted his right hand, pinching his nose between his thumb and middle finger as if he was getting a headache.
“What do you want to do about this hit on us?”
Henry looked up as if he didn’t hear the question.
“Want to tell the boss about the hit?”
“No, not yet. Let’s put on the vests and keep an eye out. We can’t cower to this threat, we’re cops, not pussies. I don’t agree with my sister on some things, but I can’t argue with her results. We give her enough time, she’ll find who put out the hit, and they will disappear. I bet my pension on it.”
Mitch’s phone vibrated. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled it out. Studying the screen, he slid a finger along the edge and brought it to his ear.
“Doc? That was fast! Yeah, I understand. Henry and I feel the same way. So, please give me some good news.” Reaching into his jacket, he pulled out a small black notepad and pen.
“Oh, good! Okay, Ramirez with a ‘z’, correct? Doc, you got an address too?” He looked away. “Look at you doc!” He glanced over at Henry, grinning, and writing. “Okay, thanks Doc, appreciate it!”
“Well, what do we have?”
Mitch returned his notepad in front of Henry. “Doc says the dead girl’s name is Samantha Ramirez, went missing three months ago! We got an address!”
He pulled out his own notepad and copied them. “So, are we going to go visit the parents?”
Chapter Thirty
Good Cop, Bad Cop
He thought about telling a mother how they had found her daughter, dead.
A part of his job that he hated.
“Yes, we need to get ahead of this. It’s not a matter of if the media gets wind of this, it’s when, but hopefully we can be a day or two ahead.” Mitch remembered the worst death notification he ever had to do.
Abigail Peterson, or Abi, fourteen-years-old, had been strangled, and left in a dirty alley. Abi had recently won a beauty contest, and had signed a contract with a high-end modeling agency.
One weekend night, during summer, Abi snuck out with a friend, Heather Buckley. Heather got them fake IDs and the girls ended up in a club. Heather had gotten the IDs the week before, and the girls went to a popular nightclub. The girls were hounded by men, and they had turned them all down, except for one. His name was Karl Vickers.
He was twenty-one years old, and Abi thought he loved her after one week. She wrote this to several friends via emails and text messages. He chatted with her for hours and hours. He told her how pretty she was, and how serious he was about her.
When Mason found Karl, he claimed he didn’t kill her, much less know she was only fourteen. “She didn’t look that young!”
Karl said he could’ve never killed her, because he was no killer, and truly loved her.
Abi reminded Mitch of his own daughter, Pamela. Pami, as he called her.
Pami, a year younger than Abi, could’ve passed as Abi’s younger sister. Mitch didn’t know what he would do if anything happened to his little girl.
There was enough evidence to put the bastard Karl away for the rest of his life, but he walked. The family, including Mitch, was devastated. Some of the evidence was improperly handled, and labeled by lab techs so Karl’s lawyer got the case tossed. Mitch waited weeks, then he made it right.
“Hey, Partner! You okay?” Creed grabbed his shoulder.
“Yeah, I’m good, just remembered something, that’s all. So, put on vests, and then what?”
“We need to go talk to Samantha’s mom, Mrs. Ramirez.”
“Sounds good. What are you thinking?”
“We go and talk to her to see if there was anybody who would’ve snatched her daughter, like an ex, or a boyfriend. Maybe the mother has a perv relative or neighbor, we don’t know until we get there, have a look around, and start asking questions.”
Mitch nodded. “Yeah, you can play good cop, and I’ll play bad cop.”
“Are you kidding? Play? I am the good cop in this partnership.”
Mitch grinned, exhaling.
“Did the techs find anything from under her fingernails?” Henry asked.
Mitch read over his notes. “I think there was, but we won’t know what it is until the geeks put it under a microscope.”
“Okay, well, we will need to be patient and do some leg work. You ready to git’er done?” Henry asked, standing up.
“Yeah, let’s go.”
Chapter Thirty-One
She Was Watching
Rosenberg, Texas
Bernice was given a pretty yellow dress and a pair of shiny black shoes to wear.
“Come here,” the señora told Bernice, waving a brush.
“I need to brush your hair and put barrettes in your hair,” she said sweetly. “You will be very pretty.”
Señora roughly brushed her hair, but Bernice didn’t cry. Then she put yellow barrettes in her hair. She smiled at Bernice. “Now you are very pretty.”
The señora called the boy over to comb his hair. She combed his hair straight back after she put some gel in it.
Bernice ambled over to a mirror on an adjacent wall. She hadn’t ever had a dress like this one, pretty. She wore white socks, stopping just under her knees.
She liked her black shiny shoes.
They matched the black shiny-plastic belt the señora told her to put on. She was prettier now.
The señora held up a phone and told them that she was going to take pictures of them. “Put your hands on your hips, like those sexy models in the magazines.”
Bernice put her hand on a spot on her hip, the spot where she had hidden the keys she found earlier.
She was worried, because if they found the keys they would probably hit her. When she had a chance, she would throw them away.
The señora told her to smile, but Bernice found smiling hard to do. Bernice eventually must have smiled, because the señora took several pictures of her. She turned to the boy. “Now it’s your turn.”
Bernice moved as the boy took her spot, and the señora took pictures of him.
The señora walked over to a desk, to a laptop after she was done taking pictures. Plugging a cable into the phone, she started punching keys on the keyboard.
Bernice tried not to let on that she was watching the señora. Pictures the señora just took of her and the boy, appeared on the monitor. Then the señora got onto the internet, and then surfed through a bunch of pages. Then a strange page appeared.
It had pictures of kids like her and the boy.
Bernice swallowed, not understanding. She stepped closer to the monitor trying to get a better view. Boys and girls. Black, a few Asian, white, and brown like her.
A few minutes later the door opened.
The man, not the ugly man or the driver, the one that was here when Bernice and the boy arrived, entered the room.
“We ready?” the man asked.
The señora nodded.
Bernice didn’t like the way the man smiled at her.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Like Diseased Dogs
Houston, Texas
&
nbsp; Norman White stared out of the bay window, thinking how beautiful the view was.
It reminded him of camping. He went camping a lot as a kid. He didn’t go outdoors much anymore. He switched the phone to his other ear.
“Yes, no problems here, and you too sir, see you next week, good-bye,” Norman said. He pushed the red END button on the phone’s screen.
The caller was a new client, who had specific requirements, like so many of Mr. White’s clients had.
A federal judge recently relocated to Houston. Married with two kids, which was a great cover for their kind. Being a federal judge didn’t hurt, and was definitely a good person to know.
The judge liked young girls.
He had already sent Norman a down payment of forty-thousand dollars, and the judge had just finished telling White his requirements. A young girl around five or six years old, with blonde hair, and blue eyes. This is what Norman called a specialty order, and was expensive, always taking time to fill.
The reasons for a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl being expensive wasn’t because of a shortage of them, there were plenty. It was because the second a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl, or woman went missing, her face would be plastered on billboards on every single TV station across America.
Unlike most people who did what Norman did, who tended not to stray too far from a familiar area, he had contacts all over the world. More important, he had contacts in parts of the world that wouldn’t miss blonde and blue-eyed five-year-old girls.
A Russian or Ukrainian girl via Mexico was feasible. A little homework was required, and he needed to make some calls. Norman went into his kitchen, which he cleaned once a day even if it didn’t need cleaning. Norman decided on having a cup of tea.
He boiled some water, placed in a teabag, and poured himself a cup of hot tea. Now it was time to work on the next thing on his to-do list, which was to help his good friend, Bradley Miller. Norman needed to help Bradley with his problem. It was important to keep his friend happy.
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