by T. R. Ragan
Faith was dying to blurt out to Rage that Jana had located her son, but for now she needed to keep her word and keep the news to herself. Rage looked frail. In such a short time she’d managed to lose a few more pounds. Despite the weight loss, her eyes seemed bright and her mood cheery.
Little Vinnie told Faith to take a seat at the table. He then set a plate of sausages and scrambled eggs in front of her before he joined them.
“So what’s with all the scrapes and bruises?” Rage asked her.
“I went to Florida yesterday to visit Robyn Price.” Since Rage was the one who had located the woman, they all knew who Robyn was, saving Faith from having to go into a lot of detail.
“You never should have gone alone,” Beast said.
“You’re right. It was a spur-of-the-moment idea.”
He grunted.
“What was she like?” Rage asked. “Did she tell you why she didn’t return your calls?”
“Robyn was extremely paranoid,” Faith said. “Afraid of her own shadow. In fact, she was packed and ready to leave the country.”
“Forever?” Rage asked.
Faith nodded. “She was scared out of her wits.” Faith reached into her bag, pulled out the three-ring binder, and set it on the table. “Before Robyn left, she handed me this and said it was my problem now.” Faith reached into her bag again and pulled out stacks of bound paper, which she handed to each of them. “I made copies for all of you.”
Beast took his plate to the sink in the kitchen. “So what did Robyn have to say?”
“In summary, she grew up with two brothers, Richard and Randy. According to Robyn, Randy was bad news and Richard was his brother’s opposite. It took some time, but eventually Randy pulled Richard into the trafficking business. Five years later, Richard found himself in way over his head.” She stopped, swallowed, her voice pained. “Richard Price was the one who ordered his men to go to my house in Granite Bay to find the money that Joe Henderson said was hidden there.”
“Who killed Richard?” Beast asked. “Did she say?”
She pointed to the stack of papers she’d given him. “There’s a letter from Richard to Robyn included. If we believe what he’s written, he wanted out of the business, but the boss didn’t like it and most likely had him killed.”
“But first he sent this information to his sister?” Rage asked. “Why would he do that? Why not send it to the police or the FBI?”
“I’m not sure, but after talking to Robyn, I think he must have thought he truly had a chance of getting out of the business. If he did get out alive, maybe he figured he could move on with his life and nobody would be the wiser. On the other hand, if he was killed, he wanted someone to know what happened. That someone ended up being Robyn.”
Little Vinnie held up his copy of the files. “If Robyn was leaving the country and hadn’t returned your calls, what was she planning to do with all this?”
“She said she contacted me during a moment of weakness. She wanted to do the right thing, but in the end she was too frightened to do anything. She’s afraid her own brother is after her.”
“I can understand why,” Rage said as she jabbed a finger at the page she had turned to. “Randy Price,” she read aloud. “Fifty-two years old. It says here that he was a sex-trafficking recruiter, drug dealer, and has participated in seven murders, money laundering, and extortion. Looks like he owns two properties. One in Sacramento and another in San Diego.”
They took turns reading about one criminal after another.
“This is a gold mine,” Little Vinnie said.
Beast nodded in agreement as he flipped through the pages.
The binder included names of johns, pimps, and what appeared to be some of the top bosses in the area.
“Do you have any idea what we have here?” Rage asked.
Faith was excited and yet worried, too. “The bad news is that someone in that list of names you have in front of you knows I went to Florida to see Robyn.”
Beast groaned. “Which explains the bruises and cuts,” he said.
“Who did that to you?” Rage asked.
“I was attacked in the airport parking lot before I could climb into my car. If not for a Good Samaritan, I wouldn’t be here talking to you right now.”
“Did your attacker get away?” Little Vinnie asked.
“No. She was arrested and taken away in the back of a cruiser. Before the police arrived I patted her down and found an envelope containing five thousand dollars and a coaster from a bowling alley in Rocklin with my flight number scrawled on the back. That’s all she carried. No purse or wallet. No ID at all. My guess is she’s a hired assassin.”
“So it looks as if Robyn Price had good reason to be worried.”
“Yeah,” Faith said, “I would have to agree.”
Since no one was eating, Little Vinnie stood and cleared the table. When he returned, he dropped a newspaper in front of Faith. “I realized we have a lot going on here, but I thought you might be interested to see this.”
Faith looked at the paper. The headline read:
COMPUTER SYSTEMS ANALYST JACK BYRON FOUND DEAD IN OAKLAND HOME
Faith skimmed through the article. Someone had broken into the man’s house. He’d been tied down and wrapped in explosives. Investigators found dozens of DVDs containing hours of various sexual acts performed by Jack Byron. Apparently he liked to pay for luxury suites in expensive hotels and then hire young girls and boys to help him play out his sick fantasies, something he wouldn’t be doing any longer.
Faith looked from Rage to Beast. “Any proof she had anything to do with this?”
Beast nodded. “I’m the one who looked up the number. She did the rest. The history on my computer had it all—directions to his house in Oakland, how to find explosive devices, et cetera. I got rid of it all.”
“Maybe she’ll be able to find some peace now,” Little Vinnie said.
“Maybe,” Faith said, “although I feel as if I let her down. What if this is just the beginning? What if she goes after other men who took advantage of her?”
“I don’t think she will,” Rage said. “She’s no killer. As far as I’m concerned, she saved future kids from becoming his victims.”
“Maybe she’ll come back when she’s ready,” Little Vinnie added. “She knows we care, and I think she knows we would welcome her back with open arms.”
THIRTY-NINE
After blowing up the motherfucker and walking away, Miranda had hitchhiked her way back to Sacramento. Last night she’d slept inside the lobby of one of the shelters where she and her mom used to sometimes stay. Although she’d tried to stay off the main roads, she knew she couldn’t hide forever. If the cops determined she was the one who had killed the sadistic rapist, she would be taken in, maybe locked up for the rest of her life. All in all, she didn’t really care. She’d done what she felt she had to.
She wanted nothing more than to destroy the DVD she’d taken, break it into a million pieces and drop it into a dumpster, but it might be her only proof that she’d had her reasons for doing what she’d done, so she would keep it for now.
She’d spent the entire day looking for one of her mom’s old friends. At the moment she was walking along the bank of the American River. It was dark, and she should be frightened, but she wasn’t. This was the only home she really knew. Her mom’s old friend Calvin used to spend a lot of time by the river. She wanted to ask him if he knew where her mother’s body had been buried. It was time to say goodbye before she moved on.
She wasn’t sure where she would go or what she would do, but she couldn’t stick around here. Too many memories, good and bad.
She walked for nearly a mile before she found a group of people huddled around a campfire. She told them she was looking for anyone who knew Grace Calloway. Calvin wasn’t among the small group of people huddled there, but one of the women pointed a finger at Miranda and said, “Rita Calloway! Is that you?”
Miranda hardly rec
ognized the woman, but she hugged her all the same, then plopped down and took a seat on the ground next to her. It turned out another woman in the group remembered her mother, too. For the next hour she listened to stories about Grace Calloway and a little girl named Rita who, in her mind, had died a long time ago.
The women talked about how they all dreamed about starting a housecleaning business together, but then they would argue about who would clean the toilets, and that would be another dream of theirs shot right down the drain. And then they would laugh, a throaty laughter that made Miranda laugh, too. Neither of the women liked to talk about the time spent with Grace after her daughter disappeared, and Miranda was glad for it. She much preferred listening to their attempts to dress up and go job hunting. They said Grace was the one who always landed the jobs. And every payday, she would cash her check and divvy up her money as if they’d all worked their tails off every week.
As the people in the circle began to drift off, Miranda asked them if they knew where Grace had been buried. Surprisingly, it was an old man who had been quietly listening who had the answer to that. He said Calvin and others had signed a piece of paper saying that Grace Calloway had wanted her body to be donated for medical research. The women nodded their heads as if that made perfect sense.
Miranda thanked everyone still awake before she headed off, despite their pleas for her to stay, where she would be safe for the night.
Hudson and Joey had been walking in circles. Hudson didn’t know how it had happened, but it was suddenly clear he’d lost all sense of direction. All confidence had left him, and he found himself questioning every step he took because every step in the wrong direction meant two steps back to rectify.
Twice he and Joey had headed down the mountain toward the river, and twice they’d found themselves back in the middle of tall trees and moss-covered rocks, basically nowhere. The corn nuts and sunflower seeds were long gone. All that was left was one strip of jerky and maybe four ounces of water. They were both covered with bug bites, and their legs were sore. Hudson’s thoughts centered on finding food and water instead of on being reunited with his family. He was losing hope.
The worst part was that Joey wasn’t getting any better. He was growing weaker by the moment, and for that reason, Hudson knew it was time to stop walking and set up camp. Once he had a warm place for Joey to get comfortable, he could take Derek’s rifle and go hunting, maybe find the river or a small creek and bring water back to Joey.
He set up the tent first, then laid down a wool blanket and the warm sleeping bag inside. He helped Joey over to the tent and had to force him to climb inside and lie down.
“Don’t leave me,” Joey said. “I can still walk. I’ll pick up the pace. I can do this.”
“I know you can. It’s my fault we haven’t found our way to the bottom. I screwed up. I just need you to keep out of the cold for a few hours while I do some hunting, maybe find a deer, anything. Without food and water, we’ll never make it.”
“I’m sorry I killed him,” Joey said. “I saw the look on your face. I didn’t want to do it, but he was suffering. It might have taken him days to sit there and die.”
Hudson closed his eyes for a moment. “He was dying. You did the right thing.” Hudson didn’t really know if that was true or not, but telling Joey his thoughts on the matter wouldn’t help them get off this mountain, so he left it at that.
“Do you think we’re going to make it?”
For days now Hudson had been trying to keep spirits up, telling Joey stories about the times he’d spent hiking and camping with his dad, uncle, and grandfather. But his thoughts had grown fuzzy, and he found himself wondering if any of those stories were even true. Maybe they were dreams, figments of his imagination. He didn’t know.
“It’s OK,” Joey said, breaking him from a trance. “You’ve done everything you could. You’ve kept us both alive this long. I’ve never known anyone in my life who I considered a friend before, but you’re a good guy, Hudson. And no matter what happens I want you to know I consider you to be a friend.”
A bolt of lightning lit up the sky, and for a split second he saw a bit of hope in Joey’s eyes. He didn’t want to let him down. They’d come so far. “I’m not giving up,” he told Joey. “I’m going to find us something to eat if it’s the last thing I do.” And then he set off into the night, one foot in front of the other, reinvigorated and more determined than ever to persevere.
Faith stretched her arms behind her head and yawned. She and Beast hadn’t moved from the kitchen table since breakfast. It would be dinnertime soon. They had been typing names from the list in the binder into databases, trying to put faces with the names.
Little Vinnie was asleep on the couch. His head had fallen backward onto the cushion full-tilt, his mouth wide-open, his snores a long, rumbling sound followed by a little gasp. Rage was asleep, too, her body stretched out next to Little Vinnie on the couch.
“There can’t possibly be too many names in the trafficking business, at least in the Sacramento area, that were left off his list,” Beast said. “I wonder if the higher-ups had any idea what he was up to.”
She shook her head. “I think they killed him because he wanted out. If they had any idea he’d compiled all these names,” she said, sweeping her hands over the stacks of paper, “don’t you think they would have somehow tracked his sister down long before this?” Faith sighed and then looked Beast in the eyes. “Everything up until today seemed so damn nebulous.” She held up one of the lists, overwhelmed by what she had right in front of her—a gold mine of information. Fear mixed with excitement had been bubbling inside her all morning. “Do you realize that for the first time since Craig was killed and my children were taken I have something concrete?” She gestured toward the computer screen, where Beast had pulled up a mug shot of Randy Price. “Look at him.” She pointed a finger at his picture. “He looks like a regular guy. Clean-cut and wearing a suit and tie. He could be a banker, a dentist, or a systems analyst, for God’s sake.” She stabbed her finger at his résumé. “But he’s not. According to his brother, it says here he spent years as a drug runner, smuggling cocaine into the United States. He’s killed and kidnapped, and now he’s in charge of recruiting others to find vulnerable girls for the sex-trafficking trade.”
“Take a breath,” Beast said.
“I’ll never forget Randy Price’s face after today.” She did as Beast said and took a moment to try to settle down, which was downright impossible. “I’m just glad I no longer have to walk around looking at every stranger, wondering if he’s a friend or foe.”
“The list is long, Faith. It’ll take some time to get through all the names.”
“That’s fine with me. I’m going to memorize every face here and remember everything about these people until I know exactly who I’m dealing with.”
“And then what?”
“And then I pay each and every one of them a visit.”
“What about the FBI and the police?”
“I’m going to talk to Detective Yuhasz, but take a harder look at this list of johns.” She grabbed a paper from the corner of the table and handed it to Beast. “We’ve got politicians and businessmen, people with money. As soon as one of these men gets wind of this, there’s no doubt in my mind he’ll find a way to put a stop to the investigation.”
She paused for a minute before adding, “I won’t let that happen. I’ve got to put some thought into this, but you know me well enough to know I can’t, I won’t, stand by and do nothing when we both know someone on this list could have my daughter.”
“Yeah,” Beast said. “I figured as much. So where do you plan to start? I mean, as far as the list of people goes?”
“With him,” she said, pointing to Randy Price.
Beast frowned. “I was thinking we could start with a group of people. Maybe we pay the johns and pimps a visit first and see if anyone knows anything about Lara’s whereabouts.”
“Put a gun to their
heads and hope we can get them to tell us if they’ve seen Lara or Hudson?”
Beast nodded. “Pretty much.”
“It didn’t work with Fin. I’m thinking we should start with the big boys—the bosses,” Faith said, “and work our way down the list.” She filed through a stack of papers and pulled out a sheet. “Aster Williams,” she said. “He lives in El Dorado Hills. First Randy and then Aster.”
He rubbed his chin, said nothing.
“No?”
“No,” he stated flatly. “The problem with starting at the top is that it’s more than likely that guys like Aster and Randy are the ones calling the shots, the ones with the most to lose, the guys with the security to protect their secrets and assets.”
“True, but—”
“I say we check out the bowling alley in Rocklin and see what that’s all about.”
“We don’t have a name.”
“I get that. But the coaster in the woman’s pocket was from there, and it had your flight number on it. I think it’s a good idea if we have a look around.”
“OK. Fine. We’ll check it out tomorrow.” Faith rubbed her chin.
“What are you thinking about?”
“I was thinking about Robyn, wondering if she made it out of Florida alive.”
He said nothing in response, but instead made his way to the front door and rechecked the triple set of dead bolts he’d installed since Faith’s mom was attacked. He then checked the rifles and guns sitting on the coffee table, making sure everything was loaded and ready to go.
Faith went back to work. The list of names seemed endless. It would take them days to match up faces to names.
FORTY
Faith had spent the night in Roseville. She was awoken early by her sister, who had stayed the night at the hospital with Mom. Jana called to tell her Detective Yuhasz had been shot and was at the same hospital where Mom was staying. Beast and Rage insisted on going with her. They waited in the lobby while she went to see him. None of them had liked leaving Little Vinnie home alone, especially Rage, but Faith had seen the glint in the old man’s eyes, and she knew he wasn’t worried. In fact, it was easy to see he looked forward to anyone who dared to come calling.