Jacob's Grace

by C. P. Rowlands

  The two women in dark suits stood as they arrived at the table. The third stayed seated with a friendly smile. AJ placed Tag’s bag under a chair. “Ladies, meet our new team member, Tag Beckett.”

  Both women shook Tag’s hand, strong grips followed by nice grins, and she relaxed a space.

  “Bonnie Logan,” the more muscled of the two said, moving her long brown-gold braid over her shoulder.

  “Grace Fields,” the other woman said.

  “They were supposed to watch for you and get you to the table,” AJ said to Tag. “Are you certain you want to work with them? They’re supposed to have your back.”

  Bonnie rolled her eyes. “C’mon, AJ. She was out like a rock.”

  “She didn’t even drool.” Grace shot a mischievous glance at Tag.

  AJ placed her arm over the back of the chair next to her. “And this,” she said with something else in her voice, “is Katie Blackburn.”

  “Hi, Tag, and welcome home.” Katie extended a hand. “Thank God I don’t work for the ATF. These women are relentless.”

  Tag held Katie’s hand, feeling about sixteen. Katie was vibrant and yes, adorable.

  “How about a steak or would you rather see a menu? The chef is a friend,” AJ said, a smile playing at the corner of her mouth. “You can let go of Katie’s hand.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Tag sat abruptly and felt her face warm.

  “The chef has a restaurant downtown, but his wife runs this little business.” AJ sat next to her. “We’re a team, not a platoon, so the ‘ma-am’ isn’t necessary. You’ve done your time and darned well. Here’s the cook.”

  A short Asian man in a green T-shirt and white jeans stopped beside AJ. She leaned back, shook his hand, and pointed at Tag.

  “Uh, steak, medium rare, baked potato, and house dressing on the salad.”

  “Make that two, Jimmy. I’m starving. How’re the kids?” AJ said.

  Jimmy held up his hands in mock despair. “The worst kids on the block.” He turned to Grace. “How was the food, Miss Grace?”

  “The best Thai in town.” Grace pointed at her empty plate.

  Jimmy repeated the orders and left.

  AJ shook her head. “He’s still crushed on you, Grace, but watch your back around his wife. She’s dangerous.”

  “That’s one of the better chefs in town. You’re in for a treat,” Katie said.

  “She’s right.” Grace stood. “I’ll get the drinks.”

  “I’ll have what Katie has,” AJ said.

  “I’m sticking with water. My final run is tomorrow,” Bonnie called after Grace.

  Tag’s numbed brain cleared a bit, and she checked her pocket for her thumb drive, a large part of the reason she was home. Risky business. It wouldn’t involve this group, but AJ would have to know at some point.

  “Sorry to be late.” AJ took her drink from Grace. “The meeting ran over, but our task force is a go, and better yet, we’re officially separated from the DEA. The press conference to announce the other task force, the new Milwaukee human trafficking task force, also ran late.”

  “Awesomeness.” Bonnie saluted her with a water bottle, rummaged in her suit pocket, and laid a paper in front of AJ. “Bill said you need the report on the bullets from last night.”

  There was a loaded silence, and Tag felt the energy around her change into anticipation.

  “What?” Katie swiveled to AJ.

  “I’ll explain at home.”

  “No,” Katie said. “Explain now.”

  “I’m okay, I swear.” AJ bent to look into Katie’s face, her hand over her heart. “You were asleep when I got home and gone early so I didn’t get to tell you.”

  Tag watched the group’s interaction and wondered how long they’d worked together. Her last deployment in the field had that same close feeling, but the last two years in the office on base hadn’t. She caught Grace’s curious gaze and her heart gave a quick bump. Never in her life had she seen eyes that shade of blue.

  A trace of surprise ran across Grace’s face followed by honest interest. “Is it true you’ve done four tours in Afghanistan?”

  “First three tours were hard duty, but the last was intel. I rarely left base.”

  Grace studied her. “The information said you led the cyber division.”

  Tag perked up and smiled. “Is that your gig here?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “No, Tag, she’s definitely our geek and worked in Cyber Crime for a while. She’s my right-hand woman,” AJ said. “Tomorrow, after you’ve had a good night’s sleep at Grace’s, we’ll go across all of this at the office. We share space with the Milwaukee Police Special Investigations group. And before I forget, are you going to be okay with Grace chauffeuring you around or are you going to whine if you don’t get your own vehicle?”

  “Whatever it takes.” Tag tipped the beer back for a long drink.

  Grace reached for the necklace that Tag never removed. “What is this?” Grace held the tiny silver pendant in her fingers.

  “A dragon from the unit I commanded. We all wore them.”

  “It’s beautiful, and thank you for your service,” Grace said. “I never served. I went directly from college into the Bureau.”

  “And I was a Milwaukee cop last week,” Bonnie said, moving closer to Grace, her arm possessively over the back of her chair.

  “And I’m in public relations and advertising,” Katie deadpanned. “Don’t I get something for battling the boardrooms of Milwaukee?”

  “Me.” AJ held up her hands, laughing as everyone threw napkins at her.

  Tag felt a little dizzy when the food arrived. The first bite told her they were right. It was out-of-this-world delicious.

  After the meal, they walked to the parking garage through lengthening shadows of the late August afternoon. Tag looked up at the seagulls running on the airport’s glass roof and the creamy blue sky above them. Despite her exhaustion, something tight inside her began to uncoil. She could hardly believe she was here. Home.

  “Let me get those bags,” Tag said.

  “No.” Bonnie switched the luggage away and tossed it into the agency SUV. “You still look like the walking dead.”

  Tag watched AJ and Katie get into a beat-up dark blue sedan and looked over her shoulder at Grace and Bonnie. She might look like the walking dead, but everyone except Katie appeared exhausted and they all displayed the same hyper-vigilance.

  “The hell…what’s she driving?” Tag said as AJ backed out of the parking space. The big motor growled and then echoed in the parking structure.

  “An unmarked police car she picked up down south.” Grace laughed and snapped her seat belt. “You don’t want to mess with that. It’s got a Dodge Charger cop engine, six on the floor, with a 340 hp Hemi V8, heavy-duty brakes, and zero to sixty in seconds. It looks like crap, but it’s all about speed.”

  “You should see her motorcycle,” Bonnie said from the front seat. “That car’s like AJ. Appearances are deceiving and you’ll never see it coming.”

  Tag leaned forward for another look at AJ’s car, her mind at cross-purposes trying to imagine that striking woman on a Harley.

  Chapter Three

  “God almighty.” AJ slammed her office phone down the next morning after another heated discussion with her bureau chief, Lawrence Kelly. He’d overridden all of her ideas, adamant about the full-blown task force in northern Wisconsin. Cursing under her breath, she swiveled her chair to the window, staring at the familiar Copper Penny bar across the street. Her life had done a one-eighty in the eleven months she’d been in Milwaukee.

  They’d promoted her to special agent in charge last spring and turned this extra conference room into an office. While she’d been stuck in bed and then on those damned crutches recovering from her leg injury, Grace and Katie had decorated here, and she really liked it. It beat the old closet she’d had when she arrived last September. She’d moved into Katie’s house and she more than liked that. She loved it.<
br />
  She saw no new updates on the takedown of the house two days ago. “Well, damn,” she muttered and pulled the worn manila envelope out of her desk drawer that held the details of the murder that had started the whole summer.

  Last spring, sweating in post-surgical physical therapy for her leg, she had watched breaking news on the hospital television. A teenage girl had been found in an abandoned warehouse, nailed to the wall in an exaggerated X pose, dead and mutilated, hands cut off and acid on her face. The medical examiner had declared it a homicide, but privately he’d said the girl was raped to death. The ME identified five sperm donors. AJ had called Chief Whiteaker immediately, a conversation she’d never forget.

  When AJ’s doctor released her a week later, her ATF team was temporarily assigned to Chief Whiteaker’s group, chasing the young girl’s murder. The victim became known as the “X-Girl,” and every law enforcement person in the city wanted this solved. The FBI’s Human Trafficking task force had taken charge and, in a rare moment of cooperation, had allowed AJ into the morgue to view the devastation. She still had no words for that moment. Their investigation over the summer had led them to the house they’d just taken down as the beginning of the young girl’s dark journey. Or so they thought. There was still a lot of work to be done to prove it.

  AJ scanned photos and papers she knew by heart. Dr. Bergs, the therapist she had to see every other week, was convinced that her murder of their young ATF agent, Ariel, had intersected with this girl and she was obsessed. She closed the folder. The doctor might be right. It had even nagged its way into her dreams, hadn’t it?

  “Are you okay?” Chief Whiteaker stood in the doorway.

  She held up the folder and he gave her a grim look.

  “Have a minute?” he said. She nodded and he walked into her office. “Nice job on my department at the meeting yesterday.”

  “Just theater, Chief. I had to come up with something to get you involved and basically shuffled my bureau chief’s words around. I just spoke to him and still have nothing. He still isn’t clear why we’re going up north or why as a task force.”

  “He’s probably waiting for more information.” The chief’s uniform was an immaculate dark blue against a white shirt and a silver tie matching his hair. “You impressed my chief at yesterday’s press conference. Did you see the photo in this morning’s newspaper?”

  “No, I got up late.” She gestured at her denim shirt and faded jeans. “I wasn’t happy. Your chief only talked about local prostitution regarding that house we took. What about the human trafficking we uncovered? And he never even mentioned X-Girl. He should have.”

  The chief held up a placating hand as they walked into his office next to hers. “Just politics. He tried to keep it simple to introduce our new human trafficking task force.”

  “I wouldn’t call it simple. We start out with murder and stumble into human trafficking. It’s huge and organized and we’ve only seen a small part of it. And yes, I know it’s the world’s oldest business, but I’ve known madams, working girls…not to mention Frog, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  “I agree, but I certainly am not going to tell my chief that.” He handed her a photo. “Here’s our young victim, Kevin Owens, with his older brother, John, our prime suspect from that house. The kid was fifteen and John’s thirty. Their grandfather owned that house and sold it to John. Did you see the autopsy on the boy?”

  “No, and why are there no updates on that house?” AJ studied the photo as they walked to Bill’s office. “Can we help?”

  “I know you’re off the case, but we need your group’s skills on the confiscated computers. The new Milwaukee Human Trafficking will take the lead, but I’ll begin the arrest process. Today I’ll show them the surveillance video of you and Grace contacting John Owens. Here, let me show you.” He ran the video on his big plasma screen.

  “You know I want to stay here and work with you. If you hadn’t asked when the doc released me, the ATF would have assigned us to the tsunami of guns in town or the heroin and opioid epidemic. Again, what about X-Girl? You’d think the FBI would have the DNA nailed down by now.”

  “Who knows what they have? I’m hoping they’ll work with the new task force.” He backed the video up. “We wouldn’t have had this without your group, especially you and Grace.”

  “That was Grace following social media and why we hung out where they meet at the gym on Forest Avenue. John Owens fumbled over the money.” She held up the photo. “Look at the clothes he wears. Those have to be thousand-dollar suits. He wants to be noticed, and he’s calculating. It’s all money. Power.”

  “I know.” He pointed at the screen. “I need to mark our people and your group inside the room with some kind of little mark so they can see how you set it up. See? You’ve got people posted on each wall and on the machines beside you. I don’t know how you two did it, but you looked like a seller, and Grace appeared so innocent.”

  “But she is, Chief. That kind of innocent.” AJ sat at his desk and backed the video up to the beginning. “I can put a little mark on all of our people.” She inserted a little “zero” on each person. “Will that do it?”

  “Perfect.” He stood off to the side of his desk, scanning the video. “What do you mean? Grace is that kind of innocent.”

  AJ looked up at him. “That’s what she is…actually, more immune than innocent.”

  “You’re kidding. The way men…and women…hit on her?”

  “She doesn’t even see it, as in unaware. She’s the real deal.”

  “I thought she was just ignoring them.” The chief frowned.

  “Nope.” AJ took a closer look at the video. “Wait. This is different from what I have. Let me show you.” She retrieved her laptop and placed it on the chief’s desk. “See? You’ve got the security from the north door. Mine is from the front.” They both watched the scene unfold. “Look.” AJ stopped the video and pointed at a table. “There’s the victim, Kevin, with three older men.” She zoomed in a bit, frowning. “Did the new task force identify those men? They have to do that as soon as possible.” She stopped the video. “Let’s go back to my office. We picked up Tag Beckett at the airport yesterday afternoon, and she and Grace will be here any minute. I want to show you something else.”

  Back at her desk, AJ swiveled her computer monitor so he could see it. “I sent you this yesterday. Tag’s résumé and service history.”

  “I didn’t see it. I had to meet with the new trafficking group after the press conference and it lasted past dinnertime. Then I was on time for Bonnie’s run at the training facility this morning so she can transition into your group.” The chief sat and scooted closer to her desk.

  “How’d she do?”

  “Aced it, of course,” he said absently, reading the information on her computer. “Tag Beckett, Wisconsin’s most decorated female soldier. And Menominee Indian.”

  “Part Menominee. Her father’s English. That’s where Beckett comes from.”

  “I remember when she played basketball at UW-Madison. All-American. Look at her education and all those decorations. Plus…” He pointed at a line. “She led the Dragons, the first all-female special operations unit, and got a medal for those two years.” He adjusted his glasses to see the screen better. “And I thought you were something, graduating from West Point with honors and a Presidential Commendation.”

  AJ took a drink of her now-cold coffee and tapped the screen. “Something’s off here. Tag asked for Wisconsin and, even more interesting, asked for the ATF.”

  “This is her home state. Maybe she just wants to be here.”

  “She’s qualified for much more. Computers, for example. One of her degrees is in that field. She was in charge of an entire section of intel during the last tour, so it wouldn’t be much to switch to cyber crime, so why is she a rookie agent out in the field and why the ATF? She could have gone anywhere.” She tapped the screen again. “She was up for a promotion too. I’ve never re
ad recommendations like this.”

  He looked up from the monitor. “Where’s the psych evaluation?”

  “When I spoke to the Bureau this morning they said they’d send it. Tag’s only been stateside two months and they’ve rushed her through everything. That’s concerning.”

  He looked at his watch and stood. “Yeah, it is. I’ve got to get this information downtown. Are you staying here?”

  “I want Tag up and running before my last appointment with the doctor this afternoon, and don’t forget the barbecue at our house tonight. Bring your wife. Katie’s cooking the chicken you love. Around six is fine.”

  “Katie called the wife about a recipe. Tell her we’re bringing the nut salad, the one with cashews and spinach.” He started to leave but turned back. “Which doctor?”

  “Dr. Bergs. My therapist over Ariel’s shooting. It helped, but I’m glad it’s over.”

  “That doctor’s been a great help to the task force. Bonnie said she gave you the ballistics report from the shooting at the church. My group did a full day search in that neighborhood but found nothing. You didn’t hear a vehicle?”

  “As I said, only footsteps running away, but they sounded big and heavy.”

  “I don’t like this. It’s weird, like Frog’s money.”

  AJ wondered again about her own new task force and the connection between the money and the police. “Frog is pretty savvy, but is there any possibility it could have been Milwaukee Police?”

  “Why would you even think that? I would have known since I have Frog marked throughout our entire system.”

  “I’m wondering what’s behind my new task force, not to mention that unexpected vacation Lawrence Kelly ordered me to take. Did you talk to him?”

  The chief shook his head and moved toward the door. “I’d have told you.”

  “I’m sorry. Of course you would have. Don’t forget the meeting with the two men from Niagara tomorrow morning.”