by Barb Han
So much of this job was about patience.
Twenty minutes passed and nothing moved except for a raccoon in the trash bin that almost made Sadie jump out of her skin. She’d kept her cool.
“Stay right here while I check out the vehicles.”
Her eyes were wide, but she nodded.
Nick kept a low profile as he moved across the small lot, squat walking, just in case someone was waiting in one of the trucks. He’d learned to expect anything in these situations. Someone could be there asleep. At least he was sure no one was getting lucky in the backseat. He hadn’t seen the telltale fog of the windows. Near Harry Hines, anything was possible. In his years with the agency, he’d pretty much seen it all.
He touched the hood of each vehicle. Cold.
None of them had been driven lately.
One by one, he checked the cabs.
Clear.
Good.
He returned to Sadie. “Ready to move to the front?”
She nodded again. She was either scared to the point of being mute or a good listener. He hoped for the second. He could work with that.
“Let’s move.”
He was almost surprised when she followed him. Meant she was coherent. Another good sign.
The strip of warehouses was encased by wrought-iron fences out front. He hoped none of them were hot. He could scale the six-foot barrier easily with one hand on the top rail, but Sadie wouldn’t be able to. He picked up a rock and tossed it at the fence.
No telltale crackle of electricity.
The sounds of tires turning on pavement caught his attention. Two dots appeared down the street. The headlights were moving toward them.
He grabbed Sadie by the hand and climbed over the fence. She dropped to her hands and knees and crawled behind him.
The headlights moved closer.
Adrenaline thumped through his veins. He couldn’t guarantee Sadie’s safety. Didn’t especially like the feeling gripping him that he’d compromised her security by bringing her along.
Wouldn’t do any good to second-guess himself.
She was there.
He was there.
He’d make sure they both made it out alive.
Brakes squeaked the car to a stop two buildings down. Nick made out an older model Lincoln. There was a driver and a passenger. The passenger moved over to the driver’s side and the seat flew back. Both of them disappeared.
Nick watched carefully for the overhead light to come on in case someone was exiting the vehicle. An experienced criminal would know to turn it off before slipping out. Neither Grimes nor the U.S. Marshals searching for them were amateurs.
Nick waited another five minutes, his gaze intent on the dark sedan.
“I’m moving closer to check it out. You stay right here,” he whispered when enough time had passed. He had to crawl across the empty parking lot to get close enough to see what was going on. No one had left the vehicle as far as he could tell.
A light came on in the third building as he neared the halfway mark across the lot. The warehouse was right next to him. He froze, making himself as small as possible.
Nothing but stillness surrounded him.
He inched closer to the Lincoln. Made it to the corner where his lot and the one for building number two met. The car wasn’t a hundred yards away. He was close enough to see the windows fogging up and hear the shocks creaking. Lovers? Not likely. Not at this time of night on this road. But they were having sex.
Nick had a problem on his hands. He could flash his badge and get rid of the prostitute and John, but possibly call attention to himself and Sadie. Or he could wait it out. His back already hurt like hell.
The light flipped off on building number three.
He had to assume whoever was there had gotten what they came for. They must’ve used the back entrance, which made the most sense if they were loading supplies. He didn’t have time to care why a person would be here at this late hour.
Even though he knew exactly what was going on in the car, he had to make sure. Getting close enough to get a visual would be right up there with his least favorite task of the night.
On closer assessment, the pair was doing exactly what he suspected.
Nick crawled across the lot. Relief flooded him that Sadie was exactly where he left her. Not having his eyes on her for even a second did all kinds of crazy things to his insides, to his heart. This didn’t seem like an appropriate time to get inside his head about what that meant.
She leaned so close he could feel her breath on him. “What could they possibly be doing over there? I freaked when they pulled up, thinking the worst, but no one’s getting out of the car.”
He couldn’t wipe the ridiculous grin off his face. This wasn’t the time to be charmed by her innocence. “You don’t want to know.”
“What does that... Oh.” With the dim glow of a street lamp, he could see her cheeks flush with embarrassment. “What do we do now?”
“Wait.”
Fifteen minutes passed before the passenger’s door opened and a tall skinny girl crawled out.
Sadie reached out to Nick, placing her hand in his. Hers seemed small by comparison. And soft.
He squeezed her fingers for reassurance. A few more minutes and they’d get what they came for.
The door slammed shut and the Lincoln pulled away, squealing its tires.
Skinny tucked something, presumably cash, in her bra and stumbled away, either drunk or high, or both.
Nick didn’t like the idea of her or anyone else being around or the possibility they could be seen. Her presence also most likely meant there were others like her wandering around, searching for their next twenty dollars or fix.
His warning system flared up that anyone else could see them or identify them at the scene. Especially since he had no idea what this warehouse was being used for.
He had to prepare himself for any possibility.
Damn that anyone could signal inside or send up a red flag, alerting Grimes’s men to their presence if anyone was there.
“Stick close by me.”
Sadie nodded.
He had to make sure Skinny was far enough away, and there was no pimp nearby working this end of the street.
Nick kept to the shadows, with Sadie right behind him every step of the way.
He followed Skinny back to Harry Hines, where she met up with a few similarly dressed women.
Relief flooded him as he backtracked the couple of blocks to the warehouse.
Instinct told him they needed to get the information they came for and get the hell out of there.
Chapter Thirteen
As expected, the front and back doors were locked. Sadie hadn’t expected a man like Grimes to leave his inventory, or whatever he kept in there, unprotected.
“We can’t break one of the windows up front, can we?” she asked.
“I don’t want to raise suspicion we were here.” Nick moved to the dock door, bent down and examined the lock. He fished a small Swiss army knife out of his pocket and went to work with his flashlight and small pick-looking tool. “I can manage this one easily enough.”
“Can you do this?” Sadie asked, shocked. Surely he wasn’t planning on breaking and entering. Wasn’t that a felony offense? He’d lose his job. Possibly even go to jail.
He deadpanned her. “Not legally. Anything we find won’t be admissible in court. But they’ve involved my family. I’ll do what’s necessary to protect them.”
The way he clenched his jaw left no doubt he meant every word.
She tamped down the emotion tugging at her heart. The air stirred around them. With the way he watched over the people he loved, Nick would make an amazing father someday. He was exactly the kind of m
an she’d want to father her children someday.
The shock of her realization she wanted kids was only dwarfed by the one that said she wanted to be with Nick.
“What do you think we’ll find in there?” she asked.
“Could be anything from guns to illegals. It’s dark and quiet inside. Whoever takes care of the shipments has gone home.”
Images of poor, hungry people packed inside trucks without air-conditioning popped into Sadie’s mind. Since she’d been in Texas, she hadn’t gone a month without seeing something in the news about human trafficker raids or inhumane conditions.
A snick sounded, and she knew he’d cracked the lock. He closed the tool and stuffed it in his pocket.
He rolled up the door enough for them to squat down and slip inside. “I’ll go first and make sure it’s clear.”
“Okay.”
A few seconds later, he told her it was fine.
She ducked down and crawled into the opening.
Nick pulled the metal door closed, drew his weapon and picked up the flashlight he’d set down.
The thin beam skimmed the large room, exposing a line of twin mattresses on the floor spanning two walls. Some had pillows and blankets, others had nothing but a towel on them. Looked as if they could pack fifty illegals in there at one time. The place smelled like sweat and fear.
Other than that, the place was empty save for shipping evidence like boxes, tape and a small forklift.
Every indicator pointed toward this place being used for moving illegals through the country, and God only knew what else. “Can you call the police? Have them arrested? It’s obvious criminal activity is going on in here.”
“Not without proof.”
“What about those beds?” She pointed before she remembered he couldn’t see her in the dark.
“Circumstantial. Plus, I can’t use evidence gathered without a proper search warrant.”
Seriously? “Isn’t it obvious what they’re doing?”
“Yes. But courts, judges and juries want indisputable evidence and an appropriate paper trail before they send people to jail. A good lawyer would shred this case to pieces.”
“Seems like a pretty screwed-up system if you ask me.”
“From where I stand right now, I wouldn’t argue. But that’s the structure. It isn’t perfect, but it does keep innocent people out of prison.”
“It shouldn’t be so hard to get guilty people off the streets.”
“Agreed.” Nick ran the stream of light up a stairwell to what looked like a second-story office.
Hope bubbled. “Maybe there will be something in there we can use.”
She followed him up the narrow steps.
The wood door was locked. She had no doubts that Nick could pop the door open with one good bump of his shoulder, but he wouldn’t.
Instead, he pulled out his tool and jimmied the lock.
This one took even less time to crack.
The flashlight beam skimmed over the room. There was a solid mahogany desk with a leather executive chair tucked into it.
Nick moved to it. The top was clean. He tried to open the drawers of the desk. They didn’t budge.
“Whatever they’re doing must pay well,” Sadie said, taking in the expensive-looking leather sofa against one wall, and the opulent chairs positioned across from the desk.
“Tells me something else. The big boss works from here.”
“How do you know that?”
“They wouldn’t approve spending this much money on furniture for a captain. And Dallas is a great place to locate his headquarters. We have the worst jury pulls. Even if we gather enough evidence to arrest them, it’s harder to get a conviction here. Criminals know it. Grimes knows it. Everyone in the agency would, too.”
“Grimes. Here?” She glanced around. A band of tension tightened around Sadie’s chest.
“Yes.” Nick moved to a filing cabinet positioned against the wall behind the desk. “Might find something useful in here.”
He opened drawer after drawer while Sadie helped flip through folders.
She pulled one out. “What is this?”
Nick focused the beam on the piece of paper she held. “An invoice for silk scarves.”
Sadie hauled out another one and held it under the light. “And this is for Chinese footwear.”
The rest of the contents of the drawer yielded similar results.
Her heart stopped at the sound of a car pulling into the front parking lot. “What do we do now?”
Nick turned off the flashlight and held her hand. “We wait.”
She had to remind herself to breath.
Was this another paid late-night tryst with the prostitute they’d seen earlier or one of her friends? Sadie couldn’t allow herself to consider anything worse. Like Grimes returning. If he found her this time, would she and Nick be dead?
Minutes ticked by.
A siren blast followed by squad car lights split the darkness.
Sadie thought she could hear her heart pounding in her chest as they waited for the cop to pull away.
Five minutes later, everything was dark out front.
Nick flicked on the flashlight.
Sadie held up another useless invoice. This one was for bracelets. “We aren’t going to find anything, are we?”
“Don’t give up yet.” He pulled the file cabinet away from the wall.
“What are you doing?”
“I learned this trick a long time ago.” He felt along the back of the wood then produced a manila folder. “Taped to the back.”
“Oh, my gosh.” He’d found something.
They moved to the desk. Nick opened the envelope. He dumped the contents out. There were a few documents, pictures and, holy cow, Sadie’s personal information. They had the name of the bakery where she worked, which she already knew they’d discovered, and a picture of her lake house.
She gasped at the picture of her and Nick in the truck, escaping from the bakery. Whoever took it must’ve been with the person who’d followed them.
Her pulse quickened with every new picture. Luke. Reed. Meg. Riley. Lucy. One by one, each of Nick’s family members appeared.
Nick fanned out the photos from the deck and grunted a foul word.
She’d been thinking the exact same one.
The message was clear. No way did they plan to leave his family alone.
* * *
NICK SPLAYED THE pictures and documents from the envelope across the desk after making the call to his safe house contact. He pulled out his camera and took photos then texted the new information to Luke. “I’ll forward this to Smith once we get to the safe house. We can examine these more closely there, as well.”
Nick figured it would be easy to hide Sadie in Richardson’s Chinatown among the strip malls.
He pulled onto Greenville Avenue, located Dim Sum, the restaurant, and parked in the dark behind it. Paul Huang’s new Japanese import was parked under the street lamp.
Nick flashed his headlights and Paul zipped past him and out of the lot, slowing down enough for Nick to follow. His contact was about as far away from the U.S. Marshals Service as he could be. No one knew about Paul.
A cold front was due, and Nick would at least give Sadie a solid roof over her head tonight.
Winding into a neighborhood behind the shopping mall, Paul pulled in front of a house and jumped out of his car, motioning Nick to park on the pad in front of the house.
“My man, Nick,” the Asian said, twin plumes of smoke rising from his nostrils.
They shook hands and bumped shoulders in a man greeting.
“It’s been a long time. How’s your mom?” Nick asked.
“Ah, you know her. She slaves away
in the kitchen. I finally have enough money to give her a decent retirement. I don’t need the help. She can relax. What does she do? Work. She’s so stubborn.”
“Probably wants to feel useful,” Nick offered.
“That’s true. She worries about getting too old.”
“You have any more trouble at the restaurant?” Nick had intervened on several occasions on Paul’s behalf when gangs tried to move in on his block and force him to pay protection fees or risk having his livelihood burned to the ground.
“No. Thanks to you. They didn’t come back.” Paul stood staring at Sadie, waiting for an introduction.
Nick shook his head. “Better if you don’t know anything on this one.”
Paul, a middle-aged Asian with white hair dotting his temples, nodded his understanding. He popped the butt of his cigarette in his mouth and puffed on it while he stuck the key in the lock. He opened the door. “It’s not a big place but it’s clean. You hungry?”
“Nah. We’re okay for the night.”
“You need anything, you take it. I stocked the fridge as soon as you called.” He tossed a key onto the counter next to the one he’d used to open the door a moment ago. “The restaurant is behind you. This yard backs up to it. Hop the wall and you’re there. If you don’t find what you need here, go there.”
“I appreciate you letting us use your relatives’ place for a few days. We won’t be here too long.”
“Nothing’s too much to ask from you, my friend. You saved my life. My aunt and uncle are out of the country, anyway. Went back to China. I don’t know why. I told them there’s nothing back there I forgot.” He laughed at his own joke and shook his head. “They don’t need to use this place right now. It’s no trouble at all. I put fresh sheets on the bed for you.” His gaze moved from Nick to Sadie. “If not for this guy, I’d have nothing. Those thugs almost ran me out of business. Out of town. But this guy. He stopped them.” He gave Nick a friendly tap on the shoulder. “You didn’t let them push around the little guy.”
Nick smiled. “Glad to help.”
“He’s a good guy,” Paul said, winking at Sadie. “He’ll take care of you.”