Holly Lin Box Set | Books 1-3

by Swartwood, Robert

  Leila enters the diner and looks around the place, up one row and down another, and when she doesn’t see anybody wave to her she lets a waitress lead her to a booth. The waitress returns a minute later with a mug of a coffee, and Leila thanks her as she reaches for the creamers on the table.

  I wait until twelve o’clock exactly before I dial Leila’s personal cell phone.

  By that point she’s sipping at the coffee, glancing at her watch every thirty seconds, sometimes reading something on her cell phone. Leila is about to take another sip when her phone rings. She pauses, squints at the phone lying on the tabletop, sets the mug down and hesitantly holds the phone to her ear.

  “Hello?”

  “Change of plans.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve decided I want to meet someplace else.”

  “What do you—but this is where you said you wanted to meet.”

  “Yes, originally. Now I’ve changed my mind.”

  I’m positioned across the highway in a truck stop parking lot. Parked so I’m facing the diner across the highway. I have a good view of Leila from where I am, so I can see how frustrated she’s getting, closing her eyes as her hand reaches up to pinch the bridge of her nose.

  She says, almost too quietly, “I don’t like games.”

  “Me neither. But last night I saw that girl you mentioned murdered so I don’t want to take any chances.”

  “I’m not going to hurt you.”

  “You’re not the one I’m worried about.”

  Leila drops her hand from her face, quickly looks around the diner.

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying I want to make sure you haven’t been followed. That you won’t be followed when you leave there. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. Now leave a couple bucks for your coffee and head back to your car.”

  Her head whips around, the woman suddenly realizing that I’m watching her. First she looks around the diner again, then out through the window at the parking lot, and then across the highway at the truck stop.

  “Don’t worry about where I am. Just pay for the coffee and head to your car. Believe me when I say I want to get this over with just as much as you do.”

  Leila pulls three dollar bills from her pocket and lays them on the table as she slides out from the booth. The phone to her ear, she starts toward the exit.

  “Where am I going?”

  “Turn right out of the parking lot and head west.”

  “How far should I go?”

  “I’ll tell you.

  “Will you call me back?”

  “No. You and I are going to stay on the line until you get there.”

  Am I being overly paranoid? Maybe overly cautious is the better term for it. There’s no reason I shouldn’t be able to trust this woman, but the simple fact is I don’t know anything about her other than the little I’ve read online this morning. Her card was found in the bag of a dead girl, along with a Velcro wallet containing five crisp one-hundred dollar bills and a pinkie finger. Oh, and a baby.

  No red flags have gone off in regards to this woman yet, but that doesn’t mean I still shouldn’t be cautious. There’s no reason to believe she has anything to do with the men who killed the girl from last night, but I still have to be certain before I allow myself to put Star in her care.

  Less than a minute later Leila has pulled out onto the highway heading west. I watch the diner parking lot for a moment, then double-check the truck stop parking lot. As far as I can tell, nobody rushes to follow her. In fact, nobody even coincidently pulls out of either parking lot.

  Keeping the phone against my ear, I start the engine and pull out onto the highway.

  Eight

  I don’t draw this out any longer than I need to. Soon it becomes clear Leila Simmons—and by extension, me—isn’t being followed. I keep watching the rearview mirror, but the cars back there look as normal as cars typically look on a weekend afternoon driving miles and miles in the middle of nowhere.

  We don’t speak. Leila tried asking more questions, but I kept telling her to wait, that I would talk to her when we got there, and finally she fell silent. She doesn’t have the radio on in her car, and neither do I. Besides the noise of the highway whipping past beneath our tires, the only sound coming from the phone is the woman’s soft breathing.

  After several miles on the highway—nothing in the desert around us except buffalo grass and creosote bushes and cholla—a rest area looms ahead. It’s so small and pathetic you might miss it if you blinked.

  I make a split-second decision and pull off into the rest area. Leila’s probably already a good half mile farther down the highway.

  “Did you see the rest area you passed?”

  “Yes.”

  “Make a U-turn and head back to it.”

  Leila doesn’t answer, but I sense her frustration on the line between us.

  “Leila, did you hear me?”

  “I’m making the U-turn now.”

  The rest area doesn’t have a bathroom. Just two weathered picnic tables and a trash bin. A slanted and rusting aluminum overhang that looks like it was built fifty years ago shadows the tables.

  There aren’t even any parking spots, just enough gravel for cars to temporarily park so that people can stretch their legs for a few minutes.

  I’m already parked and waiting by the time the Jetta pulls into the lot. As Leila Simmons eases her car to a stop next to mine, I open my door and step out into the dry summer day. The cloudless sky above a dark blue, the only imperfection a 747 leading a puffy contrail.

  I keep my door open, the P320 resting on the seat.

  Leila watches me from behind the steering wheel, clearly trying to gauge the situation. She doesn’t step out and instead lowers the Jetta’s passenger side window.

  “Where’s the baby?”

  “She’s not here.”

  Despite the sunglasses on her face, I can tell her eyes dart past me at the empty car. She shakes her head, her jaw tightening.

  “What is this bullshit?”

  “Relax. The baby is fine. She’s in good hands.”

  “What is this—some kind of shakedown? Do you expect me to pay you money?”

  “No. Like I told you, I witnessed the girl you mentioned—”

  “Juana.”

  “Yes, Juana. I saw two law enforcement officers murder her last night. As far as I could tell, they didn’t seem like good law enforcement, either. So I want to be careful.”

  Leila Simmons doesn’t answer for a moment. Finally she seems to make a decision. She undoes her seat belt and steps out of the car. Crosses her arms and looks around the rest area like there are a dozen people standing nearby.

  “Why did you bring me all the way out here?”

  “I told you—I wanted to make sure you weren’t being followed.”

  “Who would follow me?”

  “Who were the men who killed Juana last night?”

  She doesn’t answer at first. A slight wind picks up, blowing her curly black hair around, and she pushes a few strands from her face.

  She says, “Who are you, anyway?”

  “I’m just a woman who likes to mind her own business.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  So I tell her. I tell her about how I was heading home from work last night when I heard the girl calling out behind me. How I turned and saw the blood, and how the girl placed the duffel bag in my arms before darting into an alleyway. How she was hit by a car and then murdered.

  Leila takes off her sunglasses, wipes at her eyes.

  “Jesus. That poor girl.”

  “I found your card in the duffel bag.”

  “Yes. I met with Juana the other day. I’d written my cell on the back of the card so that she could reach me directly at any time, day or night. I do it for all the girls.”

  “What girls?”

  “Just”—she pauses,
spreads her hands—“girls. Pregnant girls. Desperate girls.”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I visited the Little Angels website. It looks like a legit adoption agency.”

  “It is a legit adoption agency.”

  “Sure. Then do a lot of your girls get tortured by law enforcement before being hunted down and killed?”

  Her sudden paleness is amplified by the bright afternoon sun.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I told you how she was covered in blood. Well, along with your business card in the duffel bag, I found a severed pinkie finger. I can’t say for sure because everything happened so fast last night, but I would imagine it was Juana’s.”

  Leila’s hand goes to her mouth, and she starts shaking her head.

  “No. No, no, no. No, that can’t be.”

  “When was the last time you saw Juana?”

  “I told you. The other day.”

  “What day?”

  A shrug, the woman wiping at her eyes as she watches a tractor-trailer breeze past.

  “Two days ago. I met her briefly. Many of the girls who come to us haven’t given birth yet. They want to find good homes for their babies. Other girls, they’ve already had their babies and want to find them good homes. I have contacts all over the state who keep an eye out for certain girls—”

  I cut her off.

  “Illegal immigrants.”

  Leila pauses to wipe at her eyes again, and nods.

  “Yes, undocumented immigrants. Most of them flee Mexico because they want to get away from the cartels and other gangs. They want their children to get an opportunity they never had. That’s where Little Angels steps in. Over the years we’ve started helping more and more of these girls. Most times Immigration finds them and sends them back, but by then they’ve put their babies in our care, and we find good homes for them.”

  “Juana wasn’t interested?”

  “She was. I think. I don’t know. She was nervous—I remember that. She clearly wasn’t ready to trust me yet.”

  “Did you give her money?”

  The woman’s frown looks convincing.

  “Money? No, of course not. We don’t pay any of the girls for them to give up their parental rights. None of us are in this to make money. Why would you ask that?”

  I hesitate, not sure I want to tell her about the cash. But then I figure what the hell, might as well lay all the cards out on the table.

  “Also in the duffel bag was a wallet containing five one-hundred dollar bills. They were crisp, like they’d just come from the bank.”

  Leila shakes her head.

  “I have no idea where that money would have come from. It most certainly didn’t come from me or anybody at Little Angels.”

  “When I spoke to you this morning, you seemed to know Juana was dead.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “I could just tell. You know how sometimes you get a phone call, and before you even answer it, you know whoever’s on the other end is going to tell you something terrible? That’s the feeling I got when you called me.”

  “The men that killed her—any idea who they are?”

  I’m expecting Leila Simmons to shake her head again, tell me no, so I’m surprised when she offers up a slight nod.

  “I think I do, yes.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know their names. I’ve never actually seen them. But I’ve heard stories. About two men—one of them always wears a cowboy hat—who drive around the state hunting down these girls.”

  The woman pauses again, wipes at another stray tear. It looks like she’s on the verge of breaking out into sobs, but she manages to hold it in.

  “These men—from what I can tell—they take the girls and they … they do terrible things to them.”

  “Like what?”

  “Use your imagination. You said you found a pinkie finger. Stuff like that barely scrapes the surface. I know for a fact that right now they have another girl.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “One of the girls I met with recently. Her name is Eleanora. I heard that she was taken. That these men grabbed her off the street the other day.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “Another girl—a girl who was with Eleanora—told me. She said she had ducked into a store to use the bathroom, and when she came out the men had already shoved Eleanora into their car.”

  “Do you know where she was taken?”

  Leila offers up another slight nod.

  “I believe so. These men, they have this place out in the middle of nowhere. It’s near an oil refinery. A shed. That’s where they take the girls.”

  “How can you know this?”

  “One of the girls managed to escape. She came to me, terrified. I told her we needed to go to the police, but she refused. The next day, she had run away. I’ve driven past the oil refinery but never got up the nerve to check for myself. Even though I should. I … I should do something.”

  “Did you ever call the police?”

  Leila lets out a desperate laugh. She looks on the verge of losing it.

  “Of course I did! They claimed they would send somebody out there, but I never heard anything. When I called them back, they told me to stop wasting their time. That’s when I contacted the FBI, but I never heard anything back from them, either. These men, you understand—they’re ICE agents. They have a lot of pull in the state. Heck, sometimes I think some of the cops in the area are in on whatever those two are up to.”

  ICE stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement. A federal agency tasked, among other things, with protecting border security. They’d been working hard on deporting undocumented citizens for years, but recently that effort had been ramped up. ICE agents going from town to town rounding up men, women, and children. It made sense to see them often in a border state. What didn’t make sense was to see two of them openly murder a woman in the street.

  More vehicles speed past us down the highway. A few cars, a few pickup trucks, a few tractor-trailers. I watch them for a moment before turning back to the woman.

  “Okay.”

  She frowns at me.

  “Okay?”

  “I trust you. At least as much as I’m going to at this point. After what I saw last night, I wasn’t taking any chances. I wanted to make sure I would be putting the baby in safe hands.”

  Leila nods, and slips the sunglasses back on her face.

  “I understand. I will admit this has been frustrating, but I understand. Now, where is the baby?”

  “Alden.”

  “Alden? That’s over an hour away.”

  “Yes. It’s where her mother was killed.”

  Nine

  Meredith doesn’t look thrilled to see me. Or maybe she does and she just has a hard time showing it through the exhaustion painted on her face.

  “Where have you been?”

  She stands with her arms crossed, her chin tilted down. Her baby sits at her feet, crying its lungs out. Past them, farther in the house, the sound of cartoons is even louder than it was this morning.

  “I’m sorry. Took longer than planned.”

  “You think? You said it would only be a few hours. It’s nearly two o’clock. I can barely deal with two kids at the same time by myself, but three?”

  I don’t say anything, letting her vent.

  Meredith juts her jaw and blows away a loose strand of hair from in front of her face.

  “My mom called and said she was going to come over, and I had to make up some excuse to keep her away. I told her I needed some stuff and that she needed to go to Walmart, and, like, I do need that stuff, but I still felt like I was lying to her, which is weird because I lie to my mom all the time, but this time it just felt, like, really wrong.”

  “Were you able to give Star a bath?”

  Meredith glances down at the crying baby on the floor,
and when she looks up at me again, something has changed in her eyes. They’ve hardened a bit, and her voice ticks down an octave.

  “I want to know where you found her.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do. Or else I’ll call the police.”

  Blood starts thrumming in my ears, drowning out the crying baby.

  “Go ahead. When they get here I’ll make sure to mention there’s a chance you’ve got marijuana hidden somewhere inside. Probably not enough to get a conviction, but it’s not going to look very good for a single mother of two, will it?”

  The threat is a mistake, of course, but I can’t help myself. I’m not operating on much sleep, and somehow Meredith’s irritation is contagious. The angrier she gets, the angrier I get. Which isn’t helping matters, I know.

  Meredith’s eyes grow even harder, like stone, and she opens her mouth to speak, but I shake my head and hold out my hand to silence her.

  “Seven hundred dollars. That’s all I have left. Give me Star, and I’ll give you the cash, and we’ll both forget this ever happened. Deal?”

  Meredith doesn’t answer at first. Her burning glare is so intense I wish I’d applied sunscreen lotion this morning. But then she sighs, blows away another loose strand of hair from in front of her face, scoops up her crying baby, and motions me inside.

  “Follow me.”

  I step inside and let the screen door smack shut behind me as Meredith leads me deeper into the house. Her older boy sits on the living room floor, his skinny knees pulled up to his chest, his back against the sofa, watching the TV with a wide-eyed fascination that makes me surprised he doesn’t have drool falling down his chin.

  Meredith says, “This way.”

  She directs me into the next room, where a bottom-of-the-line crib sits in the corner.