She checked the window to be sure Nate’s shades were drawn and shifted her attention to the bag. Inside were a small black jump drive and a bankbook from Bank of America. She dumped the two things on the floor and picked up the drive. She moved into her room and started up her laptop, pacing the room as it beeped and clicked. When she was logged in, she inserted the drive and watched as it lit up. The drive appeared on her desktop, and she double-clicked. A small black box popped up. Small white letters read, “Insert passcode.” She stood back from the computer. “Damn it, Diego.”
She went back to Nate’s room and grabbed the bankbook. Maybe he’d written the password here. She flipped it open. The name typed on the front page was Nathaniel Cruz. Her breath stalled. He’d always said that if he had kids, he wanted them to have everything he hadn’t. In the midst of all this, he had started an account for their son? She was flooded with dread that these men would find him.
She imagined Nate in his father’s arms as she turned the page and scanned the numbers that lined the page. “God,” she whispered. Six thousand, seven thousand, five thousand, nine thousand. The first one on the day after he’d come here. The total was $95,000. Her first thought was how much this would help Nate with college. Maybe graduate school, too. Then, she studied the numbers again. Stolen money. There was no way he had this much money. Diego had put his stolen money in her son’s name.
She ran back to the computer and typed in “Nathaniel.”
“Passcode incorrect. Please enter valid passcode.”
She typed “my son.”
“Passcode incorrect.”
The door swung open with a creak and Rosa’s voice called out, “Cameron, it’s us. You here? I got off work early and picked up Nate.”
She pulled the jump drive from the computer, which beeped at her and showed a big red stop sign. “The disk was not ejected properly.” Like she had time to worry about that.
She turned to the door, gripping the book as though it were filled with gunpowder. A grenade about to explode. And it was. She had no idea what to do with it.
She heard Rosa’s footsteps and glanced at the book in her hand. She shoved the book and drive back into the plastic bag and folded it into her back pocket, then headed for the front door to greet them.
Chapter 17
Rosa dragged Cameron out to meet Ricky for dinner at Puerto Alegre on Valencia. Cameron told herself that just because Diego had been at the house didn’t mean he was coming back, but knowing that she had missed him by minutes made it hard to leave. Rosa swore she was going to die if she didn’t get some coctel de camaron, something similar to ceviche that Mama Cruz made on Easter and at Christmas time.
Ricky had a table for four when they arrived. Cameron set Nate’s car seat on one chair and pulled it beside her. He had already eaten and, miraculously, was sleeping. Rosa always had plenty to say. She and Ricky managed to hold dinner conversation almost exclusively without Cameron, which was good, because she couldn’t focus on anything but the odd police visit. The more she thought about it, the more questions she had.
Rosa left before dessert to meet friends at Casanova across the street. She usually left dinners with Ricky early to give him and Cameron a chance to talk shop. Casanova was a raucous bar that she and Rosa used to frequent, but Cameron hadn’t been there in more than a year. Going to a bar had stopped seeming appropriate when she found out she was pregnant. She was glad Rosa had plans. One less person to answer to. That left Ricky.
“You’re the quiet sister, but this is extreme, even for you.”
“Plainclothes detectives were at my house today. Two of them.”
Ricky leaned forward. “About Ramirez?”
She nodded and explained about their visit, about the bankbook and the jump drive.
“What was on the drive?”
“I don’t know. I can’t unlock it.”
“Why would he put stolen money in Nate’s name? He knows you wouldn’t accept that.”
“Maybe that’s why he did it,” she said. “In case something happened to him, he knew I’d report it.”
Ricky gave her his lopsided smile. The one that meant he saw right through her.
“I’m fooling myself?”
He shrugged. “You know how to follow evidence. Where does it lead you?”
“To feeling totally insane.”
The waitress came back to the table. Ricky ordered another beer and asked Cameron if she wanted anything. “I’m good. Thanks.” She’d already had one and there was no sense clouding her brain further.
“There was something about these plainclothes guys, too.”
“What do you mean?” He thanked the waitress and took a swig of the beer.
She tried to identify what it was. “They didn’t seem legit.”
“Did you see their badges?”
“A flash of them, but I caught their names.” Nate squirmed in his seat.
“Would be pretty bold to dress up like a cop and show up at the house of a real cop.”
“I know. I’m losing it,” she said, unbuckling her baby and lifting him from the chair. He arched his back and stuck his butt out, his little hands in fists, mouth wide in a yawn. Why was that so damn cute?
“Pass the little guy to Uncle Ricky,” Ricky said, pushing his plate out of the way.
Waitresses stopped and cooed at Nate. “Wow, he looks just like you,” one said to Ricky. He and Cameron shared a laugh.
There was a line at the door, so they relinquished their table and headed outside. Ricky carried Nate, and Cameron carried the car seat. This is what it would have been like to be a family. Little things like not having to carry everything yourself. Not that Rosa didn’t help. No, she did more than that. Cameron would be lost without her sister.
“I’m parked a couple blocks down,” she told Ricky once they were on the street.
He cocked his head toward the bar across the street. “You leaving Rosa?”
“She’s young. She can stay out late.”
“And you’re so old.”
They started walking. “Feels that way.”
“It’ll all work out, Cam,” he said, giving her shoulder a little bump. “Important thing is to keep your head out of the clouds. Like what are you going to do with the bankbook and the drive?”
“Turn them in to Lavick?” As soon as she said it, she knew she had no intention of giving them to anyone. No matter what the outcome, they felt like some sort of insurance.
Ricky stopped walking. “Really?”
“Keep them?”
“I would,” Ricky said. “It’s probably breaking some rules, but until you know what side everyone is on, I’d put them somewhere safe.”
“You think Lavick might be in on it?”
Ricky shrugged. “Ray Benjamin, Diego… How do I know? Lavick and Benjamin were close once.”
She tried to remember if she’d ever seen them together. “Really?”
He nodded as they approached her car.
She opened the back door and snapped the car seat into its base. Ricky kissed Nate, who smiled broadly, showing off his mouthful of pink gums.
“You have somewhere safe to put that stuff?” Ricky asked as Cameron belted Nate in.
She thought about the house.
“We can store them in the big gun safe in the basement,” said Ricky.
Cameron considered it.
“Might be a good idea to get them out of your house, anyway.”
Sitting on the backseat, she faced him and he put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey, it’s going to be okay.”
“Swear?”
“You can call anytime,” he said.
On the drive home, Cameron thought again about those cops. Beat up shoes and old, sloppy ties, it was all exactly what she would expect. But, there was something. She pictured them walking away. Had she seen their car? Then, she realized what it was. The suits. They’d been wearing the same suit. Almost identical. That sort of thing would be mortifying for a c
ouple of detectives. She imagined the argument over who would have to go home and change.
She dialed Hailey Wyatt and left a voicemail with the names of the two detectives. Suddenly, she was stirred up. Something was off. She pictured the meeting Lavick was in today. Was he the one having her followed?
She eyed the clock. There was a way to find out. First, though, she had to hope Rosa had a miserable evening out and came home early.
Chapter 18
Luis reeked of sweat. The new shipments were always the roughest days. Pay the guys on the boat, load the girls, and get them to the safe house. Sometimes as many as seventeen or eighteen girls. He had two helpers, who were anything but help. He’d fired five already, but the new ones weren’t any better.
The first one, Dwayne, liked to pull his gun out and wave it around. The day Dwayne helped, they ended up with a mob scene. After that, Luis didn’t let them have weapons at all unless he had problems with the guys on the boat. The word about Manny seemed to have gotten around, so there wasn’t much trouble. Luis had only seen Brad two other times. Each time the sight of the man’s face made him feel like he might be sick.
Still, the job was getting harder. For the first week, Luis met boats at the piers without any problems. Now, they had to go farther out or wait until nightfall. One night he’d ended up having to get on the boat and travel with them. He was so seasick. Then, there was the chase. Thank God he wasn’t driving. He’d never been a good driver. He got too nervous. He panicked. But, Marty drove like one of the guys at NASCAR. Might have been the only thing Marty did well.
Someone screwed that one up. Not him. At least that’s what Brad said when he called. Hearing that voice, Luis had to sit down on the floor right where he was. Middle of his apartment. He was sure he’d be sick. “That wasn’t your fault, Luis. Our inside guy screwed that one up. It’s on him.” Luis wondered if that guy would get the same treatment as Manny.
At night, he drank Dewar’s and wrote in the little book he wasn’t supposed to be writing in. He had gotten a box at the bank. It required I.D. and a special key. Instead of keeping the book at home, he had unwound the wire that bound the pages and kept the blank ones at home. Each morning before work, he took the new pages to the box. He had put a little cash in the box, too. But, mostly it was just the pages. Laura’s brothers would say he was like a little girl, writing in his diary. It didn’t make sense to him, but he was afraid to throw them away. What if they found them? And he couldn’t stop writing. He wrote and drank and wrote. One night, Brad sent over a new girl for him, Candi. Luis liked her better than the first girl, and so they saw each other a few nights a week. That wasn’t so bad. He kept telling himself he would get used to it. Instead, he felt worse with each passing day.
Today had gone okay. He had just sorted the new batch, which was his least favorite part. They mostly got women and girls. The young ones were divided between attractive and unattractive. The attractive ones went to the clubs. The unattractive ones went to the shops and occupations like cleaning and working the fields, as did the sturdier, older ones. Some of them would stay in the area. Some would travel to other places in California and farther. They had clients as far as Nebraska, Michigan, and parts of Tennessee and Mississippi.
Each girl owed Brad and his partners almost twenty-five thousand dollars. Most had paid a little, but would need to work off the rest. Not in the jobs they thought they were getting—at restaurants or as nannies. Those jobs didn’t pay enough to get Brad his money back.
The holding place for the ones who stayed local was in a nasty place down off 6th Street. In the next day or two, the new girls would get their first taste of what they were doing. They stayed in one city for a few weeks or months, then they were moved on. Luis had coordinated his first move last week. He hardly recognized the women he’d helped off boats.
They were ready to move as soon as the guys arrived. Freddy Jackson arrived first. No surprise. Marty was always late. Freddy was a huge, black man who almost always wore denim. Denim shirts, denim shorts and pants, overalls, even his T-shirts were denim-colored.
He came in, strutting. Luis was again impressed, as he was every time, with how big Freddy was. He had to be about six foot five. Luis couldn’t begin to guess what he weighed. Luis had watched Freddy carry a woman under each arm without issue, so there was no question Freddy could bench-press a couple of Luises, too.
“How’s it hanging?” Freddy said as he gave Luis the standard high five.
Luis laughed. “Yeah. How’s it hanging with you?” He never really understood the question but didn’t want to ask.
“Pretty good. Pretty damn good.” Freddy checked out the shipment. He gave them all a big wave. His appearance had the tendency to make people nervous, and he didn’t want them to be afraid to come with him. Sometimes, he did an imitation of Eddie Murphy in Coming to America that was hilarious.
Freddy made his way toward his group and introduced himself. “Freddy,” he’d say, pointing to himself. Then, he raised his hands like a conductor and got them all to repeat it. “Fred-dy. Fred-dy. Fred-dy.” After a minute, they’d be chanting. Freddy had gotten them going when Marty arrived. He and “his boys,” as he called the two guys who always came with him. Technically, Marty was supposed to come alone, but Marty wasn’t really big on rules. Freddy sent Marty a look, which Marty ignored, and launched into his own introduction. Marty waved and bowed to the women like a rock star starting a concert. Luis wished he didn’t have to deal with Marty.
Today, Marty was wearing a bright orange-and-yellow-striped button-down that might have been made of plastic. Luis was curious about where Marty got his clothes. Worse than his clothes, Marty was greased head-to-toe. Occasionally, he ended up with little drips of hair oil that ran down his forehead. At first, Luis had thought it was sweat, but the drips stopped above his eyebrow and could be there for hours.
Marty walked right past Luis and over to where the women were eating. Until then, they had all been watching Freddy and giggling. Now, they stared up at Marty uneasily.
Marty walked slowly along the line of girls eating take-out Chinese food like he was shopping for corn at the supermarket. “Hello, ladies. I’m Marty.” He gave them a little hip dance, which made them all laugh. “Marty,” he repeated. “Rhymes with party, which is what we’re going to do. Yeah!” He circled his belly around and ended with a big thrust of his hips.
The women continued to giggle, but Luis turned away, not interested in making conversation with Marty today.
Still, Marty came up, cackling at his own stupid humor. “A pretty good-looking group.”
“I think they’re okay to go,” Luis said carefully.
“Yeah, sure.” He paused and glanced back at the girls. “I like that one in the yellow the best,” he said, pointing to a brunette with long hair that was pulled back from her face. She was pretty, but nothing Luis would ever touch. He wished Marty wouldn’t talk about it.
He winked. “I’m starting tryouts with that one.”
Luis didn’t respond. “Things are outside. Freddy already checked.” He tapped his watch. “You tell them when we are ready to go.” Luis walked away.
Marty backed into his path. “Hey, what’s the rush?”
Luis shrugged, trying to act cool. “Lots to do in the office. You need something?”
“I wanted to tell you about the beauty from last week.”
“I don’t remember,” Luis lied.
“Sure you do. Gorgeous with dark hair.” Marty shook his hands in front of his chest. “Huge melons.”
One of Brad’s people, Frank, had arrived to check through the shipment. Luis said hello.
Marty didn’t bother to turn around. “She wore that flowered shirt that hugged so tight. Don’t you remember?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure. I have to go help Frank.”
Marty grabbed his arm. “Frank schmank, let him go spank.”
Luis felt the sweat pooling at the base of his neck.
/> “He can wait. You got to hear this story.”
Marty frowned like he meant business. Luis wondered if he was related to Brad. Maybe he should listen to the damn story. “Okay.”
“So, I load them up last week to make my deliveries, and I invite her to sit up front.”
The sweat trickled down his collar. He scratched at it like a fly.
“I tried her out,” he said, like he was talking about a motorcycle.
Luis didn’t answer.
“I mean kicking and screaming that really got me going. She was a feisty one, and so tight.”
Luis looked around nervously.
“By the end, she was begging for it. You want me to hook you up?”
“I have a girl,” Luis said.
“Fine, but that blonde one you’re eyeing, with the blue shirt and the long hair—”
Luis tried to hide his surprise. He had to admit he’d been admiring that one. She was so small and pretty.
“I’m going to have her all to myself.” Marty grabbed his groin and walked away.
Luis watched Marty wave over his boys and gather the girls. Marty seemed aware that Luis was watching, so he paid special attention to the blonde.
Luis walked to the office without looking at Marty again.
“You want to go for a ride?” Marty asked.
Luis didn’t hear the response, but he knew exactly who Marty was talking to.
He couldn’t wait to go home. He needed a drink.
Chapter 19
The Rookie Club Thriller series Box Set Page 66