by Diane Capri
“Reacher’s been here, though, hasn’t he?”
For the first time, Eleanor turned to gaze fully into her face. “Why are you asking?”
CHAPTER 20
Wednesday, May 18
Denver, Colorado
5:00 a.m.
Jade stood at the window of her penthouse apartment staring toward the promised sunrise. The clear eastern sky had brightened enough to reveal the first hints of daylight to come. Wearing white silk pajamas and a matching silk robe that caressed her skin like a lover, she held sweet, creamy tea in a crystal mug between tiny bare hands and worried about what the day would bring.
This apartment was her hard-earned refuge from a world that had never provided her sanctuary. Her intention was to create a haven where her now much smaller family of three could be themselves. Or at least, the selves she wanted to believe they were now, seven long years since they’d left Thailand in search of a better life.
That promise had ultimately been fulfilled, although not in the ways she had expected.
Since Sunday, her lost family had fully occupied her mind once again. She recalled how her father had worked so hard for them all after her mother died. The years leading up to the long journey, as she thought of it now, had been exceptionally hard ones. Her father had tried his best to give his children what they wanted and what their mother had wanted for them before she died.
Her brother was two years older and her childhood hero. He had protected her and her sister and their two younger brothers. When their father finally saved enough money to send them all to America, where they’d been promised jobs and prosperity, he had expected to join them here.
He’d sold everything they owned to buy them a safe passage. Unfortunately, his savings didn’t stretch far enough to allow him to complete the journey with them.
They had been six in all. Her older brother, Amarin, two younger brothers, and her sister’s husband had traveled from Thailand with twelve other men, separated from the six women and ten girls, which was only proper.
They were to meet up again at the end of the trip in Montana. From there, they would begin new lives together in America, the land of opportunity.
At a young age, Amarin was already showing promise as a Muay Thai boxer. He and the younger boys were apprenticed to a boxing promoter known around the world. Over time, Amarin’s reputation grew. He showed promise. His skills might one day feed them well.
The famous promoter wanted Amarin, but her father had negotiated with his local Thai representatives until futures for the children were assured. He would never have allowed them to go otherwise.
Too many Thai people were taken in by unscrupulous thieves. Thais were persuaded to emigrate for work, but once they left Thailand, their passports were stolen, and they were sold into one sort of slavery or another. Her father would never allow his family to suffer such a fate.
Jade had been promised a job with a famous ballet company. Her sister, GiGi, was to work at a multi-national consulting firm. Mika was only eight, but she’d shown promise with her watercolors. She’d been enrolled in private lessons with a teacher who would assure her a place at Interlochen Arts Academy when she turned twelve.
Of course, none of that happened, and Jade had not seen her brothers since they departed from Thailand.
Unlike many Thais who emigrated temporarily for work, seeking only to get home again, Jade and her family had never planned to return. Years passed before Jade learned her father had died just a few weeks after his family sailed, well before the first leg of their long journey ended.
Which meant there was truly nothing left for Jade in Thailand. Her only sister and her niece were here. Her brothers were lost. She had no family back there. No job. No home. Nothing. For better or for worse, America was her home now.
Jade refilled her teacup and allowed her mind to return to the past.
She had been called Ying Chen then. She and her sister, Gamon, landed in Canada and then traveled on foot with Gamon’s young daughter, Nan, and the others across the border. They were all excited to experience their amazing future. Still nervous but living in happy anticipation, all sixteen, six women and ten young girls, piled into the back of the dirty gray van like well-behaved sheep.
They ended up in Duncan, Nebraska, where Eleanor Duncan climbed behind the steering wheel to commandeer their lives.
From the moment she stepped into that gray van in Montana, Ying Chen no longer held any illusions about her life. She was not a citizen here. She was illegal. She would do whatever it took to stay here. Which meant she lived in the shadows. She never intended to do anything else. But after years of relying on her father to take care of her, after more years of fending for herself after her brothers disappeared, she meant to be her own master.
Eleanor had been blunt with them. They had paid handsomely for the journey, but the men who took their money and promised them bright futures intended to sell them to the sex trade. All sixteen of them. Eleanor thwarted that plan, and while some of the women were grateful to her, Ying Chen felt just as enslaved in the new life as she had been in the old.
Perhaps that was when the embers of Ying Chen’s anger began to warm the pit of her stomach and later, to flame and consume her entire being.
Ying Chen and her sister Gamon had no money and nowhere else to go, so they stayed with Eleanor for three long years.
She was a good woman with a good heart. She meant well. And she was devastated by their plight and the role she and her husband’s family had played in it.
So Eleanor wanted to help. She honestly believed she was helping.
Eleanor encouraged them to change the names their parents had so lovingly bestowed upon them at birth. Eleanor said Chen was a common enough name to suffice in America, but their first names were too foreign.
Which was how Ying Chen became Jade. Gamon Chen became GiGi, and her daughter Nan became Mika Chen. Eleanor acquired false documents with their new names that somehow kept them from being questioned or deported.
But Jade had never intended to work in a restaurant. Her training as a dancer proved to be a set of useless skills for a food server. GiGi’s accounting education was more practical, but profits from the bistro would never have made her independent.
Jade and GiGi, and later Mika, had toiled at Orchid Thai Bistro until they saved enough money to escape the existence they’d never intended to live.
Jade could have asked Eleanor to help her again. But she felt Eleanor had already done way too much. Jade had lived among Americans long enough to know that women could take care of themselves here.
She funneled her rage into gaining her freedom on her own terms.
Working at Orchid Thai Bistro, she learned how desirable Asian women were to certain men. She was astonished to discover how much the men were willing to pay for sex. For the first time, she understood why the men who trafficked them here had been willing to risk their lives.
Money. Lots of money. More money than Jade had ever seen or was likely to see in her lifetime.
Which was when she’d made her choice.
Jade saved her wages from the restaurant, hoping to rent a one-room apartment. She flirted with the men who came into the bistro. Inevitably, a few would offer to pay her much more for sex.
Her overhead was low and her prices high. Soon, she’d collected enough cash to fill a shoebox. Which was when she quit her job at the bistro and moved to her first small apartment.
Eleanor was, of course, appalled. GiGi, too, at first. But Jade would not be dissuaded. She branched out to escort services as well as sex. Walking around in public as some man’s arm candy before sex increased her revenue exponentially. Her business flourished, and soon all her nights were booked with paying clients.
When she’d saved enough to rent a two-bedroom apartment, she offered her sister the second room. Between the two of them, they made twice as much money, and GiGi’s accounting skills seemed to multiply the cash like the cockroaches Jade som
etimes noticed under the sink.
GiGi suggested they expand. Jade persuaded three of the Thai women they’d traveled with to join the business. After a year, two of them made enough money to return to Thailand with their daughters. Jade never heard from them again.
Which didn’t matter at all. Jade found more Asian women willing to work easily enough.
Within two years, they moved to bigger and better quarters. She and GiGi had built a thriving high-end escort business, the finest in Denver, and Jade was proud of it. She smiled. You gotta love America. Land of opportunity, indeed.
They dreamed of branching out to larger cities. Jade had her eye on Las Vegas, where there was even bigger money to be made. Vegas seemed like a faraway theme park to her. She couldn’t wait to move there.
That had been her goal until last week. Jade’s features clouded.
How quickly things can change when you’re making other plans.
CHAPTER 21
Wednesday, May 18
Golden, Colorado
5:05 a.m.
Sydney found the specially equipped black luxury van Rossi had delivered, six blocks away from the Orchid Thai fire, ready and waiting exactly where he expected. The van was identical to two others. One owned by Jade’s escort service. And the one manned by two of Rossi’s enforcers.
Sydney tossed his bags into the cargo hold and fished the burner cell phone from his pocket as he climbed behind the steering wheel.
The backup team had been scheduled to arrive twenty minutes ago. The two Callo cousins Rossi had imported from New York should be in position, awaiting Sydney’s signal. They had experience in short-haul human trafficking, so they’d know what to do.
Sydney pressed the speed dial on the burner.
“Yeah?” Little Tony Callo spoke in a thick New York accent he’d acquired in childhood. “Whaddaya got?”
“Twelve units, ready for pickup in—” Sydney said, glancing at the clock, “thirty minutes, give or take. I’ll let you know as soon as the call comes. Wait for my signal.”
“Twelve units? No way,” Little Tony replied. “Me and Big Tony got seats for nine, and that’ll be tight. Eleven hours back to Vegas with twelve of them and us packed in like sardines? Nine’s the best we can do. You and Jimmy Prime gotta handle the rest.”
“No. Rossi said you take twelve. I’ll pick up the others at the brothel. Like Rossi planned.” Sydney rolled the big SUV south six blocks before he turned east, giving the fire at Orchid Thai Bistro a wide berth. “You’ve gotta get the first eleven into your van and get on the road. We can’t wait. They’re small. Squeeze them in together.”
Little Tony said, “Whadda’m I gonna tell ’em? Jam in there and shut up aboud it?”
His accent was so thick, Sydney had to take a moment to process the noise into a language he could comprehend. “Tell them they’re not going far. You’re taking them to Jade’s place. Thirty minutes. They can cozy up together for warmth. They’ll be fine.”
“This is crap, what this is,” Little Tony said, cussing a blue streak.
Sydney held the phone away from his ear and waited for the stream of profanity to subside. “Okay, look. Just take the eleven for now. I’ll call Rossi. We’ll get another van to meet you about an hour out of Golden. You can offload half. The second van can follow you the rest of the way to Vegas. Can you do that?”
Little Tony thought about it. Sydney heard nothing but heavy breathing for a while. He turned north and drove toward the meeting point. He saw Little Tony’s van ahead. He parked well back on the street to wait.
This was the weakest link in the plan. Because he couldn’t know for sure that Eleanor Duncan would call Jade for help. But it was a solid bet.
Duncan was a fugitive herself. She wouldn’t risk calling the law.
And Jade knew these women. They were like sisters to her. She knew they needed to stay under the radar because they were illegal.
Besides, Jade and Duncan were as thick as thieves. Who else would drop everything to help Eleanor Duncan in the wee hours and keep quiet about it?
“I’m parked half a block behind you, on the right. I’m flashing my lights once,” Sydney said.
“Yeah, we sees ya,” Little Tony said.
Sydney nodded. “There’s a total of thirteen women. Twelve Asians. Eleven in pajamas. One in a black suit. One older white woman wearing a barn coat. You take the pajamas. Ask the other two to wait.”
Little Tony didn’t respond.
“You screw this up, and The Elephant won’t like it. And he never forgets, Little Tony. You know that,” Sydney said as he pulled up behind the first van. “Far as he’s concerned, he’s retrieving his stolen property.”
Little Tony said nothing, which meant he’d dug in his heels and wouldn’t budge.
Sydney played his trump card. “You screw this up, and God knows what will happen to you and Big Tony, too.”
Big Tony was Little Tony’s younger cousin. They were a matched set. Could’ve been twins. Born on the same day to sisters. Little Tony came out two ounces smaller but three minutes ahead, which made him the older one and thus responsible for the younger cousin’s life. A responsibility he took seriously.
Little Tony never replied, but another cousin opened the side door of the first van and stepped out. The younger, smarter, more handsome cousin they called “Joey Prime” Callo hustled back toward Sydney’s SUV.
“Little Tony says he don’t like it, but okay. They’ll take the girls in pajamas. He says let them know where to meet up and hand off half, like you suggested,” Joey Prime said as he opened the passenger door and slid inside.
Sydney nodded. Big Tony was driving the first van. He took his foot off the brake and slid the transmission into park. Sydney glanced at the clock on the dash, waiting for Duncan’s call to Jade.
He’d wait exactly ten minutes after the call to alert Little Tony. Big Tony would drive up to the Orchid Thai parking lot, the women would pile into the van, and he’d pull away.
Ten minutes later, Sydney would pull up to collect Eleanor Duncan and the woman in the suit.
He didn’t know if the suit belonged to Rossi or not, but he was sure Rossi wouldn’t object to another asset. He could always sell her if he didn’t want her once they got her back to Vegas.
It was a solid plan. Little Tony was objecting to the extra cargo for no good reason. Rossi wouldn’t like it. Not even a little bit. Rossi demanded immediate and uncomplaining “can do” attitudes from his soldiers.
Sydney didn’t plan to tell him there would be no second van. Little Tony could take up his objections with Rossi when he rolled into Vegas with the cargo.
Joey Prime settled firmly into his seat. “So we’re taking the Duncan woman and the other Asian girl to Jade’s place. We get there and round up Jade’s girls. What is that? Five more? Six?”
Sydney stared ahead, watching Big Tony’s van. “She’s got six, total. Including her. We add Duncan and the other one, and we’ll have eight. Little Tony will have twelve.”
Joey Prime shook his head. “Man, it’s gonna be crowded in here, too. We shudda brung a bus.”
“Think about how happy Rossi will be. He’ll get rid of Duncan. He’ll have two dozen new girls. He’ll make a fortune,” Sydney said, explaining the facts Little Tony was too thick to work out, but Joey could comprehend. “We add another team, another van, we slow down the drive. All that costs Rossi money and makes him nervous. Money he takes out of our cut. Nerves he takes out on us, too. You wanna do that, Joey?”
Joey Prime was smarter than Little Tony, but not a lot. “Nah. It’s eleven hours. These women are tiny. We can do it.”
Sydney smiled. “You’ve got your head on straight, Joey. I’ve always appreciated that about you.”
“Okay, Big Tony’s driving. He goes first. Picks up the first batch. We follow. Collect the last two. Head over to the brothel and collect the rest. Drive straight to Vegas. Piece a cake,” Joey Prime said, slouching into the passenge
r seat, bouncing his legs. He was antsy. Ready to go.
Sydney slid the transmission into drive and rolled the van closer to the flames, clearly marking the Orchid Thai Bistro fire up ahead.
The scanner he’d set up on the dashboard came alive. Eleanor Duncan dialed her phone and the scanner intercepted. She was talking to Jade. Sydney and Joey Prime listened to the brief conversation.
When she hung up, Sydney called Little Tony again.
“Wait ten minutes. Then roll out,” Sydney instructed. “We need to get in, scoop them up, and get out before the real van arrives.”
“Yeah, yeah. We know. We’re not stupid,” Tony replied before he hung up.
Sydney turned to Joey Prime. “After Tony tells her there’s not enough room, Duncan will call a second car. We’ll pick up her call and then block her phone after that.”
“What if she’s got a second phone?” Joey Prime asked as if he was actually interested in the tech.
“We’ve got a signal jammer for the whole SUV. Only certain signals can get in or out or be traced,” Sydney said. “We’ll clone her phone, which I’ll then use to text Jade for the next phase.”
“Meaning?” Joey Prime asked, cocking his head like he couldn’t quite wrap his mind around it. Which he probably couldn’t. He was smarter than Little Tony, but none of the Callos were brilliant.
“Just take my word for it that we won’t have a problem and follow my lead,” Sydney said, watching the traffic and keeping an eye on the fire’s glow in the distance.
“Sounds good to me,” Joey Prime said, settling his bouncing legs and slouching deeper into his seat. “I’m more than ready to get back to Vegas. It’s too damned cold here.”
CHAPTER 22
Wednesday, May 18
Golden, Colorado
5:15 a.m.
“I’m—” Kim almost rattled off the official answer about doing the Reacher background check in response to Eleanor’s question, but her frank expression demanded an honest answer.