by Hargrove, A.
“Hey, are you finished questioning me?” Acer asked.
“I don’t know. Art’s in charge. Why?”
“Because I’m going to Paulie’s. If you guys won’t check on him, I will.”
My lips pressed together as I thought about this. He may have something. Art stomped back into the room and anger rolled off him.
“This is nothing but—never mind. Getting back to the issue at hand.” He aimed a no bullshit gaze at Acer. “Is there anything else you can remember? Any tiny detail can help.”
“I’ve told you everything. This has been stuck on my mind like glue. If there were something, I’m pretty sure it would’ve surfaced by now.”
“Hey Art.” I was taking a chance with this. “Acer brought something up that sounds viable.”
“Go on.”
“He wants to go to his friend’s place to check on him since our hands are tied. What do you think?” I asked. The members of the human trafficking team eyed me as I posed my question.
“I can’t stop Mr. Kent from visiting his friend, if that’s what you’re asking. My concern is that he’d be walking into a hornet’s nest. What if the perps have eyes on the place and see him? He could be playing with fire.”
“My thoughts exactly, which is why I’d like to go with him.”
Acer jumped into the conversation. “Uh, no. I don’t want you to be involved.”
Art shook his head. “You misunderstand, Mr. Kent. That’s water under the bridge. We are involved and the worst thing that could happen now is for you to get yourself into trouble with whoever caused all this.”
“Art? What do you think?” I prodded.
He slowly nodded. “Okay, but get in and out. And then out of New York altogether. Report back to me immediately and send pictures. I’ll handle the rest.”
Acer leaned forward and said, “But what if—”
“No what-ifs,” Art said. “This could potentially be a very dangerous situation you’re walking into. Chambers, you have to keep in mind you have no authority to act up there.”
“Life or death?” I asked.
“You don’t need me to answer that,” Art answered. “And yes, you can take your firearm. You have the proper authority to carry on the plane. If you have any problems, have TSA call here.”
“I need to call my brother to see if he can lend me the money for a ticket,” Acer said.
Art rubbed his chin. “We’ll do this from the inside. Get the arrangements made, Chambers. Mr. Kent, let your family know you’re going to pay a visit to your friend, but spare them any details. You should be back in Atlanta before they even notice you’re gone. I hope I don’t regret this.”
“You won’t, sir. In and out,” I promised.
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before,” he mumbled. I patted his arm as I walked out to make the call for our plane tickets.
Chapter Six
ACER
Everything about the trip so far had been uneventful. The only hiccup had been when I called Brax to let him know. As expected, he questioned me about my decision. I was brief in my response, saying that an FBI agent was accompanying me and it was their request that I go. “Just a quick there and back and I’ll see you either late tonight or in the morning.”
“Fine. Just be careful. I never did like that friend of yours.”
“I know. And I will.”
We landed on time and picked up our rental car. Paulie lived in Brooklyn so it wasn’t too bad of a drive to his place.
“We’ll circle the block, but when we do, I want you to lay low,” Isla said.
“Why?”
“If there’s anyone doing surveillance, they might recognize you.”
Then I remembered something. “Hey, we can go in the back door. There’s an alley we can park in.”
She gave me a quick glance as she was behind the wheel. “I don’t like the sound of that. Any number of people could be hanging out back there. It wouldn’t surprise me if they had cameras on the place too. That goes for the bureau as well. We want to look like two friends who are coming to pay him a visit.”
That made sense. “You’re the brains behind this, so I’ll go with whatever you say.”
She told me when to get down as we neared his place. After we made the first pass, she said, “We’ll have to go in on foot. His place is covered. I spotted a van and two cars with people in them.”
“Do you think they’re the FBI?”
“The van probably is but I have no idea on the cars. I’ll park and we’ll walk from there. A heads-up. Once they figure out someone is inside, we won’t have much time and we’ll have to run back here, so be ready.”
It was early December and cold, so I put my hood up over my baseball cap. She wore a coat and hat too. We got out and walked the couple of blocks over, approaching from the back. The alley was dark and before we entered, we checked it out to see if anyone was back there. Sure enough, there were two more cars.
“What do you want to do?” I asked.
“Our plan was to check on him so that’s what we’re going to do.”
“Then let’s go.” We entered the dark alley and a sense of apprehension hit me like a truck. Up until now, I hadn’t felt the danger, but it reminded me of what I experienced waiting for Reynolds to pick me up at that dark rest area. When we got to the back door, it looked the same as the last time I was here. There were bushes lining the building and a bunch of junk back there. Paulie wasn’t the neatest guy in town. I went behind the shrubbery and found what I was looking for. It was a stack of empty plastic pots. The first time Paulie had shown this to me I laughed because he was the last person who would ever plant anything. In one of the empty pots, that were now filled with frozen slush, a key was stashed. I found it as Isla let out a quiet chuckle.
“That helps.”
“It sure does.” I slipped the key into the lock and went to open the door, but her hand stopped me.
“Better let me enter first. Just in case.”
I waved my hand and said, “After you, ma’am.”
Once inside, I went to flip on the lights, but she stopped me again before I had the chance. “You’ll bring everyone running if you do that.”
“They know we’re here anyway.”
“True, but this way, if we can get out, they won’t get a clear look at us with it being so dark.”
The if we can get out part set me on edge even further than I was.
As we advanced into the home, I was shocked at what I saw. The place had been turned upside down. His couch was flipped on its side with all the stuffing ripped out. The same thing had been done to the chairs.
“Jesus, someone was certainly searching for something,” I said.
“They sure were.”
The kitchen was just as bad and I was afraid when I got to the bedroom, Paulie would be back there dead, but he wasn’t anywhere inside.
“Whoever did this knew what they were looking for and didn’t find it.”
Then I spied a cell phone on the floor. “Look.” I reached for it, only she grabbed my arm.
“Wait. It may have fingerprints on it.” She put on a glove then dropped it inside a baggie.
That’s when we heard footsteps running toward the front. After a quick glance at each other she said, “Let’s go.”
We both sprinted out the back door, not waiting to see who came in, and ran to the car. Not wasting a second, we jumped in and drove off.
We made it a few blocks away when I heard a weird popping sound. She yelled, “Get down! They’re firing at us.”
“Firing?” My brain didn’t register.
“Gunshots.” Just as she said it, the back window shattered and she jammed down on the accelerator. “We’re being tailed.” She grabbed her weapon and handed it to me. “Fire back at them.”
“What?”
“Just do it.”
How was I going to do that when I didn’t know what I was firing at? “What if I hurt someone?”
&nbs
p; “That’s the idea.”
“No, someone innocent.”
“You won’t, just aim out the back window and fire. They’re right behind us. Hurry. You can’t miss.”
I let off several shots. I hadn’t fired a gun in ages so those bullets could’ve gone anywhere.
“You must’ve hit something because they’ve backed off.” She sped up even more. “We need a plan.”
“Agreed. Maybe one that doesn’t involve guns in a high-speed chase.” Even though the inside of the car was freezing, I was sweating profusely.
“They’ll be looking for this car. We need to ditch it and grab a taxi.”
I glanced around to check out our surroundings. It wasn’t exactly the place you’d find a cab and we couldn’t afford to wait for an Uber. “Keep driving. We need to go somewhere more crowded.”
I pulled up the GPS on my phone and found an area close by with some restaurants. I directed her there and she parked the car. “Come on. No time to waste,” she said.
We both jumped out, ran about a block away, and hailed a taxi. There were plenty of people around, but I was still scared they’d find us. They knew us but we didn’t know them. I didn’t feel remotely safe until we boarded the plane back to Atlanta.
“What will you tell the rental car agency?”
“I’ll have our travel department handle it,” she said matter-of-factly.
“Does this stuff happen a lot?”
She gazed at me for a moment and then laughed. It was a tension breaker. “No, not like that. We usually have to hunt people down, but getting your rear window shot out isn’t routine.”
“Honestly, I didn’t think we’d get out of there alive.”
“What? You didn’t have confidence in me?” She smirked. It was sexy as hell.
“Nah, it wasn’t that. I didn’t have confidence in my shooting skills. It’s been ages since I fired a gun.”
She stared at me, then grabbed my face and kissed me. It was so quick and unexpected I didn’t have time to kiss her back, unfortunately.
“Thank you. I think we made a good team,” she said.
I cleared my throat. “Um, yeah. Actually there’s something I’d like to talk to you about. This human trafficking thing derailed me and I’ve decided to go back and finish my degree so I can go into law enforcement. The FBI is one agency I’ve checked into but do you have any suggestions or recommendations for me?”
She hit me with a stunning smile. I swore it lit up the entire plane. “That’s brilliant. My suggestion would be to get your degree in criminal justice. That puts your resume ahead of others who don’t have that. Homeland Security also has a human trafficking division, so you could look at more than one agency.”
“That’s a great suggestion.”
“How much school do you have left?”
“About two years, I think.” I explained my situation and gave her all the details of my stupid escapades.
“The way I see it, Acer, is don’t live your life in the past. You can’t change it. You can only affect the future and seems to me that’s what you’re doing. I think it’s great.”
“For once in my life, I’m truly excited about something.”
“It shows.”
“So, about tonight. What do you think happened to Paulie?”
“It’s anybody’s guess. But one thing is certain. Someone is after him.”
Those words set off a warning signal. “I’m not sure what he was up to. Like I said, I haven’t seen him in a while though I’ve talked to him a fair amount. From the looks of things and from what happened to me, it appears he got himself mixed up with the wrong people.”
“Acer, could he possibly be involved with drugs?”
“After tonight, I won’t rule anything out. But now it pisses me off because he got me involved in his mess.”
“Or…”
“Or what?”
“Maybe when the goods were never delivered as expected, whoever controlled the operation, went to him to find out what happened.”
That sent out another warning. “That’s not good. If they got any information out of him, then finding me won’t be a problem.”
“Maybe it’s time to set you up with some security.”
I didn’t like the sound of that. I had a very bad feeling about all of this.
Chapter Seven
ISLA
The plane landed around eleven. I napped a little on the flight home. When we got to the car, I released an exhausted sigh.
“You okay?” he asked.
“Yeah, just tired. After something like that, everything just sort of decompresses. Art is going to be all over my shit for allowing you to fire my weapon.”
“Why? It was us or them and I didn’t want a bullet in my head.”
“True, but we were out of state.”
“I’ll take the blame. Tell him I grabbed it because you were driving and couldn’t do it.”
“Nah, I’m going with what really happened. If they bring in the inquisitors, then so be it.”
“The inquisitors?”
“There’s an internal investigations board that might review this since it happened in New York.”
“I’ll answer any questions too, if that will help.”
“Hey, thanks. I appreciate it.”
We were both quiet as we drove back. Then I picked up the phone and called Art. I had it on Bluetooth so Acer heard it.
“Chambers. Where are you?”
“On the way back from the airport.”
“And?”
“I have a cell phone we picked up at his place but he wasn’t there. His place was being watched and it had been thoroughly hit. Everything in there was a mess. Someone is looking for him, or something he may have.”
“Hmm. Anything else?”
“Uh, yeah. We were chased.”
“Chased?”
“High-speed with gunfire.”
“Aww shit. Are you okay?”
“We are. Not sure about the other guys. They backed off when Acer fired back.”
“Come again?”
“I was driving so he had to take the shots, Art, or we would’ve been dead right now.”
“I’ll meet you at the office.” I heard his groan before he ended the call.
Acer said, “He didn’t sound happy.”
“No, but he wasn’t pissed off either. Art is very easy to read, so that was good. He just hates all the red tape we’ll be facing.”
Acer rubbed my shoulder. “Hey, we’re alive.”
“And that’s another thing I need to discuss with him. Keeping you safe.”
Art’s car was already in the lot when we arrived.
“I’m starving,” Acer said.
“So am I. Hopefully this won’t take long.”
As we walked in, Art met us at the door. “Come on, let’s get this over with.”
I handed him the bagged phone. “I don’t know whose this is.”
“No problem. At least it’s something.”
“Oh, and we haven’t eaten so do you know how long this will take?”
“Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“Kent, go and get some food for the two of you. We can get started while you’re gone.”
Acer left with my order and Art and I began. I explained everything from start to finish, giving him the meticulous details.
As I spoke, he paced, which was the norm for him. When I was finished, he was quiet, processing. Then he exploded. “Dammit. One, I’m glad neither of you were injured. But, and this is a big but. You should’ve left. You were out of your jurisdiction, and when you saw the place was being watched, you never should’ve entered.”
“Acer had a key.”
“Doesn’t matter. They had eyes on the place and even you admitted they probably know what the two of you look like. You placed yourself and Kent in unreasonable danger.”
“Art, had I not gone with him, he’d be dead now.”
“Chamb
ers, if you had told him the situation was too dangerous, what do you think he would’ve done?”
His question nailed me. Acer was very concerned about his friend. But having the information that we did as far as the eyes on the place, I wasn’t sure. “I don’t know, and that’s the honest to God’s truth.”
“Then I’ll ask him myself. And him firing your weapon is another situation.”
“Right. About that. I never would’ve allowed it had there been another option, but our backs were against the wall.”
“I get it, Chambers. You’d better hope the higher-ups do and it doesn’t go to the inspections division.”
“If it does, I can only speak to defending our lives.”
“You disobeyed an order. I said to get out if it was too dangerous, which it clearly was.”
He was right, but at the time, I didn’t see it as such. Maybe I did, but was thinking we could get in and out without a problem.
“Are you second-guessing yourself?”
“No, sir. I did what I thought best. I was protecting Acer. Had I not done that, he might be dead right now.” I handed Art my phone with all the pictures on it.
After he scrolled through them all, he said, “They sure did a number on his place.”
“Acer is worried about him and he brought up a good point.”
“Which is?”
“He needs protection.”
Art laughed. “I see where this is going. You’re volunteering, aren’t you?”
“Well, yeah.”
He scowled. “Chambers, have you slept with him?”
“No!”
“Hmm. I need to talk with him.”
This wasn’t going well at all. Much worse than I thought.
Acer returned with a huge bag of fast food. We sat together in the conference room and scarfed it down.
About the time we were finishing up, Art joined us. “Acer, after you’re finished, I’d like to talk with you. Privately.”
Acer cast a glance my way, which I caught out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t return it, but swallowed my bite, which had turned to sawdust. I knew he wanted to know what was going on, but I couldn’t tell him. Then Art’s phone rang. I heard whoever it was yelling, even though it wasn’t on speaker.