by J. L. Drake
“That card is fine,” he said, studying the woman and her appearance. He couldn’t help but wonder, once again, what the woman who’d taken Daniel had looked like. No one had been able to give a good description of her since the nightclub had been dark.
“Can I see your ID, please, sir?”
“What?” he asked, brought back to the present by her question.
“I need to see your ID so I can confirm that your name matches the one on the card,” she said, smiling politely. “It’s standard procedure.”
“Uh, sure,” he said, digging his wallet out of his pocket and extracting his driver’s license for her. As she looked it over and handed it back he got an idea. He wondered if he could find the woman by backtracking and seeing where she’d gotten her driver’s license. First, though, he would have to find a picture of her.
“Thank you, sir,” the woman said. “I’ve contacted the taxi service we use and they’ve sent someone to pick you up.”
“That was fast…” he said, “…I didn’t see you make the call.”
“I did it with the computer,” she said, pointing at the screen. “We use their app to make things faster for our guests. It also lets us know if all their cars are busy. If so, we switch to our second favorite taxi service.”
“Ah, yes, apps,” he said, laughing. “Everything seems to be run by those these days.”
“Have a good day, sir,” she said, smiling and nodding before she turned to answer the phone.
He figured with that, he was dismissed. He put his driver’s license back in his wallet and slid it into his pocket. He picked up his bags and turned toward the door. He planned to wait outside for his taxi.
He didn’t know if all his instant ideas were caused by the universe guiding him to what he’d wanted for so long or if he was laser focused on everything because of desperation.
The woman’s driver’s license photo had to be somewhere, even if she was a foreigner. But he suspected she wasn’t. He knew it would take some time, but if he could find a single image of the woman from a security or street camera in Cleveland or Nashville, he could use face recognition software to possibly track her down. He also knew if he could figure out a general time she’d been out kidnapping her victims, he could do a social media search to see if she’d been captured in someone’s “partying” images.
“IDs and apps,” he muttered to himself, and chuckled as his taxi pulled up to the curb to collect him.
He gave the driver the address of the Memphis field office and they were off. He was itching to start all the searches he needed to do. He was going to be a busy man and he hoped he could convince some of the agents he would meet to help him.
***
The building had multiple levels with mirrored glass windows that hugged trees between its V-shaped wings. Like most FBI field offices, it looked to be in fairly good and professional condition.
After paying the driver, David headed straight to the front entrance with his bags in tow. He knew they would be x-rayed. He knew he would be vetted. And he knew it would take at least a few minutes for all this to happen before he’d be allowed upstairs. He wasn’t in the mood to deal with protocol, but he knew the more he co-operated the faster it would go.
Upon entering the building, he put his bags on the electronic belt to be run through the x-ray machine. His service weapon was inside, so he expected it to be discovered. In anticipation of the discovery, he immediately pulled his badge from his pocket and held it at the ready to show the door guards. Their puzzled faces and alert stances relaxed as soon as he flashed his badge.
“I’m Agent David McCoy from the Los Angeles office,” he said, answering the questions he knew they were thinking but had yet to voice. “My boss, Agent Harmon, called to let them know I was coming—they’re expecting me upstairs.”
“Do you know what floor or who your boss spoke with?” the guard by the metal detector asked, while the one handling the x-ray machine picked up a clipboard and started looking for David’s name on a sheet of paper attached to it.
“I can call and check,” David said, trying to remember if Harmon had even told him. He pulled his cell phone out of his laptop bag that had come through the x-ray machine and turned it on.
“He’s going to the second floor to see Agent Mallory,” the guard checking the clipboard said. “Go ahead, Agent.” The man nodded at David.
“Thank you,” David said, collecting his things.
“Will you need a return visitor’s pass?” the other guard asked as David moved past him.
“No,” David called back over his shoulder as he kept going. “I’m heading out to a new location this afternoon.”
They nodded and turned their attention to the next person coming through the door.
David used the elevator to get to the second floor. After that he was lost as to where to go. As the doors slid closed behind him, he looked around for anything that might indicate where he could find Agent Mallory.
While he was standing there a young man in a suit, carrying an armload of case files, happened past and noticed him.
“Are you lost…?” he asked.
“Yes,” David said. “Could you tell me where I can find Agent Mallory?”
The young man looked him over, shrugged, and said, “Follow me.” He then took off down the hall.
David did as he was told and followed the young man. They turned a corner in the hall and then passed through a doorway into a large room with multiple desks and agents; it wasn’t that much different from the LA office.
The young man headed toward what looked like a glass walled conference room and paused just before going in to nod toward a corner office.
“You’ll find Agent Mallory in there,” he said. “Good luck.” The young man smiled and went into the conference room where he dumped his load of files on the table and then started sorting them. Three other people joined him in the task, taking seats at the table as they did so.
David found the “good luck” part strange. With a mental shrug, he dismissed the young man’s parting words and headed toward the office indicated. “Special Agent Mallory” was emblazoned on the door in gold lettering, indicating he was indeed in the right place.
When he knocked on the door, he heard the word “enter” barked out by a middle-aged feminine voice.
He opened the door to find a plump, African-American woman in a dark suit sitting behind a large wooden desk, typing on a keyboard. Her eyes were trained on her computer monitor and she didn’t even take a moment to look his way as he closed the door.
David advanced toward the desk, and the woman behind it, without saying a word. He took time to assess the woman. He admired her level of focus. He assumed she got a lot done and got a lot out of the agents she directed.
When Agent Mallory finally looked up from her computer, she frowned.
“And you are?” she asked, raising an eyebrow in question as she looked him over, baggage and all.
“I’m Agent David McCoy from the LA office,” he said. “Agent Harmon called to let you know I was coming…”
“Did he?” she asked, staring at him.
He figured it was a test, so he stood his ground. “Yes, he did. I need access to the missing persons database, the DMV records for possibly four states, and access to video surveillance and social media platforms. In other words…I need access to a lot of information. I could use the help of someone who knows their way around computers, if you could spare them.”
The woman stared at him, just blinking for almost a full minute.
“I spoke to Agent Harmon, but he didn’t tell me you would need an assistant to help you while you were here,” she said flatly.
“I assumed I would be a given a…chaperone,” he said. “No one just lets someone walk around their house unsupervised now, do they?”
With that, he got a smile from Agent Mallory.
She nodded and said, “No, we don’t just let people walk around our house without a host
. I suppose you can have Agent Limmon. He’s the one you followed in. He’s my best with a computer.”
“Thank you,” David said, turning toward the door.
“How long are you going to be here?” she asked his back.
He looked back at her.
“Just until this afternoon,” he said with a smile. “One of my searches in the missing persons database got a hit on a new lead.”
She nodded. “Good luck. I hope you find what you’re looking for. Please keep me informed in case I can help you in any way. And I’d like a list of the files you’re looking into from Nashville—I want to check them over myself.”
“Will do,” he said.
As David left Agent Mallory’s office, he decided she was more stern than mean or intimidating. But he could see how a lesser man would have buckled under her testing.
***
Agent Limmon was a great asset to David’s investigation. There wasn’t a single thing asked of him that he didn’t do with enthusiasm. He even set up an all access pass to the information they were collecting so David could keep up with everything once he got to Pittsburgh. All he had to do was log into the system and he’d have access to all the information collected from their various searches. It would also allow him to give other people access, like the next office he was in, if they wanted to search too in order to make the information gathering go faster.
After all the searches were set up in the system, they brainstormed other ways they might be able to find the woman’s picture. If they could find the woman, they would know for sure which way to go with the investigation—human traffickers or organ harvesters.
As David headed to the airport, he felt better about how things were going for the investigation. He was determined to find the woman, and once that was done, he would find out what had happened to Daniel.
The woman was the key. If they found her, she would unlock all the mysteries.
Chapter 20
Although Sonya drove home slower than normal, she was still there before she wanted to be. As she pulled into her garage, she bit her bottom lip and worried it between her teeth. She sat in her car until the door was closed behind her and then some.
Lloyd opened the door leading from the house to the garage, frowning when he saw she was still in the car and looked upset. He rushed forward and opened her door for her.
“What’s wrong, babe?”
Her eyes filled with tears, she shook her head, and she looked down at the floor as she stood.
He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her tight against his warm body. She relaxed against him with a whimper and a shaky sigh.
“Was it Jack?”
Sonya stiffened and pulled back slightly to look up at him, sniffling.
“Jack? No, it wasn’t Jack,” she snapped. “Why would you even think that? I wouldn’t have sex with that bastard for anything.”
Lloyd scowled. “Have sex? Who’d you have sex with then?” He let her go and stepped back. She instantly missed his closeness.
Wrapping her arms around herself, she closed her eyes and let the story of her exchange with Miles gush from her mouth. When she opened her eyes and chanced a glance at Lloyd, his face was blank.
“Please don’t be mad,” she pleaded. “I did it for the job—we have to have the money from the family harvest to make our plan work. And we need someone to distract the cops if they get close. I did it for us, and I hated every second of it.” She raised one of her hands, took a small step forward, and touched his cheek. “Please don’t be mad,” she whispered again.
He turned his face away from her hand and looked out the back window of the garage.
She choked back a sob, pulled back her hand like it had been burned, and ignored the tears rolling down her cheeks.
He shook his head, looked at her, and sighed.
“I just…” He paused, and dragged his hands through his hair. “I can’t deal with this right now. I have the whole Jack thing running through my head, and now you’ve gone and fucked that morgue geek.” He sighed and headed for the door leading from the garage to the backyard. “I’ll talk to you later.”
She nodded and looked at the floor in front of her, but her head shot up when he opened the door, as some of the words he’d spoken sank into her brain.
“Wait!” she called.
He paused and turned back, lifting one of his eyebrows quizzically.
“What Jack thing? What are you talking about?” she asked, wiping tears from her face.
“Oh, not much, other than he’s been staking out your house and tried to follow me home last night,” he said. He shrugged and walked out, shutting the door behind himself.
Sonya stood there for a few minutes, letting everything sink in. Finally she went into her house and closed the door. Lloyd had set two places on her dining room table, and food containers with some of her favorite foods—judging by the tantalizing aromas wafting to her nose—sat ready to be served.
She sighed heavily and a new bout of tears came gushing free. With another sigh, she ignored the thoughtful supper Lloyd had brought for them and headed down the hall toward the bathroom. She planned to take a scalding hot shower to get the feeling of filth left on her skin from having sex with Miles washed away.
***
Jack sat in his recliner in front of the TV, watching the screen but not paying attention to what was on it. His mind was full of jumbled thoughts and—he’d finally admitted to himself—fears. He didn’t know what to do. Lloyd had caught him in the act of spying on and following him, and though he hadn’t shown up to do anything, every noise from outside made Jack jump out of his skin.
He’d received the text from Jennings about the meeting. He wanted nothing more than to text back and say he wasn’t going to be able to make it, but he didn’t want Jennings to know he was scared, especially after how the last meeting had ended. He couldn’t get why they were having so many damn meetings anyway. Meeting so often didn’t make sense to him when they were trying to keep a low profile.
Absently, he reached over to the end table beside his chair and picked up his now room temperature beer. Not caring that it was no longer cold, he downed the entire bottle in three large swallows.
Tossing the empty bottle on the floor, he stood and walked over to the fridge to get another one, but he paused with his hand halfway to the handle when someone knocked on his front door. He went to answer it, wishing there was a peep hole for him to see who was there. He thought about hollering out and asking who was outside, but he’d always thought the people who did that on TV were idiots and he didn’t want to be an idiot.
With an inner sigh and a quick glance around for a possible weapon choice if things went bad, he unlocked the deadbolt, turned the doorknob, and opened the door.
Before he could focus his eyes against the afternoon sun shining behind his guest, a fist met his face with a loud smack and a jolt of pain radiated from his jaw to his neck as his head twisted to the side from the impact. He hit the floor hard with a loud thud.
He looked up to see a man standing over him just before he was struck again and the world faded from sunshine to stars, and then to blackness as he slipped into unconsciousness.
***
Sonya stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel off the rack by the bathtub. She proceeded to use it to roughly dry her bright red skin. The hot spray had made her feel marginally clean and had eased some of the tension from her neck and shoulders.
Her mind was a swirling mess—she couldn’t help but think about her earlier actions and Lloyd’s reaction. He knew she’d had sex with people before to make things work out for the job, but this was the first time she’d done it while they were together—the other times had been before they’d started their relationship. But what kept pushing those thoughts aside was what Lloyd had said about Jack. She couldn’t believe the ass was stupid enough to keep provoking them. She knew something had to be done about him and soon, even if it did upset Jennings an
d his plans. He would just have to hire someone else.
Tossing the now wet towel over the side of the bathtub, she grabbed a fresh one from the rack and wrapped it around her hair. Leaving the bathroom, she walked naked through the house and retrieved her cell phone from where she’d left it with her purse. She took it to her bedroom, flopped across her bed on her stomach, and stared at its shiny screen for a few seconds, wondering if she should even try to talk to Lloyd or if she should wait until later and give him time to cool off.
With a shrug she decided it didn’t matter. She was never one to play it safe.
She typed in a text and sent it to Lloyd.
Sonya: What did you do to Jack? He needs taken out.
Folding her arms, she laid her head down on them, facing the hand that held her phone. Her eyelids had started to droop when the device vibrated and chirped in her hand. Startled, she jumped and forced her eyes to stay open so she could read the reply message.
Lloyd: Taken care of. See you at the meeting.
She frowned.
Sonya: Okay. See you there.
She sat up, still frowning, wondering what Lloyd was up to. Glancing at the digital alarm clock on her nightstand, she shrugged, yawned, and crawled up the bed and under the covers to take a much needed nap before the meeting.
***
Lloyd slid his cell phone back into his pants pocket as Jack started to regain consciousness.
“Have a nice nap, asshole?” he jeered from where he stood by the window. He didn’t look at the man, but continued to watch the sunset, drinking a cold beer he’d taken from Jack’s fridge.
Jack groaned. “Whaa…?”
Lloyd smirked and took another long swig of beer; he held the bottle up after he swallowed.
“You may be a low-class, dumb motherfucker, but you have good taste in beer.”