Her One and Only Hero

by Sharon Hartley

  He placed his hands on his hips, obviously intending to argue with her. She lifted her chin. Would she have to beg again? She would if she must. Or threaten to go to the press again. Did he not understand how knowing concrete details would be far better than her imagination?

  He met her gaze and said, “All right. Let’s go.”

  “Grazie,” she murmured.

  They walked side by side the short distance to the entrance where Dale placed his hand on the small of her back. She stiffened, and he shoved the door open. She stepped inside, expecting a cooler temperature. Instead it was hotter. She heard voices, children and adults, coming from the second floor. She looked up. Did the children sound happy? Relieved? She could not tell, but their language was Spanish.

  Ahead of her in the room were maybe thirty commercial-sized sewing machines, but they sat silent. No one was creating any fashion today.

  Dale handed her a white folded handkerchief from his pocket. She looked at him questioningly.

  “You’ll know what to do with it.” He moved to a metal staircase and began ascending. Fran followed.

  After three steps, a foul odor stopped her forward progress. She gagged, recognizing the stench of untreated human waste, urine and feces.

  She unfolded the handkerchief and placed it over her nose and mouth.

  Dale looked back at her. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  * * *

  AS THEY STEPPED into the chaos of the sweltering dormitory, Dale kept a careful watch on Fran, worried about how she would react. He was a hardened police officer, yet the scene had affected him deep in his gut.

  Approximately twenty kids, malnourished and filthy, languished on rags in this locked, hot room. Loud, giant fans in two corners kept the air moving, which helped, but the temperature had to be close to a hundred degrees. The disgusting odor came from makeshift latrines, buckets, along the walls.

  The kids were lethargic, unable to express excitement or acknowledge that they had been rescued. They begged for food and water. They hadn’t eaten all day. Worse, they were almost out of water.

  A search of the first floor had revealed cases of plastic water bottles, and Agent Navarro instructed her personnel to bring them up so the children could hydrate.

  One of the older kids, a fourteen-year-old male, had explained in broken English, having to yell over the noisy fans, that the air-conditioning had gone out on the first floor so no work was being done today. Their jefe didn’t want the machines to overheat. So the kids were locked upstairs where the temperature continued to rise.

  The status of the damn machines was more important to the scum that owned them than the health of human children.

  Fran stumbled, and Dale reached out to steady her.

  “You okay?”

  She nodded, her wide stare fixed on the children huddled together against a wall, most of them still clutching plastic water bottles. Agents who spoke Spanish were interviewing the kids, asking them their names and where they were from. Some of the older children comforted the younger ones. All of them acted defeated, but maybe they didn’t have the energy to hold up their heads in the suffocating heat. They didn’t understand they had been rescued.

  They likely feared that the next step in their journey could be worse.

  One of the youngest children, a small girl of about six with stringy dark hair and huge dark eyes, began to wail. Fran winced. Javi hurried toward her and picked her up, speaking soothingly, offering her cool water. After a long drink, she clung to Javi and placed her face against his chest.

  Fran methodically searched the face of each child. Dale understood what she was doing. It was the reason he’d relented and let her come up. She had to see for herself that Bella was not among these victims.

  “Why have they not taken the kids out of here?” she said through the white cotton. “It’s so hot.”

  “Transportation is on the way,” Dale said. “It’s not much better outside. In here, there’s shade and at least the fans keep the air moving.”

  Fran murmured in Italian, her wide eyes still fixed on the children. With her free hand, she made the sign of the cross, something he’d rarely seen her do in high school.

  “It won’t be much longer,” Dale told her.

  “You are certain there are no other children?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  She fixed her moist gaze on him. “Bella is not here.”

  “I know,” Dale said.

  Fran turned away. “I have seen enough. Please take me back to the hotel.”

  “Wait downstairs,” Dale said. “I’ll let Javi know we’re leaving.”

  “Thank him for me,” Fran said.

  “I will.”

  Dale approached Javi as the agent deposited the young girl he’d been comforting back onto her pile of rags. His armpits were soaked with sweat. The kid’s body temperature had only made the heat worse for him.

  “Is Ms. Scarpetta okay?” Javi asked, looking over his shoulder toward Fran.

  “I doubt it,” Dale said. “But she wants to leave.”

  “Sorry her daughter wasn’t here, but we found something interesting.”

  “What?”

  “I was on my way to tell you.” Javi reached into his pocket and withdrew a cylindrical object in a plastic evidence bag.

  “What’s that?” Dale asked.

  “An inhaler. It’s used to deliver medication for asthma. One of the team members found it in the trash.”

  Dale sucked in a breath. Could Bella have been here? Or did another of these children have breathing problems?

  Plenty of kids had asthma, but no cop believed in coincidence.

  “Is there any way to identify its owner?” Dale asked.

  “The script info would have been on its packaging, which we didn’t find,” Javi said. “But we’ll run it through forensics. We’ll also interview the kids to see if anyone knows who used it.”

  Dale snapped a photo of the inhaler with his phone to show Fran. Maybe she would recognize the device.

  “Do you want me to stay?” he asked.

  “No point, man. These kids are traumatized and the interviews won’t start until after they’re transported. But the team will keep surveillance on this sweatshop. The owner will show up some time tonight with food, and we’ll take him into custody. Do you want in on that interview?”

  “Definitely,” Dale said.

  “I’ll call you.”

  “Listen up, team,” Agent Navarro yelled from across the room. She pocketed her phone. “Transportation has arrived. Let’s do this just like we planned.”

  The children began gathering meager belongings as agents urged them to stand.

  “I need to get back to it,” Javi said. “What’s your next move?”

  “Interview the flight crew to see if anyone remembers anything about Zarco or the missing girl.”

  “Keep me informed.” They shook hands.

  “Thanks for everything, man,” Dale said.

  When Dale emerged from the structure, he spotted three large white vans from DCF. Good. The children would soon escape that sewer of a sauna upstairs and move into air-conditioned comfort. They’d revive once they cooled off and got something in their bellies. Or at least they’d be better off physically. He was no shrink, but figured such degradation must create long-lasting emotional damage that a safe place to sleep couldn’t cure.

  Fran sat in the passenger seat of his SUV staring straight ahead. And what kind of damage had been done to her by witnessing that nightmare come to life?

  Would news of the inhaler excite her or depress her? He had no idea. She reminded him of an IED likely to explode at any time. Anything could set her off.

  By the time he slid behind the wheel, agents had emerged from the building with the first group of children, the yo
ungest and weakest. Javi carried the little girl he’d comforted upstairs a few minutes ago. When he tried to set her in the closest van, she clung to his neck, not wanting him to leave her. A female employee from DCF intervened and placed the child in the front seat.

  Fran swiped at her eyes with a tissue and muttered in Italian. He didn’t need a translator to understand she was cursing the scum who had been the cause of the children’s misery.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that,” he said quietly.

  “I needed to see it,” she said. “I needed to know.”

  “I have some news,” he said.

  She turned her moist dark gaze on him. The pain he read in those eyes made his gut churn.

  He pulled up the photo of the inhaler on his phone and handed it to Fran. “One of the agents found this in the trash.”

  She accepted the phone and looked down. She gasped. “It’s Bella’s inhaler.”

  “It’s an inhaler,” Dale corrected. “There is no way to know if it was Bella’s.”

  “It looks just like hers,” Fran said.

  “Lots of kids have asthma and use inhalers.”

  Fran ran a hand across her forehead. “Yes, that is true.” She met his gaze again. Dale read hope now. “But maybe. Maybe she was here.”

  “Maybe, but she’s not here now. Javi is going to run the inhaler through the FBI lab to see if there’s any trace evidence.”

  “That will take time.”

  “Yes, and they’ll show the kids Bella’s photograph, see if any of them recognize her.”

  “And that will also take time. Those children are so—” Fran muttered something in Italian.

  “Speak English, Frannie.”

  She shook her head. “Exhausted, spent, depleted. I don’t know the exact word in English. I wonder if they will ever be happy again.”

  “Children are resilient,” Dale said. But he’d wondered the same thing. He placed the SUV into gear and drove away from the location.

  “Will the FBI arrest the operator of that—that—place?” She spat out the word as if it tasted as horrible as the room had smelled.

  “The plan is to take him or her into custody as soon as they show up.”

  “And they will ask about Bella?”

  “Of course.” Dale decided not to tell Fran he intended to observe that interview. She’d only ask to come.

  “Where are we going?” she asked after a moment or two of silence.

  “I’m taking you back to your hotel.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ve got an appointment to interview the crew on Bella’s flight to Miami. That’s one thing the FBI didn’t follow up on.”

  “How did you arrange that?”

  “We got lucky. I checked with the airline this morning, and the flight attendants have flown the same trip all month, which it turns out is standard procedure. A flight to JFK at eight p.m. is their last trip together. I arranged with their supervisor to interview them in the crew lounge before they board.”

  “I want to go with you.”

  Of course you do. Dale shot her a look. She stared back, and he noted the dark circles under her eyes. The word Fran had used in Italian to describe the children applied to her just as much. The woman looked done in. Wrung out.

  “Are you sure you’re up for that?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Most likely it’s another dead end.”

  “But at least I would be doing something to find Bella. That is better than sitting in my hotel room and worrying.”

  Dale shrugged, unable to come up with a reason Fran couldn’t sit in on the interviews. She might even add a detail about Bella that would spark a memory from one of the flight crew.

  “Okay,” he said. “We’ll go straight to Miami International. The supervisor promised the crew will be in the lounge at six, but we won’t have much time with them. We can grab some dinner after.”

  Fran nodded and lapsed into silence. He wondered what she was thinking, but decided not to ask. Better to keep peace between them at least for a short while.

  “I want to ask you something,” she said, her voice tentative.

  “What?”

  “Agent Rivas suggested that Zarco might sell Bella to another trafficker when he could not get her out of the country.”

  “Right,” Dale said. “That’s why we checked out the location where we found the kids. And that’s a good thing, right? We didn’t find Bella, but at least those children were rescued.”

  “Yes, I am glad those children are safe. But what was Zarco’s alternative?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I sensed silent agreement between you and your FBI friend about what else Zarco might do with Bella.”

  Dale tightened his grip on the steering wheel. If Fran hadn’t considered the trafficker’s deadly alternative, no way was he putting that thought in her head.

  “What was that other option, Dale?” she asked.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Frannie.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “If you think you know my thoughts, then why ask me?”

  She shifted her body in the seat to stare at him. “Tell me the truth. You believe Zarco would murder Bella to get rid of his burden.”

  “Frannie—”

  “If he could not dump her with someone else, make some money off his trouble, he would kill her and hide her body. Or would he not even bother to hide it?”

  “Come on, Frannie. Don’t think like that.”

  “You are thinking it.” Her voice broke. “You and your Agent Rivas. Admit it.”

  “You had to know that was always a possibility,” Dale said as kindly as he could.

  She nodded. “And that would mean that I will never know what happened to her. My daughter would be gone forever.”

  Dale reached for her hand and squeezed. “Our daughter,” he said.

  * * *

  LOOK AT ALL of this security, Fran thought as she gazed up the long terrazzo concourse at Miami International Airport, waiting for permission to pass. Uniformed men and women stood everywhere scrutinizing passengers hurrying toward their gates.

  On their way to talk to the crew from Bella’s flight, they’d already been stopped twice. Dale’s police badge had eventually allowed them through. But now a young male guard wearing a uniform with a badge that read Transportation Security Administration made a phone call before they were permitted to continue on to the Southeast Airlines crew lounge.

  Fran tried to repress her resentment during the delay. How could all these guards not realize that something was wrong with my Bella when she traveled through this airport? What good is so much security if they do not see anything?

  The guard hung up the phone, unlocked a door, and motioned them through with a nod of his head. His scowl told her he was not pleased to grant them access even though Dale had left his gun locked in the SUV.

  They entered a chilly room crammed with large reclining lounge chairs, many of them occupied by women and a few men wearing sleep masks, their bodies covered by a blanket. The crew was obviously trying to grab some sleep between flight connections.

  A woman with a badge indicating she was a supervisor came forward to greet Dale, speaking in a hushed voice so as not to wake the sleepers. After introductions, they moved into a small office where two women and one man in similar navy blue uniforms waited.

  Everyone remained standing as there were not enough chairs. The flight crew exchanged nervous glances when the supervisor closed the office door.

  “What’s this about?” one of the women asked.

  Dale held up his badge and introduced himself as Detective Baldwin.

  “First let me assure you that none of you are in any kind of trouble,” he said. “I’m looking for inf
ormation about two passengers that were on a flight you all worked a week ago.”

  He handed a photograph of Bella to each of the women.

  “I remember this girl,” one of them said immediately. Her name tag read Carla.

  Fran stepped forward.

  “What do you remember?” Dale asked, shooting Fran a look that said let him handle this.

  “She slept most of the flight,” Carla said. “Remember, Jan? You even commented how unusual it was for a kid that age to never wake up.”

  “Yeah,” Jan said, looking up from the photo. “I do remember her. She was fine when they got in, but then zonked out. I even asked her father if she was okay. He said she was fine. And come to think of it, the father creeped me out.”

  “How so?” Dale asked.

  “The way he looked at me,” Jan said. “Like he knew what I looked like without any clothing on.” She met Fran’s gaze and quickly glanced away.

  Dale handed her a blurry Interpol photo of Joaquin Zarco taken from a distance, the best image available. “Any chance this is the man she was with?”

  Jan accepted the photograph and shook her head, “Hard to say.”

  The other two flight attendants stepped closer.

  “Maybe,” Carla said. “I wouldn’t swear to it, though.”

  The male flight attendant said, “I remember them, too, even though I worked first class. I helped out in the back because the flight was full and remember thinking the girl might be on something.”

  “You mean on some drug?” Dale asked.

  “Drugged, yeah. I thought the same thing,” Carla said.

  “Because she slept so long?” Dale asked.

  “More the way she slept, not moving at all,” Carla said. “Airplanes aren’t comfortable. People are restless, change positions a lot. This kid never twitched a muscle.”

  Fran felt like shouting. So why didn’t you say something, do something?

  “So she never got up to use the bathroom?” Dale asked.

  “I didn’t see it,” Carla said. “But it was a full flight.”

  “Yeah, we were busy,” Jan added.

  “Did she have a meal?”