by Elle Keaton
“How’d you end up in Skagit?” Of all the places, why would Dany come here?
“Stupidity? Arrogance? The family has ties here, but I came anyway. Believe it or not, I found a job I like, and now …” his voice trailed off.
“Now Jorgensen.”
“Maybe. Shut up.”
Carsten grunted a laugh even though his head and heart both hurt. The dog thumped her tail and moved to come and sit next to him, leaving behind a muddy print on the floor.
“Good girl.” Carsten ruffled her fur, the heat from her body comforting. “What are we going to do now?” Once again the lack of a backup plan was coming back to bite him.
“You tell me why you thought Stjepan was after you—or maybe your cop.”
“I’m not supposed to trust anyone.”
“Carsten,” Dany huffed, “we just literally dodged a bullet together. We ran through the night to survive, and you can’t tell me?”
He supposed Dany deserved the truth. They’d been friends once. Maybe after all this was over, they could be again.
“I was kept in town for a while after I was ‘purchased.’ Then when it became too hard to hide me, I guess—though it’s not like anyone was out looking for me. I was able to check a few years ago, and my mom didn’t even report me missing. I think when I disappeared she washed her hands of me: If she didn’t have a son, her own brother couldn’t be abusing him.
“Anyway, a year or so after, I was moved to this area, but way out in the woods near the Canadian border. My growth spurt came late; until I was eighteen, I could pass as a boy or a girl—depending on what Garrett wanted. You know how it is, there’re guys who like that, who can justify themselves if a boy looks like a girl. I’m not going to say it was great or anything, but I’m still alive. Garrett, the guy who brought me here, mostly liked to look and not touch. Mostly. But he liked us young.”
He shrugged. Looking back and dwelling was madness; he would only survive by moving forward.
“He died—in a single-car accident supposedly—and I was left alone and with nothing. No skills, didn’t finish school. Troy has his own story. But to make a long story short, Troy and I were gathering evidence against the men in Skagit who think they can buy and sell other human beings with impunity, who think that they’re exempt from laws and humanity.”
Carsten didn’t know what time it was, or how much time had passed since they’d fled Beto’s house. It seemed like minutes but could’ve just as easily been hours. They fell into silence. Talking meant wondering out loud what had happened at Beto’s. He rested his head against the wall and shut his eyes.
Someone banged on the front door. “Police! Open up!”
Freya started barking and snarling, the sound echoing around the empty building. No way were they going to be able to pretend no one was there.
“You stay here,” he said to Dany. “Hold the dog. I’ll get them to go away.”
18
Beto
* * *
The passing time was a blur. Beto wanted to wait at the hospital for news on Jorgensen, he wanted to cruise the streets searching for Carsten and Dany, he wanted to track down the pendejo who’d shot Jorgensen and murdered an eighteen-year-old pizza delivery driver in cold blood.
The driver had a name. Jordi Hassen. Graduated from high school the prior June. Beto breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth to calm himself. The dead kid had been in the wrong place at the wrong time—in the path of a ruthless killer.
Nguyen had left as soon as she was done grilling him to go and check in on her officer at St. Joseph’s. Gómez was minutes away.
“Keep yourself available. Don’t turn your phone off, don’t disappear. Don’t go vigilante.” It was as if Nguyen could read his mind. Funny how Gómez had said something similar. He didn’t truly answer to Nguyen, but he respected her almost as much as Gómez, so he stayed put. He ignored the officers tramping in and out of his house as much as was possible. He answered their questions politely and with as much truth as he could offer them. He waited and watched.
He stayed at the scene. He couldn’t follow the ambulance or try to figure out where Carsten and Dany had disappeared to; he could only hope and pray—god fucking dammit, he hated praying—they hadn’t been taken by the killer.
With fifteen or more responders swarming his house and front yard, more than he’d seen working at once since he began at SkPD, two things became obvious. First, Soren Jorgensen was well liked, even if he had stepped on toes getting to detective as quickly as he had. Second, there was a gap, a yawning chasm, between the newer officers and the old boys. Where the younger officers and investigators listened, watched, noted, mostly without rancor, the older ones were more aloof, although that wasn’t really the right word. They held themselves apart. There were no grim jokes between them and the younger men. He was glad Dickson hadn’t been called to the scene, although given the situation it was a little surprising. Maybe Nguyen had thought better of it.
The good old boys on the force and in the community were the core of the problem in Skagit. They were the ones who’d protected scum like Matveev for so long and who were now shielding whoever had slipped into his place. There was a reason he wasn’t giving anyone but Gómez and Klay Danylo Petyr’s name.
* * *
Within minutes of Nguyen leaving, Adam Klay, head of the local fed office, appeared, driving a huge black Suburban. Natalia Gómez and Nate Richardson were right behind him in Richardson’s equally immense vehicle.
As he waited near the front of the house for the three agents to make their way through the throng of investigators, a white van pulled up. The call letters for the local news station were emblazoned on the side. A shooting was always going to be front page, especially when a local cop was involved. He was so tired.
“Somebody do something about them,” Adam barked, pointing with his chin toward the van.
Both Beto and Natalia looked at Nate, who sighed before turning around and making his way back to meet the reporter and her camera operator. Despite the tense situation, Beto held back a small grin. Nate hated being media liaison, but somehow he was very good at it. It was probably the freckles. People misjudged him and almost always regretted it.
Klay motioned for Beto to step to the other side of the porch so they could talk without anyone overhearing. Beto wrapped his thin jacket around himself. He couldn’t seem to get warm.
“What happened? I want to hear it from you; don’t leave anything out.” Klay scowled. Beto wondered, again, if he practiced or if it was natural. Gómez crossed her arms over her chest, and they both waited for him to speak.
Taking a deep breath, Beto began speaking, quickly filling them in on Carsten Quinn and the arrival of Dany Petyr. How Jorgensen had brought Petyr by the house and he’d begun to tell them about his family and their ties to human trafficking and very likely worse. Beto’s theory about Troy Bakker and why he’d requested a guard and a private room for him.
As he talked, Beto began to feel like they’d opened Pandora’s box. The more they discovered about the trafficking, how widespread it was, the sheer volume of human beings involved, the more Beto felt the team was fighting against a hydra. Yet someone was scared, or they wouldn’t have sent a gunman after Beto. The working theory was that the killer had been there for Beto, and Jorgensen had been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“This was my fault.” Beto shook his head. “I mean, yes, I know, it wasn’t my fault some cabrón decided to take a shot at me and Soren got in the way, but it was my fault I allowed myself to get distracted. I should have been more careful. If Bakker was—is—in danger, Quinn would be watched too, because they were roommates. They must have been watching both of us.”
Klay must’ve sensed something behind Beto’s words. He tried to smooth his delivery, but Klay was no dummy. The man was team leader for a reason. “Gómez, go help Richardson out.”
She scowled at him, eyebrows drawn together.
&nbs
p; “Gómez, would you please go help Nate?”
They looked over to see the reporter and camera operator trying to edge past Richardson. Gómez squared her shoulders and strode away. Beto didn’t feel sorry about the human wall the journalists were about to come up against. He didn’t have anything against the press, but often they made his job more difficult.
“Hernández, what haven’t you told us? Why was Carsten Quinn at your house, and why would Jorgensen think he needed to bring Danylo Petyr? Something here isn’t adding up.”
Beto shoved his hands in his pockets, trying to come up with an answer. He didn’t have a good one. Not an answer he wanted to share with Klay, anyway.
Klay eyed him closely, with something other agents called his creepy sixth sense. Beto tried to think about anything other than how much he wanted to find Carsten, to make sure he was safe—
“Shit, it’s about this Carsten character. Hernández. Fuck my life, Gómez said she thought something was going on, but I said, ‘No way, Hernández is the ultimate professional.’”
That was rich coming from Klay. Beto wasn’t about to let it slide, either.
“Sir, with all due respect, did you not meet your soon-to-be husband on a case?” Beto asked.
“That was completely different. First, I was not on a case until after Micah and I met. Second, are you actually thinking about getting married?”
“I don’t think whether I plan on getting married is the question here. To be honest, I’m not sure what the question is. Aren’t there personal boundaries that shouldn’t be crossed, or something?”
That last part was a rhetorical question, but he’d been so busy coming up with a response he hadn’t seen Gómez stalk back over to where they were standing.
“No,” she answered for Klay. “After the shit Jerry Kettering put you through, we’d all like to see you happy.”
He stared at her, cold slithering down his spine. He wanted to know how she knew about any of that. He and Jerry had been so careful. Even at the end of his life, Jerry insisted no one could know; they had to appear as no more than friends. By that point, Beto had quit arguing. Nothing he said would change his partner’s mind, and no medicine was going to save him. Beto just hadn’t expected to be so completely erased. At the funeral, no one had looked at him, no one had approached saying “Sorry for your loss.”
Gómez seemed to take Beto’s silence as a sort of agreement. “Okay, close to happy. Kind of satisfied.” Her expression changed. “I completed the background check you asked me for, and …” Beto shut his eyes just for a second, opening them to meet Gómez’s concerned gaze. “There is no one named Carsten Quinn. Not living in Skagit and not from Hoquiam. There’s practically no one named Carsten Quinn in the US. The one I did find is not anywhere close; he’s seventy-eight and makes furniture in Wichita.”
That didn’t surprise Beto. After what both Dany and Carsten had told them, a fake name was the least of his worries. Carsten had his reasons, and Beto was pretty sure after what he’d heard tonight he knew what they were.
* * *
His phone buzzed. He answered it, worry for Jorgensen at the forefront. Whatever reasons Carsten had for using an alias, they’d have to wait until they tracked him down.
It wasn’t the hospital calling about Soren. It was dispatch.
“Officers responded to an unusual activity alarm approximately one mile from your location and discovered two men inside the building. I have someone on the line who says he won’t speak to them until he talks to you. A Mr. Quinn.”
His stomach did a flip. Carsten was safe, or alive anyway.
Beto fought the urge to turn away from Klay and Gómez while taking the information. Instead he looked Klay directly in the eye as he repeated the address where Carsten was, holding the phone slightly away from his ear so Klay and Gómez could listen.
“Have them stay there,” Klay said in a low tone. “Richardson and Gómez will pick them up. We’ll talk to them at the office.”
Beto nodded, then instructed dispatch to wait on the line until someone retrieved the … what were Carsten and Dany? Fugitives? Victims? He supposed at this point it didn’t matter. No, he thought privately, not victims. Both men were survivors.
“Tell them they’re going into protective custody,” Klay ordered.
“I need to be the one who picks them up. Carsten and Dany are already running scared. Richardson can stay here and frighten the innocent journalists.”
They all looked over to where Richardson was quietly and firmly assisting the TV journalist and her videographer back into the van.
Klay refocused his glower to Beto, but it rolled off him like water off a duck’s back.
“We’ll all go, to keep you from doing something stupid,” Klay commanded.
Beto led the way to Richardson’s car; Klay and Gómez followed.
19
Carsten
* * *
Carsten and Dany were separated. But before that happened, the dog squeezed her way out of Dany’s grip on her collar and raced ahead of Carsten to snarl and snap through the glass door. Carsten was starting to think she had extremely good judgment. Instead of opening the door, he used the café phone to call 911 and demand to be put through to Beto Hernández—praying, crossing his fingers that Beto wasn’t dead and that whoever he talked to could actually do that.
“I can patch you through, but I’m going to need you to open the door so the officers can enter the building.” Tina, as she’d identified herself, had a friendly, calming voice.
One of the officers on the other side of the door was also on his cellphone, watching Carsten as he spoke. Carsten didn’t like him on principle.
“I’m not opening any doors until I talk to Detective Hernández.” Carsten needed to hear his voice, to have Beto assure him things would be okay.
The line was silent for a moment. The officer on his phone outside was talking too. Carsten wondered if he was also talking to 911. The dog had quit her frantic barking; now she was on guard, her tail stiff and body language dangerous, the hum of a low growl rumbling from her throat.
The dispatch officer came back on the line. “Please stay where you are, Mr. Quinn; Detective Hernández will be there in a few minutes. I will stay on the line with you until then. I’m to instruct you to stay put and not to do anything stupid.”
That sounded like something Beto would say.
* * *
Less than three minutes later, an enormous black SUV veered into the parking lot and stopped with a jerk. The doors opened and three people got out, a woman and two men. All wore suits, but only one of them was Beto. Carsten sagged in relief; he was almost dizzy with it.
The man and woman Carsten didn’t know immediately headed toward the uniformed cops. Beto strode across the parking lot, his eyes lasered on to Carsten’s through the plate glass.
“Shit,” Dany said from behind him.
Carsten jumped. “I told you to wait in back.”
“I’ve never been good at following directions.”
Beto didn’t knock on the door; he stared through it until Carsten was compelled to unlock it, then Freya pushed it open, her tail going a million miles an hour as she greeted Beto doing little half jumps and rubbing her face against his slacks.
“Good girl,” Beto crooned, “very good girl, you kept Carsten safe.”
“What about Soren? Where is he?” Dany’s voice was quiet, as if he already knew something was wrong. Beto stood from the crouch he’d dropped into to greet Freya. Carsten could tell he didn’t have good news.
“He took a bullet in the chest. They’re operating now. It’s touch and go.”
Dany didn’t make a sound, but Carsten heard his friend’s heart breaking; a very human interior lightness dimmed.
Beto scratched Freya on the head again. “Pretty sure she saved all our lives tonight. If she hadn’t attacked and knocked the gunman off balance, he would have made it into the house and shot everyone. As it was, with a
ll the racket she made, there were neighbors looking out the window to see what was going on, and someone called 911.”
“Will I be able to see him?” Dany was ashen, all color washed from his skin.
Beto shook his head. “We need to stash you somewhere safe. Both of you.”
* * *
Dany left with the redheaded fed and Agent Gómez, his shoulders tense with worry and strain.
“I’m worried about him.”
“He’ll be okay.”
“I think he didn’t expect … I think he really likes Soren.”
“Everybody likes Soren.”
“I mean—”
“I know what you mean.”
The uniformed cops drove off in the direction of the police station. Another SUV arrived and parked in front of the doorway.
“We need to ask you some questions, get a statement about what happened tonight,” Beto said.
Another suit got out of the car and made his way over. Beto opened the door and let him inside the café.
“Carsten, this is Adam Klay, head of Pacific Northwest investigations for the FBI—and my boss.”
Klay stuck out his hand for Carsten to shake, giving him an assessing glance before turning to Beto. “We’ve got a house set up. Your boy’s going to have to go in cold. We can’t have him changing his mind and calling a friend to pick him up.”
Beto opened his mouth to say something, but Carsten beat him to it. After the night he’d had, he wasn’t letting this guy, Mr. Head of Pacific Northwest Investigations, treat him, or Beto, like shit. “A, in case you hadn’t noticed, I am not a boy. B, I’m not running away and hiding from anything.”
Klay raised a questioning eyebrow.
“Yeah, I ran just now, but it wasn’t away, it was to, to safety. I am not hiding from whoever did this. You need me.” Carsten was still processing what Beto had said. He swung his attention to Beto and narrowed his eyes. “You’re a fed? You’re a fed like this joker.” He gestured at Klay with his thumb.
