by Elle Keaton
* * *
Carsten wasn’t sure which was better, the end-of-the-world sex from the night before, or the we-caught-the-perp sex. In any case, they both needed another shower.
“The water bill is going to be pretty high for a two-night stay.”
Beto shrugged and grinned. “We were very dirty.”
28
Beto
* * *
Beto wasn’t letting Carsten out of his sight if he could help it. Carsten seemed to feel the same way. He’d been staying with Beto since the arrests, and while they didn’t talk about it, Beto didn’t think either of them wanted that to change.
This is fast for you.
It was fast. Beto shrugged at his inner voice—which was no longer Jerry. He’d been miserable for years, not letting the right people close to him, shying away from affection like an abused animal. Carsten felt right. He wasn’t fighting it. After Soren nearly died, and Sammy too, why would he deny himself or Carsten the happiness they both deserved?
Gómez had taken him aside, not to admonish him for moving too quickly, but to tell him he looked happy and she liked happy on him.
“Just don’t you go blabbing to my brother that you met someone. I don’t need my family nagging me more.”
Happy did feel good. But there was still so much to sort through with this case. They’d had to bring in extra caseworkers to interview the children, who’d been traveling for months, it sounded like, being moved from location to location until they’d finally ended up in the attic of a church. Beto suspected from the chatter the team had picked up on that money had been an issue. It was possible their buyer or buyers had fallen through.
It had been a week since Bakker’s arrest, and Skagit was reeling. The repercussions would be felt for months, if not years. Both Bakker and Dickson were talking as part of plea deals—although they would serve time, there was no doubt about that. Since the initial arrests, a city council member and a prominent member of the school board were among the people taken into custody. Then there were the remaining members of the extended Petyr family to be rounded up. Beto didn’t think they would make it far. Stan Getty was still hiding somewhere in the Skagit Valley. Beto knew they’d find him; the creep had nowhere to go. His photograph was plastered everywhere.
The skies had finally cleared long enough for the water to begin to recede, and thankfully no additional bodies surfaced. Agent Weir traced a rundown property east of town, right along the Skagit, to the Petyr family. Klay had flown in CSI specialists, and they’d found Charity’s phone there, buried in the mud. Now investigators were tearing the whole place apart looking for more victims and hoping they didn’t find any.
From what Beto, Klay, and Gómez had pieced together, the human trafficking arm of Sanctuary found victims not only on overseas “missions”—Beto wanted to vomit, and from the looks on Klay’s and Gómez’s faces they did too—but in vulnerable regions of the US, as well as in their own hometowns: people like Charity. Weir had also unearthed a grotesque online catalog where potential buyers could choose who they wanted.
Beto’s heart hurt for Troy Bakker, who’d discovered his father’s “tastes” years ago, but no one had listened to him. The elder Bakker had too much sway in the community, and he discredited Troy, making his son out to be a degenerate and a liar. No one had believed Troy when he’d claimed his father was a pedophile; the accusation was ignored and swept aside as so much drama from a troubled youth. But even Troy hadn’t known how evil his father truly was until Stjepan Petyr caught up with him and nearly killed him.
“Thanks for taking care of Trixie,” Troy whispered from his hospital bed. Aside from the head wound, he was recovering from multiple broken bones and a ruptured spleen. Recovery was going to be a long road.
“I’d do it again,” Beto assured him, “although if I never find someone in your condition again I’ll be happy. How come the dog was with you, anyway?” The reason was unimportant, but it nagged at Beto.
“I’d, uh, liberated her from my parents’ house not long before. They didn’t want her; they only wanted to keep her from me. Carsten told me you call her Freya. That name suits her way better than Trixie.”
Carsten was perched on the edge of an uncomfortable-looking chair on the other side of the bed, listening. Now that they were in the same room, Beto could see the resemblance between them, enough for them to pass as brothers, or each other if they wanted to. But Beto would always be able to tell them apart.
“Carsten told me how the two of you met, but what led you to try and single-handedly take down an international trafficking ring?”
“It was my idea,” Troy said. “Friends and people I’d known around town kept disappearing. No one would listen to me, to us, because we were just punks. Our parents had thrown us out. A close friend disappeared and was found dead. Still, no one cared.”
Carsten leaned in. “Beto cares. We all care.”
“I know, it’s just—you know how it was, Carsten. No one would listen. Fuck everybody. I decided I would get evidence. I would set myself up as a boyfriend or whatever one of those scum wanted.” He shuddered. “So I did. It was stupid easy. I guess they figured I was harmless. I feel like I need to be sanitized. I made Stjepan use a condom; luckily he took so many steroids he couldn’t get it up most of the time. When I had what we needed, I was going to send it everywhere—expose them all for what they are.”
“What happened?”
“I got careless. Stjepan caught me nosing around. I knew they’d had a ‘shipment,’ and I was trying to figure out where they were hiding them.”
* * *
After listening to Troy’s story, Beto left Carsten to talk with him alone and made his way down the hall to Jorgensen’s room. Tapping on the door and hearing a faint “Come in,” he pushed his way inside. Unsurprisingly, Dany Petyr was there, curled up in a chair on the other side of the room. He looked to be fast asleep, his head cocked at an uncomfortable angle.
Jorgensen managed to look small; something about being shot and nearly dying, Beto supposed. He pulled up the second visitor’s chair so he could sit down. “Hey.”
Soren looked tired and rumpled and like he’d be moving carefully for a while, but it was damn good to see him alive. There was still an IV doing its job and a machine monitoring his oxygen levels, but after being shot and the surgery, that was to be expected.
“Thanks for stopping by. Sorry it’s not much fun here.” Soren spoke quietly, almost a whisper.
“I was visiting our friend Troy Bakker down the hall, and you’re on my list too. What’d the doc say?”
“I’m lucky to be alive. Recovery, blah blah blah.” He waved a hand.
“Soren, you nearly died.” Dany’s sleepy voice interrupted them. Beto looked up to see Dany’s sharp gaze focused on Soren.
“I think the point is, I didn’t die, and I will recover.”
Dany sat up, his joints popping as he stretched. He had a wrinkle across the right side of his face from his sweatshirt. “I think it’s ironic I was raised by a legit crime family and when I finally meet somebody they come from a legit law family. It’s like Romeo and Juliet all over again.”
Soren looked at Dany. “You know they both die in the end, right? And which one of us is Romeo, because he was kind of a sucker.”
“Dany,” Beto cut across his retort, “would you mind giving Soren and me a few minutes?”
Dany grumbled but shuffled out of the room, saying, “I’m heading down to find something to eat.”
Beto watched Soren watch Dany and wondered if the same expression of worry and wonder showed on his face as well.
“How much have you heard?” Beto asked. “I know Nguyen has been here, and Klay as well.”
“A little, but I’d like to hear your angle.”
Beto filled Soren in from his point of view, including how Carsten had come to his rescue in the church. Soren had heard some of that incident, Beto included a few more details.
; “Troy Bakker was able to identify who tried to kill him? And he implicated Pastor Bakker?”
“Yes, though pastor Bakker implicated himself as well. Troy is just adding to the pile of evidence against him. How are you really feeling?”
Soren gave him a wan smile. “Lucky to be alive, and maybe a little more aware of the fragility of life than I was before.” He shrugged and winced. “Damn, I keep forgetting. Even though I grew up in a cop family—cop-adjacent family—I never felt in danger. When I did my beat time I never felt in danger. Getting shot—” he let out a sigh “—I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”
Beto nodded. He’d had a lot of things happen to him, the most recent being a purported man of god trying to strangle him, but he’d never been shot. “That’s what the department psychologists are for.”
“Yeah.”
“When are they letting you out of here?”
“Tomorrow or the next day. I don’t know. I guess it depends.”
Soren was going to say something else, but a piercing beep began to sound over the hospital speaker system, followed by a mechanical voice. “Code red: A fire alarm has gone off on level three. Building engineers are investigating.” A white light in the ceiling began to flash as the message was repeated.
“What the hell?” Beto grumbled.
A nurse poked her head in. “This isn’t a drill, but the fire doors have activated and level three is on the other side of the hospital, so there is no reason for alarm.”
“What’s on level three?” Soren asked her.
“The cafeteria. Someone probably set the alarm off by accident.” She disappeared. Beto and Soren stared at each other.
“Please?” was all Soren said.
“If you even think about moving from this bed, I will have Nguyen come down on you so hard you will wish you’d only been shot.”
Soren nodded. “Go.”
Beto dashed out into the hallway. As the nurse had said, the fire doors were closed on each end. To the far left there was a stairwell. Beto ran and pushed it open, ignoring the “Sir, sir,” from behind him. There was no time to argue. The fire alarm was a call for help. Dany was in danger.
Soren and Troy were both on the sixth floor and on the other side of the hospital. Beto ran down the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. They ended at level four, and he pushed out into the hallway. This part of the hospital seemed to be all offices, not patient rooms. He was turned around, and there were no windows, but he thought, he hoped, that the cafeteria was still to the left and down one more set of stairs.
Racing down the long, empty hallway, emergency lights still blinking, he finally found another stairway and clattered down the steps, his the lone steps echoing. At the next landing he slowly pushed the door open, hoping the fire doors weren’t closed in the direction he needed to go.
He heard a shout, the words indistinguishable, and ran in that direction. People don’t shout in hospitals unless something is wrong, very wrong. As he drew closer, Beto realized the reason he couldn’t understand what was being said was because the shouting was in a language he didn’t speak but suspected was Russian or Croatian.
The cafeteria dining room was in a shambles. Tables were upturned; food of all kinds was splattered everywhere. Ketchup (Beto hoped) dripped down a wall just inside the entry, orange juice had been splashed against a window, chili or some kind of soup was smeared across the carpet.
The dining room was created by two walls and a bank of windows in a horseshoe configuration. In the far corner two men were grappling. As he watched, one of the men stepped backward into something slippery and went down. The second grabbed at him but missed as the one on the floor rolled to the side. The scene was chaos, and hospital security wasn’t helping by getting in his way.
“Sir, I need you to stand aside and let us take care of this. It’s a family disagreement.” The guard’s ill-fitting uniform bothered Beto’s sense of decency; he didn’t want to have to look at it.
“I don’t know about you, but when my family has a disagreement they don’t try and strangle each other.” He flashed his badge at the kid. “FBI.”
The kid stood aside, bristling at Beto’s remark or his attitude, Beto didn’t care. Finally someone turned off the fire alarm, and the mechanical voice quit announcing and the lights stopped flashing.
As tempting as it was to pull his gun out, Beto wanted to avoid brandishing a weapon in the hospital if possible. So many things could go wrong. Dany, on his back, flailed out and grabbed a tray, trying to pummel his attacker with it. Neither man was speaking anymore; the only sound was their heavy breathing. Beto moved closer.
His movement caught Dany’s attention, and his eyes widened.
“Is someone here to save this faggot’s skinny ass? It’s too late.” The man’s voice was ragged and deep, a lifelong smoker perhaps.
“Deda, don’t do this,” Dany pleaded.
“Your uncles warned me. I was soft on you because I loved your mother, but now look what you’ve done. You’ve destroyed me.” He spat on Dany’s face. “I should have had you put down like a dog or thrown in the ocean to drown, but no, your mother begged me. She wouldn’t tell me who the father was, but I found out. Him I put down years ago, but I kept hoping the Petyr blood was stronger than the mongrel she bred with.”
Beto’s gaze strayed to Dany’s face. His expression of horror was so intense Beto felt it himself. He slowly inched forward.
“You aren’t my grandson, and you certainly aren’t worth your mother’s life. She begged for nothing, for less than nothing.” The man’s voice dropped to a whisper.
For a moment all was silent, then Dany spoke. He didn’t whisper or shout, he just stated what was plainly the most horrible truth he could grab ahold of.
“I don’t know who you killed, or had killed, all those years ago, but I’m staring at my father right now. You molested my mother, and I’m the result. You’re right that I’m not your grandson, ‘Deda’—I’m your son. Mama told me before she passed, so fuck you. Fuck you, and I’m glad I’ve disappointed you. Imagine what a shit heel I would be if I pleased you!”
Beto had finally inched close enough. He made a rolling motion with his hand, a signal that he hoped Dany understood. Dany pushed against his father, rolling to one side out from under him as Beto leapt forward, dropping a knee in the middle of the elder Petyr’s back and bringing out his weapon to ensure control, placing it against the back of Petyr’s neck.
“I’d stop talking now, but if you want to continue you’re welcome to,” Beto rasped into his ear. “If you make one false move, one twitch, blink your fucking worthless eye, I might accidentally squeeze the trigger, and sadly we wouldn’t be able to take you to federal prison where you belong. On the other hand, I feel like it would be a public service, and I imagine all the nice people who witnessed this would back me up.” Beto wrenched Petyr’s arms behind him and locked the cuffs around his wrists.
Petyr kept his mouth shut, but if looks could kill, Beto would’ve dropped where he stood.
“Tu eres un monstruo,” Beto spat out.
Petyr was a monster, the worst kind of monster, to molest his own child and no doubt many others. If it took Beto the rest of his career in law enforcement, he would see every one of the elder Petyr’s business associates behind bars.
Beto turned to Dany, who’d picked himself up off the ground. He had his arms wrapped around himself and was trembling. “You all right?”
Dany gave him a shaky smile. “No, not really.”
“What happened?”
“When I got down here, he was coming around the corner. I panicked and pulled the fire alarm.” He huffed out a laugh. “I’m sure he was looking for me, but I don’t think he saw me until the alarm sounded. You saw most of the rest.”
Beto nodded. Gómez came racing around the corner, but stopped when she saw that Beto had it under control.
He pointed to the silent and sullen elder Petyr. “There you are, all
wrapped in a pretty package and ready for Walla Walla.”
29
Carsten
* * *
“That’s him, huh?”
Troy’s voice startled Carsten. He’d been distracted watching Beto leave the room.
“Wha—oh, I think so. Maybe. Yes?” Carsten had to chuckle at himself.
He turned his attention back to Troy. They’d had to shave Troy’s head. White-blond stubble covered his skull now, he was covered with fading bruises, one eye was still a little swollen and had three stitches underneath it, and they were keeping the lights low in his room because of his concussion. But he was alive.
“Lord, Carsten, anyone with eyes—and I only have one good one right now—can see he has it bad for you.”
“Whatever. I don’t want to talk about Beto right now.”
“Beto, huh?”
Carsten rolled his eyes. “What happened, anyway? How did they catch you? I know you gave a statement already.”
Troy frowned, obviously angry with himself. “I was careless. I’d been hanging around with Beau Trainor.” Beau Trainor was on the city council and one of the first people Pastor Bakker had ratted out. “One day Stan Getty stopped by the house. He didn’t know I was in the other room. He said some stuff that made me think he was in deep. He also made a joke about ‘putting the used ones out to pasture.’
“I got to thinking and wondering what exactly he’d meant by pasture. Getty’s a cop, not a farmer. So I followed him a couple times and saw him at that minimart on West Oak chatting up some really young girls and laughing. That’s not proof of anything, but Stjepan must’ve seen me. I pretended it was coincidence, that I was just out walking Trixie, but from then on I kept seeing him. The night he got me, I really was out walking Trix. Okay, and maybe spying a little. I never saw it coming.”
