by R. T. Wolfe
Nickie.
He loaded up the social media app and sent her a message.
* * *
Special Agent Hurst set Nickie's belongings on the table and slid them toward her. She didn't care if she looked like a teenager who couldn't live without her phone. Her husband was in South America, and she hadn't heard from him in over twenty-four hours. Grabbing her stuff, she pocketed her badge and ID as she punched in her security code to the cell.
In the midst of several dozen messages from her foster mother and brother, sister and mother-in-law, and captain, was one from Duncan. Relief swept through her followed by a wave of peace that only her husband provided. Before she swiped it open, she spotted another. And another. The relief turned to curiosity laced with worry.
Nearly forgetting Hurst sat with her, she leaned back in her chair and opened one in the middle.
We found a schedule. July 2nd seems to be an international day. Lima, Ontario, Vegas. Names of FBI.
She read it repeatedly. Each time, her hopes grew with the possibilities. July 2nd. That was in three weeks. That was enough time. She was hungry and needed a shower. None of that mattered. Her entire body came alive with ideas. This could work. The more she thought of her plans, the more she needed to jump up and get started.
Movement from across the table brought her back to the present. Hurst sat with his forehead resting in his palms. Hurst. She could use this.
It was unethical of her, but she said it anyway. "You've not only screwed up this bust," she said, "but my chances with Fu Haizi." Yep. No guilt whatsoever.
"Yes." He moved his forehead back and forth against his hands.
"I have conditions," she said as she read the message again.
He froze, then looked up to her, cautious hope written over his face.
"If I might happen to have information about another bust..."
Her phone vibrated. Another message from Duncan. He was on the phone right then? For a fleeting minute, her mind wandered to where he was at that moment. In a car? Working undercover? Trailing the perp who gave him the intel? All of the above?
Then, her stomach growled. She grabbed another donut and swiped open the message.
Horse races, boxing matches and casinos. Poker tournaments?
"And if I happen to share this potential information," she continued. "I want equal access to any and all planning and details."
"Done." Done?
I found headquarters. They got a pic of me.
Headquarters? The hair at the back of her neck stood on end. She typed out a question.
Headquarters? As in FH headquarters.
Electricity ran through her body. Headquarters? She'd spent the past several years chasing her tail. Taking down one Fu Haizi hub only to have another pop up. This could be permanent. "And I want each and every agent involved trained under Jess Larsen's Child Rescue on humane and proper procedures for trafficked children after they are rescued."
"Agreed."
Her phone vibrated.
Yes. Your mother was there.
In Peru? At the Fu Haizi headquarters. Her headquarters.
Her euphoria went to despair to sadness to fuming in seconds.
"This is my house," she said, barely remembering that was her captain's coined phrase. "I know these people." She raised her voice and pushed away from the table. "I know the business, and I know what I'm doing." She stood tall and remembered the time Jun Zheng took her foster mother hostage. The shot Duncan took to his shoulder. The beating Slippery Jimbo endured on her behalf. The bullet to the gut that nearly killed her partner.
She finished. "I want my choice of civilians."
He dropped his chin. "I'll try, Nick. You have my word."
Headquarters. She had a location.
"There's a car waiting for you. The driver is also your pilot. Eddy is waiting. The plane will take both of you home."
She grinned, not from the thought of going back to New York but the hope that she might put her mother, Jun Zheng and all of Fu Haizi away for good. And place each and every victim in a safe place. She stood and spun on the balls of her feet. "Don't call me. I'll call you," she said as she made her way to the door.
Her legs stopped. Snapped a pic of Duncan?
Chapter 12
The plane ride from Upstate New York to the witness protection location was short. Shorter than the one from Kentucky to New York. The plane was smaller too. A four-seater. Eddy rode in the passenger seat. Nickie and Parker rode in the back. Short ride or not, the seat belt nearly left bruises from where it hugged her pelvis in the turbulence.
The pilot wore big enough headphones; she assumed he wouldn't be able to hear a thing other than whatever was going on in the receivers.
It didn't matter. There wasn't any top-secret talking going on between her, Parker and Eddy. She was busy answering the mountain of text messages from her friends and family.
Nathan and I have reserved a spot at the kennel for Red anytime. We are ready to help whenever you are.—Brie
You are my daughter. You have not called. You will call.—Gloria
Hey, sis-in-law. Itching for a fight over here. Ma says she'll take Andy Jr. anytime. Have you heard from the men? Andy hasn't messaged me since last night.—Rose
We deserve to be there for you, baby foster sister, and if you shut us out, Mom will kick your ass herself. Lol. Call me.—Gil
"We're here already?" Parker asked as they descended.
Johnny and Bebe Lyons' vacation home was more of an estate. Miles of white picket fence surrounded acres of green grass, making the land look like one big puzzle piece.
"Where are we?" he asked.
Maine. But she wasn't going to tell the backstabbing scum.
The pilot aimed his plane for a short runway to the south.
Parker craned his head in every direction. "There's nothing out here," he said as he rubbed his hands over the thighs of his FBI-issued jeans.
Nothing but trees, mountains, lakes, and winding deserted roads. She could stay here indefinitely.
Parker asked, "How will we get food?"
"Shut up," she and Eddy said in unison.
She grabbed the side of her seat just as they touched down on the hard dirt. The top of her head hit the roof as they bumped along the runway. The brakes squealed, and the plane skirted to a stop.
While she waited for Eddy to open the side door so she could slip out, she assessed the surroundings. Not a single person in sight. Just what the doctor ordered, or in this case, her.
Sliding out, she leaned over and opened the storage compartment. She and Parker had one thing in common. Both held every material object they owned inside a single piece of luggage. She watched as he came around the plane and took out his single... no two... make that three suitcases. So much for common.
In her still unshowered state, she made her way across the manicured lawn toward the home. It, too, was painted white and looked like it had a number of wings. One-story ranch. A white wooden porch covered nearly the entire front of the house with a handful of white, wicker rockers that swayed back and forth in the Northeast wind near the front door. Something short and evergreen-looking clumped at the corners of the place.
It was nothing short of anything she would expect from a superstar power couple like Johnny and Bebe Lyons. It was good of them to let it be used to house Parker until he could testify against Nickie's mother, Jun Zheng and all the other scum. He was the only witness they had, but he was a jackpot of a witness and was going to put them away for two hundred and fifty years each.
The Lyonses had sent the help away. Where, Nickie didn't know. She pulled up the Berber front door mat and found the designated key. Unlocking the front door, she pushed it open, hauled her suitcase over the threshold onto an ivory marble floor.
The inside may have been the most beautiful home she'd ever stepped foot into. She didn't know. The sight in front of her combined with the weight of the last forty-eight hours, the last few years,
the last few decades... it all came crashing down.
Her fingers didn't leave the handle of the suitcase. Instead, she dropped to her knees and sat on the back of her heels. There in the center of the foyer stood a black, metal stand. And on the stand was a cello. A Stradivarius. A gift tag had been tied around the neck. She didn't need to read it. She knew who would do this for her. Who would know what she'd lost in the fire that burned down her home and everything in it. The one who knew the only thing in that fire that meant anything to her.
It might have been the horrors of last night's bust, or maybe the lack of sleep. Maybe the fact that her husband was in Peru without her. The loss of her home. The ultimate betrayal of her mother. She wasn't sure, but tears started falling down her cheeks, and not just a few. Buckets of them.
She heard footsteps. Her body wouldn't move, and she couldn't get the frigging tears to stop. Nickie wasn't a crier. She heard Parker start to say something behind her. A loud rustle happened, and then silence. Thank you for that, Eddy.
Pressing her weight on the luggage, she stood, then let it fall on its side on the marble. She stepped forward and squatted down in front of the cello, running her hand over the bow that was propped next to it.
He bought her a cello. The one she'd had was gone. The one her mother purchased for her as a child in an attempt to refine Nickie into the uptown bitch her parents always wished she would be.
Not the kind of daughter who slipped away in the night so she could take out the family English riding horses and ride them bareback. Not the kind of kid who sneaks around in secret basement rooms she'd been ordered to stay away from. Not the kind who would find the room her mother used to keep children captive until it was time for them go out and be rented to pedophiles for money.
Squatting like a catcher behind the plate, she put her face in her hands and sobbed. Her shoulders shook, and she cried like a little girl in captivity who responded like a normal kid should. Nickie hadn't. She had fought and spit and swore.
She was no longer Nicole Monticello, daughter of Edward and Ivanna Monticello. She changed her name to Nickie Savage. She did that in honor of all the girls she left behind. The ones she vowed to save. She was a cop now. A detective cop.
Wiping her face with her sleeve, she stood. She would find the strength to touch the damned, sweetest, most thoughtful and personal gift she'd ever been given after she'd gotten her shit together and quit crying like a hysterical girl in need of years of therapy.
She leaned over, grabbed the handle of the fallen luggage and marched down a hall, looking for a bedroom to shower and sleep. Or else sleep and shower.
* * *
The sun was nearly down. Nickie put the finishing touches on her hair. She could accomplish a lot more in life if she didn't take so long in the bathroom. And if she didn't skip entire nights of sleep. Onward.
She zipped her boots and looked around the room she'd picked. It was nice. Superstar power couple nice. King-sized bed with a down comforter and Egyptian cotton sheets. Everything smelled like a clothes dryer was being used somewhere. She should probably make the bed, but then no.
Standing, she secured her gun in the holster around her shoulder and headed for the door. Duncan was due anytime and would answer the thousand questions she had about the Fu Haizi information jackpot he hacked into while he was in Peru.
July 2nd. International sting. It both overwhelmed and excited her. She couldn't decide whether she should jump for joy or puke. So, she chose option number one.
Her boots clicked along the white-washed hardwood hallway, then changed pitch as she hit the ivory marble floor of the main living area. The place was nice and all, but the colors would make her nuts. White, ivory, cream, beige. She was almost too scared to wear shoes.
She found Eddy in the kitchen. His black work boots were propped on the Lyonses' glass kitchen table. His head was behind the newspaper he held, but his raw and swollen knuckles were front and center.
"Sup?" he asked without dropping the paper.
As if the fiasco in Louisville never happened. Eddy was a good guy. He was rude and inappropriate. His ethics in the female department were marginal, but he was a good guy and great partner. She had doubted him.
She fell for the false trail Fu Haizi had left for her. She accused Eddy of being the mole. Then, she was a sobbing mess in the foyer of a witness protection house over the new cello she still hadn't touched. Train wreck.
Eddy moved the paper away from his face and repeated, "Sup?"
Nickie smiled and took a deep breath. "Where is he?" she asked.
He tilted his head out the window next to him. It overlooked a pool in the shape of an hourglass. She might have missed him if Eddy hadn't pointed him out. He sat in front of a dozen fake potted plant tree things. Bent over, he leaned with his forearms on his thighs, fiddling with a quarter.
Eddy took a sip of his bottled water. "It's not like he can get away."
She didn't need an explanation, but she did find Parker's proximity to the water disconcerting.
"I have the keys to the only car, and my gun is on me."
The gun Eddy hadn't used on Parker, even though Parker had shot Eddy in the gut and left him for dead in a stairwell. She definitely didn't need the explanation.
Places to house witnesses weren't generally luxury vacation homes or even this big. Still, Parker was out of reach, so she let Eddy explain.
"Thank you for taking babysitting duty," she said. She meant it.
"Yep," he said and shook his paper straight. "You owe me big," he said with an emphasis on the word big.
She smiled again. "I'm gonna talk to him."
He nodded and kept reading.
The air was thick enough to cut. She dodged leftover rain puddles on her way to the pool deck. She stopped and looked around. There was no fence around this pool. Is that what you got to do when you lived a million miles away from anything? He didn't flinch when she approached. He sat in the heat in the jeans and T-shirt the FBI had issued him.
At one time, she thought of him as straight-laced Officer Dale Parker. Smooth, confident Parker. Now, he was unshaved, in great need of a haircut and wearing a plain white T-shirt. His feet were so close to the edge of the water, she wondered if he contemplated falling in.
"Parker?"
He didn't answer.
She scraped one of the white painted wrought iron chairs closer to him and sat.
"I don't want to die," he said.
He should have thought about that before he helped child traffickers, became a mole at the station and shot her partner.
"They're everywhere, you know."
"I know."
He stared at the water as he shook his head. "I don't think you do. She's got people in high places."
She, as in Nickie's mother. What a cluster.
"Police, feds, politicians," he said in monotone and squinted his eyes as he stared. "Some are in it because they want the kids. Most just want the money." Mindlessly, he flipped the quarter between his fingers. "I was supposed to kill Lynx."
She sat up and straightened her back.
"I moved the kill shot. I didn't know he would lie there bleeding for so long. I really liked Miranda." He'd used the ADA. It was a struggle to sympathize.
She'd seen the look in his eyes before. Mostly from little girls forced to do things little girls shouldn't know existed. He was about to snap. His arm reached around his back.
In the blink of an eye, Nickie stood, released her gun from her holster, took it off safety, and pointed it at him.
He nodded in acknowledgement of why she aimed her Smith and Wesson at him, then slowed his movements. An index card appeared in his fingers. A quick glance told her it was filled with numbers.
"These are coordinates. There are grave sites, Nick. It's all I've got to give you."
"Okay," she said slowly and took the card from him. There were four pairs of numbers that could definitely represent latitude and longitude coordinates. "We'
ll check it out," she said and pocketed it. "You're going to testify against the bad guys, then live the rest of your time in witness protection. You have a chance here, Parker."
"No, I don't. And neither do you." He lifted his other arm, palm up. In it was the quarter. Except it wasn't a quarter.
She jumped to her feet and stared at it like it was alive. In a way, it probably was.
"I found this in the pocket of these pants." Now he tells her?
She didn't know if it was an audio bug or a tracking device. It didn't matter.
Grabbing his wrist, she took the thing and tossed it onto the cement pool deck. As she smashed it with the heel of her boot, she waved in Eddy's direction. His nose was in the newspaper.
She put an arm around Parker's back, pulling him down as she ducked and headed for the house. She barely took the first step when a bullet buzzed over her head. A single shot from the north. Sniper. At the top of her lungs, she yelled to Eddy, "We've been made!" His face appeared from behind the newspaper. He took one look and bolted from his chair.
Another shot came from the north followed by one from the west. A chunk of the clay pot holding one of the fake trees exploded in front of them, making her run a little lower and a lot faster.
Chapter 13
Parker was a big man, and while he didn't fight her, he wasn't exactly in a hurry either. As Nickie ran for the house, she dragged him along low with one arm while keeping his head down with the other.
The door to the back of the house opened before she reached it. "You motherfucker," Eddy said, wrapped his arm around the back of Parker's neck and punched him in the face.
Blood dripped on the marble floor as Nickie rolled her eyes and yelled, "I don't believe he did this, Eddy. We're wasting time."
He let go of Parker with a push to his chest. "The car is out front," he said and turned toward the entrance. A window in the back shattered. He ducked and yelled, "Move!"
He and Parker ran toward the front door. She veered left.
"What the hell, Nick?" Another window shattered in the back. "We don't have time for you to get your shit."
