Alaskan Magic: Shadows of Alaska Book 1

by CC Dragon

  “I’m so sorry,” I said.

  She gave a weak smile. “We tried to escape, but the windows didn’t open. They had some weird locks on the doors. None of us had keys to our rooms. The screams were the worst.”

  “Is that where they turned you into sex slaves?” I’d worked a few of these cases, but normally it was getting proof to convict. The women rarely wanted to talk about it all, and we tried not to retraumatize them. Olive was stronger than she let on. I wanted all of her story if she was willing to share. Sometimes letting it out was a relief.

  She nodded. “Some girls got drugged into compliance. Some did it for food or to avoid beatings. They use whatever worked on you. Some women had been groomed into it by prostitutes. Once they had you scared enough or drugged enough, they made you believe it was your idea. They’d saved us or were on our side.”

  “Anything to make you cooperate enough.” I had no more words—my throat wanted to close up, but I had to keep going and remain professional.

  “You’ll do anything for your pain to stop. They could make you suffer all the time, if they wanted. We had no identification or money. Nothing. I know the police had to be looking for some of us, but...”

  “But...” I prompted.

  “I’d broken up with my boyfriend. My parents weren’t really in the picture. I’d moved away from my mom to be with the jerk boyfriend. Dad was never really in my life. I had a friend who was going to let me crash on her couch. I had all my stuff in my car. If the cops found it, they might think I was taking off or something.” She shrugged.

  “So, no one was looking for you beyond your boss or the cops. No immediate family or spouse. Your friend?” I asked.

  “They probably tried to call. At first, they’d think I found somewhere else to crash or maybe that I made up with the boyfriend. I had friends, but none that were so close they’d be nagging the cops,” she admitted.

  “Do you remember the address of the gas station where you worked?” I slid a pad of paper to her with a pen.

  She scribbled the information down.

  “If you remember your boss’s name. Friend’s names. Anyone you can think of who we can contact and get you back in touch with. Put down what you remember of the car and the guy who took you,” I said.

  She nodded and kept writing.

  When she was done, I had to ask harder questions.

  “Do you have any idea who the father was?” I asked.

  She shook her head. “I had a lot of regulars and protection doesn’t always work. It also wasn’t always available.”

  “There are a lot of unknowns here. If we can find your baby, we will, but did other women have them? Do you have any idea what they did with babies if they happened?” I asked.

  She took a deep breath. “I don’t know, but the way those people acted...I bet they sold him.”

  “I’m sorry. But that makes sense for their behavior,” I replied. “Did you name him?”

  “Noah,” she said.

  I smiled. “That’s nice. Did he have any birthmarks or moles? Anything that could make him distinguishable?”

  She shook her head. “Nothing that I can think of. He was sweet and special, but every baby is.”

  “Of course. We’ll see if the searches reveal any documentation.” I wanted to give her a glimmer of hope.

  “They’re not that stupid,” she said.

  I shrugged. “They need phone numbers or info to make a sale. This doesn’t seem to be a normal line of business. They weren’t trying to get all of you pregnant or sell the babies. Something will stick out. We’ll call every phone number we find. Even if they work in mostly cash, there has to be a money trail if they’re making that much. It has to go somewhere,” I said.

  “That’s your job. I just want my baby,” Olive said.

  “Fair enough. I’m going to put out the word, an amber alert, and get this going. You don’t have any pictures?” I asked.

  “We might’ve had a polaroid. Someone found an old camera. It would’ve been tucked inside my mattress. It’ll still be there if they didn’t toss everything,” she said.

  “I’ll make sure they look.” I nodded.

  She rolled her eyes. “All this for one baby without a birth certificate. They might try, but I understand.”

  I put my hand on her arm. “One baby or a hundred. One woman or a hundred. That’s our job. I can’t promise we’ll succeed, but I absolutely promise I’ll work my teams down every lead. We’ll do everything we possibly can.”

  With a weak smile, Olive put her hand on mine. “Thanks.”

  “You want to go back to the common room or stay here?” I asked.

  “I need a minute,” she said.

  “I’ll have a counselor meet you in here. They’ll arrange a medical checkup. You’re probably just fine, but it can’t hurt.”

  “We had a medical overall check when we were brought in,” she said.

  “Did you disclose that you’d given birth in the last month?” I asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Exactly. They probably gave you guys pregnancy tests, STD tests, and so on, but I’d feel better if you had a full check over. Unless you have an objection,” I said.

  “Female doctor, please,” she said.

  “Done.” I nodded.

  I exited the room. “Who’s in charge or the therapy and medical follow up?”

  Green walked over. “What’s wrong?”

  “This woman claims she had a baby while in Deadhorse. It was born alive. One of the women delivered it. They hid it for a while from their captors, but it was discovered and taken.”

  “Sold?” Green asked.

  “That’s my guess, and her gut instinct. I hope that’s not the next criminal trend. Sex slaves forced to be pregnant and babies get sold.” I shuddered.

  “You’re sure it’s true?” Green asked.

  “She’s not lying. Why? More attention? These women want to be comfortable and safe. They don’t want to relive it all. But I think we should have her checked out.”

  “We medically checked them all out,” he said.

  “Men. You didn’t give them pelvic exams. She only gave birth about a month ago. Make sure things are okay, no infections or anything, and make sure she did give birth. Then we put an amber alert out on her baby. Male, mostly full Caucasian—definitely half, one month old, named Noah.” I shrugged.

  “No problem,” he chuckled.

  “It’s worth a shot. I’ll talk to the team in Alaska. She had a picture someone took stuck in her bed. If we can get a picture, it’ll help a lot,” I said.

  “Babies change a ton in the first month. I don’t know about pelvic women stuff, but babies change a lot.” Green had to be an expert.

  “It’s a baby. How many babies are moved out of Deadhorse? We have to try.” I shrugged.

  “Get the picture, and we’ll talk.”

  I made the phone calls to our team in Deadhorse and then headed to the main room. I walked in front of the TV and turned it off.

  “Bitch, come on,” Diana said.

  “Keep that up,” I warned.

  “What do you want? Interviews happen in the rooms. They said we could relax here,” said another woman.

  I nodded. “I’m sorry to bug you, but I have a general question. Did a lot of women get pregnant?”

  The women exchanged looked.

  “Not a lot. Some.” Diana shrugged.

  “We didn’t find any babies or kids even. What happened to them?” I asked.

  Anne held up her hand. “Most women didn’t have them. Once the captors discovered a girl was pregnant, most of them were beaten so badly, they miscarried.”

  “Olive is pretty slender. Did she hide her pregnancy?”’ I asked.

  “More or less. Maybe one of the guys thought it was theirs?” Anne suggested.

  “Thanks. Back to your TV.” I turned the set back on.

  Green was walking the halls. “The counselor is in with Olive.”
>
  “Thank you. I need to talk to the captors now,” I said.

  “No,” Green said.

  “Yes, we need to find out what they did to the baby. If what the women just told me is true,” I said.

  “I’ll add it to my list for the interrogations. I’m not letting you in there. Your partner got shot, and now you’re crusading for a baby.”

  I wanted to punch him. Because I’m a woman I’m emotionally run? “I want to find any missing person. Children are a priority there. I want to put the bad guys in jail and make our best case. If there are more kids out there, we need to find them. If the baby died, we need to know. Do you think I can’t interrogate people?”

  He eyed me. I had a bad habit of talking back at the wrong time.

  “I’m this close to putting you on leave. You’re distraught over your partner. No shame.” He held up his fingers with a fraction of space between them.

  “Mitch is fine. His wife is with him. We all take a risk in the job. He’s a dad and so are you—I can’t believe you aren’t fired up about this. These women were kidnapped from their jobs or other places where they thought were safe. All over the country, probably Canada, too, so we’ll have to get them involved. What if they were selling babies?” I suggested.

  The reality of the bad press started to sink with Green.

  “All the more reason to control who interrogates them. We need to control the information. Find evidence of the baby first,” Green said.

  Green walked away. “Jackass,” I muttered.

  I heard a funny noise and turned.

  I’d turned Green into a donkey. Luckily, we were alone in the hallway. I snapped my fingers, and he turned human again. He wouldn’t remember a thing.

  Heading for lockup, I wanted to see Indigo no matter what.

  “Dot.” Zelda cut me off before I got there.

  “I gotta thing,” I said.

  “Dot.” Zel nodded for me to follow.

  I did, and we were back in my office with the door locked.

  “What?” I asked.

  “The picture. The team found it.” She held up her phone.

  “Crap. At least the girl wasn’t lying.” I grabbed my phone. I’d put it on silent when I went in the interview room with Olive. Old habits...

  “We’re working up an amber alert post. State Troopers are on it too,” she said.

  “Good. Something is going right. Get the original Polaroid sent here ASAP, please. I’ll text you the details for the alert.” I stared at the little baby. He was real. Part of me had hoped Olive had imagined it to help keep herself going—believing she had a baby out there might help. But a picture was hard to argue with.

  If he was alive or not, my magic couldn’t tell me that.

  “They’re searching everything again, but no sign of baby stuff. Probably a one off,” Zel warned.

  I frowned. “Maybe, or maybe they just weren’t allowed to keep them. Most of these women are white and young.”

  Zelda popped her gum. “The black market on healthy white babies is pretty lucrative.”

  “Do some research and try to find out just how lucrative, please,” I asked.

  She nodded. “Poor little baby.”

  Chapter Eight

  The baby selling angle was a good theory, but something didn’t totally add up. As I sat in the diner with Zelda the next morning for breakfast, I pondered my case and a stack of pancakes. My mind went over and over the case like I was missing something and if I could just put together that stray piece, it’d make sense.

  “Did you sleep at all?” Zel asked.

  “I didn’t go kill Indigo. Do I get points for that?” I teased—well, half teased.

  “No. What’s going on in your head?” she pressed.

  “The black market babies. It’s possible, but that makes sense in Seattle or Houston. Bringing that here? Anchorage maybe, but Deadhorse is not a hub for adoption. Who is buying babies in the Arctic Circle? I need to talk to Indigo.”

  “Hell no, and no. That guy is all magical charisma, and he’s fully recharged. You stay away from him. He’s Casanova spelled plenty of the female staff. Some of the male. No.” Zelda pointed at me with a fork full of eggs.

  “I’m tired of everyone bossing me around. I need to know if the talk of kids freaks him out.” I’d trigger some reaction from Indigo, I knew that. How could I sleep with kids that might have been stolen out there? I wanted to climb the walls or throw fireballs at everyone in my way.

  She laughed. “He’s a man, of course it does. You need to back off and see if they find any other baby pictures or stuff. If we find this baby or it’s just a tangent to the main case. Odds are that a few women got pregnant. Maybe they trucked it down with an empty camper to Anchorage and dropped the baby at a fire station or something? It’s a side thing max. We’ve already got them on human trafficking, so he’s not going anywhere,” Zel wisely advised.

  “I need to talk to him. He’ll be able to give us the info!” I insisted.

  She dropped her fork, and it clanked on the plate. “You want to be around him. You need to counter his spell on you. He’s stronger than you think.”

  No. Spell on me? No way. I closed my eyes and cleansed my magical shield.

  Damn it! I was being drawn to him. “Help me get this creepy guy’s spell of off me.” The sensation of evil bugs crawling all over me made me want to peel off my skin.

  “You’re the one who sucked up his powers. You gave him an in,” she scolded. “How did you do that anyway?”

  “I don’t know. He was out. Please, just double check my cleanse. Get him out of me! I used his powers for good. I need to be clear. I may have given Green hell for nothing yesterday,” I said.

  Zel shook her head. “Green deserved it. The baby is real. Indigo isn’t unattractive, but his powers are what we need to watch out for. You stole his powers, and you feel the strength. That is attracting you. Now you need to block him out. I’ll do a cleanse once we’re at the office.”

  I nodded and took a magical moment to again break off the spell. I still wanted to confront Indigo, but it was mostly to kill him. That wasn’t going to help the case either.

  “What did you work on all night?” Zel returned to her initial inquiry.

  “Missing kid stats for the state.” I tried to eat since I’d likely skip lunch. The urge to corner Indigo has faded, but deep down, my instinct whispered there was more to the case with the kids.

  “Alaska has a ton of missing people. That’s just reality. So much land, undeveloped raw and very dangerous land. Plus, the animals. Hunters. Stupid tourists. Unsolved missing persons are a huge problem, but it’s mostly natural causes.” She shrugged.

  “You’re probably right, but kids are different.” I had a weird feeling. Magic beings ran amuck in Alaska, and while humans fell victim to the predators and elements, could there be something else going on?

  “Yep, but parents take their kids hunting or hiking. It’s all part of the life here. Hell, they train their kids with guns from a young age and take them out to hunt.” Zelda shrugged it off. “If the kid is really missing, the parents will report it, but circumstances prevent some rescues.”

  I wasn’t talking about those cases. I wasn’t sure if I had a lead on anything, but right now, I couldn’t do much else. This gave me a purpose, or the growing frustration about Green keeping me way back on my own case would well up again, and I’d get myself fired probably. “Yep. Did they get the files and such brought down yet?”

  “You need to turn it off. Work is at work,” Zel said.

  “It’s still my case,” I said.

  “Don’t get obsessed. Green sees that, and he’ll pull you off it. He won’t be wrong either. Then Green takes all the credit, and you’ll have killed yourself for nothing.”

  “Not for nothing. Besides, that’s every case that has magic,” I said softly. “No one will ever know but us.”

  Zelda shook her head at me. “Thankless work, and you’re o
bsessed with it. You’re weird.”

  “This case has magical beings in it. Even if the goal was just money, it’s an added danger.” Magic could’ve moved those kids anywhere in the world. There were so many angles that the humans wouldn’t explore or even consider when even a hint of magic touched a case. I dug into my food more because Zel was right. I was obsessing, but I knew I couldn’t stop.

  “Well, unless you get custody of those witches and destroy them—they have to go through the human system. Then again, Indigo could break out and take them along. I’m not sure why he hasn’t. Please try to be normal and pretend to be a boring old human,” Zel advised.

  I took a moment to slow down to human ways. They were serious about their case, but they had no clue about the magical world and how those things worked. The smell the of the syrup grounded me along with the clank of dishes from the kitchen. “I probably need a life, but there are too many bad guys.”

  Zelda smiled. “Eat, and let’s get to work, normal work. Putting in human effort might help put you out of your misery.”

  Green met me at the door when I arrived at work.

  “Did you go home last night?” I held back the excitement that bubbled up at the prospect of a lead. Green looked like hell and that was rare.

  “Yes, but I got called in. They found a body frozen out back of the location in Deadhorse,” he said.

  “Why did they call you?” I asked.

  “I wanted to be informed first on everything. You might not make the right call,” Green said.

  I counted to three. “Did I make the wrong call putting out an amber alert? I’m assuming it’s an infant body.”

  “Less than six months and male, yes. They’re bringing it back here for autopsy,” Green said.

  My smile was threatening to grow too big. I felt like my boss was giving me the update. “Good. I’m sorry the baby is dead, but at least it’s not a false lead. Did they bring all the contents of the rooms?”

  “Or course, phones and other tech to the tech guys after the lab swabbed and dusted them. Papers are being organized in the conference room.” Green led the way to the conference room.