by Blake Pierce
It was like fireworks suddenly went off in Jessie’s head.
“Didn’t you say that the only parts of the estate where the cameras are never on are the private residence and the hedge maze?”
“Yes,” Salter confirmed. “Jasper often used it for…liaisons and didn’t want them recorded.”
Jessie turned to Karen.
“Let’s go,” she said.
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR
Hannah knew something was wrong.
Rico seemed fidgety. There was none of the chilly confidence of yesterday. In fact, it seemed to Hannah that he was scared.
“Are we going to be back by one thirty?” she asked. “I have a calculus test fourth period.”
That wasn’t true but she wanted to keep the guy talking, anything to get a clue as to what he was thinking.
“I wouldn’t count on it,” he said. “These interviews take a while. You’ll probably have to make it up.”
“But it will be an unexcused absence,” she protested, as if she didn’t have any idea that something far more significant was happening.
“Look,” he said, clearly agitated. “Karl wants to talk to you. If you want this setup to work, stop worrying about some test. This is bigger than that.”
“So if Karl likes me, I’m in?” Hannah asked, trying anything she could think of to get Rico to give up more details. She suspected that if he wasn’t so agitated, he would never have mentioned Karl’s name.
“Maybe,” he said. “But I think you’re going to have a hard time doing that.”
“Why?” she asked.
He looked over at her, clearly debating how much to share. Even before he spoke, she knew the answer. He’d passed along her name to Karl or whoever was in charge. Maybe Rico didn’t know what they’d learned about her but they’d obviously told him to bring her to them ASAP.
Maybe they wanted to determine if she was just a rebellious teenager acting out by doing something illicit. But more likely they wanted to learn if her famous profiler sister knew about any of this. She doubted they’d ask her nicely. And based on the way he was behaving, Rico knew he was delivering her to people who had ill intent.
“You just don’t seem totally into this,” he finally said as he turned off the Pacific Coast Highway and started up a winding road overlooking the Pacific Ocean. “I think they want to look you in the eye and see if you’re really serious.”
They were nearing the top of the hill, where the road dead-ended at a massive gated mansion. Hannah wanted to look in the side view mirror to see if the undercover vehicles were behind her. But she knew that would draw Rico’s suspicion. Besides, if they were any good, she wouldn’t see a thing.
“Is this it?” she asked as the car started to slow.
He nodded. Hannah realized that once they entered the property, she’d be stuck. The gate walls were easily ten feet high. Even if the cops were right behind her, by the time they got in, Rico’s bosses would have enough time to do her all kinds of harm.
This was her only chance to bail. The car would have to stop while the gate opened. She looked over at Rico, whose hands were clenching the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles were white. He was terrified. This was bad. She undid her seatbelt before reaching over and grabbing the passenger door handle. Nothing happened. It was locked.
“What the hell?” Rico said, looking over at her with confused anger.
If he pulled out a gun, she was trapped. She felt as close to scared as she had since Jessie’s ex-husband tried to kill her. It was a rare and almost welcome emotion.
“I’m so nervous,” she said, trying to salvage the situation. “I think I’m gonna throw up. You’ve got to let me out for a second.”
“We’re here,” he protested. “Just wait a minute until we get inside.”
“If you make me wait, there’s gonna be puke all over your car,” she told him, lifting her hand to her closed mouth as if she was trying to hold it in.
“Jeez, okay. Hold on!”
He popped the lock. She opened the door and got out, facing back down the hill and doubling over. For a second she thought she might actually vomit. Her whole body pulsed with excitement. Her heart was beating fast. She had goose bumps. There was perspiration on her forehead. She was nauseated and exhilarated all at once. It was amazing.
After a moment she sensed she wasn’t going to throw up after all. But she had to make it convincing so she made retching sounds as she looked back down the hill. A hundred yards away, she saw an unremarkable sedan idling. Behind her, she heard the sound of the mansion gates creaking open. Glancing over to make sure Rico couldn’t see her, she waved frantically for the car to come.
That’s all it took. The car peeled out, its tires squealing as it sped up the road. She saw that Brian, the undercover cop, was at the wheel. He sped past the passenger side of the BMW, only feet from where she was crouched, and came to a sudden stop next to the right gate door, making it impossible for it to close. He hopped out and pointed his gun at the driver’s side of the car.
“Hands in the air,” he shouted, before adding, “You by the passenger side door, lie on the ground.”
She didn’t know if he was saying that for her protection or to maintain the illusion that she wasn’t a part of this. Either way, she complied.
“What’s going on?” she heard Rico demand.
“Step out of the car,” Brian ordered.
Seconds later, four more cars came tearing up the hill. Two were unmarked. The other two were squad cars. As they approached, the sirens started blaring. One unmarked car and the two squad vehicles shot up the driveway without slowing down. The other unmarked car came to a stop right behind the BMW. Marie stepped out with her weapon drawn.
Hannah couldn’t see what was happening but could clearly hear more orders, including “lie down,” “spread your hands,” and “don’t move.” Three more squad cars, all with sirens echoing through the canyon, zipped by. Eventually Marie came over and knelt down next to her.
“Are you really going to be sick?” she asked.
“No,” Hannah said.
“Then you can get up,” Marie said. “I’d like to get you out of the road so you’re not accidentally run over.”
Hannah sat up and looked around, taking in the scene.
“Are we sure this is the place?” she asked. “Did we get them?”
Marie took a moment to take in everything as well.
“Let’s hope so,” she said. “Otherwise we just ruined a perfectly good pool party.”
*
As Hannah stood on the sidewalk near the gate, one ambulance tore out of the estate, followed quickly by another, and a third after that. Though she couldn’t see inside, Hannah was sure they were transporting the enslaved girls to the hospital.
After that, the squad cars drove out with men in the back. Up near the house, she could see others being led to cars in handcuffs. She didn’t recognize them but waved anyway.
“Don’t do that,” Marie hissed. “You don’t want to make yourself a target.”
“What do you mean?”
“If we don’t convict all of them, some might come looking for payback. We need to get them all to fall, like a series of dominoes, starting with your friend Rico.”
The words had barely left Marie’s mouth when Hannah got an idea. She knew exactly how she could ensure that Rico would turn on his boss and get those dominoes falling.
These were horrible men and they had to pay, even if it required her to cut a few moral corners. Just the thought of it made her giddy, almost like she was high. She knew in that moment that she would never stop chasing this feeling.
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE
Jessie got to the maze first.
Somewhere behind her, she could hear Karen on her cell phone, instructing some officers to meet them there and others to go to the back alley. She tried to block all that out and focus on what was in front of her. The green walls of the maze were about seven feet high
, too tall for her to see over as she rushed in.
As she made her way through, she scanned the ground, looking for blood drops even as she hoped to hear either man’s voice. But the foliage seemed to suck up all the sound so that the only things she could hear were her own footsteps and shallow breathing. Karen’s voice wasn’t even audible anymore.
The maze was too dark to see any blood but she did notice something else. A narrow strip of grass was visibly pressed down more than the rest, as if it was more highly trafficked. The obvious conclusion was that this was the route most often used by someone who knew the maze well.
She bent down, doing her best to follow the same path while still keeping an eye on what might be around each bend. Each twist and turn took her closer to the center of the maze. As she curled around an impressively zigzagging stretch of wall, she heard Karen’s voice call out from somewhere nearby.
“Jessie, where are you?”
She was just debating whether or not to respond when the zigzagging ended and she found herself in the middle of the maze, where an ornate fountain periodically shot a spray of water out of a stone dolphin’s blowhole, making a loud whooshing sound.
Lying on the ground next to the fountain was Jasper Otis. He was on his back and looked to be unconscious. She moved carefully toward him and knelt down. There was a large pool of blood by his left forearm but his chest was rising and falling. He was still alive.
As the blowhole shot another spray of water into the air, she sensed movement nearby more than heard it. Spinning around, she saw a metal blade slashing toward her head, and flung herself backward. The knife missed her but the force of her movement sent her careening back and she felt her head slam into the side of the fountain.
Dazed, she looked around, attempting to get her bearings. Gilliard, wearing a gardener’s uniform, was advancing toward her. She raised her right hand to fire before realizing that she’d lost her gun. He was almost on her when Karen called out again, this time from much closer.
“Jessie?”
Gilliard spun around and looked in the direction of the voice. He moved toward it quickly.
“Knife,” Jessie screamed as she tried to scramble to her feet. “He’s got a knife.”
Gilliard crouched at the edge of the hedge as Karen came into view. She was looking the wrong way.
Time seemed to stand still. Jessie flashed back to the moment only months ago when she watched helplessly as her ex-husband plunged a knife into the chest of her partner, the man she loved. Now it was all happening again. Another partner was about to be attacked and she was too far away, powerless to stop it.
But almost as quickly as she had the thought, she rejected it. It wasn’t true. She wasn’t powerless. This didn’t have to end the same way. She could stop it. She had to try. All at once, the world sped up again.
“Behind you!” Jessie shouted as Gilliard lunged at Karen.
Her partner turned around and managed to get her arm up in time to block the knife as it came toward her. But the blade embedded in her arm and the gun dropped from her hand. Karen let out a bloodcurdling scream.
Jessie tried to ignore it as she ran toward Gilliard, who was attempting to yank the knife out so he could stab Karen again. He’d just ripped it from her flesh when Jessie dove at him from behind, slamming her shoulder into the small of his back. As he lurched forward into the hedge, his body bent back in an unnatural “U” shape. Now it was his turn to scream.
His arm, knife included, was tangled in the branches of the hedge. He seemed unable to extricate himself. Jessie got to her feet and punched him in the kidney. He groaned and dropped to his knees. As he did, his face slid down, scraping along the hedge. But he was still holding the knife.
“Drop it,” she yelled.
He wouldn’t let go. Suddenly all the pent-up fury that had built up over the last few days spilled out of her. She would not allow someone else to be hurt on her watch. She would stop this, no matter what.
She didn’t have a weapon on her so she proceeded to punch the arm holding the knife, first the triceps, then the elbow. When he still wouldn’t release the knife, she began pummeling the same spot at the elbow junction over and over again. She lost count after a dozen blows. Finally he loosened his grip and the knife fell to the ground, too deep in the hedge to be reached.
“Step back, Jessie.”
She looked to her right. Karen was sitting on the ground with her knees up. Her right arm was propped on her right knee, aiming her gun at Gilliard. She used her left arm to steady her right.
Jessie did as she was instructed. She was breathing heavily and her right arm felt like it was about to fall off. But Karen looked worse off. Her eyes were opening and closing slowly as if she might pass out.
“Mind if I hold that for you?” Jessie asked.
Karen glanced over at her, her eyes cloudy.
“That’s probably a good idea,” she said.
Jessie stepped toward her, taking the gun with one hand as she eased Karen back with the other. Her right forearm had a massive gash in it. Jessie thought she saw bone. She wanted to attend to the wound but couldn’t do anything until Gilliard was secure. So she did all she could for now. Pointing Karen’s gun at Oscar-winning actor Paul Gilliard, she yelled as loud as she could.
“Here! We’re in here!”
*
Jessie almost enjoyed the ambulance ride.
This was the rare time that she’d been in one where she wasn’t the one being attended to. Though her head hurt and she was told she’d need a CT scan at the hospital, the EMT was pretty sure she didn’t have a concussion. So she was able to sit beside Karen and offer moral support.
The detective had been stabilized. She had an IV in one arm. The other arm, where she’d been stabbed, was heavily bandaged. She’d need surgery at the hospital. But for now she was doped up on pain meds and smiling woozily.
Somewhere behind them, Jasper Otis and Paul Gilliard were in their own ambulances. Otis had lost a lot of blood and was still unconscious, but he would survive. Gilliard would eventually recover too, maybe in time for his trial. But it wouldn’t be easy.
They’d later learn that his diagnosed injuries included a fractured vertebrae in his lower back, facial lacerations, and, most surprisingly to the doctors, a broken arm. Apparently Jessie had punched him so hard and so often in the same place that the bone had cracked.
Jessie was just allowing herself to close her eyes for a moment when her phone rang. She looked at the screen but didn’t recognize the number. Deciding this wasn’t the time to be cautious, she answered it.
“Jessie Hunt,” she said.
“Ms. Hunt, this is Officer Marie Gattis. I was assigned your sister, Hannah.”
“Is she okay?” Jessie demanded immediately.
“She’s fine,” Gattis assured her quickly. “But we did have a little excitement.”
“What does that mean?” Jessie asked, trying not to lose her cool.
“She’s with me now. I’ll let her fill you in on the details. But the gist is that multiple arrests have been made, including Richard ‘Rico’ Carter. We’re en route to the station so Hannah can provide a statement.”
“Regarding what?”
When the response came it wasn’t from Gattis.
“Jessie, we did it!” Hannah shouted through the phone.
“Please,” Jessie begged. “Someone tell me what is going on before I completely lose it.”
“Don’t be mad at me but I went with Rico. It’s a long story but he took me to the house you talked about, the one by the ocean. Marie and the other officers raided the place. They arrested a bunch of guys. There were girls being kept there, like nine or ten. We stopped them, Jessie!”
Listening to the excitement in Hannah’s voice, Jessie decided to go with it. She could press her or Officer Gattis for the details later. Right now wasn’t about that.
“That’s fantastic,” Jessie said. “And you’re sure that you’re okay?”
“Yeah. It was a little scary there for a while. Rico tried to rape me. But the cops came before he could.”
“He tried to what?”
“I’m okay, Jessie. Really, I wasn’t hurt.”
“All right,” Jessie replied, willing herself to remain calm. “I’m glad you’re okay. I have to take a colleague to the hospital but I’ll meet you at the station a little later. Just stay close to Captain Decker, understand?”
When she hung up, Jessie saw that Karen was looking at her with a goofy grin.
“What?”
“You were a good parent there,” Karen said, her voice cloudy. “You cared about how she was, not what she did.”
“Karen, I’m not her parent. I’m her sister.”
“I promise you. That’s not what she thinks.”
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX
Beto Estrada sounded scared.
It was Wednesday, a day after the raid on the Otis Estate. Jessie was in the Central Police Station conference room, waiting for everyone else to arrive, when she got the call. It came through over the conference room phone via the station front desk.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” Estrada said. “Is everything I saw on the news last night true? Did you really break up that trafficking ring?”
“Part of it,” she said. “We haven’t rolled everyone up yet. I’m actually a little surprised to hear from you. Should you be calling me?”
“I’m using the cell phone of a colleague at the firm,” he said.
“So you’re still worried?”
“Shouldn’t I be?” he asked. “I didn’t see anything about our mogul friend being arrested.”
“It hasn’t happened yet,” she admitted. “We’ve got lots of people in the chain of command rolling over on their higher-ups. But no one’s turned on him yet. In fact, right now he’s got a lot of sympathy because of Gilliard’s attack on him.”
