Carly heard more footsteps and yelling, and she realized the man with the shotgun was heading toward the back of the house, toward Nick. She stood up quickly and peeked into the hole in the front door, gun up on target. She saw the flash of a man’s back, heard the crash of glass and Rivers’s voice yell something and then the sounds of a struggle.
She grabbed the doorknob, but in spite of the shotgun blast, the lock still held. She kicked at the door and made the hole big enough to charge through. As she went through, she heard cursing. All she thought about was Nick in the backyard facing a panicked man armed with a shotgun.
She sprinted toward the back, Quan on her heels. Through the living room, then the kitchen. The back door was in shreds. Rivers was on the floor, bleeding from the head, and the shotgun was next to him.
Carly looked out the back door, and there was Nick. He had his knee on Grant’s back. One hand had firm control of Grant’s hands, and the other was removing the handcuffs from his shoulder holster as he prepared to apply them. The relief that flooded through her cleared her head. But she knew they needed to be certain no one else was in the house before they could relax.
“You got him under control?” she called out to Nick, and he nodded, holding up four fingers for code 4. Turning back, she saw that Quan was checking on Rivers, who was conscious.
“I’m okay,” Rivers said. “Sucker smacked me with the butt of the gun. Clear the house; don’t worry about me.”
Carly nodded. She and Quan went through the place carefully, room by room. It was a sparsely furnished house. The only thing of interest Carly found was a box of shotgun shells and a wall safe that was open and empty. She found herself wondering what had been in it. In the back bedroom Quan got her attention.
“Look.” He held up a half-used package of diapers.
Carly tore through every room again, but there was nothing else.
There was no A.J.
22
BY THE TIME Carly and Quan finished searching the house, Nick had brought Grant to the back porch and sat him down on the top stair. Rivers was holding a towel to his forehead. He told Carly he’d called for another unit to assist since he was pretty much out of commission.
“I heard the gunshots, and I was going to get the drop on him from behind,” Rivers explained, “but he ran back through here like a tornado and caught me by surprise.”
“Almost blew by me as well,” Nick said, “but I caught him.” He looked at Carly, and the light she saw in his eyes, confident fire she hadn’t seen in a long time, made her fight back a smile. “Nothing in the house?”
“Just these.” She held up the diapers and stepped to where Grant sat. He wore dirty jeans and smelled as if he had a transient relationship with the shower. “You’re under arrest for murder. Do we add kidnapping to the charges?”
He looked away. “Talk to my lawyer.”
Frustrated, she knelt down to speak at his level. “Look, you will be going to prison for running down Stanley Harper and shooting at us no matter what. I can ask for leniency, but not if you stonewall me with your lawyer.” She got no reaction. “The baby. All I care about is the baby. Was he here?”
Grant ignored her.
A wave of fatigue washed over Carly. They were close—she knew it. But she couldn’t shake the information out of him. She stood and paced the back porch. Then she noticed Nick in the backyard staring at something.
“What are you looking at?”
Hands on his hips, Nick turned, forehead wrinkled with a frown. “These vents.” He pointed, and Carly followed his index finger to where he indicated. She saw blunt poles and took Nick’s word that they were vents.
“There’s something underground,” Rivers said, taking the towel off his head, which had stopped bleeding. “An underground room, I’ll bet.” He motioned to Quan. “You see anything that might have been a trapdoor in the house?”
Quan shook his head. “We can tear up carpet if you want.”
“I’ll keep an eye on him.” Rivers pointed to Grant. “You guys search the grounds. I’ll bet dollars to donuts there’s an underground room out here.”
With renewed energy, Carly hopped off the porch. “What am I looking for? A trapdoor in the ground?”
“Or a room . . .” Nick stopped, and Carly followed his gaze off to the right, where two four-wheel ATVs were parked next to a shed.
They hurried over. The shed was padlocked.
“To do this by the book,” Nick said, “we should get another warrant.”
“What about the one we already have?” Quan asked. “Wouldn’t this fall under that search warrant?”
“No, it’s not specific enough. We didn’t include outbuildings. Search conditions apply to Grant and what falls under his care and control.” He pointed at the sullen prisoner. “I doubt he even has authority to give us consent to search.”
“We can call—”
Carly cut the rookie off. “Exigency. A.J. could be underground, dying as we stand here talking. I’m willing to stand up in court and defend this search on those grounds.” She held Nick’s gaze and knew what he was thinking. If they found something incriminating and the search was thrown out as illegal, Grant, and probably Sperry, would skate. But she knew she had to take that chance. They’d found diapers. A.J. had been here.
Nick nodded. “I’ll testify right next to you. Let’s find a way in.”
In a couple of minutes Quan came up with a crowbar. He and Nick destroyed the door and opened the shed. Inside they found a trapdoor and another lock.
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” Nick muttered as he applied the crowbar to the second lock and it shrilly squeaked open. Carly jerked the door up and peered down a flight of stairs. She jumped when she saw a bruised and bloody face looking back at her.
Alex Trejo.
It wasn’t until he spoke that Carly realized she’d been holding her breath.
“Edwards, I nominate you the patron saint of police beat reporters.”
Carly looked at Nick and imagined the shock on his face mirrored her own. She took a step toward Alex. “There better be a good story behind what you’re doing down here, Alex.”
“Yeah, yeah, there is. I’m not alone. But first, you need to know—I saw the baby. I saw A.J.”
23
CARLY ALMOST FROZE in shock when she stepped down to where Alex sat. The room was huge, and there were faces everywhere, peering at her in the low light emanating from recessed lights in the ceiling. Alex turned to the faces. “No tengan miedo. Quiere ayudarlos.”
He looked back at Carly. “I told them not to be afraid of you, that you will help them.”
“How did they get here?” Carly asked as she bent to untie Alex. His hands and feet were bound with thick rope.
“They were promised work and smuggled over the border in a truck. They’re waiting for someone to come and take them to work.”
In spite of the bruises, Carly could see the pity on Alex’s face.
“I’ve read stories about Mexicans dying because they’re packed into trailers and hauled up here. I think that’s how they got here. Transported like cattle.”
“We’ll see they’re treated well, given medical attention if they need it. But right now I need to get you out of here. I want to hear about A.J.”
Alex nodded and rubbed his wrists when they were free. “Esperen con calma,” he said to the group. “Pronto vendrán a ayudarlos.” Wait. Help will be here soon.
He and Carly went back up the stairs. As they climbed out of the hole and stepped into the backyard, two Riverside County patrol cars pulled around the house and came to a stop. Quan waved the deputies over.
Carly took Alex to the house, past Rivers still watching Grant on the back porch, while Nick and Quan explained to the assisting deputies what was going on and about the occupants of the cellar. Carly didn’t miss the shock on a couple of the new faces, and she knew there’d be a huddle to determine how to handle the can of worms that had just opened. Her focus now was
on what Alex had said.
“Tell me about A.J.”
“He was here with the girl, Mary Ellen.” The urgency in Alex’s voice had Carly on edge. “She stole my car and left. You need to get my license plate out there. You need to start looking for my car and you’ll find the baby.”
Carly took down the plate number and gave it to Rivers to put out over the air. She then called Nelson and told him what Alex had told her. When she finished making all the notifications she could make, she returned to Alex, who sat at the kitchen table holding ice to the side of his face.
A glance into the backyard made Carly happy that this was not her jurisdiction. More deputies had arrived, but they were reluctant to bring the people up from the hole because they didn’t know what to do with them once they were out. She’d heard some chatter on Rivers’s radio and knew that two Spanish-speaking deputies had gone down to determine the health and attitude of the people, but for the most part the deputies were unsure how to proceed. It just wasn’t a situation any of them had handled before. She’d also heard that agents from border patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement were on the way.
“How many of them are down there?” she asked Alex.
“Thirty-five men, women, and children. They told me they came up from Mexico sometime night before last and they’ve been down in that hole ever since. There’s one toilet down there, and all they’ve had to eat is trail mix and bottled water. Good thing I speak Spanish.” He set the ice down and regarded her. “You better let me start from the beginning or none of this will make sense.”
Carly nodded and joined him at the table. “You’ll start with what you’re doing here, I hope.”
“Yeah. I found the address through a web search—I was driving out here when I talked to you on the phone. I decided there was a story here and I wanted it. Anyway, when I got to the gate and found it locked tight, I wasn’t sure what would get me in. I was going to try and pick it when that bald guy came tooling down to the gate on an ATV, holding a shotgun.”
“Yeah, I’m familiar with his shotgun.”
“Anyway, I thought on my feet. I told him I’d been sent by Thomas Caswell to pick up the girl and the baby.”
“What?”
Trejo smiled sheepishly. “Well, I figured that one statement would let me know right away if he had the baby. I thought he bought it, since he opened the gate and told me to follow him up.”
“Is that when you saw Mary Ellen and A.J.?”
“He took me right to them. They were locked in a bedroom in the house, and the baby looked fine—happy and healthy.”
Carly sat back and digested this information, feeling relief and frustration at the same time. If only they’d gotten here sooner.
“Like I said, I thought he bought my story. I was talking to the girl, telling her to leave with me, when wham, something hit me on the back of the head.”
He put a hand on the spot and winced. “I’ve got a knot there. Next thing I know, I’m tied up and he’s dragging me down to the cellar. He smacked me around for a bit, wanted to know what I was up to. I told him the truth: I was a reporter and the police were on the way. He freaked out and left me down there with the illegals. It must have been about ten minutes later he came back down with the shotgun and I thought I was dead. He was hysterical, said the girl had left—she’d raided the safe, taken my car, and left—and he was beside himself. He had the gun in my face; he was crying and screaming that Sperry would kill him for letting her leave with his stuff.” Alex swallowed and held his head in his hands for a minute.
Carly put a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Alex. You’re okay.”
“Yeah, you saved me. There’s a TV monitor down in the cellar; they monitor the drive. He glanced at it and saw you guys coming up the drive. He hit me one more time and then took off to deal with you.”
Carly told him what had happened at the door.
Alex blew out a breath and leaned back. His right eye was going to be a lot blacker than either of hers, but she decided now was not the time to point it out.
“I really thought I was dead. He had the barrel of that shotgun pressed into my cheek. I’ve been to enough shootings to know what that can do to a person.” He ran a hand down his bruised face. “This is hard for me, but you remember when you told me about your swim—when Galen Burke tried to kill you, taking you out on that yacht? He was going to make you fish food but you jumped, and for at least part of that swim you thought you were going to die?”
Carly nodded, and Alex continued.
“Well, I’ve been in a lot of hairy situations. It comes with being an investigative reporter. But—” he paused and wiped his brow—“today I really thought I was dead. Out here in the middle of nowhere would be the perfect place to dump the body of a nosy reporter.”
Carly arched an eyebrow and folded her arms. “I could inject something about trying to play policeman, but I’ll give you a break for the moment.”
“Ha. Anyway, when I thought he was going to pull the trigger, I remembered what you’d said about praying to God, and . . . well, I did. I haven’t been to church since I was a little kid, so I hope I did it right. I did feel a peace. It was weird—here I was tied up in a hole with a bunch of strangers, being poked and prodded by a shotgun held by a madman, but I felt calm and the fear was gone.” His bloodshot eyes got wide, and he shook his head in disbelief. “Then he saw the monitor and he was gone. The next face I saw was yours. Did God answer my prayer, or was it just a coincidence?”
Carly smiled. “I’ve heard it said that there’s no such thing as coincidences, only God-incidences. If I’d been in your position, I would have done the same thing.”
Alex shook his head again. “It’s just all so unbelievable. I mean, if you’re right, this could change my whole life. I’m supposed to be the skeptical reporter, remember?”
“Yeah, I remember. And what I say is, go ahead and investigate. A guy with your talent, if you set your mind to finding out if God is real and if he answers prayer, you’ll get an answer.”
“Thanks.” He held out a grimy hand, and Carly shook it. “Looks like I owe you my life twice.”
“You don’t owe me anything. I did my job. Now you can keep doing yours. There’s got to be a huge story here.”
Nick came into the kitchen. He looked at Carly and jammed a thumb toward Trejo. “I take it he told you what he’s doing here?”
“Yeah. I’ll write a report that will sound like a novel.”
He nodded, his expression unreadable. “Alex, you need to get checked out by the medics. They just got here, and they’re going to be busy with all those people in the hole in a few minutes. Why don’t you go talk to them now. Plus, ICE will definitely want to talk to you. They’re also on the way. And Carly is right—this will be a huge story. This place looks to be a hub of human trafficking. Those people down there are not the first group to be held here.”
Alex shrugged and pushed himself up from the table. “Yeah, I’ll go out there and talk to the paramedics. Strangely enough, I’m not thinking about the story. I’m just glad I’m alive.” He left them in the kitchen.
As soon as he was gone, Nick took her hand.
“What?” she asked.
“Just a little delayed stress reaction,” he said as he gathered her in a hug and squeezed tight. “Carly, when I heard that shotgun blast, I—” His voice broke, and he pressed his cheek to her head.
Surprised and moved, Carly brought her arms around his back. “Hey, I’m okay. I know not to stand in front of a door. And you caught the bad guy.”
They stood like that for a few minutes before he sighed and released her. “I know. Like I said, it was a delayed reaction, something I needed to do.”
He looked at her with such warmth in his eyes she felt it down to her toes. “Thanks, Nick,” she said, giving his hands a squeeze. “I guess I needed it too.”
• • •
Their private moment didn’t last long. The River
side deputies were joined by ICE agents, and they began bringing the Mexican nationals up from the cellar. Soon, the scene outside the cellar could only be described as organized chaos as the minutes ticked by. The thirty-five illegal aliens were seated on the ground all around the backyard. A mixture of Riverside County deputies and ICE officers mingled throughout taking down names. The media had gotten wind of the situation, and at least three news choppers circled above.
“Wow,” Carly said as they stepped out the back door and she looked up. “This is a circus.”
“Wait until you walk around to the front.”
She saw what Nick meant. There was a paramedic rig, a couple of fire trucks, several large SUVs she guessed belonged to ICE, and numerous sheriff’s vehicles. Down the road, behind a barricade, were the news vans. Light was fading, and as much as she wanted to get involved in the search for A.J., she knew they’d be stuck on scene giving statements for a while.
ICE officers met them on the porch, and Carly and Nick told them everything that had happened when they got there. When the agents were satisfied with their statements and had all of their contact information, they told Carly and Nick to stand by while they searched the house in case there was anything else they needed to know. The agents then began a thorough and destructive search.
Carly and Nick made their way to the paramedic rig, where Alex, Rivers, and Quan were conversing with the EMTs. Rivers had a bandage on his head, but his eyes were bright with something Carly recognized. This was a big case that was going to involve a lot of big arrests before it was all over, something cops loved to be a part of.
“Hey, the DA is talking about an arrest warrant for Sperry,” he said as they approached.
“Really? They think they can tie this to Sperry?” Carly had her doubts. She could see Sperry claiming it was all Grant, the renter, and had nothing to do with him.
“Grant decided to talk. Once we found the illegals, he saw everything falling on him. He’s with one of the ICE guys, spilling his guts.”
“Did you hear anything about the girl and the baby?”
Abducted Page 16
