Nicked

by Michael Arches

  Hagrid stood and stared at the door. Her ears perked up as someone knocked. With her gun in hand, she went to the peephole. She was relieved to see it was Roger. Through the door, she asked, “How do I know this isn’t just some incredible disguise?”

  “Your favorite ice cream is coffee almond fudge.”

  She unlocked the door.

  “Always best to double-check,” he said. “I’ve got Janet with me.”

  Once they were all three locked in, he continued. “Unfortunately, Tabor is dirty…now on the run. No surprise there. Worse, one of my marshals, Tim Pilgrim, let himself get bamboozled by a dirty Feeb. Pilgrim never should’ve let Tabor come up here alone. Needless to say, Pilgrim has been suspended without pay, pending a full investigation.”

  “I’m running out of people I can trust,” Athena said.

  Roger nodded. “I know exactly how you feel. Janet here has sworn on her mother’s soul that she won’t cut any corners when it comes to security. She’ll stay with you, and I’ve armed her to the teeth. Plus, in an abundance of caution, we’re going to move you to a different room. It won’t be as fancy, but we all have to make sacrifices to stay alive.”

  The safer, the better. It didn’t take long for the three of them to load her stuff. Then, Roger checked the hallway before leading everyone out. Soon, Athena was in a new room on the floor below, without anyone else being the wiser.

  On his way out the door, Roger said, “We’ll let you know when the prosecutors are ready to practice your cross-exam. Janet and another marshal will escort you to the same room as before. Not sure when that’ll be. You should probably eat dinner as soon as the dining room opens. One of my marshals will bring what you want.”

  Athena wasn’t feeling the least bit hungry. “I can’t wait to get on the stand, tell my pitiful tale, and convict the bitch who’s working overtime to kill me.”

  “Amen, sister,” Janet said.

  Roger grinned and waved goodbye.

  -o-o-o-

  US 34, east of Greeley

  While Maude was driving to town in a blizzard, she called Curtis. The pimp was thrilled to get his hands on Dawn, after all. And as soon as he hung up, she received another call.

  This one came from the Weld County Jail. She answered.

  Rufus said, “They just let me out. Come and get me.”

  That was so like him. No Hi, Mom! Great to talk to you. He didn’t ask how she was doing or how she’d managed to farm without his help. It was always him, him, him.

  But she pushed that thought away. “Great to hear from you, son. I’m so happy they let you out early. How are you doing?”

  “All right. I need you to come now. Actually, I really need a drink. And a joint. Bring both.”

  The kid was definitely brain-damaged. “I can’t come for a few minutes, but I’m sure I’ll make it there within an hour. You know the café that’s a couple blocks from the jail? Wait for me there. Oh, I almost forgot, don’t get any ideas about going back to the farm. The FBI dropped by a couple of hours ago.”

  “That’s just fucking great. I got out in time to disappear before the Feds show up.”

  She knew the news would piss him off, but she’d had to warn him. “Hey, I love you. Looking forward to seeing you soon.”

  The coldhearted bastard hung up without even saying goodbye.

  The snow finally began to taper off as Maude pulled into the Red Dragon’s parking lot. Six inches on the ground already. She drove around the back of the brothel, just as Curtis had told her earlier. She parked in front of the door marked Maintenance. Kane pulled up beside her.

  Curtis must have been watching a camera aimed at them because he opened the door. He held a Taser in one hand and smiled.

  “Let’s see what we got.”

  Maude carried a controller for the girls’ shock collars, just in case they got frisky. When she opened the back of the canopy, she said, “Don’t pull anything cute, ladies. Or else.”

  Both twits were smart enough to sit still. They’d wrapped their clothes and the bedsheets around themselves to keep warm. Only their sad faces showed. Boo-hoo.

  Snow swirled around everyone as Maude opened the tailgate and motioned for Dawn to exit. The girls glanced at each other, but they had no good options. Dawn slowly unfolded her legs and left her cocoon behind. Maude took off her shackles. Then Dawn turned and gathered her sheet full of clothes and stuff to take with her.

  “Leave it,” Curtis said.

  Maude nodded. Dawn let go of the sheet and slid off the tailgate onto the pavement.

  After locking Skye up again, the four walked into the building. The door led to a mostly empty room. The only furniture was a doctor’s exam table and several folding metal chairs.

  Curtis took over. “Strip, girl.”

  The pretty bitch did. Farm life had agreed with her. She had a perfectly toned body. Maude removed Dawn’s shock collar. Curtis snapped a couple of photos of her standing naked against a wall, her hands at her sides. She looked like she was about to burst into tears but thankfully didn’t. Maude had already had enough drama for one day.

  Curtis looked her over carefully, including forcing her to kneel on the exam table. He spread her cheeks and was apparently satisfied. “Did we say thirty?”

  “Yep,” Maude said.

  Curtis texted someone, and a moment later, a guy walked into the room with a bank deposit pouch. Maude opened it. The thing was filled with cash, six bundles of hundred-dollar bills.

  “You’re welcome to count it,” Curtis said.

  She did, confirming that each bundle contained fifty Benjamins. “It’s all here, Diesel.”

  He shook her hand and Kane’s. “Pleasure doing business with you. Call when you find someone else.”

  Maude headed for the door without giving Dawn a final glance. Kane followed. Maude didn’t have much time to plot strategy, but she couldn’t afford to make a mistake at this point. Needed to buy time to think.

  The parking lot outside the back of the building remained empty, except for the pickup and car. “I assume you want your twenty-five percent now,” she said.

  He grinned. “Naturally.”

  She gave him one bundle and counted out twenty-five bills on the pickup’s driver’s seat.

  He scooped the cash up and stuck it in his pocket. “What now?”

  “Did you arrange for the IDs?”

  “Sure. We can go one of two ways. For a hundred bucks each, we’ll get a reasonably good driver’s license with a number pulled out of thin air. For a thousand bucks each, we’ll get a driver’s license that’s guaranteed to fool everybody, including Homeland Security, a Social Security number that SSNVS will verify, and a credit card with a thousand-dollar credit limit.”

  Until a few minutes ago, she’d never seen a thousand dollars in cash in her life. Now she was walking around with over twenty times that much. Given her troubles, getting a good new identity seemed like a worthy investment. “You can do what you want, but I’ll go for the better plan.”

  He nodded. “Wise, seeing as how everyone and their fucking brother is looking for you. I’ll do the same. Follow me to this guy I know. If we get separated, give me a call.”

  -o-o-o-

  Cow Palace Public House

  Athena kept asking herself how she’d gone wrong by focusing on organic farms. Why else would a woman have a mixture of cow shit, bone meal, and perlite under her fingernails? It had to be organic fertilizer. Home gardeners used it, too, but why would a suburban mom or dad kidnap three beautiful young women to help them plant sweet peas and lettuce?

  No good answer came. At dinnertime, one of the guards took her and Janet’s orders and brought them plenty to eat. Leo was a ravenous little punk. While they feasted, Janet passed on what she’d heard during the trial’s first day. With surprising speed, the lawyers had picked a full jury and two alternates. The government’s opening statement was scheduled for first thing t
omorrow. Athena expected to be Elijah’s first witness.

  The time for the final trial-prep meeting kept getting pushed back. While Athena was twiddling her thumbs, she kept up with her messages. Tony left her an email on the secured network.

  Hot damn! As a Platinum Level customer, I just got the opportunity to screw an “innocent young blonde” up in Greeley. Even better, she looks exactly like Dawn Miller! No shit. Her photo’s attached. Tell me if I’m wrong. It’ll cost me, I mean you, a grand to get me on her schedule at two a.m. tonight. I only have ten minutes to respond before they give my time to someone else. What do I do?

  If true, this was fantastic news. Athena opened the attachment. A beautiful young woman, tears welling in her eyes, stood naked against a bare wall. She sure as hell resembled the photos Athena had seen of Dawn, but there was one way to be sure. She photoshopped the picture to create a second one from the shoulders up and sent it to Beau. He’d talked to Dawn’s parents several times, and he could contact them again.

  As for Tony, she emailed back, Sign up. I’m 99% sure it’s her. Double-checking right now. If it turns out to be someone else, we can still try to get her out.

  A moment later, Elijah called. “We’re downstairs. Time for you to be flame-broiled in the witness box.”

  Chapter 18

  Maude’s farm

  Beau parked on the muddy, lonely road outside the farm. Without a warrant, he couldn’t go further. His fake routine about license plates wouldn’t work because Gacy had already refused access. Both the house and the barn were dark, but an eighteen-wheeler had backed up to the greenhouse. That seemed odd.

  Beau’s main role at the moment was to keep Gacy from escaping before they could get a warrant, but it might already be too late for that. Both the Silverado and the car that had been parked in front of the house before had vanished.

  He waited until Lenny called.

  “Good news,” the CBI supervisor said. “I’m over at the hospital with Mingus and Erin. He picked out Maude’s photo from an array of six. The game is afoot, as Sherlock Holmes used to say.”

  “I’m outside her farm, but I suspect the game has afooted out of here already. We need a warrant for me to go in and check.”

  “Not a problem,” Lenny said. “I’ve got an assistant attorney general already talking to a judge, now that we have confirmation from Mingus. Call you soon.”

  Athena sent an encrypted message that turned out to be even better news. She thought Dawn had been sighted, but before he told Lenny, he needed to confirm with her parents. Time was of the essence.

  Beau forwarded Athena’s photograph of the woman in question, and he followed up with a phone call to Dawn’s father.

  Thank the Virgin, the guy answered. “Yes! That’s definitely her. She has a tiny mole on her collarbone, just to the right of her chin. Have you got her yet?”

  This was the part of the job Beau preferred—the final chase. “Not quite, but we know where she is. It’ll take us an hour or two to arrange a raid. In the meantime, not a word to anybody but your wife. If the bastards who have her get any hint that we’re coming, they’ll vanish with her. I’ll call you soon as I know more.”

  After listening to a mixture of laughing and crying and thanks, Beau hung up and called Lenny to pass on the confirmation on Dawn’s identity.

  “We should have the warrant for Gacy soon,” Lenny said. “In my abundant free time, I’ll work on a search warrant for the brothel and arrange for our SWAT team to move out.”

  “Listen,” Beau said, “we’ve got to be damned careful about our next move. If word gets out, and we know the cartel has people inside lots of law enforcement agencies, we could blow this.”

  “Sure, but our guys are top-notch. We’ve never had a leak, and it’ll take them an hour to reach Greeley in this weather, so I’ve got to put them in motion before we receive the second warrant. You need to be particularly careful, Beau. The word I’m getting from that fiasco in Cheyenne is somebody at DOJ fingered their crucial witness.”

  “It looks that way,” Beau said as he fought to keep his stomach from revolting. “Just in case, I’m not telling a damned soul on our side about this news. Hope to see you soon.”

  Beau hung up and waited in the deepening gloom. Everything could still go to hell.

  A few minutes later, Lenny transmitted the warrant for Maude’s arrest. Although he didn’t have any reinforcements, he wasn’t about to wait any longer. Beau drove up to the front door of the house and confirmed no lights or sounds from the inside.

  He knocked several times then yelled, “FBI!”

  No one answered. He trudged through six inches of snow to the greenhouse. Two guys were hauling seedlings into the truck.

  Beau opened his coat in case he needed easy access to his pistol. “FBI, fellas. Keep your hands where I can see them. What’s going on?”

  “Whoa!” a white-haired guy yelped as both men raised their hands.

  “Take it easy,” the man stuttered. “This is completely legit. Maude called me a couple of hours ago and said she had to shoot out to Nebraska on short notice. Asked if I wanted to buy her organic seedlings at fifteen cents a six-pack. ‘Sure!’ I said. Got a receipt.”

  Shit! This was getting worse and worse. She had bolted. “Show me, sir, nice and slow.”

  The guy pulled out a handwritten bill of sale signed by Maude Gacy.

  “Thanks. Where exactly in Nebraska did she say she was going?”

  “Just some aunt with stage IV colon cancer. It sounded awful. Maude doesn’t expect to be back for a couple months. Too bad, because that trip will wipe out her entire growing season.”

  Beau asked more questions but got nothing helpful. He let the men continue their work and headed to the house’s back door. After more knocks and yelling, he punched out one of the glass panes with the butt of his pistol and reached in to unlock the door. He used his flashlight instead of turning on the house lights.

  Cupboards were open, and some kitchenware still dotted the shelves. He checked every room to be sure the house was vacant. More things left behind. Maude had obviously packed in a hurry.

  In the basement, something odd glittered in his flashlight’s beam as it swept past the window. He peered closer. Bits of metal were sprinkled lightly over the sill. And up above, two of the bars protecting the window had been cut at the top. The second was only partially sawed through.

  The cellar had obviously been a prison, but somebody had come damned close to escaping. Three single beds rested on bare dirt near the foot of the stairs. Beau grabbed a pillowcase from each one, hoping they might provide DNA. A crime scene crew would come through later, but he didn’t want to take a chance on losing the best chance to find the victims’ DNA. He wouldn’t have time to reseal the back door before he had to go meet Lenny’s team at the whorehouse in Greeley.

  -o-o-o-

  Manuel Estrella’s residence, Greeley

  Maude quickly realized that farming was definitely the wrong way to make a living. Estrella barely spoke English, and he knocked out a pair of drivers’ licenses, matching Social Security cards, and two credit cards in less time than it took to watch an episode of Jeopardy.

  But it was worth it. Maude Gacy was gone forever, and Rachel Thurgood had come to life. With her new look, she was safe.

  “What’s next?” Kane asked.

  “We rent the cabin.”

  “Well, my friend says we can’t meet him at his house until seven-thirty.” Kane checked his watch. “That’s two hours from now, and Longmont isn’t far away. Plus, there’s another teensy-weensy problem. I don’t have enough money to pay for half of the deposit and the first month’s rent. He insists on getting both up-front.”

  They’d have to pay six grand, and Kane’s share was only three. “The hell you don’t,” Maude said with a grimace.

  “Hey, I still need some cash for living expenses. You should pay four of the six this time. After we
grab another girl, I’ll pay half the rent going forward.”

  Once again, the asshole was jerking her around, but she pushed down her anger. As soon as she knew where the cabin was located, she could get rid of the dirtbag. “I’ll loan you two thousand until we grab the next girl. That’s the best I can do.”

  Prick that he was, he had to think about it for a while before saying, “Fine.”

  Why did he have to try to screw her over every little thing? “Okay, give me the guy’s address. I’ll meet you there at seven-thirty. That’ll give me time to run a couple of errands.”

  -o-o-o-

  After those sick, twisted monsters had taken Dawn away, Skye couldn’t hold her tears back anymore. Until she’d met Maude, Rufus, and Kane, she’d never believed in pure evil. Now, she knew better.

  Skye had a pretty good idea what that pimp would force Dawn to do, but there wasn’t a damned thing Skye could do to help either Dawn or herself. And Skye’s fate might be worse. Maude might’ve decided to kill her in some remote spot where Skye’s body would never be found.

  And the cold was getting worse. Skye’s teeth began to chatter. Earlier, she and Dawn had stayed warm by wrapping themselves in their few possessions. Skye pulled Dawn’s stuff over her, but the cold still seeped into her bones. And she couldn’t do a thing to help herself.

  -o-o-o-

  Cow Palace Public House

  Athena sat in the small conference room with Janet, Elijah, and Norma. Hagrid slept next to Athena’s chair. DOJ’s lead prosecutor didn’t pull any punches in his practice cross-exam, but Athena wasn’t fazed. His belittling questions didn’t rattle her, and her story was so simple that he couldn’t catch her in a contradiction. A nasty lawyer’s tricks paled in comparison to all the death and destruction she’d experienced and was still experiencing.

  Life hadn’t been kind to Athena over the last few years, and her physical and mental struggles had hardened her against stupid lawyer word games. Most of all, she wanted payback from the she-demon Santiago.