Dangerous Passage

by Lisa Harris

  “We will need to see her INS documentation and talk to your husband as well.”

  “He’s on a flight back to Atlanta later this evening. He’ll be able to provide you with what you need.”

  “I assume she lives here with you.”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you mind if we look at her room before we leave?”

  “I . . .” Mrs. Chu glanced toward the staircase. “Like I said, my husband will be able to provide you with what you need when he returns.”

  Avery bit back a heated response. If they needed to, she’d come back with a search warrant. “I just have one last question before we go, Mrs. Chu. Does Malaya have a tattoo?”

  “Yes, on her shoulder. Some kind of white flower.”

  A magnolia.

  Avery stood and started for the door beside Tory. “If we have further questions, we will be in touch with you. And in the meantime, I would file a missing persons report with the police station.”

  A minute later, Avery and Tory stepped out of the air-conditioning and back into the humid Georgia air. “So what do you think?”

  “That she’s more concerned about how her husband will react than the well-being of a young girl.”

  Avery sensed Tory was right, there was an ugly picture beginning to emerge. “She doesn’t want us to look at Malaya’s room or documents, doesn’t have contact info for any of her friends, no English or phone use . . .”

  “Just like Tala. Which means we’re probably looking at more than a serial killer case.”

  Avery nodded. “Girls brought into the country illegally and forced to work.”

  Long hours. Little or no pay. She wanted to believe that such scenarios only happened in faraway places on the other side of the world, but she knew that wasn’t true. The United States wasn’t immune to human slavery any more than she was going to be immune to this winter’s flu season. But they needed proof to back up their growing concerns.

  Tory slid into the passenger seat beside Avery. “If they are keeping illegal girls and using them as domestic slaves, it would explain why the Sourns are lying. Facing the possibility of stiff fines and even prison time gives them more than enough motivation to keep things hidden. What we don’t know is why—or who—is targeting these girls.”

  “Maybe because they are vulnerable and have nowhere to go.” Avery started the car and headed back toward the precinct. “Clearly, Mrs. Chu didn’t want Malaya using the phone or learning English.”

  “Do you think she took the phone and ran?”

  “Teo could have helped her against his mother’s wishes. Knowing how to use a cell phone and speak a few phrases of English could have been her key to escape.”

  Tory pulled out her laptop. “In the meantime, if Malaya still has the phone, we can try to track her location.”

  “Do it.”

  Because if they didn’t find her soon, there was a good chance they wouldn’t find her alive.

  28

  Malaya couldn’t stop shaking. His instructions had been clear when he’d stepped out of the car. If she tried to run or get someone’s attention, he would kill her. Just like Tala. He knew she wouldn’t run. How many times had they told her what would happen if she tried to escape?

  There was nowhere to run.

  Malaya breathed in the gas fumes seeping through the crack at the top of the car window as he pumped the fuel. On the horizon, dark clouds gathered, laced with narrow threads of lightning. The coming storm only added to her fears. When she was younger, she used to climb the twisted staircase to the top floor of their house, hand in hand with her father, until they reached the balcony, where they would watch the storms rumble across the sky. From their perch on the open patio, they could see the crowded alley below and smell mouthwatering scents of smoked pork and fresh prawns drifting up from the street corners, and she would forget her fear of thunderstorms.

  That was a lifetime ago.

  It wasn’t the first time she wished she could get lost in the sea of pedestrians and crowded markets home offered. There was so much she missed—hawkers singing on the streets while selling bread, the tiny café where she used to sip coffee with milk and egg white, and even the incessant honking of motorbikes.

  Malaya gnawed on her lip as she studied the unfamiliar scene now surrounding her.

  The promises of a better life were empty. Maybe she could hold her breath until everything went dark and she felt nothing. But all she could think about was Tala.

  Tala had been promised the same things she had. Freedom, a job, and a new life. As much as she prayed, it wasn’t going to be any different for her. Mr. Chu had told her that the police would arrest her if they discovered she was in the country without papers. Prisoners were beaten and left to starve, and he’d given her a taste of what it would be like if they found her.

  Rain began to splash onto the black pavement. Malaya shivered despite the heat. She never should have tried to talk to the policewoman. They wouldn’t help. Without the right papers, she’d end up in jail.

  Unless that too was just another lie.

  Despite the risk, she’d kept the card, because when she’d looked into the woman’s eyes, she hadn’t seen the hate or suspicion she’d expected. Instead, she’d seen kindness. But evil often raised its head disguised as benevolence. Maybe prison wasn’t any worse than the beatings and long hours she was forced to work. And then there was the way she’d seen Mr. Chu look at her the past few weeks. One day, when his wife and Teo were out, she knew he’d come for her.

  She dug her hand into the pocket of her skirt and wrapped her fingers around the cell phone, surprised her captor hadn’t noticed it. She hadn’t planned to take it. She was only going to call the woman and Teo had agreed to help. It had been their secret. She owed it to Tala to help find out the truth.

  Teo had turned off the ringer so his mother wouldn’t hear them if it rang, then slowly dialed the number at the kitchen table. By the time she heard the steps on the staircase, it had almost been too late. In a panic, she’d dropped the phone into her pocket before Mrs. Chu entered the room, then slipped out the side door. If she got caught, she’d planned to tell Mrs. Chu she was bringing in the garbage can from the street. It was the one time she was allowed outside the house.

  That was when he’d grabbed her. She pressed the phone closer against her chest, praying he wouldn’t discover her only link to freedom.

  She looked at the clock on the dashboard. Another minute had gone by. He’d left the car running while he stood out in the hot sun, pumping gas, his hat pulled low so no one would recognize him. Drips of perspiration ran down the back of his neck, under his arms, and through the shirt.

  A fat man with a red cap on came near the car. She could hear him yelling at someone across the parking lot. She wished she could understand the words. What if she signaled him somehow? Got his attention?

  The man turned and jumped into his beat-up truck, never noticing her.

  Malaya’s heart pounded in her throat. She had to call before he got back into the car, but without Teo she only had a smattering of English words she could use.

  Another minute passed. He would be coming back soon. She was running out of time. The woman wouldn’t be able to get here in time. And she might never have the chance to call again.

  Malaya peeked out the window. There was a row of buildings in the distance. What if she ran to the building and hid behind it? She was strong and could run fast.

  The door was unlocked. She pressed her fingers against the metal handle, weighing the risks. He was going to kill her anyway. She’d seen it in his eyes.

  Malaya pushed open the door, slid from her seat, and ran.

  29

  Avery pulled her sedan against the curb, then put the vehicle into park, her protection detail still trailing a hundred feet behind her. She turned to Tory. “How much time to locate the cell phone?” They couldn’t waste time looking in the wrong direction.

  “Not long. Give me a few minut
es, and I should be able to locate her within fifty meters or so, thanks to the density of the mobile traffic in the area.”

  “We don’t have a few more minutes. If he’s got her, he’s going to kill her.”

  Avery grasped the steering wheel while Tory worked, wishing they knew more about their killer’s pattern. How long had he kept the girls before he killed them? Where did he take them? There were too many questions. Too many unknowns. And no time to make a mistake. She put in a call to Mitch and Carlos and told them to be ready as soon as they had a location.

  “I’ve got her.” Tory pointed to the gridded map on the computer screen. “The triangulation pinpoints the phone’s location to a gas station seven miles from here. And at the moment, it’s not moving.”

  Seven miles.

  “We can assume that the distance was too far for her to have walked on her own.”

  Which also upped the odds that someone actually had taken her.

  Avery pulled out into traffic. “Let Mitch and Carlos know where we’re going, then give our protection squad an update. We could use the extra backup.”

  Six minutes later, Avery pulled into the parking lot of the gas station and stopped beneath the huge overhead canopy, praying they weren’t six minutes too late. Exiting the car with Tory, she studied the scene. If her captor had brought her here, he’d probably chosen the busy station on purpose, where it would be easy to get lost in the crowd. Where no one would remember his face.

  Or the face of a young, kidnapped Vietnamese girl.

  Rows of pumps—most of them filled with customers—spread out to her left. The station’s convenience store ran parallel behind it. There were side entrances and delivery doors in the building, giving them a lot of ground that needed to be covered.

  Avery turned back to Tory. “Any movement on the cell phone?”

  “Nothing.”

  She had to be here.

  Avery’s focus narrowed. An old man stood beside his pickup truck, pumping gas. A woman came out of the store with two children eating ice cream. A car of teenage boys messed around while filling their tank. All of them were oblivious to a possible life-and-death situation taking place around them.

  Where was she?

  Mitch and Carlos pulled into the parking lot right behind them and jumped out, joining officers Kelly and Taylor.

  “Where do you want us, boss?” Mitch asked.

  Avery laid the photograph Mrs. Chu had given her on the hood of her car and started handing out instructions. “If our serial killer is involved, we’re going to need to work as quickly as possible. Mitch and Carlos, join Kelly and Taylor and start searching all the cars in the lot. We might not have a search warrant, but we definitely have probable cause. Tory and I will search inside. If she’s here, I want her found.”

  Avery and Tory ran past the dozen cars fueling up with gas toward the convenience store. “Has the signal moved?”

  Tory glanced at the computer screen in her hands. “The signal’s still not moving.”

  Avery flashed her badge and announced their presence to the manager on duty before she and Tory split up to search inside the huge building. Avery headed toward the bathrooms past rows of junk food, a long line of fountain drinks, and for those feeling a bit more health conscious, a selection of fresh sandwiches and salads.

  But there was no sign of Malaya.

  Inside the white-tiled bathroom, she shoved open the door of the first stall with the toe of her shoe, letting the metal door slam against the wall. The woman standing at the counter applying a layer of lipstick paused, her eyes wide.

  Avery held up her badge along with Malaya’s photo, then moved on to the next stall. “I’m Detective North. I’m looking for this young woman.”

  The woman’s gaze dropped to Avery’s gun peeking out beneath her jacket before shaking her head and heading toward the exit. “I’m sorry. I haven’t seen her.”

  Avery moved on to the last stall. It was empty.

  She pushed open a cramped closet filled with mops, brooms, and the strong industrial smell of cleaning products. Nothing.

  Avery turned to leave, stopping when she caught her profile in the mirror. Her face was pale and there were dark shadows under her eyes from lack of sleep. She hesitated. He’d tried to get into her head and won. The card, the flower, Michael’s signature, the break-in . . .

  All of it was nothing more than a game to him.

  But he wasn’t going to win this time. She was going to track him down and find Malaya before he did anything to hurt her. And then ensure that he spent the rest of his life in a high-security prison.

  Which meant every second counted.

  Avery stepped back into the brightly lit storefront. Tory was making her way down the chip aisle toward her.

  “Anything?”

  Tory shook her head. “I checked the men’s restroom and the delivery entrances. She’s not there and no one has seen her.”

  “She’s not in the back either.”

  Where was she?

  The front door opened. Mitch entered, holding up a black cell phone, with Carlos trailing a step behind. “I found the phone.”

  “Where?”

  “Against the curb near the west entrance of the parking lot.”

  “But no sign of Malaya?”

  “Nothing. I instructed the other officers to expand the search, but there’s no sign of her so far.”

  Avery felt the air rush out of her lungs. Without the phone in Malaya’s possession, they had no way to trace her.

  God, where is she? We need another miracle.

  She fought to put the pieces of the puzzle into some sort of semblance. Logic said that Malaya’s kidnapper—a theory she was going to assume true at this point—had stopped to get fuel for his vehicle and left as quickly as possible. Somehow in the process, Malaya had lost the phone. But that still didn’t put them any closer to knowing where she might be.

  “He could have discovered the phone and dumped it.” Tory rested her hands against her hips, clearly as frustrated as the rest of them. “They could be halfway across the city by now.”

  “I realize that, but there is also the chance—slim as it might be—that she tried to run and is still here. Tory, verify Mrs. Chu’s story about her husband being out of town, so we can eliminate him as a suspect. As soon as you’re done, you can help me check all the transactions that have gone through over the past hour and see if anyone came through here who is related to the case.” Pushing aside any emotional attachments to the case was the only way she was going to be able to focus. “Carlos and Mitch, get with the manager and go through the video footage for the last hour to see if Malaya is on there. I want to know every person who has passed through here, especially if we can somehow link them to this case.”

  Avery started toward the front of the store, praying that the miracle that would point them in the right direction was here. A minute later, she was sorting through the receipts. Most were credit card transactions, and none of the names raised a red flag. After verifying that Mr. Chu had indeed left for New York three days ago and was scheduled to return tonight as his wife had told them, Tory started cross-referencing names in order to find any connections with the case or those with a criminal past.

  “We’ve got five cash transactions.” Avery held up the receipts. “Let’s run the time stamp on the receipts against the times on the videos and see if we can get a match and identify the customers.”

  They were one step closer.

  Avery mentally sorted through what they had, trying to see the situation through their killer’s eyes. He’d picked one of the busier stations in the area, presumably hoping no one would remember his face. Paying cash meant risking a face-to-face encounter with the cashier, but it was less risky than using a credit card that would leave a paper trail. If taking Malaya had been a crime of opportunity, then he was making things up as he went along, which in the end, gave them a slight advantage. All he had to do was make one mistake. But they
needed his identity.

  Avery stood at the video monitor beside John, one of the cashiers helping them. “You were working out front?”

  His hand trembled as he reached up to scratch his face. “Yes.”

  “I need you to tell me anything you can remember—anything about these cash transactions while we watch the customers on the video.”

  “I’ll try, but we have so many customers going through . . .”

  “Anything you can tell us will help.”

  “Okay.”

  Mitch began cuing up the time frames on the video that matched the cash receipts. They watched the first match. An older woman, seventy, seventy-five, paid cash for her gas.

  John nodded. “She paid her bill in quarters and pennies.”

  “Doesn’t look nervous and certainly doesn’t fit any profile.” Just slow. “Next.”

  John didn’t come up with anything until the fourth customer. “Wait. I remember him. He had his hat pulled low. Mumbled, seemed in a hurry. Nervous.”

  The video feed was grainy. “Can you give a detailed description?”

  “I don’t know. Midfifties. Asian, I think.”

  Avery’s mind started clicking. It had to be him. “You’re sure about that?”

  John nodded his head. “Yeah . . . yeah, I’m sure.”

  “Okay. Mitch, see if you can get a clear shot of his face, then find the corresponding video from outside so we can identify him getting into his car.”

  Two minutes later, Mitch paused the tape again. “There isn’t a clear shot of his face inside the store, but take a look at this.”

  Their suspect unlocked a dark sedan with tinted windows. “That’s him.”

  Tory tapped on the screen. “The car matches the description Mrs. Chu gave about a vehicle she spotted in the neighborhood when she went out to look for Malaya.”

  “Rewind the video thirty seconds, before he exits the store, and slow it down to half speed.” Avery held her breath while Mitch rewound the video. “There . . . there she is. Malaya exited the vehicle right before he returned from paying for his gas.”