Girls With Guns

by Ali Vali

  Valerie’s tone was firm, but she also made no sense. The Eatons weren’t especially fond of her, but they found it important to spend time with the children and paint a totally unrealistic picture of Nicola and their equally brilliant Uncle Frederick. Cutting the visit short on their turf was incredibly out of the ordinary.

  “We’re running late,” she said, her gut telling her to lie. “Are you sure you don’t want to reschedule?”

  “It’s business, which I won’t bother you with, but no. Leave today and I’ll be in touch.”

  Abigail stood holding the phone, but Valerie had already hung up. “How about pizza instead?” The girls nodded but were still sniffling, so she stopped at the first spot she could find to sit down. After a few minutes of hugs and reassurances everyone seemed fine, but she guessed Sadie would have a lot of questions later.

  Victoria was completely okay after two bags of bright-purple M&M’s and a stuffed candy character for her and one for her little brother Liam. Victoria carried the plush toy under her arm, and it got its own seat at the pizza place their hotel valet recommended. Abigail tried to remain upbeat, hoping the children would forget what they’d seen. She could just imagine what the people in that vehicle looked like after the hail of bullets hit it from all sides.

  “Where’d you want to go, Sadie?” she asked as Sadie picked at her second slice of lunch.

  “The big toy store Nan took us to before. Do you think we’ll be okay to go?” Sadie asked, using the term she and Victoria had called Nicola.

  “That’s a good idea, and we’ll take a cab. I promise we’ll be fine. Think you can wait until after naptime?”

  “Yeah. Then we can stay longer if no one’s cranky,” Sadie said and laughed when Victoria punched her in the arm with a greasy hand. Abigail guessed it was for the cranky comment.

  “No hitting your sister. Now let’s go back to our room so I won’t be too cranky to buy treats.”

  Chapter Two

  “Is that all the cameras we’ve got in the area?” Russell Welsh asked the guys manning the terminals in their main conference room.

  No one would forget a mass killing in the heart of the city anytime soon, and he’d been on the phone with more politicians and self-described important people from the time the last bullet was fired than he had all year. All of them demanded answers and results, but none of them realized he couldn’t do anything if he was on the damn phone.

  “We’re subpoenaing the businesses in the area for their footage, so this is all we’ve got so far,” one of the techs said.

  “Call every one of them back and tell them cooperation will help not dry up their business if people are too scared to go out.”

  “But ask nicely,” Finley said when she stepped next to Russell. “Politeness goes over better than threats.”

  “Can you find anything while we wait?” Russell asked her. “You know, work your magic through the back door.”

  “I could, but if we find something it’ll be inadmissible in court. Give it a few hours, but until then let me take a look.” One of the guys gladly moved when she arrived, and they all watched as she pulled up footage from all the police cameras within a one-mile radius.

  With a little tweaking, two of the shooters’ faces became clearer, but the stockings over their heads still made a positive ID impossible. Finley widened the search in small increments, then stopped when she reached the blond woman with three children.

  “Who’s that?” Russell asked.

  “Innocent bystander who thinks quick on her feet, and because she did, she saved those three cute kids. We need to track her down.”

  Russell placed his hand on her shoulder and turned her around. “The police commissioner was one of the first to call after this shit. He wants our cooperation and resources, but he also wants the NYPD to handle the investigation. Right now you’re the best bet going for all sides. Since technically you’re currently a NYPD detective, he doesn’t mind you working the case. That’ll keep us in the loop.”

  “Sir, Agent Abbott is a computer geek, not an investigator,” one of the guys in the room said, obviously not happy with Russell’s decision.

  “Who was in the bus?” Finley asked before Russell could answer.

  “I was wondering when someone would ask,” Russell said with a touch of sarcasm, even though they were a little over an hour into their investigation. “We’ve got nine dead inside.”

  “All due respect, sir, but the police that responded provided that count as part of their initial call-in,” the same guy said.

  “Finley, pull up the pictures.”

  Two of the women’s faces were unrecognizable because of the carnage, but Finley recognized three of the women lying dead at odd angles on the floor. These women, from Honduras, had managed to contact her and her team about their circumstances, which in each case began with a familiar story about the promise of a new life in the States. The job they’d been offered, though, had nothing to do with cleaning services or taking care of rich people’s kids. It had everything to do with the growing sex trade. Once the women arrived, very few of them ever found a way out until they were so broken the monsters who’d exploited them threw them away to the streets or unmarked graves.

  Very few of them even made it to the streets, where they might be able to call for help.

  “Damn.” Finley exhaled loudly and fell back in her seat. She’d spoken to these women and given them her word she’d do everything she could to find them and help them. Deportation back to poverty, they’d told her, was better than their life now. That was one of the reasons she was working out of the Bronx. An NYPD informant had infiltrated one of the sex rings and talked to a woman named Gloria, leaving a phone number and a throwaway phone with her. “That was our only lead.”

  “If you couldn’t locate them, how would you know it’s them?” one of the agents not working the case asked.

  “This girl…” Finley pointed to the young woman on the left with the bleached hair. “Her name’s Gloria Sanchez, and her only communication with me wasn’t a call. It was a text, including selfies, to the cell number I was able to get to her through the informant. She wanted me and the team to recognize her and her friends when we found them. I was able to triangulate the signal of the phone she used to a three-block radius, but these bastards are good.”

  “Why do you say that?” the agent asked.

  “It took us a few weeks, but we checked every building and found nothing. If they were there, they’d been moved.”

  “Abbott’s right,” Russell said. “They move regularly and so far have left very few clues. The traffic coming through the Bronx precinct has been the most prolonged we’ve gotten, but it’s turned into squat.”

  “All these girls,” she pointed to the van, “are seeing on average ten guys a night, for maybe fifty to a hundred bucks, depending on what the john was in the market for. Low overhead and quantity are the secrets to this business’s success.” She stared at everything around the bus, trying to find what didn’t belong. “Nothing fits that scenario. Any clientele around here is looking for a different level of professional.”

  “There’s no one left to question, and the shooters fled in the chaos,” Russell said.

  “Where’s the driver?” she asked.

  “Seat was empty, and he or she managed to slip every camera with a well-placed hoodie,” one of her team said. “The bus was reported stolen three days ago.”

  “That’s bullshit. Lean on the livery people. Somebody drove that off the lot and got paid well to do it.” Something didn’t fit and Finley couldn’t figure out what.

  Russell sent a couple of guys to talk to the company that owned the bus, while she followed the path the woman and her children had taken. She guessed the valet the woman had talked to had to be a clue as to where she was staying. Russell called the police commissioner and got the green light for her and Roberta to find the woman for questioning.

  “Hunt these bastards down,” Russell
said as she got ready to go.

  “That’s what motivates me to get up every morning, boss.”

  *

  Abigail flagged a cab and sat in the middle of the backseat with Liam on her lap. She wanted to follow Valerie’s advice to fly home, but she didn’t want her children to fear coming to the city. There was no telling how involved in their lives the Eatons wanted to be, but these trips seemed to be important to them. She wanted to avoid making any future treks with three terrified kids.

  FAO Schwarz had been a yearly happening with Nicola, and the only Sadie thing really remembered about those trips. Abigail loved to reminisce about it because she remembered Sadie’s complete joy at having Nicola’s total attention. Business usually didn’t allow that type of free time, but her late partner had seemed to enjoy one of her own happy memories with their children.

  “Look at the man, Mama,” Victoria said excitedly as she pointed at the guy dressed like a soldier outside the store.

  “I see,” she said, and choked up. They might’ve not been getting along, but she still missed Nicola at times.

  “Come on, Mama,” Sadie said and grabbed her hand, ready to go.

  She paid the driver and glanced toward the Plaza, not seeing anything out of the ordinary. Not that she’d know what to look for. “Hold Victoria’s hand,” she said as she allowed Sadie to open the door.

  They started for the front entrance, and she figured it was too late when she saw the guy separate from the crowd. In that instant she knew her gut had been right. Something was very wrong, and the morning’s incident was more than what it seemed. This time she didn’t have anywhere to run, and she prayed he was there only for her.

  “Mom,” Sadie said, and the panic in her voice was hard to miss.

  Chapter Three

  “How’d you swing this?” Roberta asked as they headed to the toy store after speaking to the cab company and finding out where Abigail Eaton had been dropped off.

  Finley drove through the heavy traffic, not wanting to miss this woman who might’ve seen their shooters sans masks. She had one of the team finding out about Mrs. Eaton, but so far all they had was that she and the children were visiting from New Orleans.

  “The people in the limo bus are connected to our investigation, so the big boys agreed to our help. There’s general confusion as to why, and why there.”

  “You think they’re moving these women to places we wouldn’t think to look? The only two spots we’ve come close to were in industrial parks in mobile trailers with shitty partitions and no paper trail as to who owned them,” Roberta said as she placed her hand on the dash to brace herself when Finley had to slam on the brakes.

  She had to tense as well when a cab cut her off, but that wasn’t what held her attention. People were always in front of FAO Schwarz, but now people seemed to be running in the opposite direction too fast to not signal something was wrong.

  “What the hell?” Roberta said as traffic ground to a halt.

  Finley slapped the blue light on the roof and got out. She and Roberta weaved through the crowd, and at the corner she saw a man with a gun pointed at the woman who appeared to be her witness. The guy shot, and Eaton went down with the little kid in her arms and the other two started screaming. Without hesitation she drew her weapon as she ran. “NYPD, drop your weapon,” she yelled, knowing he wouldn’t, so she pulled the trigger when he turned the gun on her.

  The guy went down, but she hadn’t aimed to kill him, only to disable him. She needed him alive to start connecting her very scattered dots. “Cuff him,” she said to Roberta as she headed to Eaton. Abigail was alive, but the arm of her coat was covered in blood. “Stay down, you’re okay,” she said as she knelt next to Abigail, her badge hanging around her neck.

  “What happened—who was that guy?” Abigail asked, her face a mask of pain.

  “We’ll find out soon enough,” she said as she took her phone out to call for an ambulance. “Are you hit anywhere else?”

  “Just my arm, and I’m pretty sure it’s only a flesh wound.” Abigail held pressure on her arm and tried to smile, Finley guessed for her children’s sake.

  “Do you have a compact X-ray machine in your purse?”

  “I’m guessing, but I’m also a pediatrician, so I have some medical experience to draw from. Not that I get a lot of gunshot victims in my practice, but I’m from New Orleans, so it’s not impossible.”

  “Think you can walk?” Finley didn’t get up but was glad to see the number of police bearing down on them.

  “I think so.”

  “Good. I’ll drive you to the hospital so you’ll get there sooner. Give me a minute, okay? You guys all right?” she asked, looking at the little girls, who nodded. “Good, and your mom will be fine.”

  “Make sure you stick to this guy and try to persuade whatever precinct gets him to hold off questioning until I get there,” she said to Roberta. “When they check him out at the hospital, make sure they photograph all tattoos or other markings and text them to me.”

  “I’ll try, but I can’t promise one of these guys won’t beat you to talking to him.”

  “I’m taking Abigail Eaton in for treatment, so I’ll check up with you as soon as I can.” She made another call to Russell as she headed back to Abigail. “It came at a cost, but we might’ve caught a break.”

  “We’re watching, so what do you need?”

  She gave him a list of calls to make and hoped the commissioner would agree to have an FBI interrogator join in. “I’ll call you as soon as I’m sure Mrs. Eaton is okay and in a safe place. Right now none of this makes sense. Are they after her because they’re afraid she saw something she shouldn’t have or for something else?”

  “Whatever the reason, keep your head down.”

  “No wonder my mother loves you.”

  *

  David Eaton sat in his home office staring at a picture of his children taken at the party he and his wife had hosted for their twenty-first birthday. Over three hundred guests had come to the spot where Studio 54 once reigned supreme. He’d had it opened for the party, wanting Nicola and Frederick to have great memories of that night.

  “Did she go?” he asked, not swiveling around to face the door. He knew it was Valerie since no one on the household staff was allowed without him or Valerie being with them.

  “Abigail is nothing if not predictable, so of course not.”

  Neither of them had welcomed Abigail Langois into their family, but he’d at least given Nicola the benefit of the doubt. You couldn’t pick who you loved for someone else, but Valerie hadn’t been so open-minded. That had made their meetings with Nicola’s choice so they could see the children uncomfortable, since Abigail wasn’t exactly a big fan of them either.

  “Do you know that for sure, or did you check?” he asked as he faced her to avoid an argument.

  “David, don’t be insulting. She’s still here, and she made some new friends this afternoon,” Valerie said, and rolled her eyes.

  “What does that mean?” He placed his hands on his desktop with only his fingertips touching the surface. The agitation of the last few weeks was taking its toll.

  “There was another incident, only this time the cavalry showed up in time. She’s out of touch for now.”

  “What about the children?” he asked, standing up.

  “Sit.” She waved him back down. The motion irritated him. “Do you think it’s a good idea to get mixed up in all that when we’re this close?”

  “Tell me exactly what happened.” He sat, and it made him angry to give Valerie that win. “If you deviated from the plan, you’ll be responsible for endangering everything we’ve worked for.”

  “I’m not an idiot, and I want this finished as much as anyone. She called this morning after what happened, and Catherine called from the Plaza about what happened after that.” Valerie glanced away from him, and he guessed he wasn’t going to like what she deemed as the next part.

  Catherine, Valerie’
s assistant, was unquestionably loyal, so he didn’t have a problem sending her on sensitive errands. “What exactly did you do?” he asked with much more calm than he felt. In truth his heart raced so fast he was short of breath.

  “Ivan followed them to the store,” Valerie said, and he closed his eyes as she spoke. By the time she was done he’d clenched his fists and knew the only way to completely calm down now was to punch Valerie until she was bloody, but that was one pleasure he’d never allowed himself. The day he gave in to that darkness would be Valerie’s last.

  “Do we know where he is now?”

  “I’ve already sent someone, so don’t give me any attitude,” she said, pointing an imperial finger at him.

  “Next time, ask,” he said, slamming his fist down. “Don’t you think that a representative showing up before we receive a phone call might raise flags of curiosity? If you don’t, you’re insane. We don’t need to have anyone start snooping somewhere they don’t belong.”

  “Then fix it however you think best,” she said as she stood and smoothed her skirt down.

  “I’ve got enough to do to add cleaning up after you to my list. From now on, stick to your charities and your responsibilities at the office.”

  “Don’t,” Valerie said, her voice a perfect mix of rage and sarcasm since her jaws were clenched. “This is a partnership, and don’t forget who gave you a way in.”

  “It’s hard to forget when you’re constantly reminding me.”

  *

  “You were right,” the emergency-room doctor said as he worked on Abigail’s arm. The bullet had miraculously gone through her bicep and exited without nicking the bone. “It’s going to hurt for a few weeks, but you should make an full recovery, with a small scar as a souvenir.”

  “Next time I’ll settle for a T-shirt,” Abigail said as she watched the tall detective holding her son. The girls had finally cried themselves to sleep, and each had their head on Finley’s lap. She came close to laughing at the expression of shock and figured it was Finley’s first experience with children. “Hopefully this won’t take much longer and you can go,” she said to Finley.