In the woods, light briefly flickered, like a darting firefly.
“Gabriel.”
“Nice. Here’s another dead squirrel.”
“There’s someone out there.”
“What?”
“In the woods.”
He crossed to her side and stared out at the thickening dusk. “Where?”
“I saw it just a minute ago.”
“Maybe it was a passing car.” He turned from the window and muttered, “Damn. My battery’s going.” He gave his flashlight a few hard raps. The beam briefly brightened, then began to fade again.
She was still staring out the window, at woods that seemed to be closing in on them. Trapping them in this house of ghosts. A chill whispered up her spine. She turned to her husband.
“I want to leave.”
“Should have changed batteries before we left home …”
“Now. Please.”
Suddenly he registered the anxiety in her voice. “What is it?”
“I don’t think that was a passing car.”
He turned to the window again and stood very still, his shoulders blotting out what dim light still remained. It was his silence that rattled her, a silence that only magnified the drumming of her heartbeat. “All right,” he said quietly. “Let’s go.”
They climbed down the ladder and retreated into the hall, past the bedroom where blood still lingered in the closet. Moved down the stairs, where sanded wood still whispered of horrors. Already, five women had died in this house, and no one had heard their screams.
No one would hear ours, either.
They pushed through the front door, onto the porch.
And froze, as powerful lights suddenly blinded their eyes. Jane raised her arm against the glare. She heard footsteps crunch on gravel, and through squinting eyes, could just make out three dark figures closing in.
Gabriel stepped in front of her, a move so swift that she was surprised to suddenly find his shoulders blocking the light.
“Right where you are,” a voice commanded.
“Can I see who I’m talking to?” said Gabriel.
“Identify yourselves.”
“If you could lower your flashlights first.”
“Your IDs.”
“Okay. Okay, I’m going to reach in my pocket,” Gabriel said, his voice calm. Reasonable. “I’m not armed, and neither is my wife.” Slowly he withdrew his wallet and held it out. It was snatched from his hand. “My name is Gabriel Dean. And this is my wife, Jane.”
“Detective Jane Rizzoli,” she amended. “Boston PD.” She blinked as the flashlight suddenly shifted to her face. Though she could not see any of these men, she felt them scrutinizing her. Felt her temper rise as her fear ebbed away.
“What’s Boston PD doing here?” the man asked.
“What are you doing here?” she retorted.
She didn’t expect an answer; she didn’t get one. The man handed back Gabriel’s wallet, then he waved his flashlight toward a dark sedan parked behind their rental car. “Get in. You’ll have to come with us.”
“Why?” said Gabriel.
“We need to confirm your IDs.”
“We have a flight to catch, back to Boston,” said Jane.
“Cancel it.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
Jane sat alone in the interview room, staring at her own reflection and thinking: It sucks to be on the wrong side of the one-way mirror. She had been here for an hour now, every so often rising to her feet to check the door, on the off chance that it had miraculously unlocked itself. Of course they had separated her from Gabriel; that’s the way it was done, the way she herself handled interrogations. But everything else about her situation was new and unfamiliar territory. The men had never identified themselves, had presented no badges, offered no names, ranks, or serial numbers. They could be the Men in Black for all she knew, protecting Earth from the scum of the universe. They had brought their prisoners into the building through an underground parking garage, so she did not even know which agency they worked for, only that this interrogation room was somewhere within the city limits of Reston.
“Hey!” Jane went to the mirror and rapped on the glass. “You know, you never read me my rights. Plus you took my cell phone so I can’t call an attorney. Man, are you guys in trouble.”
She heard no answer.
Her breasts were starting to ache again, the cow in desperate need of milking, but no way was she going to pull up her shirt in view of that one-way mirror. She rapped again, harder. Feeling fearless now, because she knew these were government guys who were just taking their sweet time, trying to intimidate her. She knew her rights; as a cop, she’d wasted too much effort ensuring the rights of perps; she was damn well going to demand her own.
In the mirror, she confronted her own reflection. Her hair was a frizzy brown corona, her jaw a stubborn square. Take a good look, guys, she thought. Whoever you are behind that glass, you are now seeing one pissed-off cop who is getting less and less cooperative.
“Hey!” she shouted and slapped the glass.
Suddenly the door swung open, and she was surprised to see a woman step into the room. Though the woman’s face was still youthful, no older than fifty, her hair had already turned a sleek silver, a startling contrast to her dark eyes. Like her male colleagues, she too was wearing a conservative suit, the attire of choice for women who must function in a man’s profession.
“Detective Rizzoli,” the woman said. “I’m sorry you had to wait so long. I got here as soon as I could. DC traffic, you know.” She held out her hand. “I’m glad to finally meet you.”
Jane ignored the offered handshake, her gaze fixed on the woman’s face. “Should I know you?”
“Helen Glasser. Department of Justice. And yes, I agree, you have every right to be pissed off.” Again she held out her hand, a second attempt to call a truce.
This time Jane shook it, and felt a grasp as firm as any man’s. “Where’s my husband?” she asked.
“He’ll be joining us upstairs. I wanted a chance to make peace with you first, before we all get down to business. What happened this evening was just a misunderstanding.”
“What happened was a violation of our rights.”
Glasser gestured toward the doorway. “Please, let’s go upstairs, and we’ll talk about it.”
They walked down the hall to an elevator, where Glasser inserted a coded key card and pressed the button for the top floor. One ride took them straight from the doghouse to the penthouse. The elevator slid open, and they walked into a room with large windows and a view of the city of Reston. The room was furnished with the undistinguished taste so typical of government offices. Jane saw a gray couch and armchairs grouped around a bland kilim rug, a side table with a coffee urn and a tray of cups and saucers. On one wall was the lone piece of decorative art, an abstract painting of a fuzzy orange ball. Hang that in a police station, she thought, and you could be sure some smart-ass cop would draw in a bull’s-eye.
The whine of the elevator made her turn, and she saw Gabriel step out. “Are you okay?” he asked.
“Wasn’t too crazy about those electric shocks. But yeah, I’m …” She paused, startled to recognize the man who had just stepped off the elevator behind Gabriel. The man whose face she had just glimpsed that afternoon in the crime scene videotape.
John Barsanti tipped his head. “Detective Rizzoli.”
Jane looked at her husband. “Do you know what’s going on?”
“Let’s all sit down,” said Glasser. “It’s time to get a few wires uncrossed.”
Jane settled warily on the couch beside Gabriel. No one spoke as Glasser poured coffee and passed around the cups. After the treatment they’d endured earlier that evening, it was a belated gesture of civility, and Jane was not ready to surrender her well-earned anger in exchange for a mere smile and a cup of coffee. She did not take even a sip, but set the cup down in a silent rebuff to this woman’s attempts at a truce.
&
nbsp; “Do we get to ask questions?” Jane asked. “Or will this be a one-way interrogation?”
“I wish we could answer all your questions. But we have an active investigation to protect,” said Glasser. “It’s no reflection on you. We’ve done background checks on you and Agent Dean. You’ve both distinguished yourselves as fine law enforcement officers.”
“Yet you don’t trust us.”
Glasser shot her a look as steely as the color of her hair. “We can’t afford to trust anyone. Not on a matter this sensitive. Agent Barsanti and I have tried our best to keep our work quiet, but every move we make has been tracked. Our computers have been quietly accessed, my office was broken into, and I’m not sure my phone is secure. Someone is tunneling into our investigation.” She set down her coffee cup. “Now I need to know what you’re doing here, and why you went to that house.”
“Probably for the same reason you had it under surveillance.”
“You know what happened there.”
“We’ve seen Detective Wardlaw’s files.”
“You’re a long way from home. What’s your interest in the Ashburn case?”
“Why don’t you answer a question for us first,” said Jane. “Why is the Justice Department so interested in the deaths of five prostitutes?”
Glasser was silent, her expression unreadable. Calmly she took a sip from her coffee cup, as though the question had not even been asked of her. Jane could not help but feel a stab of admiration for this woman, who had yet to show even a glimpse of vulnerability. Clearly Glasser was the one in command here.
“You’re aware that the victims’ identities have never been established,” said Glasser.
“Yes.”
“We believe they were undocumented aliens. We’re trying to find out how they got into the country. Who brought them in, and which routes they took to penetrate our borders.”
“Are you going to tell us this is all about national security?” Jane could not keep the skepticism out of her voice.
“That’s only part of it. Ever since September eleventh, Americans just assume that we’ve tightened our borders, that we’ve clamped down on illegal immigration. That’s hardly the case. The illicit traffic moving between Mexico and the US is still as busy as a major highway. We have miles and miles of unmonitored coastline. A Canadian border that’s scarcely patrolled. And human smugglers know all the routes, all the tricks. Shipping in girls is easy. And once they’ve brought them here, it’s not hard to put them to work.” Glasser set her cup on the coffee table. She leaned forward, her eyes like polished ebony. “Do you know how many involuntary sex workers we have in this country? Our so-called civilized country? At least fifty thousand. I’m not talking about prostitutes. These are slaves, serving against their will. Thousands of girls brought into the US where they simply vanish. They become invisible women. Yet they’re all around us, in big cities, small towns. Hidden in brothels, locked into apartments. And few people know they even exist.”
Jane remembered the bars on the windows, and thought of the isolation of that house. No wonder it had made her think of a prison; that’s exactly what it was.
“These girls are terrified of cooperating with authorities. The consequences, if they’re caught by their pimps, is too horrible. And even if the girls do escape, and they do make it back to their home countries, they can still be tracked down there. They’re better off dead.” She paused. “You saw the autopsy report on victim number five. The older one.”
Jane swallowed. “Yes.”
“What happened to her was a very clear message. Fuck with us, and you end up like this. We don’t know what she did to make them angry, what line she stepped over. Maybe she pocketed money that wasn’t hers. Maybe she was doing business on the side. Clearly, she was the matron of that house, in a position of authority, but it didn’t save her. Whatever she did wrong, she paid for it. And the girls paid with her.”
“So your investigation isn’t about terrorism at all,” said Gabriel.
“What would terrorism have to do with this?” Barsanti asked.
“Undocumented aliens coming in from eastern Europe. The possibility of a Chechen connection.”
“These women were brought into the country purely for commerce, and not for any other reason.”
Glasser frowned at Gabriel. “Who mentioned terrorism to you?”
“Senator Conway did. As well as the deputy director of National Intelligence.”
“David Silver?”
“He flew up to Boston in response to the hostage crisis. That’s what they believed they were dealing with at the time. A Chechen terrorist threat.”
Glasser snorted. “David Silver is fixated on terrorists, Agent Dean. He sees them under every bridge and overpass.”
“He said the concern went all the way to the top. That’s why Director Wynne sent him.”
“That’s what the DNI is paid to think about. It’s how he justifies his existence. For these people, it’s all terrorism, all the time.”
“Senator Conway seemed concerned about it as well.”
“You trust the senator?”
“Shouldn’t I?”
Barsanti said, “You’ve had dealings with Conway, haven’t you?”
“Senator Conway’s on the intelligence committee. We met a number of times, about my work in Bosnia. The war crimes investigations.”
“But how well do you actually know him, Agent Dean?”
“You’re implying that I don’t.”
“He’s been a senator for three terms,” said Glasser. “To last that long, you have to make a lot of deals, a lot of compromises along the way. Be careful whom you trust. That’s all we’re saying. We learned that lesson a long time ago.”
“So terrorism isn’t what concerns you here,” said Jane.
“My concern is fifty thousand vanished women. It’s about slavery within our borders. It’s about human beings abused and exploited by clients who only care about getting a good fuck.” She paused and took a deep breath. “That’s what this is all about,” she finished quietly.
“This sounds like a personal crusade for you.”
Glasser nodded. “It has been for almost four years.”
“Then why didn’t you save those women in Ashburn? You must have known what was going on in that house.”
Glasser said nothing; she didn’t have to. Her stricken look confirmed what Jane had already guessed.
Jane looked at Barsanti. “That’s why you showed up at the crime scene so quickly. Practically at the same time the police did. You already knew what was going on there. You must have.”
“We’d gotten the tip only a few days before,” said Barsanti.
“And you didn’t immediately step in? You didn’t rescue those women?”
“We had no listening devices in place yet. No way to monitor what was really happening inside.”
“Yet you knew it was a brothel. You knew they were trapped in there.”
“There was more at stake than you realize,” said Glasser. “Far more than just those five women. We had a larger investigation to protect, and if we stepped in too early, we would have blown our chances of secrecy.”
“And now five women are dead.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Glasser’s anguished response startled them all. Abruptly, she rose to her feet and paced over to the window, where she stood gazing out at the city lights. “Do you know what the worst export our country ever sent to Russia was? The one thing we gave them that I wish to God had never been made? That movie, Pretty Woman. You know, the one with Julia Roberts. The prostitute as Cinderella. In Russia, they love that movie. The girls see it and think: If I go to America, I’ll meet Richard Gere. He’ll marry me, I’ll be rich, and I’ll live happily ever after. So even if the girl’s suspicious, even if she’s not sure a legitimate job’s really waiting for her in the US, she figures she’ll only have to turn a few tricks, and then Richard Gere will show up to rescue her. So the girl gets put on
a flight, say, to Mexico City. From there, she travels by boat to San Diego. Or the traffickers drive her through a busy border crossing, and if she’s blond and speaks English, she’ll get waved right through. Or sometimes, they’ll just walk her across. She thinks she’s coming to live the life of Pretty Woman. Instead, she’s bought and sold like a side of beef.” Glasser turned and looked at Jane. “Do you know what a nice-looking girl can earn for a pimp?”
Jane shook her head.
“Thirty thousand dollars a week. A week.” Glasser’s gaze turned back to the window. “There aren’t any mansions with Richard Gere waiting to marry you. You end up locked in a house or apartment, supervised by the real monsters in the business. The people who train you, enforce discipline, crush your spirit. Other women.”
“Jane Doe number five,” said Gabriel.
Glasser nodded. “The house mother. So to speak.”
“Killed by the same people she worked for?” said Jane.
“When you swim with sharks, you’re bound to get bitten.”
Or, in this case, have your hands crushed, the bones pulverized, thought Jane. Punishment for some trespass, some betrayal.
“Five women died in that house,” said Glasser. “But there are fifty thousand other lost souls out there, trapped in the land of the free. Abused by men who just want sex and don’t give a damn if the whore is sobbing. Men who never spare a thought for the human being they just used. Maybe the man goes home to the wife and kids, plays the good husband. But days or weeks later, he’s back at the brothel, to fuck some girl who may be his daughter’s age. And it never occurs to him, every morning when he looks in the mirror, that he’s staring at a monster.” Glasser’s voice had dropped to a tight whisper. She took a deep breath, and rubbed the back of her neck, as though massaging away the rage.
“Who was Olena?” Jane asked.
“Her full name? We’ll probably never know it.”
The Rizzoli & Isles Series 10-Book Bundle Page 147
