He, on the other hand, had decided on a wild hair to drive into the big city after his shift ended to check on their assault victim. He could only hope a night in the hospital had changed her mind about talking to him about what had happened to her.
He worked out the kinks in his neck as he parked his SUV and headed for the front entrance of the hospital. Four security guards and a Salt Lake City police officer stood just inside, a pretty heavy security force. Maybe they had beefed up security for some kind of high-profile patient. His guess was that some kind of A-list movie star from the film festival had broken a leg on the slopes or something.
He recognized the city cop as Eddie Marin, an old friend from police training. “Hey, Eddie. What’s going on?”
The officer greeted him with familiar back-slapping. “Galvez, long time no see.”
“What’s with all the uniforms?”
“Incident up on the medical unit. Some dude tried to off a patient. We’ve sealed off the entrances but the guy seems to be in the wind. We can’t find any trace of him.” He gave Daniel a considering look. “Not saying we don’t appreciate all the help we can get, but isn’t this one a little far out of your jurisdiction?”
“I’m off duty, just following up on an assault victim dumped in my neck of the woods. What does your suspect look like? I’ll keep an eye out for him on my way up.”
“We had an eyewitness who caught him in the attack and was hurt trying to fight him off. She was pretty shaken up but Dr. Maxwell described a Latino male in a janitor uniform, five feet eleven inches, one hundred ninety pounds, half his left eyebrow missing from a scar. Only problem is, we can’t find the bastard anywhere in the hospital.”
Daniel registered none of the description, too caught up in the words preceding it. “Did you say Dr. Maxwell? Lauren Maxwell?”
“I think that’s her name. You know her?”
“She was injured?”
Eddie blinked at his urgent tone. “Perp punched her and knocked her to the floor. She’s pretty banged up and needs a couple stitches but she won’t leave her patient.”
“What room?”
Eddie gave him a careful look. “You okay, man?”
“What the hell room are they in?”
The officer told him and Daniel didn’t bother waiting for the elevator, he just raced for the stairs, his heart pounding.
He wouldn’t say he was intimately familiar with the sprawling hospital but he had been here many times on other cases. He knew his way enough to find the room Eddie had indicated, and in moments he reached the medical wing.
Even if the officer hadn’t given him the room number, he would have known it instantly by the crowd of people milling around. His own uniform seemed to smooth the way as he fought his way through until he made it to the room.
He found Lauren just outside the doorway, gesturing to another Salt Lake police officer he didn’t recognize.
She was holding a blood-soaked bandage to her cheek and her face was pale and drawn. Rage burned through him at whatever bastard might have hurt her and he wanted to fold her against him and keep her safe from the world.
She cut off her words the moment she saw him.
“Daniel!” she exclaimed, shock and relief mingling in her voice. Before he quite knew how it happened, she seemed to slide into his arms, pressing her uninjured cheek against the fabric of his uniform and holding on tight.
She felt delicate and fragile against him and despite the layers of his coat, he could feel the tiny shudders that shook her frame.
She sagged against him for only a moment, just long enough for him to want to tighten his arms and hold on forever. After entirely too short a time, she pulled away, a rosy flush replacing the pale, washed-out look she had worn when he first saw her.
He wanted to pull her back into his arms but he knew they didn’t have that kind of relationship. The only reason she had turned to him in the first place was likely because he represented a familiar face, comfort and security amid her trauma.
Already, he could see her replacing the defenses between them and once more becoming the cool, controlled physician who could handle anything.
“What happened?” he asked.
She let out a breath. “It was terrible. Absolutely awful. I walked into the room to check on Rosa about half an hour ago and found a janitor with his hands around her neck, choking the life out of her. Only he obviously wasn’t really a janitor. She says he was the same one who attacked her.”
“How is she?”
Her eyes softened and he had the impression that had been exactly the right thing to say, though he wasn’t quite sure why.
“Petrified and shocked. She keeps saying mi bebé over and over. Physically, I don’t think she was injured by the latest attack but she’s severely traumatized by it.”
“And you?”
“I’m all right. He got in a good punch. I tried to hold him until security got here but he…he was bigger and stronger than I was.”
Her shoulders trembled again. To hell with this, he thought, and pulled her back into his arms, whether she wanted to be there or not. He didn’t know if the move was for her comfort or his own, he only knew he couldn’t let her stand inches away from him and suffer.
This time she stayed a little longer before she slid away from him. “I’m okay. I am. A little shaky but I’ll be fine. I’m glad you’re here.”
He knew she meant on a professional level, but the words warmed him anyway. He was grateful to be there, too, and had to wonder what higher power had inspired him to drive to the hospital this morning, exactly when he would be needed.
If he hadn’t stopped for coffee on the way, though, he might have made it in time to stop the bastard. The thought haunted him.
“Do you think after this latest attack, Rosa might be ready to tell us what’s going on?”
Lauren sighed heavily. “I think she’s realizing she doesn’t have any other choice if she wants to stay alive. I asked her and she agreed she would talk to you.”
He didn’t want to leave Lauren, but a nurse approached them. “Dr. Maxwell, the surgeon is ready for you.”
“Surgeon?” he exclaimed.
She made a face, then winced at the motion. “Plastic surgeon. It’s stupid but the hospital insisted he be the one to stitch up my cheek.”
“Careful of the needles. I hate those things.”
She gave him a half smile, which was all she seemed to be able to manage with her battle scars. “How can a man who played football against three-hundred-pound linebackers be afraid of a tiny needle?”
“What can I say? I’m a wimp.”
She smiled again, looking noticeably more calm than she had when he arrived.
“Go take care of your face,” he urged. “I’ll go see if I can persuade Rosa to talk to me.”
When he walked into the hospital room this time, Rosa didn’t look surprised or frightened to see him, only resigned. Such fatalism in features as young and battered as hers was disconcerting.
He greeted her in Spanish. “How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Like I’ve been kicked by twenty donkeys,” she answered quietly.
He met her gaze intently. “You have to tell me what is going on, Rosa. You know that, don’t you?”
One hand was in a cast, but the other fingers tightened on the blanket and she suddenly seemed painfully young. “I am afraid.”
“I understand that. Anyone in your position would be. But we can’t help you unless we know who is trying to hurt you and your baby.”
She closed her eyes, one hand resting on her abdomen. When she opened her eyes again, the raw fear in them twisted his heart.
“Rosa?” he prompted.
She sighed as if the entire weight of the world rested on her narrow shoulders. “His name is Gilberto Mata.”
“Is he your baby’s father?”
She looked down at the tiny mound beneath the covers. A spasm of emotion that almost looked like sham
e tightened her mouth. “I don’t know. Maybe. It could be him or…others.”
Her lip trembled and she wouldn’t meet his gaze. He had to wonder if she might feel more comfortable with a female investigator, but he didn’t want to interrupt the flow of her story by asking her, not when she seemed willing to tell him what had happened.
“Is that why he hurt you?” Daniel asked. “Because you had been with other men?”
She gave a harsh laugh and this time she did look at him, a deep, horrible bitterness in her eyes. “No. He was there when I was with the other men. He stood by laughing while all three of them, they raped me. And then he took his turn.”
Madre de Dios. What the hell kind of trouble was this little girl mixed up with? He fought the urge to squeeze her hand and tell her everything would be all right.
“I am so sorry, Rosa,” he finally said, abashed at the inadequacy of the words. “Maybe you had better start at the beginning.”
She wiped away a single tear. “The beginning seems another lifetime ago. Six months ago I was working in Tegucigalpa. My mama, she died two years ago. I tried to stay in our village but there was no work and I had no money. I went to the city with my friend Consuela and we found work in a factory sewing clothes.”
“How old are you?”
“I will be sixteen years on July sixth,” she said, looking a little surprised by the question.
Daniel tried to put the years together. If her mother had died two years ago, she would have been about fourteen when she took a factory job.
“Consuela and I, we did not make much money but it was good, honest work. One day some men came to the factory. They talked to some of the girls and said we could find work in America and they would help us. They filled our stupid heads with stories of the riches we would find here and the good life we would have, like in the movies we see. I did not believe them, but Consuela, she wanted to try. The men flattered her, told her she was beautiful, that she would find good work. I tried to talk her out of it but she would not listen. She begged me to go with her and I finally agreed. I just wanted to protect her, and without her I had no one left in my country.”
She bunched the blanket in her uncasted hand. “For five days Consuela and I and a dozen other girls rode in the back of a closed truck, with no food and only a little water. It was so hot and we thought we would die. At last we arrived in Texas but for some of us, our journey was not done. They told us they had good work for us in Utah. Stupid fools, we believed them.”
Another tear trickled down her cheek and he handed her a tissue from a box by the bed. “What happened when you got here?”
“I soon realized what kind of work we were to do. Prostitutes. Whores. They told us if we did not do what they wanted, we would be killed. I would not do it. I was a good girl in Honduras. So the bosses, the men who brought us here…they forced me. Gilberto, he is the worst. We were all afraid of him.”
Daniel clamped down his fury, doing his best to hide it so he wouldn’t frighten Rosa. He couldn’t conceive the kind of animals who would force young, innocent girls into a dark, ugly world of prostitution. That such things were happening only miles from his safe, quiet town seemed an abomination.
“I was lucky. Because I cried so much when…when they made me do those things, I only had to wash the dishes, do the laundry and scrub the floors.”
“Do you know where this all happened?”
“Six of us work above a bar in the town of Park City. The Lucky Strike. The others, including my friend Consuela, are in Salt Lake City somewhere. I do not know where.”
“What happened to make Gilberto want to hurt you?”
“It was my fault. A few months ago I discovered I was pregnant from…from that first week. I was angry at first and hated what was inside me as much as I hated whatever man had put the baby inside me. But after some time, I knew I couldn’t blame the baby, that nothing was her fault. I tried to hide it and find a way to escape. They watch us carefully and lock us in at night but I thought I might be able to sneak out the window. I didn’t know where I would go after that but I knew I must get away. They would kill my baby. They had made one of the other girls have an abortion and I knew they would do the same to me.”
She shivered. “Last night I tried to escape but Gilberto, he found me. He…he beat me and was going to rape me again. Then he saw I was pregnant and he started calling me names, hitting and kicking me, trying to make me lose the baby, too. I fought him and knocked him down the stairs, then ran as fast as I could. It was a big crowd on the street and somehow I got away from him. I ran and ran until I had no more breath. I thought I would die, I hurt so much. I didn’t know what to do, then I saw a truck parked in front of me. I could see a blanket inside, and the back, it was unlocked. I climbed inside and pulled the blanket over my head to hide from Gilberto. The next I remember, the man with the white hair opened the truck and found me there. And that is all.”
An understatement if he ever heard one. Human smuggling, rape, forced prostitution, attempted murder. There were more class-A felonies in this girl’s story than he sometimes dealt with in six months.
“I thought I was safe now, until I woke up in the hospital and found Gilberto in my hospital room. Again, I expected to die and then the pretty doctor, she came rushing in and fought him off.”
She sniffled a little and he handed her another tissue. “I am sorry she was hurt. I did not believe Gilberto would find me here.”
“That’s a good point. How did he find you? Did you call someone and tell them you were in the hospital?”
“No. No one. Who would I call? I told you, my friend Consuela, I do not know how to reach her now. They separated us and she is working in Salt Lake City. The other girls at the bar, we did not talk much. They kept us apart most of the time. I know no one else.”
It didn’t make sense. He supposed they could have been monitoring police traffic on a scanner when they had called for an ambulance to transport her here. It was the only explanation he could come up with, though it seemed a stretch.
“Why does Gilberto want you dead badly enough to come here and try to finish the job?”
“Because I am a fool.” She wiped at her eyes again. “Do you know what it is like to be afraid and filled with anger at the same time? When Gilberto was hurting me and…and trying to hurt the baby, I…I told him to stop, that if he did not, I would go to the police, I would tell them everything that had happened to us here since we left Honduras. I had more freedom than the other girls because I cleaned the rooms. I do not snoop, but I see things and I knew the names of the men who hurt me and who made the other girls do those things.”
“Everyone?”
“Except the big boss. I do not know his name and I have not seen him, I only know he is Anglo. But I lied. I told Gilberto I did. I should not have said that but I only wanted him to stop hitting me. I thought if he was afraid of being arrested he would let me go.”
She covered her face. “I was stupid. An imbecile. He only hit me harder and I knew he would kill me.”
“You can’t blame yourself, niña. None of this is your fault.”
She started to weep then, huge, wrenching sobs, and Daniel leaned forward and squeezed her shoulder. The next moment, she threw herself against him, sniffling against his uniform in much the same place Lauren had done.
He patted her hair awkwardly, wishing he had some words that might make this miserable situation all better. Before he could come up with anything, the door opened and Lauren came in. She paused in the doorway, a soft, arrested look in her eyes he didn’t quite understand.
She had a stark white bandage on her cheek, but the color had returned to her features, he was grateful to see.
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but Rosa is overdue for pain medication and I don’t want her to get behind. How are you?” The last words were in Spanish, directed at the girl.
“Better,” Rosa said shyly. She laid back against the pillow, her gaze on Lauren’s ban
dage. “I am sorry you were hurt by Gilberto Mata. He is a bad, bad man and would have killed me if not for you. You saved my life.”
Lauren blinked a little at her gratitude, then smiled. “Daniel, will you tell her I didn’t go to all the trouble to fix her up only to lose her again to this Mata character?”
Daniel complied.
“How long will I stay here?” Rosa asked.
“I can’t answer that right now,” Lauren said, and Daniel translated for her. “At least tonight, I’m thinking. They’re going to move you to a more secure location in the hospital.”
“Are you leaving?” Daniel asked.
“My clinic is supposed to be opening—” she checked her watch “—right now. I can reschedule some of my patients but not all of them. Tell Rosa I’ll be back later this afternoon after I’m through at the clinic.”
Rosa yawned suddenly and Daniel thought she must be exhausted after her ordeal of the morning and by the retelling of her story.
Lauren picked up on it as well. “Get some rest. They should be moving you sometime this morning, but rest until then.” She paused. “Sheriff Galvez, may I have a word with you?”
Curious, he nodded and followed her from the room.
“Did she tell you what this is all about?”
He nodded. “She and several other girls have been smuggled out of Central America to be used as prostitutes and unpaid labor.”
“Slavery?” She looked appalled.
“It’s alive and well in the underground,” he said. “And a much bigger problem than many people realize. Rosa tried to escape when she realized she was pregnant as a result of rape in her early days in the country. She was caught and beaten because of what she knows and because she threatened to go to the police. I don’t think they’ll stop with one attempt on her life, especially now that they know for sure she’s here.”
“We can’t leave her here unprotected with some maniac on the loose. I’ve talked to the hospital and they’re going to put full-time security outside her room but I’m not sure some rent-a-cop will be enough. What else can be done?”
Shelter from the Storm Page 5
