Stone's Mistake

by Adrian J. Smith

  Chapter Two

  Morgan hit the button on the coffee pot to set the dark liquid brewing. It took a few minutes, but the scent wafted over to her, and she shuddered. She needed that dark brew at her lips immediately. Tapping her short fingernails against the counter, she stared down the coffee pot and willed it to brew faster.

  Her day was going to be a busy and boring one, and while she didn’t relish going into the office in the middle of a snow storm that was supposed to hit them midday, she knew she had no other choice. There was paperwork to be done, research to be looked into, and conspiracies to test. Swallowing, Morgan glanced down at the coffee, glad to see there was finally enough in the pot for one cup. She’d need at least three to get her brain spinning gears fast enough to work.

  She grabbed her favorite mug her mother had given her with The Golden Girls on the side of it and jerked the pot back. The hiss of coffee falling directly onto the warmer underneath didn’t phase her as she poured her cup. One teaspoon of sugar later, and she was leaning against the counter, sipping the coffee and groaning as its dark roast hit the front of her tongue. It was heavenly.

  It was going to be a hellaciously long couple weeks at work. She was due to leave the Chicago office and head south into Kansas on Friday and wasn’t planning on being back for at least seven to ten days. Clenching her jaw, Morgan looked around the tiny apartment she was so pleased to call home for less than half the year and sneered. She should probably clean up before she left, that way when she returned she’d have time to relax.

  Snorting as the thought ran through her head, she rolled her eyes. Who was she kidding? She didn’t relax. The next sip of coffee hit the back of her throat, and Morgan felt the dregs of sleep pushing from her brain and clearing her thoughts. Perhaps she could get a cat. That could be good company for when she was actually at the apartment, and while she was gone, the cat could easily take care of itself.

  Morgan shook her head. No, what she needed was a date. It was nearing on a year since she’d gone on her last tried and true date, which had been an utter disaster. Getting called in to help with a homicidal maniac in the middle of a first date wasn’t exactly the best way to begin a relationship. She shook her head. Dating apps had failed her and going to the bar had failed her. She was left with little else to make connections for her except friends, which she was severely limited on.

  Her coffee mug was halfway empty before she slipped from leaning against the counter and headed for her small bedroom off the side of her living area. The bedsheets were strewn about after she’d forced herself to exit the warmth. She had clothes all over the floor that she had yet to pick up and wash, but it didn’t matter. She wouldn’t have time until the weekend anyway, which she wouldn’t be home for.

  Clucking her tongue, Morgan set her coffee down on her night stand and tugged off her loose shirt and pajama bottoms, shucking them to the floor right by her bedside. That way when she returned in the wee hours of the night, she wouldn’t have to stumble around to find them. With a fresh pair of undies, the bra she’d worn the last week, Morgan dressed.

  The slacks she pulled on were tan and barely fitting as she’d gained a few pounds recently while out of the city for work. Eating out didn’t always fare well on her health, but it was necessary in her line of work. Sucking in her stomach so she could button them properly, Morgan moved to her closet to find a blouse. White. She’d go with white today since next week it’d be impossible to keep it clean.

  With the material over her shoulders, she buttoned it rapidly, misaligning them and having to start over again. Once that was done, she pulled down a matching suit jacket and laid it on the bed. It had taken her years to get used to dressing in suits for work. She much preferred a uniform. Easier and less thinking.

  Morgan left the jacket alone and moved back to her coffee. Holding the mug in one hand, she reached down into her nightstand with the other and pulled out her weapon. She checked it over deftly and slid it onto the bed next to her jacket. Then she took out the shoulder holster after setting the mug down and slipped her arms through, making sure it sat flush to her skin. She preferred it to the holsters that kept her weapon at her hip. This way her gun was always on her, and she didn’t have to sit awkwardly in chairs.

  Once again, she checked her weapon and slipped it into place on her right side, making sure she could easily access it if she needed. With one more sip at her coffee, Morgan set the mug down once more and finished out her morning routine.

  By the time she left her small apartment, her mug had been refilled twice, her thin coat of makeup was in place, her door was locked, and the cold bit at her cheeks. She shivered. Winter used to be one of her favorite seasons until she’d started her job and had to fight crime in the middle of all kinds of weather. After that she much preferred spring and fall.

  It took no more than her standard twenty-two minutes to get to the office. The caffeine jittered through her hands as she parked in the underground garage and stepped out into the chill air once more. She locked her vehicle, shouldered her satchel, and headed for the elevators along with the rest of the throng of federal employees.

  It’d been her routine for the better part of five years since she’d begun working for the Chicago Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Before that she had been in Houston, which had been sweltering and her least favorite place to live in her entire life. The elevator up to her floor was long, and she desperately wanted another cup of coffee to tide her over. She was about to be nose deep in detective work for the better part of a day, and she’d need her best thinking forward in order to finish it.

  As soon as she got to her floor, Morgan stepped out and sniffed. Good, someone had already put a pot on. She dropped her bag onto the chair at her desk in the open office format and headed straight for the coffee pot in the small kitchenette off the west wing and in between two conference rooms. She saw the glorious brew, waiting for her taking.

  Morgan filled the mug she’d brought from home near to the brim, added her one teaspoon of sugar, and sipped carefully as she walked to her desk. By the time she reached it, her partner was already waiting for her with a file in his hand.

  She smirked up at him and shook her head. “That better not be a break in the case.”

  “It’s not,” he chided at her. “It’s a potential witness file.”

  Narrowing her gaze at him, she took a long sip of her coffee before settling at her desk. Pax leaned over her shoulder, sliding the folder in front of her. Morgan popped it open and skimmed the very thin file. In fact, it was only one sheet.

  “All this for one flipping piece of paper? Jeez, wasteful much?”

  “Says the woman who drinks an ocean of coffee every day.”

  Snorting, Morgan read the name and age. The girl was young but old enough to at least remember—hopefully—life before her pimp. Morgan rubbed her lips together. “She pregnant?”

  “Six months.”

  “Well, that’s an unexpected bonus.” Turning to look up at him, she raised an eyebrow. “Why her over Nicoletta?”

  “I think this one is more reliable. She’s also higher up the chain.”

  “Really? Pray tell.”

  Morgan turned in her chair to focus on him, her coffee still blessedly perched between her hands as she sipped at it. The one sheet of paper he’d given her said nothing about where Reilly was in the chain of command. It hadn’t even shown she was pregnant, that’d just been Morgan’s lucky guess since most girls wanted out of trafficking when they found themselves knocked up. Many, it seemed, didn’t want to raise a child in that environment. She couldn’t blame them. She wouldn’t either.

  Focusing on Pax, she let him talk and explain to her why he thought this girl was a much better informant than the last one they’d been contacted about. The field agents were the ones who handled most of it, but she and Pax were in charge of making a lot of connections, and seeing as how this trafficking ring went north to Canada and south to Mexico, there wa
s no one better to deal with it than them.

  “She’s pregnant,” Pax started, stumbling when she’d put him on the spot.

  “You said that.” Another sip of coffee slid down her throat to warm her belly. “You’re gonna have to give me more than that.”

  “She came to us.”

  “Oh?” Morgan raised a brow at that and looked over the piece of paper still sitting on her desk top.

  Pax leaned against his desk which was right next to hers and rolled his eyes. “She, I guess, made the connection through Nicoletta, at least she claims she did. She’s says she’s been looking for an out for a while now.”

  “She’s seventeen.”

  “Yeah, seventeen but experienced. She’s been with this guy for ten years.”

  Morgan froze. “She’s the pimp’s?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, well…that changes the conversation a bit.”

  He raised his thick brows at her in a “no duh” stare. Morgan set her coffee down and read the paper he’d given her. There wasn’t much to go on in it. No statement, no way to verify whatever Pax was telling her, not to mention nothing of what Pax was telling her.

  “Where’s the rest of the file?”

  “Topeka office is supposed to be emailing it shortly. I just got off the phone with them before you came in. They gave me her name, and this was what I pulled up since you didn’t take more than five seconds to get your morning cup of joe.”

  She sent him a sarcastic look and shook her head. “Excuse me for wanting all the information you claim to have.”

  “I have it.” He jerked his head and then grinned. “I just haven’t seen it.”

  “So you don’t even know if this girl is legit.”

  “Oh, she’s legit.”

  “Whatever. Talk to me with facts.”

  Pax snorted and pulled out his chair to plop down in it. Morgan watched him out of the corner of her eye as he stretched his arms over his head before hitting the buttons on his mouse to pull up his email. She could readily see he had no new emails. Laughing inwardly, Morgan focused on her own computer and some real hard true facts they did have—from Nicoletta.

  They’d been working this case for the better part of a year, amongst other cases. Thus far all the others had come to a completion, and they were left with this one for now. Morgan was ready for some new work to focus on. Human trafficking, especially when it involved young kids, was hard for her to stomach.

  The rest of the office filled up slowly with those who were still in Chicago. Other agents from around the country would pop in and out for whatever they were working on and ask for advice here and there. Morgan didn’t pay them much mind as she finally got hold of the paperwork Pax had been promised. She wanted to read through the girl’s statement with a fine tooth comb, but really, she wanted to meet her in person and get a sense for how truthful she was being and how willing she was to cooperate.

  Chapter Three

  Morgan had spent the entire day searching for the girl by some other name than the one she’d given to the agents in Topeka. She’d found nothing. The next morning, she was back at it with a steaming cup of coffee she’d freshly brewed before Pax had arrived.

  Blinking at her screen, Morgan bent over and typed onto the computer. The files they’d gotten from Topeka—finally—had indicated Reilly was from somewhere out west in the Seattle area. If she had been part of the pimp’s enterprise since she was seven there had to be a missing persons case on file somewhere. She was determined to find it.

  Filtering through case after case, Morgan ignored the tedium. She’d worked child abductions before, serial rapists, serial murders, and she’d worked several human trafficking cases. Her preference was anything other than rape. She never enjoyed those cases. Sure, she enjoyed catching the bad guy and locking them up, but the entire topic of rape or sexual assault always felt like a rain cloud covered her head.

  Sighing, Morgan glanced up as Pax jerked his chair back and plopped his briefcase heavily on the desktop. She shot him a questioning gaze before leaning up to focus on her obviously angry partner. “What happened?”

  “Mel. Mel is what happened.” He huffed out a breath and sat next to her, grumbling something she couldn’t hear.

  “Care to elaborate?”

  Pax and his wife had been married fourteen years, and it still wasn’t unusual for him to show up miffed about a fight they’d had just before he’d left for the office. Morgan, in some ways, reveled in his life. Married, twin girls, stability, a home. It was everything she didn’t have and only some things she wanted.

  She’d known Pax since before he married Mel, had been the best man at his wedding even, so she knew the ins and outs of their issues. When he shot her a look, Morgan chuckled. “Forget to take out the trash?”

  “One flipping day, that’s all I wanted.”

  “Wanted for what?” Morgan turned to her computer screen, deciding she wouldn’t waste all her energy on placating him in his foils.

  Pax grunted. “I wanted to go golfing.”

  “Since when do you golf?” She furrowed her brow and pursed her lips. “And who the hell do you golf with?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Wait. Hold on. You don’t golf. What did you really want to do?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he muttered, powering on his computer and clenching his jaw.

  Morgan turned her lips to the side as she debated whether or not to pursue the topic. Giving in, she pushed slightly away from her desk and faced him. “No. What did you really want to go do?”

  “I was trying to set up a renewal of our vows.”

  “Oh…” Morgan pulled a face. “Really?”

  “Yes.” He glared.

  She laughed softly. “Didn’t figure you for the sentimental type.”

  “It’s a surprise, for our fifteenth. Thought it might be nice.”

  “You thought it would get you out of some hot water for something you did, or you thought it’d win you some bonus points for the future when you screw up.”

  The look he gave her told her the latter was correct. She laughed again. If he was going this deep in his planning, he was going to have to lie better than trying to go play golf when the man had never swung a club in his life.

  “Pax, you’re gonna have to learn to lie better.”

  “I can’t lie to Mel, you know that.”

  “You’re going to have to if you want this to be a surprise.”

  “Can’t you—”

  “Absolutely not. This is your own fresh hell you welcomed into your brain. You do it. I am not the best friend who plans vow renewals. You’re lucky I dressed up for your wedding and showed up.”

  He grimaced. Ending the conversation, Morgan turned to her computer and continued searching for Reilly’s real name and face. She was another hour deep into search when her phone buzzed. Frowning at it, she knocked her head to Pax to see if he was paying attention or not. When he wasn’t, she slipped away from their desks and down the hall to a quiet and empty conference room.

  “This is Agent Stone,” she said, her voice full of confidence.

  “Agent Stone, this is Detective Fiona Wexford with the Chicago Police Department. I don’t know if you remember me or not.”

  Oh, Morgan remembered her. She remembered her fondly, the short brown hair that sat just at her shoulders, her deep brown eyes that she knew she could fall into, her slim form, lithe in its athleticism. She’d had crush on her since they’d met over a year before when Morgan had given a talk on identifying serial murderers.

  “I remember,” Morgan rushed, her voice cracking so she coughed and repeated herself. “I remember. What can I do for you, Detective?”

  Morgan stared around the room, silently praying Fiona would drop a case in her lap and she could run with it, that or she was calling to ask her on a date because there was no way Morgan had the courage, even a year out from meeting the tantalizing woman.

  “I had a case c
ome up, and something about it reminded me of some things you said in your talk last year.”

  “Oh?” Intrigued, Morgan sat down and pulled her ever present notebook and pen from her pocket. She definitely wanted to jot down notes for this one.

  “Would you be able to meet sometime this week to go over it?”

  Morgan rubbed her lips together and stared at the television screen at the end of the room that was turned off. She could meet with Fiona, though she only had two days until she was set to leave for Wichita to deal with Reilly and Nicoletta.

  “Are you asking for assistance on a case or an outside opinion on it?”

  “For now just another opinion. We’re a bit stumped by it, honestly, and could use some fresh thinking.”

  Nodding, Morgan shoved her notebook into her pocket after clicking her pen closed. “I can meet for lunch in—” she glanced at the watch on her right wrist “—an hour? Does that work?”

  “Yes. That would be fine.”

  Phones rang in the background of the call and the general chatter of a detective’s office as people moved around doing their jobs. She thought briefly of a place to meet before shaking her head and going with her usual.

  “There’s a pizzeria off 66 and Taylor.”

  “Yeah. I’ve been there before. Good food.”

  Morgan smirked. “See you soon.”

  She hung up and headed to her desk. Pax was still bent over his computer. Morgan slid into her chair and grinned at him. “What?”

  “I may have just caught ourselves another case.”

  “Do tell.” He sat up and brushed his arms over his chest.

  She shook her head. “I’ll know more in a few hours. Going to meet with CPD and see what they have first before I let you in on it.”