“My throat a bit.”
A bit? Probably hurt like hell.
“My titties hurt. He bit them. Harder than usual.”
Bella wished she hadn’t had any coffee. Her stomach threatened to rebel and she wanted to pummel the bastard who hurt Sue-Ann.
“My stomach hurts,” she added.
“Did he hit you in your stomach?”
“No. Not exactly.”
“Not exactly.” That was enough. “I need to touch you, inspect your injuries. I’d like to remove your shirt.”
“I’m fine, sugar. Really.”
“You’re not fine. Stop saying you’re fine.” She stopped talking. She was going to get herself in trouble.
Sue-Ann couldn’t take off her shirt without help. She was naked underneath. Bella pulled down the blanket.
A puddle of blood pooled between her legs.
“Why didn’t you tell me you were still bleeding?”
“I—it’s not much.”
“It’s a fucking river. Shit.”
She had no idea what to do.
Bella put on latex gloves. She took Sue-Ann’s temperature. It was elevated. She inspected her breasts. The bastard had bitten her repeatedly. Her stomach was showing signs of bruising like her neck. He hadn’t hit her, she said, but he must have done something.
“I need to look between your legs. You’ve had exams before, right?”
“Sure, we have them twice a year, like the dentist. I’m clean, too. No diseases, always use a condom. It’s a rule. Well, Papi didn’t this time, but he meant to. He was just really angry.”
STDs were the least of Sue-Ann’s concerns right now.
When Simon’s doctor friend trained her, he focused on reproductive exams because any medic for prostitutes would be doing hundreds of them a year. They had become routine for Bella. She didn’t really mind it. She couldn’t send off Pap smears or test much of anything, but at least she could make sure everything appeared healthy, and there were some cheats to detect common STDs.
Sue-Ann was anything but healthy. She was bleeding from both her vagina and her anus and there was extensive tearing of both. Would they heal on their own? Bella had no idea.
She changed the sheets and put a towel down and then wrapped a pad and gauze around her in an effort to stop the bleeding. Sue-Ann cringed, but she didn’t cry.
“Tell me if I’m hurting you.”
“I’m fine.”
She wasn’t fine. She was far from fine. Bella said, “I need to stitch up your cheek. It’s going to hurt. I’m going to give you a shot to dull the pain, but you’ll still feel it.”
“Okay.”
Bella glued the corners of the cut, but it was too deep for her to glue the entire wound. Sue-Ann yelped at the first needle, but then she restrained herself.
Bella had enough experience with stitches that she did a decent job. There would be a scar, but nothing that couldn’t be hidden by makeup.
If she survived. Because at this point, Bella thought there was something far more serious wrong with her.
“Sue-Ann, I’m going to have your people wake you up periodically. I don’t want you getting up and walking around for the rest of the day, okay? Stay in bed. Rest. Drink water. Broth. Orange juice. Fresh, not the fake crap. If you throw up or have any sharp pains anywhere, you need to tell someone. I’m going to tell these people the exact same thing, okay? And no sex at all no matter what for at least a week. I’ll come back and check on you tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. Would she even be here tomorrow?
“I’ll be fine. Thank you.”
Sue-Ann smiled, but her eyes were unfocused.
“No smiling, you’ll pull at the stitches.”
Bella gathered her supplies and walked out. She found the woman with the black eye in the kitchen drinking what looked like tomato juice but smelled like a bloody Mary.
She slammed a small bottle of antibiotics on the table. “Do you know if Sue-Ann is allergic to penicillin?”
The woman shrugged.
“She needs these three times a day. One pill with a small light meal. Someone needs to wake her up every hour or two to make sure she’s coherent. She has a concussion. She’s bleeding. The john beat her, strangled her, and fucked her with something other than his dick. She’s torn up bad, and there will be no sex for at least a week, probably longer.”
“What the fuck do you think this is? A charity?”
“You want her to make money? She takes a ten-day vacation, starting now.”
Damien walked in as she spoke.
“Do what Doc says,” Damien said.
The woman scowled but nodded. “You tell Gino. Last time I gave him bad news he whopped me.”
Damien turned and walked out. Bella followed him. In the car she said, “He tore her up. She’s bleeding. I don’t think anything I did is going to help. She needs a hospital.”
“No hospitals. You know that.”
“I could give a shit about most of the crap in this business, but that john—Papi, she called him—strangled her, cut her, fucked her with something sharp, her asshole is cut and while I think I got the bleeding stopped, I don’t know how the hell she’s going to take a shit or pee without tearing again. She’s a nitwit, doesn’t even recognize how badly she’s hurt, and she apologized for him. Oh, boo hoo hoo. Poor old Papi has a bad day and takes it out on his whore. Lot of good it’s going to do if she dies.”
“Is she going to die?”
Bella wasn’t expecting the question. She hadn’t even expected to rant, but she was furious. She needed the anger to keep her from calling the cops. If the cops here could even be trusted.
“Honestly, if she keeps bleeding? Yes. She’ll die. I need to come back and check on her tomorrow.” She needed to call an ambulance. The authorities. Someone to rescue that girl who didn’t even know she was being abused.
Damien didn’t say anything else. He didn’t drive back to the house. Now Bella was worried.
“I didn’t meant to take it out on you,” she said quietly.
He reached out and took her hand. Held it. Comforting her? Shit, what was she doing?
He still didn’t say anything and Bella became worried for other reasons.
He drove to a house in what passed as middle class in this town. Children’s toys were in the yard.
“What are we doing here?” she asked.
“Wait.”
Damien went up to the house and for a minute Bella thought this was Papi’s place and Damien was going to kill him. A chill ran down her spine.
The door opened and a short, greasy-looking man stepped out. He and Damien argued. Damien didn’t raise his voice or his arms, but the man was causing a scene. Bella caught a few words, but not everything. It was clear Damien wanted information.
But at least he hadn’t killed the man in broad daylight.
Five minutes later, he got back in the car. They drove clear across town, to a trailer park. He parked down the street.
“Come with me,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
Again Bella was worried.
They walked in through the back, unseen by anyone. Damien found the trailer he was looking for. He opened the door, entered, and motioned for Bella to follow him.
He wore gloves. Bella didn’t. She didn’t touch anything.
The place stunk to high hell from booze and puke. Snoring came from the bedroom.
Damien walked down the short hall, but Bella stayed where she was. There was a scuffle, and swearing—none of which came from Damien.
He hauled a huge, naked man out of the bedroom as if he weighed nothing. Bella knew Damien was strong, but she hadn’t really thought about how strong until now.
“On your knees,” Damien ordered.
The man tried to hit him and missed. Damien pushed him down.
Papi.
His hands had open wounds from his pounding on Sue-Ann, but she apparently didn’t inflict any damage on his doughy body.
“Tell the Doc that you’re sorry you hurt the whore last night.”
“What? What the hell you talking about?”
“You are Papi Chavez. You picked up a whore from Gino last night.”
“So?”
“You beat her up, strangled her.”
“She liked it.”
“You fucked her in her asshole,” Bella said. “You ripped her open. She like that, too?”
“She wanted it! She asked for it, so I shoved a bottle up her ass.”
Bella hadn’t meant to open her mouth. She had no idea what Damien planned to do. Scare the living hell out of this prick? Beat him up? He wouldn’t care. He wouldn’t remember, or if he did he’d twist it around, take it out on the next hooker he picked up.
Damien pushed Papi down on the filthy floor, grabbed a cushion from the couch, and put it over his head. Before Bella could tell him no, Damien fired his gun twice through the cushion into Papi’s head.
Bella stared. The carpet was so dark she couldn’t see any blood, but she smelled it. Blood and gunpowder and death.
“Let’s go.”
She was frozen. Every instinct in her told her to run, that Damien was out of control, but she was rooted to the spot.
“Now.” Damien grabbed her by the arm and pulled her out of the trailer.
In the car, Damien seized her and held her hair tight in his hands. She thought for a second that he was going to hit her—punishment for not coming when he said, for questioning him with her eyes, for making him kill Papi. She didn’t make him, but he might think that.
You’re glad he’s dead.
No. She wasn’t. Not happy or sad. Shocked.
“She’s just a whore,” Damien said, “but she doesn’t deserve to suffer. People think I don’t care about anything. Maybe I don’t. Except you.”
He kissed her hard. Either he didn’t notice she wasn’t kissing back or he didn’t care. He touched her breasts. His hands were shaking. Bella’s head was spinning. First Sue-Ann. Then Papi. Now … this.
He kissed her neck, sucking her so hard she was certain she’d have a hickey. “Not here,” she said.
Not here. Not anywhere.
She had to get out of this mess. Now.
“I’ve never felt this way about anyone, Doc.”
“I know,” she said, because she didn’t know what else to say.
“Monday I’m going back to L.A. I have a few things to take care of. I’m going to ask Hirsch if you can come with me.”
He looked at her, hopeful, like a little boy.
Like a sick, psychopathic little boy.
But it was her out. She’d go with him, then run. She had many friends in L.A. and could easily disappear.
“That sounds like a much needed vacation for both of us,” she said and smiled.
Inside, her heart was as hard as steel.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Lucy didn’t want to go into FBI headquarters, but she did anyway. Nate wasn’t around, and no one else spoke to her. She sat at her computer and sent a follow-up email to the task force summarizing everything they’d learned in the last twenty-four hours, putting the information all in one place. She added the details she’d received from Christina Garrett, without naming the young victim. She made a point of including her boss Rachel on the CC, as well as Abigail Durant. While normally she wouldn’t copy in the ASAC on anything that wasn’t specifically requested, she didn’t want to rely on Rachel to convey the information correctly.
Basically, Lucy planned on covering her ass every step of the way.
Next she sent the information about “Pixie” to her contact at NCMEC and then called Tia Mancini.
“Have you tracked down Ginger?” Lucy asked.
“Hello to you too.”
She rubbed her eyes. “I’m sorry. Late night.”
“I’m playing with you, Lucy. No, I haven’t, but I’m working on it. I had a couple bites from her girls, but the places they gave up are nowhere near the neighborhood you lost the vans.”
“Sean’s sitting on the trucking company to see if he can get eyes on any of the people we have flagged. So far, nothing is happening. There’s an active warrant for Anton Meyer—attempted murder, fleeing to avoid prosecution out of New Jersey, and we’re working on a federal warrant because I ID’d him in a porn video with a minor. Every PD in Texas was sent a sheet on him yesterday—can you push it through? Get his face on everyone’s mind?”
“Consider it done. Be careful, Kincaid.”
“Ditto.”
Lucy hung up. If Rachel was in the office, she was sitting behind her closed door.
Lucy was gone an hour after she came in, making sure Zach knew where she was in case anyone asked. She drove over to DEA headquarters and updated the timeline she’d created yesterday.
“Can I help ya, Agent Kincaid?”
She jumped, then turned to face Aggie Jensen. “Don’t sneak up on people,” she said.
“Sorry.” She didn’t sound sorry. “The boss told me to make sure you had everything you needed.”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“Hey, you asked us to run those pictures you took from the trucking company?”
Lucy had almost forgot. She’d planned on enhancing them at home, but when she got the videos of Hope, she shifted gears.
“Yes, are you done?”
“Easy-peasy. I can confirm that the two seventeen-foot trucks that came in two nights ago were the same two trucks RCK photographed at the trucking company in Texas.”
Lucy had thought they were, but confirming the evidence would be key in a future prosecution.
“I wrote up the report already. And the guy in the office? The one sitting down half hidden?”
“Yes?”
“I merged the photos you took, adjusted for lighting, and got a positive ID. Guy’s name is Anton Meyer, there’s an active warrant for him out of New Jersey. My grandma lives in New Jersey.”
It took Lucy a second to process that the last sentence was just small talk. She was focused on Meyer.
“You’re one hundred percent certain it’s Anton Meyer?”
“Yep. I’ll swear to it in court.”
“Can I see the picture?”
Aggie sat at the computer and typed rapidly. “You can access all this, Donnelly gave you full clearance. I made you a login and password. It’s your FBI login, and your password is taskforce1, all one word, with the numeral ‘1.’ You’ll have to change it, but it’ll get you in. Here you go.”
Aggie talked as fast as she typed.
Lucy stared at the picture. It was definitely Anton Meyer. The picture looked almost three dimensional. She hadn’t recognized him yesterday because he now had a scruffy beard, and he’d been wearing a ball cap. But Aggie had removed the ball cap and it was clearly him. She pulled up his mug shot and shifted it so it was at the same angle as the fuzzy picture from yesterday.
“See?”
“You’re right.”
“Of course I am.”
She was arrogant, but not in a snotty way. Sean would definitely like her.
“Thank you.”
Aggie beamed.
Lucy sent a message to everyone on the task force that Anton Meyer was still in San Antonio and she was alerting SAPD. She then called Sean and filled him in.
“So far, all is quiet,” Sean said. “I just got off the phone with Kane. They’re in Port Arthur. Kane has an old Marine buddy there who’s hosting them, so they can keep a low profile.”
“Do they know where Bella is?”
“No. They tracked down Hirsch’s plane and confirmed he landed yesterday at five-thirty p.m. They paid a mechanic to call if anyone came for the plane. But discretion is important. They don’t want to tip their hand, put Bella in more danger. We’re confident this is where they are. It’s not a large city. They’ll find her. Hold on.”
Sean went silent. A minute later he said, “Anton Meyer just drove into West-East Transport.”
/> “Watch him. Follow him if he leaves. I’ll talk to Brad and see if he wants to grab him now or wait.”
“Wait,” Sean said. “He’s not living at this place, he’ll lead us somewhere—and maybe to Hope Anderson.”
Sean was right.
“Okay,” she said.
“I’m not going to let him out of my sight. I wouldn’t mind a tag team if Brad has anyone to spare. I shouldn’t even have to ask—you should be able to send Nate.”
“Sean—now’s not the time to go to war with my boss.”
“Your call. I can tail him, not a problem. But I much prefer a dual tail, and someone I trust. And not you—you have far too much on your plate to play stake out with me. However much I would love to spend today with you.”
Lucy said, “I’ll let you know when Brad has someone in place.”
* * *
“You said anything weird, and this is weird.”
JT stood with the Chief of Police outside a sagging trailer in a run-down trailer park on the fringes of Port Arthur. A field next to the hodge-podge collection of trailers was filled with debris from last year’s flood. Couches, collapsed trailers, refrigerators, and garbage. A temporary fence had been put up to keep people out. An oil refining plant with dozens of large white tanks separated the “park” from the main town. It was high noon and the humidity was cloying.
He’d reached out to the Chief of Police last night after Sean ran a background on him and said he was on the straight and narrow. Kate Donovan concurred, and said the chief had gone through two National Academies with the FBI and served on a joint terrorism task force with the Houston field office. Kate vouched for JT, and Chief Garcia had called him as soon as he verified there was a dead body.
“It’s not that a dead body is all that unusual—the greater Port Arthur area, which includes Beaumont, ranks fifth in the most dangerous cities in Texas. We have our share of crime. But it’s been on the decrease, and I aim to keep working on increasing my budget and reducing violent crime. But this body—this body is definitely out of the norm.”
The coroner was there and Garcia was waiting for him to give the all-clear. When he did, Garcia said to JT, “You can take a gander, just don’t touch anything.”
JT stepped into the trailer behind Garcia. The coroner had moved the body, but the chief showed him photos that he’d taken on his cell phone. First thing JT noted was the guy was naked. Second thing was that he had been executed. The pillow over the back of his head was more effective in preventing blowback than silencing the gun, though it would have some suppression effect.
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