He found the whole conversation unsettling. Of course, he’d been looking at the Santa Muerte figurines. It didn’t take a detective to glean that he had some interest, and these native healers were expert at sussing out physical cues. She’d said nothing that wasn’t general, standard fortune-teller patter.
She fixed him with a hard look, as if she’d heard his thought. “Alguien que tiene cerca, miente.”
Roarke felt a prickle of unease at that last.
Someone close to you is lying.
The curandera reached inside a bag tied on the belt around her waist and drew out something small that he couldn’t see. She held it up: a small metal charm, a tiny Santa Muerte figure.
“Para que le proteja. Tome.” For protection. Take it.
Roarke reached for his wallet, out of obligation and a growing desire to be out of the claustrophobic little shop, the strange conversation. But the curandera shook her head adamantly and spoke for the first time in English. “Is for you. You keep.”
She took his hand and pressed the amulet into it. “Para que le proteja.”
He let her close his fingers close around the piece, and nodded. “Gracias.”
He left the shop feeling distinctly odd. The darkness felt close around him and the aura of the shop was still with him; it was a few moments before he could hear the normal sounds of the street. And the curandera’s words echoed in his mind.
Someone close to you is lying.
Chapter 41
Night now, and in the darkness, after the commuters are safely back in their homes, the trucks come out. She watches the far lane, the slow crawl of ghost rigs in her night mirror. The moon whispers below the horizon line, nothing clear yet. But she can feel something coming.
She pulls off at the convenience store just after moonrise. As she gets out of the car the wind pushes at her, strong and cold. She looks up at the sky and shivers.
Inside the garishly lit shop she uses the restroom, then buys raw nuts, raisins, and water, three of the largest bottles. She still feels the prickling of fever and could easily drink an entire case . . . but a purchase like that would make her stand out from the endless stream of road-weary patrons, so she refrains. She is dressed in worn jeans and an oversize sweat jacket zipped up to her neck, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, a fake pair of glasses concealing her eyes; there is nothing to distinguish her from other travelers, and the young Latina clerk barely glances at her as she counts out cash. The clerk hands her the bag of purchases and she turns away from the counter.
She reaches to push through the glass doors to the parking lot . . . and finds herself face-to-face with a photocopied flyer. She stops, fixed on the photographic image, and feels familiar rage surging through her veins.
It is the sign she has been looking for.
She rips the flyer from the glass and pushes through the doors. Her mission for the night is clear.
Two birds with one stone.
Chapter 42
Upstairs in his flat, Roarke stopped in the hall and stripped off his shoulder holster, the evening ritual.
He walked into the living room . . . and the full force of his exhaustion hit him. He stopped and leaned against the archway, closing his eyes. The stakeout wouldn’t start for hours, and he knew some sleep would be saving . . .
A rattle came from the corner of the room.
The spike of adrenaline had him reaching in vain for the weapon he had just discarded; then he realized the rattling was the fax machine in the dining alcove kicking to life. In these days of scanning and email, it had been so long since he’d gotten a fax that he’d forgotten the sound.
“What the hell . . .” he muttered, half-aloud. Who would be sending him a fax?
He stepped over to watch it printing out and saw the word at the top of the page: MISSING.
He felt the hair rise on the back of his neck as he had two simultaneous jolts of certainty: that the fax was from Cara, and that he was about to solve the mystery of Jade’s real identity.
As he stood in the dark he could sense Cara standing on the other end of the line, looking down at whatever machine was transmitting whatever it was that was appearing before him. He could feel her intention, the urgency of her message, the force of her focus on him, toward him. His heart was beating out of control; the overwhelming, primal response he always had to her . . .
He wrenched himself out of that feeling as he realized what he had to do. His eyes shifted to the control panel of the fax machine, and he stared down at the phone number illuminated there, burning it into his memory before he turned and ran into the hall for the phone he had left on the accessory table.
He grabbed the phone and speed-dialed Singh. “I’m getting a fax transmission from Lindstrom. I need the location of the transmission and officers dispatched from the nearest police department. Immediately.” He recited the fax number.
Singh’s voice came through instantly. “On it, Chief.”
An electronic beeping sounded from the dark of the living room, signaling the completion of the fax.
He strode back into the room. A single sheet of paper lay on the floor, a stark white rectangle in the middle of the hardwood. He walked toward it, stopped in front of it, stooped to pick it up.
A teenage girl smiled up at him in black and white. Dark hair and dark eyes, a candid photo that captured the heartbreaking natural beauty of that age. He had seen thousands of photos like this one, a moment in time captured before the child was struck down, seized by evil. Before the rape, the mutilation, the torture, the agonized death. He felt his gorge rise in outrage and what some might call his soul cry out . . . in the split second before the protective shield slammed down and he could do his job again.
And a new confusion hit him as he realized that the photo was not of Jade.
The phone buzzed in his hand, startling him. He lifted it to hear Singh’s voice.
“I have Agent Epps on the line as well.”
Roarke read the text of the flyer into the phone for them: a call for help from a traumatized family.
“‘Sarah Jane Jennings, age fifteen, missing since 12/7 from Abilene, Texas, feared abducted into sex trafficking. Five foot three inches, last seen Bakersfield, California, wearing gray hoodie and blue jeans, Converse high-tops.’”
There was a pause, then Epps spoke into the phone. “You think Lindstrom sent it.”
I know it, Roarke thought. Aloud he answered, “Who else?”
Singh added, “The fax came from an OfficeMax in Salinas—”
Roarke was already interrupting her. “Did anyone there see her?”
“It was a self-service fax machine.”
And Cara was inevitably long gone.
Singh continued. “I have been in touch with the Abilene police department. The girl’s brother has been all over central California posting those flyers. The facts listed are correct. Jennings was walking home from school and never made it home. A witness saw her being grabbed and pulled into a late model SUV by two Latino men. There has been a rash of similar abductions in surrounding towns in Texas and Oklahoma.”
Roarke thought of Rachel’s outburst about DeShawn. A “guerilla pimp,” she’d called him. And Shauna’s haunting words, “I hear them say, ‘Get that girl.’”
“One of the other girls similarly taken was recovered at a truck stop on the West Coast prostitution circuit. Some local law enforcement suspect gangs affiliated with the Sureños are abducting girls from border states and bringing them into the Central Valley to pimp on the circuit. Although it must be said that this practice is not limited to gangs. Some girls have also been rescued from men with no gang affiliation who have decided to go into the pimping business.”
Because dealing girls gets you less prison time than dealing drugs, Roarke thought. Here we are again. This same sickness.
The
agents were all silent on their respective phones. “What are we supposed to do with this?” Epps asked, finally. “What does she want?”
“I don’t know,” Roarke said. There would be a purpose to all of it, but they were on Cara’s time now. He felt the crush of frustration at the new mystery, even as he knew all they could do was wait.
“So now?”
Roarke looked into the dark outside his window. “We go out in the Tenderloin as planned. What else can we do?”
But that thought was a whole new level of worry.
Chapter 43
Neon burned through the drifting fog, garish reds, greens, blues, and ambers in the mist.
The surveillance van painted as a twenty-four-hour locksmith was parked on Jones Street, between O’Farrell and Geary. Inside the dark of the van, Roarke and Mills sat hunched over the rectangular gray lights of several video monitors.
One screen showed the street view outside their own van: the X-Press Market, a pizza joint, a narrow building with a sign advertising the Garland Hotel. Roarke watched the shady street denizens moving through the fog outside: addicts, dealers, homeless, criminals, the mentally ill, all of the above, drifted across the monitor, pushing shopping carts, getting into fights, cruising aimlessly or with nefarious purpose.
The other two screens showed the street views from the video cameras mounted in Epps’ and Jones’ cars. Jones was at the moment driving past a neon-lit strip club where two nearly nude women posed in the doorway. A hulking bouncer loomed between them with arms folded across his chest. On another screen Epps’ car motored on a darker street past bundles of the homeless camped in warehouse doorways, using their shopping carts and belongings as makeshift privacy barriers.
On another computer, Mills was logged into the Street Action forum boards, monitoring posts as they appeared.
Roarke shifted his gaze among screens. He knew it was critical to focus on the sting, but he couldn’t get the girl from the flyer out of his head.
“Sarah Jane Jennings, age fifteen . . . feared abducted into sex trafficking.”
Like Shauna. Like Jade. Like how many other lost girls?
He had filled Mills in, showed him the fax.
“The fuck does it have to do with ours? Is it about Jade?” The detective’s voice had been frustrated, raw with impatience.
It was all Roarke had been able to think about. It was a message from Cara, clearly, and possibly it was a call for help, or reinforcements, as Snyder had posited before. Was it about Jade? Maybe.
“No way of knowing. Yet,” he’d told Mills.
They would find out. Inevitably. But for now, all they could do was focus on the task at hand. Roarke knew he had to focus. His agents were out there on the street with a killer. Maybe more than one.
He reached into his coat pocket and fingered the charm the curandera had given him—and had a sudden, uneasy wish that he’d given it to Epps.
And that’s just crazy.
But everything about this case had him spooked.
So he gritted his teeth and breathed the trapped air that smelled of stale fries and greasy burgers and read the mongers’ posts as they appeared. Tedious interplay, ranging from depressing to enraging.
HOBBYHUMPS: Hot little bsw, corner Sutter and Van Ness. Like to stick that one on my dick and spin her.
PPP: Nice selection out on the Track 2nite. Had about seven bitches come up to my window asking me if I wanted to date.
TALLDUDE: Drove the Mish, 18th from Mission to Harrison. DEAD.
BIGBOPPER: Lushus spinner out on Bush and Larkin. Pink streaked hair, pink jeans, black top, huge tits. Would love to tap.
2COOL: Stay away, bro. No BBBJ, no GFE, problems with sucking on her titties, too. Hot eye candy but only with clothes on.
HOBBYHUMPS: Second dat. Bitch had the nerve to smoke a cigarette while I was pounding her.
LONGDONG: Shouda stuck a blunt in her ass and tol her you weren’t finnished yet.
Mills looked up from the screen, shifted in his seat, twisting his back to crack it. “I ever get this pathetic, just shoot me.”
“You got it,” Roarke muttered.
Camera phone photos were going up, too, shots taken from the windows of passing cars. Roarke stared down at grainy images of girls standing on street corners or walking the sidewalks in micro skirts and high-heeled boots. Some shivered in bare arms; some of the more confident wore short coats over their tube skirts.
On the screen in front of Mills, a new photo of a sex worker popped up with the caption: TL Hottie. Roarke glanced at the image. Not Jade.
COOCHRAIDER: Found this girl by the O’Farrell Theater, went to her room on Sutter, paid 80 and left satisfied.
Other posters started in with the comments.
NINJA: Man, she look hott.
2COOL: Nice catch
FCKINBERG: You have a much better snatch-dar than I do.
Another photo went up. Not Jade. But Roarke felt his stomach go to bile as he read the accompanying post.
GIRLLUVER: Just turned this bitch loose on Hyde and Sutter. She is cheap but needed coaching. Didn’t want to take it in her mouth but I held her head down and she swallowed. Then I fucked her in the back seat she was so tight I was a minute man and didn’t need her to change positions.
The image of the girl on the MISSING flyer drifted in Roarke’s mind.
Sarah Jane Jennings. Pulled off the street and forced into this hell . . .
“Check this,” Mills said, his voice suddenly tense and focused. Roarke swiveled to read the post the detective was pointing to. “It’s our boy.”
HUNGMAN: Couple bitches hanging out on Polk and Sutter, and I do mean hanging out!! Wowzers!! Goin back around for a second look.
Roarke felt his pulse jump at the name. Hungman. The poster who might have seen Jade the previous night. Mills leaned forward and typed a response:
BONEDONOR: Yum. Pics pls.
Roarke grabbed for his phone to call Epps. “We’ve got a post from Hungman. He’s cruising Polk, just posted from Polk and Sutter.”
“On my way,” the other agent replied.
Roarke leaned over to read the action on the screen. Mills had switched over to a different account to try to grab the monger’s attention, make a date. Roarke watched intently as Mills typed out:
NIKKIFOXXX: Im the one your lookin for, hun. Got a room here on Polk. Message me.
“Nice,” Roarke commented. “Just that right touch of illiteracy.”
“Eat me,” Mills suggested, and hit refresh. “Uh-oh, we got competition.” Another sex worker had posted:
BLONDE4U: Me and my gf are out on Polk. We can show u a good time.
Mills typed again:
NIKKIFOXXX: Where u at, hun? Will cum to u.
They waited in silence, tense. Mills hit refresh again. Nothing. And again. This time there was a new post, with a selfie.
AMBER69: You know Im the one yr looking for, baby. Message me.
Roarke jerked forward, fixed on the grainy photo. It was shadowy, but the girl was Jade’s body type, and her short, black hair was an obvious wig. Intricate tattoos covered the exposed skin of her neck and shoulders.
“Jade?” Mills asked.
“Not sure . . .” Roarke muttered. The two men stared at the screen, waiting for a response from Hungman.
“Shit. He’s not posting. Could be messaging her right now.”
Another post appeared.
BALLSOUT: She looks like a kid. You do know what’s happening to fucks like you who troll for underage girls? You’re taking your life into your hands.
Roarke tensed, starting at the poster’s name. “This could be trouble,” he told Mills. In the thread on the screen, the responses started in immediately.
COOCHRAIDER: Not gonna let some freak chick cut down on my hob
bying.
FKINGBERG: Some hoe tries to stick me I’m gonna stick her good.
“Come on, Hungman,” Mills muttered. “Post, you motherfucker.”
The invective continued from the online mongers, but there were no further posts from Hungman. More worrisome, there were no more forthcoming from Ballsout.
“This isn’t good,” Roarke said.
He jumped as the radio crackled to life. A deep voice filled the van: Epps, reporting in. “I got a visual on a dark blue MINI parked on Hemlock off Polk.”
Roarke and Mills exchanged a glance in the dark. Hemlock was one of several parallel two-block streets sandwiched between Larkin and Van Ness, and prime parking for car sex, being just off Van Ness’ main thoroughfare. It was three blocks from where DeShawn Butler was killed.
“Copy that,” Mills said, and he and Roarke focused on the screen that showed the camera view from Epps’ vehicle as he slowly cruised by the dark parked car.
“Don’t see a driver,” the agent’s voice muttered.
In the van, Roarke and Mills stared into the monitor at the car. No driver in it. No passenger.
“Unless they’re in the backseat.”
“Or he’s on foot.”
“I’m getting out,” Epps said from the monitor. The view from the car showed the vehicle slowing to the curb as he parked. There was the sound of the car door opening and shutting. Then the camera stared implacably forward at the street, lit by hazy streetlights.
Roarke watched the screen, scanning the shadows. Empty sidewalks . . . dark doors . . .
Then he caught a glimpse of a white blob hovering in the blackness of a doorway. He felt a violent, full-body chill.
“I just saw something,” he muttered, his eyes fixed on the screen. A skull?
Mills looked over at him. “What?”
As Roarke stared into the screen, the shadows shifted. A figure in dark pants and a black hoodie moved out from the doorway, headed in the direction Epps had taken.
Adrenaline shot through Roarke’s body. “Drive,” he yelled to Mills. “Now. Polk and Hemlock.”
Cold Moon (The Huntress/FBI Thrillers Book 3) Page 20
