Cold Moon (The Huntress/FBI Thrillers Book 3)

by Alexandra Sokoloff

Roarke leaned against the cab wall and studied her in the dim light from outside. She was both twitchy and spacy, stoned on probably a mix of chemicals, and definitely not a kid, a worn woman of probably thirty who looked much closer to fifty.

  “Where are you from?” he asked her.

  She shrugged. “Here.”

  “Salinas?”

  “Yeah. Here.”

  “Been working this stop long?”

  She gave him a flat stare. “Long enough.”

  “What about last night? Were you here?”

  “My kid was sick.”

  Roarke and Epps exchanged a quick glance.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Roarke said, not entirely meaning the illness. “Would you say you know the regular girls here?”

  “I guess.”

  “You seen any new ones recently? Young ones?”

  She gave him a narrowed look but said nothing. Roarke tried for a neutral tone. “I’m talking about girls who aren’t working on their own. Brought here by pimps.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “‘Yeah’ as in you have seen some young new girls?”

  She looked out the window beside her. “You see a young one for a few days, then they’re gone and there’s another one. Been happening for a while now.”

  Roarke felt the pull of significance. “How many have you seen?”

  She shifted in her seat. “I don’t get you.”

  “In the last month, how many young ones have you seen?”

  She looked momentarily . . . angry? Roarke wasn’t sure. Then she shrugged. “Five, six.”

  Epps leaned forward and showed her a mug shot of Leon Jonas. “Have you seen this man before?”

  She struggled to focus through her drug haze as she looked down at the photo. Then shook her head. “Don’t think so.”

  Epps sat back. “So the pimping out of these younger girls: Is it a gang thing?”

  “The gangs do it.” She nodded to the mug shot of Leon Jonas in his hand. “Guys like that do it. Who doesn’t do it? What’s your point?”

  Roarke looked at her and had no answer. “Have you ever seen this girl?” He showed her the MISSING flyer, shone his camera phone flashlight on it so she could see the photo of Sarah Jane. The woman looked down at the photo, glanced back up at Roarke, then looked back down at the photo, nodding slowly.

  “Yeah. Yeah, I think I seen her.”

  Roarke’s pulse spiked. “Where?”

  “The Stop Inn. Motel ’crost the freeway. I stay there sometimes. When I got enough together.”

  Epps reached over and took the flyer, held it up in front of her again. “This girl. This is the one you saw.”

  “I don’t know. I think.” She glanced at Roarke again. “A young one looked like that.”

  Roarke looked at Epps. “How do we hook up?” he asked the woman.

  “Backdoor,” she said. It was the name of an “adult classifieds” website. The woman caught the glance between the two agents. “You guys never hooked up before?” she asked cynically. “Go to the Salinas page. Any action at the motel gets listed under Ninety-Ninth and California.”

  Roarke handed over the hundred. She looked down at the bill, then at him. “Right,” she said, and he had no idea what she meant. She stood abruptly and brushed past him as she exited the truck, dropping from the runner. Her feet hit the ground heavily, and she staggered off.

  When she was gone, the agents looked at each other in the dark cab. Epps was already shaking his head. “You know she just made the ID to get the money.”

  Part of Roarke knew it was true. Probably.

  “Straight up—what do we think’s going to happen?” Epps asked. “We show up to the no-tell and we’re just going to find the girl on the flyer? Does any of this have a snowball’s chance of being Cara’s doing? And what about Jade?”

  Roarke didn’t answer, just looked down at the MISSING flyer on the console, at Sarah Jane Jennings’ smiling face . . .

  Epps sighed. “Right.” He reached for the iPad and typed in Backdoor.com.

  Chapter 50

  She cruises the long blocks of International Boulevard in the stolen Toyota, past liquor stores and run-down motels, auto repair shops, Latin grocery stores and Mexican food dives, and of course the taco trucks, the gleaming aluminum trailers parked in almost every street-corner parking lot, and every one with a group of men congregated in front, starkly lit by the sodium lights. Bleak scenes in the black-and-white of night.

  The towering shadows of palm fronds loom above the street. There are large crepe-paper flowers tied to the tree trunks and streetlamps, possibly left over from a Dia de los Muertos celebration, a forlorn attempt at festivity in the stark surroundings. Clumps of young men in baggy pants with baseball caps turned backward hang on every other corner.

  And the girls walk the streets. Some in jeans and backpacks, as camouflage, looking marginally like students—though what kind of student would be walking this strip at night is another story. Other girls are unmistakable: long and leggy in fetish shoes and micro skirts, with fake eyelashes thick enough that she can see them from the car. The ones on the corners stare straight into her windshield, a practiced laser come-on.

  They are young. There has been not one she has seen who looks over twenty. Many are much younger. They stagger on their four-inch platforms; their developing bodies have nothing like the strength required to make that walk look effortless.

  The presence of It is overpowering in this cesspool. She can barely breathe from the rankness. It slithers between the cars, lurks around every corner, crouches in the Escalades and SUVs where the pimps watch the girls on the corners from their tinted windows. Her body stiffens in revulsion as she passes them. The moon is high and the urge is strong to stop, to put an end to their business on the spot.

  So many. It should be torched. Razed. Destroyed for all time.

  Every girl she has seen so far is Latina or African American or some mix of the two. The flaming girl will be easy to spot. It is a good reason for the girl not to be here at all, and she knows the girl is not stupid.

  For the same reason it is dangerous for Cara to be here herself. She has done her best: dressed in layers, with the top layer an anonymous hoodie and loose sweatpants; darkened her skin tone with makeup; lined her eyes; concealed her blond hair under a brown wig tucked into a hat. Even so, she stands out on this street, and while Roarke is for the moment safely out of the way, if any of his people are on stakeout, she will be easily recognized, out in the night.

  But this is where she must be. It was clear in the cards. So she drives on.

  Chapter 51

  The lights of their iPads glowed on the agents’ faces as they navigated the Backdoor website. The home portal had links for all fifty states, with cities listed under each state. Clicking on SALINAS brought up a simple list of categories of items for sale, including an ADULT section. One click on ESCORTS, then one click to agree to the Adult Terms of Service got them to a list of links:

  *DISCOVER JUICY. Love me all over* - 19

  21 in Salinas

  Young and sweet, new girl in town - 19

  Get ready for love in 10 min! - 23

  I am a Married Mans Best Kept Secret - 19

  DON’T YOU WANT THIS!!! - 19

  Big BOOTY on Duty - 23

  Hey boyz, Im Stormy Im waiting to meet you right now - 21

  “Amazing how many of these girls are nineteen,” Roarke said. His stomach was roiling. “Nineteen” seemed to be the universal code for “underage.”

  “Ain’t it just.” Epps’ face was stony in the dark of the cab.

  A click on a link led to the come-on, complete with seminude photos and a phone number:

  Hey gents if your looking for something beautiful young and hot look now further Im your newbie dream Im ope
n minded flexible and boy do I get juicy I cant sleep and I wanna have a good time with someone for the right donation Im posted in Salinas with an incall on California Text or call me.

  Semiliterate male fantasies, composed by pimps. About girls like Becca. Like Shauna. Like Sarah Jane. Teenagers. Abducted, trunked, raped, drugged . . . and sold online, with one click of a mouse.

  “Just like ordering a pizza,” Epps said, his voice tired. It was that easy.

  Roarke skimmed the links, looking for keywords. Young and hot. Sweet. Bubbly. Newbie. Shy yet freaky. There were too many to count.

  He forced himself to focus and look for the specific address, Ninety-Ninth and California, code for the motel. He stopped on a link . . . and stared down at his iPad screen at the words:

  New girl in town 2nite only – 19

  99th/California

  “New girl in town,” he said aloud. “New, meaning like Becca?”

  Abducted, terrified, traumatized . . .

  Epps shook his head. “Not sayin’ you’re wrong. Just wondering what we’re doin’ it for.”

  Roarke was silent.

  “You can’t save everyone. That kind of thinking’ll drive you insane.”

  Roarke knew it. They all knew it. There was no way to live that way. The web page he was looking at now was one of hundreds of thousands across the country. How many were minors? How many were minors when they started? How could they even begin to make a dent?

  And yet . . .

  He looked at Epps without speaking. Epps ran a hand over his head, and his face was tense. “A’ight. If we call or text and make a date, chances are there’s going to be screening. We’ll need a private line, a false ID. We don’t have that kind of time.”

  Roarke was about to argue, but his agent continued. “If she’s really a ‘new girl in town,’ she’s not going to be on her own. The mack’s most likely screening johns in the lot. So we go over and watch. We got witness testimony that a minor reported abducted is being held at this motel. We go, see what’s going down. If we need to go in, we claim exigent circumstances. Probably we lose out on convicting the pimp, but we might get the girl out.”

  “Yeah,” Roarke said, gratefully. “That’s a plan.”

  Epps muttered something he couldn’t hear and climbed into the driver’s seat to start the engine.

  Chapter 52

  She drives a good sixty blocks on each of her first few passes. International Boulevard stretches for forty more. But she has gone far enough, enough times, to see that, aptly, the bulk of the street action is in the teens: Thirteenth Avenue to Nineteenth, with another spate of activity in the forties and fifties. She spends a little time cruising the higher blocks, on the lookout, without seeing anyone who looks remotely like the girl Jade. Then she heads back for the lower-numbered blocks.

  There are more girls out now. Men slow their cars by the curb, pale men in shiny cars who have no other possible business in this neighborhood but to buy these children. The girls stroll or stagger up to the windows to negotiate.

  She does not slow the car. She tries to control her trembling, and stares out at the sidewalks, searching.

  She is cruising that long loop for the fourth time when she sees a flash of white in one of the dark doorways. She turns her head to look out the side window as she passes . . . and feels a spike of shock.

  A skull glares out at her from the blackness.

  She slows the car and looks back over her shoulder . . . but the face has disappeared.

  There is another car behind her and she must keep driving. She breathes in to slow her racing heart . . . and focuses on the street ahead of her.

  But all of her skin is prickling. As soon as she can she makes a U-turn to head back toward the block where she saw the skull face, then makes a sharp right at the street corner nearest the storefront.

  The side street is dark. She drives slowly, past empty cars parked at the curb in front of run-down clapboard houses . . . cracked sidewalks devoid of people. There is no sign of the figure she saw.

  She parks her car halfway down the street, kills the headlights and engine, and sits, thinking.

  Not the girl. The Other.

  Her pulse is racing.

  Get out. Leave now.

  She reaches for the key to start the engine again, but hesitates. She was directed here. She needs to know.

  She strips off the hoodie and sweatpants she is wearing.

  She exits the car in a completely different street garb: a tube skirt and skintight mesh shirt, fishnet stockings. She shuts the car door and locks it, then strides on high-heeled vinyl boots past the dark houses.

  The night outside is cold on her exposed skin, but the chill she feels is more anticipation than temperature. She breathes in the dark and follows the moon.

  There is the opening of an alley ahead, access to the backs of the shops on Inty. She slows as she approaches, her skin prickling again. She keeps close to the filthy stucco wall and glances down the dark passageway.

  An SUV is stopped in the alley, with lights off . . . and the driver’s door open.

  She takes a step into the alley. The moon is straight up in the black dome of sky, and her shadow is long and stark in the spill of moonlight.

  She approaches warily, staying well away from the side of the car as she moves forward to get a look inside. She can smell it first, blood and shit, the unmistakable stink of death.

  She stops before the open door to look in.

  The man in the driver’s seat is deader than dead. A gunshot has exploded half his head; blood and brains drip from the windshield.

  She is very still as she notes the clothes: the turned-to-the-side ball cap, the baggy pants and oversize T-shirt. Pimp garb.

  She is not the only one hunting tonight.

  She pulls back from the carnage and backs away from the driver’s door, her heart beating fast as she scans the dark around her . . . but there is no sign of anyone living.

  As she turns from the car, her gaze falls on a pale arrangement of objects beside the wall of the building. She walks a few steps toward it, staring down. A candle, with white flowers laid in front of it. A fifth of some liquor. Cigarettes in a small, neat pile.

  The night is cold on her skin, and her thoughts are racing.

  Offerings. Someone is invoking the Bony One. Playing with fire.

  She wants no part of it. And yet . . . there is opportunity here.

  Above her, a shadow passes across the moon.

  A sign.

  She stoops quickly to the pile of offerings, then stands again. Now she does not linger but walks toward the street at the other end of the alley.

  She steps out of the alley and turns right to move toward the corner of the boulevard. She slows her walk to a languid stride on the four-inch heels. She lets her hips roll and feels the taut muscles of her legs in perfect balance on the boots, and her breath catches in anticipation . . .

  Then she steps out onto the street and looks toward the cars, a blatant laser come-on.

  The first one who approaches will do. The act of choosing her is enough.

  A lesson to anyone who chooses her.

  Chapter 53

  Roarke phoned in to Detective Escobar as Epps drove the rig across the freeway to the motel. A small blessing: the detective was out, and Roarke could simply leave a message through the office manager. “We’ve got a sex worker at the truck stop telling us a minor reported as abducted is being held at the Stop Inn on 99. Going over there to eyeball it.”

  There was a back section of the parking lot for the bigger trucks. Epps parked alongside two other huge rigs. On this side of the freeway there was a high wind up, blowing debris across the lot and shaking the cab of the truck. The moon was nearly blinding in the clear sky, and its light plus the height of the cab gave them a good outlook on t
he lot surrounding the motel. It didn’t take long to spot the pimp. He hovered in the dark beside the building’s short outside corridor that housed an elevator, ice and vending machines, and a stairwell.

  The agents stared out the cab windows at the shadow figure: a Latino man in his thirties who moved with a prison swagger, tattoos visible on his chest and neck above the wife-beater tank he wore under a satin athletic jacket. He watched the lot like a hawk as he spoke on his phone.

  A battered Bronco pulled into the lot. Both agents leaned forward as the truck cruised past the empty spaces in front of the motel office. “Here we go,” Epps said under his breath.

  The Bronco drove all the way past the cars parked in front of the downstairs rooms and stopped at the end of the building, near the elevator. The headlights blinked off.

  A man squeezed himself out of the truck. He was overweight and sloppy. Roarke caught the gleam of thick glasses on his doughy face. Nobody’s idea of Prince Charming.

  He waddled on the sidewalk in front of the lower row of rooms toward the outside corridor, then stood in front of the vending machine without buying anything.

  “Wait for it . . .” Epps muttered, watching.

  After a pause, the pimp moved out of the shadows and up to the fat man. They spoke briefly, then the pimp handed the man something. The fat man turned and crossed to the elevator. The pimp disappeared back into the corridor.

  “He’s got the room key now,” Roarke said under his breath.

  “Mack’s got another one on him, I bet,” Epps answered. And the agents looked at each other.

  An impromptu sting like this was a majorly bad idea; they both knew it. They had no idea how many accomplices the pimp might have. Whoever they were, they might be selling drugs or arms. The level of weaponry thugs had with them these days was sometimes like a small arsenal.

  All Roarke could think of was Becca. Fifteen years old. Shauna. Thirteen years old. Sarah Jane Jennings. Fifteen years old. And whatever girl of whatever age was up there in that room right now.