by Jo Robertson
"Yeah, okay. Right," she continued, making a yackety-yak motion with the thumb and fingers of her right hand. Suddenly she stopped fooling around, straightened up, and became all business. "When?"
Slater edged forward in his chair, tension in his big body.
Torres grabbed a pencil and pad. "Where?" Pause. "How many?" She slammed down the pencil and said, "I'm on it." She hung up and leaned back in her chair, locking her fingers over her stomach, a grim but smug look on her face.
"What?" Slater asked.
"A deputy sheriff coming back from Reno, off duty, and yes, one of ours, comes across a large delivery van in the breakdown lane headed east on I-80." She leaned forward, elbows on the desk blotter. "Being the Good Samaritan that all Bigler County deputies are, he whips his car around, crosses the freeway divider – illegally of course – and like a good Boy Scout, proceeds to help the two men change a tire."
Slater folded his arms, apparently amused at the roundabout way she told the story. Rafe rubbed his hand through his hair and tried not to scream an obscenity. He made a hurry up motion with his hands and got a frown for his efforts.
"Anyway, also being a good detective, he notices the heavy weight of the freight on the tires, the general shiftiness of the two men in the cab, and the super heavy-duty locks on the back of the van. He grows even more suspicious when the men appear panicky about receiving his help and then hears faint noises from the back of the van."
"What kind of noises," Rafe asked.
Anger tinged with fear preceded her answer. "Human noises."
Rafe had no doubt what was in that truck and precisely where it was headed.
"Probable cause?" Slater asked.
"Likely not enough," Torres answered. "But he bullies them into opening the rear anyway. Guess what he finds?"
"You tell us, Torres," Rafe said although he was sure he knew the answer.
He recognized a brief flash of pain in Torres' expression. When she answered, her voice was barely above a whisper. "Nine young girls, half-naked, half-starved, dirty."
"Where were they headed?" Rafe asked.
"Vargas' whore house." Slater's answer showed he understood.
She nodded and her eyes turned flinty. "Young girls, ten, eleven, maybe."
"Christ," Slater said. "Babies."
"Something else," Torres added. "And you'll like this part, Hashemi."
"Yeah? What's that?" he asked.
"Ten kilos of high-grade heroin in the tire wheels."
"Will the search stick in court?" Slater asked.
"Doesn't matter," Rafe answered for Torres. He knew if he pulled in his Homeland Security buddies, they could bypass the courts altogether, although he knew she wouldn't like that.
"Let's go check it out," he said, glancing at her face and noting the distress there. He hoped she wouldn't be too emotionally involved to be effective in the case. "We need to be careful how we handle this," he admonished, looking to Slater for backing.
"We can't be sure the truck belongs to Vargas until we investigate further," Slater said.
Torres agreed. "The registration wasn't in his name."
"Maybe not, but ten to one he's involved," Slater muttered.
#
Santos opened his mouth to ask Corazon another question about her mother when Vargas walked up behind her, placing his meaty hand on her thin shoulder. "You're late," he snapped and motioned for Santos to enter and follow him down the hall.
Vargas rarely invited Santos into this inner sanctum. He had been to the house many times over the five years Vargas had occupied the mansion, but seldom went beyond the porch and the grounds. He had patrolled the perimeter of the property, guarded the family at the pool area, but had almost no occasion to be inside the house.
Vargas walked to his office with the agitated gait of a man beset with many problems. Was Magdalena one of the problems and had his boss found a way to deal with it?
Santos remained standing while Vargas stood behind his desk, shuffling through a stack of papers. "Where is Magdalena?" Santos asked casually.
"Why the fuck do you care where that slut is?" Vargas snarled, looking up from his desk to pierce his bodyguard with those vicious eyes. An air of edginess surrounded him as if he waited for a reason to vent his anger and give in to the violence that was always just beneath the surface.
Santos shrugged. "I do not care. I was just making conversation."
"Well, don't," Vargas snapped, returning to his task of sorting papers. A moment later he looked up as if he'd just considered something. "Magdalena's gone on a shopping trip." He laughed falsely. "That woman loves to spend my money, eh?"
"Where?"
"To Mexico. She will be gone a long time." Vargas looked Santos in the eye and he understood what his boss meant. Magdalena may or may not have gone to Mexico, but she was not returning. Ever.
Santos had been with Vargas long before Cory was born. He had attended every significant event of the child's life, watching her grow from a beautiful baby to a young girl. He knew the answer, but had to ask nonetheless. "Why did the little one not go with her mother?"
Vargas snorted as if something foul had entered his nostrils. "You know Magdalena. She never was much of a mother. She said it would be better for Corazon to stay here ... with me."
A chill like icy fire trailed up Santos' spine. He heard a small sound from behind him and turned to see the girl standing in the doorway. She did not look at him, but stared straight ahead at her father with an expression too knowing.
Fucking pig! His own daughter! But somehow Santos had known this day would come. From the moment the little one was born, he'd understood what would happen to her one day. And he knew that Magdalena was not strong enough to fight Vargas. Even for her beloved daughter.
Vargas' attention zeroed in on Cory hovering at the doorway. "What do you want?" he growled.
For a brief moment, she glowered back, a look both defiant and cowering, then ducked her head. "Nada, Papa, nada." She turned and closed the door softly behind her.
Vargas slumped into the desk chair. "Magdalena's affairs are not what I called you here for."
Santos noticed that this office, like Vargas' downtown office, was devoid of family pictures. Just the portrait of him with Cory and her recent school photo.
"What has happened?" Santos asked.
"Something's gone wrong with the Reno shipment."
"What?" Santos asked.
"The truck from Manzanillo was intercepted outside Reno," Vargas answered. "They have the girls." His face twisted in an ugly scowl. "¡Campesinos! Fucking Mexican peasants! Low riders! They popped a tire and pulled off to fix it, but some asshole cop stopped to help."
"What happened?" Santos repeated.
"The drivers freaked out and blew it." Vargas paced back and forth on the expensive Persian carpet in front of his desk. "Made the cop suspicious and he searched the rear of the van."
Santos had known transporting the girls would be trouble. He'd tried to warn Vargas, but the boss wouldn't listen. "The search won't be legal. The evidence will be thrown out in court."
"It doesn't matter! They know about the girls!" Vargas' broad peasant face dripped with sweat. "They'll trace the truck back to me!" he shouted.
"The courts will suppress everything. You do not need to worry," Santos repeated patiently.
"You must take care of it!" Vargas shouted, spittle edging the corners of his mouth.
Santos made his voice low and deadly. "And how shall I do that, Diego? Kill them all? The girls and the drivers? Is this your solution to everything?"
"Figure it out. I don't care!" Vargas screamed. "Post the bail and get rid of the evidence. I'm not going to prison because some campesinos estúpidos screwed up!"
"Sea tranquilo. No se atierre." Be calm. Panic is dangerous.
Vargas swiped a hand across his brow. "Yes, yes, you are right. But what about the truck?"
"Nothing is in your name, Diego," Santos reminded
him.
Vargas leaned heavily on the desk. "This is true. This is true." He bobbed his head up and down, calming himself. "Contact Shirley. Make sure she takes care of everything. She will know what to do. Leave no traces in case the police come looking for the other ones."
Vargas waved a negligent hand and Santos nodded, recognizing the dismissal. He let himself out of the office, closing the door quietly.
In the foyer Santos reached for the doorknob when Cory peeked her head around the corner. She looked fearfully toward her father's closed office door and then ran for Santos, grabbing him tightly around the torso. She looked up at him with wide, frightened eyes, brimming with tears. They seemed to say, Don't leave me alone with him.
He pried her arms away and knelt beside her, gave her a little squeeze. "Don't worry, little one. Everything will be all right."
"Do you promise, Tio Gabriel?"
"Si, pequena bebé. Prometo." I promise, Santos thought, as he walked to the Cadillac. But how could he keep such a serious and burdensome promise?
Chapter Twenty-four
Rafe took two days to track the commercial van back to Vargas. With Slater’s connections he accessed Sacramento business licenses, company subsidiaries, and organizations they’d long suspected were a front for Vargas’ illegal activities.
As the sheriff's office had learned while investigating the councilman last year, most of his wide business activities could be traced back to his mother. A tangled web of dummy corporations, one a commercial van dealership, led straight back to Vargas through a subsidiary in the name of the elder Mrs. Vargas. Good leverage, Rafe mused, something he could use.
An interesting bit of information also came in from one of the few deputies Slater claimed could be trusted in Sacramento. Magdalena Vargas had been missing for several days. No one had seen or heard from her, but then again, no one seemed to be looking for Vargas' wife. Slater explained that she'd contacted him last year about domestic violence, but had withdrawn her complaint.
The story circulating about her disappearance was that she'd made an extended trip to Mexico. Had Vargas been worried his wife knew too much about his illegal activities? Rafe seriously doubted that Magdalena was privy to her husband's varied business affairs, but it was worth considering.
Torres had set Rafe up with a miniature office down the hall from hers. He swore if he turned around, he'd bump his shoulder on the opposite wall. The space was cluttered with several empty file cabinets and shelves ran along one wall. Rafe was pretty sure the so-called office had been a utility closet and wondered if Torres was punishing him for his many transgressions against her.
In a perverse way, he liked to see her get her dander up. She was magnificent when her eyes snapped with an internal fire, her breasts heaved, her jaw set. Oh yeah, better not go down that road, his head warned, even though his traitorous body had other ideas.
Rafe's cell phone chimed at the precise moment that Torres poked her head into the office where he sat at a desk so small it must have belonged to a midget. He didn't need to check caller ID. He knew by the ring tone that it was Max Jensen, but he let it go to voice mail.
"Aren't you going to get that?" Torres asked, leaning against the door frame, her arms crossed. Today she wore a gray skirt with a slit up the left side that reached above her knee and exposed a tantalizing stretch of thigh. Her legs were bare and she wore very high-heeled shoes, gray striped with the toe cut out. Red toenails peeked through the toes.
"Nah," he answered looking her up and down. "I'd rather talk to you."
She raised her eyebrows as if she'd learned not to believe any of his bullshit, but he grinned in what he hoped was an engaging manner. "What? You don't believe me?"
"About as far as I can throw you."
"Have a seat, Torres." He waved an arm around the room. "Oh, sorry, the place isn't big enough for another chair."
She laughed and perched precariously on the edge of the tiny desk, bringing her amazing legs too close for comfort. "You are so full of it, Hashemi." She looked around the small space. "We need to talk. You want to go to my office? I believe it's a bit larger."
"Hell, no, let's talk over lunch," he answered, standing and grabbing his jacket where it lay on the file cabinet.
Torres glanced at her watch and frowned. "Breakfast's barely over."
Rafe's cell rang again and he flipped it open to look at the caller ID. Damn, he was popular today. DHS Agent McNally, the bastard, probably going to horn in on his case. "I have to take this," he said. "I'll come down to your office in a few minutes."
Torres simply raised those lovely dark brows and flashed an enigmatic smile. "Sure, but I'll expect a full report on that call." She nodded toward the phone he clutched in his hand. "No holding back, Hashemi. Remember our agreement." She exited the room gracefully, her slender hips swaying beneath the gray skirt.
Moeder van God! Rafe's Dutch was pretty damn good too.
"Agent McNally, no secret-agent codes from Homeland Security today?"
"Stuff it, Hashemi," McNally said. "What's new on your case?"
Rafe was pretty sure DHS already knew about the interception of the girls outside Reno, the human trafficking angle to the case, but he was certain McNally wouldn't be as interested in poor Mexican girls as the kilos of dope they'd found in the van. "You heard about the girls?" he asked.
"Yeah, yeah, so what?" McNally's attitude confirmed Rafe's suspicions. "That doesn't fund terrorists. Drug money does. What'd you find?"
Slater had kept the information on the girls as tight as possible so apparently McNally didn't know about the drugs yet. "Just the girls," he lied. "Were you expecting something else?"
Silence wafted through the phone like a deadly virus. "No, just wondered," McNally said, his voice sounding like someone who'd swallowed a fish bone. "Doesn't matter anyway."
"Why's that?"
"Because there was a hit on the girls. They're dead."
Rafe didn't care much for McNally or his bulldog tactics, but the shock in the agent's voice was genuine. "Jesus Christ! All of them? What about the drivers?"
"Yeah, all of them." After a long moment, McNally rallied. "Thought you were Muslim, Hashemi."
"Yeah, that's why Homeland Security shouldn't do their own thinking," Rafe said quietly, snapping the phone shut.
Shit! This was a disaster. How could Vargas possibly have gotten the intelligence in time to make a hit on nine girls and their Mexican drivers? And how was he going to break the news to Isabella?
#
Bella paused outside Hashemi's office, not at all ashamed that she wasn't above eavesdropping. When she heard the click of his phone, she hurried back to her office. Hashemi was playing footsies with Homeland Security and something had happened. The reference to the drivers meant a snafu in the system.
At her desk she reached for her phone. "Slater, anything new on the girls?"
She knew something was wrong by the prolonged silence on the other end of the line.
"I'll be right up," he said. "Wait for me."
"Slater, what the – ?" The line went dead.
What was going on? And how did the Department of Homeland Security learn something before the D.A.'s office did? Damn, she should be the first contact person on any new development, but she knew DHS had their sneaky little spies everywhere. Slater had better have a good reason for keeping information from her.
By the look on his face a few minutes later, Bella knew he did. He shut the office door behind him, but remained standing, his arms dangling at his side. He looked tired, spent, and worried. A worried Slater was not something Bella was accustomed to seeing.
"What?" she said, rising from her chair, leaning her fingertips on the desk blotter. "What's going on?" She heard the rising panic in her voice, felt a strange buzzing in her ears as her fingers and toes went deathly cold.
"Sit down, Bella."
"Damn you, Slater! I'm not some fragile doll that breaks under the pressure of bad news."
Slater sank into the arm chair opposite her. "Nevada County assisted in arresting the van drivers and taking the girls into protective custody." That he avoided her eyes was a bad sign. "During the transport from the hospital to the jail this morning, a van forced the transporting vehicles off the road. There were six of them armed with semi-automatics. Very quick, very professional."
Bella dropped into her chair and buried her face in her hands. My god, how could this have happened? After a moment, she raised her head. "How did they know? How could they possibly get to them so fast?"
Slater shook his head and rounded the desk to put his large hands on her shoulders. He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. "It's not your fault, Bella. Hell, no one's to blame."
At that moment Hashemi strode into the room, his face a grim reflection of Slater's. "You heard?" He sat carefully in the chair Slater had just vacated and scrubbed his hands down his face. "Christ, it was a bloodbath."
Bella winced and felt her shoulders start to shake.
"A little tact, Hashemi, all right?" Behind her Slater's voice sounded harsh.
Rafe's eyes met hers across the desk. "Sorry, I wasn't thinking."
He shifted restlessly in the chair, his elbows on his knees, hands clasped. "At least there's some good news. God knows how, but one of the girls escaped the attack. I didn't get that from DHS. They think everyone's dead. My agents have her under guard at a local hospital. No one knows about her." He paused meaningfully. "And no one knows about the heroin."
"You don't trust anyone," Slater confirmed. "The department, DEA, DHS, anyone could be dirty."
Rafe nodded.
"How is she?" Bella asked.
"Stable, and she'll survive," Rafe answered. "When she's well enough, we'll transport her to a safe house in Placer Hills, probably tomorrow. I've got two of my best men watching her."
"She'll need round the clock protection," Slater said. "I'll put Harris on it. He can be trusted."
Hashemi nodded. "If Vargas can get to the van like that and take out potential witnesses so fast ... hell, he can get to anyone."
"Not to Harris." Slater turned to look out Bella's window, his shoulders set and his face pensive. "You've got a major leak, Hashemi. You need to plug it up before more people get killed."
