“I’m sorry. Truly. It makes me sick that anyone has to live like that.”
She wanted to spit that she didn’t want Wendy’s sympathy, but the truth was that it was nice to have someone acknowledge how awful it had been.
“I’m glad you aren’t there any longer.” Wendy assessed her for a second. “But don’t you see? You’ve traded one prison for another.”
She had not! With hands fisted so tightly that her nails poked her palms, Ebony narrowed her eyes on the other woman. “This is not a prison! Not for me!”
“Are you allowed to leave when you want to? Meet friends? Call family? Get a pedicure or have your hair done?” Wendy reached a hand toward her, but Ebony remained out of her reach. “If you were really free, you could choose to do all those things whenever you wanted.”
“There’s no reason for me to leave this place. Jax takes care of all my needs. Just like he will for the baby.”
The word hung in the space between them. The tinny noise of Oliver’s TV guaranteed that he hadn’t heard Ebony’s announcement.
“Baby?” Wendy looked down at Ebony’s still-flat stomach. “You and Jax?”
“Yes.” Ebony pulled her shoulders back and thrust her chin in the air.
“I don’t know if I should congratulate you or feel sorry for you.” Wendy shifted her gaze to meet Ebony’s.
“Congratulate. This is a great thing.” Even if the idea of a life growing inside her was terrifying.
“New life is always good. You’re right.” Wendy sighed and looked down at her hands. “But I wish this baby could be born into freedom, not captivity.”
Why had she thought talking to Wendy was a good idea? She clearly wasn’t going to get any help or support here.
She stepped back. “We have a man who loves us and meets all of our needs. If that’s captivity, then I’ll take it. It’s better than the slavery I used to know.”
Without waiting for a reply, she spun and almost ran down the hall.
Tears burned her eyes and her vision blurred.
Why couldn’t Wendy be happy for her? Be thankful for all they had? Why did she have to try to spoil everything?
And why couldn’t she shake the feeling that maybe, just maybe, there was some truth to what Wendy had said?
Sixteen
Streetlights cut a path through the darkness.
It felt a lot later than 7:50 p.m.
Dak and JD approached the fish packing plant, watching as a skinny guy with ripped and sagging jeans swiped a badge and entered through a side door. Dak angled for that door.
No doubt the front doors had been locked for hours.
The dock extended a good dozen feet from the building to the railing. A wooden bench ran along the railing, providing a good vantage point of the dump site below.
Surely someone had seen something.
Although their unsub hadn’t gotten this far by being sloppy.
JD zipped up his windbreaker against the chill that swept up off the water. “Think they’ll let us in if we knock?”
“Doubt it. Mays wasn’t too happy about letting us in tonight. He’s probably hoping we won’t make it inside.” Dak surveyed the area, noting the two silhouettes in the parking lot headed their direction. “Looks like more of the night shift coming. We’ll go in with one of them.”
The closest man stepped into a circle of light.
Dang. That dude was built like a wrestler. His shaved head gleamed under the orange glow of the streetlight and even from here, Dak could see a slight scowl twisting the man’s lips. An indistinguishable tattoo darkened the man’s neck.
The man’s black stare bored into Dak as the man approached, but he said nothing.
Dak displayed his badge. “Agents Lakes and Dominguez, FBI.”
The man crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Dak. Although they were about the same height, this man outweighed him by a good fifty pounds. At least. All muscle.
“Yo, man. We’re here to see the night supervisor.” JD’s tone was casual and friendly.
The man still said nothing as he stared at them with narrowed eyes.
Dak’s fingers twitched at his side, ready to pull his sidearm if needed. “Look–”
“Aw, don’t mind ol’ Bruiser here.” A tinny voice spoke up from behind the wrestler. “Bruiser don’t talk much.”
A shrimp of a man appeared beside the brute, slapping a bony hand on the man’s shoulder. Bruiser looked at the smaller man with lowered eyes, but didn’t seem to oppose the man’s presence.
“I’m Ned. You said you need to see the super?”
“Yeah, man. Mr. Mays was supposed to tell him we were coming.”
“Come on in. I’ll introduce ya.”
Whereas Bruiser was almost hostile, Ned seemed almost too friendly.
Dak studied the small man. Rapid blinking, an almost imperceptible jerking of his hands… Ned was hiding something.
Could he be looking at their unsub?
He discarded the idea almost immediately. It seemed unlikely that Ned possessed the backbone to so successfully evade detection.
Bruiser, on the other hand, might. He sure had a size advantage working in his favor.
The fish smell mugged Dak’s senses, although it seemed slightly less pungent than earlier.
Odd, since they were now walking directly through the warehouse, whereas earlier they’d been in a separate corridor.
Maybe they cleaned up the warehouse between shifts. The smell would likely return in force when the night crew got to work.
Ned stopped in front of a stout, pudgy man with a hooked nose. “Hey, Wally. These guys are here to see you.”
Wally turned and looked at them, studying the offered badges through wire-rimmed glasses. “Hmm. Oh yes. Mr. Mays said you’d be coming.”
Ned walked off, leaving Dak and JD alone with Wally.
“Well? What can I do for you?” A hint of impatience lined Wally’s tone.
Evidently thought he had better things to do than talk to the FBI and try to assist in catching a killer. “We’d like to speak with your crew. Mr. Mays said we could have five minutes to address the group.”
“Well come on then. We have very specific production standards to meet and I can’t allow disruptions.” He whirled and led them toward the center of the assembly line. “Men! Gather ‘round. These federal agents have a few questions.”
Dak surveyed the group. Sure enough. All men.
Interesting. He would’ve expected at least a few women in the group.
He shrugged it off.
A variety of ages appeared to be present, ranging from probably fresh out of high school to sixties. Multiple ethnicities. Some well-groomed, others unkempt.
About the only thing the men all appeared to have in common was a general contempt for his presence.
Even Ned, who’d been friendly enough before, looked like he wanted nothing more than for them to leave.
“Good evening.” Dak kept his eyes moving, partly to read facial expressions, partly to assess any threats. “As I’m sure you’ve all heard, a woman was murdered and her body left on the pier your company uses. I’m hoping one of you saw something.”
He waited.
None of the men responded.
Several of the men looked intrigued, probably doing mental comparisons to every police drama they’d ever watched. A few others looked disinterested. Most looked like they wanted to do anything but listen to him.
“Anyone? Maybe you saw something odd when you took a smoke break?”
Still nothing. Maybe, if one of the men saw something, he didn’t want to be singled out in front of the group.
“Who smokes?”
“Cigarettes or bong?” A scrawny kid piped up.
A few snickers traveled across the group. If this kid thought Dak would be distracted so easily, he had another think coming. “Does it matter? Both are legal in this state.”
Roughly half the group raised their hands.
<
br /> Okay, that narrowed down the likely witness pool. “The rest of you can be dismissed. Smokers, please stay here.”
While the other men meandered off, Dak turned to Wally. “Does everyone take lunches and breaks at the same time?”
Wally nodded emphatically. “Keeps our line running smoothest that way.”
“What time?”
“Lunch is at midnight. Just thirty minutes. Breaks are at ten p.m. and two a.m.”
Dak processed that. They knew their victim had left the bar around midnight. Chances were good that she’d been dumped here sometime during the one a.m. hour. Still, they’d come this far. No turning back now. “Did any of you see anything unusual last Wednesday? Someone hanging around who shouldn’t be? Or someone who was absent or late coming back from lunch?”
The men glanced at each other. Probably wondering if anyone was a snitch.
Finally, one of the men shook his head. “Nah. Just another night for us, you know?”
“So, no one saw the body on the dock at the two a.m. break?”
Another man snorted. “You see that dock? It’s hard to see anything, much less something that ain’t movin’.”
“Okay. What about someone out there with a flashlight? You’d have noticed that, right?” JD jumped in.
“Yeah, we woulda noticed, but there wasn’t no one.” The man looked around at the other men with him. “Ain’t that right?”
A bunch of nods mingled with a few mumbled “Yeah”s.
This was a waste of time. They weren’t going to get anything from this group. Whether it was because no one had seen anything, he remained unconvinced, but clearly none of them wanted to go down as the guy who’d helped the FBI.
“Five minutes are up.” Wally announced. “I need to get my crew to work.”
The non-smoking group stood on the other side of the warehouse, not a single one of them working. Some messed around on their phones, but most stared directly at him and JD.
Clearly, no one was getting started while they were there.
After thanking the men for their time, Dak led the way back out into the damp night air.
JD stuffed his hands in his pockets. “That was productive.”
“I’m thinking they seemed too eager to get rid of us, don’t you think?”
“You think they’re up to something illegal in there?” JD’s tone said the same thought had already occurred to him.
“I think it’s worth looking into how long the night shift has been running. I’m wondering if they’re processing more than fish.”
The hard part was in proving it.
₪ ₪ ₪
“I told you. I didn’t do nothin’ to that girl!” Wilkerson’s voice rose in pitch as his eyes darted from Dak to the one-way glass behind Dak’s head.
Heck of a way to start a day.
Kevyn studied the man from her place behind the glass. Agitated. Slightly panicky.
Should make him eager to talk. Or worried enough to let something slip, assuming he knew anything worth mentioning.
Dang. She wished Dak had let her accompany him and JD to the fish packing plant last night. Maybe she would have seen something important.
But Dak had told her to go home and get some sleep.
Which, quite honestly, she’d really needed.
No one had said as much, but she was certain they now viewed her as a victim. Whatever credibility she’d built up in the last week had shattered when their unsub had tried to abduct her Saturday night.
At least Dak had asked her to watch the interrogation. That was something, right?
First thing this morning, Dak had sent Sid and JD down to pick up Wilkerson and bring him to the office for a formal interrogation.
“And I gotta be to work in two hours! You ain’t gonna make me late for work! They don’t take tardiness from no one.” Wilkerson’s chest heaved and his breath came in short bursts.
“Relax.” Dak kept his tone soothing. “We have a few questions for you. Answer them and you’ll be out of here in no time.”
Wilkerson’s head bobbed rapidly. His face was the color of a bad sunburn and his ears looked hot enough to detonate.
“I wanted to ask you a little bit about Mays and his operation there.” Dak’s conversational tone seemed to soothe Wilkerson’s frazzled state slightly.
“Yeah. Sure. But it’s just fish processing. Assembly line, like any other factory.”
“I’m sure it is.” But clearly Dak was sure of no such thing, seeing how he’d brought Wilkerson down here specifically to talk about it. “How long have you been there?”
“Almost ten years.” Wilkerson puffed out his chest. “Got promoted to lead last year.”
“Ten years is a long time. Mays must be a good man to work for.”
Wilkerson nodded. “Job ain’t nothin’ special, but they take good care of their people. I gots full benefits and some sick time and everythin’. Good pay, for that kinda work.”
“I bet the graveyard shift would pay even better, right? You ever think about moving to that crew?”
Wilkerson shook his head vehemently. “Nope. No way.”
Kevyn straightened, her gaze locking on Wilkerson’s eyes. That had hit a nerve.
“Why’s that?” Dak’s voice filtered through her examination of Wilkerson.
“I, uh, don’t wanna make that kinda switch.” Wilkerson glanced down at his hands, which were clenching and unclenching on top of the table, then moved the hands to his lap. “Graveyard shift is killer on your social life.”
Dak stared at him for several moments past uncomfortable.
Wilkerson shifted. “So, am I free to go? I told you all I know.”
“What does the night shift do?” Dak fired off the question rapidly.
Kevyn smiled. Nice move. Trying to shock Wilkerson and catch him off guard.
“Nothin’! They don’t do nothin’!” Wilkerson licked his lips. The light reflected off the sheen on his forehead.
He picked up his hat and put it on, only to take it off a second later.
“Really? We were there last night and there were a number of employees on the clock. You mean they stand there all night?”
“Course not! I mean, they work. They process fish. And package it. Like we all do. That’s it. They deal with fish.” Wilkerson swiped his sweatshirt sleeve across his forehead, causing a tuft of hair at his temple to stick straight out.
“See, now I don’t think that’s the case. I think the graveyard crew is specially chosen for that shift, because they aren’t doing what they claim to be.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about that. I ain’t never worked that shift.”
Dak folded his hands on the table in front of him and leaned forward. “But I bet you’ve heard things. Rumors, maybe?”
“No, no.” Moisture flew off his head as he whipped it from side to side. “I keep outta that.”
Hmmm. His tone sounded pleading. Pleading for Dak to stop questioning?
“You want to leave? Just tell me what you know. Even if it’s only something you heard.” Dak dropped his voice as if conspiring. “I’m not after you. I don’t think you did anything wrong. But I think you’ve heard something that might help us catch this guy. Don’t you want to help save that little girl?”
Wilkerson dropped his head back, staring at the ceiling. Finally, he sighed and looked at Dak. “Yeah. That girl oughta be home with her folks. But the graveyard shift ain’t got nothin’ to do with what happened to her.”
He didn’t sound convinced. Maybe because he couldn’t possibly know for certain?
“How about you tell me what you’ve heard and I’ll decide if it has something to do with her?”
Wilkerson swallowed hard. His breathing shallowed. “I don’t wanna lose my job. It’s the best one I’ve had.”
Dak held up his hands. “I won’t tell them you talked to me.”
“The guys talk. Say that the graveyard shift ain’t like us. That they hire cons and b
angers and stuff.”
Convicts and gang members? In and of itself, that wasn’t criminal. But if they were seeking employees with criminal backgrounds, it raised a big question: why?
“That seems unusual, don’t you think?” Dak cocked his head to the side. “Why do you suppose they do that?”
Wilkerson exhaled a shaky breath. “Dunno. But they say that the night shift ain’t workin’ with fish.”
“But it’s a fish processing plant. If it’s not fish…?”
“Hey, I’m tellin’ you what I heard, all right?” Wilkerson mopped his forehead with his sleeve again. The arm shook as he lowered it back to the table.
Ugh. They’d have to sanitize that table when he left.
“What else have you heard?”
Wilkerson hesitated. “Some o’ the guys were talking ‘bout drugs.”
“What kind of drugs? Meth?”
Wilkerson’s hesitation was more pronounced. “I-I was late gettin’ outta there one day and passed a few of the graveyard crew on their way in. Heard ‘em talkin’ ‘bout somethin’ new. Somethin’ extreme.”
Extreme? Ice flooded Kevyn’s veins, settling in her stomach. Maybe Kexatreme?
Dak’s shoulders stiffened. “Think. This is important. Was the drug extreme? Or could they have said Kexatreme?”
Wilkerson’s shoulders sagged. “Yeah, maybe. Honestly, I was tryin’ to get outta there. Mays is pretty strict about shifts not overlapping. Guys have been fired for bein’ in the way of the next shift.”
If the graveyard shift was into drug production, it was no wonder.
“So Mays knows about the drugs?” Dak’s question mirrored the one going through her mind.
She didn’t see how Mays could not know, but they needed to be sure.
Wilkerson’s ragged breathing echoed. “I guess. Don’t really know. He never stays past ‘bout four, so don’t know that he’s there at night, but it’s his business, right?”
It was his business. But Mays could always claim he didn’t know what happened at night since he worked during the day. If she were Mays, that would be the card she’d try to play.
Nameless (Sinister Secrets Book 1) Page 20
