by Elle Keaton
“I—”
“Just be quiet,” Adam growled again. Joey could hear him muttering under his breath the entire drive back to the warehouse, about half-cocked civilians who should know better sticking their noses in investigations and fucking up crime scenes. There was more, but Joey couldn’t quite catch all of it. Weir, on the other hand, was snickering.
Buck was waiting in front of the warehouse, as was Brandon Campbell. A young boy was standing next to Buck, his head coming up to somewhere around his elbow. The sight was both ludicrous and sweet.
Both men had tried to come to his rescue, Joey was grateful, yet felt unworthy. He had just been trying to help. Anyone would have done the same thing he had. And maybe could have pulled it off without jeopardizing their lives or the lives of others. What was Sacha going to do? Adam let him out of the car with strict instructions not to go anywhere or do anything stupid—if he could possibly help it. Man, the guy was a serious grumpypants.
“Hey,” Joey said as he approached the two men waiting by the building.
The main warehouse door was open now and they could see that inside was controlled chaos. A white van had been driven into the space and was being used as a sort of triage center; kids were being escorted out of the box and into the van, where someone was checking them over. When they emerged, they went to stand in a little group at the back of the van where a woman was handing out clean blankets. Another guy was handing out more food and bottled water.
As they watched, a second van pulled in and several more people hopped out, heading toward Adam to check in.
“I was in the area checking on the people I know who won’t go to shelters,” Brandon told Joey. “Saw you being hauled into the building and kind of lost it; tried to kick the door down. Next thing I know, Thor here,” he gestured at Buck, “appears like the superhero he is, and we managed to break in. The rest is, as they say, history.”
Buck was being awfully quiet. He hadn’t even said hi. The boy inched closer to him, if that was possible. Joey thought he looked about ten years old.
“Hey, I’m Joey. Remember me?”
The boy looked up at Buck and Buck nodded at him. The boy nodded at Joey. “Konstantin.” His voice was hoarse, and his nose was runny although someone had attempted to clean it a little. “You come before,” Konstantin said.
“I did, and I was coming back today to see if you were doing okay. But I ran into some trouble.”
Konstantin didn’t answer.
“It is okay to call you Kon? Do you have a nickname?”
Neither Konstantin nor Buck said anything. Joey was at a loss; he was normally excellent at putting people at ease, but he didn’t know what to do with all this silence. Brandon was trying to fill it by babbling, which was not helping at all.
Joey sidled over to Buck and knelt in front of Konstantin, not caring that the cement floor was freezing and his knees complained. “Do you mind if I talk to Buck for a minute?” The boy peered at him without comprehension. Damn. Language barrier. All around them swirled the other kids and members of Adam’s team who had been called to help contain the scene. For some reason Ira, from the Booking Room, was there, too. It took Joey a second to realize he was acting as a translator for the kids. The man spoke Russian. Who knew?
Joey was exhausted. Unexpectedly, it swept over him in an inexorable tide. He swayed and put his hand out to steady himself. Crap.
A small palm touched his forehead. Joey opened his eyes to see Konstantin checking him for a fever. He couldn’t help but smile through his exhaustion. He caught Buck’s concerned glance, the emotion in his ice-blue eyes at odds with his body language. Buck knelt, too, Konstantin standing between the two of them. Brandon, for once not oblivious, turned his back to give them a semblance of privacy.
“Are you okay?” Joey asked Buck.
“Why are you asking me if I’m okay? You were the one forcibly abducted, dragged off to—” Buck’s words shattered the cold air around them. Konstantin looked concerned at their exchange.
“Hey.” Joey’s knees were starting to ache. “I’m okay. I’m here, right?”
“We need to look at Konstantin now; he’s the last one.” A woman’s voice broke their safe bubble. “Once he has been looked over we’ll need to start interviews and figure out where everyone is going to be placed for the time being.”
Buck stood and reached back down to help Joey up. “What is going to happen to them?” Joey asked the woman.
“At this point they are all witnesses, and since we haven’t caught the people responsible, they’ll need protection.” She looked around at the group of kids. Most of them were huddled together looking scared, confused, some still sickly. A couple of the older ones were talking with Ira by Brandon’s van. Several agents had their cell phones to their ears, Adam was in a heated discussion with Weir.
Since it was abundantly clear that Konstantin wasn’t leaving Buck’s side without putting up a fight, the three of them headed to Brandon’s van together. Someone Joey hadn’t met before was stationed inside with a suitcase-sized first-aid kit. He introduced himself as Sammy and had Konstantin sit on an old vegetable crate while he quickly took his temperature, checked for visible injury, looked at his pupils, and cleaned him up as much as he could without removing any clothes. The inside of the warehouse was a refrigerator; Joey couldn’t believe the kids had lasted in here as long as they had.
“He seems okay. A slight fever; hard to know if he doesn’t just run hot. No significant bruising, nothing appears to be broken.” He shook Konstantin’s hand. “Thanks, buddy, you did good.”
“How old is he?” Joey asked.
“He told Ira he was eight the last time he celebrated his birthday. Hard to say when that was; time has been pretty strange for these kids. He’s small, but he has nine-year molars peeking through, so I’d say he’s at least nine and maybe ten.”
Sammy had a nice air about him; Joey could understand why he was the one to make first contact. As they got up to leave Sammy gestured for Joey to stay back for a second. Buck nodded at Sammy before leaving with his charge.
“You want me to check you over?” While his concern was delightful, and on any other day Joey would have been up for a flirt with the cute agent, he just wanted to get back to Buck.
“I’m okay, really tired and knocked around a bit, but okay.”
Sammy fished around in his suitcase and pulled out a battered chocolate bar.
“Here, eat this before you crash. It will keep you going a little while longer. You need to take it easy. You sure you don’t want me to look at that black eye? It’s a doozy.”
Joey had forgotten about his eye, but now that Sammy brought it up his head started to throb. He refused to acknowledge it. “What’s going to happen to them now, the kids? Where are they going?”
“That’s up to the boss to figure out.” Sammy was busy reorganizing his first-aid case so he could shut it. He used his elbow to point in Adam’s direction.
“Ah. Um, has he been cleared to work? It’s only been like four weeks since he was in the ICU.”
“Not my battle,” Sammy replied with a quirky smile. “No way am I going to be the one to tell Adam Klay he needs to step aside. That’s what Azaya is for. Or maybe that boyfriend of his.”
Joey looked in the same direction as Sammy and saw Micah had arrived. He looked seriously pissed off, and Adam looked like he’d been caught red-handed. Joey almost laughed at Adam’s guilty expression. Micah stormed up to him and pulled him away from Weir by his arm. Joey was too far away to hear what was being said, but he got the idea that Micah was not impressed by Adam’s behavior.
Ira came over to them with the older girl, Sveta, in tow. She spoke quickly to Konstantin, her words falling over themselves in a jumble. When she was finished and Konstantin had answered her, she turned back to Ira.
“I told him to tell you what you ask of him. He says he will talk to you.” With that, she left the four of them alone and headed back to the
other children. Ira rolled his eyes. It appeared he had understood their conversation, but Sveta seemed to be very protective of her fellow prisoners.
Ira had a smartphone out. Joey saw he was recording each conversation, presumably so investigators could go back and listen to the kids’ stories later. Ira spoke to Konstantin for several minutes. It seemed there were several times when Ira had him repeat his story. When Ira was finished with his questions, he shook Konstantin’s hand seriously, thanking him for his help.
“Konstantin is all yours,” he told Buck.
“Does he have a family name?” Buck asked, his deep voice rumbly.
“Ivanov, which is pretty much the same thing as Smith or Jones here in the US. All the kids have said they grew up in the countryside, border areas along Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine. It can be lawless out there unless you have money, connections, or both. Some of them are orphans who were living with relatives; others say they were living in group homes. Several of the older ones, Sveta for instance, say they were trying to come to America for better lives and the homes offered them passage. Konstantin was the first one who asked when they were going to church.”
“Going to church?” Joey parroted.
“Apparently the family he lived with after his own family was killed or deported somewhere—it’s hard to get the story straight; he was young when it happened—told him they were sending him to a special church that would take care of him.”
The candy bar Sammy had given him was not going to keep Joey on his feet much longer. The world he knew was crumbling before him, underneath him. He couldn’t explain why Konstantin’s story hit him so hard; it wasn’t as if Joey had a terrible family life that was triggered by Ira’s words. He needed to get a grip on his feelings. No one needed him to break down now.
Church. Why would people have told Konstantin he was going to a church? There were so many churches in Skagit, something like one church to every seventeen people. You couldn’t throw a stone without pinging a stained-glass window with a depiction of the good lord or some saint or other. There were at least seven different denominations of the Dutch Reformed Church alone. Mind, some of those churches were three little old ladies sitting in a basement with their knitting and a couple Bibles.
Across the warehouse Joey saw Adam take another phone call. Whoever was on the other end was not making him happy. He handed the phone to Micah, who listened, nodding.
Brandon chuckled. “I’ll bet you a dollar that’s Adam’s boss.”
Weir’s phone pinged almost immediately, and he answered with “Boss,” confirming Brandon’s suspicions. Weir turned, giving Micah the universal round-’em-up signal, and Micah hauled a pale and tired-looking Adam to his car and drove off.
Weir stalked over to the three of them. Great, Joey felt another lecture coming on. Kind of like a bad cold.
“All right, guys, this is a complicated mess. We’ve got to find safe places for these kids while we figure out what to do with them. The other stuff I’m not supposed to talk to you about.” He looked at each of them in turn. “Unfortunately, I suspect that if I don’t tell you, one or more of you may go off on your own again.” Why was he looking directly at Joey and Brandon?
“I’ll tell you right now that child-trafficking cases are the absolute worst. These kids were thrown in the trash by whatever entity was supposed to be watching over them—sometimes by their own families. The process is going to take time.” He sighed, running his fingers through his thick blond hair. “And—you did not hear this from me—because we have reason to believe prominent members of the Skagit community may be involved, we cannot involve Child Protective Services or any of the other agencies that would normally help us place them. Mohammad is going to love explaining the hotel expenditures for this one.” He grimaced.
Brandon tentatively raised his hand, like a shy schoolboy.
“Yes, Mr. Campbell?”
“Ugh, don’t call me that. Brandon, please.”
“Brandon,” Weir squeezed out between gritted teeth.
“I live in a six-bedroom farmhouse in the west county. The kids can stay with me and Steph, for now, anyway. There’s plenty of room, it’s safe, remote, and pretty darn kid-friendly. There’s room for some of your team, too. I know you wouldn’t want to have me or Steph in charge. Putting it out there.”
Weir stared at him like he was crazy (and Joey could verify that), but also thoughtfully. “Lemme run it past the powers. Do. Not. Move.” With that he stepped away.
In the end, after way too long for Joey to fully comprehend—he spaced out the middle part leaning on a very quiet Buck’s left side, with Konstantin on the right—the powers decided Brandon’s offer was a good one. The caveat: once they were out there, they all had to stay until the case broke or they were deemed safe. It was a kind of localized witness protection. This meant that from the warehouse they were going straight to the Bianchi farmstead, which had been in Stephanie’s family for generations.
Ira was not included, but Buck, Joey, Brandon, and all the kids were headed to the farm. Several agents were going to stay on the premises. Excuses would be made to work, family, and friends who missed them. Joey was terribly worried about his mother, and made Weir pinky-promise they would watch over her.
“She is not in danger. Bolic is the only one who knows about your mom, and he’s not telling anyone.”
“Well, I’m worried about him, too,” Joey replied. He could tell by the look in Weir’s eyes that he wasn’t the only one.
Twenty-Eight
The Bianchi farmstead was mindboggling. Buck had driven by it many times but had never set foot on the property before, not even during their annual Halloween pumpkin craze. It would be even more amazing in daylight. The agents had waited until nightfall to move everyone. There would be no way to hide the fact that the kids were no longer in their prison box, but Weir hoped to hide where they were headed.
It was a good thing Buck remembered Xena was sleeping in Sheila; poor Joey, exhausted as he was, would have been beside himself. One of the agents retrieved her for him, and the reunion between her and Joey was hilariously adorable. She acted as if they had been separated for years, not hours. At first the kids had been frightened of her. She wasn’t a small dog by any means. Her performance while trying to get Konstantin to pet her sealed her fate as their favorite animal.
After jumping up on Joey, then dropping down on the floor and full-body wiggling like crazy, she calmed a little. Buck stood aside to give Konstantin a chance to get used to her. When the boy first saw the dog, he whimpered and pressed very close to Buck, but as she continued her performance he loosened up a little. The sight of Joey rolling around laughing must have done something.
Joey was holding her leash when Xena caught Konstantin watching her antics. Buck could swear she smiled. He had never seen a dog do that before. Immediately she dropped onto her stomach and began belly-crawling toward the two of them, pulling Joey along behind her. When she had gotten close enough, the silly animal rolled onto her back, wiggling around and displaying her tummy, begging to be petted. Konstantin stood still for a moment, watching Xena’s clowning.
Buck gestured toward the dog. “Her name is Xena. You can pet her.”
Konstantin didn’t look convinced until Buck bent down to scratch her belly and she wriggled like a maniac, her long tail wagging in the opposite direction from her body. Konstantin giggled, saying something in Russian before dropping to his knees to scratch her. The dog’s response was ecstasy; she wiggled even harder while also trying to lick the boy’s face. Konstantin laughed, and the rest of the kids, who had been watching with fascination and trepidation, slowly approached. All but two or three came over to pet and hug the dog. But it was clear to everyone she and Konstantin had bonded. For the first time since they had met that morning, Konstantin willingly left Buck’s side.
Now the two of them were curled up together on a small hide-a-bed, fast asleep. The rest of the kids had been split among the remaining
bedrooms, except that they’d all ended up in two adjoining ones. After being forced together for months, they were hesitant to be separated. Except for Konstantin, who had found his soul mate in Xena. Buck grinned.
Joey and Buck were in the room next to Kon’s, connected by a rustic three-quarter bath that was going to be put to good use tomorrow. All the kids needed deep cleaning but were too exhausted. By the time everyone was settled it was after ten p.m. Buck was dead on his feet from the emotion and events of the day. He wondered when the right time to talk to Joey would be; he wondered if he was overthinking the whole thing. There was probably nothing to talk about.
It was amusing that the entire team of agents, Brandon, and even Stephanie had assumed they were a couple, assigning them their own room. Neither Joey nor Buck had corrected them. Joey was so spacey he wouldn’t have noticed if they’d made him room with the slew of geese guarding the gates. Buck had spent the evening steering Joey around with a hand at his lower back. Steered him up the steps of the front porch, to the kitchen where Stephanie and Brandon were putting together food, to check out the bedrooms. Through it all Joey had been mostly quiet. Not silent, just subdued and kind of spaced out. Answering questions but not truly present.
“Don’t worry,” Weir told Buck, “it’s the adrenaline crash. I’m surprised he’s standing at all.”
In the privacy of their room, Buck and Joey wordlessly stripped down to T-shirts and underwear before crawling into the fluffy queen-sized bed. As usual, Buck’s feet dangled off the end when he stretched out. Instead he curled himself protectively around Joey’s smaller body, the big spoon.
Despite his exhaustion, Buck was unable to fall asleep. He kept thinking about the day. Joey was sleeping, well, like the dead. Buck wrapped himself tighter around Joey, feeling the sharply defined bumps of his spine against his chest, the coarse hair on his legs rough against his own, Joey’s soft hair against his nose as Buck breathed him in.
