by Marlow Kelly
“You’re supposed to attend a seminar at Quantico in a couple of months. They will explain there are a lot of hackers, but very few of them can write code.”
She gave him a look that suggested she didn’t know what he was talking about. “I thought that was what made a hacker, the ability to write a series of squiggles and dashes, which can disrupt the world.”
He shook his head. “Most of them just seek out and copy the squiggles and dashes.”
“But Michael is one of the few who can actually make stuff up.” She added that detail to her notes.
“From what I understand, it’s like talking with an accent. Everyone who writes—”
“Has their own accent so they’re identifiable, which means they know it was him.”
“Exactly. He should’ve known as soon as he infected their computers he was putting a target on his back.”
“So why didn’t he take measures?” She flicked another page over as she continued writing down everything they discussed.
“Concussion. He lost his memory.” Michael hadn’t mentioned what he’d planned to do to cover his tracks, or maybe he hadn’t planned that far. He’d seen an opportunity and seized it.
“Shit.” Her use of a curse word confirmed his feeling of doom.
“It gets worse.”
She gave him a pained look. “How?”
He told her about Michael and Sinclair’s trip to PDE, how they had planted malware on the secure system to connect it to the internet, their encounter with Ethan Moore, and how Lucy was paying large sums of money to the Global Democratic Coalition.
She put a hand to her head. “This is almost too much. Could they be charged with breaking and entering? And why would Moore warn them? What’s he playing at?”
“Plus, we can’t use anything they uncover.”
“Fruit of the poisonous tree.” She nodded and then doodled a flower on her notepad. “We shouldn’t push the panic button just yet. We haven’t acted on anything they’ve discovered.” She stopped writing. “How much should we tell our friends in local law enforcement?”
“My gut says tell them everything. I don’t want anyone from the Granite City-Elkhead County Police Department to get hurt, and we still have to maintain a good working relationship with them once this is over.”
“Despite what Deluca said, you think we should tell them about the mole?”
He nodded. “And how they’ve accessed my records. I don’t want the Syndicate doing the same to them.”
She drew in a breath. “Okay, we’ll go and talk to Tate and Ramirez, but first things first. Let’s deal with your friends who are living in our office.”
He rolled his eyes. “I can’t kick them out, but at the same time, they’re driving me nuts.”
She tried to hide her smile behind her coffee cup.
“Is that why you stayed out of the office last night?” He’d expected her back after she’d finished her interview, but she’d texted him to say she was heading home.
“No.” She pursed her lips. A sure sign she was lying.
For the first time since Sinclair was mugged, he smiled. “You went home, showered, and slept in your own bed and left me to deal with them.”
Her grin was positively gleeful. “I didn’t neglect my duties, and you would’ve called if you needed me. They’re your friends. I figured you could deal with them.”
“I gotta tell you, I’m not doing a good job.”
She frowned “Sure, you are. You had the sense to get me to take over so that puts you ahead of most.” She sighed and then continued, “These people aren’t just friends. They’re your family. You can’t cut them free when they have no safe place to go, and God knows we can’t call the DOJ. Right now, they’re in a building that has security at the front door and the FBI occupies the second floor. Let’s put them in the conference room for now. That way we can keep an eye on them, and they’ll still be safe. We’ll come up with a long-term plan when things calm down.”
“That’ll work.” Why the hell hadn’t he thought of putting them there?
She opened the passenger door. Their chat was obviously at an end. “Do you want me to tell them?”
“No. It’s like you said, they’re family. I should do it.” He opened his door and followed her into the building.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Defense attorney Sophia Reed needed better security at her downtown office. He’d kept an eye on her since the bank robbery last month. Not because he intended to harm her, but because he never knew if he might need a good lawyer and she was the perfect go-between.
She was a creature of habit and arrived at work the same time every day. Her evening schedule did vary, however. He assumed she stayed later, depending on her workload.
It had been easy to jimmy the lock and, like most professionals, he had the electronic equipment needed to defeat the alarm. He left the cameras running. The cops could use the video to identify him. He smiled. Never in his life had he imagined he would be sharing information with the police and would want them to track him.
He locked the front door and reset the system. He didn’t want her to call law enforcement before he’d had a chance to talk to her.
Her office wasn’t as fancy as he’d expected, but it was tastefully decorated, and at the same time unassuming. She’d used the space well. Her desk was at one end of the room, and a sitting area with a couch, two armchairs, and a coffee table sat at the other. It conveyed success without being ostentatious.
He made his way to her private bathroom, which held a toilet and a sink. She had personalized it with scented hand soap and matching lotion. There was also a clean blouse hanging on the back of the door.
He listened as she entered. She paced around for a few minutes and then, finally, the door to her office clicked shut. When he heard her chair creak under her weight, he stepped out of the bathroom and walked toward her. “You might want to keep your hands where I can see them.”
She jerked and let out a small squeal. “You—what—no!” She lunged for her purse, which was on top of her desk.
He dived, snatching the bag out of her grasp. “Sit down.”
She obeyed his instruction. Her hands were shaking, and all color had drained from her face.
He tipped the contents of her bag onto her desk. Out tumbled her cell phone, a wallet, a pack of tissues, sunglasses, and a small can of pepper spray that would fit into the palm of her hand. He slipped the non-lethal weapon into his pocket. “Good choice.”
“You looked different the last time I saw you.” She sat with her back ramrod straight and her hands palm down on the tabletop. Every muscle in her body was rigid and tense.
“That’s right, I was balding. It doesn’t take much to change the description of a suspect, which messes with law enforcement and creates doubt.”
Her eyes widened and then narrowed.
He could almost see her sizing up the situation and going through her options. “No one will be able to save you if I wanted to kill you.”
“What do you want?” Her voice quivered.
He threw her purse on the desk and held up his arms, wiggling his fingers, showing her he had no intention of going for the knife at his waist, which probably wasn’t as reassuring as it seemed considering he had the ability to kill with his bare hands. “I’m trying to protect two women and stop a human trafficking ring. I need you to get a message to Michael Papin.”
“Who?” She shook her head. “And why should I believe you?”
He paused and then decided to be honest. “I can’t think of a reason. If I’d been asked to kill the women, I would’ve done it quick so they didn’t feel a thing, but they don’t want them dead. They want them to suffer, and I don’t do that.”
“Who’s they?” She seemed less frightened now that he had piqued her curiosity.
“Ask Michael Papin. He knows more than he should. That’s why they want him.”
She grabbed a pad of paper and a pen from the far
side of her desk. “I don’t understand. Who is Michael Papin? What has he got to do with these women? And why do you want to stop a trafficking ring?” She scribbled Papin’s name on the paper.
He was only prepared to answer one of her questions. “The women are Papin’s mother and sister.”
She wrote down the words mother and sister. Then she pursed her lips and looked at him. “And you want to save them?”
He leaned in, wanting her to understand the seriousness of the situation. “Go see FBI Special Agent Finn Callaghan. Papin is with him.”
“The FBI?” That got her attention.
“Yes. Papin plans to exchange himself for the women, but they will kill him and sell the women at auction.”
Sophia gasped.
Ethan nodded, satisfied she recognized the gravity of the situation. “Yes, it’s as bad as it sounds.”
“Why are you helping them?”
“You should know why. I saved you from being molested, didn’t I? I like killing but I don’t rape, and I won’t hurt a child. My reasons are my own.”
“What’s the message?” Her pen was poised in her hand.
“Tell him they are in room six-one-five on the sixth floor of the Sun Down Hotel.
She jotted down his instructions.
He pulled the pepper spray from his pocket and turned it over in his hand, inspecting it. “This is only effective if you can get to it in time to use it. Carry it in your pocket. That way it’s handy if you need it.” He placed it on her desk and walked out without looking back. She would probably call her cop boyfriend and then contact FBI Special Agent Finn Callaghan. Even if they didn’t believe Ethan, they would have to investigate.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Michael stood and limped around the room. His left side had stiffened, making walking difficult.
Sinclair sat up and yawned. Her long hair fell about her face. He loved watching her as she woke up. If it wasn’t for the dark circles shadowing her eyes and her paler than usual skin tone, he could almost imagine she’d just stirred from a beautiful dream.
But this wasn’t a dream. It was a nightmare.
Finn had roused them when he and his partner, Special Agent Morris, returned. He had probably slept for less than an hour, but he was revitalized and ready to find his mom and Ava.
Special Agent Morris was brisk, efficient, and Michael got the impression she wasn’t a pushover. There was no way in hell she would let them stay here. She hadn’t said anything…yet. Although, everything about her, from her stern expression to the way she stood like a soldier on parade, suggested they were about to get their marching orders.
“I can’t see them being held in a business that’s open to the public. It would be harder to control the situation if there are customers coming and going. My guess would be they're in a warehouse somewhere,” Michael announced. He wanted one last chance to brainstorm while they were all together.
Sinclair stood, walked to Agent Morris’ desk, and began to tidy up the records she’d been reviewing. “Maybe…but I don’t think we should rule out that hotel Lucy owns. I heard a rumor there was an upmarket brothel operating in the city. Maybe it’s being run out of this hotel. That would explain the income.”
Finn folded his arms as he sat on the edge of his desk. “Did you contact the police about this establishment?”
She stopped what she was doing and looked at him. Her head tilted to one side as though she was considering how much to tell him. Finally, she shrugged. “First, it’s not my case. I just overheard my partner, Jake, talking about it and, second, no, I rarely call the cops to a brothel unless I’m investigating sex trafficking in a location where prostitution is legal and there’s no chance of the women being charged.”
“Why not?” Special Agent Morris placed her coffee on her desk, taking back her space.
Sinclair stacked the papers into a neat pile. “No disrespect to any of you, because I know you’re the good guys, but there are police officers who would arrest the girls and not the pimps or johns. The threat of prison time is one of the tools traffickers use to keep the girls in line.”
Her words rang true even though, as an ex-federal agent, Michael didn’t want to believe them. “But the girls are the victims?”
She held the bundle of files in her arms and walked back to the couch. “It doesn’t happen too often, but when it does, it’s devastating for the women. I had one eighteen-year-old charged with prostitution after she’d been beaten and repeatedly raped. We managed to get the charges dropped, but it was another level of abuse she was forced to endure.”
Finn sat in his chair and put his feet up on his desk, getting comfortable. “How do you free them if you don’t use law enforcement?”
She sat, looking as deflated as he felt. “For cases that involve prostitution, we try and buy them out, or we steal them away. If it’s a big ring run by a cartel, or if a case involves slave labor or someone stealing organs, I always call the authorities.”
They’d gone off-track, discussing Sinclair’s work, and he needed to bring them back to the subject at hand. “You said there was a hotel in town?” Michael crouched down in front of her.
Earlier, he’d dismissed her instincts and her experience. That had been a mistake born out of guilt. First, he’d allowed himself to become obsessed with Sinclair, and then he’d gone to PDE thinking if he knew what the Syndicate were up to, he could somehow save his family. But instead of saving them, he’d abandoned them when they needed him the most.
She thrust the financial records at him. “Yes. According to these statements, she’s collecting money from the Sun Down Hotel. Do you remember how bad it was East of Hell? There’s no way I can see a hotel in that area raking in this kind of cash.” She seemed energized by the notion they might have a lead.
He placed the records on the ground, grabbed her face and gave her a quick peck on the lips. “I’m sorry I was so grumpy earlier.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You weren’t grumpy.”
“I wasn’t?”
“No.” she smiled. “You were a jerk.”
He shrugged. She wasn’t wrong.
Special Agent Morris clapped her hands, getting their attention. “This is all very sweet, but you two need to move to the conference room. Now.”
Michael slapped his laptop shut and unplugged it from the outlet. “Thank you for being so patient with us and letting us use your desk.”
She graced him with a genteel smile.
“Oh, and for the record, we didn’t look at any files, not even the ones Finn left out on his desk.” Michael knew it was mean, but he couldn’t help teasing his friend.
Special Agent Morris gasped.
Finn threw his body over his desk as if that would help with his breach of protocol.
Michael headed for the door. “Don’t worry, we won’t tell anyone. Now, which way is the conference room?”
“What are your plans?” Special Agent Morris demanded.
He couldn’t tell who she was addressing, but he assumed the question was meant for him. He stopped at the threshold and turned to face them, suddenly feeling tired, as if his nap had never happened. “Lucy hasn’t contacted me to make an exchange.”
“Did you think she would?” Finn stood and walked to the front of his desk.
Michael shrugged. “I hoped. This is about getting at me, isn’t it?”
“It would be the logical move, get you out in the open and kill you. Without you to use as a bargaining chip, we have no way of getting your family back,” Special Agent Morris said, pointing out the obvious.
He had nothing to add to her observation, so he decided to answer her earlier question. “I’m going to see if I can track down Lucy’s haunts. Maybe she’s keeping them close, and then I’m going to look into this Sun Down Hotel. If Sinclair thinks there something shady about it, then it’s worth investigating.”
“How are you going to track Lucy?” Finn asked.
“Nothing illegal. I ha
ve an algorithm that searches social media for photos of a chosen subject.” He lied. They were FBI agents, and they needed deniability.
“Where’s the conference room?” Sinclair inched past him, her arms still holding the printout he’d given her.
“Four doors down on the left.” Special Agent Morris pointed the way.
He acknowledged her directions with a nod and closed the door behind him.
Once they were in the hallway, Sinclair whispered, “What are you really going to do?”
He should have known she’d see through his lie. “Figure out when Lucy Portman will be at her most vulnerable and kidnap her.”
****
Sinclair stared at the PDE building that stood dark and foreboding in the early morning light. She rubbed her temples, trying to ignore the dull, fatigue-induced headache. Michael had been tapping away at his computer since they’d moved to the conference room an hour ago. She assumed he was focused on his goal of pursuing Lucy. A rich, powerful woman like her would probably have armed bodyguards, which meant there was a good chance his plan would get him killed.
She paced around the room and then stopped next to him. “You know your personal involvement puts you at a disadvantage.”
He murmured something unintelligible but didn’t look up from the screen.
“Your judgement is impaired,” she shouted, trying to break his concentration and force him to listen.
She was tempted to haul him out of his seat and give him a good shake. But that wouldn’t do any good. She couldn’t convince him when he didn’t want to listen. He was shutting her out. That was why a relationship between them would never work. He didn’t share or communicate with others and she needed… She wasn’t entirely sure what she needed, but she knew she couldn’t trust him to include her in his world. He’d pushed her away sixteen years ago, and he was doing it again now. It didn’t matter how much they cared for each other. Sometimes love wasn’t enough.
She paced to the window and drummed the windowsill with her fingertips, hoping to come up with another approach. She suspected she’d discovered the source, or one of the sources, of Lucy Portman’s illicit funds, but what would the original crime be? If Michael was right, and her legitimate holdings didn’t account for all her money, then what kind of business could she be caught up in that led to a hotel in a rundown part of town? Her first choice was always human trafficking since it involved obscene amounts of money. That might be a bias on her part because she understood how it worked. Even small local operations made millions. The cabals that worked international sex slavery businesses made billions of dollars off their crimes.
