“Thanks,” Elle said, a quizzical expression on her face. She walked Dwight out, then turned around and questioned Patrick. “What was that about?”
“It was about our concern over tonight. We have a lot to do today.”
“Like find Kami.”
“Like figure out what’s happening tonight.”
“You promised.”
“Yes, we’re going to look for Kami. But we have preliminary work to do. I need information about the people Lee was meeting with, and I’m waiting for a call back from my contact in ICE. Just give it a couple hours.”
“I can go out now, you can meet me later—”
“No. You heard the recording—Lee sees you as a threat. You’re not safe.”
“He’s not going to hurt me. But what about Kami?”
Patrick stepped closer to Elle. He didn’t know if these protective instincts were from training, or because of something more … but he dismissed the emotion. Emotion was dangerous in an operation like this; he needed to focus on protecting Elle and finding Kami. “Trust me, Elle. I know people like Christopher Lee. He will kill you if you interfere.”
She nodded slowly, and Patrick relaxed. He kissed her. It was spontaneous, but felt right. She wrapped her arms around his neck and held him tight. “Thank you,” she whispered.
He didn’t want to let her go. He’d been craving emotions again, emotions other than the anger and pain that had driven him for the last five years. With Elle, he’d found the part of himself that had been buried since Lucy’s attack. He finally remembered who he’d been before his coma, before his life had been irrevocably changed.
She tilted her head back and frowned. “Are you okay?”
He nodded. He wanted to say something more, something about them, but for now, he was going to have to be satisfied with feeling again. The rush of complex emotions was dizzying.
“I’m going to take a quick shower,” he said. He smiled. “I’d ask you to join me, but you’d be a distraction.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m hoping Dean will call before nine, and then we can make a plan.”
“Dean?”
“Dean Hooper. He’s the assistant special agent in charge of Sacramento FBI, and a good friend of RCK. He also used to run one of the white-collar-crimes divisions in Washington—if anyone can follow a money trail, it’s Dean.” At least legally.
“Okay. I’ll make some breakfast.”
“You don’t have to,” he said.
“I want to. You earned it.” She smiled and kissed him. “Towels are in the closet behind the bathroom door. And if you really miss me, just call.”
Elle waited until Patrick was in the shower, then she hastily wrote out a note. She didn’t try to explain. Either Patrick understood that she had to find Kami, or he didn’t.
She’d let Doreen down last year, she couldn’t let Kami down. While she trusted Patrick, she couldn’t just sit around and wait. She had to get them herself. Once she found Kami, she’d do anything Patrick wanted. Once she knew Kami was safe, she’d be able to breathe again.
While the shower was running, she called Clark. “Can you meet me at the coffee shop around the corner from Granny’s Kitchen?”
“Of course—what’s wrong?”
“I need your help to find Kami. You’ll help me, right?”
“Of course I will. What happened to your friend from San Diego?”
“He’s doing something else,” she said, and glanced up the stairs. Maybe she shouldn’t do this. Maybe Patrick was right.
He was right about a lot of things, but not Clark. She’d dated Clark for over a year. They’d been best friends forever. Guys like Clark didn’t sell people. She would have seen it.
But she would definitely keep her eyes open. She added a PS to her note as she said to Clark, “Twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be there.”
She heard the shower turn off as she slid the door closed behind her and left.
CHAPTER 10
Kami woke up, not from the cold, wet concrete, but from the sobs in the cell next to hers. She opened her eyes. Blinked, her head aching. The one bare lightbulb didn’t help her see much except a crowd of girls. The stench of urine and vomit penetrated her pores, worse than any night she’d slept on the streets. She’d have preferred a cardboard box next to a Dumpster to this basement full of despair and hopelessness.
“Kami, thank God you’re alive.” It was Ashley. She was holding her hand, but Kami was so numb she didn’t feel it.
“I’m fine.”
“He hit you and I thought he’d killed you.”
The night before came back to her in a rush. She hadn’t forgotten, but she wanted to.
She’d tried to run, but they caught her. Hit her over and over, and she thought she was going to die. Like Doreen. She only vaguely remembered being carried into the warehouse, past the
COLD STORAGE
sign, into the basement with a hundred young women, locked in this cell, a prisoner. Or an animal. She felt disoriented, unable to understand most of the women around her because they must not speak English. Except Ashley.
“We have to get out of here,” she said.
“Impossible,” Ashley said. She lifted her shirt and revealed an ugly bruise. “I tried, once, when they were feeding us. It still hurts.”
“I’d rather be dead.”
“No. Please help me. I don’t want to die.”
“What’s going on over there?” Kami gestured to the crying women in the cell next to hers.
“I’m not sure, but I think someone is hurt.”
Kami frowned. She shuffled over to the side, stepping over sleeping women, until she could see into the adjoining cell. A young girl was crying over an older girl who lay on the floor, her eyes open. The younger girl was repeating something that sounded like a name. Something like Flower, but that wasn’t exactly right. Flower wasn’t moving. Her eyes looked unnatural.
Kami turned her face. She was dead. Kami had seen dead bodies before, and Flower was dead.
Ashley whispered, “Several of the girls are sick.”
“What else have you heard?”
“They’re going to move us tonight, when it’s dark.”
Kami frowned, looked around at all the women, the hollow eyes, the defeat.
She didn’t want to die, either. “Okay.”
A crashing noise upstairs preceded the rumbling of footfalls on the metal stairs. Three men entered, all thugs Kami recognized from Lorenzo’s gang. Ringo approached her cell and sneered. “You should have stayed out of business that doesn’t concern you.”
She spat in his face.
Ringo reached in and grabbed her by the neck, slammed her face against the bars. She grabbed the bars, trying to pull free. She couldn’t breathe.
Another guy hit Ringo on the back of the head. “Knock it off.”
Ringo dropped her, and she fell to her knees.
Ringo said, “Clean them all up and make them ready. Open the cells, one at a time, order them to line up for showers and clothes. We don’t have a lot of time.”
Ringo turned back to Kami. He said, “You do what you’re told or you’re dead. You’ll get no other warning.”
All three men had guns. They started with the cell closest to the showers. Kami watched as the girls were walked through, ordered to strip, and sprayed with soap and water. There was no steam, no warmth coming from the open shower room, and the girls came out cold and shaking. There were a couple of towels, but after the first few dried off, the towels were too wet to be effective. They were each handed a shapeless dress and no underwear. After they dressed, right ankles were tied together as they lined up down the hall. The girls shuffled back into their filthy cells. It took thirty minutes, and then they opened the next.
“Shit, Ringo, I think this one’s dead.”
“Flower,” the younger girl wailed.
“Well, fuck me,” Ringo said. “I’ll take care of it. Start the next cell. Lee’s going to inspect them this afternoon, they need to be ready for the trucks. We’re moving up the schedule, no fucking around this time.”
Kami’s cell was opened. The girls lined up, quiet, resigned to their fate.
Kami couldn’t let herself get tied up. But the third guy with the gun was at the base of the stairs. There could be more upstairs. Maybe this was her only chance.
Ashley grabbed her hand. Looked at Kami, as if Kami had all the answers.
“How old are you?” Kami whispered. “Don’t lie this time.” She’d told Richie she was sixteen.
“Thirteen,” Ashley said. “I just want to go home.”
“Shh,” Kami said.
The young girl sitting over Flower’s body started screaming and kicking, and Ringo hit her so hard her body slammed against the cement wall and collapsed, unmoving.
Some of the other young women started crying and shouting, and Ringo took out his gun and shot two of the girls who were sick in the corner. “Nobody move!” Ringo said. “Tell them, Jonny!”
The man guarding the stairs came down the hall, towering over all of them, shouting in Chinese. The girls cowered and cried.
Kami squeezed Ashley’s hand and they both ran up the stairs.
They heard more gunshots in the basement below, and Kami didn’t know if the gunfire was directed at them or if Ringo had just lost it and was going to kill them all. Kami hated leaving all those girls, but if she didn’t run and try to get help, she’d suffer the same fate.
“Come on,” she urged, then noticed that Ashley was in pain. She must have been hurt far worse than either of them had thought.
“We have to keep going,” Kami said. No one was guarding the top of the stairs so she ran straight for the door. Ashley’s hand slipped from hers. Kami grabbed it again, pulling her along.
She pushed open the door. The bright sunlight nearly blinded her. Where was the fog? The rain? It was cold, but the sky was so clear she wanted to cry.
“I can’t see!” Ashley said.
Ashley must have been down in the basement for days—ever since Richie turned her over to Lee. How could Richie have done it? How could he be so cruel that he’d sell runaways to Christopher Lee to be forced to do unspeakable things? Kami knew Richie Lorenzo was a cruel drug dealer but he’d always looked out for her. How could he turn on her like this? Because he had to know that she’d been locked up, too. Right?
“Stay with me,” Kami begged Ashley. “Please, just stay close.”
Kami made sure she had a good grip on Ashley as she pulled her through the cracked parking lot. Rocks and broken glass cut into her bare feet. She heard shouts behind them and they ran harder. Her vision was clearing up. She knew these streets as well as anyone; she just needed to get to Elle’s apartment. She hoped and prayed Elle was there.
Lee’s men were going to follow them. They had cars. They also knew this town.
But Kami had one ace in the hole. The money she’d stashed under a rock near the teen center. If they could get there, only half a mile away, they could hop on BART and go anywhere.
Ashley was slowing down. One look at her pale face and Kami knew she wasn’t going to make it.
Kami half dragged, half carried her toward an abandoned warehouse down the street from where they’d been held captive. Though it was fenced off, there was a hole in the chain-link fence from scavengers who’d picked the place clean of cans and bottles to earn a few bucks to buy beer and crack. Kami had crossed paths with the mentally disturbed homeless who puttered about, barely surviving.
Kami pulled Ashley through the hole and wished she could find a better, safer place to hide.
Behind the boarded-up warehouse were piles of garbage, broken machines, and boxes. Kami positioned Ashley between the Dumpster and a doorless refrigerator. “Stay here. I’m going to get help. No matter what you do, don’t leave.”
“Promise? Promise you’ll come back?”
“I promise. Just be very, very quiet.”
Ashley nodded and lay down. She was not well. What if she had a broken rib or something? Couldn’t that be dangerous?
But Kami couldn’t sit here and wait for Ringo and the others to find them. She peered around the building and didn’t see anyone.
She bolted.
* * *
Christopher Lee listened to the report from his men and was proud that he resisted the urge to shoot them all.
“The two girls who should never have been allowed to escape, escaped?” Lee shook his head.
“We found the blonde,” Ringo said. “She was hiding behind a Dumpster.”
“Where is she now? In the Dumpster, I hope?”
Ringo glanced at Jonny, and Jonny said, “Blondes are worth too much. I drugged her. She won’t be waking until she hits the border.”
Marginally better.
“And the little bitch who was spying on me? Why didn’t you kill her outright?”
“Boss, you said we were short on girls,” Ringo said.
“You should have dumped her on that bitch lawyer’s doorstep like the last one,” Lee said.
Jonny spoke up. “We’re on a tight schedule because of all the mistakes with your shipping company, Mr. Lee. Playing games with a two-bit lawyer wastes time.”
Lee didn’t like Soldare’s man. He didn’t treat Lee with the respect that he had earned. He was constantly watching, waiting for a screw-up. To report him to Soldare? To cut him off? Neither of them knew how important he was to their operation. One call and he could shut them down and walk away clean.
He said, “You know where that little girl is going, don’t you?”
“Yeah, but we may have a solution,” Ringo said. “We had a guy watching Santana’s apartment. She left thirty minutes ago.”
“Did you follow her?”
“Yes, we have eyes on her. If the girl contacts her, we’ll get them both.”
“You’ll kill them both. I’m tired of that lawyer interfering with my business. For years I’ve worked under the radar, and she comes in like a bull in a china shop.” He closed his eyes and forced himself to be calm.
“Where is the private investigator?”
“Still in the apartment, we think.”
“Think, or know?”
“He’s there,” Jonny said.
“I want eyes on Ms. Santana and eyes on her apartment. That little tramp Kami is the only real threat to our operations. She’s the only one who knows where this place is. She’s the only one who might have evidence against me. Find her then kill her. She may very well go to Santana’s apartment first.”
“I’ll do it,” Ringo said.
“No. Jonny, you’re in charge now.” As much as Lee didn’t like Soldare’s people, they were effective. “Ringo, you get the rest of my merchandise ready for transport and move them to the backup facility.”