36

“They got the girls back too.”

The words were like acid on Jim’s tongue. His rage at Zant for taking Erica was about to eat him alive. Somehow knowing the asshole had the girls was like salt in an already burning wound. He needed to act but they were at a dead end. They still had no real lead on the Thin Man. Hitting Zant in his office would be a suicide mission, and they had no way to know he was even in the country, much less his penthouse.

Inactivity was churning in his gut.

They were in the emergency room getting his shoulder fixed up when Ely had called. The ambulance carrying Lola and Connie had been carjacked at a rest area. The driver hurt, the girls gone.

Miller shook his head, though painkillers slowed his actions. “How the fuck?” The detective was in a hospital room. His arm had been cleaned and stitched and his right leg had been set from a nasty compound break and was hanging in a strange contraption with pulleys and ropes. He was alive. It had been a close call, though. The rolling sedan had almost crushed him.

“I don’t know. The whole thing was a crash and grab. Someone working with Sister Nora had to have leaked it.” Oscar peered around the curtain of the tiny hospital room window. “We’re out of allies and not likely to acquire many more since most everyone who has helped us has ended up dead.”

His words were cold, slow. The calm worried Jim. And now Miller was a sitting duck, too injured to get out of the hospital.

“How did they know the route? It was last minute, untraceable. I feel like they’re sleeping with us.” Jim paced back to the door and looked out into the hallway. A woman shuffling along with an IV tower. A nurse. Nothing threatening.

Miller sipped water through a straw, then croaked out one word: “Broady.” He tried to sit up but the IV lines in both his arms made it hard for him to adjust. O rushed over to help.

“Broady took Erica. Recognize the bike. Those black and yellow leathers. I was out on a scene one night and he stopped by. I teased him about those leathers for weeks. The asshole looked like a fucking bee.” Miller moved his arm. Inspected the bandage. “And that was his gun. Polished nickel.”

Jim paced, then propped his weight against the far wall of the room as the nurse came in. “So Detective fucking Broady put out the BOLOs and someone spotted your car on the move. Good luck for him, bad for us. He closed in and took you out. With more flair than he would have liked, is my guess.” Jim seethed over the thought of the dirty cop having his hands on Erica. It was time to get proactive.

“I know you are cops and all”—the nurse scanned the room, then looked at Miller—“but you need some rest.” She then gave the other two men in the room a glance.

“We’re about to finish up.”

She keyed something into the computer in the wall, updating his chart. “Good.”

“Miss?” She looked up. Oscar flashed her that heart-melting smile. His face changed from cold and deadly to one of a mother concerned for a sick child. “You know how it is after an accident … especially one with a cop involved. There’ll probably be some other reporters, maybe even other cops who want to ask him a bunch of silly questions that can wait a few days. Just in case, I’d like to send a friend over to keep watch over our young detective here. Some pretty shady characters have threatened him. I promise, my guy will stand at the end of the hall and not get in the way of all the good work you ladies do.”

His charm worked.

“I guess. If he’s out of the way and don’t scare the other patients.”

“No, ma’am.” He grinned again. “Scout’s honor.”

She snapped the lid closed. She looked skeptical. “He best not, or out he goes. And you two need to scoot. Soon.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Detective Miller needs some peace.”

“Ma’am.” Oscar winked as she left. Jim was sure he heard her giggle.

“How do you do that shit? Women fall all over you,” Miller said with more clarity than he’d managed a moment ago.

Oscar shrugged. “I mean what I say. Honesty is something women feel.”

“We’ll go talk to the nun. See what we can get out of her, who she thinks is the weak link in her chain. There has to be something connecting all this. Chris’s cartoon signature being in that bathroom stall was a crumb, a message.” Jim patted the blanket-covered foot of Miller’s uninjured leg. “You feel better. Call if you need us.” Jim gave him a clean cell.

Miller opened it, glanced through the preprogrammed numbers. Jim, Oscar, Ely. “Got it.”

“I’ll have someone here in ten minutes. You won’t see him. But he’ll be watching.” Oscar slipped the detective a small .380 pony under the sheet by his good hand. “For vermin and such.”

Miller nodded. “Thanks.”

“Broady is the man in the yellow shoes, only the shoes weren’t shoes at all. Motorcycle boots.” He shook his head. Seven-year-old girl wouldn’t have known that. “But Broady’s beer gut eliminates him as the other player in the hotel, the Thin Man.”

“Yep.” They were pulling up to the church. It was getting late, dinnertime. He wondered if the sister would be there.

“If this is a dead end, we need to pay Zant a visit. Get proactive.”

Oscar looked over at Jim’s arm all tied up in a sling. “How’d that go for you last time?”

“Shut up.”

O nodded and put the Escalade in park. “You may be right, but I think it best we know who’s at the table before we throw all in, don’t you think?”

“I think about Erica being in one of those crates and I think I’m ready to kill Andrew Zant and all his demented friends right up in his penthouse office in front of that giant snake tank.” Jim took a deep breath. Nothing got a person into more trouble than uncontrolled emotion in this business.

Oscar got out, Jim followed. Oscar made it to the door first but turned back to Jim, blocking his entrance. “You change your mind about a gun? The stakes are high. Someone’s gonna die.”

He chuckled. O looked like he was waiting on Jim to have some Dr. Phil breakthrough. “Don’t you worry. I saved your ass at the ranch, didn’t I?”

Oscar seemed to search his face to make sure he was ready for the coming storm. He must have found something convincing enough. “Lucky break.” He entered the church. Sister Nora was exiting the sanctuary. She hustled to them.

“You have news?”

Jim hadn’t expected that. They were here to question her, not give her an update. “We were hoping you could help us, Sister.” Jim tamped down his anger to prevent making the nun skittish. “We want to find the girls, but Erica has been taken as well. We believe a police officer aided in her abduction. What we need to know is who may have assisted from within your organization.”

“Mine?” She backed up a step, put her hand to her heart in surprise or insult. Jim really didn’t care which.

“Who knows the route and destinations when you start this enterprise? Who is privy to the underground railroad?”

“Only a few know most of the players, and they don’t know each other.” She took a deep breath and started walking toward her office. “Even I only know the first, sometimes maybe the second handoff. It protects the girls and the participants. And it changes frequently. I mean, it’s a text and telephone network. I call my contact, I get a runner that helps, and then that contact arranges the next drop, and that contact person arranges the next.”

She opened the door and held it for them. She shuffled behind a dark wood desk so large it made her look like a child. “We give them a letter that indicates the number of jumps. For this one I was obviously A. The next will be B. The idea is that there are five jumps so pimps, abusive boyfriends, husbands, or family lose track even if they try.” She glared at the wall. “Most don’t bother, but it does happen.” She turned back to Jim. He was standing behind the chair facing her desk. “On E, we place them somewhere for short-term needs. Medical, psychological, rehab.”

“So who all knew about today’s jump?”

“Me, the medicals, the driver.”

“You know the driver?” Oscar sat, stretched out his long legs.

Jim was too wound up to sit.

“Deacon of a Baptist church here in Las Vegas.” She sat. “Not likely one to be convinced to divulge anything. He was injured but is at home now.”

“And the others? The medicals?”

“Tricia is a trauma nurse who has been involved with this church for years. Highly unlikely.” Sister Nora sifted through some notes and papers on her desk. Stopped to think. Jim noticed her Bible, tattered and loved, as she picked it up to retrieve a slip of paper underneath. He wondered what all she considered safe stored beneath its passages.

“Keith Worth.” She handed O the slip of paper. “It was his second time working with us. He’s missing.”

“So he could have taken off with the girls?” He took the paper.

“Possible. Jonathan, the driver, had a head wound. Doesn’t remember much that would be helpful.”

Jim thought back on the morning, dropping off the girls. Tricia had carried Connie. “I don’t remember much about Keith. Do you interview people prior to using them in the program?”

“Of course.”

Jim came around the chair to be more intimate with her, to calm her. To not seem like a looming authority in the back of the room. He sat next to O, tried for relaxed. He was failing, but it was better.

She relaxed a little, even sat. Thought for minute. “I interviewed him a few weeks ago. He helped with a young runaway the other night.”

Oscar looked at the paper. “Describe his face for me.”

“Middle-aged, but not too wrinkled. Narrow nose. Brownish hair.” She clasped her hands.

“His build?”

“Terribly thin.”

Jim thought back and tried to picture him. The man hadn’t been his concern at the time. He was usually pretty observant. Maybe the condition of those girls had shaken him enough to miss something that important. Still, lots of guys were thin. “I don’t remember him being that thin.”

She shrugged. “The EMT uniform goes a ways to hide it, those full shirts. Supplies in his pockets. He was in a suit the first time I met him. On his way to Bible study, he said. The slacks and the fitted jacket made him look as though he was close to starving.”

He and Erica had been that close to him and had no clue. “The Thin Man.”

Oscar sat up, and his size seemed to double as he leaned forward. “You checked his references?” He held up the paper.

“I did.” She looked at the desk. “You think this man was not who he represented?”

“I’m sure of it.” Jim stood. “What were his credentials?”

She riffled through more papers on her desk. “Westside Medical transport for four years. He was laid off last year.” She handed him the sheet. It had an address and phone number. All most likely faked.

“I have one more question.” Jim brought her attention back to him.

Sister Nora also stood, not to be intimidated by him. He liked that. “Yes?”

“Chris Floyd. You recognized Erica’s name and her face, but you didn’t say anything. Chris has been here before?”

She sighed. “Of course. She is also part of the team, so I would not bring her name into any conversation with anyone without her consent. Chris has made some nasty men in the area very angry by sneaking their wives, girlfriends, or working girls out of the city. Several cases a year come from her. Her day job is unique for finding those that need our special kind of help, and she said once she had some kind of inside contact. The troubled go looking for money before spirituality, Mr. Bean. She offers them a way out. She is a wonderful human being.”

“Was she ever here when Keith was in the building? Was she working the other case last week when he was here?”

“Yes. They were both here for the runaway. Keith checked her. Cleared her to travel and left.”

“He left before Chris?”

“Yes. She and I waited with the girl until her transport arrived. A man from over the California border. We’ve used him often for those heading west.”

Oscar glanced at Jim, then back to the nun. “Was that a week ago Friday?”

She flipped to the back of that Bible, which Jim now realized was hollowed out and filled with blank pages and handwritten notes. “Thursday.”

“She must have suspected something of Keith. Put the drawing in the stall so if someone managed to figure out she was part of this railroad, they’d know we were on track.” Jim wished his shoulder wasn’t throbbing, but he didn’t want to risk any meds slowing him down.

“And he got her Friday or Saturday, according to the timeline.”

“Anything about him you remember? Anything?” Jim asked.

She looked down at the paper with Keith’s information on it as if it would talk to her. “He did odd jobs after he was let go from the ambulance service. Something about that place up north. The fancy golf course. Said he was the only one to live up there for a while.”

All roads led back to Coyote Springs. The girls had to be there. Made sense. The crates behind the club and the deserted warehouses.

They stood to leave. Oscar took her hand. “This is a dangerous mess, Sister. Keith Worth is part of a large trafficking ring. I suggest you leave Vegas tonight. Visit a friend or relative for a few days.”

She gave him a quick nod. “I may do that.”

“Not may. Do it.”

Jim looked back at the nun. She was pale, and her fragile hands shook. “Did I get Chris abducted? And Erica for that matter?”

“No. None of this is your fault, Sister.” Oscar was quick to relieve her guilt.

Jim might not have been.