Chapter 2

The damned dress was too bulky, and the sequins made it heavy. Nickie gathered the thing up so she could take the stairs two at a time. As she reached the top floor, she pushed open the door and barely made it into the commons area before the catcalls started.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She didn't expect anything less from the guys at the Northridge Police Department. From the dudes working desk duty to the beat officers who filled out shift reports, each snorted with laughter as she stepped foot onto the Berber carpet.

Letting the dress fall, she gave a theatrical bow and said, "Thank you, thank you. I'm going to kick each of your asses as soon I'm out of this thing." Which only made the catcalls louder and more obnoxious. She was never going to live this down. Lifting her chin, she marched through the middle of the cluster of metal desks that faced each other in sets of two. Heads disappeared behind computer monitors as she passed. Damn straight.

Duncan followed. Guilt scratched the back of her consciousness. He left the art show. He left his art show. He'd joined her without a second thought. She could hear him and her captain whispering as they walked behind her in their formal dress. Why didn't they earn any catcalls? Nickie's attention and interest moved to her office in front of her. A man waited. Singular. This was both a surprising and a good thing.

FBI Special Agent Hurst. She would know the back of his head anywhere. Buzzed, curly black hair. Dark brown skin beneath the white collared shirt under his suit jacket. Even though he was a fed, he'd earned her trust. He shot his former partner dead. Since said former partner had been holding a gun to Nickie's head, it was a thing—the kind of thing that places a guy in the trust category without question. Although she trusted him, it didn't mean she had to like sharing with a fed.

Federal agents weren't the sharing type either. With her experience both inside and out of human trafficking, she earned a spot as an asset. Yet, feds were feds and Hurst was a fed. Nickie's case was in his hands, and she could only push him so far.

Pausing before she reached him, she reminded herself that he sat in her damned office. Not her captain's office. Not in an interrogation room. Not even at her desk, but in one of her two guest chairs.

As the sound of her heels neared the room, he raised his head. He didn't turn around. "You got here faster than I expected," he said as she rounded the desk and sat in her chair. Her captain took the remaining seat. Duncan closed the office door, then leaned against it and crossed his arms.

"No worries," she said. "Tell me about this tip."

"Yes." His elbows rested on the arms of the chair, and he steepled his fingertips together. "The Belmont Stakes."

Louisville, Kentucky. It was one of the locations on the map of potential Fu Haizi sites Duncan's brother had created.

Hurst said, "Your informant is there."

Her what? She could feel the heat as it lifted from her neck and covered her face.

"Says he was propositioned with child pornography and an offer to have sex with a minor after the race tomorrow night."

Slippery Jimbo. That slimeball. She stood so fast, her chair toppled over. "Slippery Jimbo Spalding told you he was my informant? How the hell did he get your phone number?" He was going to die a slow, painful death. She wanted to crawl in a hole. She'd already been sweaty from the haul up the stairs in the three-thousand-pound dress. This was not helping.

"He said you would ask me that." Was Hurst smiling? Traitor. "Said to tell you the last time you, and I quote, locked him all up in your office, he found my card on your desk."

"I'll kill him. I'll break his face, and then I'll kill him."

"He said you'd say that too." He definitely smiled now. "Well, something like that."

She'd left out Hurst's card? She doubted it. Jimbo went through her drawers, was more like it. "I'm speechless, really. I apologize that he has your—"

"Nope. And I don't have time to talk about it. James was able to discern there will be girls." He paused and took a deep breath. His black eyes stared at her with little emotion, but the muscles in his jaw gave him away. They flexed and released three times before he continued. "Children," he corrected. "Children will be brought in." He swallowed hard. "Both girls and boys. I have six teams being assembled as we speak. We leave at o four hundred. You in?"

She nodded, then considered. Hurst had saved her life. He came all the way out here to include her in a bust. Should she? She turned her eyes to her office door. Duncan nodded.

"I have the map," she admitted.

"Here?" Hurst asked and looked around like they might be watched.

Leaning to the side of her desk in the impossible dress, she slid the crime map from its place along the wall, and smoothed it flat on the splintered wood. The thing was big enough to hang off both sides. A complex maze of hundreds of lines zigzagged from corner to corner.

Hurst leaned over the map that extended to the southern part of Canada all the way to the top portion of South America. He glanced to her and asked, "Each line represents one of the false internet trails used to conceal the emails from the NPD mole?"

She nodded. "Officer—" She stopped, and then happily corrected herself. "Former Officer Dale Parker reported my every move to his source at IEM."

The sound of her parents' business rolled from her tongue like boiling green tea. "Parker will be relocated to the Maine location as soon as we're done in Louisville."

"Louisville, Kentucky, is one of several locations clearly void of any lines." She pointed to it. Surrounded by dozens of the marker lines Duncan's brother had drawn on the poster board, Louisville was encircled with a clean, white bubble. "We believe the IEM employee deliberately avoided sending the dummy Internet trails through the cities that contained hubs of captive children."

"Too bad that employee is no longer available to question about this," said Hurst.

"A bullet between the eyes has that effect, yes," she said.

She slid her finger to Northridge, New York. "See? Another void. We think it's because of the downtown barbershop location that housed one of Fu Haizi's groups of captive children."

"Fu Haizi, as you like to call it."

She nodded. "Yes. You call it whatever. My Fu Haizi is run by Ivanna Monticello."

"Your mother."

She sat now and closed her eyes. She'd spent seventeen years never needing to explain this to anyone. Now, she'd had to do so more times than she could count. "As a young teen, I discovered my parents' involvement. So, they arranged for Jun Zheng to silence me."

Hurst nodded. "Abducted as a means to both silence you and make money off you. That shit ain't right."

"But, I escaped. Neither my parents nor Jun Zheng saw that one coming. They aren't willing to have me killed. I brought enough unwanted attention to them when I showed up after going missing for eighteen months. So, they had me watched. Orchestrated my moves within the foster system as a minor, within police departments as an adult."

She turned her attention to the map. Peru, South America. Ontario. Daytona. Vegas and L.A. She and Duncan had planned to leave first thing in the morning to start their investigation of each location. Now this. She realized the silence had gone on for too long and glanced up to find him staring at her.

Hurst pulled his phone from the pocket of his suit jacket. "That's cold, Nick." He looked pale, if that was possible.

She nodded. "So is kidnapping children and forcing them into prostitution."

He held his phone out over the map.

Nickie's brows dropped.

Click. Click.

She didn't say he could photograph it. Her eyes darted to her captain, then to Duncan as if they could do something to stop him. He didn't even have the courtesy of turning off the sound.

"You think children are housed, then, in Cleveland, Vegas, Daytona..."

Yes. The few cities where no false trails touched, and now he had pictures of it all on his phone.

She stated what she felt was the obvious. "I think the children who are held captive in Cleveland, Vegas and Daytona are on their way to Louisville, Kentucky."

His eyes moved to hers. He took a deep breath and fell back into the chair.

He was going into shock from putting pieces together. It was time to strike. "In addition to my captain and Duncan, I want my partner on my team in Louisville. He has experience with Fu Haizi and understands the MO."

"I can agree to Detective Lynx but not the civilian."

Duncan? "The civilian?" she yelled and didn't care that she did. "That civilian has clocked more hours breaking down Fu Haizi than all of you put together." Her eyes moved to Duncan, her face tight with fear. He shook his head at her.

"Nick. I can't, okay?" Hurst held up both hands, palms out. "They're coming up with another partner for me as we speak. I really should've been placed on leave on account of my shooting Goodrich in the back."

That was a low frigging blow, and it worked. It was like her lips were glued shut.

"Nickie," Dave interrupted. She'd all but forgotten he was there. "Duncan's not exactly clean. He killed men at your house fire. If it wasn't for the fact that they were on your property and active shooters, he would be posting bond."

So much for the glue. "I give him the map. He takes pictures of it, and now this?" Partner. Shot in the back. To save Nickie from a bullet in her forehead. She dipped her head from side to side in a figure eight, then let her shoulders fall.

"I can approve Captain Nolan and Detective Lynx," Hurst said. "And that's only if some new partner assigned to me doesn't show up before tomorrow morning and disagree. But a civilian? No way."

* * *

Legs crossed, Nickie sat in the middle of the white couch. Her wrists rested on her knees. She squinted as her eyes followed Duncan walking from the penthouse bathroom to the closet and then to his suitcase, which lay open on the raised king-sized bed.

She was in her fleece pants and cami. He wore an olive green button-down shirt with black pants and casual dress shoes. The dog nudged her hand for the dozenth time, making her arm fall beside her. "Not now, Xena. Sit." The girl obeyed but not without whimpering.

"I should be going with you," Nickie said as he tucked the few belongings he'd purchased since the fire in organized sections of the suitcase.

"You are needed here," he said and reached behind the nightstand to unplug his charger.

"How long will you be gone?" This time, she set her bare feet flat on the floor, held the sides of their Rottweiler's face and rubbed heads with her. The dog smelled better than the scent of the floral air freshener and hotel room cleaner that surrounded the place.

He didn't answer her question. e didn't answer but instead said, He"Andy is coming with me."

He hadn't answered her question, but she was too distracted with what he did say to call him on it. "Andy?" She stood and let her hands drop to her sides. "Since when?"

He zipped one of the two pieces of luggage they owned. It still had the tags on it. "He called as you and Special Agent Hurst concluded your meeting."

"I didn't want this."

He stopped mid-zip. "I know that." Standing tall, he faced her. He stepped to her and took her face in his hands.

She leaned into him and pressed her forehead against his. "This is different from one of your business trips. You're going out of the country."

"You might find yourself somewhat appeased to know there were no first-class seats available on my commercial flight."

She didn't want him to make her smile at a time like this. "Coach seat. How will you survive?"

He lifted her chin with a finger and set his lips on hers. They were warm and safe.

"Okay," she said between kisses. "But what if I get to Louisville and the whole things is a wash? Hurst is relying on a gig set up through Slippery Jimbo."

"There is that." He turned back to his suitcase, finished zipping it and set it on the floor. "Then, you'll join us."

She sat down on the edge of the bed. "Why Peru? I thought we decided to case the closer spots first. Peru is not close. Ontario is close, and you know L.A. like the back of your hand."

"Mariposa joven," he said and sat next to her.

"My Spanish isn't that good, Duncan."

"Mariposa joven is a term I came across when sifting through the files I stole from your father's workplace. It means young butterfly."

"A butterfly. The symbol pedophiles use to show they prefer children of either gender." His lanky fingers wrapped around hers. "Butterfly references are used in the marketing world all the time. That's a stretch. You must have more."

"The reference mentioned some kind of drop box containing files pertaining to importing and exporting materials used to create earth-moving equipment."

"You're thinking more like importing and exporting humans?"

"I'm going to find out." He rotated to face her.

She placed her cheek on his shoulder. "I don't like this."

"I don't like the idea of you and Eddy Lynx setting up former Officer Parker in the witness protection location."

She sighed. "Let's get this done once and for all, Duncan. Then, we can think about that starting a family thing."

He took her face in both hands this time. "Or we could work on that starting a family thing before I leave." His mouth met hers, and his fingers traced a line to the back of her neck. She climbed on his lap and straddled him, meshing tongues and lips. He pressed her back to the piles of pillows and they started.