Green Light (Sam Archer 7) (26 page)

‘
I spoke to our office in New Jersey. Apparently Goya and
Santiago run a high-class escort service on the Upper West and East
Sides. Including Leann, there were twelve women on their payroll
last month.’

Shepherd
nodded. ‘Correct.’

‘
With Leann and April accounted for, that leaves ten to find.
If Nina Lister and her two friends went after April, they might try
to do the same to the other girls. We need to focus on them; bring
all ten in and get them under protection right now. ’

Shepherd
glanced at Archer then motioned to the empty Conference Room next
door to the one they were using as a base.

‘
Follow me,’ he told her. ‘We need to talk. Arch, join
us.’

Looking
at him curiously, Palmer followed Shepherd into the
room.

Taking a
last look down at Isabel staring up at him from the detective pool
below, Archer gave her another small wave then joined the other
two.

At the
East-side warehouse, the two killers were just finishing packing
their back-up van with canisters of their lye solution, the cuts to
their faces cleaned and butterfly-stitched.

Loading
up the last can, the larger of the two men closed the door and then
withdrew his cell, looking at the details he’d just been sent by
their inside man. Beside him his partner drew his silenced FN.45
and racked a round, tucking it in the back of his waistband and
pulling his jacket down to conceal it.

‘
Ready?’ he asked his partner.

He
nodded. ‘Let’s do it.’

With that, the two men opened their van and jumped inside,
slamming the doors and firing the engine. Right then, they might
not have been able to get to April Evans or the remaining
Prizraki
hiding out
inside their club in Little Odessa.

But they
sure as hell could get to Detective Alice Vargas.

THIRTY TWO

It took
Shepherd five minutes to explain the situation to Palmer, who was
visibly shocked when he told her about the missing girls and even
more so when he came to the attempted hits on their
families.

‘
So who the hell were those gunmen?’ she asked. ‘You think they
work with Lister and her two friends?’

‘
We don’t know,’ Archer said, standing beside the
pair.

Palmer’s
attention shifted from the suspects to Archer himself, noting the
cut under his eye and his mud-spattered jeans. ‘By the way, I
thought you were suspended.’

‘
I am. But after everything that’s happened today, I think I’m
entitled to stick around for a bit.’

She
smiled. ‘So do I. I think its bullshit what they did to
you.’

She
offered her hand.

‘
We were never introduced; I’m Theresa Palmer; I work with the
Polaris Project.’

After
hesitating for a moment, Archer shook it. ‘Sam Archer. What exactly
is Polaris?’

‘
A national organisation which combats human trafficking and
slavery; we help victims forced into work or sexual acts against
their will. Cases like Leann’s often happen in clutches so I
requested to be brought to the 114
^th
as an advisor.’

She
sighed.

‘
Judging by what you told me, I failed completely. I was too
late. Lister and her crew got to them.’

‘
Right now nothing is confirmed until we hear from CSU,’
Shepherd said.

‘
That’s just a formality though, right? And after what you said
April saw at her apartment building? Two figures in white overalls
apparently waiting for her?’

Her
voice trailed off. Shepherd and Archer didn’t reply.

‘
If you guys had had this case from the get go, these women
could still be alive.’

‘
We pushed for it,’ Shepherd said. ‘You saw us try. But
Homicide wouldn’t budge.’

‘
Yeah, but I can understand that though. If something happened
on your turf, would you just pass over the
investigation?’

Shepherd
paused, then shook his head, conceding her point. ‘No. I guess I
wouldn’t.’

‘
And they’re gonna be pissed when they find out about all this.
It took them four weeks to nail the wrong suspects. You guys are on
the investigation for a few hours and you find the two real perps
in Leann’s murder. Then you discover a previously unknown team
killed the two of them and now, potentially ten more homicides on
top of Goya and Santiago. Which would have been eleven if Archer
hadn’t made it to April in time.’

‘
You were working with the team over at the
114
^th
,’
Shepherd said. ‘You saw the case get closed.’

‘
I did.’

‘
Were you satisfied with that? That Valdez and Carvalho did
it?’

‘
It all matched up; they had motive, no alibi and were found
with the murder weapon. Homicide said probability was high and
Royston ordered them to wrap it up. From what I heard, he’d been
getting a lot of calls ordering him to focus on the case because of
Detective Vargas getting hurt. There was a lot of attention on
that. You can understand why he was happy to have
closure.’

‘
And Leann Casey,’ Archer said. ‘Alice was shot but Leann was
killed.’

‘
She wasn’t exactly the focus, if you catch my drift. That’s
why I demanded to be involved from the get go, to make sure she got
as much attention as Detective Vargas and wasn’t side-lined. They
didn’t want to bring me in at first; we always have to fight to be
included to make sure girls like Leann get a fair shake. Otherwise
she’d be forgotten.’

‘
She wouldn’t have been,’ Shepherd said.

‘
Be real, Sergeant. That’s your compassion speaking, not your
common sense. I’ve done this job for two years; I’ve worked with
different police departments in New York State and all over New
Jersey. And the one thing I’ve learned is that dead girls from the
sex trade rank somewhere between overdosed junkies and missing dogs
on the police give-a-shit scale.’

‘
That’s not always the case.’

‘
How many times did April contact the cops before someone
helped her?’ Palmer asked. ‘Shit, did she even bother, knowing what
the outcome would be?’

The two
men didn’t answer.

‘
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not pissed at you, I’m pissed at
Royston,’ Palmer continued. ‘The team at Homicide were too. He
settled for something that looked very possible, but instead of
making one hundred percent sure he ordered his team to move on.
Because of that, ten more girls are most likely dead. And you know
the sad part; they’ll be forgotten in a matter of days.’

There
was a pause. Archer and Shepherd remained silent.

‘
So what’s the next step?’ Palmer asked. ‘Finding what happened
to these women?’

‘
That’s step one,’ Shepherd said. ‘Step two is we find out who
the hell these men were who came after our families.’

‘
And number three is we track down Lister’s two friends,’
Archer said. ‘And we do it before they give anyone else a
bath.’

Like any city hospital, St Luke’s in Midtown Manhattan was a
busy facility with a constant flow of doctors, nurses, ancillary
staff, the sick and the injured through the building. However, the
hospital had also seen two new additions of late, a couple of NYPD
officers working on rotation stationed outside Detective Vargas’
room on the private 14
^th
floor.

The two
night-shift guys had taken up their posts at 5pm; they’d been doing
the same stint for over a month now and had to admit it was a
pretty good gig, ordered to sit outside the room and prevent anyone
other than the medical team from entering unless they could prove
they were authorised. The two officers were both in their early
thirties and had earned their stripes, which was why they’d been
assigned what was seen by their colleagues as a cushy role and not
given to some rookies out of the Academy.

However,
as was natural with any human attention span, the monotony of
sitting outside the room hour upon hour had caught up with them and
their concentration levels had waned over the weeks. That Sunday
night, one was sitting in a chair reading a magazine whilst the
other munched on some sunflower seeds, spitting the kernels into a
trash can beside him as he leant against the wall. Medical staff
and the occasional cleaner moved past the two officers, all of whom
had become familiar to the two men over the last four and a half
weeks, light-hearted banter often exchanged.

The guy
sitting down suddenly chuckled as he leant back in his chair,
scanning the advice column of the woman’s magazine he’d found
abandoned on the seat.

‘
Ten signs that your man may be cheating,
’ he read aloud. ‘You ready for some of these?’

His
partner shook his head, looking down the corridor. ‘You know
what’ll happen if you get caught reading that shit?’

Before
the man could respond, they were distracted by the sight of a
doctor who suddenly appeared from around the corner. He had a cut
across his temple, blood leaking from the wound, and looked
flustered.

‘
You OK, Doc?’ the seated officer asked, sitting up straight,
the magazine in his hands instantly forgotten.

‘
Not really. I could use some help.’

‘
What’s wrong?’

‘
We’ve got a drunk guy causing trouble downstairs on 13. He
just assaulted me and two of my staff. Security’s over in the other
wing. I’d really appreciate some assistance.’

The two
cops glanced at each other.

‘
He’s a big guy and he’s out of control,’ the doctor
added.

‘
I’ll stay,’ one cop said, looking at his partner who’d been
reading the magazine. ‘You got this?’

The
other man nodded, rising and putting the gossip mag on the chair,
following the doctor who turned and headed back the way he’d come,
dabbing at the cut across his eyebrow.

‘
Thanks, Officer. We’ll take the stairs. It’s
quicker.’

‘
So what’ll happen to April?’ Archer asked Palmer, still in the
Conference Room. ‘She’s free now Goya and Santiago are
gone.’

‘
If I don’t help her out, she’ll be housed for thirty days at
Covenant. Then she’ll probably be back on the street.’

‘
Just like that?’

She
nodded. ‘That’s what usually happens; and things are better than
they used to be.’

‘
But that’s it?’ Archer repeated. ‘If your organisation doesn’t
help, after a month she’s tossed back out on the
street?’

‘
That’s it.’

‘
It’s bullshit.’

‘
That’s why I’m here. It’s what my organisation specialises in;
pimps like Goya and Santiago are a dying breed. The Internet’s
changed the way many of these girls work; it means they don’t have
pimps controlling them and they decide who they want as customers.
They don’t share any of the profits with anyone and charge whatever
they want.’

‘
But no-one knows who they’re meeting with, or where,’ Archer
said.

She
nodded. ‘Not only are they made more vulnerable, they’re also prime
targets for all the whack-jobs out there. Before, pimps were there
to make sure their girls came back in one piece.’

‘
April said she and Leann were about to get out,’ Archer said.
‘Start fresh somewhere else.’

‘
And take a look at what happened. Another prostitute dead. The
only reason her death got the attention it did is because two cops
got shot at the scene at the same time and don’t try to pretend
that’s not the case. You know I’m right.’

The two
men stayed silent. However, in the quiet Marquez suddenly appeared
at the doorway.

‘
Sir?’

Shepherd
turned.

‘
Breakthrough. Ethan just pulled IDs on Lister’s two
friends.’

Arriving
at the stairwell, the doctor pushed down the bar and held the door
for the cop.

‘
Right this way,’ he said.

As the
cop passed him and started to walk down the stairs, he noticed the
door to a large maintenance closet on their right was partially
open, something catching his eye.

‘
Hold up, doc,’ he said.

‘
What’s wrong?’

Not
replying, the officer pulled his weapon, easing the door
back.

On the
floor was the body of a man in a shirt and trousers, a doctor he
recognised from his weeks at the hospital.

He’d
been shot in the head.

Before
the cop could reach for his radio, the man in the doctor’s coat
behind him had already drawn his silenced pistol, putting a bullet
through the back of the officer’s head, the weapon coughing and
blood spattering over the wall beyond the officer as he took the
round.

The
policeman’s body hit the floor; the guy in the doctor’s coat then
dragged him into the closet, dumping him on top of the body of the
man already there.