Midnight Crossing (12 page)

“Did they speak English?” Josie asked.

“Spanish. To me anyway. They are from Guatemala.”

Josie looked at Nick. It was a good start.

“Did they tell you what city?” he said.

She pursed her lips in thought for a moment and then shook her head. “No. I don’t remember that. They come from all over. I can’t remember all of them.”

“Did they tell you why they were heading to the U.S.?” Josie asked.

She tilted her head as if it were a frivolous question. “Same as all the others. Going to a big city to get a job and send money home to family.”

“Did they give you any information about the men who had been transporting them?” Nick asked.

She thought for quite a while and finally said, “Two. I remember they said there were two of them. And one of them was a very bad man. He forced himself on them. They could barely speak of it.”

“Were the men from Guatemala too?” Josie asked.

She shook her head slowly. “I don’t know. I don’t remember. All these details. They mix up with all the others. I remember I tried to get them to go home. Back to Guatemala. But their families had spent precious money on their trip. They had to make it to the U.S. I remember that. And that’s when I sent them to you. To Josie.”

*   *   *

On the way home, Josie kept thinking about how the two women saw the United States as their savior. Josie as their savior. What a disturbing idea, Josie thought. In her experience, there were no saviors on earth, just people trying to get by as best they could.

As Nick drove the SUV up and out of the arroyo, he said, “It’s almost ten and you didn’t get much sleep last night. How soon do you need to get home?”

She shrugged and looked at his profile, smiling into the dark. “What did you have in mind?”

“It would be better in the daylight, but I’ll show you one of my favorite places in Mexico. A fishing hole on the Rio.”

“You go there often?”

“I own some land. I have a fishing cabin on the river. Actually, when you first called me about your old boyfriend being kidnapped, I was headed to the cabin for a weekend. I was surprised how close your house was to my place. And I heard the desperation in your voice.” He glanced over at her. “It didn’t take much convincing to get me to take the case when I heard you were the cop that tangled with the Medranos.”

“At first, taking on the cartel might have been bragging rights. But now? I’m over it. I want to live my life. I want to do my job and not worry about looking over my shoulder twenty-four/seven.”

“Doesn’t work like that,” he said.

She felt her blood pressure spike, and while she regretted the path the conversation was taking, she couldn’t stop herself. “If they want me, then come and get me. Let’s get this over with.”

“You don’t use bravado with these people. They don’t have the same moral code you do. They will one-up you every time. You will
never
outbrave them.”

“It’s not about that! Don’t you see? I want my life back.”

“You aren’t even talking sense. You know better. Nobody’s dealt a fair hand in life. If you’re born in the slums, you work your ass off to get out. If you’re born into wealth, you work your ass off to make your own name in the world. If you work as a cop, you—” He stopped talking, apparently sensing her growing anger.

She glared at him, and after a moment he laid his hand on her thigh. She instinctively tensed her leg muscles.

“We’re arguing over words right now,” he said. His voice was quiet. “Let’s stop.”

He drove another five minutes along the river and finally pulled down a narrow path lined with cottonwood trees and then stopped abruptly in front of a wooden shack.

He looked over at her and smiled. “This is my mansion. My house in Mexico City? I’d take this little shack over that monster any day.”

She got out of the SUV and he moved around to her side and grabbed her hand. “Let me show you what makes me happy.”

They walked side by side along a dirt path that led to the wooden porch. He unlocked the door and she could smell the earthy wood and stone as they stepped inside. He turned on the lights and she smiled.

“This is you,” she said. Mismatched wool blankets hung from large windows that faced the river. A stone fireplace was located between the windows with a massive split log for a mantel. On top of it was a mantel clock and what appeared to be family photos. The living room was small, with a couch, love seat, and coffee table filling it up, but the ceiling was open to the wood rafters above and gave it a spacious feeling.

“How come you never mentioned this place?” she asked. “It’s a perfect hideaway.”

“Exactly. It’s a hideaway. I’ve had this place almost ten years now and I’ve never brought another person here. This is where I decompress. Not even my brother knows about it.”

“Why did you bring me?” she asked, turning to face him.

“Because this isn’t enough anymore. When I want to relax and get away from the job, I want you with me. You quiet the noise in my head.”

She smiled at his description. She couldn’t quiet the voices in her own head; she couldn’t imagine how she could quiet his.

He cradled her face in his hands and kissed her forehead. “I love you, Josie.”

“I love you too,” she whispered. She kissed him, a slow sweet kiss that was uncomplicated and perfect.

He ran his hands down her back and she shivered. He put his mouth close to her ear and whispered, “There’s one more room I need to show you.”

She followed him into the bedroom, where he pushed back the curtains and opened the window. She stood beside him and they listened to the Rio Grande rush by, watching the water glint from the moonlight’s reflection.

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

“And so are you.”

Nick moved behind her and gently pressed his thumbs into her shoulders, making her sigh and smile. She took a slow deep breath, smelling the clean river air, feeling her senses come alive.

She turned around and they undressed one another slowly, dropping their clothes onto the floor. She ran her hands over his arms and chest, her fingertips sensing the soft skin covering the hard muscles underneath.

Nick bent his head and kissed the hollow of her neck and then drew his finger down to her heart and left it there.

“You don’t need to keep that lead bullet in your heart, Josie. I don’t want you to keep hate trapped inside of you. I want to be the one who protects you, so you don’t worry all the time. I want to make you happy and keep you safe. Will you let me do that?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled her body into his, as close as she could get, and whispered into his ear, “I love you so much that my body aches with it. I didn’t even know I had this feeling inside me.” But she couldn’t answer his question. She didn’t know if she could let him be her protector, and she wouldn’t lie to him.

“We’ll just take this slow,” he said. “I’ll do my best, and you’ll do the same, and somehow I think it’ll all work out.”

He bent his head and kissed her until the words fell away, and the worries drifted out the window, and there was nothing left but two people in love.

EIGHT

Back to reality the next morning, Josie sat at her computer to email her contact from Immigration and Customs Enforcement about Isabella Dagati, whom they now believed had resided in Guatemala. Like so many customs issues, it wouldn’t be a simple deportation, especially with a murder connected to the case. The case could take months of sorting through policy and procedures with Homeland Security and ICE. Josie had just finished summarizing the situation for Prosecutor Tyler Holder when Lou buzzed and asked her to come downstairs. As the dispatcher, and the only employee working on the first floor, Lou spent her full shift at the PD, only getting out for lunch if one of the officers took her place.

Josie found Lou in front of her computer.

“I’ve been thinking about the girl at your house, and how you said there’s been a car driving by your place. This probably isn’t anything, but I thought I better mention it.”

“I’ll take anything.”

“I just remembered a man called here a few days ago and asked about your schedule. I thought it was odd, but it’s not like your schedule is confidential. I asked who he was and he said he was a police officer, but he didn’t give me his name. He wasn’t friendly. Didn’t seem like he wanted to talk, so I just told him.”

“You’re right. Nothing confidential about my schedule. He didn’t say what agency?”

“No. I thought that was a little odd too. Most law enforcement people state their name and who they work for up front. I didn’t ask, and he didn’t offer. I figured, none of my business.”

“I’d like you to track down the phone call. Get me the phone number as soon as possible. Somebody knew my schedule well enough to shoot a girl in the pasture beside my home when I wasn’t there.”

“I’ve already been thinking it through. I’m pretty sure it was five days ago. I remember because I got the phone call, and then a few minutes later I went off duty early for a dentist appointment. I should be able to pull the digital recording up pretty easy.”

“Thanks, Lou. Anything you can give me. Date, time, number, name, address.”

“I’ll work on it. Also, Marta just called. She said to get ahold of her this morning on her cell.”

*   *   *

When Josie was back at her desk she called Marta, who answered on the first ring.

“What’s up?” Josie asked.

“Let’s talk about Isabella.” Marta took a few minutes to recount her contact with the woman at the trauma center the night before. “She speaks English fluently. She opened up a bit last night. She wouldn’t tell me her family’s name, but she told me a few stories about her town in Guatemala. I think she’s ashamed to tell her family about the mess she’s in, but that will come.”

“That’s good to hear.”

“I just think it’s odd she said she didn’t know the other woman’s name, the woman who was shot. Maybe they weren’t friends. Maybe they didn’t even know each other, and we’re way off with the trafficking theory.”

“You think it was a translation issue? Maybe we’re interpreting something totally different than what she meant,” Josie said.

“I don’t know. I couldn’t make sense of it.”

“Anything else?”

“You said the psychiatrist thinks she’d be better off out of the trauma center, in a home, where she can heal.”

Josie knew Marta well enough to know where the conversation was headed.

“With Teresa gone away to college, I have an extra bedroom.”

“Marta, we can’t do that.”

“Just hear me out. I speak Spanish, so I can communicate with her. And she’s already established a relationship with me. I posted outside her room at the trauma center last night. I talked with her several times about Guatemala and her family. Nothing about the case, but I’m building trust.”

“That’s great. Meet with her again today. We need to find out who they contracted with to come to the U.S. But bottom line, she’s a suspect in a murder investigation.”

“She’s been traumatized!”

“Marta, come on. She is the only personal connection we have to the murder victim. At this point, we believe she knew about the body for days. We don’t know what happened, so we can’t clear her as a suspect.” Josie paused. She knew Marta wouldn’t like her next comment. “And, something else. She clearly wants help, but she’s not giving us anything. That may be an indication she’s hiding something. We just can’t tell.”

Marta took a second and said, “I think that’s a horrible stance to take. She’s most likely been raped and mentally terrorized for who knows how long by these men. And we’re going to treat the victim like the criminal?”

“That’s not what I said, and you know it.”

“I’ll see you at three-thirty,” Marta said, and hung up.

*   *   *

Otto drove twenty-five minutes to Presidio, the town nearest to Artemis, to meet Trooper Dan Haspin, a twenty-year veteran with the Texas Department of Public Safety. Otto had worked with Dan through the years and knew he was active with the Texas Human Trafficking Task Force. Otto called Dan and filled him in on their suspicions, and Dan had offered to meet Otto to share intelligence.

A black man in his early forties, he wore the khaki uniform, blue tie, and hard felt cowboy hat of a Department of Public Safety trooper. He was bulked up around the chest, with a narrow waist that made Otto wonder if he had to work to maintain his physique. Otto blamed his belly on Delores, forty years of Polish comfort food. But he’d take his satisfying suppers over a tightened belt any day of the week.

Otto walked into the sandwich shop and found Dan in the corner booth with his back against the wall, his sandwich sitting untouched in front of him. He waved and smiled, and Otto bought his lunch and joined him.

They discussed Otto’s goat herd and the price of meat at the market, and Dan’s woodworking hobby, making toy trains and trucks. Both men knew the benefit of a hobby to occupy a cop’s off-duty mind.

Midway through their sandwiches, the conversation turned to work and Dan finally said, “You’ve got a dead woman in her early twenties, and a traumatized woman in her early twenties who speaks Spanish. The women are apparently from Guatemala, but they don’t show up in the missing persons databases. And the traumatized woman doesn’t want to share information about her family.”

Otto nodded. “That’s it.”

“It sure as hell fits the description for a human trafficking case.”

Otto cocked an eyebrow at him. “Without knowing any other details, you’d make that statement?”

“Here’s how widespread it is. Texas has a trafficking guide for teachers now to help them identify and report signs of trafficking in school-age kids. And it’s not just our state.”

Otto shook his head in disgust.

“Look. I’m not saying it’s rampant, but there are more cases than people would like to admit. It’s not just massage parlors and crappy hotels. So I’m not surprised to find that small-town Artemis has been affected.”

“That’s not the answer I was looking for,” Otto said.

Dan considered him for a moment. “You’re sure they came from Guatemala?”