Visible Threat (17 page)

45

C
HUCK PARKED BEHIND
the news van as Jack and Brinna were just about to leave for Lakewood. He had with him a federal forensic team. Without a word, he gave Brinna a hug.

“Telling you we dropped the ball on this probably doesn’t help,” he said after a moment.

“Hey, blame right now isn’t going to help anything.” Brinna nodded toward Jack. “He just told me that.”

“I guess he’s right. We need to concentrate on the bad guys.” Chuck shook Jack’s hand, and Jack told him where he and Brinna were going.

“Good idea. Keep me apprised.”

As they left, Chuck and the forensic team disappeared into Rose’s house. Brinna wondered what her mom would have to say about all the traffic in her house. She hoped she’d have the chance to complain about it.

Brinna dropped Hero and her car off at her house in order to drive with Jack. The trip to Lakewood took fifteen minutes, and the pair rode in silence. Brinna was as grateful
for his company as she was for the quiet. In all her searches for missing kids, there was usually an emotional component because she’d been through the same thing. Kidnapped at six and rescued two days later, she knew what they were going through, yet she was able to maintain a professional detachment and do her job.

But now that it was her mother, all bets were off. Every wall she built seemed to be like rice paper, delicate and easily destroyed. Even a Kevlar heart, the shield she would erect around her emotions, eluded her.

Child molesters, perverts
 
—when they snatched a kid, it was often without a thought or a plan. They invariably made mistakes that tripped them up. If an organized crime syndicate had snatched her mother, what if they didn’t make any mistakes?

Brinna worked hard to concentrate on the task in front of her, not on all the what-ifs her overactive imagination could conjure up.

They found Ben in a conference room at the sheriff’s department. His expression told Brinna he had good news.

“What have you got, partner?” Jack asked.

“I’ve been able to narrow our search down to four homes.” He handed each of them a report form. “These four are in the same general neighborhood. The complaints are about excessive vehicular and foot traffic to the homes, and none are far from the flood control channel.”

Brinna glanced over the report she’d been given. The deputy who cleared the call noted that while he’d been on scene, he’d not observed any excessive traffic but recommended the
address be forwarded to narcotics for further investigation. She figured it was ditto for the other houses. Four addresses would be relatively easy to check out, and Brinna was ready to get going.

“Great, Ben. How do you want to work this?” she asked.

“We’ll have to coordinate with the deputies. All of the houses are in their jurisdiction. How about we just start with the closest and work our way through the list?”

“Are the deputies on board?”

“I’ll set things up with the watch commander,” Ben said. “Do you want to notify Chuck?”

“He’s at Rose Caruso’s now. I’ll call and give him an update,” Jack said. He pulled out his cell phone and dialed. As he finished the call and closed his phone, Jack turned to Brinna. “How about you and I wait for Ben outside?”

“Sounds good.”

Once outside, Brinna fairly vibrated with the urge to get going and knock on doors. She anxiously tapped on the hood of the car, imagining it was the sound of every wasted second ticking away.

“I sure hope the sheriff doesn’t tie us up with a lot of red tape,” she told Jack.

“They’ll want a car to stand by while we do our knock-and-talks. We’d do the same if deputies were in our city.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “How are you holding up?”

Brinna shook her head and sighed. “I feel like I’m ready to jump out of my skin. I truly wish I’d let Ivana stay with me. Then my mom wouldn’t be in this predicament.”

“Yeah, we might be looking for you.” Jack smiled while
Brinna glared at him. He tilted his head, reaching out to touch her shoulder. “We can’t go back and do it over
 
—you know that.”

“You’re right, but I can’t help feeling responsible. And everything I’ve read about foreign gangsters
 
—if that is who we’re dealing with
 
—is that they are ruthless.” She stopped and took a deep, painful breath. “I couldn’t handle it if something happened to my mother just because she was doing something to help us.” Her fingernails dug into her palms, and she barely held the tears back.

Jack put a hand on her back. “We’ll find her.”

She couldn’t meet his eyes, and the warmth of his touch almost pushed her over the edge.

What saved her was Ben, coming out of the station with a uniformed deputy. They were ready to go.

And Brinna was ready not only to knock on doors, but to kick them open if the need arose.

46

M
AGDA AWOKE
to the aroma of coffee brewing and smiled, pleased that she should be so fortunate to have such a thoughtful husband. He’d left a half hour ago to take the twins to school but had ensured that Magda would awake to a fresh pot of coffee by setting the timer for her. That pleasant aroma and the love she felt for Anton made it easy to rise from slumber and to push thoughts of Simon and Demitri from her mind.

She went to the kitchen and poured a cup. Fortified by a couple of sips, she carried the coffee with her to the bathroom. After showering and dressing, she took the empty cup back to the kitchen, refilled it, and turned on the TV to keep her company while she made herself breakfast. She was about to break an egg into a mixing bowl when the words the newsman spoke smacked into her mind.

“. . . Rose Caruso, mother of a local police officer, has apparently been abducted, along with a young girl Officer
Brinna Caruso saved from drowning in the flood control channel four days ago.”

Magda dropped the whole egg into the bowl and turned toward the television screen. The news camera panned the front of a house bustling with police activity. This was too much of a coincidence. How many young girls were plucked alive from the flood control channel?

She hugged her elbows and fought the growing dread in her stomach, struggling to remember what Simon had said. He’d told her he would handle it, that he had someone watching the hospital, waiting for the girl to be released. Had Simon found the girl and been stupid enough to not only grab her but to take this officer’s mother also?

Transfixed, Magda watched the TV screen, listening to the police and their official statement. Photos of the police officer and her mother were flashed across the screen. Magda gasped. She’d seen both women before
 
—they’d both been in her shop. The mother had visited several times, but the police officer
 
—why, she’d come in just the other night.

Feeling as if she were going to throw up, Magda rushed to the bathroom and splashed water on her face, not caring that it would destroy her freshly applied makeup. There was no escape now. If Simon had kidnapped the mother of a police officer
 
—or worse, if Demitri did something to the woman
 
—the authorities would not rest until they solved the crime.

Magda had a lot more respect for American authorities than she did for Bulgarian authorities. Everything would be exposed. As much as she wanted Demitri stopped, this was a disaster. She knew that somehow, some way, she would be
connected to this mess. A vision of being dragged out of her house in handcuffs in front of her children flashed through her head and she retched. All of the coffee she’d just ingested came back up, twice as bitter.

As she wiped her mouth, a horrible realization dawned. She had to come clean; she had to tell the police what she knew or those two women would most certainly die.

But first, she had to tell Anton.

Glancing at the clock, she realized he’d be back soon. He’d be surprised because normally she was gone to work before he got back. But not today. And he’d be doubly surprised when she told him all about the vile things she’d been a part of for their entire married life. He was certain to see her as a monster, and that would be the end of their marriage.

Tears fell freely as Magda’s fears grew. What if a never-ending nightmare was just beginning? Would she ever awake to a normal, happy life again?

47

H
AWAIIAN
G
ARDENS
was a small bedroom community tucked in between Long Beach, Lakewood, and Cypress. The largest landmark in the community was a gaming casino. A sheriff’s deputy led Brinna and Jack through a maze of residential streets that were almost indistinguishable from what she might see in Long Beach. Besides Ben, a uniformed Long Beach unit was also in the caravan.

Brinna shook her head as they passed tract home after tract home. “Why in the world would anyone consider a residential neighborhood the place to open a brothel?” she asked Jack.

“I wondered about that as well,” Jack said. “According to Chuck, it’s a disturbing trend. The crooks are trying to shroud themselves in respectability. They figure cops are less likely to kick in doors in quiet neighborhoods. And they hope to attract a wider, more affluent clientele.”

“You figure less dirtbags and more average joes visit brothels in suburbia?”

Jack chuckled. “I don’t know about that. But it’s all about money. These creeps will try anything if they think it will increase revenue. Not even suburbia is safe. But it gets worse. Sometimes it’s not large scale. Sometimes it’s a wealthy person exploiting a maid or nanny; they keep the individual a virtual slave. Back East they’ve busted prominent people who’ve brought young kids here from places like Indonesia and kept them isolated in servitude in their mansions.”

Brinna looked at Jack and all she could do was shake her head.

The first two addresses were dead ends. They were rentals to college students who obviously liked to party and entertain, hence the nuisance complaints. They gave the group of officers typical young adult lip but were obviously not human traffickers. It was the third address that rang warning bells in Brinna’s head.

“Look, Jack,” she said, grabbing his arm as they drew close enough to read the house numbers. “A white van.”

Backed into the driveway was a white panel van. The front passenger windows were tinted dark
 
—an illegally dark tint, Brinna noticed. There was no front license plate to run a records check on; she’d have to check around the rear of the van.

“I see it,” Jack answered as he pulled to the curb and parked the car. By now it was early morning and the sun was competing with rain clouds for domination of the sky. People in the neighborhood were beginning to rise and start the day. One man on the way to his car paused to regard the police vehicles curiously.

They followed the same routine as with the first two houses. Ben and the deputy would knock on the door while Jack and Brinna surveyed the outside, looking for anything out of the ordinary that might indicate the house was being used for illicit purposes. Brinna knew in this case the first thing she would do was run a check on the van’s license plate.

The tract house itself looked like a perfect hideaway. A tall brick wall encircled the backyard, and dense shrubs hid the front windows. As Brinna walked toward the van, she noted that the rear windows were black, as if painted. She tried to look into the yard, but the view was blocked by more dense foliage. If the gate were open and the van moved farther up the driveway, no one from the street would be able to see who got in or out of the vehicle.

“You here to tell these people to clean up their yard?”

The voice startled Brinna, and she jumped, looking left. “What?”

“Didn’t mean to scare you,” the woman said. Standing on the neatly manicured lawn of the house next door, she peered at Brinna. She held a newspaper in her hand and wore a thick fleece robe.

“The house is an eyesore,” she continued. “All the other neighbors take pains to keep their landscaping neat and clean looking. Not these people.” She waved her hand in disgust. “Yard is a jungle. I suppose I should be happy they at least mow the lawn in front, what little they have.”

“Actually, we’re here regarding a nuisance complaint,” Brinna explained as she watched Ben and the deputy approach
the front door. “Someone called to complain about excessive vehicular traffic coming and going from this house.”

“That was me.” The woman nodded. “Don’t know what is going on in there, but on the weekends there’s a steady stream of men going in and out. All hours.”

“Have you ever met the people who live here?”

“No, I’ve only seen a couple of guys
 
—one real big one. You know, he looks like he could’ve played football. They’re foreign.”

“Foreign?” Brinna’s heart jumped in her chest. Ben and the deputy had knocked on the front door, but as yet there had been no response.

“They speak some other language. It’s not Spanish; I speak Spanish. I don’t know what it is. I’ve only heard them once or twice. They don’t make a habit of standing outside talking.”

“Thanks. We’ll handle it.”

“I hope so.” The woman gathered her robe tightly around her and turned and walked back into her house.

Brinna wrote the van’s plate number on a piece of paper, stuffed it in her pocket, and headed for Ben. Not only did she want to hear what the residents of the house told the deputy; she also wanted to tell him what the neighbor had said. From her angle on the front door, she could see the deputy lean forward as if to speak to someone inside.

“We’re here to ask a few questions,” Brinna heard him say. “Why don’t you come out and talk to us?”

She couldn’t hear the response of the person inside the house.

Ben stood on the other side of the door closest to Brinna.
She knew the person inside would not be able to see Ben unless he or she stepped onto the small landing. When Brinna saw him pull his jacket back to uncover his gun, she tensed, reaching for her own weapon, a small automatic she carried in a fanny pack.

“Open the door!” the deputy yelled suddenly, lunging forward.

Brinna leaped toward the landing just as Ben and the deputy leaned into the door. She saw Jack sprinting toward the door from the other side of the house.

“Get around back!” she yelled to the two uniformed Long Beach officers. She knew they’d heard but she didn’t wait to watch them move. She reached the front door just as Ben and the deputy forced it open. Someone shouted in a foreign language.

And then a gunshot . . .

Ben hit the ground half inside the door and half on the landing. The deputy retreated and took cover behind the doorpost, yanking out his radio and yelling, “Shots fired! Shots fired!” to his dispatch.

Brinna stayed low and put a hand on Ben’s back. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I think he shot himself.” He rose to a knee and peered into the house. Brinna tried to do the same, but the interior was dark and shaded.

“We should stand down and call SWAT,” Ben said. “We have officers at the rear; the scene is secure.”

“I don’t agree,” Brinna hissed, hand tensing on her gun. “There could be another guy in here with a gun. Ivana said
there were other girls being held. Their lives may be in danger.”

“I agree with you,” the deputy said, nodding toward Brinna. “These guys might decide to kill anyone who could provide us with evidence.”

Jack, on the other side of the door, next to the deputy, also nodded in agreement. “I don’t want to see any more dead girls.”

“Then I’m in as well.” Ben stood and motioned the deputy in first.

The deputy nodded and went in, moving immediately to the left. Ben followed to the right, with Jack and Brinna right behind.

*   *   *

Magda heard the garage door open. Anton was home. She got up from the couch to check her image in the mirror. Her eyes were puffy from crying. She knew that even if she wanted to, she could not keep the truth from her husband any longer. The faces of the two kidnapped women on television haunted her. No matter what, she couldn’t sit by and do nothing any longer. It was time to step up and be her sister’s keeper.