Visible Threat (4 page)

7

B
Y THE TIME
B
RINNA FINISHED
at community relations, her shift had started and been in service for an hour. A message from dispatch asked her status. She couldn’t enter
starving
as a status, so she simply punched the 10-8 in-service button. By now the last remaining clouds had burned away and the sky was a brilliant blue. A message on her computer told her Maggie and Rick had gotten a radio call right out of the gate but that they would meet her for dinner. She reached behind her and scratched Hero’s head, fighting the lump in her throat and the tears that threatened to spill out when she thought of him not being there. There had to be a way to save this partnership. Had to be.

*   *   *

“No more Hero?” Maggie and Rick were as surprised as Brinna had been.

“Yep, no more federal dollars, so no more search-and-rescue
dog.” Brinna sat back in the restaurant booth feeling bone-tired and a little numb.

The waitress came and took their order. Brinna gazed out the window at a world drying out in fresh sunshine. It did nothing to lift her mood.

“You knew this might happen,” Rick said with a shrug. “And you’re still a cop. I can think of several guys who’d make good partners.”

“Yeah, but then Brinna wouldn’t be in control,” Maggie said with a twinkle in her eye. “There aren’t many guys working afternoons who will let her lead them around on a leash or who wouldn’t mind sitting in the back of the Explorer for the whole shift.”

“Ha-ha.” Brinna glared at Maggie. “It’s more than working with Hero. If I have a regular partner, I’ll be assigned a beat. No more keeping an eye on sex offenders or searching for kids.” She sprinkled a pink pack of sweetener into her iced tea.

“Rodriguez did say you could do that on your own time.” Maggie held her hands out, palms up. “Time for the glass-is-half-full person.”

“You’re right,” Brinna conceded. “I did decide a while ago to look on the bright side more often. And six weeks is a long time. Anything can happen.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll be the optimist. I’ll hope the city decides to pick up the tab for Hero.” She waved at the window to navigate away from the painful subject. “It’s nice to finally have a dry day. If we get much more rain, all of us will be working the city in kayaks and rowboats.”

“It sure came down last night,” Maggie said. “And it was
windy. My street lost two trees. Roots were so saturated they just fell over.”

Brinna nodded. “The public service channel on my scanner was going crazy early this morning. I think trees fell all over the city. There’s a lot of cleanup and clearing to do.”

“I like the rain,” Rick said. “It’s a nice change.”

“I like it too,” Brinna said, “just not in buckets.”

“Well, I got up early this morning and went to watch the swift-water rescue team practice,” Rick continued. “The water in the flood control was raging. What a rush the way those guys work. Sometimes I think I stood in the wrong line. Those fire guys have all the fun.”

“I don’t know about all the fun
 
—” Maggie arched her eyebrows suggestively
 
—“but they sure have all the cute. I don’t think they make bad-looking firemen.”

Rick groaned.

Brinna forced a grin, determined to think positive thoughts about the Hero situation and lighten up about other things. “For once I agree with you, Mags: firemen, paramedics
 
—they have the corner on the cute market. There’s a new guy at station four who looks like Paul Walker.” They slapped a high five in the booth while Rick rolled his eyes in annoyance.

He cut into their celebration, tapping Brinna’s arm. “So tell us about the callout. Where’d you go this morning? he asks, desperate to change the subject.”

“Homicide. They found a dead girl in the flood control.”

“One of yours?”

Brinna shook her head. “No ID so far. Not sure how old she is.” It was common knowledge that Brinna kept track of any
and all missing-kid cases from Long Beach and the surrounding areas. A wall in her home office was dubbed the Innocent Wall, where she kept several missing flyers pinned up.

K-9 Officer Caruso was always ready to pick up a trail and search for missing kids with her search-and-rescue dog, Hero. She worked to ignore the stabbing in her chest.

“She’s somebody’s kid,” Rick said.

Releasing a breath, Brinna stared out the window. “True enough. What I wouldn’t give for a world where no one’s baby ended up on our side of a homicide callout.”

*   *   *

Ivana paced the small room that had become her jail cell. Though the windows were kept so dark she and the girls sharing the room with her could not tell night from day, she knew that Villie should have been back hours ago. Her sister had disobeyed their captor’s order and been hauled out of the room almost two days ago. Demitri said it was for punishment. He’d done it once before, and she’d been back the next morning.

Arms folded across her chest, Ivana patted her elbows and studied the other two captives in the room. Ana and Galina sat together on a mattress, heads close, speaking in low tones. Ivana was hesitant to interrupt and ask them what they thought about Villie’s absence.

“Do what you’re told and nothing bad will happen to you,”
Ana, the oldest, had scolded Villie the day she and Ivana had arrived. She’d stood over them shaking an index finger and glowering as if she were their captor and not Demitri.

Demitri.
Ivana could barely think the name without rage
boiling inside her. Demitri, all sweetness and light at home in Sofia. The same man who had promised her and Villie a bright future in America . . . but had turned out to be a liar once he’d gotten them to their new home.

Ivana thought of the beating he’d given Villie the day their ship had arrived and he’d asked for their passports and visas.

“You’re mine now!” he’d yelled, showing a face they’d never seen before. He’d shoved them into a dark warehouse and ripped the clothes off Villie’s back. There was a leather strap on the wall and he’d grabbed it, screaming about how ungrateful Villie was and how she’d better learn to do as she was told. The strap fell again and again on Villie and then on Ivana when she’d tried to intervene. Her back still bore the marks from the whipping she’d received that day.

It was then they learned what “job” Demitri had brought them to. Ana, while she lectured about obedience, told them their duties and warned them again that disobedience would be dealt with quickly and harshly. Here in this dark room, with four dirty mattresses on the floor and one bathroom for the four of them to share, Villie and Ivana lost their innocence. They were ordered to give themselves to any man who entered. They’d face Demitri and his whip if they refused.

Ivana felt bile rise in her throat and tears start in her eyes. She’d said yes to Demitri in Sofia because he’d promised she would work for a rich American. Dreams of working in a beautiful shop or perhaps for rich and generous celebrities had vanished in a painful haze of beatings and harsh, strange men.

Her heart had soared at the thought of leaving the squalid orphanage in Sofia where she’d been raised and coming to
the fantasyland of America. When he’d offered to take Villie as well, that was too good to be true. Villie had already been out of the orphanage for four years, making a meager living sweeping city streets. They believed Demitri would take them to a bright future, where they might earn more money than would ever be possible in Sofia.

“Perhaps we’ll even rent a two-bedroom apartment,” Villie had gushed, eyes happier than Ivana had ever seen them. The lies Demitri told had given them hope . . . and the hope had been dashed here in this room on a dirty mattress.

Ivana choked back a sob, knowing there would be no sympathy from Ana or Galina. She couldn’t understand how the two girls could give themselves so willingly to the men Demitri sent them. Ana was only a few months older than Villie, and Galina was Ivana’s age. They smiled and fixed their hair, drenching the men with compliments. It was all Ivana could do to lie quietly and not scratch their eyes out.

Now Villie was gone. Demitri had taken her, told her he had a customer waiting at another location. It was a punishment, he said, because Villie had been disobedient. The man would be quite brutal.

“Let this be a lesson to you, Ivana,” Demitri had said. “The men I bring here treat you nice, but the men I take you to will not be so nice.” He’d then dragged Villie out of the room.

That was yesterday morning as far as Ivana could figure, but it seemed an eternity ago. For the first time since she’d been brought to this prison of hopelessness, she prayed for the door to open.

Open, and bring Villie back to me.

8

M
AGDA BUSIED HERSELF
with an inventory report. Next to her children and Anton, the store was her pride and joy and the biggest part of her life. As if returning her devotion, Black Sea Folk Art and Collectibles was thriving. Located in Long Beach, in a shopping area along the marina called Shoreline Village, the shop had been a success from the day Magda opened it six years previous. People in Long Beach and surrounding areas couldn’t get enough of the ethnic art and knickknacks Magda imported from her native Bulgaria and other parts of Eastern Europe.

It was a blessing and a curse, she often thought. The success had made her a wealthy woman, allowed her family to move to California, but it had also brought her to Demitri’s attention. She glanced at her salesclerk Anka, the only Bulgarian girl Magda had working for her. Demitri’s daughter
 
—and a spy, Magda was certain. Just twenty-five, Anka was blissfully ignorant of many things, but not of how to protect her father’s best interests. And Magda fervently
hoped Anka would never come to know how much she hated the girl’s father and hoped to be free of him. Magda had made her unknowing alliance with the man long ago when she was just Anka’s age.

Communism had fallen, and her father, a Bulgarian ambassador, and her mother were flying home from an assignment in France. Their plane went down in a snowstorm, and everyone on board was killed. At twenty, Magda had to make a life for herself alone in a country that was in flux. She’d turned to Demitri, knowing only that he was her wealthy cousin, and asked him for a loan to start a tourist business on the Black Sea. She had no idea then that his money had come from a thriving black market during Communist rule.

She could run a successful business, she’d told him. After all, as the daughter of an ambassador, she’d lived all over the world, spoke several languages, and could cater to the wealthy European tourists on the Black Sea. Demitri had kissed her forehead, told her he believed in his young cousin, and loaned her the money.

And she had been a success. That first shop in Varna had opened at the right time. Things were freeing up all over Eastern Europe. In two years it was obvious Magda had a profitable business on her hands. She had plenty of money to pay Demitri back, and she’d tried. He wouldn’t take her money, saying only that he was proud of her success and for her to consider the money a gift.

It was only after she’d moved to the US and found success there as well that she discovered who and what Demitri really was, and that there was no such thing as a gift from his
business. When he told her he wanted to piggyback on her business and move some of his operation to California, she’d said no. But
no
wasn’t a word he’d wanted to hear. So much for his “gift” of start-up money. Magda was his, he said. Bought and paid for. To refuse Demitri would be dangerous. And to prove his point, the long arm of his organization reached across the ocean. She came home one day to find her husband beaten senseless and her children tied up in a closet.

The case was still open with the local American police. A home invasion robbery, they’d called it, with unknown suspects. Magda knew who was responsible, and she knew the American authorities could never keep her family safe from Demitri. The only thing she could do was cooperate with a monster. Eventually he’d installed his daughter, Anka, in the shop.

A shudder rippled through Magda. She looked up from her work and out the window at the parking lot. In the distance, boats bobbed in their slips. The rain had stopped, but looming clouds bore a dark promise of more to come. Magda bit her lip. Demitri was due any minute. She had a sick feeling in her stomach, having guessed what he wanted. He didn’t visit her shop often, thankfully, but when he did, it was usually because he needed more girls. When he needed more girls, he took Anka back to Sofia for a week or two.

Anka was a simple girl whose head was filled with Kim Kardashian and the next great fashion fad. She would go home and gush to other young girls about life in America, which for her was wonderful after her backwoods life in a small village near Sozopol. Her tales helped convince girls
to say yes to Demitri when he told them he wanted to bring them to America. Either Anka didn’t know or she did not want to know what happened to the girls after they arrived.

Magda slammed her laptop shut, causing Anka and the customer she was helping to look her way. She smiled apologetically, and the pair went back to what they were doing. Anka would probably never believe that Demitri was the worst sort of man; she adored him. But he exploited all the women and girls he brought to America in the most evil ways.

And Magda’s business had given him a foothold. Choking back a sob, she hurried to the restroom. She had to look presentable for Demitri or risk his wrath. But there was something else she needed to do. She had to break free of him or the guilt she felt would eat her alive. Splashing water on her face, she took in her reflection in the mirror. Worry lines creased her forehead, and dark circles marred her otherwise-flawless skin.

How do I break free?
she asked herself.
How do I break the grip of a very evil man without becoming his next victim?

A short time later Demitri roared into the shop like a whirlwind. After he kissed Anka and gave her a present, he attempted small talk with Magda, bragging about his cousin Christopher. The young man was a very talented tattoo artist. Demitri wanted to bring him to America, confident that if Christopher could do some work for one or two American movie stars, he’d become famous. He prattled on about what it would be like to hobnob with America’s royalty.

“Will you open a tattoo shop?” Magda asked, feigning
interest but caring neither for the answer nor for what became of Christopher.

Demitri told her he had no need to open a shop since one of his men, Simon, had a cousin who owned a shop in San Pedro. He just needed the man to see the need to move his business to Hollywood. Whatever else he said to Magda went in one ear and out the other as she counted the minutes until he was ready to leave.

Finally he and his right-hand man, Emil, swept Anka away, leaving Magda breathless and seething in his wake. Magda cursed under her breath and shuffled through her schedule, struggling to get other clerks in to cover for Anka during the two weeks she would be gone. At least Demitri was on his best behavior whenever he made an appearance in the shop. He wouldn’t want Anka to believe that he was anything but a happy-go-lucky businessman. She was always enthralled by the gifts he gave her and the trips he took her on. He pampered her and thus kept her cooperation.

They would land in Sofia, Bulgaria’s capital city. Emil would round up young girls, mostly from the local orphanages because Demitri didn’t want to deal with the probing questions of caring relatives. Anka would show them her wardrobe, her pay stubs, and pictures of her apartment, and the girls would fall over themselves to come back to America with Demitri. After a week, and commitments from several girls, Demitri would take Anka to Varna, on the Black Sea, where he’d put her up at an expensive hotel while he ironed out the details for the new girls.

Demitri’s organization was based in Varna; in fact, it
mostly owned the city. A tourist community that catered to rich Europeans, Varna was actually a beautiful place
 
—on the surface. But Magda knew all too well about the city’s dark underbelly that tourists would never see.

Wistfully she thought back over the years, to that first store in Varna and her innocence. While never as flighty as Anka, there was once a time when she really didn’t know that true evil existed. She’d believed that the decisions she made affected only her and that she made good choices. But one decision to accept money from Demitri, though it brought her success, had shattered her innocence . . . and damaged so many others, including her own family. It was something she’d regret to her dying day.

Now, years later, knowing what Demitri was, and unable to break free, Magda sometimes dreamed of the early days when she was innocent, and lamented the blissful ignorance of youth.