Chapter Eighteen #2
A crack splintered through the air, and the wooden door slapped against the frame of the cabin on one hinge.
Jude eyed his team, giving them the hand signal to move in.
They crouched down, moving quickly toward the sound of the woman they were pursuing.
The Maserati was parked to the side of the first cabin, and they could hear a child wailing.
The men had just made it to the cabin’s porch when Layla stepped out from behind the broken door with an infant swaddled in a pink blanket.
“No!” she screamed. “This is my baby.” She turned and tried to flee in the other direction, but Cameron caught her around the waist and Ross took the baby from her hands. Jude handcuffed her wrists and had her sit at the side of the cabin before cuffing her ankles.
“Come out with your hands up!” Jude yelled into the cabin.
A young man, visibly shaken, exited. “I’m just the babysitter here,” he said and started to cry. Once he was cuffed and seated on the other side of the cabin from Layla, they began to search the other spaces.
Each cabin had up to four children and one adult who was “babysitting” as they phrased it.
Some were women and some were young men, but most of them showed signs of being trafficking victims themselves.
Until they could determine their roles in the organization, though, they were detained to await questioning.
The last cabin was dark, and it was the only one where the door seemed to be locked or sealed shut.
Jude wasted no time kicking the door in and spotted two children huddled in the corner.
Something blurred in Jude’s peripheral vision, and he pivoted in time to avoid the sharp edge of a crudely fashioned weapon.
The young child holding it couldn’t have been more than eight.
Her hair was dirty and lank against her face, but she had the eyes of a warrior.
Old eyes. Ones that had seen far too much.
A boy around the same age sat holding a toddler.
Jude holstered his weapon and put his hands in the air, palms facing out.
Something about the children and the expressions of fear on their faces made him crouch down.
“My name’s Jude,” he said. “I’m here to help.”
Jude noticed the boy who was holding the toddler began rocking back and forth.
“How do we know you’re not one of them?” the young girl said, still holding out her weapon.
“I can toss you my badge.” The girl reminded him of Ivy and how she had defended herself against him with the skillet.
The girl had the same stubborn tilt to her chin as Ivy did.
Something expanded in his chest when she nodded stubbornly.
“Toss it to the far wall,” she commanded and he stifled a smile.
“Yes, ma’am.” He slowly removed his identification and threw it across the room.
“Ben, read what it says.” The boy placed the toddler down and picked up the identification. He glanced at it quickly and began tapping keys on the tablet around his neck.
“Jude Hayes. Human Trafficking Task Force. Department of Homeland Security,” the robotic voice stated from the device.
Just as the boy, Ben, had finished typing, the toddler screeched happily and took several uncoordinated steps right into his arms. The toddler giggled, and he picked her up, resting her on his knee.
“Well, between the identification and Lily liking you, I guess you’re in the clear for now.”
“Good to know. That weapon looks pretty sharp. Are there any adults in this cabin with you?” Jude bounced the toddler, who palmed his face with chubby hands.
“Not after the last one,” the girl said, still clutching her weapon tightly.
He wasn’t going to ask her to put it down. At least not yet. It was clear that the tool represented a sense of security, and he had no idea what these three children had been through.
“We were taken by mistake from our foster home. Well, me and Ben were taken by mistake. Lily was the one they wanted.”
“What’s your name?” Jude asked.
“Scarlet.”
“What makes you think someone only wanted to take Lily?” he asked.
“Ben and I were in the way, so the men took us, too. We’ve been guarding Lily so no people can take her.”
“That’s very brave of you both.”
“We’re siblings. Just because we don’t have parents doesn’t mean we don’t want to stay together.” Scarlet looked more like a soldier than a little girl, and that made his chest squeeze.
“I hear that. You did good staying together.” Lily began pulling at Jude’s earlobe, and the baby’s deep belly laugh filled the cabin.
“I have a favor to ask of you.” Scarlet licked her dry lips and looked toward the cabin door, like she might bolt.
“What is it?” Jude stopped bouncing Lily to give Scarlet his full attention.
“Our last foster home decided they couldn’t keep all three of us. They wanted Lily to stay and Ben and me to go somewhere else. That’s not going to happen. If you plan on taking us back there, the favor is to turn around and pretend you didn’t find anyone in this cabin.”
He tilted his head, considering the old soul in front of him. “You plan to live here?”
“I can make weapons, and Ben is really smart. He knows what things are edible in the forest and what isn’t. We can learn to fish, and no one will ever split us up again.”
He considered the little girl’s words. Ones that resonated far deeper than she could ever understand. He hadn’t wanted to be separated from his family either. Jude blew out of breath. “I was in the foster system, too. Sucks, doesn’t it?”
“It does. Ben and I have a rule, though, that we don’t use bad words around Lily,” Scarlet said effectively chastising him. “Did you have a brother or a sister?”
“I had a brother, but he passed away.” A wedge lodged in Jude’s throat.
“So, you got split up, too,” she said.
“Yeah. We did.” Lily began to wiggle, and Jude set her down on the cabin floor. She went to Ben and sat in his lap.
“You understand, then, why we can’t go back.” Scarlet speared him with her gaze.
“I understand.”
*
Three hours later, Jude rolled his stiff shoulders and picked up his phone to call Ivy.
Christ, what was she going to think when he asked her to make up the spare bed and the couch?
Seems like she wasn’t the only one bringing home strays.
He gave the three kids now packed in the SUV with Cameron and Ross a little wave.
He’d gotten emergency clearance from a judge to obtain temporary custody.
Cameron was carrying on an animated conversation with Ben, whose fingers were flying across the tablet, which Scarlet had told him to refer to as an AAC device—Augmentative and Alternative Communication Device to be exact.
She explained that Ben had autism and was nonverbal, and Jude shared that his girlfriend’s brother, Ash, was also autistic.
That piece of information seemed to put her mind at ease, but she was still observing everything he did.
The phone rang once, then went right to voicemail.
He stared down at the phone and a feeling of dread settled over him.
Jude dialed Ivy’s number again. Again, the call went right to voicemail.
Willing himself to calm down, he started to pace.
There could be any number of reasons why Ivy wasn’t picking up her phone.
She did say she was going to take a bath.
Maybe she had gone outside to use the hot tub or was watching television and her phone slipped into the couch cushions.
The side window of the SUV rolled down, and Cameron looked out.
“What is it?” Cameron asked.
“Ivy’s not picking up her phone. I’ve got a bad feeling.”