Chapter 4
Rami polished off the last bite of his burger and tossed the wrapper into the trash bin. It was well after dinnertime and August and Toth would arrive any minute to go over their findings.
Despite having worked tirelessly on the case for the last seven hours, he wasn’t much farther ahead. He hadn’t taken his own advice and napped, but thankfully fatigue hadn’t set in yet.
He’d called Gigi and told her about the lead they’d gotten from the police department, and the hope in her voice had given him more fuel.
If they failed at this, or worse, Ivy was already dead, he couldn’t imagine the effect it would have on Gigi.
There was a gentle rap on the door. “Come in,” he called.
Pearl, his receptionist, opened the door and popped her head through the crack. “I’m turning in for the night.” Her creamy-blue eyes sharpened on him. “You should get home, too. It’s late.” The slight chastising note to her tone almost made him grin—something he hadn’t done much of the last seven years.
“Got a high-priority job. You know how it is.”
Pearl was old enough to be his mother. Out of all the people they’d interviewed, she’d had the most experience and best work ethic. Last thing he needed was some Gen Z chick flouncing around his office making all his single, asshole guys swoon.
Nope. Pearl was perfect for the job. She kept the place clean, well-run, and orderly. Her husband had died five years prior, and she’d worked for his PI firm for twenty-five years. As far as receptionists went, she was overqualified. Rami made sure to pay her accordingly.
“Ah, yes.” She smiled fondly. “This must be about that woman who was here today? Poor thing looked like she’d lost her soul.”
Rami grunted. “With any luck, we’ll find it.”
“If anyone can, it’s you,” Pearl said with a wink. She glanced toward the hallway. “Oh, the boys are here. I’ll let you get back to work. Just send me an email if you need me to cancel any meetings tomorrow.”
“Thanks, Pearl.”
She disappeared into the hallway, and he heard her greet August and Toth. A beat later the two oafs walked in.
“Whaddya got?” Rami asked.
“Gimme a sec,” Toth said, as he opened his laptop and connected it to the projector. “Dim the lights,” he commanded August.
August adjusted the switch, lowering the overhead glow.
“Took a few hours, but I got Joshua Hilliard’s phone records. There’re a few frequent numbers, so I searched each of them. One in particular was harder to trace. I think this is Marty’s.” He moved the cursor to a nine-digit number circled in red.
“Good. Location?”
“I was working on that just before I got here. It came up as Tijuana, Mexico. Didn’t get the chance to search any deeper.”
August guffawed. “Bingo.”
“Hold up,” Rami cautioned. “Tijuana’s a big city. We need coordinates and we need to find out who’s behind this. I’m sure Marty isn’t the brains of the operation. She’s working for someone. We can’t go in blind.”
August opened his computer. “Keep going,” he said, waving to Toth. “I’m going to see what I can find in the area.”
Rami nodded and turned his attention back to Toth’s findings. “Let’s see if we can get some coordinates on the phone number.”
Toth grunted, already punching away at his keyboard. “It’s populating. Should take about fifteen minutes. Did you talk to Gigi?”
Rami stretched out his arms in front of him. He’d already undone several buttons on his shirt and pushed up his sleeves, but the material was annoying. Normally this time of day he was in sweats and a T-shirt. “I did. Told her about the info we got from the police and that we’d at least taken a step. She’s a bit too hopeful, though.”
August shifted in his seat. “I hope we get somewhere with this.”
“Gigi was right about one thing,” Rami said. “The local cops are done with this case. There’s a direct link to human traffickers. It’ll be passed off to the FBI.”
Toth nodded. “Which is great and all, but they’ve already got enough cases. Ivy’s won’t be priority.”
“Not when they’ve got missing kids to deal with,” August conceded.
“There’s something you guys gotta be prepared for,” Rami said, clearing his throat. August lifted his gaze from the screen and Toth’s turned hard. “If we find Ivy’s location, she could be among dozens, maybe hundreds of victims. We won’t be able to get them all out. And the more people we try to rescue, the less chance we’ll save Ivy.”
August’s green eyes filled with foreboding. “I don’t see how we can leave a bunch of victims behind.”
“Agreed.” Rami gave a single nod. “But we’re in no position to orchestrate a mass rescue mission. Finding Ivy will be hard enough. You both need to prepare yourselves for what we could stumble into.”
“I don’t like this,” Toth declared.
“Once we get Ivy, we can tip off police—”
“The Mexican police are owned by the cartels, for fuck’s sake.” August’s voice dripped with disgust.
“So we’ll call in the FBI.” Rami shrugged. “Look. I get it. I’m with you. I can’t stand the idea of leaving people behind, but we’re only three people. Even if we had ten on the team, we couldn’t save them all. Not in one swoop.”
Toth folded his arms across his chest and glanced away. Rami had rocked the boat, but he didn’t regret it. The conversation needed to be had now and not when—if—they found Ivy.
Several quiet minutes slipped by.
“I’ve got something,” August said, breaking the silence. “There’s a cartel compound in the desert outside Tijuana. I’m gonna bet they’ve got their hands in this.”
Toth’s computer dinged. “I’ve got coordinates.” He read them aloud and August let out a hoot.
“What?” Rami asked.
“I’ll show you.” August took over the projection screen, and a blue dot popped up on a barren map. “Here’s the coordinates for Marty’s phone. And here,” he drawled, “is the cartel compound. Five miles away.”
Rami surged forward in his seat. “Holy shit. I think we’ve got her.”
“Great,” Toth said. “Now how the fuck are we going to get her out? All of our equipment is here—our fitted trucks, our gear. It’s more than twenty fucking hours away by vehicle.”
“I think you answered your own question, dude,” Rami said, deadpan. Yeah, the situation was brutal. They’d been well aware from the get-go that if human traffickers had their hands on Ivy, it was unlikely she’d still be in the country.
“It’s inconvenient as fuck,” August agreed. “But we can’t just hop on a flight. We gotta drive, and we’d better leave now. If we take shifts, we can be there this time tomorrow.”
Toth’s expression turned grave, and he massaged his temples.
“What is it?” August asked, looking from Rami to Toth. “What’d I miss?”
“It’s not a good time for Toth to leave the country, or for an extended period.”
August drew back his head. “This ain’t gonna work as a two-man mission. We need another guy.”
Annoyance flared inside Rami. He bit his tongue to stop himself from making a smart-assed remark that wouldn’t make the situation better. August was right, but Toth couldn’t be blamed for staying behind. Savannah needed him.
“You stay here,” he said to Toth. “We’ll take Taschen.”
Toth’s eyebrows rose. “You sure?”
“Yeah. Get him on the phone, tell him we’re leaving in an hour.”
Toth stood. “Got it.”
August’s curiosity was palpable, but Rami didn’t give him the grace of a glance. Shitty thing was, this could all be for nothing. There was no way to be sure Ivy was there, no way to be sure they wouldn’t be shot on the spot. They’d do their due diligence before storming the location, but regardless, they were going in blind.
And if she was still alive, she might not have twenty hours.
***
“I know whatyou’re doing.” The scornful voice came from the bedroom off the short hallway somewhere behind where Ivy lay.
She groaned and stared at the ceiling. The low light coming through the cracks of tinfoil on the window told her it was either very early in the morning or very late at night. Considering dumb and dumber were still up, it had to be nighttime.
She swallowed and stifled a gag. God, she needed water. She lifted her head but it was too heavy. The muscles in her neck kinked, and her head dropped back to the floor. A wave of sleepiness pulled her in.
Within a few minutes, Marty and Wayne’s bickering roused her again. “You look at her and then you want to fuck me,” Marty hissed. “I’m not stupid. I know you’d be all over her if I wasn’t here.”
Revulsion prickled the back of Ivy’s mouth. The woman wasn’t wrong. Wayne barely even tried to hide the drool when he got near her.
Directing her attention to her body, Ivy took stock. The last time they’d drugged her she’d been out for a while. It seemed every time they injected her, her mind had a harder time coming back. Now, she had to reacquaint herself with her surroundings all over again. The strength she’d had yesterday seemed light-years away. Had she really been able to get to her knees? Pull a nail from the wall? Or had she been dreaming?
She turned her head to face the wall and the room spun. Nausea collected in her esophagus.
Don’t puke, don’t puke.
Her mouth watered as she fought the urge to keep in whatever acid existed in her stomach. If she retched, they’d hear her.
The next time they drugged her would surely be the last. She had to get out now—tonight.
“Uh, yes. Harder!”
The cries from the bedroom made Ivy shudder.
Get up. Get up!
The shrill cry in her head made her eyes snap open. The wall loomed before her, and she dragged her gaze to the lifted linoleum. Using all her brain cells to command her fingers, she dragged them to the little nook where she’d stashed the nail.
Marty and Wayne’s bedroom noises stopped. Maybe they’d fallen asleep. If they had, and she got free of her bindings, she might be able to make an escape.
Her fingertip touched smooth metal, but she couldn’t conjure enough strength in her limp hand to grasp it. Tears leaked out of the corners of her eyes.
This was it. Her last shot.
And she was failing.
Even if she could grab the damn thing, she wouldn’t have enough strength to get through the shackle around her ankle. Her shorts and tank were loose around her body—she’d lost weight. Probably a lot. Not to mention muscle tone from being chained up and drugged.
She didn’t have a fighting chance.
Had she really believed she’d escape using a nail? It was almost comical. She could see the headlines: “Woman Escapes Human Traffickers with Nail.”
A chuckle rasped from her lips.
The bed groaned. Someone stood.
Shock jolted her insides. Oh god. They’d heard her.
“She’s awake.” Marty’s annoyed announcement carried through the stale air.
Life surged to Ivy’s limbs. No. If they knew she was awake, they’d drug her again. And it’d be the last time the needle plunged into her skin. The last time she floated in and out of reality.
The last time she woke up.
A pang of longing hit her. Her suffering was close to being over. This should have made her happy. She couldn’t explain the part of her that wanted to keep fighting. That wanted to live. Despite knowing there’d be more abuse. More pain. More anguish.
Probably far worse to come if she survived.
Wayne’s heavy footsteps shook the trailer. A light clicked on in the living room, and she squinted against the glow the covered her body. Ivy kept her face glued to the wall, not daring to look at him.
Please, God. Let them think I’m still asleep.
“Christ, Mart. I’ve only got a little left. Probably not enough to knock her out.”
“Just hurry up,” she called.
Wayne sighed and a lighter flickered. Terror cinched Ivy’s throat to the width of a straw. Footsteps shuffled closer and then the warmth of Wayne’s body permeated her side as he sat next to her, snagging her wrist. He hesitated, and her lungs ached as she wiggled her fingers between the linoleum and baseboard.
“Did you fucking feed her today, like I told ya?”
“Yeah, she had chips and water earlier,” Marty called.
Liar.
He huffed and squeezed her elbow several times, looking for a vein. He wouldn’t find one. She was too sick. Nearly dead. Probably wouldn’t even bleed if he sliced her with a knife.
Angst pierced her lungs. Her fingers wrapped around the nail.
Yes!
Pain ebbed through her elbow—he’d found a vein. She gasped, and the nail fell from her grasp. She wheeled her free hand at his face.
Smack!
The needle jumped out of her arm, but it was too late. The solution crawled up her forearm, wrapping its cold, gnarly fingers around her biceps and sinking its venomous teeth into her heart.
“Fucking bitch.” Wayne’s knuckles clapped against her cheekbone, but the sting turned into a warm pulse, her body too numb to absorb pain.
The world flickered and a cloud swept in, carrying her away.