32. Moreno #2
Max looks toward me. I stay where I am.
Valentina says, “Women were here.”
“Yes,” Calder answers.
“You believe that.”
“Yes.”
“Then stop talking as if the only moral victory is a document you can hand to a prosecutor who will never see half these people.”
“This is not about moral victory.”
“Then what’s it about?”
“Finding the next site.”
She points toward the concealed anchors. “The next site doesn’t give back whoever was chained to that wall.”
“No.” Calder’s voice remains level. “It may help us reach the next woman before another room is empty.”
Valentina looks at him with the expression she uses when an answer is correct and still unacceptable.
I understand the feeling.
I walk into the rear loading room before I say something useless.
The loading door was replaced at least once.
New bolts sit in old holes. A rectangular outline on the wall marks where a keypad used to be mounted.
The door itself opens toward an alley with enough room for a van to reverse close without being seen from the street.
The perimeter team already cleared it. I keep my attention inside.
“Camera there,” I say, pointing above the door.
Valentina joins me. “And probably one on the exterior corner.”
“Guard at the hall junction could clear vehicles before the door opened.”
“They could move people from the largest room to the van without crossing the front half of the building.”
I nod. “Efficient.”
The word makes her face harden.
“I didn’t say acceptable.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t punish me for saying what it was.”
Her attention shifts toward the alley beyond the door. “I’m not punishing you.”
“You’re punishing the room.”
“That seems fair.”
It almost makes me smile. Almost.
A knock comes from the front entrance. One of our perimeter Coyotes opens the door and speaks quietly to Max.
A minute later, Max returns with the owner of the neighboring business, who agreed to answer questions as long as he stays inside our secured perimeter and doesn’t get his name involved in anything official. He gives us no miracle.
He remembers delivery trucks. Temporary workers.
Men in polo shirts who came and went at odd hours.
He assumed the building handled event storage because vans loaded linens and catering supplies.
He never saw women being forced inside. He never heard screams. He remembers music playing loudly some nights and says the rear alley was often blocked by commercial vans.
Max keeps the questions ordinary.
“Same vendors?”
“Some. Cleaning company changed. Food deliveries didn’t.”
“Any company name you remember?”
The business owner gives two. One belongs to an ordinary regional supplier. The other appeared on Calder’s tablet three times already.
Max asks about events.
The man frowns. “They had paperwork from some planning company. I saw the logo on boxes and invoices when their trash ended up in my bin.”
“What company?”
He gives the name.
Max stops writing.
Valentina notices. “What?”
Max turns the notebook toward us. “Same event company from the masquerade-adjacent contracts. Different state branch.”
Calder checks the name against his records. “And the former coordinator from this morning signed two of the old agreements.”
The business owner can’t tell us anything else. Max walks him back to the entrance, and the perimeter team returns him next door without turning him into a witness he never agreed to become.
Valentina stands in the empty reception area while we finish documenting the site.
The evidence is partial and ugly. Concealed anchors.
Camera mounts. Altered walls. Vendor schedules.
Water use. A recurring event-company name.
Enough to prove the property deserves a place in the network map, but still not enough to tell us who was held here or where they went.
Calder packs the property records. “The vendor schedules can connect this address to other sites.”
Valentina says, “Paperwork still doesn’t recover the people moved out of here.”
“No,” he says. “But somebody paid the same people to supply the next building.”
I look at the loading route one last time. My hands want a problem they can solve directly. There’s no man to hit, no door to breach, no captive to carry out. The only useful violence would be violence against my own impatience, which is less satisfying and more necessary.
Max holds up the event-company file. “We have the coordinator.”
Valentina takes the folder from him. “Then we ask what she chose not to notice.”
Calder says, “Tomorrow.”
She opens her mouth.
I cut in before the fight restarts. “We finish here first.”
Valentina looks at me.
“You agree with him?”
“I agree there’s nobody left in this building to punish.”
Her expression shifts. She understands exactly how much I dislike the answer.
“Fine,” she says.
We leave the property together after the evidence team takes over. The shared SUV is waiting beyond the perimeter with Calder driving, Max already complaining about the lack of food in the vehicle, and the rear door open.
Valentina stands beside it for several seconds. Her own access credential works. Her weapons are on her body. No agreement requires her to ride with us back to the clubhouse if she decides she needs space and says so.
The empty building behind her offers every excuse she used to turn disappointment into distance.
She gets into the SUV.
I slide in beside Max, and Calder pulls away only after Valentina closes her own door.