Chapter 23
Andie woke at dawn. She’d been up nearly all night. It felt like old times. She was near her old neighborhood.
The last time Andie had worked undercover in the Pacific Northwest she was a young special agent in the Seattle field office.
At the time, many of her colleagues had said she was too inexperienced to infiltrate a dangerous cult. To her supervisor,
however, Andie was the perfect choice. The cult was operating out of the Yakima Valley, east of the Cascade Mountains, where
Andie was born. Her biological mother was a full-blooded Yakama, and those striking Native American features combined with
the green eyes of an Anglo father to create in Andie the type of exotic beauty the cult leader was recruiting. After more
than a decade in Miami, Andie was on assignment in Washington State again, and for similar reasons. A sex-trafficking ring
was operating out of the Port of Seattle. Many of the victims were members of the Yakama tribe, including some underage girls.
Andie was “on loan” to the FBI Seattle Division Child Exploitation Task Force.
The curtains were drawn, and it was dark inside the tiny motel room, but Andie was dressed and ready to go. The motel was
near the interstate, several miles from the port, but she was going no farther than the parking lot across the street. She
had a meeting with her FBI handler. Before leaving, however, she had to make sure the eighteen-year-old girl who was sleeping
in the other twin bed would still be there when she returned. She bent a knee and spoke softly.
“Hey, Graciela. I’m going out to get coffee. Want some?”
She didn’t stir. Andie imagined it had been her first night of decent sleep in weeks.
Graciela was in the clutches of sex traffickers who offered her services online.
A member of the FBI task force had paid for a room and sex online, but only Andie was there when Graciela arrived.
Andie’s story was that their john had double-booked a mother-daughter fantasy, but the mother had completely depleted his supply of Viagra, so Graciela was off the hook.
The room had twin beds, and Andie invited her to stay the night.
The point was for Andie to befriend Graciela and get her trafficker’s contact information—the actual human being behind the online offering service.
Andie nudged her. “Hey. You want coffee? I’m going out.”
Graciela’s eyes blinked open. She seemed alarmed but then recognized Andie’s face, and she smiled.
“Can I have a double hot chocolate chip Frappuccino, extra whip cream?”
Andie smiled back, but with sadness. It was the kind of drink Righley would have ordered. She really is just a kid.
“Absolutely. I’ll be right back.”
Andie zipped her winter coat and stepped out. It was a ground-floor room that exited directly to the parking lot, but the
early-morning fog was so thick that Andie could barely see across the highway to the coffee shop—her meeting spot—on the other
side. A light rain had fallen overnight. The puddles on the asphalt hadn’t frozen over, but it was cold enough to see her
breath. Once upon a time, Andie wouldn’t have regarded a typical Seattle winter morning as “cold,” but living in Miami had
changed all that. She buried her hands in her pockets, crossed at the crosswalk, and hurried into the warm coffee shop. She
spotted her undercover handler, Special Agent Francine Goodale, seated at a table near the window. Andie and Francine had
started in the Seattle office the same year, looked out for one another early in their careers, and remained friends over
the years even after Andie’s transfer to Miami.
Andie removed her coat and joined her at the table. “Good news,” said Andie. “I have names for you.”
Francine didn’t smile, which concerned Andie.
“What’s wrong?” asked Andie.
“Our budget has been slashed,” said Francine. “We’re shutting down.”
“But I’m finally getting traction here. We could be on the verge of making an arrest.”
“Trust me, Andie, I’ve been pleading our case. But every now and then you run into a brick wall that makes you think it was
the FBI who put the bureau in bureaucracy. The funds for this operation have already been reallocated. This came straight from headquarters—the ‘other Washington.’
Counterterrorism is the number one priority.”
Andie’s heart sank. Counterterrorism was important work, but at that moment, it was hard to fathom a higher priority than
a teenage girl trapped in the sex trade.
“We have to fight this. Call Isaac Underwood. He’s a big-shot assistant director now. He works right down the hall from these
Washington bureaucrats who cut our funding.”
Isaac had been Andie’s first supervisory agent in the Seattle field office. He’d gone out on a limb for an agent just two
years out of the FBI Academy, entrusting Andie with an undercover assignment that would change the trajectory of her career.
“I tried Isaac. You know that if there was something he could do, he’d do it in a heartbeat.” Francine slid an airplane ticket
across the table. “You’ll be home this weekend.”
Andie checked the ticket and put it in her coat pocket. “This totally sucks. Nothing more to say.”
“There is one other thing,” Francine said. “I’ve been in daily contact with the Miami office since you came here. I told them
what excellent work you’re doing and how happy you are to be back in undercover work.”
“Thank you for that.”
“There’s more. There’s a new investigation with a Miami connection that I thought would be perfect for you. It just got approved
while you were out here. Unfortunately, I was told you’re walled off.”
“Why?”
“It’s not my place to tell you. I’m sure you’ll hear about it when you get back. But off the record, so to speak, I did want to give you a heads-up.”
Francine was giving her “the eye”—a knowing look they used to share when watching each other’s back as the two youngest women
in a field office that, at the time, was run by old men.
“Okay,” Andie said in a tentative voice. “What’s this about?”
“It has to do with your husband’s friend. The bar owner who sometimes works as an investigator. Do you know him?”
“Yes. Theo Knight. Is there a problem?”
“Again, you’re officially walled off, so I can’t get too specific. But as an old friend, I can say this much. Lately, Mr.
Knight’s choice of business associates has not been very smart.”
“Wait. Stop right there, Francine. Theo has been on the up-and-up as long as I’ve known him. He’s Jack’s best friend. He’s
like an uncle to my daughter.”
“That’s exactly why I’m telling you this. He’s been running a supposed import-export business out of Miami’s foreign trade
zone. It didn’t get on anyone’s radar till recently, when he got chummy with some radical who’s been on the FBI watch list
for years. Turns out Mr. Knight has been importing dozens of empty barrels at a time, but his business hasn’t actually sold
anything—ever.”
Objectively speaking, that didn’t sound good. “So, he’s under suspicion?” asked Andie.
“He’s drawing attention to himself. The kind of attention a prominent criminal defense lawyer doesn’t need, if you know what
I mean.”
Andie paused to consider the implication. “What would you do, if you were me?”
“Oh, come on, Andie. Don’t make me spell this out for you. We both know you can’t tell Theo Knight we talked. You can’t even
tell Jack we had this conversation. But if Jack were my husband . . .”
“You’d tell him to keep his distance from Theo, for the time being.”
Francine arched an eyebrow. “You said it. Not me.”
Andie took a breath. It was upsetting enough to hear that Theo might be getting himself into trouble. And even more so that it was trouble so big that Francine felt like it was necessary to warn her that Jack could be caught in the blowback. It sent a shudder down her spine.
“Appreciate the tip,” said Andie.
“No problem, girlfriend. I’m not telling you what to do. You can ignore it, if you want, and just let the chips fall where
they may. Your decision.”
“Say no more,” said Andie. “I already know what I’m going to do.”
“Yeah, what?”
Andie rose. “I’m going to order a double hot chocolate chip Frappuccino with extra whipped cream. To go.”
“You earned it,” said Francine.
Andie didn’t mention who it was for.
They said a warm goodbye. Andie put on her coat, stopped at the counter on her way out, and ordered two Frappuccinos.