Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 91212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91212 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 456(@200wpm)___ 365(@250wpm)___ 304(@300wpm)
I know how it works. We follow the clients from one place to the next, but there's always the chance that the men wait days or even weeks before they go somewhere else that we'd consider deviant, which may lead to the disappearance of a lost girl.
Feeling this way doesn't stop me from researching every car and person that passes across the video feed. They'll lead us somewhere at some point. These types of investigations always take us to another location, but there's always the chance that it won't have anything to do with Sadie Preston.
Things like this is the entire reason I reached out to Kincaid to start up this new program, working cases here in the United States. There are so many stateside facilities that are hurting people. A lot of these women aren't trafficked outside of the US until they consider them used up and too damaged to earn as much money as they did in the beginning. People seen as a commodity rather than humans make me sick to my stomach.
Despite most being held here until they're no longer useful, women like Sadie, the ones with a name and people behind them who care where they went are nothing but trouble. There are two possible scenarios, not including the one where Sadie went to a flop house, overdosed, and is in a shallow grave in some crackhead's backyard.
One possible chance is that she was abducted by someone who knows who she is and moved her out of the US quickly. The other is that someone grabbed her without the resources to know who she is and how much trouble she could be to them. We hope for the latter, of course, because that would mean there's a chance she's closer.
Either way is awful, and I'm not discounting that, but the closer she is, the more likely it'll be that we find her. But only if the trail of these men leads us in that direction.
I pull out my phone and call Kincaid. I told him I'd keep him up to date on the case, but two calls in less than twenty-four hours feel excessive even to me.
I forgot how lonely this kind of work was. Before, as a supervisor, I could make the rounds and check in with my agents. I'm all alone on this one, and I need a distraction. My mind keeps drifting back to trying to understand why a woman would pack a silk fucking robe to go look for her sister.
Or is it possible Cora Preston is just that uppity that she wants nothing but the softest of fabric touching her body? I look down at my hand, the roughness on my palm and the web of scars from so many missions and jobs that mark the back.
"She's trouble, isn't she?" Kincaid says when the call connects.
"Of course, she is. Wouldn't be a real case without at least someone thinking they can do a better job than what we're doing," I mutter. "They put three trackers in her personal belongings. I don't doubt they tagged her car as well."
"Think we're missing something about the family?"
I pull in a deep breath. This is something I've considered as well.
"Maybe they want to know what they know. Could be a hint that they had something to do with Sadie's disappearance."
"Could also be because the oldest brother is on a very fast track in politics with his eyes on the White House," Kincaid says, always playing the devil's advocate.
"And they want to expose the skeletons in their closet to prevent that from happening?"
"Or have the ability to control him while he's in office with those secrets," Kincaid counters. "Either way, it is odd that they marked her at least three times. Other than the tracker on your car, they didn't do anything else to your stuff."
"I went to her hotel. Swanky as hell. Makes me feel less bad about spending her money to gain access to the spa."
"I didn't know you ever felt guilt," he says with a chuckle, and I can't take offense to it.
Kincaid knew me as a wild twenty-something man who never looked back in life. I was always going forward, unconcerned about the trouble I left in my wake. The cases I've worked these last three decades have sobered me some, made me consider the different directions my life could've gone.
"She's not impressed with the speed of the case," I say, not breathing any life into his accusation.
"They never are. We're running Jane Doe scans across the entire US, but we haven't found anything yet."
"Are we thinking that's the way it's going to go?"
"I think there's a greater possibility of it than her being trafficked," he says, his tone shallow and flat.
I know he has seen as much death and destruction as I have, maybe even more so because his leadership role in Cerberus was always more hands-on than the one I have with the Agency. It never gets easier, and he's the type of man who won't let this sort of thing harden him, won't let it make him grow cold and unconcerned for the outcome. It's what makes him such a great man, what makes his teams so amazing. He won't allow it for the men and women working under him either. Cerberus is full of compassionate people, and although I've done really good work with the Agency, I've felt the loss of that brotherhood more often than not in the years since I left.