Chapter 11
—We’ve got your six.—
Lucy second-guessed herself for the hundredth time. So maybe she wasn’t certain she should be here meeting with a man who was a virtual stranger—a man who’d clearly somehow bypassed the casino security system. And the security system of her condo, which definitely hadn’t helped her sleep any last night.
Either he’d bypassed the system to rob the casino, which so far didn’t seem to be the case, or he’d done it to erase all footage of himself there. Because apparently all footage of him there had disappeared, according to security.
She found out that little nugget of information from Nathan—who’d heard the security guys talking—a couple hours ago.
Which made all of this that much weirder. But if Leighton wanted to hurt her, he could have easily. More than once.
Hell, maybe he’d still try but she was at least coming prepared. She’d opted to wear jeans, a sweater and sneakers today instead of her normal heels. She’d tucked pepper spray into her back pocket and strapped a knife to her ankle.
The knife had actually been a gift from her uncle, of all people. As well as the ankle strap. She’d never carried it anywhere, but today she was making an exception.
Obviously she hoped it didn’t come to that. She hoped… She wasn’t sure what she hoped at this point. Maybe just for answers.
As she reached the top step of the double-gallery house, the door swung open and a pretty woman with long brunette hair smiled at her. She’d been expecting Leighton, and for some reason this threw her off guard.
“I’m Nova. I work with Leighton. And I know you’re Lucy. Please come in.”
Frowning, she stepped inside with the pretty woman. Leighton and another man were off to the right, sitting at a long, formal table in an ornately decorated dining room. She wondered if they were the only three people in this house. And she wondered who the other two were.
“Like I said, I work with Leighton, and this is Gage, my fiancé.” Nova motioned to the other man who looked as grim as Leighton.
Both men nodded at her and remained leaning against the dining room table.
She wasn’t sure what to do now. Wasn’t sure about anything. She was the one who’d wanted to meet with him and now she felt like she was drowning.
“Before we go any further, we’re going to have to scan you,” the one named Gage said.
She blinked. “Wait…what?”
“We’ve got to scan you for electronics.”
She could actually understand why they were doing that but it didn’t negate that it made her feel vulnerable as she held her arms out. She was grateful when Nova started scanning her with a wand and felt more at ease when the woman shot her an apologetic look.
The woman could be lying, merely acting for Lucy’s benefit, but it still made her feel better. Nova found her knife and pepper spray but didn’t attempt to take them.
“Smart,” was all she said.
When Nova was done, Lucy shoved her hands in her front pockets. Without her heels on she felt more vulnerable, as if she was missing part of her armor. “I read over the files you gave me. You could have doctored them.”
“We could have,” Leighton said. “But you must know that we didn’t. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here. You’re too smart.”
“I don’t know about how smart I am. Because if what’s in those files is true, I was raised by a monster and didn’t realize it.” The recording itself hadn’t been monstrous, but the files indicated he sold people, drugs and guns, used charities as covers for his schemes, strong-armed people out of their own businesses because he wanted to purchase them for himself—at a heavy discount. And the list went on. Maybe that was the reason Liliana had been targeted for kidnapping in the past.
“He’s gone to a lot of trouble to create a public persona for himself,” Gage said as Nova sat down at the table.
The men followed suit so Lucy stepped into the room fully and sat down on the other side of the table from them. On the side closest to the door. She might not be able to take them on, but she could run fast if necessary.
“Is the woman from last night safe?”
“Yes,” Leighton said, his haunted eyes still sad even as he watched her like a lethal predator. Damn it, she should not be noticing anything about him. “But there are more women being held. We plan to save them.”
“How?”
The three of them looked at each other but didn’t respond. Fine.
“What do you want from me?” she tried.
“Nothing,” Leighton said. “Other than for you not to tell your uncle about us.”
She rubbed her temple once. At this point, she wasn’t telling her uncle anything. She didn’t trust him. “Is Marco Broussard really involved in trafficking women?”
“Oh there’s no doubt of that,” Gage said.
“I guess I still don’t understand why you guys haven’t gone to law enforcement. Because it’s clear you have access to classified documents.” She was going to go on the assumption the papers he’d given her were real. They certainly looked real. Some of the stuff… It rang so true she had to believe it. Especially the recording where he talked about moving “product” through a charity. His words had been so vague and not legally damning, but a freaking toddler would be able to understand the double meaning.
“Things with law enforcement are complicated right now. Rescuing some trafficked women isn’t high on their priority.” Nova’s tone made it clear she was frustrated. “The Feds are looking to bring down your uncle,” she said. “He’s their priority, not saving some random women.”
Gage cursed next to her, and Leighton’s jaw simply tightened.
Nova lifted a shoulder, clearly not concerned. “What? If we’re going to bring her into this we need to be honest. Like I was saying,” Nova continued, looking at her. “They want to bring him down. For good. But they want to bring him down for something a hell of a lot bigger. They want to make sure he never gets out of jail. And there’s not enough tying him to the trafficked women. It’s small potatoes for the Feds and even though I hate to say it, they can be assholes.”
“So you have contacts with the FBI?”
“Yes,” Nova said. “It’s how we found out about the girls in the first place.”
“You said that Maria was your operation. Your…objective?” Lucy looked over at Leighton.
He simply nodded but offered no more information, which was just frustrating as hell.
“Okay, so you’re not going to tell me why. Fine. Now that your objective is over, you want to rescue the rest of these women? These alleged women?”
“You know there is no ‘alleged’ to it.”
After the video feeds she’d seen at the casino, and after the phone call she’d made to a detective friend—a man she’d gone on a couple dates with—she’d found out that Mike Atkins was indeed dead. Not just dead, but murdered. So yeah, something very strange was going on.
“So why can’t you rescue them?”
“Because we don’t know where they are.” Frustration laced Leighton’s voice and was mirrored in Nova and Gage’s faces.
“Why not put a tracker or like a GPS or…whatever on Marco? Because I’m pretty sure you’re the one who hacked our casino—”
The one named Gage cleared his throat. “That was me, thank you very much. I hacked the casino feeds and disabled your apartment’s security system.”
Leighton simply snorted, though his lips curved up in a half-smile that made her think things she had no business thinking right about now.
“So…you hacked the casino’s security. Which takes a whole lot of skill.” She knew how many security measures they implemented. “Without really knowing more about what you guys do, I still have to assume you could somehow track him, right? Like with his phone or something? You knew where I lived. And you broke in.” Which was something she wasn’t going to think about.
“He’s careful. Everyone is careful. I can track the phones of pretty much any employee your uncle has but my guess is that they must go dark when they transport the women. They must leave all electronics when they move them. Or they use burners. My guess is Broussard uses a burner phone because the phone registered in his name sits at his house pretty much 24/7.”
“How can I help?” she asked even though she should not be getting involved with these people. But how could she not? How could she sit back and do nothing?
“We don’t need any help,” Leighton said, even as Gage straightened slightly.
“What we need is to figure out the location of where Broussard spends most of his days,” Gage said. “Because I think he’ll lead us back to those women.” Gage glanced once at Nova before continuing. “We spoke to Maria last night and he’s almost always at the house where they’re being held. He leaves for short periods of times but always comes back. And not using a driver. We’ve only ever seen him with a driver, so he must have a vehicle he’s using.”
“He drives an Audi.”
They all looked at each other.
“What?” Lucy asked.
Gage frowned. “You’re sure?”
“Sure enough. He always drives one when he’s at my uncle’s house. I don’t know what he drives around though. I’ve just seen him in an Audi more than once. It’s black. Maybe I could plant something on his car.”
Gage started to respond when Leighton shot him a sharp look, his jaw tight. “She’s not going to plant a tracker on anyone. That’s bullshit. It’s too dangerous for her to get that close to him.”
“If what you’re telling me is true, then I’m going to help.” And she wasn’t asking.
Now Leighton turned and frowned at her. At her! He was the one who’d inadvertently dragged her into all this.
“My uncle gets into town tonight. I’m supposed to meet him for dinner. There’s a good chance Marco will be there.”
“I don’t like this,” Leighton said, shoving up from the table.
“Well, I don’t like a lot of this,” she snapped out. “So I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
Nova snickered, then covered the laugh with a fake cough.
Under other circumstances Lucy might have laughed too. But she’d found out that her entire life was a giant lie. Okay, maybe not all of it, but right now she was trying to come to terms with everything new she’d learned. What if these people were lying to her?
“Look, you’re not planting a tracker on anyone,” Leighton said, even as Gage nodded. “Now that we know what he’s driving, we’ll just track him. It must not be registered in his name.”
“Fine, but I still want to help.”
“The information about his car is a big help,” Leighton said, rounding the table. He respected her personal space even though it looked as if he wanted to step closer.
“Your uncle is really going to be here tonight?” Gage interrupted, drawing her attention to him.
She nodded once.
The three of them exchanged a glance, making her frown. “What?”
“The Feds want to bring him down,” Nova blurted out. “And there are a bunch of them here. In New Orleans. If he’s coming here, there’s a good chance they might try to arrest him here if they’re able.”
“And if he gets wind of it,” Leighton said, throwing a sharp glance at his friends, “he could cut his losses and run. He would dispose of any evidence that could bring him down.”
He emphasized the word evidence and it took Lucy a long moment to register what he meant. Though she wasn’t sure she completely understood. “Wait…are you saying he’d kill the women?”
“Yes,” Leighton said simply. “They’re not people to him. He probably wouldn’t do it himself, but if the Feds come after him, his men will have orders to go scorched earth on anything tied to him.”
She knew what she’d read in those files, and knew there was a lot of suspicion on her uncle that he’d committed a lot of crimes, including running drugs and people. Weapons too, though he seemed not to do much of that. Not to mention money laundering. So she wasn’t sure why she was surprised about murder. She wasn’t surprised, it just… She was having a hard time wrapping her head around everything. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to come to terms with it. But if he was guilty, he deserved to go to jail. To pay for his crimes.
“If you’re meeting your uncle tonight,” Gage continued—and she was glad, because she couldn’t find her voice— “I think we should put something on you. It’s doubtful that your uncle will hurt you, but it wouldn’t hurt to be prepared. Unless he has you checked when you visit?”
“He doesn’t. I’ll take a tracker.” And she wasn’t going to second-guess her decision. That woman had been afraid of Marco last night. God, had it only been last night? It seemed like an eternity had passed since then. Lucy could admit she was afraid of her uncle at this point. She would take the small backup being offered.