“I’ll be right there.” He stood up and squared his shoulders. Fenton could push and threaten, but until there was something to worry about, he had a drug enforcement team to run. Drug dealers never stopped pumping poison into the city.
“Cap, I heard that jailor say they called Fenton. Sergeant King had the phone on speaker. He read it right off the form. I know the jailor, too. He’s straight up and isn’t on the take. If that paperwork disappears, he’ll make a statement as to what he saw. We got your back.”
He smiled at Patel and nodded. “Thank you, but you shouldn’t have to worry about me, you have enough to worry about doing your job.”
“You watch out for family, Cap. This team is family. Kinda crazy, but family.” They walked down the hall together.
“Don’t you mean dysfunctional?”
“Nah, we function better than any other team on the force. Besides, you have to be a bit cray cray to work narcotics. We will never win the battle, but we keep charging up that hill.” She peeled off to the left, and he headed right to his office.
He dropped his folders and his tablet on the desk before he made his way to interview room three. Mouse was his informant and about once every six months the woman would drop a text with an address. He’d send a team and pick her up. The girl traded information for a dry, safe 48 hours in the team’s holding cell, nutritious food, hot showers, and a full bag of hygiene products when she left.
He opened the door and concealed a wince. Mouse looked bad. She’d lost so much weight her face was skeletal, and her bones punched through the thin shirt she was wearing. The kid was maybe twenty-four years old, and it didn’t look like she’d see twenty-five.
He sat down. “Mouse. How you doing?”
“Not good.” She held a bottle of water in her hands, which were noticeably shaking.
Ryker nodded. “What do you need?”
“Remember, a lifetime ago, you talked about rehab?” Mouse opened the bottle and used both hands to bring it to her lips.
“I do. I offered to get you into a program and I also told you I’d buy you a bus ticket back home once you completed it.” He and Mouse went back about six years. She was fresh on the streets when he’d made that promise.
“If I had something really good… something that if I told you, it would get me ghosted. Could you send me to rehab out of the city and buy me that bus ticket?”
Ryker sat back in his chair. “I have little pull outside the city, Mouse, but I’d be willing to make some phone calls.”
“No names!” Mouse’s dark brown eyes shifted from the door to the two-way mirror.
“You have my word there isn’t anyone behind that glass or outside that door listening. You’re safe with me.”
“Not if I talk. If I tell you what I know, I’m dead.” Mouse coughed and put her water bottle down, wrapping her arms around her stomach.
“All right, say you had some intel, would you be willing to give a sworn statement to the DA in exchange for treatment and a ride home?”
Mouse sniffed and wiped at her nose. “Yeah, yeah, but no one could know where I was going.” Her eyes darted around the room again.
“Have you told anyone where your childhood home is?”
“No. Nope. Never. Not a soul.”
“Then how could anyone know? I’ll go with you to the bus station, buy your ticket, and put you on that bus myself. You know I’ve never lied to you.”
“Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Get the DA guy, but only him and you. Right?”
“Sure. Can you tell me what you have info on before I make that call?”
“Hit squad. Peña’s hit squad.”
“Everyone knows Peña’s crew takes out people for him. You need to do better than that, Mouse.”
“Yeah.” Mouse’s eyes traveled around the room again before she leaned in and whispered. “I saw Peña and Rubio with them. I was there when Peña told them who to kill.”
“When?”
Mouse shrugged. “I don't know, the days and nights run together. They were in a warehouse, man. It was where I was crashing. I woke up and there were voices like right there. What they were saying, it was some serious shit. I could see Peña and Rubio.”
“How do you know what Peña and Rubio look like?”
“Dude, everyone on the streets knows them.”
“Mouse,” he warned his informant. Broad statements like that would not cut it. He needed to know how his informant knew the kingpin and his second.
“Fine, I worked a party once; they were the hosts. Spent the entire night with them and their friends. They weren’t particular about who they used as a hole. Believe me, I know who they are.” She shrugged her shoulders and looked away.
Ryker held back the pity he felt for Mouse. Having to whore yourself to feed your habit was harsh. Life on the streets was a bitch.
“Anyway, I got a look at who else was there. I watched for five minutes or so. Heard everything. They told their guys to go to the burbs and follow a guy named Desoto, then kill the woman he met, but only after he got the last of the containers. Peña was bragging to Rubio that he’d figured out a different way to get the drugs in and couldn’t have anything that would come back to them. I heard enough. I fucking ran, but not before I heard what they said and saw who was doing the talking. I’ve been hiding. Eating out of dumpsters and stealing to get my needs. I can’t do it no more, man. They’re hunting me. Peña and Rubio have a bounty on me.”
“How do you know that?”
“Because Bingo tried to tie me up last night after we high-balled some H. Said with the money he would get by turning me in to them, he wouldn’t be living on the street
