Tears welled in her eyes and then traveled down her cheeks. “Alice didn’t deserve that. She only sent a text.”
“Why are they after you, Mouse?”
“Don’t call me that.” Mouse snapped before she sniffed and wiped her nose on the long T-shirt she wore under her scrubs. “My name is Sarah.”
He nodded. “Why are they after you, Sarah?”
“They paid off Dexter. They own me.” She shrugged.
“Dexter was your pimp?” He clicked his pen and started writing before he pushed the chair across from him with his foot and nodded to it.
Sarah moved across the room and sat down. “Pimp, drug supplier. Yeah. I didn’t lie to you. Peña and Rubio bought four of us for that party. That was sometime last summer.” She sobbed and closed her eyes. “I was the lucky one. They chose me to stay. The others… Peña gave Lacey to his guards. I could hear her screaming and crying. That went on for days and then… it didn’t.”
“They kill her?” Ryker stared at his informant.
She nodded. “They carried her out. She was dead. OD or they did it. I don’t know which.”
“The others?” He waited for an answer.
“I don’t know. Didn’t see them after that.” Sarah wiped her nose with her sleeve again.
“Tell me what happened to you.” He leaned back in his chair.
“When you get picked, you get new clothes. They give you prime drugs. But man, the shit I did. I let them fuck me whenever they wanted. Rubio is into that sadistic shit. He liked it when I cried and begged, but only when he said I could. Peña liked to watch, or he liked to fuck me at the same time Rubio did.” She sniffed again. “Peña and Rubio are together.”
“You mean like a couple?” Ryker leaned forward.
“Yeah. I was wasted most of the time, but they were lovers. They only fucked me when Rubio wanted to get his freak on or when others were around. It was a secret. I was their cover.” She shoved her finger in her mouth and started chewing on her nail. “I knew I had to get out of there. I started acting like I was high, but I did less and less. Man, I fucking wanted it. Needed it, but I knew that one day I was going to take flight and not land, you know? They were getting careless around me. Talking business. Naming names. There was another party scheduled. They were talking about buying some new girls. They were going to kill me. They didn't say it, but I knew.” She shrugged. “I waited until they started fucking. The guards didn’t pay me any mind anymore. I floated around like I was high and went into the bathroom. I opened the window, slid down the outside of the house and I ran. I hid at the Cottages, but they went there looking for me. I found Alice. I knew her from before. She was still with Dexter.”
“What names did you hear? I’ll need everything, Sarah. Everything.”
“Did they shoot you?”
“Yeah, we think so.”
“Because I reached out to you?” She stared at him, and the desolation in her eyes begged him to say no. He nodded, and she closed her eyes. “I’m fucking poison.”
“No, you are the person who is going to stop these two men from hurting more people. You are the only person who can do it. Work with me, Sarah, and help me take down this organization.” Ryker leaned forward and placed his hand on her arm. “You deserve justice for what they did to you, and to Lacey, and to Alice, and so many more. Help us take them down.”
Sarah opened her eyes. “What if what I have isn’t enough?”
“It’s enough, and on the off chance it isn’t, it will start the ball rolling. You’re listed as a CI. Mouse is the only name in my documentation. No one is going to know your actual name, and when they learn it in court, it will be too late because we can get you into the Witness Protection Program and no one will ever find you. No one is going to know where you are going. You can make a difference and then live a life outside what these fuckers did to you. No one needs to know. You can go back to school and become whatever you want to be.”
“It can’t be that simple.” Her words were a thin whisper.
“Oh, I didn’t say it was going to be simple. You need to kick the drug demon riding you. That won't be easy, and you’ll have to deal with that every day. You need to make an investment in yourself. No, life isn’t easy Sarah, but it can be so damn good.”
“Yeah?” She looked up at him, desperate to cling to any hope.
“Yeah. That I promise.”
“Okay. What do you want to know?”
“First off, I want to bring in my lieutenant so he can write while we talk. I don’t want any distractions when we talk. Also, can I record our conversation?”
Sarah glanced at his phone and then at the door. “Yeah, okay.”
Ryker stood and went to the door opposite of where Mouse had walked in and called in Terrence. “Sarah, you remember Lieutenant Terrence Theron.” He put his phone on the charging cord and plugged it in, starting the voice recording app. He introduced himself and Terrence again and asked Sarah on the recording if he could record the conversation. She agreed, and they began.
Eight hours later, Ryker and Terrence shut themselves into Terrence’s SUV. “Holy fuck, Ry. She gave us everything we need to take down both of those bastards.”
“Several of his key people, too. Hell, she listed names we’d never suspected and tied them to the operation.” Ryker turned and looked at his lieutenant. “I’ll call the Deputy Commissioner. Based on
