“Wait. If the body was Delaney Mendoza, what about Ashley Stevenson?” I ask. “Her family said she went missing five years ago and was in that area. They found a few of her belongings chained in the bottom of the lake.”
“All the remains have been accounted for,” Sam says. “They’ve all been tested. Besides, her age doesn’t line up. She would have been thirteen five years ago. Much too young.”
“So, she’s not on the campgrounds?” I ask.
“No,” Sam clarifies. “Still missing.”
Three days later …
I uncross my legs and shift in the hard wooden chair. For a restaurant wanting customers to enjoy their meals, it is decidedly uncomfortable. But that doesn’t really matter right now. I’m not here to be comfortable. I’m also not here for the mediocre bowl of soggy pasta swimming in weak tomato sauce sitting in front of me.
Shifting to the other side, I uncross my legs again and cross them the other way. I check my watch, noting the time, then pick up my phone and swipe through a couple of screens. I’m not looking at it. My focus is out of the corner of my left eye, to the shadowy back corner of the dining room. I’m waiting for the slice of light to come from the opening of the door there.
I shift again and set down my phone. Every movement is carefully measured. I take a sip of water and swirl my fork around in my bowl, hazarding a bite so the waiter doesn’t come by again to check on me. He’s been hovering not too far away, trying to make himself look busy by rolling flatware in dark purple linen napkins.
By the look of the number of tables in the restaurant, he just pre-rolled about three weeks’ worth of flatware. Maybe I’m missing something.
What I’m not missing is the figures scurrying back and forth across the back of the room, moving in and out of the kitchen so fast I can’t even see their faces. That’s why I’m here.
I shift again. I pick up my phone and scroll through. Not because I’m really looking at anything. In all honesty, I’m flipping through the weather and caught up with some nonsense complaints on a write-in advice column. The point isn’t entertainment. Two other agents are watching me. Every movement I make means something to them.
This case has been hanging over me for the last two months. I started as a consultant, just helping with research and giving insight from experiences I’ve had with other cases. But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it, and the further it progressed without resolution, the more I needed to step up.
It’s not the rest of the team’s fault. They weren’t doing anything wrong, exactly. It was Creagan’s mistake to develop a team without anyone who had handled a captivity and forced-labor case. They aren’t easy. They’re gut-wrenching and infuriating, not the least reason for which being how hard they can be to prove in court.
This restaurant is a classic example of that. People want to think they’d be able to recognize it when other people are being held against their will and forced to do the bidding of someone else. In the simplest terms, slaves. The assumption is at least that the people being held involuntarily would do absolutely everything in their power to get out.
That’s the thing people don’t understand. In these situations, the captives’ power is taken from them. What little they have left is only enough to keep their hearts beating and their lungs pumping air in and out. From the outside, there seem to be so many ways out. An open door. Dozens of people around them. Lights that go out at night. Phones.
But those things don’t exist to the ones held captive.
To them, doors could lead to terror, because at least they can see what’s around them where they are. It’s familiar. For all they know, a door could lead somewhere worse. They see people they can’t trust, because they once trusted a new face and it betrayed them.
It isn’t that easy. And is the mistaken belief that it’s that easy is why people are left to suffer.
Not on my watch.
The information the team was able to collect was instrumental in uncovering how the owners of this restaurant weaseled their way into the lives of three people in dark, challenging times in their lives, then manipulated them into servitude. This isn’t the first time they’ve done it, and we have strong reason to believe there are others in various locations.
Some no longer living.
These criminals need to be stopped.
Together we identified key locations, gathered evidence, and prepared for the moment when it would all end, both for those who caused so much pain and those who lived in it.
It all led to this moment.
Heat prickles the back of my neck. Adrenaline surges inside me as I work my mind up and prepare my body for the intense burst of energy I’m going to need to blast through this. It’s not going to be simple. It’s not going to be pretty. But it’s going to be effective. And if we do it right, it doesn’t have to be deadly.
Looking at my watch again, I make a move as if I’m adjusting its position on my wrist. Instead, I’m activating a button that connects me with the ground crew outside, so I can mutter the few words they need to hear every so often to know everything is still going as planned.
They’re waiting to surround the building. If the perpetrators try to flee, no matter which direction they go, they’ll end up running right into our waiting arms. And the line of fire.
But we’re also taking precautions. As critical as it is to get these victims out of this situation as fast as possible, we can’t forget that we are in a restaurant that’s still open to the public. The place is fairly
