Gunner answered. “A beautiful day to walk the plank.”
A small smile lifted the corner of the young woman’s mouth when she noticed Gunner. “A talking parrot.”
“Buenos días,” he replied. “Gunner is handsome.”
“Buenos días,” the young girl replied.
“Usted entiende español,” Pete said.
“Yes, I speak Spanish,” the girl nodded.
A cold chill ran down Carlita’s spine. She slowly turned to Pete, completely forgetting about the girl sitting in front of them. “You speak Spanish?”
“Aye. Tis always good for a pirate to speak a second language, especially when he’s pilfering the islands, looking for booty.”
“Looking for booty,” Gunner mimicked.
Pete began going over the young woman’s application, and Carlita attempted to keep up with the interview, but all she could hear were Kyle Flinch’s words ringing in her head.
Her mouth went dry. Pete opening the pirate ship venture…Pete arguing with Lawson…Pete staying on the ship the night Lawson was attacked…Kyle overhearing Lawson and a stranger speaking Spanish.
She shot him a sideways glance. Had Pete attacked Lawson? Had he set fire to the Mystic Dream in an attempt to shut them down and eliminate the competition?
A sudden thought occurred to Carlita. What if Pete and Mark Fox were working together to oust Lawson? Neither man liked Lawson.
Pete turned to Carlita, a questioning look on his face and she knew he’d been talking to her.
“I’m sorry, Pete. I missed what you said.”
“I asked if you have any specific questions for Sylvia.”
“I do have one question.”
Pete slid the application toward Carlita and she focused her attention on the paper. “I see you worked for Lawson Bates.”
“Yes.” Sylvia nodded. “I’m still employed, at least technically, although I have no idea what’s going to happen now.”
“I’m sorry to hear of Mr. Bates’ injuries. How did you hear about us?”
“Luke Markham. He called a bunch of us to let us know you might be hiring,” Sylvia said. “I was already looking for another job. I was making less than minimum wage and I could barely pay my bills. Mr. Bates kept bringing new people in for us to train. I was always one of the trainers because I speak Spanish.”
Alarm bells went off in Carlita’s head. “The new employees - they didn’t speak English?”
“Not very many. One day we would have a new employee. The next it would be someone else. We were constantly training new people. We all complained to Lawson we didn’t feel we should have to train new employees all of the time. Nothing ever happened.”
“I thought the employees were working on a petition to demand Lawson raise your wages or else,” Carlita said.
Sylvia frowned. “No. A couple of us talked about it. As far as I know nothing was ever done.”
“Do you know Kyle Flinch?” Carlita asked.
“Yeah. He didn’t like Lawson either. He finally got fed up and quit.”
Carlita scooched forward. “Kyle didn’t bring a petition around for you to sign?”
“Nope.”
“I think we’ve asked all of the questions we need to for now. Thank you for your time, Sylvia.” Pete stood. “We’ll get back with you in the next couple of days.”
Pete led the woman from the office and returned with another potential employee.
The rest of the morning passed in a blur as several other applicants arrived. Most were either current or previous employees of Lawson Bates and almost all repeated the same story, that they were being paid less than minimum wage, a legal loophole since all of them worked in the restaurant industry and there was no regulated minimum wage.
They also complained of the high turnover of new employees who spoke no English. After the last applicant left, Pete settled in behind the desk. “What do you make of the interviews?”
“They all said pretty much the same thing. Subpar wages and high turnover rate of non-English speaking employees.” Carlita drummed her fingers on the arm of her chair.
“Wait a minute!” She pulled her phone from her purse and scrolled through the pictures Autumn and Mercedes had taken while snooping around Lawson’s office. “Autumn took a picture of the employee roster the other night.” She looked up. “Do you have a copy?”
“Aye. I do. It’s in my email.” Pete turned his attention to his computer. He reached for his mouse and began clicking the button. “Here it ‘tis.”
Carlita slipped her reading glasses on and peered over Pete’s shoulder. “I never paid much attention to this list. If you look at it, you’ll notice something similar about each name on the list.”
“They’re all Spanish names. Look at the dates.” Pete ran his finger along the screen. “Ten on this date. Then another eleven grouped together. Another ten after that. It’s almost as if they’re separated in segments.”
“Meaning they didn’t trickle in one at a time,” Carlita murmured. A horrifying thought popped into Carlita’s head. “What if Lawson Bates was involved in human trafficking?”
“The cousin of Savannah’s mayor?” Pirate Pete frowned.
“He would be the perfect person to work the system. Think about it. He knows the ins and outs of the system. He could easily run up and down the coast, smuggling illegals in from Florida.”
“Let me do a quick search.” Pete grew silent as he tapped the keys. When he sucked in a sharp breath, Carlita knew they were onto something.
“You found something.”
“Yes. There’s a suspected human trafficking path. It leads from the Gulf and Caribbean, up through Florida. Savannah is the gateway north. It’s called the Smuggling Straits.”
Pete leaned in. “I found a story from late last year. It appears the Department of Homeland Security has been working hard to break up the trafficking ring and apprehend the major players. They’ve had some success in Florida.”
“But not in Georgia,” Carlita guessed.
“Not yet.”
“Because Lawson Bates has connections.”
“You’re right. We
