okaying it.”
“No, that’s fine.” She frowned. Something didn’t quite add up, but she wasn’t sure what was bugging her.
“Any sign of Cammarata?” Dean asked as he slid into his car. Sonia sat in the passenger seat.
“He hasn’t called. If he does, I’m going to meet with him. I need to show him the picture of the men with Jones. He might be able to identify one or more of the UNSUBs.”
“Then we arrest him.”
Sonia didn’t say anything.
“Sonia, dammit, we will arrest him. He withheld evidence, for one. He broke into your house. He
“I’m giving him a onetime pass. I need his information, and there’s no way in hell he’ll meet with me unless I promise not to take him into custody.”
“Fine, I will.”
“Dean-” Sonia rubbed her eyes and stared out the window as Dean drove south toward Lodi. “I need the information.”
“This is about your biological father, isn’t it?” Dean asked.
“No.” She paused. Dean deserved honesty. “Partly. Charlie may recognize him. He knows most of the major players. It’s obvious he’s no longer using the name Sergio Martin. He may not-” she stopped.
“Sonia?”
“My whole life is a farce. What if I had never been Martin? What if
“You’re Sonia Knight,” Dean said firmly. “Cop, sister, daughter … lover.”
She glanced at Dean and something shifted inside her. A calmness blanketed her, a wholly unfamiliar sensation. He reached for her hand. Held it. She wondered if he felt what she did.
She wanted to ask, but she feared voicing her feelings would somehow threaten this new beginning. And the last thing she wanted to think about was Dean returning to Washington. But maybe … maybe now would be the time to clarify their relationship. Their careers and family and residences on opposite coasts.
When Sonia gathered the courage to finally speak, Dean said first, “This is the exit. Ready?”
She nodded. “Let’s do it.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
By all appearances, the small industrial warehouse north of Lodi was abandoned. Weeds pushed through cracks in concrete, and garbage from nearby Highway 99 had blown against the buildings, making the row of fifties-era cinder-block and metal buildings look like a ghost town.
Except for the brand-new padlocks on the doors.
Four San Joaquin County sheriff’s deputies were already on-site. Brian Stone and three trained FBI-SWAT agents pulled up behind Dean and Sonia in a black Suburban.
“I hope this isn’t a wild-goose chase,” Sonia said. “We don’t have the time to screw up.”
“Don’t second-guess yourself. Ready?”
“Absolutely.”
She got out of the car and stepped into the dry valley heat. The noonday sun glistened off the river-Sonia thought it was the Mokelumne River, but she wasn’t certain. Traffic from the highway was audible, but not visible. At night the area would be pitch-black except for sparse street lighting and security lights above each door.
If the traffickers were using this waterway to maneuver inland from the deep-water channel, they could walk the women into any of these buildings at night without fear of discovery.
Stone and his team inspected the perimeter, then Dean directed them to break down the door of the main warehouse-the others branched off this one.
Guns drawn and their badges clearly displayed, the six federal cops and four sheriff’s deputies prepared for a possible attack even though there was no sign of anyone.
“On three.” Stone used his fingers to count down.
A SWAT team member broke the padlock with one swift hit with the heavy handheld battering ram. As soon as the doors swung open, a foul stench of vomit and human excrement hit them.
Sonia’s stomach turned, not from the stench but from what it meant. No sounds-no shouts or cries-came with the smell; there was no one inside.
The SWAT team rolled into the warehouse, Dean and Sonia on their heels. Calls of
The filthy windows let in only a minimum of sunlight, and the only noise was their own movement, their own voices. It was clear that the huge storage room was empty.
A door on the far side was open, leading to a darker room.
“Sonia,” Dean said in a low voice. “Do you smell it?”
He wasn’t talking about the urine. Only blood smelled so sweetly metallic.
She nodded. Her training and extensive experience kept her calm and alert. Adrendaline sharpened her instincts.
They had their guns poised over their flashlights as they cautiously entered the dark room.
“Lights?” Sonia whispered.
“None here either,” Stone said.
She felt along the wall. “I found them,” Sonia said. “Be ready on three-they could be bright. Three. Two. One.” She flipped them on, narrowing her eyes.
Old-style fluorescent lights flickered on. This room was empty of cargo, but they found the source of the blood.
Three partially clothed Chinese women lay in a heap against the wall, their throats slit. Arterial spray on the wall closest to Sonia said they’d been killed right there, one after the other. Their hands were bound but not their feet.
“Dear Lord,” one of the deputies muttered.
From the pile of feces in one corner of the room it was apparent that at one point far more than three women had been held captive in this room.
Sonia slipped on gloves and touched the bodies. “Full rigor. Twelve to twenty-four hours, my guess, but we should get the coroner in here ASAP.”
“They moved them at night,” Dean said.
“Yes. Last night.” Sonia looked at the women. Girls. They were sixteen or seventeen. Long black hair and too-thin bodies. These were the girls she had wanted to save.
Where had they taken the others? Had they been killed too?
She wanted to cover the bodies, but knew better than to disturb them.
“Hooper!” Stone called from the far side of the room.
Sonia turned at the same time Dean did. At first she didn’t see anything.
“Shit,” Dean said, taking a step toward Sonia.
Then she saw. In block letters, written in blood on the gray cinder-block interior wall, was a message.
YOU ARE TOO LATE.
Sam Callahan had been emboldened by Assistant Director Dean Hooper’s confidence in handling the Jones investigation, starting from the minute he came to town, through the execution of the warrant on Jones, and the subsequent confrontation in the restaurant downtown. He’d convinced Hooper to give him this shot at Omega-they might get lucky and find someone who knew something, and was willing to talk.
Trace Anderson had clued him in on more details of Omega’s suspected involvement in trafficking. He finished by saying, “We have no hard evidence. It’s one thing to know in your gut that someone is guilty, it’s quite another to prove it.”
