“I’d hardly call the humanitarian work I do human trafficking. If you’re spreading rumors like that, then it’s no wonder you were suspended.”
The French doors that led from the kitchen to the veranda opened and Mayor Moss stepped outside. His face was bright red and his eyes were bulging before he’d even seen Josie. Her jeep was likely enough to cause the reaction. It had been about ten minutes since she’d arrived at the house, and she assumed Caroline had called the mayor for help as soon as she pulled into the driveway. Josie figured the iced tea and friendly small talk had been a stalling technique until her husband could get here. Josie also assumed that Caroline knew exactly why she had been suspended.
“Not only will I have your badge and your gun, but I’ll also have your ass in a jail cell by the end of the day for harassing a public official,” he yelled. He walked directly up to her and stood beside her chair, pointing directly into her face. “Now get the hell away from my wife.”
“I went to New Mexico. I sat in on a sting operation where we delivered four undercover police officers to a man named Big Ben. He was expecting five women, but since one woman was murdered—”
“Get the hell out of my house! I won’t tell you again,” he yelled.
Josie glanced at Caroline, who was looking down, unblinking, staring at the iced tea sitting in front of her, watching the sweat drip down the glass.
Josie continued. “We delivered the four agents to a place in New Mexico called the Maid’s Quarters. It’s where young women from Guatemala pay twelve thousand dollars to endure a trip from hell to be delivered to a man who treats them like property and makes them sleep together in a room that looks like third world squalor.”
The mayor grabbed Josie’s arm. “I’m calling the sheriff to remove you.”
Josie jerked her arm out of his grasp. Her face was heated and she could feel her temper flaring. She would finish what she came for. “After Caroline collected sixty thousand dollars from the women’s families, she was also set to receive another four thousand for delivery of the girls to Albuquerque.” She paused and stared down Caroline until the woman looked up at Josie. Josie repeated her earlier statement. “It would have been five thousand, but one of the women was murdered.”
Josie heard the click of numbers being pressed on a cell phone behind her. No doubt the mayor was calling the sheriff, and she hoped he would. She’d enjoy listening to him try to explain his way out of this one.
“But here’s the killer,” she said. “When Caroline has a delivery ready, she calls Big Ben to let him know she has a load. That’s what they call the girls. A load. Caroline? She’s called the supplier.”
“Stop it,” Caroline said, but her voice was quiet, and her eyes had the unfocused look of someone whose brain was on overload, no longer able to process information.
“After Big Ben was arrested and his phone seized, he told me that his supplier for Guatemala was named Lilith.”
Mayor Moss made a noise behind her, almost a whimper, the noise he might make while having a nightmare.
Josie pressed a button on her cell phone and held it up toward Moss. He knocked her hand away but said nothing. “I’ve since learned that Caroline’s mom’s name is Lilith. I might not have made that connection, but when I looked at the phone number and recognized the West Texas area code, I found the obituary online for Caroline’s mother.”
Caroline again called out for Josie to stop. Josie turned in her chair to face the mayor. “This is over. There’s too much evidence for you to pretend this isn’t happening.”
Moss had grown quiet behind her, no longer yelling for Josie to leave. She scooted her chair back, bumping against him as she stood from the table. “I want my badge and my gun delivered to the police department by three o’clock today.”
Josie opened the French doors and walked through the house the way she had entered, leaving the Mosses to sort through the shrapnel from the bomb she had just exploded on their patio. But she damn sure knew the first step he had better make was to revoke her suspension.
*
Driving home with the windows down, she did not feel pleased or vindicated by the altercation at the mayor’s house. It was unsettling to think that someone in a position of power, a woman she knew well as a community leader, could turn such a blind eye to others’ suffering. Josie wondered if it had all started out as something positive but had somehow gone terribly wrong. But hard as she tried, she couldn’t escape the fact that Caroline Moss was making money off the plight of people who believed she was going to take care of them. And they had been brutalized while Caroline looked the other way.
Josie didn’t call Otto on her way home. She showered, dressed in her uniform, and drove to the police department. Lou smiled when she walked in.
“Welcome back,” Lou said.