Author: Allison Brennan
Category: Suspense
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/allison-brennan/page,7,90279-the_lost_girls.html
Villines considered. “I had two deputies called out to a house fire shortly after the woman disappeared. The fire department was able to contain it to one dwelling, but there were a few oddities. Four cribs in one room, several twin beds in another. No fatalities or injuries—the place was empty, and no one claimed any belongings—though there was little left. The fire investigator ruled it arson. The structure was unstable and demolished, but there are photos. You’re welcome to a copy of the file.”
“Who owned the house?” Lucy asked.
Villines glanced at her as if he’d forgotten she was there. “I don’t remember. A property management company? It was some sort of business on the records.”
“Was it Direct Property Holdings?”
He raised both eyebrows. “I think it was.”
Lucy glanced at Noah and said, “They owned the house outside Freer.” To Villines she added, “The house where Siobhan Walsh saw the pregnant women.”
“I don’t believe in coincidences,” Villines said.
“Nor do I,” Noah said. “We’re running all property in the area owned by the same company, but I was hoping you might be able to spare a deputy who knows the area to help run them down.”
“I’m sure we can handle that. Get me the list.”
Noah made a note then stood. “Thank you for your help. I’ll keep you in the loop.”
* * *
Eric Barrow, Siobhan’s reporter friend, lived outside Laredo in a dumpy apartment building. There were eight units—four up, four down—and he lived in the north upstairs corner.
Lucy researched Barrow during the drive and shared it with Noah. The reporter had sold a few stories to major papers—most of them with photos by Siobhan Walsh—but the overwhelming majority of his work was published for NAN, an Internet news feed that focused on the Southwest, Texas, and Mexico. She had no idea what the acronym stood for; it wasn’t on their masthead or website. Eric clearly had an agenda: He didn’t like law enforcement, he hated politicians, and he wasn’t fond of the military. He seemed to relish catching people of authority in compromising positions. In fact, the exposé he wrote on the brothel he’d alerted Siobhan about was a classic example: He outed a local elected official—who’d run on a pro-family, conservative platform—as a patron of hookers. He skewered the guy—Lucy felt he deserved it not only for his actions but also for his hypocrisy—and took down two other elected officials at the same time.
But once the story was over, he didn’t follow through on what happened to the women in the club, whether they’d been arrested or let go or given assistance. It made Lucy wonder if his concern was more about challenging authority than it was about helping the girls who suffered as a result of such corruption.
Barrow wasn’t a bad writer, but he had an edge that Lucy found unappealing. It was completely opposite from how she viewed Siobhan. She wondered if Barrow and Kane had had any run-ins. She thought about sending Kane a text message asking about Barrow, but then decided against it—not without running it by Noah. Though Noah’s problems with the Rogans and the way RCK operated had been mostly resolved over the nearly two years Lucy had known him, she didn’t want to create any new friction. She was about to ask him when they reached Barrow’s apartment and Noah cut off the ignition.
“The guy rubs me the wrong way and I haven’t even met him,” he said. “Cover the back. I’ll give you twenty seconds.”
Lucy hurried to the back of the building and identified Barrow’s apartment from the rear. He had a balcony and it would be very easy for him to run.
A group of kids, boys and girls all under ten, were playing in a makeshift playground on the edge of the parking lot. There was a plastic slide that had seen better days; a sandbox with gravel instead of sand; a box of broken sidewalk chalk that two young girls were using to draw some elaborate but unidentifiable landscape on the broken pavement. The kids all noticed Lucy and stared, but didn’t seem scared or nervous.
The sliding glass door above her slid open less than a minute after Lucy positioned herself. Noah had been right—the jerk was running. Lucy stayed in the shadow of the building until Barrow dangled from his balcony and dropped to the ground.
“Shit,” he muttered as he fell on his ass. By the time he got up, Lucy stood two feet in front of him.
“Mr. Barrow, I’m FBI Special Agent Lucy Kincaid. We need to talk.”
He stared at her, glanced behind him, took a step back. “I—uh—”
“Don’t,” she said. “I would hate to arrest you in front of those kids over there. But I will take you down if I have to.”
Barrow’s pale-green eyes darted right and left. He ran a hand through his shaggy sun-bleached hair as if wondering if he could outrun her or if she would shoot him in the back. Then he smiled, showing perfect teeth. “Hey, sugar, anything you want.”
“Sugar?” she said. “Really?”
Noah came around the back. He was irritated, and Lucy didn’t blame him. Barrow looked at Noah and the smile disappeared. “I didn’t know who you were,” he said.
Noah glared at the guy. “Let’s go.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to have a discussion here.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
“Your apartment.”
“I don’t want you in my apartment.”
“Then let’s talk at the station,” Noah said. “Villines said we could use his interrogation room, right, Kincaid?”
“He did,” Lucy said.
“Okay, look, I don’t know what this is about, but—Kincaid? Kincaid … you’re not really feds, are you? Well shit, I can explain. I was on a story, a hot story, I didn’t mean to get your guys in trouble, I really didn’t know there was a situation … I mean, we’re talking two years ago, and no one got hurt, right?”
Lucy raised an eyebrow.
“Why am I not surprised,” Noah muttered. He pulled out his badge. “FBI Agent Noah Armstrong. FBI Agent Lucy Kincaid.”
Barrow was wholly confused. Lucy almost laughed. Small world, but Jack had spent nearly twenty years based out of Hidalgo, Texas. She wasn’t surprised that Barrow knew her brother.
“Your apartment or the sheriff’s department,” Noah said, “I don’t really care, but I’m not playing games.”
“Jack’s not around, is he?” Barrow asked Lucy.
“I can call him if you want,” Lucy said.
“That’s okay. Don’t tell him where I live. We had a disagreement a couple of years ago, he can be a prick, you know—oh, don’t say I said that. He’s a very nice prick.”
Lucy was really enjoying this conversation. She couldn’t wait to call Jack and find out what had really happened with Barrow.
“We’ll go to my apartment,” Barrow said. “But, I’m not in any trouble, am I?”
“I don’t know, are you?” Lucy asked.
“What does Siobhan see in this guy?” Noah asked as he motioned for Barrow to walk in front of them.
“Siobhan? Why didn’t you tell me? Where is she? Is she okay?”
He walked back to the front of the building. An older woman was struggling with her door on the first floor while she juggled three grocery bags in gnarled hands. Barrow immediately went over and took the bags from her. “Hey, Miz T, I said to call me.”
“I didn’t want to be a bother,” the old woman said in broken English.
“No bother.”
The woman unlocked her door and Barrow went in with the bags. Lucy thought for a second that he was going to bolt again out the back, and so did Noah, who walked over to get a better look. But a second later Barrow came out. “Thanks, Eric, dear,” Ms. T said. “There was someone looking for you yesterday.”
Barrow immediately looked panicked. He was up to something, Lucy could feel it.
“Who?”
“Big guy. Tattoos.” She tapped her knuckles. “All over. No good.”
“Thanks.”
“Be careful.” She glared at Noah and
Lucy, then closed her door.
Barrow led them upstairs. “I’m going to have to disappear for a while,” he said as he unlocked the door.
“I don’t think so,” Noah said.
“You don’t understand.” Barrow closed the door behind them.
The place was cluttered and Barrow immediately grabbed a bong and small bag of pot and put them in a cabinet. He could do nothing to diminish the scent of weed. He had a high-end computer on a desk that took up half his living room. There were books everywhere, mostly nonfiction.
“I know I haven’t done anything to piss off the FBI lately,” Barrow said, “but a little while ago I ran with a story that some people aren’t happy about. The guy with the tats on his hands? Bet it’s Gino Salvatore. I ran a story exposing his brother for taking bribes. Look it up, Salvatore was an ICE agent, turned his back on some nasty shit for money. How did Gino know where I lived? Fuck, I like this place. But I like my face more.”
There wasn’t much to like, other than it was quiet.
Barrow kept rambling, shuffling things around, seemingly haphazardly, but Lucy suspected he was hiding notes or drugs. “ICE was pissed off, too. Didn’t like having one of their own shown to be a bastard. I don’t much care, they probably knew about him, turned the other cheek. There’s few good feds, but some really rotten ones.” He glanced at them. “I’m sure you’re fine, being Jack’s sister and all.”
“Enough,” Noah said. He rubbed his head. “Sit. Now.”
Barrow sat at his desk and leaned back. “What’s up? You said Siobhan, right? Hot. I mean, we’re not involved—God, no, I mean, I would totally hit her up, but she’s off-limits. But she’s totally cool.” He looked concerned for the first time. Really concerned. “She’s not, like, hurt? You told me she wasn’t hurt or anything. She’s not in trouble, right?”
“Eight months ago you gave Siobhan a tip that one of the girls she was looking for was seen at a brothel in Del Rio,” Noah said. “She took you at your word, but you didn’t give her any real evidence. I want the evidence.”
Barrow stared at him. He might have acted the airhead stoner type, but he was shrewd and calculating.
“I gave Siobhan everything I knew about Marisol and Ana. I’m no saint, but I wouldn’t keep anything from her if it would help.”
“Photos,” Noah said. “You went undercover, you talked to the girls, you took photos. You didn’t get any of Marisol and Ana because the story you told Siobhan was that they’d come and gone by the time you got there.”
“It wasn’t a story. It was the truth. Someone else told me about Siobhan’s lost girls.”
“You published photos of the politicians that used the brothel. You must have taken others. We want them for an active investigation.”
“No.” He crossed his arms.
Lucy stepped forward. “No? Really?”
“They’re not going to help you. You’re fishing for something. I’m not going to let the feds run around through a back door to get dirt on someone who may not be a total shit. My sources trust me that I’m not going to screw them—people I care about, at any rate.”
Noah opened his mouth, but Lucy cut him off. “You are as much of a hypocrite as the people you skewer in the press. We are trying to find not only Marisol and Ana de la Rosa, but also an at-risk pregnant woman who was chained to a bed so she couldn’t escape. We know one or both of the sisters was in Freer last week, and you told Siobhan that they were in Del Rio over eight months ago. You have photos of everyone who came in and out of that brothel for weeks. If the girls are still in the area, they are in danger. I want the pictures and I want your notes, now.”
Barrow opened his mouth, then closed it. He finally said, “Look—”
“No excuses. Either you’re one of us or you’re one of them. There is no middle ground in this war. Those girls are being trafficked, abused, tortured. They trust no one because they were likely abducted in another country and taken far from their homes, their families. Statistics say that they will be dead before they’re thirty, and if you don’t share what you know, you’re as much responsible for their deaths as the bastards who took them.”
Barrow was torn. Lucy saw it in his eyes. He looked at Noah, almost as if to plead with him, but Noah maintained his cold cop stare.
“It’s not that simple,” Barrow said. “You’re not going to know what you’re looking at. These people don’t play in the same pool. The FBI is all domestic shit, these are the international bastards, and really, you can’t trust ICE. Not all of them. That report I did on Salvatore was just the tip of the iceberg.” He smiled. “Hey, that’s good.” He scribbled something on a piece of paper.
“Don’t worry about what we’re looking at,” Noah said. “We have our own resources.”
Barrow grunted. “Right. As soon as you put their faces into your precious database, somebody’s gonna know. You guys just don’t get it. There’s a mole in every fucking office. You think not? Look what just happened in San Antonio this summer! DEA gutted from the inside out by one of its own. Poetic justice.”
Lucy wanted to hit him. “You have no idea what happened in San Antonio.”
“Yeah, I do. A fucking corrupt agent went in and cleaned house. How many in all? Someone in the FBI, couple in the DEA, couple in SAPD, you think they got them all?” He snorted. “Hardly.”
“I’m from the San Antonio office,” Lucy said. “And you know shit.”
“I call them as I see them.”
“Then you’re blind.”
“How do I know you’re not here trying to protect someone? Grab my pictures to protect some fucked agent?”
“Because I told you why we’re here.”
“Why not have Siobhan ask me herself? Maybe you’re just using her like your people use everyone else.”
“Knock the chip off your shoulder, Barrow,” Noah said.
“Then you won’t care if I call her.”
“Go ahead,” Noah said.
Barrow hesitated, just for a moment, then pulled his cell phone from his pocket, scrolled through contacts, and dialed.
“Hey, Siobhan, it’s Eric … all’s well. I’m here with two feds, Armstrong and Kincaid. Know them?” He was silent for well over a minute. “But, don’t you think—” He was quiet again. Then his face paled and he stared at Lucy. “Oh. No, sugar, I just wanted to make sure they were legit. They want some of my photos from Del Rio.” He turned around and mumbled something Lucy couldn’t hear.
Noah stepped closer to her and whispered in her ear, “Want to bet she mentioned that you’re marrying a Rogan?”
“He should help because it’s the right thing to do,” Lucy said.
“Fear is a more powerful motivator.”
“You know I’d do anything for you, Siobhan—you just have to ask. But—you know, it would help if you told him I helped you out. I want in on a raid … I won’t screw him, you know that, scout’s honor … Okay. Thanks.” Barrow hung up. He started typing on his computer, then stuck a CD into one of the drives. “I’m copying all the photos to a disk. It’ll just take a minute.”
“Why the hell do you want in on one of Kane’s raids?” Lucy asked.
Barrow looked like a deer caught in the headlights. “It’d make a good story.”
“You would screw him over in a heartbeat for a story, wouldn’t you?”
“I wouldn’t.”
Lucy didn’t believe him.
“Luce,” Noah said in a low voice.
She walked out.
Five minutes later, Noah joined her. “What was that about? You had him, then you nearly blew it.”
“Because I know exactly what he wants. He wants in so he can expose mercenaries. The good, bad, and ugly.”
“You don’t know—”
“I spent the thirty-minute car ride skimming a dozen articles that he wrote. He hates people like us, and people like Jack and Kane. Jack was a good soldier and a good mercenary. People like Barrow want to make them all out
as being corrupt or corruptible. He might be able to play the game for a while, and he might have some redeeming qualities, but I don’t trust him.”
“Do you honestly think that Kane would take him on any of his operations?”
Lucy opened her mouth, then closed it and shook her head.
“Siobhan would know that, too, don’t you think?”
“Probably,” she admitted.
“Your future brother-in-law can take care of himself, especially with a guy like Barrow. Let’s get back to Siobhan’s hotel and look at these pictures, see if there’s anyone we recognize. If not, we’ll send them out.”
“Do you think he’s right about ICE?”
“He could be. I don’t know. But Rick has a few people he trusts that he can go to on the QT, so that’s where I’ll start.”
The drive back to downtown Laredo went faster with commuter traffic easing up, and they made it to Siobhan’s hotel twenty minutes later. Noah was itching to get back to San Antonio, but he wanted to make sure that Siobhan didn’t start investigating on her own. “I don’t care what you have to say to her,” he told Lucy, “but we have to contain her. This is dangerous, and she is friendly with that ass of a reporter.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Lucy said. “We’re coming back tomorrow, right?”
“I don’t see how we can avoid it,” he said.
“Why do you sound skeptical?”
“Because we don’t have much yet. I want to run the photos Barrow gave us, and we may have a drive to Del Rio ahead of us. I wish I could pull in the Laredo office, but Barrow was right about one thing—there’s a problem with ICE here, and our office is providing assistance. Headquarters is well aware of the problem, and they’re handling it. The last thing we need is to tip their hand and jeopardize their internal investigation.”