Page 16 of Jude

Kian arrived ten minutes later.

I canted my eyes to him through the front door as he eased out of his rig in an immaculate khaki uniform.

Twenty years after first meeting him, Kian remained a force to be reckoned with.

He lived and worked in Vermont with my mother, but he lived for the water, crisscrossing the country to ride the swell off the California beaches.

At fifty-something, he was hard-built and muscled, his dark hair salted, a silver fox.

He was the kind of handsome man people turned to look at, and my mum had been head over heels for him since the day he took a chance on us both.

A lifetime of public service sat on his broad shoulders, radiating firm kindness and absolute command.

He hugged me, clapping me on the shoulder, then listened as I gave him the breakdown of Sofia’s circumstances.

‘We also got ambushed at the airport by her minder, who tried it on with me with a Glock,’ I growled, handing the disassembled weapon and rounds to him.

Kian raised a brow. ‘Still a soldier at heart, son?’

‘Always. Tell your patrol crew to be on the lookout for a small, scrappy Mexican woman called Luisa with a bad haircut and a foul mouth.’

He shook his head in disbelief and gathered the gun to take into evidence before stepping into the interview room with Sofia.

When the door clicked open twenty minutes later, Kian gestured for me to follow him to the break room.

‘Her full name is Sofia Antonelli,’ Kian said, leaning a hip against the counter. ‘She’s 29, Italian, born in Calabria, and here on a tourist visa. An Instagram account holder under the name ‘Dario’ contacted her. They promised her $2,000 for a weekend modeling gig and a music video appearance in New York. Her minder, this woman Luisa, took her passport a few weeks ago and returned it with a legal tourist visa. She then made her the promise that once she got the lucrative paying gigs in New York, she’d receive a proper working permit. It’s a typical hook for those seeking a better life and income, shame.’

‘For what?’

‘What’d you think? Traffickers.’

‘Did you run the number calling and texting her?’ I asked.

‘My deputy tried the cell line from her call history,’ Kian replied, shaking his head. ‘The second it connected, and my guy identified himself as a sheriff’s deputy, the line went dead. Sofia tried to pull up the digital profile to show us the messages, but the user deleted the entire Instagram account in real time. It vanished.’

Kian sighed, adjusting his duty belt. ‘She says she has no family or safety net in the States. This Dario person, and this Luisa, were her only contacts Stateside. They’re glorified mules who specialize in tracking down vulnerable women and forcing them into tricking or strip clubs. They use fake names and corporate credit cards to bypass airport security. They make runs via Montreal and down south in El Paso to avoid detection. They then fly the girls to the big smoke, where they are lost forever. I guess that he was waiting to pull her into the underbelly the second she landed in New York. Incidentally, their cartel, The Compagni Syndicate, is under investigation. Sofia’s comms with this Dario contact will be of interest to the joint FBI and Sheriff’s department task force looking into their crime network.’

‘Woah,’ I murmured as I walked back to the corridor and stood by the two-way glass.

Sofia sat alone at the metal table, her hands tucked into the sleeves of her denim jacket to stay warm.

She appeared tiny in the sterile room, lost and untethered from the world, a vulnerable woman who’d been hours away from being swallowed by the modern slave trade.

She was a stranger, not my responsibility, so why was I so worried about her?

Damn.

With every passing moment, my hopes for an R&R weekend slipped further away.

Chapter 4

JUDE

The harsh fluorescent bulbs of the precinct cast a yellow tint over everything.

Around me, officers barked into desk phones.

Others hammered away on clanking keyboards and shuttled stack after stack of thick case files across the scuffed linoleum floor.