Freddie conveyed the gist of what he’d been told by the mystery guy.
“He wouldn’t give you his name?”
“No, he said it didn’t matter who he was, that we need to look closely at Mayfield, who he called ‘a big-time trafficker.’”
“I’m out near Connecticut Ave with Ruiz and the Feds. They’re about to go into a house where we believe he and the son are. We’re hoping to find Luna Ahern there as well.”
“Let me know how it goes, will you?”
“Yeah, I will.”
The line went dead, and Freddie said a silent prayer for the colleagues who’d be putting themselves in harm’s way to capture the Mayfields and hopefully save Luna Ahern. The scourge of human trafficking was the one thing Freddie considered to be as bad as murder, with people being stolen from their lives and forced into a nightmare of sexual servitude and other horrors.
When he thought about innocent kids being taken hostage and sold to the highest bidders, it made him question whether he wanted children. Was it fair to bring them into this screwed-up world?
That question weighed heavily on him as he drove home to Wardman Park, where his gorgeous wife waited for him. She was like a tonic that washed away the filth of what he dealt with every day on the job. When he was with her, he wasn’t thinking about the staggering number of ways people found to harm one another.
He recalled Sam telling him that he couldn’t internalize the things they experienced on the job and project them onto his own life. The longer he spent on the job, however, the harder it became not to internalize the horrors. He worried he’d never be able to handle having children he couldn’t protect at all times.
If Sam’s nephew could be snatched, what would keep something like that from happening to his kid? How would he do anything other than worry about them every second they were out of his sight? How would he raise them to be independent while he hovered over them like a Black Hawk helicopter on a mission? He wasn’t sure how anyone could bear having kids when everything was so dangerous and scary.
After finding a parking space three blocks from their building, Freddie jogged toward home, staying vigilant as he went. Having that guy refer to him as the first lady’s partner had been unsettling. Her high profile had raised his, too, making them both less safe than they’d been before Nick became president. Not that he’d ever say that to her. She certainly understood the reality of their situation better than he ever could.
He used his key to get into the building and went up the stairs toward home. In a couple of weeks, they’d be moving to Celia’s house on Ninth Street, which would give them four times the space they had now. They’d have room for a baby, if that was meant to be for them. He’d been devastated by Elin’s miscarriage earlier in the year and had been hopeful that they might conceive again.
But now… The horrific tension that’d gripped everyone who loved Ethan while he was missing would stay with Freddie forever.
One thing he was fairly sure of was that he’d never survive one of his kids going missing—or worse. It would ruin him.
Elin, sitting up in bed with her Kindle, smiled when he came into the bedroom, making a beeline for her. She wrapped her arms around him. “I was so relieved to hear Ethan had been found.”
“Me, too.”
“And he’s all right?”
“Physically, a little banged up. I’m not sure about the emotional fallout.”
“Did they get the guys who had him?”
“They’re raiding the house now. I haven’t heard how it went.”
“Is the girl still missing?”
“Yeah, they’re hoping they’ll find her at the house.”
“How’s Sam doing?”
“I haven’t seen her all day. I was working on another case, but I heard she went home to get some sleep.”
“That’s good. She looked exhausted at the press briefing. It’s all so terrifying.”
And she didn’t know the half of it.
“Did you take a nap?” he asked.
“For a while, but then I saw your text that you were coming home.”
He rested his head on her chest while she ran her fingers through his hair. Nothing could soothe him the way she did. “I was thinking on the way home how I’d lose it if something like this ever happened to our kid, so let’s just not have any.”
