“What if he not?” Bazel asked. “Maybe he go somewhere else.” The flutters in his belly grew more intense.
“We are going to find him and figure this out. I promise you.” Atlas sounded so sure and confident. “I’m not going to let someone take you or hurt you again.”
“Maybe he go after women.”
Atlas sighed. “He doesn’t know where they are. Chris is very good at keeping women safe. It’s what she does all the time. There isn’t one place anyone can go to find out where they are. It’s like a puzzle, and you have to know all the pieces and how they fit in order to get to the information. She set up the system, and even she doesn’t have access to all the pieces. No one person does. That’s what will keep them safe. And it’s my job to keep you safe.”
“Okay,” Bazel said. “But I still scared.” And the more he thought about it, the more he felt it. Fear was something he knew well. He had lived with it for a lot of his life, and he thought maybe by now he should be able to handle it. Bazel blinked and steadied his voice. “I okay now.” He lied because he didn’t want Atlas to think him weak and not a man. He couldn’t rely on Atlas to keep him safe and make the fear go away. That was something he had to do for himself.
“You certain?”
“Yes. I sure,” he said with much more confidence than he felt. Atlas waited where he was for a few seconds. Bazel couldn’t help watching him as he turned and then left.
Bazel knew he had to be strong. That he could not let this man, the intruder, scare him. He had been locked in a box at sea for days, maybe weeks. He had been put in the back of a truck, hidden from everyone. He was treated like he was an animal and had survived, and now he slept in a comfortable bed where a niceman promised to help keep him safe. No one had promised to do anything for him in a long time who actually did what they said they were going to do. They had tricked him when he paid all his money to get to America. And then they treated him like he was property and belonged to them.
Atlas didn’t do any of that. He was good to Bazel… and he was sexy. Atlas even explained that Bazel wasn’t wrong, that he was gay, and that there were lots of others like him. That he had choices. Now maybe that was a really scary thing. He actually got to decide what happened to him. That was completely new.
After a while his mind settled down and Bazel figured out what he would do if the man came back. He would hide, and if the man found him, he would fight. That was what he was going to do. He did not fight when they put him into the box or in the back of the truck. He just went. But that was no more. Now he would fight. Maybe it was because Atlas seemed ready to fight for him, and Bazel couldn’t let him fight alone. It was time for him to stand up for himself and for what he wanted. He had been someone who had just done what he was supposed to as he was growing up. Then he did it again and left his village to try to come here because it was easier.
Now he just had to decide what he really wanted. But then, that was easy. Bazel wanted a life here where he was free to be the person he was. That was why he had left in the first place. But there was more than that. A lot more. His thoughts kept turning in circles, and he had to make them stop so he could go to sleep. In the end, Bazel figured that he had time to think things through. Atlas had given him that time, and Bazel wanted to do something to thank him for that. But he didn’t know what.
Chapter 7
ATLAS LOVEDquiet days, and the last few had been just that. Even work seemed to be easier than usual. He’d made a number of phone calls and coordinated with the other police departments to make sure that the information they’d received from Bazel was shared. One area where they had made progress was the identity of their intruder, the so-called Breaker. His real name was Wendell Horn. No wonder he used a nickname. The FBI and their resources had come through with that piece of information. Bazel was still at the house, and Atlas had gotten him an inexpensive phone, so at least they would have communications in case Bazel needed him,
“Are you and Evie ready?” the captain asked as they stood inside one of the huge warehouses just outside of town before six on Friday morning. The building was absolutely massive, with part of it being used as a distribution center for chocolate. So there were plenty of scents to throw Evie off.
“Yes.” Atlas had every confidence in her.
“Good. I hid a small amount of contraband somewhere in this building. You have thirty minutes for Evie to find it. The workers will start coming in then, so we’ll need to be done.”
“Evie, search,” Atlas said and let her off her leash. She hurried forward, head moving from side to side as she tried to pick up a scent. Atlas knew when she had something, and Evie made a beeline for the office area. He followed her though the door and up the stairs. She went down a hall and into a breakroom, then sat in front of a locker, her tongue out, looking up at him.
“Can I help you?” a man asked. “I’m the director of this facility.”
“I need to get into that locker,” Atlas explained.
“There is nothing hidden here. That was the one stipulation—the office area was to be off limits. I explained that to your captain.”
Atlas was all business. “That’s fine. I understand. But did the captain tell you that we are on duty? Please open the locker. Either that or I can get some tools from my car.” Evie had never failed him, and he wasn’t going to doubt her now.
“We have a set in the tool room,” the director said and left, then returned with a red-handled bolt cutter and handed it to Atlas. “You’d better be right about this.”
“Atlas,” the captain said as he joined them.
He snapped the lock with the cutter and opened the locker. It was empty except for a coat hanging on one of the hooks.
“I’d say your dog was wrong,” the director announced, glaring at him and then at the captain.
“Evie, show me,” Atlas said, and she pawed at the floor of the locker. Atlas checked around the edges and then pulled out the floor plate, revealing a brick of what appeared to be cocaine. “Good girl,” he said, stroking her head. “I’ll leave you to this. We have a test to complete.”
He tugged Evie back by the collar. “Evie, search,” he told her, and she went down the bay of lockers before leaving the room, heading down the stairs and out into the warehouse proper. Atlas followed her, and within a minute, she sat in front of a bin of chocolate. He opened it and pulled out a small bag of marijuana that had a sticker indicating it was what the captain had hidden. He praised her and put the bag in a plastic bag he had brought with him.
Atlas knew the captain was calling in backup, so he held the pot and told Evie to search again. She wandered down the aisle and then picked up her pace. “Captain, we have yet another scent,” he radioed. “This is the third one.” Evie led him to the loading dock and to one of the upright desks where, Atlas assumed, supervisors stood as they loaded trucks. Evie sat next to it and then nosed the base. Atlas pushed it over, discovering a box, addressed and labeled. Pulling on gloves, he took pictures of where he found the box and how it was positioned, going into evidence processing mode. Once a backup officer arrived, he and Evie made their way up and down the aisles of the massive facility, but Evie didn’t indicate anything more, so they joined the captain and the director.
“It looks to me like you have a real problem.” He showed the captain the images. “This was ready to be shipped out. All it needed was to be put on a truck.”
“Where did you find that?” the director asked, and Atlas explained.
