“And how would you know about the murder? We haven’t mentioned it yet.” Andi’s voice was like silk on a sword. “And before you start looking for excuses, it wasn’t in the media either. We’ve kept a lid on it.”
Alice Springton pierced Andi with her gaze. “You have proof? Like in that other case?”
Andi simply nodded. She turned back to her unlucky client. “Come clean, Taylor. And work with the attorney they assign to you. I’m done with you. Never call me again, understood? You make me sick!” She grabbed her slim leather briefcase. “Detective Donovan, Detective Hayes, have a nice day.”
With that, she went for the door, her stilettos clicking ominously on the linoleum floor. George waited till the door closed behind her before he turned his full attention back to Vance. “It seems to me you’ve been dropped like a hot potato, Mr. Vance. Do you want us to call a public defender for you now, or do you want to make it easier for all of us, especially yourself, by helping us out?”
For a brief moment, George was afraid Vance would be stubborn about the whole thing. His jaw worked furiously, as if he were chewing some hardened bubble gum.
“If you decide to answer our questions, I’ll see to it that you get methadone in prison so you don’t have to go cold turkey.” Andi had barely raised his voice, and yet what he’d said made both George and Vance whip their heads in his direction. George bit his lip to not question Andi in front of their suspect. Vance did it for him. “How do you know?” He started rubbing his arms in what George was sure was a subconscious gesture.
Andi shrugged. “There are signs. I’m just good at reading them.”
Vance’s shoulders slumped. “Fine,” he finally said. “What do you want to know?”
Chapter 14—Messenger Fleas
ANDI WASsprawled on a patch of grass between two brushes opposite the place where Vance’s latest shipment was supposed to arrive. Next to him was George in a similar get-up to his own: black cargo pants, black long-sleeved shirt, Kevlar vest, and a balaclava. They had their guns at the ready and were connected to the SWAT team via in-ear speakers. Andi was doing his best to focus on their case while all around him the insects of the night were bombarding him with less than useful information.
The night was nice, just the right amount of hot to go flying, and there were all those bloodbags, though covered up and hard to get to, little light here where to gather, the occasional swish and shadow when bats thinned the cloud of winged arthropods, never enough, though, they were many, looking for a partner to mate, laying eggs, fluttering toward the streetlight way down, yes, come here, the fat spider caught another unsuspecting moth in her web, quickly injecting venom, wrapping it in fine silk, what a nice night indeed, good hunting, the thrumming of cars in the distance, always there, a familiar rumbling felt through legs and membranes and wings, pheromones luring the males, hunting, feeding, mating, all in a frenzy, all the time….
“Estimated arrival in five minutes. No visual yet.” The voice of the SWAT leader sounded slightly distorted through the speaker in his ear and was accompanied by strange whirling noises and a feeling as if he were caught in a bass drum during a metal concert, which was how some of the bugs experienced the voice and the static. Next to him George fidgeted a bit in an attempt to get more comfortable. Since Vance’s interrogation the day before, where the human rat had finally given them all the information they wanted, George hadn’t so much as hinted at how Andi had known about Vance’s addiction. He had to give it to Vance; the man was hiding it well. Unfortunately for him, his sweat didn’t lie, and the tick he had in the back of his left knee—probably from when he went through the weeds to get to the abandoned house—had attested to him being a regular user. It was information Andi had gladly used. If he hadn’t had that little talk with George before and established their truce, he would have thought twice about bringing it up, because how should he explain that he detected an addiction a former narcotics detective didn’t spot? But as it was, he could make use of his talent without worrying too much about plausibility. And unless he told George his secret—which he didn’t plan to—the man had no way of figuring it out.
“We have movement.” There was a certain tension in the SWAT leader’s voice now. Andi felt it too. They were about to intercept possible human trafficking.
A black van came around the corner and stopped next to the empty walkway. The headlights went out.
“Hold it.” Again SWAT. “They’re waiting for the other guy.”
A rumbling sound told Andi the second party was arriving. This van was dark blue and didn’t sound too good. The second van stopped opposite the first, but unlike the first, the headlights stayed on. There was a sequence of signals, after which the headlights of the first van came to life. It answered with a different sequence before both vehicles turned dark again.
“Hold. Let them get out.”
The doors to both passenger sides opened, and two men stepped out. It was too dark to see them clearly because three of the four streetlights in the area were broken. Andi tightened his hold on his gun. Any moment now.
“We strike in three, two, one…. Go!” The SWAT team erupted from their hideouts in the ditches and behind the crumbling houses on the other side of the street. Andi and George jumped up as well, their weapons trained on the two men outside the vehicles who seemed to have frozen in shock. Two SWAT members went for each driver, dragging them out of their seats and onto the asphalt. Nobody was too careful about hurting them, seeing what their cargo probably was.
Andi exchanged a short glance with George and cocked his head in the direction of the dark blue van. He was getting vibes from some fleas telling him this was the van with the victims inside. George followed without hesitation. The trust he was showing in Andi’s “instincts” evoked a strange warm feeling in his chest. As peaceful as working alone was, it was nice to have somebody have your back.
When he reached the van, he took a moment to listen. He heard faint scratching noises and whimpers. While reaching for the handle of the back door, Andi spoke loudly and, as he very much hoped, reassuringly. “Everything’s fine. This is the police. I’m going to open the door now. Please remain calm.”
He heard a clicking sound behind him, no doubt George getting his gun ready. Even though Andi was almost a hundred percent sure the people inside the van were victims, one could never be too careful. The door opened easily, and Andi briefly wondered why it wasn’t locked. When he looked inside, he knew.
As far as he could tell in the dim light, there were three girls and one boy chained inside the van. Their ages were hard to guess, but Andi thought somewhere between fifteen and eighteen. A wooden rail ran from back to front on both sides, roughly at head-height above the seats. The victims were chained to the rails with handcuffs, while their feet were secured with rope through loops on the floor. None of the four wore much. Their eyes were riveted on Andi, full of fear and a deep distrust that no doubt came from their time in captivity. Andi put away his gun before raising his hands to show he meant no harm.
“Hello, my name is Andi Hayes. I’m a detective with the Charleston PD, and this is my partner, Detective Donovan. We’re here to get you out. Please bear with us for a moment while we try to find the keys.”
The three girls just stared at him as if they couldn’t believe he was really there. It was the boy who talked. “The keys are in that box over there.” He motioned toward a small wooden box screwed to the wall behind the driver’s seat. Andi went there, lifted the latch, and opened it. There were two sets of keys. He took them all and dangled them in front of the boy. “Which ones?”
The boy cocked his head to the side. “The right set. Try the third in the row, the one with the strange bit key.”
Andi obliged. He was aware of George getting out a knife and starting to work on the ropes binding the feet of the girl to their right. At the entrance of the van, the SWAT leader appeared.
“Everything good?”
“Yeah. Thank you, Adam. We’re getting the victims out of their bindings. Is the ambulance here already?”
“On their way. Five minutes tops.” The SWAT leader—Adam Forard—stepped back again. He had worked with Andi before, and they trusted each other. Andi tried the key the boy had suggested and was happy to be rewarded with the telltale click of a lock opening. The boy lowered his arms, his movements a bit awkward. Andi furrowed his brows.
