“Oh, my gosh.” Charlotte looked over at Hawk. “You questioned Helene, too?”
“We did, and it’s not good.” Hawk said. “She’s deep in this, and unless she can afford a very slick lawyer who knows how to manipulate the system, she’s going to be seeing the inside of a jail cell.”
The satisfaction at knowing that woman was going to be brought to justice was immeasurable. Charlotte only regretted not being there to see her being questioned.
Cole continued, “HRA has been using Leonard Everett’s company to move kids all over the damn country.”
“What?” Charlotte had suspected as much, but that didn’t make it any less shocking. “How? I mean, I knew they were relocating kids, but they were supposed to be going to vetted sponsors.”
“And some of the kids are going to legitimate sponsors.” Cole explained how Everett had hand-picked drivers to work the HRA contract. “These were the type of people who, for a little extra cash, wouldn’t ask questions and would have no problem fudging the trip mileage numbers.”
Worse than that, they didn’t give a shit about secretly dropping innocent kids off someplace they shouldn’t have been.
“You saidsomeof the kids.” Charlotte asked, “What do you mean?”
“Let’s say the official passenger list has twenty-five kids on it. They would actually load forty kids onto the bus, transport the twenty-five listed to their designated location and drop them off, then take the remaining fifteen somewhere else.”
Charlotte tried to do the math in her head as to how many kids could’ve gone missing in three years, but there was just no way to know. At least, not with the information currently available to them.
“Do we know where they’ve been taking them?” Charlotte imagined how terrified those children must be—separated from their families and shuffled around an unfamiliar country to strangers for God knows what purpose.
“We don’t have that information yet, but we’re going to get it.” Cole’s words were sharp with determination and confidence. “According to what Helene told us, all of Everett’s HRA records are kept on a separate server. Luckily for us, he was stupid enough to connect it to the Internet.”
“How would she know that?” Hawk asked.
“Kimball,” Cole said. “Apparently, she took advantage of the guy’s infatuation with her and squeezed all kinds of information out of him. She was also the one who created that list you found, Charlotte. It was an insurance policy, should anything blow back on her.”
“A lot of good it’ll do her now,” Hawk said. “She never expected someone else would find it first.”
“I just knew she was a self-serving skank.” Charlotte mumbled under her breath, “Sashaying around the office sticking her giant boobs in everyone’s face, staring at Hawk like he was an ice cream cone she wanted to lick. Gross.” There was a long silence. She looked up and realized they’d heard her. “Sorry.”
“No apologies necessary.” There was abeepon Cole’s end. “That’s Luna. Hang on a sec.” He put them on hold and came back a minute later. “Okay, I’ve conferenced her in on this call. Luna, go ahead.”
“Hey, guys. With the information Helene Wagner provided, I was able to access Everett’s server with the HRA information. Since he signed his contract three years ago, there have been four hundred and sixty-eight recorded trips to and from their various intake centers in Texas, New Mexico, and Arizona. The average number of kids transported on the record, per trip, was forty-five. That’s over twenty thousand children that weknowof. I’m still looking for any records of the kids who weren’t accounted for. But let’s just assume there were … fifteen kids unaccounted for per trip.”Tap tap tap tap.“Oh, my God—that’s over seven thousand kids.”
“Jesus.” Hawk reached over and covered Charlotte’s hand with his.
“One last thing, Sammy decided to do some more digging through HRA’s server. Are you sitting down?” She hesitated. “She discovered that only a handful of theofficialsponsors of these kids ever underwent even a basic vetting process—background check, rapid DNA tests, those kinds of things.” Luna’s tone gave away her disgust.
“So there’s no guarantee the kids whowereaccounted for were actually handed over to vetted sponsors,” Hawk said.
“Right, so the number of trafficked kids could be substantially higher.” Cole’s tone was dark.
Charlotte’s heart sank at the thought of the horrors they could be suffering, assuming they were still alive.
“How was all of this happening right under my nose?” She racked her brain for any indication that things hadn’t been on the up-and-up but drew a blank.
She felt sick to her stomach that the company she worked for was being used as an elaborate cover for a human trafficking operation.
“Evil people are very good at hiding their dark deeds. I learned that firsthand.” Luna’s cryptic statement raised Charlotte’s curiosity. “I’ll keep digging through Everett’s server. I promise you, if there’s anything on there about those missing children, Iwillfind it.”
“Thank you, Luna.” The coffee soured in her belly, and she was no longer hungry. “What do we do now?” She slid her bowl away from her.
“We pull Leonard Everett in and let Andi have a go at him,” Cole said.
“Wait, hang on a sec, guys. I think I might’ve found something.” Luna clicked keys at lightning speed in the background. “Yes! It’s this year’s trip list.” More clicking. “Okay, there are three buses scheduled for tomorrow. One is picking up thirty-three kids at the HRA facility in Santa Teresa, New Mexico. Another one is picking up twenty-nine kids in Nogales, Arizona. And the last one is going to the HRA facility in El Paso, Texas. That one is picking up forty-two kids.” She tapped keys. “I’m emailing you the details.”
Hawk and Charlotte’s phones made a sound to indicate they’d received Luna’s email.
