“But if he had a fish operation going on, couldn’t she have gotten them from him?”
“Yes, it’s possible. But unless we are able to find evidence, this is only speculation. This is the hard part of the job.”
“Hard, yes, but someone needs to do it. I’ve come to learn if I’m not willing to do it, why would I think someone else is going to be willing to do it?”
In my time in the force, I’d met a lot of people who’d come to that same conclusion, choosing duty over comfort. Those cops tended to be the best, putting the job and service to community over their personal securities. I counted as one, although I hadn’t realized I fit the mold until after I’d gotten saddled with my current chiefs and being required to, at least once a week, ride a stubborn and psychotic fire-breathing unicorn while on duty.
For some damned reason I still failed to understand, the public adored seeing the cindercorn in action, and they liked it best when they got to seemeright along with her husband or stallion, depending on the day of the week.
“I’ve asked myself that from time-to-time, and the answer is always the same. If I won’t do it, who will? And so I do. I serve the public, even when the public wishes I wouldn’t serve. The public generally does not appreciate when we bust them for speeding and reckless driving in particular.”
“But they appreciate when we bring killers to justice, except for the killers, of course.”
I nodded. “The killers really don’t appreciate when we bring them to justice for some reason.”
“Well, if they were better at committing crimes, they wouldn’t get caught.”
“Let’s not encourage the criminals to be smarter and do better. It’s hard enough catching them as it is.”
Everyone had secrets,and Mr. Thomas Hardy owned an entire aquarium. Unfortunately, his operations included involuntary labor involving missing people from a collection of six states. Some had been victims of criminal dealings gone wrong, taken from loved ones to send a message. Others had owed debts to the wrong people and hadn’t been able to pay.
I could understand why someone might want to eliminate the man using his passion.
Within five minutes of stepping foot onto the property, it had gone from a fairly unusual murder case to a disaster. If I had been given my way, I would have tossed the entire case to the FBI and CDC to deal with, but no.
They wanted me to continue heading the investigation.
I wanted to go home, make a cup of hot chocolate, and hide for a few weeks.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” I informed Alec in one of the brief moments we weren’t being bombarded by CDC or FBI agents out to squeeze every detail they could out of us. “There are countless endangered species here being successfully bred along with a human trafficking ring Hardy used to care for his millions of fish. And that is not an exaggeration.Millionsof fish. There are millions of fish here, Alec.”
He offered me his coffee cup. “I think you need this more than I do at this point. When the CDC agent realized I was a cadet learning investigations, she added some pixie dust to it. Apparently, cadets should be gently pampered rather than thrown into acid baths.”
I accepted his cup and took a sip. Sure enough, the CDC agent had laced it with enough pixie dust to make sure neither one of us would be suffering from an anxiety attack after a single mouthful. “Was that when I was getting grilled by the FBI on being in Pennsylvania in the first place?”
“It sure was. Did they give you any problems?”
“No. They just complained I complicated matters. The Pennsylvanian cops backed me up on it, and they had all the appropriate forms with them.”
“I think it was the girlfriend now,” Alec said, and he stared at one of the nearby aquariums. “She works in humanitarian rights, and the one thing that would trip her trigger would be the enslavement of people. She likes animals, and she’d appreciate the conservation efforts he’s putting in this place, but if she found out he used slave labor to care for these fish? Yeah. I could see her shoving a bunch of fish up his ass and hoping they’d eat him alive from the inside.”
I nodded, aware of the underlying reasons the woman would go so far. “Her little sister was trafficked. It was one of the few stories with a happy ending.”
“There are going to be a lot of happy endings now, but also a lot of pain and struggling. Stockholm syndrome is going to be commonplace. While captive and unable to leave and required to work, these peoplelikethe fish and caring for them.” Alec gestured at an elderly couple. “Their son is heavily involved with a crime ring, and they were taken as leverage. They handle feeding a lot of the fish. It gives them purpose and meaning, and they don’t want to leave.”
Alec had a tendency to listen, and not only did he listen, he took the time to think about what he learned. “I have no idea what will happen to this place,” I admitted.
“It will become a rehab center for the victims and a proper aquarium,” Lucifer announced from behind me. I screamed, but before I could fling Alec’s coffee halfway to the moon, the Devil rescued it. “A little jumpy today, aren’t you?”
“Well, you did appear behind her and gave no warning before talking. Most would react in a similar fashion. But thank you for saving the coffee. We need the dust in that coffee to get through today.”
I rescued the coffee from the Devil, took another swallow, and gave it back to its owner. “Thank you. Especially with him here, I definitely needed that.”
Alec chuckled. “He’s not that bad.”
“Alec, he’s the Devil. Heisthat bad.”
“I’m so bad, I’m good,” Lucifer added with a grin. To keep the general peace, and to keep from freaking out the men and women who would need a lot of time and help to come to terms with their freedom, he had opted to show up as a white man dressed in a suit, although he had a pair of flaming horns peeking out from his hair, which did a good job of warning people some prime evil lurked among them.
