I look out the window, recognizing the building. “My dad told me once that this is where Lucia handled his import-exporting. Moving things up and down the water,” I say, scanning the area for movement. No clue who called in the body. The burner phone tracks everything as an anonymous call, but there should be someone here to meet us.
“Moving what?” Slade asks. “Drugs?”
“Drugs. Women. Whatever he was trafficking at the time.”
DK grunts. “No wonder he got blown up.”
Him and half of the North Side.
I pull the Glock out of my bag and rack it once to feel the weight before tucking it in my waistband. We step out into the thick air, the scent of river rot and spilled diesel. We all drag the black cotton masks down over our faces without needing to talk about it. Only our eyes and mouths are showing.
“Carson, stay with the van and keep Ares with you.” I rub my dog's head, then jerk my chin at the thick-armed twins. “You come with us.”
“Eerie as fuck out here,” DK mutters. “Stinks, too.”
He’s not wrong. The fog swallows every sound except our boots on the cracked concrete.
A shadow moves near the corner of the building.
Four hands snap to our waistbands.
“Stop right there,” DK says, gun already raised. The figure stills. “Now, walk out here slowly with your hands up.”
I’m not sure who I expect to walk out, but it’s sure as fuck not the FBI agent that’s been down here sniffing around the missing girl cases–the one that locked up that kid from DKS. He’s dressed in jeans and a zip-up hoodie, a Quantico logo printed over the left breast. His dark hair is pushed back off his forehead, and he looks like he’s not all that happy to be here at four AM either.
“What the fuck?” DK says, not lowering the gun.
“Settle down,” Knight says. “I’m not armed.” He tilts his head to the dark corner he came from. “Neither is she. Come on out, Nic.”
A college-aged girl steps into the weak spill of the van’s parking lights. Small, maybe twenty, hoodie two sizes too big, sleeves chewed at the cuffs. Her face is streaked with tears and mascara, eyes red-rimmed, lower lip split like someone backhanded her not long ago.
I’m not in the mood to trust him, or her, so I nod at the twins. “Check them.”
“On it,” Slade says.
While Slade pats down the agent, Jace approaches the girl. “Lift up the hoodie.” She does, showing loose jeans, but no bulges. At the small of her back is a tattoo of a coiled snake. Jace makes sure we see it.
Count property. Or, at least,formerCount property.
“All clear,” Slade says, and they both step back behind us.
“Jesus Christ,” DK huffs out when I give the all clear, and shoots a glare at Knight. “What the hell is this?”
“We received a report that there’s a body down here. Information was vague, and due to the ongoing case, I caught the call.” His gaze slides over to the girl. “When I got here, I found Nicole. She told me what really happened, and this seemed more like a situation for the Barons than the police.”
DK and I share a glance. We’re new to all this, but we’ve been educated about the Barons’ system. Once the cops are involved, we’reout of the picture. DK is the one to ask, “Why the hell is an FBI agent pushing cases back to us?”
“He’s doing it for me,” the girl, Nicole, cuts in. “That body in there… it belongs to my little brother. I just want to get him home.”
My shoulders loosen a fraction. “Your brother?”
She nods hard, like it hurts. “My mom has been worried about him, and I told her I’d bring him home.” She bites down on her bottom lip. “I just didn’t think it would end up like this. I can’t have her go down to the morgue and identify his body like… like the way it looks.”
I get it. That’s half the reason the Barons do what they do. What happens in Forsyth stays in Forsyth. Frats handle frats, not badges. And Barons handle the dead.
“That sucks, sweetheart,” Jace says, “but that’s not how this works. We don’t just show up and take bodies. There’s a system in place, one you circumvented by calling the cops.”
He’s right. Knight being here–that makes it tricky.
