Page 6 of Only the Hunter

She’d been scared—but she showed up. She gave statements. She trusted me.

The others—they accepted payment in exchange for signed NDAs. They chose silence—not that I blame them. But Lina didn’t. She wanted to fight. She believed me when I said we’d keep her safe.

Then the case was shut down.

And she vanished.

I fire off an email to Daniel Price, the Supervisory Special Agent, or SSA, on the case, and notice—again—the unanswered messages stacking behind it.

There’s a rap on the door. Shonda doesn’t wait for an answer before dropping into the chair across from my desk. Her dark skin is luminescent in the light, a slight sparkle to her eye shadow, the only hint of personality to her standard charcoal gray pantsuit.

“So,” she says, eyeing my face, “were you texting and driving?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” She steals a piece of my bagel. “That bruise is nasty. What happened? All I heard is that you were in a wreck.”

“My brakes failed.”

She stills. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.”

“That must’ve been scary.”

“It was.” I don’t want to think about it, so I sip my coffee. But then what I haven’t shared with anyone spills out. “I think someone cut my brakes.”

“Damn.” She studies me for a beat, then shakes her head. “Don’t start seeing threats where there aren’t any. That way lies insanity.” She points a perfectly manicured almond-shaped nail in my direction, wagging it back and forth.

“Maybe.”

“No maybe.” She stands. “You need sleep. You drove an old car. These things happen.” She pauses at the door. “Joint call with FBI and MPD. Conference room A. Ten minutes.”

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Metropolitan Police Department—fun times.

Safe Passage isn’t my only case. It’s just the one I can’t put down.

I watch Shonda’s retreating back, taking a few more minutes to skim my email. There’s a new FBI 302—an investigative interview report—from an undercover sting at a Northwest hotel, an MPD report about a missing 15-year-old recovered in an apartment in Southeast, and a late-night email from a shelter advocate at one of the NGOs—nonprofits—saying one of her trafficking victims wants to recant. Lovely.

I skim the FBI report to see if the elements of federal sex trafficking of a minor exist—and they do.

With that, I gather the pertinent files for my next meeting and give one sidelong glance to the files stacked on the corner of my desk—the working copies I’ve marked up for months, separate from the full case archive I keep in binders at home. Pieces of the file have started going missing from the database—a memo here, a note there, nothing anyone would notice unless they’d read it a hundred times. I have. I’ll be damned if I’m giving up daily access to my notes. I’ll scan every page tonight.

The morning bleeds into detention hearings and plea colloquies. I win my motion to hold a pimp without bond—hollow victory against an overworked public defender with no real defense. The monthly trafficking task force meeting runs long: FBI wants multi-state labor cases, MPD needs support on juvenile street work, the victim services nonprofits push for more shelter beds and case workers than anyone’s budget allows. Everyone wants different things.

What do I want? I want the bastards who trafficked Lina, and girls like her, as their sick source of income, to pay. I also want every single person who forks over money for those girls to pay. I want a world where a victim doesn’t have to go through hell to receive justice.

It’s past nine p.m. when I finally dig into phone records from an MPD sting. There are multiple references to “uncle,” and I make a note that I need to ask about that. Street slang for a buyer, or something else? There’s also a particular patrol car that shows up repeatedly but there’s no record of the patrol car interfering. I write the unit number on a sticky note and press it to my monitor.

Maybe I can use this as an excuse to reach out to Daniel. Yes, he’s FBI and he’s not on this case, but this might earn a response from Daniel. He likes to dig in on the MPD when he gets a chance. Maybe just asking about a different case will make him think I’ve dropped Safe Passage.

Shonda shouts from across the darkened expanse of cubicles at my open door. “Go home.”

Judging from the clatter of keyboard keys, I’m not the last one in the office by any means. But, my head is aching, and every movement hurts—and that’s after my latest dose of Advil. Pajamas, hot tea, and an episode of mindless television are calling me. I’ll scan my files tomorrow.

With that thought, I switch off my desk lamp, load up my briefcase, flick off my office light, and pull the door closed, locking my stacks of manila folders inside. It’s not until I’m through the lobby that I remember I don’t have my car.

Joy.