She pulled out of the parking lot and headed toward her house. Ethan stood alone in the parking lot, his hand raised in farewell. After all these years in the mission field, saying goodbye was a particular talent of hers.
It seemed that Ethan was pretty good at it, too.
THREE
When they were partners, Ethan wouldn’t have waited to call Bridges. If he hadn’t been able to sleep because of the puzzle of evidence crowding his head, he would’ve called him in the middle of the night, or in the early hours of the morning. New information would’ve meant an instant call, day or night.
But he and Bridges hadn’t been partners in more than two years.
Ethan hadn’t even talked to his former partner in close to nine months. Without the day-to-day working relationship and with the secret nature of the job that Bridges did, there wasn’t as much as Ethan would’ve thought to build a friendship on. And truthfully, at the time, Ethan hadn’t cared.
Now he needed help to put together the random pieces of this case. Because of the trauma surrounding the event, there were things Ethan didn’t remember about the night Amy died. Hopefully Bridges could put those things in place.
The voice was grumpy and sleep-thickened, but sounded the same. “Bridges.”
“Still aren’t checking caller ID, I see.”
“Ethan Clark. You better have a good reason for waking me up at one in the morning, my friend.”
“It can wait until tomorrow.”
“No, I’m awake. What’s going on?” Sleep had disappeared from Bridges’ voice. A field agent got used to being awakened in the middle of the night. Ethan waited for the twinge, the little giveaway that he missed the job he used to do in the FBI when he was partners with Bridges. It wasn’t there.
With concise, short sentences, Ethan filled in his former partner on what had happened in the last two days, only leaving the fact that he believed his son might still be alive. “I just can’t figure out how all this ties in to what we were working back then or why someone would reach out to me now.”
Bridges was silent on the line. Then, “Ethan, you have to know that we searched every piece of ash from that explosion. There was nothing. Cantori was smoke, like he’d never existed.”
“I know.” The knot in his stomach was back. He dug in his pocket to find the roll of Tums he’d bought at the convenience store earlier and thumbed off a couple. “What about the girls?”
“We never found where he was keeping them. The only thing I could ever figure is that the operation is tight, with only a few key players. You know that—you’re the one who was in with them.”
It was true. “What about your confidential informant?”
“You don’t remember?”
The question he’d been dreading. And because Booth Bridges had been his partner, he had to be honest. “Everything is hazy, Booth. I tried to wipe it all out of my memory for two years.”
There was silence on the line. Then his former partner cleared his throat. “The CI was killed in a car accident a few weeks after you went in. The wreck was cleared by local cops as accidental, but neither of us thought it was an accident.”
Ethan had a vague recollection. “He was eliminated.”
“Yes, I think so.” Bridges sighed heavily. “We can’t protect you, Ethan.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that these are very dangerous players. If you open this back up, you’ll need to watch your back. These guys—they play for keeps.”
Anger roared through Ethan. Deftly, with the familiarity of long practice, he pushed it back, though his voice shook with the effort. “I think I’m in a position to be aware of that.”
His partner’s breath came across the line in a rush. “Of course you are. I wasn’t thinking. I’m sorry, Ethan.”
“Even if I had nothing personally at stake, I don’t know how I could let this go. If they are selling babies, then there’s a lot more to this than we realized. More than a simple trafficking-for-profit scheme.” As if that wasn’t bad enough. His lip twitched. Frustration. Anger again.
Like an echo of his own feelings, frustration came through the line in his former partner’s voice, as well. “Right now all you have is an unidentified child, and I’m not sure what you want me to do with that.”
“We’re handling it. Local P.D. are on it and the FBI out of Mobile is involved in her case. What I need is information about the case that we worked. If it wasn’t about selling those young girls, what was it about?”
The line went quiet. Ethan could hear the clink of ice falling into a glass and liquid splashing in after it. Then, “For years, we’ve been going at this from the angle of trafficking women and coming up with nothing. Maybe I can run this new information by someone at Crimes Against Children and see if I turn up any complaints. It’s a stretch, but I’ll try.”
“That’s all I can ask.” Ethan stared into the darkness at the lights on the opposite shore. “Thanks, Booth. I owe you one.”
“No. I don’t think you do. I think we all owe you, Ethan.”
Stuffing the sigh down, Ethan said, “Keep in touch,” and as Bridges hung up on his end of the conversation, he resisted the urge to throw the phone. He hated feeling like he’d just been dealt the pity card, but if Bridges wanted to follow this through out of some misguided sense of a debt owed, so be it.
At least he would see where it led.
A few blocks away, Kelsey laid a very sleepy baby into the porta-crib. Janie’s golden curls were still damp from the bath, and she sighed in her sleep, her mouth moving just a touch, like she missed her thumb. Too cute.
The doctor had said that she needed surgery as soon as possible, maybe as soon as next week, to put a shunt in her heart, giving her time to grow until they could do the full reconstructive surgery. She was trying to find the right doctor to follow Janie’s care here in Florida. The red tape to get an unidentified child transferred from one state to another for state-funded medical care was going to be difficult—actually, she wasn’t sure it had ever been done. But Janie deserved a bright future. In the meantime, Kelsey would be vigilant and try to keep her as calm as possible.
She gave the baby’s back one last pat and turned toward the bathroom. Seeing and interacting with multiple children on a daily basis was one thing, but caring for a toddler minute by minute was exhausting—especially after the day they’d had at Children’s Hospital.
They were close to finding out who Janie really was, though. Closer than Kelsey had imagined they would be at this point, thanks to the medical records. She squeezed toothpaste on her toothbrush and reached for the water, turning it on and quickly off again as she thought she heard the sound of something outside.
Her heartbeat picked up speed. She didn’t hear it again. Maybe it was just her imagination. Or an animal in the trash cans. Maybe he hadn’t found anything to his tastes, so he’d ambled on to check someone else’s garbage. She resisted the urge to check under her bed for the baseball bat she kept. She didn’t have to—she knew it was there.
She turned the water on again, straining her ears to listen as she brushed her teeth. Glass broke and she swallowed a mouthful of toothpaste.
That hadn’t been her imagination.
That sound had been in her kitchen. Her legs were quaking, blood rushing in her ears. She ran for the bedroom door and closed and locked it silently, flipping off the lights at