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“Good thought,” Vinnie said.
Seconds later I heard the cart roll across the room and bang into the toilet.
“Are you okay?” I asked him.
“Yeah. I had to ram the cart against the toilet to hold it steady. This is going to work.”
He climbed up the cart and pulled himself into the air vent.
I was already on the move. I was being careful not to make noise, and I was looking for a vent that led to a hallway. I didn’t want to drop into another locked room. The first vent looked into a room similar to the one we’d just left. The second vent opened to a room that appeared to be littered with sleeping bags thrown on the floor, empty water bottles, and crumpled fast-food bags. All the rooms were windowless and lit by a single low-watt bulb. I wasn’t surprised to see the sleeping bags and trash. Abandoned buildings were used by runaway kids and druggies. I was surprised that it was so close to the room where the brothers were imprisoning their captives. And I was surprised that there was electricity in a building used by squatters. It meant that the building wasn’t completely abandoned.
“We need to get out of this air duct,” Vinnie whispered.“They’re going to come after us, and we don’t want to be trapped here.”
I crawled up to another vent and looked into another room filled with sleeping bags. Too many sleeping bags. Almost wall to wall. Dormitory. What exactly was this place?
The air duct branched off to the left and I took the left turn. Finally, a vent that didn’t open to a room. I got to the edge, and I heard voices. The brothers and another man. Talking about baseball. Mets fans. I held my breath when they passed underneath me. They continued down a hall and I could no longer hear their voices. They were probably on their way to our cell.
I worked the vent loose and grabbed it before it crashed to the floor. I passed it back to Vinnie. I eased myself out through the hole in the hall ceiling and dropped to the floor. Vinnie did the same. We quickly moved down the hall in the opposite direction of the three men. We came to a stairwell and carefully entered, listening for voices or footfalls. The number 5 was painted on the door. It appeared to be the top floor.
We reached the fourth-floor landing and the sound of machinery carried through the door. I cracked the door and looked out. It was a large, brightly lit room filled with women at sewing machines.
“Sweatshop,” Vinnie whispered. “The women are kept in the dorms upstairs.”
“In Trenton? Are you kidding me?”
“There are men in there too. Supervisors.”
We hurried down the rest of the stairs to the cavernousunderground garage. The stairs were next to a freight elevator. A Sprinter van and four cars were parked close to the elevator.
An Acut eighteen-wheeler was parked a distance away.
“That’s Luther’s truck,” I said. “It’s Acut Trucking and it’s got Texas plates.”
“That’s how they bring the women in,” Vinnie said. “Luther and Marcus are running a trafficking operation. Long-haul traffickers.”
“Horrible.”
“Yeah. Not my problem. We need to get out of here.”
“I can’t go,” I said. “Lula is here. They took Lula.”
“And that’s a bad thing?”
“Yes! It’s a bad thing. Now that I have the lay of the land, I’m going back to find her.”
Vinnie growled.
“Do not growl at me,” I said. “That is unacceptable behavior.”
“I’ve been in the same clothes for four days and I’ve been doing my business in a chemical toilet. I’m not in a good place. Call Ranger. He’ll come find her.”
“He’s on his way.”
“How do you know?”
“I know.”
“How are you going to find her?” Vinnie asked. “There are five floors to this building. And it’s a big building. It was probably some sort of factory.”
