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“What about the sisters?” Mia was all concern and professionalism.
“Traumatized, as we expected. They were all too young for everything they saw and went through. From what they told us, the one who was most hurt was kidnapped first. The older one went looking for the sister and ended up being caught as well. But they’ll be fine. They didn’t know much about the operation, but we managed to get a lot of information from what they all reported.”
“Tell them about the forensics,” Ben instructed.
“I sent the material you collected from your fight with Matias, Mia. I requested they were analyzed with urgency. Not only did it put the guy right on that crime scene, but we were also able to connect him to several other open cases of drug trafficking, sexual assaults, and kidnapping. The guy’s been working nonstop for quite some time.”
“Kidnapping?” Mia asked. “For human trafficking, or are those separate situations?”
“We’re still trying to figure that one out. The kids you rescued were younger than we’d anticipated. The oldest one was seventeen. But we also connected Matias to children’s abductions. We’re not sure if they were for the same purpose or not. We were also able to find some tangential matches in other cases. We can’t say it was him, but the lab assured me it belonged to someone related to him. So, he has a relative out there who’s also a criminal. We’re working on finding out who the person is. The genetic material indicated it’s a male, and from what I gathered, the man was active until a few years ago, then we lost his trace.”
She stood up from her chair and walked to the board we’d left there with what we had so far in our investigation. She rotated it so the pictures we kept hidden from clients and Haley were facing us. She stared at them, and my gut froze as it did every time I saw the photos of my baby, my family, and our kids.
“Any news on the woman Carlos Gomes is looking for?”
He sighed again and paused before answering. “No. None of the kids knew about her, and the man you brought us didn’t know or didn’t want to talk about it. He did have some interesting things to say. He confirmed Matias was the one responsible for the girls’ abduction, and he was also the one in charge of negotiating and selling them. He’s been trying to get up the ranks at high speed.”
I frowned. “Why?”
“I don’t know. He clammed up right after he let that slip. He did admit that Matias was supposed to take the girls to a new location a few days after your raid. His buyer was none other than Bryan Keyes.”
I couldn’t hide my surprise. “Santiago Cruz’s partner? You’re kidding? I thought he only dealt with drugs?”
A while back, we were hired by the government to support the DEA in investigating Santiago Cruz and Bryan Keyes, the latter a proud owner of a known chain of stud farms in the country. Cruz was christened as “The Train,” while Keyes was known as “The Package,” because Keyes was responsible forsupplying the merchandise, while Cruz was the one to transport them around the country.
We suspected they were dealing drugs, and during our investigation, Ben and Mia stopped one of Cruz’s trucks, per her insistence, arguably transporting two mares, but in which was hidden over 200 bricks of cocaine. After the bust and financial loss the cartel endured, Santiago Cruz was murdered by theAlacránsand Ben’s father.
“Apparently, Cruz’s main source of income was drugs, but Keyes has been venturing into human trafficking for quite some time.”
“Do you think he was involved during that failed bust?” Mia’s voice was clipped, but we knew it wasn’t against us. The company was growing despite what happened to Zach, and we were way freer than she and I ever were at the DEA. But she still held a grudge against the agency for busting her investigation and firing her for trying to do the right thing.
Aaron stayed silent for a while before admitting, “I do.”
“So, what are you going to do about it?”
“We’re working on it, Mia. I have someone on him, and we’ll get them all, I swear.”
We wrapped up the conversation, which infused us with a new purpose. We dove into our endless files, and Mia went back to listening to her audio while studying some of the files.
We’d been at it for hours when I voiced a question that had been nagging at me. “Do you have any guess who the woman might be? The one Carlos Gomes wants?”
Mia took off one of her earbuds and stared at the pictures on the board again. “I have a theory. And I don’t like it.” I was about to ask her to elaborate when she frowned and pressed the single earbud she still had on against her ear. “Oh, my God.”
She slipped the other one inside again and clicked something on her computer. Ben and I glanced at each other confused, both of us knowing not to disrupt her.
“They’re talking behind the songs.”
“What does that mean?”
Ignoring Ben’s question—she was far too gone inside her head—Mia rummaged through the notes she’d taken. “They’re talking about their negotiations. We need to separate the sounds.” She looked at me, excitement brightening her eyes. “Can you help me with that?”
I ran to my office to pick up my laptop, while she coordinated her space, instructing Ben on what new files to sort. She connected the audio she’d been listening to on my computer, and I started working on breaking the sounds and singling them out.
Following her directions, I played each sound of the first audio I broke, and we all froze when we heard the last one. A man was talking in Spanish, his voice originally muffled by the song.
“He’s instructing someone on how to get somewhere,” I translated.
“So that’s how they’re communicating? Through songs?” Ben was as surprised as I was.
