the porch.
“Eric Santos speaking.”
“Eric? This is Erin Markovic.”
“Erin.” He seemed surprised to hear from me. “Are you okay? What’s wrong? Are you in trouble?”
“No, I'm not in trouble.” Yet. “I’m actually at a friend’s house, and um,” my throat tightened as the reality of what I was about to say hit me, “he’s dead.”
“Where are you? The address.”
“Wait, Eric! Please, don’t call anyone. Please!”
“Why not? What’s going on, Erin?”
“Listen, do you remember at the hospital when you accused me of hiding the truth about the attack?”
“Yes.”
“You were right,” I said in a rush as I hurried out to my SUV and nervously checked each window to make sure no one was lurking inside. “I was hiding something, but it’s not what you thought it was.”
“What was it?”
A woman straddling a motorcycle at the end of the block interrupted my train of thought. She wore a helmet, so I couldn’t see her face, but she waved at me to communicate that she was friendly. I kept my eye on her as I got into my vehicle and locked the doors. Watching her in the rearview mirror, I finally answered Eric. “The men who attacked me were trying to scare Ruby and me.”
“Ruby? What the hell does she have to do with anything?”
“Something is going inside the jail, Eric. Something really, really bad,” I said and started my engine. “Rape. Murder. Sex trafficking. Ruby was one of the victims. She was in the room when some guards murdered a prisoner. An ICE prisoner,” I explained. “They targeted those women because nobody would listen to them, and they were going to be deported anyway.”
“Fuck!” Eric shouted. “I heard a rumor,” he admitted. “More than one. About sex inside the jail. I thought it was the usual bullshit of guards trading favors for sex. I didn’t think...” His voice trailed off. “The priest at my mom’s church told me that undocumented workers were going missing. I looked them up, and they were all ICE holds. I assumed they were deported and left it at that.” He seemed pained as he confessed, “I didn’t care. They weren’t guns or gangs. They were just dishwashers and maids. Fuck.”
“Eric, listen, you can berate yourself later, but right now, I need help.”
“Where are you?” After I rattled off the address, he said, “Stay there in your car. If anyone else in a cop car shows up, you call me, and you keep your doors locked. Don’t get out. Wait for me.”
“Not a problem,” I assured him. The woman on the motorcycle was still there. She picked up her phone and seemed to be aiming it at my vehicle. A second later, my phone dinged. I glanced down at the screen to see a message from an unknown number. I swiped to open it.
Unknown Number: My name is Sunny. I work for Kostya.
I sagged with relief against the seat and typed a text for her. I’m waiting for Detective Santos.
Sunny: Good call. He’s one of the few I trust.
Feeling much safer with one of Kostya’s associates so close, I let my thoughts turn back to Ruby and Ivan and Teague. My heart was heavy as I remembered the last time I saw Teague. Should have I known then? Should I have recognized the haunted darkness in his face as a sign that he was going to end his life?
I wasn’t sure how to answer that question. I suspected nothing I could have said or done would have changed his mind. He was too far gone to help. Whatever he had done, he must have known that he was going to be killed to ensure his silence, or he was going to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Kavanaugh.
I scowled at the thought of that prick. I wasn’t sure how things would shake out when Ivan went to retrieve Ruby, but if I knew Ivan, he wasn’t letting Kavanaugh out of his sight until he paid dearly—and with a great deal of pain—for his crimes against my sister.
Chapter Nineteen
Kostya beat Ivan to the storage facility not far from the Baytown landfill. The scent of rotting garbage was heavy in the air when he stepped out of his SUV. If it was this bad on a chilly January evening, he couldn’t even imagine how disgusting it must smell during the summer.
“You’d think a real estate mogul would remember location, location, location,” Kostya joked before tossing a pump shotgun at him. “It’s loaded, but you might need these.” He slapped a