by myself. And I’m okay with it. For me, it’s Lily or no one.
Chapter Three
Reyna
“Holy shit, you’re Rey Diaz?”
A detective gapes at me from behind the front desk of the Investigations Division at a downtown Chicago Police Department precinct. He eyes me up and down and the secretary sitting behind the desk he’s standing next to rolls her eyes in my direction.
“I am,” I say, giving the secretary a small smile.
“I, uh…” the detective runs a hand down his face, grinning. “Sorry, I was expecting you to be…a dude, you know? Not—”
The secretary clears her throat and says, “Agent Diaz, Detective West and Sgt. Jones are expecting you. I’ll take you back to the conference room.”
“I got it, Gina,” Officer Dipshit says, his gaze locked on my chest.
He leads me to a hallway off the lobby area and walks beside me.
“So, ever been to Chicago before?” he asks, sipping coffee from a Styrofoam cup.
“I have, yes.”
“Did your husband come with you? Or your boyfriend…?”
Jesus, this guy is a real douchebag. I get hit on by cops often, but usually not so blatantly.
“I’m not married,” I say, forcibly keeping my temper in check.
“Right here,” he says, opening a conference room door. “And hey, I’m Chip Tamblin if you’re ever looking for someone to hang out with here.”
One of the men at the table, a tall Black man with a no-nonsense expression, glares at Chip as he stands up and walks over to me.
“Agent Diaz?” he says, offering me his hand to shake. “I’m Sgt. Doug Jones, great to meet you.” He looks over at Chip and says, “Get the fuck out of here, Tamblin.”
“Yes, sir.” Chip bows his head and closes the door.
“Sorry about that,” Doug says. “Kid’s a rookie with a lot to learn, but he’s a math whiz and believe it or not, he does good work—with supervision.”
“It’s no problem.” I shake his hand, liking him already.
“I’m Logan West,” the other guy at the table says, coming over to shake my hand as well. “We appreciate you coming to help work this case.”
“I’m glad you asked me to come.” I set my bag on the conference table and slide into a chair. “From what I read in the file during my flight, this could be a really big case.”
Logan nods. He’s about to sit back down when he pauses. “Can I get you some coffee? Water?”
“I’m good, thank you.” I look across the table to Sgt. Jones, who is taking his seat. “Are we waiting on anyone else before we get started?”
“We’ve got others coming later. This is Detective West’s case. I’m just here because I’m helping coordinate resources for him. Our Investigations Deputy Chief is in a budget meeting or he’d be here right now, but he’s been fully briefed. I thought we’d have Detective West get you up to speed on the case and then go from there.”
“Sounds good,” I say.
Logan seems to decide against sitting back down. He walks over to the big white board on the conference room wall.
“I think better when I can write,” he explains, picking up a dry erase marker. “We’ve been gathering intel on this guy for a few months now.”
He writes the name “Darren Shields” in neat block letters.
“Darren Shields is a billionaire who owns an investment company. He buys businesses, real estate, pretty much anything he thinks he can make money on. This guy is super connected, in Chicago and all over the world. He’s got politicians in his pocket and unlimited resources.”
I nod. “So you’re taking your time with him, building an airtight case.”
“Exactly.”
Logan is tall and lean, with short brown hair and blue eyes. He seems to have a good disposition for detective work. I can already tell he could answer just about any question I throw out about Darren Shields.
“Shields mostly moves between his apartments in Chicago, New York and London,” Logan continues, scrawling the names of each city on the board. “He also has a place in Hollywood that he rarely visits. And once or twice a month, he heads to his compound in Bermuda for a few days at a time.”
Logan circles “Bermuda” on the board and sets the marker down on the attached tray, putting his hands in the pockets of his suit pants.
“His Bermuda compound is the location of his sex trafficking operation,” he says. “Girls and boys as young as ten. We have very limited access to information about specifics, like how many.”
“So no CIs,” I surmise.
A confidential informant would probably