School of Fish (Fish Out of Water #6) - Amy Lane Page 0,40
property. He had contacts who were supposed to keep Tage safe, so where did he get those bruises?”
Herrera blinked. “Okay, so we’ve got a terrified kid who may or may not have decapitated—”
“His brother and sister have been kidnapped and trafficked,” Jackson said bluntly. Those were the words on the legal pad. Kids sold. “We’ve got a name—one I have to run—and contacts I need to talk to. We have a place to start, but none of it is any good if that kid doesn’t make it through the night. And even if we get him off scot-free, the odds of him being safe until we get these people arrested and in prison are not great. But he’d rather be gunned down in the street than killed in his cell, Ms. Herrera. Trust me.”
“Do you have a suspect for this killing at least?” Herrera asked. “I can’t go to my boss with nothing.”
Jackson pulled his phone. “This kid. Sergio Ivanov. Police just issued a BOLO for him in the matter of Sean Kryzynski, the police detective who was knifed outside our office after trying to steal this exact file,” Jackson told her. “Did Ellery tell you that?”
Herrera shook her head. “No. Are you sure it’s this one?”
“Well, someone stormed the damned public defender’s office this morning, looking for a file that was going to us. We had a choice between two files, but the other one led to this one, so I’m pretty sure this one’s it.”
“What’s the other one?”
Jackson shook his head. “Nope.”
“Nope?” Herrera laughed, a little shocked. “You can’t withhold evi—”
“This kid’s a target, Siren, and he might not make it through the night. That other guy in the folder is not. And he won’t be unless—”
“Unless someone hears his name,” she muttered, proving she wasn’t stupid.
“It’s a matter of trust,” Jackson said. His eyes darted outside, where Ellery and the guard had disappeared, Tage between them. “We trust that you’re going to do your best to keep that kid alive. You need to trust us that we’re not going to let a killer go free.”
She squeezed her eyes shut. “He probably weighs 110 pounds,” she muttered. “He… he doesn’t belong here.”
A tiny part of Jackson relaxed. “Then let’s work to get him out.”
She nodded. “Human trafficking. This is such bad news.”
“You are telling me. God, how are we going to get those kids?”
She scowled at him. “Two kids? That’s all you’re worried about? Two kids?”
“No. I’m worried about all of them, dammit, but these two kids I know, and these two kids I can do something about. You tell me how I fix the whole damned world and I’ll do it. But I can’t. Two kids. What used to be a happy family.” He breathed harshly against the tightness in his throat. “Sometimes that’s where we have to start.”
“Do we even know the names of these kids? There’s nothing in the police report.” Herrera closed her eyes wearily. Jackson knew Ellery’s hours; he was pretty sure Herrera’s were comparable. Ten-hour days and work on the weekends. Welcome to the glamorous life of the ADA.
“Sophie and Max,” Jackson said, remembering the way Tage had played with them, teasing them, giving them things to do to make their cousin Sascha feel like moving into Jackson’s old duplex was a cause for celebration. “Their family is pretty tight. Tage’s not going to say a word until he knows they’re safe.”
Herrera nodded. “They lie to us, you know.”
Jackson looked at her quizzically. “Who lies? About what?”
“We’re told that the people who come through those doors into the jail usually have no family, are abusers, nobody will miss them. And some of them—” She shook her head and shuddered.
“Some of them really are monsters,” Jackson agreed. He’d seen the psychopaths, the conscienceless, the abusers, the monsters. One or two of them had been cops, but by no means all of them.
“They are indeed,” she murmured, and then, echoing his thought to the word. “But not all of them.”
Jackson thought of that kid, his narrow shoulders, the fragile way he’d held his jaw. “No,” he said gruffly. “That’s why we’re here.”
She nodded and gave him a grim smile. “It’s easy to forget that.” They both saw Ellery through the wire-embedded glass, stopping to talk to the guard by his side, and Jackson stood and gave in to the urge to stretch and yawn.
“Long day?” she asked.
Jackson shrugged. “First day back.”
“From vacation?”
Jackson blinked at her. Sometimes he had to remind himself that not everybody