Nowhere Pure, page 2
“It’s not going to work,” Kain said, staring out the window as the dark desert rolled by—sage shrubs in the foreground, sandstone mesas in the background, a flat and enduring landscape of red earth and stunted cacti and a withering heat that would come when day broke within just a few hours. For now, however, it was a gray world of undefinable shapes and slithering things.
Cole glanced into the rearview mirror, her eyes flinty as she studied the man. “What won’t work?”
“This whole charade you’ve got going. You snatch me out of bed in the middle of the night, lead me at knifepoint to your car and drive me out into the middle of nowhere …” He raised his eyebrows at her and shook his head, as if admiring her work. “I’ve gotta admit, you almost had me fooled.”
Cole returned her attention to the road and said nothing.
“But let’s be real here,” he continued, “this is all a scare tactic, a bluff. You’re not going to kill me if I don’t talk.”
Cole’s gaze flicked to the mirror again. “How about that blood on your neck?” she said, referring to the small cut she had made across his throat, a little incentive to get him moving when he had balked. “Does that look like a bluff?”
She had cut him by instinct more than anything else, afraid that if he got any bolder, then he might try to overpower her—and, considering how many of his friends were around at the time, Cole had known the tide could turn against her very quickly. She wouldn’t have hurt him further.
Or would she have? Had he tried to fight her, might she have done worse to him? Severing his carotid, as she had threatened to do, was out of the question—there wouldn’t be nearly enough time to interrogate him before he bled out, not to mention the difficulty he would have speaking.
But what about a stomach wound? Those could last a long time before leading to death, maybe even long enough for an ambulance to arrive.
If Cole wanted to save him, that was.
Is this who you are? she asked herself. A cold-blooded killer? Would murdering him really set anything right?
Kain, having no knowledge of the turn her thoughts had taken, merely snorted and returned his attention to the view outside his window. “So, where are we going, anyway?” he asked, changing the subject. “You have some kind of secret government facility out here?”
“Who says I work for the government?”
“The way you walk and talk, the way you dress. I know a Fed when I see one.”
Cole made no answer to this. As far as she was concerned, this information exchange was a one-way street. The more she kept him in the dark, the better.
She spotted a dead mesquite, gray as bone, and decided it would make as good a landmark as any. Parking beside it, she turned the engine off and stared out the windshield for a few seconds, steeling herself for what she was about to do.
No weakness, no hesitation. If you threaten him, you have to be ready to follow through, or else he won’t tell you a thing.
A chill ran through her as she imagined what she was about to do. She had questioned many suspects before, but never had she interrogated someone. This meant risking her reputation as well as her career, and she would not have taken such a risk had the stakes not been so high. But she knew there was a chance her sister was still alive, and Kain might be the only person in the world who could help Cole find her.
Cole stepped out of the truck and moved around to Kain’s door. She opened it and took a step back, waiting for him to climb out.
“You sure you want to do this?” he asked quietly.
In answer, she grabbed his arm and dragged him out. His legs got tangled, and he fell to the ground, landing on his chest in the red earth.
Cole knelt beside him, her voice a low murmur close to his ear. “Start talking.”
He turned his head to the side and spat dust from his mouth. “That would be a lot easier if I had some idea what you wanted me to talk about.”
“You know what you did.”
He laughed, resting his cheek on the ground as if it were an old friend. “I’ve done a lot of things in my life, sweetheart. Which one are you referring to?”
Cole took a calming breath and let it out slowly, steadying herself. “Trafficking.”
“Trafficking, trafficking …” Kain frowned. He lifted his head and grinned at her. “Yes, I think I’ve heard of it. Why? Are you looking to buy?”
Her hand whipped out before she could stop it, striking him across the cheek. “Quit playing games. I know you’re involved.”
“If you know so much, then what do you need from me? Are you looking for someone in particular?”
Cole glanced away, and Kain’s smile returned.
“Yes, that’s what this is,” he said. “You’re searching for someone who was trafficked—a young girl, probably, if we’re playing the odds.”
Cole swallowed hard and said nothing. A storm of emotions was raging in her breast, and she didn’t know whether she wanted to scream or put her gun to this man’s head and demand he tell her everything he knew. Maybe both.
Kain’s hawk-like eyes sharpened as he studied her. “But this isn’t just a run-of-the-mill federal investigation. You wouldn’t drag me all the way out here if you were just doing your job. No, this is personal.”
Cole turned on him, her eyes blazing. “Kelly Cole. I know Savage brought her to you. What did you do with her?” And to her? she thought but did not say.
“Kelly … Kelly …” Kain murmured. This time he seemed to be genuinely trying to remember, rather than putting on an act. Then, all at once, his eyes widened, and he shook his head in wonder.
“It all makes sense now,” he said.
“What makes sense? What are you talking about?”
“You. Why you’re looking for this girl after all these years. If your hair was lighter and you were a little skinnier, I might think I was talking to Kelly right now. She’s your sister, isn’t she?”
In answer, Cole drew her Glock 19 from the waistband of her jeans. She turned it left and right, examining it as if for the first time. Then she checked the magazine, confirmed it was loaded, and drove it home again.
“Now do you think I’m bluffing?” she asked quietly.
“Shit,” Kain muttered, lowering his head to the red earth and closing his eyes.
Moments passed. A tarantula skittered across the ground, pausing by one of the Jeep’s tires before disappearing beneath the vehicle’s shadowed underbelly. Cole breathed slowly, waiting for Kain to speak. She didn’t want to threaten him further because if he called her bluff again, she might do something she would later regret.
After a long time, Kain sighed heavily. “What do you want to know?”
Cole didn’t hesitate. “Where is she? Is my sister still alive?” She did not breathe, did not move. Her eyes bore into Kain’s face as if she could drill the answers out.
“I don’t know,” he said. “My job was to get her from point A to point B, that’s it. And I did it. After that …”
Cole’s nostrils flared as she listened to him. Was he telling the truth? She was used to being so calm, so in control of herself, but the tumult of emotions within her made it difficult to read him.
“But she was trafficked, wasn’t she?” she asked.
A pause. “Yes.”
“And Savage helped you?”
“I don’t know his real name. I don’t know any of their names, and they don’t know mine. That’s the way it works.”
The way Kain said this, making it sound as if he was just an ordinary joe doing his job, brought Cole’s anger to the surface again.
Breathe, she told herself. Don’t lose your cool, not now. You need to think clearly.
“Who did you hand Kelly off to?” she asked.
“I told you; I don’t know any names.”
“But you must have called him something. What did Savage call you?”
Kain hesitated, frowning. “He just knew my username.”
“What about when you saw him? You’re telling me he didn’t have a nickname for you?”
“We were careful. Our lives depended on it. Besides, it wasn’t like we were buddies. Ever hear the saying about how three people can keep a secret?”
“Only if two of them are dead,” Cole said, remembering the quote.
“That’s right. And learning more than I was supposed to know—it would have been a death sentence. So, I kept my mouth shut, played my small part, and the rest was out of my hands.”
Cole shook her head bitterly. “It wasn't out of your hands. You were one link in a chain, but one broken link is all it would have taken to stop my sister from being taken.”
Kain rested his face in the dirt and said nothing. Dawn was breaking in the east, and the first silver light—a harbinger of morning—poured like water over the bleak landscape. It should have been beautiful, signaling the hope of a new day, but for Cole, it simply made her feel as if time was slipping through her fingers like sand.
I can’t keep him out here forever, she thought, feeling suddenly hollow. Him admitting he helped traffic Kelly validates my suspicions, but is that what I came out here for? To hear someone tell me I was on the right track?
Despite what Kain had confessed, Cole was no closer to finding her sister than before. She had no leads and no actionable intelligence. And if Kain was telling the truth about his ignorance of the other individuals involved in the trafficking ring, what more could she expect to learn from him?
Kain shifted, squirming like a worm on the hard ground. “Can I get up now?” he asked, sounding uncomfortable. “These rocks are digging into my chest.”
“You’re lying,” Cole said quietly. “You know more than you’re letting on.” She crouched beside him, the weight of the gun heavy in her hand. “Who did you hand Kelly off to?”
He sighed, exasperated. “I told you; I don’t—”
“Bullshit. You must know something—a name, a number, an address where you met up.”
“We’re talking about something that happened almost twenty years ago. The details are all fuzzy by now.”
“Fuzzy,” Cole repeated, nodding her head. She rose, took a few steps back, and stared into the distance, deciding what to do. With every bone in her body, she was convinced that Kain was lying to her, withholding information he knew she was after. But how was she supposed to convince him to open up? He knew she had no authority from the DA to offer a deal, since it was clear she had gone rogue. And any other promises she might make—to let him go free, for instance—would simply not be believable.
She had spent enough time studying counter-terrorism tactics to know a few methods for coercing a suspect into talking (waterboarding, for instance), but she had never made use of these methods before, and she did not intend to do so now. It was not the legality of the issue that bothered her so much as the morality.
If she tortured this man to get the information that she needed, then wasn’t she just stooping to his level—playing the game by his rules instead of her own?
Kain lifted his head, looking like a child making his first attempts at crawling. “Are you going to help me up or what?”
Coming to a decision, Cole returned the gun to her waistband and grabbed Kain’s arm, pulling him to his feet. She opened the rear passenger door of the Jeep and pushed him back inside.
“I knew it was a bluff,” Kain scoffed as Cole climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. “Unfortunately for you, sweetheart, this ain’t my first rodeo.”
“It’s not my first one, either,” Cole said quietly as she shifted the vehicle into drive. “Not by a long shot.”
Kain stared out the window, his head bobbing side to side with the motion of the Jeep as it navigated the uneven ground. “So, what happens now? Catch and release?”
“Now,” Cole said, her eyes as hard as flint, “I take you in. You can lie all you want, but sooner or later, you will talk to me. And that, I assure you, is not a bluff.”
CHAPTER TWO
Cole was helping Kain back out of the Jeep once again when she heard a voice behind her call her name. She turned around, heart beating hard, certain that someone had figured out what she’d been up to.
“Who’s your new friend?” her partner, Anthony Callaway, said as he adjusted his Stetson, tipping it back so that the early morning sunlight cut across the lower half of his face, revealing the stubble around his mouth but keeping his emerald eyes in shadow, twinkling like gemstones in a quarry.
“Meet Rufus Kain,” she said, speaking quickly before Kain could say anything. “Picked him up in connection with a human trafficking case I’ve been keeping tabs on.”
Callaway nodded, his eyes studying Kain with interest. “You don’t believe in time off, do you?” he asked Cole.
She grunted as she pushed Kain forward. “Not if I can help it.”
She led Kain up the steps to the FBI’s Santa Fe field office, a blocky, concrete structure built like a bunker. Callaway matched her stride, trotting lightly up the stairs despite being over six feet tall and well over two hundred pounds.
“You’ve got good timing,” Callaway said. “Boss just called me in.”
“New case?” Cole asked, studying Callaway’s face for suspicion and seeing none.
Callaway nodded. “That’s right. And believe me, you’re gonna like this one. I know how much you enjoy exploring dark places.”
Cole gave her partner a puzzled glance as he held the door open so that she could usher Kain through. He merely winked at her and said nothing.
He seems to be in a good mood today, Cole thought. This surprised her, considering how their last case had ended. She and Callaway had been through a lot together since her move from Massachusetts to New Mexico, starting out as polar opposites whose personalities rubbed one another the wrong way, then developing a grudging respect, before finally becoming something like friends.
If their relationship had plateaued there, Cole would have been happy, but Callaway had pushed for something more, despite her commitment to her boyfriend, Bryce. She had turned him down, despite her conflicting emotions, and he had responded by withdrawing and giving her the cold shoulder.
Now, however, he seemed more open, as if he had forgotten that unfortunate episode in their partnership. Had he really moved on, or was he just pretending for the sake of professionalism?
Either way, whatever the reasoning behind Callaway’s behavior, Cole was relieved to not feel as if they were on opposite teams.
Setting aside these thoughts, Cole led Kain to booking, where she handed him over to a middle-aged man with close-cropped, blond hair who would fingerprint Kain, take his mugshot, record his personal information, search him, and eventually deposit him in one of the holding rooms, where Cole could find him later when she was ready to question him again.
“What’s the nature of the crime?” the agent asked Cole, his fingers on a keyboard.
“Suspicion of human trafficking,” Cole said.
As the agent entered this information into the computer, Kain turned toward Callaway.
“She’s lying,” he said in a low voice. “This is about her sister, Kelly. Threatened to shoot me if I didn’t tell her what she wanted to know.”
Callaway raised his eyebrows at Cole. “Is that true?”
Cole shrugged one shoulder, trying to act nonchalant even though her heart was hammering inside her chest. “I don’t recall using those words.”
If Newbury found out what Cole had done, there was no telling what the consequences would be. At the very least, she would get a stern warning reminding her of the standards of professional conduct to which all FBI agents were held accountable. More than likely, however, she would be suspended for not bringing the matter to his attention.
“Then it’s not much of a threat, is it?” Callaway said. “Sounds like hearsay to me.”
Kain began to protest, but Callaway pushed him forward, handing him over to a burly agent standing nearby. “Keep an eye on this fellow, will you?” Callaway asked the agent. “Cole and I have a meeting with the boss.”
The agent nodded, clamping a hand on Kain’s arm. A cold, hateful light filled Kain’s eyes as he watched Cole and Callaway leave the room.
Good, Cole thought, relieved to no longer be responsible for Kain, at least for the moment. Let him stew. And when he’s good and ready, I’ll come back.
As Cole and Callaway walked down the long, carpeted hall, Cole bit her lip, trying to make sense of Callaway’s discretion.
“Listen,” she began, “about what that guy said—”
“Don’t mention it,” Callaway said with a wave of his hand. “What you do on your own time is your own business. Just don’t get yourself killed, alright?”
His response surprised Cole. Not that long ago, it seemed, he had worried that she might color outside the lines, as she had done earlier in her career, searching a van without a warrant in order to confirm the identity of a serial killer—a decision that, though successful, had led to her suspension and eventual transfer to Santa Fe.
Why, all of a sudden, was he not concerned she might do something similar now? Was it because this was not a shared case, and so he would not be held responsible for anything she did? Or was it possible he trusted her more than he had before?
Cole was still pondering this when they reached Newbury’s office. Callaway, ever the gentleman, opened the door and held it for Cole, who entered.
“There you are,” Newbury said, tapping away at his computer without glancing up. “I was about to send out a search party.”
“Must’ve had my phone on silent,” Cole said, realizing that she had set it to silent while sneaking into the house where she found Rufus Kain. She had forgotten to change the setting afterward.
Now, checking it for the first time that morning, she noticed she did indeed have several missed calls from the Bureau chief. If he was genuinely annoyed at her unavailability, however, his face did not show it.
