Page 67 of Blood Revealed

Shit.

“What now?” I’m pissed and worried, but getting excited. “How does he relate to Escalante?”

“Moreno is the nephew of one EduardoJuárez.”

Juárez? Like that doesn’t raise eyebrows. He’s a known associate of Escalante. “There it is,” I reply.

“Juárez has an estate in Bell County, man.”

“Give it to me,” I order. Finding out the man put down roots in Kentucky sickens me. His is the last kind of trouble we need around here.

We type the address of Eduardo Juárez into GPS on his cruiser and follow it the hour and a half until we reach a large estate. When I say large, I mean the paved drive runs at least a half an acre before it reaches the three-story blond brick home. Expensive wood trim. Several barns and stables on the property, all painted burgundy.

We stop at the front gate, ornately decorated with wrought-iron leaves and flowers painted gold. The gate is connected to a large twelve-foot wrought-iron fence that seems to go around the entirety of the property.

Tommy’s constricted by the law. He makes a call to the Bell County Sheriff’s Department. I have no such restrictions. We move past the entrance because there are cameras at the gate, which means there are others where we can’t see. And when he stops, I slip out. He keeps going, pulling a three-point U-turn, and heads back to where he’s going to meet the Bell County Sheriff.

I climb the wrought-iron fencing. The rough metal burns my hands, but they’re so callused that it won’t do much damage. I twist to flip my legs over the pointed arrows the way a pole vaulter flips over the bar, only with much less finesse, and drop down inside on the property.

There’s an expansive field between the fence and the house that I have to get through. Sneak’s our man when we need to go in and not be seen. I’m usually the man sniffing out the trails, but today I’ll do my best to not be seen.

Something’s not right; I feel it in my gut. Stooping low, I make for the treeline that surrounds the field. The new path takes me out of the way, but it’s the only way I can think of to get me to the house without being seen, considering the size of this property. I don’t know what I’m dealing with, and I’m going in alone.

The first thing I come up to is an entrance off the back of one of the horse stables. They’re expensive, good quality. Somebody certainly likes burgundy and gold. They’ve used enough of it around the property. I check the doorknob, turning it slowly to make as little noise as possible. When it pops, and the door creaks open, I sneak inside. What anyone expects to see in a stable is horses. Not here. The stalls are much smaller, and from looking at the debris left over—trays with crusting food, utensils, and torn clothing—I realize that people were kept in here.

Fuck me.

Trafficking? Right under our fucking noses.

I check each stall to make sure they’re all empty. It looks like the place was recently liquidated—goddammit.

From there, I leave out the back of the stable and make my way to the four others located on the property. They’ve all been liquidated. I need to get inside that house. At the rear of the home, I find what I’m looking for. The French doors off a massive stone patio surrounded by a lagoon swimming pool and waterfall provide the perfect entry spot. I use a lockpick that I pull from my back pocket—yeah, I keep one on me at all times; you never know when it might come in handy—and go at the back door, letting myself inside.

Somebody lives here, but there’s no one home. No alarm for me to disarm. Which is odd because you’d at least expect to see some sort of servant, some sort of life happening.

I search the first floor until I find a locked door. Picking that lock, I walk into an office. Sitting on the desk in front of a stained-glass window, a computer. Right. These are usually passcode protected. To not leave any fingerprints of my own, I use my sleeve to turn the machine on. And just as I feared, a passcode prompt pops up.

Think. Think. An idea comes to me and I run from the office checking for some kind of supply closet where cleaning supplies are kept. In the back of the home I find exactly what I’m looking for. One shelf holds cleaning supplies. Another holds small open bins. And yet another holds trays. I dump out each bin and tray frantically searching for superglue. Everyone has superglue in their house somewhere. The last tray has several glue products, including superglue.

I grab a spray bottle containing some sort of blue cleaning product and run back to the kitchen. There, I dump the blue liquid out and fill the bottle with maybe a half an inch of water. Then I cut off the superglue tip and squeeze it into the water. The water keeps the glue from drying too quickly. From there, I run back into the office and mist the keypad with the water-glue mixture. Then I pick up the keyboard and walk to one of the regular windows. I spend the next five minutes attempting to find the correct angle to hopefully see any fingerprints the glue might have stuck to. It’s always a long shot, but it’s what I have to work with.

Paydirt. The passcode is four numbers, but there appear to be five highlighted by the glue. It might not mean these are the passcode numbers, but they’re the numbers most touched. I shoot a little prayer to the universe and type in the first combination. It doesn’t work.

I try a second combination. Again, nothing. But an alert pops up on the screen. One try left. If I don’t get it right this time, I’m screwed. I take a deep breath, let it out slowly and type the final combination—what I hope to all that’s holy is the correct combination. To my utter shock, a screen pops up. I click on the desktop’s email icon, opening up his emails to see he’s been in contact with not only a man who goes by the name Sanchez, but C. Escalante, himself. Short messages like: Shipment sent. Car procured. Plane waiting.

Shipment sent? Could that mean Hannah or the people imprisoned here? Plane waiting? That means he must have an airport close by.

Without the time to read them all, I print off the emails to read later. They might contain useful information. Then I close the computer down and get the hell out of there. I take the same route along the treeline back to the fence, where I climb over and wait on the public side for Tommy to pick me up. He doesn’t make me wait long. As I slide inside the cruiser, I shove the papers his way.

“Fuckme,” Tommy says, running a hand through his short-cropped hair as he reads the printouts. Yeah, this shit just got real, and it’d already been fucking real.

The private airfield has to be close. We just have to find it.

As we’re rolling away the Bell County Sheriff’s Department shows up. Tommy’s obligated to stop and fill them in on what’s been happening in their county, what we’ve found, well, except for the illegal parts. I suppose they have to get a warrant to search the place. Tommy and I leave that portion in their capable hands, taking off to search out an airstrip.

Another fifteen minutes of searching the surrounding property passes before we roll up on what looks to be the landing field.

Tommy and I go in lights and siren blazing. While he makes it look official, I slip from the vehicle, hoping to go in unseen. She’s already gone. There’s no plane in the open hangar, though Eduardo Juarez left a man in the air traffic control tower and as quiet as I can, hopefully with his eyes on Tommy, I slip inside.

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