Page 25 of Huck Frasier
Because if she thought I was going to let her walk into danger alone…
She didn’t know me at all.
18
Marley
Tucson, Arizona – 8:42 PM
The desert heat didn’t let up after sunset. It clung to everything—my skin, my lungs, my nerves.
I parked the rental car on a side street near an abandoned convenience store. The place looked like it had been swallowed by the sand and spit. Cracked windows. Burned signage. Graffiti in Spanish and English.
Exactly the kind of place you’d meet someone when you didn’t want to be seen.
My contact was supposed to be a woman named Reina. Said she worked for a local non-profit that tracked missing kids—mostly migrants. She’d reached out through back channels two days ago. Claimed she had proof a trafficking ring was operating near the border. Said the cops were compromised.
I believed her.
Because I remembered the last raid. The look in that little girl’s eyes when we pulled her out of a locked trailer.
This was real.
I wore jeans, a faded T-shirt, and kept a switchblade in my back pocket—not exactly regulation, but this wasn’t regulation work. my gun was in a holster, and I knew how to use it.
I waited. Watched. The street was too quiet. A single streetlight buzzed overhead, casting shadows across broken pavement.
8:45.
8:50.
Where the hell was Reina?
A door creaked open to my left.
A woman stepped out of the shadows. Long dark braid. Loose clothes. Face half-hidden in the dim light.
“You Marley?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
“You came alone?”
“Of course.”
She gave a slow nod. “Good. Come with me. We need to move.”
Something about her voice was off. Not the words—but the way she said them. Clipped. Flat. Like she was reading lines. Like she had no feelings about the children she claimed to save.
I didn’t move. “Where’s Reina?”
“She couldn’t make it.”
My stomach went tight.
She was lying.
I took a step back, casual, like I was adjusting my weight. “And who are you?”
