Page 27 of Heal
Beau closed his eyes, resting his head back on the couch, wishing he could get another hour or two of sleep. He was exhausted. After working a busy shift all night, he'd spent the day making rounds and visiting with Lisa and Jeff. Luckily, he had tonight off. He just needed to make it through this last meeting with the STK team.
Of course, everyone was late.
He kept his eyes closed as he thought about everything. Lisa and Jeff had pulled two photos out of the hundreds they had looked through. He had them with him so that he could let Bryon get copies, and then he was meeting with Parson after to let him know what the kids had found.
As hard as he tried to meet up with Parson earlier, they'd both been busy. It wasn't that he minded an evening meet with Parson, but he really wanted nothing more than to go home and crawl back into bed.
"Beau!" The couch rocked at the same time he heard Faith call his name.
"Faith!" He opened his eyes as he called her name out in the same loud tone she'd said his with.
"Wake up." She pushed his arm.
"I'm awake." He grinned. "Now."
She smiled, pleased with herself. "Look what Xander got me." She shoved a book onto his lap.
He glanced down and read the title, raising a brow as he looked back up and narrowed his eyes at Xander who now sat across from him. "I didn't read this until I'd already finished medical school. Don't you think it's a bit much so soon?"
Faith jabbed him in the side. "I asked for it. It's on the list of top ten books medical students must read."
Beau pressed his lips together, trying to remind himself that Faith wasn't an average child, but even then, he'd much rather see her reading some fantasy novel, anything that wouldn't have her growing up any faster than she already was.
Matt sat down beside Xander. "I keep telling her to focus on being a teenager first, but she's determined to focus on this stuff."
Beau wrapped his arm around Faith. "I'm proud of you, but don't grow up too fast. There's a lot of stress in the world you don't need to worry about right now."
"I know. I just want to be ready. I want to be the best I can be." Faith took the book from him.
"I know you do, and you will. I'm proud of you." He kissed the top of her head.
"Faith, do you mind waiting downstairs?" Bryon took a seat.
"How old do I have to be before I get to stay?" Faith stood and walked off without waiting for an answer.
"Thanks for coming in on such short notice." Bryon glanced around the room once Faith was gone.
Beau looked around also, smiling at Xander and Matt before nodding to Noam and Kasey. Dyson leaned against the wall, while Becca sat on the floor beside Bryon's chair. Carter and Trenton both stood off to the side, as if they didn't want to get too far from the room down the hallway where they had their computers set up.
"I wanted to let you know that we've found a pedophile ring working out of Arizona and have decided to go rescue the kids there. Only six men and about five kids, but it's one of the nastier rings we've seen. We'll be headed out this weekend to take care of that. Carter will be in charge here until we're back if you need anything." Bryon glanced over at Carter.
Beau hated when the team traveled out of town for things. It meant he couldn't be there. If something went wrong, the guys either had to take care of it themselves or go to the hospital, which put the whole team at risk depending on the injury.
Becca handed Bryon a stack of papers. "Priors on the three men you've identified already. I ran the search as deep as I could."
Noam sat up straighter. "Do you need me to check anything?"
With his police connections, Noam was a great resource, but there wasn't much that Matt, Carter, and Trenton couldn't hack into. Carter had been one of the government's top hackers before coming to work for the team instead.
"I think we're good on this one. It's a secluded area near the southern border of Arizona. Should be easy in and easy out. The kids look like immigrants, probably taken from their parents after they helped them cross the border illegally. We won't know for sure until we get there." Bryon glanced over at him. "Beau, you had something?"
"Yeah, I've been working with the kids brought in from the foster home. They alerted me to parties that would go on where other foster kids are all brought to one location and then used as entertainment. They said a lot of the time they are filmed. I've asked the kids to look at photographs of other foster kids to see if we can identify who they are. It's slow going with so many kids in the system, but so far they've found two." He handed the photos and information to Bryon. "I'm meeting with my CPS source tonight to see what he can find out. Ideally, I'd like to see the team go in and handle this, but if you're going to be away over the weekend, then it might be better to remove the kids through CPS and deal with the adults when you get back. I'm not even sure CPS can act fast without hard proof, but I don't want the kids there any longer than they have to be."
"You trust your source from CPS?" Dyson asked.
"Yeah, I do. I don't know him well, but from what I do know, and from the way he talks, he'll do whatever it takes to protect the kids. He's got to follow protocol though, and that might be an issue."
"If we can find evidence that these kids are the ones being abused, then we can go in before we leave later this week," Xander said.
