Page 25 of Love Me Darkly
“Fuck this,” Mateo spat. “What kind of surveillance equipment do you have at the field office?”
Donovan frowned. “A camera with a telephoto lens and infrared, a few directional mics, and some night vision binoculars. Why?”
Mateo was already setting off down the alley. Donovan scrambled to catch up to him.
“Garcia, maybe we should talk about this.”
Mateo emerged from the alley and turned left after orienting himself. He snatched the priest’s collar from around his throat.
“Nothing to talk about. You’re going to go back to Solstice and pretend we didn’t have this conversation.”
“Let me help you.”
Mateo halted in his tracks, bringing the other man up short beside him. “No. You’re a promising young agent with a flawless jacket. I won’t let you jeopardize that.”
“And what about you?” Donovan challenged. “The SSA Garcia I read about doesn’t investigate like this. Your docket says you’re a by-the-book kind of guy. What’s a move like this going to cost you?”
Mateo shrugged Donovan’s hand off his shoulder. “This case has already cost me everything. Go back to Solstice. Meet me at the office at seven a.m. sharp.”
Without waiting for a reply, he continued on his way. The warnings of both Carlisle and Donovan nagged him all the way back to his hotel, but he ignored them. He had been sitting on his hands long enough. This was what he had been waiting for—a lead to track, a thread to pull, an instinct to follow. He had been at a standstill since Mari’s death, too numb with shock and grief to move forward. The lack of new evidence in the case had made him feel as if it might never end.
Now, he had what he needed to push on. He might not be able to see the end from here, but the path was clear. He wouldn’t be swayed.
Half an hour later, Mateo lay belly-down on the roof of a warehouse that had gone quiet and still for the night. From his vantage point and through the long-range camera he’d borrowed from the field office, he could clearly see what went on in the fenced-off yard behind Berenger Warehouse. He had arrived with only twenty minutes to spare after stopping off at his hotel room and then the field office. He had stripped out of his priest costume and put on another all-black get-up, this one more comfortable. He had left his credentials at the hotel, not wanting to reveal his identity if discovered, but wore his bureau-issue sidearm under his arm. He’d be damned if he was caught without protection.
He took the rental car he’d secured once it became clear he would be in New Orleans for more than a few days. Mateo had made a stop at the field office to fill his duffel bag with borrowed surveillance equipment. Before heading for the port, he had sent Darcy a quick text with Melody’s picture. She would still be up this time of night, on standby for bits of information from Jones and the surveillance team.
Need an ID on this waitress from Solstice. First name Melody. Age unknown. Lived in NOLA for a year. Info comes straight to me only.
The problem of Melody hadn’t completely left his thoughts, and he wanted to act on his intuition before he could change his mind again. That accomplished, he turned his mind to the task at hand. He couldn’t set foot on the warehouse property, but a few circles around the block had revealed several vantage points from which he could capture photos and video. Parking a mile away from the warehouse, he slunk through the shadows with his duffel slung over his shoulder, sticking close to the walls of the buildings. The security around these warehouses was pitiful, and Mateo only needed to climb a fence and dodge a nightguard before he could climb a set of steps from the outer side yard to the roof.
As he watched through the camera, four vans with blacked-out windows pulled into the rear yard of the Berenger Warehouse. A square shaft of light illuminated the shadows of men coming from within the warehouse, weapons drawn. Mateo zoomed in, snapping photos as the men approached the vans and swung open the back doors. More appeared from the fronts of the vans, but Mateo kept his eyes on the cargo. He estimated about forty to fifty women being coerced from the vans on unsteady legs. The long-range camera allowed him to get close, capturing faces. They were a mix of races and body types, and seemed to range in age from sixteen to twenty-five. Carlisle and the brass wouldn’t be able to ignore the physical state of these women. Most of them were filthy, smudged with substances he’d rather not guess at. Clothing was scarce, and what they did wear was eaten away by holes, and hanging or clinging with an ill fit. They all looked like they had been rolled through a dumpster.
Mateo set the camera aside and reached for another, this one for capturing video. He recorded footage of the men using the noses of their guns to prod the women into the warehouse. Another group of men appeared from within, pushing dollies loaded with wooden crates. Mateo zoomed in on the boxes, ensuring to capture what was written on the sides.
BAZ-024. Handle with Reverence.
He didn’t have time to make sense of what must be some kind of code. Darcy could help him make sense of it later. The handlers transferred the crates into the vans, managing them as if they contained short-fused dynamite. Mateo recorded a few more minutes of video before switching cameras again. He snapped photos of the license plates on the vans just before their drivers mounted up and drove off into the night. Then, he captured an image of Wilson and Morrison standing together near the open hatch of the warehouse, cigarette smoke billowing around them. Mateo hadn’t recognized Suede among the accomplices, but assumed the man had remained behind at the club. Not that it mattered. He was confident he had enough evidence to convince Carlisle to press for a warrant for a raid. Of course, by the time the raid could be conducted, Mateo fully expected the girls to have disappeared, but there was a chance they could find another piece of the puzzle. If nothing else, he could justify his earlier stance by presenting Carlisle with proof of what he’d already known to be true.
He moved quickly now that he had what he needed. The faster he got out of the area, the less his chances of being spotted. The sun wouldn’t come up for another couple of hours, and anyone seen lurking around the docks this late would surely be assumed to be up to no good. The last thing he needed was for some rent-a-cop to call attention to him. Duffle bag slung over his shoulder, he rushed down the stairs and went back over the fence. The darkness of the hours before dawn swallowed him as he set off toward where he’d parked his car.
It didn’t take long for him to detect the soft thump of footsteps behind him. He might not have heard them if not for the stillness and the darkness. Not only did he hear someone approaching; he felt them. Felt eyes stabbing through his back. Another sound—a click and then a sharp inhale, a cough.
He took a wrong turn on purpose to test the theory. Maybe it was just some homeless person seeking a place to sleep. But the footsteps followed, picking up speed as he ducked into an alley between warehouses. By now, he had walked too far away from Berenger. No security guard would trail him this far away from his post. Someone else was on his trail. Someone who might have spotted him on that roof.
With an annoyed sigh, Mateo slung his duffel between two overstuffed trash cans and turned to meet whoever was breathing down his neck. The alley had abruptly come to a dead end, leaving him nothing to do but fight his way out. His hand hovered over his sidearm, but he wouldn’t draw it yet. Gunshots would bring attention he didn’t need.
“First and only warning,” he growled at the shadowy figure converging on him. He could only make out broad, masculine shoulders and long legs, putting the man a few inches taller than Mateo. “Walk away.”
The man proceeded as if he hadn’t heard Mateo, his movements stilted and erratic. As he came closer, Mateo noticed that he spasmodically clenched and unclenched his fingers while convulsively ticking his head to one side and then the other. He frowned, uneasy as the shadow fell on him with a feral, canine growl. The heavy weight of the man’s body slammed into Mateo before he could react, throwing him to his back on the ground. He rolled away just before a booted foot could crush his head. The man spun to face Mateo as he rolled and bounced to his feet.
“Blood and breath,” he rasped. “Blood and breath, blood and breath…”
He faltered while finding his footing, the hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.
Blood and breath …
A tremor rocked Mateo and he grew sick to his stomach so fast he nearly doubled over. He had heard those words before, somewhere. But there wasn’t time to dwell on it, because the big brute chose that moment to advance, still chanting, “blood and breath.”
