The Water Keeper(59)

“But why?”

“They wanted to know if she was being followed. And by whom. It’s why they let her make the call. They baited us. I never saw it coming, but I should have.”

She wrapped her arms tighter around my waist. She whispered, I think because the sound of the words hurt too much: “That’s bad, right?”

I didn’t sugarcoat it. “It’s not good.”

By leaving the way we did, we had convinced whoever was watching that we didn’t know about the phone. Given that, they’d probably hung up and chalked up the loss of an iPhone to necessary intel. But I knew we needed that phone. “Wait here.”

Summer grabbed my hand. “You coming back?”

I nodded.

“You promise?”

I laughed. “Unless . . .” I shined my light out across the water at nearly fifty pairs of eyes staring back at us. “One of them gets hungry.”

She climbed up on the bike and sat on her haunches.

I ran back for the phone, circling the tree from a distance. The light was off. Call disconnected. But the owner had still sent me a message. When I cut the duct tape, the vibration buzzed the phone on, waking the home screen. One text waited. I opened it, knowing it had been sent for me. It was direct and to the point. There was a picture of Angel. Taken over her shoulder as she sat lounging on a couch. Drink in hand. Sunglasses. Bikini. Whoever held the camera also held one end of the strap to her bikini. It draped over his finger, which was resting on her neck. She was laughing. Oblivious. The suggestion was clear. The text read, “Now accepting bids.”

I powered it off. Removed the SIM card and placed both in my pocket. I didn’t want them tracking me. I’d already been baited once. Didn’t want it to happen again.

We rode in silence back to the hotel. Over that hour, Summer didn’t say a word. One hand wrapped around my waist, while the other had climbed higher, inside my shirt and lying flat across my heart. Ever since Angel had left my chapel, the clock had been ticking. Now it was ticking much faster.

At the hotel, I scanned the phone’s contents. No surprise, it was empty. No videos. No pics. No apps. No history. It hadn’t been wiped; it simply hadn’t been used. It was a sacrificial phone. Probably one of many. The only data showed that the phone had called or been called by two numbers. Multiple times. Over the course of a week. Which meant the phone had had a one-week life span. Summer looked over my shoulder. “Any luck?”

I deliberated. The text and picture would not encourage her. They would worry her. A lot. But this was her daughter and she had a right to know what she was up against. I clicked on the text. The picture opened. Summer read the words, then chewed on her lip. She wanted to ask but didn’t, so I explained. “Somewhere on the black web, Angel has her own page. They’ve taken pictures, maybe movies. And they’ve started an auction.”

Summer stared at the picture.

“My guess is that they’ll give it a couple of days, then close the auction and arrange for transfer. Along with several other girls.”

Summer sat with her knees against her chest, chewing a fingernail.

I called Colorado and gave him the numbers. He called back five minutes later. Both numbers were no longer in service, telling me these guys were no amateurs. I already knew that. He also told me that the number tied to the SIM card was the same number Angel had last used to call me.

It was another message. And Angel had not sent it.





Chapter 26


My guess was that whoever was moving these girls had found a new yacht and would move them there for the last push down the IC toward Key West and parts south. Or they’d take off east out of Miami and cross forty-four miles of open water to Bimini—the gateway to the Bahamas. I doubted the latter, as the winds were too high. So I was betting on Key West.

But I also knew I was dealing with a captain who would think things through in the same way I had, and he was probably as savvy as me. Maybe more so. He might venture out into the open water just because he thought I thought he wouldn’t. We’d ventured into mind games here, and I knew it. He probably knew it too.

I was a batter trying to guess the next pitch. Never easy.

I stuck with my gut, which said Key West. It gave him more options. And I said none of this to Summer. We were in a bit of a lull before the storm. I knew he had to move his party onto another vessel. Probably a large vessel. Continue to service clients to pay for everything and continue to lure more and new clients through word of mouth. For the uber-wealthy, this entire world was little more than a game. These were not girls with faces and hearts and emotions and the desire to wear a white dress and press the face of their firstborn to their bosom.

This was flesh. Period. Nothing more.

This captain would keep his inventory available for sale all the way down the inside of the coast, using the Keys to protect him from the northeast winds. I was betting he would continue to post provocative videos and milk his current system for all it was worth, still taking on girls and monitoring his online auctions on the black web. Once he’d reached Key West, he’d dump his used inventory, sell his unused girls to the highest bidder or bidders, and fly out on a jet sipping champagne before moving his operation to some other coast in some other unsuspecting country.

The phone in the tree told him, I hoped, that he was dealing with a single individual or two. Not an agency. Which would probably embolden him. I’d seen it before. First sign of guns and badges and radios and tactical vests and night vision, and party’s over. Inventory sold in a flash sale to the highest bidder or dumped in international waters for sharks. But Summer and I had not shown him that. We’d shown him two people curious about a party. We looked small. Insignificant. Na?ve even. A couple of overeager parents or private investigators sent to take pictures. My guess was that he wasn’t too worried about us. Which was good. I didn’t want him worried. I wanted him comfortable. I wanted him doing business as usual. I wanted him cocky. I wanted him thinking about quadrupling his money.