Dangerous Passage (Southern Crimes Book #1): A Novel (22 page)

“Yes. Just worried that we don’t have enough evidence to keep her.”

Jackson’s phone rang. He put the car back into Park and took the call.

A moment later, he turned to Avery. “I might have the evidence you need.”

“What is it?”

“The lab. Our CSU guys found blood on what they believe is the murder weapon from the Sourn house. They want me to come in and see if I can match it to our victim.”

A
very entered the precinct, needing to hear Mitch’s loud voice spouting off some stupid bit of trivia or a witty Marvel quote.

Apparently you really are the one with the knack for getting into trouble, Mitch.

A dose of Tylenol had taken the edge off her headache, but had done little to ease the roller coaster of emotions as the reality of her partner’s death began to close in around her.

Carlos and Tory sat at their desks, working silently, while Avery stood in the middle of the room for a moment, searching for something to say. Anything that might help ease the haunting reality of what had happened.

Tory spoke first. “Hey. The captain called us in, but I thought you were supposed to be off until tomorrow morning resting.”

She caught the concern in Tory’s eyes, the same worry she’d seen in her father’s and Jackson’s eyes, but being back at the station had only proved to remind her that she wanted—needed—to be here working this case. “The captain wants me to be in on the interview with Mrs. Sourn.”

Tory dropped her pen onto her desk. “How are you feeling?”

Avery fought back the tears. “Like something’s missing. I’m ready for Mitch to walk through that door and say something crazy that makes me laugh.”

Carlos let out a low chuckle. “He was always good for a laugh.”

She studied Mitch’s empty desk. An unfinished pile of reports lay stacked haphazardly on the edge. The dirty Spider-Man mug with a coffee ring around the top sat beside the computer keyboard. In front of it was the half-empty glass jar of Milk Duds he kept especially for her. Nothing here had changed since the moment he walked out of this office the last time.

For the rest of them, everything had changed.

Tory pushed her chair back from her desk a couple of inches and pressed her palms against her thighs. “Avery?”

Avery tried to ignore the lump swelling in her throat. It was either that or start crying again. “I’m just trying to process the fact that he’s really gone.”

“We . . . we all are.” Carlos’s voice broke. “Have they settled on a date for the funeral?”

“Yeah, I talked to Kayleigh this morning. It’ll be Wednesday morning, in order to give family time to get here. My father will deliver the eulogy.”

Tory shook her head. “I hate funerals. They always make me wonder why we don’t say all those nice things to people while they’re still alive.”

“You’re right, you know. It’s too easy to take each other for granted.” It was hitting each of them differently, but it was up to her to keep them focused. “We were . . . we are a good team. And if Mitch were here, he’d want me to tell you both that.”

“And he would want us to close this case before anyone else died,” Tory added.

Carlos stared at Mitch’s desk. “He’d tell us that there’s a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes
us noble. And finally gets us to die with pride. May Parker.
Spider-Man 2
.”

The quote struck a chord. Honest, strong, and a hero. Mitch had been all those things. “I guess Mitch rubbed off on us more than I realized.”

Movement in the doorway caught Avery’s attention. The ache threatening to engulf her morphed into irritation. “Mason?”

“The captain called me in.” Mason walked slowly into the room, as if he knew he was stepping into enemy territory. “Listen, I haven’t had the chance to tell you how sorry I am about Mitch’s death. I know that all of you were close.”

Just like you and my brother used to be.

She squelched the thought.

She dug for a grain of forgiveness, but came up lacking. Sometimes it was just so hard. “It’s going to take some time to realize that he’s really not coming back.”

“And,” he continued, “I know that you’re only letting me work with you on this case because of Captain Peterson’s orders, but I really think I can help.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Carlos and I were planning to go get some coffee.” Tory signaled to Carlos. “Can we get either of you anything?”

“I’m fine.” Avery nodded her thanks. No matter what she thought about the situation, she was going to have to include Mason in the investigation. But before they got started, there were things that needed to be said.

Tory looked at Mason.

“I’m good. Thanks.”

Avery waited until Carlos and Tory left the room. “I guess it’s time we attempted to clear the air between us.”

“Your feelings toward me since Michael’s death have never been a secret, and I’m going to assume that nothing has changed in the past twenty-four hours. So let’s get it out in
the open. Ask me whatever you want, and I’ll give you an honest answer.”

“Okay. Let’s start with why you were working undercover in the Sourns’ business, and what you know that might help my case.”

“I was working on the case in conjunction with an ongoing FBI investigation.” Mason caught her gaze. “We were looking for evidence that would bring down a major arms network working primarily out of Asia and the Middle East that we believe has connections to Sourn’s business. My role as an undercover employee was to tape conversations, track the guns, collect whatever evidence I could, and eventually help to take down as many as we could.”

Operation Stronghold.

She’d spent a couple hours last night going over the files and reports she had, but she needed to hear things from Mason firsthand. “What were you doing at the warehouse yesterday?”

“We found out that there was a shipment of illegal weapons going out, and I was able to arrange to be one of the drivers. Two million dollars in M-16s, handguns, and ammo from India and headed for Mexico. I was planning to make the run in order to take down both the sellers and the buyers.”

“Why were the guns loaded?”

“An associate of the buyer showed up unexpectedly to inspect the guns to ensure that his boss was getting what was agreed on. He was in the process of doing that when you arrived. If I had known a raid was being planned . . .”

So Mitch’s death was reduced to nothing more than a series of unfortunate events?

Avery leaned back against her desk. Trust was something earned. Forgiveness a messy process. But what if everything about Mason’s story added up? What if she’d been wrong about what happened at the warehouse and Michael’s death?

For now, she had no choice but to shove the lingering doubts aside. Mitch was dead, and they had a job to do.

“As for Sourn,” Mason continued, “I’ve spent the past few months getting to know the players and getting them to trust me. I know who’s involved, which means you need me as much as I need you. We have a chance to take down this entire network if we work together.”

“What do you know about what’s happening right now?”

“A couple of hours ago, two uniforms pulled Mrs. Sourn over for speeding, about a hundred and twenty miles northeast of Atlanta on I-85 toward Charlotte. They realized that there was a BOLO out on her and brought her in.”

“Why was she heading for Charlotte?”

“She hasn’t said. She insisted on speaking to her lawyer first.”

“She could have been planning to meet her husband, or maybe just trying to get across state lines.”

Carlos and Tory stepped back into the office, coffee in hand.

Avery fought the nagging frustration gnawing in her gut. “The four of us are going to have to work together if we’re going to bring down Sourn and his people. Tory, I need you to try to track down any land or property belonging to the Sourns or their company.”

“I’m on it.”

“Carlos, what about the forensic evidence from the searches of the Sourns’ property? As of this moment, I’m walking in there with little or no solid evidence that will tie Mrs. Sourn to the crime. Follow up with the lab and see if you can get us some leverage—”

“I might have something.” Tory sat back down at her desk and clicked on a file. “When you came in, I was digging through some of the city’s surveillance videos. I’ve been waiting to hear back from a contact.”

Tory printed out something, then handed Avery a black-and-white photo. “This was taken Monday morning just after two.”

“This just might do it.” Avery smiled and stuck the photo into her file before heading toward the door. “Let me know if you hear from forensics. And in the meantime, we’ll hope this gives us the leverage we need to gain a confession.”

Avery walked toward the interrogation room with Mason, wondering how she’d come to the place where she was working a case with a man she’d been trying to convict for the past few months.

Mason strode down the hallway beside her. “I hope you know that I want to take down Sourn as badly as you do.”

Avery stopped to face him. “Why?”

“Because while I’ve been working undercover, I’ve seen what this man is involved in. You’ve got a dead girl, and a dead partner. Robert Sourn has figured out how to skirt the law, and up until now, no one has ever been able to gather enough evidence to convict him.”

Avery gauged his expression. “This is personal somehow, isn’t it?”

“I had a little brother killed in a drive-by with an illegal weapon. He was seven years old. They found the gun but never found out who pulled the trigger.”

“I don’t ever remember you talking about that.”

“It was a long time ago.”

Whatever she thought about him on a personal level couldn’t erase the reality that she understood the pain he felt. “I’m sorry.”

“Like I said, it was a long time ago, but even so, that doesn’t change the fact that men like Sourn have to be taken off the streets. Too many people have already been hurt.”

“Then let’s do whatever it takes to put this guy behind bars.”

Avery’s phone rang as she started walking again. She checked
the caller ID. “Jackson. Hey, I hope you’ve got something for me, because I’m headed into an interview with Mrs. Sourn.”

“I’ve got exactly what you’re looking for.”

She stopped in front of the interrogation room door and waited for him to continue.

“A match on your murder weapon.”

A
very dropped the file folder onto the table, then sat down across from Mrs. Sourn. They might have done this once before, but this time things were going to turn out differently.

“Before you begin, Detective, my client doesn’t have anything to say.”

Avery ignored the lawyer’s sour face and focused on Mrs. Sourn, who clearly hadn’t slept much in the past twenty-four hours. “Then this won’t take long, will it?”

The shadows under her eyes had deepened, and her hair was disheveled on one side. Even the belted, plaid dress she wore looked wilted.

“I just have a couple of questions I need to ask you, Mrs. Sourn. Where were you going this morning?”

Mrs. Sourn clasped the handle of her purse in her lap and avoided making eye contact. “I needed to get away for a while, so I decided to go for a drive.”

“You were pretty far from home for a Sunday morning drive. Did your husband tell you to leave town?”

“No.” Mrs. Sourn sat still, her fingers slowly clenching and unclenching the leather straps of the purse.

“Can you tell me where your husband is right now?”

“I’m . . . I’m not sure. He’s working.”

“Is it common for you to not know where he is?”

“He’s had a lot of things going on these past few months, as we are in the middle of expanding our business. I can’t keep track of everything he does.”

“Detective,” Mr. Blackburn broke in, “I’ve tried my best to be patient, but I’m not sure I know what we are doing here. I thought the last time we met we made it clear that my clients are the victims in this investigation.”

“You did make it clear, Mr. Blackburn, but in case you were not aware, there is a warrant out for the arrest of Robert Sourn for the kidnapping of a young woman yesterday morning, and for using his business as a means for arms trafficking.”

“I am aware of the charges that have been brought against my client, but unfortunately, like Mrs. Sourn, I have no idea where he is.”

“I—”

Mr. Blackburn held up his hand for Mrs. Sourn to be quiet. “Do you have any evidence that Mrs. Sourn was involved in any of the aforementioned crimes, Detective North?”

“Right now, I simply need a couple of inconsistencies clarified by Mrs. Sourn.” Avery turned back to the older woman. “Starting with last Monday morning. You told us that between one and four, you and your husband were home asleep, isn’t that right?”

Mrs. Sourn pressed her lips together. Avery could read the fear and panic that mingled in her expression. But now was not the time for her to shut down. They needed a confession.

Mason slid into the seat across from Blackburn but kept his gaze focused on Mrs. Sourn. “May I remind you that this is a murder investigation, and withholding evidence or lying to the police is a serious offense?”

“So I’ll ask you again,” Avery continued. “Did you or your husband leave the house during that time?”

“No.”

“That’s interesting.” Avery pushed the black-and-white ATM photo Tory had given her across the table. “Because we have video from an ATM showing that your husband withdrew cash at two forty-seven Monday morning.”

“No . . . There must be a mistake.”

“Would you like to change your story, Mrs. Sourn?”

“It . . . I don’t know. It’s possible he had a meeting with clients that ran late. I might have lost track of the days.”

“So you were in the house alone during that time period.”

“Yes. I suppose.”

Avery slid the photo of Tala’s swollen body across the table next. Mrs. Sourn flinched. “Mrs. Sourn, as you know by now, Saturday morning a judge granted us a warrant to search both your house and your business. Forensics found traces of Tala’s blood in your house—on the banister, in some of the carpet fibers, and on a bronze lamp base that has just been identified as the murder weapon. And according to your last statement, you were the only person in the house at the time of her death.”

Mrs. Sourn shook her head, looking trapped.

“Mrs. Sourn”—Mason leaned forward—“it would be to your advantage to tell us what happened that night. It’s one thing to harbor an illegal alien, but add murder to the list, and you’re looking at a lot of time behind bars.”

“Mrs. Sourn, you don’t have to say anything.” Blackburn grabbed his briefcase, then reached out to help Mrs. Sourn stand up. “We’re leaving.”

“That’s fine.” Avery started picking up the photos. “Because we’re finished here. I have enough evidence to arrest your client for the murder of Tala Vuong, and that is just the beginning. We also have additional evidence that we plan to hand over to the DA that includes harboring of an illegal alien, slavery, and forced labor.”

“And don’t forget the smuggling of illegal weapons in conjunction with the family business,” Mason said. “We already have a growing amount of evidence tying your import business to illegal trafficking.”

“No. Wait a minute.” Mrs. Sourn sat back down. “I’d like to make a deal.”

“Mrs. Sourn,” Blackburn began. “This isn’t an episode of
Law and Order
—”

“What kind of deal?” Avery dropped the photos back onto the table, ignoring Blackburn’s scowl.

“I’ll tell you what happened that night, but you get the DA to lessen my sentence. In exchange, I’ll give you all the evidence you need against my husband.”

“Mrs. Sourn, as your lawyer, it is my duty to inform you that you are making a huge mistake—”

“Stop.” Mrs. Sourn pushed back the chair beside her, letting it smash into the wall. “I’m tired of the games and the lies and the secrets. It’s over.”

Avery leaned forward. “Why do you want to give up your husband, Mrs. Sourn?”

“Because . . . because he was sleeping with her.” Mrs. Sourn’s shoulders slumped as she brushed away tears with the back of her hand. “Mr. Blackburn, I want you to leave.”

“Excuse me?”

“I said I want you to leave. You’re fired.”

Mason jumped up and opened the door. “Thank you for coming by, Mr. Blackburn. I’m sure we’ll be in touch regarding Mrs. Sourn’s husband soon.”

Avery turned her focus back to Mrs. Sourn while the lawyer stomped out of the room. “We’ll start with Tala’s murder, then move on to your husband. Tell me what happened that night.”

Mrs. Sourn sat still, elbows on the table, hands in front of her mouth, shaking her head.

“Mrs. Sourn?”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen, but I can’t . . . I can’t keep lying about everything.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“It was an accident. I swear I didn’t mean to kill her. I just . . . I just wanted to scare her. I was so angry.”

“But instead of scaring her, you killed her.”

“She was young and pretty.” Mrs. Sourn stared at the wall. “I knew he was going to her when I was gone, and she admitted it was true. It didn’t matter to me at that moment that he was forcing her, threatening her.”

“How did you kill her?”

“We fought, I hit her on the head, and she fell down the stairs. Robert came home a few minutes later. I didn’t know what to do. She was lying there, not breathing. Robert was furious. He told me he couldn’t afford to have another police investigation, and that we were going to have to cover up her death.”

Mason still stood at the end of the table. “What did he do?”

“He decided that we would throw off the police by making her death look like the girl killed a few weeks ago.”

“What do you know about her death?”

“Nothing, I swear, and I don’t think Robert does either. But he had seen the report on the news of her death.”

“So he decided to make Tala’s death look like someone was murdering young Asian girls. A serial killer.”

Mrs. Sourn nodded. “He took her in his car and dumped her in an alley next to a Dumpster for someone else to find. He assured me they would never be able to trace her back to us.”

“Then why call in a missing persons report if you didn’t think she could be traced back to you?”

“I was cleaning up that morning. Making sure there was no trace of what had happened the night before. I was so upset that my hands were shaking, and I knocked my jewelry box off the
dresser. As I picked everything up off of the floor, I noticed that the ring was missing. I couldn’t find it, and I knew Tala must have taken it. But by then her body had already been discovered, and it was too late for us to search her.”

“And because it was custom-made, you knew that if she did have the ring, once we found her body, we could tie her to you.”

Mrs. Sourn nodded. “Robert decided that the only answer was to claim she was our niece.”

The tension in Avery’s neck began to spread down her spine. One lie led to another, which led to another, which soon became too many to cover up. Finding the truth might solve a case and even bring closure, but it could never erase the damage.

“Keeping the story straight wasn’t difficult. Four years ago, a family friend came to live with us after high school for a couple years. It was easy to pretend that Tala was Bian. We’d even kept her room the same after she left, but it didn’t take long for everything to begin falling apart.”

Ashes, ashes. They’ll all fall down.

Mason leaned forward, his hands against the table. “So Robert panicked. Paid someone to send the flower to Detective North and break into her house, then kidnapped Malaya, all in an attempt to ensure we kept running around chasing a bogus serial killer.”

“I’m not sure what all he did, except that he panicked. He knew he couldn’t have the police looking into the business. He thinks I don’t know anything, but I do. He’s involved in trafficking guns, drugs, the girls . . .”

“How much did he receive for each girl?” Avery asked.

“Five thousand dollars on average, depending what they were going to be used for.”

Which made it a lucrative business. Steep fees paid by the parents of the girls, then by the clients who bought them.

“So people paid the fee, and then they were free to do whatever they wanted with the girls.”

Mrs. Sourn turned her head. “I didn’t have anything to do with the trafficking. You have to believe me.”

“But you didn’t try to stop him either.” The whole thing made her stomach turn. “And what about Tala? Having someone clean and cook for you sixteen, seventeen hours a day, never bothered your conscience? And I’m sure she didn’t sleep in that nice bedroom upstairs except for the times she was sleeping with your husband.”

Mrs. Sourn clenched her fists in front of her. “No . . .”

“You kept quiet in order to save yourself, but what are you left with now? Tala is dead and dozens of other girls are scattered across this country living as slaves because you didn’t speak up.”

Mrs. Sourn pressed her hand against her mouth and dropped her gaze.

“What else do you know?” Avery prodded.

“I . . . I don’t have any details.”

“Just tell us what you know.”

“There was a boatload of girls due to arrive this weekend. It was why Robert was so upset. He knew it might be his last chance to get to the girls before the authorities did.”

Avery leaned forward. That was something she couldn’t let happen. “Where is he, Mrs. Sourn?”

“I honestly don’t know. There’s a secret route they use, like the Underground Railroad from the Civil War. Except instead of smuggling freed slaves, they . . . they traffic the girls. They call it the Magnolia Passage.”

Avery felt her breath catch. These girls had been bought, branded, and sold. “Where are the girls?”

“I don’t know.”

“Mrs. Sourn—”

“I think it might be off the coast somewhere on one of the islands, but if he never told me about the girls, do you think he’d have told me about the routes he uses? He believed that the fewer
people who knew, the better. But I do know one thing. If you don’t find the girls before he moves them again, they’ll end up scattered across the country. And then you’ll never find them.”

Tory walked into the interrogation room and signaled for Avery to join her in the hall.

“What have you got?”

“I’ve been watching from behind the observation mirror. I think I might know where Sourn is.”

“Where?”

“Remember a few days ago I told you that I was able to link the Sourns to a number of nail salons? Through a bunch of digging and cross-referencing, I discovered that Mr. Sourn also owns a piece of property near Jekyll Island. Ten acres of secluded land with a house, a large storage shed, and a boat ramp with water access to the Atlantic.”

“Bingo.” Avery started for her office. “I’ll contact the Coast Guard. Make sure our team is ready to leave in ten minutes.”