The Siren (16 page)

Larry Mendez turned and walked back to his house as the car rolled away from the curb. Warren followed at quite a distance behind as it moved through the streets of west San Antonio. We twisted and turned through the city until the car reached the on-ramp for Interstate 10. We were stopped at a red light, but Warren was able to find them again on the interstate. The car was cruising at a safe speed, right at the speed limit.
 

After about ten minutes of driving, I looked over at Warren. “I don’t think they are planning on staying in San Antonio. What if they’re going to Houston?”

“Or Mexico?” Shannon asked.

“Do you ladies have somewhere else you need to be?” Warren asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. “I guess not.”

“They’re not going to Mexico. At least not if that’s Rex in the car. I doubt he could even fill out an application for a passport,” Warren said.

“Do you really think it could be him?” I asked.

Warren turned his palm up on the top of the steering wheel. “If it isn’t, then there are two of him.”

“What are you going to do when they stop?” Shannon asked.

Nathan laughed. “Wing it.”
 

I turned in my seat. “Seriously, what are we going to do?”

Warren looked over his shoulder at me. “I really have no idea.”

I rubbed my hands over my face and groaned. “That’s great. Just great.”

Nathan pointed to the car as it was easing its way toward an off ramp. “They’re getting off the interstate.”

I sat forward in my seat as Warren slowly moved to the right lane. The blue car was three cars ahead of us. “They’re going north, Warren,” I said, nudging his arm.
 

“Yep. Turn left,” Nathan added.

“Will you two shut up and let me drive?” Warren snapped.

We headed north on a main highway, winding around till we reached the northeast side. It was an industrial area that had been neglected by the wealth of San Antonio for some time. Buildings were crumbling into disrepair, and there was an unsightly mix of rundown strip malls and gas stations with bars on the windows. The blue car pulled into an alleyway between a two-story building and a warehouse. Warren parked across the street at a liquor store.

“What is this place?” I looked up at the building and noticed the number of broken windows and the flashing red neon OPEN sign near the front door.

“Must be a brothel,” Nathan said.

“I believe it might be called a
cantina
. There are lots of them around Texas,” Shannon said from the back seat.

At the same time, the three of us turned to look at her, all with the same baffled expression. What in the world could the Baptist traffic reporter from North Carolina know about prostitution in Texas?

Shannon shrugged, noting our skeptical faces. “I’ve watched a lot of television while you guys have been gone all week. The city has raided a lot of these kinds of places lately. They are bars where girls are bought and sold for prostitution.”

“I’ll be damned.” Warren shook his head and laughed. “Anything else we should know?”

She nodded. “They usually have a lookout posted outside to watch for police.”

We turned to scan the building.
 

Nathan pointed. “Up there on the roof.”

Sure enough, there was a man in a white lawn chair perched on the roof, carefully watching the streets.
 

I looked at Shannon in amazement. “I have to say, I’m kinda glad we brought you along.”

“How should we do this, Nate?” Warren asked.

“Well, we can’t exactly go in there with guns blazing. We’ll wind up getting ourselves killed,” Nathan said.

“Can we call the cops?” I asked.

Nathan rubbed his chin. “I’m sure the cops already know this place exists. They can’t just come in either. They would need someone to investigate and get proof, and then they would have to go through a judge to get a no-knock search warrant. It’s a pretty lengthy process.”

“Should one of us go in?” I asked.

“Well, I can’t go in because if that is Rex, he’ll recognize me,” Warren said. “And Nate, you can’t go in because everything about you screams law enforcement.”

“I’ll go in,” I said, surprising myself as much as I surprised everyone else in the car.
 

Warren said “absolutely not” and Nathan said “hell no” at the exact same time.

“We can’t sit here and do nothing. Those girls were just kids!” I reasoned.
 

Warren shook his head. “You can be hard headed and argue all you want, but there’s no way I’m letting you out of this car to go in there. I will tie you to the seat if I have to.”

Nathan reached up and squeezed my shoulder. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Maybe no one has to go in,” Shannon said. She leaned forward quickly and pointed out the window. “Look!”

Two San Antonio police cars and a police van with blue lights flashing screamed to a stop in front of the front door. Two unmarked SUVs parked along the sides of the building. Cops, some in uniform and others in all black, rushed out of the cars with their guns drawn.

“Holy shit,” Nathan said, laughing. “Sloan, did you summon a police force?”

I scratched my head. “I don’t think so.”

We watched the police break down the front door and rush in. Like cockroaches scattering, people began to pour out of the building from all kinds of disguised doors and openings. Two of those people were Rex and the man in the red polo shirt. They darted behind the black SUV, took off across the street, and jumped a fence about fifty yards away from us.
 

“Oh, hell no,” Warren said. He wrenched his door open and took off after them.
 

Nathan followed.

I looked at Shannon, who was cowering in her seat. “What do we do?” I asked.
 

“You couldn’t pay me enough to get out of this car,” she said.
 

Shannon was right. Gun fire exploded inside the building. I hit the lock button on the door and sank down in my seat. A few nail-biting minutes later, Nathan came through a gate in the fence, leading the guy in the red polo shirt by one handcuffed arm. A second after him, Warren appeared, dragging Rex by his blond hair, his arms flailing and his legs trying to keep up. His face was covered in blood—so were Warren’s knuckles.

We watched from the car as Warren and Nathan delivered the two to the police officers on the curb. After talking with the officers for a moment, Warren waved for us to come over. Hesitantly, Shannon and I got out of the car. She gripped my arm so hard I winced as we crossed the street. Nathan was still talking to one of the officers. Warren caught my eye and nodded toward the front door.

Scantily dressed girls, some as young as ten or eleven, were being ushered outside and led to a large white police van. Tears prickled my eyes as they shuffled along the curb with their shoulders slumped and their empty stares fixed on the ground. Some of them were bloody and bruised, and others looked drugged or drunk out of their wits.
 

My heart shattered.
 

Then, as I watched them, my eyes fell on the woman guiding the girls from the building. She was wearing a gray pants suit and had long dark hair tied up in a no-nonsense ponytail. There was a deep and empty void where I should have sensed her soul.
 

It was Rachel Smith.

12.

Rachel’s eyes locked on mine with the same bewildered expression I was sure was on my face. She tried to refocus on her task of loading up the girls, but her eyes kept glancing in my direction. When she finally closed the door to the van, she said something to a uniformed officer, then walked down the sidewalk toward me.

“Rachel Smith?” I asked as she approached.

She turned her head slightly and narrowed her eyes. “
Abigail
Smith,” she said, tapping her name tag which was labeled with
Morning Star Ministries
in bright green letters. She lowered her voice. “I haven’t gone by Rachel in years. Who are you?” Then she pointed at Warren. “And who is he?”

“We’re like you,” I said just above a whisper. I blinked my eyes like they were delivering a secret message.

She laughed. “No, you’re not.”

I was jolted by surprise. When Warren and I first saw each other, time stood still. Our realization that we weren’t alone in the world had been cosmically astounding. Mistakenly, I had expected a similar reaction from Rachel Smith, and this woman was laughing at me like I’d told a knock-knock joke.

“Can we talk?” I asked, looking around. “In private?”

She gestured toward the commotion around us. “As you can tell, I’m pretty busy right now.” She reached into her purse and produced a business card. “But here’s my information. Come by my office in a couple of hours. I’ll be there all night.”

I smiled. “Thank you.”

She stared at me for another moment, and I studied her carefully while I had the chance. She was even more beautiful in person than in her photos. We were about the same age and height, but she was wearing heels. There was an emptiness in her dark brown eyes that I had only ever seen inside of Warren.
 

She nodded like she was answering a question I didn’t ask. “Yes. Definitely come by my office later.”

“I will.”

Without another word, she turned and walked toward the police van. Before she got into the passenger’s seat, she glanced over her shoulder to where I was still watching, mesmerized. She waved and gave a slight smile. I waved back as the van pulled away.

Warren stepped up behind me. “Well?”
 

“She wants us to come by her office later.”

Confounded and shaking his head, he crossed his arms over his chest. “Well, two birds, one stone.”

Nathan and Shannon walked up beside us. “Was that who I think it was?” He was pointing in the direction the van had gone.

With the two of them flanking me, and Shannon clutching Nathan’s arm, we turned toward our SUV. I nodded as we crossed the street. “It sure was.”

“Who are you talking about?” Shannon asked.

Nathan jerked his head back toward the building. “That woman in the gray suit who Sloan was talking to is the woman we’ve been looking for all week.”
 

“Seriously?” Shannon asked in amazement. She looked around Nathan at me. “That’s a crazy coincidence. Did you talk to her? Was she able to tell you anything?”

I shrugged. “Not yet, but we’re going to meet her at her office in a little while.”

Warren looked over at us as we reached the car. “The cop told me she’s the head of a big human trafficking rescue mission here in Texas. Apparently, she’s got a couple of homes here. One in San Antonio and one in Houston.”

“That explains why we couldn’t find her working for the government,” I said as I pulled open my car door.
 

We all got in.

Nathan was still shaking his head as he fastened his seatbelt. “You know, I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to the crazy shit that seems to follow the two of you around.”

I grabbed Warren’s forearm. “Speaking of crazy, was that the guy from Chicago?”

He laughed as he started the engine and put the SUV in reverse to exit the lot. “Yes, ma’am. What are the odds of that?”
 

My brain was spinning like a mental Rolodex full of questions as I stared out my window. “Impossible odds.”

Behind us, Nathan chuckled. “We should go to Vegas.”

I looked at Warren. “Did he say what he was doing here or how long he’s been in Texas?”

Nathan poked his head between our seats. “He didn’t have a chance to speak. He was kind of busy having his face rearranged.” He slapped Warren on the shoulder. “This guy beat the hell out of him.”

I blinked. “I’m surprised you didn’t kill him.”

He stared straight at the road ahead. “Trust me. I thought about it.”

“What will happen to Larry Mendez?” I asked.
 

“Nathan told the cops we were in Mendez’s neighborhood because we got lost, and we saw them leaving the house with the two girls. He said we thought it looked suspicious so we followed them. He gave them Mendez’s address.”

I laughed and looked back at Nathan. “You told them we were lost, and they bought it?”

Nathan shrugged. “They seemed grateful we saved them a lot of work.”

“So they’ll go arrest him?”

He nodded, exchanging a glance with Warren in the rearview mirror. “They should have enough to take him into custody, but we may get called in to testify at some point.”

I relaxed in my seat. “Good.”

“Where to now?” Warren asked.

“Take me and Shannon to the hotel and drop us off,” Nathan said.

I looked at him. “You don’t want to come talk to Rachel with us?”

He smiled at me. “No. You go and get to the bottom of all this. I’ve done my part.”

“Thank you, Nathan.” I reached to the back seat and squeezed his hand.
 

He squeezed my hand in return. “You’re welcome, Sloan.”

We took Shannon and Nathan to the Hyatt before heading across town to the address of Morning Star Ministries. Night was falling over San Antonio, but the city was so bright it was almost unnecessary to burn our headlights. My vision blurred in and out of focus as we drove through the city. The passing lights left trails behind them as my mind wandered.

We were on the cusp of something big. The answers we had sought our entire lives were dangling right in front of us. There were a thousand possibilities, but one thing was certain: everything was about to change.

Warren reached over and took my hand. “You seem tense.”

“I don’t know why, but I’m a little nervous, and I’m excited.” I looked at him. “She’s not clueless like us. I told her we were like her, and she laughed and said we’re not. She had this certainty in her voice.”

“That’s interesting,” he said.
 

“I thought so too.”

Morning Star Ministries was located next door to a large brick church on the west side of town. Warren parked at the curb, and I sat and looked out the window. It was a nice two story building that was relatively new with two large double glass doors out front. The sign bearing the name had a fresh coat of paint, and orange and yellow mums were blooming at its base.