Trouble With the Law (17 page)

“
Just give me the particulars and I’ll turn it over to the feds.”

“No, they will just turn the women over to INS or ICE and they’ll be shipped back to Mexico and wind up on the streets there.  They’d be no better off than they were if Ray sent them to the Cantina in Houston.  I’m not letting that happen to this group.”

Seth sighed.  “What do you have in mind?”

“I found another cabin in the woods.  It’s smaller, but would hold t
en women who are used to living like they’ve been living,” Trace said and huffed a breath.  “There’s enough food in that house to last all of us for a week or so.  That will give us time to figure out something.”

“You’re betting on having this resolved in a week?” Seth asked incredulously.
  “And you want to add human trafficking to your charges?  That’s what’s gonna happen, buddy.  I see the writing on the wall!” Seth shouted then started pacing.  “You’ve got to get over this white knight complex, man.  You don’t wear a badge anymore.  Saving the world is not on your shoulders!”

Anger shot through Trace, then sadness. 
“I’m well aware I don’t wear a badge.”

Seth turned and looked at him with sympathy in his eyes.  “I know, man.  I’m sorry.”

“There’s an international organization I heard about I’m going to contact to come and get the women.  They will train them for skilled labor before they send them back to Mexico.  At least they’ll have a fighting chance to survive then.  I can help this group, Seth.”

“You need to be helping yourself, Trace.”

“Helping them will help me regain my sanity.  I’ve watched what they were put through at that ranch for six months.”  Watching the things those assholes made those women suffer through had about driven him crazy.  Maybe doing this would help him deal with the guilt he carried around for not interceding before.  “Are you going to help me?”

Seth ran a hand over his face and sighed.  “I want to help you.  I really do.  But I can’t.  I have to work tonight
and tomorrow night.  Probably every night until Ray Brown is located.  They’ll probably have me out at that creek looking for your body too.”

“I’m sorry for putting you in this position.”
  Trace knew his friend was putting his job on the line helping him with anything.  Add rescuing a group of illegals to the mix, and Trace knew he was asking too much.  But he needed help.  Those women needed help.

“I’m here because I want to be.  And you know I’d help you
tonight if I thought I could pull it off.  But I can’t.  And you can’t do it by yourself though.  You should really think about this before you leap, Trace.”

“I’ll find someone else to help.  You just forget you know I’m alive, or where I’m at.  That will be help enough.”
  Trace dragged his eyes away.  “I’m sorry about Sarah’s house by the way.  Did Ray and his men get out of there before you arrived?  I heard the sirens when we left.”

“
They were all gone by the time we got there.  The report was written as a breaking and entering, and a possible gunshot wound to an unknown victim by an unnamed shooter.  They don’t know anything except that a witness reported two men throwing someone in the back of a pickup and taking off.  The witness didn’t mention a motorcycle.”

Well that was good news. 
At least there hadn’t been witnesses who saw Trace, Ronnie and Conner leaving.  “Thanks, man.”

“I’m adding it to your tab.  When this is over you owe Sarah a new door and some free labor.”

“I’ll be her slave,” Trace said with a laugh then sobered.  “Tell her I said thanks.”

“
Carrie came by while we were there.  You know she lives right down the street.”

“Yeah, I know.” 
Sean’s widow was one of Sarah’s friends.  “How’s she doing?”

“She’s definitely not like she used to be.  The kids aren’t doing good either.”

Guilt slammed down on Trace’s shoulders like a lead curtain.  His knees almost crumbled.  Trace should have gone by there.  He just didn’t want to make things worse. 

“What’s wrong with them?”
he asked not really wanting to hear what Seth had to say, but needing to know.  He had to help Carrie if he could.

“
Sarah says since Chris hit puberty, he’s hanging out with a bad crowd.  She says Carrie just can’t control him.  Her daughter Izzy is upset and thinks it’s her job to take care of both of them.”

Trace groaned.
  “Do you think it would help if I went by there?  I could talk to him.”

“You’re dead remember?” Seth reminded.

“Fuck,” Trace replied, shoving a hand through his hair.

“I think
Carrie is moving to the country soon.  Her daddy has a ranch out in the boonies.  I guess she thinks if she changes his environment, Chris will get better.  I think she needs to figure out how to get over losing Sean.  That might help all of them.”

Emotion surged up inside of Trace.  Th
e night he shot his partner had changed all of their lives forever.  It had been an accident, hell he wasn’t even sure it was his bullet that killed Sean, but Carrie believed that.  The trumped up evidence that sent him to jail convinced her that he had turned on his best friend in the worst possible way. 

Sean
had been his best friend way longer than they’d been on the force together.  They’d gone to high school together.  Trace was the best man at their wedding.  Carrie should have known better.  But she blamed him.  She couldn’t blame him any more than he blamed himself though.  Trace shouldn’t have pulled his gun in the first place, but when the leader of the gang had called Sean by name, his real name, and pulled his gun, Trace knew things were about to get ugly for them.  He hit his target, the kingpin of the ring, but that started a riot of bullets which left half of the gang and his partner dead. 

The
n they found the cocaine and enough money to choke a horse in his locker, and said Trace killed Sean because he was a bad cop.  Said he was with the drug dealers, and Sean was going to turn him in, so he gave Sean up as a Narc to the gang.  Bullshit.  If Trace had money like that he wouldn’t have been living in that squatty apartment where they found more drugs, guns and money.

With all those bullets
flying around, how the Coroner pinpointed a bullet from his service revolver as the one that killed Sean, Trace didn’t know.  The bullet went through his partners body, the caliber just happened to be the same.

Trace wasn’t stupid.  If what they said was true, he wouldn’t have started a gun battle to kill his friend, he would have done it and disposed of his body somewhere nobody would have ever found it.  And if he had drugs and money, the last place he would stash it would be his locker at the Amarillo Police Station, or his apartment.

None of it made sense to him.  Even three years after his partner’s death.

Leland had done a good job of setting him up, after he confronted his father about the evidence he and Sean had uncovered that pointed to him as the financial backer for the ring.  After Trace showed his hand, his father greased the right palms, the drug dealers who testified against him, the judge who sentenced him, the attorney who represented him, even the warden who housed him.  Putting an ex-cop in general population was not standard operating procedure for a prison.  Trace even suspected his father had paid those convicts who had attacked him in prison to kill him. 

Well he hadn’t fucking succeeded there.  Because Trace had been determined to finish his sentence just to see his father pay.
  It took him two years to put all the pieces together, but all he had was time to think about what happened to him in jail and dissect it piece by piece.  He finally figured out it had to be his father who had set him up.

But
figuring that out, didn’t help Carrie who was dealing with raising two kids alone now that her husband was dead.  And neither did his bid to take Leland down.  But now he was playing dead, so he couldn’t help her himself.

“I’ll talk to my mother and see if she can help
Carrie.”  Maybe Allison could help her buy her own ranch.  A place she could raise her kids in peace.  Even though he hadn’t killed Sean, that was the least Trace could do.  His mother had more money than she could ever spend in a lifetime.  Trace would eventually get that money.  He would just spend some of his inheritance now.

Seth sighed and shook his head.  “You’re dead to the world man.  You can’t call your mother.  If you forget that, you will be dead.”

“I was going to let my mama know I wasn’t dead anyway.  She won’t say anything.”  He couldn’t let her suffer by thinking he was dead.  She was the only one in the damned world that gave a shit whether he was or not.

“You better hope she doesn’t.
  If you know what’s good for you, you’ll just disappear.  Let everyone think you’re dead and move on.  You only have one opportunity here to do that, man.  You’re wasting it on trying to save everyone, but yourself.  And Ronnie Winters is buying herself trouble too if she’s turning over rocks that are better left where they are.  The results of you going after your daddy again aren’t going to be any better this time than they were last time.  Let it go.”

“You know I’m not one to run from a fight,” Trace
replied.

“Yeah, I know that.  You didn’t run last time and look where you wound up.  I’m afraid that’s exactly where you’ll end up this time too.”
 

“Not if I can help it.  But I can’t just sit back and watch shit happen.  I want my life back, and the only way I’m going to get that is if I fight for it.
  I’m going to keep fighting until I see the writing on the wall.  Then I’ll head out.  I promise.”

“As long as that writing isn’t on the inside of a prison wall or the lid of your coffin, I’ll be happy for you man.”

Trace had known Seth a long time, and he could hear the uneasiness in his friend’s dire warning.  He wondered if there was something Seth wasn’t telling him here.  He had repeated his suggestion that Trace drop it and leave too many times.  “Seth, are you holding out on me on something?”

Seth laughed and the tension in his shoulders eased some.  He pasted on a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.  “Are you fucking kidding me?  I just don’t want you to end up like Sean.  Losing one friend was bad enough.”

“I know.  I miss him too,” Trace said and the tension in his body eased too.  Seth was just concerned about him.

“I’ve got to go get ready for work.  You keep your head low and think about what I said.  If you need money to leave, let me know.”

CHAPTER TEN

Trace
watched Seth drive down the driveway until he reached the end and disappeared over the rise, before he walked into the house.  What he really wanted to do was head back to that cabin in the woods.  At least there he’d have some space from the redhead who was driving him crazy.  Every time he got within ten feet of her he wanted to bury himself inside of her.  And that was damned crazy, because Trace didn’t even particularly like Ronnie Winters.  She was abrasive, hardheaded and controlling.  Definitely not his kind of woman.  But damned if Trace didn’t want her like he’d never wanted another woman in his life.  She was hot, exciting, different, and her body called out to his like a flashing neon sign that said
Open All Night
.  And he’d been up all night thinking about her.  Exactly what he didn’t need to be focusing on right now. 

Early this morning
Trace had to leave the house just to get his head straight so he could think about what he was going to do about those women.  Now that Seth couldn’t help him, he needed to make other plans.  Unless he wanted to ride one of the horses in the field on the adjacent property to the drop off location, he needed a vehicle.  And Seth had made him so jumpy, he was having second thoughts about going alone, but he didn’t have much choice there.  Trace knew one thing though.  He wasn’t leaving Ronnie here alone in case Ray Brown showed up.  She needed protection while he was gone.  Trace thought maybe her friend Dave Logan could provide both.  At least with him here with her, Trace wouldn’t have to worry about her, while he was gone. 

To make that happen, he was going to have to talk to her, get her to call Dave Logan.  After last night, that wasn’t something he was looking forward to doing.  He had hoped to be able to avoid her today.

Trace strode into the kitchen and found Ronnie at the counter using the telephone.

“Yes, Conner, I know that’s a lot of
files to pull, but I need them,” she said then hesitated listening.  “Yeah, any of the ones connected to someone in that drug ring who went in front of Judge Jennings and got off.  Particularly those where Seemus or Carl represented the accused.”

“They’re not all going to fit in my car!” Conner said with frustration.
  “And that’s a helluva lot of money to spend on copies.”

“Rent a freaking truck, if you have to.  There’s plenty of room to store them here.  And use the credit card number I gave you to get the copies.” 

Ronnie was glad she had her number memorized, since she’d lost her briefcase and wallet out at the ranch.  Calling and canceling her credit cards was on her ever-growing to do list.  But she couldn’t do that until she had those copies.  Ronnie also needed to report her car stolen.  Her baby was out there somewhere, probably in a lake.  The thought made her sick.  She’d gotten that car brand new when she made Junior Partner.  Looking up she saw Trace standing there watching her with his arms folded across his chest.

“There’s no way I’ll have that all together by tomorrow
, much less today,” Conner whined.  “Even if I use my staff to make the copies, it’ll take a week.”

“
Get Ben to help you.  Work twenty-four hours if you have to, but you can’t use your staff,” Ronnie replied shortly.

“I’m a fucking attorney, not an office boy,
” he said with irritation.  “This is going to take time.  Especially if I have to do it myself.”

Ronnie sighed.  He was right, but she wanted to get started on those files.  Conner couldn’t snap his fingers and make the copies appear though.  “Okay, if you can at least get the ones from Trace’s trial here today, we can get started on those.  By the time we get through them the others will be ready.”

“That I can do.” Conner sighed and Ronnie could picture him shaking his head.  “You’re a pain in the ass sometimes, you know that?” he asked with a laugh.

“
Not a news flash, babe,” Ronnie said with a laugh in return.

Ronnie heard Trace growl, as he leaned around her and slammed a finger
down on the disconnect button.  “You don’t need to be calling people from here, Ronnie.  Someone could find us.”

“I was just talking to Conner,” she replied.

“I don’t give a damn.  Don’t use the phone.”

Ronnie was trying to pull this man’s fat out of the frying pan, and he was sitting here telling her who she could call and who she couldn’t
?  She stiffened her spine, hung up the phone, then crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the counter. 

“I need
ed those other files, and I needed to find out when Conner was going to bring them, so I can get started.  I’m tired of sitting around on my thumb.”

Trace’s lips tightened. 
“I want to get this over with as much as you do, but with Conner digging around, pulling those files, someone is going to hear about it, and get nervous.  If they put a trace on his phone calls, they’ll find us if you use this phone.”

Ronnie
huffed a breath.  “I need to stay in contact with him.  How do you suggest I do that?  Smoke signals?” she asked sarcastically.  “My cell phone disappeared with my clothes and car at that ranch.”

Trace fished in his pocket and handed her his cell phone. 
“You can use my phone.  It’s a throwaway.  You need to call Dave Logan, anyway.  I need him to send some men out here to watch out for you tomorrow night.  I have something to do.  Ask if he has a vehicle he could loan me too.”

Ronnie narrowed her eyes.  “What are you doing?”

“I have something to do,” he repeated vaguely.

She didn’t take the phone from him
.  The stubborn redhead leaned her back against the counter again and eyed him with a smug smile.  “That’s nice.  You can do it on foot unless you tell me what it is.”  Her stance told Trace she wasn’t budging unless he answered her question. 

“You are a pain in my ass,” Trace growled
and shoved a hand through his hair.

“You’re the second man whose told me that this morning.  I’m on a roll,” Ronnie said sarcastically.  “Now, tell me where you’re going, and I’ll decide if I ask Dave for that vehicle or not.”
  Ronnie was tired of Trace keeping her in the dark.  He was going to have to include her in his plans if he wanted her help.

“Remember what happened to you at that ranch?” he asked shortly.

Flashes shot through Ronnie’s mind like a camera flash and she shivered.  Tightening her arms around herself, she said, “Yeah.”

“Well, that’s about to happen to t
en more women.  Or worse.  If I don’t intercept the shipment of women who were supposed to arrive at that ranch tomorrow night they could be killed.”

“Tell the feds,”
Ronnie suggested.  “Call in a tip.  Let them handle it.  That’s their job.”

“They’ll turn them over to INS and they’ll be sent right back to Mexico.  The reason they fell for the
promises the recruiter over there made them is because they were hopeless.  Uneducated and unemployable.  If they get sent back without training, they’ll wind up on the street or on a mattress with their legs spread for whoever has Pesos.  If the Coyote shows up at the drop off point tomorrow night and nobody meets him, he’ll either turn them loose or kill them.”

“Turning them loose wouldn’t be bad, would it?” Ronnie asked.

“They’d wind up in the streets then too.  Same situation, only they don’t speak the language here.”

“
You speak Spanish?” she asked curiously.  Ronnie was fluent.  Since she was in Texas, she figured it would come in handy as an attorney.

“Um, no.  I figured at least one or two of them would speak English.”

“And if they don’t?” she asked.

“Hand signals?” he asked with a
short laugh.  “I figured as long as they could tell I was saving them, they would cooperate.”

“Think again.  Those girls are going to be terrified.”  Ronnie knew she had been.  They could be drugged
like she was too.  That didn’t lend itself to coherent thought.  Like begging for sex from the man standing in front of her.  “I speak Spanish fluently,” she informed and his eyes widened.

Trace laughed.  “If you think you’re going with me, think again.
  I don’t need anyone else to keep safe out there.”

“You’re going alone?” she asked incredulously.  “You think you’re Superman or something?  Or are you just an idiot?”

“I haven’t figured that out just yet.”

“Sounds like there’s a lot you haven’t figured out.  Like what are you planning to do with these women once you rescue them?” 

There was no way she was going to let him have them in the house with them.  She didn’t know them.  Hell, they could be criminals too.  All she needed was someone to take off with the guns or antiques she’d seen inside this house.  Conner would kill her, and if he didn’t his mother would.

“There’s an organization that
helps women like these.  Women who are victims of human trafficking.  They train them before they send them back home.  That way they’ll have a chance to find a job, instead of ending up on the streets there again.  And they’ll take care of them, until they are sent back.”

“So are they meeting you there to pick them up?”

“No, we’re bringing them back here, until they can send a van to pick them up.  I called and they don’t have anyone available to help for a week.  Unless I can drive them to Dallas, they have to stay here for a week.  It’s too risky for me to drive that far.”

“Oh, hell no
.  You’re not bringing them here,” Ronnie said firmly.

“There’s another cabin out in the woods where they can stay.  It has beds and we should have enough food for all of us for at
least a week.  The woman with the organization said that they should be able to get here within the week.”

“Should?” Ronnie repeated.

“They will, or I’ll find someone to bring them there.”

“If you agree to let me go with you, I’ll call Dave and get him to bring a couple of men and van
s.  He’s in Dallas, so he could just bring them with him and drop them off at the place.”  Trace wondered exactly who this Dave was.  It sounded like Ronnie thought
he
was Superman or something.  Need someone found? Call Dave.  Need help rescuing someone?  Call Dave.  Trace wasn’t sure he wanted this Dave’s help, or if the man was even capable of helping.  All he needed was more collateral damage.

“Exactly who is this man?”

“Ex-military spec ops guy, turned cop, turned private eye and security guy.  He can help you,” she said then tilted her head. “But I’m not asking him to unless you agree to let me go with you.”

“
Dammit, Ronnie, I didn’t save your ass to let you get killed traipsing through the woods,” Trace grated.  His frustration was a palpable thing.  And wasn’t that just too bad?

“Dave can go with us
,” she suggested.  “He and his men can help rescue those women.  It’s stupid of you to think you can do this alone.”

She was right.  Trace could use help.  He had no idea how many men would be at that drop off tomorrow night
, or what he would encounter.  But according to her, Dave Logan was an ex-cop and that meant he was probably a straight arrow and as rigid as one if you threw ex-military in the mix.  “Wouldn’t doing all this go against the grain with him?” Trace asked warily.  “I don’t want the police involved, Ronnie.  I don’t want those women deported.”

Ronnie rolled her eyes.  “
Dave is a good man and discreet.  He does this kind of thing all the time.  It’s his job,” she replied, pushing off the counter to step closer to him.  She put her finger in his chest.  “You are going to be dead, we both probably will, if you don’t get your head out of your ass and trust someone to help you.  Now, are you going to let me go with you?”  Trace had put his fate in this woman’s hands once and paid a price for it.  Trusting her now, trusting that, on her word, this man could help him was a huge risk.  Maybe one he wouldn’t survive.  But he had to do something.  He didn’t have help, and he didn’t have transportation.  If he wanted to save those women, he was going to have to go along with her plan.  “Call him.”

“Please?” she said cockily.

Trace ground his teeth.  “Please.”

A small smile kicked up the corner of her full mouth, as Ronnie
took the cell phone from his hand and dialed a number.  She tucked it into her shoulder and kept her eyes on his.  “Hey, Dave.  This is Ronnie.  I need some help.”

After she got off the phone with Dave Logan,
Ronnie called Conner back and warned him to be extra careful that nobody knew he was pulling those files.  That might reassure her, but it didn’t make Trace feel any better.  No matter how careful the man was, he knew someone would hear about it.  Conner Lucas better keep his eyes and ears open.

And he had a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach now about his mission to
morrow night.

***

The next afternoon, the knock at the front door was music to Trace’s ears.  He had run out of things to do to avoid being around Ronnie Winters.  Since last night they’d been circling each other like caged tigers.  Even if it was Ray Brown himself on the doorstep, Trace would welcome him.  Then he’d put a fist in his face, which would help relieve some of his frustration.  He picked up the shotgun by the front door, stood to the side, twisted the knob and stepped back as it swung inward.