Broken Toys Page 6

  Tugging the door open, he stepped in and kicked off his shoes before stepping on the carpet. Grandda was cool with him staying there, but Nana would scalp him alive if he messed up her beige carpets. “Got another beer?” he asked.

  One of the guys reached into the mini-fridge and pulled out a can. He tossed it to Patrick, who caught it with one hand. He dropped onto the sofa by the door. Scanning the living area of the RV, he cracked open the frigid can of beer and took a long pull. Three deeply tanned, blond men ranging from seventeen to twenty-two sat at the tiny, built-in dining table. A fourth leaned against the miniscule counter next to the gas stove.

  “Where’s Trevor?”

  “Working on a new conquest. Cute, young thing he spotted outside the zoo yesterday afternoon.”

  “Good thing,” Patrick grunted. “Da’s not happy. We’re coming up short on the livestock count. You think Trevor can wrap this one up and get her in a cage in the next day or two?”

  Two of the guys exchanged a loaded glance before one said, “I’m sure T plans to get him in the kennel tonight or tomorrow.”

  “I don’t care if the kid is a he, a she, or an it. The auction’s coming up soon.”

  The seventeen-year-old tapped his fingers on the Formica tabletop. “How much longer are we going to play Romeo and grab kids? How many do we need? When do we get paid for the ones we already brought you?”

  Patrick mimicked the boy. “When do we get paid?” He stood and threw the now-empty beer can at the teen before stalking toward him. Slamming his hands on the table in front of the boy, he leaned in close and dropped his voice to a low whisper. “When do you think we get paid? Hmmm?”

  Beads of sweat pooled on the teenager’s upper lip as the color faded from his face. He stammered, “Um…af-after the auction?”

  “There you go. Figured it out all by yourself, did ya’?” He stalked back to the sofa. “Get me another beer. I need progress reports from all of you. Now.”

  Before anyone could respond, the door swung open, and a chubby, pink-faced boy of seventeen entered the RV.

  “Hey, Trevor. Did you get the boy tucked away in the storage unit?”

  The one known as Trevor cleared his throat. His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “Fuck no. Damn pigs stopped me for rolling through a stop sign. Took the kid home instead. Figured it wasn’t worth the risk of being seen with a missing kid.”

  Patrick pressed his lips into a white slash. “We need a replacement like yesterday.” He scanned the room, making eye contact with each of his Romeos.

  An older redhead seated at the kitchen table ran his hands down the front of his jeans. He tapped the table and said, “Shouldn’t be a problem. I’ve never seen so many kids starved for attention. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel.”

  “Well you better straighten your aim. Da’s getting antsy. It’s almost time to move these kids to pre-production holding. Time for their fifteen minutes of fame—dark web style.”

  Grabbing a beer from the mini-fridge, Trevor asked, “What are we going to do about the five-o? What if they stop us when we’re moving the kids? They’re everywhere.”

  Patrick cracked open a fresh beer and smirked. “Don’t worry about the peelers. I’m taking care of it.”

  ****

  Bree watched her dad carry a sleeping Maddie to her bedroom. After tucking the youngster in, he quietly stepped out of the room and shut the door. She cringed as he headed to the kitchen calling for Sam and herself to follow him.

  Here we go.

  Rhyden wrinkled his nose as he sat at the dining room table. “What did you burn?” He waved a hand in front of his face, stood, and walked to the kitchen sink where he opened the window. He reached over and turned on the exhaust fan above the stove.

  He resumed his seat at the head of the table. The girls, both sulking, sat to either side of him. “Never mind.” He looked from daughter to daughter, taking in the scratches and bruises forming on each of them. “Who wants to tell me what the carnival sideshow out front was all about?”

  Both girls began speaking at once.

  He held up a hand. “One at a time, please.”

  Bree cut her eyes over at her sister, Sam. “It’s all her fault. She threw herself at my boyfriend.”

  “Your boyfriend?” Sam shrieked. “He’s my boyfriend.”

  “Why you little—”

  Rhyden slammed his hand down on the table. “Enough. I don’t even want to hear it. I’m done. Sam, you just earned another two weeks on your grounding.”

  “But Dad…”

  “Want to make it a month? Go to your room.”

  “That’s not fair.” Sam shoved the chair away from the table. “You let Miss Precious Goody Two Shoes get away with everything. Why am I grounded?”

  “Samantha Elaine Trammell, to your room—now.”

  Sam glared at her father and her sister before stomping from the kitchen and down the hallway. Thunder reverberated through the house as she let the bedroom door slam.

  Rhyden dropped his head into his hands. He squeezed his eyes shut. Taking a deep breath and letting it go, he raised his head and locked his gaze on Bree. “Want to tell me what’s going on with you?”

  Bree looked away, examined her hands resting in her lap with great attention. Keeping her voice neutral, she replied. “I don’t know what you mean. There’s nothing going on with me.”

  “Aubree Nicole, look at me.”

  “Why?”

  “Damn it. I’m too tired to play games. Who is that boy? What the hell is your problem?”

  Bree jerked her head up and met her father’s eyes. “My problem? What the hell is my problem?” She threw her hands up in the air. “I don’t have a problem. I don’t even have a life.”

  “Bree…”

  “Dad, I’m seventeen years old. These are supposed to be the best days of my life. A carefree time to have fun and make memories to look back on when I get older. Instead, I’m a seventeen-year-old slave. All I do is clean your house, cook your meals, and take care of your children. You have no clue what goes on around here, do you? How could you? You’re never home.”

  “Now, Bree…”

  The angry teenager pushed away from the table and stalked to the stove. She dumped the jambalaya into the garbage can beneath the sink. She scraped away the scorched rice clinging to the sides of the stock pot. Deliberately, with great care, she placed the pot in the sink, filled it with scalding water and dish soap. Turning off the water, she turned to face him.

  Voice quavering, she asked, “Do you know how many nights a week Maddie crawls into my bed because she has nightmares? Or what she named the monster that lives under her bed? Do you know how many times Sam has skipped school this semester? Do you know she smokes weed in the bathroom and tries to hide it by burning sage? Do you even know when my graduation is? Or where I plan to go to college? Do you even care?” She sniffed, holding back tears.

  “I depend on you. You’ve never minded before. You know how important my work is.”

  “Obviously, it’s more important than your family. Now I understand why Mom left…and I don’t blame her. I can’t wait to get out of here.”

  “That’s not fair—”

  Her pulse pounded in her ears. Clenching and unclenching her fists, she narrowed her eyes and walked toward the hallway. As she drew even with her father, she said, “Aren’t you the one that always said life and fair are both four-letter words, but that’s all they have in common?” Spinning on her heel, she dashed to her bedroom. She barely closed the door and collapsed on her bed before dissolving in great, gulping sobs.

  ****

  Noah tapped on the open door of Rhyden’s office with the knuckles of his left hand. A leather binder embossed with an image of the Texas Ranger badge dangled from his right. “So how did it go last night after I left? How are the girls?”

  “Grounded for the rest of their natural lives.” Rhyden raised his eyes to the ceiling. “God save us from teenage g
irls and their hormones.” He gingerly rubbed his chin, right on the spot darkened with the shadow of a bruise. Changing the subject, he nodded at the folder Noah carried. “Results from the Schmidt crime scene?”

  “Partially. Definitely bone fragments and teeth. They’re still trying to run down the serial number on the implant. No idea why it’s taking so long.” Noah dropped into the visitor chair and studied the whiteboard lining one wall of the office. Lists of names, dates, and ages covered it. Maps, smothered with colored push pins, papered the adjoining wall. “You’ve been busy.”

  Rhyden sighed again. “Unfortunately, yes. I started out searching for missing elderly people over the past year in our county and all surrounding counties. Only three of those reported missing have yet to be found. I contacted the persons who filed each report. None of the missing have had a hip replacement.”

  “Okay.” Noah waved at the massive list of names and dates covering the board. “Then what’s all this?”

  Before Rhyden could answer, Sarah, the long-legged brunette reports clerk from the sheriff’s department, stormed into the office, no smile, no word of greeting, and slammed a file down onto Rhyden’s desk hard enough to make coffee cups and soda cans rattle. Turning on one stiletto heel, she stalked out, leaving a cloud of some high-falutin’ perfume in her wake. Both men heard the furious rhythm of heels against ceramic tile as she moved down the hallway at a brisk pace.

  Noah let out a long, low whistle. “I’m guessing the date didn’t go very well last weekend?”

  “Date? What date?”

  Noah lowered his chin, tilted his head to the side, and raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

  Dawning realization showed in his partner’s eyes. “Oh shit. I was supposed to meet her at the Silver Spur Saturday, wasn’t I? Fuck! Maddie’s hamster died, and she was inconsolable. We had to do the whole beloved pet funeral. I totally forgot about meeting Sarah, and I forgot to call. Damn, damn, double damn. No wonder she’s pissed. She thinks I stood her up. Man, I don’t have time for this shit.”

  “Uh—technically, you did stand her up. I’d say you dorked the pooch. I told you not to dip your pen into company ink.”

  “You told me? You’re the one pressuring me to date Brooke. Don’t make fun of me. Being a single parent is challenging work.”

  “Maybe if you worked harder on some of those hot dates, you wouldn’t be a single father anymore.” Noah waved his hand at the whiteboard again. “Let’s get back to something you are good at. If you eliminated all your missing elderly, what’s all this?”

  “I expanded my parameters to all missing persons over the past three years in the state of Texas, regardless of age. The number of missing people, especially children, shocked me. So I tightened the parameters back down to our county, Atascosa, Frio, LaSalle, Medina, Live Oak, Bee, and Karnes counties. The results are still high but not nearly as astronomical as the entire state. Just removing Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and Austin made a dramatic difference.” Rhyden leaned back in his chair and studied the board. “Do you see what I see?”

  Noah scanned the notes on the board. The dates people, especially the younger ones, went missing seemed to jump out at him. The majority of the incidents occurred between June and November. “Hurricane season?”

  “Seems like we have a major uptick in disappearances each year between the first of June and mid-October. Most of the missing are between the ages of eleven and sixteen. Three times as many females as males.”

  “Why hasn’t anyone noticed this pattern before?”

  “Could be because although they were all reported missing here in Bennett County, not all of them reside here. Some were in the area on vacation when they disappeared.” Rhyden spun around in his chair, tapping his fingers on the armrests. “What is so special between June and October? Besides it being hurricane season? I don’t think storms are responsible for all these missing children.”

  “June to October,” Noah mused, thinking. “Migrant workers? Don’t we also see an increase in the number of stolen vehicles and coyotes running illegals at the same times?”

  Rhyden twirled his chair back to face the desk and tapped a few keys on his computer. “Guess what else increases between June and October? Reports of Traveler scams against the elderly. Which reminds me, we need to go talk to Mr. Schmidt again.”

  Travelers. Again.

  “You know, we never did actually see Mrs. Schmidt, and Mr. Schmidt didn’t seem very pleased with her. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and we’ve already met our driveway cut-up.”

  “Ha-ha, not. The way he kept glancing back at that closed door like he was afraid of her, I think she would be more likely to do him in than the other way around. We need to collect more information about the paving company his wife hired.”

  Heat suffused the nape of Noah’s neck. A lone drop of sweat took its time rolling down his spine. He fought the urge to squirm in his chair; instead, he stood. “Do you really think Travelers could be running a human trafficking ring out of Bennett County?”

  “Travelers and human trafficking? Huh. It could fit the pattern, couldn’t it? The dates on the complaints filed regarding their scams do seem to coincide with the majority of the dates on the missing persons reports. I hadn’t thought about that.”

  Fuck me and my big mouth. Bile flooded the back of Noah’s mouth. I know they live on the other side of the law, but they couldn’t be, no way, not stealing children. That’s too wrong, even for them. The walls started to close in on him. He fingered the spark plug in his pocket.

  “I’m gonna check on a few things. Find out what’s taking so long on tracking down the information on the serial number of the implant. I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

  ****

  Less than an hour later, weight crushing his shoulders, Noah walked back into Rhyden’s office. He half-heartedly waved a leather binder in the air. “Results finally came in.” He collapsed into his usual chair and handed the binder over. “Not good news, either.”

  Rhyden opened the binder. On top of the stack of lab reports sat an eight by ten glossy color photograph—a school portrait of a fourteen-year-old girl. The photograph showed platinum hair dropping behind narrow shoulders, sky blue eyes surrounded by a bit too much eye makeup, freckles, and a wide, quirky smile above a crooked, faded scar on her chin. A touch of mischief danced in her eyes.

  “Meet Alyssa Sanders,” Noah said. “Five years before that photograph was taken, she was involved in a nasty car wreck. The truck she was riding in flipped end over end before landing against a tree and killing everyone inside except her. Toxicology reports showed the driver, her stepmother, had a blood alcohol content three times the legal limit. Alyssa had to be cut out of the wreckage. Doctors gave her less than a twenty percent chance of survival, and they said if by some miracle she lived, she’d never walk again. She surprised them all. Multiple surgeries, several years of physical—and mental—therapy, but she did it. Alyssa was one tough cookie.”

  “Okay.” Rhyden shook his head. “What does Alyssa Sanders have to do with our crime scene?”

  “Guess what one of those many surgeries included?”

  Rhyden lowered his head into his hands and groaned. “Hip replacement?”

  “Bingo.”

  “This just keeps getting better and better. Bad enough we have a murder on our hands, but I thought, with a hip replacement in action, we were dealing with an elderly victim. No less a crime but at least the victim would have had the chance to live a full, rewarding life.”

  He stared across the desk at Noah, a bleakness in his expression. His voice sounded like ground glass. “Now you’re telling me our victim is a fourteen-year-old child who hadn’t even really lived yet? One who had already survived so much. Damn, she’s almost the same age as Sam.”

  Noah made a quick scan of the whiteboard again. “Huh.”

  “Huh, what?”

  “Why isn’t her name on the board?”

  “What?” Rhyden spun
back to his computer and typed a search into the missing person’s database. He picked up the report Noah carried into the office and double checked his spelling. “That’s weird. No one reported her missing.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I just double checked. No Alyssa Sanders reported as missing any time in the past three years. Has the next of kin been notified of her death yet?”

  “I was heading there next. What kind of parent doesn’t report their fourteen-year-old daughter as missing? I can’t imagine not reporting my child as missing, and I don’t even have children. Do you think the family could be involved?”

  Rhyden stood up, grabbed the keys off his desk and his hat from the deer horns. He tossed the keys to Noah and scooped up his laptop. “Let’s go find out. You drive. I want to check a couple more things on the way.”

  Chapter Seven

  Noah turned onto a long, winding driveway. Cheerful sunlight, a clear blue sky, and billowing white clouds mocked the darkness of his mission. He drove past a well-landscaped lawn, coming to an easy stop in front of a rambling, ranch-style home surrounded by an old-fashioned veranda complete with Craftsman-style porch columns. A pair of white, wooden rocking chairs framed a bay window. The pastel yellow paint on the exterior of the house appeared slightly faded in contrast to the deep red and hot pink geraniums sitting in round clay pots balanced on the cracked alabaster porch railings. The high-pitched whine of a push lawn mower’s motor echoed behind the wooden privacy fence surrounding the backyard.

  In his mind, he saw a different house, in a different town, different state over a thousand miles away. Brilliant, neon colors—turquoise blue trimmed with butter yellow and highlighted with splashes of Aztec gold—adorned a bungalow style home with a deep, covered porch. The scent of heirloom roses wrapped with sugar cookies and the tinkling sound of wind chime upon wind chime flashed through his memory.