Bones of the Lost: A Temperance Brennan Novel

“SUPPOSE THESE GIRLS ARE BEING trafficked.”

Slidell’s expression was beyond dubious.

“Human trafficking. Think about it.”

We stood outside the homicide unit squad room. Behind us, through a doorway, stretched a labyrinth of dividers, file cabinets, and desks. A few were occupied.

“Creach says the Bronco Club features special dancers every month. Very young girls. You think they’re all hitching rides from Iowa and Nebraska?”

“They’re strippers. They make a few bucks, they move on.”

“And enroll in PhD programs at Yale,” I snapped.

“That ain’t what I meant.”

“Consider this. Who would be well positioned to meet the demand for a constant supply of young women?”

Slidell gave me a skeptical look.

“Dom Rockett,” I said.

“Just ’cause the guy smuggles dead dogs don’t mean he’d smuggle live people.”

I listed the points that had just toggled in my brain. Candy. The Passion Fruit. Spanish. Frequent buying trips to South America.

“And Rockett had cash to invest in S&S Enterprises. Where’d he get it?”

“You’re saying he greases his pockets trafficking child sex slaves?”

Easy, Brennan.

“I’m saying we need to consider the possibility that girls are being brought here illegally then forced to work in the sex trade.”

“And that Rockett’s the doer.”

“A number of factors point to him.”

“Smuggling dead dogs is one thing. Smuggling kids is a mighty big leap.”

“I understand that.”

Slidell looked down at the file in his hand. Shifted his feet.

“Majerick I could see, but that kind of operation is above his skill set. Rockett, eh?” He scrunched one side of his face and shook his head.

I had to agree. My impression of Dom Rockett was conflicted. A scarred war hero. A man with no interest in helping ID a hit-and-run victim. I felt pity. I felt revulsion.

“Rockett has the skill set, as you put it. And the infrastructure. The trucks, the supply routes,” I said. “Does he have the coldhearted ruthlessness to traffic helpless kids? I don’t know.”

The callousness to kill if they rebelled? That thought was too terrible to voice.

Two more neurons reached out.

A plastic vial. An antique tusk.

“Holy crap, Slidell. I just thought of something else. Larabee found a sliver of ivory in Candy’s scalp.”

“What’s ivory doing in a hooker’s hair?”

“Will you let me finish?”

Slidell looked at his watch.

“When we were in Rockett’s house I saw a carved tusk in his living room. The thing looked old.”

“And?”

“What do you mean, and?” Sharp. “The worldwide ban on ivory has been in effect for over twenty years. Who has the stuff just lying around?”

“I got an ivory marble my granddaddy give me.”

“Are you listening to me?”

“Calm down, doc.”

“I am calm. Did you know that, other than drugs and guns, human beings are the most smuggled commodity on earth?”

Slidell rubbed his chin.

A phone rang in the squad room behind us.

“I’ll write up a warrant. Not saying I’ll get one, but we’ve got Creach’s admission the Passion Fruit is a rub and tug. I’ll go with that. Once inside, we see what we see.”

• • •

While Slidell tried to convince a judge to issue a search warrant, I headed back to the MCME to do some research. I learned the following.

A United Nations study put the estimated annual global profit from human trafficking at $31.6 billion. And that figure was a few years out of date. Given the industry’s steep growth curve, some were placing the total closer to forty billion.

At any given time, 2.5 million people worldwide are in forced labor as a result of trafficking. One hundred and sixty-one countries are affected, 127 as exporters, 137 as importers. Asian and pan-Pacific countries are the most common source, followed by African, Middle Eastern, and Eastern Bloc nations.

The majority of victims are between eighteen and twenty-four years of age, but roughly 1.2 million children are also trafficked annually.

Trafficked individuals end up in bonded or forced labor, or in sexual servitude. Bonded laborers work to pay off a loan or service, often for years. Forced laborers work against their will, usually in domestic, farm, or sweatshop settings.

Forty-three percent of all trafficking victims end up in involuntary commercial sexual exploitation. Ninety-eight percent are women and girls.

After an hour I sat back, sickened.

Runaways hoping for better lives as nannies, models, or maids. Teens meeting an exciting new date, an exotic stranger, an older man. Kids playing or walking to school, grabbed and thrown into the back of a van. All ending up in an inescapable hell of strip clubs, brothels, and pornographic films.

I squeezed my eyes tight. The heartbreaking images remained.

Children jammed in a pen, hands clutching the wire, eyes begging for help. A girl with bound wrists, face devoid of hope. Young boys on mats in a filthy basement.

I hovered at the edge of a deep well of helpless rage.

An e-mail pinged me back.

I noted the sender. Read the subject line.

Felt needles of ice dance my skin.

You’re next, bitch.

citizenjustice@hotmail.com.

“Bring it on, you bastard!”

I opened the vile thing.

A single image filled my screen, a .jpg transmitted as an attachment.

The picture showed a woman lying on her back, a dark puddle on the pavement below her head. The woman’s eyes were open and fixed on nothing. Her face was swollen and discolored and streaked with blood.

My breath caught in my throat.

The woman’s mouth gaped wide. Too wide.

“Oh, Jesus. Oh, no.”

Despite the blood, I could see that the woman’s mouth was empty.

I stared, shocked and sickened. Knowing. The woman’s tongue had been severed, packaged, and left on my doorstep. Had I met her?

The woman’s features were too distorted to allow recognition. If I even knew her.

I ran my gaze down the supine body. The clothing was unremarkable, a jacket, dark pants, sensible shoes.

I worked my way back up.

The jacket was stained with what I assumed to be blood.

My gaze fell on the woman’s neck.

One heartbeat. Two. A dozen.

The icy needles burned hotter.

I grabbed my hand lens. Focused.

Saw a heart-shaped mark in the hollow of the woman’s throat.

My fist slammed the desk.

Goddammit! Goddammit! Goddammit!

Tears burned the backs of my lids.

I got up. Paced. Furious. Miserable.

Culpable?

When the phone rang I nearly ignored it.

“What!” More expletive than question.

“You okay, doc?” Slidell.

“I . . . Are you near a computer?”

“Can be.”

“I’m forwarding a photo to your e-mail.”

“Could take a minute.”

“Call as soon as you get it.” I prayed my voice didn’t reveal how gutted I felt.

“I thought you wanted—”

“Do it!”

More pacing.

The phone rang twelve minutes later.

“Citizenjustice. Who is this dickwad?”

I listened to Slidell’s breathing, knew he was studying the image.

“It’s D’Ostillo,” I said.

“The waitress at the Mixcoatl?”

“Yes.”

“You sure?”

“See the birthmark on her throat?”

Slidell grunted.

“It’s D’Ostillo. She talked to us and was killed.”

“Now don’t go thinking this is your fault.”

“Really? Whose is it? Whose idea was it to go to that restaurant?”

“She’s the one called you.”

“And for being a good Samaritan she gets her tongue hacked out!”

I was close to tears. And hating it. Especially when talking to Slidell.

Slidell was silent for so long I thought he’d disconnected. Given my rudeness, I wouldn’t have blamed him.

“Getting sicker and sicker,” he said.

“Whoever did this plays for bigger stakes than one teenage hooker.”

“You’re thinking Candy and D’Ostillo are connected?”

“You don’t? Candy was killed near the taquería. D’Ostillo told us she’d seen Candy in there, said she worked at the Passion Fruit. D’Ostillo’s dead, Candy’s dead.”

“Still liking Rockett?”

“Right now he’s topping my list.”

“I’ll send the e-mail over to cyber crimes, see if they can capture an ISP. Techs can analyze the image. Filter it or enlarge it or whatever the fuck they do. Maybe we can nail the location.”

“What are the chances the body’s still there?”

Slidell made one of his Slidell noises. Then, “The Passion Fruit belongs to an outfit called SayDo, LLP.”

“What?”

He started to repeat. I cut him off.

“Who are the owners?”

“They’re not really into talking about themselves.”

“Someone’s looking into it?”

“As we speak. In the meantime, I got the warrant.”

“When do you hit?”

“Tonight. Putting a team together now.”

“I want in.”

“Yeah, I figured that.”