Kingston Kidnappings (What Happens In Vegas Book 3) by Matt Lincoln (great book club books .txt) 📗

9

Charlie

The next day, I arrived back to work feeling completely refreshed. I’d need to have all of my wits about me if I was going to be conducting interrogations. Interrogations were all about figuring out what your opponent’s weakness was and using it to your advantage to get them to talk. Harry had taught me a long time ago that it wasn’t enough to just use the same tricks and techniques on every suspect. I had to learn what made them tick in order to get what I wanted.

First up for me was Jennifer Bradshaw, the woman whose house we’d found Fatima in and the one who had attacked Junior before attempting to run off. Our new office was equipped with separate cells, which was good because they’d be unable to get their stories straight while they were waiting to be interrogated. Bradshaw was already in the interrogation room, and I could tell by the harried look on her face and the way she was shaking that she probably wouldn’t be that hard to break. She looked like the kind of well-to-do busybody that had probably never even gotten a speeding ticket. Usually, those types were easy to intimidate into talking. It was strange, though, that someone who had probably never committed a single crime in her life would suddenly jump to human trafficking of all things.

“You’re up first,” Junior said. He was sitting in a chair right in front of the two-way mirror and was holding a laptop. “Wallace is having us alternate to prevent any of us from getting fatigued. I’m going to sit outside during your and Naomi’s interrogations to take some notes. We can compare everything later.”

“Sounds good to me,” I said. We only had one interrogation room in our office, and at one person at a time, it was possible this could potentially take quite a while depending on how compliant the suspects were. It made sense to stagger the interrogations, so we’d have time to take breaks and recharge.

With that in mind, I stepped into the room. She flinched as I did, and she lifted her chin and tried to stop her lip from quivering in a show of defiance.

“Mrs. Bradshaw, we meet again,” I said as I sat down in the seat across from her. “That was quite a gash you gave my partner yesterday.”

Her eyes widened as she remembered the previous day’s events.

“It was self-defense,” she said haughtily. “Three people barged into my home, and I had no idea what was happening.”

“You had no idea what was happening?” I asked her cynically, and she shrank away from the harsh tone of my voice. “Okay. Let me ask you this, Mrs. Bradshaw. Why did you have a little girl stuffed in a cupboard under your sink?”

“I want a lawyer,” she squeaked, and I kept my expression carefully neutral. That wasn’t good. She could easily afford one, and while having a lawyer wouldn’t save her when we’d caught her red-handed, and she’d assaulted a federal agent, it would greatly delay our investigation. I had to think fast.

“Alright, Mrs. Bradshaw,” I said as I pulled my phone out of my pocket and placed it on the table in front of her. “Call one then. Just know that if you insist on a lawyer, I won’t legally be allowed to speak to you anymore. Or help you in any way.”

“What do you mean ‘call one’?” She gaped. “Aren’t you supposed to assign one to me?”

“Absolutely not,” I said. “That’s not how this works. And even if I did have the authority to provide you with a lawyer, I certainly wouldn’t go out of my way to help you slither out of the consequences of a crime we both know that you committed. You make way above the minimum threshold for being afforded a public attorney, which means that you are on your own.”

“So go ahead, call a lawyer,” I continued, “I can tell you right now, though, that not a single one will be able to help you out of the mess you’re in right now. We found a child hidden under your sink, Mrs. Bradshaw. You are being investigated for international human trafficking right now. Do you understand that? So you can take your chances with a lawyer who might not even want to take your case when he hears about what you’ve done, or you can talk with me, and maybe we can work something out for your benefit.”

Mrs. Bradshaw’s face had gone red and then white as I spoke, and her bottom lip was trembling as she struggled to hold back tears.

“It was all Danny’s idea,” she whimpered, and I realized immediately that she was referring to the Weavers. “He and Patty were the first ones to get a helper. They invited us over one night and let us in on their secret. They’d hold dinner parties and invite a few of the other couples, and if they thought they might be interested, we’d let them in on it. It was like a club. Before long, half the neighborhood had their own helper.”

“And where were you all getting the kids?” I asked. My stomach was in knots listening to her calmly recount how she and her friends had conspired to buy children.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “Danny always handled that part. He’d say that he would contact his supplier, and a new helper would arrive about a week later.”

“They aren’t helpers, Mrs. Bradshaw,” I growled at her as I finally lost my patience. “They’re slaves. What you and all your friends have done is kidnap children from their homes and keep them against their wills. What would you call that?”

Mrs. Bradshaw looked at me as if I had slapped her.

“How dare you,” she scoffed. “Having her do a few household chores doesn’t make her a slave. I gave that child a roof over her head and food to eat. She should be grateful that I plucked her from that