Page 82 of Before This Ends (Before)

“Thank you.”

I nod, then ask, “How long have you been working for dispatch?”

“Almost three years. A friend of mine from church worked there and told me I should apply, because they were hiring. I was going to school, so it was nice, because they worked with my schedule.”

“Are you still in college?” Tucker asks, and she drops her eyes.

“No. Patrick didn’t like me working and going to school. But I’d already moved out of my parents’ house, so I needed the job. He offered to give me money for rent, but—” Tiffany shakes her head. “—it felt wrong taking it from him.” Tears well in her eyes. “Especially because he was…” She shakes her head again. “Ismarried.” She looks between us. “You must think I’m the worst kind of person, to have an affair with a man who is married.”

“I think I can speak for both of us when I tell you that is the furthest thing from our minds,” Tucker assures her gently. “If anything, I think he likely took advantage of your age and his position in your life.”

A single tear trails down her cheek, but she wipes it away quickly.

“Can you tell us a little about your job at dispatch?”

“I basically just answer calls coming in on the emergency line. It’s not exciting—or not in agoodway.” Tiffany nibbles her bottom lip. “I know you want to know about the calls coming in about the church and its higher-ranking members.”

“We do.”

“I only ever had one come through to me. In high school I took Spanish for four years and was... am pretty fluent. The girl was a young Spanish girl who claimed she was being held against her will and that—” She drags in a breath. “—that she needed help. She needed someone to help her. When I put the address into the computer and asked for an officer to go to the address, my boss took over the call. They said they were familiar with the girl.

“A couple of days later, I went to check up on her in the system. I… I normally don’t do that when I get a call, no matter what it is, but she sounded so scared, so I just wanted to check to see what happened, if she was all right. But there was no report, and the call was erased. I thought it was strange, so I asked my friend about it, and she got weird… and then she told me that I should just leave it alone.”

Her brow furrows, and she looks down at her mostly empty plate when she continues, “I couldn’t. I don’t know why, but I couldn’t, so I asked my boss. He didn’t get weird. He got mad.Somad. I thought I was going to lose my job. I didn’t ask any more questions after that, but I paid more attention and noticed that more than once a call came through, and that same thing would happen. My boss would take over the call. There’s an older lady who works with me, and every time it happens, she gets a look like she knows what’s happening and doesn’t like it. I’ve never asked her about it. I’ve always been too scared to because I can’t lose this job.”

“Can you give us her name?”

Tiffany looks up. “Yes, but you have to promise you won’t bring my name up. Patrick knows a lot of people who work there, and if he finds out I….” She gulps. “I just don’t know what will happen, and right now….”

“We won’t bring you up,” Tucker assures her softly, seeing the same panic in her eyes that I do before she drops her eyes to her plate again.

She might have been angry enough to come here, but now what she’s told us is sinking in, along with what that could mean, as far as a consequence goes, if her name is brought up.

She doesn’t touch what is left of the food on her plate. Instead, she gives us the name Sally Gus, then attempts to hand us some cash for her breakfast, which we refuse. Before she leaves, we make sure she has Holly’s number. She runs Clay’s non-profit organization that helps women who are typically in the process of leaving their abusers or pimps, and also those who have been trafficked. Tiffany might not fit into any of those categories, but Holly will still be able to get her whatever she needs, and if she can’t, she will find someone who can.

I watch her walk past the windows that overlook the sidewalk after she gets outside, head down and arms wrapped around her middle.

“She might tell Patrick about our conversation,” Tucker mumbles, watching her get into her car. The two of us slide out of the booth, and I leave some cash on the table.

“Maybe, but I doubt it,” I say after we step outside. “I think it’s starting to sink in that he never planned on leaving his wife. And now she’s pregnant with his kid and is going to have no choice but to tell her friends and family. Unless she never tells them who the father is, which might also happen.” We stop at the door to my SUV. “Do you want to call Axel and fill him in, or do you want me to?”

“I’ll call him after I get in touch with Sally. I want more of an idea of what exactly is happening before I bring the information we got this morning to him. If the calls are being rerouted to the officers who hang around Stedman, Axel might be able to offer one of them immunity if they agree to come forward with what they know and testify.”

“The girl Tiffany spoke to.”

“I don’t like making assumptions, but I wouldn’t be shocked to find out this whole thing leads back to some kind of trafficking.” His jaw clenches.

“That’s my thought exactly, which is making me wonder if we should ask Clay to dig into things.”

For years, Clay worked at tracking down those involved in trafficking and did everything in his power to shut them down. When he met and fell in love with Willow, he turned his focus to helping those who were getting out of that lifestyle, a lifestyle that killed our foster sister after she was adopted.

While she was living with the family, she started talking to someone online, and they convinced her to run away from home. Years later, when we were able to track her down, it was too late. She died of an overdose in a Vegas hotel room, where she’d been flown out to party with some wealthy men for the weekend.

What happened to her led all of us to choose careers that could help women in her situation and hopefully prevent that from happening to someone else. Only, where Tucker and I joined the FBI and Dayton went into law, Clay’s jobs were never what any of us would consider legal.

That said, even our boss, Axel, has used Clay when he’s needed information no one else could get—at least not without breaking some rules.

“He’ll do it as long as nothing touches Willow.”

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