Page 63 of Fighting for Tawny

Breakfast went to waste. No one felt like eating. The next forty-five minutes passed slowly as if someone commanded Time to crawl. When they heard sirens in the distance, they jumped like live wires.

A caravan of patrol cars and typical black Suburbans rolled into the yard. Doors slammed. Feet crunched on the gravel. Debbie and Susan clutched each other in fear. Moira flashed a grim but reassuring smile at them and walked out to meet Sheriff O’Grady and his entourage. Tawny, Yolanda, and Terrin followed her while the others hung back in the open doorway. Whitcomb and Macintosh joined Moira.

Tawny scanned the crowd. She recognized Sheriff O’Grady and the belligerent detective who’d been on the scene when they found Gary Colfer’s body. Jiena climbed out of one of the black Suburbans, along with two of her agents from her Laguna Beach satellite office, Olivia Warren and Claire Mitchell. They introduced themselves to Sheriff O’Grady and the detective. Their hard-set jawlines and unfriendly demeanors suggested that they didn’t appreciate the Feds interloping in their jurisdiction. Jiena allowed the sheriff to lead the investigation, most likely to appease him. He began by attacking Moira.

“You’re responsible for this fiasco, Captain Finnigan. I’ll see you stripped of your rank!”

“I wouldn’t call two of my team members being lured out of their beds and abducted a fiasco. Have you even bothered to question the guard assigned to this post over the weekend? In fact, where is he? He should have to explain how this happened.”

Sheriff O’Grady scowled and pointed at Whitcomb and Macintosh. “Who was on duty over the weekend?”

“We’re not sure,” Whitcomb replied.

“What the hell? Aren’t you supposed to stay until your relief arrives? Can you at least tell me if he was from the prison?”

“I said we’re not sure!” Whitcomb lost his temper. Little wonder with the Feds breathing down his neck. “A Honda Accord passed us as we were on the road. That’s all we know. And Warden Stoltz is clueless.”

Jiena stepped toward them. “Show us Dee and Barbie’s quarters.” Her intervention defused their antagonistic behavior.

Whitcomb and Macintosh led the Feds to Bunkhouse B, and Jiena ordered the officers to search it. Tawny dared to inch closer and watched the officers trash the bunkhouse, searching for evidence. They dusted for fingerprints. Knowing they would, Finnigan had wiped down all the surfaces he’d touched. Tawny and Yolanda had done a second, thorough cleaning to be safe. She prayed there weren’t any hairs or stray fibers left behind. The officers came out of the bunkhouse with a few baggies in their hands, and Tawny gulped.

But when the detective asked about the toolshed, Tawny’s heart leaped into her throat. Her and Finnigan’s DNA was all over the toolshed. She’d done her best to clean it up, but now she worried they’d find something to trace back to Finnigan. If they did, it would take days to process. Hopefully, before then, the case would be over. And even if it wasn’t, she believed Jiena would protect the integrity of her case.

She breathed easier when Olivia and Claire volunteered to search the toolshed, especially when they came out empty-handed.

During the search, which also included Bunkhouse A, Sheriff O’Grady interrogated the women. He started with Debbie and Susan since they roomed with Dee and Barbie. The two women maintained that they didn’t know anything other than observing the changes in Dee and Barbie’s personalities in the days prior to their disappearance. From his clenched facial features and flushed tone, it seemed all the women sticking to the same story angered Sheriff O’Grady. His detective appeared to be equally frustrated with them. He glared at Tawny. Evidently, her defiance infuriated him.

“Every single one of you is part of a conspiracy to cover up the truth about what happened to Dee Rogers and Barbie Lewis.” He spat on the ground. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to shut down this camp for good and drag your asses back to prison where you belong. Starting with you.” He pointed at Tawny.

She folded her arms across her chest. “Bring it, Detective.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Jiena strode toward the detective. Her eyes flashed with fire. “Stop threatening these women, Detective. You have neither the power nor the authority to shut this place down. Before somebody corrupted it, it was the most successful rehabilitative program in the state. If you can’t see what happened here was a setup, then you’re an even bigger idiot than you’re presenting yourself to be right now.”

“What the hell do you mean?” the detective demanded.

“Must I draw you a picture? Someone knew the camp’s routine. Someone targeted Dee and Barbie. Someone sent a guard whom no one knew to replace Whitcomb and Macintosh. This isn’t a normal kidnapping. Dee and Barbie don’t come from wealthy families. No. This is something else.”

“Such as?”

“My guess is human trafficking.”

Whitcomb and Macintosh relaxed, almost sagging with relief, and exchanged a meaningful look. Jiena deliberately threw them off by not playing the drug card. Tawny silently applauded her tactic. She wanted Whitcomb and Macintosh to feel they had nothing to fear from the FBI.

“Human trafficking, huh?” the detective scoffed.

“Yes. We’ve been tracking an increase in missing women from Southern California for years. The fire camp in Chino Hills is the perfect hunting ground for victims. Abandoned women no one cares about. So what if they go missing?”

Jiena presented a strong, compelling argument. The detective did not respond to it, but Sheriff O’Grady agreed.

“SAC Cofield is right. Chino Hills is only two hours away from Tijuana. It’s not a stretch of the imagination to assume Dee Rogers and Barbie Lewis have been taken across the border. If that’s true, they’re lost. We’ll never find them.”

His sober observation caused cries of dismay among the Titans.

“Don’t worry,” Jiena spoke in a soothing tone. “I’ll do my best to find Dee and Barbie.”

After that reassurance, law enforcement left the fire camp. They hardly had time to regroup when Moira received an emergency call. A school bus filled with students on a nature hike had crashed. The Titans rushed to help with the rescue efforts.

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