Such as it was.
“No shit,” she said, letting her chuckle taper off naturally. “I know you went through this with Candy, but these boys are all hopeless. If I don’t put it all down on paper in some kind of order, they won’t remember jack shit. So this is just housekeeping.”
His shoulders went down again. “Surprised they don’t make a prospect do it.”
“No offense to Nickel, but would you trust a prospect with something important?”
Another laugh from him, this one truer. He slouched back in his chair, and she had him; she could feel it. “Shit no.”
“Right? Okay, so walk me through it. Just what you’re willing to tell me.”
~*~
“Gwen.” Eden’s tone shifted down into grave-serious-adult-in-the-room. “It’s important that you be honest and open with us.”
“I have been,” Gwen snapped, looking sorry that she had afterward.
“I’d like to believe that,” Eden said. “Youseemedtruthful when you confessed to me at the hospital.”
“Iwas.”
“We know you’re scared,” Jenny said, aiming for warm. The back of her neck was crawling, though, anxiety ticking up another notch every time Gwen looked toward the door. “And that’s okay. But we’re just trying to help – you, and everyone else the cartel is hurting.”
“You told me about the girl Luis was showing off to the guys at Sandoval’s,” Eden said. “That she was lying still, and letting him undress her. She was drugged?”
Gwen fidgeted, like she was trying to force her legs even closer together; making herself smaller, Jenny though, shrinking down into the tiniest possible space. “Maybe. Probably. I thought she was.”
“The Chupacabras are selling more than drugs, aren’t they?” Eden asked. “That girl wasn’t a hanger-on or Luis’s girlfriend, was she? A flash man like him would have had a date dripping in jewels.”
A shrug. Another darted look at the door.
“I believe the woman you saw was one he then sold,” Eden continued; she was starting to sound impatient. “We know the cocaine is being shipped in crates – we saw that for ourselves – but he’d have to get more creative to move scores of people across the border and then disseminate them through the country.”
Gwen went back to chewing her thumbnail, gaze feverish, half-wild.
Eden tapped her pencil on the edge of the pad. Each light tap caused Gwen’s lashes to flicker, a tiny flinch.
“You were the one arranging the shipping,” Eden continued. “What were the trucks picking up besides crates?”
“Nothing.”
“It was only crates?”
A jerky nod.
“They aren’t air tight,” Jenny said. “If they were all” – she swallowed, a wave of nausea washing through her – “jammed up tight…”
A pained looked crossed Gwen’s face, screwed it up into something tortured and ugly, then she made a frustrated sound through her teeth and slammed her hands down into her lap, palms open, so they made a loud smack against her denim-covered thighs. “Ohmygod, okay, look.” She glanced toward the door, fear sparking in her eyes. When she turned back to them, she pitched forward in her chair and nearly fell out of it, her voice low and hushed and shaking. “The girls aren’t coming across the border.”
Jenny could feel her brows scaling her forehead. Judging by her tone, Eden was equally shocked.
“They’re American, okay? He’s kidnapping American girls and selling them.”
“What–” Eden started.
Jenny heard two very different sounds: hurried, booted footfalls moving down the hall. And a roar – soft but growing louder, quickly. An engine. A truck – closer, getting closer,tooclose.
Jenny stood.