Page 102 of The Evening Wolves

Emery had to count to ten before responding. “Try what? I’ve tried everything I can think of. I’ve asked to speak to their superior officer. I’ve explained the situation. I’ve talked to just about every fucking cop in the Metropolitan PD except the ones who can actually make a decision. So what, exactly, would you like me to try?”

The tires thrummed. When John-Henry spoke, his voice was flat. “Call them again.”

Emery counted to twenty this time. Nothing he had tried so far had worked. The first call, to the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department’s emergency number, had garnered interest and a response. The dispatcher had said that she would send an officer to investigate. But when Emery had pressed, he had found himself transferred to a supervisor, asked to identify himself, and then placed on an interminable hold. He wasn’t a fool; he knew that he had nothing concrete to offer them, that his panic might have made him sound deranged. This was a city with one of the highest murder rates in the country; they didn’t have time to spend chasing rumors. Someone would be calling around, trying to corroborate his story. He also knew what that would mean. His own reputation in the Metropolitan PD, for those who remembered him, was tarnished by his departure. And whatever Peterson might believe personally about John, as acting chief of the Wahredua PD, he’d be obligated to tell the truth as he saw it: that he had no evidence of what they were claiming, and that John was out on bail and facing serious charges himself. North and Shaw hadn’t been able to reach their friend in the department, and Emery didn’t know what his other options were. It had been hours of this. Hours of being transferred and placed on hold and placated and ignored and accidentally disconnected. Hours of mounting frustration until he felt like he was choking on his rage.

He fought to reclaim the cold logic that had always been his refuge, battling the tide of his emotions—most of all, his fury at himself for not insisting on meeting every single staff member at that fucking pride center. Then he placed the call again.

They had been driving for almost two hours, and St. Louis was a bubble of light on the horizon. Everything had seemed to take too much time: getting Auggie and Theo up to speed, and then the inevitable argument about who would be coming, and putting together the gear they would need if things went bad, even the drive itself. A semi had overturned on I-70, backing up traffic for miles as emergency responders worked to clear a safe route for vehicles.

Through all of it, tension had ratcheted Emery’s body tighter and tighter. Part of that was the general discomfort of the gear—the vest he was wearing, the gun holstered at his side, the tactical jacket. He should have removed some of the gear for the drive, instead of sweating his ass off, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He needed to be prepared. He needed to be ready to help his son.

Another part of the tension, though, was manufactured by his imagination. He knew enough about trafficking, had read enough accounts from survivors, to understand what Colt might be going through. The best-case scenario was that, for the time being, Colt was still under the illusion that he was on a service trip. Koby—or whatever his real name was—might be continuing the farce in order to keep the kids compliant and manageable.

But the reality, Emery knew, was probably very different. If the kids were being taken for labor, violence would simply be used to ensure obedience. But if the trafficking were sexual in nature—he had read one story about a woman who had been taken to a resort community in Florida. She had been given her own villa. She had walked inside. And the minute she stepped through the door, three men were waiting for her. They had beaten her severely as a kind of foreplay. And then they had done worse.

“St. Louis Metropolitan Police—”

Emery launched into his explanation, and the struggle began again.

The city grew ahead of them, taking on height and depth, acquiring a granular density that was partly due to the scatter of sodium lights and partly due to the deep shadows that lay everywhere else. Across the water, Illinois’s river cities glinted golden brown. Nearing four in the morning now, the highway was empty except for the occasional early commuter—men and women coming across the bridges for work. They were headed the opposite direction, passing fleets of light that left darkness behind them. Once, a Charger whipped past them, swerving across lanes to make an exit. In its wake, the city felt abandoned.

When the Maps app told them to exit, Emery disconnected the call.

“Try—” John-Henry said.

“We’re past that,” Emery said. After a taking a minute to figure it out, he placed another call.

“What’s up?” Auggie asked.

“Emery?” Shaw said.

“Are Tean and Jem listening?”

A soft noise came, and then Auggie’s voice came back, sounding different. “They can hear you now.”

“We’re almost there,” Emery said. “I want to make sure everyone is clear about what we’re going to do when we get to the hotel.”

“We hang back and watch the exits,” Tean said. “If anyone leaves, one of us follows.”

“And for the record,” North said, “that’s a terrible plan. You haven’t gone up against this guy—Koby, whatever you want to call him. You don’t know what you’re dealing with.”

“John does,” Emery said.

“Yeah? Well, what does he think about the two of you trying to do this alone?”

“I think this is a high-risk operation,” John said, “and I want my friends to be safe.”

“We know how to handle ourselves,” Jem said. “Theo and I—”

“We have two stab vests,” Emery said. “Two. John is wearing one. And I’m wearing the other.”

John cut his eyes toward Emery at that comment, and something in his face suggested that, as usual, John’s perceptiveness might pose a problem.

“We didn’t have stab vests when we went up against him,” Jem said. “Theo, back me up.”

“Theo is going to agree with me—” Emery began.

“I think it’s a bad idea,” Theo said over him. “I understand your reasoning. We’re not trained for these kinds of situations, and we don’t know tactics. You’re not wrong. But Emery, it’s not just Koby. He’s going to have other people with him. This woman, Farah, for example. And the kids are going to be confused. Some of them might take Koby’s side, depending on what has happened so far. And what about this guy, Vermilya? We still don’t know where he fits in all this. And we’ve got no idea how many other people he’s got. He’s transporting a lot of valuable merchandise, to put it bluntly. It’s a mistake to assume he wouldn’t protect it appropriately.”

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