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  “Where were they going?”

  “Shelton wanted them to pick up a buddy in North Carolina and bring him back here. I noticed they didn’t file a flight plan, and when I said something, they brushed me off.”

  “Stan Shelton has himself surrounded by some nasty people. I’m not sure he is aware of how nasty. The FBI is involved. I stumbled into this by accident. My advice to you is to keep it business as usual.”

  “If these people are up to no good, we want to help. We don’t want nothing illegal on our property,” said Jacob.

  “Yeah, he’s right. What can we do?” Bill added.

  “Fair enough. Watch out for anything unusual. Like the flight plan today. But most important, keep all this to yourself.”

  “I had a pilot buddy who worked for the Texas Border Patrol, and he would tell me all these crazy stories of how the cartels would smuggle in drugs, weapons, and people. I figured it was a Texas problem.”

  “Unfortunately, no. Once they get the contraband—people, in this case—into the country, then they need to move them around without being detected.”

  “Sex trafficking?” Jacob said.

  “Human trafficking. Some are put to work as prostitutes, some are coerced into domestic servitude. Forced labor.”

  Jacob shook his head. “Not using our land for that kind of nonsense.”

  “Alleged, don’t forget. I don’t blame you, but if either of your pilots suspects anything, they could move the operation elsewhere. And they’ll take care of any loose ends. And guess who the loose ends are?” I pointed at the two of them.

  “Like hell.” Jacob scoffed.

  “Please maintain your everyday routines. If all this is true, our best chance is to catch them in the act. Bill, put my number in your phone.” I recited my number as he punched it in. “Text me if you see anything odd, but please, don’t confront them. Send me a message if they come back before you leave at the end of the day. The FBI suspects they are moving girls in the next few days. Tonight could be the night.”

  “Will do,” Bill said. “If they are running underage girls and using my airfield, promise me one crack at them. Just one.”

  “We’d all love a shot, but we need to let law enforcement handle it.” I shook hands with the brothers. “I do have one question. The lights on the runway, do they come on automatically at night?”

  “No. When the pilot is approaching, say anywhere within five to ten miles out, he tunes to the airfield’s radio frequency and clicks the mic three times and the lights come on,” Bill explained.

  “Fascinating,” I said.

  I thank them and we agreed to stay in touch. Jacob got in Bill’s truck and they rumbled off. I turned my BMW around and headed for the city, worried I created two potential loose ends for Talia to snip.

  38

  While bargaining for my future with Bill and Jacob Davis, I missed four text messages on my phone. A few miles from the airfield, I turned the BMW in to a convenience store lot. The first message was from Dee Dee telling me Talia agreed to meet and to be at the same location on Rosewood at 9:00 p.m. Surprised, I thanked her with a response. The next three were from Katie asking me to call.

  She picked up on the first ring. “Where are you?”

  “Leaving Davis Airfield, on my way in.”

  “Please hurry. Stan Shelton is here, drinking and telling stories to anyone who will listen. So obnoxious. And if he grabs my ass one more time, I am going to stab him with a fork.”

  “No stabbing. I will be there in thirty.”

  I placed a call to Gil Evans, the FBI special agent heading the investigation. His voice mail came on and I left a message, telling him the Beechcraft had just left Davis. They could be picking up Stan’s friend in North Carolina, or not.

  Several thoughts collided in my head as I drove back to the city. The first was the Davis brothers. Holding them in my confidence could work to my advantage but having to explain the entire operation to two good old boys made me nervous. The last thing I needed were shotgun vigilantes waiting for the plane to land. I hoped Nick Villano told Bill to trust me and to stay out of the way.

  The second was Stan. He was at the airfield not thirty minutes ago and now he was at McNally’s, preaching to his faithful in the middle of the day? Why? And his hand on Katie’s ass irked me. I hoped she did stab him.

  ###

  He was in full Stan-the-man mode when I walked in, at a table with two girls in his lap and three guys gathered around, all enthralled in another tall tale of his football glory days.

  “See,” Katie said.

  “You two, up,” I said to the girls. “C’mon, Stan, we need to talk.” I pulled him from the chair.

  “Damn, Johnny.” He adjusted the front of his awful yellow pants as he stood. “I just can’t pop up like that. What do you think happens when two women are sitting in your lap?”

  “It will go down.”

  One of the guys from the table came after us. “Hey, man, leave him alone.”

  “Shut up. I own the place. Go back to your seat. Next round is on me.”

  “I can pay for my own drinks, and if Stan Shelton wants to sit with us, he can,” the kid protested.

  “I said, go back to your seat.”

  Mike walked in and immediately sensed the ruckus. His presence alone brought an instant calm. He stared the kid back to his table without saying a word.

  I pushed Stan into my booth. “What are you doing?”

  “Celebrating. It’s over. I came here to tell you.”

  “What is over?”

  “Everything—the blackmail, the threat of exposing me. Thank you for helping me the way you did. I appreciate it. And I’m serious, this place is my new place. I am going to bring you so much business, you’ll need to hire more girls. Please make sure they are as fine as my Katie. Where is she, anyhow? She should be here to celebrate. That girl does something to me.” He winked and pulled a checkbook from his pocket. “How much do I owe?”

  “What the hell are you talking about? What did you do?”

  He cocked his head and spoke with a newfound confidence. “Ended it. I know you might be mad, because you told me to do nothing, but it ate away at my insides. I couldn’t sleep, work, nothing. I’m sorry, but I completed the deal and transferred the money. I figured out a way that Nikki would not find out. Johnny, I can breathe again.”

  All I could do was stare in disbelief. My brain immediately kicked back to his history—lying, cheating, scheming, always working his way out of a jam he brought on himself. Jacob Davis’s words rang in my head: “Shelton always was a bullshitter.”

  “Johnny, what do I owe you? And I am adding a bonus for Katie.”

  “Come with me.” I slid out of the booth.

  He hesitated.

  “C’mon.”

  He stood; I grabbed his arm and pulled him into the kitchen and through the back door into the alley. He had two inches on me and a solid forty pounds, but my anger and adrenaline took over. I pushed him against the brick wall of the building.

  “Hey, what the hell?”

  I got inches from his face. “Two people are dead. Do you realize that? Neither one would have died if you had the ability to control your behavior, and now I think you lied to me this entire time. Who made the phone calls? Who came to your office?”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  Katie appeared in the alley. “Johnny.”

  “Go back inside,” I yelled. She ran in.

  “Stan, you need to come clean now. Why did you transfer the money? And to where? Grand Caymans? And where is your plane headed right now?”

  “My plane?”

  “You thought I wouldn’t discover you’re transporting girls into Port City?”

  “What? Girls? I sent them to pick up a friend of mine.”

  I slammed him against the building again. “Tell me the truth, Stan.”

  “Get the hell off.” He shoved me back. “Do not make me hit you,
John.”

  My fist landed first, a hard right to the side of his face, and he went down to the pavement. “That is for Paul Ellison.”

  Mike and Katie burst out to the alley.

  “The drunk detective who fell in the quarry? He was a lush,” he said.

  I drew back my fist again but Mike got between us. “Hold up, hold up.”

  “You son-of-a-bitch, Shelton,” I said. “You will not weasel out of this the way you do everything else.”

  Mike pulled Stan to his feet and pointed at me. “Be smart.”

  “Goddamn, Johnny. We are done. I’ll mail you a check.”

  “Like hell. Up to my place, now. You are not leaving until we sort all this out. Katie, take him upstairs and wait until I get there.”

  She reached out to take his arm, but he shook her off and walked to the stairs, where she followed him up.

  “You okay?” Mike asked.

  “Nothing fazes him. Two dead, and all is good? Unreal. I might need your help later. We can’t let him out of our sight.”

  “Anything.”

  “I’m sure I’ll pay for this somehow.”

  “Hey, he deserved to be punched for wearing the yellow pants.”

  39

  “Start explaining or I turn you over to the police,” I said, backing Stan against the refrigerator in my kitchen.

  “Police? For what? Escort services are legal.”

  “How about the illegal trafficking of underage girls? Wait till the press sinks their teeth into that story. Famous quarterback pays for teenage girls to come into the country to work as prostitutes.”

  His brow furrowed. “What are you talking about? You said that downstairs.”

  “You need to come clean now. Start from the top.” I pulled out a kitchen chair. “Sit.”

  He did, and I poured him a Scotch against my better judgment, but I needed to grease him a bit. He had to tell me everything or I would push him off the quarry cliff myself.

  “I already told you everything.”

  “No. Dee Dee. You hired her, and—”

  “John, I’m sorry I got you mixed up in all this. Can we call it a day? We’re good now. And the stuff about young girls sounds sick and nasty. Not my thing. Today is a great day and we should celebrate.”

  I leaned against the kitchen counter. This man was seriously delusional about reality. As a sports celebrity, he must have been so insulated from the consequences of his actions that he now believed he could solve anything with money and bullshit. The NFL protected him when he gambled on games, and God only knows how many times his wives ignored the skirt-chasing in exchange for the lifestyle. But I was determined.

  I slammed a chair into the table and got in his face. “Now. Stan. I want the truth. Did you forget about Kenzie and Detective Ellison? They are dead because of your actions. You okay with that? All is good, why? Because you paid off some scumbags? You need to decide on which side of the bars you want to spend the rest of your days. And I’m not talking about bars that serve drinks. Start with Dee Dee.”

  He stared at the table for a minute. Then leaned back in the chair with his eyes closed.

  “Stan, I am your only friend, whether you like it or not. You need to believe me, because this is going to go sideways, very fast. And it will not be some celebrity sex scandal where you are crying and contrite and go to some phony rehab for sex addiction. Think about life in prison for a football star. They’ll bend you over like you’re the center, but it won’t be their hands they stick under your ass. Those dudes will pay each other for a turn with you. You’ll be the Super Bowl trophy.”

  “Is that supposed to be funny?”

  “No, not at all.” I walked to my balcony door and talked with my back to him. “Second thought, you are right—it is over. I’m done. You can go to hell.” I turned around. “Tell your story to the FBI.”

  “Okay, okay. I’m sorry.” He sat forward, elbows on the table, head in his hands. “I hired Dee Dee. Picked her out from the website. We had a couple of dates and I liked her. We hit it off. All that is true. After the fifth or sixth date, she tells me the owner of the company wants to meet with me. To talk business. Sounded intriguing, so I agreed and met with Talia. You know who I am talking about?”

  I nodded. “Where did you meet?”

  “At my loft. Incredible woman. I can’t even describe her. Has these eyes that are some wild shade of green I’ve never seen before.”

  “I’m familiar.”

  “She asked me to invest, said she wanted to expand the business. Wanted me to partner with her and said there was a lot of money to be made. I said I would think about it and one hour later, two incredible girls show up at the loft and we, umm, closed the deal. I agreed to invest a million. Two separate transfers. I told Talia I couldn’t transfer all the money at once.”

  “Kenzie?”

  “Two weeks after I made the first transfer was when Kenzie showed up at the dealership, threatening to expose me.”

  “Did you tell Talia?”

  “Yes. She listened, said to not worry about it. I told Dee Dee, and she reassured me Kenzie had nothing to do with the company and was working her own scam. Told me to not pay her. But I was so impatient, scared, I couldn’t help it and came to see you. Did not want my name to get out. Dee Dee was furious with me for hiring you.”

  He emptied his glass and I refilled it. “Keep going.”

  “Kenzie was killed. You said it was a message killing, and I knew instantly the message was for me. That the blackmail threat was over. But I didn’t want to admit to you my involvement with the company.”

  “Who killed her?”

  He stretched his body in the seat, rolled his head around. Let out a long sigh. “I figured Talia. Stopping the blackmail.”

  “You talked to her after Kenzie was killed?”

  “No. I asked Dee Dee to arrange a call, but it didn’t happen.”

  “So, the other two calls had nothing to do with Kenzie?”

  “No, they were about the money I owed to Talia. I was late in paying, mostly because the Kenzie thing had me freaked out.”

  “The trafficking? What do you know?”

  He sat forward and stared me dead in the eye. “Nothing. I swear, Johnny. I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  My phone vibrated. The screen displayed, Gil Evans. “Do not move,” I said to Stan and went to my balcony to take the call. “Agent Evans,” I answered.

  “Delarosa, thanks for the info on the plane. Good work. We just got word the girls are on the move, we think headed to an airstrip near Canton, Georgia. North of Atlanta.”

  “How can I help?”

  “You already did, but I wouldn’t mind eyes on the airfield. I tried Detective Mattson. Left four messages. She with you?”

  “No, haven’t seen her today.”

  “Keep trying, if you wouldn’t mind. I will, too. Keep me posted.”

  “Will do.”

  I ended the call with Evans and tried Monica’s phone. Her voicemail came on, I left a message asking her to call me.

  Back inside, I thought, Decision time for me. How much do I divulge? I could hold back, but it was come-to-Jesus time for Stan. My smartest move would be to gauge his reaction.

  “The FBI suspects Talia is complicit in the trafficking of young girls from South America, flying them into Port City on their way to New York. Are you saying you have no knowledge of your plane being used to fly girls up the coast?”

  “Hell no. For God’s sake. I’m not perfect by any means, but there is no way I would be involved in that.” He stood and moved away from the table as if I were contagious. “The young girl stuff is deplorable. You got to believe me.”

  “Your plane, today. Where was it going?”

  “North Carolina. Pick up a friend.”

  “Who?”

  “My friend? Jimmy Trimble. You remember him, played for Minnesota. Coming up to play golf for a few days.”

  “Can DeRenzo and Rod
riguez access your plane without your approval?”

  “Yes, I allow them to use it whenever they want. Part of a deal I have with them…” He trailed off, I’m certain realizing the two pilots could be using his airplane without his knowledge.

  “I want you to look me in the eye and tell me the truth. You know nothing about sex trafficking and flying girls from the south to here?”

  “Johnny, are you nuts? Please, please, believe me. I would lose everything.”

  “I want to believe you.” My voice went up an octave. “I do. But if you are not telling me the truth, I will march you to the FBI myself. After I shoot you.”

  He threw up his hands. “Fair enough. I don’t want my name—or my airplane—or my pilots, associated with any of that kind…of stuff. You think Talia is involved? If so, I’ll pay you extra to keep me out of this.”

  “The FBI thinks she is. What I can do is keep you tucked away and out of sight. Every time I say go home and stay there, you take off. You need to distance yourself from these people, especially now. Including Dee Dee.”

  “Johnny…”

  “Including Dee Dee. The FBI is all over this. Call Nikki and make something up. Sleep here tonight.”

  “What do I tell her? I will go home and lock the doors. I swear.”

  “Non-negotiable. Actually, I have a better idea. How would you like to spend the night with Katie?”

  “Huh?” His eyebrows went up and his eyes widened. He dug into a pocket. “Where’s my phone? Calling Nikki now.”

  40

  “Seriously?” she asked, loud enough to turn patrons’ heads.

  “Lower your voice.” Katie and I stood next to my booth at the rear of McNally’s when I detailed my plan for her to baby sit Stan at my beach place overnight. “We’ll load him up with booze and he’ll sleep.”

  “Where is he now?” Her arms were folded across her chest.

  “Upstairs, stretched out on my sofa.”

  “You lost your mind if you think I am going to spend a second with that perv. I’ll be black and blue from fighting him off.”

  I pulled her into the booth and explained that Stan’s plane took off earlier and how Gil Evans said the girls were on the move, most likely headed to an airfield. “This is going down tonight. Please do this. I’m betting the plane comes back with girls, and I need to keep Stan where we can watch him. He denies knowing about the trafficking, but I don’t know what to believe with him.”