Seeds of Evidence (9781426770838) by White Linda J

Author:White, Linda J.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abingdon Pr
Published: 2013-09-11T04:00:00+00:00

“The guy’s not right,” David said half an hour later when he walked into Kit’s kitchen.

“What do you mean?”

“Jackson Montgomery. The motel manager. He’s hiding something.”

“What?”

“Maybe he’s part of the abduction. Maybe he was using her. Maybe he smokes dope. I don’t know yet.”

“Did he give you the information?”

David held out a paper. “He said it was everything he had on her.”

Kit took it and read Maria’s name, “Maria Allessandro,” her Social Security number, address of record, and a phone number.

“I tried the phone number on the way over here. It’s not in service. You look up the social and I’ll bet you find the same thing.”

Indeed, the Social Security number traced back to one Maria Allessandro of Philadelphia, an 85-year-old widow. “False identity,” Kit confirmed to David when she hung up the phone. “The ‘home address’ is an abandoned warehouse in Salisbury.”

“All right. So she’s illegal . . .”

“Not necessarily,” Kit said, pacing. “If she’s a trafficking victim she might have been brought into the country on a valid six-month visa. Most victims don’t even know their visas will expire in that time. The trafficker, who provided them with the visa, keeps the passport, and the victim is then trapped. They don’t go to the authorities because they’ve been told they’ll be in trouble. Or the trafficker threatens their family back home. So she could be using a false identity because the trafficker has her legal papers.” Kit looked at David. His deep brown eyes were fixed on her and in them she saw the emotion she was trying to resist. She took a deep breath. “You want to see the whole slide show? The presentation I gave my boss and the AUSA?”

“Absolutely.”

David sat beside her at the table. Slide by slide, they went through her presentation. She could hear him breathing, feel his leg when he moved, smell the Irish Spring soap he’d showered with. She fought to stay focused on her work.

When they finished, he said, “I’m impressed.”

Kit smiled.

“No, really. I’m impressed. Cops don’t do stuff like that, not at my level, anyway.”

“I had to make the case to get approval to continue. I just kept thinking that I couldn’t leave that boy on the beach, all by himself. Remember what you told me? A homicide case is a sacred trust. I owe him a fight for justice in his case. And now . . . now I think we may also be fighting for some living people. The boy is pointing us to them, you know what I mean?”

“I know exactly what you mean.”

Kit turned back to the photos on the table. “I need to go to Norfolk. I want to look at the financial records of this C&R Enterprises. I want to talk to Immigration. My partner,” she saw David’s eyes flicker, “my partner needs to see these photos.”

“Your partner?”

“Yes. Chris Cruz. You remember him? He helped pull you out of the channel.”

“Oh, yeah.”

“He worked a prostitution trafficking case up here a couple of years ago so our boss thought he might be helpful to me.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.