Chapter 10

What I really needed now was a conversation with Hector. Maybe if we spoke to the other men that Steph had mentioned we could follow her trail. Duane Rivera and Bud Lapira seemed like the men we needed to talk to so being impatient for Hector to reply to me I messaged him again. This time he replied straight away saying that he was on his way back to Rangeman, making me wonder what he'd been up to. While waiting for Hector I went up to my apartment finding a meal that Ella had left in the fridge. I heated the chowder in the microwave while I changed into clothes that didn't have a Rangeman logo on them. Tonight, regardless of what news Hector had I was going to be trawling some of the areas down on Stark Street.

I'd just placed an empty bowl in the sink when I heard the knock on my door. Opening it I wasn't surprised to see Hector stood there but was surprised to see Santos follow him in. Taking a seat on the couch I waited as the two men joined me, keen to know what Hector had discovered.

"First, Morelli's hard drive. He'd downloaded information on several self catering units but when I checked with the places none of them had received a booking from Morelli or anyone that would match his age. They were all fully booked months ago by families. No maps downloaded or anything else to suggest where he might have gone"

I didn't think it would be as easy as that to track Morelli. Maybe he wasn't as stupid as I thought, but he would have made some small mistake and that was all that I needed to find.

"Duane Rivera. He was one of the men that I said wasn't someone Steph should have gone near. He trawls the streets for runaways, the younger the better and then ensnares them into staying at one of his brothels. The older women take charge of them and after seeming to provide a better existence start to demand repayment, usually entertaining clients"

I looked up at Hector hoping that hadn't been the fate of Lainey and if Steph had approached the man that he hadn't had any notions of doing anything to hurt her.

"I spoke to some of the girls on the street. They'd seen Steph asking questions, one had spoken to Steph herself and had assured her that there was no new girl that she was aware of being used inside Rivera's houses"

That only left Bud Lapira.

"Bud Lapira?"

I asked hoping that Hector knew something about this man.

"Bad news. He takes kids to order. Apparently, he uses the dark web to advertise that he can source anyone's desires. Male, female, young or adolescent, black, white or Hispanic. Once he has an order and down payment, he finds one that fits the profile"

"Don't parents report them as kidnapped?"

It was a logical question that Santos asked but I had a feeling that the young people that Lapira abducted would be the ones that no one would miss.

"No. He finds runaways or even grooms the kids to leave home. Some may be reported as missing but there's no way the police have the resources to find every kid that's gone missing"

It made me wonder if Steph had spoken to Lapira and if she had, if she'd found out anything. Maybe we needed a quiet word with him ourselves.

"Do you know where Lapira is?"

"No, he's well hidden. But I know where he'll be"

I looked at Hector not understanding how he would know that when it suddenly occurred to me that maybe Hector had somehow used his site to order a young person.

"Don't tell me you've been in touch and made an order?"

I was glad that it was Santos who'd said that out loud because I didn't want the look aimed at Santos from Hector directed at me. Hector looked more than a little annoyed. He was probably right to be, because I knew that Hector would never put the life of a child in harm's way by doing that.

"No. I found his last customer, hacked into their system, and know who it is and when the handoff is happening"

Even better because at least maybe we'd be able to save an innocent child and with a bit of luck scare the customer into rethinking his fantasies. We had 24 hours to set it up.

I was on edge for the rest of the evening and the following day, so much so that Tank recognized the mood that I was in. By mid afternoon he wouldn't leave my office until I told him what was wrong. I hated having to repeat the story again, if Tank had had more faith in what I was doing then it wouldn't have been necessary.

"Eddie caught up with me at the station when we took Glassy in. He told me that Morelli was really pissed at Steph because she was refusing to talk to him. Eddie was worried that Morelli had dragged her somewhere to make her change her mind"

I saw the concern on Tank face as he sat back in his chair and wiped his hands down his face, maybe even muttering "Shit" out loud.

"Why would Eddie say that?"

"No one has heard from Steph and Eddie reminded me that Steph would never go anywhere without her hamster"

"But why would he think Morelli would take her away?"

Yeah, it did sound unbelievable saying it again to another person.

"Apparently he's done it before"

"I, we never even considered that he'd done something like that. Why didn't Steph tell us?"

I had no idea on that, other than knowing how independent she was. She probably decided to put it behind her when she returned home and thought that Morelli wouldn't try it again.

"I took a look around Morelli's house last night"

"Why the hell didn't you tell me about this sooner?"

I looked back at Tank wondering if he knew just how much grief he had given me or the impression that I was insane for wanting to know where Steph was.

"Okay. I deserved that. I was worried how you would cope knowing that she was gone, and I didn't want you to start running all over the country trying to find her when she didn't want to be found. I'm sorry, I was wrong"

I suppose he had a point. Hadn't I accepted what had happened and tried to convince myself to move on?

"What did you find at Morelli's?"

"Morelli's hard drive, but Steph's laptop was there. I found a file that she'd written with names, maybe some she spoke to or maybe some she was looking for"

"What names are we talking about?"

I started with the ones that I knew, hoping that maybe Tank knew of them.

"Jerry Morrow, Leroy Spanner, Duane Rivera, Bud Lapira and Joseph Thomson"

"Who we going after first?"

That was when I knew that Tank was back, watching my back.

It seemed that everyone knew what we were going to be doing. Tank had obviously spoken to Brown and filled him in with our conversation, though they both seemed more quiet than usual when I relayed to them who the man was that we were going after. I didn't blame Tank for losing sight of Steph but was sure that he was feeling a bit guilty, which was why he was with us as we planned out how to approach Lapira.

"I know someone in child services, she could take the young person"

I wasn't sure how Brown was thinking of that happening because I didn't want anyone to think that me or any of my men were responsible for the deal.

"What if I bring that person with me and then together, we can confront Dorkins when he has the child"

I agreed with that and started to add that contingent to our planning.

"Hector, put a tracker on his car so we can follow him. If he walks, though I can't see that happening, Santos and I will follow on foot. Once we see where he parks, Tank, you and Hector spread out and cover the area. I'll disable the vehicle so he can't drive off and Brown, you have this child services person with you watching close to his vehicle"

"He drives an old camper van, he'll drive"

I agreed with Hector, this man wouldn't want to be seen on the street dragging a kid behind him.

"Once the exchange has happened, we'll allow the man and kid to leave. Brown you can confront him when he reaches his van"

"I'll take Ram with me, just in case he puts up a fight"

That left four of us to corner Lapira, would that be enough?

"Hector, is Lapira violent?"

As Hector shrugged his shoulders, I knew that we would need another team just in case.

"Tank, maybe we need Cal and Hal as backup"

"Ranger, every man in this building would want to be there, knowing what this Lapira does and especially if it meant finding out what happened to Steph"

I wanted that man in a cell and feeling very uncomfortable. I'd checked through his history and according to that he only had warnings for stalking people, nothing that even gave an indication of what he was doing.

"Taser him and put him in one of the cells downstairs"

No one would miss him, and I was pretty sure that most of the men would love to have a little talk with him. I passed out the photo of Lapira that I'd found, courtesy of his driving license, along with the address of the man we'd be following, a John Dorkins.

"Full kit. 2130 in the garage"

If nothing else, I hoped that we would manage to scare the shit out of Lapira dressed as we were. Everyone, except for Brown was wearing a full black uniform, a vest and carrying weapons on their utility belts. Checking the comms system, we were all silent as we loaded into the SUVs. Brown had spoken to a woman from child services and was picking her up on route. Apparently, she was keen to help. It wasn't long before we were parked down the street watching a rough looking duplex on Humboldt Street in East Trenton, an area known for a high crime rate. The van that Hector had mentioned was sat outside and I knew that Hector had already attached a tracker on it.

Dorkins was due to meet with Lapira at 2315hrs, unfortunately we didn't know where until Lapira messaged him just prior to the time. At exactly 2300hours Dorkins walked out of his house with his phone against his ear. He was a man in his forties, thin with dark, greasy long hair that looked to be thinning out on the top of his head, a face that looked gaunt with thick lensed glasses. He was wearing blue denim jeans and a dark colored jacket, I assume to give himself a nondescript look.

It seemed that Lapira was going to be talking Dorkins through the route to take. Clever man, which had me thinking that Lapira might be watching Dorkins to make sure that he didn't have a tail.

"Fall back, subject may be under surveillance"

As Dorkins set off I did a U turn and then drove onto the street parallel with where his tracker was leading us. I knew that Tank and Santos would be up ahead ready to follow using a similar style of tailing. I have to say that Lapira was a cautious man but even he couldn't stop us from knowing where he was going to have his meeting. We were on N Olden Ave when Dorkins turned off the road and started to drive down the overgrown road that led to the New Jersey correctional facility. I wasn't sure if the place was a brilliant idea on the part of Lapira or stupid, until Dorkins cut across the grass toward the old railway embankment. I killed the lights of the SUV and followed, pulling up under the cover of the overgrown trees.

"Coming in on foot"

Was heard from Tank as we quietly exited the vehicle. I had a brief memory of this area from paying a visit to the correctional facility so knew that if the other men climbed over the fence after the railway bridge, then they'd be able to come around the back of where Dorkin's had disappeared to, before finding cover within the trees. Staying low to the ground we observed the van before we heard the door to the van open and shut

We waited a couple of minutes until Dorkins was out of sight, before opening up the back of the van where the engine was located. I wasn't looking for a sophisticated way to disable the thing, so yanked out the distributor cap. It had worked for Steph all those years ago when she had wanted to stop Morelli from stealing back his own truck. That done we crept forward until Lapira and Dorkins were within sight. After they exchanged words and probably money, we watched as Lapira lifted out a bundle from the back of his car. I was so annoyed at that sight it took every ounce of control to keep me rooted to the spot.

Dorkins carried what we now saw as a sleeping child, his eyes constantly looking down and watching the child in his arms. He was totally unaware of anyone around him as he made his way back to his van. As soon as Lapira made a move to open the front door of his car the words were out of my mouth.

"Go, go, go"

Lapira never saw us coming, probably because he would never have thought that someone would be able to find him. Cal was the first to reach him and even as Lapira tried to climb into the driver's seat, he was soon jerking from the taser being held in Cal's hand. For a tall guy he was skinny and was soon shackled and cuffed in the back of my SUV. As we passed the old van it was empty, so I assumed that Brown and Ram had taken Dorkins out and that the child was being cared for by the child services woman. Hopefully the child would soon be reunited with their family. For us, now it was time for some fun.

Seeing as it was late by the time that we returned to Rangeman, it was agreed to leave Lapira in the cell overnight. He'd have time to try and come up with excuses, but he'd also be scared shitless. I actually felt that maybe we'd made some progress in getting hold of Lapira and there was also the gratification of saving a young child from a life of hell. I was sure that Brown would fill me in with what happened to them at our early morning meeting. For now, I needed a shower and some sleep.