Reunited in Danger (17 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Keely closed her eyes for a second then glanced at Logan. All these years she’d craved
his company, his body. His damn presence. They needed each other. Why couldn’t he
see that?

“You need space? Okay. I’ll give you space,” she said. “Time to think this through.”

“Not space, Keely. You and me…we won’t work. Period.” He scrubbed his hands over his
face.

“Does that mean this thing we started is over?”

He shook his head. “It never started, Keely.”

She opened the passenger door and slid to stand on the sidewalk, fury radiating through
every limb. “Yeah. Right. Congratulations. Once again, Logan, you’re running away.”
She slammed the door hard and stood at the curb coughing through the exhaust when
Logan sped away. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep her tears from cresting.
Her body heated with disbelief. They hadn’t even been officially together and now
they’d broken up.

Too different to make this work.

Were
they too different? Had she been wrong to wish?

Standing beside her Civic, she shot a look at her dad’s house. The afternoon sun glinted
on the front windows, and her dad and Dave were likely still working on church business
under Beatrice’s watchful guard.

Her dad had company, and he was safe. They’d made plans to watch a movie later. She
had time to get a few things done. Jingling her keys in her hands, she made herself
concentrate on her choices.

Fine. Logan didn’t want her. Too bad for him. He’d left her…again. And he’d left her
father now, too. He was hot on the trail of his human trafficking case and wouldn’t
help out with her father’s case anymore. So much for promises. Of any kind.

Since he’d abandoned them, as always, it would be up to her to figure out who’d attacked
her dad. She’d use her anger to help focus.

The city police department was strained for money and manpower. If people closest
to her dad were suspect, then she’d see what she could find out about them all on
her own. She couldn’t find Melita or the other two girls who’d gone missing, but she
knew this neighborhood. Knew this community. This she could do.

Where to start? Logan’s mention of undocumented workers at restaurants, along with
the three girls he’d met at Craig’s diner made her suspicious of Craig Bittinger.
A visit to his house or diner would also be a way to take her mind off Logan’s hurtful
words. Even if she didn’t go inside, she might find something useful. She climbed
into the Civic and headed in the direction of the Bittinger’s.

Minutes later, she pulled into the alley behind the Bittinger’s house, easily fitting
her Civic between two random pickups. She’d left Logan a message—not to talk him out
of breaking things off with her, but because he’d have her hide if she went off investigating
without letting anyone know where she was. Fortunately, he hadn’t answered the phone,
and she’d been able to leave a coolly spoken message that she was headed to the Bittingers’
and then to the church to speak with Charlie.

Logan had tried to hurt her with his words, tried to chase her away. But it was her
fault. How could she have let those words—those
exact
words—tumble out of her?

God knew, it was the one thing she could say that would hurt him the most. Over and
over, she’d tried to tell him he would be different from his father. Heck, he was
already
so different from his father. And yet, she was the one who’d twisted the knife in
his gut with her words, confirming every fear he’d ever had about himself and his
future.

She stared at the back of the three-story brownstone. Should owning a restaurant put
the Bittingers at the top of a suspect list for her dad’s attack? She suddenly felt
like an idiot. Maybe they did occasionally hire illegal immigrants, but that didn’t
meant they were connected to what had happened to her father. It wasn’t likely they
even knew Chayce and Lenny.

A green Jaguar pulled down the alleyway and into the parking pad behind the house.
Amy Bittinger stepped out of the car.

She drives a Jag?
Amy’s coiffed hair and outfit made her look like a Hollywood movie star. She clip-clopped
in high heels into the house, and Keely stared at the closed door.

Hmm. Money. Possible illegal workers at the diner. A matching briefcase.

She chewed on a fingernail, wondering how all of these things about the Bittingers
tied together. And where she could go from here.

…

Logan glanced around the station and into the holding cells where the three men from
the boat sat in various positions on steel benches. None of them spoke to each other,
probably worried the room was bugged. Logan hadn’t been able to interview any of the
suspects yet because of a snafu in the paperwork that had stalled him and his team
from questioning them. But the snafu was now cleared up, and he was ready to see if
any of the men would crack.

His gaze landed on the captain of the boat. Robert Wattana. There was something different
about him. He kept himself separated from the others and sat with his head in his
hands. Not staring blankly, like the others. His Asian features radiated guilt and
regret. And maybe he could be made to feel even guiltier about the pregnant woman
who had died. Which could lead to tougher charges, and more information if Logan pushed
the right buttons.

“Get that one into an interrogation room,” he said to a uniformed officer. He needed
a photo, and he knew just where to get it. “Let him sweat in there alone. I need to
get a fax from the hospital and then I’ll interview him. Don’t let anyone else in
there.”

The uniform nodded.

Ten minutes later, with a new file in hand containing the photo he needed, Logan strolled
into the small, hot interrogation room that held only two chairs and a small table.
A uniformed guard stood in one corner.

“State your answer verbally for the camera and microphone, please.”

Wattana, a slight man with black hair, did so.

“You’ve been read your rights?”

Wattana nodded his head slowly. “Yeah.”

“Do you want a lawyer present for questioning?”

The man looked belligerent. “No. I don’t want a lawyer. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

Thank God for small favors.

Logan’s cell phone vibrated in his pants pocket.
Damn
. He glanced at the screen. A voicemail from Keely. He must have missed her call.
He needed to talk to her. Yeah, he’d kicked her out of his life, but he needed to
know she was safe. He couldn’t call her right now, though. Not when this guy looked
so guilty and so ready to talk. A little pushing and a lot of luck, and they might
get some useable information.

Quinn stepped into the room and stood silently in a corner, glaring at the at the
boat captain as if he wanted to rip him to pieces.

Logan squared his shoulders and stared at the man. “Why were you at the ship repair
yard in Locust Point last night?”

“I drove that boat for money. I had no idea there were passengers below. I thought
I was just moving the boat from deep water to shallow water.” Wattana studied the
table between them, unable or unwilling to meet Logan’s gaze.

“What time did you leave?” he asked.

“About—”

“How much were you paid?” He kept the pace fast, hoping to rattle the guy before he
could make up answers. With any luck, he’d trap him.

“The money was—”

“How many other people did you kill?” He leaned forward, both elbows on the table
between them. “Besides the pregnant girl.”

The man’s eyes nearly popped out and he met Logan’s gaze for the first time. “Kill?
I didn’t
kill
anyone. I needed a job. My daughter is sick and my wife can’t find work.”

Logan lowered his voice and slid a folder onto the table. “You have a daughter, Mr.
Wattana?”

The man’s gaze dropped down to his hands. A little more pushing and this guy would
talk. Logan opened the folder and pulled out a photo, laying it on top. He pointed
to the premature infant, swaddled in a hospital blanket. “Here’s somebody’s daughter.
But she’ll never know her mother. Got this photo from the hospital just now. The pregnant
woman from the boat you captained. She died. This is
her
daughter.”

Wattana looked away from the photo.

Logan smacked the table with the palm of his hand. Wattana jumped. The small room
cracked with the sound. Logan held the photo with both hands in front of Wattana’s
face. “
Look at her
.”

“I didn’t kill anybody. I told them I could drive the boat, that’s all. My job was
to drive the boat to New York. The girls had been flown in from Thailand a while back.”
Wattana stared at the bottom of the table where his hands were cuffed together and
bound to an anchor. “But I didn’t kill anybody. I would never kill a woman.”

Logan leaned back to give Wattana space. Time to let the guy breathe a little. Make
him think Logan understood. “You don’t seem like a killer to me.” Logan kept his voice
low, almost friendly. “Still…” He spread his hands.

“I could never kill anybody.”

“You felt you had to do this for the money. For your family.”

“Yes.”

“You know what I think? I think the people who offered you this job are the ones who
should be held responsible for the death of that mother. They should rot in jail for
the rest of their lives. Not you.”

Wattana’s eyes widened, then he stared at his hands again.

As much as Logan wanted to pull the guy by the collar and find out who had hired him,
he waited, tapped the photo of the baby as it lay between them. “You didn’t want this
baby to be without her mother. I know that. Who hired you for this job?”

Wattana glanced at the baby’s photo, a tear trickling down his face. He took a long,
shaky breath and glanced around the room.

“My brother-in-law.”

“What’s your brother-in-law’s name?” Logan picked up a pen.

The man shook his head, quickly and violently.

“We will find out who is behind this and we will catch them. The longer you take to
give us information…well, that’s more people who could be dying as we speak. Do you
really want to be charged with more deaths? More women like that pregnant girl, women
like your
wife
, dying because you kept a secret?” He pushed the guilt card hard. Wattana was probably
a decent father but got messed up with the wrong crowd trying to do right by his family.

Wattana rocked back and forth in his seat, more tears leaking out.

“Or do you want to be the one who ends this filthy business? The one man from this
operation who can sleep at night because he stepped up to stop the brutality?”

“Craig Bittinger, my sister’s husband.” Wattana whispered.

Every muscle in Logan’s body went on full alert. “You’re Amy Bittinger’s brother?”
he asked.

Wattana’s shoulders shook. “Yeah. Amy’s my sister. Her husband Craig’s the one who
hired me.”

Logan glanced at Quinn, jerking his head. Quinn nodded and slipped from the room.
Logan knew he’d get a search warrant for Bittinger’s house and diner.

He thought about Bittinger’s briefcase. Like the one on the boat. Like Ben’s. There
had to be a link. But how did it all tie together?

“You’re doing the right thing, Wattana. For the record, I need you to repeat your
name and the crime you committed. How many times did you transport girls for Craig
Bittinger?” Logan stood, hovered over the man, kept the pressure on.

“Robert Wattana. I transported girls a dozen times. Maybe more. It never felt right.
They cried and they screamed, and were handcuffed to a bar in the floor. Some of the
other guys would threaten them, or quiet them with drugs. I just drove the boat, didn’t
interact with the girls, but…oh, God,” he choked out. “I don’t have any excuses for
my part in all of this.”

“Where did the girls come from?”

“Thailand, mostly. I don’t know all the details, but I know the girls had their passports
taken away, none of them spoke English well, and they were to be sold as housekeepers,
cooks, and nannies.”

Craig Bittinger. The man had been a suspect from the beginning, but it still didn’t
click. Logan trusted his instincts and his instincts told him Craig was a follower,
not a leader. This human trafficking ring was organized. With an experienced leader
or leaders.

“I haven’t slept right for weeks, picturing the girls, hearing their muffled screams.”
Wattana fisted his eyes. “And last night was the worst. I had a nightmare that the
pregnant one died. Somehow, I knew she would.”

“She did.”

“Not what I signed on for.” He lifted his gaze from the table to stare at Logan.

As scumbags went, this guy wasn’t the worst he’d encountered. But a girl was dead,
and Wattana had confessed to transporting women to be sold as domestic slave labor.
As far as Logan was concerned, they should lock him up and throw away the key.

They had everything they needed—a witness who could place not only Craig Bittinger
with girls flown in from Thailand, but who had access to their plans.

He took a stab at digging deeper. “Craig Bittinger doesn’t call all the shots, does
he?”

Wattana shook his head. “Craig answers to someone else. I’ve overheard bits and pieces
of conversations, but not enough to figure out who it is.”

Christ
. What was he missing? Who the hell was running this organization? Bittinger’s wife?
Wouldn’t be the first time a woman intimidated other women and kept them too scared
to run. Especially since she spoke Thai.

Logan slid a notepad and pen across the table in front of him. “Start writing. Everything
that happened. Everything you know. The more you tell us, the easier the DA will go
on you. They might even cut you a deal.” He straightened. “When you’re done, we’ll
type it up and you can sign it.”

Wattana nodded mutely and picked up the pen.

Logan stood, leaning on both palms, pressed against the table. “One other thing. Does
Craig Bittinger use these women for his own purposes, or does he just arrange the
sales?” Bile rose in his throat at the mention of selling a human being.