Chapter Thirty-One

“W ho drove Alasdair’s car away from the U-Haul center?”

Olivia asked the question into the open air of the car as Brock started the engine. He didn’t put the car into park, he didn’t even try to move out. He just turned to face her, face driven by questions.

“Maybe he had Mila drive it?”

“Mila was with law enforcement all day. They wouldn’t let her go, she’s in a bunch of trouble, innocently doing what she did or not.” Olivia pushed her head against the headrest, her eyes scanning the headliner of the car as if it held all the answers. “We’re not out of this yet.”

“We’ve got Alana, Alasdair, and Mila. Alana confessed that Alasdair had her give him intel, that she convinced the teens to leave with him. That he took them to the warehouse and drugged them.”

“Yes.” Olivia agreed. “But who drove the car? If his two accomplices are busy, are we missing another one?”

Brock turned the car engine off. “You’re saying you think we’re missing someone?”

“We might be.” Olivia turned her head to face him. “What if,” Her question evaporated into a statement. “Alasdair was really easy to catch. Almost too easy, don’t you think?”

Brock put a finger to his chin. “Hmm, let me think. Yeah, getting held at gunpoint by twenty or so guys after getting into a shootout with the other five wasn’t too hard to navigate at all, come to think of it.”

“Stop it, Brock! This is serious!” Olivia threw herself forward, glad the seat belt wasn’t there to pin her to the seat.

He held up his hands in mock surrender.

“I mean, yes, we were surrounded by gunmen, but don’t you think if Alasdair was some kind of mastermind that he would have found out a way to slip through our fingers? To hide the victims in some other location rather than trying to leave with them, knowing that his shipping company had a red flag on them?”

“You have a point.” Brock pondered. “Maybe he thought he could make it in time? Get out of there before we had a chance to track him?”

“Maybe. Or what if someone is letting him take the fall?” There. It was finally out in the open. The question that Olivia had been trying not to voice, but one that needed to be addressed nonetheless.

Brock blinked. “You don’t think Alasdair is the mastermind that Alana claims he is?”

“She said she thinks his trafficking ring is in the Netherlands. She never said for sure. She also said that her job was to get the teens in touch with him and to let them leave with him. Anyone else could be helping him out with that. We don’t know what happened to the teens after they left. We know through Susanna that they were taken to the warehouse. But even Susanna said there was someone else there.”

“She was drugged,” Brock suggested. “Possibly with something else to make her forget the events that happened right before. But you’re right. She did say someone else was there.”

“Right. ‘A bigger guy.’” Brock followed Olivia’s example of looking up at the roof of the car, letting his thoughts have free reign. “We’re missing someone else.”

“Alasdair has someone else working for him.”

“Do you want to talk to him?” Brock asked her. “Alasdair?”

Did she? Sure. She was chomping at the bit to do so. It was a long drive to where he was being held, and he probably would be no more helpful than Josh was at first. But they were missing something. “Let’s do it. Wanna take a drive up to Charleston?”

“Sure. But first,” He started the engine again. “Food.”

They pulled into a fast food drive-thru. In thirty minutes, over burgers and fries, they discussed the case between bites. There was no way that Olivia was just walking away with all of these unknowns, so when they got to the jail where Alasdair was being held, she strode in, prepared to fire off as many questions as she could at him.

Alasdair was smart. He did have a lawyer present. The interrogation room in Charleston was not as quaint as the one in Cape Fremont, and it showed in the overheating temperature in the room. Olivia felt beads of sweat building up on her brow, and not from staring at Alasdair’s cocky expression. The arrogance had only dwindled a bit since last night, as if he expected to get off somehow, despite the charges laid against him.

“Alasdair Crosby,” She let Brock do the talking. “How was your first night in jail, ol’ buddy?”

He just smirked even wider. “A luxury hotel. What did you expect?”

Ignoring his sarcasm, Brock cut right to the chase. “Does your little operation have a name?”

“Don’t answer that.” Alasdair side-eyed his lawyer who spoke for him. “My client denies being the owner of any trafficking operation.”

“So, you’re not going to confess to anything, then? Despite the fact that we caught you red-handed on a small cargo ship, leaving with two missing teenagers? Despite the drug paraphernalia in your warehouse, along with obvious signs of human trafficking via beds, drugs, IVs and handcuffs to the beds?” Olivia changed directions and nailed him with a direct question.

Alasdair talked over his lawyer this time, keeping his answers vague. “If you already have all the answers, why should I bother answering?”

They didn’t have all the answers. “How about roping in the people you got to help you?” Olivia challenged. “An eighteen-year-old girl, barely out of school? Ah, yes. Alana gave you up so fast when she realized how serious things had gotten.”

Another shrug. “It’s not like we were hiding anything.”

“Other than your illegal activity,” Brock bit out. “Who are your other assistants?”

“Mila.” Another shrug. Just one name. Boom . It landed like a drumbeat of doom.

“Ah. And is Mila enjoying driving your little red sports car around?” Olivia inquired, desperate to get to the bottom of that question.

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

“Did Mila pick up your car from the U-Haul center?” Brock asked .

Alasdair shrugged. “I don’t know, I wasn’t there. And if you’re asking if I have any other accomplices, I already answered that. Alana and Mila.”

“And yet, you don’t know how your car left the U-Haul facility.” Brock challenged. “Alana mentioned that it was your baby. That you wouldn’t let just anyone drive it. Now if you wouldn’t let the love of your life Alana drive it, then whoever took it from the U-Haul lot must be someone you really trust, huh? You wouldn’t have just left it there, either, knowing you were going to skip the country.”

“I doubt you’re interested in finding my car.” Alasdair turned the tables, pinning the questions back on them. “So what are you really asking me?”

Olivia took a breath to steady herself. “I want to hear it from you.” He wasn’t giving up the driver. “This is your one chance to come clean. You deny owning the trafficking company?”

“That’s right.” Alasdair grinned, coolly. “Finally, you’re starting to see the bigger picture.”

“It’s pretty abstract to me.” Olivia sat back in her seat, acting like she had all the time in the world. With no missing persons hanging over her head, she did. “So why don’t you paint a better picture for me? Tell me your side of the story. I’m all ears.”

“You really want to know how it is?” Alasdair would be excellent at poker from the way his expression never changed from overly confident and cool. “I get information on teens that have a rough home life. Drunks. Abusers. Absentee parents. Alana and Mila are good at telling me all about them. I meet the kids. Convince them to leave with me in my cool car. I drop them off and whatever happens to them inside that warehouse, I’m out at that point. I’ve never actually seen anyone get kidnapped. I receive my orders when to pick up shipments and where to deliver them to and that’s as far as my knowledge goes.”

“Hold on.” Brock held up a hand. “Are you saying you just drop the teens off at the warehouse and you don’t know what happens when they walk through the doors? ”

“Something like that. Whatever it is, I’m not involved with it. For the record, they come with me on their own accord.”

“Believing something else.” Olivia pointed out.

“Regardless. You are correct. I receive orders for containers for pickup and I put them on the ship and ship them. I ask no questions, so I don’t know what happens to those kids.”

There was enough circumstantial evidence to build a case on, but Olivia still wasn’t convinced. “I see.”

“So if you have any other questions for me?” Alasdair gave her one more, final, slow shrug. “I don’t know the answers. You’ll have to find that out, yourself.”

“Do you think he’s lying?”

Brock pinned Olivia with the question as soon as they stepped out of earshot of the interrogation room. “The guy is as sly as a fox. He played Mila and Alana to make them believe that he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. He is good at lying. Do you think that he made all of this up? How can he not know what happens to those teens?”

“The warehouse is his, the shipping company is his, he kidnaps teens and takes them there, he’s got to know! But he sounds like he’s trying to build a case of plausible deniability or something. He could be another patsy, just like Mila from the way he’s talking.”

Brock raked his hands through his hair, giving a weary sigh. “This was getting us nowhere. What’s our next move?”

Olivia wasn’t giving up. Determination lengthened her strides. “The one thing that Alasdair can’t deny if he is presented with. Evidence. If he is boss over someone who does all his dirty work for him, there’s one thing that will showcase that. ”

After explaining to the attendant who she was and that she was handling Alasdair Crosby’s case, Olivia took the box of evidence that had been collected over the different crime scenes that Alasdair had been a part of, including the ship and the warehouse. Olivia wasn’t really interested in anything but one item: his phone. She pulled it out, removing the plastic baggie that contained it. Jamming her thumb into the button, she waited until it lit up, gently, for her to read the screen.

Brock hovered over her shoulder, gently slipping a hand on her shoulder as he watched the screen come to life. “We may have to take that back to the laptop at the hotel and see if we can’t break into it. I’m sure he has a password set on it.”

“Oh, you’re right.” Olivia nodded as a retro screensaver bled into view, sealed by a row of numbers. Alasdair had thought of everything from making it a seven-number combination and wiping down his fingerprints into smears that created little rainbows across the combination. “Let’s get back.”