A Badlands Cops Novel

“Could have, but we know how they operate. Somewhere close.”

“Jamison...” She didn’t want to tell him. Didn’t want to shift the focus away from finding Gigi, but if the whispers she heard were true, Gigi could be far, far away. “There’s something more.”

“Isn’t there always,” he muttered, pushing out of the truck.

Liza didn’t know if his disgust was aimed at her or at the Sons in general, but she got out of the truck herself and crossed over to his side of the vehicle, where he was pulling out the food provisions.

“There’ve been rumors. Whispers. Nothing concrete and I haven’t seen evidence, but if it’s true...” Liza could hardly speak it. She so desperately didn’t want it to be true.

Jamison put the cooler on the ground and stared expectantly at her, folding his arms over his chest when she still didn’t talk. He gave her what she was sure was a very effective cop look. But she was too heartsick over Gigi to be intimidated by it.

“Trafficking,” she managed to say through a too-tight throat.

“Drugs are hardly new to the Sons’ operations.”

“Human, Jamison. Human trafficking. Sex trafficking.” She desperately tried to keep the tremor out of her voice and failed. “Gigi’s such an innocent.”

The impenetrable cop mask gave way to full-on horror. “She’s four, you said.”

“I don’t know much about it, but I assume it doesn’t matter how old you are. Long as a person is female and vulnerable. Hell, maybe only vulnerable. You’re a cop. Surely you’ve seen the worst humans can do to children.”

He turned away from her at that, focusing on the food.

“The point of me telling you that is if she got pulled into something...different, they’re not going to follow the old rules.”

He put together a sandwich and handed it to her. It took her a minute to get ahold of herself enough to take it. Despite it being her favorite—ham and Swiss, heavy on the cheese, light on the meat—she didn’t have an appetite for it.

If nothing else, she could find some tiny satisfaction over the fact that he remembered what she liked to eat. That he didn’t only remember the ways she’d betrayed him.

“The Sons do things a certain way,” he said, making his own sandwich. “Even if it’s new, the ways will be old. They evolve, but they don’t change. We just have to figure out where they’d be able to hide human cargo instead of drugs. I think we can.”

“You’re awfully confident.”

“You came to me for a reason, Liza. I have to believe it’s because you thought I could do this.”

Since she didn’t trust her voice, she nodded.

“Then I’ll do it.”

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