Fatal Secrets by Allison Brennan Page B

“Math isn’t my strength.”
    “We all have our talents. Sit down.” He pulled out a chair and she sat heavily. Dean doubted she’d slept since the stakeout. “Where do you want to start?”
    “I want to know how you started looking at Jones and why you didn’t notify anyone.”
    Dean bristled, but then realized Sonia hadn’t intended to be insulting. “Fair enough. Do you remember a criminal named Thomas Daniels, aka Smitty?”
    She arched her narrow brows. “Of course I remember him. The FBI went after him on money laundering and racketeering. He was killed trying to avoid arrest.”
    “I’m the one who shot him,” Dean said. His cool tone belied his mixed emotions in being forced to fire on a suspect.
    Her expression softened in understanding. “I’m sorry.”
    Dean had looked at Sonia’s record, knew she’d used lethal force in the past as well. It wasn’t something to take lightly, and unfortunately the movies often portrayed law enforcement as trigger-happy, gun-wielding vigilantes, when in reality it came down to reluctant but necessary use of force.
    “When we went through his records, we put together his money-laundering scheme. Quite brilliant in its simplicity. Understanding the process helped us close other investigations where we didn’t have the evidence becausewe hadn’t yet caught up to the new systems criminals employed. We’ve been ahead of the curve for a while now—taking down nearly everyone we’ve targeted these past four years. Except Jones. He’s been eluding me for too long.”
    “Did Smitty give Jones up?”
    “No, he never talked to us. Everything we learned came from his records, which were disorganized. It took over a year of painstakingly analyzing his cryptic notes to discover that Smitty had a business association with Jones. I never figured out it was human trafficking—” He shrugged in frustration. “But we were close. I’d thought prostitution.”
    She nodded. “Smitty was a competitor. He specialized in runaways. Jones works with coyotes—human smugglers—south of the border, all the way to South America. But while Jones can bring in more merchandise, his expenses are higher than Smitty’s. He makes his money on volume, while Smitty lured young runaways off the street and then relocated them all over the continent where they couldn’t easily get out if they wanted to. Many of the girls he manipulated had been sexually and physically abused as children and felt they deserved what ever happened to them. Smitty was really good at spotting the damaged teens.”
    “You worked on his case, too?” Dean asked, surprised she knew so many details but he hadn’t worked with her on the case.
    She shook her head. “He was dead before I transferred to Sacramento, but I knew him as one of the players. Unfortunately, he was out of my squad’s charter. My job has always been international trafficking, and after nine-eleven it’s included a focus on potential terroristtrafficking, specifically disbanding hidden cells throughout the country.”
    “But your heart isn’t in it.”
    “My heart is with the victims. I’ve done my fair share to prevent terrorism, but it’s hard to focus on that when hundreds of thousands of innocent young people are lured or kidnapped into prostitution or labor camps.”
    Dean watched Sonia closely. She was impassioned, but also a realist. There was little they could do to stop these horrendous crimes, but she was determined to do everything possible to thwart their opponents. He admired her drive, her dedication, her passion for her job and the people she helped, as well as the people she put in prison. Sonia wasn’t a woman who would ever stay on the sidelines. Like him, Dean doubted she had much of a life outside the job.
    Sonia asked, “What did you find that put Jones on your radar?”
    “A thin file. Nothing I could use in court. We originally went after Daniels for racketeering because he was working with major drug