He blinks, stunned. I take the opening, plant my feet, and put every ounce of weight behind an uppercut that rattles my knuckles and his jaw. His eyes roll up, his body stiffens, and he topples over to the side like a felled oak. The clang of the metal pail still rings in the air.

  Breathing hard, I rub my jaw. “Nice swing,” I tell Cindy.

  She’s wide-eyed but smiling. “Played some softball.”

  I grin, scoop up the backpack, and glance down at Eddie, now sprawled out cold. “Unfortunately for him. Let’s go.”

  “Where?”

  “Not quite sure. Maybe where he came down from?”

  “Or we can ask him. He’s waking up, I think. Or dying.”

  “I’m fine with either,” I say. And mean it.

  ***

  Eddie continues stirring on the concrete as a low moan escapes from his lips. The wrench lies a few feet away, useless now, though I don’t take my eyes off it.

  “Don’t,” I growl, planting a boot on Eddie’s shoulder as he tries to roll over. “Stay right there, Mr. Fix-It.”

  His eyelids flutter as he spits a string of blood onto the floor. “You’re dead, Knighthorse. You have no idea how deep this goes.”

  “How deep what goes?” I crouch, grab a fistful of his shirt, and haul him up enough that our faces are inches apart. His breath smells like bad whiskey. “Where is she?”

  His pupils swim, then sharpen. Yeah, he knows who I mean. “I don’t know wh—”

  I shake him hard enough to rattle his teeth. “The girl with the backpack. Where is she?”

  His lips peel back in a grimace. “In the walls.”

  My grip tightens. “What the fuck does that mean?”

  “The inn’s got veins,” he rasps. “Fran had me build ’em years ago. Secret hallways. For when they need… privacy.”

  My gut clenches. So, the hidden crawlspace we’d found wasn’t the only one.

  Above us, a floorboard creaks. Cindy freezes, eyes darting to the stairwell. She grips the wrench with both hands, knuckles white. Good girl.

  I slam Eddie’s head against the wall hard enough to rattle his teeth. “Where’s the girl?” I growl. “Talk, or you’ll be chewing through a straw.”

  He wheezes, eyes swimming, but that cruel grin still flashes. “Everywhere.”

  “Wrong answer.” I press a fist into his ribs until he cries out. “Try again. Where is she?”

  Above, voices murmur faintly: Harold’s drawl, maybe Fran’s sharp edge. Footsteps creak on the stairs.

  “Jim…” Cindy hisses, tugging at my arm. She’s spooked. I’m not.

  Eddie just groans. Dead weight now.

  I drop him with a thud, scoop up the pink backpack, and take Cindy’s hand. “Stay close.”

  We slip into the crawlway’s shadows as the basement door groans open behind us. Fran’s voice slices through the dark like a blade.

  “Eddie? You down here?”

  Cindy squeezes my hand so hard it almost hurts. She’s holding her breath. I’m not. I don’t even blink until the shadows swallow us whole.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The hidden passage swallows us in darkness. Cindy’s hand stays locked in mine as we move, shoulders scraping rough wood on either side. The air smells like mildew and old sweat.

  Behind us, Fran’s voice echoes in the basement. “Eddie? You all right down here?”

  I don’t wait for his answer. We keep moving, one cautious step at a time. My cellphone’s flashlight beam slices the dark in shaky arcs. The crawlway isn’t just a gap in the wall, it’s a tunnel, reinforced, patched together with plywood and nails. A handyman’s touch.

  Cindy squeezes my hand. “Jim… look.”

  She points at the wall and a cluster of chalk drawing: stars and stick figures. Farther down, a tiny sneaker lies abandoned in the dust. Pink, frayed laces, no bigger than Cindy’s fist.

  My throat tightens. “They’ve been bringing kids through here.”

  Cindy’s voice is a whisper. “Like cattle.”

  We press on. The tunnel narrows, dipping lower. I hunch, Cindy ducks, our breaths rasping in the stale air. Another twenty feet and we come to a crude junction: two passageways splitting off. One tilts upward, toward faint daylight bleeding through a thin seam. The other dives deeper into the inn’s guts.

  From behind us, Eddie’s voice rumbles, weak but growing louder. “They’re in the damn walls.”

  Fran’s voice snaps back, furious. “Shut up, you idiot. I’m calling the others.”

  Cindy grips my arm, eyes wide in the wide beam of my phone’s light. She points at the two choices before us. “Which way, Jim?”

  ***

  By my reckoning, we’re somewhere under the kitchen. The answers are down here, not up there.

  As we descend, I reach back and take Cindy’s hand. Her breath is steady, though quicker than usual. Heck, mine might be, too. Meanwhile, the soft beam of my light cuts through dust motes, and the walls feel too close and warped, like the place is slowly closing in on us.

  We shuffle forward, bent at the waist, shoulders brushing drywall dust down over us. Actually, it’s my shoulders doing most of the brushing; Cindy is taking the brunt of the dust.

  This isn’t just some handyman’s shortcut. It feels… lived in. A crumpled juice box sits against the wall. A child’s crayon drawing sits next to it, next to a sock no bigger than my hand.

  My chest tightens. “Kids have stayed down here.”

  “You mean imprisoned?”

  “I hope to God, no.”

  Pretty sure if I get my hands on Eddie again, he’s not going to get up, ever again. We move slower now, eyes searching. The air turns stale, thick with mildew and something chemical that I can’t quite place. The tunnel narrows until I’m crouched low. Cindy is ducking behind me.

  Then we hear it.

  A voice. Muffled. Male. Sharp edges in the tone, though the words blur through the wood. And softer still, a whimper. A child’s breath.

  Cindy’s nails dig into my hand. “We’re close, Jim, and she sounds scared.”

  Scared or hurt, I think. Either makes my blood boil. We keep moving until the tunnel ends at a wall of reinforced planks, bolted from the inside. A door, disguised as nothing. My light quivers on it, dust falling from the seams.

  I put my shoulder into the wood. It groans.

  Once. Twice.

  My third effort cracks it like a gunshot; the door splinters and swings inward.

  It’s a hidden room, and in the half-light, I see her.

  Pink backpack girl.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  The room smells like sweat and bleach, a mix I’ll never forget. In the far corner, huddled on a threadbare blanket, is the girl from the security footage. Her knees are pulled to her chest, her eyes huge in the beam of my flashlight. She’s dressed in the same clothes from the footage.

  And she’s not alone.

  A man straightens from a folding chair in the corner. Wiry frame, dressed in a cheap jacket. His eyes are small and sharp, like a rat cornered. In his hand glints a knife.

  “What the fuck is going on?” he asks, voice low and cutting.

  “Guy with a knife and a kid in a basement,” I say, stepping forward, fists loose and ready. “Pretty sure you are about to be hurt.”

  He sneers. “She was leaving tonight. Clean, simple. Bus ticket bought and paid for. Nobody the wiser.”

  Bus ticket. The one I’d found in the trash.

  It clicks hard and fast. My jaw tightens. That ticket wasn’t Claire’s or the girl’s. It was a plant. A diversion. A way to keep me chasing shadows while the real deal went down under my feet.

  “Fran and Harold,” I mutter to Cindy. “They set this all up.”

  “And Eddie,” says Cindy.

  She’s right, of course. Eddie was the first to mention the boiler room. Probably had a camera set up down there, too, saw us creeping in and came down with his wrench.

  “You figured it out, detective.” The man tilts his head, grin widening. “They’ve been keeping tabs on you from the start, feeding you evidence, steering you right where they wanted. And now? Looks like they pointed you straight to me. And this...” He lifts the knife, steel catching the dim light. “And yes… I know how to use this thing.”

  I block his arm, pull him up by the collar and smack him hard across the cheek. He blinks, then spits a little blood. I lean in close, my voice a low saw. “Who do you work for, asshole? Where do the kids go?”

  He gurgles, eyes rolling. “Can’t...” I give him another slap, harder. He goes quiet for a beat, like he’s taking inventory of the pain, then the words come, slurred and scared: “Santa Cruz. We send ‘em there, then onto other places. Pay’s good.”

  “Who runs it?” I ask. My knuckles are buzzing, itching..

  He laughs, half-crazy. “You think I know names? I just drive, dude.” He tries to cough but can’t.

  Santa Cruz. The name lands with a hard click in my head. A big city, likely organized crime involved, a network of shitheads, not just a couple of innkeepers slinging rooms. My jaw tightens.

  He tries one more time with the knife. I side-step it, knock it out of his hand, and shove him back into the chair. There, I pat him down again just to be sure. No other weapons. I kick the blade away and stand over him. “Bad news for you, kemosabe. Their little plan didn’t end with me chasing ghosts. It ended with me finding you. And now…” I let my fists hang loose and hungry. “…I’m going to hurt you to death.”

  “Jim,” Cindy hisses. “Not in front of the girl.”

  I pull Eddie up to his feet, only to punch him again. He would have collapsed if not for my grip on his shirt. A moment later, disgusted, I shove him down in the chair. He seems to be out cold. He should probably stay that way. The girl whimpers, shrinking into herself. Cindy is there in an instant, crouching, voice soft. “It’s okay, sweetheart. You’re safe now.”

  The child peeks out from behind her flimsy pillow. “Please don’t let them take me back.”

  “They won’t,” I say, breath rough in my throat. “I promise.”

  I look down at the trafficker, then at the girl clinging to Cindy’s arm. The bus ticket had been bait. Fran and Harold aren’t just complicit, they’re pulling the damn strings.

  At least, here at the inn.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  We don’t stick around.

  Eddie, Harold, or whoever they’ve got backing them could come sniffing through these crawlspaces any minute, and they’ll bring tools meaner than wrenches and hunting knives. I scoop up the girl and motion for Cindy to follow. The crawlway feels even tighter on the way out. Cindy whispers encouragement to the girl, her voice low and steady. The child doesn’t cry, doesn’t whimper, just reaches back and squeezes Cindy’s fingers like a lifeline.

  We slip out through what I assume is a side passage, head down it for about twenty feet, and come to a plywood door. I smell the sea beyond before I see it. I set the girl down; Cindy scoops her up and holds her like a rosary. I throw my shoulder into the door. It warps once, then splinters, and the whole thing falls away into the fog-choked drop behind the inn. Cold, briny air hits us... a shock after the crawlspace’s stale rot.

  The opening gives onto a narrow ledge at the back of the inn, where the deck narrows to almost nothing. Nobody’s going to spot you from the road here (or from anywhere else in the inn). Maybe that’s the point.

  My Jeep waits like salvation at the far end of the gravel lot.

  I open the back door, toss in a pile of blankets from the trunk. Cindy and the girl settle there.

  “You’re safe,” Cindy tells her. “And we’re going to keep it that way.”

  The girl nods, but says nothing, no doubt still in shock.

  I close the door, scan the inn. Light bleeds from the dining room windows. Voices drifting faintly. First Fran’s, then Harold’s. They have no idea we’ve made our escape and cut their strings.

  Cindy eases into the front passenger seat next to me. “We can’t just march her to the cops here.”

  “Nope. Too many hands in too many pockets.” I glance back toward the glimmering town beyond. “We hide her for now. Keep her off their radar while we figure out how deep this goes.”

  “And it goes deep.”

  “Definitely,” I say. “Fran and Harold didn’t cook this scheme up alone. They’re feeders, not hunters. The real nest is bigger. And Sanchez and Delgado are going to help us burn it all down.” I squeeze Cindy’s hand. “But first, we make sure she’s safe.”

  The ocean crashes below the cliffs, endless and dark. Nearby, a killer is still moving pieces on the board. And ahead of us, a bigger game awaits, one that stretches far beyond this inn.

  For now, though, we’ve got the girl. And that means the traffickers just lost their grip.

  We drive until Carmel is nothing but darkness in the rearview mirror. The girl’s asleep in the back, head against her pink backpack like it’s the only pillow she trusts. Cindy sits beside her, holding her hand, mother-henning in silence. I keep my eyes on the road, knuckles tight on the wheel.

  Hours later I pull into a McDonald’s and treat us all to chocolate shakes. Cindy keeps the girl tucked against her, quiet as a prayer. Sanchez answers on the first ring.

  “You sound distraught,” he says.

  “Because I just fought a rat with a knife in a crawlspace under the inn,” I say. “Long story. Short version? We’ve got the girl.”

  Silence, then: “She’s okay?”

  “Of course she is. I saved her, didn’t I? I don’t do hero-shit half-assed. She’s shaken, scared, but alive. Problem is, if I hand her to the locals, she’ll vanish faster than a steak burrito in your hands.”

  “Careful,” Sanchez warns. “You’re implying corruption.”

  “And that you like steak burritos. But I’m not implying, pal. I’m flat-out saying it.”

  Another pause. Then Sanchez exhales. “All right. I’ll loop in Delgado. He’s got a safe house he trusts near Salinas. Small, quiet, no leaks. You can stash her there until we figure out the next steps.”

  “Good. Because this thing is big, Sanchez. Carmel’s just a feeder stream. The river runs through Santa Cruz.”

  He doesn’t laugh, which tells me he’s already been thinking the same. “You have proof?”

  “Not yet. But I’ve got direction. Fran and Harold are small fish. Someone upstream is working the net. And they were moving this girl tonight. Bus ticket was a fake trail.”

  “You’ve got one hell of a mess on your hands, buddy.”

  “Correction,” I say, glancing at Cindy, who’s already typing notes into her phone. “We’ve got one hell of a mess. You included. Time to clean this up.”

  Sanchez’s voice hardens. “Drop the girl with Delgado. After that, Jim… don’t go charging into Santa Cruz alone. I’ll be wheels up from Orange County asap. Let’s go in together.”

  “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  I hang up and aim the car toward Salinas. Cindy rests a hand on my arm as the girl slurps her shake in the backseat. Truth is, we’re all slurping. I damn near pass out trying to pull the thickness through the straw.

  The girl murmurs something, soft as a secret. I don’t catch it, but Cindy leans back, brushes the hair from her face.

  “She says she just wants to go home,” Cindy whispers.

  If she even has one. God only knows where she came from. Police and social services will try to sort it out. My gut says she’s an orphan who crossed paths with a very bad seed.

  But she’s safe for now, and if Santa Cruz is the nest, then we’re about to walk right into the hive.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  Delgado’s “safe house” turns out to be a weather-beaten bungalow tucked behind a line of eucalyptus trees on the outskirts of Salinas. No neighbors close enough to overhear a cry, no road sign pointing the way. Just a cracked driveway, a front porch with peeling paint, and a sheriff’s cruiser parked in the shadows.

  Delgado meets us at the door. He’s out of uniform, wearing a plain shirt, jeans, and that same bulldog posture. His eyes go straight to the girl, half-hidden behind Cindy’s arm, backpack clutched like armor.

  “She’s the one?” he asks quietly.

  “She’s the one,” I say.

  He crouches down, keeping his distance and voice soft. “Hi there, pumpkin. My name is Mateo. I help kids, too. That’s my job, in fact. You’ll be safe here, I promise.”

  The girl peeks out at him. Doesn’t speak. But she doesn’t bolt or burst into tears, which I’ll count as a win.

  Delgado rises, looks at me. “I’ve got a retired deputy watching the back. No leaks. No phone lines, no internet. Just food, blankets, and quiet. She’ll be safe until we’re ready to move.”

  Cindy strokes the girl’s hair, crouched beside her. “You hear that, sweetie? You’ll be safe.”

  The girl whispers something, barely audible. “Please don’t let them find me.”

  “They won’t,” Delgado says firmly. “Not here. Not with me.”

  I study his face, his eyes. Looking for cracks, for doubt. I don’t see any. Sanchez was right about him. Delgado is solid.

  “Appreciate it,” I say. “She’s been through hell.”

  She was quiet, guarded. Not much came out, but I pieced together enough. Her name is Juliette. Dorian Finche wasn’t her father. Her mom’s dead. Her real dad, gone somewhere into the wind. And the worst part? She’d been hurt by men who should’ve protected her. That was all I needed to hear. Whoever let it happen, whoever took part, well, they’re going to pay.

  Delgado nods. “I’ll call you the minute anything stirs. And Jim?” His eyes harden. “If this ties into Santa Cruz like you think, we’re not talking about a couple innkeepers anymore. We’re talking organized crime. Armed to the teeth and ruthless. You ready for that?”

  I smirk, though my jaw’s tight. “Been there, done that.”

  Delgado doesn’t smile. Just claps me on the shoulder, then slips a folded piece of paper into my hand.

  “What’s this?” I ask.