Nischal [leopard spots 9] Read Online Free PDF Page A

have known all along—”
    Agent De la Garza held up her hand and Preston stopped his accusations to let her speak. “We’ve been investigating Suraj and Yangani for months. When you reported your brother missing, yes, we believed initially that he had been murdered, although as you know, we never found his remains. A second complaint was filed a few months later—another man reported missing after venturing off to see the snow leopards being displayed in a small southern town. That set off alarms, and honestly, we’ve no idea if more men are missing. Suraj was sloppy the last few months, but we do know that he and his girlfriend—not his sister, as they claimed—had been in the United States for almost two years. How many gay men who had been disowned by their families might have been their victims?”
    “Aren’t you people supposed to figure that out?” he snapped, although it sounded more like a whine. How embarrassing.
    De la Garza had the decency to look marginally ashamed. “We are, but there are still some groups of people who are easier than others to victimise because of the way their families have ostracised them. It is sickening but true, unfortunately, and we don’t know how many men might have gone missing, but we have discovered a link between Suraj and Yangani and a human trafficking ring that extends through several north-eastern states as well as Europe.”
    Then it sank in, what De la Garza was saying, and Preston shoved himself upright to sit on the uncomfortable clinic bed. “You’re telling me Paul might not be dead. He might be a…a slave somewhere? Maybe even in the United States?”
    “It is possible,” she said slowly. “Although we’ve yet to find him in the arrests we’ve made. There are still investigations going on, and we’re hoping to find detailed information on the men Suraj and Yangani…took…in their personal items. We have someone working on accessing their laptops right now.”
    Preston’s throat and stomach burned like he’d swallowed battery acid. “Jesus, who would do such a thing to someone else—especially here, in the US? Who would enslave their own countrymen and steal their freedom? Why? For what purpose?”
    De la Garza shook her head. “People do the worst things to each other, Mr Hardy, for no other reason than because they can. We all know slavery is wrong. Some people just don’t care.”
    It was more than that, it had to be. Some people got off on breaking laws, and breaking other people. Preston’s eyes burned with tears he repressed. At least, if Paul was a slave somewhere, he’d be alive. But in what shape?
    He rubbed at his eyes and couldn’t look at the FBI agents when he asked, “What do you think the chances are that Paul is alive still? I want to hope, God, do I want to believe…”
    “I don’t know what to tell you in that regards, Mr Hardy, except that we have never found a body and we do know other men were trafficked by Suraj and Yangani.” De la Garza checked something on her phone then continued. “We’re awaiting word on Yangani’s health, whether or not she will survive surgery and recover enough to be of any use to us. Suraj did not survive.”
    “The other leopard?” Preston asked, unable to focus on the idea of his brother being a slave any more than he could focus on Paul being dead.
    “The one is still on the loose, and the other is being cared for by the local vet until someone from a large feline habitat in Arizona arrives to take the leopard there.”
    Preston glanced up at her. “A snow leopard, in Arizona? Why not send it back to where it belongs, somewhere with, I don’t know, lots of snow, maybe?”
    She hitched a shoulder up and down. “That’s not really our problem, Mr Hardy.”
    That gave him something to do, to work on. “Just whose problem is it, then? PETA’s, maybe?”
    De la Garza blanched and thinned her lips as she stared daggers at him. “I really wouldn’t advise siccing PETA on this