Shay O'Hanlon Caper 03 - Pickle in the Middle Murder Read Online Free PDF Page A

him?”
    “No.”
    Tyrell suddenly seemed very uncomfortable. He shifted and gave me a considering look, but I couldn’t read his dark gaze. “If JT never told you about this, I’m not sure I should.”
    “Ty, come on.” I barely restrained myself from jumping out of my chair and across the desk. “JT is sitting in a cell at the Scott County jail right now. She needs our help. I can’t help her if I don’t know what the hell is going on.”
    Tyrell’s jowls bunched as he clenched his teeth. “Let me call a couple people and see what’s up. Then I’ll explain.”
    I listened to two one-sided conversations and couldn’t glean much from either except that JT was indeed in custody, and she was being held away from the rest of the inmate population because she was a cop—a well-known cop with a lot of busts. There were a number of cons she’d had a hand in putting away who’d be after whatever revenge they could get. My blood ran cold at the thought of JT in there, alone and possibly in danger. My heart revved and I fought the red haze that appeared whenever my Protector came knocking. Deep, even breaths, Shay. In and out .
    Tyrell hung up and slid his right desk drawer open without meeti ng my eyes. He flipped through a number of files before shutting that drawer and opening one on the opposite side. After a moment, he pulled out a thick manila folder with the name Krasski scribbled in black Sharpie on the tab. He thumbed it open and shuffled through the contents. After a minute or two, he closed the file and threw it on his desktop. He then leaned back in his chair, threaded his fingers, and put his hands behind his head.
    “Okay,” he said. “Now, Shay, you sit calm while I tell you this. I can only give you the basics because the case is classified. So don’t go all crazy on me, you hear?”
    That didn’t sound good. I felt like I was stuffed in the pouch of a cocked slingshot about to be flung to Kingdom Come. The slightest nudge would set me off, which is never a good idea when the person in front of you has a gun and badge. I breathed deep once, then again. Oh God, just end this . “Tell me.”
    Tyrell pulled in his generous bottom lip and chewed on it a moment. “Awhile back, JT and I were on a team that set up a sting on a ring that abducted kids, usually minority children whose parents had no resources and questionable status within the country. Girls were sold to the highest bidder, usually to someone overseas. The girls who couldn’t be sold as marriage material, and all the boys, were bartered, traded, or sold as child slaves.”
    H e paused. “For close to a year we worked the shit out of the case. We had the ringleader, Krasski”—he pointed at the file—“in our sights. He was a bastard of the highest caliber. He and his posse raped the girls and beat the boys to within an inch of their lives. Pretty soon those poor children were walking and talking robots. The kids that came from Krasski were in high demand. He used violence and the threat of violence against the kids’ families, so none of them would rebel and attempt to escape.”
    Jesus. That was unspeakable. I closed my eyes a moment, then refocused on Tyrell, rampant emotion evident in his expression.
    “The case was like JT’s obsession. She researched Krasski, followed him, staked out his ass night after night. He was the worst kind of slimeball. The kind of weasel who was wrapped in Teflon—every charge we tried to slap on him somehow slid off. For the life of us we couldn’t get a damn thing to stick.”
    “So what happened?”
    “The night of the bust … We had it all planned. Every stinking move. We finally managed to pull together all the evidence we needed to make an arrest, which would have shut down a huge Midwest operation.” He inhaled sharply and held his breath for a moment before slowly letting it out through his nose.
    I was riveted by Ty’s tale, lost in the middle of some kind of horrifying