The Reckoning - BLACKBIRD book 3

4. maybe nothing

April's end promised a gorgeous summer. Gillian drove across town, thinking it would be nice to take a weekend off. Leave the car and the city, take the ferry, spend a couple of days camping in Lovells before tourists took over. That would be nice, and relaxing. Russell would give them the green light within a week or two, so she should take advantage of those last boring, easy days as an FBI trainee. The question was who'd go camping with her. Connor was all giddy about starting in MIT, busy-busy-busy with his preliminary courses, so he might think himself too old to go camping with his mom. Well, she could always threat Banks with a slow painful dead, and make him grant Taylor a free weekend.

She walked into the bakery still musing about that, so she was a little surprised when Betty called her husband Charlie to take her place behind the counter and came to her, bringing her usual slice of pie. The small paper bag had her name written on it, so it surely included a message from Taylor, too. She couldn't help a little smile, because she loved that old-fashioned habit of leaving her a few words on a personal card now and then.

"Hi, Reg. D'you have a minute?"

"Sure."

Gillian noticed Betty looked unusually serious, no trace of her warm smile. She looked even worried. The woman glanced at the regular lot of uniforms and suits buying their breakfast, then turned her back to them and lowered her voice.

"I'm not quite sure what to do about this, Reg. I need you to give me some advice."

Gillian nodded, frowning. Betty looked down, avoiding eye contact as she spoke.

Fred handed out the first round of coffee for the team when Gillian walked into the office. They noticed that she closed the door noiselessly and turned to her with anticipation looks. She produced a sticky note, already stretching out the other hand to Fred, who put a steamy mug in it right away.

She gave the note to Tanya. "T, check that address. It's some kind of textile workshop in Southie. Find me some updated images and satellite. Kurt, owners of the property and the company leasing it."

"Reg...?"

She turned to Ron with an innocent smile. "Good morning, Ron! How are your legs today?"

Fred narrowed his eyes. "What're you up to?"

"Nothing, just something Betty commented."

"Betty as in Betty's bakery?" asked Aldana.

"Please, make it something for us," begged Hank. "I'm gonna slice my wrists with a butter knife if Russell insists with his 'How To Hold Your Pen Like A Fed' crap."

She scoffed at the general agreement around her. "Okay, but keep it low, I really just wanna check on this." They all nodded eagerly, making her chuckle. She had to admit she too missed a little action. Badly. "Al, there's a phone number on the note I gave to Tanya. It's Betty's niece. Call her and ask her about Ramon. Get the full story. Once Al has all the information she can get, you lads check hospital admissions, the morgue and missing person reports, to see if this guy showed up somewhere, dead or wounded."

"You damn got it, Reg," replied Fred with a bright smile, expressing everybody's mind.

"Now wish me luck, 'cause I'm taking this to our Iron Lady."

Cooper's assistant wasn't at her desk, so Gillian went on and knocked on Cooper's door. It was Russell who opened it, and Gillian only needed a glance at them to know they were talking about her and her team. From behind Russell, Cooper waved for her to come in.

"Good morning, Gillian, how can I help you?"

She faced her boss, calm and serious. First round, here we go. "Ma'am, I've just been notified of a missing person," she said, looking straight into Cooper's eyes. "The man would be an illegal alien, and he might have been held for slave laboring at a textile workshop here in town."

Cooper and Russell frowned at the same time.

Gillian anticipated their questions. "I've heard about this from Betty, the owner of the bakery two streets away from here, where I usually stop for breakfast."

Cooper nodded, inviting her to go on.

"Her niece works at this place and met the missing man there. They were sort of friends. Last week, the man gave her a phone number and asked her to call and tell his wife he'd be home in two days. Looks like he never made it. The wife called Betty's niece two days ago, asking if she knew anything about him. But he hadn't shown up at work since, and when Betty's niece asked her foreman about him, the guy told her to mind her own business and threatened to fire her if she ever mentioned it again, to him or to anybody else."

"And what makes you think it has anything to do with slave laboring?" asked Cooper.

"The workshop is divided in two large sectors. One of them is off limits for regular workers, and the noises coming from there suggest activity around the clock, even on weekends. The missing man came from there to the regular area only to cover for employees who called in sick. Betty's niece had a glimpse of the closed workshop once, and she saw it was full of Hispanic people working on sewing machines, this man among them."

Cooper nodded slowly and leaned back in her chair, holding Gillian's eyes.

"Reg, there's nothing here but hear-saying," Russell said. "And even if there was something, it would fall in local jurisdiction."

Gillian turned to him. "Human trafficking, local jurisdiction?"

"You have nothing to indicate there's any going on here, Gillian," Cooper replied.

"I know. That's why I wanted to ask for your authorization to take a look at this. From here, under Agent Coleman's supervision."

Cooper narrowed her eyes. She'd been holding back Gillian's team for a month. In case she didn't know, Russell's reports confirmed they were obviously more than ready to be cleared for regular field work, but Cassidy insisted on keeping them in training for at least two more weeks.

Gillian was aware of Cassidy's directives, so she didn't push it and simply waited for her answer.

Cooper glanced up at Russell with a quick nod, then turned to Gillian. "I want an update on anything you may find, at the moment you find it."

Gillian nodded back without the trace of a smile. "Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much."