“Give me somethin’. I can’t stand here talkin’ to you when I’m supposed to be workin’.”
“Oh, I see.” Maddie fished into the pocket of her jumper. One of the homeless men she’d talked to earlier had asked for money before sending her to Tenth Street to talk to the ‘ladies,’ as he’d called them. Maddie pulled out all she had left: a twenty.
Cleopatra snatched it from her hand and stuffed it inside the top of her boot. “Now give me the picture.”
Sparkly lashes fluttered against her dark cheeks as she studied Katie’s junior yearbook picture. Maddie prayed for a glimmer of recognition.
“I ain’t seen her.” Cleopatra pressed the photo back into Maddie’s hand. “She ain’t workin’ this street, at any rate. And the mission’s been closed for over a year now, so I haven’t seen her hangin’ around for a handout, either.”
Twenty dollars for another no.
Maddie lovingly straightened a bent corner of the photo before returning it to her pocket. She tried to focus on the reassuring notion that Katie hadn’t resorted to prostitution to support herself. Two weeks ago, Maddie never would have suspected a teenager who was eight months pregnant would be in demand on the streets. But she’d seen some disturbing things since she’d begun her search.
Still, the crushing disappointment of hitting yet another dead end kept her from feeling hopeful. “Thanks.”
It also kept her from sensing the large black man who’d walked up behind her.
“Zero!”
Cleopatra’s shout masked Maddie’s own startled yelp as two big hands closed around her upper arms. The first thing she saw was all the bling on each finger and wrist. The second thing she noticed was the stale smell of rum-soaked breath as the man’s lips brushed against her ear.
“I don’t know whether to cut you or kiss you.”
Cleopatra shoved at the man’s shoulder. “Back off, Zero. She’s just lookin’ for somebody.”
“Yeah, well, look somewhere else, sweetmeat.” He grabbed the hand Cleopatra had shoved him with and tugged and twisted. Even Maddie winced at the angle at which he bent the woman’s arm behind her back. “You. Get back to work. I don’t look out for you so’s you can shoot the breeze with no lady.” He pushed Cleopatra away. “Find a customer.”
With a proud tip of her chin, the black woman straightened what clothes she had on and sauntered across the street, leaving Maddie alone with the pimp.
Zero wrapped his arm around Maddie’s shoulders, pulling her tight against his side. When he forced her into step beside him, she knew a stark moment of wondering if she’d ever get back to her car, much less see her home again.
Still, the violence sickened her. How many times had her sister shown up at the house with a sprained wrist or black eye? “I was just asking her some questions. I paid her for her time. You didn’t have to hurt her.”
He squeezed her tighter, steering her toward a secluded archway beneath a concrete stoop. “Cleo’s been hurt worse than that. Now you tell me exactly what kinds of questions you were askin’.”
As she had so many times over the past two weeks, Maddie ignored her own terror and pulled out the photo to show him. “I’m looking for my niece.”
Zero snatched the photo from her hand. “Now she’s a fine girl.”
“Have you seen her?”
“You paid Cleo for an answer. You have to pay me.”
“I’m out of money.”
Zero stopped, laughed, crumpled the photo in his fist and spun Maddie around so that he could back her into a brick wall and press his thighs and hips and other vile things against her. “You gotta pay me somehow. That’s how things work around here.”
Maddie’s blood chilled in her veins, despite the humidity that lingered so long after sunset. She stared at the thick gold chain around Zero’s neck. “I can’t do that.”
He slipped one hand behind her to squeeze her butt and tangled the rest of his fingers in her hair. “You need a serious makeover, darlin’. But I like some meat on my women. And hair this color of red could be good for business.”
“Let me go.”
Her flare of panic only made him laugh. He pulled the hair from her ponytail and draped it over her shoulder, dragging his palm over her breast. “Uh-huh. Lots of meat.”
Maddie swallowed her gag reflex and batted his hand away. “My niece is pregnant. Don’t you have any heart in you to help her?”
Zero rubbed her reddish gold hair against his nose and sniffed. “Word’s out about a clinic in town that helps young girls who get knocked up. They’ll take the girl in until she delivers. Then, in exchange for the baby, they’ll pay a nice price. I thought about letting one of my girls go off the pill just to see how much money we could get off that scam.”
Revulsion aside, Maddie lifted her gaze to Zero’s hooded eyes. “They buy the girl’s baby?” She shook her head in disbelief. “Katie wouldn’t do that.”
“I’m just tellin’ you what I heard.”
“Does this clinic have a name?”
“Sweetmeat, you don’t pay me or flash a badge, you don’t get an answer.”
In a surprisingly quick move, he grabbed her arm and slung her toward the street. Maddie stumbled off the curb and smacked into the fender of a parked car. But she ignored the pain radiating through her hip and elbow. Katie could be suffering something far worse. Maddie had no right to complain.
“Please,” she begged, throwing pride and safety to the wind. “Tell me what you know.”
Zero laughed and tossed the crumpled photograph at her. “You ain’ worth it, sweetmeat. Now get off my street and go home where you belong.”
Chapter One
Assistant district attorney Dwight Powers loosened the knot on his paisley silk tie and unhooked the top button of his wilted broadcloth shirt as he rode the elevator up to his eighth-floor office.
Night should have cooled the air and tempered his mood. But the midnight humidity had captured the day’s heat radiating off the concrete and asphalt of downtown Kansas City. It steamed through his pores and into his blood, melting into a suspicious tension he couldn’t quite shake.
The three-hour drive from the state penitentiary in Jefferson City had given him plenty of time to think about the parole hearing he’d attended. Plenty of time to consider the crocodile tears in Arnie Sanchez’s eyes as he apologized to Dwight for the death of his family—without ever admitting any responsibility or connection to Alicia’s and Braden’s murders.
He’d had plenty of time to replay the high-priced words that Sanchez’s lawyer had used to claim that his client was being cruelly and unusually punished by a prolonged sentence. The KCPD and the Kansas City district attorney’s office had a personal beef with his client. Sanchez’s business had suffered. His wife had divorced him. His grown sons were feuding over property entitlements, and his grandchildren were growing up without ever knowing him.
Sanchez had paid his back taxes and court costs, the lawyer claimed. He had a spotless record of good conduct during his incarceration. The State of Missouri had no right to punish a man for crimes that had only been attributed to him—crimes that the KCPD and other law-enforcement agencies had never proven. They claimed locking him up under maximum security for another five years was harsh and unfair.
Dwight scraped his palm across the blond stubble that peppered his jaw and rolled his neck to ease the weary kinks from his body.
It