Page 26 of Night Hawk
“The first g I showed you was on Clay’s note. This is a close-up of Toni’s note.”
“They’re the same,” Clay said.
Sierra nodded. “The specified arrival time is different in the notes, but the same printer generated them.”
“I still don’t get why we were sent to the closet,” Clay said. “Was it just to kill us?”
Brendan leaned back. “What if one person sent the note and another person tried to kill you? The first person wanted you to find the body and the rooms. They knew you’d search the whole building, but the closet is easier to describe than an unidentified room. The second person found out about the note bringing you there and decided to kill you before you could report it to anyone.”
“That makes sense,” Clay said. “But something that doesn’t make sense is why Hibbard would leave the beds and other items behind.”
“Maybe he didn’t have time to move things,” Drake suggested. “All he had time for was to get the girls out of there.”
“Could be,” Clay said.
Sierra looked at Clay. “You might want to give Malone a call. She works with runaways. Maybe she’d heard something about this.”
“Sounds like a good idea.” Clay shifted to face Toni. “Malone is Reed’s sister, and a defense attorney.”
“If you don’t have any questions for me,” Sierra said, “I have other photos to review.”
“Can you send them to me?” Toni asked. “If Hibbard really did leave in a hurry, Clay and I might recognize something from Safe Harbor.”
“I knew one of you would ask.” Sierra held out the flash drive. “They’re all on here.”
“Thank you.” Toni loved Sierra’s proactive attitude. If only she’d been allowed to keep the forensic samples she collected instead of turning everything over to the FBI.
“Okay, gotta get back to the lab.” Sierra’s eyes tightened, and her focus traveled around the table. “You guys be careful out there. Someone who would traffic young girls like this won’t hesitate to take you out without a second thought.”
After Sierra closed the door behind her, Clay knew he had to tell the story of Safe Harbor. He didn’t want to share the information on such a gruesome investigation, but his brothers needed to hear about Hibbard’s deviant ways. And they needed all the facts to remain safe.
He took a wide stance and resisted crossing his arms. “Hibbard was on ICE’s radar for six months before the task force launched Operation Safe Harbor. We had very little information on him at that time, but an informant who escaped from him told us how he worked. He and his men would befriend or romance uneducated teens in Mexico, then promise a new life in Oregon and smuggled them into the United States. Instead, they put the girls to work as prostitutes. From there, Hibbard started grooming homeless teens in Portland and adding them to his stable.”
“The informant was one of his original girls,” Toni took over. “Heidi said his guys would take every penny the girls earned, giving them only a small allowance to buy things from the store he set up for them. Things like shampoo, soap, toothpaste. Nothing extra. Just the basics. He kept them in line through physical and sexual abuse and by threatening their families.”
“Even worse,” Clay said, so Toni didn’t have to, “she told us that several of the girls had children with the Hibbard men. The men didn’t care about the kids. Not at all. In fact, they threatened to take the children if the girls didn’t cooperate.”
Aiden gritted his teeth. “That’s disgusting.”
Clay couldn’t find his voice to agree, so he nodded.
“Heidi also told us Hibbard appointed certain girls as group leaders,” Toni said. “He gave them extra perks to do things like post commercial sex ads online and book cross-country travel for men to engage in sex with the girls. He even tattooed the crown logo on their bodies to show they belonged to him. And they were trained to lie about everything. His motto is, you snitch, you die.”
Aiden shook his head. “Sounds like a real piece of work. So why couldn’t you bring him in?”
Toni sighed. “Trust me, we tried. How we tried. Heidi even led us to one of the houses he used, but he’d moved on. Likely because she’d escaped, and he feared she would turn on him.”
“Over the course of our six-month investigation, we’d get hints of him in the area,” Clay said. “Photos of him and three of his victims appeared on the dark web, which is where we got the picture of the bedpost. We believed other photos were of his victims and johns, but could never prove it. The guy’s smart. Real smart.”
Brendan clenched his hands on the table. “What’s the creep’s background?”
Clay took a long breath. “He came from money. His dad, Rich Hibbard Sr., made a fortune in day trading. Rich Jr. worked with his dad for a few years but then did something to cause his dad to cut him off. We’ve never found out the reason, since the dad died ten years ago, and Junior isn’t talking. When the dad died, he gave all his money to charity. Junior contested the will and lost. That’s when he basically disappeared, and we assume he started his own business.”
Drake shook his head. “Guess he got his entrepreneurial spirit from the dad, but man, what a business to choose.”
“Maybe he chose it because there aren’t any startup costs other than the incidental money needed to woo the first woman,” Aiden suggested.
“It’s often said that trafficking women is easier than the drug trade,” Toni said. “You have to replace drugs, but you can sell girls over and over.”
