Page 36 of Lost Truth
“So Ernie called to ask if I would go with him to trail Wade the next Thursday.” Her dad grinned in a way she hadn’t seen for months before he died, and it filled her heart with such joy she almost broke down. “You know I said yes. The excitement and adventure was too much to say no to.”
She paused and looked at Hayden. “That was my dad before the dementia took hold. An adventurer, for sure. You probably would’ve had a lot in common with him.”
“Seems like it.” Hayden smiled, a boyish glint in his expression that tugged at something deep inside her—reminding her of her father when he was in one of his playful or adventurous moods.
A calming peace settled over her as if God Himself had sent Hayden to fill the void left behind from her father’s passing. God’s gentle reminder that she was never truly alone. He was always with her. Always.
Before she got sidetracked again, she clicked play on the video.
“Kai Nakoa, who owns the surf shop, is a good friend with Ernie,” her dad said, “and he offered to take us in his boat. We waited in the shadows until Wade departed on the boat, then we hopped into Kai’s boat and trailed him to a location just offshore from Lost Lake where a ship called theRed Dragon Voyagerhad anchored.” He shook his head. “What happened next blew us away.”
His smile evaporated, and he chewed on his lower lip. “Ten people got off the ship and boarded Wade’s boat. Men, women, and children. He traveled toward land and loaded them in a dinghy. They disembarked on the beach about a mile down from my place. Three men with semi-automatic rifles waited for them. They had the people sit on the beach until everyone was on shore, then they separated the women from the men and children—some of them forcefully—and took them to a cargo van. The others were marched to another van. Ernie suspected these men planned to traffic the women.”
Cady couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. At the thought of her father having to discover this, her stomach churned, and she had to keep swallowing to prevent upchucking on the desk.
“I urged Ernie to report this incident to Sheriff Park,” he continued, but his voice was broken as he seemed to choke back tears. “He said she wouldn’t have the authority to deal with it, but he had contacts at ICE who handled this kind of situation. He’d give them a call and let them take charge. They never arrested Wade. I saw him make the same Thursday trips. What changed was three vans showed up and several women were split off and taken to the third vehicle. I snuck down to the beach one night, and it turned out Ernie was driving.”
Cady gaped at the screen. “The mayor was involved in trafficking women?”
“Sounds like it.” Hayden gritted his teeth.
Her dad grimaced. “I confronted him the next day. That’s when he shared the information he made me promise never to tell. He told Wade he was selling the boat and confronted him about his illegal activities. Wade lost it. Said he got into something far more sinister than he expected. If he didn’t have the boat, he would no longer be of use to the men he was dealing with, and they would kill him.”
Her dad took a long pause as if he barely had control of his emotions.
“I can’t believe Collins’s attitude.” Hayden shook his head. “What did he expect from men who trafficked innocent women?”
“I know. Disgusting.”
The video continued. “Ernie couldn’t let Wade come to any harm, so he didn’t sell the boat, but he also couldn’t let these men continue to traffic women. He called his buddies at ICE, and they opened an investigation. He didn’t tell Wade. He might not have wanted him dead, but thought he deserved to pay for his crimes. Turns out Wade turned on the traffickers and agreed to work undercover for ICE in exchange for them cutting him a deal.”
Cady pounded a fist on the desk. “He doesn’t deserve a deal. Not with what he’s done.”
“Agreed.” Hayden might’ve spoken only one word, but the gravity of his tone told her how deep his anger ran.
“But Ernie couldn’t leave it at that,” her dad said. “By then he knew he was dying from cancer and had nothing to lose, so until ICE took care of the situation, he had Wade take him to the beach on a Thursday night. He met with the traffickers, and the guy in charge agreed to sell a woman each week to him for cash. Ernie started selling off his memorabilia and anything else he could to raise money. He paid anywhere between ten and twenty thousand dollars for each woman. Then he had Becca process her through the charity where she works.”
Cady paused the video. “This has to be the people my dad was talking about when he said Ernie had a secret.”
“And it explains what Ernie did with his large cash withdrawals from his checking account. Also explains why he continued to share the fishing business with Collins.” Hayden gripped the edge of the desk. “What it doesn’t explain is when your dad said, ‘they killed Ernie because he couldn’t get the money fast enough. They wanted it right then. All of it.’ We found Ernie’s killer, and these men weren’t responsible.”
“I’m not sure everything he had to say when he met with Mina was totally reliable. But this video was filmed before he really slipped. If there’s a conflict in what he’s told us then and now, this is what I would go by.” She pondered everything they’d learned. “I wonder if ICE has shut down the smuggling or if the women Kai held in his cave came from this trafficking ring.”
Hayden didn’t answer right away—just stared ahead, clearly weighing her words. “Ernie left the boat to Collins, but only because he died before he could file a change in his will. If what Collins said about the trafficker wanting to kill him if he was no longer useful was true, he’s probably still involved. Or ICE still has an ongoing investigation, and he’s part of it. Either way, we can stake out his boat on Thursday night or somehow check the GPS history on his boat.”
“Shouldn’t we just talk to him and get his side of the story?”
Hayden shook his head. “Not if he has Kai. If he finds out we’re onto him, he could go to ground, and we might not ever find out what happened to Kai. Far better to keep a covert watch on him until we know more.”
“I see.” She had to trust his reason for not confronting Collins was sound. “But what if ICE has an open investigation, and we interfere with it?”
His eyes narrowed. “That could be problematic. I’ll call a contact at ICE and find out if they have anything going on before we step on their toes.” He stood. “But first, we finish this video, then go see Becca to find out what she knows about the women her dad was bringing to her charity.”
“Even if she knows anything, her dad probably swore her to secrecy too.”
“It would make sense she wouldn’t say anything to keep her uncle’s name clean.”
“But maybe now that we’ve heard the story from my dad, she could be persuaded to tell everything.” Cady hoped a woman who ran a charity to help people would want to keep innocent women safe and would tell the truth.
If not, they might have to actually stake out the boat as Hayden suggested. She really didn’t want to do that. She’d never shied away from difficult challenges in her job, and some of the things she’d had to do to get a story were outrageous, but this was different.
This situation could turn deadly.
