Wolfe and Shel sat on the bed in their shared bedroom, the ‘sites’ box from Emmett’s office open off to the side, and most of the files spread around them.

“So… these are the places where they make the transfers, then?” Shel asked, holding up ten files.

Wolfe nodded. “Yup. Six in Noimoire proper, one in Joliet, at the train tracks, and three more in other cities near Noimoire. If Emmett’s files are anything close to accurate, half the gangs in Noimoire are involved in whatever is going on—and it’s gotten far more comprehensive over the last year or so.”

“So, you just have to wait for them to come back to the trainyard for an exchange?” Shel asked.

Wolfe shook his head. “It won’t work like that. Now that the trainyard is compromised, they’ll move on to another site. I’d also bet they pull back from the other outer sites, although I’m less sure about that. If I want to go after them, I’ll have to go back to Noimoire itself, most likely.”

Shel hesitated, and for a moment, Wolfe thought his girlfriend would counsel caution, but her gaze hardened and she nodded. “I understand—and this is important. It’s obvious a lot of people are having terrible things happen to them, and you should save them.”

Wolfe shook his head slightly, smiling. “You should save them, Shel. My job is to put the ones who are doing this behind bars or six feet under.”

“I will save them,” Shel said. “When you go next time, I should join you. Together, we’ll be far more powerful than we would be alone.”

Wolfe laughed. “‘Far more powerful than we would be alone,’ huh? You sound like a Saturday morning cartoon, but I get what you’re saying.”

Shel smiled. “Hey, you don’t have a complete monopoly on cheesy lines.”

“Oof, right in the gut,” Wolfe said, miming taking a bullet, and Shel chuckled.

A sobering thought crossed Wolfe’s mind as he thought back to Rhett’s words. “Rhett mentioned that you could lose your career, helping me. This whole situation could easily go south—it could be dangerous, but it could also end up illegal. You shouldn’t kill your career before it’s even started. Just let me handle it.”

“You think it’ll be bad?”

“A good way to figure out how much a situation will go south is to figure out how many people stand to lose what if you butt your head in,” Wolfe said. “In this case, we’re talking with massive amounts of coordinated, RICO-level human trafficking, with what looks like half the Noimoire underground involved.”

Shel twisted her finger in her hair and bit her lip.

But then her face firmed, and Shel shook her head. “I’m not leaving, and I’m not stepping back. You always try and sacrifice yourself for me, Wolfe, and I really like that about you. But we’re partners. I’m going to be there for you, no matter what. My career as a police officer, especially being one of the elite card police, showing my stupid father and mother that I’m worth something… well, I really want it. But you’re the most important thing to me. Stop trying to send me away, okay? Please?”

Wolfe smiled again. Shel’s support over the day had been truly welcome. “I’ll quit trying to send you away. Promise.”

Shel smiled. “So, just check out the sites, then?”

Something about the whole thing was nagging at Wolfe. “Shel, has it occurred to you that we’ve never heard about any of this?”

Shel frowned. “What do you mean?”

“Well, the news…” Wolfe took a moment to gather his thoughts. “Let me start again. Every time the precious, cute little daughter of some rich executive or movie star or something disappears, it’s national news for months, right?”

Stolen story; please report.

Shel nodded.

Wolfe continued. “But we’ve never heard about any of these people, and apparently, this has been going on for years and years, according to these files.”

“Okay.”

“So, the victims aren’t attracting any attention. Do you know why? Do we know who the victims are?”

“I mean, not exactly. But Rhett told me they were all criminals—petty ones. Street thugs fresh out of failing high school, young whores, street-level pushers that got in because their uncle said they could make fast money—things like that. People like Kevin, or, well, me, once upon a time.”

Wolfe nodded slowly. “Yeah… that’s what I thought. They’re the people who, if they disappear, everyone will just assume they died in a way everyone expects—drug overdose, strangled by a pimp, something like that.”

Shel frowned. “It still seems like someone should be saying something… what are you thinking?”

“I think it’s time to return to Noimoire proper—and to talk to the people that know what’s happening there.”

Shel smiled and motioned to the darkness outside the window. “It’s late—I assume you mean tomorrow?”

“Bright and early, we go see the few remaining people that liked us.”

***

Wolfe stared at the Morning After Inn from next to his car, which he had parked in the back most parking spaces, to give him a tiny bit more time before someone noticed him. He had been here quite often, usually to help its owner, Melissa, with something or other, since she had done the Grimm family quite a few solids back in the day.

But he had few fond memories of the place, even if he didn’t hate it. Its purpose was as cheap as its façade, which was saying something. The Morning After Inn was three stories of sleazy rooms packed into a long, thin building. The whole thing was off-white, old, cracked, and covered in dirt. A beat-up sign hanging in the front window declared, “Rooms rented by the hour, available now!”

“I get that now,” Shel said, her lips pulling up on one side. “Is that a good thing, or a sign of how far I’ve fallen?”

“A little of column A, a little of Column B,” Wolfe said, waggling his hand.

Shel chuckled, but Wolfe didn’t react after that, beyond tapping his foot.

“You okay?” Shel asked. “You seem nervous.”

“This is pretty much the declaration of war, going in here. Someone is going to see me, and eventually—and I’m thinking two days max—it’s gonna make its way back to Damian. This is the end of the peaceful vacation.”

Shel nodded, her finger twisting in her hair but her eyes forward and intense. “Yeah. Worth it, though. Some people need to be taken off the street.”

Wolfe nodded, braced his shoulders, and walked toward the Inn. He took a few steps around his car and toward the building when another car pulled into the parking lot—a fancy red sportscar with a license plate that read ‘LeftOne.’

He stopped dead in his tracks and threw his arm out as Shel walked up beside him. She hit the arm and looked at him questioningly.

“That’s Marko’s car!” Wolfe said, taking his arm and pointing. “The asshole must not have changed his license plate even though it should now read ‘Onlyone.’”

Shel let out a single gasp-snort, but she moved backward, and Wolfe followed. He rushed back behind his car and knelt. The driver and passenger side door both opened, and two men came out as if they had practiced synchronized car exiting. The passenger side revealed a man of middling height and weight, but the driver’s side revealed a man that looked like a Viking had taken a really unfortunate liking to a wolf somewhere in his wood pile. He was almost six-two, with black, shaggy hair that hung loose and a physique that screamed ‘work-out junky.’

He was also wearing a wife-beater that screamed ‘class,’ Wolfe thought to himself with a half-snort reminiscent of Shel’s.

Marko added to his general dark vibe by pulling a Smith and Wesson 3566 model and racking it, like a bad B-movie villain. Then he walked into the Morning After Inn, his mook following him.

“Fuck,” Wolfe growled out. “I still don’t have my Edge!”

Shel raised her eyebrow. “What are you planning on doing?”

“Nothing, unless I full on pull my deck. That freaking hand-cannon could blow a hole in a car. I could really have used a gun, here. Especially since it’s Marko and I murdered his brother.”

Shel pointed toward the passenger side of the car. “Well… I have a gun, actually.”

“What?” Wolfe asked, blinking hard.

Shel quirked her mouth. “They gave me a permit to carry a gun for purposes of training and going to the gun range—I have a Glock 17 in the glove compartment.”

“Won’t you get in trouble if I use that?” Wolfe asked, but he was already moving toward the side of the car.

“I… don’t think so. I mean, I was transporting it correctly… I think,” Shel said. “No one has to say I allowed you to use it.”

She didn’t sound particularly confident, but Wolfe decided to risk it. Marco was a violent thug with almost no sense or restraint, and if he was here, there was almost certainly going to be problems of one sort or another.

He reached into the glove compartment and pulled out a small, locked gun case that had been wedged into it. Shel passed him the key, and he unlocked the case quickly, his eyes on the doors to the Morning After Inn ahead of him the whole time.

He got the gun out—the same type Emmett had given him back at the trainyard—and quickly loaded it.

He stood, feeling better with a gun in his waistband.

But before he could do anything, a gunshot sounded from inside the Inn.