Far fewer results, but she realized she could narrow it down further. She added PWCPD to the search bar.
Bingo. Only five images to look at it, but it was the first one that had her attention.
She pulled the photo that Tanya Baldwin had given her from her jacket and held it to the screen, angling her head this way and that. It didn’t take long for her to make a conclusion. The Jonah Reid on her screen was the man in the photo with Elise Pierce, Rhonda Osborne, and Phoebe Baldwin. What the hell?
She clicked the link that took her to his LinkedIn profile. Her stomach twisted at his occupation.
“Hey.”
She looked up at Trent. “Hey,” she replied absentmindedly.
“How are you doing?”
“Fine.” She kept her gaze on the screen, not believing what she was seeing, but there it was in black and white: Jonah Reid had gone on to become an aide to Washington congressman Eugene Davis.
She got up and walked outside the station. Fresh air might be the only thing that could help her right now. What should she do? Was a current congressman’s aide involved with sex trafficking? Or was she leaping to a conclusion based on his brief stint at PWCPD combined with Cud’s strange behavior and his face in a picture with Phoebe Baldwin? Surely there could be some reasonable explanation.
She paced the parking lot. Her thoughts weren’t settling. Take the blip at PWCPD. Sure, not everyone was cut out to be a cop, but the pieces weren’t assembling unless… What was she even thinking: that Reid had been planted on the Webb investigation? If that were true, how entrenched was the ring and was it those deep connections that had Cud fearful and spewing threats?
She had to see Reid and confront him, and she’d have to go it alone. If she laid all this out for Malone, he’d rattle Cud and it would sure as hell get back to Reid and the other cohorts in the ring, and they’d go so far underground, there’d be no way of finding any of them. Whether she liked it or not, whether it was wise or not, she had to go this alone.
But when?
What would be the best time to approach Reid? The answer presented immediately that she’d need to get him alone. She couldn’t exactly go into the congressman’s office and demand time to speak with Reid. She’d have to find him at home, and Washington kept long hours.
She returned to her desk and brought up the background on Jonah Reid. No criminal record—not that she’d expected one given that he’d served as a detective. Reid lived just outside of Woodbridge, and she scribbled down his address and left the station. She then keyed off a quick text to Malone, who wasn’t in, that she wasn’t feeling well and was going home to rest. What he didn’t know was that she’d spend the rest of the day likely splitting her time between home and gathering intel. Then, as soon as night fell, she’d show up at Reid’s door. Hopefully he wouldn’t be expecting her.
Forty-Four
It was nearing midnight when she decided to head out to Reid’s house. She figured she’d find the aide home from Washington and still awake. She’d driven by the address earlier in the day but hadn’t managed to get a good look at the place from the road as it was nestled in the woods. All that peeked out between branches and evergreens were sections of the roofline. Noting the seclusion, goose bumps pricked her flesh at the thought that the isolation would serve the purposes of a sex-trafficking ring well. Especially if Reid was holding girls here.
She was armed with her service weapon, but she’d also grabbed her Beretta and had it in an ankle holster. Just to be safe.
She pulled the department car she’d signed out into the driveway and slowly crept toward the house. She watched the woods on each side closely for any sign of armed guards.
A two-story, older house sat in an open patch and was bathed in moonlight. Lights were on in a few rooms and shone through the closed curtains.
She parked next to a couple of mid-level sedans and got out.
Loudly cooing mourning doves and a towering sycamore with its wide, outstretched branches gave the property a sinister feel and had shivers trickling down her spine.
She talked her imagination back and knocked on the front door.
It took doing it twice before footsteps headed toward the door. The curtain in its window was pulled back and a woman’s face was looking out at her. The deadbolt clunked as it was unlatched. The door slowly cracked open.
“Yeah?” It was a woman in her forties and Amanda recognized her immediately as Elise Pierce, but she kept her expression neutral—revealing that she knew who Elise was wouldn’t help the cover story she’d devised.
“Sorry for the late hour, but I’m Detective Steele with Prince William County Police Department. I’m looking to speak with Jonah Reid. I understand he lives here.”
“What’s it to you?” Elise crossed her arms.
“I have concerns about a former associate who used to work within the department.” She planned to feel Reid out while making him think she considered Cud a suspect.
Elise narrowed her eyes. “What sort of concerns?”
“Kind of something I’d like to discuss with him.”
“Fine, step inside.”