Unseen (Will Trent 7)

“Rich white girls,” Faith supplied, skipping the political correctness. “They die or just end up at the hospital?”

Branson said, “Three died. Six went to the ER, then got carted off to white-girl prison.” She meant rehab. “They were from some of our better-known families. There was a lot of heat to make arrests. Like I said, Whitey was running pills through rednecks. Most of our non-pharmaceutical dealers were black and Hispanic. It’s easy to spot who’s working for whom.”

Faith put it more succinctly. “So, the white people freaked out and demanded justice. You arrested a bunch of blacks and Hispanics.” She used sarcasm to make her point. “I’m sure that went over well.”

Gray was obviously uncomfortable with Faith’s directness, or maybe he was more conscious that the conversation was being recorded. “We arrested the dealers who were known to sell heroin. My department is not in the business of racial profiling and never will be.”

Will assumed from Gray’s tone that he’d faced these accusations before. Atlanta had enough political scandals of its own to fill the local news, but Will had a vague recollection of seeing some reports about the mayhem down in Macon. Lonnie Gray must’ve gone to work every day wondering if he was going to keep his job.

Branson spoke reluctantly. “Because of the clampdown, we crippled Whitey’s competition in the streets. We created a racial firestorm that split apart the city and made all the politicians start screaming for blood.”

Gray admitted, “That’s when I shut down Denise’s investigation. We had too much going on to waste resources on a man we weren’t even sure existed.”

“This—” Will tried to clear the squeak from his voice. “This was Big Whitey’s endgame? To take over the heroin trade?”

Branson answered, “He took over everything. Remember, chess, not checkers. He comes into town and makes friends, pays up the food chain to guys like Sid Waller so that everybody stays happy. Whitey has operating capital. He opens up some pain clinics, gets his regulars, puts the junkies on his payroll so they start dealing. Then he spreads out his business to the malls, into the suburbs. He gets the kids with money hooked, then when they want something more, he moves them on to heroin.” She shook her head, though he could tell part of her was impressed. “Once his business model’s up and running, he starts taking out the competition.”

Amanda asked, “You know this is a pattern how?”

“Because I drove to Savannah and talked to some retired detectives who were too scared to tell me this over the phone.”

Gray’s clenched fists indicated he was just hearing this. He shot Branson a withering look.

Will couldn’t let go of something. He asked, “Chief Gray, you didn’t think Whitey existed?”

Gray reluctantly turned his attention away from Branson. “We’re not used to this level of sophistication in our criminal underworld. Mandy, you know I’ve worked all over the state, but this is more like something you’d see out of Miami or New York.”

There was a big fish/little pond logic to Whitey taking on the smaller cities. He’d also managed to pick two areas in Georgia where the population was predominantly African American. It was as if he was franchising his business model.

Will asked Branson, “Major, why were you so sure Whitey existed?”

“May I?” Branson was talking to Faith. She wanted one of her file folders back.

“Help yourself.” Faith pushed the stack back across the table.

Branson flipped through one of the files until she found a photograph. She put it on the table. The young girl in the picture was pretty and blonde, posing for the camera in that seductive way that teenage girls don’t know is dangerous.

Branson said, “Marie Sorensen. Sixteen years old. She worked at a cheese shop in River Crossing, one of our upscale malls. Lots of bored suburban kids hang out there. Sorensen’s by far the prettiest. She managed to catch Big Whitey’s eye.”

Nick told Amanda, “I’ll scan it in for you.”

“Don’t bother.” Amanda guessed, “Big Whitey got Sorensen hooked on heroin?”

“He got her into his car.” Branson took out another photo, this one showing Sorensen looking ten years older and twenty pounds lighter. Both eyes were bruised. There were open sores on her face. Patches of hair were missing from her head.

Branson said, “Another one of Big Whitey’s patterns, but this one he does himself because he enjoys it.” She put the pictures side by side on the table. “He tells them that he works for a modeling agency. They buy it because they’ve been told they’re beautiful all their lives. He gets them to the car, forces them into the trunk, then drives them to a hotel on the coast—Tybee, Fort King George, Jekyll. He rapes them. His friends rape them. He shoots them up with heroin. He tricks them out.”

Branson paused. She looked away from the photos.

“Sorensen was defiant at first. He put her in a dog crate to teach her a lesson. Took about a week to break her, then he put her up for sale on the Internet. One-sixty for the lunchtime special, two-fifty for an hour. Four hundred for two hours. She does ten, fifteen clients a day. Her habit runs a couple hundred dollars. Not a bad business model. Do the math.”

Faith stared straight ahead. She couldn’t look at the photos, either. Will wondered if she was thinking about her daughter.

Will asked, “What happened to her?”

Branson said, “Sorensen got old real quick. That’s the problem with these young girls. They don’t stay young for long. After two months, she was moved to the next stop on the circuit. That’s what these guys do—they move them around, never let them get settled in one place.”

She paused again. The pain was obviously still fresh. “Eventually, the girls get sent out to California, where they’re tricked out on the streets. Sorensen ended up in LA. She managed to call her mom a few times, tell her what happened. Mom hired a private detective to try to find her.”

Faith asked, “She didn’t file a report in Macon? The girl was sixteen years old.”

Branson’s face told the story. This was the ball she had dropped. This was why she was so obsessed with the case. “We filed a missing persons report when she disappeared. When the mom told me about the phone calls, I reached out to LA. They told me it was a lost cause. They’ve got so many girls streaming into the city that they had to close the Hollywood bus station.”

Faith smoothed her lips together like she was putting on lipstick.

Branson slid out another photo. Will recognized the tiny ruler beside Marie Sorensen’s head as the kind that medical examiners used during autopsies.

She said, “The private dick in LA tracked down an address. The police searched the apartment three times before they found her. She was crammed into a suitcase underneath the bed. Still alive.” Branson let out a slow breath. “Still alive.”

She looked down at the autopsy photo. No one pushed her to go on.

Branson took another deep breath.

“Mom got the first plane out to California. Marie’s in the hospital for three weeks. They patch her back together, get some weight on her, take her down off the heroin, only they can’t heal her brain. Two weeks after mom gets her home, she sneaks out and kills herself. Heroin. Cops found her behind the church. She was six months to the day from walking out of that mall with Big Whitey.”