Page 67 of Sam's Salvation
Sam nodded. “I’m Sam. This is Audra Ridley, Dean Adler, and Max Carson.” He pointed to each of them in turn.
“Nice to meet you all,” Seb said. “I’m just going to go around the room.” He started on his left. “My wife, London; my chief deputy, Jace Travers; our medical examiner, Dr. Alex Randall; our chief forensic scientist, Katie Mitchum-Randall; my brother, Thomas Archer and his wife, Rayna; and finally their son, Mason.”
“That’s quite the party,” Max said. “I don’t think we were expecting so many people.” He glanced at the others, a brow raised.
Sam agreed. Especially the family members. He understood why the sheriff’s wife was there. If she was the girlfriend, she was one of Marsters’ victims. But the others?
“Yes, well, this case had far-reaching implications for our area,” Seb said. “Can you elaborate more on why you’re asking about Marsters?”
“Sheriff, Sam told me he gave you a basic overview of what’s going on,” Audra said. “I’ve been undercover with Liam Brogan’s operation for almost two years, in one capacity or another. We were on the cusp of taking him down when someone tried to kill me and killed my handler, Theo Anderson. Long story short, I lost trust in him and in my agency, so I contacted an old friend.” She gestured to Sam.
“He said he’s your boyfriend.”
Sam’s neck reddened. He probably should have gone with friend. He glanced at her and shrugged.
Her mouth lifted and a light entered her eyes. She looked at the camera. “I suppose he is now. But that’s immaterial. I trust him, and that’s what I needed. What I didn’t know was he had deep resources. With those, we’ve figured out that whoever murdered Theo and tried to kill me didn’t do so because I was too close to bringing Brogan down. It’s mafia adjacent, if you will.”
“Okay.” The blond man named Jace sat forward. “What does that have to do with our serial killer?”
“Honestly? Maybe nothing.”
The group on the screen all looked at each other.
“We need an in for a new operative—me—into Brogan’s organization, since Audra’s been compromised,” Max said. “Over the course of the last few days, we think we might have found an opening, but we need more information.”
Audra took over for him. “The evening of the attempt on my life, Brogan and I met with Simon and Geoffrey Powell. They run a wholesale company here in Las Vegas. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss them becoming a distributor for Liam’s businesses. We didn’t do much discussing, though. It was an informal dinner meeting. I think he was feeling them out. What we’ve discovered about the brothers since is that they have some drug convictions and are from the same area of Nevada as Ryan Marsters.”
“Which is what led you to us,” Seb surmised.
“Yes,” Audra said. “One of Sam’s contacts has a contact with someone in the FBI. The Powells are under investigation for drug trafficking, but what put them on the feds’ radar was their association with Marsters. Do you know anything about them that we can use to get Max in? The idea is to put him into competition with the Powells.”
Seb and his group all shared a look.
A pit formed in Sam’s stomach. It was a heavy look that went through that room.
“What do you know about the Marsters case?” Seb asked.
“Basically, what we heard on the news,” Dean said. “We checked out a few news articles this morning after Sam talked to you.”
“Did you read the ones about the human trafficking ring?” Thomas Archer spoke up, a hardness to his voice.
Sam sat straighter, the pit getting deeper. “It was mentioned, yes.”
“I remember the Powells’ names,” Seb said. “The initial case was just Marsters. He killed several women in our area and kidnapped London. It wasn’t until later that we found out he had ties to a child trafficking ring. The Powells came up in conjunction with that investigation.”
“How so?” Audra asked. “Were they trafficking children?” Her face hardened.
“We’re not sure,” Seb said. “The Paulsons—the traffickers—had some documentation of their connections with other businesses and individuals. We found the Powells’ names listed with a phone number. The FBI wasn’t able to find anything else to connect them to the case, though. Based on their past history, we think they supplied the Paulsons with drugs to keep the kids compliant, but we could never prove it.”
“What if they took the kids away too?” The young blond man named Mason asked. All eyes in the conference room swung toward him. He glanced at Rayna, uncertainty in his eyes.
She laid a hand on his forearm.
“What do you mean?” Thomas asked.
“The kids who were too old for the Paulsons’ clientele. They didn’t just vanish. And Seb, you never found their bodies. So, what happened to them?”
Seb stared at him for a long moment, a crease between his eyebrows. “You think the Powells took them?”