A Distant Shore by Karen Kingsbury (books for students to read .txt) 📕

vague offers. Three days in and Jack had their trust. At three ten he stood and stretched. His go bag was in a vehicle with the agents who would take him to a private airstrip when the raid was over. Fifteen minutes from now, if all went well. Part of the reason the traffickers would trust him was because he didn’t have a backpack or beach bag.

Just a Smith & Wesson in his waistband.

He sauntered to the area near the playground where he’d talked with the traffickers yesterday. This is for you, Eliza. Help me, God. Let’s get these guys off the street. He leaned against a palm tree and waited. But not for long.

After a few seconds a guy walked up. One of the two who had tried to take the little girl when Jack was here with Eliza. “You looking for something?” The man didn’t make eye contact. He kept his gaze on pivot, watching, worried.

“Just a little fun.” That was the code phrase. The men had told him yesterday that they had ways to entertain tourists. If he was interested, he needed only to say the words. And now he had.

The man nodded and lit a cigarette. “Come on.” He nodded for Jack to follow him. There was no further conversation, but a hundred yards down Bay Street Jack saw the yellow car. This goon’s buddy was in the driver’s seat, no doubt.

After a minute the car pulled up. The trafficker slid into the passenger seat and Jack took the backseat. From this point to the house, he was on his own. If they figured out his real identity, they would take him to some remote spot and kill him. No one would ever find his body.

Jack worked to keep his cool. “Hey… you got a smoke?”

“No.” The driver snapped at him. Then he laughed—a sickening laugh. “I got something better.”

Locking these two up was going to be one of the highlights of Jack’s career. He clenched his jaw and stared out the window. The driver seemed to be going a different way than before, and Jack felt his heart skip a beat. Was this it? Would the agents on the ground know where they were taking him?

They drove another ten minutes and pulled up at a dilapidated ranch house surrounded by a chain-link fence and weeds three feet high. This definitely wasn’t the right house. Swagger was critical. “This don’t look like any kind of fun to me.”

“Shut up.” The man in the passenger seat glared at Jack over his shoulder. “We got a pickup.”

The driver looked back, too. “Two hundred dollars. Cash.”

“Forget it.” Jack lowered his head and stared out the window at the house. “Not till I see what I’m buying.”

For the longest moment in Jack’s life the two just looked at him, studied him. Then the driver said something to his buddy, and that guy got out of the car. Jack guessed he was picking up cocaine. All the better. None of their recon had ever proved that the men were dealing drugs, too. But the more charges the better.

So this gang would never again see the light of day.

It felt like an hour, but after a few minutes the passenger seat goon returned and climbed inside. He carried a large grocery bag. It looked heavy. He shot Jack another look. “You ain’t seen nothin’. Got it?”

Jack held both hands up. “Hey… you’re the one making a sale, buddy. If you’re not selling, take me back to the beach.”

They were the right words. Because both men turned their attention to the road and after another few minutes they pulled up at the white brick house Jack had seen when he was with Eliza. The one that looked like a mansion. At least in this part of Nassau.

Every move, every word, it all mattered now. Jack climbed out and slid his hands into his shorts pockets. “This looks better.”

The driver walked straight up to him, inches from Jack’s face. “Pay me.”

It was a test. No one would pay now, when there was no proof of a girl waiting on the other side of the front door. Jack laughed. He looked one way and then the other. “What is this, a sting?” He took a step toward the man. “Take me inside or take me back to the beach. I see what I buy. That’s the way it works.”

Without turning around, Jack could hear a car on the street behind this one. Two cars maybe. Agents getting ready for the raid. He shifted. “Look, forget it.”

Again the wary man relaxed. They were about the same height, but the other guy looked like an NFL lineman, muscles on muscles and skeleton tattoos on every inch of his body. He wasn’t the gang leader, though. That coward was inside and he usually didn’t leave the place until well after midnight. Scurrying around in the dark like a cockroach. When no one was looking.

Jack followed the lineman to the front door. The smaller man from the passenger seat had already gone inside with his bag of drugs. Again, this could be an ambush. Jack was armed, but it wouldn’t do him any good until he had backup.

Four against one was a death trap.

Help me, God… I need You. Jack stepped inside behind the big guy and his eyes tried to adjust. The house was dimly lit by candles and incense burning in the foyer and on tables down a long hallway. Sickening, he thought. According to surveillance, ten young teenage girls rotated in and out of these rooms.

From down the hall, a door opened and the smaller guy poked his head out. Then he pulled from inside the room one of the teenage girls Jack and Eliza had seen on the beach. She looked drugged, her legs unsteady, her face and eyes caked with thick makeup. Her short black silk gown barely covered anything.

“Here,” the man yelled. “A little fun.”

He pulled the girl back into the room. Jack’s