Free Deceptive Beauty by Dawn White Page B

out. If y’all need anything my name is Tonya.”  She turned and walked off to put our orders in.
    I looked across the table at Mia, smiled, and said, “Sorry I ordered for you, but they make the best moonshine Sangria. And the platters are the best drinking food.”
    She nodded and responded, “No worries, I’ve never been here so you helped make it easy on me. So what is this case we’re on together?”
    I pulled out the case files and stacked them neatly in the middle of the table. Mia watched as I pulled the top one off and explained it to her. “This one is the one we have to worry about.” I said pointing to Vadim Ivanovich’s folder. And continued explaining. “He’s always armed, dangerous, and willing to inflict as much collateral damage as possible, actually he enjoys it. Agent Marshall however said the interdepartmental investigation is because they want to catch, him and the head honcho of The Roadsters.”
    Mia shakes her head following everything I’ve said. Nods and looks at the files in front of us. I cleared my throat and continued, “They’ve been selling Krokodil or Desmorphine, which has been causing horrible reactions to the population. Apparently it causes necrosis of the skin, which generally leads to amputation and sometimes death. Their ties to the black market has flooded this country with the AK-47’s…” Mia raised her hand to stop me. Continued looking over the files in her hand, and closed them as she said, “Wow you’re a beast to reckon with. You know you just inundated me with so much information I think my head is spinning.”
    I laughed and turned just as Tonya put our pitcher of Sangria and glasses in front of us.
 
    I smiled at Tonya and said, “Thank you.” She nodded and responded as she was turning. “I’ll have your platter to you in a few minutes. Enjoy Ladies.” She said with a smile.
    I pulled the glasses towards me and filled them both close to the rim. Mia was watching closely as I handed her the glass.
    I smiled , held my glass up and said. “Cheers– to our first and hopefully not our last mission together.”
    She laughed and said, “Here, here.”
    We sat in silence for a few minutes while we enjoyed the comfortable numbness our drinks were providing. All of the sudden an idea came to me and I grabbed the file and opened it up to the pictures of the victims. Some were so graphic we had to be careful who was walking by before we opened and spread the pictures out. I started making a timeline, starting with the ones that took place in the early 2000’s. They all had one thing in common, the girls were really young, and they all had a large amount of drugs in their systems. But they remind me of the girl in Savannah, they found.
    I stopped on the last girl, pointed and said. “This girl is the last one, she is the one that has Krokodil in her system. None of the others had it in theirs. We know this one is related for sure to the gang activity. Unfortunately, someone dropped her body over the state line into Mississippi. Which has made it a federal case, and essentially ours.”
    Mia sat quietly nodding as she watched where I pointed. I quickly grabbed the photos as I saw Tonya making her way towards us with our platter. Sealing them up into a folder, I pushed it to the side.
    Tonya put our platter, plates and napkins on the table. Smiled and said, “How are y’all liking your drink?”
    I smiled and answered her, “It’s super yummy, thank you.” She gave us a curt nod and walked away.
    I handed Mia her plate and smiled. I quickly grabbed my food and opened the fact pages in the file. Everything was broken down for us, we were able to make plans and everything including house blue prints of the houses for the SWAT entries. I kept shuffling the pages until I grew bored and put everything away.
    I broke the silence and said, “We can’t really plan anything until we get with the other departments.”
    Mia nodded in between shoving a cheese