That day in the harbor a man died when the brakes on the truck he was driving failed and the vehicle slammed into a wall. The brake lines had been cut. Such sabotage was something Beck’s protesters routinely engaged in. Unfortunately, no arrests were ever made. And now this man she considered an irritant and provocateur was being charged with human trafficking.

As far as Tess knew, Beck’s money was mostly inherited, but she’d read somewhere that he was a savvy investor and he also published a couple of magazines devoted to conservation. Tess believed in conservation, but she was not on the drive-only-electric-cars-or-only-ride-a-bike bandwagon. Cyrus Beck claimed to be passionate about ending all dependence on fossil fuels. Yet he was a jet-setter, from what she knew, flying all over the world on a private plane—talk about a carbon footprint. He threw his money behind any politician who shared his views, and he himself had stated in interviews that he believed in fomenting change, “by any means necessary.”

This was where Tess had a major problem with the man. He endorsed violent revolt in the name of his cause. As a law enforcement professional, Tess hated it when the line between legal protests and violent riots became blurred.

It was the elephant in the room. Everyone knew that Beck, or one of the many nonprofits he financed, paid the agitators, and they did damage, hurt people, destroyed businesses, not only in Long Beach, but all over the country. Yet he was never indicted for his role, never made to pay for the havoc he created. And scant few of the protesters were ever held accountable either, which always rubbed Tess raw.

Tess never understood it but knew it was political. All a cop could do when politics was involved was follow orders and policies and procedures to the letter.

She looked from the press release back to Bass, his expression unreadable. “You’re sure?”

Bass nodded. “It will be all over the news tomorrow or the next day. I believe I have probable cause to ask a judge for an arrest warrant for Beck. Our girl has testimony and evidence that could put Beck away for a long time. I need to keep her safe, locked away. An Oregon battered women’s shelter is the last place anyone would look.”

“Doesn’t the FBI have safe houses? Closer, maybe somewhere in Arizona or Nevada?” Tess’s knee-jerk response was, After the episode with the DEA rolling in for a high-profile search and arrest, did she really want to put her little hamlet through something similar again?

“Let’s just say I’m afraid that the kind of money Beck has can buy information. He might own someone in Arizona law enforcement—I don’t know for sure. I want my wit as off the radar as possible.”