A Deadly Blessing

by Kathy Bennett

This guy is raking in thousands of dollars a day. Then a horrible thought hit her. What if he was being so free about telling her all of this because he intended for her to become one of his girls? Sweet Jesus!

  Looking at one of the screens monitoring one of the sound stages, Tiffany was embarrassed to see two young-looking girls and an older guy on a huge bed going at it with apparent enthusiasm. "It must be hard to find girls willing to do this."

  "Ha!" Drejohn walked over to a filing cabinet, yanked open a drawer and pulled out a four-inch stack of papers. "These are applications of all the girls who didn't make the cut. I hand-picked them and 'auditioned' them myself." He gave her an appraising look. "Kinda like I hand-picked you last night."

  Tiffany's heart felt like it was going to burst out of her chest it was pounding so hard. "Um…so what happened to those girls?"

  "I sold 'em."

  TRAVIS – 36

  Travis took clean towels, the last of the laundry, to the linen closet in the master bedroom and put them away.

  Walking through the bedroom, he bobbed his head in satisfaction that he'd whipped their bedroom back together, leaving no evidence of their fight the night before. Moving to the den, he admired the furniture he'd polished, the floor he'd scrubbed, and the fresh flowers he'd bought at the market. He'd raced through the supermarket loading his cart with all the makings of a fine Italian meal.

  "The only problem is," he said aloud, "I've got no idea when Maddie will be home."

  He walked to the fridge and grabbed a cold beer. Flipping the top off the bottle, he tilted it in his mouth, guzzling almost half the bitter liquid.

  "I'll just make up the spagetti and keep it warm for when she does come home," he said to no one. "Maybe I should give her a call though, so she knows I'm here."

  He mulled that thought around in his mind, he weighed the pros and cons of the idea. Finally, he swigged the remainder of his beer and picked up his phone.

  He couldn't believe how nervous he was. He felt like a teenager calling for a date with the high school prom queen.

  "This is Maddie Divine," she said with authority.

  She must have answered without looking at the caller I.D.

  "Hi, it's me."

  He heard a slight intake of breath.

  "Oh, hi. I really can't talk now."

  "That's okay. I just wanted you to know I'm home, and I'll have dinner waiting for you whenever you get here." There was at least ten seconds of silence on the line.

  "I can't guarantee when that will be," she said.

  "That's okay. I'll wait…forever, if I have to."

  "I can't do this now." There was an official tone to her voice. He didn't get upset; he was used to that tone.

  "I understand. I just wanted you to know you didn't have to worry about eating."

  "Thank you."

  "Are you okay? Is there anything I can do?" Another long pause.

  "Can you put our lives back like they once were, Travis? That's what we both need."

  Now it was his turn to be silent.

  "I'll see you tonight and I'll try to make it home before dark."

  At least her voice was a little gentler. Then he heard the line disconnect.

  PRESTON – 37

  "Governor, I arranged through your chief of finance to get state and federal funding for the EGA center in Los Angeles. I've prepared a brief meeting and press conference with Mayor Luna and Mr. Sorriano of EGA tomorrow at noon. That way, we'll get major play on the local news. Mayor Luna's on board with funding from the city as well."

  "How much are we giving the project?"

  "The president has funded one mil, and the state is matching that number."

  "Bain, I think we're making a big mistake." Preston got up from behind his desk and moved to the window and looked out at the towering pines and lush acre of Bermuda grass in his front yard.

  "How can you say that, Governor? With the fiscal situation, I was surprised at how easy it was to get the project funded – and that's not even counting outside corporate contributions or private donations. "

  "That's not what I'm talking about. I don't give a rat's ass about that EGA center." Preston turned from the window and faced Bain. "You know darn well it's only a matter of time until Tiffany's disappearance is going to get leaked to the media. How am I going to look then? I've been running around acting like nothing is wrong and the public and the media will burn me alive when they find out my daughter is missing."

  "Well, you could say the police told you to keep up a normal routine."

  "That makes me look like a jackass governor who needs to be told what to do."

  "So what do you want to do?"

  "I think I'll need to announce very soon that Tiffany and Brenda are missing, in fact, maybe after the EGA presentation tomorrow."

  "Yes, sir."

  "And Bain, let's get this done sooner than later. I want to minimize any public disfavor over this."

  "Of course, sir. I'll get right on it. Do you still want to go forward with the EGA press conference tomorrow?"

  Preston gave it some thought. If he reneged after Pilar and Bain had set the whole thing up, Pilar would never let him forget it. "As of right now, yes, I'm a go. But if I feel differently with news about Tiffany, you'll have to make my excuses to Mayor Luna."

  "Of course, sir."

  "Did you fax the medical records for Heather McCall to the LAPD detectives as they requested?" From the look of surprise on Bain's face, Preston could tell he'd forgotten. "Christ, Bain, get it together. You're supposed to be my right hand man and you can't even get simple things done." He slapped open a file and, with an angry scribble, signed his name, then slammed the folder closed, reaching for the next one.

  "I'm sorry governor. I've been a little swamped with all that's going on. I'll get right on it. And governor?"

  Preston looked up.

  "I'm sorry. I'll do better."

  "You sure as hell better. There are a lot of people who would like to earn your salary."

  TIFFANY – 38

  After the tour of the porn factory, Drejohn showed Tiffany the pool area. She'd stayed at all kinds of resorts, but none of them could compare to the oasis Drejohn had created on his property. Nowhere had she seen a pool so big. There was an actual chlorinated river moving around the outdoor space. In the searing heat, a bunch of people, mostly young girls, floated on inner tubes or rafts into a rocky grotto and out of sight. From atop the rocks, waterfalls plummeted into various tributaries leading to other pools. In the midst of all the water, was a palm-treed island with a tiki-hut bar and a sandy beach equipped with at least a dozen chaise lounges.

  She pointed out another large hut-type structure that stood between the pool and the rear wall of the compound. "What's in that building," she'd asked.

  "That's the generator shed. There's no power out here so we have to make our own. I've got the biggest, baddest diesel generators and back-up batteries to run a small city," Drejohn had boasted.

  After she genuinely gushed about the magnificence of Drejohn's self-made paradise, he encouraged her to use the pools to get relief from the heat. He explained he had some business to conduct and would be back later in the day.

  Then he called Ginger and told her he was going out and to 'take care of his Princess.'

  Now Drejohn and Big M were walking toward a black SUV with dark tinted windows. Big M slid into the driver's seat, and Tiffany saw Drejohn through the windshield talking animatedly on his cell phone.

  "Come on," Ginger said in a rough voice. "I guess you're the new flavor of the day. Do you want to go hang out at the pool or stay in your room?"

  Tiffany remembered the loud banging on her door that morning and how scared she'd been. "I'll go down to the pool." Besides, maybe someone at the pool will have a cell phone or maybe I can ask someone and find out where in the hell I am.

  Ginger led her into the coolness of the house. "Go up to your room, find a bathing suit an
d come right back down. I've got to work soon, so I don't have a lot of time."

  Tiffany hurried up the stairs wondering if she took her time maybe Ginger would go to work and leave her alone in the house. Perhaps she could get away or find a phone and call for help.

  She burst through the door of the room she'd stayed in last night and hurried to the dresser. Pawing through the clothes, she grabbed the most modest bikini she could find. Then she bounded to the closet and whipped the most appropriate robe off the hanger to cover herself. She considered changing into the neon bikini in the room, but thought surely there was a changing room near the pool. And maybe one of the girls floating in the water had left a cell phone in the pool house and Tiffany could 'borrow' it.

  Ginger's voice carried up the stairwell as Tiffany ran down the hall. "Get your ass in gear. I don't have all day. I'm not gonna get beat because I'm late to work."

  Tiffany bounded down the stairs and skidded to a stop where Ginger stood with her hands on her hips.

  After being hustled down the path to the pool, Ginger led Tiffany over to a corner of the yard. A huge white guy, all muscles and tan, sat under a multi-colored umbrella equipped with misters that sprayed fine droplets of water into the bone-dry air.

  Ginger shoved Tiffany toward him. "Tank, this is Princess. She's Drejohn's. He just picked her up last night." Tiffany watched the man openly assess her body. She'd need more than misters to wash his lascivious leer from her skin.

  "Lookin hot," said the hulk.

  Tiffany gave a half-hearted wave of her hand.

  "You can change in there," Ginger said, motioning behind the beefy