A Deadly Blessing

by Kathy Bennett

escorting for some high-class Hollywood Madam. Don't know if it's true or not. You'd probably have to talk to Drejohn about that. He owns NTL and he was plenty mad when Swallow left."

  I tried not to jump out of my skin in front of this office manager. She'd just dropped a bomb in mentioning the name Drejohn. Could Drejohn be 'Dre' from the party Tiffany had attended? Was the mysterious black man the link between the two cases? I decided to test my theory.

  "How can we reach Dre?"

  Another restless sigh escaped from the woman. "Leave your card and I'll have him call you."

  My partner and I exchanged glances. Obviously he too had made the possible connection between Dre and Drejohn. "No. I'm sorry, that's not good enough. We need to talk to him and we need to talk to him now." Darius pointed to a phone on one of the desks in an office off the hall. "Get him on the phone."

  The expression on the Pleasure's face made it clear she didn't like my partner and was considering telling him to go pound sand.

  "Look, Treasure, get Drejohn on the phone and we'll be gone before you know it. By the way, what's his last name?"

  If the busty blonde could have spit nails at me she would have. "My name is Pleasure and I'm not at liberty to give out his personal information. As for contacting him, I don't think that will be possible. He's out of phone communication."

  Now my patience was cracking. "I don't care if your name is Pirate's Booty; if you don't give us a name, a number and an address for your boss we'll be arresting your ass for obstruction. We're not screwin' around. It's a matter of life and death and we're almost out of time."

  To my surprise she shrugged. I'm not sure who had their cuffs out first, Darius or me. He let me do the honors of hooking her up since I was going to have to pat her down anyway.

  "You've got to be kidding me!" the woman protested. "This is bullshit and you know it. I want your badge numbers right now."

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll do you one better. We'll give you our business cards with our names and badge numbers, after we book you."

  About an hour later, we were back at PAB and the Wife-Beater wasn't very happy with us and, once again, had us in his office. "I told you guys to stay out of the McCall case and where did you immediately go—right to someone connected with Heather McCall."

  "Lieutenant," I said, "if we hadn't gone to check on our leads in the McCall case, we might not have a possible connection between Drejohn from NTL Productions and 'Dre' from the party that Tiffany and Brenda disappeared from."

  "Well have you made that connection?" He loosened his tie. "Do we know for sure that Drejohn and Dre are the same person?"

  Darius spoke up. "Not yet. We're getting a warrant to search the office manager's phone for a contact number. We've also got a warrant in the works for NTL Production's offices. That should give us an address where we might be able to find this Drejohn, as well as his studio."

  "Well, we need to decide what we're going to do with your detainee," snapped the chief.

  "Actually, sir, she's our arrestee. We ran her on the way back to PAB and it turns out Pleasure Treasure has a traffic warrant."

  "Well, then get that woman booked. The traffic of officers and detectives going past that interview room to get a glimpse of your arrestee's 'charms' is disrupting the whole squad room. I've even seen a couple of sergeants from the chief's floor wandering through to ogle her." He looked out the door of his office and shook his head. "I've notified Chief Fryer about this Drejohn character, but he doesn't want us to contact the governor until we have something solid."

  One of the detectives who'd been working on the warrants barged into the office waving a warrant with a judge's signature. "You're good to go on searching her cell phone."

  I picked up the phone that easily cost several hundred dollars and scrolled through the contacts. "Here, I've got it." I rattled off the number and Darius wrote it down. "How do we want to play this?"

  "I think we need to brief the Sheriff's homicide detectives, and give the information to them," said the Wife-Beater. It was clear to me our boss wanted to push off as much of this case as he could.

  Thankfully, my partner spoke up. "Lieutenant, you told us to work Tiffany's missing person case, and this Drejohn may be the man she was seen leaving the party with. Meanwhile, if it's true the governor and McCall were having an affair, it makes Truesdale a suspect in the McCall homicide. But it appears McCall also had at least a working relationship with this Drejohn guy. Either way, this Drejohn person is critical in both cases. Do you really want the Kern County or the FBI to get to him first?"

  Veins in the Wife-Beater's forehead bulged and his flushed face indicated he might be on the verge of another meltdown. "Give the phone and the treasure chest woman to RHD detectives."

  "Lieutenant," Darius said, "Heather McCall is dead. Nothing will change that fact. RHD can work that case after we get the info we need to locate Tiffany."

  "We don't want her to wind up dead too," I added. "Um, Lieutenant, you want me to get you some water or something? You're not looking too hot."

  TIFFANY – 74

  "Get up. Go to your rooms and start pulling some work clothes. We're goin' on a road trip." The strawberry blonde motioned to Tiffany. "You too. You'll find a small bag in one of the closets."

  When Ginger turned her attention to the sluggish other girls to get them on their feet, Tiffany snatched the remote and shoved it down the back of her pants. Following Ginger and her charges up the stairs, Tiffany realized interrupting the signal from the satellite dish was now her top priority.

  As soon as Ginger was busy packing, Tiffany planned to sneak back downstairs to disable the satellite receiver. There was no way to know how many TVs were in the compound and her identity might be discovered any second. Tiffany's fear grew that Drejohn would panic and kill her if he knew she was the governor's daughter.

  Tiffany stepped into her room and closed the door. Moving to the closet, she found and pulled out a small weekender bag. "I might as well open the bag and throw some clothes in here, so if anyone comes in, they'll think I left to go find something," she whispered to herself.

  She lifted the suitcase onto the bed and unzipped it. Suddenly, from under the bed, a hand grabbed her ankle. She didn't scream, but she almost wet herself.

  "Tiffany, it's me, Brenda."

  Pulling her leg from Brenda's grasp, Tiffany exhaled. "You scared the crap out of me. I've been so worried about you. I spent all morning looking for you. Why are you under the bed?" She stepped back and saw her friend's forehead and eyes poking from beneath the box springs.

  Brenda squirmed to get out. Her voluptuous curves pinned her between the bed and the floor. "I've been thinking about what you told me. Drejohn lied to me about you making money from my…my…work." Finally, Brenda was able to free herself. Tiffany grabbed her arms to help steady her while rising.

  Tiffany gave Brenda a hug. "Because the studio is down, Drejohn is taking the girls on the road," she whispered. "I don't think he's missed you yet and he still doesn't realize I know you're here."

  "Do you think he's keeping us apart on purpose?"

  Tiffany nodded. "He hasn't said a word to me about you. Now that he's moving us girls, we've got to convince him to keep us together; then we'll escape."

  "Where do you think he's taking us?"

  "I think his plan is to take me to Vegas. We've just got to be sure you go too."

  "How?" Brenda's lowered voice was filled with anxiety.

  "I don't know yet, but I'll tell you one thing, escaping from there has got to be easier than trying to get out of this place." Gnawing on her lip, she looked at her friend. "I may need your help with something."

  "What?"

  "I've got to knock out the TV reception here. My dad was just on TV. I bet he was making a speech about me being missing. I was able to get the channel changed just before he said my name or showed my picture. My only guarantee of staying alive is to be sure Drejohn doesn't know who I am."

>   "What do you want me to do?"

  "Do you know where the TV satellite dish is?"

  Brenda shook her head.

  "I saw it last night while I was walking around the compound. It's on top of the generator shed. I need you to climb on top of that shed and disable the dish."

  Horror filled Brenda's eyes. "Why me?" she whispered.

  "Because Ginger is getting all the girls ready to leave this place. She's starting with us here in the main house. When she's done here, she'll probably head out to the dorms. No one is going to miss you for awhile. They'll come looking for me sooner. Ginger said Drejohn might blame you for the fire, thinking you set it to get out of doing the live show. The less you see of him, the better."

  "But I didn't set the fire!"

  Tiffany fought to keep impatience from her voice. "I know that. But Drejohn doesn't." She sat on the bed and patted the space beside her for Brenda to sit down. With a dramatic sigh, her friend plopped down. "This is what you need to do. Get on the roof of the shed and do anything you can to tilt that dish in another direction so it won't be in line with the satellite signal. Kick it, pull it, or rip it out with your bare hands, but get it pointing in another direction." Tiffany locked her gaze on her friend's eyes, which were filled with fear. "Then you'd better go back to the dorms before you're missed."

  "And what are you going to be doing?" From Brenda's tone, it was clear she didn't like the idea.

  "I'm going to confront Drejohn about why he