by E. A. Copen
“You find anything?” Valentino asked from the doorway.
“Just this phone,” I murmured and typed in yet another wrong password. “It's a pretty expensive model. Mind if I ask if you know where he got it?”
“Beats me. Elias didn't have much. Didn't even have his own bank account. He was always bumming fives off of me. Got to the point where I was letting him work off what he owed me by helping me fix up cars at the garage.”
“I don't suppose you know the password then either, huh?”
Valentino dug his own cell out of his pocket. “No, but I know someone who can crack it in five minutes flat.”
~
Ed walked in twenty minutes later. He didn't look like he'd slept, either, but he'd at least changed his clothes. He wore a wrinkled up, blue t-shirt that read TIME LORD IN TRAINING. I handed him the phone. He broke out a cable that connected it via USB to his laptop, sat down on the floor next to me and adjusted his glasses. “Give me ten minutes.”
“You're not doing anything illegal are you, Ed?” I asked leaning in closer.
Ed pursed his lips and shrugged. “I could do a hard reset but you'd lose all the info stored on his phone unless he's got it backed up through a third-party site online. Then I'd have to get into his online accounts and answer a bunch of security questions using social media updates for source material. It's time consuming. This way is easier.”
“What exactly is this way?” I tried to lean around him to get a look at the computer screen but Ed shifted away from me.
“I don't roust you out of a level sixty-six dungeon raid the weekend before a major expansion release to tell you how to do your job, do I? Back off and let me work my magic.”
I still didn't know how the kidnappers had gotten access to the house so I stood and started pacing the room, thinking about it. There was a window, but the house had central air so there was no reason it would have been left open overnight. Besides, it was a storm window with a screen and child-locks on it. That window wasn't even going to open easy from the inside, let alone from six feet off the ground, since Valentino's place sat on a slight hill. By all accounts, the front door had been locked. Maybe Elias let the kidnapper in, I reasoned. He did seem to know them. It took me about three seconds to decide against that. Even if that was the case here, Elias couldn't have let the kidnapper into the Greenlee or Summers house. There was something else at work, something that I wasn't seeing.
“Okay,” said Ed, disconnecting the phone from his laptop and holding it out to me. “I changed the lock code, too, in case it locks up on you again. It's two eight five nine.”
“Thanks, Ed,” I said taking the phone. “You're a life saver.”
For a loner, Elias had a lot of contacts in his phone. Some of them were suspiciously labeled only with two or three letter combinations. The only ones that were full names were members of the pack and people around town plus one more: Maria Castilla. “Bingo,” I said and tapped on the contact. A new screen came up displaying a picture, a phone number and a birth date. The number was obviously a fake unless Maria Castilla had the same phone number as Tommy Tutone's Jenny at eight six seven five three-oh-nine. It was the picture that mattered to me. “Holy hell,” I muttered.
“Something the matter?” Ed asked.
I ignored him and turned to Valentino. “Valentino, I need to-”
“Just take it,” he said cutting me off. “You do what you gotta do.”
I rushed out of the house, dialing my own phone as I hustled toward Sal's truck. Tindall picked up after the third ring. “Tindall.”
“Maria's last name is Castilla,” I told him and climbed into my car. “And that's not her real name. She is a he.”
“Eh?” said Tindall. I could hear the confusion in his voice. “What's that now?”
“That's why we couldn't find her. She was the last one before Sal to see Elias alive. She was who Elias was hanging out with. She's our missing link. Probably a witness, too.”
“Slow down, Judah,” Tindall urged. “Just tell me what I need to find this... person.”
“I'll text you a picture and you can put out an APB.”
I started to hang up but Tindall shouted for me to wait a goddamn minute. “What do you want me to do if I find this girl... guy... whatever?”
“You don't do anything without calling me first, you understand? You can't spook her.”
“Sure,” Tindall scoffed in a dismissive tone. “And what are you going to do while we do all the actual police work?”
“I'm going to go check out Aisling,” I told him and hung up.
I glanced back down at the smile in Maria's photo and thought, I've got you, you bastard. All I needed to do was go to Elias' favorite haunt and show his picture around. Someone there was bound to know his real name. Once I tracked down the elusive Maria, I could put together the rest of Elias' story. There was only one last part to figure out. For everything I knew I still didn't know how the bad guy was getting in and out of the houses without being detected or where he was holding the children. I couldn't move on him until I could be sure that things were in place to perform a proper rescue. If I was right, though, the answer was waiting for me at Aisling.
Chapter Eighteen
There were more cars in the parking lot than I expected considering how early on in the day it was. Night clubs usually don't pick up a lot of business until the middle of the day. Then again, it was a Saturday and, given the construction of the building, the people inside probably had no idea what time of day it was outside.
Aisling was nicer looking than I expected for a club. The outside was a pristine white washed building with gold leaf trim and plenty of neon that would have made the club impossible to miss in the dark. Big, Gothic style windows lined the front and side of the building. The fact that they were made of stained glass limited the light that would have filtered through. As if that wasn't enough, it looked like there were some thick curtains on the inside. A big sign on the roof advertised the place as a “ladies and gents” club while a winking Tinkerbell held her skirt down Marilyn Monroe style in a series of neon flashes. Classy, I thought and found myself a parking space.
I left my gun and badge in the truck. If Reed was right and this was the place to buy and sell anything, legal or not, then I didn't need to tip people off that I was a fed. That was, of course, assuming the people in charge hadn't pegged my mug the day I rolled into town and arranged for me to be watched. If the powers that be in Concho County were as scary as Reed inferred, they were then that's exactly what they might have done. If I was a bad guy, that's what I'd do, anyway.
Standing outside the main entrance to Aisling was a living, breathing cowboy fantasy. He was over six feet tall with abs that probably could have had their own starring role in a Zack Snyder film. He was wearing a tight pair of blue jeans and a red button-down shirt with the arms ripped off, unbuttoned, of course. A cowboy hat and cowboy boots, complete with spurs, rounded out the ensemble. He smiled as I came closer. I tried not to make eye contact, not because he was difficult to look at or anything because he wasn't. Should half the men inside look as nice, I might forget what I came there for. I avoided eye contact because I didn't know what he was. This was, after all, a club that thrived on the fact that it featured supernaturally good entertainers.
“Hey, darlin',” he drawled in a genuine Texas-style accent. I thought he was going to stop me and make conversation or something but all he did was smile and open the door for me. I stumbled over a thank you and went on inside.
I found myself standing in a lavish lobby with plush carpet and velvet drapery. Two good-looking men in immaculate, expensive looking suits stood guard, one on either side of a pair of drawn white curtains with black lace over them. I could feel the slight vibration of bass in the floor, even though I couldn't hear it.
“Anything to check, miss?”
I turned my head to the left and found a guy in—I swear to God—a pinstripe suit that must've come out of
an Al Capone reproduction catalog with the hair to match. My mouth fell open, and I gave the guy a really stupid look as my brain tried to process what exactly I'd walked into. “I... uh...” Words. I forgot how to words.
He smiled. Damn him, he had one of those smiles that screamed confidence. “Can I see your membership card?”
Crap. “I... uh... didn't realize this was a members only... thing.”
“Only during certain hours and days of the week. I can go ahead and get an application to my manager if you're interested.”
I glanced back around the lobby, thinking maybe I should have brought my badge in. “I'd like to speak with your manager if that's possible.”
“I'm afraid it's not. He's busy tending to a VIP party but if you'd like to leave your name, I'll be sure to tell him you stopped by.”
“Black,” I said without thinking. “Special Agent Judah Black.”
I looked back at him and expected to find him sweating or in some state of panic. Usually, when you play the fed card in a place that's doing illegal stuff, the help gets nervous. Instead, young Al Capone's eyes lit up and literally sparkled. “Oh, Miss Black. Of course. There's been a VIP packet waiting for you here for two days.” He sorted through something in the desk he stood behind and came up with a leather bound binder that he held out to me.
I took it from him, even more confused than I had been before. I'd only been in Paint Rock a few days. Hell, this case wasn't more than three days old. There was no way that someone could have predicted I would come out to this place, not unless I'd been directed here by design. That priest is in on this somehow, I realized and started flipping through the packet. Aside from a brochure with a bunch of welcome information, the binder included a VIP access card, a coupon for a free lap dance and an envelope with my name written on it. “I didn't pay for this,” I told young Al Capone.
“It's compliments of the owner, ma'am.”
“Jesus Christ,” I breathed when I opened the envelope and found a check for no less than twenty-five thousand dollars. It was signed by two names: Robbie G. Fellows and Kim Kelley. I pulled the check out and showed it to the coat man. “What the hell is this?”
“Twenty-five thousand dollars,” he said with a smile.
“I can see that, but why?” He stumbled trying to come up with an answer and I leaned on the desk. “I don't care what he's doing. I need to see your manager right now. Tell him that he needs to either cooperate with my investigation or I'll get a warrant to search the premises for contraband.”
“Yes, ma'am.” Young Al Capone picked up the phone on the desk and pushed a singular button. “So sorry to disturb you Mr. Fellows, but...” The Mr. Fellows on the other end obviously cut him off because he stopped speaking. “Yes, sir. You did, sir. But you also asked to be notified if Miss Black came in to pick up her VIP packet.” He glanced up at me in silence for a moment.
“Tell him,” I mouthed.
“She said to tell you that, if you won't see her-”
“Immediately,” I added.
“If you won't see her immediately, she'll get a warrant to search for contraband... Yes, sir. Right away, sir.” He hung up and turned his attention back to me, stepping around the desk and gesturing toward the white curtain. “Right this way, Miss Black.”
The two suits on either side split the curtain in half and pulled both halves aside as if I were royalty. Synth-pop music poured through the open door in a slow, sensual beat that I hadn't expected to hear. Stepping through the curtains felt like I was stepping out onto a stage. I was momentarily blinded by a series of flashing lights in watered down blues and greens. It took a while for the green to clear out of my vision. When it finally did, I realized I was standing on a balcony with spiraling stairs on either side. Young Al was halfway down one stairway. I moved to follow, putting my hand on the railing.
Something curled around my fingers the moment I made contact and I jerked my hand away only to realize that, somehow, a vine bearing beautiful white flowers had wound its way around the banister. Magick, I realized, and it wasn't mine. Someone had gotten a kick out of scaring the shit out of me with a harmless little flower. I ripped the flower away from the vine and tossed it over the side. Halfway down, the petals popped like popcorn, sending a confetti rain of white rose petals down on a small crowd of patrons, a pretty young thing surrounded by four or five lumberjack types. The girl laughed with delight and spun in the rain of petals.
“Miss Black,” said Young Al from the bottom stair impatiently. “You did say immediately.”
I shook the startled cobwebs from my head and rushed down the stairs where a mostly empty dance floor waited, populated by over-sized tables, each one with an iridescent, water filled pole in the center. Lights somewhere in the bottom of the pole changed from blue to green to purple against the beat of the music. Despite the appearances in the parking lot, most of the tables were empty, though the ones that weren't empty were occupied by dark, apathetic looking people with pale skin. Vampires.
At the center of the small mass of occupied tables, there sat the most striking man I'd seen all day. He wasn't particularly beautiful, not like the dancers around him, but he had a presence that commanded the very air I breathed. Clean shaven, auburn-haired and green eyed with a good, strong chiseled jaw, he sat at the center table completely alone but for the agile pair of dancers before him, one man and one woman, both working the pole with all the grace of a professional circus performer. He gave me a glance without turning his head, a defiant smirk on his face. I didn't know who he was or whether he was anyone of importance to me but I knew right then and there that I didn't like him.
Young Al led me away from the main room, up another set of spiral stairs and to a balcony on the other side where two pretty girls wearing nothing but glitter and a headband with a single white feather manned a curtain. Al stopped so suddenly I bumped into him. He frowned at me and adjusted his suit jacket. “Mr. Fellows is in there,” he said and gave me a slight bow before walking away.
“Wait,” I said, but he didn't stop. He'd completed the minimum requirements of his job and was off to go stand at his post like a good drone. I growled a curse under my breath and turned back to the ladies at the curtain. They gave me plastic smiles and pulled the curtain aside.
The room beyond was larger than I expected and held different décor. There was a desk with all the typical trimmings of an office but that was shoved back in a corner. In the center of the room there was a stool where a woman stood while a man took her measurements. She was wearing a black leather vest, black knee-high boots with more buckles than a belt shop and a short purple skirt with petticoat ruffles, also black. Her hair was an impossible flame of cherry red with blue streaks. It looked like someone had set her head on fire. She regarded me with disinterest as I turned to address her tailor. “Mr. Fellows?”
The tailor looked up and shook his head. “No. And be quiet. I'm working.”
“That's enough, Basil,” said the woman in a British accent and she hopped off the stool. When she turned toward me, I realized she didn't have a shirt on under her vest but, hey, she had a tie. I guess that counts for something, right? She gave me a flirtatious smile and a wink. “Don't be mean to our guest.”
I couldn't help myself. I'd had all the confusion I could take for one day. “You're Mr. Fellows?”
“Miss, as it happens at the moment.” Basil the tailor gathered up his tools and walked by me in a huff. Miss Fellows waited until he was gone before she started peeling off her clothes, starting with those boots. “God bless you, woman, how do you do it?” She dropped her skirt and marched over to a wardrobe against the far wall.
“Excuse me?”
“You know,” she flicked a wrist at me while she sorted through a closet full of clothes, eventually settling on a pair of leather pants. “Go out looking like that. It must be so liberating, not caring what you look like. It's so much pressure, being a fashion icon. You can't go out in jeans and a t-shirt. The pap
arazzi would eat me alive.”
I couldn't decide if that was a veiled insult or a genuine statement of jealousy. “You're a fashion icon? I've never heard of any Mr. or Miss Fellows.”
“Obviously.” She said rolling her eyes. “And it's Robbie. I don't like it when women address me that way.”
I waited for her to get changed in awkward silence. “So, um, you're going to have to help me. I'm a little confused about the whole Mr.-Miss Thing.”
“Humans!” she exclaimed. “Always so hung up on the outward display of sex and sexuality. You're dogs, all of you. But, if it clears things up for you...” She lifted a hand above her head and snapped her fingers. As if someone had simply rolled out a new version of Robbie Fellows, she changed into a he. All those feminine curves shifted, the weight redistributing from the hips and chest to the shoulders and arms. The slender, feminine neck suddenly had an Adam's apple and the tight leather pants Robbie had put on filled out in completely different places. He smiled at my surprise and lowered his hand, leaving the other resting on his hip. “It's called a glamour, honey. It's my number one sale here, as long as we're being honest. People love it when they can come in and order up whatever they want.” He walked over to sit on top of his desk, crossing one leg over the other and resting his hands on the top knee. “Now, what can I do you for, love?”
I held up the leather binder. “You can start by explaining this and the check for twenty-five thousand dollars inside. How'd you even know I'd come here?”
“It's a logical conclusion that you'd come eventually,” he said with a shrug. “I mean, I had no idea when you'd show. I honestly didn't think it would be so soon but I know the rumors are out there. Aisling,” he spread his arms wide. “Where everything's for sale, no dream too big or too small. That is why you're here, right? Someone somewhere told you that we were selling more than sex and booze downstairs?”
“Is it true?”
