“What do you think he meant by that?” I asked, referring to the homeless guy’s comment.
“He’s probably lived a life of not trusting people,” said Mo. “There probably isn’t anyone he trusts.”
“Been there, done that,” said Sabrina. If there was anyone on Earth who could relate to our new friend, it was Sabrina.
“So do we look for Angel?” I asked. “It might take a while to find her and if she hasn’t seen Dickie for three years, I’m not sure if we will get anything worthwhile. We might waste valuable time.”
“We don’t know that she hasn’t been in touch with him,” said Sabrina, “just that she hasn’t been in this neighborhood.”
“And she might be able to tell us some things about him, even if she hasn’t seen him lately,” added Mo.
“So where do we start?” I asked.
Silence.
“Well, let’s narrow it down,” I said. “Where don’t we start?”
“Police,” said Mo.
“Four-Leaf Clover,” said Sabrina.
“Other hookers,” I said. When I got a questioning look from Sabrina, I explained. “First of all, how many hookers are named Angel? Like, a thousand? And there is nothing to suggest that she even resembles Peep anymore. If she’s gone ‘uptown’,” I made quotation marks in the air, “chances are she has made all kinds of changes to her appearance. Finally, any hooker we approach will be so suspicious of our intentions, we won’t get reliable information.”
The air was sucked out of the car. There had to be a way to locate Andi—if it was Andi—but we were novices at this. There were others who could accomplish this in no time. But who? We sat in complete silence for almost two minutes. And then it came to me.
“Got it,” I said. I looked at Sabrina. “Who can get this done?”
She cocked her head and gave me a questioning look.
“Let me ask it another way. You are staying at the Mirage. People are falling all over themselves to do something for you…”
“The concierge desk,” she said.
“Exactly. I’m not saying that the Mirage people themselves can find her, but they know people who know people who know people. I bet they find her in a couple of hours.”
I was close. It took them three hours.
We got back to the Mirage and Sabrina strode up to the concierge desk. Everyone was scurrying, including the guests who had nothing better to do than to wait for a Sabrina Spencer sighting. Dozens of cellphones were suddenly pointed her way. I could sense her discomfort level rising, so I stepped in and asked if we could talk to them in the back room. Out of the view of the hordes we explained what we were looking for, without going into too much detail. Oddly enough, we didn’t shock anyone. I guess they’d heard it all over the years. We offered each of the three concierges a thousand dollars just for trying—it was so nice to be rich—and a thousand dollars to whomever provided us with the means to find Angel. Another thousand would go to the contact they connected us to.
We didn’t ask them how they were going to go about it. We didn’t want to know. My guess is that they wouldn’t have told us anyway.
We went up to our room, after Sabrina signed some obligatory autographs, and we took showers. We didn’t know whether to be excited that we may have found a clue, or depressed that things weren’t moving fast enough.
Three hours later we were pacing the floor. It was kind of unrealistic of us to be impatient, but then, this was Las Vegas. Things were supposed to happen fast.
The room phone rang. One of the concierges had come through. We invited him up to our room. He showed up ten minutes later looking rather pleased with himself.
“If I’m the one who found your Angel, do I get the extra thousand for finding the contact and the thousand you promised for the contact we put you in touch with? Because I’m both.” he said. Cocky little bastard.
“Did you find her?” I asked.
He hesitated. “I know her.”
“Why didn’t you tell us before?”
“I didn’t want to play my hand too early. I wasn’t trying to be sneaky.” Sure he was. “I had to contact Angel first to make sure she would be willing to talk to you.”
“And?” I asked.
“She will, but only one of you. She doesn’t want a crowd,” he said, looking at Sabrina. “And she feels more comfortable talking to men,” he added, looking at me.
“Can I meet her tonight?” I asked.
“Um, no. As you can imagine, she’s kind of busy at night. But she will be willing to meet you at ten tomorrow morning. You notice I didn’t say ‘happy’ to meet you. She’s not sure where this is all going, so she would be willing to give you a few minutes. If she doesn’t like what you’re asking, she’s gone.”
I looked at Sabrina and Mo. “That’s fair.” I turned back to our cocky concierge. “Where?”
“Here. Downstairs in the restaurant.”
“Okay. Thank you.” I handed him his two thousand and he went away happy.
So we had a plan, but ten o’clock the next morning seemed like forever. The clock was ticking and with every tick Peep was getting further away.
Chapter 16
The photo shoot was beyond humiliating. One by one they stood under bright lights with a white screen behind them. They were ordered to take off their robes again, but his time they were being photographed in different positions, some of them disgustingly suggestive. Oddly enough, Emma found after a few minutes that she no longer cared that she was naked for all the leering men to see. She didn’t like it, but at the same time there was nothing she could do about it. It was clear that the men had been ordered not to touch the girls in “that way,” so they had a reprieve of sorts. She knew the nightmare was still to come, but for the moment if all she had to do was strip, she could put up with it. It gave her time to plan an escape, as fruitless as that was going to be.
And then she thought of her episode in the van. What if she could duplicate it? When the moment was right and the door to the outside was open, could she pull a fake episode and give her friends a chance to escape? The door had opened a few times even in the short time they had been there. She would talk to her friends when they went to bed. Emma could fake the episode. Could her friends be counted on to try to escape? That was the question.
It was obvious to Emma that she was the strong one of the group, and considering how scared she was, that wasn’t saying a lot. And yet, if there was going to be anyone who even stood a chance of fighting back, she was the one. Lucy was supportive in her own way, but she had already begun to rely fully on Emma for courage. The other three were hopeless. Rebecca, as the youngest and the one who had been used as the target of threats on several occasions, was a quivering mass of Jello. Emma didn’t think the man Ludwick would actually cut Rebecca. He said he only needed four of them, but he could make money off Rebecca too. His kind was too greedy. He wouldn’t hurt her.
The other two, Hannah and Lindy, were petrified into inaction. They were docile in following the men’s orders, never uttering a word. Emma could see the fear in their eyes. And yet, it wasn’t fear exactly. It was a cross between terror and resignation. They had already given up. Emma’s heart sank as she thought about it. She would never be able to rely on Hannah and Lindy. If she was forceful enough with Rebecca, she might be able to scare her into helping. Lucy was really the only one she could halfway rely on. If Lucy escaped, Emma was confident that she could find her way to someone who could help them. If she escaped. Emma had little confidence that she’d be able to come up with a viable plan.
But she had to come up with something. It couldn’t all end like this. She had her whole life ahead of her and couldn’t let these sleazy men control her future.
The pictures were done and the girls had their robes back on. The men made the expected rude comments from time to time, but once the show was over, they picked up decks of cards and sat around a rickety card table.
“Hey,” said the beard
ed man to Emma. “We’re playing poker. If you want to join us, we can make it strip poker.” The other men laughed.
Emma gave him the finger. She wasn’t sure why she did it. In fact, she could only remember one other time in her life when she had given someone the finger, and it was back in fifth grade when another girl was making fun of her. The girl complained to the teacher and Emma got in trouble. That was when she had her first understanding about bullies. They were cowards. The bearded man was a bully and she hated him for it. If she was able to kill someone, he would be the one she’d go for.
His reaction to the finger was sudden and violent. He jumped up from the chair, knocking it over, and strode over to her.
“You bitch,” he yelled. “Do you know what happens to women who cross me? Most of them get cut up. Do you want that?”
Emma built up her courage. “You can’t do that to me. I’m too valuable. Your boss would probably kill you if you hurt me.”
“Hoss, don’t do it,” said one of the other men. “She’s right.”
He backed off, then sneered at Emma.
“You think you’re so special now. Do you have any idea what’s going to happen to you? Most of the girls who come through here are sluts—runaways, drug addicts, and losers. They get turned into low-class whores. There’s a lot of money to be made in that market. Usually they only last a couple of years before they are used up. A lot of them OD. We have a never-ending supply of girls go through here. But you five? Oh, you’re special. In a couple of days, you’ll never see each other again. We have some bigger clients in some faraway countries. These men are very particular. They want young girls—wholesome-looking girls just like you. Your lifespan is going to be a lot longer than the usual garbage that we place, but that’s not a good thing. These are rich men, men used to getting their way. They’re also into some really kinky shit … and I mean really kinky. Plus, they pass you off to their friends. Yeah, you’ll last a lot longer, but every minute of the day you will wish you were dead.”
A moment later, the older man Hoss had referred to as Ludwick came down the stairs.
Emma noticed that he barely gave the girls a look.
“We’re moving them over to the desert place tonight. We need the space here. We have a shipment of Central American girls coming in. So get these five ready and move them out at midnight.
Ludwick went upstairs and Hoss smiled an evil smile at Emma.
“Oh, you’ll like the desert house. It’s your last stop before your journey overseas. Say goodbye life as you’ve known it.”
Emma went into the bathroom before the other girls and locked the door. She put the lid down on the toilet and sat down on it, and then she began to shake. Her body shook uncontrollably and she couldn’t breathe again. Tears were streaming down her face and she was doing her best not to cry. She didn’t want her friends to hear her. She was the one who had to keep them together, keep them focused. If they knew that she was having this breakdown, all hope would be lost.
Slowly, she calmed herself down. She could breathe, but the shaking continued. She had tried to convince herself that stripping in front of all of those men was no big deal, but she was lying to herself. It was the scariest, most humiliating, and most degrading thing she had ever done, and she wondered if she would ever be the same again. Giving Hoss the finger and screaming at him were nothing compared to the photo shoot. And now they were going someplace where stripping would be the easiest part of the process.
She was going to throw up.
Emma slid off the toilet seat, got on her knees and lifted the lid. The smell from the toilet was disgusting. The smell alone was enough to make her throw up, but the process had already been started. The vomit came out in a rush, and kept coming. She had always hated the feeling of getting sick, but now it was almost a cleansing, like she was throwing up everything bad that had happened to her recently.
When she was done, she put the lid back down and laid her head on it, totally exhausted. Someone was knocking on the door. It was Lucy.
“Emma, are you okay?”
“I’ll be out in a minute. I’m okay.”
She wasn’t okay. She was anything but okay. Now she had to go out there again and put on a show of strength for her friends, strength that did not exist.
She pushed herself to her feet, rinsed her mouth out in the sink, splashed some water on her face, and reached for the door handle.
It was time to re-enter the nightmare.
Chapter 17
It was late afternoon and I wasn’t meeting Angel until ten the next morning. Sabrina was sitting on one of the beds and Mo and I were in chairs. We were staring at each other. There were no ideas forthcoming. There was no nothing forthcoming. We had hit a brick wall.
I broke the silence. “So what do we do?” Not that I broke it with anything intelligent.
“We could walk the streets looking for clues, but that would be a waste of time,” said Mo.
“Especially since it seems that most of the action is back at the Four-Leaf Clover and that pit of an area,” I added.
“Maybe we should go back there,” said Mo.
“Uh uh,” I answered. “My guess is that we are on their radar by now. I don’t think that would be a healthy decision.”
“We have to do something,” she said. “What if you get down there tomorrow morning and this Angel person doesn’t have a clue as to what you are talking about? What if she isn’t Peep’s sister? What if she tells you to fuck off? We’ll have wasted a lot of hours doing nothing.”
“I’m open to suggestions,” I said.
Meanwhile, Sabrina hadn’t said a word. In fact, every time I glanced at her, she seemed to be in space.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yes. I was just thinking. We know that Ludwick is involved in all of this in some way. Somehow, I doubt that he orchestrated it, but once Dickie abducted Peep, he had to be involved. So, what do we know about him? He owns IT Gadgets. We’ve seen the building it’s housed in and Peep isn’t there. We know he’s involved with the Four-Leaf Clover. Peep might be there, or she might not. The police already raided it and didn’t find anything.”
“But there could be secret rooms or a basement or an attic,” interrupted Mo. “That’s why I think we should check it out.”
“Unless we go in guns blazing,” I said, “I don’t think we’re going to find anything.”
“I agree with Del,” said Sabrina. “I think that would be too dangerous.”
“You’re only agreeing with him because you’re sleeping with him.”
“That’s the deal we made,” answered Sabrina with a smile. “But,” she continued, getting serious again, “before I was so rudely interrupted, I was about to tell you my idea. We don’t know anything about this man. He could have businesses in other places or other businesses here in Vegas. Peep could be being held at one of them. I’m going to look him up online and see what I can learn.”
“Someone like him is pretty secretive,” I said. “Not sure how much you will be able to find online.”
“Ha! I can find anything.”
She could, too. With all the research she did for her books, she had become a research guru.
Sabrina got to work while Mo and I sat there looking at her in anticipation.
After ten minutes she said, without looking up from the screen, “You watching me is not going to make this go any faster.”
We both looked away. Since there really wasn’t anywhere we could go, we stayed in our seats and tried to look everywhere but at Sabrina. That worked for about a minute, then we were once again staring at her. Sabrina gave a little smile. She knew how hard it was for us.
It took her longer than usual, but eventually she found something.
“Well, I’ll give you credit, Del. He certainly is secretive. Besides IT Gadgets, he has a part interest in the Four-Leaf Clover and owns a real estate management company.”
“So he could have stashed Peep anywhere if he h
as that much access to properties,” I said.
“It’s possible,” she answered, then continued. “He’s fifty-six years old, has an MBA from Bentley University, and grew up in Vista, Oregon.”
Mo perked up. “Vista, Oregon?”
“Yes, does that mean something?”
“Those girls were from Vista.”
“What girls?” I asked. “If it’s something in the news, we haven’t exactly been watching TV lately.”
“No, I know,” she said. “I saw it on the plane. Five young teenage girls from Vista disappeared a few days ago. They haven’t found any trace of them.”
Sabrina clicked onto a news site and started reading, then she summarized for us.
“They disappeared three days ago. They were walking home from a movie and just vanished. There have been no clues at all.” She looked up. “Do you think Ludwick could have had anything to do with it?”
“I think it’s worth calling Miller about,” I said, and dialed the phone.
He answered on the second ring, but didn’t seem thrilled that it was me. I had the feeling that we were wearing out our welcome rather quickly. I gave him the information about Ludwick, but he seemed only mildly interested.
“Well,” he began. “It is certainly coincidental that he’s from Vista, Oregon, but I can’t see it as anything more than that. There’s not much we can do about it anyway. Since there is nothing substantial connecting him to the girls’ disappearance, we have no grounds to question him. I’ll file the information away though. Thanks.”
He hung up.
Maybe he was right. Maybe it was just a coincidence. But in my gut I was convinced that it was something more than that. However, while the girls’ disappearance was sad, we couldn’t focus on that. We had one goal and one goal only.
Find Peep.
Chapter 18
Ludwick was fuming. He was pacing his living room mumbling to himself, occasionally kicking a piece of furniture out of the way. He was alone in the house, which was a rarity. Usually, between his butler, his cook, his housekeeper, and his usual assortment of henchmen hanging around, his house was full of activity. Not today though. The minute those around him caught wind of his mood, a dozen errands had to be taken care of and everyone scattered like chickens in front of an approaching car.
Vegas Lies ( Lies Mystery Thriller Series Book 3) Page 7
