by Joanna Rees
His eyes squeezed shut for a second, seemingly trying to wring her image away. But when he opened them again, he saw that she was still there.
‘Frankie,’ he said neutrally, unemotionally, finally accepting that she was really present. He looked down at the papers strewn over the divan between them, apparently realizing for the first time that Frankie and the information he’d just been given were connected.
He shook his head, as if breaking a hypnotic spell. She saw his eyes brighten as his brain began to do the maths. She could almost feel the rush of his speeding mind weighing up the possibilities. Processing them all, in order to come back to himself and reassert his grip on his shaken world.
Inside, she ached to touch him. But if he still had feelings for her, he quickly hid them.
‘If you knew all this, why the subterfuge?’ he said. ‘Why not just tell me? Why bring me all the way to LA? To this ridiculous party?’
‘Because we had to meet somewhere in secret. Somewhere Khordinsky wouldn’t follow you or think of finding you.’
He let her comment hang in the air. ‘But . . . how? How did you get all this information?’
‘You kept your password,’ she said, and he nodded. He’d worked out that much at least. ‘I hacked in to the Forest Holdings database,’ she went on. ‘With some expert help.’
‘Remind me to fire my IT guy,’ Alex said with a wry laugh. He put his hand on the back of his neck and swallowed hard.
‘We had to get this information to you in person, Alex,’ she said, wanting to hold him, to tell him that no matter how he might feel now, this was the best thing that could have happened. She wanted him to know that everything was going to be OK – even though she couldn’t be sure of that herself. ‘In secret,’ she continued. ‘You know how clever Khordinsky is. And he doesn’t want anyone on his trail. The last time I tried to get information in Tortola—’
He looked up at her. ‘You were in Tortola?’
She nodded. ‘I went to find you. On my birthday. But instead . . .’ She didn’t know how much to tell him, or how much he already knew. Had he seen the photos? Was he aware they’d been taken by force? She decided that the truth was the only option. ‘Khordinsky’s men abducted me.’
Alex suddenly looked like he’d been punctured. ‘Who? They did . . . they did what?’
‘They drugged me and took those photographs of me. They said they were going to show them to you.’
‘What? I don’t know what you’re talking about. No one has showed me any photos.’
Relief washed over her. She couldn’t believe she’d got to him first. She took a deep breath to steady herself, then she quickly told him how she’d gone to Tortola and met Emma, and what Emma had told Frankie about Julian. And how Frankie, in turn, had agreed to help her. She described the storm, how they’d just missed Alex, and how they’d broken into Detroy’s office to copy the files. And then she told them about the three masked men. How they’d slashed Emma’s face, and taken Frankie. Alex put both hands on his head as he listened, his eyes wide with incredulity.
‘Oh Jesus, Frankie. Were you hurt?’
‘Horrified more than hurt. Horrified that you’d see the pictures and think—’
Alex rushed forward and gripped her wrists. His eyes bored into hers. ‘I had no idea. I can’t believe anyone would do something so vile. What were their names? Tell me. I swear I’m going to make those motherfuckers wish they’d never been born.’
‘No,’ Frankie told him, determinedly staring back into the cold fury in his eyes. ‘This isn’t about them any more. This is about something much bigger. About Khordinsky. About you and me and what happens now.’ Her voice cracked. ‘I’m just so relieved,’ she said. ‘I thought you’d believe what you were seeing, like you did with Todd.’
‘But I thought you weren’t interested. I thought—’
‘But don’t you see? Khordinsky was behind all that, too. He made you think I cared about Todd Lands, but it was all lies. That night in Cannes . . . I was tricked. Sonny Wiseman owed Khordinsky money. He set me up. I wasn’t interested in Todd. Not for a second. You must know that.’
Alex looked around them. ‘So all of this?’ he asked. ‘Bringing me here . . . telling me – no,’ he corrected himself, ‘proving to me how Yuri’s being using me for all this time, you went through all that . . . for me?’ he asked.
‘Oh Alex, of course I did,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t give up until you’d found out the truth. And now you have.’
‘Oh Frankie, Frankie . . .’ he gasped.
She saw that he realized the full extent of his mistake. But however much she longed for his apology, for them to be finally reconciled, there was still so much to tell him.
‘How could Yuri do that?’ he exclaimed. ‘To you. To me. To us . . .’
‘But it’s not just us. Emma, who you met in the UK, and Peaches. She’s the one who brought you into this room. They’re in on this too. Listen, Alex, I don’t know what you want to do, but you’ve probably got enough time to get yourself off the hook. But it won’t be long before Khordinsky pulls the plug and the authorities catch up with you. And there’s no way they’ll believe you’re innocent.’
‘Oh God, Frankie. This can’t be happening.’
Alex turned away from her. He ran his hand over his hair, he stared again at the documents, then up at Frankie. She saw determination in his face. And something else too . . . something familiar. The look she’d desperately wanted since she’d left him in Marrakech.
She wanted nothing more than to fling herself into his arms. To kiss him. To tell him that he must now realize how she felt. To know once and for all that she’d got him back. But she forced herself to think of Peaches and Emma and the commitment they both needed from him.
‘We need your help to take him down, Alex. You’re the only way to get to him. He won’t suspect that you know any of this.’
She looked at him, waiting for his answer, feeling her heart pounding against her chest.
But suddenly the door burst open. Paul stood there, a look of panic on his face.
‘Quick, we gotta go,’ he said. ‘Now!’
Frankie and Alex looked at each other, then followed him on to the balcony. There were people rushing everywhere, naked, half-naked, screaming, trying to cover themselves up. The lights had been switched on. Armed FBI agents were pouring through the front door and the side entrances. The music ripped to a stop. Footsteps pounded. Someone shrieked in pain. Outside, Frankie could hear people screaming in the pool.
‘Nobody move!’ a voice boomed out through a megaphone. ‘This is a raid.’
‘Oh shit!’ Frankie gasped.
‘This way,’ Paul said, hurrying them along the balcony, close to the wall. He opened a door directly on to a scaffolding grid and the cold night air. Patrol car lights flicked below. Sirens whooped. A naked woman sprinted across the brightly lit lawn, only to be cornered up against a tree by a baying police dog on a handler’s leash.
Frankie looked over her shoulder. She stayed, one foot inside, one foot outside. She felt torn. She could see Peaches standing on the bottom step of the staircase. She’d taken off her mask. A female agent stepped up to her.
‘Peaches Gold, I’m arresting you on behalf of the United States Government,’ she said, as two of her colleagues spun Peaches around and cuffed her hands behind her back.
Frankie should stay and help. They were in this together. But Paul was outside now, and Alex was too, holding out his hand to her.
‘Come,’ he said. ‘Now!’
‘Do it, lady,’ Paul said. ‘Peaches would want you out of here. Both of you.’
She did what Paul said. She no longer had a choice.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Tommy Liebermann looked like he hadn’t slept for days as he wearily sat down on the metal chair in the interview room. Peaches felt like she hadn’t slept for months. She’d been a prisoner since the Feds busted her party and now she had no idea what ti
me of day it was, or what the hell was going on.
They’d given her a nylon tracksuit to change into. Peaches couldn’t bear the scratchy synthetic feeling of it on her skin, or the acrid stink of detergent. But worst of all was the grim knowledge that she was already dressed in prison clothes and the people who were keeping her here wanted to make that look permanent.
She had plenty of time-tested remedies for freshening up after being at an all-nighter: ice-packs, her wheat-grass and vitamin smoothies and the rehydrating spa bath at Delancy Heights. But right now they all seemed a world away.
‘She’s a real piece of work, I’m telling you,’ Tommy whispered, nodding at the silhouette of Detective Nancy Pounder, who was chatting to an officer on the other side of the reinforced glass door to the interview room. He pulled at the collar of his shirt and a bead of sweat trickled down his brow. ‘I did everything I could, but she ain’t letting you out of her sight now that she’s got you. She thinks she’s got enough to put you away.’
‘She hasn’t got jack shit,’ Peaches said. She sighed and rubbed her face. She’d been anticipating this showdown all night, ever since Pounder had cut off their first interview at five a.m. It had been a sneaky move, but Peaches hadn’t fallen for it. Throughout that hour-long grilling, Peaches had said nothing, on account of the fact that her lawyer wasn’t present. Tommy had gone home to get a change of clothes. He’d come straight back as soon as he’d found out what they’d done.
Pounder had drilled Peaches with question after question. Who did Peaches supply with girls? Where was she on this date and that?
Dates and names from her black book, Peaches deduced. They’d taken it when they’d arrested her. But most of the names were nicknames. Or in code. And even if Pounder were to chase down all the phone numbers, she’d still need one of Peaches’ customers to squeal. And who the hell was going to admit to a penchant for call girls?
Other questions had come next. Which girls worked for her? What were their aliases? Where did they live? What was Peaches’ cut? Where did she bury the cash? All questions but no answers. Peaches had given nothing away.
But, as Tommy pointed out, once his anger at Pounder’s underhand tactics had calmed, Pounder hadn’t given away anything either. So far, she hadn’t produced one witness or one taped conversation. No evidence, at all, in fact. Zilch.
Which was why Peaches wasn’t as worried as she might otherwise have been. The longer she sat here without being officially charged, the weaker Pounder’s case began to look.
So Pounder had been tipped off about the party? So what? No doubt some bum with a grudge against Peaches had decided to ditch her in the shit. That still didn’t mean Pounder could prove Peaches was behind it. And until she could, Peaches was sticking to her story: she’d just been a paying guest, the same as the other three hundred people. What was Pounder planning on doing? Locking them all up and throwing away the key? With the people in that party and the massed money and power they wielded, Peaches somehow doubted that very much.
Peaches put her hand over Tommy’s to comfort him. She knew he’d done everything he could to help her. She knew he’d taken the bust hard, especially after he’d warned Peaches to be careful.
‘Keep cool, Tommy,’ she told him. ‘This is going to be just fine.’
Now Detective Pounder came into the room, her muscular, unmade-up face set in a stern, unforgiving look. But Peaches noticed a flicker of triumph in her eyes as she slapped down a folder on the table.
Peaches was learning to hate this woman more every second. She checked Nancy’s hand. Unmarried; no kids. Secret bull-dyke tendencies, Peaches wouldn’t mind betting. She was large; her horrible coffee-coloured suit did her no favours; her ill-fitting bra beneath the white shirt made her tits lumpy and unattractive. Her mousy hair was pulled back in a plain bunch and her top lip showed a shadow of a moustache. She was the kind of woman, in other words, who would be likely to feel the most antipathy towards Peaches and her girls.
‘My client does not appreciate being held like this,’ Tommy Liebermann started.
‘Well, she’d better get used to it,’ Detective Pounder said, eyeballing Peaches. ‘By the time we’ve finished, Miss Gold – or Stacey-Louise Rockbine – here will be behind bars for a long time.’
Peaches flinched at the use of her old name. Not just because of the memories attached to it, but because it meant that Pounder did have something on her after all.
She’s just sweating you out. Interrogation technique. Hoping to make you crack and admit something, Peaches thought. Well, she could go fuck herself. She was about to discover that Peaches Gold was made of stronger stuff than that.
Still, she had to concede that it was clever that they’d put a woman like Pounder in charge of the investigation. Peaches might have been able to manipulate a man, but she knew she would get nowhere with this bitch.
‘Either charge my client or let her go,’ Tommy said.
‘Well, that’s simple, Mr Liebermann, I’m going to get your client here on very serious pandering charges,’ Detective Pounder said, still not breaking eye contact with Peaches.
‘What?’ Peaches glanced over at Tommy.
‘You know, procuring prostitutes for other people.’
‘What’s your proof?’ Tommy demanded. Pounder ignored him.
‘And that’s just for starters. As for that party . . .’ She was staring at Peaches as if she were something she’d scraped off her boot.
Hell, Peaches thought, refusing to be intimidated, she hadn’t forced people into coming. No one got hurt – apart from the S&M freaks, and they’d queued up for the privilege. But the way she was being treated, anyone would think she was responsible for the crime of the century.
‘As a matter of interest, why do I get to you so much?’ Peaches interrupted.
‘Excuse me?’
‘Just your attitude. All this . . .’ Peaches said, keeping her tone friendly. She could tell she’d wrong-footed Pounder by making it personal. But what the heck? Peaches thought. She might as well try and rattle her opposite number. Rattled people make mistakes.
Detective Pounder paused. ‘You really want to know? OK, I’ll tell you. Because if you saw the drug-addled prostitutes that I have, and the way they’ve wrecked their lives and, more importantly, their kids’ lives, you’d get pissed at their pimps too.’
‘You’re accusing my client of being a pimp?’ Tommy chipped in. Again Pounder ignored him.
‘Get me out of here, Tommy,’ Peaches said. ‘She can’t prove anything.’
‘You want to bet?’ Pounder said. ‘I know about your office. About what goes on there.’
This was just more bluster, Peaches thought. She made sure someone was in the office to answer the phones all the time, either Angela or Marguerite, or one of the other girls she trusted to help her out occasionally, in return for hanging out by the pool and using the spa.
‘My office? I run a legitimate business from there. You gonna bust me for making panties?’
‘No, just everything else. We’ve had your offices bugged for weeks. We’re going to bust you for supplying hookers to Loney Mason, Sheikh Fizal Abdul and Tony Sternberg, to name but a few.’
Peaches almost laughed. Who cared where Pounder had got those names from? If those were the best guys she had, then Peaches was safe. None of them would breathe a word, let alone put in an appearance in court. Mason was probably halfway across the Atlantic already. And the sheikh would squeal diplomatic immunity at the first sight of a Fed’s ID.
‘Screw you,’ Peaches said. She felt Tommy’s foot dart out under the table and touch hers.
‘What my client means to say,’ Tommy said, ‘is do you actually have any hard evidence? Witnesses? Or is this just a fishing exercise?’
Detective Pounder sat in the chair opposite Peaches. Then she lifted open the file on the desk and pushed Peaches’ black book on to the table. ‘What about everyone in here,’ she said.
‘What about t
hem? That’s my address book. Everyone in there is just a friend,’ Peaches said. Friends who wouldn’t tell Pounder a goddamned thing. Not unless they wanted to wind up in prison themselves.
Peaches smiled. She could almost smell the fresh air waiting for her outside. The first thing she’d do when she got out was go straight for brunch. Followed by a massage and facial.
‘Do you want to know how we bugged your office?’ Pounder asked, interrupting Peaches’ train of thought. ‘Do you know who gave us due cause?’
‘Assuming you do have due cause, which still has to be established to my satisfaction,’ Tommy said.
Peaches looked up and saw that Pounder was now leaning forward across the desk, her hands splayed either side of the folder, like the claws of a cat.
Peaches felt a sudden chill of fear. She didn’t like the way Pounder was watching her. Not one bit. She was clearly serious then, about the office being bugged. It didn’t look like it was a bluff. Still, she forced herself to stay defiant.
‘Surprise me,’ she said.
Which is exactly what Pounder did. ‘Marguerite Honchas.’
‘Never heard of her,’ Peaches said automatically. But something in her face must have given her away, because Pounder smiled, looking more like a Cheshire Cat than ever.
‘Bet you thought you could trust her,’ Pounder said. ‘After everything you’ve done for her.’
Peaches didn’t answer. She felt her knee begin to tremble and quickly uncrossed her legs. Marguerite? It didn’t seem possible. Pounder had to be bluffing. There was no way Marguerite would have betrayed her like this.
‘We already knew she was working for you, you see. So when she got picked up on a possession rap, we got right on to her about you. If it’s any comfort, it wasn’t an easy choice for her. But it was doing hard time or working for us. So guess which one she chose?’
