Once Craved (a Riley Paige Mystery--Book #3)

by Blake Pierce

  “And just how much safer is your job, Agent Paige?” Mitzi asked.

  This retort left Riley speechless.

  Is she really comparing what she does with what I do? she wondered.

  As she followed the women out of the interview room, Riley’s heart sank. She felt as hopeless for them as she would if they had been common streetwalkers. In a way, this seemed worse. Their superficial veneer of respectability concealed a life of degradation even from themselves. But there was nothing she could say or do to make them face the truth.

  Riley felt sure that this killer wasn’t finished murdering prostitutes. Was his next victim here right now, or would she be someone Riley hadn’t yet met and warned?

  *

  Riley was in the field office hallway looking for Bill when her cell phone buzzed. She saw that the call was from Quentin Rosner, head of the dive team that was searching Nimbo Lake.

  Her heart quickened. Surely he and his divers had found the second body by now.

  “Hello, Mr. Rosner,” she answered eagerly.

  The voice on the line said, “I called Special Agent in Charge Morley. He told me I should report to you directly.”

  “Good,” Riley said. “What have you got for me? Have you found the other body in the lake?”

  She heard a faint, wordless grumble, followed by, “Agent Paige, you’re not going to like hearing this.”

  “Well?”

  “There’s no body in that lake. It’s a big area but we’ve looked everywhere.”

  Riley had trouble believing her ears. Had her hunch been wrong?

  No, she still felt sure that Nancy Holbrook’s killer had previously dumped a different body in that lake. It helped explain why he hadn’t gone down to the water to make sure that his latest victim had disappeared into the lake’s depths.

  As she puzzled over what to say, she saw Bill walking down the hall.

  “I’m headed out to interview Ishtar Haynes,” he said. “At her place of business. Want to come along?”

  Riley nodded yes, but first she had to sort things out with Rosner.

  “How was the visibility?” Riley asked.

  “I won’t lie to you, it really sucks down there,” Rosner said. “Flooding a canyon stirs up a lot of sod and rotting vegetation and it can take several years for the water to clear up. Anything dumped here when the lake was new could actually be buried under debris.”

  “The body I’m looking for could have been put there several years ago.”

  “Then that’s a problem. But we know what we’re doing, Agent Paige. We’re a well-trained unit. And we’re really sure there’s no body to be found in this lake.”

  Riley thought for a moment. She deeply wished that Morley had called in actual FBI divers. The Underwater Search and Evidence Response Team was amazing and those divers would have considered every possible angle without any prompting. Instead Morley had called in help from a local dive training school. He’d said that there was no legitimate reason for the FBI to be involved in this case anyhow. He wasn’t going have an FBI team fly in here from LA.

  She realized that in spite of what Riley had reported to him, Morley was still thinking of this as a single murder that they were investigating as a favor to a fellow agent. She would just have to work with the team they had. But what might these guys have missed?

  She asked, “Have you looked at maps of the canyon before it was flooded?”

  Rosner was silent for a moment.

  “No, but what good would that do?” he said.

  Riley stifled a groan of impatience.

  How much training does this guy actually have? she wondered. Do I really have to tell him how to do his job?

  She said, “How can you be sure that you checked every nook and cranny without knowing more about the terrain?”

  Another silence fell.

  “You should be able to call it up on your laptop,” Riley added.

  “We’ll get on it,” Rosner finally said, sounding gloomy.

  “You do that,” Riley told him.

  She ended the call and stood in the hall wondering what to believe. Was there no second body after all? If there wasn’t, then this probably wasn’t even a serial case. She felt a flood of mixed feelings. She hated making mistakes. Even so, the possibility that Nancy Holbrook’s murder hadn’t been the work of a serial killer might be good news.

  But Riley’s gut still told her that there was another body in the lake. That this was a familiar type of monster who would strike again.

  Chapter Eleven

  When she and Bill walked into the Ishtar Escorts office, Riley thought that it actually looked very much like a high-class travel agency. A bulletin board was devoted to posters about things to do in Phoenix, suggesting visits to museums, art galleries, parks, and botanical gardens. A table carried brochures with details about a variety of places. The detail that would be missing from an actual travel agency was the second bulletin board, with images of the escorts. She recognized the ones that she had spoken with earlier. In these photos, they were all nicely dressed as if for an elegant event, with just an occasional flash of cleavage here and there.

  The woman at the reception desk didn’t seem at all nervous about a visit from FBI agents. The receptionist explained that many clients were visitors who weren’t well informed on cultural and recreational activities.

  “We help them out. We’ll even book tickets for theatrical and sporting events. We want our visitors to have a good time here.”

  She punched a button and spoke into her phone, “The agents are here to see you.” The receptionist guided them into the madam’s office.

  Ishtar Haynes stood up to greet them and gestured for them to be seated. Riley found the woman’s appearance even more startling than that of the escorts she had talked to earlier. Ishtar Haynes was wearing an expensive pantsuit and had perfectly coiffed hair. A pair of reading glasses was perched on her sharp, long nose. She looked like any legitimate female CEO.

  “Let me see if I understand your purpose for making an appointment with me,” she said, taking her own seat behind an expansive desk. “You want me to give you the name of Nanette’s client on the night she was killed.”

  She directed her question to Bill, who nodded. Riley let him carry the interview as she took the opportunity to look around the plush office.

  “That’s right,” Bill said. Ishtar Haynes smiled. Riley saw a world of coldness in that professional smile. This wasn’t the stern face of a competent businesswoman, it was the frozen face of a person who had experienced no real feelings for many years.

  “Agent Jeffreys, what kind of business do you think I run?” she said. “Not that I have any reason to think that Nanette and a client were doing anything especially illicit on the night in question. If they got, shall we say, affectionate, that was entirely up to them. But my clients trust me to keep things strictly confidential.”

  “But you keep records of your clients,” Bill said.

  Ishtar Haynes shrugged. “Well, yes,” she said. “We insist on photo IDs, which we scan and keep in a database. But I’m certainly not going to give you access to that kind of information without a warrant.”

  That was pretty much what Riley expected her to say. She was sure that Bill had expected it too. On a late Sunday afternoon, obtaining a warrant could be a time-consuming process if it was possible to get at all. She wondered how her partner would handle it.

  Bill drummed his fingers on the table. He said, “You know, we could just put the word out that you were glad to talk with us. And three of your girls came in to talk to us earlier. How much would your clients trust you if they knew that?”

  Haynes spoke with icy cheerfulness. “Yes, I’ve heard it all before. This is where you tell me that law enforcement can make it hard for me to do business. Sorry, that little threat means nothing to me. I run an honest and perfectly legal firm that does a respectable service.”

  As Riley studied the woman’s face, her coldness
and ruthlessness showed through more and more. Then the woman’s features formed a humorless smile.

  Haynes leaned across the table toward Bill. “You could do me a favor, though,” she said. “And maybe I can do you a favor as well. I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know that there are a couple of bad apples among the local police. They treat me like a common criminal. They’re a real nuisance.”

  She took out a note pad and wrote something down.

  “I’ll jot down a couple of names. And if you’ll look into this little problem of mine, well …”

  She pushed the paper across the table toward Bill.

  This tactic took Riley completely by surprise. She could see that Bill was startled as well. The cops in question were undoubtedly hitting Haynes up for bribes or special favors. Getting them off the streets would be good for both her and local law enforcement. It was a brazen move, but a smart one.

  “I’ll definitely look into it,” Bill said, pocketing the piece of paper.

  Haynes’s smile broadened. It looked quite sinister.

  “Well, then,” she said, “we can do business.”

  She turned to her computer and started going through her database. When she found what she was looking for, she said, “I’ve got a name for you. And I don’t mind giving him up. Maybe you’ve heard of him—Calvin Rabbe. His grandfather made a killing with a chain of restaurants. Calvin inherited the family fortune, never did an honest day’s work in his life. I was already thinking about banning him from our service. The girls were complaining about his … proclivities.”

  “So he was Nanette’s client the night she was killed?” Bill asked.

  Haynes pushed up her reading glasses to study her record more closely.

  “Well, yes and no,” she said. “He’d paid for her companionship on Saturday night, but then complained that she never showed up. I had to refund his money. So whatever happened to the girl had nothing to do with her work at my company.”

  Haynes closed her laptop and put it back in her bag.

  “I assume that’s all you need from me,” she said. “Now if you don’t mind, I need to get back to work. And oh, Agent Jeffreys—I take it you’ve flown in from Quantico for a few days.”

  Bill nodded. Still smiling, Haynes handed him a business card.

  “Well, once you’ve cracked the case, give us a call,” she said. “We’ll show you some southwestern hospitality.”

  As she and Bill left the premises, Riley found herself unsettled by the woman’s confident attitude.

  She needs to be stopped, she thought.

  To Riley, Haynes seemed as vicious and dangerous as many of the killers that she had killed or put away. In a way she seemed even worse—a coldhearted exploiter of women who spread evil far and wide.

  As for Mitzi, Koreen, and Tantra, what was their future? If they survived, they might eventually become as stone cold as their employer. But even that was truly a big “if.” They were much more likely to sink into desperation like Nancy Holbrook, even to meet the same fate.

  “It sounds like Calvin Rabbe is a viable suspect,” Riley said as they walked toward their car. “He was likely covering his tracks by complaining that the girl didn’t show up.”

  “Maybe,” Bill said. “A spoiled rich perv comes pretty close to fitting our profile. Did you get anything from the women you talked to?”

  “It seems that Nancy Holbrook was hustling at a truck stop called Hank’s Derby. She might have been doing it around the time she was killed.”

  “We’ve got to cover our bases,” Bill said. “Let’s check out that truck stop too.”

  Riley agreed. “You go after Rabbe,” she said. “I’ll go to Hank’s Derby.”

  As she started to walk away, Bill called out, “You be careful.”

  It sounded like good advice. From what the girls had said, Riley suspected that she was about to encounter evils that even she had never faced before.

  Chapter Twelve

  Riley spotted two women holding out their thumbs hitchhiker-style as a massive big rig rolled toward them. They were dressed almost identically, braless with T-shirts ripped away at their midriffs and ultra-short denim skirts. They were obviously hookers, and it was easy to see that they sold themselves as a single package.

  With a mighty hiss of brakes, the truck ground to a halt. The driver leaned out his window and beckoned to the girls. They scampered around to the passenger door and climbed inside. Then the truck rumbled back into motion and continued on its way. Riley found it unsettling to consider whatever this impromptu threesome was about to do next. But now was no time to get distracted. Her job was to find out whether Nancy Holbrook had met her killer here.

  Dusk had fallen by the time Riley had reached Hank’s Derby. Even from the highway, she’d been able to see that this was a much seedier place than most modern truck stops. The neon lettering on a huge derby-shaped sign flickered unsteadily in the waning light. Both the restaurant and the adjoining bar looked like their best days were far in the past.

  Riley parked, got out of the car, and walked toward the main building. A few provocatively dressed women were hanging around outside the place. It seemed that prostitution was as much a thriving business here as gas and food. Riley already knew that some of the country’s ugliest human trafficking happened at truck stops. Far too often, runaway children were the prey.

  Before driving out here, she’d done a little online research on recent years. In Arizona, the situation had been especially bad, and the FBI had worked with local authorities to clean up prostitution rings all over the state. They had focused on places such as this, especially to get underage girls out of the trade.

  But somehow, dens of human trafficking like Hank’s Derby managed to survive. Riley wasn’t surprised. She’d learned long ago that the world’s evils had a way of growing back even after you thought you’d gotten rid of them, like weeds.

  Walking past a row of dumpsters, Riley recalled a case when a teenage girl’s body was found in a truck stop dumpster. A serial killer had been haunting the stops across the country and picking up girl hitchhikers. Some of them were simply never seen again.

  Riley hadn’t worked that case, and the killer had long ago been put away. Still, it chilled her to look at the dumpsters. Might even these contain the remains of discarded humans? The thought was a distraction, and Riley knew better than to stop and search inside the big metal boxes. She needed to stay focused.

  Alongside the well-lighted main building was a little clapboard bar called the Yucca Lounge. She knew she had to go in there and ask some questions, but the prospect worried her. She’d struggled with alcohol during her recent bout of PTSD and had stopped drinking altogether. She’d been managing just fine, but going in a bar meant walking straight into temptation.

  She assured herself that she was strong and professional enough to resist, then walked into the building. The Yucca Lounge was a dimly lit little dive with country music playing on the jukebox. It wasn’t very crowded at the moment—just a few truckers and even fewer scantily dressed women.

  Riley hadn’t yet decided how best to proceed. She had a printed-out photo of Nancy Holbrook that she wanted to show around. But flipping open her badge and flashing the picture to everybody would cause too much of a stir and possibly backfire.

  She noticed a hulking, bearded man sitting next to the door. He was obviously the bouncer. She approached him quietly and showed him her badge.

  “I’m Agent Riley Paige with the FBI,” she said. When his eyes widened, she added, “Don’t worry, I’m not here to make trouble.”

  She took the picture out of her bag and showed it to him.

  “Do you recognize this woman?” she asked. “I think she may have been here last Saturday.”

  “I haven’t worked here that long,” the man grumbled.

  Riley took a twenty-dollar bill out of her purse.

  “I’d like you to check this out for me. That’s less likely to spook the patrons. Just go ar
ound quietly asking all the folks here if they’ve seen this woman. If anybody has, tell them to talk to me.”

  The man took the money and headed on over to the bar. Riley sat down and watched from the shadows as he made his way through the place, showing everybody the picture. She saw a lot of people shaking their heads no.

  Finally he showed the picture to a woman sitting at the bar who nodded. The bouncer pointed to Riley, and the woman signaled her to come over and sit beside her. The woman was dressed like any of the working girls, but she seemed tired, and she looked about Riley’s age—much too old for this line of work.

  Riley sat down next to her. A row of empty shot glasses and a glass half full of beer were on the bar in front of the woman. The smell of whiskey made Riley’s throat burn with the expectation of alcoholic pleasure, but the bartender never had a chance to ask her what she wanted.

  The woman called out to the bartender in a sandpapery voice, “Cabot, I’m buying for this FBI girl. Bring her what I’m having. And bring me another round while you’re at it.”

  The order was out before Riley could decline the offer. Cabot brought two full shot glasses and a beer for Riley.

  “I’m Justine,” the woman said. She downed the contents of her shot glass at a gulp, then chased it down with a swallow of beer. “We’re drinking Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey. Have you tried it? If you haven’t, you haven’t lived. Burns going down, but tastes just like Christmas. Hope that’s OK with you.”

  Riley’s stomach turned a little at the thought of candy-flavored whiskey. It wasn’t going to be so hard to resist temptation after all.

  “I’m on duty,” Riley said.

  “Suit yourself,” Justine said. “I’ll find a nice home for it,” she added, patting her own stomach.

  She handed the photo back to Riley.

  “I seen her around here. Name’s Nanette, ain’t it?”

  “That’s right,” Riley said.

  “How’s she doing?”