by R. T. Wolfe
Her suspicions were on overdrive, and suspicions ranked right up there with hunches. They had their place. Proceed with caution.
He picked up a file from the captain's desk and handed it to her. "This will get you caught up as we drive out to the location."
It was thin; it couldn't be a fraction of the full case file.
* * *
Johnny Lyons' multimillion-dollar vacation home was set far from the highway. Duncan maneuvered the Mustang convertible rental up the long, winding drive. There were a number of entrances, but the main one was obvious. Brick framed the massive glass double doors. The white stucco that was common in this area covered the outside walls. The sky framed the structure in a brilliant blue, the odd grasses of the arid climate serving as a base. He could have stopped the car where he was, pulled a fresh canvas from his portfolio and painted the house as he sat in the drive.
The mature landscaping told him it wasn't new construction. Johnny and his new bride didn't exactly fit the domestic profile of a couple who would have a home built.
Mrs. Lyons came out before he parked. She was watching for him? She wore a shiny gold bathing suit beneath a head-to-toe sheer housecoat with three-inch ice pick heels. It made him think of how Nickie could maneuver in shoes like this as if she wore sneakers. Women.
"Duncan! You're here," Bebe squealed. She and Johnny had been beautiful and cooperative subjects for his work. They paid him to paint a three-by-five-foot portrait of their wedding picture. If he remembered correctly, they'd hung it in the great room of their L.A. home.
He leaned over and offered a kiss on each of her cheeks. She smelled of something strongly floral.
Taking his hand, she led him around the side of the grounds. "It's good to see you, dear. We get so many compliments on our wedding portrait and, of course, we always share your contact information." She worked around the flagstone stepping bricks like a pro. "An original Duncan Reed portrait in our home. You're getting quite a reputation."
It was true. He was fortunate. It seemed he was a fad and understood it would likely wear off as fads tended to do. He ducked under some low-hanging vines covering an arbor that led to the pool area. He'd smelled the chlorine long before they reached the entry. The area was huge, winding around in the shape of a confused hourglass.
Johnny reclined on a lounge chair with a drink in his hand. It was morning. He didn't get up but offered warm greetings. "Ah, Duncan. Good to see you, friend. What can I have the help get you to drink?"
Duncan waved his hand dismissively yet politely, then offered to shake.
"I hope you didn't come all the way out here for us. Bebe said you were in the neighborhood."
"She's correct," Duncan answered, and sat on the edge of the closest chair, resting his forearms on his thighs.
Bebe sat in the chair between Johnny and him, close enough to Duncan that he could smell her hairspray.
"How is marriage?" he asked, and reminded himself small talk was a necessary part of his job. Today, he didn't mind. Johnny and his new bride were actually some of the nicer people he'd worked with.
It seemed marriage suited them. They gazed at each other and smiled. "Well," Johnny started, "we don't see much of each other. We're both in the middle of projects, but we did get the next few days off." He reached out and slid his hand around her ankle.
Duncan assumed they wanted more work and waited patiently for them to get to it.
Bebe winked at Johnny before turning to fully face Duncan. "I ran into Coral. Coral Francesca. You remember Coral, don't you, Duncan?"
Uh-oh. He nodded cautiously.
"She showed me a photo on her Smartphone of the portrait you painted of her with the snake. It's amazing. I want one." She placed her hands over her mouth and lifted her shoulders like she'd just told a saucy secret.
He hadn't expected this. Certainly not from these two. Why hadn't he expected this? But it was his reaction that was the most startling. Pain. He felt a sense of pain and betrayal. He'd painted nudes before. Time and time again. Yet, he was speechless.
The two of them glanced between each other like they were picking out sexy lingerie.
"I don't paint nudes anymore." It surprised him how easily that came out.
Their faces fell as both sets of eyes slowly turned to him. Bebe's eyes were actually glassing over.
"What are you talking about, Duncan?" Johnny seemed more disappointed than his wife.
He thought of Nickie posing in his barely-blue open shirt with her legs draped over the edge of his settee.
"I... we... don't expect anything from you, if that's what's stopping you."
His eyes refocused on Bebe's. He knew what she meant and could hardly believe his ears. "Do you think painting a nude means sex with the artist?"
"No. No, of course not," she whined. "We just don't understand. We know you... do that with your subjects."
A few, yes, but what was happening? He stood. "I'm sorry. You're good people and a lovely couple. I'll get together contact information for some excellent recommendations."
Johnny wrung his hands. Bebe pulled her knees together. He'd embarrassed them. He wasn't sure what he was thinking or why. And how he hadn't seen this coming.
"I'm sorry," he repeated, and showed himself out.
Chapter 2
Nickie's heart beat loud enough that she hoped the special agents couldn't hear it. The abandoned house appeared normal enough on the outside. They always did. Small Tudor ranch, painted a soft yellow. Traveling thorns and tufts of grass covered the expansive yard. A long, weedy gravel drive led to an unattached single car garage.
They bounced over the uneven drive as a single bead of sweat dripped down her back. Keep it together, Savage. This was business. They'd asked the captain if he'd like to stay back. It was rhetorical, of course. No captain or anyone else on any police force would 'like' to stay back while higher-ups investigated a case on their turf. Territory.
Running her hands over the pockets of her slacks, she made sure she had her small, digital camera and mini-notepad. They exited the car, and she took a short detour to look in the garage. It seemed like a normal garage. Two plastic garbage cans, a shelf with motor oil. No car.
She rested her hand on her .45ACP as she turned. Strong and Lewis stood watching her like they couldn't believe she would veer from them. Ignoring their stares, she strolled in their direction in her favorite black boots.
Nothing was familiar. That fact alone lifted much of her tension. The rest she was able to stuff away, focusing on what needed focus. Single door in the front, four windows. Same in the back. The feds pulled away the crime scene tape, took out a single key with no chain and unlocked a box that resembled the kind realtors used.
They stepped in ahead of her. The first room off the back door was the kitchen. It was sparse, and nearly each of the drawers and cabinet doors were open. "Did you find these like that? Or did your guys do this?"
They stopped and turned, looking where she gestured. There was a pause as Strong and Lewis glanced at each other. Were they going to do that every time she asked a question?
"The cabinet doors were like that. We don't know if it was the squatters or the owners."
She read the file on the drive out. The owner's information turned out to be falsified. Identity theft.
The guys watched her too closely. Something wasn't right. She scanned the place, taking pictures as she went. Two bedrooms, one bath. Living room that doubled as a dining room, and a kitchen barely large enough to walk through.
When she'd been told there was a basement, she assumed the house was in a better neighborhood. Most homes in Nevada had a crawl space only.
The door to the basement was heavy and lined vertically with locks. She stepped forward and smelled death. It was faint. She wasn't sure if it was from memory or the real thing. The stairs leading down were wooden and unpainted. They creaked miserably under the weight of the three of them. The walls were filthy with hundreds of dirty handpr
ints. Nowhere in the file was there mention of fingerprinting. Surely they hadn't gotten around to sharing that information yet, she thought sarcastically.
Strong spoke as they descended. "The bodies and evidence have been removed."
What? She hit the bottom of the stairs and spun on them. "What did you say?"
More damned frigging silence.
"We took pictures of everything. Copies are in the file we gave you."
"The fraction of the file you gave me. With the small black-and-white pictures copied on printing paper?" She contained her temper. Barely. "Why bring me out here? Why not email the pictures to me and ask me your questions in a conference call? Oh right, because you haven't asked me any questions. And enough with the creepy silence."
Predictably, they glanced at each other like an old married couple before answering her. "It took a considerable amount of time before a connection was made between this house and the operation you orchestrated on the strip. We didn't learn of your involvement until after we cleared the area. We're hoping you might give us some insight."
She turned and stepped into the basement. It was more of a cellar. Her eyes widened and burned at the sight, tears begging to spill onto her cheeks. Six twin mattresses lined one side like a military barracks. On the other was a toilet out in the open. A shower spigot hung over a drain near the toilet. Two sets of chains were nailed to the brick walls dangled next to two large cages.
Reinforced dog cages. They weren't for dogs. They would be for the girls they left behind when they went out to work a job. Before she could stop it, her hand covered her mouth. Quickly, she moved her fingers over the top of her hair, hoping that was all Strong and Lewis noticed.
Like a bride walking down the aisle, she inched along the row of mattresses. Stains littered the bare material. It appeared some were urine and some the telltale signs of blood, brown and dirty. Deep, square holes had been removed in each, she assumed for forensics. She wasn't ready to turn her head to the other side of the room again. At the end of the row of mattresses was a door. It wouldn't be a bathroom. She knew what would be in there.
Stepping in, she took hold of the knob to keep herself steady. There was a single bed. A double. The handcuffs from the pictures in the skinny file had been removed from each corner. This was what they would call a training room. The girls would have been beaten into submission here, mostly on their backs. Never the faces. They needed their faces to appear innocent and free of marks. Anyone with too many scars was... disposed of in this room. Too many scars, too old or too much trouble. Or too broken.
They wouldn't dispose of anyone off-site. Why throw away an opportunity to scare the hell out of a fourteen-year-old girl? She didn't share these facts with the feds.
She jumped at the hand on her shoulder.
"Detective?"
Shaking her head clear, she took a deep breath and turned. "What was the approximate age of the corpses?" she barked. "Gender? That was left out of the file. The list of items included a bracelet. A man's bracelet. Where was that found? The photo was obviously from down here, but I don't see any chalk, paint or evidence markers."
This time, she ignored the creepy silence and the glances to each other, and instead snapped pictures in between taking notes.
For the first time since they met, Lewis spoke. "The bracelet was found at the bottom of the stairs. Pathology is still nailing down the estimated times and causes of death. We know they had been down here for approximately five months, which is how we made the connection with your operation. It was brilliant, by the way." He held up a hand before she had a chance to respond. "Vegas Metro gave you three officers when you should have had a full SWAT team along with a number of black and whites behind you. We're impressed with how many you took in. The captain is still... paying for his indiscretion."
It was hard to startle her, but she was just that, startled from his praise. Instead of flattered, his comments made her that much more suspicious.
"Coroner estimated the age at thirteen for the body chained to the wall located here." He pointed to the set of chains closest to the toilet. "And nineteen for the one found on the second mattress from the stairs. Cause of death yet unknown for the first, a single gunshot to the head for the second. Evidence suggests the perpetrators left in a hurry. That wasn't in the file."
He said it like he was doing her a favor, like he was giving her classified information. She was angry. Angrier than she had been in a long time. Pulling a band from her pocket, she did something she rarely did, and tied her hair in a quick tail.
Systematically, she took pictures and wrote down dimensions as she spoke. They flew her all the way out here for more than they were telling her, and she wasn't in the mood to play games.
"It looks like they bring the girls out in groups of about nine," she started without facing the men. "Between one and three would have been kept back, depending on a number of factors. Were they overdosed? Did they have raw wounds?" The girls slept two to a bed, she thought. That's twelve. She wrote that down. Plus the chains and cages. That could be up to sixteen. Were their numbers growing? She'd hoped her takedown in Vegas did some damage.
Lewis spoke again. "You don't think they brought the johns here?"
She stopped, lowered her camera and turned to stare at him. "Here?" Overtly, she turned in a circle, arms spread. "This group of girls was first found in the deluxe section of the Seneca Casino in upstate New York. And I mean deluxe section as in ten grand buy-ins, with antes starting at a hundred bucks a pop." She had Duncan to thank for that information. Duncan. The thought of him helped clear her mind. He did that to her. For a short second, she let herself close her eyes and think of riding horses together in the woods.
Opening her eyes, she continued. "These people don't provide street corner hookers. These are young girls. They want them innocent, stolen and scared." Her voice rose with each sentence. Shaking her head, she ran a hand over the top of her tied hair once more. "Politicians, the rich. I'm sure you read that our previous Northridge, New York, police captain and fire chief were involved."
And she stopped, distracted. The captain and the fire chief. Duncan knew they were involved. It never occurred to her before. How? She'd been so distracted with the girls, with following their trail across state lines, with the shock of the involvement of her own police captain that she'd never considered how Duncan knew.
"Detective?"
Her eyes jerked to the special agents. Shaking her head twice, she continued. "The girls were found wearing expensive lingerie. Each were showered and found in tidy rooms with satin sheets." She would question Duncan about his knowledge soon. Taking a cleansing breath, she took out her notebook. "They did not, therefore, bring johns here," she said as a final answer to the question and not as an opinion.
If they left with the girls in a hurry, it would have been right after the takedown in the Vegas casino. She wrote the estimated date they would have packed up. She would search for suspicious purchases of homes with basements in a sixty-mile radius since then.
"Cigarette rolling papers were found in the back room, there." Strong glared at Lewis when he spoke. Interesting. "Again, they could have been from the squatters."
She took some last pictures and spoke mostly to herself. "Well, they will have regrouped by now."
* * *
"This is our hotel."
Those were the only four words Nickie had spoken since Duncan picked her up at Vegas Metro. He knew what she meant and made the reservation here for that reason. He was able to get the same suite.
The enormous lobby smelled artificially floral with ceramic floors and pillars scattered throughout the area. Bellhops in dress pants, shirts and vests rushed to help guests as the employees in three-piece suits behind reception assisted with check-in and check-out. Even the janitorial help wore black pants and shoes and white, button-down shirts. These facts mattered to Nickie about as much now as they did the last time they'd stayed here. Not at all.
&nbs
p; He expected her to be shaken after the day she had. He didn't expect her to be shaking. The slight tremble in her hands was constant. They'd sat folded in her lap as she rode next to him in his rental. She had worked throughout the day and into the dark... as dark as it gets in a town covered in lights like a town in Alaska was covered in snow.
As they headed for the elevator, he realized they were retiring to their room as the rest of the town began their evenings.
He heard them before the elevator arrived. Loud, drunk and male. The doors slid open to a small group of young men. Each reeked of marijuana. One gave Nickie a double take.
"The cop stripper!" he slurred. "I got your card in here somewhere." He patted his pockets. Duncan heard glass clanking inside his loose jacket as he did so.
Nickie wore what she usually did. Button-down blouse, this one sky blue, and black slacks... both tighter than most wear. Nickie was never afraid to use her sexuality when it suited her. Her black boots had thick three-inch heels. Her gun was secured on her belt, along with her badge and cuffs. Duncan saw it all through a haze of red.
The one patting his pockets took out some cash. The others whistled as they pulled out more bills.
Duncan stepped in front of her and noticed as security headed their way.
"Come on, dude. Share!" he said to Duncan.
He wasn't sure whose arm it was, but a hand flew out, fingers splayed and reaching for her breast. Before the hand reached her, Nickie had pushed Duncan aside, twisted the boy's hand and had it wrenched behind his back. Between her teeth, she growled, "That's assaulting a police officer, you stupid piece of shit."
"Hey!" A hand landed on her shoulder. Duncan took it, bending it back until he heard a crack. The man bellowed as his friends stepped in to help.
Fists flew and heads bobbed. They were drunk and young. That excuse wasn't going to help them here. Duncan ducked easily, taking two down with solid hooks as he heard soft heels running toward them.
