3 The Chain of Lies

by Debra Burroughs

  Maybe Delia could shed some light.

  CHAPTER 14

  Early Sunday morning, Emily woke from a deep sleep to the sound of her phone ringing on the nightstand. The sun was peeking over the horizon and shards of early light began to stream through her curtains.

  Too sleepy to open her eyes, she fumbled around the top of the night table with one hand, feeling for her cell phone until she recognized the shape of it. “Hello,” she mumbled.

  “Good morning, sunshine,” Colin said brightly. “Time to rise and shine. We’re burning daylight.”

  “What?” She opened one eye and blearily peered over at her digital clock, trying to focus. “What time is it?”

  “It’s after seven.”

  “Seven in the morning? On Sunday? Are you kidding me?”

  “Don’t be like that, Emily. It’s a beautiful day—let’s not waste it. There’s lots to do.”

  “Why are you so chipper?” She propped herself up on one arm, trying to open her eyes.

  “I’m finally back in the saddle and it feels good. We have this new lead in Evan’s murder and I got a call a few minutes ago from Dr. Walters. He’s finished with the autopsy and the test results are back.”

  Emily plopped back against her pillows, raking her fingers through her curls. “You dragged me up and down that riverbank ’til the middle of the night. Can’t I have a couple more hours before we jump into the day?”

  “It wasn’t the middle of the night, only twelve thirty.”

  “Well, it felt like the middle of the night.”

  “Sorry, I’m just excited to be back to work, not to mention the three cups of black coffee I’ve had so far.”

  “Coffee? That sounds really good.” She laid the back of her hand against her forehead, closed her eyes, and smiled. “Mmm, coffee,” she purred.

  “Tell you what, I’ll stop by Starbucks and pick you up a tall mocha cappuccino. I’ll be over in about twenty minutes.”

  “Twenty minutes,” she repeated drowsily, her eyes still closed. “Uh-huh.”

  “See you then.”

  “Okay,” she mumbled. “See you in twenty minutes.”

  She reached over, with her eyes shut, and set her phone down on the nightstand, then rolled back over and laid her head against her pillow. “Twenty minutes,” she muttered again.

  “Twenty minutes!” She sat up with a start. The words had finally sunk in. She dragged herself out of bed, stumbled into the bathroom, and turned on the shower.

  By the time Colin arrived, she was ready to go. The shower had helped to revive her, as did the thoughts of what the newly found gun would mean.

  “Good morning.” Colin waltzed through the door, planting a soft kiss on her lips. “A tall mocha cappuccino, as promised.” He held out the box that carried her hot drink. “And a couple of slices of your favorite pumpkin bread.”

  “You sure know how to sweet talk a girl.” She took her coffee from the box, then lifted a slice of bread and a napkin from it. She wandered into the living room and curled her bare feet under her as she sank down onto the sofa.

  Colin followed her to the couch and set the box on the coffee table. Pulling the other slice of pumpkin bread out, he tore off a piece. “As soon as we’re done eating, I’d like to get down to the county M.E.’s office. Doc Walters said he has some info to share.” He popped the piece of bread into his mouth.

  She took another sip of her coffee. “On a Sunday?”

  “Murder doesn’t sleep, Emily. Doc said he worked most of yesterday and was back in his office this morning at six a.m.”

  “Too early for me.” She shook her head and pulled a small piece of bread off. “But it’ll be good to have some news from the doc. Don’t forget we have that meeting this afternoon about the Jade Thai Spa sting.”

  “I emailed my contact at the Boise PD about that, and he wants me to be part of the meeting this afternoon. If we do need the SWAT team involved, he can mobilize them pretty quickly. Do you know if Isabel made contact with the FBI agents who are watching that place?”

  “Only what she said last night when she called—remember when we were driving down to meet with Mr. Osterman. She mentioned she’d spoken to someone about it, and that agent told her Jethro was in the hospital.”

  “That’s right. I’d forgotten about that.”

  “I haven’t heard from her this morning, but it’s still early—very early.”

  “Okay, okay, I get the point.”

  “If she said she’d call me and let me know what she found out, she will. Besides, she’ll be at the meeting this afternoon, too.” Emily wiped the napkin over her lips, crumpled it up, and tossed it in the box. She leaned over and kissed Colin lightly before standing up. “Thanks for breakfast.”

  “My pleasure.” He rose from the couch and followed her to the door.

  She slipped on her flats that sat in the entry. “I’ll finish my cappuccino in the car.”

  “Grab your purse then and let’s roll.”

  ~*~

  “What do you have for us, Doc?” Colin asked as they stood around the body of the young Asian woman on the steel table, draped from the shoulders down with a white sheet.

  “It’s hard to determine time of death, since she was in the cold water when she was found. Likely a day or two. She had drugs in her system, like Valium, but not enough to kill her. I believe the cause of death was that she had been beaten to death. She suffered blunt force trauma to the head and had quite a bit of internal bleeding in her abdomen too.”

  “That poor woman,” Emily sighed.

  “The saddest part is that she was about six weeks pregnant,” Doc added. “Such a shame. Two lives cut short—and for what?”

  “That’s what we need to find out.” Colin pursed his lips and shook his head with disgust. “What about her fingerprints? Did they turn up anything?”

  “No, she wasn’t in the system.”

  “Had she been sexually assaulted?” Emily asked.

  “It’s hard to tell. She did appear to have quite a bit of tissue damage, scarring really, and I was able to extract some semen. But I won’t have DNA results back for days. They don’t come back as fast as they do on TV, you know.”

  “Any gut feelings, Doc?” Emily asked.

  “I have seen this before, the tissue damage and scarring, I mean. It was on a prostitute that had been murdered a few years ago here in Boise.”

  “You think this girl could have been a prostitute?” Emily shot Colin a look.

  “It’s possible, with this type of damage.”

  “How old would you say this woman was?” Colin asked.

  “I would hardly call her a woman, Detective. Based on various markers, I’d say she’s no more than eighteen, maybe younger.”

  Emily grabbed Colin’s forearm when she heard the medical examiner’s words. This was exactly what she was afraid of. If she was one of the girls working at the Jade Thai Spa and she was being forced into prostitution, so were the other girls in that house.

  Colin patted her hand. “We’ll do our best to get the S.O.B. that did this to her.” He pulled out his phone and took a photo of the girl’s face. “Maybe someone will recognize her.”

  “Anything else, Doc?” Emily asked, willing herself not to cry.

  “Not at the moment. I’ll let you know when I have more test results back.”

  ~*~

  “Since we didn’t have much of a breakfast, let’s grab some lunch real quick,” Emily suggested.

  “Sounds good. Where would you like to go?”

  “We can get a sandwich pretty fast at Hugo’s Deli. It’s right up here on the right.”

  Colin swung his Jeep into the parking lot and they went inside and ordered. Finding a table on the outdoor patio, they unwrapped their sandwiches and dug in.

  “After talking to Doc Walters, I’m feeling more certain than ever that we’re on the right track.” Emily took a bite of her turkey on whole wheat.

  “It’s starting
to look that way,” Colin agreed, chomping down on an all-meat marvel.

  “Once Peter gets inside and has a look around, we’ll know more.”

  “Actually, we’ll all get a look inside if Isabel’s able to get the FBI to loan us a micro-camera. We can hook up the feed to the media van and watch what’s going on.”

  “That’d be great. We’ll get enough on those people to nail them to the wall.”

  “Whoa! We don’t even know what’s happening in there yet.”

  “We do to a point. My client’s husband admitted he accepted their offer for sex during his massage, so we know prostitution is going on. What we don’t know is if these girls are underage and possibly being forced to perform.”

  He nodded his agreement as he took another bite.

  “And if we can tie them to the murder of that girl—”

  Emily was interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing in her pocket. She dug it out and saw it was Camille calling. “Hello, Camille.”

  “Oh, Emily. I’m so glad I caught you. Something terrible has happened.”

  “What’s happened?” Emily shot a concerned look at Colin.

  “Molly didn’t come home last night.”

  “Oh, Camille.”

  “I know she was mad when we sent her out of the room. We didn’t want her hearing about murder and prostitution. I had assumed she went to a friend’s house to cool off.”

  “You weren’t concerned when she didn’t come back last night, before you went to bed?”

  “No, Molly’s a responsible girl. Jonathan and I were both exhausted, so we went to bed early. We assumed Molly would come home at a reasonable hour and we’d talk to her in the morning, but she never came home.” Emily could hear Camille attempting to stifle her sobs.

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions. Maybe she stayed the night at a friend’s house.”

  “I already called around to all her friends, but no one’s seen her,” Camille replied between sniffles. “What are we going to do?”

  “Maybe Colin can put an ATL out on her car.” Emily looked at Colin again and he nodded.

  “No, it’s still in the driveway. She must’ve taken her bike.”

  “She couldn’t have gotten far on her bicycle. Does she have her cell phone?” Emily wondered if Colin could track her by it.

  “No. I tried calling it but I heard it ringing in her room. She was so angry when she went out that she must have forgotten it.”

  “Perhaps she went to see a friend you don’t know.” Emily wracked her brain for plausible possibilities.

  “Anything’s possible,” Camille sadly conceded.

  “I tell you what, Colin and I have a meeting this afternoon, but I’m free for the next couple of hours. Let me come over and we can talk this through, see what we can do to find her.”

  “I’d really appreciate that, Em,” Camille said, sounding as frightened and as small as Emily had ever heard her. “I’m going to call Maggie and let her know.”

  “And I’ll phone Isabel. She’ll want to know too, I’m sure. Don’t worry, Cam, we’ll find her.”

  “You’re a good friend, Emily.”

  Emily said good-bye and made her call to Isabel.

  Colin drove Emily home to pick up her car so she could head to Camille’s house while he went to his office. He urged her to have the Hawthornes come in and file a missing person report.

  “I will.” Emily unbuckled her seatbelt as Colin pulled into her driveway. “I want to get Camille settled down and see what we can do to locate Molly. It’s not like that girl to stay out all night and not let her folks know where she’s at. She’s headstrong, but she’s pretty responsible and level-headed.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you think she spent the night at a friend’s house.” He reached out and took her hand.

  She shook her head. “I’m worried, Colin. It isn’t like Molly to just run off.”

  “I’ll be at the station all afternoon if you need me. Have Camille and Jonathan come in.”

  “If we don’t find Molly soon, I will.” She climbed out of his Jeep.

  “Don’t forget our meeting with Peter and the others at three—my office,” he called out before she shut the door.

  “Not a chance I’d forget,” she replied as she waved good-bye.

  CHAPTER 15

  “Oh, Em! I’m so glad you’re here.” Camille greeted her at the door and threw her arms around Emily, holding damp tissues in one hand. “Come in, come in.”

  “Any word from Molly?” Emily asked as Camille walked her to the open kitchen area.

  “None. Not a single word. I’m so worried, Emily.” Camille wiped her nose with a tissue.

  Emily glanced from the kitchen to the family room. “Where are Jonathan and Peter?”

  “They’re driving around to places Molly might have gone. We’ve phoned all the friends we found in her phone, but no one’s seen her.” Camille’s normally brilliant blue eyes were swollen and almost as red as her hair. “I’m so scared, Em.”

  “Colin wants you or Jonathan to fill out a missing person report at the station. Will he be back soon?”

  “So Colin thinks she’s missing, too.” That acknowledgement brought a flood of tears to Camille’s eyes. Picking up a box of tissues from the breakfast bar, she went into the family room and plopped down on the sofa.

  Emily followed and sat beside her. “It’s just a possibility, Cam, and it has been twenty-four hours since she took off. Let’s go through the appropriate steps—it can’t hurt.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  “Make sure you bring a recent photo of her, too.”

  Camille and Emily turned their heads at the sound of the front door opening and closing, and they heard voices coming down the hall. Jonathan and Peter had come through the doorway, with Maggie following close behind.

  “Did you find her?” Camille shot to her feet as Maggie rushed to hug her.

  Jonathan almost spoke, but his eyes grew watery and his lips trembled as he tried to form the words.

  “No, no sign of her,” Peter replied, stepping in to answer. “But we’ll keep looking.”

  “Emily said Colin wants us to come down to the station and file a missing person report.” Camille went to stand by her husband and he put an arm snugly around her shoulders.

  “Then he can put her picture and profile out to all his officers and the state’s law enforcement agencies.” Emily rose from the couch and stepped closer to Camille and Jonathan. “We should move quickly on this.”

  “Don’t forget the Amber Alert, too,” Maggie added.

  “Sorry, these circumstances wouldn’t qualify,” Emily said. “But law enforcement can’t do anything until the report is filed.”

  “Then what are we doing standing here?” Peter asked. “Let’s load up and get down there.”

  Emily turned to Maggie and put her hand on her friend’s arm. “Maggs, I think you should stay here in case Molly returns on her own.”

  “Would you please, Maggie?” Camille pleaded with sad eyes.

  “All right.” Maggie released a sigh of resignation as she crossed her arms and pursed her lips. “I’d rather come with all y’all, but I understand. Whatever I can do, Cam.”

  “Staying here is a big help,” Camille assured her.

  “Call us if she shows up,” Peter said.

  Jonathan and Camille took their car and Emily invited Peter to ride with her. As they drove down the street, away from the Hawthorne house, Emily noticed the garage on the mysterious family’s home going up. The Mercedes was approaching from the opposite direction and beginning to turn into their driveway. Emily caught a glimpse of the inside of the garage before the car obscured her view. It looked like a normal family garage, she thought, fairly empty with a few boxes on shelves along the side wall. She noticed the back end of a bright red and yellow bicycle leaning against the shelving deeper into the space.

  “See that house there?” Emily nodded in the direction of the h
ouse. “Where that car just pulled in?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Write this address down.”

  Peter pulled a small notepad out of his jacket pocket and Emily handed him a pen.

  “Five two three three Somerset Drive.”

  He scribbled down the address. “Why did you want me to do that?”

  “That’s the house where Molly and I saw the young girl from the hotel restroom. Later I saw that girl in the car that just pulled in, and I followed it down to the Jade Thai Spa. If I’m right about the prostitution ring, the woman who poses as the mother in that house is really the madam at the spa.”

  Emily glanced over at him and saw he was furiously scribbling down what she was telling him.

  “This will be great info for my story. After we take down this ring, Emily, I want to sit down with you and get all the details, no matter how small.”

  “I’d be happy to do that, I just wish Molly hadn’t taken off yesterday. We can’t focus all our energy and resources on nailing these scumbags if we have to find Molly first. She couldn’t have picked a worse time to run off.”

  “There’s never a good time for your kid to go missing,” Peter reminded her.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound insensitive, I just meant having one thing on top of another makes succeeding at either a lot more difficult.”

  “From what my sister tells me, you’re up to it.”

  “What do you mean?” Emily glanced at him with a smirk.

  “Camille talks about you like you’re Wonder Woman.”

  “Believe me, I’m no Wonder Woman.” Emily rolled her eyes. “I’d say your sister’s a bit prone to exaggeration, Peter.”

  “And Maggie? What’s her story?”

  “You mean to tell me Camille hasn’t given you every detail of Maggie’s life yet?”

  “Not every detail.”

  “Why so interested?”

  “I like her. She’s beautiful and sweet and smart. I feel something stir when I’m near her.”

  “Geez, Peter, I can’t imagine why.” Though Emily’s comment was a bit sarcastic, she was glad to hear he liked her friend, but the timing could be a deal breaker.