The Harry Starke Series Books 4 -6: The Harry Starke Series Boxed Set 2 (The Harry Starke Novels - The Boxed Sets)

by Blair Howard

  She looked skeptically at me. “And?”

  “So we now know that we have at least a half dozen people at the college, probably more, who are involved with Kalliste on some level or another. We also know Emily was one of the goddesses, which begs the question: what about the other two missing women? Were they involved too? They aren’t on the site now, obviously, so there’s only one way we’ll ever get the answers we need, and that’s to find someone who knows, and ask them.”

  Kate nodded. “Jessica might know something. She was close to Emily, and she started school there in 2012. Grove went missing in 2013. There’s only one other person who’s been around long enough to have known them both, and that’s Victoria Mason-Jones. She’s been at Belle Edmondson since 2007. The first girl, Angela Young, disappeared in 2011. And Marcy Grove in… November 2013. Jessica has been at Belle for almost fifteen months, and maybe some of the others have too.”

  “So we talk to her, and we confront Hera,” I said.

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  “When do you want to do it?”

  “Today. This afternoon. You up for it?”

  “What the hell do you think, Harry?”

  “Good. I want to check one more thing, and then we’ll head on up the mountain. I want to take another look at the security footage from the Sorbonne.”

  I pulled up the file and ran the footage forward at one-and-a-half speed, then back again, starting and stopping it. Two things stood out: Emily was being watched by Jessica, and Jessica didn’t look happy. Oh, she was smiling, laughing, and appeared to be having a good time, but she kept glancing over her shoulder at Emily, and when she did, the smile dropped away and her eyes narrowed. It was a serious, almost angry look.

  I ran the footage all the way through, until Emily and Erika left the bar. I counted twenty-three times Jessica turned to look at them.

  “Why was she watching her so closely?” I asked Kate.

  “You think there was something going on between them, Jessica and Emily, or Jessica and Erika?”

  “I think… maybe Jessica had a thing for Emily, or Erika. If so, and if she was about to get dumped, we have a motive. Jealousy.”

  “I dunno, Harry.”

  “There’s something else,” I said. “Look here.” I pointed to a spot on the screen. “There was someone else watching them. A woman, for sure, but who it is, I can’t tell.”

  She was seated at a table in the far corner of the room. She showed up on only one camera. She had long, dark hair and was wearing a ball cap that, due to the high angle of view, covered most of her face. What it didn’t cover, it cast a shadow over. No enhancement was going to produce a recognizable image; even I knew that. But there was something familiar about her. I had the feeling that I’d seen her before. I stared at her, moved to the next image, and the next, and the next, all the way to the end. Nope. I wasn’t getting her.

  I picked up the phone and buzzed Tim.

  “Hey buddy,” I said when he came in. “Come and take a look at this.”

  “That’s the footage from the Sorbonne.”

  “Yeah, but look at her. I think I already know the answer to this—”

  “You’re right,” he said. “It’s not going to happen. I’ll give it a shot, but there’s not much I can do with it.”

  “Good man, Tim. Quick as you can. You have the footage on your machine, right?”

  He nodded. “I’ll get right on it.”

  He left, and I continued to run the footage back and forth, looking for… something, anything, but I got nothing more. Bummer.

  I sat there thinking as I watched the scene in the Sorbonne unfold for the umpteenth time. If there was anything else there, it was beyond me.

  I tilted my chair back as far as it would go, put my feet up on the desk, closed my eyes, and let my mind wander.

  Emily was gay, I thought. They were both on the website. That meant that Jessica was, at the very least, a switch hitter, bi, or even gay. If she had a thing for Emily…. Hmmm. Jealousy is a wicked master. She could have done for both of them. Jessica said she has a boyfriend. We need to talk to him. If it’s not a romantic relationship, if she’s a lesbian…. But if she did kill Emily, where did she keep her those five days? Not on campus, that’s for sure, unless…. Nah.

  “Harry!” I came back to earth with a jolt. Kate had gone back to her seat and was staring at me.

  “Sorry. I was away with the birds. I was thinking. Trying to….”

  “We need to get out of here,” she said. “We need to go talk to Jessica and Mason-Jones.”

  “You’re right,” I said, getting to my feet. “And Rösche—”

  “Oh no. Oh hell no. You’re not going anywhere near that crew.”

  “I’ve got to. For several reasons, the first of which is, I want to know what that son of a bitch is doing running a private army up there. The second is, I want to know why he wanted the chip from Charlie’s camera.”

  “That’s easy. He wanted to recreate the truth to suit himself.”

  “You think? Maybe. I guess. We’ll see.”

  I went to my closet. “Here,” I said, tossing the Point Blank vest to her. “Put that on.”

  I got no argument from her; it was a slightly more comfortable model than her own. She stripped off her jacket and slipped into the body armor. It fit her perfectly. I took my own vest from the hanger and put it on, then I went to my desk, opened the drawer, and grabbed my collapsible steel baton. I slid it into my pants pocket, then took the M&P9 from its holster, jacked the slide, and chambered a round. Finally, I donned a lightweight black golf jacket. I was ready.

  “Let’s go.”

  I checked with Tim on the way out to see if he’d been able to do anything with the image from the security footage. But when he saw me coming, he simply shook his head and shrugged.

  So who the hell is it?

  Chapter 22

  The ride up Signal Mountain Road was strangely quiet. Usually Kate and I spent our windshield time together discussing points, but not this time. Bob loomed large in both our minds, and neither one of us was able to bring up the possible outcome of his injury. That he might die was unthinkable.

  About halfway up the mountain, on the sharp bend by the flying saucer house, we passed a white Lexus SUV. I was concentrating on the bend too closely to see who was driving, and it was going too fast for me to get a good look at it anyway, but I could have sworn it was Amanda’s car. But then, there are a lot of Lexus SUVs on the roads these days. The road straightened as we eased into the small community.

  We drove through the big iron gates and onto Belle Edmondson property. The long drive meandered away in front of us, the school buildings hidden by large stands of old-growth trees. We saw no one until we reached the parking lot outside Jessica’s dorm building, and then only a lone student laden down with a backpack that sagged and banged against her backside as she walked, head down, ears plugged with buds, towards… well, that was anyone’s guess.

  “No reception committee,” I said as I put the car in park and turned off the engine. “They know we’re here though; that’s a fact. I see at least ten CCTV cameras.”

  Kate didn’t answer. The look on her face as she got out of the car and walked into the building was one of steely resolve.

  “Wait.” I placed a hand on her arm. “You or me?”

  She tilted her head. “You… I think. But be easy on her. Put her at ease, gain her confidence, present her with what we know.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said. “Let’s do it.”

  I knocked gently on Jessica’s door. There was a long, heavy scraping noise, like someone moving a table, and the door opened.

  “Oh no,” she said. “More questions?”

  She opened the door, and we went in. She seated herself on one side of the table; we took the two chairs on the other.

  “So.”

  “So, Jessica,” I said. “You’re gay, right?” I heard Kate’s sharp intake of breath
, and inwardly smiled. Put her at ease, my ass.

  The color drained from the girl’s face. “What? What are you talking about? I’m not gay. I have a boyfriend.”

  “John Parker? No, I don’t think so. He a friend, yes, but you’re not romantically involved with him. You were in love with Emily.”

  “I’m not a lesbian,” she whispered, her eyes beginning to fill with tears.

  I leaned forward, placed the iPad in front of her, brought up her Kalliste page, and said, “Of course you are, Cassandra,” and then I leaned back and watched her. The look on her face was priceless.

  “What? But… how… that’s not what it….” And then she burst into tears. “Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God.”

  We said nothing. We waited. She sat motionless, staring at the screen and listening to herself saying, “Hello. I am Cassandra, princess of Troy, daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba and mistress of the art of… well, you’ll see. Please, ask for me by name. Ladies only, please. Thank you.” The voice was lighthearted, playful, and undeniably Jessica’s.

  I picked up the iPad and closed the cover. She looked first at me, wide eyes filled with tears, then at Kate. The proverbial deer caught in the headlights.

  “So,” I said, “would you like to talk about it?”

  She rose unsteadily to her feet. “Not only no, but hell no. Not without a lawyer.”

  “Sit down, Jessica,” Kate said gently. “You’re not in any trouble. At least, not yet. We know all about the Kalliste website, what’s been going on here, what you, Emily, and the others were up to, and we don’t care. We want to know what happened to Emily and Erika Padgett, and we think you can help us.”

  Jessica slowly sat down again. “But I don’t know what happened to Emily, or the vet woman. They left the Sorbonne together and that’s the last I saw of either of them.”

  “Do you want to find out what happened to her?” I asked gently.

  “Of course.”

  “Then tell us what you know about Kalliste.”

  She shrugged. “What’s to tell? It is what it is. It’s not illegal… oh God. If ever my parents find out, they’ll kill me.”

  “How does it work?” I asked. “Who runs the thing? How do they recruit the girls?”

  “They use hidden cameras. Other than what I do, I don’t know how it works either. It’s not bad, though. In fact, it’s fun. I get to meet people, visit nice places, nice vacations, dates, and I get paid well.”

  “Hidden cameras? What do you mean?”

  She glanced up at the smoke detector on the ceiling above our heads, and I knew exactly what she meant. I jumped to my feet and shoved the chair back.

  “Oh don’t worry,” she said, sheepishly, tearfully, “it’s not on. Not now. I disconnected it. They… they… watched us, Emily and me. In bed together. We were… well, lovers, for a long time, ever since we first met. I loved her… so much. And now….” The tears were flowing freely again.

  “We’d been together for two weeks?” She said it like a question, but it wasn’t. “Then one day—it was on a Friday afternoon—she came to my room. Emily was here. We were in bed. She told us who she was through the door and we quickly dressed and I let her in.”

  “They? She? Who’s she?”

  “The chancellor, Ms. Mason-Jones.”

  Why wasn’t I surprised?

  “Go on, Jessica,” Kate said.

  “She did the iPad thing. Just like you did. She told us our behavior was unacceptable, and that she had no alternative but to report us to our parents and expel us from the college, unless….”

  “Unless you did as she asked, right?”

  She nodded, picked up a tissue to wipe her nose, then just stared at the table.

  “And then?” I asked.

  “And then she went into the whole Kalliste thing. She made it sound like fun, and it is—was, until Emily…. She set everything up. Photo and video sessions, the website, telephones, everything. All we had to do was take the calls and pass the contacts on to her. She would let us know a day or two later if we were to proceed and make a date. I became Cassandra and Emily was Adrestia. It was… exciting, and we had some wonderful times, made a little money too. And then Emily found Erika. Well, Erika found Emily.”

  “And how did that happen?” Kate asked.

  “They met initially at the horse barn. I saw how Erika was around her, but she never… at least I don’t think she did. Anyway, one day Emily came to me and said, ‘You’ll never guess. I just had a call, through Kalliste. It was Erika. She wants a date.’ Emily was so pleased.”

  “How did Erika find her on the website?” I asked.

  “I don’t know, and I didn’t ask. All I know is they began seeing each other, a lot, and outside of Kalliste. I told her not to do it. That they would be angry with her, but she wouldn’t listen. It was as if… as if she was in love with Erika.”

  “But you were in love with Emily?” Kate asked.

  She nodded. “I was so very much in love with her.”

  “Did you kill them, Jessica?” I asked quietly.

  “What? No… no… no. Oh how could you?” And she burst into tears again.

  “It’s all right,” Kate said.

  The hell it is. We have a clear motive now: jealousy.

  “Jessica.” Kate took the digital recorder from her pocket and placed it on the table in front of her. “I have everything you’ve told us on this recorder. This was not your fault. Nor was it Emily’s. You both were coerced into Kalliste and prostitution—”

  “Prostitution?” she interrupted. “It wasn’t….” And then she realized that was exactly what it was.

  Kate nodded. “And that’s not all. We have every reason to believe that everything you did with your clients was recorded and possibly used to blackmail them.” She paused for a moment.

  Jessica looked at her. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “Oh my God. My parents….”

  There was no point making promises we couldn’t keep. Her parents were going to be told, and that was all there was to it. My biggest concerns were the deaths of the two women, Erika Padgett and Emily. Jessica had the motive. Did she also have the means and opportunity? I needed to find out, but that would need to come later.

  “Jessica. I need you to make a formal statement,” Kate said. “And I’m going to ask you some questions. You will answer them, and then make your statement. Do you understand?”

  “Are you going to take me to jail?”

  “No. You’re as much a victim as your clients, but I will need you to give evidence. Now. Do you agree?”

  She nodded, and Kate changed the SD card in the recorder, cautioned her, and then took her statement. I excused myself to call Heather. I had her drop everything and come over as quickly as possible. I also made a call to Jessica’s parents. I put them on speaker phone and explained the situation to them as best I could, making sure they understood that their daughter was the victim, and then I told them we were bringing her home, and that they were to be kind and sympathetic to her. Whether or not that had any effect, I didn’t know. One thing I did know was that we couldn’t leave the girl alone by herself.

  I reentered the room and listened as she finished. It was all done in less than thirty minutes, but I still had a few questions, and Heather still had not arrived.

  “One more thing, Jessica,” I said. “You remember Marcy Grove, right? She disappeared back in 2013. You were a member of Kalliste back then. Was Marcy?”

  She nodded.

  “And your phone, the burner. You got rid of it. Why?”

  “When Emily… when she… when I found out she was dead, I threw it away. I wanted out, but they wouldn’t let me. They gave me another one.” She went to her dresser and took a prepaid cell from the drawer. I made a note of the number and gave it back to her.

  “If they call, Jessica, it’s very important that you don’t let them know that you’ve talked to us, that we know. You must act as if nothing has happened. Then call me
or Lieutenant Gazzara. Do you understand?”

  She nodded, staring miserably down at the phone.

  There was a knock at the door. It was Heather. Jessica looked at her questioningly as she came in.

  “Jessica,” I said, “this is Heather. She works for me. She’s going to take you home.”

  Her chin dropped, her mouth opened; she tried to speak but couldn’t.

  “It’s okay. I’ve spoken to your mother and father. They understand. They’re going to look after you until this thing is done. Heather will stay with you until she’s sure you’re okay.”

  Jessica looked at Heather, and something passed between them. She nodded, and I looked at Kate. She nodded too.

  I put a hand on Heather’s arm. “Look after her.”

  -----

  “Well,” Kate said as we exited the building. “Now we know.”

  I nodded. “Trafficking,” I said thoughtfully, “and we know all about that, don’t we? Unfortunately, we only have her word for it, and she’s liar, a prostitute, and a murder suspect. She’ll blame anyone and everyone. I think I believe her, but we need to reach out to the clients. We need some of them to come forward and give evidence. Tomorrow, though. Today, let’s go talk to the queen of the gods.”

  Chapter 23

  We found her in her office. She wasn’t pleased to see us. The black business suit had been replaced by a light gray one. The ruby ear studs had been replaced by thin gold hoops. She was gorgeous, there was no doubt about that, but she was a far cry from the goddess she depicted on the website.

  “This is too much,” she said, rising to her feet as we entered her office. “I’ve just got rid of that woman from Channel 7, now you barge in here without an appointment. I have no time to talk to you. Please leave at once. If you don’t, I will have security escort you off the premises.”

  Hmmm. So it was Amanda we passed on the highway.

  I smiled at her and sat down on one of the two high-back chairs in front of her desk; Kate took the other one.

  “Nah,” I said amiably. “I don’t think you will. For one thing, neither the lieutenant nor I are the pushovers your thugs took Bob Ryan and Amanda Cole for. And I think you’d rather hear what we know from us, rather than Channel 7.”