“That’s crap, and you know it.” Max smirked at him. “You couldn’t be more of a brother to me if we were Siamese twins! I trust you with my life. There is no division between personal and business, and there hasn’t been for centuries. It was my own insecurities that got the better of me, and you were spot on.”
“That may be how it is, but not how it should be.” Niko reminded him. “You are my Dominor, and I serve at your pleasure. You’ve just made things easy to feel the family thing, and we forget that sometimes, as I did.”
“But that is why we have grown into the most respected and cohesive governing body in the history of our kind!” Max corrected him. “Look at the other Aegis. Name one that has all original seated members still intact?”
Niko pondered that a moment and realized Max was right. “None, besides us.”
“Exactly.” Max got up and paced around the room as he continued. “The fact that we have all bonded like family, that I count you all my family, is why we have grown so strong and governed so well for all this time. I could not have retained this entire region as long as I have without you and the others. You know this is true.” Niko shrugged in reluctant agreement. “So how can I be so foolish not to trust you to tell me when, how does Lou put it so well? When my head is stuffed up my ass?” Max grinned after saying it and Niko had to laugh. “I am in need of some patience, my friend. Would you believe that after everything we have seen, all of my years, I am afraid?”
“Afraid of what?” Niko asked as he regained his composure.
“What is anyone afraid of when faced with the possibility of losing the love of their life?” Max said it. Out loud. He finally admitted to Niko that he was in love with Lou, and it felt like he could breathe for the first time.
“Yeah.” Niko nodded, realizing what a tremendous thing it was for Max to say it out loud. “That would scare the shit out of me too..”
“She told me she missed me.” Max confided as he sat back down. “What?” Niko thought he heard Max wrong.
“This morning, actually the middle of the night. When she came to talk about her case and her concerns.” Max felt that rush again as he recalled the seemingly innocuous event again. “She stopped right there in the doorway, turned around and told me that she missed me while I was gone. Then she sprinted to the house and never looked back.” Max chuckled.
“Whoa!” Niko knew that was huge for Lou. She had thrown down the gauntlet, so to speak. “So what do you plan to do?”
“Then you agree, she tossed me the ball on that one?” Max asked, relieved that Niko agreed with his perception of events.
“Damn right!” Now it was Niko that got up and paced. “That was a major move on her part! Holy crap!”
“I know.” Max dragged his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I need to answer that with something very clear, but not too much! I don’t want to frighten her, or overwhelm her.”
“Right!” Niko agreed entirely. “This is a chess match, not tackle football.”
“Precisely.” Max liked Niko’s analogy. “The critical thing is that she cannot mistake the gesture, as I have with hers. I thought the puppies were a pure gesture of affection, but I was clearly wrong there..”
“Yup.” Niko recalled Lou’s own words on that one. “She thought you were only being sweet.”
“She said that?” Max’s eyes went wide. “What did she say? How did this come up?”
This topic was thin ice for Niko. If Max knew he had shared information with Lou about his feelings, Max would rip his head off. “It was just a passing thing. I used it to get a read on her feelings for you. I think I mentioned how out of the ordinary such a gift choice was for you, and she loved it, but her words betrayed no emotion, just how sweet you were to get them for her.”
“See?” Max blew out a breath. “At least she didn’t say I was a nice guy.”
“No, it wasn’t like that at all.” Niko assured him. “It was exactly the same way you dismiss things. You could see the uncertainty in her face, but she is too afraid to ask anything point blank.”
“I thought perhaps a private dinner in Las Vegas, just the two of us.” Max tossed out ideas. “But inviting her to my room is far too much and might send the wrong message.”
“Totally.” Niko agreed. “Taking her to the strip is a logistical nightmare security wise, with everything going on.”
“I would prefer none of us leave the hotel downtown.” Max had Albert in the back of his mind too. His suspicion of the meeting being an opportunity for Albert to try something as he had with Niko. “Abby and Frank have been coordinating with the hotel people to make sure things are air tight.”
“I think there’s a spot that could work.” Niko was remembering the layout of the hotel, with it’s renovations and what not. “Let me have Abby look into something first, if it’s doable, I’ll toss the ideas at you.”
“Well, can you give me an idea now?” Max asked. “At least so I can mull it over?”
Niko explained his idea to Max and how he needed to make sure the management would be able to accommodate them. Of course, money always made anyone very accommodating but it was short notice. Max liked where Niko was going, especially since it was a variation on his idea. He agreed to let Niko run with it. Lena had responded to Niko’s message telling him that the picture didn’t match any of their survivors. That posed a problem. If Lou’s missing woman wasn’t part of the Cuban group, where was she? The girl could have been laying in a landfill somewhere but just as Lou had a nagging feeling, Max and Niko now had it too. Lena’s email also told them that she and her team had been able to determine that the bulk of the Cuban rescues were from Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Honduras, and Nicaragua. The rest were from Columbia and Venezuela. There were also two U.S. expats taken from Belize. After Lena had looked deeper into the couple’s history, she found that they were fugitives, wanted by the Federal Government for major securities fraud. They had been on the run for six years. Every last one of the victims they rescued in Cuba had a shady past or were indigent. Either law enforcement was looking for them, or no one was. There was no in between.
“We know that only a small amount of the blood Lou discovered in that warehouse came from South America.” Max’s jaw clenched as he spoke.
“Which means there absolutely has to be other harvesting operations somewhere.” Niko stated, knowing exactly where Max was going with his statement. “We don’t even know where Salazar dumped the bodies of the used up victims.”
“I think we can assume he tossed them somewhere in the Caribbean Sea.” Max was speculating. “Or the Atlantic, take your pick.”
“For all we know there is a mass grave somewhere.”It made Niko sick to say it. “Underneath a tobacco or sugar cane field.”
“We need to think outside the box here.” Max scrubbed his hands over his face. “From the video of your raid in Cuba, there are a lot of moving parts as far as equipment is concerned. If there is another set up stateside, it would have to be secluded but well supplied and funded. We need to go through all our records and look at all our people, Stewards, Agents, everyone. Weed out anyone with any elitist attitudes, then the ones that are way too squeaky clean. There will be no middle ground here. Whoever is involved will either feel like they are untouchable or too insignificant that they would never attract any suspicion.”
“That makes sense but finding their location for this sort of an operation is going to be tough. There are a lot of options out there and something like this could be hidden behind anything from a dental office to storage facilities.” Niko couldn’t even begin to think of where to start looking. “We went to Cuba looking for Salazar for entirely different reasons. Finding the blood operation was a side note and out of left field.”
“So we start looking in left field.” Max growled. “But within distance of shipping channels. Trains and ports are where we need to focus. Even if they ar
e moving the stuff via long-haul trucks, they have to get it in and out of the country somehow. We can’t even assume that San Pedro and Long Beach are clean after we shut down Timms. He had connections here. We may have eliminated the facilitators when we cleaned out the corrupt agents here, but there was money behind the operation. We need to find it.”
“I’ll get Frank to look through financials.” Niko said as he pulled out his phone.
“Start with all the old families in the east and the south.” Max suggested. “I suspect Finn will find something in New Brunswick, but I don’t think Louisiana is as clean as Richelieu and Jackson believe it is.”
“There is always the Gulf to consider too.” Niko tossed out a significant location that they needed to address. “Houston and Beaumont are bigger than Long Beach in terms of volume.”
“True.” Max agreed. “We can use Joe for that. Call him in.”
Lou’s step-father, Joe McAllister had the perfect position to look at the ports in Texas. His shipping companies had major bases all over the region, and the country for that matter. Max was annoyed with himself that he hadn’t thought of bringing Joe in sooner. All that mattered was finding the routes, tracing them back to the source and shutting them all down.
By the time Lou and Dillon reached Spank Me productions, keeping track of everyone was getting difficult. They interviewed everyone on their list for the Gentlemen’s Club, except the six that had vanished from the face of the earth and the two women that cross-referenced as Spank Me production employees. Although Tawny Marks had a missing person’s report filed on her like Mary Sheehan, that is where the similarities ended. Tawny’s mother had only filed the report because Tawny was the primary source of her mother’s income. Mrs. Marks filed the report nearly three weeks after Tawny went missing and the investigating officers had written it off as Tawny having wised up. The girl had only moved out of her mother’s Section Eight housing less than a year ago and moved into a fleabag motel around the corner from the Gentlemen’s club. According to Jinx, the extremely helpful Transvestite bartender of the club, Tawny moved to save money on transportation and because she thought that her mother’s boyfriends kept dipping into her wallet. Jinx didn’t have the heart to tell the girl that her mother was doing the dipping. Jinx described Tawny as probably being brain-damaged from repeated beatings over the course of her life. In some warped way, it explained why she was always available to Josh Rawlings when he wanted her for his rough parties. It was sad to think of how the girl was conditioned to equate affection with getting smacked around. The bartender informed them that Tawny’s only friends that he knew of were on their list of missing. Big surprise. What really was a surprise was a new name that Jinx gave them for an associate of Rawlings that hadn’t popped on their radar yet. He knew the woman only as Vanessa, or Lady V as Rawlings affectionately referred to her. Jinx described the woman as a V.I.p., who only came into the club a half dozen times in the five years that he had worked there. He was able to give them a detailed description because he told them she had exceptional taste and oozed class. She was a lady, not one of Rawlings girls. After listening to Jinx’s description of the mysterious Lady V, Lou felt the hairs on the back of her neck perk up, feeling this could very well be their femme fatal. She called in a Department sketch artist to meet with Jinx after he assured Lou he could describe the woman right down to the name of the nail polish she wore. They left the Gentlemen’s Club with a glimmer of a lead, finally.
Jenna Rhodes and Carly Mills were both conveniently on the premises at Spank Me productions when Lou and Dillon finally arrived just after four. Dillon’s favorite receptionist buzzed for Deidre Love the second they stepped foot in the door.
“Ms. Love will be right with you.” The woman winked at Dillon before he even was able to flash his badge.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t catch your name when we were here last time.” Lou asked, thinking it wouldn’t be a good idea to call her Miss Whip-It, as she had before.
“Marla.” The librarian-looking woman told her with a smile. “Marla Thorpe. Nice to see you again Detective Lou.”
It was hard not to like the girl’s sass. “Hey, Marla. Nice to see you too. Thanks for the whips, if I didn’t thank you before.”
“Happy to share a giggle!” Marla clearly enjoyed her work. “Can I ask you a question?” Lou asked, leaning in a bit closer as she perched herself on the reception desk.
“Go right ahead!” Marla leaned towards Lou and smiled a little brighter.
“You know of anyone who goes by the name Lady V?” Lou asked quietly. “Her first name is Vanessa, I think?”
Marla sat up straight in her chair and looked around. “Careful.” She warned. “That is one nasty bitch.”
“Oh?” Lou tried to play it cool but felt excited that Marla knew who she was asking about.
Marla leaned in closer to Lou before she spoke again. “Her father was the founder of Spank Me, back in the day when it was S.P. Enterprises, and porn was an under the radar business. I’m talkin’ when things were still shot on eight millimeters and shown in peep show booths.”
“What was his name?” Lou asked.
“Robert Sturn.” Marla whispered.
“Robert Sturn? The Robert Sturn?” Lou asked in disbelief, knowing that Sturn was an infamous American pornographer from back in the 1960’s.
“The Robert Sturn.” Marla confirmed. “Lily Conrad was like his fiftieth mistress, but she trapped him in the nineties and had Vanessa. His only kid, ever, which seems ridiculous with a guy like that. Can’t imagine someone like him being that careful aside from wanting to protect his billions. Anyway, he never married Lily but he acknowledged Vanessa as his daughter. When he died in ninety-eight, he left everything in trust to Vanessa and zip to Lily. That’s when this place changed to Spank Me. Sturn’s attorneys agreed to liquidate the studio and put the proceeds in a trust. The old staff made a bid for what was left and made a go of the place under the new name. It was total charity on the lawyers part making the sale contingent that Lily was given some place in the new studio, even if it was in name only. She didn’t know jack about the business and was bombed out of her mind most the time anyway. The new owners used her past with Sturn, her name and the scandal around it, to get a foothold and she trusted them to run things. She had nothing to offer them. Lily was too old to be in any of the films. They totally took advantage of her and made her beg for scraps.”
“How the hell do you know all this?” Dillon was fascinated with her story.
“I did my thesis on her.” Marla smirked. “The oppression of women in the sex trade.”
“What happened to Lily?” Lou asked.
“Honestly? She prostituted herself to keep the lights on at home after she got frozen out of this place. The will allowed her to live in the estate as long as she took care of Vanessa, but she wasn’t given much of an allowance for its upkeep. The executor of the estate was a total scumbag that made her, shall I say sing for her supper?” Marla wiggled her eyebrows. “Vanessa saw all of this while she was growing up, her mother whoring herself out just to keep up appearances of some bizarre affluent lifestyle. She died of Neurosyphilis a few years ago.”
“So Deidre knew her? How did she become CEO here?” Lou couldn’t believe that a woman like Deidre Love would have allowed Lily to rot while she cultivated the Spank Me empire.
“Deidre is the one who came in and cleaned up this place!” Marla informed them. “I guess she and Vanessa knew each other in grade school before Deidre’s family moved abroad and she went to boarding school. When Deirdre came back to the states, she did a hostile takeover of the place, got Lily into hospice care. That’s right before Vanessa re-appeared. She had taken off to college somewhere when she turned eighteen and didn’t come back until after her twenty-fourth birthday when the trust got turned over to her.”
“Wait, Deidre went to school with Vanessa?” Lou thought she missed someth
ing.
“Deidre is older than Vanessa. I think she felt responsible for her, guilty that she left, and Vanessa’s mom just went to shit. I wasn’t exactly going to ask my boss the scoop. Ya know what I mean?” Marla shut up as soon as she saw Deidre Love come out of the office door. Lou and Dillon knew that was all they were going to get out of her for now.
“Detectives.” Deidre Love glided up to them and shook both of their hands. “Jenna and Carly are doing promos right now. If you will follow me to the conference room, they’ll meet you there as soon as they finish up.” Deidre lead them down a hall and into a large, very business like conference room. It took Dillon and Lou a while to realize the large abstract art hanging on the walls was very tasteful, albeit odd angled photographs of the human form. Lou had to admit they were rather beautiful and in no way pornographic.
“Ms. Love, may I ask about your relationship with Vanessa?” Lou took a shot and bluffed.
“Vanessa?” Deidre tried to keep a cool visage, but a tiny twitch in her left eye gave her away.
“Yes.” Lou smiled a bit. “How exactly did you two meet way back when?”
Deidre Love stood up straight, smoothed the front of her St. John suit then swallowed hard. “I was Vanessa’s helper when she was admitted to St. Genevieve’s School for Girls.” The woman took a seat before she continued, Dillon and Lou taking seats across the table from her. “Vanessa was a little behind the curve when she came to school. She hadn’t attended kindergarten or pre-school and was woefully behind the other girls. When something like that happened, the Sisters would assign one of the bigger girls to get them up to speed. I was assigned to Vanessa. She was six, and I was eleven.”
“And you’ve stayed friends all this time?” Dillon kept digging. “That’s very rare.”
“No.” Deidre said with absolution. “I mean...” She paused to calculate her response. “I was quite young, and my parents taught me to be charitable. I took personal responsibility for Vanessa for the next three years. Tutored her at home to get her caught up with the other kids, taught her social skills, that sort of thing. She had been very sheltered.”
Shadows May Fall Page 23
