by R. Lee Moore
“Bullshit, Gio,” she roared. “Who are they? Where did you get that?!”
“Telling you wouldn't help,” was all he said.
“Why the hell not!” she demanded. Why was he fighting her on this?
“Because, the people I found weren't the ones responsible,” he said. “They were middle-men. Distributors too far down the chain to make any difference. They've already paid for their part.”
Tamina found herself rushing towards the man. She couldn't stop or hold herself back. The rage wouldn't let her. She'd balled up a fist and sent it sailing right at him before she even fully knew what she was doing. Giovanni saw it coming, but he didn't react. He held himself in place and let her fist connect without even attempting to defend himself. He was a werewolf, he could have dodged her rage-fueled attack without much effort at all, but he didn't. The man let her hit him with all the force she could muster.
It staggered him, if only just. He didn't react, which seemed to fuel her rage all the more. It wasn't until the third swing that his hand shot up and wrapped around her wrist and pulled her off balance. He looked at her without even bothering to wipe the thin trail of blood dripping from the corner of his mouth, and she could see the struggle within him. His breathing was heavy and labored. His eyes wavering back and forth from the rich human brown and the deep feral amber.
“Enough,” he said firmly, but quietly.
Tamina jerked herself from his grasp and let out a loud rage-filled cry. It was a valve. A little release that eased the pressure of her emotions enough that she could think clearly. If only just barely.
“Tell me,” she repeated her demand. “How is it that you just happened to come across shapeshifter snuff porn? Is it your people doing this? Please tell me you aren't involved in this Gio.”
Giovanni shook his head firmly, and his eyes showed a hint of offense to the accusation.
“No one I have ever associated with would ever be involved in something like this,” he replied.
“But you knew it existed,” Tamina accused.
Giovanni could only nod his head somberly. Tamina closed her eyes to block out any distractions, and rubbed at her temples. She needed to calm down. She was too emotional and needed time to clear her head. Time to think and get her thoughts in order. She didn't have that luxury though. Somewhere out there, another woman could be getting murdered, and she was standing here in her apartment without the first clue to do anything about it.
“Alright,” she said managing to calm herself. “Start from the top. Please, Gio, I know you can't tell me everything, but I'm begging you. Give me what you can. The people in those videos, they-they deserve more than this.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Tamina sat and listened to what Giovanni told her with this cold, numbing sensation gripping her tightly. With each passing moment she could feel ice filling her veins leaving her cold, empty and devoid of all emotion. She didn't fight it. That was where she needed to be. She needed to be free of anything that was going to hold her back and keep her from doing what needed to be done. What she had to do.
Giovanni had always told her that he wasn't involved in any criminal activities. Tamina couldn't be sure if that was true or not. For some reason, she wanted to believe him, it just wasn't easy all things considered. Even if it was true though, he knew people who were involved. When she'd asked him to look into anyone he knew connected with supernatural sex work, he'd done just that.
There were a few people on the very edges of his periphery that were involved in the adult film industry. He'd reached out to some of them, and from the distaste evident in his voice when he talked about it, the conversations he'd had with them weren't pleasant. He'd gotten her the information though in spite of that, which made Tamina relatively certain that those conversations likely had a deal of violence involved in them. Tamina had no sympathy in that regard. Anyone even slightly involved in what she'd just seen deserved all the violence they got.
“How is it even possible for me not to even know this sort of thing existed,” Tamina demanded. “And why aren't you as pissed off and as horrified about it as I am?”
“Because I've seen far worse,” Giovanni replied. “And it's not something that's wide spread. At least not from what I can tell. Not out here anyway. It's a very exclusive market from what I've been told. There's a lot of money and power involved.”
Tamina found herself punching at the wall in frustration. Twenty-five more people had lost their lives, and until tonight she'd only known about two of them. How was that even possible? Something like that couldn't have kept itself hidden without some serious help from on high.
“And you said no vampires?” Tamina said. She couldn't believe it. Something like this had to involve them. Somehow. This was the sort of thing vampires were known for. Wasn't it?
“No. No vampires,” Giovanni said. His voice told her he was quite certain about that. “Even if there were vampires involved, they wouldn't be local. These people don't operate here in this country. Too much of a risk.”
“Really,” Tamina replied with a scowl. “Because twenty-five dead says otherwise, Gio. How did this go unnoticed long enough for that many people to fall victim? That's not a small number Gio. Somebody had to notice twenty-five people going missing damn it. Or at least they fucking should have.”
“You're assuming that they all happened here,” Giovanni said. “That's not likely. Not with these people.”
Giovanni turned away, but even so Tamina could still see the look in his eyes. There was a tension there. A kind of quiet sadness and resignation that she didn't think she'd ever seen in him before.
“No matter where you go in the world, there's always going to be those people whose lives mean less than everyone else,” he said softly. “The ones who people pretend not to see when they're there, and don't notice when they're not. Those are the ones that these people prey upon. Can you honestly say this city doesn't have people like that?”
She wanted to argue with him, but she couldn't. The raid into cartel territory earlier in the day had proven him right. If it hadn't had been for Kala looking for her friend, and one little old lady calling in a complaint and tipping her off, no one would have known all those people she'd rescued had even existed. They might not have even bothered if they did know.
Knowing that however, brought up even more questions. If what Giovanni was saying was true, whoever these people were, they made it a point to choose men and women who wouldn't bring attention to themselves. There were twenty-five victims now, but she'd only known about two. That still wasn't making sense.
“Okay,” she said slowly. “They go all over the country-”
“All over the world,” Giovanni said cutting her off. “They're not local. Even if they were, they're careful enough that you'd likely never heard of them.”
“None of this makes any sense Gio,” Tamina said. “Help me understand how a bunch of werewolves goes around the world grabbing people nobody cares about without anyone catching on? How?”
Giovanni sighed softly.
“Those videos on the tablet, that's all they ever leave behind. Nobody I talked to knows who they are. All they know is the mark,” he said. “And even then, only the distributors and the customers who pay them a lot of money ever see them. Everyone else is disposed of. Witnesses, anyone who helps them along the way, anyone who isn't them isn't left alive.”
Scorched earth, Tamina thought. That was the only way an operation like this could exist and not get noticed. It made her wonder if these people would have massacred the cartel after they were done with them if Tamina hadn't gotten to them first.
“Okay, let me get this straight,” Tamina said. There was still a lot that didn't make sense. “No witnesses. No evidence. They only take people who no one's going to miss right? So why did we find two of the bodies? For fuck's sake, they dumped them out in the middle of the city. Like they wanted them to be found. And people definitely knew those two women existed.
Why?”
Giovanni's only response was a tightening of his eyes and a sharp intake of breath. He knew something, or at least he thought he did.
“What?!“ Tamina demanded. “Spill it.”
“Like I said bella,” Giovanni said deliberately. “It's a very exclusive market. There is a lot of money involved. More so if there is a special request. Especially if there is risk involved.”
Tamina's lips parted in wordless shock. The very thought jolted her and sent a shiver down her spine. She didn't want to even think of the possibility, but she couldn't help it. The thought that someone out there in the city had personally chosen Amy Lynn and Albira Adams to watch them die chilled her to the bone. That was a new level of evil for her.
“Who are they?” she managed to croak out. “Do you know?”
Giovanni shook his head somberly.
“The people I talked to know of them, but that's as far as it goes,” he said. “Even my family only knew stories. Rumors going back maybe fifty or so years out of Eastern Europe. Nothing specific. We never dealt with people like that.”
That wasn't any help, Tamina thought. There had to be something she was missing, but she just couldn't see it. From what she was hearing, these people snatched their victims off the street and nobody seemed to notice. How did that work with the two victims she knew about before hearing all of this? They couldn't have been just dragged off the street, could they? Decker hadn't mentioned any missing persons reports. No one had, and with as popular as at least Amy Lynn was, that was odd.
“If someone asked for someone specific,” She began thoughtfully. “How would they do that? Especially someone relatively well known.”
Giovanni scowled.
“Why would I know that?” he said.
Tamina scowled at him darkly. She hadn't meant to infer anything or insult him, but at the same time she really didn't care if she did or not. Not now anyway. There were more important things to worry about than a werewolf's pride.
“Gio,” she prompted.
“I don't know,” he said sourly. “Offer them some money like the people they grab off the street. Maybe pay someone else to get them interested. It would have to be someone close enough to have influence with them if that was the case, but I don't know. I really don't.”
Someone close, she thought to herself. As far as she knew, Amy Lynn and Albira Adams didn't know each other. Same industry, but different levels of experience. That meant if someone had been paid to lure them in, it likely wasn't going to be the same person. The two women didn't even work for the same production companies.
Tamina blinked in surprise. That was it, she thought. That had to be the missing piece she was looking for. She scrambled around to find where the tablet had ended up, and once she found it she began going through the videos one by one.
She didn't watch them all the way through, she was pretty certain she wouldn't have been able to handle that. All she needed to see was the very opening of each video to confirm a suspicion she had. As she went through them, she dreaded seeing either Amy Lynn or Albira Adams. Strangely neither one of them were starring in any of videos on the tablet. That was both a relief and a concern. It meant that there were more videos out there, but like Giovanni had said they were likely special requests. Meaning that whoever had paid for them more than likely wanted them all to themselves. No mass distribution.
There were a few things that stuck out to her. It was the same man, the same werewolf in almost every single video. He didn't even try to hide his face. Like he was the star of the whole thing or something. Then there was the fact that none of the victims had shown any fear right up until the killer had started changing on them. That was odd.
“Gio,” she said quietly after finishing up and dropping the tablet back onto the table. “None of those girls looked unwilling. At least at first.”
“Not surprising,” Giovanni responded. “Some people will pay to see victims raped before they're killed, other's want something more natural. I'm sure half the appeal of it all is seeing the victims not knowing what's coming until it's too late. It's the anticipation. The surprise. They wouldn't want them fighting the whole time.”
That made sense, Tamina thought. That was probably what these people contracted with the cartel for. Grab some random people off the street, so they could make a little extra money while they were in town. It didn't matter if they were willing or not. Probably better if they weren't in fact. Only the high value targets needed to be willing to have sex with a werewolf. It was a sickening thought, and it created a problem.
“One of the victims, not sure about the other, was adamantly not interested in shapeshifters,” she said slowly. “If it wasn't an abduction, how would they lure someone like that in? The only marks she had on her were the bites, so she didn't fight. At least not at first. How would you convince someone who only fucks vampires to try werewolf?”
“Everyone has a price bella,” Giovanni said simply. “It's just a matter of how much.”
She had to think about that a moment. Everyone that Tamina had talked to that knew Amy Lynn had told her she'd been constantly offered money to do scenes with shapeshifters. She'd turned them all down. Repeatedly. If Giovanni was right and everyone had a price, how much was hers?
Tamina turned to the stack of papers she'd gotten from the production company laying on the counter. All the payments the company had made had to be in there, didn't they? She walked over to the counter and began shuffling through the documents intently. It had to be here, she thought. As stupid as it might have been to have given her evidence against them, if it was going to be anywhere, it was going to be here, she thought.
“'Ak'eed,” Tamina swore. “Two days before we found her, the production company paid Amy Lynn a hundred-thousand dollars. You think that would be enough to get her to change her mind about werewolves?”
Giovanni shrugged.
“Couldn't tell you,” he said. “Didn't know the woman, but I've seen people do things a lot worse for a lot less than that.”
Tamina nodded her head. So had she. A hundred-thousand dollars could change a lot of minds about a lot of things. There was no way to know for sure though. Not with just the production company's records. As damning as they were, she'd need more than that.
“You need to go,” she said over her shoulder. “I need to confirm some things, and the only way to do that is with people you probably don't want to meet. Though, I'm sure they'd love to meet you.”
It was blunt, but it was true. Giovanni seemed to accept it without question anyway. He rose to his feet and casually made his way over to the door. He paused once he opened it, and turned back slightly. There was a look in his eyes that Tamina didn't want to see. That she couldn't deal with seeing.
“Tamina,” he started. “We ever going to talk about things? I-“
“No,” Tamina cut him off. “If there's a time for that Gio, this isn't it. I'm serious. You need to go. But don't go far, I may need to call you again.”
He got a funny look in his eyes, but he didn't say anything more. He simply nodded his head and walked out through the door. Whatever he wanted, or thought he wanted, wasn't important right now. She probably wasn't ready to deal with it even if it was.
Snatching up her phone, she quickly dialed Decker's number and waited for him to answer. He didn't at first, so she kept calling until he did. Why didn't anybody ever just answer their damn phone, she wondered?.
“Martinez,” Decker's gravelly voice growled over the phone. “Do you know what time it is? I do, and I can assure you I'm never awake or available at this time. What do you want?”
“Did your warrants cover bank records?” she asked ignoring his mood. “I may have something here, but I'm not sure, so I need some confirmation from you.”
“What?” Decker replied. “Yeah. I looked over them. Nothing there. About what you'd expect from a high price porn star actually. Actually thought she would have been making more with how Carl's been talkin
g. Nothing out of the ordinary though, unless you don't count spending a few thousand a week in the Preserve ordinary.”
That didn't make sense. She was on to something here, and she knew it. Decker had to be wrong. There had to be something there.
“You didn't see a hundred-thousand dollar payment in there?” she asked.
“Why?” Decker replied. His voice had suddenly become very suspicious.
“You did didn't you?” Tamina said.
“There was some sort of error for that much a few days ago,” he said. “Called up the bank to find out what it was, they just said it was a processing error or something. But it was corrected and pulled back out an hour or so later after it was deposited though. Why? What's going on?”
Tamina wasn't sure what to tell him, or even how to tell him if she did. Then again she thought, with as much of an ass as he'd been, he'd still been straight with her. She had to return the favor.
“Look,” she said. “I got something you need to see. Came across some new information. Looks like a hell of a lot more victims than we thought there were. Twenty-five more at least. Maybe not all from around here, but that doesn't change much.”
“What!“ Decker shouted into the phone. His anger and annoyance at her call had all but evaporated. He was suddenly very serious, and listening very intently at what she had to say. “Where are you? Are you at home?”
“Yeah,” Tamina replied. “And if you're thinking of coming over, I won't be here. I think I'm going to have to go and have a long talk with someone.”
“Tell me who and where,” Decker said. “I'll meet you there. You can fill me in then.”
Tamina frowned to herself. That wasn't going to work. As much as it looked like he wanted to help, he'd just get in the way. Or, he'd try to stop her once he found out what she had in mind. Neither option was something she wanted to deal with. Sincere or not, Decker had rules he had to follow.
“You've seen me interrogate people,” she said. “So, do you really want to be a witness to that? Can't really kick the can down the road to someone else if you're standing right there.”