Then he was gone, exiting as quickly as his waiters had come and gone all night long.
Again, I cursed under my breath. I didn’t dare look at the guard who had finally let me go, aware that he was likely gloating in my humiliation, and I certainly wasn’t letting him escort me out. Without another word, I straightened my skirt and started out the way I’d come in, my head high despite Anatolios’s eyes heavy on my backside. It certainly wasn’t the walk of shame that I’d expected to make at the night’s end, but I handled it with as much confidence as I could muster.
Back in my room, I collapsed on the bed, my fists balled at my sides. “Dammit,” I said, punching the mattress next to me. “Dammit, dammit, dammit.” I was frustrated and turned on. And worried that I’d never hear from Reeve again and that I’d fucked everything up in my search for Amber. I punched once more for good measure.
But really my turmoil at the moment had little to do with Amber and all to do with what I’d learned that evening: Reeve Sallis liked to be in control.
I’d met that type of man before. I knew what they liked. They were the men who liked to fuck, but on their terms. They were the men who liked giving gifts and praise almost as much as they liked taking them away. They were the men who liked to hurt. To humiliate. Manipulate. They left bruises. They left scars. They were the men that induced fear. The men who debased and defiled. They were the reason I’d left that life in the first place.
And this was why, where Reeve Sallis was concerned, I was fucked. Because these were the men that I could never stop craving.
CHAPTER 4
My cell phone ringtone woke me the next morning. I considered ignoring it, but the thought that it could possibly be Reeve had me reaching across the bed before it stopped ringing.
“Emily. It’s Joe Cook.”
I rubbed a hand over my eyes, trying to convince myself I wasn’t disappointed. Reeve didn’t even have my number, not that that would matter.
Then I registered what the caller had said. I sat up. “Joe. Hi. Do you have news?” He wouldn’t have called if he didn’t.
I’d hired Joe Cook after the police had been utterly unhelpful in my search for Amber. It wasn’t their fault really. I didn’t have enough for them to go on, plain and simple. I’d argued. I’d pled. I spent all of Black Friday in the station¸ in fact, trying to get someone to take my report seriously. Finally, an older detective called me into his office. Patiently he listened to my entire story. He listened to the message that I’d recorded onto my phone from my mother’s answering machine. He listened to me explain how, even though Amber never once asked for help or stated that she was in trouble, I knew there was something wrong because she’d said “blue raincoat” – our code.
Then just as patiently he explained the reasons he couldn’t do anything. “There is simply nothing that you have presented to justify a missing person,” he had said. “I’m not saying that nothing happened to your friend – I’m only saying that we can’t help you find her.”
I opened my mouth to argue when he added, “But I do know someone who can help you. He’s pricey, but worth it if this is that important to you.”
It was that important to me. I left the station ten minutes later with Joe Cook’s number.
Joe had arranged to meet at a hole-in-the-wall diner in Hollywood – his choice, not mine – and at first sight I knew he wasn’t like anyone I’d spent much time with. The men I’d known best were suave and charming, at least on the outside, their hands manicured, their suits pressed, their cars expensive. Half bounty hunter, half private investigator, Joe had shown up on a Harley, decked from head to toe in black leather and sporting colorful tattoos over every bare inch of his arms and neck. His hair was buzzed and he wore dark glasses that he never took off, even inside. As gruff and gritty as he was, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he knew the detective who’d pointed me his way because Joe had a record of his own.
Despite my first impression and the fact that his resume was simply, “I find people who are hard to find,” Joe was professional. He took my business seriously, gathering details of my friendship with Amber for nearly three hours, never doubting or questioning my reasons for hiring someone like him rather than one of the hundreds of PI’s I could find on the Internet for a third of his asking price. I wasn’t an idiot and Amber knew how to hide. I needed a tracker with skills that included more than taking pictures of cheating spouses and locating children after they’d been put up for adoption.
Joe was that guy. It was a gut feeling more than anything, but I believed it enough to hire him on the spot. When he’d given me his first report that included mention of past events that I’d been convinced were buried, he’d more than proven himself.
“I found the parents,” he said to me now. “Actually spoke to the mother. She’s a real fucktard. Lived in the same house for all these years in Santa Clarita, only an hour from where Amber was staying in high school, but I’d bet money she never bothered to look that far. She rolled her eyes when I mentioned her daughter’s name. Said she hasn’t heard anything from her in over a decade. Said she’d figured Amber was dead. Didn’t seem interested even when I’d shown her pics of Amber from after she’d run away. I see people do shitty things on a daily basis so it’s with authority that I say she had a bad family life, Em.”
I nodded even though he couldn’t see me through the phone. “Yeah, I know.”
Amber had never spoken much about her parents, but what I had gleaned from the few things she’d slipped over the course of our friendship was that her mother had been a jealous bitch. Jealous of her own daughter. Her dad was the worst kind of scum and had been sexually abusing her – his child – on a daily basis, and instead of defending her, Amber’s mother resented her.
At least my mother had tried to love me. “Well, that was a long shot anyway. Did you see her father at all?”
“Now, that’s an interesting thing. He wasn’t there. He’s been at Folsom for the past several years.”
“State prison?”
“Yep. He was sentenced to twenty-five years for aggravated assault on a child. Some kid in the neighborhood. Seems he would often give the girl a ride after school and by ride I mean a trip on the baloney pony, not his car. Now here’s where it gets fishy. Back at the beginning of October, he got himself murdered.”
The thumbnail I’d been absentmindedly chewing fell out of my mouth. “Wait… did you say murdered?”
“Uh-huh. Assaulted with some sort of ‘slashing-type weapon.’” The quote marks were evident in the way he said it, as if he was reading from his notes. “Pronounced dead on site.”
“Wow.” It sounded appalling to hear it told so plainly, but I also felt a stab of vindication. If someone had slit his throat with a “slashing-type of weapon” years ago, how different would Amber’s life have been? I wondered if she knew. Wondered if she felt the same sense of victory. Wondered if she was feeling anything at all these days.
I shook that last thought off. “I guess it’s not uncommon though for pedophiles to get offed in jail, right?”
“‘Offed.’” Joe seemed amused at my use of slang, as he often did when I tried to talk the lingo. “Not uncommon, no. But keep listening. It gets weird. The cops never fingered anyone with the job, but I have a source there telling me that everyone knows who did it. Nick Delatano. He’s a mob fall guy.” Joe paused. “That means he took the blame for something or other or protected someone more important than him and he’ll get rewarded for it somehow. Basically, he works for mafia, even in prison. And not just mafia, Emily – a special branch called the Philadelphia Greek Mob. Heard of them?”
“I haven’t.” Though my skin was already prickling with the mention of the word “Greek.”
“They’ve been what some call ‘dormant’ for the last decade or so, but what that really means is they’re just operating under the radar. They’re like the Italians, you know, um, specialists in money laundering, tax evasion, extortion, drug traff
icking. Murder. Only they’re from Greece.”
I swallowed. It had to be coincidental. “Mob guys can hate child molesters too.”
“Not denying that. But supposedly Nick didn’t even know James Pries was a sex offender. So why was a mafia guy taking a hit out on a child predator?”
Even though the thought had already taken up residence in my mind, I wasn’t ready to believe it. “There could be a hundred reasons. Maybe they fought over toilet paper. Maybe James fought back when Nick was making him his bitch. This probably has nothing at all to do with Amber.”
“Maybe.” Joe’s tone said he didn’t believe that for a second. “It’s just interesting considering the last man she was seen spending time with was Reeve Sallis, who also has mob ties.”
“Rumored mob ties.” Jesus, even to myself I sounded defensive.
“Yeah, yeah, ‘rumored.’” He was quiet for several seconds. “I just can’t get that picture out of my mind, the one of Sallis with Vilanakis. Not many people can get that close to Vilanakis.”
I knew the picture. It had been one of the earlier things that Joe had uncovered about Reeve. I’d seen the picture myself on the Web, but hadn’t known the significance of the second man. His name wasn’t even labeled on the post. It was a crappy phone pic taken at a family dinner and shared on a personal blog. I’d thought nothing of it until Joe had emailed it to me almost two weeks before Christmas with a simple message: “Michelis Vilanakis. Known crime boss. What’s the connection?”
It was the moment that the plan I’d been knocking around in the back of my mind seemed to become necessary.
Then why was I so eager to dismiss the connection between the mafia and James Pries now?
If I was being honest with myself it was because of Reeve. Because now I’d met him. Because now I didn’t want to think of him as that dangerous. Because I didn’t need any reason to be more attracted to him than I already was.
But Joe was right. “I know. I know. Just, there hasn’t been anything to prove that and I don’t want to make connections that aren’t based on anything verifiable in case it causes us to neglect other important facts that will help us find her.”
“Find out what happened to her,” Joe corrected. He made sure I never forgot that he believed we were looking for a dead person.
It was one of the first things he’d said when we’d met. “You know, after forty-eight hours missing, the odds are that the victim is deceased.”
“Amber’s not a statistic,” I’d said firmly. “I know her. She knows how to lay low, how to disappear. In fact, I don’t even know that she’s missing. Just that she needs my help.”
“No one can find her. That means she’s missing. She’s been missing for several months. She’s not going to be alive.”
“Well,” I’d said. “We’ll just agree to disagree.” I’d realized I was lucky to have someone help me at all. If we had different bets on the outcome, that was fine. The search process was the same either way.
Still, I reminded him of my stance as often as he reminded me of his. “What will you do when you find her alive and well?” I asked him now.
“Let you say, ‘I told you so.’”
“Oh, I will.” I chewed my lip as I debated whether or not to share the information I’d learned since last speaking to Joe, knowing he’d want to know my source. Since any detail could prove important, I settled on disclosure. “On the topic… did you know that Reeve lived with his maternal grandparents in Greece for a couple of years after his parents died?”
“No. Where did you hear this?”
It was the question I’d been dreading. I hadn’t told Joe what I was doing, nor did I plan to. Whether or not he tried to talk me out of it, he certainly wouldn’t approve. “It doesn’t matter where I heard it. But it’s credible. Maybe that’s where the rumors of ties to Greek mafia started?”
“Huh. Maybe. Or that’s when he started working with them.” Joe sounded like he thought the latter was more likely. “You didn’t happen to learn the maternal grandparents’ surname?”
“Isn’t it Kaya?”
“Well. Short answer – I don’t think so. His mother’s marriage certificate lists her maiden name as Kaya, but there’s simply no record of her existence before that. Every bio that Sallis has published says she grew up in Athens and met her husband at the opening dinner reception of his resort there. She was supposedly just out of school. Problem is, that event was invitation only and there’s no Kaya on the list. So say she came as a plus one. Ignore the question of who’d take a nobody kid to an important political event. Because that’s what it was – a dinner to schmooze the officials. It was a big deal for one of Greece’s own countrymen to bring his success back to his homeland. There would have been tight security. Elena would have been on the list, even as a date. Kaya has to be a fake name or that wasn’t where she really met Daniel Sallis. One of those is a lie. Which begs the question – why?”
Probably because where she really met him wasn’t suitable for discussing in polite company. I was jaded where very rich men were concerned, though. It was my experience that most of them bought their women. Why wouldn’t that be the case with Reeve’s father?
I hoped it was the case with Reeve as well or I was wasting my time at his resort.
But I didn’t say that to Joe. Instead I let his question hang.
“Well. That’s all I have right now. Do you have anything else you need to tell me?”
It was my opening, my chance to tell him that I’d decided to go after Reeve on my own. The smart thing would be to tell him, to tell someone.
But could I really do this if anyone else was involved? Reeve had too many resources. I couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d find out if I pulled Joe into the mix, and the last thing I wanted to do was endanger anyone else. “Nope. That’s all I’ve learned too.”
Joe sighed. “Then you’ll hear from me when I have more.”
“But Emily.” He caught me just as I was hanging up. “Remember the girl is as far as I go. I’ll do what I can to find your friend, but if all roads lead to Sallis, I’m out. That’s a death wish.”
He’d given me a similar warning the day he’d agreed to work my case. “You won’t find anyone who will take on a man like him. And if you find someone who says they will, run.”
I was tired of running. And, fuck, maybe I did have a death wish.
I’d known that Amber had started seeing Reeve long before her phone call. I’d seen a picture of them together in the Star Tracks section of People. It wasn’t even a magazine I read very often, and when I did, I skipped over the section that featured photos of celebrities out in the world doing celebrity things. The fact that I’d seen it at all had been a giant fluke. It was a few weeks after the first episode of NextGen had aired, and both critics and audiences were hailing it as the best new show of the season. Paparazzi began waiting outside the studio and showing up at network events. Though my face wasn’t that recognizable, I’d find them hanging around my neighborhood on occasion. Sometimes I’d catch a flash out of my peripheral vision, a cell phone held up in my direction. I’d heard from a costar that I was in that week’s People, so I picked it up.
In my tiny one-bedroom apartment on the hillside of West Hollywood, I had poured myself a glass of wine and curled up on my couch before opening the magazine. Her photo caught my eye first – ironically it was directly opposite where mine was featured. The shot had been taken at a star-studded gala event held at Reeve’s hotel in Santa Monica. His hands were stuffed in the pockets of his tuxedo, much like they had been when I’d arrived at the Cherry Lounge, and she clung onto his arm flashing her perfect smile.
She looks thin, I’d thought, and she’s dyed her hair a lighter blond. Funny, I had too.
I was transfixed for a long time before finally reading the caption. SALLIS’S LATEST FEMALE COMPANION, it read. It didn’t even mention her by name. Until that moment, I’d thought I’d come so far from where I’d left her half a
decade before. Seeing us paired on two facing pages like that, where even in a photo I could see the who I was compared to the who she was, I realized that I hadn’t gone anywhere. Her with no name, me with no face. At least she had a “companion.”
After I hung up with Joe, I opened the room safe and pulled out the accordion file organizer that held all the information I’d gathered regarding Amber, including the clipping from People. That was where all of this had really begun – when I’d seen her face and realized that she was still alive. Not that I’d thought she was dead before that. She’d just been dead to me, and in that photo she’d been resurrected. I didn’t pay any more attention to her after that than I had before, didn’t look for her on the Internet or try to track her down. But, still, something was different. Memories surfaced more easily. Her name was closer to the tip of my tongue. Her face seen in crowds she wasn’t in.
After making sure the deadbolt was locked and the DO NOT DISTURB sign was on my knob, I laid everything out on my bed as I searched for it now. When I found it, I studied it, wondering when exactly it had been taken. I always referred to it in my mind as “January 27” since that was the edition of the magazine, but that wasn’t the date of the photo. Reading through all the copy on the page, I discovered a reference to New Year’s Eve that I hadn’t noticed before.
It was just a year ago, then. One year. NextGen had aired just after the holiday as a midseason replacement show, changing my life entirely. Had Reeve Sallis done the same for Amber?
On a whim, I decided to put everything in chronological order so that I could cement her timeline in my head. I placed the People photo in the top left corner of my bed. A few seconds later, I changed my mind and scooted it in so I could put something before it.
Joe’s research had found the piece of information that I wanted to put first. She’d been living in a hotel. A Sallis hotel. On October 19, a little more than a year before I’d heard her message, she’d let her room go and there was no record of any address after that.
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