by L. T. Vargus
Leaning closer, Darger made out a pattern in green and black enamel in the part Claire had brought. If the other piece hadn’t been worn down by sand and time, the two halves would have formed a cartoonish alien face.
Her heart broke a little as the solution to the mystery came to her. The necklaces were the kind you bought as a set: one half for you to keep, the other to give to your best friend.
Claire fixed Loshak with her wet eyes.
“It’s Tammy.”
Chapter 21
The white sun bore down hard as they stepped out of the shade of Claire Garcia’s house. Darger had almost forgotten it was the middle of the day while she sat in that dim little house with all the blinds drawn. It was like Claire’s world was permanently twilight. Shut away from the world.
Darger’s shadow stretched out before her on the dusty path that led to the car. Two kids wheeled around in circles on a driveway across the narrow lane, one on a scooter, the other on a Big Wheel tricycle. Overhead, the fronds of a date palm fluttered in the warm breeze.
Neither she nor Loshak uttered a word until they were inside the car. He fired up the engine and turned the air conditioning on full blast.
“So,” Darger said, breaking the silence. “Now we know for sure.”
“Yeah.”
This was it. They finally had proof that the man they were hunting was indeed Leonard Stump. And yet instead of the excitement or vindication she thought they’d feel, the atmosphere in the car was somber.
Part of it was that Darger couldn’t stop thinking about what Claire said before they left. How she’d told them about the necklaces.
“It was a Christmas present. There was that whole alien craze back then, and Tammy was obsessed. I saw these ridiculous Best Friends alien face necklaces, and I knew it was the kind of thing Tammy would love. She liked things like that. Sort of intentionally tacky or whatever.”
Two best friends, torn apart by bizarre circumstance. Tammy died, Claire lived. And every day Claire shouldered the weight of it. All the nostalgia and good memories of her youth tainted by guilt and regret.
How must it feel to blame yourself for your own survival? To feel guilty for merely being alive?
Loshak’s voice interrupted her train of thought.
“You gonna make that call?”
“Huh?”
“To let Corby know we got a preliminary ID on Tammy?”
“Oh. Right,” Darger murmured.
She reached for her phone. She must have been sitting there in contemplation for some time, because they were already on the highway.
Darger flipped through her contacts and dialed the Sheriff’s office. A secretary answered but put Darger through immediately. Corby answered after the first ring.
“Agent Darger. I hope you’re having a pleasant afternoon.”
“Well, I don’t know if pleasant is the right word for it. We talked to Claire Garcia. She recognized one of the objects from the grave site and confirmed it was a necklace that belonged to Tammy Podolak.”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Are you still there?”
Darger heard a heavy sigh, and then the man spoke up.
“Sorry. I copy. Just thinking of the media circus this is going to stir up. The LVCVA is going to be all over my ass, pardon my French.”
“Those were the people at the meeting, right?”
“Yes, ma’am. They oversee all the marketing for tourism and conventions in town. That’s where all our catchy slogans come from: Only in Vegas. What happens here, stays here. All that crap. They’ve got a lot of clout,” Corby explained. “But it can’t be helped now. And I suppose I owe you and your partner an apology. I was wrong. To dismiss your theory like that, I mean. I was wrong.”
“No apology necessary. And now that we’re all on the same page, perhaps we could put together some kind of task force. Start figuring out how we’re going to find him.”
“Took the words right out of my mouth. Though I have a development of my own, actually.”
When he finished filling her in and suggested a rendezvous, Darger agreed.
“We’ll be there.”
She ended the call and felt a prickle of excitement run down her spine. Things were snowballing now, gaining momentum.
“Are you going to share, partner? Or are you just gonna sit there looking like a cat with a mouthful of canary?”
“They verified the second girl from the burned out car. Dental records.”
“And?”
“Camila Newell. Local girl, born and raised. 22 years old.”
“Escort?”
Darger nodded.
“Arrested last year, but the charges were dropped, so she doesn’t technically have a record. But it’s enough for our purposes. That makes two prostitute victims. If Emily Kessler is the girl in the gas station footage, it makes it three. And Loshak?”
“Yeah?”
“We have an address for this one.”
Loshak turned his head. Their eyes met.
“Let’s go.”
Chapter 22
Camila Newell’s home was a two-story stucco townhouse in North Las Vegas. It was clean and neat inside. Meticulous. Houses this tidy always made Darger feel acutely aware of her own slovenliness.
She let her gaze wander the room, touching on the Keurig machine with a selection of flavored pods, a stack of rainbow-colored mugs on the granite countertop, a hand-lettered wood sign hung on the wall that read, But first… wine.
Nearby, Corby and Detective Castellano sat at a small dining room table with Camila’s roommate, Joshua Pierson. He was large in height and girth and just as well-groomed as the rest of the house, with dark, impeccably shaped eyebrows and carefully trimmed facial hair. He was also very tan, which seemed to be a recurring theme out here in Vegas.
Darger and Loshak stood off to the side and let the locals do their thing, though she was a little dismayed at Corby’s interview technique. He launched straight into the tough questions with no warm-up.
“Did you know about Miss Newell’s activities?”
Joshua crossed his arms.
“You mean, did I know she was an escort?” he asked. “Yes, I knew what she did for a living. But she was a nice girl. Really. If you walked past her on the street, you wouldn’t have known. She was always very put together.”
“And what is it you do for work, Mr. Pierson?”
“I’m a bartender. Weekdays I work at Beachlife.” His eyes flicked over to Darger, who had raised a confused eyebrow. “It’s the pool and cabana area of the Hard Rock Hotel.”
“Gotcha.”
“And on weekends, I work at Red Lotus. It’s a… gentleman’s club.” Joshua gave a sheepish shrug. “That’s how we met. Camila worked there for a while.”
“Stripping?”
Joshua nodded.
“Is that how she got into her current line of business?”
Joshua brought his thumb to his lips as though to chew the nail but seemed to catch himself. He retracted the hand, picking at the nail instead.
“I don’t really know.”
“You don’t know?” Corby repeated, his voice hard and almost mocking.
Darger stepped closer to the dining table and slid into the chair next to Joshua.
“If you’re worried about telling us things that could get you in trouble at work, don’t. That’s not what we’re here about, OK?”
She stared at Joshua until he made eye contact with her and nodded. He stopped fidgeting with his fingernails and clasped his hands together.
“Some of the girls — and geez, some of the guys — they offer extras, if you know what I mean. They’ll offer to meet customers after hours. Usually it’s the men that come in and throw a lot of money around in the private rooms. It’s assumed that’s what they’re looking for, to be honest. And because it’s not done on the premises, and it’s up to the individual arranging the date, management tends to look the other way.”
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“And Camila was one of the girls that would go on these… after hours dates?”
Joshua bobbed his head once.
“Why did she leave Red Lotus?”
“She said she made better money on dates, and the hours were more flexible. Plus she hated the strip club atmosphere — I mean, I do too. Some of the girls can get kind of competitive and catty. The managers are almost all scumbags. And when she made her own dates, she didn’t have to deal with the big groups of entitled frat douches that leave bad tips.”
Corby, apparently bored with Darger’s more subtle line of questioning, yanked the interview back into the fast lane.
“Were you two involved? Romantically, I mean?”
Darger glanced at Loshak and rolled her eyes.
“Uh, no,” Joshua answered, blinking slowly. “I’m gay.”
Corby’s mouth puckered, a pink hue flushing his cheeks. Darger was glad when Castellano stepped in to take the reins. Detectives usually had more finesse when it came to questioning witnesses.
“Did Camila work through an agency?” she asked.
Loshak’s voice came from the other end of the room. He’d been silent until now.
“An escort agency? I thought prostitution was illegal in Vegas.”
“It is,” Castellano said. “But there’s nothing illegal about arranging for companionship. That’s what the agencies call it, anyway.”
When the focus was back on Joshua, he shook his head.
“No agency. She worked freelance.”
“Did she ever bring dates back here?”
Joshua’s hand cut through the air.
“Never. She said she needed to keep the two halves of her life completely separate.”
Darger wasn’t surprised. For a lot of these girls, it really was like living a double life.
“Did she have a boyfriend?” Castellano asked.
“No.”
“When was the last time she had a boyfriend?”
“It’s been a while. Over a year, at least. When she first started… the escort thing… she tried to keep dating for real. But I don’t think it worked out.”
“Did any of her previous boyfriends or dates cause trouble that you know of? Getting violent? Stalking her?”
“If they did, she never mentioned it to me.”
Something about his phrasing caught Darger’s attention.
“It sounds like you two were pretty close. Would that be the kind of thing she wouldn’t tell you for some reason?”
Joshua looked down at his hands, and when he answered, his voice sounded thick from holding back tears.
“Probably not. I never judged her, but that doesn’t mean I liked what she was doing. It was dangerous.”
He exhaled a long and shaky breath.
“I begged her to stop. Not relentlessly, but a couple times. Tried to teach her how to mix drinks. She could have made a killing in tips at some of the bars around town. It’s not hard, but you’ve got to memorize some stuff, and the other way was just… too easy.”
Joshua picked at his cuticles in silence for a moment before continuing.
“She’d let me know when she was going out, but that was it.”
“Did she tell you she was going out on Thursday?”
“Yes.”
“But you don’t know where?”
“At some hotel, but I don’t know which one.”
Darger sat up a little straighter but kept her voice cool.
“How do you know she was going to a hotel?”
“She always checked to make sure they had a room first. Because one time this guy wanted to… conduct their business… in his car instead of getting a room. He drove them out to one of the old gravel pits, and then he got a little rough with her. She was scared after that, always made sure she’d be around people when she was on a job.”
Darger’s gaze fell to the circle of light reflecting off the table. Somehow even being in a public place hadn’t saved her from Leonard Stump.
Detective Castellano swiped at her phone and then held it out to Joshua. It was Karli Newell’s Facebook profile.
“Have you ever seen this woman?”
Joshua frowned, taking some time to study the screen.
“No.”
She swiped the screen again, and it now switched to Emily Kessler’s sad Twitter photo.
“And her?”
Joshua shook his head.
“Are the names familiar at all? Maybe Camila had mentioned one of them before?”
“I don’t think so. Sorry.” His Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Is one of them… I mean, I saw on the news that there were two… bodies… in the trunk.”
Castellano’s eyes wandered over to Corby, who gave a small nod of approval.
“Yes, Karli and Camila were found together. We’d appreciate if you kept that to yourself for the time being.”
“Sure. I just… I wish I could tell you more. I don’t think she knew any other girls in the trade, if that helps. I mean, she never brought any over. I never heard her talking to anyone I didn’t know… I mean, aside from when she was setting up dates. I guess she could have set up dates with other girls, if someone wanted more than one. Like a bachelor party or something? But I didn’t really ask for details about her appointments. It was… unspoken. So much was unspoken between us.”
Paper rustled as Castellano flipped through her notepad.
“What about a website called Sin City Bliss? Does that ring any bells?”
Joshua’s eyes went wide, showing too much of the whites.
“We watched movies on her laptop sometimes,” he said, swallowing loudly. “And I saw a tab open that caught my eye once. I didn’t mean to click it. I was just curious. And when I did, it was a listing for her… services. I’m pretty sure that was the name of it. SinCityBliss.com”
“Do you know how long she’d been using it?”
Joshua’s shoulder’s pulled into a shrug.
“I never asked. I didn’t want her to think I’d been snooping or something.” He paused, and his face flushed a little. “Even if I sort of was.”
Fresh tears formed in the man’s eyes.
“And now I wish I’d insisted on knowing more. Where she was going. Who she was with. I could have ridden along with her, made sure she was safe. Or at least had her leave the name of the hotel she’d be at for the night. But in a way, I think I didn’t want to know. I didn’t like to think of her that way. And maybe she wouldn’t have wanted me knowing those things.”
“Keeping the two lives separate,” Darger repeated.
Joshua glanced up and met her eyes, nodding.
“But I could have tried.”
Chapter 23
Three hours. That’s how long they had to come up with a plan before the task force meeting. And they had jack squat, which was what Darger was telling Loshak over a cup of mediocre coffee.
“We have a little more than that,” he said. “We know it’s Stump. We know he’s sticking to his pattern of killing in pairs. He has one already that we know of. That means he’ll probably take another in the next day or two.”
Darger poked at her half-eaten donut, which was worse than mediocre.
“You’re really selling it. I’m getting all tingly thinking about the next girl he abducts.”
Her sarcasm elicited a stony stare from her partner.
“Well, Malenchok said it shouldn’t take long to get the site ownership information. That could give us something.”
Darger shook her head. Loshak’s pet geek was working on figuring out whatever he could about sincitybliss.com, but Darger knew it wouldn’t matter. Whatever enterprising digital pimp or madam had conceived of Sin City Bliss, it wasn’t who they were looking for. And yet she couldn’t stop herself from checking the site every few minutes. There had to be a clue there somewhere, something they could use… they just hadn’t found it yet.
Camila’s profile was still open on her phone. She stared down at th
e screen before hitting the back button to return to the main listing page.
Scrolling through the seemingly endless listings filled her with a sense of dread. So many potential victims to choose from for a monster like Leonard Stump. Who would be next?
If he was using this site — or another one like it — how did he choose? Was it random, or did he trawl through the list until he found a girl willing to meet?
Darger tapped a photo with her thumb. Each listing consisted of a name, age, description, photograph, and phone number. About half of the profiles featured photographs primarily focused on body parts. Teensy bikini tops stretched over large breasts. Barely-there thongs framing bare buttocks. The girls’ faces were often cropped out or turned away from the camera. Darger wondered if that was more about anonymity or because the men interested in their services only cared about their bodies.
But they weren’t all that way. Some of the girls provided headshots as well.
The current profile Darger was perusing was for Sapphire, age 29. Her pictures were surprisingly tame, barely more suggestive than your average Instagram selfie.
Sapphire described herself as a “BBW Seeking A Respectful Gentleman. Flirty, Fun, Exotic, And DRAMA FREE!!! Serious Calls Only.”
Darger hoped Sapphire didn’t get any serious calls from Leonard Stump.
She clicked back to the main listing page and scrolled through the listings once, twice, three times. She sat up taller in her seat.
“It’s gone.”
Loshak polished off the dregs in his cup.
“What’s gone?”
“Camila’s listing. It isn’t here anymore,” she said, refreshing the page and then turning her phone around to show him the screen. “How is that possible? Did someone delete it?”
While Darger refreshed the page a dozen more times, Loshak got back on the phone with Malenchok and relayed the new development. No matter how many times she reloaded the page, Camila Newell’s profile did not reappear.
She heard the crackle of Malenchok’s voice murmuring tech-babble into Loshak’s ear. Her partner angled the receiver away from his mouth to repeat it back to her.