by Mike Ryan
“And I get it. Relatives, friends, people that know them, when we talk to them, they’re shaking. Their minds are going in a thousand different directions, and they can’t always think straight or remember simple things. It’s part of the job.”
“It’s also part of the job that has to be factored in and keep going back to them to see if they ever relay something new.”
“Like I said before, you can’t undo what’s already been done. All you can do now is move forward with what you have.”
“Speaking of what I have now, I also got a room number at the Grand,” Bridge said. “At least I assume that’s what it is.”
“Where’d you get it?”
“Evelyn’s sister was going through some of her clothes, found a piece of paper in a pair of jeans. Says Fri, the day she went missing, a time, 10:45, and the number 614.”
“And you’re thinking she went back to the Grand to meet with someone?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking.”
“I’m assuming you’ve already checked to see if they actually have a room 614?”
“I have. And they do.”
“You know who that room was registered to?” Happ asked.
“Nicole’s checking on that now.”
“OK. Let me know if she finds anything and if you need anything else.”
“I will.” Bridge then snuck up behind his girlfriend and kissed her on the neck. “How you making out?”
“Getting there. Should have something within a few minutes.” Right on schedule, two minutes later, she stopped typing and leaned back in her chair.
“You got it?”
“Of course I got it.”
“So who is it?”
“You ready for this?”
“Why do you always ask me that?”
Nicole shrugged. “It’s fun.”
“So what’s the name?”
“John Jones.”
Bridge’s shoulders slumped. “Really? John Jones? Could it be any more of a fake name than that?”
“Could’ve been John Smith, I suppose.”
“Great. Now we gotta figure out who this guy is. I’m sure he’s not John Jones.”
“Never know. Jones is a popular name, you know. A lot of people actually have the name legally.”
“And a lot of people use it illegally.”
“You wanna call Eric back and let him know?” Nicole asked. “Maybe he can get us something on this guy?”
“I doubt it.”
“He wants to help.”
“I know he does. I also know any information he gets is going to take him longer than it’s gonna take us. He’s gotta go by the rules and go through the proper channels. We don’t.”
“I guess that means it falls on me, huh?”
“You guessed right.”
“What about you?”
“Well, you’re the computer guy.”
“Computer guy?”
“Computer babe?”
“Let’s just go with computer genius.”
“I guess if you wanna make stuff up, then sure.” After getting a look from Nicole, Bridge smiled at her, then gave her a kiss. “If you find out who this guy actually is before the day’s over, then I will actually classify you as a computer genius.”
“In writing?”
“If necessary.”
While Nicole feverishly worked her fingers on the keyboard, Bridge took a seat at the kitchen table. He wasn’t just sitting by and letting Nicole do everything. He started looking into everything they had on the other missing women. Police reports, files, articles, everything that Nicole had dug up on them. Bridge hoped he could find some kind of link, other than they were all models. Something that would lead him in a certain direction. Right now, he had a lot of guesses, none of which was worth much. What he needed was something solid to go on. They could have gone to the Grand, tried to poke around some, but he didn’t think that would turn up much. He’d go as a last resort if everything else failed, but he had a feeling Nicole would turn something if he didn’t. If not, Happ might be able to help.
They worked through the rest of the day, through dinner, and then the rest of the night. They were approaching the midnight hour, with neither of them moving much, except for a few snacks, drinks, or the bathroom. Bridge was still analyzing the files on the table, while Nicole was still on her laptop. She hit a few keys, then as she waited for the information to come up, closed her eyes, moved her head around, then arched her back straight to get the kinks out from sitting for so long.
“How long have we been at this?”
“About ten hours, I think,” Bridge replied.
“I think I’m just about done for the night. I can’t go on anymore.”
“Yeah, I’m almost there myself.” Bridge continued talking, while stacking a bunch of the papers on top of each other. After a minute, he realized that Nicole wasn’t paying any attention to him. Well, if she was, she wasn’t responding. “Did you hear me?”
“That’s him.”
“What?”
Nicole’s focus was now totally on the screen of her laptop. She had punched a few things up on a whim, not really expecting any of them to pay off. But there it was, staring at her on the screen. Bridge then realized that Nicole was talking to herself, still not giving him a lick of attention. He got up and moved over to her location, wondering what she had stumbled upon.
“You got something?”
Nicole still didn’t respond. Her concentration was now split, looking down at her notes in front of her, and periodically looking up at the screen to make sure she had everything right. Bridge knew she had something, though what he couldn’t quite figure out yet. Whenever she ignored him, it was either because she was pissed off at him, or she was consumed with something work-related. He didn’t think he’d ticked her off yet. It was too late for that.
“Um, in the hope that I’m not inconveniencing you somehow by talking, would you mind explaining to me what you’re doing?”
Nicole still didn’t look at him. Her head kept moving from the notebook in front of her to the laptop. After checking countless times, she knew she had it right. Now they would just have to verify it from there. Bridge tapped his girlfriend on the left shoulder with his index finger.
“Sweetheart?”
“Hmm?”
“Would you mind telling me what you’re doing?”
Nicole finally swiveled her head around, almost looking at him like he wasn’t even there. “Hmm? What?” Then it had finally sunk in what he was asking about. “Oh, what I’m doing?”
“Uh, yeah, that would be nice. I can tell you’re… something. I can’t really tell what?”
“Oh. Well, it’s nothing big. I just think I may have figured out who our John Doe is.”
“You mean John Jones.”
“Yeah, same thing.”
“So who is he?”
“I’m thinking our guy is actually named Otto Meyer.”
“Thinking?” Bridge asked. “You don’t know for sure?”
“Not without a positive ID or picture from the Grand. That’s gonna have to be our first priority in the morning.”
“What makes you think this guy is it?”
“It’s been a ten-hour process to get to this point, Luke. I didn’t just pick a name out of a hat.”
“I didn’t say you did. Just wondering how you got this guy’s name.”
“Well, basically, I hacked into the hotel’s database and grabbed everything they had on Jones. He was the name registered for room 614 the night Evelyn went missing.”
“Yeah, I already know that part.”
“OK, well, I then traced the credit card he used in booking the room, which was also the same card he used for additional services, room service, stuff like that.”
“OK?”
Nicole looked at him and knew he didn’t want all the long and boring details, so she figured she’d speed things up. “You’re not really interested in the nitty-g
ritty of everything, so I’ll just accelerate things for you.”
“I appreciate that.”
“So anyway, that card was only issued six months ago,” Nicole said. “So I found the credit application, then used the information on that to go backwards, which resulted in other credit cards, names, car rentals, plane tickets, food purchases, aliases, yadda, yadda, yadda. So long story short, everything winds up coming back to this guy.”
“You’re sure?”
Nicole looked at him like she was insulted. “I didn’t just fall off the turnip truck yesterday, you know. I was a high-level CIA analyst, you know.”
“I’m aware.”
“I’m not in the habit of making mistakes.”
“True enough.”
“I usually don’t say I have something unless I know I have it.”
“All checks out so far.”
“So I’m reasonably sure that this is the guy.”
“Define reasonably,” Bridge said, not able to resist giving her a hard time.
“Ninety percent.”
“So what’s it gonna take for you to get that last ten percent?”
“A picture or video of this guy at the hotel, that way I know it wasn’t someone else using his name, or him loaning the card out. Identity theft’s a big thing nowadays, you know.”
“So I’ve heard.” Bridge then leaned forward, getting a better look at Meyer’s picture, which was on the screen. “So what’s the story with this guy?”
Instead of answering, Nicole then shut her computer down and closed it. “Tomorrow.” She stood up and stretched her arms.
“Tomorrow?”
“Yes. Tomorrow. I’m beat and I can’t stare at this screen anymore.”
“All I want is…”
“No, if we start talking about this, we’re gonna go deep down the rabbit hole, and one thing will lead to another, and we’ll keep at this for another three or four hours. Because that’s how it always works. One question leads to another, then another, then another.”
“So you’re not gonna give me anything?”
“No. When we wake up tomorrow, then I’ll tell you what I know. But for now, bed.”
“When you say bed, do you mean sleep, or do you mean something else?” Bridge asked with a teasing smile.
Nicole hesitated, looking like she was deeply conflicted. She was dead tired, but it was hard for her to say no to any offer between the sheets.
“But if you’re too tired…”
Nicole grabbed his hand and grinned. “I guess I could stay up for another hour or so.”
7
Nicole reached her hand across the bed to feel her partner’s chest. When she got nothing but the soft, silky sheets of the bed, her eyes began to flutter open. Bridge wasn’t there. A few seconds later, she detected the sound of his voice. It was coming from the living room. Her naked body jumped out of the bed and quickly ran to the closet, throwing a bunch of clothes on. Once dressed, Nicole rushed into the living room to see what her boyfriend was doing. Upon first seeing him, his back was turned toward her. But then he started moving around. She instantly could see that he was on the phone.
“Yeah,” Bridge said into the phone. “That’s because they decided not to investigate.” Bridge happened to look at the frame of the door leading to the bedroom, seeing his girlfriend standing in it. He smiled and gave her a wave as he continued talking. “OK, listen, Nic just got up, so I’m gonna fill her in and go from there, all right? Thanks for the help, Eric. Yeah, I will.”
As soon as Bridge put the phone in his pocket, he went over to his girlfriend and planted a kiss on her lips.
“Why do you look like…”
“Like what?” Nicole tersely asked.
“Like you just got out of bed?”
“Because I did just get out of bed!”
“Oh.”
“I rushed out here because I heard you talking and thought maybe you were doing something on the case without me. Thought maybe someone was out here.”
“What would I be doing without you?” Bridge asked. “And who would be here?”
“I dunno, trying to find out more about Meyer?”
“Oh. Well, you’re half-right.”
“See!”
“But I wasn’t doing anything around your back. You fell asleep before I did last night, so I just sent a quick message to Eric asking if he had anything on Otto Meyer, and that we suspected he had a hand in all the missing women. He got back to me an hour ago, said he was emailing us a file on him. So I looked at it, then called him back. That’s who I was talking to.”
“I kind of figured.”
“So you wanna see what…”
Nicole put her hand up to prevent him from going any further. “Let me actually look proper first.”
“You already look beautiful.”
“Thanks, but I’m a mess.”
“Women look good with their hair messy. Especially you.”
Nicole leaned over and kissed him. “Thank you. Just give me five minutes, OK?”
“I’ll put some toast on and get you some OJ.”
Exactly six minutes later, Nicole came back out of the bedroom, looking more like her usual self, with her hair fixed and her clothes not wrinkled.
“There she is,” Bridge excitedly said. “You look much more put-together. I mean, you’re already put-together, but you’re… well… you know what I mean.”
Nicole planted another kiss on her boyfriend, then sat down at the table to eat her breakfast. “What time is it, anyway?”
“A little after nine. You seemed so tired last night I figured I’d let you sleep a little longer.”
“I was pretty exhausted.” She ate a piece of her toast. “So what were you talking to Eric about?”
“Well, he sent over a file on Meyer.”
“Unofficially?”
“Of course. You know he can’t send FBI files to unauthorized personnel. He did what he always does. Puts bits and pieces together from different sources and puts it together for us.”
“So what’d it say?”
Bridge opened his mouth and was about to say something, but then thought about last night. “Wait a minute, don’t you already know?”
“Why would I know?”
“Last night, you said you would tell me what you knew in the morning.”
Nicole smiled. “Yeah, I didn’t know anything other than his name.”
“Then why did you say you did?”
“I didn’t say I knew anything. I just said I didn’t want to answer any questions because once you get started with questions, it just keeps on going and going. So I said I would tell you what I knew in the morning. Which was nothing but his name.”
“Oh. That’s kind of sneaky.”
“That’s kind of what we do.”
“Fair point.”
“So you gonna tell me about Meyer?”
“Oh. Yeah. So Otto Meyer is a big player in overseas sex trafficking.”
“Sex trafficking?”
Bridge nodded. “Yeah.”
“Wait, if he’s a big player in sex trafficking, why was he here? Wouldn’t there be an alert out for him?”
“There is. That’s why he was using an alias while he was here. He’s apparently got like ten or twelve of them. The one he used at the Grand was a new one. That’s why nobody knew he was here.”
“So what was he doing? Getting new girls?”
“That’s the theory.”
Nicole finished her last bite of toast, thinking about what she’d just been told. She made a few faces, looking like she wasn’t understanding everything. “But why would anyone…”
“Remember the story that Alexis told me. He was pretending to be an indie filmmaker. He was targeting pretty models, preying on their desire to increase their name and brand.”
“So what, he gets these girls up to his room, then what, drugs them?”
“That’d be my guess.”
“But how would he
get these girls out of the hotel and out of the country? Assuming he’s getting them out of the country.”
“According to Eric, he’s pretty sure he’s taking them out of the country. He says Meyer’s a big player all over Europe. And he didn’t have to drug them in his room or anything. Or maybe when the girls get there, he gives them a drink, something that doesn’t take effect right away, then somehow he tells them they have to leave for some reason, and they pass out in the car. Then he takes them to some airport, smuggles them out.”
“Then he’d have to be taking them to some private airport,” Nicole said. “Because there’s no way he could get them out on a public airport. Not if they’re knocked out or drugged or if there’s something suspicious.”
“Most likely.”
“So is Eric sure about this?”
“Yeah. Well, he’s sure about Meyer. Whether that’s what’s happened to these girls, can’t say for sure yet without further proof. But when there’s smoke…”
“Why would Meyer bother? Why risk coming here and going through all that to get these girls to Europe if that’s where they’re going? Why not just get European girls?”
Bridge shrugged. “I don’t know. I can only guess he’s got clients that are willing to pay more for American girls. I mean, that’s a despicable business.” Bridge then got out his notebook and flipped to the page where he had written down a few notes.
“What’s that?”
“I’m not as familiar with sex trafficking as I am with other stuff, so I had to do a little research on it. Wasn’t usually one of our mantras in the CIA, and we’ve never had a sex trafficking case.”
“What’d you find out?”
Bridge read from his notebook. “There’s about five million people worldwide who are involved in forced sexual exploitation. It’s also a hundred and fifty-billion-dollar industry. It’s estimated that a million of those people are under the age of eighteen. And those might be conservative numbers. It’s especially prevalent in Africa, Asia, Europe, even the U.S.”
“As terrible as that is, if that’s what happened, at least that would mean Evelyn is still alive.”
“Finding her is gonna be the next big problem, though. I mean, there’s no telling where this guy might have dropped her off at. It could be anywhere in the world.”