The Leah Ryan Thrillers Box Set: Three Chiller Thrillers (Repo Chick Blues #1, Finding Chloe #2, Dirty Business #3) (Leah Ryan Thrillers Box Set, Books 1-3)

by Tracy Sharp

  “You betcha. Any time.”

  “Awesome!” Lilly grinned. She carefully picked up her pizza slice and blew lightly on it before slowly taking a bite. “Mmmm.”

  “Good stuff?” I took a bite of my slice and had to concur. “Mmmm.”

  “You betcha!” She smiled around her pizza slice.

  “You betcha.” I snickered.

  When Lilly was settled on the couch and thoroughly engrossed in one of the movies I’d brought over, Mitch gestured for me to follow him out of the living room. He poured himself a glass of cola. “Want some of this? Or another beer?”

  “Soda’s fine. Thanks.” I sat down at the table.

  “Ice?”

  “No, thanks.”

  He handed me the glass and joined me at the table.

  “So what did you find out?” I ran my finger along the rim of the glass.

  “I’m getting to that. Patience isn’t one of your virtues, is it?”

  “No. I’m afraid not. So spill it.”

  “I did some digging and it turns out that Michael Nolan had made an enemy of one Darcy Shanahan.”

  “No shit. Let me guess, horning in on his strip club gig.”

  “He was extorting money from Shanahan to allow him to keep the place open. As you can probably guess, there are a lot of less than legal activities going on at Shanahan’s strip clubs.”

  “No!” I feigned surprise. “Say it ain’t so!”

  “’Fraid so.”

  “Isn’t that interesting?” I tapped the table with my fingernails. “I’d say that’s a good enough reason to force feed the man a nut laden chocolate bar. Wouldn’t you say?”

  “It’s definitely a motive.” He glanced into the living room to make sure that Lilly was still engrossed in her movie.

  I kept my voice low. “It’s looking like Shanahan’s had a hand in making Martin Nolan’s life as miserable as possible. Do you think he had anything to do with Chloe’s disappearance?”

  Mitch took a deep breath, blowing it out slowly as he looked at the table.

  “What? What haven’t you told me yet?”

  “Leah, I hate to tell you this. There’s something my contact in the police department just let me in on. Something they just found that suggests there was foul play involved in Chloe’s disappearance.”

  I stared at him, my stomach tightening. “What is it?”

  “Pieces of Chloe’s clothing were found early this morning. A blouse with several buttons missing, as if it were torn open, and a shredded pair of panties.”

  I gaped at him. “No.”

  “There’s more. There was blood on the blouse.”

  “Where?” My voice was shaking, barely a whisper. “Where were they found?”

  “Behind a dumpster in the ally behind Shanahan’s.”

  “Son of a bitch. The cops are questioning him, I hope.”

  “That’s the word.”

  “Do they know for sure if it’s Chloe’s blood on the blouse?”

  “I don’t know yet. I’ll let you know when I find out more.”

  My heart had sunk so deep that I could barely breathe. My energy seemed to have been completely sapped from me.

  “Hey.” Mitch placed a hand on my arm. “Are you okay?”

  I shook my head slowly, feeling numb. “I don’t know. I hoped she was okay, that she was somewhere we could find her and she’d be all right. Maybe shaken and worse for the wear, but alive and kicking. Christ. What am I going to tell Martin?”

  “Leah, you had to have known this was a real possibility. Probability even. These sorts of cases rarely have a happy ending.”

  “Yeah, I know. Stripper goes missing, nobody gives a shit until it’s too late, if at all, and then she’s found dead or not found at all.” I realized that I’d raised my voice and stopped talking, trying to calm myself down. I continued, more quietly. “It pisses me off, Mitch. Even the daughter of a judge doesn’t get the attention she deserves because she became one of the undesirables. Who will speak for her now?”

  He moved his hand over the top of mine and squeezed. “You will.”

  * * *

  I was deep in thought as I drove to Martin’s house. Usually I like to crank the radio when I’m in the Jeep, but tonight I needed silence to allow my mind to process what Mitch had told me. I was also trying to find a way to tell Martin what I’d just found out about Chloe’s bloody clothes. There wasn’t much time. The police would be calling him any minute, if they hadn’t already. Then, if they had already called him, he’d be calling my cell phone.

  I parked the Jeep in Martin’s driveway and headed up to the house. The door opened before I could knock. Martin stood before me, his eyes red and wet.

  His voice was thick with tears when he spoke. “Tell me they’re wrong.”

  “I don’t know. They’ll have to test the blood against her DNA. They’ve got something of hers to work with, right?”

  “Yes. They were just here. They collected hair from her hairbrush.” He stepped outside and sat on the same chair he’d been sitting on when I met him. “It’s not looking good, is it?”

  “They showed you the clothes?”

  He nodded his head. “They were hers. She wore that blouse often. It was one of her favorites.”

  “Martin, I know this is a bad time, but I have to ask.”

  He looked at me, a question in his swollen eyes.

  “Do you think there’s a chance that Chloe’s disappearance had anything to do with any shady dealings Michael might’ve been involved in?”

  “No. Michael’s dead. Why would they come after Chloe to punish him now?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. Stranger things have happened. Maybe she met some of those people through him?”

  “No. They weren’t close. Never had been.”

  “Sibling rivalry?”

  He shook his head. “No. They were just two completely different people. They were like strangers to each other.”

  I was starting to think the entire Nolan family had been like strangers to each other.

  “It’s Shanahan. Her clothes were found behind his strip club. Who else could it be?”

  “Why would he leave her bloody clothes behind his own strip club? I don’t think any smart murderer would do that.”

  His eyes became a little wild looking. “I don’t know. I do know he wants to get back at me for putting his brother away. He blames me for his brother’s death in prison.”

  “Has he ever said that to you?”

  “No. I just know.” He scrubbed his hands over his face and took a deep breath. “Looks like they’re looking for a body now.”

  “There’s evidence of foul play. They don’t know anything conclusively.”

  “It’s just a matter of time before she turns up dead now.” His voice cracked as he spoke.

  I put my hand on his arm and gently squeezed. “I’m sorry, Martin.”

  He cleared his throat and stood up, squaring his shoulders. “Thanks for trying to find my daughter, Leah. I suppose there’s no point in continuing your search now.”

  “There is a point. I want to know what happened to her. She’s still somewhere out there and she still needs to be found.”

  “The police are on it now.”

  I stared at him. “Are you firing me?”

  This time it was his turn to place a hand on my arm. “Take care of yourself.”

  With that, the matter was closed. He turned and went back into his house and closed the door.

  Of course, I couldn’t let it go. I needed to find out what had happened to Chloe. Martin might not have been paying me anymore, but so far the case hadn’t cost me anything. And luckily, I’m not a big spender. So I’d barely gone through any of the money he’d already given me. If I was careful, which I really needed to be, given my new, unemployed circumstances, the remainder of the money he’d given me would last me awhile.

  Wanting to chase away dark thoughts I turned the radio on low for the ride h
ome and was lost in thought when I noticed a set of headlights not far behind me. It was a truck of some sort, but it was too dark to tell what kind or what color it was. It was light. Maybe white or tan. I forgot about it as I drifted off into thought again.

  I decided to take surface roads home instead of the freeway. There were barely any cars on Route 9 that time of night, and I didn’t feel like dealing with anyone at that moment, especially other drivers. I glanced in my rearview mirror and noticed the vehicle was still behind me. So I made a left turn into a side street to see if the truck would follow me. It did, rather closely. I made another left turn, which dropped me onto a narrow, dark road that I knew would bring me back to Route 9 again. The truck followed. Shit. I was definitely being followed by somebody in a big-ass pick-up truck. Not good.

  There was a police station just a short ways from where I was. I put the pedal to the metal and headed back out onto Route 9. The truck stayed right on my tail, so close that if I stopped it would rear-end me. The headlights were so bright they were blinding me. I tilted my rearview mirror up to keep the glare of the truck’s lights from shining in my eyes. It worked. I hate being scared. I turned up the radio and sang along to the song playing. It was a fun, funky tune I recognized, and was surprised to find that it had a calming effect on me.

  Often when I get into a dangerous situation I get an overwhelming urge to giggle, and that is what happened to me right then. I began smiling, and then giggling. The truck stayed right on me, and the more nervous I became, the funnier the situation seemed to me. So I was bulleting down the road, wondering where the hell the cops were when for once in my life I wanted them to see me. I was speeding and giggling like a lunatic by the time I reached the police station.

  I parked right up against the front wall of the building and sat there, watching the truck in my side mirror. It sat right behind me. I wasn’t about to get out of my Jeep. So I waited. I sensed the driver’s presence watching me. I could’ve started laying on the horn but curiosity was having its way with me, and I wanted to see what he’d do. So I kept sitting there, watching.

  After a good five minutes the truck shot backward, then turned and burned rubber down the road. I kept sitting there, watching the empty road, wondering if he was sitting in a side street about a hundred yards away, waiting for me to come out. I decided that to try driving home now was probably a really stupid thing to do. The guy probably knew where I lived already, but if on the off chance he didn’t, I didn’t want to be a good sport and lead him there for future reference.

  I found my cell phone in my jacket pocket and dialed Jack.

  Jack’s car pulled in about fifteen minutes later. It was longer than I’d expected him to be.

  I jumped out of my Jeep and almost launched myself at him, I was so happy to see him at that moment. “Where’ve you been?”

  “I cased the side streets along Harris Road to see if he was still hanging around. I didn’t see any pick-up trucks sitting along the side of the road anywhere. That doesn’t mean he didn’t find a spot in some bushes or something.”

  The moon was bright and I could see his face clearly. “You okay?”

  “Oh, yeah. You know me. I’m fine. I just didn’t want to take a chance that he’d try to run me down or grab me when I got out of the Jeep, and I sure as hell didn’t want to lead him to my house. Even though he probably already knows where I live.”

  Jack looked off toward the road, his eyes narrowed and his jaw set. He was bothered.

  “You don’t think he was just trying to scare me.”

  “Hard to say. If he really wanted to get you, he’d have blitzed you when you least expected it. I don’t think he’d have let you know he was there beforehand. You never know with some guys.”

  “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “Yeah.” He stood watching the road a moment longer, then headed back toward his truck. “I’ll follow you out.”

  * * *

  Later that night, with Jack lying on my couch, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. Now that the immediate danger was gone, I was actually scared. I lay there shivering, trying to slow my heart and calm my mind. So much had happened in the last couple of days, it was hard to process it all. I felt like I was on a roller coaster ride. Or in a carnival funhouse. Things weren’t as they seemed. Everything appeared distorted to me. I couldn’t understand most of what I’d learned. I knew that somehow Martin’s family had a hand in Chloe’s death. Not intentionally, but it was the end result for her. I felt a white-hot irrational rage toward every one of them.

  I wondered who the mystery driver of the truck was and who had sent him. Was this another warning? Or had I used up my warnings and this was the beginning of the real thing?

  I was having trouble stringing my thoughts together. As I drifted somewhere between sleep and dreaming, an image came to me which had me sitting up, sweating and trying to slow my racing heart. I saw the headlights of the mystery truck emerging through a thick fog, and as it came closer I could make out the outline of the driver. It was Chloe. Her thick, luxurious red hair looked wild and tangled. Her eyes just black holes in a dead white face made bluish by the light of the moon.

  Chapter Eight

  “I did some more digging.” Mitch gripped the coffee mug in both hands.

  We were both glancing at each other in-between waiting for the coffee pot to fill up. He was kind of kneading the mug between his fingers. He had something good to tell me. I could tell.

  “So give it up.” I needed to move, so I poured cream into my mug.

  “It seems that Michael Nolan was into some pretty seedy shit. My source at the police station told me that a cop stopped him in Boy’s Town for solicitation of a minor for the purposes of prostitution. A young male of fifteen years old.”

  “Oh, nice.”

  “Turns out that Martin has some very deep pockets.”

  “That is despicable. Michael got away with it because his father is a judge?”

  “Looks that way. That’s not all. This source said that this very same kid was found murdered a few months ago.”

  “No way.”

  “Guess who their main suspect was?”

  “Holy shit.”

  He nodded sagely. “They promised Martin they would keep it from the media as long as they could, but if it turned out that Michael was the killer, all bets were off.”

  “I guess even a corrupt police department has to draw the line somewhere. So what happened? He wasn’t the killer?”

  “There was a lot of circumstantial evidence pointing to Michael. Nothing concrete. They couldn’t nail him. And then he died, so they let it go.”

  I nodded slowly. “His career was over if the media got wind of his involvement with underage male prostitutes. So he killed himself.”

  “That’s a pretty good theory.”

  “Jesus. So it looks like he did kill himself after all.”

  “Maybe. Could also be that Shanahan had him taken care of because he tried extorting money from him. Shanahan is in Michael Nolan’s section of town. If he knew about some of the illegal stuff going on there, he could threaten to shut him down. I’m sure he’d done it to every strip club in that area.”

  “Some of which Shanahan owns. He owns more than one, right?”

  “Yeah. He owns several.”

  I stared at him, nibbling a thumbnail.

  “What? I can see the wheels turning in that mind of yours.”

  “Can you get your hands on the police records? Photos? Anything?”

  He grinned. “I can get my hands on just about anything.”

  It didn’t take him long, either. Later that night we sat at my kitchen table looking at crime scene photos. My stomach clenched as I looked at the face of a young boy. What could have driven him to the streets to sell his body? Were things that bad at home that he preferred life in Boy’s Town? It had to have been really bad.

  “You okay?”

  I paused. “No. Not really. I need to
see these.” It occurred to me that Mitch had a lot of power in this town. “You have some friends in high places.”

  “Believe it or not, most cops do want to see justice served. They just don’t want to rock the boat. All for one and one for all, right?”

  “I guess. My experiences with them so far haven’t left me a whole lot of faith in them.”

  He looked at me, eyebrows raised.

  “It’s a long story. Maybe I’ll tell you about it some other time.”

  “I’d like to hear it.”

  “Well, let’s just say I wasn’t always the picture of girlish virtue that you see before you today.”

  “It’s okay, Leah. Everybody has a past.”

  “Yeah.” Just not like mine. “I’m just glad you got these.” The tenderness in his eyes made me feel self-conscious, and I felt my entire body flush. I had to say something. “Thanks again for helping me, Mitch. I owe you one.”

  He grinned. “Oh, you owe me a big one. Don’t think I won’t come collecting, either.”

  I was suddenly aware of how close he sat to me. Nervously I moved my leg and my foot brushed against his shin. “Oh, sorry.”

  “It’s okay. I don’t mind playing footsies with you.”

  I grimaced. “Not while we’re looking at crime scene photos.”

  He winced. “Yeah, you’re right. Sorry.”

  We turned our attention back to the pictures. The boy’s name was Tyler Pine. He’d been strangled. The bruising around his neck appeared almost black in the photos. There was one photo of him in life. In it he stood smiling shyly at the camera, his blond hair falling into his eyes. The clothes he wore looked new. Not the usual, worn out look of the clothes most street prostitutes wore.”

  I tapped the photo. “Those are expensive jeans he’s wearing. About a hundred bucks a pop. All the rage among kids his age right now.” The date stamp was May twentieth. One week before he was murdered. I stared at the photo.

  “That picture was found in his back pocket. They enlarged it.”

  “I wonder who took the picture.”

  “Whoever killed him?”