Sin and Swoon

by Tara Brown

  No matter how hard I search the house and the rooms, I cannot find a single thing to link the old man to the thoughts I’m having, the suspicions I need confirmed.

  “What are the odds we will catch him?”

  “Who?”

  “Guthrie, of course.”

  I shake my head. “Not great. He’s very good at blending in and even better at fighting his way out.” I walk the halls of the gutted cabin. Not a single wall has gone without a piece of drywall being cut away or smashed in. Like a teenagers’ party has ruined an upper-class home.

  I shake my head, crouching down and looking up at the hill. It hits me then. “Ski lodge?” Esther had mentioned a backcountry ski lodge.

  “What?”

  I turn, knowing it must be found. “The lady next door said Old Dick came up here every weekend. He was a real outdoorsman, loved the backcountry, and she said he went to an old ski lodge up this way.”

  Stanley lifts an eyebrow. “Worth a try.”

  Henrico points. “We saw one, other side of this peak here. There’s a huge lodge in a bowl. I pointed it out to the pilot. It was stunning, but in the middle of nowhere.”

  We turn and run from the house for the chopper that’s sitting there. The guards wave, looking like they might end their lives any moment due to boredom.

  The pilot gets the helicopter going as we buckle in. My spidey senses start to go crazy—my stomach is roiling and my scalp tingling.

  “What makes you so sure this lodge has anything going on?” Henrico asks. “It looked pretty swanky. One of those fly-in-only places.”

  I outline the thoughts I have been having for a couple of days. “The tunnels and caves and cells are too perfect. Those would require years of effort and money and dedication. Rory has none of those things. No, I suspect Old Dick was into something quite similar to what Rory is into. I believe Dick built the cabin and the garage and the cells, and Rory somehow stumbled upon it. He’s been using the house for a couple of years, since the old man died.”

  “You think Guthrie killed the old man and took his house on purpose?”

  I nod slowly.

  “Wow, where the hell do ya meet your psycho soul mate? How do you even know some fucking crazy bastard has the same taste in evil as you?”

  I shake my head, feeling like the answer is there somehow.

  Stanley sighs, looking disturbed. “This whole thing has me wanting to move my kids to an isolated island. These people are everywhere.”

  He’s right. Part of the reason I never spent a large amount of time mourning the loss of my womb, once I realized I had lost it, was that I never believed having children in the world we live in would be easy. I would never let them out of my sight.

  We fly toward the mountain peak, hovering as we cross it, and Henrico gives directions to the pilot, reminding him of where it was. He lowers us, flying just above the treetops. My jaw drops when I see the lodge. It’s beautiful and honestly in the middle of nowhere.

  “How would they even get here?”

  “Snowmobiles, or the same way we are,” Stanley answers his partner flatly as we all stare at the distant lodge. “It looks more like a hotel than anything.”

  The pilot swings around the back and points. “Helipad,” he shouts.

  That makes my stomach turn. It is intended for people with money.

  “What did the man who owned the cabin do for a living?”

  I cover my ears and shout, “The guy’s name was Dick Russell, or Richard Russell. He owned a dry cleaning business when he was young. It had been his father’s. Somehow that dry cleaning business earned him enough money to invest in several start-ups. He was a cousin to one of the initial investors in Apple and a few other major companies. A man who clearly knew his investments. After he made his first fifty million, Dick retired, selling the dry cleaners and living off his investments, but learning the other side of being an investment broker. He ended up back in college at the age of fifty, got his master’s, and went into banking. Died a very wealthy man at the tender age of seventy-five in a car accident. Hit and run. He’d been getting very senile in his older years, so the police assumed that contributed. His kids had managed to convince him to sign over all his fortune to them, leaving out the youngest, who was adopted as a small child. The fortune, including a few houses, has been stuck in litigation for the two years since the man died.”

  Henrico winces. “Wow, so they’re all good people?”

  I scoff. “All of them, apart from perhaps the adopted daughter. I don’t know. I don’t want to make that assumption until I meet the kids.”

  Stanley shakes his head. “What a nightmare.”

  I point at the lodge. “I suspect it isn’t anything compared to this place.”

  Henrico gives me a dubious look. “You really expect this is going to be an open-and-shut case?”

  I nod. “Again I don’t want to make an assumption, but I will say I do expect this will be relatively enlightening.” I make a quick call. “Ping my phone and tell me who owns this.”

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “It’s Master Sergeant, if you want to get technical.” I hang up and climb out after Henrico. We walk along the crusty snow, following footprints that have been here since the last snowfall. A little snow has filled them in, but not much, and they are crusty and frozen so I would have to assume they are days or weeks old. I would bet they belong to Rory, but I don’t gamble much. However I would bet he’s been here plenty.

  We trek to the main door under a huge entryway made of beams and stones. It’s grandeur like Dash’s family would have, only maybe as a small winter cabin. I ring the bell, but nothing happens, no one comes.

  “It looks closed for the season. Look, no tracks from snowmobiles or skis.” Henrico points.

  “This place is pretty swanky. I think we might need a warrant.” Stanley knocks, listening with his ear against the door.

  I press “redial” on my phone. “Get me a warrant to search the place too. It’s cold; hurry up.”

  Antoine sighs. “It’s owned by—oh God. I’m going to need to clear this with the man upstairs. The owner is someone we all know well.” He puts me on hold.

  I swallow hard, confused. I expected it would be Dick who owned it and it would be some sort of playhouse for him and maybe a couple of his rich, pervy friends.

  Antoine comes back right away. “We have a warrant. It will expire in an hour. The owner will be notified by then, and his lawyers are better than ours, so expect it shut down.”

  “Shit!” I look at Henrico. “We have an hour before this place is crawling with private security.”

  Henrico shakes his head. “No, I don’t think we have an hour. Look at the security system on this place. Looks pretty feisty.” He points at the door and the globes of cameras mounted inside and out. There are fingerprint scanners mounted on the wall inside and out.

  I squint and read the tiny label. “Minotaur Security. Antoine, what do we know about them?”

  He sighs again. “That they set the house to explode if the triggers are messed with. You can’t pick the locks. It’s going to take a whole team of nerds to get you in there, and by then I suspect whatever you are looking for will be gone. Chances are you have triggered the system now just by landing and walking around.”

  “Fuck! What are you good for?”

  He chuckles. “Oh, Jane, you know I am far better than a team of nerds. Give me two minutes.” He hangs up on me.

  My face is cold, my hands are frozen, and I suspect we are being recorded. I glance back at Stanley. “This is why I don’t get cocky and assume shit.”

  He chuckles, rubbing his hands together. “Lucky you didn’t then, huh?” He winks. “How is there even this level of security on a hill like this one?” Stanley looks around.

  “Satellite system run on solar panels.”

  He gives me a dubious stare. “What if the weather turns to shit? Your system goes down?”

  I shake my head. “This
will have some storage for the power. Batteries that are charged for all the summer months, storing up for winter. They’ll go a long time without sunlight.”

  “Man, I need that. My kids are killing us with the power bills.” Henrico gives us both a grin. “Teenagers.” He looks young to have teenagers. But I suspect he’s just got a baby face. Guys like him—agents or military or secret service—make me comfortable. I can handle myself and conversation with people like this. We all think the same. And we all expect to have one another’s back. It’s comfortable silence because we are all listening.

  The door clicks several times, making us back up from it. Then it opens, and Antoine’s voice fills the air. “Jane, my dear, let me introduce you to the most advanced butler service in the world. Welcome to the Chateau Margolis.”

  “As in Arthur Margolis, Her Majesty’s Principal Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change?” I ask, completely baffled that a Brit would own the property.

  His voice fills the air around us. “Indeed. You have forty-nine minutes.”

  Stanley doesn’t look like he wants to go in, and Henrico gives me a subtle headshake. “If we lose our jobs—”

  “You guys wait here. I’ll be right back. If the security detail lands, distract them for me. I’ll meet you at the chopper in forty-eight minutes.” I turn and run into the beautiful chalet-style lodge. The main hall is a greeting area, lobby, and sitting room. There are large windows and expensive furnishings. The paintings on the wall are portraits of very important men. Some I recognize. Several of them the whole world would recognize.

  I hurry down the hall, clearing bedrooms and steam rooms and corridors with finery in every corner. The main floor seems like guest quarters mostly. I run up the stairs to the top floor, where guest quarters continue but the rooms are all themed, with closets full of costumes to suit the bedrooms. My insides twist as each room gets a bit weirder. What starts with the circus, ancient Greece, and the Elizabethan age becomes a dungeon with cuffs and chains, a brothel, a harem, and a bare room with no windows.

  My stomach sort of drops into my bowels as I turn and run for the stairs again.

  “You have thirty minutes,” Antoine says softly. I know he can see everything I can see.

  “You’re recording, right?” My voice cracks a bit.

  “Yes.” There is no snarky or cheeky tone, just the single word. We are both grossed out. The artwork on the third floor is more personal, more intense. Woman bent over a man’s knee. Woman tied up in ropes. Woman performing sexual acts on many men at once. The drawings are done as if they are funny or comical, but I can see they are not.

  At least I do not find them that way, and I suspect Antoine is less impressed.

  I hurry downstairs, waving at the FBI agents at the front door as I pass. “So far not much!” I shout.

  But downstairs is something different altogether.

  Antoine doesn’t seem to be with me now, and when I call to him he doesn’t answer. I turn on my phone, recording with that. The basement appears to be made up of cells and giant washrooms that have a bathhouse feel to them. Large hot tubs and spa-like tables. But I get the feeling it is an area the guests don’t visit. The finery is gone, the area sterile-looking, but that is all.

  I flick on lights as I walk past rooms, wincing at the cells with old cots and stacks of clothes. One stack of short plaid skirts and another stack of turtleneck sweaters—all black. One stack is geisha-style dresses and one stack of togas. One stack of clothes is made up of nurses’ uniforms, but they are the kind you don’t actually work in. Another stack is French maid outfits, and the last one I look at is girls’ soccer jerseys.

  There is a flavor of every brand of sin a man could think of. Or a woman, I suppose.

  I slink down the hall, away from the huge laundry room to a large wooden door. When I open it I see a small sauna inside. I close it and look at the size of the room, compared to the size it looks like it might be. I had expected a huge room, not a tiny little cupboard of a sauna.

  I walk along the wall tapping my knuckles, rapping until I hear the hollow sound I want. There is a window next to me, so I look out to see a bit of an overhang on the wall outside. Whatever is behind this wall goes out farther than the rest of the walls. I turn and walk around the wall, but there is no way in from the inside. And when I glance out the window again it seems the wall would be covered mostly by snow by the end of the season. So a door might be unlikely.

  I go back inside the sauna, but it appears sound. It doesn’t look like there is a secret door. I touch everything along the walls and benches, and nothing moves.

  I turn the camera onto myself. “Whatever is behind this wall is what we came here for.”

  I leave the sauna and run back to the stairs, listening for voices as I climb back toward the sunny main floor. My phone gets a text—RUN!

  I want in that room; I need in that room. Whatever happens here, that room has the answers, but it isn’t worth me dying. I slink up the stairs to see the guys having a pissing contest with men armed with machine guns. Instead of heading that way, I run for the back hallway, toward the ski and boot room.

  “Unlock the back door, Antoine!” I say loud enough for him to hear. He doesn’t respond. I get to the door, unsure if I should open it or if an alarm will go off. “The back door!”

  “Got it!” he says with labored breathing as the locks click. I open it and run out into the snow. A second helicopter has landed next to ours. I circle around the house to the front door, giving the guys a look when I get there. “Are you the ones who are supposed to let us in?” I shiver and hug myself, trying to give off a damsel-in-distress air about me.

  One of the guys narrows his gaze, lifting his machine gun toward me. “You are trespassing.”

  I shake my head, shivering some more. “No, we were told to wait here for someone to come and let us in. We have a warrant.”

  He grins. “Warrant’s been killed. Get the fuck out of here before I end all of you.”

  I lift my hands in the air, not revealing the gun on my hip. “We’ll be back with that warrant.”

  He scoffs. “Try it, bitch. We’ll be waiting.”

  I want to punch him in the throat, but I don’t. I let Henrico grab me by the arm and drag me to the chopper. When we get inside and the doors are closed, I sigh. “It’s a brothel of sorts. Something is in that room on the far side. We need to get in there before they try to clean it out, now that they know we are aware of this place.”

  I make another call as we take off. “I need to go back, and I need you with me this time, Antoine.”

  Antoine sighs. “Why do you have so little faith in me? You think I was just sightseeing like you were? Where do you think I was when you were calling me from the back door?”

  A grin spreads across my lips. “You fucking broke into that room?”

  “Goddamned right I did.”

  It’s my turn to sigh, just not the annoyed way he always does.

  20. Dinner and a movie

  I sit back with the footage and my Bluetooth in my ear so Antoine can talk me through it. “Okay, what am I seeing?”

  “The first part of what I was able to do is tour the room. See that hatch above? It’s the way in. One of those rooms you were in, it’s got a hatch in the floor. I bet under a rug. These douche bags always go for the hatch under the rug. Keeping it old school.”

  “Stop nattering, I have to drive to Tanner in an hour. Let’s focus.”

  “I miss Rory not being a creepy fuck. You’re not nearly as fun.”

  “I also am not nearly as disturbed. And let’s not forget it’s Rory who made all this work for you and me.”

  “Right. I actually forgot that for a second.” He moves the mouse on my laptop, having fully taken control of it, and clicks on a small box in the corner. “This is the bank; they have a video bank. I’ve been doing facial recognition on the footage for the three hours it took you to get to the computer.” I catch the tone he’s
giving off loud and clear.

  “The FBI has a lot of paperwork, and I had to check on Dash. The city needed me to fill out a bunch of forms explaining the massive gas leak one of us let off in their area. It isn’t all play on my side of this on the Internet.”

  He chuckles. “You have it easy, trust me. I’m the sorry bastard watching the porn from slave hell. I might never have regular sex again after this.”

  My skin crawls as he starts a video and narrates. “It’s seven hundred hours of footage. Games and sexcapades and sexathons. The girls are a bit of a story. So far I have found eleven missing girls in the lot. Three are Italian, two are Saudi, and one is Haitian. The other five are Canadian, believe it or not. All missing from the East Coast, suspected to have been moved by a gang out there that’s notorious for human trafficking across the border. I can’t even begin to tell you how fucking insane this is.”

  The footage clicks over to the rooms, the harem first. “So this is the horse game, I guess. It’s some kind of kinky group thing.” He sounds annoyed, but I think we are both a little scared.

  In the video, girls are on all fours, with long, straight ponytails and bridles on their heads, and that is it. They prance, still on all fours, swinging their ponytails as several men strut about the room. One man drops to his knees, pulling his erection from his pants and mounting a girl with dark hair. He grips the reins and pumps wildly but only for a moment. He then gets up and struts again, erection to the wind, until choosing another girl, this time a blonde. He grabs onto the reins and bucks. Her face is turned toward the camera; she seems to be enjoying it. The other men do the same. “What the fuck?” The words slip from my lips.

  “Right, that’s about how I felt. This is the gentle shit. It starts to shift here. This little chestnut goes on for an hour.”

  I don’t know what to add to that.

  He clicks the mouse, and the movie switches to the room with ancient Greece as the decor. A woman in a toga and a wreath made of ivy walks about in a figure eight. She plays a small instrument.