by Tara Brown
A fat old man in a cloth diaper sits as two girls in nothing but long necklaces and crowns fan him with huge palm leaves. Another girl feeds him grapes by hanging them over his face. Nothing sexual appears to be happening until the camera scans about the room, revealing two men and one woman. One is pumping into her face, then ejaculating on her face, as the other man thrusts wildly behind her. These men appear to be slaves like the woman. They finish with her and go and bow before the fat guy.
“So, I’m going to go because this sort of feels like we are watching porn together, and I don’t know how I feel about that.”
I have forgotten he is there on the phone. “Right. Okay, so I’ll call from Tanner.” I hang up the phone and sit there watching as the big fat guy gets up, pulling a long dick from his diaper, and gets behind one of the men. I close the laptop, hating where that was going and how I feel about it all.
“Human trafficking, not porn. Human trafficking, not porn,” I mutter, cringing. I remind myself of the cages and open the laptop again. The footage starts back up immediately. I click, and it switches to another room where the brothel is. It’s got several types of beds and lounging chairs and drapes hung all around. The girls look like hookers from the Old West, with garters and feathers in their hair. They wear lingerie and hold platters of food and drink. The men wear cowboy hats and chaps. One man smiles, laughing and stroking the head of the woman sucking him off.
I pause and zoom in on his face. My phone rings instantly.
“Firstly, there’s a donkey in the circus room—do not watch that video. Secondly, we have a problem with the facial recognition.”
I wonder if he knows the person I am looking at.
“I have six senators, three princes, five bishops, a cardinal, twelve actors, several Supreme Court judges, and the list is just growing. This is insane. We can’t even take this to anyone.”
“Is the vice president on here?”
“No. Not that I’ve seen.” Antoine sounds weird.
“What?” I ask, scared of the answer.
He sighs. “The president is.”
“No wonder the security is so high.” I shake my head. “There’s no way the vice president sent us there with FBI agents and knew about the footage or about the place.”
“Unless he wants us to think that.”
I nod. “Which is why I asked if his name was on there.”
“I feel like we have bitten off more than we can chew.”
A chuckle escapes my lips, but it’s almost a sob. “I know we have. You know what I’m staring at right now?”
“Yeah.”
I narrow my gaze, running my hands through my hair. “You know who that is?”
“I do. Took me a minute to realize who it wasn’t, though. That scared me.”
“Then you know what that means?”
“I do.”
I purse my lips. “I hate this fucking case.” I hang up the phone and sigh, not even sure what to do but thankfully unable to do anything because I have to go to Tanner and find the kid of the deceased and creepy Dick Russell.
My phone rings. “Hey!” I answer Dash and close the screen on my laptop.
“When are we heading back to DC?”
I look down at the closed computer screen. “We are not heading back. I am fully assigned to this case until it is solved. I’m working with the FBI, and I won’t be done till it’s done.”
“Ang and I are headed back now, then. She’s a mess. And even worse, we have been reassigned. They’ve closed us down. This has hit international shit lists.”
I wince. “Of course she is, and of course it has.” I haven’t been there for her at all, and the week doesn’t look like it’s going to improve much.
“No, you don’t understand. The bed in the damned apartment she has been staying in is the black metal bed. She never even noticed it before. But the pieces are falling into place. They are all coming together for her. He painted it, but the paint wasn’t made for metal beds and has started chipping away. Forensics came, and of course the handprints are still there. Rory and Ashley’s handprints are on the bed, like a filthy souvenir. He never wiped it down. The mattress is the same one. He let the FBI use it as a safe-house bed, knowing full well girls had been raped and tormented on it.”
My stomach clenches. “Oh God.”
“Yeah, so I’m taking her home. She’s being reassigned to a section with lab work only, no patients to supervise. She’ll get to spend some quiet time on her own. I am being sent to DC, reassigned also.”
“Okay, well, wow. I’m headed to Tanner to speak to the daughter, the adopted one. Then I will be doing some analysis of my own.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “I don’t know how you do this, how you’ve spent your life doing this. Seeing this type of hell every day. Going to war and being an agent, I just—I have so much more respect for you, Jane Spears. More than ever.” He sounds affected or emotional. “I love you so much.” It’s not that every other I love you hasn’t been sincere, but this one is the most sincere.
I glance down at the huge rock on my hand and smile. He’s my forever. “I love you too.” I hang up and sigh, completely unsure of what to do about who I saw on the computer and how I will tell him about it. I turn the movie back on and watch the scene from the circus, not because I want to but because I need to. I need to be as disgusted as I can for what I have to do.
The trip to Tanner takes an hour and a half longer than I expect because of traffic. It’s bananas. Henrico comes, but Stanley stays behind to keep an eye on the son and daughter of Old Dick.
We finally pull into the driveway of a small home and sit there for a second. “So, your dad has a billion dollars, and yet you live in a middle-of-the-road home?” Henrico gives me a look.
“Yeah, weird.” We get out and walk up to the house. I knock loudly. A small woman with fuzzy blonde hair and a wide smile answers the door. “Hi, can I help you?”
“We are looking for Amanda Russell.” I pull my badge so she doesn’t slam the door in my face.
She nods but her eyes don’t leave the badge. “I’m Amanda.” She opens the door wide for us. There are kids’ toys on the floor, and the TV is blaring. It’s like a normal home for any middle-to-lower class family. “Come on in; ignore the mess. The kids are home for Christmas break now.”
I had forgotten about Christmas. It dawns on me that I have to go to the South for Christmas with the in-laws.
Henrico gives me a look. “I’ll wait out here. Keep an eye out.”
I nod and close the door. “My name is Jane. I’m with the FBI.” I hold up my badge for her. It’s never had as much use as it has on this file.
“How can I help you?” Her face is no longer friendly and sweet.
“We found your father’s cabin and the cells below.”
Her eyes dart to the right. She winces and nods. “You’d better sit down.” She sits too, looking at the kids I didn’t even see on the couch against the wall. “You guys go clean up that basement, now.” Her tone is nervous, but I think they take it as angry. They scramble without making much fuss. When they’re gone she turns back to me. “Now you listen here, I’ve worked long and hard to forget about all that. I don’t need some media bullshit and scandal involving me or my kids.”
“That won’t ever happen.”
“Good. Because that man is not my family.”
My stomach drops. “So you were never one of the kids to him?”
She shakes her head. “I was never anything but a burden to her, something he wanted and she didn’t. They didn’t need to adopt; they had two kids. But he wanted—” She pauses. “Like I said, I have moved on. But I want my share. I have earned it.” Her voice shakes a little.
“Yes, you have.” I look down, hating that I have to do this. “Did the other kids know, your brother and sister?”
She nods once.
“And the wife, your adoptive mother?”
She nods again, less sharply. “It
started when I was fifteen. I never understood why he wanted to adopt me until my fifteenth birthday. He took me to the cabin for my birthday. We skied and snowmobiled, and for the first time he was nice to me.” Her eyes glaze over, and I am grateful she spares me the details.
“When did you leave the family? Your family?”
She sighs. “When I was seventeen, I ran away. I lived on the streets for a while, did some drugs. Then I met a priest who does an outreach program in Bellevue. He helped me. Got me off the streets, got me a job and some counseling. I met my husband and never looked back until that lawyer came. Roland Guthrie. He had a partner who wanted to take my case, wanted to help me get the money I was owed.”
“Lawyer?”
She nods. “Yeah, he and his partner, Sven Kelpie, have made the case for me. They said I should have my third; I was legally adopted, and I was owed. Said it would take some time. All they wanted was the cabin. No commission, just the cabin and the land.” She laughs bitterly, and I nearly wrinkle my nose.
“They must have known about the cabin.”
She gives me a look, and I feel about one inch tall. “Everyone who is anyone knew about that lodge. You think you can have a fun lodge like that and not share it with all the successful important people in the world? Of course they knew, but if they wanted that nasty pit as their payment, I was fine with it. I just needed to win my share first. I earned it.”
“Wait, so the will was never changed to take you out, you just were never in it?”
She nods again. “That’s right. He could have sex with me and torment me, but he couldn’t let me have my share of the money. I slept in a cell for a month once. Growing up, my bedroom was in the basement next to the boiler room.”
“Of the house in Queen Anne?”
She shakes her head. “No, our main house was out on the water. It’s not part of the will because it was gifted directly to my brother and sister before he died. The bullshit story about me being cut out was done by the media, leaked, but I don’t know how. I can’t imagine anyone who would benefit from such a move. All I know is there was no deathbed change to the will.”
“What’s the address on that house?”
She shakes her head but writes it down. “You are not going to like that house at all.”
“Is it as bad as the cabin?”
She shakes her head. “Worse. The cabin was just to train the girls to work the lodge. They would suffer there, learning how to be women of the night, as he liked to call them. Then he would take them to the lodge, and they actually would be grateful. No more cells and starving and shitting in those nasty toilets. No more bugs and sickness. No more Old Dick teaching them how to be a woman.”
I join her in a grimace. “Gross.”
“Life at the lodge was so much better. Senators and princes and presidents and businessmen. Life there was easy, compared.”
“Who ran it?”
“Dick. He was in charge of running it, delegated even. He had been given the job as part of a family heritage thing. He was like the head pimp, but he hired a woman to do the job of running the girls. It’s all very sick.”
“Have you ever been there?”
Her eyes tell me the answer before her lips. “Got to spend all of twelfth grade there. Took that month in a cell at the cabin to convince me the lodge was the better choice and that a few of the girls there could teach me far better than my schoolteacher. It was the reason I ran away at seventeen.”
“Why’s it closed down now?”
“I have no idea. I have remained detached from all of that.” She shrugs. “I imagine since Dick died, it was harder to keep it running; with no firm hand. Or maybe they are waiting for all the snow up there to be good for skiing and not crusty. It gets crusty this time of year. It’s a winter lodge, after all. Or maybe they just are taking a break so they don’t get caught. There is no proof of any of it happening unless you go there. I know I couldn’t prove any of it happened.” She sounds detached from it as she speaks of it. It is exactly the way I would sound if it were me.
I don’t have words for any of it. “This is all so much worse than I imagined. I am sorry for coming here and reminding you of everything.”
“Don’t be. I have lived my entire life with it and never speaking of it.” She shakes her head. “I’m just glad you know about it. I’m guessing that means it will all be exposed for what it is. Modern-day slavery is just as real as the old kind. People just think ’cause a girl is smiling, she wants to play along. But there are things you can do to make yourself smile through anything.” She slides the address over to me with a shaky hand, and a single tear splats onto her pale wooden table next to an old plate of noodles. She wipes her face and smiles. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to get emotional.”
“Don’t be sorry.” I lick my lips nervously, processing what to say. What do you say to someone who has had this as a life? “I will make them pay.” It’s all I have.
A smile crosses her lips. “Thank you.” The horror she’s witnessed still lives in her eyes. I can see it.
I get up and leave, taking the address with me. When we get back in the car Henrico gives me a look. “Why do I get the feeling this is about to go very badly for everyone but us?”
I nod and drive as fast as I can back to the city. “If you want to keep your job, you have a choice: look the other way and lie in the end, or get out of the car when we get back.”
He laughs. “My mother always said I was the worst liar there was. I don’t mind looking the other way, though.”
“Okay.”
21. House of horrors
Henrico offers me another gun as he stashes his third one in his jacket.
Stanley passes me the shoe polish so we can all rub it over our faces and necks. I flex my hands when I pull on my gloves, giving the guys a signal, one I haven’t used in a long time. It means it’s time to move and no more speaking unless necessary.
We hurry away from the vehicle and run along the waterfront, jumping over a fence and down a sidewalk to the dock of the property next door. It’s an estate, most likely owned by someone at Amazon, the nouveau riche in the Seattle area.
The three of us hurry along the grass and lapping waves as we get to the next yard, the one she gave the address for. The fence near the water is actually a massive rock wall. We jump it and hurry up the side yard, hugging the bricks and rocks but spread out. I get to a door in the basement and drop to my knees, picking the lock quickly.
I send the text then. Here!
Me too! He responds right away. Done!
Listening for any occupants, I turn the lock and slink inside. The light on the security system doesn’t change at all. Once all three of us are inside, Stanley stays at the door to guard the entrance as Henrico and I slither through the house, making no noise.
The basement mostly is a series of rooms. I purposely find the boiler room so I can see Amanda’s bedroom next to it. There are three locks on the door, all on the outside. I turn the locks slowly, opening it to find a cot and decorations fitting a girl’s room.
They haven’t even taken down the pictures she drew. I signal for Henrico to stay as I go inside. Her pictures break my heart. I have seen them before on the walls of kids who came from bad living situations. She draws sunshine and a garden and a sky, making it look like she had windows in the room. Each view is one from a window.
I turn, grimacing, when I see a bell above the door tied to a string. These people are monsters. She was a modern-day Cinderella. And then something much worse.
I slip from the room, closing the door and locking it again so we can clear the rest of the floor. There’s a laundry room, a games room, and a utilities room. It isn’t as exciting downstairs as it is up. We creep along the stairs, each watching wherever the other person’s eyes aren’t, covering all areas.
Henrico is the perfect partner, but I still don’t trust him the way I should. We hardly know one another, and my previous partner whom I trusted with my l
ife didn’t turn out to be the man I thought him to be.
At the top of the stairs, we enter an enormous living room and kitchen–great room combination. It’s so large there are three sitting areas and two fireplaces. The kitchen gleams with marble and excess. Henrico takes the right and I the left, ending up in a library off the dining room and circling back. He shakes his head and points at the round set of stairs in the middle of the massive entryway. I unlock the front door, just in case, and creep up the stairs after him. We have not made a sound nor heard one until we get to the top of the stairs. Then I pause, giving him an odd look. He wrinkles his nose, and I imagine we assume the same thing. I have to admit it never crossed my mind that this is what we would find.
But we do.
We clear all the rooms, including one with a wall of surveillance. I attach the remote access to the computers and cameras. Immediately Antoine goes to work.
There are several bedrooms on the top floor—five, to be exact. Each has its own en suite, again with marble and slate as the varying design features.
The lights are all chandeliers, and the walls all feature wainscoting and beautiful wallpaper. The whole house looks like it could be in a magazine.
Until we enter the last room, the one with the heavy breathing and grunting.
Then it pretty much goes to shit.
Henrico grimaces, turning his face away for a moment.
I continue in, feeling every part of me tingle with disgust and revulsion.
A man in his midforties holds a camcorder in his hands. He’s filming as another man and woman have sex, but not a normal kind of sex. The man is older, maybe in his late sixties. He’s tied down to the bed, spread-eagle. A soft and flabby woman in her forties, not a small woman and not a huge woman, lowers herself onto him, literally bouncing on his cock and balls. She is squatting over him, dropping her vagina in an awkward thrust. Somehow in the commotion and the large size of the room they do not notice us standing there with our mouths agape.
The woman has on a lacy bra, which about covers the clothing for all three of them. The man holding the camera is erect, completely, and naked, with his own penis going in and out of something very odd. I don’t know what it is, but he’s jerking off with it. I have a terrible feeling it’s a pocket pussy, something I saw once in a sex-toy collection.