“I don’t give a damn about the organization or Pierce,” Chase said, too loud. “It’s the path of destruction you left behind since you disappeared I can’t forgive.”
Jack turned back to the monitor. “Neither can I.”
Chase saw sincere regret on Jack’s face, but she was too agitated to care.
“They’re done.” Jack looked tired as she fished in her jacket for her cigarettes. “Our guy should be leaving soon.”
Chase checked the time and moved closer to the monitor. She put her headphones back in place and turned on the bedroom monitor. Heather was wearing a short black robe and her client was almost dressed. She was facing away from both the mystery man and her client.
“You were amazing,” the john said as he buttoned his shirt.
“Thank you.” Heather’s voice was artificially upbeat, her face devoid of any emotion as she stared vacantly into space. It was as though she had shut down completely.
“You may leave now,” Dario said.
Heather turned to escort her client to the door. He tried to kiss her, but Heather turned her face away.
“Can I see you again?” the john asked.
Dario answered for her. “No, you may not.”
“Too bad.” The man winked at Heather. “If you change your mind, I’ll be at the hotel until next week.”
Heather opened the door for him without saying a word. He left and she went to sit at the foot of the bed. “Was everything to your satisfaction?” she asked Dario.
“You were splendid.”
“I’m pleased you think so.”
Chase heard the man sigh. “I look forward to your company, Amber. So much, as a matter of fact, I sometimes wish I could take you with me.”
“Take me where?” Heather asked.
“On my draining business trips. I’ve gotten tired of traveling and negotiating with self-proclaimed important individuals. Your presence would surely make these affairs considerably more pleasant. You’re very special, Amber.”
“Thank you,” Heather replied, the same empty smile on her face.
“I take it you were informed of my new schedule.”
“I was.”
“I shall see you again the day after tomorrow,” he said.
“To talk.”
“Correct.”
“Why?”
“I find your companionship pleasing.”
“Thank you.”
Chase cringed when she thanked him again.
The rear-exit camera showed one customer leaving. “We can scratch him off our list,” Jack said.
“See you then, sweet Amber,” Dario said.
Chase and Jack both fixed on the camera view of the watcher’s room and groaned simultaneously when he didn’t turn on the light on his way out.
“We’ll catch him at the door,” Jack said.
Chase looked back at the view showing Heather. She remained on the edge of the bed, her expression unreadable.
Moments later, a man in his early forties departed the back entrance.
“That’s right, look at the camera,” Jack said as he glanced up, almost straight into the lens. “I think we have our man. Let’s see what Reno gets on him.”
Chase turned her attention back to Heather, who still hadn’t moved. After another couple of minutes, Heather abruptly rose and went into the watcher’s room and turned on the lights. The armchair was vacant, and a stack of bills had been left on the small table set before the two-way mirror. To Chase’s surprise, Heather didn’t immediately take the money. Instead, she sat in the armchair and stared at the cash, then looked beyond it through the mirror at the bedroom. Even from a distance, it was clear her hands were shaking. She placed them between her thighs.
“I’m going out for a stretch,” Jack said.
Chase didn’t reply or take her attention off Heather, but she heard the door shut behind Jack. Heather brought her knees up to her chest and laid her head there. Her shoulders began to shake; she was crying, but holding it in. The audio feed was silent. Chase felt helpless and miserable. She placed her hand on the monitor and caressed Heather’s hair. “I’m so sorry.” Her voice broke as she whispered the words.
Chapter Seventeen
Southwestern Colorado
Montgomery Pierce closed the blinds in his office and joined Joanne and David at the conference table, where Reno was passing out his latest set of briefing papers on Operation Phoenix.
“You look like hell, Reno,” Joanne Grant said.
Reno took a long, noisy sip of his economy-sized soda and set it to one side. “Sleep is overrated. I’m fine.” He pointed to the top paper on the neat stack before each of them. “First off, I finally cracked one of the large encrypted files that Rózsa had on his hard drive. Turns out he was into more than just brewing viruses at his lab. He was selling organs, probably from some of his human guinea pigs.”
“He was in the organ trade? You’re sure?” David Arthur asked.
“In a big way. Those furniture manifests we found were codes for organs, not viruses. That dummy firm in New York I’ve been trying to trace? Dragon Imports Unlimited? He’s been dealing with them regularly for at least a couple of years. It’s likely that whoever sent him the payment our ops are tracking, works for that company. Could be where he got the money to build his lab and fund his research.”
“Have you had any luck tracing the ownership of this Dragon company?” Monty asked.
“Not yet, unfortunately. Whoever’s behind it has gone to great lengths to shield their identity. It’s like peeling an onion. Dragon is owned by a shell real-estate company in Turkmenistan, which is a front for a fake delivery service registered in Nauru—an island in Micronesia with a history of illegal money laundering. I haven’t gotten further than that because a lot of their databases aren’t online.”
“I’ll see if I can call in some favors to get you a contact on Nauru,” Monty said. “The Russian mob funneled billions through there in the ’90s, and the island was selling thousands of passports around the time of 9/11, so I’m sure the feds have a good deal of intelligence from there.”
“That’d be a big help,” Reno said. “On another front, I’ve been trying to ID this guy Dario that Chase and Jack think may be responsible for the transfer to Rózsa.”
Monty corrected him. “Phantom.”
“She hates it when I call her that.”
“Stick to protocol, Reno.”
“Sure, Boss. Anyway, since Dario’s kind of an unusual name, I ran it through every database I could think of, concentrating, of course, on the New York metropolitan area. Came up with a couple of low-level drug dealers, a wife-abuser, a gang member…” He set a small portable tape recorder on the desk. “And this 911 call to emergency services in Teaneck, placed just a couple of weeks before the money transfer.” He hit the Play button.
“911. What is the nature of your emergency?”
“Some guys have me locked up in a room and I think they’re gonna kill me,” a woman’s panicky voice replied. The words were slurred, as though she’d been drinking.
“What is your name and location, ma’am?”
“I don’t know where the fuck I am. A big white house. Near Teaneck, I think. There are trees and a swing set outside, and one of those blue kiddie pools, upside down. And I can see a cell tower.”
“What is your name, ma’am?” the dispatcher repeated.
“Gigi. Uh, no…uh, Francine Shelhorn. Look, that’s not important, just get the cops out here. These guys are gonna do something to me, I know it. I think they’re gonna kill me and deliver me to some guy named Dario.”
“What makes you think your life is in danger, ma’am? Have they hurt you or threatened you?”
“I just know, okay? They’ve fucking locked me up, I said!”
“Have you been drinking, ma’am?”
At that point, the line disconnected and a dial tone sounded.
Reno switched off the recorder. “The cops did follo
w up, but it took a couple of hours to find the house because of the sketchy info. The house she referred to was vacant and up for sale. Since the owner checked out—he was out of the state at the time and readily allowed them to go in and look around—the whole thing was dropped. I suspect it also wasn’t pursued because of the unreliability of the caller. Francine Shelhorn has a long arrest record for prostitution and drunk-and-disorderly conduct.”
“So we have two prostitutes with a Dario connection,” Monty said.
“It gets better,” Reno said. “Francine Shelhorn was reported missing a few days ago to NYPD. The caller who phoned it in was a woman who refused to give her name. And she used a pay phone just a couple blocks from Heather Snyder’s apartment.”
“Have you passed this on to Chase and Phantom?” David asked.
“Going to as soon as I leave.” Reno took another long swig of his soda. “I got the missing-persons info just a little while ago.”
“Any further news from them, by the way?” Monty asked.
“Yes. They sent me photos and license plates last night of three guys they think might be this Dario. My software’s matching them as we speak.”
* * *
New York
Chase tried to work on her novel once she got back to the hotel, but she couldn’t stop thinking about Heather. She supposed it wasn’t the first time a working girl broke down in tears after seeing a customer, and according to Jack—who had heard everything— the john hadn’t hurt her. But Heather’s reaction had thrown her off-kilter. All Chase had wanted right then was to hold her and tell her everything would be okay.
A knock interrupted her thoughts. “It’s me,” Jack said.
Chase quickly covered her sketches before she opened the door.
“You all right?” Jack asked.
“Yes, why?”
“You seemed to be…out of sorts.”
“I’m fine.”
Jack lingered in the doorway, obviously in no hurry to leave. “Want to join me for a drink? Or, in your case, a refreshing beverage?”
Chase checked the time. “Thanks, but no.”
“Okay.” Jack took a step into the room and looked around. “Have you heard from Reno?”
“Not yet.”
Uninvited, Jack sat on one of the armchairs by the window. Was she looking for a distraction or waiting for Chase to reveal what she knew about her past? Chase wasn’t sure, but something told her Jack simply wanted company. She looked tired and lost, like she was holding on by a thread.
“What’s going on, Harding?” Chase asked.
Jack blew out a long breath. “I can’t imagine what Cass is going through, and I feel so Goddamn useless. I don’t know what I’ll do if I lose her. It almost killed me the first time.”
“Self-destruction is not the answer.”
“But it’s my go-to reaction. Always has been.”
“Just focus on getting her back and you’ll be fine.”
Jack shook her head. “I’m not a half-full kinda person like Cass.”
“You never were.”
“I’m tired.” Jack sat back and shut her eyes. “Tired of having to struggle for everything, including a bit of happiness. Tired of feeling tired.”
“It never gets easy, Jack,” Chase said. “Life is made up of brief moments of happiness. The rest is all either shades of gray or downright miserable.”
Jack sat up and looked at her with surprise. “I thought you had it all figured out.”
“You assumed this because you’ve been such a big part of my life?”
“Can you drop the sarcasm for tonight?” Jack asked without rancor. “What I meant is, you always kept it together, always made the right decisions, and even managed to reason shit away with time slots. Even now, you live like nothing touches you or matters. I envy that ability.”
“There’s nothing to envy.” Chase sat opposite Jack on the other chair. “When you go through life like nothing matters, you wake up one day surrounded by exactly that.” She looked away from Jack’s intense stare. “At least you have someone to look forward to, and you have a reason to get up in the morning. So stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
“All I said was I’m tired of having to try so hard to be happy.”
“Who the hell isn’t?” Chase asked. “But you found someone who can tolerate your dysfunctional ass.”
“I did.” Jack walked to the minibar and came back with a minibottle of Scotch, which she downed in one long pull.
“Why do you try so hard to numb what others have been deprived of?”
“Because feelings aren’t all they’re cracked up to be.”
Neither spoke for a while.
Jack finally broke the silence, her voice etched with pain. “What I did ten years ago…leaving the organization. I didn’t have a choice.”
“Only you can be the judge of that.”
Jack stared out the window. “After what happened to me in Israel, I couldn’t go back.”
“What did they do to you?”
“A woman I was involved with betrayed me. Turned out she actually worked for the arms dealer I was hired to kill. She handed me over to them and they tortured, raped, and beat me to near death. It lasted for weeks. By the time I managed to escape, they’d damaged my face beyond repair and pulled most of my teeth.” Jack absentmindedly ran her finger over the scar that marred her left cheek.
Chase cringed at the images of Jack’s suffering that were running through her head. She knew something had prompted her disappearance, but she hadn’t expected this. It was difficult to picture her friend in such agony. Her friend. “I don’t know what to say.”
“Don’t say anything,” Jack said tiredly. “I’m not looking for sympathy. I need you to understand why I had to fake my death, change my face, and leave that life behind.”
“Did you contact the EOO when you got away?”
“If I thought weeks of torture were the worst pain I’d ever feel, I was severely mistaken. When I contacted Pierce and told him what happened he…he shrugged it off. Told me I should know our job involves certain risks.” Jack’s voice broke and she looked at Chase with red eyes. “He said I needed to get back to base ASAP for the next assignment.”
Chase sighed. “Jesus.”
“I couldn’t go back.” Jack stood up and went to the minibar again.
“I wouldn’t have gone back, either.”
Jack unscrewed another minibottle and downed it. “And this is why I drink. I’m afraid without Cass to stop me, I’m going to do something crazy.”
“Like what?”
“Kill Pierce.”
“Jack, don’t.”
Jack started pacing. “Can’t you see what he’s doing? He’s using Cass to lure me back. Get me where he wants me. No one escapes the EOO, and he’s just proven that to everyone by bringing me back from the dead. I won’t let him own me again.”
Chase got up. “Listen, we’re going to get Cass back and you’re going back to your life. He will not stop you.”
Jack stopped and looked at her. “How are you so sure?”
“Because I won’t let him.”
“I thought you didn’t give a shit about me.”
“Damn it, Jack.” Chase ran her hand through her hair. “You… you…”
“What do you know about me? You said you would have killed me if it hadn’t been me. What does that mean?”
“I don’t want to get into that right now, but our paths crossed.”
“When?”
“When I took a deep-cover job.” Chase’s cell rang. It was Reno. “Let me put you on speaker.”
“Okay, so this is what I have.” Reno briefed them on the 911 call he’d retrieved that mentioned a Dario and gave them all the info he had on the woman who’d made the call and the vacant house the police had checked out.
Chase frowned when he told them the girl was a known prostitute and had been reported missing by an anonymous woman who’d used a pay phone near Heather�
��s apartment. The implication was clear.
“I’m sending you what I have, along with what I’ve been able to find out about the guys you wanted me to check out,” he told them. “Can’t exclude any of them yet. I’m still working on it.”
“Anything else?” Jack asked.
“Yeah. I’ve cracked some of Rózsa’s encrypted files. That other New York account I’m tracking that was paying him? They weren’t buying viruses. He was selling them human organs. Haven’t tracked the account ownership yet.”
“Human organs?” Chase repeated. Heather’s brother needed a kidney. Could there be a connection? Every bit of new evidence they got seemed to suggest Heather had to be involved somehow, but she still couldn’t believe it.
* * *
Heather stared at the ceiling over her bed, her mind churning with too many questions for her to sleep. The evening had been treacherously long after her appointment with Dario and left her feeling emptier than normal. When she’d first started two years ago, she’d cried after these appointments, but it had been a long time since she’d broken down like she had tonight, and she couldn’t understand why it had happened. Her customer hadn’t done anything unusual to prompt her reaction. Maybe she was getting too tired of this work. Maybe her head was telling her it was time to stop. But why now, and what would happen to her brother if she did? What would happen to her dreams if she had to look for a second full-time job to support both of them?
How long would she have to continue this lifestyle? Could she go on until someone noticed her work in the fashion industry, or would she have to continue until her brother finally…God. Get a grip. Just the fact that Adam’s death crossed her mind both shamed and shocked her.
She wanted her life back to where she wouldn’t have to live with fear and lies. Where she could have actual dreams of dating someone like…Brett. A decent, attractive woman who made her feel safe and wanted her company because of what she could offer outside the bedroom.
Brett’s response to the topic of sex was puzzling, however. Their mutual attraction seemed undeniable, yet Brett had made it clear she wasn’t interested in her that way. Was it because she could see through Heather’s façade? See her as someone who got paid to sleep with men? As much as Heather feared that, she doubted Brett knew. No, Brett had said she was a serial polygamist. But then why hadn’t she been interested in Heather? Maybe she wasn’t Brett’s type. Not that Heather would have slept with her, and God knew dating was out of the question, but it bothered her just the same.
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