by Karen Bell
She swore at him as he recited her rights and placed her under arrest.
Mila, still frozen in her seat at the end of the long room, was drug free, but it didn’t stop her breaking into a cold sweat. As the officers now made their way along the remaining row of seated girls, she willed her body to stop trembling. She could not bring herself to look into the mirror. At the request of each officer, one by one, the girls were showing ID. Most were no longer in possession, having already swallowed their purchases the night before and their names and details were not recorded.
There was a three in four chance that one of the other officers would come up behind her and Mila could barely stand the torture of the wait, her mouth parched and her jaw clenched as she willed it to be anyone but Ryan. She imperceptibly shook her head and her fringe fell forward partially obscuring her face.
‘Miss. I’ll need to see some ID please.’
Kelly handed her identification to Ryan who was now so close, that Mila could hear him breathing. Two officers left the dressing room, taking the arrested girls to the van. That left only Ryan and one officer further up the row, who was still interviewing another girl. Mila willed him with every fibre to get to her before Ryan could finish with Kelly.
Please, Please, Please! was the single word reverberating in her head. Mila could hear that the other officer had finished and was heading their way. She’d stopped breathing altogether. Then she heard Ryan break his questioning of Kelly mid sentence and address his colleague.
‘We’re nearly done. I’ll get you to check that all the evidence is properly bagged and labelled, while I finish up here.’
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
He was looking at the back of a platinum blonde head. The girl had a long, swanlike neck and he couldn’t help noticing the groove of her spine as it disappeared beneath the deep V of her laced corset.
‘Lucky last, I’ll need to see some ID please.’
Mila reached down and fumbled to pick up her bag. ‘I think I’ve left it at home,’ she said whispered weakly. She pretended to rummage around, avoiding the small wallet clearly visible to her at the bottom. She still hadn’t raised her head.
‘Then I’ll need you to stand up and turn around.’
With what seemed like superhuman effort, Mila lifted herself from the chair turning her body first and as if she could somehow stop time, then slowly lifting her head towards him.
Several expressions panned across his face as the truth dawned. Momentary confusion became recognition and then disbelief. They crossed fleetingly, in under a second but it seemed to Mila like slow motion. His lips said her name, but no sound came out.
She wanted to speak, but her mind was reeling, and her tongue was swollen in her mouth and anything she could think of was completely inadequate. There was no combination of words powerful enough to cut through the wall that had just crash-landed between them. He stood looking at her, as though trying to process and understand what he was seeing.
After the longest time, he turned back to those girls remaining in the room. He cleared his throat first, but the voice that came out was shaken and raspy. ‘The rest of you ladies are free to stay. Thank you for your assistance.’
Around the room, there was an audible sigh of relief as the two men picked their way across the floor. He didn’t so much as look over his shoulder as he left the room and closed the door.
Immediately, the girls erupted into excited chatter, and Mila slunk away to the dressing room, pushing the door shut behind her. Hot tears flowed liberally down her cheeks, her mouth opening and closing like a fish as she sucked for air between each sob. She dropped to the carpet between the racks of clothes, burying her face between her knees. Kelly came in, but seeing Mila’s inconsolable state, hightailed it out of there.
Mr Arnett had come into the dressing room ten minutes later to assess the carnage. He’d heard about the raid as it was happening and had gone into damage control, piping pre-recorded music through the house, and instructing the staff to offer complimentary drinks to patrons while they waited for the show to resume.
He was uncharacteristically annoyed. He thought he had an arrangement with the police to avoid just his sort of thing. He had personally paid the Wynyard City Police Station a visit, extending an open invitation to off-duty officers, of which they regularly took advantage. The wait-staff were familiar with them and were authorized to charge them half price on drinks, and the hostesses, lavished them with extra attention. Evidently on this occasion, the local station had been left out of the loop or Arnett would have been given some warning. The Feds, the Drug Squad and the Tactical Operations Unit were a law unto themselves and apparently even in his own club, he had no jurisdiction.
There were seven girls left out of the original thirteen, eight if Mila was included but he’d been told by Kelly that she was unravelling in the dressing room.
He’d guessed that she was less hardened than the others and he wasn’t completely surprised that the shock of her first drug raid had left her unhinged. He’d have to hope that a few reassuring words would put her back on track. He needed all remaining bodies on deck if they were to make it seamlessly through the rest of the night. Thank God it was a Sunday and not a Saturday night instead, but bad word of mouth was far more powerful than any positive reviews and the last thing the club needed was a reputation for being the target of drug busts. The use of recreational substances was as commonplace among guests as it was among the staff and if the news travelled, patrons would stay away in droves.
He made a call delivering the headcount to the frantic stage manager and quickly arranged for the girls most ready, to go out early, to buy them some time.
Arnett pushed open the door to the dressing room and closed it behind him. She was sitting on the floor in the corner with her head in her hands. It wasn’t looking good for a comeback, but he’d handled his share of hysterical women before and considered himself quite the expert. He handed her his neatly folded kerchief and she accepted it with half hiccup, half sob.
‘Mila dear, you’ve had quite a shock, but it’s all over now, so why don’t you come and sit up on a chair and we’ll talk it through.’
Mila shook her head. ‘Its…it’s not the raid that I’m upset about….it’s a lot more complicated than that.’
‘Well there’s very little that I haven’t heard in my sixty something years, so why don’t you just try me.’
Mila dabbed at her eyes and nose and looked up at the man waiting patiently for her to speak. He had pulled up a chair as though he had all the time in the world, even though Mila knew that wasn’t the case.
She was so tired of keeping everything to herself. It was making her physically sick. She’d become so caught up in it all that she could no longer think rationally. All she had needed to do was to ask Ryan for a chance to explain, but even those few words had deserted her. Instead, she had let him stand there, humiliated. Then she had let him walk away.
There was something wise and fatherly about James Arnett that struck a chord for Mila. She believed him when he said she could trust him, when he suggested that he would know what to do. As of thirty minutes ago, she had less to lose.
Surprisingly, in her addled state of mind she was able to condense the past month into a few short sentences. The distasteful nature of her marriage seemed irrelevant to the story so she spared him the details. It was enough that he should know her husband was responsible for somehow blowing every asset they owned and that she was now being held to ransom by some nameless thugs for the four hundred thousand they were owed.
He nodded thoughtfully, and seemed to quickly comprehend the situation. When Mila explained the reason she’d kept it a secret from Ryan and then told him abut Ryan’s part in the drug raid, he listened without interruption.
‘So I did the right thing, didn’t I? I mean my daughter’s safety is paramount, isn’t it?’ Mila asked, seeking validation.
‘Of course it is. You did what was right at the time, but now that the s
ituation has changed, you have to change with it. If your boyfriend was the one leading tonight’s raid, you can be pretty certain that he’s familiar with the very types that have been holding you to ransom. You said that you didn’t know he was working with the drug squad?’
‘That’s right, he’s usually with a local police station.’
‘So maybe those men who are after you don’t know either, or maybe they do, but either way you have to get the upper hand. You have to help him to help you and that can only happen if you tell him everything. They think they can make a quick buck and they’re relying on your fear to keep you quiet. You have to stop playing by their rules.’
‘I don’t want to play at all. I just want my life back and I want to stop lying to the people I love. ‘
‘Then call him tonight. Tell him everything.’
‘You don’t think it’s too late?’
‘You’ll spend the rest of your life with regrets if you don’t give him the chance. If he means that much to you, then you owe him that.’
Mila couldn’t think about losing him now. It was too painful, but she knew James Arnett was right. If she didn’t explain herself, then he was sure to keep walking. At least if she told him everything, she might have a chance to restore his faith. She only hoped that she’d come to mean as much to him, as he had to her.
Mila breathed deeply, coming to terms with the decision. ‘You’re right. I will tell him… thank you.’
‘You’re welcome. And Mila I’ve had another thought. It’s evident, that as much as I need you out there, tonight, on stage, this whole scene doesn’t sit very comfortably with you. Am I right?’
Mila nodded her head, a little embarrassed.
‘But I’m pretty sure that you can hold your own in a conversation and that you know which cutlery is which, at the dinner table.’ Mila cocked her head. Was he offering her a job as a waitress? He continued, ‘Here at the club, we have a good network of businessmen, both locally and visiting from out of town. Many are happily married and not looking for call girls, but just for good company and conversation, somebody they can show off at business dinners, someone to make their business trips less work and more pleasure. They don’t want any commitments, no babies, no bimbos and certainly no gold diggers.’
Mila allowed him to continue. She hadn’t realized that such a void existed.
‘I wouldn’t offer it to any of the girls here, it takes someone with a bit of heart as well as intellect, but you strike me as exactly the sort of person who could fulfil that role. It pays as well as this and the best part is that you wouldn’t have to take your clothes off.’
Mila couldn’t believe he would have such confidence in her after meeting her only a few days ago.
‘If you’d give me that opportunity, I promise that I wouldn’t let you down.’
‘I believe that of you Mila. I haven’t been in business for forty five years without becoming a very good judge of character.’
‘Kelly told me what you did for her when you first found her. That was really something.’
‘I’m very fond of Kelly. She’s proven herself to have a lot of spunk and good head. She was just a product of circumstance, as is usually the case. It’s very rewarding to help turn someone’s life around.’
Mila didn’t miss the intention, that he was also making reference towards her and her situation.
‘Now, if you could help me, just for the remainder of tonight by finding the courage to go out there once more, we’ll call it quits on your pole dancing career and promote you to Miss Congeniality. What do you say?’
‘I’d say you’re my guardian angel.’
‘Far from it.’ He answered with more than just a twinkle in his eye. ‘But I do try to create heaven here on Earth. Life’s too short to waste.’
Mila did go out and do the second show and although it was like wading through mud, she gave it her best. Somehow knowing it was her swansong made it a little more bearable.
She didn’t even attempt sleep when she finally arrived home. Instead, she sat on the floor of the living room, notepad and pen on the coffee table, trying to compose a letter to Ryan. She kept hoping for her phone to ring but it stayed conspicuously silent beside her.
She wrote and tore up at least ten beginnings, trying to find words compelling enough to explain her desperation without sounding melodramatic. It was an impossible line to negotiate and after a time, reading and re-reading the blurring words and sentences and imagining his reaction to them, she began to lose all perspective. Without going into any detail about the nature of her marriage to Robert, her explanations just sounded like poor excuses - feeble and self absorbed since Ryan would be reading them without knowledge of the foundation on which she’d made her choices. How could she have hoped to build a relationship on trust when there was so much that she would never allow him to learn about her past. Never.
She tried to put herself in his position. Even if he was to believe that she had been destitute or wretched enough to engage in the kind of work at which he’d found her, of course he would question how she’d continued to see him, how she’d spent the night with him pretending nothing was out of the ordinary, let alone how she’d kept her humour in his presence. After all he wasn’t to know if she’d been doing that kind of work for months or even years. Of course he’d feel duped.
Mila had to acknowledge that a normal person probably wouldn’t be able to separate two lives like that, but her double bind of a life for the past two decades had been far from normal and she had learned compartmentalize long ago. It was the only way she’d known how to carry on. It wasn’t that she could easily reconcile her two worlds, but as a necessity she had become adept at negotiating between the two.
The investigator in him would be looking at all the opportunities that she had missed to come clean and equate all her omissions to lies and Mila had no doubt that in his torment he would of course question if she had gone any further in her betrayal, done even more than what he’d discovered.
Her stomach tied itself in knots. She tortured herself, imagining him riding his bike off the road in an uncontrolled rage, or equally distressing, feeling nothing at all, chalking it up to a momentary lapse of judgment or finding solace in the arms of another woman.
Eventually she decided that the only thing she could do was to tell it like it was and let the facts speak for themselves. She took all emotion out of the description of events, and listed them in point form before turning them into some kind of letter. It sounded robotic, but in a way, that was how she was feeling too.
It was only her final sentences that gave anything away.
...I realise now that I have to trust you and I can’t bear to think that you will end our relationship believing that I didn’t value it.
More than you will ever know – I did.
My choices were guided by one thing only, the need to keep Holly out of danger. However you decide to act on this, please remember that she is all I have.
I can never find the words to tell you how sorry I am.
Mila.
###
In the minutes and hours following the raid, Ryan had indeed considered putting his fist through a wall but he didn’t have a moment to himself and he was forced to internalize his anger instead.
His questioning of Taz had been verbally brutal and he noticed the two other officers in the room momentarily catch each other’s eye and shared a questioning look. Ryan knew they’d not experienced that side of the their boss’s personality before and were most likely wondering if someone had forgotten to tell them they were meant to be party to a game of Good cop, Bad cop.
Within minutes, Ryan had exacted an address from the terrified girl and a roster of surveillance had been set up at the home of the European supplier. Given his mood, Ryan would have liked to have gone in with a whole tactical response team, guns blazing, but he had no doubt that the chain of command in this organized crime ring went several levels higher and he was forced to s
how restraint. Marksman Reconnaissance personnel were trained to do just this type of work. They were the unsung heroes of many a drug bust.
It was 2:00 a.m. when he finally made his way home, detouring inevitably past Mila’s home. As he rolled slowly down the road, with his headlights off, he could see the glow of a lamp in her living room behind the curtains.
If he’d had the time to process the evening’s events or believed that he would have any control over his emotions, he would have considered confronting her now, but he was overwrought and didn’t trust himself. Besides, Jack would be waiting for him and he had to be back on the job and fully functioning in six hours.
How could he have so misjudged her? He’d always been so confident in his reading of people. His work depended on it and his intuitions rarely failed him. Fool for letting your guard down. Fool for allowing her to get to you so easily.
Jack was asleep inside the front door when he got home, and the two of them went for a brief walk down to the deserted beach. Looking at the Bogey hole, and recalling what he had believed to be a life altering experience, Ryan felt duped and thought bitterly that she had forever spoilt the Utopia of his favourite beach.
‘She even conned you didn’t she mate, so much for our sixth sense.’
The dog looked up at him with trusting brown eyes, tilting his head as if trying to understand.
‘From now on it’s just you and me again buddy.’
His sleep was fitful at best, consumed by nightmares. He woke through the night in a pool of sweat, tangled and writhing in his sheet. Jack was howling at the full moon outside and a chorus of neighbourhood dogs joined in.
###
The following morning, Mila dressed and picked up the letter. She had sealed it decisively before going to sleep knowing that the act of re-reading it would cause a fresh purgatory of over-analysis. She couldn’t bear the agony of waiting for it to go by mail or risk Ryan’s letterbox being emptied by her blackmailers if they were watching. She had instead slipped out her back door, in order to deliver it by hand. Rolling her car out of the driveway into the lane she was careful to look in her rear view mirror to make sure she wasn’t being followed.