by Diane Capri
He opened two more files and did the same quick perusal. Both ended with the death of at least one partner. Perfect. Snuff films were usually fake. But even if these deaths were not real, they looked real enough. The prices on these babies would shoot through the roof.
He’d check one more.
Film number four-hundred-seventeen. The Senator, The Waitress, and Her Friends.
The opening credits were followed by establishment shots of national landmarks. The Washington Monument, the National Mall, the Capitol Building. Briefly, the White House flashed across the screen.
The soundtrack continued through the next scene.
The camera panned across the entrance to a famous hotel. He’d seen it countless times on the news, usually when a politician stood in front of reporters to pontificate. Next, the iconic lobby with portraits found on US dollars, before the scene entered the stately restaurant.
A middle-aged couple was seated near the center of the room at a table for two. A champagne bucket stood beside the table, and two champagne flutes bubbled in the candlelight. They clinked glasses and sipped. Gold wedding bands glinted when they raised glasses to their lips.
Scorpio didn’t recognize the actress, but the actor looked familiar. He was dressed in a suit and tie, like an undertaker or TV evangelist. His dark hair was gray at the temples. He seemed distracted. His gaze traveled the room.
A willowy blonde waitress dressed in a tuxedo approached the table. She talked to the woman before she turned to the man. He gazed at the waitress with a lustful expression. His date threw the glass of champagne in the man’s face and marched from the dining room. The man grinned.
The next scene was a tastefully choreographed orgy. The man and the waitress having sex in a hotel room with another couple.
Unlike a lot of smut, this film felt very real, and he felt like a voyeur. Scorpio was impressed. Mackenzie had acquired top-notch porn, for sure.
Which was when Scorpio recognized one of the actors. The man from the dining room scene. The resemblance was uncanny.
He skipped all the way to the end of the film to confirm that the woman died in the throes of sex at the moment the senator climaxed with his hands around her throat. A moment later, the second couple’s encounter ended the same way. Two dead women.
After a few frames, the men got dressed and left the room. The women continued to play dead. They lay with bulging eyes and open mouths as if they remained shocked.
The camera lingered a few more moments. The women never blinked. Their chests did not rise and fall as they breathed. The end credits began to roll. When the credits finished, the women had not moved.
Most people in good health could hold their breath for two minutes. Scorpio had been a swimmer in high school. Some of the divers on the team could hold their breath longer. Those two women looked like dead fashion models, not trained athletes.
Scorpio rewound the film to the climax. From that point until the last credits rolled off the screen, eight minutes of elapsed time showed on the counter. Eight minutes was much too long for them to play dead. The video might have been skillfully edited, he supposed. Perhaps.
He stopped the video and turned to another computer. He typed Senator Ronald Brennan’s name into the search engine. Within half a second, images of Senator Brennan filled the screen.
Several photos showed the senator’s immensely wealthy wife by his side at fundraisers and events. Stephanie Brennan was a brunette, older than her husband by at least a decade. In every photo, she wore enough jewelry to buy a small kingdom. She was strikingly pretty. With all that money, she could buy beauty easily enough.
But she was most definitely not the same woman. Not the one the senator had been clinking glasses with at dinner. Not either of the women in the orgy.
Which was especially good for Stephanie Brennan, since both of those women looked very dead.
“Well, well, well. Not fiction after all. Actual sex. A sitting senator. Two dead women. Nicely done, Mackenzie.” Scorpio flopped back into his chair and closed his eyes to think. He had a gold mine here. Not only could he sell the raunchier porn on the dark web, he could also blackmail the senator’s very wealthy wife, too. Surely she wouldn’t want her husband to go to prison for murder. And sordid murders would feed the media for months.
He nodded, pleased. Mackenzie was a lot smarter than Scorpio had given him credit for.
But what about the other films? Had he missed something here? Maybe Mackenzie just got lucky when he came across an actual video of Senator Brennan that he could make more than one fortune selling. Scorpio shook his head. Didn’t seem likely.
He went back to the list of films and read through the titles again. He grinned. Just as he’d hoped. Several of the titles could have been subtitled “famous person behaving badly.” Celebrity in the Rough, The Congressman’s Pages, Everybody’s Boy Scout, and so on.
Scorpio pulled a bottle of beer from his fridge, held it steady in the crook of his left arm, and twisted off the top with his right hand. He took a long swig.
It would take hours to watch all the films to be able to identify the best blackmail victims and cull the ones he’d sell on the dark web to audiences likely to pay big money for the kink. The work would prove well worth the time.
But he didn’t need to sort them all now. Mackenzie had enough here to fund Scorpio’s retirement for a good, long while. As long as Mackenzie was still alive, he’d be making more films, too.
He chose three of the snuff films to start his new store, copied everything on the flash drive over to his secure storage in the cloud for safekeeping, and closed up his computers for the last time.
One final task was to find Mackenzie. He found the dark web site he was looking for in half a second and typed Mackenzie’s cell phone number into the search box. Account holder information came back promptly. Along with a list of phones on the same account. Also listed were incoming and outgoing calls for all the phone numbers.
A few more keystrokes and he found what he wanted. He sent those files to the cloud, too.
He activated the malware he’d installed long ago, in preparation for the day when he had to shut down. He waited while it scrubbed every last bit and byte of incriminating evidence that might be hiding there. In his line of work, knowing when to cut and run was an essential life skill. Now was the time.
Babbling Brooke would be identified soon if she wasn’t already. Chicago PD would be hot on his ass. Time to get moving. Mexico was nice this time of year. Guadalajara was one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Good doctors there, too, who could fix him up. With the kind of money he’d make on the porn films, he could live like a king there.
He called Thorn. “I’m ready to go.”
He splashed accelerant around the room, making sure to douse everything thoroughly. He lit two votive candles and tossed them into the fumes. Like many laundromats, flammable chemicals and electrical wires were plentiful enough to enhance the fire well beyond the point of no return.
By the time his office was ablaze, Thorn was waiting with the sedan in the alley. Scorpio took one last look and nodded his satisfaction. Everything in the place would be destroyed before the fire could possibly be extinguished.
On the short drive to his home where he would set another fire, Scorpio imagined ways to maximize Mackenzie’s inventory to its full potential. Several ideas sprang immediately to mind. The nicest part of the dark web porn business was that he could do it from anywhere. All he needed was an internet connection. Simple enough.
But first things first. His drugs. They weren’t stashed in the Lake Forest mansion. Now that he’d seen the contents of the flash drive, he’d figured Mackenzie was to blame. He knew where Mackenzie had stashed his property. He’d fly to St. Louis. Collect what was rightfully his from the U Store Stuff facilities. Deal with Mackenzie. Move on from there.
CHAPTER 26
Friday, February 11
7:15 p.m.
Houston, Te
xas
Hours later than expected, and much the worse for wear, Otto finally landed at George Bush Intercontinental Airport and grabbed a taxi to the address Gaspar had given her this morning. At least she’d left the snow and frigid cold behind her in St. Louis.
When she had regained consciousness on the floor of the companion restroom in the airport bathroom, dazed, with a bruised throat and a pounding headache, Bramall and Mackenzie and the Gulfstream 100 were gone. So were the storms.
She’d replayed the attack in her head several times but couldn’t positively identify her attacker. Logically, it was Mackenzie or Bramall. Both were bigger and stronger than her. Either could have exploited the advantage of surprise.
Between the two, she’d bet on Mackenzie. But it could have been Bramall, too. An unknown third option was remotely possible.
She’d discussed everything with Gaspar. He’d said, “I’d put money on Mackenzie. But from all we know, Bramall’s got plenty at stake here, too. Could go either way.”
She called the Boss and reported what happened. He’d promised to find Mackenzie and Bramall. Meanwhile, he’d sent her to Houston.
She hadn’t heard from Finlay yet, which was unusual. She’d come to rely on his responsiveness to her requests. He could be tied up in some high-level meetings. Or, with luck, he’d tracked down everything she already knew and would have good intel when he called back. Meanwhile, the new burner phone remained silent.
Her personal phone rang. The Boy Detective calling. She picked up. “Otto.”
Noble said, “Hang on a minute.”
Her voice sounded hoarse to her ears. She sipped warm water from the bottle she’d bought at the airport and swallowed more aspirin to help with the swelling. She’d put up a good fight. She could tell by her sore muscles. Her body ached all over as if she’d gone a few rounds with a heavyweight.
She watched the passing scenery and resisted the urge to fidget while she waited for Noble to finish his conversation. She heard movements and others talking in the background while her taxi made slow progress through Houston’s late Friday night traffic.
“Have you found Reacher yet?” Noble asked when he returned.
She shot back, “Still no ID on the body in the mansion?”
“Not definitively. We’ve added a third option, though.” He paused, but she refused to ask what the new option was. She had no interest in power games tonight. “Seems the real estate agent is missing. Her husband called in late last night when she didn’t come home. She had spent the day yesterday at an open house at the Mackenzie place.”
Otto took a quick sip. “So you think the dead woman is not one of the sisters but the real estate agent?”
“Could be. It could also be the wife or the sister. All three women are about the same size. All have a lot of blonde hair. All had a reason to be in that room.” He gave a weary sigh.
Otto cocked her head to think. Her brain seemed a little weak, too. The taxi moved half a block at a time and progress was slow. “Sounds a little too clever, doesn’t it?”
“How so?”
“What are the odds? A dead woman can’t be identified when her body is discovered in the house of a man who is missing and running from the mob?”
“Could be a message to the husband, sure.” He didn’t act surprised to hear that Mackenzie was involved with organized crime. Which meant he already knew about Rex Mackenzie and made her wonder what else he’d been holding back. “Could be a plan by the two sisters, a Thelma and Louise scenario.”
She scrunched her face like she’d just sucked on a lemon. “A what?”
“You know. Two women kill the husband and the real estate agent, steal the money, and run.”
“You’re talking about a movie?” She closed her eyes and leaned her head back against the seat, resisting the urge to groan. “Thelma and Louise didn’t kill their husbands. They started out on a road trip. Bad stuff happened along the way.”
“Same thing, in the end.” He put a smile in his voice. “Everybody ends up dead except the sexy lawman.”
“You think that’s what’s going on here?” Otto shook her head. “Sounds pretty far-fetched to me.”
Noble replied, “Could be anything. Guessing is a waste of time.”
“Is Reacher involved in any of your potential scenarios?”
Noble paused as if he was seriously thinking about the question. Maybe he was. “I want to say there’s no reason to believe he is. But the truth is, there’s no reason to believe he’s not involved, either. We just don’t know enough yet.”
“What do you know?”
“The working hypothesis is that the murder could have been an afterthought. Things are missing from the house. We found a ransacked safe in the bedroom.”
She arched her eyebrows. “What did they take?”
“We don’t know. Point is, we’re not sure whether this was a sophisticated robbery gone bad.”
She thought a moment, glanced toward the taxi driver and lowered her voice. “Did you find any evidence of the contraband you were looking for anywhere in the house?”
“No. But we heard from Chicago PD that there was also a break-in at Mackenzie’s dry cleaner.”
She shook her head. “Man, Mackenzie has really pissed somebody off.”
“Looks like it. The good news is that the mansion has reasonably good surveillance equipment, including cameras.” He was stalling. Talking, but not offering anything of importance. “For the dry cleaner, we’re relying on nearby video cams, but they’re grainy. Bad angles.”
She watched the traffic, which didn’t seem to be thinning at all, and realized neither she nor Noble was getting anywhere. “Again, what do you know?”
“On the video, we’ve got the same two guys arriving and departing at the mansion and the dry cleaner. We don’t know who they are, but we know neither is Mackenzie or Bramall, for sure.”
Could have been Jimmy Two and Little Hugh, she figured. The timing was right. “How’d they get there, do the deeds, and get away without getting caught? Chicago has decent law enforcement. Response times can’t be that bad.”
“Nobody called anything in. Nothing to respond to,” he replied. “They’re driving a private vehicle. Big SUV. Maybe stolen. Caught a partial license plate on one of the cameras. Not Illinois. Could be Wisconsin. They’re running that down now.”
“Need any help?”
“From the FBI, you mean? Thanks, but we’re okay. I’ll let you know when we figure it out.”
“So your plan is to hang around in Chicago until…”
“Until I get some answers or a better lead, yeah. I’m meeting the local DEA guys in an hour.” He paused and then echoed her question. “Your plan is to keep looking for Reacher until…”
“Until I find him or get different orders.”
“Guess we understand each other, then,” he said.
“Guess we do. Stay in touch,” she replied and disconnected the call. She checked the Boss’s phone, but he hadn’t called again. Which could have meant that he hadn’t found Bramall and Mackenzie.
She returned both phones to her pocket. The third phone, Finlay’s burner, had reconnected and received a delayed text message. He’d sent the message an hour ago. It said, “Call after nine tonight.”
The taxi fought the traffic a while longer and finally stopped five miles from downtown Houston. She paid the driver and got out in front of a low-rise brick structure that had been built in the nineteenth century and housed only one tenant.
She followed the sidewalk up to the front door of the offices of Scarlett Investigations.
CHAPTER 27
Friday, February 11
7:35 p.m.
Houston, Texas
A receptionist led her to a conference room where Gaspar was seated at a computer desk. Multiple screens were mounted on the walls. The equipment seemed as sophisticated as anything she’d have found in the FBI’s Detroit field office.
She stowed her travel
bag and her laptop case in the corner of the room and took the seat next to Gaspar at the desk. He closed the files he’d been working on. An image of Houston at night moved about the screen.
Briefly, she wondered what he’d been doing and why he didn’t want her to see it. None of her business, of course.
“Let me get started on the flash drive.” He held his palm out.
“The encryption programs I have on my laptop wouldn’t open this,” she said as she retrieved it from her pocket.
He looked at the drive briefly before he slipped it into the slot on the computer in front of him. “We could get lucky. Depends on how sophisticated these folks are. Did you get any kind of feel for that?”
“Nothing is ever what we think it is. But Bramall says Jane Mackenzie is a housewife, and her husband owns a dry cleaner. I figure he’s stalling.”
“Why?” Gaspar asked, preoccupied with the keyboard.
“Judging from the house they live in, Mackenzie is bringing home the bacon. Which means he’s more successful than your average dry cleaner. I don’t know much about the wife yet. But the sister, Rose Sanderson, was a major in the Army. West Point grad. So she’s no dummy,” Otto replied.
She glanced around the tastefully decorated room. Everything she recognized was high-end. Nothing like her office back in Detroit or Gaspar’s office in Miami.
Scarlett Investigations, whatever its business, seemed prosperous enough. What she didn’t understand was Gaspar’s relationship to the place. He’d been unwilling to talk to her about it so far.
Gaspar turned to the computer and, after a few keystrokes, said, “We may be in luck. The encryption software is proprietary, but I’m familiar with it. I’ve done some work with the company before. They’re based here in Houston.”
He reached across to a phone on the desk. He punched a couple of buttons. “Any chance you could come into the conference room? Yeah, thanks.” He turned his attention back to the keyboard.
Otto spied a refrigerator across the room. “Anything nonalcoholic to drink in there?”