by Julia Derek
I read the text again. I decided not to respond, instead put the phone back into my pocket. Silence spoke louder than any words ever could.
My key was inside the lock of the door leading into my apartment building by the time my phone buzzed again. It was another text from Ian.
I have something that you’re going to want to see. A major development that neither of us foresaw. Can you meet me at Aroma in twenty?
I stared at the text, unable to decide what to do about it. Was this just Ian’s poor attempt at trying to see me or was it really a major development? I chewed on the inside of my bottom lip as I tried to decide what to do. Finally, I typed a message back.
Fine. I’ll be there at eight.
His response arrived immediately. Great.
I stuck the phone into the pocket of my hoodie and walked in the direction of the coffee shop. If he was just playing me, I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to talk to him again, investigation or no investigation, because then I really would be pissed.
Ten minutes later, I entered Aroma. Having arrived early, I went up to the food counter and ordered a latte and a ham and cheese croissant. Ian arrived just as I took a seat at the bar counter along the window, far away from other patrons. He had his laptop under his arm and his eyes were ablaze with excitement.
“You won’t believe this,” he said, sitting on the barstool next to me, breathing shallowly. It appeared he had run over to meet me.
“Probably not,” I said dryly.
He didn’t reply, only put his laptop down and switched it on. I watched him as he pulled up one of Ron’s email accounts and scrolled through it. He stopped at a message addressed to Ron from someone named John Davis at a travel agency called Liberty Travels. Clicking the email open, he turned to me.
“This here is our guy,” he said.
I scanned the short email message he’d opened and could see nothing suspicious about it. All it contained was a request for Ron to have lunch with Davis at a restaurant in the meat-packing district.
“I’m confused,” I said, frowning as I looked at Ian again.
“I apologize. You don’t know what I already know, so of course this email won’t mean anything to you. Allow me to start from the beginning.”
“Please do.”
He glanced over his shoulder and took in the unpopulated area immediately behind us before he spoke again.
“I found absolutely nothing of interest on either Rockford or Geraldo online—I figured I might as well check her out too while I was at it. The more eyeballs on these people, the better was my reasoning. I’m sure you agree.”
I didn’t answer, just shrugged. I really, really hoped Ian’s claim not to have found anything of interest on our targets excluded Cardoza. Ian might not find any references to the drug lord to be pertinent to the case. It wasn’t like the Brit knew Cardoza was my main interest.
“Anyway,” Ian continued, “since I already had access to Ron’s email accounts, I went ahead and looked through his other clients a little closer. And this John Davis caught my attention.”
“Why’s that?”
“Because his emails, while there are several of them over the last couple of years, are always very short and contain the same basic information, unlike the others. All he ever wants is to meet with Ron for lunch. And all Ron ever replies is yes or no to the place and time Davis suggests.”
“Okay. So?” I had a sip of my quickly cooling latte.
“I thought that was interesting. Why were Ron so short with this particular client and not his other? I got the sense that they didn’t want to have anything of importance in writing. So I decided to look into John Davis’s background, hoping to find some connection to Adler.”
“And did you?”
“Unfortunately not,” he said, exhaling with disappointment. Then he smiled, lighting up. “But I did find other fascinating data about Mr. Davis. For example, he was once on trial for brutally raping three boys down in a small Florida town. A seven, nine and a ten-year-old.”
I grimaced, disgusted. “Really? But you’re saying he was acquitted?”
“No, he was convicted, but the judge only gave him a three-year sentence—out of which he served one.”
I stared at him, hardly able to believe my ears. “Wow… How the hell did that happen? After despicable acts like that, he should get life without the possibility of parole. He’s destroyed the lives of those boys.”
“Couldn’t agree with you more. Well, I assume he had a real good lawyer and an incredibly lenient judge to get such a light sentence. According to the court papers, he was released early because of exemplary behavior while in prison.”
I pushed away my untouched croissant, having lost all appetite all of a sudden. Rubbing my forehead, I muttered under my breath, “That judge should be impeached. I can’t stand those liberal bastards...”
“I hear you loud and clear.”
“What the hell is Ron doing with such a pig?”
Ian only gazed at me, not saying a word. Slowly, what he was getting at had sunk in all the way, or at least so I thought. I wasn’t sure I believed it, however. Not after having caught Ron banging his assistant so enthusiastically in that Nikkei restroom. “No… Are you telling me Ron is some kind of pedophile, too?”
“Well, that remains to be seen. It’s more likely that he’s merely working with this man to bring tourists to Caribbean islands where they can enjoy young boys in a five-star environment. See, it looks like Liberty Travels is specializing in ‘luxury pleasure trips.’” Ian smirked, looking sick to his stomach. “Those are Davis’s own words. Not that you’d ever learn what he’s up to from visiting the company website. On the surface, it appears to be no different from any other travel agency.”
I felt myself gaping I was so shocked. “Luxury pleasure trips… Are you for real?”
Ian sighed heavily. “Unfortunately, I am.”
“Oh, my God... How did you find out all this information?”
“When I saw a photo of Davis on the internet, I recognized his face. I thought he looked just like the man the FBI investigated years ago regarding an international human trafficking matter that never went to trial because a grand jury failed to indict. I remembered the case very clearly as I was part of it. And I will never forget that devil’s face…” A shadow fell over Ian’s features. “Anyway, his name at the time was Bill Coleman, which is his real name. I ran a cross search on the two photos and it turns out that John Davis and Bill Coleman, the convicted child rapist, is indeed the same person.”
“Really? When did he change his identity?”
Ian screwed up his mouth and cupped his chin. “I’m not sure. Maybe in conjunction with starting his travel agency. According to his tax returns, the agency has only been in existence for three years.”
“That makes sense. And how did you find out about his”—I could barely get the words out of my mouth, the thought of what they stood for disgusted me so much—“his luxury pleasure trips?”
“When I discovered that he’s an active member in pedophile chatrooms. That’s where he’s recruiting his customers. He speaks openly about what he does there and, sadly, there are tons of rich men yearning for his services.” Ian fisted his hands as he seemed to ponder the horror of what he’d just said. “Anyway, escaping getting charged when we first investigated him must’ve made him more confident. So confident that he now believes he’s untouchable.”
“But you think we can catch him through Ron?”
“I’m hoping. If everything goes the way I want it to.”
“Let’s make sure it does.”
The corners of Ian’s mouth turned up in a small, humorless smile. “Yes, let’s.”
***
When I left Aroma an hour later, it was with mixed feelings. On the one hand I was happy I could help try putting an end to all the horror Ian had told me was discussed in the chatrooms. Apparently, in addition to his regular clients—regular people who traveled to norm
al places for business and pleasure—John Davis was charging his special clients tens of thousands of dollars for a weekend with young boys that did anything the client wanted, privacy guaranteed. In order to sign up for such a pleasure trip, the client had to pay the entire fee in cash.
Without any witnesses and no paper trail, it had been impossible for the New York state prosecutor to get a grand jury to indict Davis the first time. The entire case had hinged upon a couple of escaped child prostitutes who’d later recanted their stories, refusing to witness in the end. The children had disappeared a few weeks later, and were still reported as missing. Ian believed they had been killed off at some point by people involved in the sex-trafficking scheme so that no one could ever convince them to witness what they’d had to do and what they had seen.
On the other, I was disappointed that it didn’t look like Cardoza was involved in this matter after all. Finally succumbing, I’d asked Ian if Cardoza’s name had come up at any point since he’d begun his investigations. He’d only looked at me funnily, then shook his head and told me there was absolutely no evidence indicating the incarcerated drug lord was involved with Ron or any of his clients.
I sighed as I walked along the quiet street. Even without having done any further investigation about exactly what kind of business Ron did with this man, I knew it could be no good; surely he got a piece of the action for laundering Coleman’s mountains of cash. Which meant I’d been wasting Dante and Jose’s time by sending them on a wild-goose chase down in Texas.
I should call Dante and tell him what I’d found out so he and Jose could go back home. Sticking my hand into my pocket, I got out my phone. But before I could place the call, I changed my mind. I’d wait until tomorrow, after Ian and I had audited Ron and Coleman’s lunch meeting to be absolutely sure. We would both go to the restaurant and eat lunch at the same time as the two men. When we saw where they were seated, Ian would bribe the maître d’—heavily—to make sure the latter dropped a hidden recording device on their table that would record their entire conversation.
Surely the two men would discuss specifics they didn’t want anyone but themselves to hear, especially not people at the FBI. The good FBI people, Ian had specified. The ones that weren’t part of the conspiracy.
Then, when we’d gotten the device back, we would hand it over anonymously to the authorities in addition to all the data Ian had collected from the chatroom so they could nail these two bastards. We just had to make sure we handed it over to the right people or they might not care enough to crack this trafficking ring, Ian had stressed. Though, of course, that shouldn’t be a problem; he claimed to be well aware who was good and who was bad at the Bureau. Ever since they’d set him up, he’d kept close tabs on them.
When Ian had gone on and on about that last part, I had just nodded and smiled. Humoring him was the best way to deal with him when he launched into these tiresome tirades. As long as we caught these guys, I was happy. I didn’t doubt for one second that the people at the FBI would do the right thing.
Ian having discovered Davis aka Coleman was great for another reason too—working toward getting him and Ron behind bars would give me the space I needed after what had happened between us. By the time we were done, enough time should have passed for us to have pretty much forgotten about that night. That light tension that still lingered between us should be gone and it would be easier to move on. For both of us.
Even as I was thinking this, before I could stop them, thoughts of what we’d done suddenly assaulted my mind with a power too strong to ignore. I could taste the hot kisses we had shared, feel the expert way Ian had touched me, smell him as he’d smelled that night. The orgasms he’d brought me made me shudder I could recall them so vividly. The way he’d mumbled my name, looked at me with such passion made me tremble now. It was with extreme willpower that I managed to force the intense memories to go away. As wonderful as it had been, I couldn’t allow myself to think about it, relive that night. The last thing I wanted was for it to happen again. Feeling this strongly about it suggested I was dangerously close to falling for Ian the way I had fallen for Nick. Only an amateur and a fool would make the same mistake twice and I was neither. I would prove to myself that I wasn’t by maintaining my distance emotionally from Ian.
If I didn’t, I didn’t think I would ever solve the mystery behind Nick’s murder. And I owed it to my husband to make sure that I did.
Chapter 6
Ron was seated alone at a corner table in The Standard Grill main dining area, an iPad in his hands. I’d taken a walk throughout the huge, trendy restaurant when Ian and I couldn’t locate him in the popular bar area or in the bustling café that also had tables where patrons could eat, finally spotting him.
I let out a discreet sigh of relief. Step one in our plan—locating the subject in the spacious eatery—was completed. Thank God we’d have the foresight to make a reservation in the main dining room and not just counted on the men choosing the other eating areas that were on a first-come, first-served basis.
I wasn’t worried that he would recognize me from the gym. I was wearing a wig of afro style, black hair and my red glasses in addition to being out of my trainer attire and instead sporting an elegant blue pantsuit with heels to match Ian’s designer suit. Ian always dressed nicely, but today he’d outdone himself, looking extra sharp.
When I’d made sure it was indeed Ron seated at that table, I headed back to the bar area where Ian was waiting for me, next to the main entrance. He hadn’t bothered to change his appearance in any way other than wearing that unusually nice suit. Neither he nor I worried if Ron would recognize him or not. The Standard was a popular, upscale restaurant, so it wouldn’t be suspicious if another gym member was having lunch there.
Ian glanced at me with eagerness as I approached the little table where he was seated, waiting for me while drinking red wine.
“Are they there?” he asked quietly.
“Just Ron,” I replied in a low voice. “Did you see Davis enter?”
“Not yet. But I’m guessing it should only be a matter of time.”
“Yes. Or he’s already here, but is in the bathroom. Either way, we should tell the hostess I’ve arrived so we can be seated.”
Ian had told the hostess his lunch date had yet to arrive for our reservation in the main dining room while I was taking a round throughout the restaurant with its three eating areas. Before we committed to a table for the area we had originally requested, we wanted to make sure the two men would be there. If we were lucky and got a table close to theirs, we would be able to watch them as they ate, perhaps glean important information.
Being in the same area, it would be much easier for us to determine who their waiter was. After some thought, we had figured it may be safer to bribe their waiter instead of going for the maître d.’ In addition to needing money more, the waiter would have more chances to drop off a hidden recording device on the table without the men noticing. When we knew who it was, one of us would take the person aside and offer him or her $1000 for working with us, $500 first and the rest after we got the device back.
Davis was still missing by the time we were seated at a table that gave us a somewhat good vantage point of Ron—if we leaned sideways and stretched our necks to get around the wide pillar blocking our view. It didn’t take long until we saw who their waiter was. He was a skinny, short man with an earring and a purple streak in his spiky hair. His face was delicate, almost feminine. He gesticulated heavily the way a typical gay man does as he spoke to Ron, smiling nervously all the while.
Ian was still studying the man as I turned to him.
“Do you think he’s just jittery by nature or high on uppers?” I asked.
Still watching the waiter, Ian replied, “Let’s hope those uppers involve having had too much coffee in that case, not anything stronger than that. You can’t trust junkies.”
Yeah, you should know, I thought, having suddenly remembered that, according to th
e articles I’d read about Ian, he himself had once been a druggie. Who knew, maybe he still was.
“Very true,” I said. “Should we try the maître d’ instead then?”
My eyes went to the sixty-something man currently conversing with a couple seated at a table not far from where we sat. Upon seeing how stiffly he moved and how pinched his dull-skinned face was, I already knew the answer to my question—even if we were dealing with a waiter with a drug problem, we were still better off than if we dealt with this old fogey.
“No, let’s stay with the waiter,” Ian said.
“Okay. Who’ll talk to him—you or me?” Before coming to the restaurant, we had decided that, if the waiter was a man, I should approach him and if it was a woman, Ian was more likely to have success. None of us had considered the possibility of the waiter being gay—from the looks of it, this one probably was.
“I’ll do it,” Ian said and got to his feet. He paused. “There’s Davis.”
I looked in the direction he’d turned his head and spotted a broad man with slicked-back, dark hair and a face that reminded me of a horse. He looked exactly like he had on the photo we had seen online, which must have been at least five years old.
“I’ll be right back,” Ian said. He walked after the waiter, who disappeared around a corner. I kept my fingers crossed it would be as easy convincing the waiter to help us as Ian had made it sound when he’d first brought up the idea. Ian would slip the waiter a note and a fifty-dollar bill when walking past him. The note contained the following message: Please meet me by the men’s room. I need your help and will pay you $1000 for it.
Our own waiter, a cheery man with a skeletal face, appeared and I gave him our drink and food orders, already knowing what Ian wanted.
About five minutes later, Ian returned and slipped into his seat.