Look Away

by C. J. Lyons

  She ushered Morgan through the foyer to a large living room that opened onto an adjoining dining room. An elderly man was sitting in a recliner in front of a TV tuned to a black and white cowboy movie, nodding in time with the punches that a young John Wayne hurled at an opponent.

  “Mr. Alfie, here’s another visitor for you. This is Miss—” She turned to Morgan. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know your full name.”

  “Smith. Hildy Smith.” Morgan sat down on the couch adjacent to Allen’s father. “I’m a friend of Zoe’s.”

  Alfie’s eyes lit up at that. “Zoe’s here? Where? I got a story I want to tell her.”

  Gladys smiled and rubbed the old man’s shoulder fondly. “You already told it. She came this morning.”

  “So I missed her?” His face filled with disappointment.

  “No, she’s out in the garage trying to sort through more of your collections.” Gladys turned to Morgan. “Mr. Alfie became a bit of a hoarder early on when his symptoms hit. They do that sometimes. Clinging to things that trigger a soothing emotion even as they lose sense of the here and now. It can be quite frightening for folks, especially if they don’t have a diagnosis, don’t know why their memory is so cloudy.”

  “Well, get her back in here,” he demanded. “I have another story I want to tell her.”

  Morgan took that as her cue. She stood up. “I’ll get her.”

  “Thanks,” Gladys said as a distant buzzer sounded. “That will be the wash finished. The garage is through the kitchen there.” She turned to Alfie. “Let me get the wash, and you can help me fold. You know how you love it when the towels come fresh from the dryer.”

  Morgan left them and went out to the garage. She opened the door to find the entire two-car space filled to the rafters with junk. There was no kinder word for it. Shelves upon shelves stacked with old take-out containers—hopefully washed, bundles of newspaper twined together, books and more books their covers torn off, a basket full of rags, row after row of tools most of which looked the same. How many flathead screwdrivers did one person need?

  At the center of it all was Zoe, sitting cross-legged on the floor. She looked up at Morgan but didn’t seem surprised to see her.

  “You never told me why you came,” she said, as she sorted through a bucket of nuts and bolts, separating them into Mason jars.

  “To find you,” Morgan answered.

  “I mean to All American.”

  “So do I. I was tracking a serial killer. All their victims had called into All American before they died.”

  Zoe considered that. “A serial killer?” Then she nodded. “Yeah, I guess that’s about right. What do you intend to do when you find them?”

  Morgan closed the door behind her and leaned against it. “Thought I’d start with asking you why.”

  Zoe’s laughter filled the space.

  Chapter Sixteen

  “Why?” Zoe scoffed. “You already know why.”

  “I understand that first victim—the one who Troy tried to sell you to. He wanted to kill you to make a snuff film. Is that what all this is about, a pornography ring?”

  Zoe rolled her eyes. “Maybe you don’t know anything. It’s much, much more than that. And that man in Augusta? He said he wasn’t actually there to kill me. He said he wanted to save me, to protect me.”

  “Everything Curtis told you.” Was that why Zoe had snapped? Brutally tortured the man despite leaving her kidnapper unharmed?

  “Everything Curtis told me. Like he expected me to thank him, to feel honored he’d chosen me. I guess I did. For awhile.” Her face grew empty, the left side of it surrendering to gravity, and suddenly Zoe looked strangely very, very young and very, very old. Then she shook herself and blinked at Morgan. “Never again. Anyway, the guy in Augusta, he had some drugs with him—meth and I guess heroin? That made it easier.”

  “The cops thought it was a drug deal gone bad.” Morgan could fill in the gaps from there. “He led you to—”

  “Nowhere. So I laid low, used his computer and password to observe their conversations in their chat room—”

  “They?” Now it was getting interesting.

  “Like I said, it’s so much bigger than you can imagine. Men all over the Southeast, all wealthy and all thinking they’re better than everyone else. Especially women. Camelot, they call their little club. As in living a fantasy where men rule and women swoon to do their bidding. I got into their chat room using the dead guy’s login, but finally they got wise and closed out his account. But by then I’d figured out a few of their identities—some of the dumbasses use their regular email addresses and others, the new ones, have to share a copy of their photo ID, and instead of sending it privately to the leaders, they’re so eager to join they post it right there to the group.”

  “So you paid some of the guys you’d ID’d a visit.”

  “Yeah. I knew they were new to the group, didn’t know much of anything. But it made me so angry—they were so blind, so stupidly, arrogantly blind to what they were doing. They were all like Curtis, thinking those girls were their own special property. They fooled themselves into believing they were looking out for them, taking care of them. Even while they’re stealing their lives and making money off their pain, they think of themselves as some kind of hero. Until I set them straight.” She paused, as if the trivial details of how she’d killed them were too difficult to remember. “One guy caught me watching him in a bar and made a pass at me; wouldn’t take no for an answer. After I got away, I followed him home. Turns out he’s a jogger.”

  “The hit-and-run in Clemson.” She’d wondered where he fit into the pattern.

  Zoe nodded. “The others, they were my best hope to find the leaders, so I was more careful.”

  “The Palatine computer security exec. He was on vacation—a supposed heart attack. Wasn’t found for weeks.”

  “Not a heart attack; nicotine poisoning. I found him almost by accident—I used one of the others’ credentials to get back into their message board. He thought he was in a private chat and let his name and vacation plans slip. Instead of two weeks of golfing on Hilton Head with the girl of his choice, he got me. He had passwords, encryption keys—he’d practically built their computer system, set it up with cutting edge security so the cops couldn’t ever break into it. He told me everything about the technical side of things, how they used fake online vacation bookings and pretend calls to customer service to stay off the cop’s radar. But he was a loner, never went to their parties—”

  “They have parties?”

  “Oh, yeah. Big ones. Like a freakin’ fraternity. Every major holiday, homecoming games and alumni events at the major SEC schools, you name it. They rotate locations and hosts and there’s a five-figure cover charge. The girls dress up in costumes and perform for them, while the men wear masks and drink and smoke cigars and act like they own every woman in the world.”

  “Wait. Who gets the money?”

  Zoe bobbed her head, seemed excited that Morgan understood the heart of the problem. “Exactly. Computer guy never met any of the leaders in person—the leaders call themselves the Round Table, of course. He’d volunteered his services for the cause, he said, like it was something to be proud of, this ring of degenerates having better computer tech than the government. I convinced him to access the money trail and follow it up to the next level, the guy in charge of the St. Patrick’s Day party. Which led me to Savannah.”

  “Hodgkins.”

  “He knew more about the actual real-world set up. The apartments and houses, how they shipped girls from one place to another, how he had to select the right venue for the parties, how much thought went into the planning to make a night no one would ever forget.” She rolled her eyes again, the right side of her face grimacing at the memory. “I had no idea the pressure he was under to make each event more grand than the last. Poor baby.”

  “They never found his body—or his computer.”

  Her smile was like looking in t
he mirror—at the old Morgan. The one still following in her father’s footsteps. “Lots of gators around Savannah.”

  “Why not leave the evidence for the cops? They could have closed it all down way before now.”

  She shook her head. “No. Not good enough. They might have gotten a few of the smaller guys. Squires is what they call their new recruits, men who have to prove how dedicated they are to the cause by bringing in girls, sharing property for housing, stuff like that. Then they’re allowed to rise in ranks until they become a Viscount or Knight or Lord. Like it’s all a game. But they’re smart and keep things compartmentalized, like in a spy movie—a need-to-know basis. None of the stuff the Palatine guy told me works beyond their website—each part of the operation functions separately, like a wall between them. That’s why it took me so long to find my way here, to the Keep.”

  “The Keep? That’s what they call All American?”

  “It’s not about how it looks in real life. It’s about the power it holds in their virtual kingdom.”

  “Kingdom?”

  “Camelot.”

  “So there is a king running things, in charge of this Round Table? Who is it?”

  “I don’t know. I was hoping Gavin would lead me to them.”

  “Gavin? Was he part of it?” If so, then Morgan’s ability to read people was still severely compromised. She couldn’t imagine kind-hearted Gavin being involved in a sex-trafficking operation.

  “No, he had no idea. But when I first started at All American, I copied his security pass. I watched the fourth floor, figured out the IT guys’ schedules, and tried to listen in to their conversations when they were in the break room. I even went on a date with one of them—that’s when I learned that the night of the darts tournament they had a team as well, and only one guy would be working instead of the usual three. I snuck back in, waited until he took a bathroom break, and used Gavin’s pass to access the server room. That’s when I discovered there’s another server room inside the first, a smaller, private bank that has nothing to do with All American. That’s the one I grabbed all the data I could from. It’s all of Camelot’s clients, girls, locations, bribes, transport—everything that allows them to operate. I haven’t had a chance to go through it, but thanks to Gavin, I can finally find the leader of the ring, this King of Camelot.”

  “You must have triggered an alarm when you accessed the server room—only they thought it was Gavin. That’s why they killed him.”

  “Yeah. Too bad, too, because I almost had their complete database copied. Once I did, I was going to take off for a few weeks or however long it took me to analyze it and figure out where to go next. I’m kinda self-taught in all of this, so stuff like that takes me longer.”

  Morgan noted that Zoe showed no remorse over Gavin’s death—the death of an innocent—other than the fact that it inconvenienced her.

  “I don’t think it’s Kagan,” Zoe continued. “He makes plenty of money from All American, according to his financial records, and takes a healthy cut of Camelot’s profits, but I don’t think he’s calling the shots.” She narrowed her eyes. “I was hoping to collect more information and then ask him myself. In private.”

  AKA torture. Morgan surveyed the cluttered space, trying to decide what to do with this girl, this killing machine. Zoe had to be stopped; but at the price of all those women still in Camelot’s grip?

  “Give me the data,” she suggested. “You hid a hard drive backup here. Let me guess—Wi-Fi-enabled, linked to another cloud backup?” That was how Morgan would do it. “Where better to hide in plain sight than a hoarder’s garage, right?”

  “It’s here,” Zoe admitted. “But why should I give it to you?”

  “I have friends who can analyze the data and find the leaders, this so-called King and whoever is working with him. They can make sure no one else gets hurt.”

  Zoe looked almost disappointed. The sound of a car squealing to a stop came from outside. She glanced at the garage door, then at Morgan, a twisted grin playing over her face. “Might be too late for that. They’re here.”

  Morgan froze, uncertain where the greatest threat lay. “How’d they find us?”

  “Me, not us.” Zoe slid her All American ID from her shirt pocket. “They have RFID locators embedded in them. I was keeping mine wrapped in tinfoil—the poor man’s Faraday cage—but when you got here, I took it out.”

  “You wanted them to track you?”

  Zoe slid a semiautomatic from the small of her back. She didn’t aim it at Morgan, simply held it at the ready. “Don’t worry. I have a plan.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  “A plan?” Morgan asked, not liking the look in Zoe’s face. It was the first time she’d seen her reveal any true emotion, and it was making Morgan nervous. Because the look on Zoe’s face was almost exactly the same look Morgan’s father got before one of his killing sprees—a gleeful type of anticipation.

  “Last night, after you told me who you really were, I did some research on you.”

  “After you left two men to die in a burning trailer.”

  Zoe shrugged. “They came to kill me, so justice is served, right? Anyway, I want you to have the data. Like you said, you can do more with it than I can—find all the girls, and get them out safe.” She pulled a small flat box from her back pocket. “I spent the morning copying all of my research onto this hard drive.”

  Morgan took the drive. “And what about the leader? We still don’t know who’s running this Camelot.”

  “That’s where my plan comes in. I’m going to get them to take me to him. Then I’ll take care of the rest.”

  “Zoe, no. They’ll kill you—they have to know that you’re not only the person who stole their data but that you’re also the one killing their members. If I put it together, so can they.”

  “They won’t kill me.” A strange smile played over her face—the good side of her face, at least. The damaged side remained twisted and pulled down into a never-ending frown. “At least not quickly. I still have something they want.”

  “The data.”

  Zoe moved past Morgan to the door. “Anyway, it will give you time to get free. Just wait and hide until they leave.”

  “But—”

  Zoe put a finger to her lips and cracked open the door to the house. Then she gestured for Morgan to follow her. They moved silently through the kitchen to the walk-in pantry on the shared wall with the dining room. They crept inside and closed the slatted doors. From here the angle was just right for Morgan to see through the dining room to where Alfie and Gladys were sitting in the living room.

  The front doorbell rang. Gladys stood, but before she could go to answer it, it burst open. Two men with guns—one of them the man Morgan had saved from the fire last night, the one who told her about Zoe—ran inside. Gladys screamed and raised her hands as a man held his gun on her.

  Alfie leapt up and tried to tackle Gladys’ assailant, but Coughing Man slammed the old man’s head with the butt of his gun and Alfie fell back into his chair. Anger surged through Morgan, but Zoe clamped her hand down hard on Morgan’s shoulder and shook her head. “Wait,” she mouthed.

  Then a third man entered, strolling inside as if he owned the place. Spencer Kagan, All American’s CEO. “Where is she?”

  “Who?” Gladys squeaked.

  “Zoe. I know she’s here.” He didn’t wait for an answer, prowling around the room, knocking over the photos and knickknacks.

  “Zoe!” he called. “Come out now or the old man gets it first.”

  Morgan was desperate to go out there and protect Alfie and Gladys. There was blood streaming from Alfie’s head and he seemed stunned, though otherwise unharmed. So far.

  “I’ll count to three,” Spencer continued, circling to stand in front of Alfie, who glared up at him defiantly.

  “Don’t you hurt that girl,” Alfie told Spencer. “Now, get out of my house!”

  “One,” Spencer said, slapping Alfie so hard his head s
lammed against the back of the recliner. “Two.” He backhanded Alfie. This time the old man grunted in pain and tried to climb out of his chair, but Spencer shoved him back down.

  Morgan was ready to bolt from their hiding place—how could she sit there and watch innocents being hurt?—but Zoe held her back.

  All part of Zoe’s plan, Morgan realized. To make it look like Spencer had forced her hand. Still, what she wouldn’t give to go out there and show those men what a real pistol-whipping felt like.

  Spencer held his hand out, palm up, to the man beside him who handed him his pistol. Spencer raised it and pressed it hard against the center of Alfie’s forehead, grinding it into his flesh. Gladys sobbed.

  Zoe stepped out of the pantry, hands held high, the pistol dangling from her fingers. She kicked the door shut, concealing Morgan from view. “Stop. I’m here.”

  Spencer kept the gun trained on Alfie as his two men rushed Zoe, shoving her against the wall, taking her gun, searching her, and fastening her wrists behind her with zipties.

  “Where’s the data?” Spencer asked. “We know you took it.”

  “It’s safe,” Zoe said. One of the men punched her in the gut and she doubled over, her breath escaping in a whoosh.

  “I want it. Every copy. And then we can discuss whether you live or die.”

  The two men yanked on Zoe’s arms until she was upright and facing Spencer. “If you kill me, the data goes to the cops. It’s stored in the cloud, and if I don’t enter a code every twenty-four hours, it’s set to be sent to the FBI.”

  Spencer narrowed his eyes at her. “Then I guess we need you alive for a few hours longer.” He turned to where Gladys was tending to Alfie’s wound. “But maybe not them.”

  Morgan tensed. She didn’t care what Zoe’s plan was. She was not about to let two innocent people die on her watch.