by Leslie Wolfe
“We’re not going to hurt you, I swear,” I said, speaking as soothingly as I could. “We’re looking for Meredith, have you seen her?”
Holt showed her a photo of his daughter, but she barely looked at it and shook her head so violently her long, bleached hair came undone from the updo, sending a hairpin to the floor.
I grabbed her left wrist and held her forearm under the light, then touched the spot where someone had injected the tracking chip. She whimpered and wriggled, trying to break herself free from my grip.
“Where are the people who gave you this, Chloe?”
“No, no, please,” she pleaded, starting to sob. “I can’t.”
“You’ll be safe, I promise. You’ll be able to return home to your family, and we’ll put these people behind bars,” Holt said, showing her his badge.
At the sight of his ID, the girl’s knees gave, and she let herself fall to the ground in a heap of inconsolable wails.
“No, no,” she pleaded between heaving sobs, “you don’t know what they’ll do. Not to me, to everyone.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, feeling a chill down my spine, because I suspected what she meant.
“They’ll beat all of us,” she whimpered. “If one of us does something wrong, if a customer complains, or if we talk to anyone, all of us are punished.”
“Punished how?”
“They hurt us badly,” she said, shielding her face from us, ashamed.
I looked at her body, searching for visible signs of abuse. I saw none.
“Where it doesn’t show,” she whispered, her face flushed, her eyes lowered to the ground. “Please, let me go.”
Holt crouched next to her, and she pushed herself away, trying to distance herself from him.
“It’s my daughter,” he pleaded. “Please help me find her.”
She shook her head slowly, as tears rolled from her eyes, running mascara-tinted streams of moisture into her caked foundation. “I don’t know who she is. I can’t help you.”
I looked at Holt, asking him silently to let me talk to her some more. I offered her a hand, and she followed me to the couch. Then, obediently, she drank another sip or two from the can of Coke.
She shivered badly, trembling from her entire fragile being, and I offered her one of the plush bathrobes that came with the penthouse. She wrapped it around her body, all the time continuing to cry softly.
“Please, let me go. I’ll tell them something to explain why I don’t have the money. Please.”
“We’ll give you—” I started to say, but Holt cut me off.
“You’re not going back there, you hear me?” he shouted. “What kind of man do you think I am, to let you go back to those monsters?”
She stared at him with hollow, round eyes, her tears gone. Then she nodded slowly, accepting her fate.
“I can’t… There’s seventeen of us,” she whispered as if begging us to consider the harm that her cooperation with us would do to all those girls.
“We will get them all, and you’re going to help us,” Holt stated firmly, turning his back to her to talk to me. Obscured by Holt’s broad shoulders, she slipped out of my view for one brief moment.
“We need to get a radio car out here, to pick her up,” Holt said. “Have Fletcher wait for her with a medical team. He should look at the chip she has in her arm.”
The gust of fresh, cold air swept the room, and my heart stopped upon realizing what had happened. Chloe had run out on the terrace and climbed over the glass guardrail, ready to let go.
“Chloe! No!” I shouted and rushed to the terrace. Holt ran faster than me, but still couldn’t catch her arm before she released her grip.
The white bathrobe fluttered quietly as her body fell forty-five stories to the ground.
28
Lust
Thirty-nine hours missing
He liked to come into the garage and look at them. Seeing how they trembled when he stepped inside, how they retreated until they hit the back wall with nowhere left to go made him twitch with the promise of a massive erection. He actually came into the garage every chance he got, just to run his hand against the cage walls, to hear them whimper, to smell their fear.
The one in the far kennel didn’t know him yet, not as well as and as personally as the other two did. She didn’t lower her gaze when he stared at her; instead, she glared right back at him, muttering oaths, her nostrils flaring, her fists clenched. One hour with him and all that feistiness would be erased from her being for the rest of her ridiculous existence. One hour was all he needed.
But he couldn’t touch that one yet; Snowman would kill him.
The boss had been furious after he’d seen the newscast about Alyssa Conway and had made it very clear: when he told his men to get rid of a girl, he expected that girl to disappear forever, never to be found again. One more mistake, and he’d put a bullet into each of his security men’s skulls, just to teach everyone a lesson.
He stood there in front of the boss, taking the scolding with his eyes lowered to the ground, hating every minute of it, feeling the flush of humiliation light up his face. Someone like him, to be degraded like that in front of everyone else, was unacceptable, and since it had happened, all he could think of for a while was how to kill Snowman, slowly, painfully, making him beg for mercy.
Then his thoughts rushed back to the girls, the ones in the garage and the ones in the desert. How the fuck did the cops find Alyssa? He’d been careful. He’d driven at least two miles from the highway before stopping and setting up her resting bed. He’d chosen the location thoughtfully, considering the terrain and the direct line of sight from the highway. No one should’ve ever found her body, yet they had before he had the chance to be done with her.
He gritted his teeth in frustration and kicked the cage where that swine’s daughter awaited her turn. She barely flinched, and he bared his teeth and cussed at her. The girl in the next cage whimpered and crouched to the floor, hugging her knees. Krista was the girl’s name, not that he cared, but when Snowman gave an order, he had to know which girl he was talking about.
His mind didn’t linger on Krista’s smooth skin and perfect curves; he’d tapped that more than once and found it mediocre. His eyes moved on to Mindy, who sat on the floor leaning against the wall, her eyes lowered, absentminded, almost indifferent. Perfectly still… almost ready.
Soon, Snowman would give the order; he probably wanted to give Mindy one more chance. Killing her was a waste of a fantastic, little body and a tight ass that would’ve raked in cash like no one else. Natural blondes always scored high with the customers, regardless of what turned them on.
He was itching to take Mindy for a drive in the desert. He’d have to move farther south and drive inland at least five miles this time, to make sure the cops wouldn’t find her body. But he was eager to go, frustrated by the way his last affair ended, too soon, so soon he barely had time to indulge once.
That girl had died quickly, within moments of getting there. He’d dripped the two drops between her lips, and she was gone. He’d counted carefully and was sure he didn’t screw it up. No, it had to have been that bitch’s fault, dying on him like that for no reason. He’d barely had the time to take her once, her body cold and perfectly still, subdued to perfection under his hands.
He remembered what she felt like and stared at Mindy with a growing urge to break her out of that cage and take her to the Mojave now, today. His body screamed for the delayed release, clouding his mind, making his entire being ache with need.
But Snowman wasn’t the kind of man to mess with. He’d seen his boss kill people for far less, for a beer not chilled enough or for a door left open. Taking one of his girls before he was done with her was not a good idea.
He put his hand below his belt and rearranged things down there, grinning when Krista whimpered. Then he crouched on the side of Mindy’s cage and whispered, “Soon, baby, soon.”
The girl didn’t react in any way; she
just sat there, inert. She was the one who could make him happier than anyone he’d had before. She had it in her blood to be serene, obedient. That’s how he liked his women, still, not squirming endlessly, focused only on their pleasure, not his. That was the problem with all those sluts; either they writhed and screamed to escape from his grasp, or they fidgeted senselessly looking for their own release, not caring for a moment about his. Two drops of the elixir, and all that was gone, leaving them able to feel, to see, and to hear without robbing him of his own moment of bliss.
He knew he should take Mindy into the desert and put a quick bullet in her head, then leave her there for the vultures and coyotes to prey on, scattering her bones across the expanse, never to be found again. He also knew that once Snowman gave the order, he’d take her to a place like no other, deep into the barren lands, and share with her moments he’d never forget, for days in a row, for as long as he could keep her alive.
No one could rob him of that pleasure.
29
Exchange
Forty-two hours missing
Holt drove his unmarked Interceptor to the Windmill and Bermuda gas station and parked it on the side, as instructed. Then he started ambling back and forth in front of the pumps, killing time, waiting for Klug’s men. It was two in the morning; there was almost no traffic whatsoever, and my white Toyota stood out like a sore thumb.
Behind the gas station, there was a small strip mall with a Wells Fargo bank. I parked there and pretended to be on a phone call while keeping my eyes on Holt. It was dark and difficult to see that far, but nothing else was moving in that entire area except him.
A dark blue Ford Transit approached on Windmill, coming from I-15; it slowed and entered the gas station. The sliding door opened when it was passing near Holt, and two men grabbed and pulled him inside the van. The door slid shut and the van sped away, without having completely stopped.
I refrained from flooring it and chasing the van; I had Holt’s GPS tracker showing up nicely on my phone. I let the van gain a good lead and followed from a distance, keeping it in sight but far enough to not draw any attention at that time of night, when the absence of traffic posed an issue.
The van continued on Windmill Parkway for a while, then turned right on Green Valley Parkway and passed the Legacy Golf Club. The driver used the maze of residential streets off Wigwam Avenue to check if he was being followed, making turn after turn and slowing down. I didn’t fall for it; I stayed well behind, giving him time to regain confidence and drive to their final destination. After a while, he exited the neighborhood via Timberbrook Circle, then turned left on Wigwam, then left again on Green Valley, resuming his original course.
He slowed after the overpass at I-215 and turned into the deserted mall. Then, after another few minutes of navigating between stores and restaurants, the van pulled up at the loading dock of a large store. The sign, now dark, read, “Wholesale Plumbing Supplies and Tools.”
I didn’t need to read the sign to know where I was. Any cop who’d worked in Las Vegas had heard of that place. It was believed to be a front for the local drug trafficking business, was even raided a couple of times, but nothing could be proven. A few, more seasoned cops insisted the company was the money laundering arm of the prosperous narcotics pushing trade, but again, nothing was documented, so no charges were filed. By day, the place buzzed with activity, its reputation also being an excellent supply store, where plumbers and contractors could find any fitting, washer, or tool kit they could think of.
The loading dock backed into an open area, forcing me to keep my distance. A few hundred yards away, there were some newly developed houses, and I pulled in front of one and killed the lights. Then I extracted the monocular from my bag and searched for the van in the viewfinder.
Two large men held my partner by the arms. A fourth man slid the van side door shut, and the driver peeled off, turning the corner and heading toward the main road. The men dragged Holt inside the store and immediately closed the loading door. Within moments, the place seemed just as deserted and as quiet as it had been before they arrived.
Against all reason, I waited for Meredith Holt to walk out of there, although I knew men like Samuel Klug never kept their word. Not even Holt expected the encounter to be a fair exchange; he knew Snowman better than that. Waiting, listening intently, my mind wandered, going over what little I really knew about Klug.
Until my partner had first mentioned him, I’d barely heard his name. I never worked Narcotics or Vice. I was a Homicide cop, part of the Homicide Bureau within the Las Vegas Metro Police Department. As far as I knew, Klug’s involvement with sex crimes was relatively new, and to that day, he’d never made my radar for any homicide either. My only participation with the substance trafficking world had been my endless search for my husband’s killer, until one day when I found him staring me in the face with his odd eyes from across the interrogation room table. But even in those days, I’d never heard Klug’s name.
How did someone like him keep so clean?
I needed to learn more about him and quickly, if I were to be of any use to my partner.
I waited, watching and listening to the camera feed from Holt’s pants hem. I didn’t see much, only a grainy, dark view of a shopping aisle, and almost no movement as if he were standing somewhere, immobile. I couldn’t hear a sound either, except for his heavy breathing.
I needed to get inside that place. But how? What could I possibly invent to justify my presence on the premises? How could I bang on that door and not get shot, not put Holt’s life in danger and his daughter’s too?
I started playing several scenarios in my mind, living through them as if they were real, and seeing how they all ended in blood baths with nothing achieved. It reminded me of playing a strategy game on the computer, where I chose to do different things each time yet lose just as badly.
Then I heard sounds coming from my phone. The video feed was still grainy, but there was movement and increasing light, the image choppy, something I had expected considering I had attached the camera to the leg of Holt’s pants. It was bouncing with every step he made, swinging violently, the noise of his footsteps on cement louder than the voices in the background.
Then the image stopped, centered on a large, leather armchair occupied by an African American male in his thirties. He wore a gray suit, from what I could tell, and a white shirt, all but the two lowest buttons undone to show his hairy chest and a thick, gold chain with a cross pendant. He slumped on the armchair with his legs spread out and his elbows splayed on the armrests, and stared dead ahead, probably at Holt.
“Well, if it isn’t the mighty Detective Jack Holt, coming into my house again, this time invited,” the man said.
“Hello, Klug,” I heard Holt’s voice. “Or do you prefer Snowman?”
“I prefer you to shut that yapper before I tape it for you.”
Holt didn’t respond.
Snowman shifted in his seat, slouching a little lower. “I’m surprised you had the balls to show up,” he said. “You know you’re not getting out of here alive, right?”
“Right,” Holt replied calmly. “Where’s my daughter?”
The man laughed heartily, patting his stomach with a ring-studded hand. “Someplace safe, keepin’ my homies some company.”
I cringed.
“You son of a bitch,” Holt said, and the image on my screen moved erratically, as if he were trying to run but couldn’t. “That was the deal, my life for hers.”
Snowman made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “Yeah, yeah, that was the deal, and I didn’t pop her. You get to die, she gets to live, a life of luxury among my best-producing girls on the Strip.”
I heard Holt shout, “You lying piece of—” but then someone hit him hard because his words were cut mid-phrase. Another blow came right after that, the sound of knuckles punching bones was unmistakable, as were Holt’s groans of pain.
For a long moment, all I could hear were Holt’s raspy
breaths.
“That’s what you had in mind for me?” Holt asked, still panting. “Four, white ex-cons with tats beating the shit out of me? That’s lame, Snowman. That’s fucking lame.”
Another blow came, and then another. The last one knocked Holt to the ground and the image on my screen tilted sideways. They picked him up, while I jotted some notes. Four Caucasian males with prison tats. It was a start.
The beating continued; I could barely stand it. I wanted to barge in through that door, gun drawn, and raise hell, but I was afraid for Meredith’s life, afraid what a psychopath like Snowman could do in only seconds.
When they stopped pounding on Holt, I heard his raspy breaths again, the only sound captured by the tiny camera for a few seconds. Then he cleared his throat, spat on the floor, and asked, “What the hell do you want, Klug?”
The man smiled widely, showing bright white teeth and a sparkling tooth jewel. It must’ve been a diamond because even in that faint, grainy video, I could see its bright flickers of reflected light. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees.
“It’s payday, motherfucker. Today you get to bleed.”
I winced, expecting some more blows to rain down on my partner. Instead, I heard his voice, a little raspy, but strong, undefeated.
“I know you, Klug, you always want something.”
He laughed again, his cackles sending echoes against the high ceiling of the store. “Not before your meat is tenderized to taste.”
The blows started pouring mercilessly. After a few more, the image tilted again, and I could see Holt had been thrown to the ground, and two men were kicking him hard.
Then the image disappeared. I heard a crackling noise, and the sound was gone too.
I was in the dark.
30
Collaboration
Forty-three hours missing