They arrived at Serenity late in the day. Dawkins and Kovac walked ahead of Arden and started to take down the yellow tape. Arden lagged a pace behind. She felt like the third wheel but tried to look at the positive side. At least she didn’t have to do all the heavy lifting. They returned to the salon, walked to the back, and entered through the basement door that the police had breached. Down the steps, they walked into the small, speakeasy-style bar.
Dawkins chuckled. “We have the old lady charged for not owning a liquor license as well. Just in case we can’t pin anything else on her.”
Provocative pictures were hung on the walls. Most of them were black and white and trying to be artsy, but Arden just felt queasy looking at them. She tried to look past the filth to see if the pictures held any other symbols. She found one that, judging by the girl’s voluminous hairstyle and make-up, was from the eighties. She had the salon’s symbol drawn on her thigh with a Sharpie.
Arden pointed it out to the others. “When was this place opened?”
“The records says ‘88.” Dawkins replied.
“This place was built for this.” Arden replied. “Who owns the smoke shop?”
“The records show the older Ms. Chan. It didn’t take much digging,” Kovac added.
Arden backed away from the picture. “I want to find out who the contractor is.” This basement wasn’t built overnight. “Perhaps they are in the racket, too.”
“Not a bad idea,” Dawkins said.
Kovac didn’t make any snide remarks. She was probably jealous that Arden was making good suggestions.
They continued through the building. Arden snapped photos with her phone every time she noticed something out of the ordinary. In the nasty bathroom, she found graffiti all over the walls. She marked down on a notepad any symbol or signature that seemed to stand out. She saw a butterfly, a bee, a picture of a honeycomb, etc. She checked out each individual room. The place as a whole just felt evil. There was a heaviness to the atmosphere that Arden couldn’t ignore. After making three rounds through the place, Arden had a lot of material she’d need to review.
The three of them headed back to the precinct and talked to the women whom they rescued. They had twelve girls they needed to speak to. While Kovac questioned them despite Arden’s request, Dawkins and herself looked into who put the building together. They searched sales and property documents.
“Kovac is not a fan of you,” Dawkins said out of the blue as they worked.
“I’ve noticed,” Arden replied.
“She doesn’t see why we need you,” Dawkins replied.
Arden kept scrolling through the web browser on her phone. “She’s entitled to her opinion.”
Dawkins sighed. “And she has many.”
“You’ve known each other for a while?” Arden asked.
“Five/six years,” Dawkins replied. “My last partner took a better offer up in Albany and the lieutenant put his daughter in his place. I can’t say she hasn’t earned it. The girl is tough. She closed a lot of drug busts. Once the criminals know who she is, they tend to back down. Having the family in the business helps out. How about you? What led you to want to hunt down the scum of the earth?”
“I’m more interested in finding the lost,” Arden admitted.
“Noble, but there is nothing like watching a swamp creature squirm,” Dawkins said, getting some sort of sick pleasure out of the action of stomping out evil. “Anyway, what got you into this business?”
“My sister,” Arden replied.
“She a P.I., too?”
Painful memories flashed through Arden’s eyes like a rapid camera strobe light. “No, she was, uh… on the other side.”
“Prostitute?” Dawkins asked bluntly.
Arden gave him a look.
Dawkins averted his eyes.
“Anyway,” Arden continued. “She didn’t… that world wasn’t very kind to her. And she never had a chance to break out.”
“Ah,” Dawkins replied, understanding.
Their conversation lulled.
“How about you, Dawkins?” Arden asked. “Why this life?”
Dawkins leaned back. “I’ve always liked cop dramas, even as a kid. There was something exciting about solving a mystery. Partying destroyed my chance to go to law school, so I tried the next best thing. It doesn’t always pay very well, but there’s no job like it. Besides, it feels good doling out justice. Every case is its own game with its own players. Understanding them and positioning the pieces to find the victory is always a good time. Especially being on the winning side. No one escapes the law. It catches up with you.”
They went back to work. Dawkins found something. “Ah-ha.”
“Symbol?” Arden asked.
“Not yet,” Dawkins replied. “Something better.” He showed her the property papers regarding the construction of the strip mall. “Foundation Inc. is the company behind the building’s construction. It might lead somewhere.”
“Foundation…” Arden said, thinking. The name sounded familiar, but where did she hear about it? Wait a minute. Her heart rate increased. “I’ve seen this before.”
“Okay…” Dawkins waited for her to elaborate.
Arden sat up. “There was an arrest of a few construction workers a couple of nights ago.”
“The guys who were found with cocaine?” Dawkins asked.
“Those are the ones,” Arden replied.
“How do you know about that? The media didn’t know about it.”
“I helped uncover it.” Arden stood up. “C’mon. Let’s talk to Peter Banks. He’s the man I followed to the construction site.”
Unable to make bail, the heavyset construction worker was still in the holding cell. It was late in the day when Dawkins called him out. He and Arden booked the other interrogation room while Kovac continued to talk to the girls.
He seemed confused as to why he was in the room. “What’s going on here? I want my lawyer.”
“Let’s talk first,” Dawkins said. “You’ve been working for Foundation Inc. for how many years?”
Peter crossed his arms and looked away, refusing to talk.
Arden smiled at him. “Hey, we’re not after you. We just need some questions to be answered.”
Peter listened to the sympathy in her voice. “You look familiar.”
“I just have one of those faces,” Arden replied, remembering that they exchanged looks at the bar the night Arden tailed him.
“Twenty-six years,” Peter replied. “That’s how long I’ve been with Foundation.”
“Were you involved with the construction at Serenity Spa?”
“We’ve done so many jobs, it’s hard to tell which places I’m involved in and which I’m not,” Peter asked. “We’ve done a lot of work for a lot of different places.”
“Did your boss ever have you dig out basements below strip malls?” Arden asked bluntly.
“I’ll repeat myself, we’ve done so many jobs I can’t distinguished them all. I just show up and put the place together. I don’t ask questions,” Peter replied. “Now, I’ve been very cooperative since you brought me in. Can I go now?”
Dawkins chuckled. “Not until we say you can. Foundation Inc. was involved in the construction of a certain spa that has just been raided by the police. When you were brought in on illegal substance charges, you were with a young lady who was soliciting sex.”
“There was never proof of that,” Peter said. “I’m not going to have you put words in my mouth.”
Arden stepped up. “Listen Peter, Foundation could be involved in something very big. If that’s the case, every one of you and your friends could be caught in the crosshairs. If you don’t want that to happen, you need to start talking.”
“What do you want me to talk about?” Peter asked. “You’re just asking me if Foundation built something. I said yes. You have the documents to prove it, I assume, so what do you want to get out of me?”
“We’re looking for a girl named Jessica C
armon,” Arden explained. “She has been kidnapped and possibly sold into sex trafficking. We need to find out who is behind this.”
“I can assure you, Foundation had nothing to do with any sex trafficking.”
“Then how did you find Maya Taylor?”
“Who is that?”
“The girl you were with,” Arden replied. “Remember, the night you were arrested.”
“Oh, her. Some of the guys picked her up. I thought she was the girlfriend of one of them.”
Arden and Peter went back and forth for a while but didn’t get any worthwhile results. Eventually, she showed him the symbol of Serenity. “Ever seen this before?”
Peter quickly looked away.
“So you have?” Arden asked.
Peter stammered. “Never seen it. Never been there.”
Arden pulled out some pictures she took of the underground brothel. She pointed to different symbols and asked if Peter had seen them. He denied them. Arden believed him. She eventually showed him a symbol of a rocket ship that had been graffitied in one of the bathroom stalls.
That one had Peter sweating and though he didn’t say anything, Arden had what she needed to travel further down the rabbit hole.
7
The Cleaners
Arden Briar took a deep breath. She looked both ways down Macon’s busy streets before walking to her car. Her pace was brisk and purposeful. She had her mind set on a mission: find out what the rocket ship symbol was connected to and try her luck talking to the girls that invited Jessica out on Halloween. She had pictures of the perpetrators from the salon and thought it would be a good idea to compare them to the strangers the girls saw outside of the high school.
She climbed into her car, got ahold of the school, and acquired the addresses for where the girls lived. It was much easier to obtain such information being a police consultant. Nevertheless, Principal Wyatt was still intimidated by the mere sound of her voice.
The first address took her to a small, colonial-style house. Arden’s wristwatch read 5:54 pm. Ashlyn Hinkle should be home from cross-country practice. Arden pressed the doorbell and waited with her hands in her pockets. Her lips scrunched to the side of her face as she scanned the middle-class suburban neighborhood. A sense of uncertainty lingered in her gut, almost like she was being hunted.
Ashlyn opened the door. Recently out of the shower, the girl’s wet hair streamed down her shoulders in glossy waves. The moment she recognized Arden, her lips tightened. Autumn style decorations were set out on the various side tables and lampstands. They appeared to be a very festive family. “Your parents home?”
“They will be,” the fifteen-year-old girl replied defensively.
Arden smiled slightly. “I’m on your side, Ashlyn. You still want to find Jessica, right?”
The teenager cast down her gaze. A moment of hesitation passed, and then she nodded.
Arden gestured to the rocking chairs on the porch. “Have a seat.”
The two of them claimed their spots. They had a view of Ashlyn’s little section of neighborhood. Aside from a group of middle school boys playing basketball, the streets were empty.
“How are you holding up?” Arden asked.
Ashlyn shrugged.
“I’m sorry I was hard on you the other day,” Arden replied. “I just wanted you to understand the seriousness of this abduction.”
Ashlyn tightly hugged herself, almost curling herself up into a ball. “We never wanted anything bad to happen to her. It was just supposed to be funny, you know?”
“I’m long past give you a guilt trip,” Arden replied.
Ashlyn’s expression was sober. “Do you think she’s dead?”
“I’m praying she’s not,” Arden replied.
The teenager stared off into the neighborhood.
Arden removed the mugshot of the people that were arrested at Serenity. She handed them to Ashlyn. The fifteen-year-old looked through them.
“Recognize them?” Arden asked.
Ashlyn shook her head. “Who are they?”
“They are currently under indictment for human trafficking,” explained Arden.
Ashlyn gave them back to Arden. “I’m sorry. I know any of them.”
“Any similarities to the person you saw on the track field a few days before Jessica’s disappearance?”
Ashlyn shook her head and sniffled. “You’ll have to ask the others.”
Arden tapped on the file of mugshots. “And you can say, without a doubt, it was none of these men?”
“I…” Ashlyn’s eyes went wet. “I-I don’t know. Maybe. He was far away and behind the fence. I couldn’t--” Ashlyn broke and started sobbing.
Arden removed a few tissues from her purse and gave them to the girl. She stayed with Ashlyn for a while but got nowhere with the investigation.
Arden headed to Hannah Jones’s house next. The family lived in a lower/middle class condo that was gated. The smell of marijuana and cigarette smoke lingered in the air. Her mother, a tightly-wound opinionated woman, gave Arden a mouthful the moment she answered the door. Removing some choice words, the gist of what the woman said was “How dare you come here after harassing my daughter.”
Arden replied softly. “It wasn’t my finest hour, but your daughter’s feelings are the least of my concerns.”
That started Mrs. Jones on another rant that tested Arden’s patience. Silent, Arden let the woman attack her character until she was breathless.
Keeping one hand on her wide hip and her eyes wide with fury, Jones waited for Arden to reply.
Arden presented the file instead.
Mrs. Jones glared at it. “What’s that?”
Arden explained as precise and as cautious as she could about whom was in the file. She ended her explanation, saying. “I need to know if Hannah saw any of these men. Will you show this to her?”
Mrs. Jones snatched the file and returned inside.
She returned two minutes later. “She didn’t see ‘em.”
“Could you ask her about the man at the track field?”
Mrs. Jones stood defiantly. “She didn’t see him either.”
Arden thought, You didn’t ask her. Keeping her mouth shut, she took back the file from Mrs. Jones, handed her a business card, and headed to her next location.
Emma Dorothy lived in an apartment complex just down the road from Hannah. Her mother and seventeen-year-old brother invited her inside. It was a cozy two bedroom with a sweet cat running around. Emma picked up the tabby and petted her on the sofa. Her mother, also very beautiful, and her brother, who had an acne breakout, all joined Arden in the living room.
“Thank you so much,” Mrs. Dorothy said. “My daughter needs to shape up after what she did to that girl. I don’t even let her hang out with those old girlfriends of hers anymore.” She turned to Emma. “If your father was here, he would’ve been so disappointed.”
Emma scoffed. “I know, Mom. You’ve only told me that a million times.”
“That’s because it’s true,” Mrs. Dorothy said. She turned to Arden. “Her father is away on business. He’s a photographer and gets to travel the world,” she said proudly.
Arden smiled at her. She directed her attention Emma’s way. “Tell me about the man you saw on the track field.”
“I couldn’t tell you anything about him. He was too far away.”
After showing her the list of mugshots, Arden left with measly results. Mrs. Dorothy thanked her again as Arden stepped out into the night.
Her last stop was Lindsey Heedman’s house. She lived in a two-story, nuclear family style home with a large fenced-in pool, a dog house in the back yard, and a large SUV parked out in front.
Arden remembered Lindsey to be the leader and also the one least keen on hearing Arden talk last time. She imagined that this was the girl who instigated the whole plan to leave Jessica behind.
Arden pressed the doorbell and heard a satisfying chime on the other end of the elegantly constructed door
.
A moment later, a man answered. He wore a nice white and blue polo and pastel shorts. His tennis shoes were all white, and he had medium-length white socks coming out from inside of them. A blanket of hair covered his legs and arms. Weighty, but by no means obese, his shirt curved in the shape of his hard beer belly. His head was round, with the makings of a double chin and a deeply receding hairline. By the sharpness of his eyes and nose, Arden guessed he was handsome twenty years ago, but he really let himself go. He looked over Arden in a way that was a little too familiar. “Can I help you?”
“I’m Private Investigator Arden Briar. I was wondering if I could talk to Lindsey. She home?”
The man looked over his shoulder and shouted. “Lindsey!”
From another room, someone yelled back. “Coming!”
The man turned back to Arden. “She in trouble?”
“I just need to ask her a few questions. I spoke to her once already at school about the disappearance of Jessica Carmon,” Arden explained.
The man crossed his arms. “She never told me that.”
As soon as the last word left his mouth, Lindsey was behind him. “What, Dad?” She asked. Seeing Arden, she glared at her. “Oh,” she added with petty disgust.
The man kept his gaze on Arden but spoke to his daughter. “I didn’t know you talked to Ms. Briar.”
“Yeah, well, I didn’t see it as such a big deal.”
Arden found that interesting. Lindsey seemed to be the one most adamant about talking to her parents but it appeared she didn’t till them anything. She guessed that the father and daughter weren’t that close.
“What’s going on?” A voice sounded from behind them. Lindsey’s mother joined them. Like her daughter, she had highlighted blonde hair and a pretty but arrogant look about her. Arden guessed that the woman was a cheerleader at some point in her life. She was abnormally skinny and had her hair in a ponytail. “I’m Janice. You are?”
“Arden Briar.”
Janice repeated her name back to her in slightly condescending matter. “I see you’ve met my husband, Alex.”
Secrets Boxset: A Riveting Kidnapping Mystery Collection Page 7