Chapter 9
Late Thursday afternoon
“Any way to get the girls here before Thanksgiving weekend? I might have more clients who want to meet and party with them.” Big Daddy lit up one of his Cuban cigars and puffed. He refused to use the word customer. It sounded tacky and low rent and he’d built his reputation on offering high class women to clients with expensive tastes and deep pockets to satisfy those tastes.
“I doubt it,” The Cadre’s representative said. “They’re booked out for shows almost every night until they arrive in Knoxville. My clients paid in advance for their services.”
“And if mine offered more money?” Big Daddy peered through the darkness at The Cadre’s representative, who had sent word he preferred to meet in semi-darkened rooms due to an extreme photosensitivity. His appearance did not jive with Big Daddy’s image of someone who worked for one of America’s biggest crime organizations. Short, thin, and wearing an oversize cheap suit that hardly did justice to his magnificent, old-fashioned fedora that completely covered his hair. A man with his kind of job should know to dress better. The engraved card he’d handed to Big Daddy simply read, D. Creed, in simple black letters.
Until you looked into his eyes. Even in the near darkness, you could see they were onyx, fathomless and utterly devoid of expression. They were the eyes of a stone-cold killer. Big Daddy had met such men–and one woman–in his rise to power. They worked from the shadows with a silent lethality, killing as needed, without hesitation or remorse. Creed would kill Big Daddy in a minute if he needed to do so and they both knew it.
“Depends on how much money you’re talking,” Creed said smoothly. “I’ll get back with you. Arrangements are in order?”
“Very nearly,” Big Daddy said. “Finishing touches are being made on the penthouse where my clients–and yours if you want them included–will be entertained by the women.”
“Make sure most of them are young. Very young.” Creed’s stare hardened and an unfamiliar fear flashed through Big Daddy. Killer’s eyes, he reminded himself. Killer’s eyes.
“I’ll see myself out,” Creed said. His gliding departure from the office was as silent as a cat. Big Daddy mashed his cigar into the ashtray and poured himself several fingers worth of Oban scotch from the Baccarat crystal carafe into his favorite cut glass tumbler.
Big Daddy knew The Cadre was dangerous. Very dangerous. But then, so was he. He’d been enlarging his base in Memphis and Nashville this past year and was frequently gone. He trusted very few people, so it was only this past summer he realized how strongly they’d settled here. But when the time was right, he’d show those sons-of-bitches who was the real power in East Tennessee and make them pay for their disrespect.
Right after he’d finished torturing and killing Elaine Prescott for taking Lulu.
Later that evening.
“I’m glad we found Amigo’s owners.” Elaine settled against the sofa’s pillows in the safehouse’s living room. “Or rather they found us.” The young boy and his mother had burst into the pharmacy while Miller and his men were questioning everyone there. “Easier to do it there than expect them to show up at the station,” Miller had explained. “Given the chance, they’d probably have headed for home.”
“You could tell by Amigo’s reaction he belonged to them,” Griff agreed as he joined her with two glasses of white wine. “And I’m glad Miller was able to cut us loose early so we could make it back here before dark.”
“And Amigo probably saved your life,” Patrick added from the kitchen doorway. “If you hadn’t bent down to pick him up, one or both of you would probably be dead by now.”
Elaine stared into her glass. “It was Big Daddy, wasn’t it? Or could it be The Cadre?”
“Either or both, working together,” Griff said grimly. “Someone is in a hurry to put you out of commission.”
“Or maybe because you’re a pain in Big Daddy’s ass,” Patrick suggested. “The dude doesn’t sound as if he likes women messing in his business affairs.”
“If it’s Big Daddy, I guess he’s back in town and knows that Roxie is gone too and thinks I helped move her as well,” Elaine said thoughtfully. “But I never imagined he’d try to shoot me on a crowded public street.”
The men exchanged glances and a simmering tension filled the room. “Who is Roxie?” Griff asked.
Oh dear.Aware of their scrutiny, Elaine put her wine on the side table, eased off her shoes and combed her hair with her fingers, giving herself time to put together an answer. “Roxie Buchannon is another one of Big Daddy’s girls,” she began. “Not his sweetheart, but in his stable. He beat her Sunday night and was so afraid he would kill her, she came to the Wellness Clinic Monday morning and asked Sister Bernie to get her to safety while he was in Chattanooga.”
“I don’t remember that in the police report,” Griff said, his tone clipping off the words.
“I guess I was so upset about Bernie that I only told the police about Lulu,” Elaine retorted, hating how defensive she sounded. “It had just happened that morning anyway.”
“Have you helped other women beside Roxie and Lulu get out of town?” Patrick asked, coming to sit in a high-back chair.
Elaine nodded. “Through Operation Phoenix. But only two from Big Daddy.”
“What’s Operation Phoenix?” Curiosity glittered in Patrick’s dark eyes, but Griff’s silence only added to Elaine’s increasing uneasiness.
“It’s a privately funded organization that helps abused and exploited women escape to safety,” she explained. “They’re moved out of their communities by volunteer drivers to distant and safe locations to start new lives.”
“I think you need to tell us everything you haven’t told us.” Griff added, and Elaine winced at the accusation in his voice, knowing she should have told him this yesterday after being attacked at the church. She took a sip of wine and began.
“Five years ago, a nurse in Memphis called Bernie at The Wellness Clinic and asked if she could help find housing for a woman fleeing her abusive boyfriend,” Elaine said. “We learned she was with Operation Phoenix, or OP, as they call themselves. After determining they were a legitimate organization, Bernie said yes, and OP moved the woman to Knoxville and Bernie did the rest. We didn’t have any other calls from them until a year later and no one in our community asked for that kind of help.”
“And after then?” Patrick asked.
“A client Bernie and I shared decided to leave her abusive husband,” Elaine continued. “We put her in contact with OP and they agreed to help her. She was waiting for one of their drivers to pick her up at a fast-food place when her husband found her. He shot and killed her before shooting himself.”
“And about that time Chelsea vanished, and you hoped by getting more involved with OP, you might find her.” Griff guessed, his tone carefully neutral.
“Exactly,” Elaine said. “In the past four years, Bernie and I have helped move ten women most recently, Lulu and Roxie.”
“Is Families United involved in this?” Griff asked. “Sounds like something a family agency would do.”
“No,” Elaine admitted. “Monty Gibbons certainly doesn’t know. He’d fire me in a second if he did. I do it without the help or resources from Families United. And they aren’t involved with OP at all.”
Her phone buzzed from the side table, and she glanced at the screen. “Well, speak of the Devil,” she said, picking it up. “It’s Monty.” She hit the speaker button and said, “Hi, Monty What’s up?”
“What the hell is going on, Prescott?” Monty Gibbons roared. “You’re involved in a shooting? It’s all over the local news stations, so don’t lie and tell me you’re not!”
“What are you talking about?” Elaine gestured at Griff, who picked up the TV remote and turned it on. The screen filled with images of frightened, shouting people, reporters barking questions and squad cars arriving on one of Knoxville’s main streets.
And then there were Elaine and Griff, dashing for a black LTD and hurling themselves through the open back door and speeding away.
“I don’t know what you’re involved in, Prescott, but as of right now, you’re suspended without pay until the board of directors meets next week!” Monty shouted.
“You can’t do that, Monty.” Elaine was amazed at how calm she sounded. “I was just downtown when the shooting started.”
“I’ve always suspected you were up to something with some of those seedy clients of yours,” Monty sputtered. “For all I know you’ve been violating agency policy to protect them.”
“I’ve not violated any of Families United’s policies,” Elaine replied. Just pushed the envelope as far as I could.
“As for suspending you without pay, I checked with our lawyers and I certainly can,” Monty declared triumphantly. “I warned you, Prescott. The Windermere Agency doesn’t like bad publicity and one of our senior employees being involved in a stabbing and now a shooting is bad publicity. Don’t even think of coming into the office until you hear from me. You show up, I’ll have your ass arrested for trespassing.”
He ended the call before Elaine could argue and she tossed her phone onto an empty chair. “Well,” she said. “That’s that.”
“Anything else you’ve forgotten to tell us?” Griff asked, and there was no mistaking his sarcasm.
“I think I’ll go see about dinner.” Patrick turned off the TV and headed for the kitchen.
“Like what?” Elaine challenged.
“Like, ‘I’m sorry’ for not sharing information that might be vital to this case, perhaps?” Griff snapped. “And you were complaining about me keeping secrets?”
“I’m sorry, okay?” Elaine snapped, her own anger rising. “I guess having my best friend killed in my place and die in my arms and then someone attacking me at her memorial service and having to identify his body has made me forgetful. Bernie only told me about moving Roxie that morning, minutes before she was killed. I’m not even sure if Roxie reached her destination yet. Good enough for you?”
“My job,” Griff lowered his voice to a low, menacing rumble, “is to keep you safe. And not just safe, but alive. I can’t do that if you keep things from me, whether it’s about Big Daddy, that jack-ass Monty or anyone else you might be getting ready to help or is already involved, even a little bit. No secrets between us, Elaine. Got it?”
“Got it.” Elaine pitched her tone to match his. “It’s not like someone handed me a playbook on ‘what to do if someone is trying to kill you’ so I could read up on how to do or not do things.”
His gaze roamed over her, as if determining her strength of character. Whatever he saw, must have reassured him, because his tightly held mouth relaxed and for one insane moment, she wondered what it would feel like to kiss him, good and hard.
And what he would do if she did?
“In your line of work,” he finally said, “has anyone ever attacked you or tried to harm you?”
“No,” she admitted. “And I’ve probably made lots of people mad over the years. But I do know we’re in a different and dangerous territory.”
“Am I being too tough on you?”
“No,” she said again. “I need to remember just how dangerous this is. And it’s not going to help us stop Big Daddy and The Cadre or find Chelsea and Martin–if they’re still together-and those girls if I do something stupid or don’t tell you if I learn something.”
He sighed and she could almost hear the relief in it as he curled his fingers around hers. It was a strong hand and she wondered how many times his hands had been forced to fire a weapon in combat or self-defense.
Hands that would no doubt, protect her at all costs and kill if he must.
“Those,” he said, “are not the words of a stupid woman. Just maybe one who’s had a whole lotta stuff happen to her since Monday. I’d need a playbook if it happened to me. Let’s just be sure all decisions we make are ones we make together, okay? No secrets.”
“Copy that,” she teased. “Isn’t that what Marines say?”
He chuckled and his chuckle was like a balm, soothing and warm. “Sometimes,” he agreed. “Now, that aroma of garlic and onions is driving me crazy with hunger. Let’s go see what’s for dinner.”
“Copy that,” she repeated, standing to take his offered arm and head for the kitchen.