Chapter 23
Wizard
W e drag the girls out of the experience at lunchtime and take them to Ichiddo Ramen on Lucia’s request. After they’re refueled, we hit the virtual reality changing room. They have clothes from every store pre-loaded into the system.
They have the girls change into green sports bras and shorts before being scanned. After that, they get VR goggles and a tablet so they can choose their outfits. The orders go to the stores. When the girls finish, Charlie checks each girls’ order giving final approval before I enter my credit card into the system. The orders are processed, and we can either pick them up from the stores or have them all delivered to the concierge. We choose to have the items delivered to the concierge so the girls can hit a few more stores.
The back of the SUV is filled by the time we leave the galleria.
“How about we pick up pizza to take home?”
“I’ll text Ma and Pops and see what they want.”
We wind up getting a couple pies, pasta, wings, cheese bread, salad and dessert. We find Regina and Pops setting the table. Regina takes one look at us and shakes her head.
“Did you buy out the mall?”
“Wizard did,” Lucia says with a smile.
“I’m starved. Let’s eat,” Pops says.
?
After dinner, the girls hole up in their new room. The guest house had five bedrooms and four bathrooms. Since they were a bedroom short of everyone having their own, the girls decided to share one.
The adults are in the living room enjoying coffee or an after-dinner drink.
“When’s your next shift at the diner?”
“I’m on late shift tomorrow and the night after.”
“At least two of us will be at the diner from now on. There's enough of us. We can switch it up.”
She nods. “Can we head to the office? I have some information I think you’ll want.”
I follow her into the office of the guest house. She rummages through the desk and pulls out a file sliding it to me. There are pictures of four men in the folder, along with a file on each one of them.
I look at the first file. Marcus “Pistol” Brooks, age forty. Six feet tall. Black hair, hazel eyes. A small-time hood trying to work his way up the food chain.
The second file is one I recognize. Caleb “Cal” Robillard, former detective for NOPD who got bounced for taking bribes. Now he uses his skills for illicit activities. He’s thirty-nine, five foot eleven with light brown hair and brown eyes.
Victor “Vico” DeLuca is the third file. He’s a smuggler that specializes in running goods through the bayou. I wonder if the goods he’s been smuggling are drugs or people. He’s the oldest of the four at forty-five. Five foot ten with dark hair and green eyes.
The fourth and final file is on Raynard “Ray Ray” Jacobs. He’s thirty-nine with dark blonde hair and blue eyes. Standing at six-one. Another small-time thug trying to make a name for themselves.
“I’ll get to work and see what else I can find on these four. Do you think one of them left the note for you on your car?”
“It’s possible. If they did it. It was before they sat down to eat. I left them at the table last night. I’d just taken their order when the girls’ called the diner. I still don’t know why they couldn’t reach Ma or Pops. They both had their phones on.”
“I’ll check and see if the carrier had an outage around the same time the girls tried calling them.”
“They tried to text too, but it never went through.”
We spend the next hour going over all the information Charlie’s gathered on Lola’s case, so far. I have new information to share with Gambit and the rest of the Kings. It’s starting to look like Lola was targeted for the twins. Some people are just sick fucking bastards who need to be put out of their misery. Human traffickers, in my opinion, are scum. We’re all better off without.