Chapter 10 Everett #3
“We never went into the house that night. You were in an entirely different location on the property. What if while we were rescuing you, they moved everyone to the house. Then when we left, they moved them back?” He shrugs.
“Because it was like a week later that you guys went to the house, right? Looking for the founders’ enhancements?
They could have just shuffled the women around while we went from one location to another.
Because each time, Bill knew you were going and could have given them the heads-up. ”
“It’s possible.” Haidyn nods to himself.
“I think it’s dumb of us to assume they only operate out of one location,” Ryat says with a shrug. “Surely they have multiple sites for situations like this…to move them.”
“What is this Dollhouse?” the detective asks, reminding us that he’s still in the room. “I need its address so I can get a warrant—”
“Stay the fuck away from it. We don’t need one,” Tyson interrupts him and adds, “It’s for us. Not for you.” The detective sighs.
“So what do we do about Bill?” Ryat goes on.
“Nothing,” I rush out, and everyone looks at me. “We need proof.” I try to think rationally.
There are four of us in this room who know why we can’t hand over Bill.
Adam made a deal with him. If we kill Bill, what happens to our brother?
Who protects him? He’s been on the run for four years.
I won’t have his blood on my hands. Maybe this was Bill’s plan all along.
To get wrapped up with Adam so we couldn’t take him down.
He knows we’re loyal to each other and would do whatever we need to do for one another.
“You’re close with him.” Tyson looks at Sin. “Can you get in touch with Bill? See what you can find out without making it look like you’re digging for information?”
“He’s practically Haidyn’s father-in-law,” Sin states, pointing at Haidyn. “Have him do it.”
Sin doesn’t want to get involved. He thinks I’ve betrayed him, and now that there’s a possibility Bill is no good, he doesn’t want him around Elli or his unborn children. I hate that he can even think I’d put his family in danger.
“We haven’t had any contact with him since he was at Carnage last.” Haidyn shrugs.
Lie. But for good reason. None of them need to know about our midnight flight in his private jet after Adam’s pretend funeral.
“But it doesn’t add up,” I say. “Dollhouse is about human trafficking and sex slavery. Torture and rape make sense due to the nature of that god-awful place, but why kill them when they could be useful to their business? Why waste your product?” It’s Business 101.
You don’t smoke your stash, because then you don’t have any product to sell.
Why kill the women they could make money off of? ”
Tyson rubs his chin, and the detective just scratches the back of his neck. No one has an answer for that.
“What about the bodies?” Ryat asks, looking at the detective. “Seven bodies in seven days? Seems like a game to me. How did you know where they were?”
“We got calls.”
“From whom? Have you vetted them?” Ryat goes on.
“Yeah.” He crouches down and digs into his backpack again.
Pulling out a notebook, he lays it on the coffee table and licks the tips of his fingers before riffling through the pages until he finds what he wants.
“All were found in places they died except for one. Random calls from campers, hikers, passersby.”
“How do you know they were found where they were killed?” I ask.
“The scene…and blood.” Haynes looks at me.
“They were tortured where they were found, except for this one.” He looks through the pictures on the table and then pushes one out of the pile.
It’s of a woman lying naked in the middle of a cemetery.
She lies across a grave, face down, hands secured behind her back with barbed wire, her ankles bound as well.
It’s wrapped around her neck and all around her face.
Several fingers are missing and she’s covered in bruises and old scars, and what looks like burn marks cover her thighs.
I’ve seen this grave before.
“What’s up with the burn marks?” Ryat asks. “Think they tortured her for information? Maybe it wasn’t about selling them; maybe they knew something.”
“She was burned in three places and had several fingers removed. All while still alive.” The detective looks up at him.
“As far as we can tell, they were removing tattoos…birthmarks. Anything that would stand out. Her parents had pictures of her all over the news when they reported her missing three months ago. If, for whatever reason, she had to be moved and a civilian spotted her, they wouldn’t want her to have any distinguishing marks. ”
“I feel like a woman with missing fingers would cause more of a scene than a birthmark,” Alex observes and shrugs. “But that’s just me.”
Ryat glances away, running a hand down his face.
“What’s…carved into her back?” Sin asks, leaning forward to get a better look.
“You’re next,” the detective answers. “That was also done while she was still alive.” Standing up, he places his hands on his hips.
“She was the last one found, but we think she was the first to be killed because she had been dead for quite some time. And she was the only one who appeared to be dumped.”
“Where?” Ryat growls when he doesn’t explain the exact location.
“A cemetery.” He checks his notes. “It was behind a cathedral—”
Everyone starts talking at once, and Tyson holds up his hands. “Whoa,” he hollers, shushing all of us as he looks at the detective and barks, “You said none are related to the Lords.”
“They aren’t.”
“Then how the fuck do you explain where she was dumped?” Haidyn snaps. “Sounds pretty close to the Lords to me. Not many civilians know the cathedral is there, let alone the abandoned cemetery behind it where so many Lords are buried.”
The detective shakes his head. “None of the women have any family relation to the Lords.”
How the fuck does he know? He’s not a Lord, and it’s not like a Lord will tell you he’s one. Any of these parents could have chosen to keep that bit of information to themselves.
“Doesn’t mean she wasn’t fucking one,” Alex says with a shrug. “They’re all over. Barrington and House of Lords. This is a college town. She could have met one here at Blackout. Been fucking him for weeks and not even known who he truly was.”
“Who reported the body?” Saint demands. It’s the first time he’s spoken since we started.
The detective looks at the paper once again and reads off the name. “Everett. Everett Sinclair.”
Sometimes I hate it when I’m right.
Haynes goes on, “But she was cleared. Her story checked out. It was just a wrong-place-wrong-time sort of thing.”
Bullshit. My girl goes there every night. At least she had been since I started following her.
“Who the fuck is in an abandoned cemetery that belongs to the Lords?” Saint demands. “Doesn’t seem like ‘wrong place wrong time’ to me.”
I look over at Haidyn to see if he’s catching on. He gives me a soft nod, and my teeth grind. He’s thinking exactly what I already know. About five ten, green eyes, bleached blond, and likes to play with a torch. “I’ll look into it,” I tell everyone.
All eyes are on me now. “What do you mean, you’ll look into it?”
I’m surprised Sin is speaking directly to me, but the way he rises to his feet and shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans tells me he thinks I’m up to something. Like I said, he no longer trusts me. “I mean I’ll look into it,” I repeat. That’s all anyone in this room is getting out of me.
Saint and Haidyn don’t know who the woman was that stapled the threat to my back, and now I’m glad I kept that to myself.
“Sorry if that doesn’t give me any reassurance. We recently find out there’s a fucking sex trafficking ring that involves the Lords, and some of us in here have wives with children on the way.” He steps closer to me.
“Sin—”
He lifts his hand to cut off Haidyn, then continues to speak to me.
“I don’t know about the others, but when it comes to my pregnant wife, I don’t trust anyone to do what’s best for her.
And when it comes down to it, you sure as fuck can’t protect her.
” With that, his cold stare moves to Haidyn.
Then he rips the door open and storms out of Tyson’s office.
A silence falls over the room before it’s interrupted when a member of the Blackout staff comes over Tyson’s speaker from the phone on his desk. “Fight. Three guys.”
“Go,” Tyson orders, pointing to the door, and his four men jump up and rush out of the room.
“Well, I’ll keep you updated.” The detective picks up his backpack and nods to Ty, who does the same.
Once he leaves, Haidyn pushes off the wall. “Off the record?” he asks.
Tyson sits back in his chair. “Of course.” His eyes going to each of us.
“I don’t think these women were at Dollhouse,” Haidyn states.
Ty frowns. “What makes you say that?”
I plop down on the couch opposite Saint, in the spot Sin just vacated, and pick up the photos scattered across the table.
“We recently found out some information…” I trail off, looking over the seven girls.
Each one had their fair share of torture and I’m sure were raped.
Who knows what they endured or for how long.
One is lying by a creek bed, her throat slashed.
My stomach tightens at how familiar it looks.
Some might think that’s a quick death, but the bruising to her sunburned skin tells a different story.
They strung her up outside for days, leaving her to rot.
By the cuts on her chest and stomach, they probably cut her enough to bleed but not die.
The blood would attract animals to feed off her.
Until someone came along and decided her life was over and ended it.
“I’m listening,” Ty says.
I pick up a few pictures and drop them on his desk. He lowers his eyes to scan them once again.
“What am I looking for, exactly?”
“No barcodes.”
He frowns. Looking back up at me. “What do you mean barcodes?”
“We recently found out that Adam’s chosen was a victim at Dollhouse. She had a barcode on her inner thigh. None of these women have them. Nowhere on their bodies that I can see, anyway.”
“Is it a tattoo or like something they can actually scan?”
I tilt my head to the side and Haidyn runs a hand down his face. “I…we don’t know,” he responds.
“What does it matter?” Saint growls. “It’s definitely a mark of some kind.”
“I gave my guys a tattoo that has a certain type of ink that can be traced. It scans and grants them access to Blackout at all times,” Tyson explains.
I get a sickening feeling in my gut.
“So if it’s the same kind of ink…maybe members of Dollhouse scan it,” Tyson offers.
“Can you track it?” Haidyn asks.
“Like GPS? No.” Ty turns on his computer. His fingers fly over the keys before a screen pops up on the TV hanging on the wall, showing us a schedule that has names and time stamps. “But it does log every time someone uses it to enter.”
“Maybe that’s why she had it. To keep track of who they use and when they use them. Can it be linked to an account?”
“What do you mean by account?” Tyson wonders.
“Like payment. You pick a girl. Scan the code, automatic payment to use her.”
“I don’t see why not. It would depend on what type of program they use.” He shrugs. “But I don’t know why they’d want a trail. It would be too easy to find who paid for each girl and when. There’s no disputing something like that.”
I nod in understanding and get to my feet. But why would they have to dispute it? I’m sure they’ve been getting away with this for years.
“You know he’s in way over his head, right?” Haidyn says to Tyson, referring to the detective feeding us information.
“Yeah.” He sighs, sitting back in his chair. “The guy is going to end up dead, but at least he’ll be useful while he’s still breathing.”
“Do you think he’s telling you everything?” Saint asks.
“I think he’s telling me enough.”
“He has no clue what he’s looking for,” Saint adds.
“Obviously.” He taps the photo of one of the women. “You guys know more by just looking at them than he does. But I’ll make sure he continues to show us what he has, and we’ll do our own investigating.”