Chapter 3
It’s almost as if a terrible prophecy has been put in place after the visit with Dieter. His sly words, an unwanted omen of doom. The mention of the case, of the fact that it will probably be taken over by the State prosecutors, that the Feds might even get involved due to the nature of the crime. A part of Kara isn’t sorry to see the case go…but a part of her wants to solve it. The tenacious part of her doesn’t want to just drop it.
People, tortured in her city…the thought of it brings colors of red and black to her vision, chills down her spine. To know that somewhere, around any corner, there could be a doorway that leads to some private, secret hell. Full of knives, needles, whips, and brands. Of wicked men, eager to film the suffering of another human. Filled with the desire to turn them into nothing. To sell that to others for profit.
The cops have videos from the successful raid months back. Her Detective contact…slash ally…Ray Wellis, has seen them, but won’t say a word about what he’s seen. He told her some of the squad threw up when they watched the tapes, shaken.
Her mind can only fill in the blanks. Imagining what might be on those tapes is nightmarish.
It’s a dreary overcast Monday morning when Kara’s boss, the named partner of the firm, gives her the bad news, looking irritated. The skin around Derrick’s eyes is tight, his mouth set in a firm line. The clean-cut Derrick Benson looks like he could use an early morning drink from his bar cart. “I got a call about the Paxton Brooker situation.”
Dismay pools in her gut. They worked so hard on building a case against the man and his sex club, the Dark Mirage . Most of that work occurred during their unsuccessful trial with Debra Mills, where Nick ended up undercutting their case entirely. The rat bastard. “We’re losing it, aren’t we? Are they taking it away?”
It isn’t a good feeling. Knowing she put so many hours forth, had a few late nights pouring over case files and notes. It hurts almost as bad as her situation with Nicholas Havenwood-Calais and the fact that all her time with him was a lie, wasted and terrible.
It makes her feel used up.
Derrick sighs, his dark eyes holding a hint of bitterness. “It makes sense that the police are handing this over to the District Attorney. At the end of the day, we’ve got no client, Kara. My hands are tied. These torture videos found on Brooker’s warehouse property have nothing to do with Debra Mills. Not only that; she never knew anything about the videos and what was happening behind the scenes in connection with the Dark Mirage . The DA will be determining to bring the case to the court on behalf of the police, considering the torture videos are a matter of criminal offense against the State and its constituents. Hell, the Feds might even end up getting involved, depending on how far down the rat hole goes.”
Sitting down with a huge sigh of disappointment, Kara says, “So, that’s it. We just…give it up?”
He shakes his head, looking rather fine in his power suit of dark gray. “The DA wants to meet with us to consult on what we know from the Debra Mills case. That way we can get some billable hours for it, all while not needing to be full-time on the case. Essentially, we will be considered consultants, due to our history with prosecuting Paxton Brooker and the situation with the Dark Mirage .”
I guess that’s something. It isn’t all a waste. Unlike Nick. Ugh.
It’s how they find themselves traveling across town a week later, over to the DA’s office. Kara holds a large pile of folders, everything they have referenced for Paxton Brooker and his strange doings. It doesn’t feel good, having to give up the case, but Derrick has a point; they don’t have a client paying them to prosecute. As a private firm, they don’t just prosecute for free because someone may or may not have done something somewhere .
At the end of the day, we’re a business, not a charity . Kara gets it. It just chafes immensely. Especially since the voice in her head sounds suspiciously like Dieter’s.
Derrick’s no happier about the situation than she is. They’d spent countless months on the Debra Mills case, along with hours trying to tie Paxton Brooker and the Dark Mirage to her case against her dubious sex Dom. Just when they finally got some damning info on Paxton, their case closed and they no longer had a reason to prosecute. “Don’t look so down,” Derrick tells her as they walk. “I know this is tough to swallow, but things like this happen. It’s the same story if someone decides they no longer want to go forward with a prosecution; the process ends and the case closes. At least in this case, the DA wants to keep us somewhat involved. This is for the best, Kara. The police will be working with them on it going forward. View this as a polite knowledge transfer.”
A knowledge transfer? Pfft.
Perhaps Kara simply has too much skin in the game. Perhaps she just knows too much about all the people involved and suddenly it’s become personal.
Not that she actually knows Paxton Brooker, the shady sexclub owner. She does, however, know the people he surrounds himself with and those people are not exactly the paragons of ‘good’. Namely, Nicholas Havenwood-Calais and her own man-brat, Dietrich Bittinger.
It makes her sick to think that Nick might be somehow involved. He’ll be defending his client against these allegations, after all.
The DA’s office looks like it has been taken hostage by the 90’s and everyone in it looks overworked. Long, tired faces. Shadows under puffy, strained eyes. Kara knows the feeling; lately, she’s been overworked, just not at her own firm. She has a terrible feeling that more of her efforts are going to slip to Dieter and further away from working for Derrick Benson.
Sure, she spends a lot of time with Benson’s various clients. She gathers documentation, works with their PI, and helps with court appearances…but Dieter’s work is constant.
Dietrich Bittinger keeps Kara busy with his own brand of absurdity. The fact that she sees him more than her best friend is a disturbing shift in her life. She’s nearly called Gale about it a few times, wanting to know if their relationship is normal, but something holds her back. Embarrassment? Shame?
Be careful with him . Don’t let Dieter reel you in too close. Gale had warned her months ago. And for the love of God , do not touch any legal affair that makes you uncomfortable. Send it my way, do not touch it.
While Kara knows that Gale manages more than just Dietrich’s legal affairs - which are many - she’s been afraid to ask Gale how far that relationship extends. Does Gale go to his polo matches? Has he sat her on his retired show horse? Has Gale slept on those nice couches in his sunroom? Does he-
Never mind all that.
Most of the time when she calls Gale it’s for work advice. Sometimes, it’s at the tip of her tongue to ask, how is my father? Does he still ask about me? A coiling dread, a strange longing mixed with revulsion. Kara’s father has that effect on her. Charlie Hayes, with his dark hair and midnight eyes, a quick smile, and a manner that draws people in. Like bugs to a spider web, unknowing of the danger lurking.
She’s shaken from her thoughts as Derrick loudly greets someone. “Melanie! It’s been some time. How’s life on the government dime these days?”
A woman in her late forties is standing in the doorway, looking severe with her graying hair pulled back tightly. Upon seeing Derrick, she adjusts her dark-rimmed glasses and smiles thinly. “You’re never going to let me live that down, are you? While I’m still flattered you wanted me to join your firm years back, you know some of us enjoy public service, so here I remain.”
He introduces her to Kara with a gesture of his hand. His wedding ring is absent these days, thanks to his affair with his former partner, Gale Clarke. “Melanie, this is one of my associates who was tossed into the fire on this case. She’s put countless hours into the research.”
Nodding, Kara balances her paperwork and extends her hand to shake. “Kara Hayes. Nice to meet you.”
Those thin lips twist slightly as the woman shakes her hand. “Oh, I know that look. You don’t want to let go of this one, do you?”
“I’m that easy to read?” Kara withdraws her hand after a moment.
“Let’s just say I’ve been there before and know how it feels. There’s always going to be a case that slips by.” The woman has them crowd into the conference room, gesturing to the worn table. “Anything you think will be helpful, place it there. While the police have submitted criminal charges, we are still in the final evidence preparation phase. My office hasn’t determined whether or not to take this to court; we need the evidence to show Paxton Brooker is guilty beyond any reasonable doubt . Otherwise, I cannot ethically take this forward.”
The conundrum; a crime has clearly been committed, but to prove it was Paxton Brooker without a shadow of a doubt is tricky. There are too many unknowns still and even Kara sees that.
The discussion isn’t exactly quick, once they get into the meat of things. “Tell me from the beginning so we can level set,” Melanie says, crossing her legs as she sits. “I want to draw lines from your original case to how we got where we are today.”
Derrick inhales and his brow rises with a hint of humor. “It’s a long story.” He glances over at Kara. “We’ll start at the Debra Mills case and work down from there, ending with the woman from one of the torture videos that we met with, ‘X’.”
Kara shudders, her skin crawling. The woman who only called herself X. Number Ten. The one who had willingly gone to a house of pain, not knowing that she’d be tortured for sport, videotaped for profit. The intent wasn’t murder, oh no; it was money .
Money, oodles of it, likely. Flowing from buyers who are willing to pay for realistic films, when the fake grindhouse tales just don’t cut it anymore. The need for blood and the screams to be real. So terribly real that they can’t even be faked.
By the time The Room had been found, it was vacant. Empty of people, the burning scent of bleach overpowering. A few abandoned videos, left unfinished.
Other damning things had been left behind as well, per what Detective Ray Wellis told Kara. Things like chains, hanging from the ceiling, the walls. Bland instruments of pain, such as scalpels, sitting nice and neat. Thick needles. Rusted bathtubs, filled with soured, brown water. Cages, stained.
No perpetrators to be found…only the fact that Paxton Brooker, owner of the kinky sex club Dark Mirage , was listed as the owner of the property. He became the only link in the gory mystery brought to life by the torture victim known as X.
“We have illicit, grotesque videos and we have a property in Paxton Brooker’s name. We do not, however, have Farrah Vincelli anymore.”
Kara frowns. “Who is Farrah Vincelli?” Derrick appears just as lost, a furrow in his brow.
The DA frowns down at a few folders, sifting through them. “That is the woman you knew as X. She was found dead in her home when we paid her a visit recently.”
Shock sweeps over Kara in a wave of foamy dismay. “Dead? As in…normal dead or…?” She remembers the woman they met as being a former addict, already living a hard life, deep in her depression. She’d been in bad shape even then. A ghost animating flesh like a puppet.
Melanie shakes her head subtly, biting her thin lower lip. “Between you and me, her head was found in the bathtub with her lips sewn shut. It’s apparent that someone didn’t like having loose ends, no matter how little she truly knew.”
The grotesque image plays out in Kara’s mind. The scraggly, limp, greasy hair. The sallow, sunken face. A thick black thread plunged through swollen lips. Just the head, sitting there in the bathtub. The body, left elsewhere.
“Crap,” Derrick mutters, tapping his fist against his knee. “A murder now?”
“She wouldn’t have been the best witness,” Melanie says begrudgingly. “She was…unreliable. But she did have the uncanny connection to the Dark Mirage, which would have helped our case. At least now we know there is truly something to hide. She wouldn’t have been murdered otherwise. The police have kept it mostly quiet, but the scene was clean of evidence. No hint of who could have done it, which tells me it was professional.”
“That’s unsettling,” Derrick replies lowly. “Do we know if there are any other living survivors that can be used for the case? We know there were more payouts from the Dark Mirage to people under NDAs. People probably like X.”
Looking tired, Melanie rubs her face. “We’re having investigators look. I don’t want to make a mistake pinning Paxton Brooker with this case if it isn’t him. It would be bad for me politically.” Then, Melanie looks at her watch sharply, making a noise of frustration. “There’s so much more I wanted to get into today with you, but I’m afraid my next appointment is fast approaching. I lost track of the time.” She stands up, thanking them for their efforts. The DA looks at her watch again with a certain amount of distraction and Kara gets the impression that they are being shooed out.
There’s a knock at the door and Melanie grimaces, looking at them apologetically. “I’d meant to get you out sooner so you wouldn’t cross paths. My next meeting is with-”
When the door opens, Kara feels her heart drop into the floor with a crash.
In he walks with a certain air of aggression and confidence, dark hair perfect, electric blue eyes bright, and stony features perfectly schooled. Nicholas Havenwood-Calais looks untouchable in his deep navy suit, tailored to fit him perfectly. The shine of his Italian leather shoes, the flash of the Rolex at his wrist.
He’s a true portrait of a sharp lawyer, living and breathing.
He’s also the man who crushed Kara’s feelings into nothing.
Those tropical eyes catch on Derrick first with a certain ‘oh, it’s you ’ expression, but when he sees Kara in the mix, his confident step falters slightly. They haven’t seen each other in months, though not for his lack of trying, a fact that has put him in a venomous disposition towards Kara, visible in his gaze.
There’s poison between them and Kara is certain nothing is ever going to fix that.
Not after how he twisted her up inside like a pretzel and then lied to her.