Once Craved (a Riley Paige Mystery--Book #3) (9 page)

She realized that in
spite of what Riley had reported to him, Morley was still thinking of this as a
single murder that they were investigating as a favor to a fellow agent. She
would just have to work with the team they had. But what might these guys have
missed?

She asked, “Have you
looked at maps of the canyon before it was flooded?”

Rosner was silent
for a moment.

“No, but what good
would that do?” he said.

Riley stifled a
groan of impatience.

How much training
does this guy actually have?
she
wondered.
Do I really have to tell him how to do his job?

She said, “How can
you be sure that you checked every nook and cranny without knowing more about
the terrain?”

Another silence
fell.

“You should be able
to call it up on your laptop,” Riley added.

“We’ll get on it,”
Rosner finally said, sounding gloomy.

“You do that,” Riley
told him.

She ended the call
and stood in the hall wondering what to believe. Was there no second body after
all? If there wasn’t, then this probably wasn’t even a serial case. She felt a
flood of mixed feelings. She hated making mistakes. Even so, the possibility
that Nancy Holbrook’s murder hadn’t been the work of a serial killer might be
good news.

But Riley’s gut
still told her that there
was
another body in the lake. That this was a
familiar type of monster who would strike again.

When she and Bill
walked into the Ishtar Escorts office, Riley thought that it actually looked
very much like a high-class travel agency. A bulletin board was devoted to
posters about things to do in Phoenix, suggesting visits to museums, art
galleries, parks, and botanical gardens. A table carried brochures with details
about a variety of places. The detail that would be missing from an actual
travel agency was the second bulletin board, with images of the escorts. She
recognized the ones that she had spoken with earlier. In these photos, they
were all nicely dressed as if for an elegant event, with just an occasional
flash of cleavage here and there.

The woman at the
reception desk didn’t seem at all nervous about a visit from FBI agents. The
receptionist explained that many clients were visitors who weren’t well
informed on cultural and recreational activities.

“We help them out.
We’ll even book tickets for theatrical and sporting events. We want our
visitors to have a good time here.”

She punched a button
and spoke into her phone, “The agents are here to see you.” The receptionist
guided them into the madam’s office.

Ishtar Haynes stood
up to greet them and gestured for them to be seated. Riley found the woman’s
appearance even more startling than that of the escorts she had talked to
earlier. Ishtar Haynes was wearing an expensive pantsuit and had perfectly
coiffed hair. A pair of reading glasses was perched on her sharp, long nose.
She looked like any legitimate female CEO.

“Let me see if I
understand your purpose for making an appointment with me,” she said, taking
her own seat behind an expansive desk. “You want me to give you the name of
Nanette’s client on the night she was killed.”

She directed her
question to Bill, who nodded. Riley let him carry the interview as she took the
opportunity to look around the plush office.

 “That’s right,”
Bill said. Ishtar Haynes smiled. Riley saw a world of coldness in that
professional smile. This wasn’t the stern face of a competent businesswoman, it
was the frozen face of a person who had experienced no real feelings for many
years.

“Agent Jeffreys,
what kind of business do you think I run?” she said. “Not that I have any
reason to think that Nanette and a client were doing anything especially
illicit on the night in question. If they got, shall we say,
affectionate
,
that was entirely up to them. But my clients trust me to keep things strictly
confidential.”

“But you keep
records of your clients,” Bill said.

Ishtar Haynes
shrugged. “Well, yes,” she said. “We insist on photo IDs, which we scan and
keep in a database. But I’m certainly not going to give you access to that kind
of information without a warrant.”

That was pretty much
what Riley expected her to say. She was sure that Bill had expected it too. On
a late Sunday afternoon, obtaining a warrant could be a time-consuming process
if it was possible to get at all. She wondered how her partner would handle it.

Bill drummed his
fingers on the table. He said, “You know, we could just put the word out that
you were glad to talk with us. And three of your girls came in to talk to us
earlier. How much would your clients trust you if they knew that?”

Haynes spoke with
icy cheerfulness. “Yes, I’ve heard it all before. This is where you tell me
that law enforcement can make it hard for me to do business. Sorry, that little
threat means nothing to me. I run an honest and perfectly legal firm that does
a respectable service.”

As Riley studied the
woman’s face, her coldness and ruthlessness showed through more and more. Then
the woman’s features formed a humorless smile.

Haynes leaned across
the table toward Bill. “You could do me a favor, though,” she said. “And maybe
I can do you a favor as well. I’m sure you’ll be shocked to know that there are
a couple of bad apples among the local police. They treat me like a common
criminal. They’re a real nuisance.”

She took out a note
pad and wrote something down.

“I’ll jot down a
couple of names. And if you’ll look into this little problem of mine, well …”

She pushed the paper
across the table toward Bill.

This tactic took
Riley completely by surprise. She could see that Bill was startled as well. The
cops in question were undoubtedly hitting Haynes up for bribes or special
favors. Getting them off the streets would be good for both her and local law
enforcement. It was a brazen move, but a smart one.

“I’ll definitely
look into it,” Bill said, pocketing the piece of paper.

Haynes’s smile
broadened. It looked quite sinister.

“Well, then,” she
said, “we can do business.”

She turned to her
computer and started going through her database. When she found what she was looking
for, she said, “I’ve got a name for you. And I don’t mind giving him up. Maybe
you’ve heard of him—Calvin Rabbe. His grandfather made a killing with a chain
of restaurants. Calvin inherited the family fortune, never did an honest day’s
work in his life. I was already thinking about banning him from our service.
The girls were complaining about his … proclivities.”

“So he was Nanette’s
client the night she was killed?” Bill asked.

Haynes pushed up her
reading glasses to study her record more closely.

“Well, yes and no,”
she said. “He’d paid for her companionship on Saturday night, but then
complained that she never showed up. I had to refund his money. So whatever
happened to the girl had nothing to do with her work at my company.”

Haynes closed her laptop
and put it back in her bag.

“I assume that’s all
you need from me,” she said. “Now if you don’t mind, I need to get back to
work. And oh, Agent Jeffreys—I take it you’ve flown in from Quantico for a few
days.”

Bill nodded. Still
smiling, Haynes handed him a business card.

“Well, once you’ve
cracked the case, give us a call,” she said. “We’ll show you some southwestern
hospitality.”

As she and Bill left
the premises, Riley found herself unsettled by the woman’s confident attitude.

She needs to be
stopped,
she
thought.

To Riley, Haynes
seemed as vicious and dangerous as many of the killers that she had killed or
put away. In a way she seemed even worse—a coldhearted exploiter of women who
spread evil far and wide.

As for Mitzi,
Koreen, and Tantra, what was their future? If they survived, they might
eventually become as stone cold as their employer. But even that was truly a
big “if.” They were much more likely to sink into desperation like Nancy
Holbrook, even to meet the same fate.

“It sounds like Calvin
Rabbe is a viable suspect,” Riley said as they walked toward their car. “He was
likely covering his tracks by complaining that the girl didn’t show up.”

“Maybe,” Bill said. “A
spoiled rich perv comes pretty close to fitting our profile. Did you get anything
from the women you talked to?”

“It seems that Nancy
Holbrook was hustling at a truck stop called Hank’s Derby. She might have been
doing it around the time she was killed.”

“We’ve got to cover
our bases,” Bill said. “Let’s check out that truck stop too.”

Riley agreed. “You
go after Rabbe,” she said. “I’ll go to Hank’s Derby.”

As she started to
walk away, Bill called out, “You be careful.”

It sounded like good
advice. From what the girls had said, Riley suspected that she was about to
encounter evils that even she had never faced before.

Riley spotted two
women holding out their thumbs hitchhiker-style as a massive big rig rolled
toward them. They were dressed almost identically, braless with T-shirts ripped
away at their midriffs and ultra-short denim skirts. They were obviously
hookers, and it was easy to see that they sold themselves as a single package.

 With a mighty hiss
of brakes, the truck ground to a halt. The driver leaned out his window and
beckoned to the girls. They scampered around to the passenger door and climbed
inside. Then the truck rumbled back into motion and continued on its way. Riley
found it unsettling to consider whatever this impromptu threesome was about to
do next. But now was no time to get distracted. Her job was to find out whether
Nancy Holbrook had met her killer here.

Dusk had fallen by
the time Riley had reached Hank’s Derby. Even from the highway, she’d been able
to see that this was a much seedier place than most modern truck stops. The
neon lettering on a huge derby-shaped sign flickered unsteadily in the waning
light. Both the restaurant and the adjoining bar looked like their best days
were far in the past.

Riley parked, got
out of the car, and walked toward the main building. A few provocatively dressed
women were hanging around outside the place. It seemed that prostitution was as
much a thriving business here as gas and food. Riley already knew that some of
the country’s ugliest human trafficking happened at truck stops. Far too often,
runaway children were the prey.

Before driving out
here, she’d done a little online research on recent years. In Arizona, the
situation had been especially bad, and the FBI had worked with local
authorities to clean up prostitution rings all over the state. They had focused
on places such as this, especially to get underage girls out of the trade.

But somehow, dens of
human trafficking like Hank’s Derby managed to survive. Riley wasn’t surprised.
She’d learned long ago that the world’s evils had a way of growing back even
after you thought you’d gotten rid of them, like weeds.

Walking past a row
of dumpsters, Riley recalled a case when a teenage girl’s body was found in a
truck stop dumpster. A serial killer had been haunting the stops across the
country and picking up girl hitchhikers. Some of them were simply never seen
again.

Riley hadn’t worked
that case, and the killer had long ago been put away. Still, it chilled her to
look at the dumpsters. Might even these contain the remains of discarded
humans? The thought was a distraction, and Riley knew better than to stop and
search inside the big metal boxes. She needed to stay focused.

Alongside the
well-lighted main building was a little clapboard bar called the Yucca Lounge.
She knew she had to go in there and ask some questions, but the prospect
worried her. She’d struggled with alcohol during her recent bout of PTSD and
had stopped drinking altogether. She’d been managing just fine, but going in a
bar meant walking straight into temptation.

She assured herself
that she was strong and professional enough to resist, then walked into the
building. The Yucca Lounge was a dimly lit little dive with country music
playing on the jukebox. It wasn’t very crowded at the moment—just a few
truckers and even fewer scantily dressed women.

Riley hadn’t yet
decided how best to proceed. She had a printed-out photo of Nancy Holbrook that
she wanted to show around. But flipping open her badge and flashing the picture
to everybody would cause too much of a stir and possibly backfire.

She noticed a
hulking, bearded man sitting next to the door. He was obviously the bouncer.
She approached him quietly and showed him her badge.

“I’m Agent Riley
Paige with the FBI,” she said. When his eyes widened, she added, “Don’t worry,
I’m not here to make trouble.”

She took the picture
out of her bag and showed it to him.

“Do you recognize
this woman?” she asked. “I think she may have been here last Saturday.”

“I haven’t worked
here that long,” the man grumbled.

Riley took a
twenty-dollar bill out of her purse.

“I’d like you to
check this out for me. That’s less likely to spook the patrons. Just go around
quietly asking all the folks here if they’ve seen this woman. If anybody has,
tell them to talk to me.”

The man took the
money and headed on over to the bar. Riley sat down and watched from the
shadows as he made his way through the place, showing everybody the picture.
She saw a lot of people shaking their heads no.

Finally he showed
the picture to a woman sitting at the bar who nodded. The bouncer pointed to
Riley, and the woman signaled her to come over and sit beside her. The woman
was dressed like any of the working girls, but she seemed tired, and she looked
about Riley’s age—much too old for this line of work.

Riley sat down next
to her. A row of empty shot glasses and a glass half full of beer were on the
bar in front of the woman. The smell of whiskey made Riley’s throat burn with
the expectation of alcoholic pleasure, but the bartender never had a chance to
ask her what she wanted.

The woman called out
to the bartender in a sandpapery voice, “Cabot, I’m buying for this FBI girl.
Bring her what I’m having. And bring me another round while you’re at it.”

The order was out
before Riley could decline the offer. Cabot brought two full shot glasses and a
beer for Riley.

“I’m Justine,” the
woman said. She downed the contents of her shot glass at a gulp, then chased it
down with a swallow of beer. “We’re drinking Fireball Cinnamon Whiskey. Have
you tried it? If you haven’t, you haven’t lived. Burns going down, but tastes
just like Christmas. Hope that’s OK with you.”

Riley’s stomach
turned a little at the thought of candy-flavored whiskey. It wasn’t going to be
so hard to resist temptation after all.

“I’m on duty,” Riley
said.

“Suit yourself,”
Justine said. “I’ll find a nice home for it,” she added, patting her own
stomach.

She handed the photo
back to Riley.

“I seen her around
here. Name’s Nanette, ain’t it?”

“That’s right,”
Riley said.

“How’s she doing?”

Riley hesitated for
a second. Justine interrupted before she could speak.

“Nanette’s dead, ain’t
she?”

Riley was startled.
Justine’s expression was steady and calm.

“How did you know?”
Riley asked.

Justine emitted a
gravelly chuckle. “Oh, it’s always an easy guess. Everybody dies sooner or
later. For us working girls around this place, it’s usually sooner. Sometimes a
whole lot sooner. And it’s never pretty.”

Justine swallowed
more beer.

“I figure my number’s
long overdue to come up,” she said. “Just biding my time.”

The woman sounded
resigned but not bitter. Riley felt a pang of sympathy. She didn’t know which
was worse—living a lie like the escorts she had talked to that afternoon or
facing grim facts like Justine. She couldn’t imagine how this woman had gotten
to such a terrible point. How had her existence become so miserable that she
didn’t even try to get out of this kind of life?

“What can you tell
me about Nanette?” Riley asked.

“I only seen her a
couple of times,” Justine said. “She was new around here. I could tell right
off she wasn’t going to last.”

Riley said, “We
think she was killed last Saturday. Did you see her that night?”

Justine thought for
a moment.

“I think the last I
saw her was Friday,” she said. “I don’t think I saw her Saturday. She might’ve
been here then too, and I could’ve missed her. I might have been otherwise
occupied, if you know what I mean. I keep a pretty busy schedule for an old
lady.”

Justine slumped a
little. Riley could see that she was letting some of her sadness and weariness
show through.

In a slightly choked
voice, Justine said, “This is no place for the likes of you. Now I think you’d
better get the hell out of here and find the bastard that did her in.”

“I’ll do that,
Justine,” Riley said. “Thanks.”

Riley got off the
barstool. It sure didn’t sound like she’d find that particular bastard here.
But before she left she wanted to get a better look around. The main building
would hold a store and shower rooms for the truckers. And outside, there was
the big parking lot occupied by dozens of resting trucks. What might she find
out there? Whatever it was, she felt sure that it was going to be as ugly as
hell.