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“Bullshit. I need to check on Hannah.”
“Who’s Hannah?” Lukus knew that if she was an innocent victim of Jake’s, they had a responsibility to get her safely away from him. She could also turn into a valuable witness when they prosecuted the prick.
“She’s one of the scared women he’s pursuing hot and heavy. I don’t know what he has over her, but even though she acts afraid, she’s refused to go to the police with me.”
Markus was on the phone with the chief of police. The police were going to want to confiscate the evidence when they got there. “Where’s your laptop?” he asked Dylan. “I need to see the evidence you’ve collected. You feel up to running through it with me before the ambulance gets here?”
They spent the next ten minutes downloading and reviewing the hundreds of photos Dylan had taken over the last week. He quickly uploaded them to Dropbox for Cameron to pick up later.
Lukus was surprised at the investigative quality of the photos. They may not have had proof of anything illegal, yet. What they did have was a better picture of just how depraved Jake was. Many pictures documented crying women, women dressed as sex workers, and more than a few sporting proof of physical abuse in the form of bruises and cuts.
By the time the chief arrived with his uniformed officers, Lukus was ready to get out of there and go hunting. Instead, he stayed to lay things out from the beginning for the chief so he knew exactly what kind of an asshole they were dealing with. Jake Davenport may have managed to stay under the radar up until now, but he was about to feel them breathing down his neck as they brought the local law enforcement into the mix. The chief promised to launch a full-scale investigation and would pay Jake a visit himself.
The paramedics did an initial check on Dylan and, while Lukus was relieved they didn’t think there was any internal bleeding, they insisted on taking him to the hospital for tests. Lukus promised to keep him informed, but only after Lukus promised to check on Hannah did Dylan calm down and go willingly.
Lukus and Markus spent the next two hours retracing many of Dylan’s steps, experiencing firsthand the key locations of the investigation. As promised, Lukus went to the florist shop where, according to Dylan, Hannah worked during the day. She hadn’t come in for her scheduled shift and her coworkers were surprised since she always called if she was running late. More troubling was when they confirmed that she had been acting like something had been bothering her for the last few weeks, but she hadn’t shared any details with them.
With growing concern that Dylan might have been right to worry about her, they headed to Hannah’s small duplex ranch house in a family neighborhood. It, too, was locked up tight and they got no answer to their ringing of the bell. Lukus briefly contemplated breaking in to check on her but was confronted by a nosy Hispanic neighbor who threatened to call the cops. He decided to move on to look for Hannah in the other locations on their list.
They headed to the warehouse next, hoping to see some women coming or going they could convince to talk with them. Unfortunately, Dylan had been right when he warned them there was usually not much going on there until the evening and overnight. It was buttoned up tight when they arrived. They parked down the street to keep an eye on the entrance while Lukus caught up on his phone calls.
Zach, “Z,” answered on the first ring. “Good timing, boss. I just wrapped things up on this case. I knew if I was patient, I’d catch the asshole with his pants down. We just made a boatload of money on this case. I need a raise.”
Lukus couldn’t care less about the money. He was just relieved to have Z finished so he could jump on a plane from Miami to San Francisco this afternoon. “That’s great, because I was gonna pull you off the case, even if it wasn’t wrapped yet. I need you in San Francisco like yesterday.”
“Are you kidding me? No way. I’ve been on the road for three weeks. I need to go home. Send somebody else,” Z said.
“There is no one else for this one. I’m out here myself already, and I need your help.”
“Holy shit. Bossman got on a plane? Things must be bad.”
“Our new guy got jumped and roughed up bad last night. He’s in the hospital. Worse, this one is personal. I need your A game.”
There was a long silence before Z sighed. “Fine, but I’m at the airport about to board a flight to Chicago. I need to go home and regroup for a few hours; you know, get a little personal attention, if you know what I mean. I’ll head out there tonight.”
“Whatever, but don’t try to convince me you didn’t get some personal attention in Miami. I know better.”
Z chuckled. “I never said I didn’t. I just have some special needs I get fulfilled in Chicago that I find hard to fix in Miami.”
It was Lukus’s turn to chuckle. “You mean you can’t find a pain slut in Miami to let you punish to screaming before you fuck ‘em. Give Trixie a call. She loves it when you’re in town.”
“I bet she does. All right, shoot me an email with details.”
Both men hung up without a goodbye.
Markus cut in. “This sitting here waiting is bullshit. I think we should break into his house to see what we find.”
Lukus agreed. “I’m not gonna sit here and wait either, but now that we’ve involved the police, we can’t break into his place. I have a better idea. Let’s go visit him on his daytime turf and see how he reacts to a visit there. Before we do that, though, we need to call the girls to check in and, more importantly, tell them there’s no way they can go out to that party tonight. Now that Jake knows we’re closing in on him, he’s gonna get desperate. He knows exactly where the girls work and live. We need to tighten things up until this is over.”
Markus looked unsure. “Shit, I hated lying to Brianna last night when I left. How am I gonna explain why she can’t go tonight?”
Lukus didn’t feel sorry for his best friend. “You were an idiot to lie to her. It wasn’t necessary. You should have just said you had to travel. Period. More importantly, who the hell is the head of your household anyway? We make the rules. They follow them.”
For some reason, that sentiment drew a chuckle from his best friend. “Yeah, right. Like Tiff is gonna just say ‘yes sir’ when you tell her she can’t go tonight. You know damn well they’re going to be royally pissed.”
“Pissed I can handle. I’m trying to keep the wordsdead,beaten, orrapedout of our vocabulary here.”
“We both know that, but that isn’t gonna stop them from being angry. Maybe we should tell them the truth.”
