SOMEHOW, COOPER LAMB defied space and time (and the morning rush hour) to force his way onto the highway’s shoulder. Which wasn’t much of a shoulder. Officials had been rebuilding I-95 almost since they’d first slammed it through the river wards back in the 1970s, and now they were expanding it by another two lanes. Construction gear and debris littered the side of the road. It was a miracle Cooper hadn’t crashed into an asphalt spreader.
“I hope this is worth almost dying for,” Cooper said.
“Oh, it’s worth it,” Victor told him.
“What is it?”
“A page of high-end escorts.”
“If you’re lonely, Victor, I recommend a Dungeons and Dragons club or some other nerd-friendly gathering.”
“Yeah, funny, boss,” Victor said in a way that made it plain he did not find Cooper’s joke even remotely funny. “No, these pages were heavily protected in the first place, top-notch encryption, then scrubbed from the internet.”
“How did you find them?”
“Avid fans collect this stuff in the hopes of catching someone famous on their way down,” Victor said, “or on their way up.”
“There’s always a screenshot.”
“Funny you say that. This is why I had you pull over.” Victor turned his laptop so that Cooper could see the screen. If Cooper had been watching himself, he would have seen a classic Hollywood double take.
“Is that Maya Rain in a slutty Halloween costume?”
“No,” Victor said. “This is Vanessa Harlowe in her work clothes.”
“A long way from West Virginia,” Cooper mumbled, staring at the image and trying to square it with the flesh-and-blood woman he’d come to know. She was gorgeous in real life. On-screen, she looked like a CGI character, like someone had attempted to capture her natural beauty but produced a cheap caricature instead.
“What does that mean?” Victor asked.
“Nothing. So she was a hooker.”
“Five years ago, in AC. Based on what I’m seeing, Vanessa Harlowe was at the top of her game. Fifteen hundred an hour, ten grand for the night. She worked with someone else you know—Rosalind Cline.”
“Let me guess. Her madam.”
“They don’t call it that anymore, boss.”
“Well, she’s not a madam anymore either.”