Chapter Eight

Saturday night

  

A block down the road, Mutt said, “Da-amn Opie! I knew you had stones, but I didn’t think you’d do anything like that.”

“Me either,” Brack answered.

“You realize,” Tara said, “that he’s onto you now.”

“He already was.”

“And that you are in danger.”

“Nothing new.”

She asked, “And that thought didn’t occur to you while you were jeopardizing those two idiots’ ability to procreate?”

“I was simply doing the world a favor.”

“The monks who set themselves on fire in protest get better results than what you just did,” she said.

“Don’t be so quick to judge,” Brack said.

“Whatever,” she said. “My car is at the club. I’m going to have to get it eventually.”

“You want us to go back and drop you off now?” Brack asked.

“Of course not,” she said.

As he drove, Mutt said, “They gonna be lookin’ for us. We can’t go to my bar or Cassie’s restaurant.”

In the end, they went to a Waffle House not too far away and got three coffees and three pieces of pie. They sat there waiting out the danger and talking junk for two hours before heading back to the club and Tara’s parked SUV.

She hugged them both, lingering her embrace with Brack a tad longer, in his opinion, before heading away.

With her now safely away, Brack and Mutt proceeded back to the rental where Taliah and Shelby were.

On the way, Darcy called.

Brack answered. “Hey there.”

“Hey there, yourself,” she said almost gleefully. “I just heard two of Vito’s henchmen will have trouble fathering children. You are my hero.”

Realizing her definition of hero was in the “I will have enough news to report to keep me busy for the next month” sense, Brack said, “You’re welcome.”

  

Regan knew she was in trouble. The ride back to Vito’s apartment in the backseat of the Mercedes SUV was a quiet one. Up to this point, she’d thought she could keep the fact that her sister was looking for her away from him. Using his name, she’d sent a few of his minions to try to stop her sister and Mutt from asking questions and getting too close.

But this new player was the real business. Taking out Lonnie and Mike like that. No fear. Bringing it to Vito in a straight line. No one, but no one had spit in her man’s face before. Especially in public. Thinking about him aroused something inside her, the same feeling she’d felt when she first met Vito. That Vito already knew about this man was not good news for her. Even knew his name.

Vito spoke, breaking her train of thought.

“So,” he said, “when were you going to tell me your sister was looking for you?”

“I told you. I don’t have a sister.”

“Apparently this man Brack thinks you do.”

“He ain’t nothing.”

Vito said, “He took out Lonnie and Mike. Maybe they weren’t my best after all. But he isn’t ‘nothing,’ like you say. He can jeopardize everything.”

She touched his leg. “I’m sorry. I should have talked to you about it before. I didn’t want to worry you.”

He took her hand in his. “Don’t you understand? If you are in danger, I want to protect you.”

  

Sunday morning, Brack had a long talk with Cassie. He felt she should know that Regan didn’t appear to be either missing or kidnapped.

“She gotta be hypnotized or something, Mr. Brack,” Cassie said. “My sister shouldn’t be with a man like that.”

As painful as he knew it would be to hear what Regan said about not having a sister, Brack nevertheless told her.

Cassie’s eyes watered. She wiped them and blew her nose.

He let her get it out.

She said, “There’s someone I want you to talk with, if you don’t mind.”

He didn’t mind. If she still wanted to pursue this, Brack wasn’t going to let Mutt try to handle it on his own. Not after he’d just kicked over the hornets’ nest.

Brack left Cassie and drove down Peachtree Street toward Buckhead, taking in the city he’d called home a very long time ago. The significant increase in population had brought a sprawling metropolis and everything that came with it.

Traffic wasn’t that horrible, especially for a Sunday. The real problem, as he saw it, was that any place he wanted to go was located across town from wherever he happened to be. That and Atlanta drivers behaved much more aggressively than the drivers on the South Carolina island he now lived. Here cars weaved in and out, drivers vying for any advantage by constantly changing lanes. Since he was seldom in a hurry, Brack rolled along just fast enough to keep a minimum distance between his front bumper and the rear of the car in front of him.

Mutt had to go to the restaurant to handle some restocking. Cassie had suggested Brack visit a women’s shelter she supported to talk with the director. Regan had not called her, of course. So after breakfast and a long walk with Shelby, Brack left him alone in Mutt’s house and arrived at the shelter in Buckhead five minutes early for his appointment.

The building was a large nondescript brick home a little north of the big money district. Brack pulled into visitor’s parking and approached the lobby, expecting to find a receptionist behind a desk. Instead, he entered a small room with white walls and cheap gray tile. Between two hospital-type waiting room chairs, a small table held a phone. Opposite the entrance stood one very substantial door. A small tinted dome was mounted in a corner ceiling and probably housed a camera. After verifying his assumption that the door was locked, Brack picked up the receiver. He saw no card anywhere with printed instructions about calling anyone.

In place of a dial tone, a friendly female voice said, “May I help you?”

“I have an appointment to see Mrs. Royce.”

“Your name please?”

He gave it to her.

After a long moment, the voice said, “Please have a seat and someone will be with you shortly.”

The phone then went dead.

Another glance around the room revealed no magazines or wall-mounted flatscreen TV to hold a visitor’s attention. Brack sat in one of the chairs and waited.

Ten minutes later the fortified door opened. A stout woman a few inches shorter than him came into the room. Big glasses accentuated big eyes. Gray-streaked hair and a weathered face put her a decade or two older than him.

She smiled and held out a hand. “I’m Susanna Royce. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Pelton.”

Taking her offered hand, Brack said, “Please call me Brack.”

Finished with the formality, she said, “My office is on the second floor. I believe we should talk there.”

“Lead the way.”

She held the door for Brack, then guided him through the ground floor. They passed empty rooms that looked like hospital exam rooms, along with a lot of closed doors. Everyone Brack saw—and he counted about twenty between the entry door and the stairwell—was female.

They took the stairs. Cream-painted concrete block and steel walls surrounded them. The second floor’s cubicle inhabitants greeted them, and Mrs. Royce meandered through a maze to the end of a hall and an actual office. Hers, Brack presumed.

Motioning him in, she closed the door behind them. Her decently sized office held a large black desk and two visitor chairs. Against the wall by the door sat a couch. She settled heavily into one end of it. Brack took the other end and they faced each other.

She said, “Cassie spoke highly of you and asked me to talk to you about her sister.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Can I ask what experience you have with abused women?”

Thinking about her question, Brack said, “I’ve dealt with a few situations in which women were kidnapped and harmed.”

“What kind of credentials do you carry?”

“Usually I don’t carry any. But I fought as a Marine in Afghanistan and have a licensed Colt forty-five locked in the glovebox of my car.”

She sat back a bit, as if trying to add more distance between them. Judging by her reaction, his answer must not have been a good one. Or at least not one she wanted to hear.

Brack tried to give her a friendly smile, but it didn’t seem to work.

“Mr. Pelton,” she said, “we don’t condone violence here. Most of the women who come to us have seen enough of it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Cassie gave me the impression that you were a man who believed in justice.”

Brack’s form of justice sometimes flew in the face of the legal system. He said, “I believe we should protect the innocent. There’s a difference.”

“How so?”

“If someone uses a gun to rob a store, there’s a chance an innocent bystander could get killed. I believe in taking out the robber before that happens, even if it means the robber dies. Justice would say the criminal should get five to ten years or whatever if they’re caught after the fact. Some would call me a bit extreme.”

Clasping her hands together on her lap, she said, “What happens if someone innocent gets hurt because you are trying to stop the robber?”

What Susanna Royce didn’t know was that something similar had happened only last year. He and Mutt had tracked a killer to an apartment complex. Riding with them at the time was a Charleston Police detective who received a partial shotgun spray and lost an eye. One could say it was due to Brack’s negligence. He was often reminded of the moment because since then, the detective had married Brack’s business manager, Paige. The man didn’t seem to hold a grudge, but who knows.

Brack said, “There’s always a risk.”

“Yes, there is.” She sighed. “Well, I suppose I have to trust Cassie. Although when she talks about you, she gets a dreamy look on her face. I think her judgment might be compromised. But I’m going to give her the benefit of the doubt.”

“She is a very nice person.”

Mrs. Royce said, “She’s concerned about her sister.”

“Yes.”

“Her sister has been on the wrong side of things since as far back as I can remember, and I’ve known Cassie’s family a long time.” She removed her glasses and wiped her eyes with a tissue.

He waited for her to continue.

“I’ve been doing this work for twenty years and it still gets to me.”

“As soon as it stops getting to you, that’s the time to hang it up,” he said.

Her eyes met Brack’s. “You’re giving me advice?”

While she might have not meant those words as a compliment, he wasn’t offended. He believed what he said, and he thought she did too. He said, “I’ve seen a lot of death. In Afghanistan and elsewhere. More than most people will ever see.”

Sniffling, she asked, “What’s supposed to be my takeaway from that?”

“Eventually it stopped getting to me. That’s one reason I didn’t re-up. I came back with depression and a drinking problem. It’s taken me a few years to get a handle on both.”

“You’re not kidding, are you?”

“No.”

“And you say you’ve got a handle on your problems?”

“Not all of them. Most days I don’t drink or sit around feeling sorry for myself. But a few other days are not worth repeating.”

“Amen to that,” she said.

“Tell me about Regan.”

“Very pretty. Think of a taller, more slender version of Cassie. Mostly her eyes. Looks wise, the girl has it all.”

“I’ve seen her,” Brack said, not really wanting to go into details of the night before.

“From what I hear she’s Kelvin Vito’s woman.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

She straightened up as if taken aback. “Of course it’s a bad thing.”

“I mean, isn’t it better than being in the trade?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Okay. So what does being Vito’s woman mean?”

“She is at his beck and call, I guess.”

Thinking out loud, he said, “I wonder if she gets to run some of the business now.”

Mrs. Royce lowered her head, moving it from side to side. “I hope not. Bad enough she enlisted for this lifestyle. If she becomes someone who perpetuates it, I don’t know how Cassie will be able to handle it.”

“Tell me about Vito.”

“Born with a silver spoon up his butt, pardon my French. Handsome. Cruel.”

“I met him as well. How come he isn’t in jail?”

“In addition to most of the brothels in town, he has a line of what I’ve heard called top-shelf girls for his select clientele.”

“By ‘select clientele’ you mean powerful men?”

She nodded.

“I see.”

“I’m glad you do, because no one else seems to,” she said. “There’s something else too.”

“What’s that?”

“Thanks to his connections, Vito’s got some type of diplomatic immunity.”

That wasn’t good news. “How’s that?”

“All I know is that it has something to do with his family. He’s not a natural born citizen.”

Brack spread his hands open. “Okay. Where should I look first?”

She straightened her skirt and stood. “If you’ve got time, I’d like you to talk with a few young women we have with us.”

“How do you feel about someone from the press being present?”

“You mean Darcy Wells? Cassie told me of your relationship with her.”

Mrs. Royce could go either way in her decision to allow Darcy to join him, he realized. He wasn’t sure why he’d thought of including her, besides the obvious reason, of course. Maybe that was the only reason.

Susanna Royce said, “From what I’ve heard, Darcy is one of the best reporters in the city. She’s already broken several crime rings wide open. As long as identities are protected, I don’t have a problem. In fact, it might be a good idea to have a woman with you when you do talk to our clients.”

She raised her bulk from the couch and led him outdoors to make his call. Cell reception in the building was not very good.

Darcy answered on the second ring. “What’s up?”

He told her where he was and what he was about to do.

She said, “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.”

“Thirty minutes?”

“If traffic isn’t too bad.”