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"Decker's gone to Arizona. She's posing as Raven with her accounts."
Annie's eyes got wider. "Are they -- ?"
"They've tracked down about a third of the girls so far and that's just because there's so many. They should get about 80 to 90 percent before the game's up, or all of them if we're lucky. There were some who were dead, Annie."
She swallowed but nodded. "That's to be expected." But her eyes were downcast.
"There are so many more who aren't. And who won't be, thanks to you."
She nodded and I guessed it meant she didn't need that reassurance. She needed to know what had happened.
So I told her.
Raven and Evie were in custody. That was real. They were being questioned and they were mostly cooperating and mostly the questioning was proper and by the books. Chad, the only male who had driven her to Arizona, had tried to run. He'd seen police coming for him and barricaded himself in his house. When ordered to come out, he didn't.
I'd thought he was in custody, but he wasn't. He had died in the resultant firefight.
She didn't ask anything. I told her some more anyway, not any of which took her by surprise. Chad had been connected with multiple violent rapes. With girls who didn't quite arrive the way they were supposed to. Who showed up injured. Two of them were too injured to use and died.
She nodded. She listened. When I told her Chad was dead she narrowed her lips and closed her eyes, but I saw the relief wash over her and I knew it was both because Chad would never be tried, never slip through the justice system with a good lawyer or a bad judge. He was out of the game.
And the other driver, the one she clearly had dreamed, he had never existed and there'd be no Chad to talk about him. It was unlikely either Evie or Raven would bring him up. Why would they?
Whoever he was, he'd helped Annie. He had my gratitude. If somehow someone caught him, I'd do whatever was in my considerable, financially-granted means to fix.
"Bevington?" she asked. She didn't quite meet my eyes and I didn't like the way she asked it. Like he was a Candyman type boogeyman who might appear if she said his name.
"Bevington and his men," I said. I tilted my head a little, making sure she met my eyes. "He didn't lie about how many men he had, just how many were on shift. There were eight total, not eight day and night."
Annie shrugged, as if that didn't matter, and maybe it didn't. But if she'd known there were four and not eight, she might have moved before he did what he did to her. Just looking at it made me sick. I've savaged how many women in my time? But this wasn't sexual sadism. It wasn't even sexual. It was psychopathy. Which was why I approached the next part carefully, waiting while the nurse came in, examined Annie's wound, asked if she needed a bedpan. She was no the far side of Annie's permanently turned head and didn't see Annie wink at me.
"No, thanks."
"How about painkiller? Oh, wait, I'm sorry, no, I see the note. You doing okay? You're cleared for Advil."
"I'm okay," Annie said.
She wasn't. I loved that she was being strong.
The nurse went away and Annie's attention came right back to me. "And?"
"Eight guards. One was killed in the firefight. One disappeared."
She came up off the bed. "Not Joseph."
I said instantly, "Not Joseph. Littler guy." I described him and she nodded.
"He was hallway decent. If someone had to escape, I'm glad it was him." Not that she wouldn't see him tried and hung out to dry for what he'd done.
"Annie. Here's the thing. Decker's got them."
She frowned, met my eyes, opened hers wide. "She's – what, still on their trail? All of them?" Clearly she was wondering how stupid the feds were.
I shrugged. "So she says." Then I leaned in close and said in a very low voice, "You decide. They can all face trial. Or they can all disappear. Or the worst can disappear and the others have the facts of life explained to them."
"The others couldn't go to trial," she said thoughtfully. "They'd spill about Bevington. On purpose or by mistake." She took a long breath. "Can we get away with it?"
I laughed softly. "We absolutely can. Decker has made a few … shall we say questionable connections over the years. I'm not guaranteeing exactly what would happen to Bevington or Joseph or the others." I leaned carefully over her and cupped the undamaged side of her ass. "But I am saying they'd never get away with it. They'd never get a slap on the wrist and be back in business." A pause and I squeezed her ass hard enough to see her eyes change focus, from thoughtful to angry to dreamy. I let go. I needed her actual answer. "They'll never be seen again."
