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Nick glanced at me and I nodded, letting him know it was okay to discuss this in front of her. His lips thinned before he continued. “As I said, she’s dead. Her body was found by accident yesterday.”
“By accident?” I asked. That sounded awfully suspicious.
“When I talked with the boyfriend, he insisted that she was fine. He was rather irritated, which under the circumstances, was perfectly normal. However, now he’s changed his story, stating that he was embarrassed and didn’t want anyone to know that she had cheated on him and run off.”
“What about the kid?” I asked, concerned for him more than anything now. Theo was Jenna’s family, and she would want to know what was going on with him.
“This is why I need help. Actually, I need Rae’s help, if she’s willing,” he said, his eyes flicking to hers.
Her eyebrows shot up in surprise. “Mine?”
“OPS’s help. The boyfriend claims that she took off with her son.”
“So, where is he now?”
“We don’t know. As soon as the police found her body, and the boyfriend admitted that she ran off, they filed an amber alert for Theo. So far, there are no leads. However, I’ve done my own digging into the boyfriend and it’s not good.”
I slid into a seat, rubbing a hand over my face. I let her go. I didn’t even question it. I asked for a divorce and got it without so much as a fight over alimony. What was I thinking? I should have questioned her motives. I should have looked into this new boyfriend, but I was too relieved that I wasn’t a father, that I was no longer attached to this woman that I didn’t bother to look any further.
Rae’s hand rested on my back, rubbing up and down. Fuck, I couldn’t drag her into this. But he said he needed her help, and if that was the case, this must be bad. Shaking off my own failures, I cleared my mind. I needed to focus if I was going to help Theo.
“Okay, tell me what you have.”
“The boyfriend is Michael Williams. On paper, this guy looks good. He’s got a good job working as a lawyer.”
That didn’t sound right. “Carolyn hooked up with a lawyer? Jenna said he wasn’t a good guy.”
“If she met him, I’m sure she got some bad vibes from him. Twenty minutes in his presence and I felt I needed a shower to wash off the filth.”
“What kind of vibes were you getting?” Rae asked.
He cleared his throat. “Maybe it’s best I just tell you the rest.”
My stomach churned at the implication. Was he abusive? If he killed Carolyn, did that mean he killed Theo too?
“I ran a search on some of his known clients. Some are better than others. But his main client is Draven Wixx.”
“Draven Wixx?” Rae said, her brows furrowing. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
“He runs a prostitution ring—”
Rae’s eyes went wide, catching us both by surprise. “Yes! We suspected him of taking over Michael West’s territory.”
“Who is Michael West?” I asked. I was so lost.
“Michael West is Liberty’s father.”
“Liberty, as in Rafe’s girlfriend?”
“Wife,” she corrected. “He was the right hand of the governor of California until Cash took the governor down for his connection to the cartels. But when he did that, he exposed West’s own trafficking operation inadvertently. Officials started looking into anyone associated with the governor, and that’s when West’s own corrupt dealings were exposed.”
“Where’s West now?”
“Dead,” Rae answered. “I can give you two guesses who killed him, but you’ll only need one. But trafficking rings are like weeds. You take one down and another pops up. We could only get so much intel on the rings, so we focused on cutting the head off the snake. We suspected it wouldn’t be long before someone else stepped into his shoes.”
I turned to Nick. “So, what are you thinking? Did he sell her into a prostitution ring?”
“It’s too soon to know. Since we just found her body, and have nothing else to go on, we don’t know what he might have involved her in. That’s where Rae comes in. Fox told me you’ve been working to find some evil bastards. I was hoping you could use your resources to help us track down this Wixx guy. I know it’s not a paying job, but if we don’t look into this on our own, I can tell you right now the department doesn’t have the resources to look into this.”
