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No more avoiding the camera. Ready to take on scrutiny full-face.
The next bit of bio featured the same visage on an Iowa driver’slicense issued to Lori Adriana Boone two years later. The DOB listed made her twenty-eight, again accurate.
I ran another death search, found an Ada, Oklahoma, grave for Lori Adriana Boone, deceased at the age of two. Black granite marker, no heart-wrenching face, just an engraved teddy bear.
Boone née Johnson née Gilmore now sported teased-up honey-blond hair, and assertive, challenging eyes rimmed by shadow and fringed by press-on lashes. Makeup was caked on so heavily an apathetic bureaucratic camera had picked it up. The overall effect: a mask with great bone structure.
Paper-clipped to the Iowa license was a pink pearlescent business card.
American Dreams Gentleman’s Club.
Toll-free number, address on North Fifteenth Street in Council Bluffs.
I said, “Finally, the Midwest.”
Milo said, “She takes the time to get a serious degree, lands a decent job in Idaho, ends up stripping in Iowa?”
He ran a map search. “Nearly thirteen hundred miles away. You know what I’m feeling.”
“Maybe she got in trouble in Boise and lammed. Pilfering from the rehab center, even embezzling.”
No arrest records on Martha Erika Johnson popped up on NCIC. If she’d committed an offense, it had been too low-level for the feds to care about.
But serious enough for her to morph to Lori Boone, pack up quickly, and land in yet another state.
Milo cold-called Boise PD, spoke to a series of cops far too young to have any idea. It took a while but he finally connected to a civilian records clerk able to direct him to the open-sesame that unlocked their internet cave.
Two years into her employment at Bright Life, “Erika Johnson”had been arrested for prostitution during a raid by Boise vice cops at Sweet Orchid Massage Therapy, Ltd. Five-hundred-dollar fine, no jail time, supervised visits for a year that never materialized.
I said, “Moonlighting.”
He said, “Different type of physical therapy to make more money. If you’re right about the Persephone angle, why would she want to go near a place like that?”
“To achieve control.”
He thought about that. “Horny guys on the table instead of on her…guess so.” Long sigh. “Okay, let’s see where our poor girl traveled next…okay, here we go.”
If the records she’d left were complete, Lori Boone had remained uneventfully in Iowa for four and a half years until acquiring a Nevada driver’s license as Meagin Jones and listing her age as thirty-three.
Sleek, shoulder-length, red hair styled skillfully. Less conspicuous makeup allowed natural beauty to shine through. Small smile; confident. An eye-catching woman.
Address on Highway 95 in Amargosa Valley.
No deceased child by that name.
Milo said, “Now she’s used to being Ms. Enigma, no need for a formal name change.”
I said, “Once she switched to dancing and living off tips, no need for documentation.”
He typed, stopped, pointed to his screen. “Address matches a place called The Fantasy Farm. Legal brothel in Nye County…still in business…looks as if it changed hands a few times since then…gets high marks for cleanliness, security, good-looking hostesses.”
He sat back. “From waiting tables to legit massage to not-so-legit bodywork to stripping, then full-time sex work. Which according to Rikki Montel, she stuck with in Vegas.”
He peered at the Nevada license. “So many women enter that world and deteriorate. If this can be believed, she matured and got healthier-looking. Guess taking control can do that to you.”
I said, “Emotional and physical control. You know where most of the deterioration comes from.”
“Dope and pimps.”
