CHAPTER EIGHT

"What's the friend's name?" asked Jean.

"Thurston Sawyer," frowned Miller. "Is that a real fucking name?" He looked down at the text and shook his head.

"Are we going to his home or place of business?" asked Jean.

"Business. He owns a mortgage lending company and, obviously, gets all of Craig's business. Seems fishy to me, but I couldn't give a shit about that. I want to know about this investment in the website."

Pulling up to the small home converted into a business location, they parked on the street and then watched as men in suits walked out of the building with boxes of files. Three black SUVs were parked across the lawn.

"Feds. What the fuck is happening?" asked Miller.

"If we're right, those are definitely the feds, and he's in big trouble," smirked Jean. He walked toward one of the men and introduced himself.

"This is my brother, Pierre Robicheaux. We're part of…"

"We know," said one of the agents, raising a hand. "Sorry, I recognized your names. Are you here to take over?"

"No. Not just no, but fuck no," said Jean. "Not at all. We were here to discuss an investment this guy made in a site that films women undressing in dressing rooms, bathrooms, that sort of sick shit."

"Well, that stands to reason. He's under investigation for mail fraud, loan fraud, falsifying documents, tax fraud. Let's just say fraud," said the exhausted agent.

"He's probably got four or five million in charges on his business credit card for the last ten years that involve strip clubs, massage parlors, all of it," said another agent. "It doesn't surprise me that he'd be involved in something sick like that."

"Is he here?" asked Miller.

"I wish. No, someone tipped him off, and he ran. His secretary is in there crying like he died," the agent said, shaking his head. "He's not at his home either. We've frozen his credit cards and other assets, but I'm going to guess that he had a stash of cash somewhere and is long gone."

"Well, if you find anything about the video site, let us know. We've got a few women who are pretty upset about what took place." The agents nodded, shaking their hands and then getting back to work.

"We're not going to find him," said Jean. "I'll bet he had an escape route the entire time. He knew someone would find him sooner or later."

"Do you think Craig gave him a heads up? I'd like to go back and break his face," frowned Miller.

"No," laughed Jean. "You can't break his face, but yes, I do think he did that. I think this guy is a piece of shit and probably was going to get caught either way. Although it does seem to be a pattern for Craig old boy."

"I'm gonna see if we can get the tech boys to perform some magic at the tailor's. Maybe they can backtrack and figure out where all of this is coming from."

"If you ask nicely, the ‘tech boys' might tell you that Thurston is a moron. He has video cameras on the inside and outside of his building. I've got him coming and going non-stop for the last two days. I'll pull it all together and have it ready for your review when you get here," said Code.

"Code, you're the man, brother. What about the tailor's shop? Anything there?" asked Jean.

" Yes and no. Thurston and Craig both frequented the tailor often. The challenge will be proving why they were there. They always entered with a garment in hand."

"Well, it's a place to start. We'll head back so we can review the videos. Any word from our three victims? Anything else that they remembered?" asked Miller.

"No. Sor gave us permission to add some security on his property. He has alarms and cameras on the cabin but nothing on the road leading to the cabin. We sent some boys out to install those. The woman knows and is fine with it."

"Alright. Is there any happy news to tell us?"

" It's not happy news, Miller. I'm working on finding the source of the site. You know it's become a specialty of ours, but this one is tough. I've got Hayes helping me, only because he's eighteen now. I can't ask the little ones to work on this. Even Hayes is struggling with it."

"Don't let him work on it," said Jean. "It's too much for us half the fucking time. He's still a kid in a lot of ways."

"He's only working on the coding and tracking. I'm not letting him look at the site. Hoot's sitting with him just to be sure."

"Okay. That makes me feel better," said Jean.

"Listen, we've seen shit like this before, but to me this one is worse. These women are completely unaware that they're being filmed. It doesn't seem to matter their size or weight. In fact, women who are plumper are often filmed, and then bubbles of comments are added to shame her.

"You can see them staring at themselves in the mirror, not happy about how they look. Even the thin ones. It makes me ashamed to be a man. The harder part of this, and I cannot figure out how it's done, is that they're filming these women using the toilet." Code was silent, waiting for the reaction that he knew would come. It was difficult for him to see the footage, and he'd seen a lot of horrific footage in his life.

"Is that a fucking joke? Are you fucking with me?" growled Miller. The silence told him that Code was not fucking with him. "What kind of sick fucking people are out there? I think we need to pay another visit to our friend Craig."

Jean smirked at his older brother, shaking his head.

"Alright, but if you break it, you buy it."