CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Ambrose sat at the end of the bar in the only seat where the dim light didn’t quite reach. He was faced toward a door that was up a short set of steps. The view and the light from the street ensured that he’d have a visual on anyone who walked in before they could see him. He’d already scoped out the exit door near the back, where he’d slip out if necessary.

Of course you’re still putting so much thought into potential escape routes. For one, it’d sort of become second nature. His job presented risk, and he had to be on guard. But also, he had this feeling that Inspector Lennon Gray would be working this case even harder than she had before. It was the gut instinct he’d come to trust over the years, but it was also that he knew he’d upset her with his deception, and she’d want to know why he’d done what he’d done.

Goddamn, he felt guilty about that. He felt even worse that she’d been temporarily put on leave. His source at the SFPD had told him about that. She hadn’t deserved being deceived, and he’d taken their relationship further than he’d meant to, even if it wasn’t as far as he would have liked. He’d complicated matters and caused her fallout, but he’d caused himself some fallout too.

So yeah, he’d bet anything that, even without police powers, she’d be working this case hard, resentment and anger fueling her need for answers. He had to find those answers first, and he meant to.

As far as this particular lead, she’d have a hard time getting information here. Lennon Gray exuded law and order, whether she had the gun to back it up or not. And he doubted she knew how to shrug it off and play a different part.

He didn’t like the idea of her in crime-ridden parts of town and seedy bars like this one without protection, and he was to blame for that, so he needed to work even faster than he had been.

It was good that he was already one step ahead of her. Doc had recognized Cherish, and he had her name. Cherish Olsen. She’d gone through some testing but ultimately hadn’t been a good candidate for the project. Had she gone somewhere else? Answered another offer? Did this place have something to do with it? Ambrose didn’t know but thought it worthwhile to check behind the curtain.

The bartender came over, tipping his chin toward his untouched whiskey. “I’m going to assume since you’re not here to drink, you’re here for something else?”

“Maybe. What else do you offer here?”

“I just sling the drinks. You’d have to ask Carlo about that. He’s in the back office. Red door. I’ll give him a call and let him know you’re coming. You’ll need this.” The bartender dropped a key on the bar, and Ambrose eyed it before picking it up and squeezing it in his fist.

“Thanks.” Ambrose stood as the bartender took his phone out of his pocket and began dialing. Instead of heading down the hall that had an exit door at the end, and likely the toilets somewhere along the way, he walked the short distance to a door in the corner. He tried the handle, but when he found it locked, he used the key he’d just been given to open it. The hallway he stepped into was dim, a single bulb flickering overhead, giving the whole place an eerie cast. The red door was at the end, and Ambrose walked toward it, his head turning to the other doors along the way, where he heard the muffled sounds of both sex and sobs. It made him grimace, his hands fisting as he walked.

After he knocked on the red door, it was pulled open by a woman in a skimpy white bikini and platform heels. Her expression remained bored as she stepped aside, allowing him entrance. A man sat behind a large desk, facing him. “Carlo?”

“That’s right. Have a seat,” Carlo said. The woman in the bikini plopped down on a couch on the wall to his right, and Ambrose took a seat in the chair Carlo had indicated in front of his desk. “How can I be of service?”

“I’m here because I have a specific appetite,” he said.

Carlo leaned back, looking unimpressed. “Don’t we all?” He sat forward, lacing his fingers. “We don’t supply kids here, only violence. If you want underage, there’s a kiddie stroll over on Polk Street.”

Kiddie stroll. He swallowed down the rage those two words caused to rise in his chest. “No, no kids.”

“Good. Our girls—and a few boys, if that’s your thing—are over eighteen and willing participants.”

He tilted his lips, hoping he’d managed what resembled a smile as he thought about how the word willing sure could be stretched to fit the needs of the person using it. “That’s all I’m looking for. However, I prefer things a little ... dark.”

The man inclined his head. “You go too far, our business is done.”

“What’s too far?”

“Anything that complicates my life, or brings the authorities here, got it?”

Ambrose gave a single nod.

“We have a doctor willing to make house calls, but he can only repair so much, so don’t push it. If one of my girls ends up in the hospital, we’re done.”

“I understand.”

Carlo pushed a binder toward him. Ambrose eyed it and then used his index finger to open the cover, flipping through, anger sizzling through his veins as his eyes hit on one woman after another. Meat. These women were considered meat. Their vitals were listed next to their pictures, photographs of one sensual stare after another that looked so brittle he was surprised there weren’t cracks across their lips.

And under that was listed the activities they’d participate in and the cost for each one. Restraints, choking, flogging, biting, clamps ... The next category was called Edgeplay and included extremely pricey choices such as electricity, fire, suspension, and knives.

He perused the remaining pages and then pushed it back toward Carlo. “One of your clients, a good friend of mine, mentioned a girl. Name of Cherish. I don’t see her in there, but she came highly recommended.”

Carlo looked at him suspiciously. “Cherish doesn’t work here anymore. She quit. Bitch decided she was too good for the place.” His lips stretched into a smile, showing a set of large capped teeth.

“Any way I can reach her?”

“You think I’m going to help you take your business outside my club? Go fuck yourself. You’re on your own.”

“If I—”

“Out. I don’t give second chances around here.”

Ambrose sighed, coming to his feet. He might have thought that the guy would attempt to rough him up just for the hell of it or for the fact that Ambrose had wasted his time. But the dude was about a hundred pounds overweight, and the only “sidekick” he had in his office was a petite bikini-clad woman.

This guy sat in a back office and profited off the sale of women’s bodies. But the police were past caring about prostitution, because most of the DAs didn’t prosecute anyway. Ambrose couldn’t help the women in that binder, and likely, most of them would say they didn’t need help anyway. The best he could do was his part to help those who wanted to be helped so that another generation of victims didn’t wind up in that binder, listed for sale.

What he had gleaned from behind that red door was that Cherish, at least, had decided she wanted something different than what those back rooms offered. Unfortunately, she’d run into something far, far worse.

Ambrose turned and left that seedy office, walking back out through the bar, where no one even looked up from their drink.

His next stop was to the address he’d located for Cherish Olsen. She lived in a building called the Tills Apartments and had a roommate named Brandy Lopez that went by the stage name Brandy Wine . Of course, there was no actual stage in her “professional” life, from what he could gather, unless you considered what went on at the corner of Geary Street a performance.

He rang the buzzer next to the name Brandy Lopez and waited. When thirty seconds had gone by with no response, he tried again to the same result, before going down the line and pushing one buzzer after another. The gate let out a loud buzz, and he grasped the handle and pulled it open, slipping inside before anyone came out of their apartment and questioned him. He jogged up to the third floor and knocked on the door to apartment 3A. No one answered his knock, but he swore he heard something from behind the door and pressed his ear against it. Was that ... yes, it sounded like the muffled sound of a baby crying.

He knocked again, this time louder, and from behind him he heard a door open and a woman step into the hallway. “What the hell is all the racket?”

He looked over his shoulder to see an elderly woman in a green bathrobe, holding a spatula in her hands. The smell of something frying met his nose. “It’s too late for this kind of noise. Brandy’s obviously not home.”

“Have you seen her recently?”

The woman lifted her gaze, as though considering. “Not for a couple days, but—”

“I think I hear a baby crying from inside.”

The woman frowned, walking to where he was and placing her own ear against the door. “You’re right. That’s Nadia. I hear her.” She looked up at him. “Ah, shit. Brandy left her alone again. I told that girl to bring her over to me if she needed a sitter, but she swore she only left her if it was for less than an hour and she was sleeping. Stupid girl.”

“Do you have a key?”

“No. The maintenance man has one, but he’ll already have gone home. The owner is an agency or corporation, and they never answer calls. They don’t even have an email, just a box on their website where you’re supposed to let them know you’d like a call back. Such bull—”

Ambrose stepped back, lifted his leg, and easily kicked in the door as the woman next to him cowered to the side. The door bounced back off its broken hinges, allowing him access. The cry could be heard more clearly now that the door was open, and he drew back at the smell of death. Ambrose moved toward the cry, the sounds of the neighbor woman following behind.

His heart dropped when he stopped in the bedroom doorway and saw the scene inside. A woman, her body purple and bloated, lay dead on the floor, the needle she’d overdosed with still stuck in her arm. And next to her, a toddler girl lay on the floor, hand clutching her lifeless mother’s shirt.

“Oh my God. Oh my God,” the woman behind him chanted. “Oh, Nadia.”

Ambrose swooped up the baby girl, the scent of decay heavy on her clothing, her face red and streaked with tears. She’d soiled her diaper, and the scent of that mixed with the smell of rot almost overwhelmed Ambrose, but he breathed through his nose and held the little girl tightly to him as he left the room.

The little girl, Nadia, started screaming more loudly, twisting in his arms and reaching her arms out for her mother. Jesus Christ, what was this going to do to the child?

“Shh,” he cooed. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay. You’re safe.”

He heard the neighbor on the phone with the police, giving them the address of Brandy’s apartment. Help would be here soon, and Ambrose couldn’t be around when they arrived. The neighbor hung up the phone, and Ambrose handed the sobbing child to her. She laid her head down on the woman’s shoulder, obviously exhausted by whatever she’d been through over the past few days while her mother’s body bloated with gas and began to decay in front of her. “Take care of her,” he told the neighbor, who looked shell shocked, her skin a sickly tint of green, as though she might be sick any moment. But she nodded, managing to hold it down as she stroked the little girl’s hair.

Ambrose turned, taking a moment to glance around the living room and into the kitchen on his way out. Nothing looked out of place, but he spotted a single business card stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet. He took the few steps to it, sliding it from beneath the magnet and slipping it into his pocket. Inspector Lennon Gray. Just as he’d suspected, Lennon was still on the case, whether she had permission or not. Something about that made him strangely proud, but he also had the urge to swear and topple a table. He did neither, merely leaving through the broken front door, finding some solace in the fact that the baby had stopped crying and the police sirens could be heard drawing closer. She’d been saved. He only prayed she wasn’t like the countless children who experienced similar circumstances and were thrown out of the frying pan and into the fire.