28. Two-Point-Seven Stars

TWENTY-EIGHT

Two-Point-Seven Stars

Rus sat in one of the chairs in front of Moran’s desk with his phone resting on it. Moran was behind the desk. Both of them were listening to McGill talking through the speaker.

“They gave it up, no warrant. They’re pissed as shit. This is a big deal to them, beyond the fact it’s a big fucking deal,” McGill was saying. “I’m sending you some pictures of her they have on file. Her name is Carrie Molnar. She lives in Tacoma. She’s a dominatrix with several subspecialties including stranger scenarios, public play, the kind where you do sex shit in alleys or wherever with a possibility you’ll get caught, and consensual rape. Usually it’s male rape, but to do that, she always works with a partner, she’ll do what they do to a female, and they confirmed she was assigned Shannon.”

Carrie Molnar.

It sounded innocuous, like Ted Bundy or Ray Andrews.

Until it wasn’t.

McGill continued to lay it out.

“She’s been registered as a contract worker with them for sixteen months. She has a two-point-seven-star rating out of five, so they weren’t real hot on her to start off. They want their people to strive for at least a four-point-five, anyone below a four is flagged. She’s been flagged awhile, and that while would be for around sixteen months. They’ve been considering losing her. Reading subtext into all this, she gives them the heebie-jeebies.”

As she would.

From what Rus knew about the BDSM+ world, it was about openness and communication. It was about making promises and keeping them.

Paramount: Trust.

You might not click with the woman you hired to work you, but you didn’t give a three star and below to someone you didn’t click with.

You gave that to someone you didn’t like.

McGill’s voice kept coming at them.

“She also got a complaint eight months ago that was so bad, they gave her a warning, one more and she was out. As far as they knew, until now, she was toeing the line. Subtext to that, it’s clear they wished they hadn’t blown a golden opportunity. They were both surprised and not surprised when the FBI came calling.”

“What was the complaint?” Rus asked, but he knew.

There was a knock on the doorframe to the open door behind him, but even if Moran looked that way, Rus ignored it as McGill continued speaking.

“Not observing hard limits,” McGill told them. “We sent agents to her place last night, but the folks from the website informed us she had a new client booked in. He requested her specifically, which they were already shocked about, because she doesn’t get a lot of referrals, and as of this morning, she hasn’t checked in as they require their contractors to do. They told me this isn’t unusual. Customers pay by the scene, not by the hour. We got guys out there sitting on her place and they’ll grab her when she comes home. I’ll let you know the minute we have her.”

“Moran and I’ll be on the road when you do.”

“Right.”

“Ben, I want the fingerprints around the back window processed first,” Rus told McGill.

“I already added that to the request,” McGill replied.

“Great. Thanks. Keep us in the loop. Later,” Rus ended it.

He hit the screen to close the call and saw Dickerson rounding Moran’s desk with a laptop.

Moran jerked his head to Rus, but Rus was already out of his seat and moving around the desk.

“Once they sent it in, didn’t take long to find it,” Dickerson said, hitting a button on the laptop, and the black-and-white video on the screen played.

The date on the feed was the night of Brittanie’s murder, eight thirty-nine.

The feed was from the opening-soon outdoor gear store who really didn’t want anything stolen while they were setting up shop, so they had cameras. And they were all over offering up feeds to the local sheriff to help in a murder investigation.

On the feed was a BMW driving through the lot. The video was small, and grainy, but you could easily make out two people in the front seats of the car.

You couldn’t make out faces, and definitely not license plates, not from what he could see. Someone could enhance it, though they probably didn’t have those programs at Fret County Sheriff’s Office.

But they didn’t need it enhanced for now.

Ezra Corbin owned a BMW.

His chest felt tight.

Fucking hell.

They had the who and they had the how.

He didn’t give a fuck about the why, just as long as they could say who and how.

And they could.

Dickerson’s finger moved over the mousepad, that feed minimized, and he hit go on the next feed.

Same car exiting the lot, this time it was the next morning at four twenty-three.

Seven hours.

They tortured her for seven hours.

Rus kept himself perfectly still.

Dickerson spoke. “You know we already talked to all the desk clerks about him. No one checked Corbin in ever, to their knowledge. We got this feed, we called the motel.”

“Anyone specifically ask for room seven?” Moran asked.

Dickerson shook his head. “But the clerk on duty said a dark-haired, Caucasian woman came in for what she thought was a matinee the day before. She didn’t have anyone with her. The clerk on duty that day is the one there now. She didn’t notice anyone joining her. That doesn’t mean someone didn’t, but in the comings and goings during the day, they couldn’t say for sure if someone did. She didn’t check out in person, just left her key in the room and was gone by the next morning. The clerk said she saw her leave mid-afternoon, but thought she went for food or something, or was just done with her tryst. She didn’t remember seeing her come back. She’d never seen her before. But she was put into room seven.”

“And Jason’s supposed email came in that afternoon, telling her which room to ask for,” Rus said. “And Better Times Motel doesn’t have very many amenities, but they do have Wi-Fi.”

Dickerson nodded.

“Log that,” Moran said, dipping his chin to the video. “I’m going to get you a picture of the woman we’re looking at. I want you going right out to the clerk who checked her in, and I want an ID.”

Dickerson nodded again, grabbed the laptop and left.

Rus’s phone was vibrating on the desk, so he went back to it.

He had a text.

We’re coming up. We have a brief. No contact in case you’re being watched. But we got your back.

It was from his friend, Eric Turner, who used to be an agent. He’d left the Bureau a few years ago and went to work for a security outfit in LA. They were good at what they did, and this wasn’t the first time Rus, or the FBI, contracted with them.

He looked to Moran as he sat back in his seat. “That crew I was telling you about?”

“Yeah?”

“They’re in.”

“Thinking of CK here, in my town…” Moran shook his head and didn’t finish except to say a heartfelt, “Good. “

“I wanna brief Bohannan,” Rus told him. “And I want more of a plan than what we got for tonight’s meeting. We weren’t in shape yesterday to put our minds to it. I got some—”

“Rus?”

He turned to see Polly in Moran’s doorway.

“Hey, Polly,” he greeted. “What’s up?”

“Uh, Porter Sexton is here to talk to you.”

“Who?”

“Porter Sexton, Cin’s brother.”

They didn’t have the same last name?

He knew Bonner wasn’t Jaeger’s surname. Not only did Lucinda and he never marry, his last name was Rhett, as was Madden’s.

It seemed he did a lot of talking with Lucinda. It was time to do some listening.

Rus stood, shot a glance to Moran, whose mouth was quirking, and he moved out.

Rus wasn’t feeling this, considering one of the things he had learned last night was that Lucinda was not only the mother of a nine-year-old, she was thirty-six, had been with Jaeger for ten years, living with him for nine before he left for Oregon two years ago.

In other words, she was way out of the realm where a big brother paid a visit to her new suitor to lay the ground rules.

With reserve, Rus approached the man who was standing out in the lobby.

“Porter,” he greeted, not offering his hand.

“Agent Lazarus,” Porter replied, and he did offer to shake.

Rus still was a new suitor, so as not to appear rude, he took him up on it.

And Porter didn’t beat around the bush.

“Listen, Cin doesn’t let anything get to her, which is great, when women aren’t being murdered in motels. This only a year after a dead girl was found floating in our lake and a little girl was kidnapped from a slumber party and brutally killed. Cin can be chill, but I’m tripped out. This is uncool, me coming to you, but she keeps shutting me down, and not only me, but Mom and Dad want her and Mad off that mountain and staying with one of us. If she’s not into that, she can check into Pinetop and be close to you.”

He lifted a big, calloused hand in a don’t take offense gesture before Rus could say anything, and he kept going.

“People are talking, I’m not listening, exactly. She’s my sister. When she wants me to know what’s going on in her love life, she’ll tell me. But there’s murder shit happening, and I suspect you’re trained to take care of yourself and other people. So, if you two are…whatever you’re doing, me being here is not about pressure, it’s about safety. They don’t have to stay in your room, but I want her and my niece close to somebody who can offer some protection, something she doesn’t have on Bonner Mountain.”

Bonner Mountain?

He didn’t have time to get into that.

He said, “She told me she had tight security.”

“Of course she would. And yeah. There’s a security system on the old house. And the club is wired up better than the Pentagon. But that doesn’t stretch to the old house.”

“The old house?”

“She had Granny’s Victorian renovated. She lives there. Go out the back door to the club, down the incline about a hundred and fifty yards, around the face of the mountain, closer to the river, that’s where she lives. And no, you can’t see it from the club. And yeah, that means it’s more in the middle of fucking nowhere than the club is.”

Rus’s voice was tight when he said, “I’ll talk to her.”

Porter was visibly relieved.

“And, ‘whatever’ is happening between us, so thanks for coming to me,” Rus went on.

“Obviously, not a problem. And if you need anything to help her make the right decision, tell her she either does that, or I’m pitching a fucking tent in her front yard.”

If she didn’t make the right decision, Rus would go to an open outdoor gear store and rent something to pitch right next to him.

It was at that belated moment Rus endured the big brother giving him the full once-over before Porter offered his hand again.

Rus took it.

They squeezed and let go.

“See you at the council meeting tonight. Advice, brother, wear a flak jacket.”

And with that, Porter left him alone in the lobby.

He looked to his watch then pulled out his phone.

Depending on if they flew commercial, or boarded their super security jet plane, which was how they’d probably do it since they’d need weaponry, it would take between five and seven hours for Eric’s team to gear up, roll out and arrive in Misted Pines.

Even so, he broke a rule and texted, Bon Amie, club and theater on Bonner Mountain, house down the slope and around by the river. I want eyes on it until I can have a few words with one of its inhabitants and get her ass closer to me.

It wasn’t cool to ask a contractor the government would be paying to cover someone you had a personal connection with solely because you had a personal connection with them.

But Rus didn’t give that first fuck.

As Porter said, murder shit was happening.

Unless you knew the person or it was covered in emojis, you couldn’t read humor in a text.

But Rus knew Eric.

So he knew he was killing himself laughing even though the return was two words.

On it.