Never in her life had she felt so empty and lost.
CHAPTER 12
Ben arrived at the Hilton hotel deep in thought. He left the rental car with the attendant, grabbed his bag, and entered the lobby. A surprise hit him square in the chest when he approached the reception desk.
Crystal Benton.
He almost stopped in shock but forced himself to keep walking, face blank. She was a pretty woman, tall and athletic, yet something was different about her. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but the hairstyle and color were different. This was the woman Hank Bucshon had called Vine’s main squeeze.
There was no reason Benton should know him. He knew her because her name was prominent on the investigation board, IB.
“She’s higher on the food chain and someone who could give us hard evidence, but she’s no snitch. And she’d likely be incriminating herself as well,” Efren had said.
The contrast being that Stan Moffit was lower on Vine’s organizational chart with virtually no power. That Benton was here, now, was beyond coincidence. Did Moffit know she was here, or was she here because Moffit was? Could Moffit have called her for support? Though that might be a possibility, Ben couldn’t see it. This could move his involvement with her from marginal to full-on. Benton wasat the reception desk in front of him, and he moved as close as he dared to eavesdrop on the conversation.
“I need a rental car for a couple of days,” she explained to the receptionist.
“We’ve been busy with rental cars lately, and unfortunately you might have to Uber to the airport to pick up the car.”
“Are you serious? That will take me over an hour to get back here with the car.”
“It’s possible they may have a car for you here. I just don’t have that information. You need to speak to the concierge.” The receptionist spoke calmly, aloha in her voice, smiled, and gestured across the lobby.
“Fine.” Benton’s tone cut like fingernails on blackboard. Without thanking the receptionist, she stormed away, stomping to the other desk.
Ben watched her go. Being supportive probably was not one of her life skills. Her arrival made what happened to Evangeline Moffit more suspicious. Benton and Moffit had come up in conversation together once, and Ben worked to remember exactly all that Efren had said about her.
“She’s pretty, but a hardness pervades her core. Benton is not sentimental at all, but she is very loyal. Everything about her is mysterious and ambiguous. Gossip on one hand says she’s involved with Vine, but whispers on the other hand say she’s involved with someone else. Whatever the case, it’s all very hush-hush. She’s at the car wash a lot. Drives a Bentley and wants it cleaned all the time. She is always with Vine’s bodyguard, a guy they call Plug.”
Ben raised an eyebrow. “Plug, as in fireplug?”
“Pretty much.”
“Could she be involved with Moffit?”
Efren laughed. “I don’t see that. Benton is all about wanting money and prestige. Moffit may run the car wash, but he is not the boss. He drives a Kia.”
Was Efren wrong? Improbable as the relationship would be, if it were so, did Benton fit into Evangeline’s disappearance somehow?
Guilt and fear swelled inside. He believed less and less that Evangeline’s fate was simply a tragic accident. He stepped forward to check in, his thoughts drifting again to Elaine Jensen.
Maybe he should talk to her, join forces, let her know he was here investigating this situation.
No.
Ben knew he might be responsible for her sister’s death. He wouldn’t put Lainie at risk as well. Besides, he’d need to get permission to read her into everything. The higher-ups would not approve.
After he’d settled his luggage in his room, Ben logged into his laptop. He brought up the case files for the Dallas Vine investigation. He needed to dig into Benton a little deeper.
He read over everything in the file they knew about her. She had an accounting degree from California State University in Long Beach. She’d also completed law school and worked for a time as an attorney. Her occupation with Vine’s LLC was listed as an office manager, but she was more than that. Efren had used the outdated termgirl Friday, meaning she completed whatever administrative task Vine requested.
Vine owned and ran several different businesses. Confidential informants believed Vine used his multiple business interests to launder money for a large-scale interstate human-trafficking organization. The car wash Moffit managed was a piece of the puzzle because it was one of Vine’s more lucrative endeavors.
Efren’s task had been to find evidence connecting Vine and his businesses to money laundering. He landed a job at the car wash because Vine appeared to be more involved there than even at his classy cigar club, Smokey Dreams, in downtown Long Beach. Efren had had hisown business detailing cars when he was a kid. He quickly caught Vine’s eye because of his work ethic and his attention to detail. Though a young man named Raphael Diaz was the main detailer at the car wash, Efren handled all business vehicles and referrals from Vine. When it came to his personal vehicle, Vine always requested Efren.
Soon, Efren became responsible for maintaining Vine’s fleet of vehicles. Vine was rumored to conceal money and the location of trafficked individuals in his vehicles. Efren had found evidence that different parts of the cars, such as armrests, door panels, and seats had been removed and replaced shoddily, but he’d never found any money or instructions. He had used a drug-detection test that told him drug residue remained in one or two vehicles. When there was damage to a vehicle’s interior, Efren was told to simply fix it and not ask questions.
Originally the task force thought it would be easy to find evidence against Vine. He eschewed technology, believed in paper records. Some thought a paper trail would be easier to uncover than a digital trail, but that had not proven to be true. Vine had perfected codes and subversion; nothing incriminating had as yet been uncovered.
