“I stayed there because I built a life I like with people I love,” I say simply.“And I didn’t want to come home and deal with a man trying to control me.”
She nods once, looking thoughtful, and then her lips quirk.“And yet now that you’re back, you’re supposed to be a prisoner in Lucien Boudreaux’ house.”
I pop the rest of the beignet in my mouth and grin through the powdered sugar.“And you can see how well that’s going for him.Let’s get to work.”
***
An hour later I’m staring through the window at the colorful balcony across the street from us, trying to give my brain space to put the pieces together.Outside, I can hear a brass band playing and the laughter of tourists, and I shake my head.This apartment was never meant to be quiet enough for thinking.Camille and I bought it when we were sixteen, and have never told anyone it exists.This is where we came when we wanted to get away from my father.
Or to eat beignets.
Or have our fortunes read in the voodoo shop downstairs.
It’s tiny and cozy, and we’ve spent too many nights here, huddling under the covers in the single bed and whispering about the lives we wanted to live one day.I never would have thought, then, that we’d be sitting here now, trying to break through a world of information to uncover a sex trafficking ring.
Though I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.New Orleans doesn’t function like New York.There’s no organization down here when it comes to the underworld.Each family has a rough set of industries they run, and everyone mostly stays in their own lane, but that’s not always true.Families and even individuals branch off into new territories without informing anyone else, and there’s almost never any cooperation between families.Records are nonexistent and the truth always depends on who you’re talking to.
Even worse, I’ve been gone for so long that I no longer know who does what.I don’t know the girls we’re looking at, or which families they belong to.Where they hung out or who they were about to marry.
Camille, on the other hand, knows everything.She’s a wealth of information.
“Tell me what Adelaide said again,” I say, turning back into the apartment.
Camille looks up, her brow creased.She’s been organizing the files into groups of loosely associated girls, and trying to identify where each group spent the most time, in the hopes that it will give us...something.
“She says her father has been keeping more secrets than usual,” she says quickly.“He’s been raising her to help lead the family and has given her access to most of his records.But he’s hiding things lately, and she doesn’t know what.Something to do with the entertainment end of his business.”
I sit back, chewing my lip.I don’t know Addie Lafayette, but I know her father.Etienne Lafayette–or the Crow–has the biggest gambling dens and dance halls in the city.Those dance halls overlap with my father’s clubs, which has made them enemies.I don’t know how Camille met Addie, but something about their friendship rubs me the wrong way.The Lafayettes aren’t friends to the Landry family, and it’s odd to me that she’s fallen in with them.
But I’m brave enough to admit that it’s more than just that.
I don’t like that Camille has been here, growing up without me.She has new friends that I don’t know, and a boyfriend I’ve never met.She knows everything about what’s going on down here, whereas I’m in the dark.
I hate being in the dark.
I hate even more feeling like I’ve been left behind.
Which is rich, when I’m the one who did the leaving.
“Think she can push him for information?”I ask.“What could he possibly know?Is it related to all of this?”
Camille’s eyes drop to the papers in front of her.“Yes.If these girls are truly disappearing into a sex ring like Lucien thinks, that could border on the dance halls.”
I frown.“But would they keep the girls here?Kidnap them here and keep them here?”
“Yes.If they want to make sure the families see who has their girls.If this is a power play, not just a business deal.”
A power play.
A business deal.
“If the Crow is involved courtesy of the dance halls,” I conclude, “he might not be the only one.”
Camille doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t have to.I know she’s thinking the same thing I am.The Lafayette dance halls are the biggest in the city, so if there’s a trafficking ring that’s sending girls into entertainment, it makes sense that he’d be the biggest customer.
But there are other dance halls in New Orleans.
Owned by my father.
