“If they don’t comply?”
Additional tears slipped past Denise’s lashes and she held up her arms as if I hadn’t noticed her bruises. “They beat you. They hurt you. They laugh. They drink. They put you in a cage. They allow their guests to… To…” Her chest heaved and she fisted her small hands.
“Then what happens?” With slow and calculated moves, I headed to my credenza, retrieving a tissue. Her fingers were tentative in accepting it.
“I… I don’t know.”
“They’re never seen again,” Jackie interjected.
Denise was unable to hold in her emotions, her chest heaving from racking sobs. Exhaling, I reached behind me, picking up my desk phone and contacting Misty. “Hey, Misty. I have a guest who needs some water. Do you think you can show her to the guest lounge?” It was a code I’d established with my employee. Misty was an expert at calming victims. With her degree in psychology and her calming voice, she was better than any court-appointed psychologist I’d ever worked with.
Jackie appeared beaten, the case wearing heavily on her.
Misty appeared in my doorway seconds later, her smile brighter than the sun, which was exactly what Denise needed.
“Denise. Misty is going to take you to get something to drink. Do you think you can do that?”
She slowly turned her head, studying Misty, immediately relaxing. My assistant deserved a fucking raise.
Misty lifted her eyebrows after seeing the girl’s full condition, sighing just before closing the door. All I could keep thinking about was just how often the bad guys won.
“What the fuck is going on, Jackie?”
“Have you ever heard of the Privileged?”
“Almost any millionaire in this city considers themselves privileged.”
“No, they are a secret society as Denise mentioned. They’ve been on my radar for two years.”
She handed me the file in her hand, allowing me time to look through what she had. Most of it was circumstantial at best. “Give me the cliff notes on what you know.”
“As Denise mentioned, they are very powerful, influential, mostly men who have an appetite for certain sadistic proclivities. From what I’ve been able to piece together, they are all extremely wealthy and have friends in all the right places.”
Which meant in law enforcement as well. No wonder she was doing this on the down-low. “A sex slave ring?”
“Yes, for the lack of a better term. At this point, I haven’t been able to ascertain if any of the girls have been sold overseas, but I feel like if they haven’t, it’s only a matter of time. From what little I know, the appetites of the members constantly change. Auctions this month. Orgies the next. Even primal play with actual hunts. Of human beings. Can you believe that shit?” Jackie leaned her head against the wall. “These are some dangerous men, Kendrick. Not only in how they hunt and secure the girls, but also in their acts and how protected they are of each other. Modeling is only one method they use.”
“Which they change often as well.”
“You bet. No one talks. If they do, there aren’t just tossed out of the organization. They are eliminated.”
She allowed the information to hang, studying me with a hard look on her face.
“You know this for certain about the ostracized members or are you guessing?”
Her sigh indicated most of the information was conjecture, certainly not admissible in a court of law. “If you dig deep enough, you can put the pieces together like a carefully crafted puzzle. What I can tell you with certainty is that the club is so private that even what you hear on the dark web is limited. More like an elaborate fabrication of ghost stories.”
Some ghost stories. More like nightmares. “People are afraid of what these men can and will do to keep their proclivities a secret.”
“Exactly.”
I glanced at Denise’s case, flipping through the pages of limited information. “Then I take it that she came forward willingly.”
“Yes, one of two who made it out.”
“What happened to the other?”
Jackie was a tough girl, brought up in foster care and raped when she was fifteen. That’s why this case bothered her as much as it did. Seeing her face now reminded me we were both officers of the law no matter our differences. “She was hunted down and killed. Against all odds, Denise escaped.”
