Green Light (Sam Archer 7) (24 page)

No one
else in the room said anything.

They all
knew where this was going.

‘
I was pretty scared but hid it, wanting to be cool. Didn’t
want the others to laugh at me; stupid naïve kid from Philly, you
know? I figured I’d get a job bussing tables or something. But that
first night the girls left the apartment and I hung out with my
boyfriend and two of his friends. We drank a load of
booze.’

She
hesitated. Closed her eyes.

‘
My boyfriend then told me I should screw the two guys. He said
he was into it, and he’d like to watch. I said no. He kept asking.
I kept saying no.’

‘
What happened?’ Marquez asked quietly.

‘
His two friends raped me, one after the other. It was the
first time I’d ever had sex. Once they left, my boyfriend told me
it was my fault
. If you want to stay
here
,
you need to
do exactly what I say.
That’s what he told
me; I can remember it word for word.’

She
didn’t lift her eyes from the table.

‘
The next morning he said I was going out to work with the
other girls who lived in the apartment. He took the money I’d
brought with me. When I realised what he wanted me to do, he said
that if I went to the cops his two friends would come back for a
second slice. And they wouldn’t be so nice next time.’

She
hesitated, her voice starting to shake slightly as she fought to
get the words out.

‘
It was like a bad dream, you know? That first day I managed to
avoid anyone who approached, gross men who the other girls took.
Then my boyfriend appeared and said I had to get into the next car
or he’d call his two friends.’

Tears
welled in her eyes.

‘
I made seventy bucks. Lucky me.’

Silence.

‘
When I got back he beat the shit out of me in front of the
other girls. He told me if I ever came back again with so little
money he’d kill me. It turned out he was running ten other girls,
most of them suckered in like me.’

‘
What happened to this guy?’ Hendricks asked quietly. ‘Where is
he?’

‘
He’s dead.’

‘
You’re sure?’

‘
Positive. He got killed in the Bronx at the end of last year
just after getting out of prison for assault. But before he went
inside, myself, Kelly and Cece were passed over to two of his
friends on a loan; some sort of payback for a deal they had going.
They were the two guys who’d given me my welcome party my first
night.’

She
looked up at the victims screen.

‘
Carlos Goya and Alex Santiago.’

‘
At first Carlos and Alex ran the same kind of operation but
after a few months, it suddenly changed,’ she continued. ‘They gave
us some money and told us to fix ourselves up, then made us start
working uptown on the Upper West and East Side where we pulled
wealthier clients, going for bigger paydays rather than the street
level stuff.’

‘
How long have you been working for them?’ Shepherd
asked.

‘
Since November, last year. Eleven months.’

‘
When your old pimp died, you couldn’t leave?’ Marquez
asked.

‘
And do what?’ April asked with a short laugh. ‘Go where? I’ve
got no qualifications, no friends other than the other girls. I
haven’t spoken to my mother in three years. She’d hardly want me
back now, would she?’

She
paused.

‘
Instead of the corner, we were sent out to meet professional
men, you know, like businessmen, guys with money. We were told to
keep the curtains open in the hotel rooms they booked for us. Goya
and Santiago had it under tight control; we were all convinced they
were photographing the clients.’

‘
Blackmail,’ Archer said.

She
nodded. ‘I know for sure that they worked a couple of guys. One was
my client, a judge. We all talked about it, me and the other girls.
There were twelve of us, brought in by Goya and Santiago from
around the city. That was when I met Leann.’

‘
You’d never seen her before?’ Archer asked.

‘
No. She was a nice kid; quiet as a mouse, really pretty. God
only knows how or why she ended up turning tricks; she wasn’t the
type. She moved here recently; I used to ask how the hell she got
into this shit, but she never said.’

‘
Leann’s file said she was pulling in five grand a night,’
Shepherd said.

April
nodded. ‘At least. We all were. Multiply that by twelve, with us
working five or six days a week, and you can figure it out. We were
making a killing for those bastards, not to mention the blackmail
rackets we figured Goya and Santiago were involved in.’

‘
Didn’t the move uptown mean you were on someone else’s turf?’
Marquez asked.

‘
The Upper West and East Side are easy pickings; there are
hardly any street-gangs, loads of wealthy guys with secret lives
their wives don’t know about or pretend not to. Most of the
competition is located on Midtown West near
tourist-town.’

‘
You were never busted by cops?’ Shepherd asked.

‘
Leann was, but that was a one-off; Vice were tailing a client
of hers for different reasons and she walked right into a sting not
meant for her. Did three months and paid a five hundred buck fine.
Apart from that incident, we all blended right in. That was part of
their business plan and the change I mentioned. Carlos and Alex
insisted they didn’t want cheap-looking trash on their roster. They
told us we’d been chosen because we looked classy and if we wore
expensive clothes they could charge a hell of a lot more for us. We
were given money to buy nicer stuff; with our hair fixed up,
manicures, expensive make-up and all, we looked just the same as
every other young woman in that part of town. A lot better, in most
cases. ’

‘
So why the hell did Carlos kill Leann last month?’ Archer
asked. ‘From the sounds of it, you and the other girls were giving
him and Santiago a great lifestyle.’

April
paused. ‘The working conditions were better than before but despite
that none of us were there because we wanted to be. We were
trapped. Our money was tightly controlled, although later on we
were allowed to keep slightly more of it in order to maintain our
look and live somewhere that wasn’t a crack den. Carlos and Alex
got some of the sassier girls addicted which gave them even more
control. The rest of us were told they’d kill us if we ever tried
to escape. We knew that wasn’t an empty threat. And what could we
do, go to you guys? We’d be laughed out of the
Precinct.’

She
glanced at the stack of Leann’s photos from the case-file, which
had been placed to one side on a table, images on paper all that
was left of her friend.

‘
The moment we met, Leann and I hit it off. A lot of girls
never attempt to leave, either out of fear or because they get used
to the life and enjoy the extra money, but Leann was as desperate
as me to get out, maybe even more so. After she did those three
months at Rikers, it occupied her every waking thought. So we
started making plans.’

‘
How were you going to do it?’ Shepherd asked.

‘
It was risky but we began keeping back tiny amounts of money
so Carlos and Alex wouldn’t notice; it took a few months but we
built up a reserve. Enough to escape and set up somewhere
else.’

She
exhaled.

‘
In August we were ready, financially anyway; we figured if we
waited any longer Carlos or Alex might discover what we were
planning. But we couldn’t leave just then.’

‘
Why not?’ Archer asked.

‘
Because Leann was addicted to painkillers. She knew she had to
get off them before we could go anywhere so she checked herself
into rehab where they couldn’t get to her. That really pissed them
off, especially as she was one of their best earners, but there was
nothing they could do. Four weeks later she came out
clean.’

She
paused.

‘
I met her at the clinic in a cab and took her home; this was
it. No more waiting. We knew we had to leave immediately before
Carlos and Alex discovered she was out. We were so excited. The
taxi dropped her off at her place then took me back to mine so I
could pack. She was going to come pick me up half an hour later in
her car. Then we’d be out of here.’

She took
a deep breath.

‘
That was the last time I ever saw her.’

Silence
filled the room. Beside her Archer was taken back four weeks,
seeing the young blonde walking towards her car, making her
escape.

Seeing
the fear on her face that split-second before she was
shot.

‘
I don’t know how Carlos and Alex found out she was bailing but
they did what they threatened to do if one of us tried to leave,’
April said.

She
paused.

‘
And now all the other girls have disappeared. Leann wasn’t the
last to die. She was the first.’

THIRTY

‘
Since Leann was killed, we started calling round to make sure
everyone was OK,’ April explained. ‘Yesterday was my turn and some
of them weren’t answering their phones. They weren’t at home
either. I checked. By midday, I couldn’t get hold of four of them.
By sundown, it was eight.’

She
paused.

‘
This morning, there were just three of us picking up. A few
hours ago, one of them, Cece, called me; she was shit-scared and
said Kelly had stopped picking up her phone. But while we were
talking, she was attacked. I heard her scream.’

She
paused.

‘
After that call cut out, I ran back to my apartment meaning to
pack a bag and disappear. But when I got to my door, I saw a paper
clip I always push in the gap under the door handle lying on the
floor. I saw someone do it in a cop show once; you never know what
kind of whack-jobs might find out where you live.’

‘
Smart,’ Shepherd said. ‘So that’s when you ran.’

She
nodded. ‘When I saw that paper clip lying there, I kept going down
my corridor and went down the fire escape into the alley. I crept
back down to the edge of the building and saw two people, dressed
in white overalls and ball caps. They ran out of the building and
were looking around. I think they were searching for
me.’

The
moment she mentioned the white overalls, the reasons surrounding
the ten women’s sudden disappearances suddenly became a lot
clearer. Shepherd swore quietly. Hendricks remained silent. Ethan
and Marquez glanced at each other but said nothing. April looked
down at the table.

Beside
her, Archer glanced up at Lister’s photo on the big screen, the
dead woman holding the placard with her name and ID number on it,
the two shots of her two accomplices beside her.

Ten missing women.

Two people, dressed in white overalls and ball
caps.

Then he
had a quick image in his mind of what they’d found in Santiago’s
bathtub.

‘
They killed Cece and Kelly, didn’t they?’ April said, looking
up at the photos. ‘Just like they did Alex and Carlos. Just like
they tried to do to me in the bar.’

No-one
replied, everyone in the room realising that they’d just stumbled
upon something far bigger and more complicated than two shot police
detectives and a single murdered escort.

‘
We can send someone round to collect your things,’ Shepherd
said, breaking the quiet. ‘You’re safe now.’

‘
But my friends aren’t, are they? Where the hell were you guys
four weeks ago?’

‘
We weren’t dealing with the case then. Someone else had
it.’

‘
So it takes ten more of us to die for you to actually do
something about it?’ she snapped back.

Shepherd
didn’t reply. She paused and caught her breath, taking a few
moments.

‘
It’s not your fault. I’m sorry.’

‘
So are we,’ Marquez said. ‘And we only got our hands on this a
few hours ago. But we’re gonna do everything we can to find who’s
doing this and why. I promise.’

Across
the room Hendricks had remained silent while listening to April;
now her account was over he stepped forward, rummaged through the
Leann Casey file and withdrew the piece of paper with the known
associates on it. Pulling his phone, he dialled a number and
stepped out of the room, his voice audible from the walkway as he
connected with CSU and requested teams be dispatched to the
addresses of the girls to check them out.

‘
Could they still be alive?’ Ethan asked those remaining in the
room as they heard Hendricks make his request. ‘Just because those
two were at your apartment building doesn’t mean all the others are
dead.’

‘
I guess we’ll find out,’ Shepherd said quietly.

At the
table beside April, Archer glanced up at the CCTV images of the two
suspects who’d lye-bathed Goya, Santiago and possibly ten more
women.

‘
Jesus Christ,’ he said quietly. ‘We have to find these
guys.’