The Taken (22 page)

Chambers finished in utter silence. Grif knew this only because Bethany rose, wiping her mouth with the back of her arm. “Get Marie,” Chambers told her. Bethany wobbled away without looking at either of them, and a few moments later another woman appeared. She was still beautiful, but older—around Kit’s age, maybe even Grif’s—and clearly some sort of authority as she’d been allowed the dignity of true clothing, even if it was skintight leather from head to toe.

“She’s a slob,” Chambers told Marie.

“I’ll see to it,” the woman replied, and disappeared immediately.

Chambers caught Grif’s eye. “See what I mean? Always a problem.”

Moments later, Bethany was escorted from the room by the same man who’d been guarding the ballroom door.

“Keep hanging out with that Craig woman and you’ll see.” Grif’s gaze shot back to Chambers, who nodded as he finished his drink. “Yep. Her family tree is littered with crazy bitches. Her mother, who loved to fuck the blue-collars. That dykey aunt of hers. Even her father was just one big pussy.” He smiled blandly. “Excuse my French.”

Grif didn’t want to discuss Kit’s father or family with Chambers. He didn’t want her name to pass this man’s foul, profane lips, or the thought of her anywhere near his mind.

But Chambers didn’t stop. “If you want to do her a real favor, you’ll teach her a woman’s place . . . or someone else surely will.”

Don’t let him know you care, Grif thought, though he’d stiffened at the oily smile, the thin threat, the weighted stare. Instead of answering, he jerked his head toward center stage. The two women had finished with each other, and were now pleasuring themselves with toys tossed from their appreciative audience. “So what’s your racket here? You keep your wife, or wives, upstairs while you sell skin to your friends?”

“Selling?” Chambers laughed, zipping himself discreetly. “These little ladies are budding entrepreneurs. I’m just the middle man. I provide the environment and opportunity for consenting adults to get to know each other.”

“You’re a pimp.”

“Don’t be vulgar,” Chambers shot back, and this time the animal, the
other,
was alive in his eyes. “These are grown men and women. The women are beautiful, the men wealthy. They can all easily find sexual partners for themselves.”

“So you just provide access.”

“Look around. Does anyone look like they’re here against their will?”

No. They were partying like it was the last night of their lives. “It’s the same thing if it’s their only way to make a living.”

“We’re all in the business of survival, Mr. Shaw.”

“Yeah, well some of us are surviving more notably than others.”

“Perhaps you’d like to do a little more than survive? Take one of these ladies for a little ride. It won’t cost you a thing.”

Grif looked away, and saw that a third woman was now lying atop the center stage. As the men hooted and hollered suggestions, she stripped what was left of her clothing and spread herself wide. Grif thought about slipping into a dark corner with a woman that anyone could have, and his stomach heaved.

“I don’t quite understand your beef with this,” Chambers snapped, seeing the disgust roll across Grif’s face. “Are you of the homosexual persuasion?”

If this was straight, Grif realized, he’d rather be. “I ain’t queer. I just don’t like taking advantage of women.”

“Taking ad—?” Chambers growled in the back of his throat, frustrated. “So some of the women here might need the money. So what? It’s an exchange, like any other. Services for coin. That’s the way of the world.”

“It’s
sex.
”

“Also the way of the world,” Chambers said, his voice brittle and hard. Lifting an arm, he snapped his fingers. Marie materialized instantly. Some of the men behind Chambers stopped and stared. However, he looked nowhere but at Grif’s unblinking gaze. “Tell the three centerpieces I want a proper show, and not a tease. I want it raw and I want it now.”

“Yes, Mr. Chambers.”

“Marie was one of my first acquisitions,” Chambers said, as she strode away. “She’s worked her way up in my esteem because, like a good bitch, she’s learned to take orders. Sit. Stay. Shut up.”

But she was currently giving the orders, leaning across the transparent glass to whisper in the nude woman’s ear. One of the men behind Marie fondled her ass, but she neither flinched nor appeared to notice. The girl she spoke with looked up, caught sight of Chambers watching, and quickly nodded. Yet Grif caught something else—brief, just a flash—but it looked like regret, or sadness. It was quickly covered with a snaking smile as she turned to the others.

“I’m not watching this.” Grif rose, pushing away from the table. He and Kit would get what they needed another night, another way. He wanted no part of this filth . . . and he wanted Kit out of here now.

“Do you want to know what the difference is between sex for money and sex for free, Mr. Shaw?” Chambers’s voice twisted across the room to snag Grif one last time. He waited until Grif had turned, to finish. “Sex for money always costs less.”

Grif wanted to ask how Mrs. Chambers felt about that, then remembered Kit’s words.
Marriage isn’t all it’s made out to be
. Was it true? Did all these women feel that way? Was it a twenty-first-century development that he couldn’t understand because he was out of his place and time?

Had his Evie ever felt like that, even for a moment?

Chambers folded his hands behind his head, sensing he’d hit some sort of nerve. “Money is the invisible elephant in every bedroom, Mr. Shaw. You’d do well to remember that.”

“Marriage is not a business transaction.”

Chambers laughed like he was naive. “You keep believing that.” Then he rose from his seat, and ran his hands through his hair. “Now if you’ll excuse me. I see something I want to fuck.”

Grif flinched, and realized too late it was the reaction Chambers was hoping for. He turned away again, but Chambers’s laughter chased him.

“Remember your promise,” the man called out, and the reminder, along with the laughter, hung on the air like a threat.

A
fter Kit noted the men systematically disappearing, after catching the ripe scent of a good ol’ boys club souring the air, she made quick work of getting rid of Grif. There was no sense in trying to gain access to that back room—some doors, she knew, would never be open to her, so instead of beating her head against this one, she turned the mystery over to the ever-capable Grif.

After letting him think it was his idea, of course.

It was the women that she was most interested in, anyway. Thus, Grif hadn’t been gone five minutes before Kit was breaking her promise to remain in clear sight, and heading up the big, winding staircase in search of Mrs. Chambers. With Grif no doubt occupying Chambers’s attention, this was her chance to talk to Anabelle about the list, the Wayfarer, and Nic’s death outside of her husband’s overpowering presence.

Besides, she was curious. What kind of woman willingly shared her man not just with other women, but other
wives
? As a reporter, Kit strove for understanding rather than judgment, but as a woman? She believed in the right to bear arms when it came to her man’s body and affection.

Emerging on a landing both quiet and cool, Kit found tasteful but unremarkable artwork adorning the walls, and expensive but unexceptional side tables lining the hall. Antique vases, fresh greenery. Everything stately, and right where it should be. Perfect.

“There’s always something else going on beneath a perfect facade,” Kit muttered, recalling Bridget Moore’s words. So she peered into the first dark doorway she came to, directly across from the landing. It was just a guestroom—also stately, also unremarkable—and Kit shut the door quietly behind her before continuing down the hallway.

And there was more than one hall. All were dotted with doorways, all dark. Where was the life? Kit wondered, looking about. The other alleged wives or women? Or even another child? Because there wasn’t one other sound to accompany her footsteps, and the heavy silence eventually smothered even the residual noise from downstairs.

Yet the final hallway felt different, like the center honeycomb in a hive. A sole door sat at the end, ajar and lit from within, and Kit knew before looking that this was where the queen bee resided. Under the dim light of a vaulted ceiling, she peeked inside to find a warm room done in gingham pastels. Anabelle Chambers was tucked into a corner settee, reading a book to Charlotte, snuggled tightly at her side.

Kit flashed on a memory of her mother doing the same, the warmth of her body, hands stroking her hair, but Charlotte must have sensed her there, because she jolted, causing the book to fall from her mother’s hands. “What are you doing here?”

It was the child, not the mother who asked, and Kit was so taken aback by the strength in the young voice that she almost retreated. “I could say I’m lost, but I’m not,” she said, stepping forward instead. Only then did Anabelle’s gaze finally focus on her. “I came to find you.”

“It’s bedtime,” Anabelle said, but she gazed directly through Kit’s body, and there was a slight slur to her words. “Time for us to sleep and to dream and all be together again . . .”

“Is she okay?” Kit took another step inside the room. Other than the gingham, the space was unadorned. There was a gilt mirror, but no jewelry or perfume or even flowers lay there. As someone who took great joy in feminine accoutrements, Kit couldn’t fathom that Anabelle Chambers, or even Charlotte, really lived here.

Charlotte was up, tossing the throw aside to reveal a Hannah Montana half-gown and legs that looked like a colt’s. “You can’t be here.”

Anabelle continued slurring. “You should come. I know this place and we can all reach it.
She
told me. She said everyone is better there, everyone is happy in the Everlast . . .”

“Hey, did you hear me?” Charlotte crossed to the door and held it wide for Kit. “You’re not allowed up here.”

Then who was? Kit wondered. Because it was an awfully big house for one woman and a little girl. “She just told me to come.”

“She wasn’t talking to you,” Charlotte snapped, grasping the door by its frame, her tiny brows draw down tight. “She’s been ill.”

“Yes,” Anabelle sighed, sliding down further in the settee. “So very ill . . .”

“Why are you alone?” Kit asked the girl.

Charlotte pointed out the door. “She needs her rest.”

“I thought it was
your
bedtime.” When Charlotte just looked at her, Kit pressed. “Charlotte, I know something is wrong. Let me help.”

Putting her hand on her hip in a move that looked both defiant and jittery, Charlotte said, “You’re a reporter, right?”

“Yes.”

Charlotte smirked then shook her head. “Then you can’t help at all.”

“Then how about as a friend?”

Charlotte looked back at Anabelle, who’d curled into herself and was mumbling, fingers worrying the blanket over her legs. “She said they’re waiting for me, just beyond those gates, and then we can all be together again . . .”

“She doesn’t have friends,” Charlotte said, pushing the door shut. “She only has me.”

Kit nodded slowly. “And the baby.”

Charlotte lowered her gaze, and said lowly, “There’s always another baby.”

Of course. The Mormon culture valued children like riches. So why was this woman, who’d claimed to be so “blessed” downstairs, curled into a corner, pale and drawn—and apparently drugged out of her mind—being watched over by a sole thirteen-year-old girl?

Glancing at Charlotte, Kit decided to take a chance. “I need some answers Charlotte. I’m looking for a man.”

The girl jerked her head, causing her long dark braid to swing over one shoulder. “Men aren’t allowed on these floors.”

“I think your father knows him. His name is Lance Schmidt. Ever hear of him?”

“No.” Charlotte lifted her chin. “And don’t bother asking Mother, either. She doesn’t do well under pressure.”

“Very protective of her, aren’t you?”

“That’s my job.”

Kit looked Charlotte dead in the eye. “Usually it’s the other way around.”

“Listen, if you don’t leave you’re going to get me in trouble.” The girl swallowed hard, her eyes now pleading. “And . . . you’ll be in trouble, too.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know.” Charlotte cast a quick glance over her shoulder, like she expected to be punished. Anabelle Chambers, though, had fallen asleep. “You have to go.”

Kit pulled out her business card, and wrote on the back. “That’s my number on the front, but this is a friend of mine. He’s a cop, and he’s always willing to help someone. You know, if you need it. Just keep it close, okay?”

Charlotte looked at the card, then took it uncertainly. Then she looked up at Kit. “You might want to keep it close, too.”

And before Kit could again ask what she meant, she shut the door, locking it with a firm snap. And as silence descended on the heels of the warning, Kit realized how very alone she was. She could hear nothing from downstairs, which meant no one could hear her, either, and Charlotte’s warning of trouble had her hurrying back through the halls. But then she took the final corner and spotted the light seeping from the room across the hall. She knew she’d turned it off before, and that she’d shut the door as well.