Page 82 of Devil and the Deep Blue Fish

Ellery shrugged and held up his phone. “Some guy out there making those icky ones, using AI to make rotting old white guys appear virile and potent. You’ve seen them on clickbait, right?”

“Oh my God,” Jackson said, his brain obviously whirling on super-coffee speed. “Okay. Okay. We’re cooking. We need to ask Crystal to check into Hoover’s financials and to see if there’s anything hinky going on with that film company—Russian money laundering, anybody? Or something equally Bond villain, but I’m feeling it.”

Ellery and his mother simply nodded. He knewhefelt a little bit like he’d been picked up by a tornado and shaken,hard,but then Jackson’s brainstorms were frequently, well,stormy.

“Okay,” Jackson continued, standing up and pacing. “Good. Good. While Crystal is looking into that, somebody needs to go have a chat with Gannett Hoover to have a gander—”

“I can do that,” Ellery’s mother said smoothly. “Ellery, you come with me. Jackson, what will you be doing?”

Jackson grunted. “Checking out the grounds. Henry and I—”

Everybody stopped. Stopped breathing. Stopped moving. Stopped everything but staring at each other, big-eyed, waiting for that wound to open, waiting to accommodate the near miss, the worry, the fear. There was a collective gulp, and Jackson’s jaw firmed.

“Cody,” he said with a deep breath. “When Cody gets here, he and I will go take a look at the grounds. Scout around the outside. You two scout around the inside. See if you can get a bead on Conway Schmitt or whatever his name is. Because, people, we know the following things.”

He straightened and ticked off on his fingers.

“We know Cowboy witnessed a murder, and the body was taken somewhere. We know Shitbag Retty was taken to the same place—probably a good place to hide a body. There’s a lot of empty property out in Sonora. It fits the bill. We know that the pray-the-gay-away bullshit wasnotthe Stepford Dragon’s primary business. They are getting political money, probably laundering it, but it’s coming from somewhere and going somewhere. We know Gannett Hoover and Conway Schmitty—goddammit, evenIam doing it—have been in bed together….”

He stopped, like he’d been hit by a sandbag.

And then Ellery got hit by the same sandbag.

“Oh my God,” Ellery said softly.

“Welp….” Jackson shook his head.

“I’m sorry,” Taylor Cramer said. “You lost me on that last one, son.”

Ellery stared at his mother, and she scowled back.

“It happens,” she defended. “What do you mean by that?”

Jackson gave her an expression of compassion. “It means,” he said softly, “that if you look back at Hoover’s history, I’ll bet you find he was one of Conway Schmitt’s original choirboys. And whether or not the sexual exploitation has continued—and sometimes these relationships can span decades—the Nosferatu/Renfield thing might still be up and running.”

Ellery’s mother wrinkled her nose. “That’s horrendous,” she said and shook her head. “I mean… that’shorrific.But it also makes sense. Schmitt gets out of prison, reaches out to his groomed companion, and Hoover gives him shelter.”

“And Schmitt is educated,” Ellery noted, remembering the information that Jade and Crystal had fed him. “He may have been a choir director, but he has a degree in political science. By the time he gets out of jail, he’s got aplan.”

Jackson went very still.

“What?” Ellery asked, turning to him, for the first time in a few moments reminded of the awkwardness between them.

“Nothing,” Jackson said cagily. “I thought you were going in a different direction, but no—you’re right.”

Ellery and his mother met eyes. “Where?” Ellery demanded. “We said he came out with a plan, ostensibly to make money and to gain power. Where did you think this was going?”

Jackson let out a breath and gave Taylor an uncomfortable look.

“Spit it out,” she commanded, sitting gracefully and frowning at what was probably a now-empty coffee cup.

Ellery took the cup and moved back to the kitchen, keeping an eagle eye on an uncomfortable Jackson.

“Cody and I were going to talk to Otto first,” Jackson said, “and maybe debrief some of the other kids we broke out of the place yesterday. If nothing else I need to talk to your advocates,Ellery, to see what sort of pattern Moms for Clean Living used for recruitment. And I’ve got Toe-Tag looking into something—”

“I thought you said this was two different things?” Ellery’s mother reminded him. “There was the ‘service’ organization, the political affiliation, and the children. You said the children weren’t being groomed for trafficking—”

“But theywerebeing groomed,” Jackson explained. “Don’t you understand? They were vulnerable. Some of the girls had been abused. I would imagine the boys were being used. Think about it. Moms for Clean Living. It’s acatchall.They implement the political agenda at a grassroots level. They make a handy receptacle for money laundering. And they’re so wholesome, so hell-bent on protecting children, that they protect them right into the hands of….” He shrugged.

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